William Galvin. Source: State brochure on avoiding pyramid schemes.
BULLETIN: (UPDATED 5:56 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) The Massachusetts Securities Division (MSD) has published a complaint form for TelexFree investors. Massachusetts Commonwealth Secretary William Galvin, who oversees MSD, also has published a brochure titled, “Illegal Pyramid Schemes Disguised as Multi-level Marketing Businesses (MLMs).”
Galvin’s investigators alleged on April 15 that TelexFree was a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered more than $1.2 billion and sold unregistered securities. In November 2013, MSD alleged that WCM777, another “program” promoted in the state, also had sold unregistered securities. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) later sued WCM777, alleging it was a “worldwide” pyramid scheme that had gathered at least $65 million. Likewise, the SEC has brought fraud allegations against TelexFree.
Both WCM777 and TelexFree were targeted at specific population groups, according to the allegations. Online promos show that the schemes had promoters in common and that prospects were encouraged to buy in at higher levels to receive higher payouts. Both “programs” were positioned as technology suppliers — TelexFree in VOIP and WCM777 in “cloud” computing.
As Galvin’s brochure notes (italics added):
In many illegal schemes the promoter spends little time explaining the product because the product is ancillary to the overall scheme. Recent schemes have involved products related to internet services, mobile marketing platforms, app sales, cloud computing services, and voice-over-internet applications.
These are just three of the bullet points in a warning by Galvin’s office today:
Don’t invest because your friends tell you it’s a good investment — use your own judgment and make your own decision.
Be wary of promoters who urge the purchase of higher positions in the distribution network to immediately increase payouts.
Be wary of promoters who urge quick establishment of distribution networks by adding family members, children, pets, etc.
There are plenty more. Read the online warning here. Download the PDF of the brochure. Access the TelexFree complaint form here.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (11th update 3:03 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) The state of Massachusetts has alleged that TelexFree is a “massive” Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that gathered more than $1.2 billion and targeted the Brazilian community.
In alleged dollar volume, TelexFree appears to be at approximately the same level of the epic Scott Rothstein Ponzi and racketeering scheme in Florida in 2009. Rothstein is serving a 50-year prison sentence.
TelexFree, the office of Massachusetts Commonwealth Secretary William Galvin alleged in an action, raised $90 million in Massachusetts alone. The scheme, according to the filing, is “untenable without a continuous influx of new capital.”
The 46-page complaint paints a picture of an incredibly elaborate domestic and international fraud scheme featuring interconnected companies and operated by individuals who told tales of incredible riches — at one time supplementing the story by plunking down more than $100,000 at a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Orlando, Fla., to acquire what effectively were stage props to lure the masses.
A check uncovered by Massachusetts investigators, according to the complaint, had a memo line that read, “Cars for Extravaganza . . .”
Despite stage props, “lavish meetings,” sea cruises and suggestions TelexFree somehow was affiliated with jewels of American business, TelexFree was racking up liabilities in the billions of dollars and encountering serious problems from its financial vendors, the complaint alleged.
“The financial activities of TelexFREE have raised red flags in many United States[‘] financial institutions where it maintains accounts,” the complaint alleges.
One of those vendors was a Massachusetts bank that booted TelexFree “after only 2 months,” the state alleged.
Another vendor — a processor of credit cards — dumped TelexFree “after less than 6 months,” the state alleged.
Meanwhile, the state alleged, TelexFree financial filings with the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission were at odds with information TelexFree had provided the investigators in Massachusetts.
At the same time, Massachusetts alleged, TelexFree was turning a blind eye to an investigation in Brazil and effectively evading an asset freeze imposed there on an arm known as Ympactus.
“TelexFREE fails to verify investor residency information — information manipulated to circumvent legal issues TelexFREE faces elsewhere,” the state alleged.
In fact, the state further alleged, one witness testified that he’d recruited affiliates in Brazil after Ympactus’ assets were frozen and its recruitment activities were enjoined.
