Lyoness faces scrutiny in Germany

Recently, the authors fueling the Lyoness discussion at the Ktipp forum and (afterwards) the guys at Platfform Lyoness, reported that Lyoness is - finally - also facing scrutiny in Germany, after having received a considerable amount of negative publicity in Austria and Switzerland. The article that gets referenced is an article in the German newspaper 'Nordkurier', with the title 'Discount enterprise with doubtful customer recruitment?'.

The article discusses the 'too-good-to-be-true' promises of enormous discounts and future financial freedom made by Lyoness, and the skepticism and criticism it faces in Austria and Switzerland, linking this negativism to the unfamiliarity of German authorities with this 'company on the rise'. Of course, it should be acknowledged that Germany, even though it represents a considerable market, with the same language as spoken in Lyoness' home countries (Austria and Switzerland), was entered by Lyoness in the end of the 2000s, considerably later than Lyoness' founding in 2003 and its expansion to Eastern Europe in the consequent years. However, the poignant unfamiliarity of German authorities with the Lyoness racket begs the question whether the cooperation between EU member states in accepting each other's 'companies' (which is how Lyoness has managed to expand its obvious racket all across Europe, and, later, the world) is sufficiently effective when faced with 'companies' that have less than good intentions. In other words, it is highly remarkable (to say the least) that according to spokesman Joachim Geburtig, the German Consumer Union is unfamiliar with (even the name) Lyoness, while its Austrian counterpart (where they speak the same language, for crying out loud) has ages ago filed an extensive lawsuit against Lyoness, challenging as much as 61 clauses of the general terms and conditions of Lyoness, which the Austrian Consumer Union (VKI) calls vague and incomprehensible. Similarly, the German government department of economy had never heard of Lyoness, while its Austrian counterpart is - reportedly - investigating the 'company', gets regular parliamentary questions about Lyoness and is familiar with the legal investigations of the Austrian justice department and government regulators into Lyoness, and there conclusion that Lyoness is a pyramid scheme.

Comparably with in other countries, the major companies that Lyoness parades around in Germany as being 'partners' (540 in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern alone, according to Lyoness), with 'large legal departments' that have all 'thoroughly investigated and endorsed Lyoness', claim in the media that they have not a lot to do with Lyoness, and for sure do not endorse its 'business model'. Instead, they explain to the journalists that they have sold discount vouchers or present cards to Lyoness (Textile giant Takko and Flower shop chain Fleurop) and that they have not sold their vouchers to Lyoness with the knowledge and information they have now (Fleurop).

The Lyoness Complaint Centre is happy that the German media is (finally) catching up on the developments in the case of the Lyoness racket and hopes that the mentioned authorities will rapidly give a call to their counterparts in Austria and/or Switzerland, to let themselves be fully informed on what kind of criminal organisation they have allowed into their country.

The Cosa Norda: The mafia behind Lyoness Scandinavia

Last Thursday, at 20.00 local time, the Danish public television channel TV2 broadcasted an in-depth exposé of the Lyoness racket and the people affiliated with it in Northern Europe (Scandinavia). As the episode is - to our knowledge - not (yet) publicly available to the general public (let alone with - English - subtitles), we will try to tell here what we know about Lyoness' presence in Scandinavia and the people behind its activities there.

The managing director of Lyoness Norway is a man named Terje Duesund. Duesund is anything but a fresh face in the world of 'MLM' in Norway. Together with his 'business' associate, Finn Ørjan Sæle (who reportedly learned his trade while visiting the US on a young age, from his 'mentor' Randy Gage), Duesund was responsible for the Norwegian division of the notorious MLM scam 'Nature's Own' (later, due to intense scrutiny, called 'Natures of Scandinavia').

