Yet another criminal complaint: Hubert Freidl’s “Clouds”
Another criminal complaint was filed with the Office of the Attorney General for Economic Crime and Corruption on 05 April 2023 and forwarded to Department 33, this time concerning “clouds”.
The Customer Cloud is an idea which probably originates from Hubert Freidl’s think tank “how do I get the marketers’ money”. It is well known that Hubert Freidl is not emotionally attached to his members. Court records show that Freidl occasionally utters “let’s go collect morons” to his inner circle before he enters the stage to speak to those so called “morons”.
Customer Clouds are based on the company’s pretense that in future the shopping community, number of customers and partner cooperations will steadily increase by expanding into other countries. As a cloud owner, you virtually “sponsor” the market expansion, whereby you are supposed to receive your investment plus monthly distributions at the end of the agreed term.
Other than selling clouds, most expansions never actually happened. The announced cloud distributions were initially delayed and when they did happen, they were of outright ridiculous magnitude, not in the positive sense. Top leaders at the time announced, that “with the distribution of the cloud, you have a secure monthly passive income”, but just a couple of years later, these guys are nowhere to be found, since they conveniently moved on from the company a while back and thus cannot be held accountable for their statements.
Regular purchases in the myWorld shopping community generate Shopping Points but cannot be allocated to customers who have not come across myWorld by “recommendation” and therefore do not have an account. For this reason, Shopping Points generated this way, are allegedly pooled in a cloud, to later be distributed proportionately to the investors.
Said passive income should be generated based on the customers’ daily purchases. The number of clouds as well as the registration is limited. With the purchase of an entry package between 350 and 2400 euros, one gains access to Clouds. Additionally, one has to make monthly purchases via the website, of between 50 and 150 euros. The cloud itself costs between 500 and 1500 euros and was alleged to pay out at least 300 euros per month in profit. The cloud payments were booked in the system as product purchases in the form of “discount vouchers”.
The prerequisite for entitlement to payment is that a marketer has to accumulate 50 evaluated Shopping Points in that week. Shopping Points originate from the purchases made by the marketer himself and from those purchases made by the customers recruited by the marketer. It is also maintained through the purchase of vouchers, whereby 50 Euro equals 50 SP. Easy Shop Plus must be active also, which means regular automated purchases must be made via the shopping community.
Excerpt from the court filing:
“The “Lyoness/Lyconet/myWorld” model does not provide for the possibility that the payments are paid out again or refunded; rather, all versions of the T&Cs stipulate that the payments are non-refundable. The vouchers cannot be used for purchases either. In fact, the payments are therefore not matched by any equivalent consideration. The total loss of the capital invested is pre-programmed.”
Because of the above inconsistencies, we believe that the law is being violated in the following respects: Investment fraud: Due to the scam “products” and the general deception involved in the investments, there is a suspicion of investment fraud. A total loss is possible and likely to happen since consumers are promised investments that do not exist. Investors entrust their money to the company to invest and manage, which was never part of the company’s plan to begin with.
What is behind the clouds is indicated by the allegedly violated laws, such as
§§ 146, 147 para 3, 148 2nd case StGB – Serious fraud
§ 156 Abs 1 und 2 StGB – Grossly negligent insolvency over 300.000 €
§ 278 paras 1, 2 and 3 StGB – Criminal organisation “Mafia Paragraph”
§ 168a paras 1 and 2 StGB – Ponzi schemes
§ 15 para 1 KMG – Violation of the Capital Markets Act
There is a suspicion of embezzlement due to the use of capital contrary to the agreement. The model for recruiting new marketers and the remuneration according to the “compensation plan” correspond to a pyramid scheme. There is suspicion that Freidl is operating a pyramid scheme, as has already been judged in Norway, Poland and Italy. On top of that, there is suspicion of a mafia-like structure or criminal organization as the organized, Europe-wide, commercial fraud has been ongoing for years.
Stay tuned!
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