Sobre a Lyoness:
A Lyoness é uma Multinacional Austriaca que conta com 3 certificações (ISO9001, IQnet e TUV Rheinland. É uma empresa de intermediação de serviços. A adesão é gratuita, sem compromissos, anuidades, consumos minimos etc. Os membros simplesmente beneficiam de dinheiro de volta das suas compras. Poderão ainda, se quiserem, beneficiar de um maior retorno se recomendarem a Lyoness a outras pessoas.
Depois temos os membros premium (os distribuidores), são membros que querem desenvolver a Lyoness e construir o seu próprio negócio dentro da empresa. Como? muito simples: recomendam empresas para a Lyoness, consumidores e outros membros premium que queiram aproveitar esta oportunidade. Existem principalmente duas maneiras de um membro se tornar Premium: Fazer compras acumuladas de 20.000€ durante um ano ou fazer um pré-pagamento para compras futuras no valor de 2.000€ (não há investimento).
Ao contrário do que foi dito atrás, a Lyoness está em franca expansão. A adesão de empresas tem sido ao ritmo de 2 a 3 por semana e cerca de 500 membros semanalmente.
As promessas que são feitas pelas pessoas que fazem as apresentações da Lyoness, são da responsabilidade das mesmas. Sim há possibilidade de se ganhar bom dinheiro, mas quem diz que é dinheiro fácil, está enganado. Exige trabalho e dedicação como qualquer outro negócio.
Espero que tenha ajudado a tirar algumas dúvidas.
Pois, deve ser por ser uma empresa tão séria e com tantos certificados que tem tantas ações em tribunal e pedidos de suspensão de actividade. Ora vamos lá ver:
"One year after Lyoness was founded, in 2004, the Austrian criminal police (
Kriminalpolizei) published an article
[26] in the December issue of its organisation’s
magazine, in which it warned for the resurfacing of
Ponzi schemes and
pyramid schemes in
Austria. Lyoness was explicitly mentioned in this
article. Lyoness contested the
allegations publicly.
[27] In 2005,
Austrian Parliament member, Johann Maier (
SPÖ) asked the then-
incumbent Austrian
Minister of Justice (
Karin Miklautsch,
BZÖ)
parliamentary questions about the reports filed against alleged pyramid schemes in Austria in 2004.
[28] Lyoness was one of the organisations
complaints were filed against.
[28]In 2008, the
Austrian Chamber of Labour (‘Arbeiterkammer’) of
Steiermark issued a
warning against Lyoness, listing its alleged
privacy violations,
misleading advertising,
deceptive information and unrealistic and negligible benefits as red flags for doing business with Lyoness.
[29]
In March 2010, the
Swiss medium Beobachter published an article
[30] by Pascale Hofmeier entitled ‘ Lyoness: Hands off’. In the article, Sara Stalder of the Swiss Consumer Union and Manuel Richard of the Swiss Gambling Commission warn consumers not to do business with Lyoness. In the beginning of 2012,
Kleine Zeitung published an article
[31] suggesting that Lyoness has deceived the masses by operating an irrelevant shopping community.
L’Hebdo, a Swiss medium, reproduced a story about how Lyoness members are told that an
investment of 3,000
CHF will eventually lead to 25,000 CHF in return, if enough new, down-paying members are recruited.
[32]
In February 2012, the Beobachter published an article
[33] stating that, based on consideration of internal Lyoness communication, members are offered ‘
bounties’ up to 45,000 CHF to provide ‘relevant information’ on Lyoness’
critics. A critic from
Zurich was reported to have been
sued for over 1 million CHF for ‘
defamation’ after he contacted Lyoness’ partner companies in
Switzerland in an
attempt to
explain the
business model of Lyoness to them. The article also reported that the Lyoness business model seems to revolve around
recruiting activities instead of
discounts and that Lyoness is internationally charged with
forgery,
fraud and hosting a pyramid scheme.
Der Standard reported in July 2012 that the Austrian Economic and Corruption Prosecutor (‘WKStA’) has been granted
jurisdiction to investigate and
prosecute Lyoness in Austria.
[34] The Swiss Handelszeitung mentioned a
court case Lyoness lost, which revolved around the question as to whether Lyoness should have issued a
financial prospectus before asking
investors to
finance their foreign-markets
advertising campaigns.
