Austria denies responsibility for its ignorant complicity

What was supposed to be D-day for anyone interested in the Lyoness story, turned into a bitter disappointment. On the day on which the Austrian Ministers of Finance and Justice were legally required to answer to the parliamentary inquiries filed by Gerhard Huber, member of the Austrian parliament for the BZÖ, it became clear that the Austrian government could not care less about the racket developing under their very noses for almost a decade, scamming 3 million people out of billions of euros worldwide.

The answers provided by both Ministers, which they waited to provide for 2 months, until the last day before the statutory deadline, were outrageously short and of an abominable quality, to say the very least. Beatrix Karl, Austrian Minister of Justice, came to the conclusion that the Austrian authorities have dealt with the Lyoness racket satisfactory, and crushed the dreams of millions of victims that they could count on government support in their strive for the retribution they deserve, as well as of millions of Austrian citizens believing they live in a country where justice is served.

Next to referring to her own answers to earlier questions, which contain little more than summed-up, irrelevant facts, Karl is of the opinion that anyone deliberately scammed out of his or her life savings by these racketeers, with the apparent approval of the Austrian government, has to take action him or herself to redeem the money. The Austrian authorities occupied with the investigation of Lyoness, which have been working on this case for quite a while now, will need a lot more time to conclude their investigation - and can therefore not be counted on by the victims of the Lyoness racket.

Beatrix Karl:

"To the number 14535/J-NR/2013:

Member of parliament Gerhard Huber, and his colleagues filed a written request with the subject "the growing number of victims of Lyoness".

I answer these question as follows:

To questions 1, 2, 11, 12, 15 and 16:

First, I refer to the reply to the earlier answers to questions filed by Gerhard Huber and his colleagues, concerning "the Lyoness system", with the number 11785/J-NR/2012 and concerning "allegations and confusion about Lyoness", with the number 13277/J-NR/2012.

The public prosecutor for economic and corruption has not yet finished its investigation. I ask for your understanding I cannot answer questions about the results of an ongoing investigation, as that could jeopardise the rights of the injured parties and the future success of unfinished investigations. Speaking of whether criminal investigations are conducted against certain persons would also violate data protection regulations.

To questions 3, 13 and 14:

In the area of ​​civil law legislature the justice department cannot take action for the benefit of victims. Civil claims are the responsibility of the injured themselves, and they should pursue their own interests in individual cases in front of independent courts.

To questions 4 to 10:

For the requested statistics, I refer to the answer to the questions of parliament member Johann Maier and his colleagues, with the subject "Judicial proceedings pursuant to § 168a of the Criminal Code", with the numbers 4128/J-NR/2006, 557/J-NR/2007, 93727/J-NR/2008, 1153/J-NR/2009, 5050/JNR/2010, 8200/J-NR/2011, 12054 / J -NR/2012 and 14230/J-NR/2013."

http://www.plattform-lyoness.at/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=972

The Minister of Finance, Maria Theresia Fekter, has not got any better news for the victims and unconsciously admits that she has not fully understood the Lyoness racket - comparing the Lyoness membership with a 'hobby' and generally describing the fraudulent 'advance payments' as a way to acquire a 'future customer base'. Perhaps Fekter should have a look around and study the subject a bit more intensively.

Maria Theresia Fekter:

To the written parliamentary questions filed under number 14534 / J of 25 April 2013, filed by parliament member Gerhard Huber and his colleagues:

To the questions 1, 4 to 6, and 7:

Due to the tax law confidentiality rules, in accordance with § 48a of the Federal Fiscal Code (BAO), no information may be shared about the implementation of the specific methods of delivery or fiscal court proceedings.

Additionally it should be noted that to ensure a stable revenue in times of budget cutbacks, the protection of taxpayers' money and a high tax morale are essential. As part of an effective and efficient detection and prosecution of tax evasion and fraud in any form, intensive cooperation between authorities at both national and international levels are required.

To question 5:

Concrete facts about ongoing investigations cannot be provided to the parliament. In the following text, the tax treatment of payments for the acquisition of market share or a customer base in general are described:

Basically, it is assumed that the consideration of advance payments for the acquisition of market share in future commission income, will render potential future customers. A contribution to a customer base is thus made, yet the details of the payment date are not yet known. The exact amount of the deposit of the member has no direct influence on the future customers, the resulting influent commissions are unknown and can not be influenced by the member.

With the deposit therefore a future customer base is acquired. Its acquisition is, however, only at the time prior to the first commission from this customer base actually accrue. According to the Income Tax Regulations 2000, Rz 523 expenses for the acquisition of a customer base are a capitalisation of a portion of the representing business or goodwill. Therefore, the payments for the acquisition of a market share (customer) are not tax-deductible immediately, but according to §8, paragraph 3, of the Income Tax Act of 1988 mandatory tax should be considered as distributed over 15 years. However, the depreciation begins
to run when the first commission from the acquired market shares in the position (settlement) lands on the account. If a taxpayer claims losses, in any case it will have to be examined whether a hobby was responsible for these losses."

