Lyconet in crisis: despair, empty promises and new insights in the YouTube video from 18 January 2025

A personal commentary by Ben Ecker, CEO of BE Conflict Management Inc.

The top leaders of Lyconet/myWorld can no longer ignore the serious problems facing the company. But instead of presenting viable solutions, one thing in particular is becoming clear: a desperate attempt to keep up appearances and maintain the propagated ‘business as usual’ at all costs. I will leave uncommented at this point that Hubert Freidl is now allegedly using his ‘own money’ to spend shopping points.

Hubert Freidl, the face of the company, admitted significant mistakes, while the Upline and top leaders appeared surprised by the current developments. However, this supposed ‘surprise’ seems rather implausible. Anyone who, like me, has been dealing intensively with Lyoness, Lyconet or myWorld for years knows that the only constant factor in this system is the clever selling of dreams about passive income. Added to this is the cyclical replacement of paying marketers every three to four years – necessary because the grandiose promises were never kept.

Freidl’s admission of having made mistakes seems less like genuine remorse and more like an attempt to evade responsibility. Freidl’s admission that he made mistakes seems less like sincere remorse and more like an attempt to evade responsibility.

‘Mr Freidl, what happened to the money of the thousands of marketers? A simple admission of having made mistakes is not nearly enough – and it certainly won’t get you absolution. Yachts, a Learjet, a residence in Monaco? Meanwhile, many marketers are still paying off their loans for years because they believed the promises of you and your leaders. Years ago, you had the chance to take the high road with Lyoness. But as they say in Austria: ‘Greed is a bitch.’

From March 2025, new €49 packages and a return to the original idea of a ‘shopping community’ are apparently intended to revive the familiar patterns. At the same time, the marketer community is being asked to continue to support the company financially with monthly payments. This demand seems like an open mockery, along the lines of: ‘Sorry guys, I’ve been successfully taking money out of your pockets for 20 years, coming up with creative ideas all the while. But now I’ve run out of ideas. So here’s my humble request: Just pay me a kind of pension of only €49 per month. If you all chip in, I won’t have to make any major adjustments to my lifestyle – thank you for that! As a small token of our appreciation, you can now play with Shopping Points. Sure, you can usually get the items cheaper elsewhere, but hey, it’s all about our unbeatable, awesome community!”

But it is precisely this ‘shopping community’ that has been the basis for numerous questionable projects over the last 20 years, from country packages to clouds to the @Mediabox. Although the latter is presented as the ‘first transparent project’, it has significant shortcomings according to a court-appointed expert. Among other things, EU-compliant labelling and document approvals are missing, and legal action by the original developer for copyright infringement is pending.

The topic of stock trading is even more absurd. I presented the supposedly promising stocks and the internal trading platform to a Chief Trader at Goldman Sachs. His opinion was unequivocal: ‘Bullshit!’ There are no profits, no dividends and no real reserves for anything. Even if profits were made, shareholders would have no influence due to a lack of voting rights. Shares can only be sold with myWorld’s consent, and tradability is limited to an internal platform that tests the patience of even the most loyal marketer. This so-called ‘internal trading platform’ is about as useful as swapping used underwear within your family.

Freidl presents himself as someone who takes responsibility, but in fact he skilfully shifts the responsibility onto the marketers. The subliminal message is that anyone who has invested in the false promises has ‘understood something incorrectly’. At the same time, those who have built up an active network are praised. This tactic is not only dishonest but also cynical, since the system is based precisely on these investments and promises.

The new €49 package, to be introduced in March 2025, seems like a last-ditch effort. Marketers are supposed to forget the losses of the last few years and continue paying without the prospect of a refund. The subliminal message is clear: it’s better to stay in the system than to pursue legal claims.

Finally, it should be noted that numerous top leaders and members of the Upline apparently believe that they can evade their responsibility by switching to a new project. But this is definitely not the case. Particularly in the context of Lyoness, Lyconet and myWorld, existing marketing materials and documented statements show that criminally relevant facts have been fulfilled.

It is high time that even the last marketer opened their eyes and finally recognised the system for what it really is.