Lyoness

Comment and Opinion

Lyoness
Then it was Cashback World (2019)
And in 2021 it became myWorld (My, my – look at all those name changes. Could they be trying to hide something?)

They are still at it (24/10/2015)
Ten years ago I was being dragged through the courts by a company which had been found to be operating an illegal pyramid scheme. They did not like me reporting this fact, or their history of brushes with the law in other countries, or for pointing out the loophole in the law that they were exploiting. They eventually convinced a court that acting immorally wasn't a problem if the law was badly written

So let's celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Federal Court of Australia finding a loophole in the then Trade Practices Act which narrowed the definition of "pyramid scheme", thus allowing scamsters to get away with scamming if they worded their payment rules carefully. (The High Court declined to hear an appeal from the ACCC on the basis that it was Parliament's job to change defective law, not the High Court's.)

We celebrate by finding that the loophole wasn't closed when the act was rewritten and renamed and is still being used to drive pyramid-shaped money-stealing trucks through the protection that people would assume the law provides for them.

Here is a media release from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission:

Federal Court finds Lyoness scheme not pyramid
23 October 2015

The Federal Court has found that a loyalty program operated by Lyoness Australia Pty Ltd does not contravene the pyramid and referral selling provisions of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), following action by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The Lyoness program includes the ability for members to earn various rebates and bonuses from shopping. It also includes ways for consumers to earn bonuses if they introduce new members who also shop or make down payments on future shopping.

Whilst cash back offers themselves are not prohibited by the ACL the ACCC alleged that the Lyoness scheme also offers commissions to members who recruit new members who make a down payment on future shopping.

The Federal Court found that: 'there can be no doubting the fact that inducements were held out to prospective Members that they would ultimately receive "financial benefits" other than the discounts they received on purchases made from Loyalty Merchants'.

However, the Court found that any entitlement to receive a benefit was occasioned – not by the introduction of the new Members – but from the pursuit of shopping activity by those new Members and the shopping activities of further new Members who, in turn, may have been introduced by such new Members. The ACCC also failed to establish that persons could become Members only by making down payments.

The Court made similar findings about "referral selling" conduct.

Justice Flick noted:''the manner in which pyramid selling schemes operate...is "complex and elusive." The present Lyoness Loyalty Program is no exception'.

ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said: "The judgment echoed some of the concerns the ACCC had with the scheme, in particular its complexity and the inducements that were held to prospective members".

"the ACCC will continue to investigate schemes that encourage consumers to recruit new members. We will take action where appropriate to ensure consumers are not drawn into schemes where the financial benefits held out to induce potential members to join up rely substantially on the recruitment of further new members into the scheme," Mr Sims said.

The ACCC is carefully considering the judgment.

Background

Pyramid schemes involve new participants providing a financial or other benefit to other existing participants in the scheme. New participants are induced to join substantially by the prospect that they will be entitled to benefits relating to the recruitment of further new participants.

Pyramid schemes may also offer products or services, but making money out of recruitment is their main aim, and often the only way for a member to recover any money is to convince other people to join up. In contrast, people in legitimate multi-level marketing schemes earn money by selling genuine products to consumers, not from the recruiting process.

Release number:
MR 202/15

Pyramid schemes. Are they indestructible? (29/6/2019)
There's an old joke that says that the only things surviving after a nuclear war would be cockroaches sitting in the shade of privet bushes. The cockroaches will need some way to make a living, so they will all be immediately into multi-level marketing, the new paradigm of retailing that will make them all richer than their bosses.

When I was sued in 2005 by a company that had been found by a court to be operating an illegal pyramid scheme (I was sued for pointing this out) one of the things they didn't like was that I had identified the loophole in legislation that they were slithering through. In 2015 I found another company using the same fault in the legislation to convince a court that they were only a little bit illegal and immoral but not enough to worry about. That company was Lyoness, and when I did my regular link check here I found that they had changed their name and are now calling themselves Cashback World. It looks very much like the same old "barely legal" scam with a new set of clothes

They lie. Then they lie again. And again. (24/4/2021)
In 2015 a pyramid scam operator called Lyoness managed to crawl through a loophole in the law (a loophole that had been used by a company that sued me – one of the things that company didn't like was my pointing out the loophole they were using). In 2019 they changed the company name to Cashback World (if it's all about cash it's hard to deny the "pyramid" tag). I've now found out that they have changed names again, with the current iteration being myWorld. It's still the same old scam, but even the worst house can be tarted up for sale with a fresh coat of paint to hide the rot and termite damage, some new carpets and some cheap furniture.

I've never assumed for a picosecond that the operators of pyramid schemes have any morality or concern for the people they deceive and steal from, and continual name changes are just part of the strategy to keep more marks coming in, unaware of any history of the scamsters they're dealing with.