Jun 9, 2011

Speak Asia: – Real Genius Or (Scam) Fake????????

Speak Asia (SpeakAsiaonline.com) an online survey company that uses multi-level marketing (MLM) to spread its wings across the country…
I heard about Speak Asia since two months back, that company is very good and easy to earn money and getting more and more income with investing 11000 / (that’s around 25$ for some 20 minutes that too for a survey). I don’t care to search at that time, but recently two guys again approaches me regarding Speak Asia (SpeakAsiaonline.com) stating that the company is very good and into survey business and chain marketing. You will get income through just participating into survey and complete those surveys….  Recently I and you all had seen ad of Speak Asia during IPL 4 match, stating that “how it’s now easy to make money online by filling surveys and the whole family is happy.” So the deal seems to be getting more sweeter by the day for everyone joining in and they are not only making money for the participants, and for themselves too to buy advertising spots in IPL matches and also run a few TVC kind of ads on Imagine TV where the anchor is Rakshanda Khan.
All you need to above 18 years of old and basic knowledge of Computer and Internet and English, to join Speak Asia. Because you don’t do anything except filling surveys. If you want to make more money you can either sponsor someone or get a few friends of yours under you and make some % of their earnings too.
Now some cool things:-
Company Background: – Speak Asia Online Pte Ltd.
Formerly named: – Haren Technology.
Formerly named: -PAN Automotives.
Formerly named: – HAREN VENTURES.
Formerly named: – HAREN AUTO PARTS.   (F.K.A.)
Formerly named: – HAREN MULTICONSULT TRADE SERVICES.  (F.K.A.)

When doing little more research on the address of the company the same address is used for different companies. A simple Google can throw a few names which I am listing below. Some of the companies having the same address are:
Valves.Com  and SBS Consulting.
·         The company has a franchisee model so at the face of it you are not paying anything directly to the company “Speak Asia” and it goes in the name of the franchise (bank account) and who further pass that money to someone in Mumbai and all get to keep a certain % out of it. If its such a big company they should provide an option to pay online through credit card directly to them instead of making so many layers of people accepting payments on companies behalf and would have helped them with instant signups.
·         If you watch YouTube for their Torch Bearers 2011 meet they are talking about opening a TV Channel by August 2011. Very nice and ambitious plan but doesnt it require a lot of regulatory processes and time and huge “money”. But the ground reality is that they dont have a single registered office in India. There are claims that it will be open in May 2011 in Mumbai.
·         I found it amusing that they were using a hosted software at SurveyMonkey as their survey tool and only recently purchased Novi Survey. If its an established proven business with multi million dollars in revenue they should have built the survey system completely inhouse on which their entire business model works.
·         They claim they are established in Singapore / Malaysia / Indonesia but after doing a lot of research I didnt find enough evidence that proves that they are getting enough traffic from any of these countries to prove their claim. They are mainly in India and Bangladesh only.
·         Moreover, company Speak Asia (SpeakAsiaonline.com) was registered on 21 January 2010 and they started working in India from February 2010. So the point is that the whole scheme is not that OLD as the company proclaims that it is working since 2006. Earlier the company was doing agreements with Franchisee through the name “Haren Auto Parts Pte. Ltd.” which again changed to Haren Ventures Pte. Ltd.

Also as in above screenshot you can see wrong address of company Speak Asia.
·         So if you are part of Speak Asia or newly invested 11000/- so, for the first three month it is actually just paying out your own money back. So for the company there is always a buffer time of 3 months for the people to even realize how they have been gamed / duped. To keep the ship sailing they need to double their signups every quarter which is luckily happening for them, So that they can pay the earlier and current customers from that money and keep some money for advertisement to maintain their signup targets.
So what will happen once the company falls short of their target of adding more people to its subscribers list?
The first thing will be that there will be a rate cut in the surveys. Secondly we see less frequent surveys and at the end there will be hardly any surveys. The company is liable to pay only when you participate and fill the survey and as an user you can’t sue the company as they are not liable to pay anything to you in the event there are no surveys. The initial 11,000 (which is soon going to be 15000) is towards the E-Zine so you continue to get that E-Zine.
What happens when the company stops Surveys or doesn’t pay?
Well nothing can be done due to the following reasons:
·         The main company is registered in Singapore so to recover 11000 hardly anyone will travel to Singapore to file a case against them in Singapore Court.
·         The company is selling you E-Zine and you have paid 11000 towards that and not towards the Survey. Your payment of Rs.1000 / 2 surveys is toward the Surveys you fill. So on that ground too the company is safe.
·         Let’s assume something goes wrong and the Indian authorities goes after this whole scheme and in that case the company can easily bail themselves out saying they have not received any money from them cause none of the payments is made in their name rather it’s in the name of the Franchisee who are paid a certain % to forward that to the main distributor and who further pass it to someone else. So the person you can only catch is the person to whom you made the payment. But sadly the problem is that even that person is the victim of this whole scheme. Unhappy
·         Yes one does receive a online receipt for the money that one pays from Speak Asia and here is the screenshot. Earlier it was given from “Online Surveys Today” which I doubt that any such company even exists though the address was same as Speak Asia Online Pte. Ltd. and later it is changed to Haren Ventures Pte. Ltd. but they changed the address to a new address.
So how can someone run such a huge thing without anyone noticing it?
This is India and anything is possible. We easily believe in such schemes and are really fond of such online money making schemes…….

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