I recently joined the scheme and was interested in doing a background check. What I found was a bit disturbing.



This is what Wikipedia has to say

МММ was a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes of all time, in the 1990s. By different estimates from 5 to 40 million people lost up to $10 billion. The exact figures are not known even to the founders.

History
MMM was established in 1989 by Sergei Mavrodi,[2] his brother Vyacheslav Mavrodi, and Olga Melnikova. The name of the company was taken from the first letters of the three founders' surnames.

Initially, the company imported computers and office equipment. In January 1992, tax police accused MMM of tax evasion, leading to the collapse of MMM-bank, and causing the company to have difficulty obtaining financing to support its operations. Faced with difficulties in funding its foreign trade, the company switched to the financial sector. It offered American stocks to Russian investors, but met with little success. Later, MMM-Invest was created for the purpose of collecting vouchers during privatisation. This effort was similarly unsuccessful.

MMM created its successful Ponzi scheme in 1994. The company started attracting money from private investors, promising annual returns of up to one thousand percent. It is unclear whether a Ponzi scheme was Mavrodi's initial intention, inasmuch as such extravagant returns might have been possible during the Russian hyperinflation in such commerce as import-export.[citation needed]

MMM grew rapidly. In February 1994, the company reported dividends of 1,000%, and started an aggressive TV ad campaign. Since the shares were not quoted on any stock exchange and the company itself determined the share price, it maintained a steady price growth of thousands of percent annually, leading the public to believe its shares were a safe and profitable investment.

An important factor in the scheme's success was word of mouth, but most of the company's success came from its extremely aggressive ad campaign, which appealed to the general public by using "ordinary" characters that viewers could identify with. The most famous of them, a "folk hero" of early 1994, was Lyonya Golubkov. Another notable marketing effort was a giveaway of free Metro trips to all Moscow citizens on a particular day. MMM also was one of the first well-known companies in Russia with a logotype and slogans ("Flying from shadow to the light" and others).

At its peak the company was taking in more than 100 billion rubles (about 50 million USD) each day from the sale of its shares to the public. Thus, the cashflow turnover at the MMM central office in Moscow was so high that it could not be estimated. The management started to count money in roomfuls (1 roomful of money, 2 roomfuls of money, etc.).

Regular publication in the media of the rising MMM share price led President Boris Yeltsin to issue a decree in June 1994 prohibiting financial institutions from publicising their expected income.

The success of MMM in attracting investors led to the creation of other similar companies, including Tibet, Chara, Khoper-Invest, Selenga, Telemarket, and Germes. All of these companies were characterised by aggressive television advertising and extremely high promised rates of return. One company promised annual returns of 30,000%.

On July 22, 1994, the police closed the offices of MMM for tax evasion. For a few days the company attempted to continue the scheme, but soon ceased operations. At that point, Invest-Consulting, one of the company's subsidiaries, owed more than 50 billion rubles in taxes (USD 26 million), and MMM itself owed between 100 billion and 3 trillion rubles to the investors (from USD 50 million to USD 1.5 billion). In the aftermath at least 50 investors, having lost all of their money, committed suicide.

Several organisations of "deceived investors" made efforts to recover their lost investments, but Sergei Mavrodi manipulated their indignation and directed it at the government. In August 1994 Mavrodi was arrested for tax evasion. However, he was soon elected to the Russian State Duma, with the support of the "deceived investors". He argued that the government, not MMM, was responsible for people losing their money, and promised to initiate a pay-back program. The amount ultimately paid back was minuscule compared to the amount owed.

In October 1995, the Duma cancelled Mavrodi's right to immunity as a deputy. In 1996, he tried to run for Russia's presidency, but most of the signatures he received were rejected. MMM declared bankruptcy on September 22, 1997.

While it was believed that Sergei Mavrodi left Russia and moved to the United States, it is possible that he stayed in Moscow, using his money to change apartments regularly and employ a group of former special agents. With the help of a distant relative he started Stock Generation Ltd., another pyramid scheme based around trading non-existent companies' stocks in a form of the "stock exchange game" on the company's site, stockgeneration.com. Despite a bold-letter warning on the main page that the site was not a real stock exchange, between 20,000 and 275,000 people, according to various estimates, fell for the promised 200% returns and lost their money. According to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, losses of victims were at least USD 5.5 million.

Mavrodi was found and arrested in 2003. While in custody, Mavrodi was given until January 31, 2006 to read the documents in his fraud case against him (The criminal case consisted of 650 volumes, each 250-270 pages long).[citation needed] At the end of April 2007, Mavrodi was convicted of fraud, and given a sentence of four and a half years. Since he had already spent over four years in custody, he was released less than a month later, on May 22, 2007. He later went on to creating yet another pyramid scheme called MMM-2011.

