Recently, the excellent 'Lyoness Complaints Centre' posted an in-depth article exposing the myth that 'Lyoness' is endorsed and certified by renowned institutes.
Over the past few months, various intellectually-castrated adherents of the pernicious 'Lyoness' fairy story have attempted to post comments on this Blog, to the effect that:
- I haven't done any research into 'Lyoness'
- 'Lyoness cannot possibly be a fraud, because the company has been thoroughly inspected and approved by Quality Austria and TÜV Rheinland.'
So, exactly where are all these deluded persons getting their false information from?
If you search the Net for 'Lyoness Quality Austria' or 'Lyoness TÜV Rheinland' you will find many thousands of hits.
http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=fr#hl=fr&sclient=psy-ab&q=lyoness+quality+austria&oq=lyoness+quality+austria&gs_l=hp.12...0.0.2.21408.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1c..12.hp.T6b8tZbMhuY&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.46471029,d.d2k&fp=639686c77aaee5a4&biw=1280&bih=931
Most of these hits contain reality-inverting 'Lyoness' propaganda which has been worded in such a way (using a devious technique of psychological persuasion known as Neuro-Linguistic Programming) as to lead ill-informed persons to believe that :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-w_tLjjJrE
Most of these hits contain reality-inverting 'Lyoness' propaganda which has been worded in such a way (using a devious technique of psychological persuasion known as Neuro-Linguistic Programming) as to lead ill-informed persons to believe that :
- Lyoness cannot possibly be a fraud, because the company, the income opportunity it offers and its financial accounts have all been thoroughly inspected and approved by independent experts from Quality Austria and TÜV Rheinland.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-w_tLjjJrE
If you search a little harder you will find fraudulent 'Lyoness' propaganda videos (again using a devious technique of psychological persuasion known as Neuro-Linguistic Programming) which clearly have been designed to deceive the public into believing that 'Quality Austria' and 'TUV Rheinland' have guaranteed 'Lyoness' as a company that can be trusted to do what it says it will do '100% of the time.' The relevant parts of the above video, appear at around 2 minutes and at the end.
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| Axel Dick, Head of Marketing, Quality Austria |
 |
| Eckehard Bauer Vice-President, Quality Austria
Although, when contacted, Eckehard Bauer (Vice-President, 'Quality Austria') and Axel Dick (Head of marketing, 'Quality Austria) have freely-admitted to being aware of the widespread concerns that 'Lyoness' is a fraud, they have claimed that the ISO certificate (issued by Quality Austria) cannot be immediately withdrawn for legal reasons.
When pressed, this is what Axel Dick had to say yesterday in an e-mail to me about the actual meaning of the ISO certificate 9001:2008, issued to 'Lyoness' by 'Quality Austria.'
'Please note that in
the course of the auditing and certification process according to ISO 9001:2008
the certifying body does not, and is not in a position to, verify whether the
audited company meets all requirements provided for by law and public
authorities. Therefore, the certification is no confirmation that all applicable
legal provisions are complied with. Neither does the auditing and certification
process according to ISO 9001:2008 contain an audit of the accounting system and
balance sheets of the company. ISO 9001 provides for so-called non-financial
audits as compared to financial audits carried out by auditors. Quality Austria
performs exclusively non-financial audits.
ISO 9001:2008 is
available at the Austrian Standards Institute (Österreichisches
Normungsinstitut) or any other National Standard
Institute.
The holder of a
qualityaustria Certificate or of a qualityaustria Mark undertakes
to use these strictly in compliance with the rules of fair competition. The
qualityaustria Certificate and the qualityaustria Mark may not be
used in a misleading or abusive form. Until now there is no written evidence for
that.
As far as I know
via the public discussions in the media there are on going juridical
examinations in Austria, Switzerland, Hungary and France. There are different
expert opinions and reports on the different issues. But as far as I know there
are no court decisions. The business model is still
allowed.'
When translated into plain English, Axel Dick has openly admitted that it was not the job of Quality Austria inspectors to ascertain whether 'Lyoness,' or indeed any other company which they have awarded an ISO 9001:2008 certificate to, is a fraud. Furthermore, after admitting to this blissful state of ignorance, Axel Dick has then immediately contradicted himself by effectively saying that (as far as he knows) no evidence exists that the bosses of 'Lyoness' have maliciously obtained the name and logo of Quality Austria in order to commit fraud and to obstruct justice. Furthermore, again contrary to what Axel Dick claims, there have already been various Viennese Commercial Court decisions against 'Lyoness.'
