MPB Today

2ND UPDATE 3:23 P.M. ET U.S.A. In another swipe at Herbalife and perhaps MLM recruiting schemes in general, activist investor Bill Ackman says he’s out to combat pyramid schemes by creating one himself. Ackman’s apparent tongue-in-cheek approach adopts a typical “tell five” MLM marketing technique as part of a bid to create Internet virality for […]

Today we provide a glimpse into the world of coded pandering as it exists in North Korea, the country blamed by the FBI last week for orchestrating the cyber attacks on California-based Sony Pictures. Turns out that coded pandering in North Korea is not all that different from coded pandering in the United States. It […]

UPDATED 11:39 A.M. ET DEC. 12 U.S.A. In its latest effort to expand its reality-distortion field, “The Achieve Community” money-cycling “program” that tells prospects a $50 “position” increases by a factor of eight and turns into $400 in a few months (or even in as few as 55 days) has compared itself to The Walt […]

Ah, those serially disingenuous MLM hucksters and commission-based Ponzi pitchmen: They’ll ultimately destroy their own brands while picking millions of pockets. Before doing so, they’ll use your brand as a temporary means of sanitizing themselves, bring PR disasters to your legitimate company and perhaps even find an insidious way to turn the government into their […]

“No!” Make that “Hell no!” — or, as Gen. Anthony McAuliffe once famously scribbled at the prompting of Gen. Harry W.O. Kinnard during the Battle of the Bulge, after soldiers for the Nazi Third Reich demanded surrender: “Nuts!” At 12:11 a.m. ET today, the PP Blog inexplicably received five duplicate emails from an IP in […]

UPDATED 8:37 A.M. EDT (OCT. 21, U.S.A.) Former AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin is continuing to serve 78 months in federal prison at the age of 78  — in part because he borrowed liberally from the MLM scammer’s playbook and planted the seed that the President of the United States (then George W. Bush) backed his […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our thanks to reader “Tony” for pointing out the video described below. UPDATED 9:26 A.M. EDT (SEPT. 10, U.S.A.): How bizarre will MLM get? Well, there may be no ceiling: A 2:47 video animation playing on YouTube depicts U.S. Vice President Joe Biden as a recent enrollee in the CashCropCycler HYIP “program” who […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: TelexFree has two executives named Carlos — Carlos N. Wanzeler, and Carlos Costa. Neither of them is “Carlos Danger.” TelexFree, an MLM “opportunity,” has been under investigation in multiple states in Brazil since at least late June. There have been reports of death threats against a judge and a prosecutor — and there […]

UPDATED 5:52 P.M. EDT (JULY 31, U.S.A.) Gary Calhoun, the operator of the MPB Today MLM program who was charged in December with racketeering under Florida state law, is listed as a prisoner at the Escambia County Jail. Today was Calhoun’s sentencing date. The length of his sentence was not immediately clear. [July 31 UPDATE: […]

HourlyRevShare, another in a long list of incongruous HYIP Ponzi-board “programs” pushed by serial huckster “Ken Russo” (also known as “DRdave”), reportedly has collapsed after taking a second bite of the Ponzi apple (purportedly as HRS II) after the original iteration collapsed. Other recent “programs” pushed by “Ken Russo” include Zeek Rewards and Profitable Sunrise, […]

Gary Calhoun, the operator of the MPB Today MLM “program,” has joined AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin as a member of a dubious club: A Florida judge has ordered Calhoun not to get arrested on new charges and to stay away from MLM while he awaits sentencing in a racketeering case brought by Florida authorities […]