Anyone who is on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook or TikTok often comes across offers that sound tempting: from weight loss powder to lucrative investments. In our series, reporter Judith Henke takes a look at these products. What is behind it, how serious are you?
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Anyone who has read the last article of this format carefully can already guess what this time is about. The self-proclaimed celebrity crypto advisor whose overpriced course offering I checked out two weeks ago previously worked for a company called MarketPeak.
The company is based in Dubai and advertises that customers can build up a “passive income”. In addition, there are the typical car showman pictures and “hamster wheel” phrases on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.
By now I’ve looked at enough questionable financial offers to pay attention to such characteristics. So I take a closer look at “MarketPeak” – and go to the company’s website. But I can’t really make sense of it at first.
It appears to be an educational platform on blockchain and cryptocurrencies. But what exactly do I learn there that I can’t already learn – without paying directly for it – on platforms like YouTube? And what exactly is meant by the “passive income” advertised on the site?
To find out more, I register on the website. And I see: I can purchase different product packages – the cheapest is $125, but there is also a “Gold” package for $10,000. Depending on the price, I get more or less services.
The cheapest package – with the hackneyed name “Mindset” – gives me access to an “Affiliate and Mindset Academy.” Exactly what that has to do with blockchain and crypto is a mystery to me. But there’s more content: a film called Think and Grow Rich, weekly live coaching, access to corporate events, and sales scripts.
What do I need the latter for? Presumably to become a better saleswoman so I can get the Direct Sales Bonus that I’m also promised. And I get “Holy Token” monthly – a kind of digital currency that I’ve never heard the name of before.
The more I pay, the more of these ominous tokens I get – plus more tutorials, buying tips on specific coins, and sales bonuses.
For example, the $10,000 “Gold” package still gets me access to the Crypto Mastery Academy, YouTube Masterclass, and Metaverse Masterclass — so if I’m not a master investor by then, I don’t know what is continue. And I also get more bonuses: in addition to the Direct Sales Bonus, the Cycle Step Bonus, the Matching Bonus and the Career Bonus
But how do these bonuses work exactly – and when do I get them? It’s not explained very clearly on the website, but I can find promotional material there. There is talk of a “compensation plan”.
I get 8% commission when I refer new customers and another 2% commission when those new customers bring in more prospects. Overall, this commission system goes up to the fifth level – like a pyramid.
But that’s just the principle of the direct sales bonus. From the 750 dollar package there is also a “Cycle Step Bonus” – and it is so complicated that unfortunately I have to watch quite exhausting advertising videos on YouTube.
There I find out that – for whatever reason – I have to divide my new customers into two groups and ensure that both customer groups achieve set sales targets.
As a reward, I receive an additional commission from a certain turnover. Depending on how much money I spent on my “MarketPeak” package, this commission will be larger or smaller.
There’s also the “Matching Bonus” for anyone who spent $10,000 on the “Gold” package or $15,000 on the “Diamond” package – which I only found out about existed through the promotional materials.
By the way: According to these documents, there is also an “Empire” package for $30,000. That’s how much some families spend on their rent every year.
In comparison, the $2,000 “all-in” package looks like a bargain. From this price level, customers also receive a career bonus, as I learn from the advertising material. The amount of this bonus also depends on how successful the recruited customers are in winning more customers – because this is rewarded with a higher career level.
Anyone who helps a customer reach the highest career level receives another bonus, which is three percent of global sales.
I have to admit: I’ve looked at many multi-level marketing systems, but I’ve never come across such a complicated compensation system. This can also have a system: finances are a topic of anxiety for many consumers, they quickly feel insecure.
So they may perceive a salesperson who uses a particularly large number of technical terms and presents a product as particularly complex as superior to them. So they trust him and invest – often not to their advantage.
I therefore always advise inexperienced investors not to invest in a product that they do not fully understand. The risk of being ripped off is otherwise too great.
Keyword investment: “Marketpeak” also has its own digital currency, the “Peak Token.” It is part of the “Peakdefi” project, which also includes its own wallet, through which investors have access to the tokens.
The website also mentions a fund. “Peakdefi” is – no joke – cooperation partner of the Premier League club West Ham United. Money does score goals after all.
But I hope that West Ham United don’t take the performance of the “Peak Token” as a role model. Because it has fallen by 99.5 percent since its peak in August 2021. So anyone who invested in the coin back then is now on the verge of total loss.