In a subsequent telephone conversation, a contrite Axel Dick has invited me to send him evidence that the name and logo of Quality Austria have been used in a misleading and abusive form by 'Lyoness.'
I am, therefore, appealing to the victims of the 'Lyoness' fairy story to contact either Axel Dick or Eckehard Bauer directly, and confront them with external reality:
DI Axel Dick, MSc
Prokurist, Marketing
Quality AustriaTrainings-, Zertifizierungs- und Begutachtungs GmbH
Zelinkagasse 10/3, A1010 Wien
Tel.: (+43 1)-274 87 47 - 126
Fax: (+43 1)-274 87 47 - 100
Mobil: (+43 664) 61 90 870
Headquarters: Wien
Customer Service Center: Linz
FN 234367h
Handelsgericht Wien
UID-Nr: ATU 57217835
DVR 0953067
Eckehard Bauer, MSc
Prokurist & Leitung Business Development
Executive Vice President, Head of Business
Development
Quality
Austria
Trainings-, Zertifizierungs- und Begutachtungs GmbH
Am Winterhafen 1, A4020 Linz
Tel.: (+43 732)-34 23 22 - 25
Fax: (+43 732)-34 23 23
Mobil: (+43 676) 84 78 84 200
http:// www.qualityaustria.com
To date, I have found it impossible to make any direct contact with senior corporate officers at 'TÜV Rheinland' HQ in Cologne.
 Markus Mattes, Managing Director, TÜV Rheinland UK. This morning I again spoke to the Managing Director of 'TÜV Rheinland' in the UK, Markus Mattes, who informed me that he had recently spoken (on my behalf) to 'TÜV Rheinland' staff in Cologne who are occupied with the 'Lyoness' problem, and who will be dealing with it sometime this year, but that his company cannot be expected to 'contact everyone who suddenly rings up with stories.' In fact, I first contacted Herr Mattes, around 6 months ago with my urgent and detailed concerns about the 'Lyoness' racket and 'TÜV Rheinland's' shameful role in it.
David Brear (copyright 2013)
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Official LYONESS speakers are trained by LYONESS staff to focus on the Quality Austria and TUV certifications. Indeed they both appear in corporate videos and power points used by the company. Therefore, as such the company is using these to lead potential investors into a false sense of security. There can be no other logical reason why to show them. Its false advertising at its best and fraud at its worse. Both of which are illegal. Keep up the good work David, the message is getting out there. Dont be like me and lose 80,000 Euros to these crooks. This money was my pension fund, now I have to start again at 56 and rebuild my pension. Patrick from IRELAND
ReplyDeletePatrick - Please send me your contact details as a comment (these will not be published).
DeleteUntil recently, like a bunch of kids caught nicking sweets, Corporate officers of Quality Austria and TÜV Rheinland have denied the reality that their companies' names and logos have been, and are being, used to commit fraud and to obstruct justice, simply by claming that they have never seen any evidence.
Recently I have begun to stick the mountain evidence right under the noses of previously deaf, dumb and blind people like Axel Dick (head of marketing, Quality Austria), but I also require the help of people like you who are prepared to tell them the truth about your own nightmare experience.
If you feel that you, or any other 'Lyoness' victims you know, was mislead by the use of the names and logos of these two certification organizations, then, because Quality Austria and TÜV Rheinland were clearly informed by me (many months ago) of what was happening, but they still did nothing to stop it, you have a very good case for making a financial claim against them.
The chances of getting your 80 000 Euros back from Hubert Freidl might be slim, but you have a fair chance of holding his de facto criminal associates to account.
However, I would advise you to be first in the queue.