Cash payments to Brazilian affiliates were made despite the action in Brazil, the state alleged, further alleging that affiliates in Brazil appear to have posed as residents of the United States or England.
Moreover, the state alleged, TelexFree members had set up side businesses in which their recruits paid them directly, rather than paying TelexFree. (Editor’s note: This situation exists in many HYIP scams.)
“These participants received uncontrolled cash deposits outside of the TelexFree system,” the state alleged.
The state also expressed concerns about a black-market economy popping up around TelexFree.
One Massachusetts entity asserted that it bought “TelexFree packages, and all sorts of real estate within the U.S.A. or foreign countries,” the state alleged, further alleging that the enterprise asserted it was backed by “Dubai investors.”
On Feb. 14 — Valentine’s Day — an ad appeared “seeking to sell an automobile in the Commonwealth in return for [TelexFree] AdCentral Packages and AdCentral Family Packages,” the state alleged.
TelexFree also featured Sann Rodrigues as its top pitchman, the state alleged.
Rodrigues “had operated a similar multi-level marketing phone card fraud shuttered by the SEC in 2006,” the state alleged.
Named respondents in the Massachusetts action were TelexFree Inc. of Massachusetts and TelexFree LLC of Nevada.
“Related Parties” were identified as Carlos Nataniel Wanzeler of Northborough, Mass.; James Matthew Merrill of Ashland Mass.; Steven M. Labriole (also known as Steve Labriola) of Upton, Mass.; Carlos Roberto Costa of Brazil; Fabio N. Wanzeler of Coral Springs, Fla.; Ympactus Comercial LTDA-ME of Brazil; Lyvia Mara Campista Wanzeler (no residency listed); Disk A Vontade Telefonia Ltda (also known as Diskavontade and Disk) of Brazil and Massachusetts; Brazilian Help Inc. of Massachusetts; Sanderley R. De Vasconcelos (also known as Sann Rogrigues) of Orlando, Fla.; and TelexFree Financial Inc. of Florida.
Among the assertions by Galvin’s investigators is that TelexFree is a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that engaged in the sale of fraudulent and unregistered securities and allowed and encouraged “participants to structure deposits in order to avoid heightened bank scrutiny.”
Structuring transactions is a somewhat common element in Ponzi schemes.
UPDATED 12:14 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Being under investigation in Brazil and Massachusetts and getting kicked out of Rwanda apparently isn’t viewed in MLM La-La Land as a strong-enough clue that it’s time to give up the TelexFree ghost.
Or maybe it is — and the TelexFree-related fire sales have begun. It wouldn’t be the first time that members of an HYIP tried to sell their holdings while regulators were circling.
At least in the United States, one of the TelexFree issues is whether the purported “opportunity” is selling unregistered securities as investment contracts. That’s bad enough.
But things potentially could get worse. Individual TelexFree members now may be creating bundles of securities and fueling even more questions about a dangerous TelexFree black market.
An ad for a package of 550 TelexFree AdCentrals appears on a site known as “TripleClicks.” The asking price? $16,760.
Good grief.
The bundle, according to the ad, ships from the United States.
“You Save: $8,190.00 (33%),” the ad contends.
It goes on to say this (italics added):
1) you will pay 16,760$ to get a value of 24,950$ of voip subscription that you can use by your self 2) you will earn up to 110,000$ in one year (minimum guarantee 100% 56,100$ only posting 55 adtext for day) 3) You will get a lot of Vpoints that will be useful for your SFI Business 4) you will be refunded 100% if within about 18 weeks you will not have fully recovered the money spent initially. If of course you did all needed to get back money (it mean 30 minutes copy and paste everyday without sponsoring or sale nothing at all)
so nothing to loose here but only to get…
How the “refunding” would be accomplished wasn’t explained. The ad suggests, however, that TelexFree would “repurchase” the packs over time.