This is all quite funny if one considers that Lyoness has been hiding in plain view for a decade now, and was spotted by - and brought to the attention of the Austrian government and authorities in 2004 (!!!). For almost a decade, less than nothing was undertaken to stop or forbid the racket and prevent millions of people worldwide from being scammed out of their money, and now, when the fairy tale falls to pieces, the Austrian government waives all responsibility and leaves its tax-paying, legitimacy-providing citizens (of which more than 470,000 were enticed to hand over their money to the Lyoness racketeers), which are legally their only source of power and whom they are supposed to represent and protect, standing in the cold.

Victims seeking financial retribution for their damages might have a better shot using the civil courts for suing the Austrian state, which is largely responsible for the harm done to them, than to sue the effectively bankrupt Lyoness racket, which will make sure it has not got a single traceable dime to repay its deceived 'members'. It may also be more effective than desperately trying to peddle their valueless positions for a strongly discounted price on eBay.

P.S. Did anyone else notice the familiar hand gesture of both Ministers?

The Lyoness racket is effectively bankrupt

People who have been reading the content of this Blog may be aware that the memberships and investments peddled by Lyoness are effectively valueless and constitute nothing more than the right of participation in - and handing over money to - an obviously fraudulent racket, as well as the right to dupe others into doing the same.

It is also known that Lyoness has been using obvious, unoriginal methods of deception to give its racket a legitimate air, designed to switch off the critical and evaluative faculties of the people considering to participate in the racket, as well as any casual observer (including government regulators, politicians, media and certification agencies), and to make them believe that Lyoness is a legitimate company, hosting a mutually beneficial shopping community.

Although the majority of these lies have already been demolished and are no longer maintainable by the Lyoness racketeers and the deluded adherents, it has been hard for the Lyoness sceptics and opponents to effectively destroy the delusion that Lyoness is a successful, growing enterprise, for the financial administration of the mystifying labyrinth of corporate structures active under the collective noun 'Lyoness' has shown nothing but a growing number of members, partner companies and, consequentially, turnover.

Of course, it has been reported that Lyoness has been filing the investments made by its members as debt, mainly for tax purposes. What has been glanced over largely is that these investments do indeed constitute a liability for the Lyoness racket. Indeed, the members have been promised incredible returns on their investments, which are supposed to stay within a system and could never disappear for they officially constitute a down payment on the future purchase of gift vouchers. Therefore, next to the growth in participation and turnover, the amount of future financial obligations (i.e. debt) grows at an equal pace.

Additionally, what the overall financial figures do not tell, is that when looking at local markets (and Lyoness branches) individually, participation and turnover do not grow everywhere, but just in countries where Lyoness is newly introduced to the general public. As soon as it has been introduced in a country, the amount of members increases rapidly, and so does the turnover. However, when the market becomes saturated (i.e. no more people are interested in handing over their money to Lyoness) and, consequentially, criticism starts to appear on local forums and Blogs, the growth rate stagnates and eventually declines entirely.

Since most 'developed' countries have been entered by Lyoness, this pattern starts to show in the overall picture of the 'company' too. In an attempt to avert the inevitable disastrous collapse of Lyoness (and there with, the dreams of 3,000,000 members), Freidl has therefore moved his racket into countries where people often own insufficient funds to buy proper food. It is doubtful whether those countries will produce a sufficient amount of investors to keep the Lyoness racket up and running for much longer, unless Freidl has found a devious way to benefit from developmental aid, much like Herbalife has been pulling off in recent years.

In early entered countries like Switzerland, the turnover has already been reported to decrease, resulting in a situation in which the turnover (and/or assets) of (for instance) Lyoness Switzerland does no longer cover the incredible amount of debt that Lyoness Switzerland has built up in earlier years. So far, such gaps have been filled up with illicit earnings from newly entered countries, where the membership rates and turnover grow immensely. However, this system will no longer offer a way out when the Lyoness racket runs out of countries to expand to, and therefore, looses its source of revenue. Unless Freidl thinks of a way to considerably increase the inflow money into Lyoness (which he could do by starting a new racket, having his current followers put in additional investments, or maybe by convincing at least some of his members to go shopping once in a while), the Lyoness racket will soon fully collapse - for now it remains effectively bankrupt.

'There are idiots everywhere...'

Under the motto 'there are idiots everywhere' ('deppen gibt es überall', a reference to 'Gemma Deppen Suchen', 'go find me idiots', which is how Hubert Freidl referred to his earlier racket 'GTS'), Lyoness has expanded its racket into developing countries like Somalia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Sudan and Saudi Arabia.

Apparently, the Lyoness racket is running out of 'idiots' in the developed world, - the term Hubert Freidl uses to denote his followers - and is now looking for more 'idiots' amongst the poorest people of the world and is looking to steal the money of people who often cannot afford decent housing, food or water. However, they will now at least get a minor discount while attempting to fulfil these primary needs.

The mystery is how Freidl plans to attract enough capital from these 'idiots' to cover the immense financial gaps he has been dropping in the rest of the world, but perhaps he will - like his American friends over at Herbalife - find a way to abuse systems designed to bring development to these countries. Charity does seem to be the core business of Lyoness after all...