David Brear (copyright 2013)
Patrick
ReplyDeleteI also got involved with Lyoness Ireland. I only put in €2,000. And I got it back. But only after threatening them with legal action after I did a lot of numerical analysis of the binary matrix reward system they use and also asked them lots of tough questions about their internal controls and various claims they make about ISO and TUV. I hope you don't mind me asking but how is it that you managed to lose €80,000? I am on your side here, but I am amazed that you lost this much. If you put in that much you must have been actively recruiting others and getting in deep into the under belly of Lyoness Ireland. Can you paint us a picture of how long you were involved and what sort of recruiting you were doing, etc? Also, If I am able to get my €2,000 back then surely you are in a much stronger position given the amount of money you have lost. If you have gotten other people involved then you should really get them all together and take a class action against Lyoness. Use the likes of boards.ie to recruit people to join you. Please don't just allow Lyoness to take that amount of money from you without a fight.
Hello, I am interested in Your numerical analysis of the binary matrix reward system. Can You post it here, please. Thanks a lot.
DeleteAnonymous - If this is a serious question (which I doubt), my answer is as follows.
DeleteThe impressive, technical-sounding term, 'binary matrix reward system,' along with any accompanying mathematical presentation, is thought-stopping bullshit in respect of 'income opportunity' rackets, for the simple reason that these rackets have no significant, or sustainable, revenue other than that deriving from never-ending chains of their own participants.
Thus, no matter what mind-numbingly complex linguistic, or numerical, hocus-pocus the racketeers pull from up their sleeves, and steadfastly pretend to be employing to produce unlimited profits, it is ultimately impossible for the overwhelming majority of participants to get back more money than they invested in the first place.
What you have asked me to supply (apparently in all seriousness), is a numerical analysis of yet another version of the age-old mathematical fairy story, wherein the charlatan authors always spout piles of thought-stopping bullshit in order to peddle a miraculous new system for transforming a finite amount of money into an infinite sum.
David Brear (copyright 2013)
Hello Patrick,
DeleteI would be interested in the analysis too. I had done some of my own work and it is clear it is not sustainable, but I would want more information to eventually be able to get my 2000 EUR back.
Thanks
Tomas
Hello i am also someone who want to take my 2000 euros back. they told me that in order for me to take my money back i have to spend the exact amount of money in order to colplete 2000 euros of future discounts... i have no idea what is going on or what to do, can you please help me?
DeleteDimitris - What country has this happened in? If you don't want to declare this information online, please send me your contact details in a comment (these will not be posted).
DeleteIn my experience if you want your money back from 'Lyoness' + compensation, all that is required is that you, or someone representing you, contacts the 'Lyoness' HQ and sends a clear message to Hubert Freidl explaining that he/she will be filing a criminal complaint, if his/her money is not immediately refunded (with interest).
Hello Patrick, can you send me your analysis by e-mail ? I joined lyoness less than a month ago and I would really like to see where you found out that the system fails, because I have been thinking about it ever since I joined and I am starting to believe that I might have been fooled. Your help would be of great value for me! Thanks in advance!
Deletemagazzinomilanese - If you think you might have been fooled, try Google searching 'Lyoness Dragons Den' for confirmation.
DeleteLet me get this straight 'Fishing with Dynamite,' you are claiming that after initially falling for the 'Lyoness' fairy story, you then independently worked out exactly how you had been defrauded out of 2000 Euros by the 'Lyoness' mob in Ireland, but then, simply by threatening to take civil legal action (presumeably in the Irish courts), you were fully-refunded.
ReplyDeleteCan I ask if you had legal representation, or if you have made any attempt to complain to the Irish press, legislators, law enforcement agents, etc., or if you were obliged to sign some sort of gagging contract to obtain your refund?
I'm also interested in communicating with you directly, so if you could please send me your contact details in the form of another comment, these will not be published.
Even if this post is not totally related to the socalled certification of lyoness, here are some additional infos that may be of high interest to everyone.
ReplyDeleteCheck the german WIKIPEDIA page with the entry about lyoness: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLyoness
In the Critics sections you will find links to 3 videos that have been aired in Austrian Televion about lyoness. Lyoness has tried to delete these TV reports because the information provided there are very shocking and reveal that the company is a ponzi scheme and Austrian legal investigators have started their investigations about Lyoness. You will find some versions of these reports with subtitles, if you google for it.
Also nice to know: Many german newspapers have reported about the issue: "Is Lyoness a scam." Check Google.CH /DE /AT and search for "Lyoness" .
You will find german results but you can translate them with Google Translate again.
Thank-you Elisabeth.
