BULLETIN: Canada’s province of Quebec has issued a warning on an increasingly bizarre and evolving scheme once known as “GetEasy” and now known as “iGetMania,” calling it an “investment program” that has “not filed a prospectus” and is “not registered with the [Autorité des marchés financiers] in any capacity.”
AMF is Quebec’s securities regulator. The action appears to mark the first official warning about iGetMania in North America.
Separately, CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has published a warning on iGetMania that is based on Jan. 21 information received from Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), the regulator in Luxembourg.
The PP Blog has observed an ad for iGetMania on craigslist in Rome.
At the same time, the Malta Financial Services Authority is spreading the word about the iGetMania warning from Luxembourg. (See MFSA warning dated Jan. 22 here.)
From a statement by AMF (italics added):
The Autorité des marchés financiers (“AMF”) is cautioning investors in Québec about an investment program connected to the Portuguese firm GetEasy Limited and the British firm iGetMania Limited. Their investment products are tied in particular to the leasing of global positioning equipment and are promoted via conferences, the web and social media.
Through membership programs, members of GetEasy and iGetMania can subscribe to packages (or “packs”) via the Internet. The investment helps finance the acquisition of global positioning equipment for leasing by the firm. Revenues are shared between investors and the firm, and investors are not required to handle any management matters. In turn, investors are urged to recruit two other members and thereby create two teams. New members are then encouraged to recruit two other members each, and so on. Revenue is distributed based on the activity generated by members of each team by way of bonuses, commissions and a point system. Members are lured by promises of hefty profits.
The AMF wishes to inform investors that GetEasy and iGetMania have not filed a prospectus and are not registered with the AMF in any capacity. Investors should therefore be very cautious with investment offers from these firms since they might incur losses for which remedies are highly restricted or non-existent.
The AMF is closely monitoring this matter and will take any measures deemed necessary in the event of violations under the laws it administers.
See story dated yesterday on BehindMLM.com titled “iGetMania Review: GetEasy go from Ponzi bad to Ponzi worse.”
A snippet:
“GetEasy took off in the wake of the regulatory shut down of TelexFree.
“Seeking to scoop up disenfranchised investors who lost funds in the billion dollar Ponzi scheme, GetEasy successfully attracted a significant number of investors from Portugal, Spain and to a lesser extent, South America and greater Europe.”