TVI Express denounced as SCAM by Botswana Consumer Watchdog

Botswana Newspaper "The Voice" and Consumer Watchdog examined "TVI Express" and found it to be a pyramid scam you should stay away.

"...TVI is unbelievable and should not be trusted.  It’s a pyramid scheme and I guarantee that if you give them your money you’ll just be throwing it away."

TVI Express: recycled Fortuna Alliance pyramid scam

Image via Wikipedia

In the 1990's, when Internet is still young, the FTC busted a pyramid scammer called "Fortuna Alliance", that promised the same things that TVI Express is promising today. Want to see how much of a copycat TVI Express is when compared to a PROVEN scammer, the Fortuna Alliance? You won't like what you see, esp. if you are a member of TVI Express.

"In the complaint detailing the charges, the FTC charged that Fortuna Alliance, L.L.C., and four officers, marketed the pyramid scheme through a home page on the World Wide Web and with printed promotional materials. Using fabulous earnings claims, they induced tens of thousands of consumers in over 60 countries around the world to pay between $250 and $1750 to join their pyramid scheme, claiming that members would receive over $5,000 per month in 'profits' as others were induced to 'enroll.' In addition, Fortuna and its officers provided advice and promotional materials for members to recruit others to join the pyramid, both through direct contact and by setting up their own web sites. The FTC's complaint asked the court to order a permanent halt to the alleged deceptive practices and to order redress for the people Fortuna signed up to the scheme."

Cited from http://www.mlmlegal.com/fortunaftc.html

A bachelor of criminal justice cannot recognize pyramid scheme!

Image via Wikipedia

Our resident TVI Express booster, Lynette, claims to have a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, yet she clearly cannot even spot a pyramid scheme! Here's an article from the FTC that explains VERY clearly what a pyramid scheme is, and how pyramid schemes can pretend to be MLM companies. Here's some select quotes:

Pyramid schemes now come in so many forms that they may be difficult to recognize immediately. However, they all share one overriding characteristic. They promise consumers or investors large profits based primarily on recruiting others to join their program, not based on profits from any real investment or real sale of goods to the public.

So, what does TVI Express sell? Nothing. As I've repeated MULTIPLE times, from TVI Express's own FAQ, NOTHING is sold. All of the money comes from recruitment.

In the largest pyramid case brought by the Commission in the 1990's, we witnessed how pyramid operators often try to use the international banking system to hide their assets. In FTC v. Fortuna Alliance, the defendants allegedly promised consumers that, for a payment of $250, they would receive profits of over $5,000 per month. The program spawned numerous web sites on the Internet and victimized thousands of investors across 60 different countries. Although the defendants initially operated out of the United States, the Commission discovered they had secreted millions of dollars to offshore bank accounts in Antigua. But international cooperation saved the day. With the aid of the courts and banks in Antigua, the Commission obtained an order against the defendants, requiring them to repatriate over $2 million in offshore assets and pay approximately $7 million in redress to consumers from 60 countries. 

Sound familiar? Payment of $250, $10000 within a month, banking internationally across multiple countries (Cyprus, England, India, and more), multiple websites on the Internet, thousands of victims across the world...

So, Lynette, tell us why TVI Express is NOT a pyramid scheme...

Our TVI booster is back... with more vitriol than ever!

Tony Tasset's "spew", circa 1993

Our resident TVI booster Lynette, who apparently has nothing better to do than busting my chops (or trying to, any way), has posted a couple more feedbacks, in which she has accused me of various things! Here's some select quotes so you can marvel at her mastery of baseless insults:

I laugh at people like you who jump on something and run with it with no proof of your own.

So explain why TVI Express can't pass the FTC test, please? That's the simplest thing. So let's start there.

If you look your information is inaccurate as well. I am sorry for you, but the proof is in the pudding and I've seen the money made, or I wouldn't be in this one either.

Yet she cannot cite a single instance just WHAT information I have was "inaccurate". Then she explains it away by the typical scam excuse: it made money. She ignored my multiple references to Bernie Madoff, who made plenty of money, BILLIONS of dollars, and is very illegitimate.

TVI Express fails FTC test

Image by Idiolector via Flickr

So far no TVI Express member can actually provide ANY PROOF that their little opportunity is NOT a scam. As they don't seem to have anything legitimate to say, I'll give them a nail in the coffin...

Avoid any plan where the reward for recruiting new distributors is more than it is for selling products to the public. That’s a time tested tip-off to a pyramid scheme

--- ftc.gov

When TVI Express's own FAQ states that you do NOT sell anything, but you *do* need to recruit 2 more members, and all of the reward comes from cycling out of the boards, which is by recruiting more members, you don't really need any other proof that TVI Express is a pyramid scam.