It's all our fault...

Through the comments we have received from several severely deluded Lyoness members, we have understood that apparently it is not clear to all readers of our blog that the Lyoness racket is in the state of collapse.

If all the information we have uploaded here did not convince you, well, then let the Lyoness instigators tell it themselves:

"[The publishing of television episodes and other stories about Lyoness] may cause a mass exodus of customers, business partners and employees. There will be an irretrievable loss of confidence [in Lyoness] of customers, business partners and employees. Lyoness' economic reputation was permanently damaged by [Plattform Lyoness]."

What we don't understand is: how could 'a bunch of unsuccessful, anonymous losers with a free Blog that anyone could make', take down such 'a powerful, legitimate company, based on the pure power (through a brilliant, ingenious system) of never-ending consumption'? Maybe the system was not flawless after all?

No, that is of course a preposterous suggestion. Its imminent ruination cannot possibly be Lyoness' own fault - so it must be the sceptics', spreading 'filthy lies' about this Austrian masterpiece without allowing any of the poor masterminds behind it a chance to speak up for themselves and explain that we are completely wrong and out of line (probably they forgot that Vorbach had nothing to say about the ORF Report episodes, and that Freidl declined to comment entirely). Also, if anyone is disappointed, they must have been misinformed by a rogue distributor, who did not follow the guidelines and decided to deviate from the proven plan which guarantees success (in the form of financial freedom).

Readers of this Blog should be aware that this type of convulsions is common for a fraud that has had its best days. It's the fault of everyone, except the instigators or the system. If the Austrian authorities will move on a bit and finally forbid the Lyoness racket for what it is (and hold the responsibles to account) before it implodes and disappears into a new, copycat racket, it will definitely be the fault of the authorities - who 'robbed their citizens from the opportunity to be finally independent and fully happy and wealthy'.

Gerhard Huber promises to continue fighting Lyoness

After years of failing to stop or even fully notice and identify the Lyoness racket, recently the Austrian political interest in Lyoness (and consequently, some similar scams) has considerably increased. The Austrian 'Green' party has openly criticised the Austrian authorities for their lax performance in stopping the Lyoness racket and bringing its authors to justice. Also, Gerhard Huber, member of the Austrian parliament, has recently posed questions to the Austrian ministers of Justice and Finance about Lyoness and the (lax) response of the Austrian authorities on Lyoness' seemingly unchallenged continued worldwide fraud expansion.

Plattform Lyoness reports that the answers of the ministers will come in on Tuesday (25 June). In the mean time, Plattform Lyoness reports to have received an email from Gerhard Huber in which he declares his continuous support for the cause of the founders of the victim's interest group and promises to continue his political fight against the 'company':

---
"Subject: Leitbetriebe Österreich

Dear ladies and gentlemen, 

first of all I must thank you for sending all the information, and I want to apologise for my late reply. Mr Bucher has forwarded me your email about Leitbetriebe Österreich, because I follow the case of Lyoness for quite some time now and have already posed several questions to different government ministers. 

I have therefore read your writings with greatest interest and I can assure you that I will continue to work on the case of Lyoness with all available parliamentary means. As an example I have attached the most recent questions to this email. A response is required by the statutory deadlines before 25.06.2013. You will be able to find the responses at the following links: 

http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/J/J_14534/index.shtml

http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/J/J_14535/index.shtml

Kind regards, 

Gerhard Huber 
Member of the National Parliament"
---

We're curious.

Lyoness vouchers unavailable in Hungary?

Yesterday, Plattform Lyoness reported that the vouchers that Lyoness continues to peddle down-payments on to its deluded Hungarian followers at the following companies, are no longer available:

- Baumax 

- Hervis 

- Hunguest 

- Internet Mall Hungary

- KIKA 

- Media Markt 

- Müller

- Oázis 

- OMV 

- Praktiker 

- Vögele

In other words, Lyoness victims who have put down advance payments on vouchers for these companies, will probably not be able to use their vouchers if they ever actually receive them (that is, if they bring in enough new victims). Of course, it is scant consolation that the actual vouchers are irrelevant to the systems operated by the Lyoness racketeers. The vouchers merely serve as a redundant disguise, designed to cover up the pyramid scheme.

American managing director of Lyoness convicted fraudster?

Follow @antilyoness

Plattform Lyoness has just reported the breaking news that managing director of Lyoness Americas, Mario Hoffmann, was formerly involved in the convicted Austrian pyramid scheme 'DESCO'. According to their information, Hoffmann and three accomplices were found guilty of operating the scam. 'DESCO' was hiding behind a redundant and apparently not-existing corporate front that organised 'seminars' of all sorts.

Particularly many young Austrians were enticed to invest thousands of euros for the promise of incredible future rewards, if they would only bring in their family and friends. Much like Lyoness now, 'DESCO' had a controversial reputation at best, before being completely wiped out, with the Chambers of Labour of Wien and Niederösterreich, several established media and even members of parliament questioning the 'company's' motives.

There is reason to believe that the same scam formerly operated under the name 'DESCO' persisted long afterwards, perhaps with the same people (informally) running it.