In addition, the ad contends that BehindMLM.com, a site that reports on emerging MLM frauds, has “what I believe is a more skeptical perspective on what is going on behind the Telexfree name.” The ad that bundles TelexFree “AdFamily” packs then asks and answers its own question:
“Does Telex Free Work? I confidently say it works, with Capital Y as in Yes! You see this company has a track record already.”
Visit BehindMLM.com. Among other things, BehindMLM has reported on money-laundering allegations involving TelexFree.
UPDATED 9:24 A.M. EDT (MARCH 22 U.S.A.) TelexFree, alleged to be a pyramid scheme using a VOIP product as a front to mask an investment program, has been under investigation in Brazil since at least June 2013. There’s also an ongoing securities probe in Massachusetts. The government of Rwanda, meanwhile, has announced it booted a TelexFree enterprise after a joint investigation with the African nation’s central bank sparked money-laundering concerns.
Yes, Rwanda has banned TelexFree, something that might set a new standard of embarrassment for an American MLM company. Though the timing may be coincidental, Rwanda did this after a TelexFree pitchman suggested to troops in Boston on March 9 that TelexFree has so much free cash laying around that the two-year-old business can saddle up a “private jet” for trips to Hispaniola and Haiti, perhaps the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Just a week earlier, promos for a TelexFree convention in Spain bragged that the firm was holding a “Gala Dinner” in Madrid and providing “direct Limo Service” to its recruiting stars. TelexFree also sponsors a professional soccer club in Brazil.
One can hardly blame Rwanda if it is protecting its dignity while wondering what happened to the cash gathered from Rwandan affiliates. And because Uganda has signaled it may follow Rwanda’s lead, the imagery in African media of out-of-touch, greedy American MLMers may not be at its zenith. From a PR perspective, these things couldn’t be happening at a worse time for MLM. Herbalife, an industry stalwart, is under investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
There have been rumors for days that Massachusetts-based TelexFree was hiring a CEO. That appears not to have happened. Or, if it has happened, TelexFree hasn’t expressed it clearly in print.
There is a new hand on board, according to a TelexFree news release issued this morning. But nowhere does the release describe the new hand — former MLM telecom executive Stuart A. MacMillan — as TelexFree’s CEO or even as a TelexFree executive. Instead, MacMillan is described in terms that suggest he’s freelance management talent “[s]peaking on behalf of TelexFREE.”
MacMillan doesn’t even get a mention until the tail end of the sixth paragraph of this morning’s release. Instead, the company booted out of Rwanda and under investigation on at least three continents led with an underwhelming headline that highlighted MLM without calling it MLM. “TelexFREE Chooses Tradition of Direct Selling Phone Service.”
So, TelexFree, which says it is a professional communications company, buried whatever news it had and hasn’t made it clear that MacMillan has a title, let alone real decision-making authority. And even if he does have authority, how much of it extends to the overall TelexFree operation is unclear.
There’s a TelexFree LLC based in Nevada that has been denied registration as a telecommunications company in Washington state. Then there’s TelexFree Inc., which operates from Massachusetts. In Florida, there’s a TelexFree International Inc. that was registered on March 14. Also in Florida there’s a TelexFree Tax Service registered March 14, and a TelexFree Financial Inc. registered Dec. 26. Other companies in Florida also use the name TelexFree. So do at least three companies in California.
In Nevada, at least two companies that appear to have ties to TelexFree have been registered since November. These include Telex Mobile Holdings Inc. and TelexElectric LLLP.
Leading With ‘The Gipper’
The opening line of the news release release fondly harkens back to the “mid-1980s” and the phone-sector deregulation that occurred during “the Reagan Administration.”
It could be worse, we suppose. WCM777, an MLM firm kicked out of Massachusetts and California and under investigation on at least two continents for advertising preposterous returns, tried its hand at channeling both President Reagan (of California) and President Kennedy (of Massachusetts) with rhetorical references to a “City upon a Hill.”