MD Lyoness Norway: Terje Duesund

Nature's Own gained considerable publicity, and was heavily scrutinized in the Norwegian press for being an illegal pyramid scheme. Government authorities (mainly the Justice department) took a clear stand against the 'company', but were not sufficiently backed by their political superiors and the case stirred up quite some controversy. Well-known member of the Norwegian parliament Anita Apelthun (Christian Democrats - KrF), who reportedly also invested in the scam and propagated it (although she later claimed only to have used the products) - and was even accused in the public debate of trying to influence public prosecutors, is the mother of Sæle; Finn Ørjan's father - Finn Jarle Sæle - was an influential person in the Norwegian press; Norwegian minister of finance at the time, Gudmund Restad, reportedly had three daughters involved in Nature's Own.

In the end, the extensive investigation performed by the Norwegian Justice Department remained unused by the district attorneys with jurisdiction in this case. Nonetheless, the whole happening caused quite the stir in Norway and neighbouring countries, directors and distributors of Nature's Own were furious at the Justice Department for investigating their 'beloved company' and Nature's Own had to change its name to Natures of Scandinavia to escape all negativity. In its best days, the Nature's Own scam had about 600,000 members, most of which were believed to be Norwegians (coming from a country with 4,420,000 inhabitants in 1998). In 2002, the 'company' continued its activities (using the assets of Nature's Own) in the market of cell phone and internet subscriptions under the name 'PGOne'. This corporate structure was later integrated into 'Ventelo'.

Finn Ørjan Sæle 

Probably surprised themselves by the ease with which they got away with their crimes, Sæle and Duesund felt inspired to instigate a long list of follow-up scams in Scandinavia and beyond. According to the Norwegian Wikipedia, Sæle is currently 'leader' of 'ThinkSeven', another 'MLM', which does not seem toe exist anymore. He is also credited with founding and leading 'Zinzino' (from Sweden), which is an 'MLM' that imports store-quality coffee (Rombouts) and coffee machines from other European countries (particularly Belgium and France), and sells these products against an incredible and ridiculous price in Northern and Eastern Europe. This 'company' has met severe scrutiny in (at least) Sweden, Finland (where Zinzino has received television coverage) and Estonia. In Sweden, 'Zinzinotruth' has made considerable, excellent efforts to expose this racket. Nevertheless, the founders of Zinzino are planning on taking their racket to the US.

Other rackets either Sæle or Duesund have been involved with include Spinglo/Synkronice, SaferWaver (preying on the fear of people for all sorts of radiation), Bewell and DailyPoker. Also, the other racket discussed in the TV2 documentary, 'Kyäni' (supposedly American), boasts a book called '12 ways/steps to success with Kyäni' - when analysed, the Danish journalists came to the conclusion that this is the exact same book that was pushed by Nature's Own in 2003. In other words, many of the scams present in Scandinavia revolve around the same people, and most of the scams popping up in Scandinavia seem to be instigated and promoted by either Duesund or Sæle, or people that can be linked to them (like Peter Jakobsson in Sweden and Lyoness member Jimmy Larsen from Denmark).

For more information on MLM scams in general, please make sure to check David Brear's excellent Blog: http://www.mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.com

The TV2 episode can be watched here. Later, we hope that someone will publish the episode somewhere else, in order to make it available to a wider, non-Danish public.

Lyoness: a decisive issue in Austria's next elections?

Five years since the last general elections were held in Austria in 2008, on 29 September 2013, the people of Austria will elect their new parliament. For those unfamiliar with Austria's political structure, here's a brief summary:

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Austria is a federation of states organised as a parliamentary democracy and headed by a president. The parliament constitutes the federal legislative authority and thus makes the federal laws, which are executed by the Austrian government and controlled by the Austrian judicial system. Due to the multitude of political parties active in Austria (caused by the principal of proportional representation), governments consist of coalitions of several political parties, that hold a majority of the 183 seats in the parliament. Thus, the Austrian government does not get directly chosen by the Austrian people, but is the result of negotiations based on the outcome of the legislative elections. 
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Austria is currently governed by a coalition government of the two biggest political parties - the Social-Democrats (SPÖ) and the Liberals (ÖVP). According to the latest polls, this coalition hangs on to a very slim majority of 52% of the votes (SPÖ 27%; ÖVP 25%). Some earlier polls even contest that the coalition has a majority and rates both parties at an aggregate of 49-50%. While the Austrian media - so far - have chosen to profile the road towards the elections as a tight struggle between SPÖ and ÖVP to become the largest political party in Austria, the opposition parties may attempt to break down the coalition, in order to get a chance at becoming part of the government themselves.