The MMM scandal led to increased regulation of the Russian stock market, but the legacy of the fraud led many to become extremely suspicious of any joint stock companies.

In 2015 MMM began operating in South Africa with the same business model as MMM-2011, claiming a "30% per month" return through a "social financial network".[3] The group was identified as a possible pyramid scheme by the National Consumer Commission and accounts of clients were later frozen by Capitec Bank.[4] In response to mounting criticism and official investigations by state authorities in 2016 supporters of the South African MMM scheme staged a protest march in Johannesburg.[5]

In 2016, MMM launched a website targeting the Nigerian audience

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company)

you can get more information by checking the news section of Google
If you can risk is, the ball in in your court

The present day mmm is different.
Money is paid into peoples account not mmm's. Its just a cycle of money being paid from one participants account to another.
And how does mmm make their money? From the traffic their site generates. So I dnt think there is a high risk like the times os 'wonder banks'.

My thoughts though. I might be wrong or right!

Business is a risk!

Yeah, I quite agree with you.
I have provided and received help on the scheme.
Still I know many will rush blindly into it without taking time to read the handwriting on the wall. SPARE MONEY not your expected salary.
So as to avoid stories that touch the heart

The new MMM is different. Peer to peer. I love one thing the continual use of MMM not changing or hiding. Use your spear money. There is love in sharing.

Bro what you see on Wikipedia was not written buy super - humans, whenever it comes to making money online I have learnt that it's always a risk, you just have to know that, do your own research and trust your guts.

someone recently told me about this MMM,but I was scared (even though it looks safe) because of my bad experience with some of these Hyip in the past.I wish the Mod.can push this tread to front-page so people can throw more light on it.

I have been doing this for over three months now and guess what, I've withdrawn more than 200k, every business is a risk or u get no reward. I could upload pics..

whizbee:
I have been doing this for over three months now and guess what, I've withdrawn more than 200k, every business is a risk or u get no reward. I could upload pics..

yea..show the pics..

My friend has been begging me to join. He said its real, he even showed me his alert.. But dunno y am still scared... Hw authentic is dis thing bikonu

THANKS A LOT FOR THE INFO

NIGERIANS WITH POVERTY OF THE MIND............I SEE THIS PONZI SHIT DIEING SOON

CANT POEPLE THINK I CAN RUN SORT. PEOPLE SAY MEMBER TO MEMBER PAYMENT . ITS VERY EASY FOR ME TO HAVE JUST A SINGLE GUY AMONG THE MMM MEMBERS THAT WILL ONLY BE GETTING HELP GRADUALLY AND SLOWLY UNTIL I MILK ALL U ASS HOLES DRY 30% INTERST IN A MONTH......WITH THIS GLOBAL CRISIS ........WELL KIF ANYONE IS FORTUNATE TO GIVE HELP AND RECEIVE HELP YOU BETTER WATCH AND NOT ALLOW THE SPIRIT OF POVERTY THAT IS FLOWING AROUND MANY NOW PUT YOU IN LOOSING ALL.... I PRAY NO ONE WILL COMMIT SUICIDE AFTER

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seighapaul:
[b]They've been lot of controversies and incredible success stories about the brand new and raging MMM scheme. I just want to give my own unbiased review to all these news flying about.

About the founder and the passed alleged scam. I think what really happened was that the first generation of MMM was a scheme designed and operated on PONZI model, where a central account was operated and managed. A ponzi scheme will certainly always crash in either of these two ways; (1) the organisers disappears with all the monies, or (2) the system grows exponentially so large, it collapse in this own weight. I think the latter (second reason) was what happened to the founder of MMM last time.

Majority of Nigerians just engage in lip service, blindly following their leaders, without thinking and researching information. Critics will shout MMM is scam by giving biased evidence of previous schemes that have crashed, but they never critically researched why these schemes crashed. Above, I gave u two major reasons. Now ask yourself this important question; "HAS ANYONE IN NIGERIAN BEEN SCAMMED BY MMM?" I can't speak for anyone, but am yet to hear about a verified scam MMM story in Nigeria.

THE FUTURE OF MMM: Now remember I mentioned MMM was borne from an inherited ponzi scheme that crashed on its own weight years ago. Over the years, I think MMM has continually restructure and improve on service delivery. I believe the selling point of MMM today in Nigeria is the "No central account" policy of the scheme. A central account policy is what makes all MLM (Multi Level Marketing) and ponzi schemes susceptible to fraud or imminent system collapse.

MMM will eventually collapse either in the near or distance future, but it will be unfair for someone to tagged the current trending scheme a SCAM when no one has claimed to be unfairly treated or scammed. Always abide by the safe online business policy of investing what you can afford to loose and also, "enter early and leave early".[/b]

Good & broad view. Well analysed

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