President Reagan finished his second and final term as President in January 1989, more than 25 years ago. He died in 2004. Even his political opponents wept.
Now, TelexFree appears to be suggesting that the deregulation he favored during his years in the White House has put the firm on the success track and inspired it to sell Internet telephony to “Brazilian and Hispanic expatriate communities.”
One of the things that happened during the Reagan administration — and this is not a knock on the President, whom we admired — was that doors opened for phone companies to compete on long-distance pricing. Over time, consumer-pleasing downward pressure on prices and lower margins put some firms at death’s door. One of those firms was Excel Communications, an MLM company that formerly employed MacMillan.
A separate release issued today describes TelexFree as an enterprise that “booked 10,859,669 minutes of VOIP calls” last month. It’s a hollow claim, rather like a husband bragging to a wife on Saturday morning that he’d just trimmed 10.8 million blades of grass in the front yard — while conveniently forgetting to mention that a John Deere did all the heavy work.
What TelexFree conveniently is forgetting is that the issue with it is whether the people who used those 10.8 million minutes it “booked” last month would purchase the VOIP service if it were not attached to an “opportunity” affiliates describe as something that could retire government, corporate and consumer debt if the regulators would just leave it alone.
Moreover, the release does not mention that Sann Rodrigues, previously described as the firm’s top pitchman, was accused by the SEC before TelexFree even came into existence of being a pyramid-huckster who roped Brazilians into an affinity-fraud scheme involving a phone-related product.
“You say you haven’t heard of TelexFREE?” the second release queries. “Then you probably aren’t one of the more than 1 million Portuguese-speaking residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
It goes on to say that “[b]efore TelexFREE, Portuguese speakers calling home to Brazil or Portugal were paying high international rates or suffering the frustration of trying to teach elderly parents how to use Skype…after they taught them how to get online.
“In large part due to those frustrations and expenses, Brazilian and Hispanic expatriate communities are embracing the simplicity and economy of TelexFREE.”
Most curious of all in the second release was a TelexFree claim that it “wasn’t until about two years ago that we found a niche community that expressed such overwhelming need for our product.” That’s particularly strange, given that Rodrigues hails from Portuguese-speaking Brazil, as do Portuguese-speaking TelexFree executives Carlos Wanzeler and Carlos Costa.
Rodrigues and Wanzeler, at least, have been pitching phone products to Portuguese-speakers for years. Rival Skype is available in multiple languages, including Portuguese.
Like the first release, the second release doesn’t mention that promoters of TelexFree have claimed that $15,125 sent to the firm fetches back more than $57,000 in a year and that smaller sums of between $289 and $1,375 also virtually triple or quadruple in a year.
The first release, however, at least hints that MacMillan recognizes some in-house problems at TelexFree.
“I see my responsibility as establishing internal governance and an expansion of the products and services,” the release quotes him as saying. “Like so many entrepreneurial companies in the tech space, TelexFREE has been growing so fast, it hasn’t had much time for management. I’ve been brought in to spend that time and to provide that experience, including an end-to-end review of methodologies and controls.” (Emphasis in original.)
Whether MacMillan has the authority to ground the “private jet” to which executives and top reps apparently have access when flying to the Dominican Republic and Haiti was not addressed in the news release. Nor did the release say whether MacMillan planned to eliminate the appearances of limousines in various TelexFree promos or do away with sea-cruise pitchfests.
James Merrill remains TelexFree’s president, according to the second release.
From the second release (italics added):
When asked about the success of the company, President and co-founder Jim Merrill replies, “We have been in VOIP telecommunications for more than a decade; but it wasn’t until about two years ago that we found a niche community that expressed such overwhelming need for our product. Combined with a distribution method that takes our services to them economically, our growth has been exponential.”
It’s as though promising to pay $1,040 on $289, $5,200 on $1,375 and $57,200 on $15,125 — in a year, no less — had nothing to do with it.
