Hi folks,
Because I’ve been noticing a number of access Indians investing and
using the online survey company speak asia, I thought to write you
this mail to inform that you may be trapped, hence you’re required to
stay cautious before investing anymore.
There are clear evidences to demonstrate that the company is
conducting a scam with more then a million customers in India now,
and because I’m suspecting some of our friends here may also get
affected, i thought to write you this mail to convey a friendly advise
of not using this company anymore.
In this email, I’ve written my foundings after a bit of research that
I’ve conducted about this company, because a few of my friends have
been asking me to do the same.
All those who are associated with speak asia or planning to get
associated are requested to please read this mail till the end before
you decide anything further.
Please, read this mail before getting purple on me, and even in that
case, i’m posting what I’ve observed, and it should be undoubtedly
clear that I have no direct or indirect connection or rivalry with
this company. Its only a sincere attempt to advise my friends on this
list that they are required to stay careful before dribbling away
their hard money.
Also, this mail may get a bit long, so if you believe this is not of
your interest, please get away.
Imagine if there were an online business where you could earn a very
handsome and recurring income simply by spending 10-15 minutes per
week. To qualify,
all you need is a computer with an Internet connection and some basic
knowledge of the English language. Many of my friends here in VI
community too are opted or wanting to opt the scheme.
The exact plan is something like this. You give me $200 as an
enrollment fee and in return, I will pay you $40 per month for the
next 12 months. You make
a neat profit of $280 with no effort but there’s something more. If
you can convince some of your friends to join the program, you get a
commission on
their earnings as well and so on.
The company in question is Speak Asia Online – they’re running an
online survey business In India on a similar model and have been
massively successful
in their mission so far.
I’ve been receiving emails from the company from a few months asking
me to join their survey business, but i’ve never took attention at
that time. It was only last month, after talking to some people, did I
realize how popular they have become among households in India mostly
through word-of-marketing.
One of Speak Asia’s franchisee suggested on phone that they have more
than a million members in India, that’s 1% of India’s total Internet
population, and
the above
the advertisement and marketing campaign of the company is on its
rise, and you can notice the words about speak asia in different news
papers, TV channels, social media websites and other mediums.
So, is the company a true player? Is it a legit or scam?
Because some people have been sending me emails and asking about it, I
thought to do a bit of research on this, and following is what I found
out:
Number 1:
The company’s website – speakasiaonline.com – suggests that they are
based in Singapore and the contact address listed on the website seems
to match
with the Whois information of their website domain. They claim to have a
certificate from ACRA
(Singapore’s compliance authority) but a quick search
suggests the company is no longer eligible for receiving the
“Certificate of Compliance.”
The records, publicly available at
acra.gov.sg,
also suggest that the company “SPEAKASIA ONLINE PTE. LTD.” was
previously known as “HAREN TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD.” and “PAN AUTOMOTIVES
PTE. LTD.” but little
do we know about their past operations.
#2.:
The company says their revenues will exceed $115m this year but if
you Google the names of their top executives – Harendar Kaur (CEO) and
Tarak Bajpai
(India head) – there’s absolutely no information. That’s very
surprising especially when these people are handling a successful and
global business of
this scale.
#3.:
In order to become a member of Speak Asia Online, all you need is a
bank account and the company will directly transfer monthly revenues
to your bank
account from United Overseas Bank (UOB) Singapore. They require no
documentation or proofs even when we have such strict banking rules in
India around
foreign transactions.
#4.:
The USD:INR currency exchange rate fluctuates around the INR 45 mark
but Speak Asia makes all payments at INR 50. That’s 10% above the
market price
and no sensible for-profit company in the world would be willing to
lose money like that.
#5.:
Speak Asia representatives told me over phone that they are
distributing millions of dollars every week to their Indian
subscribers, still the company has
no office in India, there’s no support center to assist customers and
above all, Speak Asia Online is not even a registered business in
India.
Number 6.:
The background of the company looks really interesting for this matter.
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.)
The point is, Why they’ve been keep changing companies?
Number7:
Speak Asia mentions their Singapore contact address as “10 Ubi
Crescent, #07-68, Ubi Techpark, Singapore 408564.” A quick search on
Google suggests
that several companies in Singapore are sharing that office space.
My simple google search has brought the following companies who are
using the same address for their office as speak asia:
Valves.Com
SBS Consulting.
this likely means that the address is used by a third party to
register companies to, and no real business operates there.
Number 8:
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.
Number 9:
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.
Number 10:
They claim that bharti airtell, ICICI bank, bata, etc are amongst
their clients but according to star news report at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93VMHoiEa90
its just a lie, and bharti as well as ICICI already confirmed that
they have no association with this company.
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
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.
All of us want to earn a quick money, and this is exactly what these
companies use in filling their accounts and robbing ours.
A little more of my search to google has given some results where
people are openly discussing their ideas and opinions about this site:
http://www.suchetadalal.com/?id=a60a3ffc-a8bd-0368-492e822e450e&base=sub_sections_content&f&t=Home+Trade%27s+%27starry%27+gameplan
http://blog.investraction.com/2011/04/speak-asia-scam-or-for-real.html
http://www.suchetadalal.com/?id=90890ade-4fcf-f284-4da58466269d&base=sections&f
http://www.aboutindiatoday.gen.in/2011_02_01_archive.html
http://www.moneylife.in/article/speakasia-still-cant-show-valid-legal-documents/15551.html
till the date everyone is getting paid from SpeakAsiaonline.com but no
one who care what the actual reality behind it. You may be duped
anytime, so as a well wisher and friend, I advise you to keep yourself
away for such scam businesses. There’s nothing like simple and quick
money in the world, and noone has right to fish your tough money that
you’ve earned after a lot of efforts and hard work.
There have been many such examples of people who got robbed by
companies like these, so please, for god sake, stay careful.
The choice is yours, I just wanted to share what I have observed and fount out.
Regards,
Prateek agarwal.
Director,
Daedal technovations pvt. Ltd.
www.daedaltechnovations.com
We bring the change we wish to see!
Website:
www.prateekagarwal.webs.com
|
www.prateekagarwal.tk
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