Declares Questnet illegal
NYARUGENGE - The National Bank of Rwanda’s (BNR) investigations into the business practices of Questnet have revealed that the company is operating a money swindling pyramid scheme and could be involved in money laundering, The New Times has learnt.
In an email sent to The New Times yesterday, the Central Bank said that Questnet is a pyramid scheme, which is collecting money from subscribers in Rwanda and sends it outside to companies called Park King Development and DBS Hong Kong using swift transfer. The Central Bank said its early investigations show that since January this year, Questnet has transferred a total of $500,000 (Rwf284 million) outside the country through illegitimate means.
The Hong Kong-based company has however insisted it is a direct selling entity that utilises network marketing to provide innovative products and business opportunities to its customers. According to BNR findings, the company uses multi-level marketing businesses, which sell real products like Bio-discs and small IT materials, which are imported via DHL.
“But the underlining objective is to recruit dealers and collect their enrolling fee,” said Angélique Kantengwa, Senior Director Financial Stability at BNR.
Kantengwa said that Questnet is a fraudulent company that is not licensed to operate business on Rwandan soil. She said that a successful pyramid scheme combines a fake, yet seemingly credible business with a simple-to-understand yet sophisticated money-making formula. According to the Central Bank, a weekly “interest” is paid to the member of Questnet who manage to bring two new recruits.
Katengwa said a certain amount of money is transferred to Park King Development and DBS Hong Kong on weekly basis. She added that the number of layers of the pyramid increases new recruits who find it harder and harder to sell the product because there are so many competing salesmen.
“Those near or at the top of the pyramid make a lot of money on their percentage of the enrolling fees and on commissions for the supplied products, but those at the bottom are left with inventories of products they can’t sell.”
“These schemes exploit greed and gullibility. To enhance credibility, most such scams are well equipped with fake referrals, testimonials and information.”
The Central Bank says that amounts dwindle steeply down as the pyramid slopes.
However, Rajesh Rao, the company’s Public Relations Manager told The New Times recently that direct marketing through network marketing is not about signing up as many people as possible, but getting the product to the market.
This is the second time this year the Central Bank is warning the public to be cautious about the reappearance of pyramidal operations or get-rich-quick schemes in which people put their cash. On January 13, BNR issued a public warming about the illegal character of such schemes and on the risks run by promoters and people who agree to subscribe to those criminal activities.
“The National Bank of Rwanda calls upon the public to be cautious in order to avoid the risk of loosing their savings to criminals,” the BNR statement reads in part.
The bank said that the public must know that a pyramidal operation or a get rich quick is a fraudulent stratagem set up by individuals or a group of people with an aim of making money.
Though easy to understand, the pyramid scheme is still a sophisticated way of making money. Early this week, the Government of Rwanda banned the operations of questnet, one company which conducted its operations in Rwanda through independent representatives.
As a marketing company, questnet had a boast in its operations to have managed to cut across geographical boarders, race, tribes and religion as it created a global family of successful entrepreneurs.
According to a statement released by the Ministry of Finance, questnet had failed to meet the required tax procedures expected from a registered company. The statement read that, “It shall be compulsory to register a company in the Registrar’s General Office.”
It further indicated that, “Any person who sets up a business or other activities that may be taxable is obliged to register with the tax administration within a period of seven days, from the beginning of operating the business, or activity, or the establishment of the company.”
Despite, the business operation measures set in place, the statement also stated that there were illegal transactions by questnet like, using the pyramid scheme or chain referral scheme to acquire more customers from the public.
Eventually, the collected revenue from the sold products is transferred in and out of the country in an uncontrolled and unsupervised manner by the Central Bank.For this reason, the National Bank of Rwanda sanctioned its closure. However, by this time many Rwandan’s had already been connived and trapped into questnet’s pyramid scheme.
Lambert Ingabire, was a former member of questnet. He expressed his disappointment to ‘The New Times’ as he came to terms with counting his losses.
He wondered whether there was a way of getting a refund but he had already started doubting the whole questnet movement.
“I don’t know who the leader of the movement is; I just know the people who made me join,” Ingabire said.
He said that the group entices someone into buying their wellness and lifestyle products, jewellery, and one famous Bio Disc that charges the body with the right frequencies and prevents diseases.
According to amezcua.com, after many years of research of Bio energy and water, Dr. Ian Lyon came up with an amazing discovery of a Scalar-energy producing product known as the Bio Disc. A Bio Disc is a circular glass disc of approximately 9centimetres in diameter which is made through Heat Fusion and Nano technology.
