Review of Ultimate Entrepreneur Club

This is one of a few examples of Business Opportunity Watch Reviews which are freely available for everyone to read on the public section of the website. The reason for making a small sample of the reviews freely available is to help you to decide if you want to join, and also to communicate some matters of general interest arising in the case of some of the reviews. All the other reviews are available only to members. A zero score or a low score means that in our opinion the business model or the investment model has flaws and/or that we have found inadequate evidence to back up claims about earnings, sales, profits etc. It doesn't mean this evidence does not exist and it doesn't mean that the opportunity is a scam and it doesn't mean that the promoters are unprofessional or dishonest. Questions arising are normally contained within the body of the review, and readers who are interested should contact the company with these questions and/or questions of their own.

Review from Business Opportunity Watch Reviews
Issue 6 June 2007

ULTIMATE ENTREPRENEUR CLUB
Gary Foxcroft
PO Box 509
Chorley
PR6 6EB
Tel: 0161 408 3373
www.tueclub.biz
www.150kincome.co.uk
www.theultimateentrepreneur.com

Discover The Step By Step Plan That Takes You By The Hand And Shows You How To Become A Millionaire In Less Than 12 Months...

While Giving You Access To Priceless Secrets And Education About The Financial World Market That You Can Capitalize On Right Now...

Today, you will have an opportunity to join a club that is so exclusive...

...you will want to keep it all to yourself as "your little secret" to making millions.

Dear Friend,

Imagine with me for a moment. You are sitting on your front deck overlooking the ocean, wind blowing through your hair on a warm, sunny day. You just got your brand new car, and one for your wife. Your kids are off to college, because you can afford to send them to the best schools in the country. It is all possible...actually the blueprint for making all of that happen can be made available to you today with one contact.

Introducing...The Ultimate Entrepreneur Club "Dedicated To The Ideas Of Free Enterprise And Making Money"

Would you like to make £2500 to £5000 a week? ($5000 - $10000)

• Our members will show you how, and even guide you until you are successful.
  

• This club reveals the financial secrets you have never even thought of.
  

• This club reveals a banking scam that you have fallen victim to, and shows you how to capitalize on it.
  

• A personal director who coaches you every step of the way.
  

• Earn while you learn, as you gain priceless financial knowledge working a plan that is designed to make you $1.5 million in 12 months.
  

What could be better than being part of a group of members who all have the same goal in mind and help each other help themselves? Namely making money. Lots of it. We have employed all of the latest, the best, and hard to find strategies that have made people wealthy beyond their wildest dreams within 1 year!

You owe it to yourself and your family to investigate our programme, and I assure you that when you do, you will never look back.

Take a look at the plan below...and ask yourself...

"Do I have a better plan?"

Stage 1  $36,000   4 - 8 weeks
Stage 2   $180,000   2 - 4 months
Stage 3   $225,000   4 - 6 months
Stage 4   $900,000   8 - 10 months

"The Ultimate Entrepreneur Club will teach you how to make £2,500 ($5,000) or more in cash, weekly, from the privacy of your own home!"

And when you start making this kind of money the Club will show you how to strategically invest it, recession and depression proof, so you can finally have your money work for you, instead of working for money.

Never has a financial programme of this level been offered to the average person.  Not even in the best educational institutions or universities has a programme of this depth and truthfulness been offered.

It's like taking a person by the hand and literally making sure they will succeed educationally and financially!

If you are interested or would like more information about the Ultimate Entrepreneur Club ... please let me know by following the step by step instructions below.

To your making millions,
Gary Foxcroft - Director
The Ultimate Entrepreneur Club

Review: 

Gary Foxcroft says, "Never has a financial programme of this level been offered to the average person".  He can't have done very much research, because it has.  There was a near-identical scheme called Investors International.

Here is a brief description of Investors International from a public bulletin from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police dated 9th December 1998:

"Investors International

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and other foreign jurisdictions have been monitoring the activities of a company soliciting funds from investors through participation in a five series "financial educational program" which claims to create wealth through education.

The multi-level marketing scheme, known as Investors International (II), was "conceived" by a Dr. RUDOLF VAN LIN (whose real name is believed to be Rudolf Alexander Victor LINSCHOTEN), the Chairman of Investors International Publishing (IIP).