Reagan would have thought it madness and advised House Speaker Tip O’Neill that someone was trying to soil that beautiful Massachusetts city upon the hill. And Kennedy would have called TelexFree’s business practices “a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest.”
The Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Republic of Rwanda has announced that a TelexFree enterprise has been banned in the country after a joint investigation with the National Bank of Rwanda, the nation’s central bank.
Central banks control monetary policy in their respective countries. Other examples of central banks include the Bank of Canada, Banco Centro do Brasil and the U.S. Federal Reserve.
The move by the Rwandan government and the central bank may mark the first public effort to choke off TelexFree.
Whether TelexFree headquarters in the United States had direct/indirect or no control over the operation in Rwanda was not immediately clear. Nor was it clear whether any help from TelexFree’s U.S. or Brazilian operations would be forthcoming.
Kanimba Francois, Rwanda’s Trade and Industry Minister, signed the order, specifically naming an entity known as P.L.I Telexfree Rwanda Ltd.
How many other TelexFree-related enterprises may be operating in Rwanda wasn’t immediately clear. In theory, a single distributor could recruit tens, hundreds or even thousands of affiliates, with those affiliates creating even more.
TelexFree has thrived, based on assertions that sums sent to the firm triple or quadruple in a year.
Separately, Uganda is signaling that it may follow Rwanda’s lead. The Twitter site of Richard Kabonero, Uganda’s ambassador to Rwanda, has published the Rwanda ban signed by Francois.
A Tweet attributed to Kabonero read, “like [all] good ponzi schemes the people who get in first make the money but eventually they fold.”
@tumksivan@KakandeAlex@tomddumba like alll good ponzi schemes the people who get in first make the money but eventually they fold
Following a common theme when a government moves against an MLM “program,” a fellow Tweeter asserted that Kabonero was jealous because he wasn’t earning money in TelexFree.
RwandaEye, an online financial publication, is reporting that TelexFree operated from the second floor of a supermarket in Remera.
TelexFree is under investigation in Brazil, amid pyramid allegations. The “program” also is under investigation in the U.S. state of Massachusetts.
News of the Rwanda ban after the joint probe with the central bank came while some TelexFree affiliates were complaining about not getting paid and poor response to customer-service issues.
On March 14, this message appeared on a Facebook site dubbed “TelexFreeInUSA” (italics added/quoted section verbatim except as noted):
Hello, i opened an account the 27/2/20014 and i payed invoice for a family pack (amount 1425$) the 10/03/2014. In ewallet i recived this message from TelexFree near my payed invoice: “Invoice Number [deleted by PP Blog] Voided as per management request. Package is no longer available”.
!!! AT THIS MOMENT MY ACCOUNT IS NOT ACTIVATED, I HAVE NOT RECIVED A REFUND FROM TELEXFREE, ANYONE ANSWER TO MY EMAILS AND MY SUPPORT REQUESTS !!!
Efforts to get a refund have failed so far, the poster claimed. Many TelexFree affiliates have claimed that purchases of “family packs” generate guaranteed income. Sales of “packs” are typical of HYIP Ponzi schemes.
UPDATED 7:03 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) At a TelexFree pitchfest in a Massachusetts hotel this morning, a man promoting a credit-repair “program” linked to TelexFree claimed that TelexFree reps recently took a “private jet” from the Dominican Republic to Haiti.
“I felt like a rockstar,” the man said from the stage.
Once on the ground in Haiti, the man said, “we got in the Prime Minister of Haiti’s motorcade.”
This triggered “high-fiving,” the man said from the stage.
Things settled down when the TelexFree passengers observed throngs of poor people lining the road from the airport into the city, the man suggested.
Whether TelexFree executives were on the private jet and later purportedly traveled in a government motorcade is unclear. TelexFree executive Steve Labriola said last week that he and TelexFree “leaders” recently ventured to Haiti.