According to the polls, the largest member of the opposition, the far-right FPÖ, has a stable support among the electorate of 18-19% of the votes. The Green party moves between 13 and 16 per cent, Team Stronach (founded by euro-skeptic Austrian-Canadian business man Frank Stronach) is expected to get up to 10% of the votes, with the rest of the votes divided up between several smaller political parties, including the BZÖ of Gerhard Huber and the late Jörg Haider.

[hide]Agency/Source	Date	SPÖ	ÖVP	FPÖ	Greens	Stronach	BZÖ	NEOS	Pirates	KPÖ	Others
Gallup/Ö24	2013-07-28	27%	25%	18%	15%	8%	2%	-	1%	-	4%
Karmasin/Heute	2013-07-26	27%	25%	19%	14%	9%	2%	2%	1%	1%	-
IMAS/Krone	2013-07-21	27%	25%	19%	13%	10%	2.5%	-	-	-	3.5%
Spectra/OÖN	2013-07-20	27%	24%	18%	14%	10%	2%	-	-	-	5%
Market/Standard	2013-07-19	25%	24%	19%	15%	9%	3%	-	-	-	5%
Karmasin/Profil	2013-07-13	28%	25%	18%	15%	7%	3%	-	-	-	4%
Gallup/Ö24	2013-07-13	27%	24%	18%	15%	8%	2%	-	2%	-	3%
OGM/Kurier	2013-07-07	27%	24%	19%	15%	8%	3%	-	-	-	4%
Market/Standard	2013-07-07	26%	24%	19%	16%	8%	2%	-	2%	1%	2%

While in the beginning of the 'Lyoness saga' it was SPÖ Member of Parliament (MP) Johann Maier who challenged the then-incumbent government (containing ÖVP and BZÖ) about the Lyoness racket; the roles have been reversed now and MP Gerhard Huber of BZÖ is one of the politicians giving the government a hard time about their lax attitude towards the global scam operated from within their borders.

Mr. Huber has received support from the Austrian Green party, which has also criticised the Austrian government and the authorities it's responsible for, for not putting a stop to Lyoness earlier and still allowing Hubert Freidl and his gang of racketeers to commit fraud all around the world.

Due to its small size, the BZÖ is unlikely to play a major role in the next Austrian elections. However, if the coalition of SPÖ and ÖVP gets broken up, the coalition possibilities slim down rapidly. It is unlikely that SPÖ will want to be part of the same coalition as FPÖ or BZÖ and reversely the ÖVP will not be very enthusiastic about governing with the Green party. Therefore, a three party coalition incorporating both SPÖ and ÖVP seems implausible.

On the left side of the Austrian political spectrum, there is not really a possible coalition either, as SPÖ and the Greens in best case total around 44% of the votes. On the right flank, there are some more possibilities, as ÖVP could team up with parties like FPÖ, Team Stronach and BZÖ (which could total up to 57% of the votes). However, the euro-skepticism of Team Stronach and FPÖ may be a deal breaker for ÖVP, like ÖVP's positive attitude towards Europe may turn Team Stronach and FPÖ off of the idea of jointly governing. Nevertheless, if SPÖ and ÖVP do not reach a majority in parliament, the best chances for a coalition still lay on the right flank of the Austrian political spectrum. Thus, the only chance for BZÖ to play a decisive role in Austrian politics for the coming five years, is if SPÖ and ÖVP fail to form a coalition government, which in return will probably only happen if SPÖ and ÖVP do not reach a total of more than 50% of the votes. To a lesser extent (because they have a considerably higher vote share - and thus will be a larger force in opposition - and the coalition chances on the left are way slimmer), the same goes for the Green party.

