Rudy Phan is Back With MORE Ridiculous Explanations For TVI Express Outrageous Behavior

Recently TVI Express is requiring all members to "verify" their account. This was previously reported on this blog as an obvious attempt to deny members of their vouchers and eWallet funds. Turns out, the truth is even MORE insidious than that.

According to TVIExpressDollar.com's blog, in order to "verify" your account you must upload A COPY OF YOUR GOVERNMENT ID TO TVI EXPRESS. In fact, you are also required to reveal your home address if it is not on your ID. See the screenshot above of the screen.

Frankly, this is such an outrageous violation of privacy I am surprised nobody had complained.

What's even more interesting is that TVI Express' "Privacy Policy" never did mention any thing about collecting ID. In fact, under "how we use personal information", it only says that payment information is protected. it never claimed to protect your PERSONAL information. It did not even promise to securely destroy such proof of ID after your account was verified. In fact, TVI Express can reveal your personal information to your upline as they see fit.

TVI Express is a Direct Sales Company and as such, we may provide personal information as needed to your personal TV Express Independent Associate or Upline Sponsor for orders and Associate enrolments.
-- http://www.tviexpress.com/privacy.php

Wow, ANOTHER mention that "TVI Express is a Direct Sales Company". Guess Rudy Phan don't care about that! He's still saying TVI Express is NOT Direct Sales / MLM!

So when Rudy Phan tells you to PLEASE verify your account, should you listen when he had previously lied on MULTIPLE OCCASIONS?

What was Rudy Phan's reason on WHY you should verify your account? So your upline don't steal your money! He claims that some uplines are stealing their downlines money. The downlines don't know Internet much, so the upline gets EVERYTHING, and when downline cycles out, the upline just use the information they already know (they typed it in, after all) and cash out all their eWallet!

Apparently this "verification" is supposed to stop this sort of abuse. However, consider this fact: who's going to upload the information? The upline (who knows Internet)! Who's going to do the verification? The upline! So this "verification" does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the "security" situation!

Rudy Phan, of course, want to compare TVI Express to a legitimate business, like Paypal (Indonesia). But TVI Express is NOT a bank. And Paypal IS a bank (it has banking license in Europe AND banking license in 33 out of 50 states in the US) So the comparison is NOT VALID.

So basically TVI Express is forcing you to give up MORE personal information for money you supposedly ALREADY earned, and Rudy Phan says "you really should do it to protect yourself" when in fact, it does NO SUCH THING.

Another lie busted.

Interesting: Solid Trust Pay is a Script-Kiddie Site? (UPDATED: not quite, no longer associated with TVI Express)

Image via WikipediaAccording to a post on Web of Trust (WOT), Solid Trust Pay, one of the processors used by TVI Express, is actually a packaged script offered by PlxWebDev / PayArk

I compared the "user agreement" and they are virtually identical. Here are the comparisons

From the "demo" site on plxwebdev

Buyer Beware - ePAY Online assumes absolutely no responsibility for any purchases made through the ePAY Online system. At any time you join any Income Opportunity or MLM program, or Matrix Website or purchase a product or service you are doing so at your own risk and that by signing up and joining ePAY Online you do hearby agree in FULL that you release ePAY Online and all its affiliates and officers, employees, members and owners from ANY loss you may incur either by using this service...

And from the SolidTrustPay.com website...

Buyer Beware - SolidTrust Pay assumes absolutely no responsibility for any purchases made or received through the system. At any time you join, or offer, any Income Opportunity or MLM program, or Matrix Website, purchase or offer a product or service, you are doing so at your own risk and that by signing up and joining you do hearby agree in FULL that you release SolidTrust Pay and all its affiliates and officers, employees, members and owners from ANY loss you may incur either by using this service ...

Even the misspelled "hearby" is there, still misspelled.  (It should be "hereby")

Conclusion: SolidTrust Pay is not any more trustworthy than your average PHP website. It has no reputation, nor even a real support team behind it. In fact, does it even have a banking license to hold people's money? Guess that's why STP is based in CANADA instead of the US. However, is that even legal? A "real" payment processor such as VersaPay is partnered with Chase Bank and is certified with Visa/Mastercard. STP displays Visa/Mastercard logo, but it's not linked, and apparently has no actual relationship with any real bank or VISA and Mastercard.

Before you ask, Yes, Paypal *does* have a Banking License in Europe, and is licensed for banking in 28 of the 50 states in the US, and the other states either don't need one or is satisfied with out-of-state banking license.

Even TVI Express' payment processor is shady...

UPDATE 15-JAN-2011 -- unconfirmed comment stated that "Solid Trust Pay" has disassociated with TVI Express since April 2009, and the script was indeed "founded" on plxWebDev scripts. You can see the actual comments below.

UPDATE 01-FEB-2011 -- authenticity of comment was confirmed by STP Support.  See 01-FEB-2011 blog entry.

TVI Express: website down again, maybe no more credit cards!

TVI Express website appears to be down AGAIN (as of 5PM PST, 11-MAR-2010) and was probably down for hours.

Furthermore, I have been receiving some unconfirmed reports that TVI Express have stopped taking credit cards (again). Last time, they blamed fraud. However, I specualate that some people actually realized that they've been con'ed, and disputed their payments!  (And if you get too many disputes, your merchant account gets chopped!)