It also was not immediately clear whether the asserted TelexFree “high-fiving” and claims of a state motorcade providing shuttle service to TelexFree would prove embarrassing to Haiti’s government. Nor was it clear that the TelexFree reps were guests of the government. The Washington Embassy of the Republic of Haiti did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the PP Blog.
Laurent Lamothe is Haiti’s Prime Minister. He is a former telecom executive.
Similar seeds about government ties from promoters of other MLM schemes have proved embarrassing to other governments, including the government of the United States. In the 2008 AdSurfDaily MLM/HYIP Ponzi scheme, for example, some members of the scheme planted the false seed that ASD had been endorsed by George W. Bush, then the President of the United States.
The false seeds about Bush were one of the things that prompted the U.S. Secret Service to open the ASD probe. Agents went on to discover a massive Ponzi scheme hidden inside ASD. ASD used “ad packs” from which purported “rebates” flowed to disguise its $119 million investment-fraud scheme.
TelexFree offers something called “AdCentrals.” Some promoters have claimed that sums of money from $289 to $15,125 sent to TelexFree triple or quadruple in a year. The $850 million Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme had a similar component. Like TelexFree members, Zeek members were told they got paid for posting ads about the company online.
“ZeekRewards told Affiliates that in order to supposedly ‘earn’ their points, they were required to place a short, free digital ad each day on one of the many free classified websites available on the internet,” the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case asserted in a lawsuit last month against alleged insiders.
“In reality,” Zeek receiver Kenneth D. Bell asserted, “the ads were just an attempt to manufacture a cover for what was nothing more than the investment of money by Affiliates with the expectation of receiving daily ‘profit’ distributions.”
One of Bell’s lawsuit targets is Scott Miller of Greenwood, Ind. Miller, an alleged winnner in Zeek’s massive Ponzi scheme, has spoken at at least one TelexFree event and may be one of TelexFree’s key pitchmen.
TelexFree Affiliates Claim Government Approval
It is somewhat common in the HYIP sphere for promoters to suggest a “program” has the backing of a politician, a government or a government agency.
At least one TelexFree-related Blog claimed in a post dated March 7 that the “program” has gained “SEC Approval from USA.”
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) does not issue such approvals. In 2013, some TelexFree members worded promos to suggest that the U.S. government itself had authorized TelexFree to operate in the United States. During roughly the same time period in the spring of 2013, affiliates made this assertion (italics added):
Steve Labriola, Director of Marketing for Telex FREE, Boston, announced via email earlier today that they are ‘pulling out of Bank of America.’
Earlier, in roughly January of 2013, TelexFree affiliates were urging recruits to make walk-in deposits at a Bank of America branch in Massachusetts. The instructions strongly resembled instructions AdSurfDaily gave its recruits in 2008. TelexFree also used TD Bank, according to affiliates.
It is possible — though not confirmed — that U.S. investigators began looking into TelexFree around the same period in early 2013 in which affiliates were soliciting deposits through Bank of America and TD — while simultaneously claiming that certain TelexFree members could speed the flow of deposits if recruits emailed copies of their deposit slips to a Gmail address.
TelexFree says on its website that tickets to “new comp plan training & overview” event at the Massachusetts hotel today cost $164 and were “Sold Out.”
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: The office of Massachusetts Commonwealth Secretary William Galvin has confirmed an investigation into the TelexFree MLM “program” is under way.
“There is an investigation going on, but I can’t comment beyond that,” said Brian McNiff, a spokesman for Galvin.
The brief statement to the PP Blog marks the first confirmation by a U.S. securities regulator that TelexFree is under investigation in the United States. TelexFree is under investigation in Brazil, amid pyramid-scheme allegations.
TelexFree is scheduled to hold its purported “international convention” beginning tomorrow in Spain.
A source outside of law enforcement told the Blog yesterday that Galvin’s office had issued subpoenas for certain people to appear before the Massachusetts Securities Division on March 5 at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
A federal agency also has interviewed a person who may have knowledge about TelexFree, the source said.
