NAME : NEHA SHARMA

ROLL NO:2011151 DIV : C

PROJECT ON SPEAKASIA SCAM

INTRODUCTION

 Company Background:

The company name is: SpeakAsia Online Pte Ltd.formerly known as : Haren Technology Pte. Ltd.formerly known as: PAN Automotives Pte. Ltd.

(Compliance rating for this company is Non Compliant currently)

Prior to this name they were operating under:

HAREN VENTURES PTE. LTD.f.k.a HAREN AUTO PARTS PTE. LTD.f.k.a HAREN MULTICONSULT TRADE SERVICES PTE. LTD.

Surveys cut the risk of product failure to a large extent as it enables companies to understand the psyche of their customers. They provide companies with valuable customer information. This, in turn, helps them get an edge over the competition, and come up with successful products and services from time to time

In the past, organizations employed market research firms to conduct surveys for their products and services. These agencies, in turn, hired marketing executives who acted as an interface to the prospects. In spite of investing their precious time, these prospects got little or no reimbursements for their valuable opinion. But now, things have changed. Speak Asia have created a paradigm shift in research by eliminating the need of executives for conducting surveys. They pass on this benefit directly to prospective customers like you. All you need to do is, give us your valuable opinion. And get paid. Big Time!

Speak Asia is a survey driven website, where you can participate in surveys and Earn Online from Bangladesh. Speak Asia gives you an opportunity to make your opinion heard by different organizations and making money for your honest opinions. Speak Asia Online understands that our opinion is valuable. We get rewarded for our honest opinion and the time we take out to respond to the surveys of their clients.

Previously companies employed market research firms to conduct surveys for their products and services. These agencies, in turn, hired marketing executives who acted as an interface to the prospects. Frankly speaking, in spite of investing their precious time, these prospects got little or no reimbursements for their valuable opinion. But things have changed now. Speak Asia has eliminated the need of executives for conducting surveys and who got benefit out of it, prospective customers like us. Following graph may also help you understand it:

Also, the decision taken will help in future designing of other products. With technology coming into picture it is reasonable easy to target the customers through the internet which makes it easy to gather report at a very fast pace. Online Surveys is considered as one of the fastest ways to reach the customers and capture their opinion.

“Speak Asia” online gives an opportunity to everyone to raise their opinion and what’s more they have a value to their opinion. Speak Asia Programs:

Speak Asia Programs:

There are 2 programs available now:

1. Online Survey

2. Referral Program

Requirements of Participating in Speak Asia Programs:

• Basic English knowledge

• Valid e-mail account

• Webpage browsing experience

• Internet access

• Speak Asia Membership

Membership Type

There are 2 types of membership in Speak Asia. 

1. Basic Membership

2. Premium Membership

Membership Process:

• Step 1: Online registration at SpeakAsiaOnline.com paying $ 20 = 1,400/- Tk.• Step 2: Buy a Survey Panel with $ 200 = 14,000/- Tk. Then your membership will be upgraded to Premium Membership.

How Online Survey Program Works:

• Step 1: Online Registration: First you have to register in SpeakAsiaOnline.com paying $20 = 1,400/- (Note: You can open maximum 3 accounts with one E-mail ID).• Step 2: Upgrade Membership: You have to buy a Survey Panel by $200 = 14,000/- (Each Panel contains 104 Surveys). Buying a Survey Panel will upgrade your membership to Premium Membership. (Note: You can buy 10 Panels under one registered account.)• Step 3: Complete the Surveys: Every week you will be requested to participate in 2 surveys (products and services available in Bangladesh) for one panel. You will be getting these requests for 52 weeks (1 year). After completion of each survey you will get $10 = BDT 700/-. So, you can earn $20 = 1,400/- Tk. in every week and $1040 = 72,800/- in a year for buying one survey panel. You can multiply your income buying more Survey Panel. So, if you buy 10 panel then you can earn $200 = 14,000/- weekly and $10,400 = 7,28,000/- yearly.• Step 4: Withdraw Money: You can transfer your earnings/money to your Bank Account with automated/manual instruction at any time.

How Referral Program Works?

