As someone with more than 25 years of experience in the network marketing industry and who is considered an expert in the field, I am constantly approached by individuals promoting various business opportunities, and I've recently become aware of a new program that could end up being one of the biggest ILLEGAL, pyramid, moneymaking schemes to ever hit the U.S!
TVI is nothing more than an illegal pyramid and money game (a $250 "airplane ride" type program) that has recently arrived in the U.S., which is being promoted by a company based out of the U.K!
It initially began in China and India, and based upon its success in those 2 countries, they are now promoting this highly ILLEGAL pyramid as a legitimate business opportunity in 50 countries (they haven’t done the proper registration in any of those countries that I am aware of in order to legally operate as a network marketing opportunity), and if various regulatory agencies in a variety of countries take prompt and decisive action, hundreds of thousands to a few million people are going to be "fleeced" out of hundreds of millions of dollars!
In fact, they are promoting that almost 400,000 people in various countries have joined since January of 2009 alone-do the math! 400,000 people x $250 a person is $100 million they have taken in, and that will be a drop in the bucket unless regulators in the U.S., the U.K., and other countries take immediate and decisive action!
The program is promoted as a one time $250 expenditure through a gimmicky matrix type structure with "boards" that mirrors the structure of many "airplane" type schemes promoted in the past, only this time instead of just money exchanging hands, which would make it a blatant illegal pyramid, they are hiding behind a $250 "travel package" in order to give it the appearance of legitimacy, a $250 travel package that no sane consumer would purchase!
However, there is virtually no selling of the "travel package" to legitimate retail customers, NON-BUSINESS participants, occurring! Consequently, almost all of the commissions and bonuses that are being paid are being earned strictly from the "sale," and I used that word loosely, of the $250 package from one distributor (business participant) to a new distributor (business participant), which court cases have deemed to not be a legitimate retail sale as the business participant is making the purchase in lieu of a business consideration, i.e., to make money, so basically distributors (business participants) are receiving their commissions and bonuses for doing nothing more than "headhunting," being paid merely for the act of recruiting of fellow business participants, which has been deemed illegal as it pertains to network marketing and business opportunities.
There is no requirement of having to make a certain number of retail sales of their $250 travel package to a legitimate retail customer (a non-business participant) as a means to trigger their earning the commissions and bonuses on those they have recruited. It is strictly just one big $250 money game based on recruiting participants.
This is just the first of several legal problems for this illegal scheme. In addition, regulators usually like to see at least a 3 to 1 if not 5 or 6 to 1 customer to distributor ratio in a legitimate network marketing opportunity. In other words, at least 3 customers (non business participants) that have purchased the product being promoted to every 1 distributor who has signed up in the program. In this particular case, the ratio in TVI Express is probably 100 distributors or more for every 1 legitimate customer!
Using numbers provided by this company, they are claiming 400,000 distributors. Using even a 3 to 1 customer to distributor ratio, it would mean they would need to have 1.2 million retail customers (non-business participants who have purchased the $250 travel package) to their 400,000 distributors. Upon investigation, you would be lucky to find 1200 legitimate customers, let alone 1.2 million legitimate retail customers.
Furthermore, many people are earning an income for doing nothing more than "investing" their $250 and finding 2 people to do the same! That's it! No having to sell their product to a few customers (non-business participants), no having to meet any minimal monthly performance requirements, no having to do anything, just put your $250 in, find 2 people who do the same, and you can make money! In fact, this program meets the classic definition of a lottery!
They're even encouraging people to sell their tv sets to raise the $250 if they don't have it!
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It is ILLEGAL money games like TVI Express that give legitimate network marketing programs a bad name! In doing consulting work for new companies, I frequently have 2 prominent MLM attorneys involved, one a former well known Attorneys General and past President of the American Association of Attorneys Generals, and the other formerly lead international attorney for a major network marketing company for 20 years, and we are just amazed at programs like this one that seem to generate such massive growth...
Just goes to show 1) there's a lot of gullible people in the world; 2) a lot of people aren't looking for a real business and prefer get rich quick deals; and 3) most people have no idea what constitutes a legitimate program...