The scheme involves the purchasing of an array of cassettes, literature and videos on topics including offshore technology, government and tax havens. The program is sold as a 5 part "education series". Its clients pay approximately $1,250 US for what is considered the first series or level. The first two levels consist of video tapes and audio cassettes which provide information that, according to some foreign authorities, is considered nothing more than what could be obtained at a library. IIP's clients that reach level 3 are then invited to attend offshore seminars where they are advised that they will learn about international financial programs that are secret in nature and only available to investors who are able to invest large amounts of monies such as $5 million or $10 million. It is during these seminars that IIP's clients are informed of investment opportunities with Sabre Asset Management Corporation (SAMC).

Levels 4 & 5 involve 10 to 14 day international seminars, which offer "certification as an international financier and membership in the Society of International Financiers." Investigation by authorities has established that IIP and SAMC have held cruise seminars and off shore seminars soliciting investors. In order to be able to purchase the first series, participants must first qualify with a sales quota. The quota is six sales in each series, which must be made under the guidance of an approved director.

A review of this activity by personnel in the RCMP Economic Crime Branch suggests a portion of the promotion is taking place in Canada and has many of the properties of an illegal scheme pursuant to Section 55 of the Competition Act or possibly Section 206(1) of the Criminal Code. The Competition Act regulates multi level marketing plans and specifically restricts involvement in a scheme of pyramid selling. The Criminal Code section makes it unlawful for a person who participates in a scheme involving the recruitment of other persons, to expect more in return from what was initially invested. Information has also been received that LINSCHOTEN is currently establishing the multi-level marketing of IIP within Australia and soliciting investors into SAMC. Investigation has identified investors from Canada into SAMC. The RCMP is aware of numerous promoters and victims involved with Investors International in Canada."

Investors International had indeed spread to Australia, and also to New Zealand.  In their Bulletin of October 1999 entitled "Investors International - Warning" the New Zealand Securities Commission referred to court action which had been taken in Australia against the company promoting the scheme and its director.

Dr. Lin was a doctor of philosophy who "became fascinated with how economics influences the human psyche".  He was certainly very good at pressing the right psychological buttons to get people to pay money into his scheme, which apparently had 15,000 members by 1996.

It all unwound when Dr. Lin (real name Rudolf Alexander Victor Linschoten) was convicted of fraud for his involvement in a "prime bank" scheme and was jailed for nearly five years.  (See the United States Securities And Exchange Commission Litigation Release No. 16153 of May 19, 1999).

The prime bank scheme was called Sabre Asset Management, and it was promoted to members of Investors International at the various seminars.  Two UK residents were prosecuted in connection with the scheme.  Here is the Press Release of the Serious Fraud Office dated 9 March 2001:

"Sentencing of Peter Barry Maude for $7.7 million investment scam

Cheshire businessman Peter Barry Maude (58) was sentenced today to 6 years imprisonment for his role in an elaborate investment scheme fraud. He pleaded guilty to two offences of conspiracy to defraud in December 2000.

The hearing today followed a four year investigation by the SFO, Cheshire police and the FBI and prosecutions both in the UK and in the USA.

The fraud

The first offence concerned a bogus scheme that was promoted to investors at conferences on luxurious Caribbean cruise ships and in expensive hotels in Mexico. The conferences were organised by a Dutch businessman Rudolph Linschoten who used the name 'Professor Van Lyn'. Investors paid to attend the week long conferences. They attended lectures on the stock market, banking and offshore investment trusts but the culmination of the trip was a two hour lecture on high yield investment programmes. The programmes were described as being part of a secret investment world in which fabulous fortunes were made by a few brilliant traders such as Maude.

The investors were persuaded that they could benefit from Maude's skill by pooling their money in a company called Sabre Asset Management Limited. The company was called "Sabre" because of Maude's penchant for big game hunting (another company was named "Jaguar Asset Management Limited" and Maude's house, 'Cornercroft', in Wilmslow was bought in the name of "Leopard Asset Management Limited").

Some 195 victims each sent a minimum investment of US $25,000 to an Isle of Man account, operated by Sabre, believing that the funds would be used to buy bank instruments which would then be "traded" with very profitable results. In fact almost as soon as it arrived in the account the money was used to pay for Maude's house in Wilmslow and shooting equipment, including expensive shotguns by Purdey and Holland and Holland and hand made rifles by T & T Proctor. Maude also purchased a Range Rover for himself and cars for his wife and for his children.

