TVI Express, an MLM company whose pitchmen have used images of business titans Warren Buffett and Donald Trump to plant the seed they backed the firm, has come under criminal investigation in South Africa, according to web records and a media site.
Buffett and Trump are believed to have no ties to the firm.
News of the TVI criminal probe first was reported Dec. 30 by The New Age. The publication quotes a spokesperson for the South Africa Department of Trade and Industry, noting the TVI matter has become a “police case” involving pyramid-scheme allegations.
TVI, purportedly based in London, also is under fire in Australia. Meanwhile, there are reports the company has come under fire in the U.S. state of Georgia. Reports that Georgia officials have issued a cease-and-desist order could not be confirmed immediately.
It was not immediately clear if South Africa would seek to determine why TVI promoters sought to plant the seed that Buffett and Trump backed TVI, which purports to be in the travel business. An image of Buffett appears on the TVI home page — and images of Trump and former President Bill Clinton appear on an internal page.
A number of MLM schemes have produced photos or made references to Clinton, who once delivered remarks to tout the direct-selling industry. Clinton did not endorse a specific company, and the Code of Conduct of the Direct Selling Association (DSA) specifically prohibits “Deceptive or Unlawful Consumer or Recruiting Practices.”
In its Code of Conduct, DSA specifically requires member companies to provide information that is “accurate and complete.” At the same time, DSA says member companies “shall not present any selling opportunity to any prospective independent salesperson in a false, deceptive or misleading manner.”
TVI Express is not listed as a DSA member on the organization’s website.
Even as news about the TVI criminal probe was appearing online in South Africa, news that Buffett’s name allegedly had been used to sanitize elements of the George Theodule Ponzi scheme in Florida was appearing in the United States.
Images of Buffett and Trump also have been used by promoters of a purported “grocery” MLM in Florida known as MPB Today. Separately, images (and references) to Trump and television icon Oprah Winfrey have been used in promotions for Data Network Affiliates (DNA), an MLM company purportedly in the business of building a database to help the U.S. government and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children.
DNA now appears to have morphed into a company known as OWOW, which has positioned its products as cancer cures or treatments and even as a means of preventing the surgical amputation of limbs and growing tomatoes twice the size of ordinary tomatoes. DNA has a rating of “F” from the Better Business Bureau, the organization’s lowest.
During the summer of 2010, DNA changed the name of an offering known as the Business Benefit Package (BBP) to the “BBB,” the acronym used by the Better Business Bureau. The BBP package debuted in March. The name change appeared to be an effort to cloud search-engine results and confuse prospects who were searching for BBB information about DNA online.
Eventually websites bearing DNA’s name began to resolve to the OWOW site. DNA also used names such as TagEveryCar.com and LockInYourFreeSpot.com. Those sites also now resolve to the OWOW site.
See story on a major case brought by the FTC in August 2010. Among other things, the case alleged that images of Winfrey and Rachel Ray were used in sales promos without their consent in an acai-berry scam.