Lyoness' finest, or: why we moderate the comments we receive

Over time, many people have tried to post comments on the articles published on this Blog. While many of them are either privately intended (as a way of contacting the Complaint Centre), or generally constructive to the discussion of Lyoness, we have been receiving quite some obviously biased comments as well.

We wish to stress that we welcome pretty much any type of comment from our readers. However, we have chosen to moderate the comments that get send to us (mainly because we wish to keep people's privately intended comments private). Therefore, we have the possibility to prevent Lyoness promoters, no matter in which disguise they appear, from publishing their Lyoness propaganda on this Blog.

We have been receiving several comments from Lyoness adherents who accuse us of 'censorship' and 'totalitarianism' (whatever that latter one is supposed to mean in this context). We acknowledge that we are in a way censoring the information that gets published here, but again, this we do mainly to protect the privacy of the Lyoness victims who try to get in touch with us (which is the main reason our Complaint Centre was founded). Additionally, there are plenty of forums for Lyoness adherents and critics to engage in largely uncensored, open debates - we do not feel the need to provide another one. Moreover, we want to stress that this is our Blog, and that we should pretty much get to decide what we post here. At least, we do not attempt to get information removed from other parts of the internet.

To show our readers that they have not been missing out on anything good with the comments we have filtered and to provide our readers with an insight in the devious ways in which the Lyoness promoters try to hide and challenge the truth about Lyoness, we have decided to publish a selection of the comments we have blocked earlier - with our comments and qualifications of the material these comments contain. Note that most links in the comments were added by us, now, as a form of commentary.

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Comment #1:

Commentator: Anonymous

"Dear postmaster, I hope that in the name of democracy you will leave my post on this site. I am a member of Lyoness since 2009. And i am successful with it. The problem with network marketing in general is that it is based on word by mouth marketing and sometimes intentionally or unintentionally not everything is told to a new member by his or her recommender. This is a dangerous game especially when it comes to Lyoness which has a complicated compensation plan. First of all: Lyoness is free. No obligation. You use your membership card you save money in terms of cashback. If you don`t use it, nothing happens. No membership fee, no minimum order, no autoship. Similar to AirMiles, although in Lyoness, your cashback never expires. When you saved 10 dollars, it is transferred to your bank account. You also receive 0.5 - 0.5 % when your directs and when your indirects save money (only two layer of people down) on Lyoness: the paradox of an exclusive pyramid scheme"

Our response: 

First of all, we are not trying to govern a country here. Therefore, 'democracy' is not really any of our concern. Also, we do not have a 'postmaster'.

We congratulate this anonymous commentator for being one of the very few Lyoness members that is successful in Lyoness. We truly hope that the money you stole from your friends will bring you a lot of happiness. We also thank the commentator for admitting that Lyoness is a 'dangerous game'.

We would like to point out that Lyoness is not free. Obligations are almost never present in similar schemes, instead, psychological pressure and devious techniques of persuasion are used to make prospects transfer thousands of dollars into the pockets of the Lyoness racketeers. Remember, it was Lyoness 'founder' Hubert Freidl himself who stated that Lyoness is about 'positions, positions, positions, positions' (i.e. investments, investments, investments, investments).

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Comment #2:

Commentator: Anonymous

"Your complaints are garbage just like you...not successful in lyoness means you didn't move your ass....sitting on your ass to write all this info means that you can not do anything else but review a powerful and growing company...put on your sun glasses because it looks like a bright future for LYONESS."

Our response: 

Not sure we should dignify this with any response. Once again, we have never been enrolled in Lyoness. Also, the 'company' (which it is not), is in no way powerful or growing. What we have got to admit is that it looks like a bright future for the ones who instigated Lyoness (if they will not be locked up for the remainder of their lives), not for the rest of you.

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Comment #3:

Commentator: Richard Breedlove

"Oh my. Thank God for David Grear. I mean, those poor little businesses facing hard times are getting taken. Thank God Mr Grear could see its a scam. Its amazing he was able t figure out what the lawyers for Wallmart, Sears, Kmart, Wallgreens, etc. could not. Oh David your so smart.......seriously lmfao on David Brear on Lyoness"

Our response: 

Thanks for making our point, Mr Breedlove. If you do not have the decency to spell even a name correctly and leave such comments on our Blog, probably you should not be that surprised your comment does not get published.

