USFIA Update: Turns out USFIA itself is a reload scam... Successor to Amkey

Some readers have posed the question... How did Steve Chen got so big, involving possibly hundreds of millions of dollars?

The answer is... he's been at this for much longer than USFIA. USFIA (as either "American Royal 美洲富豪" or "American Mining 美洲礦業") was only his latest scheme.  His previous scheme was "Amkey 安旗" , which started in 2004, and was basically forced to exit China after repeated scandals, but continued in Asia for many more years.

So what exactly was Amkey? According to Amkey's website...

A leading nutritional supplement products corporation, Amkey, Inc, is the provider of the world’s only cell renewal and protection products with multiple international patents. We are a US company established in June 2003 headquartered in Los Angeles, California. We are an e-commerce network marketing company combining R&D, production and the sales of high-tech nutritional supplement products, skin care products and daily sundry items.

It claims to be a member of the Direct Selling Association (US), but searching through DSA.org as of today (27-SEP-2015) shows no such company listed.  Searching through news archives seems to indicate that Amkey was accepted by DSA in June 2005, but there is no press release about when it was ejected.

Current US address is the Steve Chen building... 135 E. Live Oak, Arcadia. But let's start from the very beginning...

Amkey in China

Amkey entered China in October 2004 by registering "Amkey (Beijing) Technology Development Ltd." 安旗（北京）科技发展有限公司 in a business park in Beijing. It apparently bought some factory in Shenzhen in 2005 and started selling its products after approval process. 

According to an expose penned by an ex-member (PDF of article in Chinese) , Amkey was guilty of multiple misrepresentations.

On 14-SEP-2005, Premier Hu Jintao, attending a UN meeting, apparently met with over 600 local who's-who in the Chinese community, and Steve Chen was apparently among the crowd.

This was immediately plastered all over the Amkey news channels as "Premier Hu and Wife Welcomed By Amkey US CEO, Chinese-American Elite Merchant Council Chairman Steve Chen", claiming that 7 members of the company representing the three branches of Amkey (US, Beijing, and Hong Kong) to attend "US-China CEO Summit", claiming only the top 50 CEOs of the world can attend and they got 3 out of the 50 seats.

So what's the reality? According to the expose writer, Amkey attended a "US China Commerce Summit" at the Waldorf, not the Top 50 CEO summit. As for "welcomed Premier Hu"? A photo of Hu's motorcade driving past an Amkey banner streamed along the route was the "proof" provided by Amkey's website.

Another bout of hilarity ensued regarding the 2004 "Xiamen Direct Sales Legislation Proposal Seminar" 厦门直销立法座谈会.  Twenty-two companies were invited to talk with Chinese legislators about what sort of legislations and regulations the direct sales industry needs in China. Amkey, who was NOT among the 22 invited companies, falsely claimed to be among the attendees by inflating the company count to 23 (link in Chinese). This was not done by affiliates, but by Amkey corporate website.  The officials were not amused. Furthermore, the only time Amkey appeared in the news is it was on a BLACKLIST of 20 companies that was investigated for possible pyramid schemes.

Anti-Scam: Rough Guide to Spotting Shady Opportunities, Part 2 of 3

This guide is an adaptation of "A Rough Guide to Spotting Bad Science" by "Compound Interest", converted for spotting "shady opportunities". For length reasons, this is presented in 3 parts. This is part 2 of 3.

A Rough Guide To Spotting Shady Opportunities  (part 2 of 3)

Shady Opportunities are out there, waiting to take your money on promises of fabulous income... if you hand over your money first. There are twelve signs. Obviously a shady opportunity may not have all the signs, but the more signs you spot, the more shady the opportunity is.

5) Speculative Language

Speculations are not facts, so if the statement contains "weasel words" like "may", "could", "might", and so on, then it's likely to be speculation, rather than conclusion.

You can often spot this when a "lotions and potions" company presents some study that "sort of" proves their product works. But this can also apply to income claims, which is usually frowned upon.

For example, a certain MLM nutritional supplement company's entire product line is based on this speculation published in "Medical Hypotheses (2002)"

...Based on a review of the literature we propose the hypothesis that in situ mobilization of stem cells from the bone marrow and their migration to various tissues is a normal physiological process of regeneration and repair and that therapeutic benefits can be generated with less invasive regimens than the removal and re-injection of stem cells, through the stimulation of normal stem cell migration. We further propose that effort should be made to identify natural compounds characterized by their ability to augment this normal process of mobilization and re-colonization of bone marrow stem cells for the potential treatment of various degenerative diseases. 

If you can't read medical jargon, what it says is "Stem cells are cool. We think stem cells gets into the blood and travel around the body to where its needed to help healing. Maybe we can find a natural something that'll make the body produce more stem cells."

That's right, this is a HYPOTHESIS. There is no proof that having more "loose" stem cells in your body would improve your health (remember, HYPOTHESIS), much less any compound that can do so.

Doesn't stop this MLM company from making products with such claims, of course. In fact, some of the principals in this company where previously sued (under a different company name) in Texas and lost a false advertising suit... also involving stem cells. That company used blue-green algae, some of which are POISONOUS (see "microcystins")  And it seems this particular company is still using similar formulas.

The company may sound confident in stating such things on their advertising materials. Look beyond the marketing material and look at the original research their products are based on. You may be surprised.

Conversely, if a company "guarantees" something, look for caveats and fine print.