For comparison: Bitcoin has lost a good 50 percent of its value since August 2021 – not nice either, but at least better than almost 100 percent.
Also, the bitcoin price was $0.08 when it first started trading in 2010. So its value has increased massively since then. The peak token, on the other hand, has turned out to be more of a money-destroying machine since the start of trading in 2020, with a price loss of 95 percent.
This also seems to infuriate MarketPeak customers. In the Telegram group for German investors, a user writes: “When does Market Peak actually care that the peak token comes out of the minus of almost 99 percent? The Peaktoken price was initially advertised for $4, then it was still $1 per token.”
The user means that in the past four dollars and later one dollar were apparently declared as the target for the price development of the coins. Compared to the starting price of $0.077 per “peak token”, that would have been an increase of over 90 percent.
When asked, “MarketPeak” denies ever having communicated a price target of four dollars. They explain the massive loss in value of the coin with the market environment of inflation, war and crypto scandals such as the FTX bankruptcy. The company said nothing about whether it announced a price target of $1.
But what can I actually do with the “Peak Token”? On the website I read something about a “Global Fund” that I can invest in. There is talk of 108.77 percent annual return. For comparison: With the hedge fund Wellington, Citadel was able to achieve a return of 38.1 percent in 2022 – a record result.
So if Peakdefi’s ‘Global Fund’ has indeed reaped a return well in excess of Citadel’s record performance, why isn’t it a lot better known? More than 108 percent return – word should get around in the financial sector. Have I just discovered the investment opportunity of a lifetime here?
Unfortunately not: Because “MarketPeak” tells me when asked that this return would refer to the “Peak Defi Funds”. However, it was closed due to higher transaction costs. No user can invest there anymore.
Too bad. But even if I can no longer invest in the fund, I ask myself: Why was there a distribution system for this fund? Anyone who has managed a fund with an annual return of 108 percent shouldn’t really need to spend a lot of time advertising for it.
Nevertheless, if I get other investors to invest in the fund, I receive ten percent of their return as a commission. If these customers refer other customers, I also get a reward. In this way, the commission system goes on and on, up to the eighth level of recruited customers.
And there is also a similar commission system for another investment offer related to the “Peak Token”: Investors can also “stake” their tokens.
This is explained like this: They take the coins off the market for a certain period of time – so they don’t exchange them for dollars during this period, for example. For reducing the supply of coins in this way, they receive a reward in the form of additional “Peak Tokens”.
Investors can buy the “Peak Token” via a crypto exchange – although I notice that the coin is not listed on any of the well-known exchanges like Binance. And until the end of last year, they could also acquire the token if they spent money on one of the “MarketPeak” packages.
They received the purchase price of the package in tokens – and additional tokens were distributed to them at regular intervals. If the coin had not lost around 95 percent in value since its launch, customers could have made an additional profit.
Instead, some of the customers are probably angry – and vent their anger in the Telegram group. There “MarketPeak” employees try to appease: “You bought a training package and no tokens. Tokens, i.e. investments, are bought on a stock exchange. Don’t you appreciate education at all?”
“Education” probably means the “mindset” and crypto courses. “MarketPeak” has always been a training platform, emphasizes the same employee again.
But if this is really a training platform, why is there this complex distribution system? Why did a customer receive additional “Peak Tokens” last year if they invested in the learning programs?
Although this offer is no longer valid for this year, it is now being advertised that new customers receive a certain amount of “Holy Tokens” per month depending on the price of their package.
But whether that is so tempting is the second question: A look at the analysis platform “CoinMarketCap” shows that the value of this token has fallen by around 70 percent since it was launched.
In addition, his trading volume on Wednesday evening was not even 15,000 euros – that is extremely low. So far, the token can only be traded on two crypto exchanges. It belongs to an NFT platform called “Holygrails”, on whose website I can’t even find an imprint.
We summarize: A company that sells learning programs for prices up to $30,000, has a confusing commission system for customer acquisition and advertises with rather poorly performing coins – is that trustworthy?
I ask Niels Nauhauser from the consumer advice center in Baden-Württemberg. He is skeptical: “As soon as one of the keywords ‘based in Dubai’ (also always popular: Cyprus), ‘passive income’ or ‘crypto’ appears, all warning lights should switch to red.” Fraudsters would like to apply for a seat abroad because they are safe from law enforcement there.
Daniel Bauer from the Protection Association of Investors also considers the offer to be dubious. He also looked at the “Peak Token”.