[35] In September 2012, the same
newspaper reported
[36] that major, alleged Lyoness partners in
Switzerland (
Microsoft and
Kuoni Travel) were announcing not to continue the partnerships, if there were any to begin with. The
Wiener Zeitung reported
[37] about a pending
lawsuit initiated by the Austrian Consumer Organisation ‘VKI’ in March 2013. The VKI contests 61 clauses of Lyoness’ ‘General
Terms and Conditions’, which it called opaque, uncertain, and/or meaningless.
[37][38][39] Eric Breiteneder, hired as a legal representative by the organisation, also referred to the concepts used to distinguish various parts of – and benefits within the Lyoness
business model as vague and/or undefined elsewhere.
[40][41]
The Handelszeitung reported about
suspicions that high-level Lyoness members were earlier involved in (other) pyramid schemes, like the ‘Spirit of Independence’.
[42] It also mentioned a system called ‘GTS’ (Global Trade System), operated by Erin Trade SA, as a former organisation tied to Hubert Freidl.
[42] Like Lyoness, this company has been called a pyramid scheme in the
public debate.
[42]The
Kleine Zeitung reported that various experts were looking at the
investment schemes for
advertising campaigns organised by Lyoness, and whether a prospectus was required before
attracting capital from
investors.
[38] Lyoness-hired
[43] professor Susanne Kalls concluded that no capital market regulations were violated by not issuing a prospectus;
attorney Karl Hengstberger came to the
opposite conclusion
[38] but agreed with Professor Susanne Kalls that the Lyoness business package does not constitute an investment.
[38] In the same article, Mathias Vorbach, spokesman of Lyoness, admits that Lyoness may have had some trouble before, but that those days are behind us – Lyoness has
learned from its
mistakes.
[38] He asserts the message that legal problems have only appeared in Austria (a contested claim) and that 95% of the Lyoness members just
shop and do not participate in the earning models offered by Lyoness.
[38] However, the Beobachter, after reportedly considering internal Lyoness documents, published an article
[44]suggesting that 99.7% of the Lyoness
turnover derives from
down-payments on future purchases, not from actual shopping or (saved up)
discounts.
Lyoness contests that it operates a pyramid scheme, as well as that it violated the relevant
capital markets regulations when offering
investments without issuing a prospectus.
[45]
[h=2]Legality[
edit][/h]In the meantime, Austrian authorities have started investigations of the Lyoness business model and the related allegations that the company is running an illegal pyramid scheme.
[34] Reportedly, similar investigations were started in Hungary;
[46] Norway;
[47][48] and Poland.
[49][50][51][52] Also, it was reported that the Austrian Consumers Union has filed suit against Lyoness for providing participants with unclear and deceptive terms and conditions.
[37] VKI is representing clients who contend they invested money in the advertising campaigns organised by Lyoness, and several option trading packages offered by Lyoness, but were not provided with a prospectus. In September 2009, Lyoness hired criminal law expert Professor Peter Lewisch to assess whether the company's business model violated the Austrian law concerning illegal pyramid schemes.
[53] The study, conducted by Lewisch in September 2013 provided the legal opinion that Lyoness is not a pyramid scheme. Lewisch states that in his legal opinion: “The Lyoness shopping community is not a pyramid scheme within the meaning of §168a StGB (Austrian criminal code): It is not a speculation system…members neither need to make deposits, nor are they committed to recruiting new members or to behaving in a certain way. The result is that the Lyoness shopping community is not at all against §168a StGB.”
[53] The judges of the regional court in Krems,
[54] Austria however concluded that the business model of Lyoness is so "Ponzi-Scheme-like", that contracts between Lyoness an its business partners are not valid. Lyoness have not appointed this statement.
[55]
In December 2013, Norwegian authorities have announced a full investigation of Lyoness on the suspicion of it operating an illegal pyramid scheme.
[47][48] Lyoness received 3 weeks to respond to the announcement.
[56] Lyoness have announced to repay all unhappy (ex) members, which aren't many according to the company.
[57] The Austrian Platform for unhappy (ex) members of Lyoness say that it is difficult to get money back from Lyoness.
[58] Lyoness pay back 75% of the value of any acquired accounting units.
[57] The entrepreneurial (accounting units) part of Lyoness is now named "Lyconet".
[59] Polish government authorities started an investigation of Lyoness and request information from public sources.
[49][50][51][52] Last year such an investigation by the country's public prosecutors was cancelled due to insufficient evidence against the organization.
[49] Lyoness denied doing anything illegal in Poland.
[50] In Sweden the authorities have also decided to pursue Lyoness; the national Lottery Authorities (Lotteriinspektionen), responsible for investigating pyramid games, have reported Lyoness to the Stockholm police for pyramid game and chain letter fraud.
[60]
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