Only Premium Members are eligible for referral program. They can earn 2 ways from affiliate programs.

Earning

1: You will get $20 = 1,400/- for sponsoring each Premium Membership.Earning 2: You can earn developing your LEFT Hand Team and RIGHT Hand Team. If one Registered Member from both of your hands upgraded as Panalist/Premium Member then you will get $20 = 1400/- Tk.

*** If you wish you can be a millionier with this referral program***

Necessary Information for Speak Asia Online Membership:

Full Name (Block Capital), Address, Date of birth, Contact No., Nominee Name & relationship, Nominee Contact details & number, Bank Details ( Acct. No, Name, Bank name), E-mail address 

WHAT WENT WRONG??Based on a subscription model, Speak Asia collected Rs 11,000 from each member. The members were then paid for completing the surveys commissioned by various companies.While many companies deny commissioning such surveys, the Mumbai police estimates that the total amount collected could well be over Rs 1320 croreAn MLM company that claims to be Asia’s largest online survey company, does not even have an office address or a telephone number but is offering to ‘pay’ $10 just for filling out online surveys

Speak Asia Online, which claims to be based in Singapore, is spreading its multi-level marketing (MLM) wings in India under the pretext of online surveys. As is usual in any MLM scheme, this company also makes big claims about earnings, but fails to provide any documentary evidence for the same.

The company asks new customers or subscribers to pay $120 (standard) or $220 (premium) for becoming a panellist for one year. However, it says the fee is for its e-bulletin for one year. It clearly says: "You can remain a panellist and earn from Speak Asia only as long as your subscription to E-Bulletin is in force." This means, before earning a single penny, you need to pay the company upfront. After the one-year period, one needs to renew the subscription. There is no mention of renewal fees.

Speak Asia Online sends its surveys mostly on Wednesday to all subscribers. Each survey takes around 40 minutes to complete. It says: "The first eight weeks are treated as a training period and the company provides you feedback on incorrectly filled surveys." After that period, any incomplete or incorrect surveys are rejected and the company does not pay for it.

The company assures that it will make the payment in local currency through direct bank transfers. The catch here is that one has to pay bank transfer charges of 3% or minimum $7.5 per payment. In case you have earned $10 for the month, you would get payment of $2.5 only, as $7.5 from the total payment would get deducted as bank transfer charges.

Speak Asia Online says it provides income in reward points (one reward point is $1). It awards up to seven reward points per week for a standard panellist and 20 reward points to a premium panellist. It offers survey income as well as passive income that one earns by adding more people into a down-line. However, for the next day's incentive calculations, it does not consider the weaker line. It says: "Weaker leg is flushed out whereas the stronger leg is always carried forward for next day's incentive calculation."

Although the company offers to pay for filling out surveys online, it fails to mention that for doing this job one requires minimum knowledge of English and the Internet.

Speakasiaonline.com is hosted in the US on the GoDaddy.com server and the hosting services will expire on 21 January 2011. Besides that, there is no information available on the domain, its owners, their addresses and contact details.

The company website does provide links for all countries and major cities but directs all queries to its Singapore address only, which neither has a telephone number nor any email ID. Except India, the so called 'good income business opportunity' does not exist for other countries.

According to a complaint posted on India-complaints.com, this company has changed its name three times over the past five years and is blacklisted for non-compliance in Singapore.

Its website, speakasiaonline.com does have a link for legal documents but provides the legal documents not of the company but generic documents from the Customs Department, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and so on.

Speak Asia Online shows no evidence about the legality of its business or any registration certificate issued by government authorities. All the company can show as evidence is a registration certificate issued by the Singapore government. The issuing authority of this certificate, Registrar of Companies and Businesses, however, has clearly stated that the certificate of good standing or any of its contents shall not be reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted or otherwise distributed in any way without prior permission of the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), Singapore.

In addition, there is no mention of its promoter or top management on the site. In fact, there are no names on the website. All one can see is just names of its 'dealers' and their bank account numbers.