But in his opinion, this coin is worth nothing because there is no added value behind it. “In this case, the whole thing is based on a snowball-like system in which users are supposed to acquire other users.”
Pyramid schemes are prohibited in Germany. At the top of such systems is the initiator who introduces a product – such as a particularly promising investment. In principle, it doesn’t matter what the product is, because the focus is on recruiting new partners.
The initiator works with sales people who are supposed to recruit new customers. These customers attract other interested parties – and so on. In order to advertise part of the system, new customers pay a kind of start-up fee. This can be, for example, the investment in the advertised supposedly high-yield financial product.
As long as more and more customers are recruited, the system works – and the profits are paid out. But if the number of new customers stagnates, the construct collapses and the majority of customers lose money.
The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) also repeatedly warns of pyramid schemes. In a specialist article on her website, she writes that such scams are particularly common on the illegal capital market. This would include all providers on the financial market who offer unauthorized financial transactions that require authorisation.
Neither the “Peak Systems FZCO” behind “MarketPeak” nor the “Peak Labs DMCC”, which is responsible for “Peakdefi”, have no permission from BaFin. I also know from circles familiar with the matter that BaFin is currently conducting proceedings against “MarketPeak”.
When asked, “MarketPeak” denies that proceedings would be initiated against the company. In addition, as an education platform, “MarketPeak” does not require BaFin approval.
“We were in contact with BaFin years ago after MarketPeak was founded and duly discussed all points,” the email says. The company does not comment separately on whether the company behind “Peakdefi” needs a permit.
In addition, “MarketPeak” emphatically denies being a Ponzi scheme. “A Ponzi scheme would be when you would just make money for sponsoring new people WITHOUT (sic!) getting a product or service behind it,” the company says.
However, “MarketPeak” is “one (sic!) of the best training platforms for crypto worldwide with over 500 videos and regular live calls with various experts.” The “Peak Token” would have several use cases, so it would be useful. In addition, it is not obligatory for the customer to become a sales partner.
I had a lengthy conversation with two customers who were active as sales partners. I won’t mention their two real names here – they both want to remain anonymous because they still have part of their savings invested in “MarketPeak”.
Leon Müller and Thorsten Bäcker, as I now call them in this article, became aware of the company during the pandemic. You have benefited from the system.
“During the peak phase, I earned up to 9,000 euros a month through ‘MarketPeak’,” says Müller. He recruited bakers as new customers – and they would have gained more customers. Because both were quite high up in the sales structure, it was worth it for them to recruit additional investors in exchange for commissions. Those who came much later as a customer would have been less fortunate, the two say.
Nevertheless, millers and bakers quickly became skeptical. “It bothered me that the focus was so much on multi-level marketing,” says Müller. Even if MarketPeak now presented itself as an educational platform – customers were lured with the prospect of quick money through sales bonuses and rising prices of the “Peak Token”.
“We were told the goal for the token is for it to go above $3,” Baker said. During the time when the coin was increasing in value, they would have sold a number of packages – after all, every new customer would have received “Peak Tokens” in the amount of the purchase price of the respective package.
“MarketPeak” denies to me that the customers were lured using the “Peak Token”. The educational platform has been the focus of marketing since 2019.
But in a video that “MarketPeak” founder Sergej Heck uploaded to YouTube in 2019, it says: “MarketPeak does not have its own product.” Instead, it is a “digital platform for FinTech projects and tokenized assets that rewards your community”. . (sic!)
He describes the training as a “further part” of “MarketPeak.” In a presentation from 2020, he also first talks about the crypto projects in which customers can invest.
Thorsten Bäcker sent me the videos. He once again selected content for me from the early days of “MarketPeak”. Leon Müller also forwards several screenshots to me – for example from a presentation that, according to Müller, was created by “MarketPeak”.
There the target for December 2021 is: “PEAK price $ 2.00 to 4.00.” Four dollars as the price target for the “Peak Token” – this is exactly what the company had denied to me.
But no matter who is right: In the meantime, as of Wednesday evening, the coin is almost worthless at around $ 0.0034 – and thus also the investment of many customers.
The minds behind “MarketPeak” seem to have benefited anyway – and drive carefree through Dubai in expensive sports cars.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s lucrative investments, dental splints or coaching offers: anyone who uses social media is overwhelmed with product recommendations. What’s behind it? How serious are you? You can find out in our podcast “Die Netz-Checkerin”. Subscribe to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Amazon Music or directly via RSS feed.
