Applicant who invested more than R6m says she saw it as a way of ‘saving money while shopping’. Moneyweb Ponzischeme finance
The Pretoria High Court has ordered Standard Bank to freeze the bank accounts of suspected Ponzi scheme Lyoness South Africa. The application was brought on Sunday evening by Jianliu Lin and her husband Adriaan van den Bergh, both members of the multi-level marketing scheme that was founded in Austria in 2003 by Hubert Friedl as a customer loyalty scheme offering discounts and cash back to participating merchants and customers.
“What I have noticed is that seemingly Lyconet keeps on rebranding the different products, thus as soon as I am entitled to a payout in respect of the points, there is a name change, and the branded products no longer exists, and I receive no payout,” she says her affidavit. She adds that the same is true of ‘benefits’ earned by Lyconet members: Discount Vouchers were rebranded as M-Vouchers, then Shopping Points.