IMPLICATIONS

The Speak Asia compensation plan offers panelists four ways to generate an income and revolves around ‘reward points’.Reward points are generated when panelists complete weekly surveys and tasks for Speak Asia and also when panelists are successful in recruiting other panelists to the company.Reward points are attributed to individual panelists and within Speak Asia’s compensation plan, have a dollar value of 1 reward point = $1 USD.Here are the four components to Speak Asia’s compensation plan;

Residual CommissionSpeak Asia Online’s residual commissions reward members directly each time they successfully recruit panelists to the company. As long as these panelists remain active within the company, you gain reward points each week.For each Standard Panelist you refer, you gain 1 reward point a week.For each Premium Panelist you refer, you gain 3 reward points a week.

Direct CommissionDirect commissions are paid out to Speak Asia members as follows;10 reward points for each Standard Panelist you refer and 20 reward points for each Premium Panelist you refer.Note that this is a once off commission and is not recurring.

Team Bonus 1Speak Asia’s Team Bonus 1 operates on the basis of referral points.For each Standard Panelist you recruit (and each Standard Panelist they in turn recruit and so on and so forth), you gain 100 referral points.For each Premium Panelist you recruit (and each Premium Panelist they in turn recruit and so on and so forth), you gain 200 referral points.This is also where the binary component of the compensation plan comes into play. A binary plan has two ‘arms’ and as you recruit more panelists to the company they are placed underneath you on either arm (the arm with less panelists is favoured to balance things out).Taking referral points into consideration then, each side has its own referral point tally.For example, if you have 3 directly recruited Standard Panelists on your left arm, and 5 on your right arm, this generates 300 referral points on your left and 500 on your right.Team Bonus 1 is paid out when these referral points match up by factors of 200. This is called a ‘pair’

With 300 points on your left and 500 on your right, you have one pair with 100 points left over on your left and 300 on your right.For each pair that you generate, you receive 20 reward points ($20 USD).Team Bonus 1 is paid out daily but does have a daily cap of 20 pairs able to be generated. 20 pairs generates 400 reward points which means the daily payout cap of Team Bonus 1 is $400.Note however that to reach this cap you and your binary team would have to be recruiting 80 Standard Panelists, 40 Premium Panelists or a combination of the two per day.At the end of each day only the stronger arm (the one with more leftover points) is carried over. The other weaker arm is reset to 0 referral points daily. This does reduce somewhat the amount of recruits you need to bring to the company to reach the Team Bonus 1 cap, but you still need to build referral points on your weaker arm daily from 0.This effectively limits your Team Bonus 1 to however many new recruits you can bring to Speak Asia daily.Note that in recruiting new panelists to Speak Asia, this includes the qualification process and depends on whether or not your recruits are successful in their applications to join Speak Asia. Merely referring people to the company is not enough.

Team Bonus 2Team Bonus 2 is an additional reward point payout based again on the direct amount of referral points you and your binary team generate daily.You are awarded a ‘match point’ for each referral point that ‘matches up’ on both arms of your binary team.Team Bonus 2 operates on a payout table and depending on which level of the table your generated referral points falls on, this determines your daily payout in reward points.The table is as follows;Level 1: 400 match points (400/400) = 40 reward points ($40 USD)Level 2: 800 match points (800/800) = 80 reward points ($80 USD)Level 3: 1600 match points (1600/1600) = 160 reward points ($160 (USD)Level 4: 3200 match points (3200/3200) = 320 reward points ($320 USD)Level 5: 6400 match points (6400/6400) = 640 reward points ($640 USD)Level 6: 12800 match points (12800/12800) = 1280 reward points ($1280 USD)Level 7: 25600 match points (25600/25600) = 2560 reward points ($2560 USD)Level 8: 51200 match points (51200/51200) = 5120 reward points ($5120 USD)At level one you and your binary team would need to be recruiting 8 Standard Panelists a day (or 4 Premium Panelists) whilst at level eight, the requirement is 1024 Standard Panelists a day (or 512 Premium Panelists).

Speak Asia’s Indian CEO, Manoj Kumar was last seenin a video published to Youtube by an anonymous account on October 11th, 2011. In the video Kumar made a bunch of promises but to date none of them have been followed through.