While under the current economic conditions in Europe it should not be to difficult for opposition members such as BZÖ, FPÖ and the Greens to find some serious issues that can be blamed on the current government of ÖVP and SPÖ, this strategy has not rewarded these parties over the last five years, given the persisting likeliness of an ÖVP and SPÖ coalition. Most opposition parties will realise that the Austrian population is very well aware that this government has performed under tough economic conditions, and that it is highly doubtful that a different government would have performed any better.

Thus, details could make the difference. Such a detail is constituted by the Lyoness case. However, politically, Lyoness constitutes a complicated problem for the main political actors. With 470,000 members in Austria, Lyoness is connected to about 5.6% of the Austrian population, and to roughly 10% of the amount of voters that showed up to the ballots during the last legislative elections in 2008.

Granted, it is unlikely that all these 470,000 members are 'premium members', yet given the facts, it is very likely that a big share of them is. The votes of these people could go either way. If they are still convinced that Lyoness is the 'great opportunity' it claims to be, they are not likely to vote for a party that wants to demolish this 'great opportunity'. Then again, the growing number of dissatisfied Lyoness 'members' in Austria will be more enthused to vote for such parties.

It seems that most Lyoness members in Austria are still pretty much under the delusion imprinted in their minds by the Lyoness racketeers. Therefore, the coalition partners SPÖ and ÖVP will feel strategically forced to avoid this controversial topic during the election campaigns. In fact, given Lyoness' history, it is not in the slightest improbable that Lyoness has told these political parties that if they come down too hard on Lyoness, the members will take their votes elsewhere.

Although this may seem like a sensible political strategy to many, it should not be forgotten that in the unfortunate event that Lyoness' inevitable downfall will hit Austria during the election campaigns, ÖVP and SPÖ will be the blamed parties for not taking action earlier and may wind up with hundreds of thousands disgruntled Lyoness victims voting for other parties. With a slim majority of 52-53% of the votes at best, the ÖVP-SPÖ coalition could not recover from such a hit. Therefore, it is in the best interest of nearly every opposition party to challenge the current Austrian government on their lax attitude towards the Lyoness racket over the last decade and to speed up the crumbling process of the Lyoness scam.

The election campaigns will only really kick-off after the Austrian population and politicians are back from vacation and only then we will see whether the political advisers of the Austrian parties have figured the same angle as we have. We are hopeful and expect at least some fireworks the coming weeks.

Monday morning recap: what you may have missed over the weekend

Our regular readers who have not been checking our Blog over the weekend, may be interested to learn that there have been some new developments. For instance, we introduced a new section entitled 'The Witness Statements' ('TWS')  in which we translate the testimonies sent to Plattform Lyoness, and publish the testimonies sent to us by Lyoness victims. We have already uploaded three of such statements.

Additionally, we have uploaded an article discussing the love-hate relationship between 'MLM' and Lyoness, we discussed Lyoness' efforts to cleanse Wikipedia from the truth and we ridiculed the myth that only 30-35 people are unhappy with Lyoness.

We also launched two appeals to our readers; to help us spread the truth on Lyoness and to send in your Lyoness stories. In our 'helpful links' section, we integrated an update to a full-fledged Wikipedia article in Spanish.

Lyoness and its love-hate relationship with 'MLM'

A few days back, well-known 'MLM Watchdog' Troy Doole published a highly interesting document on his website. The document, reportedly written by a reputable, highly-regarded person from the 'MLM' world, details why Lyoness (America) is a fraud, and how Lyoness (America) violates a number of federal regulations and should therefore be forbidden and closed down in the United States. For obvious reasons (e.g. to protect his source), mr. Doole has decided not to disclose the identity of the author at this time.

The document is pretty self-explanatory. As reported for a while here, the whole 'business model' of Lyoness is a mere sham, designed to lure people into a web of lies designed to draw the last penny out of the pockets of its victims. Because of that, combined with the fact that key information has been withheld from the victims before they decided to invest, Lyoness is illegal under every national and international framework of legislation, due to its commited fraud, which is a form of theft. Additionally, the many complicating aspects of the Lyoness 'business model', meticulously set out by the referenced document, show how Lyoness has been violating a large number of US federal regulations on, for instance, pyramid and Ponzi schemes, much like it has done in all the other countries its active in.