Sabre was controlled by a UK solicitor, Marshall Ronald, from his home in Altrincham, Greater Manchester. Ronald was also prosecuted but acquitted by a jury on 23 March 2001. He explained in a 7 week trial that he had been deceived by Maude whose lies he had believed."

According to the website at www.theultimateentrepreneur.com, despite his conviction, Dr. Lin was an innocent party in the prime bank scheme.

Some excellent advice is to be found in a speech given on 21st March 2002 by Rosalind Wright (Director of the Serious Fraud Office from 1997 to 2003) entitled "Combating Prime Bank and High-Yield Investment Fraud" at an event organised by the Institute of International Banking Law and Practice.  You can read the whole speech at www.sfo.gov.uk by clicking on "publications" on the home page and then selecting "speeches".  Here are some extracts:

"1. In the Emperor's New Clothes, the familiar tale by Hans Christian Anderson, the unscrupulous tailor was able to persuade the Emperor to parade naked through the streets by way of a confidence trick familiar to many in this room today: he persuaded him that the invisible suit of clothes could only be seen by the cognoscenti, superior classes of persons, the upper echelons. The emperor was taken in; so were the multitudes who flocked to see the emperor in all his non-existent finery and did not want to expose themselves as discerning members of the glitterati. It took a small, guileless child to see through the deception and blow the gaffe.

2. There are many dupes out there who don't want to admit that they don't understand what they are being sold. That the precious secret being made available to them and them alone, which, up till then, has only been made available to banks to make money between themselves, doesn't have substance in reality; that it is a sham; an invisible suit of clothes.

3. Who wants to admit they are ignorant? When a honey-tongued salesman, or "investment adviser" spins them a line that is fully of impressive financial jargon, preferably peppered with reassuring words such as "prime", "guarantee", "investment program", who has the guts to be like the little boy and say "But the emperor is stark naked!" and reveal to the salesman that he is not one of the cognoscenti?

10. You are all very familiar with the phrase "if a thing looks too good to be true, it usually is"; let me give you another one: "If you don't understand what someone is trying to induce you to invest money in, don't invest a penny in it."

14. Some years ago, I was asked to speak on the topic of prime bank instrument fraud to an audience consisting largely of solicitors, accountants and their wealthier clients. I told them that there was no such thing as a "prime bank guarantee" and that if anyone tried to induce them to invest in one, he was a con-man. Afterwards, several members of the audience approached me and asked me if I was sure I was correct. They had themselves invested in prime bank guarantees, sold to them by people they implicitly trusted. They were even now waiting for large returns on their money. I wondered whether they had asked questions; what research they had conducted themselves into these novel instruments; where they had heard of them first? They were all sure these instrument had been around for a long time; they had read about them in the financial pages of the better papers; they were, after all, guaranteed by "prime banks" weren't they? It is always sad to have to shatter people's dreams; especially when they have put money up. But life's a bitch like that, isn't it?

23. There is a widespread incidence of this type of fraud. The SFO and a number of police forces in the United Kingdom are investigating cases in which "high yield programmes," "enhancement programmes," placement programmes" or "roll programmes" have been marketed by professional confidence tricksters."

There are various worrying references to secretive, profitable investment programs available to members of The Ultimate Entrepreneur Club e.g. Stage Two Live Seminar "Here you learn what to do with your newly acquired funds and how and where to invest"; Third Stage Live Seminar "... it will teach you the smart way of investing money overseas ... you make money while you are on the cruise and open your offshore structures and banking contacts"; Fourth And Final Stage "... you become aware of what the major banks are doing and how they multiply money out of thin air.  You can opt to participate in these normally kept secret transactions and multiplying your money".  Another prime bank scheme?  Surely not.

Rosalind Wright said, "If you don't understand what someone is trying to induce you to invest money in, don't invest a penny in it."  Let's ignore for the moment any investment scheme - prime bank or legit - that might be proposed to you as a home for your new-found wealth over cocktails on your cruise; for the moment, let's look at the figures to see where you're going to get this money from in the first place.

Here are the details extracted from the "Marketing Plan" page of the website at www.theultimateentrepreneur.com.