And folks, by now, we hope everyone has realised that there is not a single lawyer over at these major corporations who has actually taken the time to have look at the Lyoness business model. In fact, most of these companies have not got the faintest idea that they are listed as a Lyoness partner, and when informed, they cannot get away fast enough.

Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D.

And indeed, Mr Brear has been seeing and saying, what most others have failed to see (let alone say) for decades.

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Of course, we mostly just get beautiful one liners that make us think 'yeah, maybe we were wrong about Lyoness...':

Notwithstanding all these highly-persuasive, quality arguments to alter our attitude towards Lyoness, we - stubborn as we are - persist in our beliefs.

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The only not-anonymous commentator featured in our quote-box, Mr Dogra, apparently felt that the did not make himself sufficiently clear in his well-structured one liner.

Comment #4:

Commentator: Marcus Dogra

"This is a Bull Shit propaganda against about Lyoness by someone who has no knowledge and clue about Lyoness. It's someone's Anonymous view without any real factual proof .... There is a big difference between Facts and Clueless Views .... If you really wanna know about Lyoness you can either come to our meeting or meet me one to one ... There is no point to sit in front of computer and start typing baseless statements ... Thanks on No more 'sensation' for Lyoness?"

Our response:

Yet another Lyoness adherent, severely deluded by the constant stream of lies and manipulation he has faced. We feel for you, Mr Dogra. The reason we do not post such comments, though, is that Mr Dogra tried to use our Blog as a portal to recruit new victims, and because Mr Dogra does not list a single argument in his petty response here, other than that we do not know what were are talking about (without indicating what we may have gotten wrong in our articles).

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Along the same line, many other commentators have tried to convince us that we do not have a clue about what Lyoness (or its spin-off FlexKom) is. Why discuss them separately, if they are identical, right?

Comment #5:

Commentator: Geoffrey King

"You obviously have no knowledge of what you are talking about or you have such a narrow mind set you just don't see it! You are probably one of the people who joined as a Premium member and expected to sit back and receive money through Lyoness. Lyoness is a legitimate business and you work for your money like you do in any business. Wake up!" == We are wide awake, Mr King.

Comment #6:

Commentator: Anonymous

"You have no idea about lyoness, only what you think you know. If you truly understood the company, then perhaps your view would be different. Instead of trying to recruit haters who obviously did not understand the system correctly. Try understanding the system and see the real truth to it."

Comment #7:

Commentator: Anonymous

"I think in general it's not very clever to write info regarding a company you don't know, or their concept. I know Lyoness... it will never work (at least we agree on something). What I know about Flexkom is the following : I went to their presentation once and nothing is what it seems, I mean, it's not a real MLM company, they "use" the compensation plan only temporary and their technology behind the whole concept is really unique, it has nothing to do with Lyoness, trust me... because I know both concepts. I'm still not a member of Flexkom (and I was never for Lyoness) but Flexkom can become very big next year : the shop owners in Europe are really positive about their concept and advertisement possibilities. And I don't see anything wrong in trying 1 basic idea twice if it didn't really work the first time : I'm having the impression that they took out all the negative points in Lyoness and solved them in Flexkom... at least that's what I've understood after that presentation..."

Comment #8:

Commentator: Anonymous

"Mister, Lyoness is not collapsing as we speak but GROWING. If you cant make it in Lyoness, it is because you are inadequate. Don't knock the system. There are many of us making good money from Lyoness. For those who don't want to make Lyoness a business, well they enjoy the discount. How much discount are you getting without Lyoness, oh what did you say.....yes Zero. How much are we getting because of Lyoness, minimum is 2% which is much more than you. so stop trying to discredit an organisation because you can't cut it."

Our response:

So, the just of it is that we do not know what we are talking about. Unfortunately for these hopeful propagators/victims of the Lyoness lie, everything we have thus-far claimed, has been properly sourced (and else we have clearly stated that we are not sure, and are talking about assumptions, suspicions, etc., or are merely reporting what other sources report).

About FlexKom, indeed, we know much less, compared to Lyoness, as there is considerably less information available (the scam has not been around as long). However, we do know that the whole thing does not add up, and that the same people seem to have been instigating it, as the ones that instigated the Lyoness racket.

