What Is This "topup2Rich"? Scam?

[KhunNene]

Hello there, the talk of the day for some of my thai friends is about a home business called "topup2rich". I have tried to get some info but all I find is in thai, and my friends cannot give me a satisfactory explanation. For what I can understand and for the material I have seen on the internet this biz sounds like a ponzi scheme scam and I am making my thai friends aware of it, but they do not get my explanation of a pyramid scheme scam. Any experience with this? Thanks.

[sbk]

moving to Business forum

[KED]

I don't know about this specific business "venture" but have many Thai friends who have been sucked into pyramid schemes - it is so sad to see Thai people who want to work hard and get ahead lose money to these scams.

[onthemoon]

If it sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.

I haven't read all of it yet, though. Got bored half-way through, as it definitely sounded like a scam.

[Pib]

the scams are done by yankee companies feeding on poor young innocent Thai girls. I have met several young girls caught up with these scams. The Thai authorities should do something to stop these parasites taking advantage of young people.

Your comment matches up with your ThaiVisa Member Name.

[monty]

A fair few organizers of Ponzi style programs have been caught in Thailand, and they all were Thai.

Guess it would be hard for your average foreigner to set something up gaining enough trust from Thais...

[USNret]

Over the past 5 years, my extended Thai family has gotten caught up in deals like this. They are recruited by another family member they trust. They do the math, which proves conclusively there is no way to lose money and you will get back 10x in return. All before losing whatever money they put into it.

Of course, once you join you have tremendous pressure to recruit more people which is the necessary step to get your return on investment. My wife, thankfully, understands this is always a scam & she doesn't get drawn in. I think we have succeeded in educating the rest of the family, as I haven't seen this come up again in quite a while.

[KhunNene]

In this case I understand this topup2rich is run by a Kenny Zea whom flashes Master Degree from Mahidol University, Polymer Science and Technology and he looks asian, at least to me. He is also into "vnetglobal.net" and "vnetglobal.org", all websites filled with big cars, big houses, dollars, gold, happy families, big smiles and lots of big figures.

[USNret]

In this case I understand this topup2rich is run by a Kenny Zea whom flashes Master Degree from Mahidol University, Polymer Science and Technology and he looks asian, at least to me. He is also into "vnetglobal.net" and "vnetglobal.org", all websites filled with big cars, big houses, dollars, gold, happy families, big smiles and lots of big figures.

Wow, it worked for him so it must be good. How can I give him my money?

[MrWorldwide]

In this case I understand this topup2rich is run by a Kenny Zea whom flashes Master Degree from Mahidol University, Polymer Science and Technology and he looks asian, at least to me. He is also into "vnetglobal.net" and "vnetglobal.org", all websites filled with big cars, big houses, dollars, gold, happy families, big smiles and lots of big figures.

Wow, it worked for him so it must be good. How can I give him my money?

Give to me and I'll see that Kenny gets it - Mondays are his day on the yacht with the bikini-clad women and 2 kilos of blow. Priorities, man.

[chuckd]

Old thread...but does anybody have any insight into this now?

A family member is interested but I need some hard data to prove how wrong they would be to ivest in this scheme.

[Asiantravel]

Old thread...but does anybody have any insight into this now?

A family member is interested but I need some hard data to prove how wrong they would be to ivest in this scheme.

Unbelievably scam adviser gives it a passable rating with a “ Trust Score “ of 60% (that's if you want to rely on their ratings). But as far as I'm concerned regarding any business of this nature I admit I have a pretty closed mind and I wouldn't be interested, even if you asked me to use YOUR money

http://www.scamadviser.com/is-topup2rich.com-safe.html

[chuckd]

Asiantravel:

Thanks for your reply.

[SheungWan]

These schemes are often plays on MLM which makes money by taking a cut from each new level of the pyramid scheme created.

[meatboy]

my wife knows all about these scheme's from all the publicity in the uk.she was told 2yrs ago they were doing the rounds in korat and we know of someone who fell for it big time but has kept quiet about it since,but last week the wife was approached to join one and she told the person not to get involved but too late they are already making big money.so its wait until the shit hits the pan,but will they admit you were right like fk.they just wont talk to you anymore.its just getting on the greedy train.

[pepi2005]

To me, even this "scamadviser.com" site doesn't look trustworthy.

Last refreshed : Thu, 01 Jan 1:00 am
Number times viewed :0

It is not transparent which criteria the rating is based on, and it certainly does not in-depth check those sites. We also don't know how many votes the site got - it may well be that the 60% were entered by a top2rich employee (or I'd rather guess, he entered 100%, and 1 real visitor 20% )

The top2rich.com site itself looks cheap and ugly, like a copy & paste site created by a 'skilled secretary' or one of the top figures in the scheme. Certainly not a professional presentation or company. Horrible typos, dead links, missing images. And a gmail contact address??? Come on. Whoever 'invests' money with them or even installs their untrusted, unverified .apk downloadable from their website on their smartphones (any thought given on why they didn't submit it to Google Play? ... or was it declined? if so, why?), must be very naive and have not learned any lesson by Nigeria scam letters or 'You won in the Google Lottery' scams. Which may indeed apply to the average Thai person.

p.s. there is a Youtube video giving an introduction in the scheme in Thai, but even if you don't speak it, it gives some ideas that the "topup2rich" money is supposed to be generated via mobile payment. The last slides indicate that indeed, the system seems to work like a pyramid scheme, and typically for such schemes, almost every page contains buzzwords like "rich", "millionaire", "Elite Member", "Superior Member", "Billionaire club" etc. etc., you get the idea.

Edited April 27, 2014 by pepi2005