The disc is believed to eliminate and nullify the effects of man-made frequencies within the human body. It is also believed to increase the energy level of every single body cell to an ideal level.
“With all the hype about the Bio Disc, it was hard to resist joining questnet. They even said that it could protect your DNA from damage,” Ingabire added.
“One needed to part with USD 630 to buy a Bio-Disc or even more depending on the product you wanted in order to join,” Ingabire added.
With this sort of a mouth to mouth marketing based business, he added that “you had to get people buy products and be put on a commission based payment.
The whole idea of the disc improving one’s immune system, cleansing of blood and also acting as an anti-depressant was the catch.”
“I also can’t tell how many members we were because it had really been long since I went to any of their meetings.
I had sort of quit because some people were negative about it when they kept on saying that it may be satanic,” said Ingabire.
Many Christians had doubted this company with the excuse that people could no longer preach Christ’s gospel but rather the questnet Gospel.
Through the Pyramid scheme, people were required to try and convince more people to join in order to make more profits and in return, members spent a lot of their time and energy ensuring that everyone around them knows about questnet.
Rose Kitakufe, a Ugandan questnet representative during a phone interview with ‘The New Times’said that she already makes good money through the business.She was even selected as one of the representatives to go to Kenya some time back to lure more people into the business.
Kitakufe assured that questnet is not a pyramid scheme as long as there are products sold to maintain the smooth running of the company.
“A pyramid scheme only fails at some point because of lack of trade in te movement and the lack of ways of generating more money,” she assured.
She further added that questnet is not bound to fail since their products are medically proven and have proved the test of time. For this reason Kitakufe said that QusetNet was genuine and hence many people are purchasing the products.
Despite all the various reasons given for questnet’s dealings, the Ministry of Finance’s statement confirmed that the chain referral earns commissions that are not declared in accordance with tax laws of the Republic of Rwanda.
The recent blacklisting of questnet as a pyramid scheme was a wake up call; like our mothers told us “if something looks too good to be true, then don’t fall for it.” Some of us didn’t heed that advice and bought into this; some Rwandans have a “get rich quick” mentality that is too easy to exploit.
We are a booming nation where some are getting rich off hard work but others want a short cut; and the pyramid scheme is geared to that. The pyramid scheme has existed in various guises and is always being perfected to appeal to new customers.
Pyramid schemes take the form of various scams; such as “gifting circles” a hybrid of the scheme aimed at women – they can have good causes such as “helping women” with a portion of the scam money supposedly going to charity.
These gifting circles are nothing more than the classic pyramid where more people are brought in to pay the dividends for older clients. Sometimes cheap products like Aloe Vera are sold at extortionate prices with an elaborate sales pitch and marketing; so products worth $10 can be sold for $100 and customers are encouraged to sell on the products to other customers and the pyramid continues.
We have a number of legal measures to block such schemes but nothing can replace pure common sense; there is no such thing as something for nothing.
Even in America the disgraced Bernie Maddof redefined the Ponzi scheme for the 21st century with an elaborate pyramid that tricked even educated people.
Among his numerous victims was a professor of economics who should have known better; but even he was blinded by the lights and forgot his senses.
We have all received that email from the Nigerian Prince, whose father was a chief but recently died and left him $5,000,000 but due to a technicality the money is held up and all they need is the inheritance tax of 1% or $5,000 and you’ll get $20,000 as a personal thank you.
This sounds ridiculous but millions fall for this trick every year and the 401 is supposedly Nigeria’s second forex earner after oil, grossing over $1 billion.
It all comes down to common sense, patience, hard work – that is how you succeed because easy money goes as quickly as you earned it. The misery that pyramid schemes cause is terrible, they destroy families – Nairobi and Kampala in the early 90’s saw a rash of pyramid schemes that bankrupted a section of the middle-class.
Even after people had supposedly learned their lesson, the pyramid scheme evolved into something new and scammed again.
The pyramid scheme is successful because it mixes the two things that people crave; power and money. The man at the top of the pyramid has tremendous power and will benefit the most while lower minions will pay the price; it feeds on a need to suddenly change ones circumstances by getting rich all the time.
We have to understand that money is not the solution to our problems; our problems go deeper than that, they are in our character and habits we keep and not the money we have.
You would be better off to invest in a cooperative; bank or generally something producing tangible profits and not unsustainable pyramids.
The police and government will do their best but it falls on our shoulders to be alert; just remember what your mother said “if it looks too good to be true…
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