Another "desperate" TVI member's non-rebuttal

Image by State Library of New South Wales collection via Flickr

Wow, I seem to be a magnet for all the various TVI Express member and teams and whatever that wants to "refute" my research into TVI Express. Instead of actually providing me with any facts to refute what I presented, they instead went on some personal attack. I'll quote another recent comment (click here to see original)

Why is it that people feel they have the right to critique a company without being a part of it?

Oh, the classic "if you're not us you can't understand us" argument, except it is bogus. A scam is a scam, no matter if you're in it or not in it. By this argument, police and justice system cannot exist because they have to be criminals to judge criminals, or even to criticize criminals.

Besides, what about movies critics? Or book critics? Or even political critics? They aren't in the stuff they are critiquing (except peripherally). 

How can a person give reliable and factual information just by doing “research” on the internet?

Instead of refuting the EVIDENCE I gave, she instead attack me personally. Perhaps you need to wake up, dear. Wikipedia is now the most often cited research source in the world. Every single reference book from Encyclopedia Britannica to Merriam-Webster dictionary is online. And on the Internet, I can pull up company records in England, comments about TVI Express in India, official investigation of TVI Express in China, and more. YOU are posting this comment on the Internet. And you criticize the use of Internet for research?

Yet another TVIGAT rebuttal that's not a rebuttal

Apparently some TVIGAT boosters didn't like what I said about their "opportunity", upon further review and their initial un-rebuttal. Their comment are as follows:

first lets get some facts straight.
The entry fee is 37$ one time
if you can market to get your 2 referrals then do so.If you can't then you can pay 20$ per referral and that is all you need. If you market then tvi-gat will pay you a referral fee of 15$ for every referral you bring in. Along with this you get 1000 leads which you can market to. The 37$ is much better than 250-275 for tviexpress depending where in the world you are. before spouting off get your facts straight ok.

Well, can any one spot anything that directly contradicts what I posted so far? Me neither. Another un-rebuttal.

Are all TVIGAT members/boosters this absent-minded?

TVI GAT posts a rebuttal that's not a rebuttal

Previously I posted a comment about someone who will help you join TVI Express for $37. I had assumed that this "someone" will pay for the other $213 or whatever to join TVI Express.

Turns out the truth is even worse than I suspected. First, here's the comment (link to original comment)

The Nay Sayers are need to do more research, before they go spouting gibberish. The $37 membership is from TVI Global Assist Team. By cycling through the TVI (GAT) they pay your way into TVI Express by generating income by referring new members into TVI GAT.

Our Administrative Team is in regular contact with TVI Express Administration and are experiencing growing pains. we get regular updates of the TVI Express activities and upgrades as they become available.

Please do your research before you start slamming programs as scams!

TVI GAT is a Perfectly legitimate program and we have many members making money with TVI Express.

So I looked into it a little further, and they are NOT lying... That $37 actually does NOT get you into TVI Express... That gets you into TVIGAT (or TVI Global Assist Team). If you recruit enough members to fill up their "2x2 matrix", they'll pay your TVI Express dues and help you become a full-fledged TVI Express member. They will even let you BUY 2 more referrals at $20 each.

So what exactly is a "2 x 2 matrix"? It's basically the 8-ball scam without the last level of 8. (So you end at the level of 4). See this diagram to the right, linked from another suspicious site...

And what is an 8-ball scam, which is exactly the same as one of TVI Express's "board" or "matrix"? To borrow the picture from Wikipedia...

Yep, it's the same as 8-ball scam, without the bottommost layer. 

In other words, it's a alleged-scam TVI Express feeder program, which is in itself a junior version of double 8-ball scam that this alleged-scam TVI Express was using.

Sorry, but anybody that feed members to an alleged-scam, and even uses a similar pyramid system that doesn't sell anything, but only to recruit people, is guilty by association.

Or put it this way: IMHO, TVI GAT is really TVI Express Junior edition. 

Desperate TVI Express Members will PAY your dues to join up

Image by Gadget Virtuoso via Flickr

They hope to cycle out of the board and recoup their losses before the whole thing collapses like Los Angeles in the movie 2012. So they will PAY most of your $250 join up fee.

In fact, here's one that you only need to pay $37 to join. Presumably, s/he will pay the remaining $213.

When people are THAT desperate to recruit people to join a supposedly "greatest opportunity ever", you know something is very wrong...

TVI Express endorser backpedals on endorsement

Someone tried to tell me that Citizencorp.com endorsed TVI Express wholeheartedly with a 5-star (out of 5) review via the comments. I told him that I don't trust a review site with no details on who the reviewers are, and the facts don't even match what the company FAQ says.

(Slight aside, if you click on his profile, you can see that the guy who left the comment is no longer on Blogger! Can any one say SHILL?)

Turns out that CitizenCorp.com now decided that TVI Express *is* a scam after all, and has issued an alert regarding it. It has downgraded TVI Express down to 3 stars out of 5.

Okay, CitizenCorp.com, maybe you are NOT a shill site after all. My apologies for calling you one earlier.