Rather than address securities fraud warnings issued around the globe, Crowd1 is pressing ahead with “but we have products!” pseudo-compliance.
In a corporate blog post dated July 7th, Crowd1 announced partnerships with LifeTRNDS, SAfer and Tribute.
LifeTRNDS is a discount travel booking portal run by Mark Seyforth.
Seyforth last featured on BehindMLM as CEO of Goodlife USA back in 2016. Like LifeTRNDS, Goodlife USA provides access to a discount travel booking portal.
Goodlife USA still has a website up with an Alexa traffic ranking of 2.6 million. For an MLM company, that’s as good as dead.
SAfer markets itself as a personal security mobile app.
SAfer’s website domain was first registered in 2019 but last updated on July 4th, 2020.
HTML elements on the site were uploaded in June 2020, suggesting SAfer’s website was only set up within the last month.
The Wayback Machine’s only snapshot of SAfer’s website is dated July 4th, 2020.
SAfer’s website registration is private, save for the registrant’s country given as New Zealand.
SAfer is developed by Panic Guard, who on their website market a “white label mobile app”.
The obvious conclusion here is Crowd1 white-labeled a third-party security app. They are now disingenuously trying to pass SAfer off as an independent company.
Tribute markets a bunch of fragrances on their website. A pop-up displayed to visitors also pitches them on “how to become a millionaire”.
Tribute’s website domain is registered to Steve Naude, through an address in Lagos, Nigeria.
Further research reveals prior to attaching itself to Crowd1, Tribute was a failed fragrance themed MLM opp.
There are two takeaways from Crowd1’s announcement:
- adding things to Crowd1 doesn’t change the fact it’s a Ponzi scheme; and
- the only reason people signed up to Crowd1 was to participate in said Ponzi scheme.
Nobody joined Crowd1 to purchase discount travel in the midst of a global pandemic. Or to use a white-labeled security app, or to buy fragrances.
They signed up to invest money and collect passive returns. Anything beyond that is wishful thinking after the fact on Crowd1’s behalf.
On the regulatory front it doesn’t matter what you attach to a Ponzi scheme. Fraud is fraud and attempts to legitimize fraud are ignored by regulators.
Unfortunately Crowd1 primarily targets victims in third-world countries, so regulatory action is lagging.
One interesting outcome of Crowd1’s pseudo-compliance is BusinessForHome giving the company its seal of approval.
After BusinessForHome documented a few of the regulatory warnings issued against Crowd1, owner Nuyten claims “corporate management reached out”.
Based on their compliance efforts we have put back Crowd1 in our Business For Home database.
We’re not sure when Crowd1 corporate “reached out” to Ted. What we can tell you is BusinessForHome didn’t cover the South African NCC’s investigation announcement, or Côte d’Ivoire banning Crowd1 for being a scam a few days ago.
Whether Crowd1 “reaching out” to BusinessForHome involved money changing hands was not disclosed.
It’s no secret that Crowd1 recruitment has stalled over the past few months, and so we enter the Ponzi end-game.
In the midst of its collapse and regulatory shutdown, Zeek Rewards added Shopping Daisy, an ecommerce platform.
TelexFree added additional VOIP services. OneCoin added DealShaker, also an ecommerce platform.
None of these pseudo-compliance attempts changed the fact that Zeek Rewards, TelexFree and OneCoin were Ponzi schemes.
With payouts tanking and commissions drying up, renewed promotion on BusinessForHome aside, it will become increasingly harder to pitch Crowd1 to new victims.
I suspect after Crowd1’s latest pseudo-compliance flops, the company will continue struggling to pay returns.
As of July 8th, Ted Nuyten claims Crowd1 is forecasting a billion dollars in investment from six million affiliates by the end of 2020.
Regulatory action has been taken against Crowd1 in Norway, Namibia, Paraguay, the Philippines, Mauritius, Gabon, Vietnam, South Africa (FSCA and NCC) and Côte d’Ivoire.
Crowd1 is operates through Spanish shell companies. The Ponzi scheme is run by Swedish scammers Jonas Erik Werner and Johan Stael Von Holstein.
To date neither Swedish or Spanish authorities have taken any public action against Crowd1 or its executives.