DeleteIf you want to contact David Brear directly, please send your e-mail address in a comment to this Blog (it will not be published).
What I want to say is a big Thank You. I have been approached by the same organisation in Romania. It seems like the recruiting trend has moved eastwards a bit and now they are looking here for doops to fall for their fairytale. I must admit that it sounds like a very plausible story but what got me concerned was the fact that, on the one hand, it sounded too good to be true and on the other, that there were absolutely no disadvantages presented. And from experience, there always are, in any business. But when I approached them with my concerns, they just changed the subject, and thus I began to research online into the 'Lyoness' issue.
ReplyDeleteBottom line, a bit Thank You for not letting me fall for this. I know my comment is offtopic but even if you don't publish it, thanks. Marius from Romania
Marius - I'm very pleased to have helped you, but, in future, please don't forget that the people who are always the easiest to fool: are the people who are convinced that they cannot possibly be fooled.
DeleteI have to ask how all the Law Departments for Chevron, Sears, Home Depot, American Airlines, CVS Pharmacy, etc were "fooled" by Lyoness? Surely, every attorney on retainer with each of these Fortune 500 firms is paid to avoid any sort of scandal, right? If each of these firms signed up as Merchants in the Lyoness network of either online or gift card merchants, knowing that it was a "scam" and only "fools" were participating, wouldn't their well paid attorneys have anticipated that in terms of the potential loss of corporate good will internationally?
DeleteAnonymous - I suggest you contact the legal Depts. of all these big American companies and ask them if they have heard of 'Lyoness?'
DeleteI've done exactly this all over the world, and not one attorney in any of the big so-called 'Lyoness Merchants' had any idea what 'Lyoness is, or that their own employers had any dealings with 'Lyoness'.
Some of the companies that I contacted were: Lego toys in Denmark, Carrefour supermarket in France, Asda and Morrisons supermarkets in the UK, etc.
You will find that absolutely anyone can buy gift cards from big companies and that often it is third party businesses that run this parallel business. i.e. There are serparate companies that buy gift cards in bulk directly from big companies and then sell them to other companies for a small profit.
The racketeers that run 'Lyoness' are expert at pretending association with famous brands, but 'Lyoness' is simply another customer of these brands' gift cards.
Using this technique, and others, the 'Lyoness' racketeers have shut down the critical and evaluative faculties of persons such as yourself, to a point where you evidently find it almost impossible to face the reality that 'Lyoness' is a cultic fraud.
So, do you all recognise networking companies as scams? Just asking!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - Any corporate structure, or labyrinth of corporate structures, peddling the pseudo-economic theory that endless-chain recruitment + endless payments by the recruits = endless profits for the recruits, is shileding a criminal fraud. If, by 'networking companies,' you mean companies which have offered the pubic what have been commonly referred to as 'MLM income opportunities,' it's difficult to find such a company which has not been dissimulating criminal fraud.
DeleteIs this Blog still active?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - What makes you think that it's not?
ReplyDeleteLast comment is nearly year old so I thought nobody cares any more. :) I am glad you are here. I have invested in Lyoness few years ago (Ireland) and as I am reading your blog I am not the only one with issues. Have you got any evidence of getting money back from Lyoness or some kind of "how to do" manual or have you heart anything back from Fishing with Dynamite? I would love to get my money back. Thanks.
DeleteAnonymous - Please contact me via axiombooks@wanadoo.fr.
DeleteCultic groups like 'Lyoness' have been set up expressly to steal money and to prevent victims from even realising they have been robbed and complaining. The fact that you seem to realize that you have been swindled, is an encouraging sign, because if you want to get your money back, the main quality 'Lyoness' victims require, is the ability to tell the truth and to keep telling it as loudy as possible.
How do I loose as as as a shopper with Lyoness ?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - Please take a deep breath and try to understand that 'Lyoness' has been an extremely dangerous cultic organisation peddling a pernicious fiction as 'fact.'
DeletePart of the pernicious fiction has been the proposition that 'Lyoness' recruits can only receive benefits from their participation, but the further into the pernicious fiction the adherents progress, the more costly participation becomes (in time and money demanded).
Most adherents have been labelled 'shoppers' when they took the first step into the dangerous 'Lyoness' game of make-believe.