Have a look at the document yourself.

Earlier, the Complaint Centre has reported that Lyoness has somewhat of a 'love-hate relationship' with the concept termed 'multi level marketing' (abbreviated as 'MLM'). While in most countries where Lyoness promoters are trying to recruit new members, the amazing powers of 'MLM' to make everyone achieve 'financial freedom' are thrown around at some point, in the United States, one of the largest 'lifelines' within Lyoness has been instructing and convincing its members that Lyoness has nothing to do with 'MLM', but is in fact 'way better'. Like goes for almost all other lies told by Lyoness and its promoters, this lie is adapted to the circumstances. In a hostile environment towards 'MLM', the Lyoness promoters will argue that Lyoness has nothing to do with 'MLM'. In situations where it gets accused of organising a 'pyramid scheme', particularly in national settings in which 'MLM' is deemed legal, the Lyoness promoters will argue that Lyoness is not an 'illegal pyramid scheme', but a 'legal MLM company'.

The other way around, 'MLM' promoters are usually known for sticking up for each other and each other's companies, in order to protect their common interests. While this has been seen in a few cases for Lyoness too, the sympathy of 'MLM' promoters towards Lyoness seems to have reached an ultimate low point now, with quite many well-known 'MLM watchdogs', such as Troy Doole (as well as his anonymous source) and Ted Nuyten openly criticising the 'company' and calling it a fraud. Whether this is caused by a genuine interest to protect the world population from being scammed, or whether it is rather driven by the understanding that the support for such an obvious racket, may lead to severe damage to certain reputations when the whole scam (inevitably) falls to pieces. Who's to say?

In any case, once again, the Complaint Centre would like to stress: a fraud is a fraud, no matter what you call it.

Help us spread the truth about Lyoness!

Follow @antilyoness

By now, the Lyoness Complaint Centre has reached over 65,000 page views. We have reached about 9,000 unique viewers. We are very grateful to everyone who helped us reaching these viewers and informing them about Lyoness.

We particularly want to emphasise the help of regular posters on popular forum topics on Lyoness. This help has proven extremely valuable to the number of people reaching our Blog, for a number of reasons. Firstly, more people reach our Blog because of the link being posted on a forum they visit and read. Secondly, this increase in viewership leads to a higher ranking in search engines such as Google, which further increases the number of viewers reaching our Blog. Thirdly, an increasing amount of backlinks at reputable websites/Blogs/forums, also increases our rating in Google, again leading to a higher viewership. Thanks guys!

However, we are an ambitious blog. We will not rest until we have reached at least as many people as Lyoness has scammed (an estimated 3 million people). Therefore, we will need your help!


Help us spread our message!

Share your stories, experiences and information about Lyoness with us; file your complaints!

Follow us on Twitter, Tweet our articles; Like and Share us on Facebook and Google+!

Post links to our articles on forums, blogs, etc.!

Tell everyone you know to stay away from the Lyoness scam!

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Update: Helpful links - others on Lyoness

Readers of this blog should be aware that this blog is by far not the only medium concerned with the pernicious nature of the Lyoness pyramid scam. Several other noteworthy sources report regularly on current developments in the Lyoness case.

----Update: Now a links for Spanish readers, to a full-fledged Wikipedia article in Spanish.----

Several very interesting articles have been written by English author and income opportunity fraud expert David Brear, on his blog www.mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.com. These articles can be found mainly in the latter months of 2012 (September and so forth).

A well-structured article has also been published on: http://randominternetthings.blogspot.com/2012/07/lyoness-are-they-scam.html.

In many countries, consumer forums have picked up on the devious nature of Lyoness' pyramid scheme. These are the ones the Lyoness Complaint Centre has found.

If our readers have any additional recommendations, please inform us through the comment section of this blog.