Despite Speak Asia facing battles across multiple legal fronts to prove it isn’t a ponzi scheme and fighting for its very existence in India, Manoj Kumar (photo right)has remained in hiding overseas.

Having fled India shortly after the RBI announced they would be investigating the company, despite a re-assurance he would be back in India by the end of May, Kumar instead chose to hide.

A few days ago a BehindMLM reader contacted me asking me to review a company for them. The company in question was called ‘Mister Colibri’, which is Portuguese for ‘Mister Hummingbird’.

The reader was under the suspicion that Mister Colibri was being run by the same people who launched failed MLM scam ‘The AdMatrix‘ in India.

The AdMatrix launched in India in late 2010 and by early September 2011 had collapsed with the owners going into hiding. Commonly accepted as the owner of AdMatrix is a one Mr. Ram Sumiran Pal.

Upon the collapse of Speak Asia, last we heard Ram Sumiran Pal was hiding in a hotel in Mumbai India with his brother, Ram Niwas Pal. Since then it’s been mentioned that Ram (Ramnivas/Ram Niwas) Pal and Sumiran Pal are the actual brothers involved, and Satish Pal is their friend. Whatever the case, these three men appear in one way or another to be involved in the running of the AdMatrix.All accounts of survey and research company, Speak Asia, have been closed by the Singapore-based United Overseas Bank in India and Singapore. The multi-level marketing company is facing seriousallegations of fraud.

This development will lead thousands of members in Chhattisgarh and 19 lakh in India to bear huge losses.The AGM of Reserve Bank of India, R Maheshwari, has made it clear that Speak Asia has not been granted permission to carry out its operations in India.All the offices of the company in the city, including the main office in Katoratalab, have been closed. Several members of the company have filed written complaint with IG Mukesh Gupta and SSP Dipanshu Kabra against Speak Asia.

The investors have said that after the closure of company’s account the payment has been stopped and they are not receiving the SMS from Speak Asia which

they used to get earlier.Over 50 thousand people from Raipur, Bhilai, Durg, Rajnandgaon, Bilaspur, Jagdalpur and several other districts had invested Rs 150 crore in Speak Asia.Speak Asia is the company where consumers pay around Rs 11,000 for a membership which will allow them to conduct some surveys online for the firm.

The members also get paid for filling those surveys. It is believed that the Rs 11,000 investment could be recovered within three months.

latest updates of speak Asia

speak asia site :

If you open www.speakasiaonline.com website the message shows:Notice: This domain has been redirected. If you are registrant of this domain, please contact invalidwhois@godaddy.com 

The reason is, Company has purchased domain name www.speakasiaonline.com from godaddy.com. www.speakasiaonline.com domain name has been suspended due to invalid Whois information. According to GoDaddy terms and conditions at least once in a year domain owner has to verify or update whois information, i.e; Company Name, Address, Contact No. , etc. I hope SpeakAsiaOnline Management will contact GoDaddy to rectify this problem. This issue is temporary and do not think anything negative….Company’s web hosting server is working fine , check it : http://113.197.34.110/shopping2/index.aspxwhois : It returns information about a domain name or IP address, and domain owner’s information. For example, if you enter a domain name such as www.google.com , whois will return the name and address of the domain’s owner.

Conclusion

As you can see there’s a incredibly heavy reliability on Speak Asia Online panelists to get out there and recruit others if they ever want to make any decent money from the compensation plan.

Ignoring the recruitment driven residual income, a Standard Panelist is only capable of making $7 a week and a Premium Panelist $20.

Thus it’s safe to say that recruitment is going to be the primary source of income for those wishing to generate an income with Speak Asia.

Looking at some of those daily astronomical recruitment numbers required to generate a decent income, I think it’s safe to put Speak Asia Online, purely as a business opportunity, into the pyramid scheme basket.

Simply put the daily numbers required for multiple people to generate a decent income would mean Speak Asia would be growing at an astronomical rate. And keep in mind that’s all for just one person to generate an income.

Each and every panelist within Speak Asia needs to personally meet daily recruiting requirements to really starts generating a decent stream of revenue.

Oh, and did I mention your market is rather limited to those who can attend the tests and personal interview in only either Mumbai in India or Singapore?