BBC Africa Eye has premiered a documentary exposing Crowd1 as a pyramid cum failed Ponzi scheme.
Conscious of the BBC’s upcoming documentary, Crowd1 executives have issued a non-response response video of their very own.
BBC Africa Eye’s documentary begins with an introduction to Crowd1, and follows via with funding into Crowd1’s €2499 Titanium bundle.
Full entry to Crowd1’s “schooling bundle” pseudo-compliance supplied about an hour and forty-five minutes of content material, stolen verbatim from elsewhere on the web.
With the schooling bundle nonsense disposed of, the documentary then strikes onto what Crowd1 is definitely about; investing and accumulating a passive return.
This begins with blowing open the ruses Crowd1 claims to generate exterior income from, one after the other.
We’ve beforehand coated how Crowd1’s gaming hyperlinks are a sham. BBC Africa Eye wrote to the identical gaming corporations and confirmed there was no partnership.
Miggster and Epic1 Lotto haven’t launched. The Crowd journal is stuffed with plagiarized content material.
BBC Africa Eye examined Crowd1’s not too long ago launched LifeTrnds reserving engine, solely to seek out the bookings have been made via third-parties “reserving.com” and Expedia.
Additional analysis revealed LifeTrnds was only a white-labeled platform scouring offers from third-parties. Safer Africa is a white-labeled safety service from PanicGuard LTD.
In brief and as we’ve beforehand identified, Crowd1’s total “product” catalogue is pseudo-compliance for the funding scheme.
And even that isn’t paying nicely. BBC Africa Eye’s first quarterly ROI cost amounted to €3.36 EUR. Bear in mind, that off an preliminary €2499 funding.
BBC Africa Eye finally concluded the actual cash in Crowd1 lies in recruitment. Or, as they put it, a “basic pyramid scheme”.
As a part of their investigation, BBC Africa Eye put an inventory of query to Crowd1 administration.
Of their response to BBC Africa Eye’s findings, Crowd1 said;
[46:00] Crowd1 shouldn’t be a rip-off or pyramid scheme, and doesn’t break any South African legislation.
It’s a respectable community advertising and marketing firm that provides merchandise to its members, and permits them to earn cash by advertising and marketing these merchandise.
Crowd1 doesn’t earn cash from recruitment however solely from these gross sales.
Lars Johan Magnus Staël von Holstein denied being CEO of Crowd1, regardless of bountiful proof on the contrary.
Jonas Werner denied involvement in SiteTalk/OPN, once more regardless of there being loads of proof on the contrary. Werner additionally claimed he had nothing to do with OneCoin.
BBC Africa Eye concludes that Crowd1’s enterprise mannequin sees cash stolen from victims and funneled into the fingers of Johan Staël von Holstein and Jonas Werner. In addition to promoters akin to Udo Deppisch, Kenny Nordlund, Tor Anders Petteroe, Angelo Black, Masilo Mokone and Renze Deelstra.
Conscious of BBC Africa Eye’s documentary, Crowd1 filmed its personal response.
Titled merely “CROWD1 BBC response“, Crowd1’s video was uploaded to a random YouTube channel on November 1st, 2020.
Predictably, Jonas Werner dismisses BBC Africa Eye’s total documentary as them “not understanding what Crowd1 is.”
Regardless of Ponzi schemes being round since early final century, Werner goes on to assert “what Crowd1 does is totally new”.
The primary query posed to Crowd1 executives pertains to their merchandise, and whether or not they really generate income.
No proof of any of Crowd1’s merchandise producing exterior income is supplied, or that income getting used to pay associates is supplied.
In response to GritHub (residence of Crowd1’s instructional packages) being filled with plagiarized content material, Johan Westerdahl provides a long-winded response however fails to handle plagiarism.
Jonas Werner doesn’t deny Crowd1 lied about having affiliations with third-party playing corporations. As a substitute he takes difficulty with them being known as corporations as a substitute of manufacturers.
Westerdahl claims Crowd1 isn’t misrepresenting Epic1 Lotto, as a result of tickets are bought via a third-party regionally (within the US).
Werner claims Crowd journal is a “PR instrument”. Werner claims that content material that seems plagiarized within the journal (or is out there freely elsewhere on the web), was “bought”.
Regardless of each LifeTRNDS and SAfer being white-labelled merchandise (I can personally vouch for this), Westerdahl claims that stating so is “completely improper”.
Westerdahl fails to handle the truth that these merchandise might be put white-labelled with no effort. As a substitute he defends white-labeling as an idea, regardless of this not being a priority of BBC Africa Eye’s.
Bookings made below LifeTRNDS exhibiting as much as distributors as “reserving.com” and Expedia shouldn’t be addressed.
With respect to Crowd1 not having any retailable merchandise (inside its MLM alternative), Johan Westerdahl states “that is completely false info”.
Wasterdahl holds up Crowd1’s free membership possibility as proof of this, regardless of that having nothing to do with Crowd1 having nor retail merchandise.
If an MLM firm generates nearly all of gross sales income from its associates, that income is tied to recruitment. In Crowd1 the proportion of income generated from associates is 100%.
Wasterdahl goes on to lie about Crowd1 not providing an funding alternative (see BehindMLM’s Crowd1 evaluate for proof of funding scheme).
Jonathan, head of Crowd1’s worldwide enlargement flat out lies about Crowd1’s quite a few regulatory warnings and motion around the globe.
That is incorrect. The investor warnings that had been issued are based mostly on incorrect presumptions.
As they did with BBC Africa Eye, Crowd1 administration dismiss securities fraud warnings issued the world over as regulators “not understanding” Crowd1’s enterprise mannequin.
Lastly, Jonathan as soon as once more lies about Crowd1 concentrating on third-world nations. I’ve coated Crowd1 from its early days. For those who take a look at the place nearly all of regulatory warnings and promotion befell, a transparent sample emerges.
It’s not a coincidence Crowd1 isn’t promoted within the US or Europe.
For essentially the most half, reasonably than really deal with the BBC’s issues, Crowd’s response video is as a substitute an excuse to market but to be launched guarantees.
Whereas BBC Africa Eye’s documentary seems to have been researched when Crowd1 was primarily concentrating on buyers in Africa, the rip-off has since migrated to Russia and Azerbaijan.
Crowd1 shouldn’t be registered to supply securities in any jurisdiction, and continues to commit securities fraud the world over. The corporate has additionally failed to offer legally required audited monetary reviews proving exterior income technology.
Crowd1 additionally has no retailable services or products, with all income generated internally by way of affiliate membership charges.
Fraud warnings towards Crowd1 have been issued in Norway, Namibia, Paraguay, the Philippines, Mauritius, Gabon, Vietnam, South Africa (FSCA and NCC) and Côte d’Ivoire.
Crowd1 has did not show to any of those regulators that it’s not merely recycling newly invested funds to pay present affiliate buyers. Or paying commissions on the recruitment of recent Crowd1 associates.
Crowd1 is run by Jonas Werner and several other different executives from Sweden. So far, Swedish authorities have did not take any motion towards the Ponzi scheme.