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*Note that this blog does offer the opportunity to translate the articles published here into nearly any language through the Google Translate function in the top left corner of your screen. These are automated translations and their quality heavily varies. We do not accept responsibility for translation errors occurring due to the use of this tool.*
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For German-speaking readers:

http://www.verbraucherrunde.net/lyoness-serioes-oder-nicht-t290-9555.html

http://www.plattform-lyoness-geschaedigte.at

http://www.ktipp.ch/artikel/d/lyoness-fragwuerdige-einkaufsgemeinschaft/

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyoness

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x108ijj_lyoness-orf-report-english-subs_news

http://questions-lyoness.weebly.com/deutsch.html

For English-speaking readers:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056528522

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2004861

http://www.englishforum.ch/business-entrepreneur/101705-lyoness-cash-back-card-system.html

http://lyonless.ch/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyoness

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x108ijj_lyoness-orf-report-english-subs_news

http://questions-lyoness.weebly.com/english.html

http://vimeo.com/66318039

For Polish-speaking readers:

http://antylyoness.blox.pl/2013/04/Nie-sposob-zrozumiec-jak-dziala-Lyoness.html

http://www.goldenline.pl/forum/3098438/nie-polecam-mlm/s/205

For Danish-speaking readers:

http://www.amino.dk/forums/t/164220.aspx?PageIndex=2

http://www.pokernet.dk/forum/lyoness-pyramidespil.html

For Swedish-speaking readers:

https://www.flashback.org/t1574199p51

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyoness

For Greek-speaking readers:

http://www.insomnia.gr/topic/454424-lyoness-%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9-%CF%84%CE%B9-%CF%80%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%B6%CE%B5%CE%B9/

For Spanish-speaking readers:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyoness

For French-speaking readers:

http://questions-lyoness.weebly.com/

http://forum.quechoisir.org/lyoness-t1721.html

For Serbian-speaking readers:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x108ijj_lyoness-orf-report-english-subs_news

For Norwegian-speaking readers:

http://freak.no/forum/showthread.php?t=243699

http://forum.hegnar.no/thread.asp?id=2106880

For Dutch-speaking readers:

https://forum.www.trosradar.nl/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=81741&sid=15f1dc23e4c1ddf1ee2f4e030d46a7e5&start=680

http://308518.forumromanum.com/member/forum/entry_ubb.user_308518.1128207384.1106692569.1106692569.2.lyoness_nederland_belgie-uitmuntend.html

For Italian-speaking readers:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x108ijj_lyoness-orf-report-english-subs_news

http://forum.alfemminile.com/forum/f663/__f4656_f663-Attenzione-a-lyoness-solita-bufala.html

For Hungarian-speaking readers:

http://lapforum.lap.hu/topic/20577-lyoness/

For Croatian-speaking readers:

http://www.forum.hr/showthread.php?t=698194&page=24

Traditional media sources:

Suspicions of Lyoness operating an illegal pyramid scheme have been reported in traditional media souces for quite some time already, particularly in Austria and Switzerland. However, the articles published there have become considerably more concrete as the amount of evidence has grown and the number of victims has increased. These are some of the media sources one could check to remain updated on the situation concerning Lyoness:

http://www.kleinezeitung.at
http://www.wirtschaftsblatt.at
http://www.format.at
http://www.beobachter.ch
http://www.kurier.at
http://www.wienerzeitung.at
http://www.handelszeitung.ch
http://www.derstandard.at
http://www.orf.at


Experts on Lyoness:

Eric Breiteneder is an attorney who has dedicated most of his time in recent years to the fight against Lyoness. Several victims have successfully gotten their money back through his services. Additionally, he publicly warns people against Lyoness and assists the Austrian authorities and media with their investigations into Lyoness. His personal website is: http://www.breiteneder.pro/lyoness

Karl Hengstberger and Peter Hauser (also an attorney) have investigated Lyoness as well.

A full list of Austrian and Swiss attorneys with knowledge of the Lyoness dossier can be found here.