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Comment #9:

Commentator: Steven Papadakis

"I am a Lyoness member currently researching the legitimacy of Lyoness because of all the negativity on the internet. Here is what my research has found. I hope my findings don't disappear from this site (well, they did not). I would love some clarification according to my findings... THANKS! Zurich is 92sq. kilometers and has approximately 400,00 residents. On the Lyoness website, as of today August 27th, 2013, within a 92 kilometer radius of Zurich there are 802 businesses that accept the Lyoness Cashback card. In the search criteria I didn't add online shops, mobile vouchers, or large chains that only accept gift cards. on Lyoness' unlimited growth potential"

Our response:

Here is your desired clarification, Mr Papadakis. We assume your comment concerns our following phrase (which, for the record, was clearly attributed to our listed source):

"In Zurich, Switzerland's largest city with 400,000 inhabitants and 38,000 registered companies, 40 merchants are part of the Lyoness network (roughly 0.1%)."

We have had a look, and indeed, Zurich has a total land area of about 92 square kilometers. We also agree on Zurich having about 400,000 inhabitants.

However, Zurich having a total land area of about 92 square kilometers, has of course nothing to do with using a 'search radius of 92 kilometers' on the Lyoness website. Perhaps you have picked this up in math class at some point - and if not, this may be a nice refresher - but the area of a circle is determined by squaring the radius (i.e. radius*radius), and multiplying the result by Pi (approximately 3.14).

In other words, the area you have examined covers in fact 92*92*Pi= 26,590.44 square kilometers (or: 289 times the total land area of the city of Zurich, or: 26,590.44/41,285= 64.4% of the total land area of Switzerland). Some of the many cities within a radius of 92 kilometers from Zurich are: Basel, Bern, Freiburg, Friedrichshafen, Memmingen, Konstanz, St. Gallen, Luzern and Mullhouse. And 802/289= 2.77 businesses, so that should even out quite nicely.

If you have used similar calculations to determine whether Lyoness provides a solid business opportunity, we understand why you joined.

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Comment #10:

Commentator: Nash Blogs

"Lyoness is here to stay folks. The reason why Lyoness members in Austria, all 500,00 of them, would vote out any government coming down on Lyoness is because it is serving them and they are happy with the state of affairs. Even the Austrian Open is now the Lyoness Open which shows how much Lyoness has entered into daily life in Lyoness. People out to get Lyoness seem to have a lot of time and resources to do their bashing. They would be better off spending their time joining Lyoness as a free member, sharing it with friends, and getting something back from the merchants for a change."

Our response:

This comment basically underlines our point of how much influence an unoriginal racket like Lyoness has managed to gather in a short while, and how many people have been ignorant, and allowed this to happen. It also underlines that Lyoness has used the money it stole from its members to enroll new victims (by sponsoring events, publicly supporting charities, etc.).

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Comment #11:

Commentator: Marvin Wilson

"I've never seen a blog post so full of biased, spiteful and total, complete BULLSHIT! I don't know where you get your documentation, or what your anti-"pyramid scam" phobia is, or why you have such a completely foolhardy and unfounded vendetta against, Lyoness, but I'm a shopping member, and I get cash back on my normal everyday/weekly/monthly expenses, turn my normal household expenses into financial assets now, whereas shopping used to be money gone forever, now I get a percentage back to invest or do whatever I want with. Sorry for you, seems you have a rather large stick up your ass ... must be painful. Me? I'm very glad I was introduced to Lyoness, and will recommend it to all my friends (the friends of Mr Wilson are, hereby, warned) (the sane ones, with reasoning and critical thinking skills - unlike you) so they can take advantage of all the benefits of membership, too."

Our response:

"or what your anti-"pyramid scam" phobia is"

Well, apparently unlike you, Mr Wilson, we like to protect our friends from becoming a victim of pyramid scams, rather than doing all we can to enroll them, in the desperate hope to make a few of our own invested bucks back.

"I don't know where you get your documentation"

Well, we do list our sources in all our articles, complete with accompanying links were you can read it for yourself. Where do you get your documentation, Mr Wilson? Lyoness?

"but I'm a shopping member,"

Such a coincidence, because you are one of the very few. Also, how can you assess whether the down-payments, etc. are scams, if you are merely a 'shopping member'? If Lyoness is so great, why not take the leap?

Nevertheless, we wish you and your friends (all possessing excellent reasoning and critical thinking skills, we hope), a lot of luck in Lyoness.

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