At Stage One you pay $1,250 for a 10-disk CD case "not available in your library, schools or universities".  We are told that these CDs have a retail value of $2,500.  You then bring six other people into the club, and they are each told to bring in 6 people.  You get $1,000 out of each of these people's Stage One Enrolment fees which, hey presto, means "YOUR PROFIT TOTAL HERE $36,000".  Each of these 36 people (including yourself) then pays $6,250 for Stage Two, out of which you get $5,000 from all of them except the first 6 who go to your Director.  "YOUR TOTAL PROFIT HERE $180,000".  For the Third Stage, everyone including yourself pays £31,250, out of which your cut is $25,000.  "YOUR TOTAL PROFIT HERE $225,000". The Fourth and Final Stage sticks with a 3 x 3 matrix, and here you and your team have to pay $125,000, out of which you get $100,000 from each of your recruits.  "YOUR PROFIT TOTAL HERE $900,000". 

"Total in all four stages with just 6 people $1,341,000."

These figures are misleading because it's not just 6 people: for the first two stages it's 36 people, and for the second two stages it's 9 people, and no account is taken of drop offs.  Anyone who has been in multi-level marketing knows that this is unrealistic because there is a substantial drop-off rate.  This is particularly likely to be the case with this scheme where increasingly high levels of investment are required to move up to the next level: only people who have been successful in recruiting people below them are likely to fork out to move up to the next stage.

Anyway, it's clear where the money comes from: not from any revolutionary "financial secrets you have never even thought of", but from money paid into the scheme by recruits.

There has been a number of schemes of this type over the years, and the result has invariably been that most people lose most or all their money.

Most such schemes are illegal, and this one is no exception.

In the words of the DTI brochure entitled "The Trading Schemes Guide", "The law makes it a criminal offence to persuade someone to make a payment to a scheme by promising benefits from getting other people to join a trading scheme.  (Fair Trading Act 1973 section 120(3).)   This does not make recruitment rewards unlawful.  It does make  it unlawful to persuade someone that the main motive for joining is to profit from recruiting others or to take money from someone on the basis of such a motive."

In addition, it's a criminal offence to run a scheme which does not comply with the  Trading Schemes Regulations and this one does not comply.  For example, the maximum amount that a scheme can legally demand from recruits in the first 7 days after signing the contract is £200, whereas the Ultimate Entrepreneur Club demands $1,250 at the outset.  Furthermore, the Regulations require a scheme to give people the right to cancel their contract in the first 14 days after signing, which this scheme does not, and neither does it give an address in the UK for the return of goods.  Also, such schemes are obliged to display the "Statutory Warning" wherever they mention earnings, as follows:

"It is illegal for a promoter or participant in a trading scheme to persuade anyone to make a payment by promising benefits from getting other people to join a trading scheme.  Do not be misled by claims that high earnings can be easily achieved.".

The Ultimate Entrepreneur Club does not display this warning.  Anyone who promotes it without this warning and without compliance with the other requirements of the Trading Schemes Regulations is guilty of a criminal offence.

Anyone who regrets joining the scheme and who is refused a refund is advised to contact Trading Standards.

Dr. Lin died in May this year, and the driving force behind The Ultimate Entrepreneur Club is now Dr. Lin's daughter, whose name is Simone Burns Linschoten.  She was heavily involved in Investors International and therefore presumably knows exactly what the score is with The Ultimate Entrepreneur Club, too

Simone Burns Linschoten does not live in the UK.  Quite why her scheme is being promoted in the UK is unclear.  In fact, the website does not even say which country she lives in.  Perhaps she is a "PT" (Perpetual Traveller), a device recommended by the club to avoid tax liability.

This level of lack of information should cause concern.  could Simone Burns Linschoten or the club itself - and indeed the money - be traced if required?

Finally, the questions arises as to exactly what is The Ultimate Entrepreneur Club?  Is it a proprietorial club and, if so, who owns it?  Or is it a membership club?  Ask for a copy of its Rules.  Ask for details of the names and addresses of its officers.  In addition to the address of the club, these are the most basic questions which need to be answered with documentation before anyone considers sending off substantial sums of money.

Rating:

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BOW Notice: A critical review which raises hard-hitting questions means that in our opinion the business model or the investment model has flaws and/or we have found inadequate evidence to back up claims about earnings, sales, profits etc. It doesn't mean this evidence does not exist and it doesn't mean that the promoters are unprofessional or dishonest. Questions arising are normally contained within the body of the review, and readers who are interested should contact the company with these questions and/or questions of their own.

__________________________________

Links to:

BOW Review of Liberty Wealth Club

Update 7th September 2010
Erich Loewen
Dr. Robert Cathers
Advisory Board Members of Ultimate Entrepreneur Club
Refund request

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