Heavy losses from "easy" earnings

Although announced in Montenegrin groups that gather users of the "Cheil Wordwide" application, until the printing of this issue of "Vijesti" yesterday, no report was submitted to the Police Directorate due to the losses suffered by those who invested tens of thousands of euros on that platform.

They were gathered, angry because they had been tricked, according to the information that the newsroom had access to from those groups, and agreed to go together in front of the building of the Security Center in Podgorica.

At the end of April, "Vijesti" published an article about the "Cheil Wordwide" application, through which its users believed that they could earn money quickly and easily by liking content on YouTube and other social networks.

Even then, the Police Administration told the newsroom that they had not received reports of potential abuses, but also that the responsibility for possible damage rests with the individual.

One of the users of the "News" application told how he bought a package of one thousand dollars (15 euros) on April 964.

"I had 22 tasks a day, to like and follow video clips on YouTube and I got two dollars per task, which is 44 dollars a day (about 40 euros). I immediately transferred the money that I had on the Cheil application to the Binance platform, because the money is safe there in case something goes wrong with the application. Payments were regular, initially there was no commission for transferring money from Cheil to Binance, and after ten days they started taking a commission of eight percent. When I collected some 700 euros, I was approached by a new TRX application that promised to return the invested money in 12 days, instead of 22 like Cheil. I transferred money from Binance to TRX and was paid 54 euros a day there. The Cheil app suddenly changed its name to Grapefruit, explaining that the owner of the company had changed," said the interlocutor, who wished to remain anonymous.

He added that around May 8, users received a message from Grapefruit that they had complaints from internet influencers and internet celebrities that they did not get followers and that someone was abusing the application, and that the message was accompanied by a lengthy explanation.

”The effect was that money from the app could no longer be transferred to Binance. The Trx application continued to 'make money' for two more days, and then I received a message that they were asking for 15 percent per order to continue working and that they promised payment on May 13...", he told "Vijesta".

The "Cheil Worldwide" application is spreading among users on the Internet by recommendation, recounting their personal "good experience" and stating that those who have already invested are making good money, so why shouldn't the others also make money.

Insiders have previously stated that "Cheil Worldwide" is a classic Ponzi scheme, better known as a pyramid scheme, one of the simplest, at the same time, one of the most effective scams ever. It works in such a way that an advertisement about a business is passed from one person to another, until those who are in the role of scammers do not stop talking about a great job and great earnings.

In such businesses, new users are asked to invest a certain amount of money in a "safe business", with the promise that it is possible to earn and return up to 50 percent of the stake every month. The problem arises when the amount of money from new investors becomes less than the amount that must be paid to old investors.

"Classic Ponzi. I found six clone sites, the first two even have the same name. Be careful, people," one of the forum members wrote in a discussion on the Cafemontenegro forum.

He recently warned that it was an unsustainable "job", while visiting TV Vijesti Milutin Pavićević from Digitalizuj.me.

"What we need to know is that you can buy a like on YouTube that someone pays you 1,2 dollars for a cent somewhere else. It is actually a financial structure that depends on the entrance of new members. We know this has been happening in Asia and the launch of the app here coincides with the collapse of the structure that sustained the Super Like app in Asia and Italy. This is not the first time we have encountered this, we have had various constructions", Pavićević said at the time in the program "Colors of the Morning".

He also explained that someone can make one cent from selling a like, but cannot pay a dollar and 20 to the person who performs the task.

"All other 99,9 percent of the benefits come from new members. If we know that 10 percent interest is paid per day, we can extrapolate and know that the application would last a month, hundreds of thousands of people are needed in that scheme," he said.

As the head of the group for the suppression of high-tech crimes in the Police Directorate said earlier Jaksa Backovic about 3.700 members from Montenegro were gathered in a Telegram group where they agreed and talked about "Cheil Worldwide" strategies.

"If we consider that not every user of the application joined the Telegram group, it means that there are more users. Legally, there is no problem for Montenegrin citizens to deal with it, there is a criminal offense of petty theft and fraud", he said at the time and added that the Police Directorate can neither officially confirm nor deny that it is a pyramid scheme or a Ponzi scheme. , and that when the application stops moving upward, everyone will be at a loss, and the prosecution and the police will be under great pressure.

"And it won't be possible to meet them and help them," Backović said earlier and reminded that a Chinese man who damaged 34.000 citizens was recently arrested in a Europol operation due to a similar case.