If you’re here because you’re asking “is EmpiresX A Scam?”, you have to brace yourself as we go through the seven major red flags that you need to know before saying yes to the “opportunity”.
Through out this investigation I really thought I would just end with a conclusion that it’s just your typical MLM, little did I know that there was more to uncover….
EmpiresX Review Summary
Product Name: EmpiresX
Owners :Emerson Pires, Flavio Goncalves
Price:
$200 for leaders
$400 for investors
Rating: 1/100
Best For: None
Recommended: Not Recommended
What is EmpiresX About: EmpiresX presents itself as an investment opportunity about trading and cryptocurrency.
Summary: Without any associated company mentioned in their website, EmpiresX remains to be a risky investment platform especially as non of the foudners or personas associated with the brand are recognized in regulated finance and trading institutions.
What is EmpiresX About?
EmpiresX claims to have their monthly growth of 30% with expectation of 6000% for 2023. But is it true or is EmpiresX a scam?
According to their EmpiresX catalog, they have officially existed since 2017 and then only launched EmpiresX last 2020. They also claimed that hey have not lost money in the stock market during the pandemic as they have been strategizing with their “head trader” to get “exponential profit”. So to sum it quick EmpiresX offers a trading bot that you can choose to just invest into or sell as an affiliate from which you can get commissions.
They offer two options which is detailed below:
| Option | Capital Indication Bonus | Everyday Generation | Dividend to 20 Levels above | Eligible Downline Members |
| Investor | 10% | 1% | 0.2% | Investors only |
| Affiliate | 10% | 0.6% | 0.2% | Affiliate, Investor |
| Private Investor | 10% | 1% | 0.6% | Investors only |
Sounds promising right? But it is a good investment opportunity, or is EmpiresX a pyramid scheme.
Let’s get on to that on the next section.
What is a Pyramid Scheme
Most investment opportunities that gives you incentives for recruitment can either be a an affiliate opportunity, an MLM or a pyramid scheme. Let’s try to go over the three and i’ll let you on what I think later in this article.
An affiliate marketing opportunity lets you enjoy perks when you have referred people to buy the brand’s products or services as a direct benefit of your effort. An MLM on the other hand is a marketing strategy where you also refer people to buy products or services but you become their upline and those you have recruited are your downlines which you can profit from depending on level perks by the company.
A stark difference between an affiliate and an MLM is that an affiliate can freely choose the brand they want to partner with plus there is no pressure on letting people on in their recommendation, on the other hand, an MLM will focus on endorsing only the company’s product and they are aggressively recruiting to get perks. Although some MLM products and services are actually good, it’s not for everyone.
Why is it not for everyone?
1. You may need good connections and influence to recruit people to become your downline
2. You need to take care and maintain your downlines so you can also maintain you level perks
3. Not all MLMs are profitable, some are promising guaranteed income when in fact their income disclaimers say otherwise.
While you may think that we’ve come far to our original topic, well a pyramid scheme is actually like an MLM, only that it’s illegal and unregulated. On another hand, a Ponzi scheme is an investment venture that offers unrealistic gains and and high returns with no risk.
When I initially heard of EmpiresX and read its offer I actually thought that it’s the typical MLM! But here’s what I found.
Is EmpiresX a Pyramid Scheme? Or is it a ponzi?
Well for us to see if EmpiresX is a pyramid scheme or if it’s a ponzi we will have to first look for its registration. Why? Because all investment and financial trading businesses are required to be first be registered under the Securities and Exchange Commission and no business is exempted even if it’s dealing with cryptocurrency. Some people may tell you that it doesn’t have to be registered because cryptocurrency is supposed to be a a decentralized system.
But think about this, what if a company decided to rug pull all the assets… who will turn to if it’s not a registered business?
If a business isn’t registered and it decided to just take every investment of its members one day, a business with a registration PLUS a recognition from Securities and Exchange Commission will make them be liable for everything that could have been stolen. Now I hope you realize how important a registration is to every trading and investment venture that you may come into.
TIP: It’s not enough that a business claims and shows you documents of its registration. It’s your due diligence to make your own research as most business registration details are public and most states and countries will likely have websites for your to verify their registration.
Now let’s start.
Most of the time you can learn about which company a website is under through its Terms and Conditions/ Use or sometimes under its Privacy Policy too.
Well, our first red flag would be: EmpiresX website doesn’t have those pages!
Now think about it, who would be liable if they would take all your money away? Would you risk investing in something that’s not associated to any company? But wait here’s another claim that they have on their Telegram, this was posted last July 6, 2021:
It would be unfair to claim that they are not registered just because we can’t find any mention of a company on their website. So let’s dig deeper…
But before we go into that did you know that they have two websites? Here’s what I found about them:
| Website | Date Created | Backlinks |
| empiresx.org | June 2021 | 51 |
| empiresx.com | December 2019 | 554 |
Now why are the website’s date of creation and backlinks important?
A websites date of creation can let us know if the website is new, and if they claim that they are established for XX years we can easily verify it. In the case of EmpiresX their .com website was acquired December 2019 which if we cross check with their claim is quite consistent as they mentioned that they only launched it last 2020. This is what’s inside their presentation:
I tried to look into both websites and there was no mention of any company in them so to try and associate them with one, we’ll look at the people behind EmpiresX.
People Behind EmpiresX
Inside their presentation in the .org website, they mentioned two people who we will further look into for this article. Here’s what they say about them:
Emerson Pires
When you check this name on LinkedIn you’ll find a handful of Emerson Pires, but there’s only one that is connected to an Empires X Corp and an Empires Consulting. With this information we now have a lead. But we’ll probe this after we have investigated the personas associated with EmpiresX.
Now that we have a state related to our persona, we can then try to look if they are registered in the state. And here’s what I found:
Well it seems like the Empires X Corp has been inactive/dissolved since last year!
But their consulting firm is still active and look who’s signed up as their VP: FLAVIO GONCALVES!
Flavio Goncalves or Gocalves
In my attempt to find a proof (or otherwise) of their business registration for this EmpiresX review I tried to find the other business that they are venturing together so I can check later on Florida’s LLC directory and hopefully find them too on SEC. I found two businesses which they are in it together:
But if you look closely… You’ll see that it’s two different Flavios! A Gocalves and a GoNcalves. Now we wonder if they are two different people…
And here is a list of companies which are under his name… or names.
Under Goncalves he’s associated with EMPX and 2U Business Consulting.
On the other hand, he’s had different positions under Empires Consulting Corp under Gocalves
It’s quite alarming that the name of the registered officer they had for their corporation under Florida may have had a misspelling for years! Now we’re not sure if it’s the same person but we do know for sure that they are venturing together in businesses in Florida.
Joshua David Nicholas “Josh Gregg”
Now here’s another name that comes up whenever EmpiresX is Josh Gregg which they like to call as their master trader.
They claim that Josh works for Goldman Sachs and true enough you can confirm it through FINRA’s Broker Check there is indeed a Joshua Gregg… but previous reviews has already exposed that HE IS NOT THE JOSHUA GREGG REGISTERED IN FINRA because his real name is Joshua David Nicholas who had a history of financial blunders on his late firm (JDN Capital LLC) and was banned by National Futures Association for 8 years.
For a full document here’s the link and below is an overview of the decision.
Despite being banned and even when his real identity has already been exposed, it seems like EmpiresX is continuously using his Josh “Gregg” persona as he is still posted in a video in their EmpiresX Global Facebook page some three weeks ago:
It’s very alarming.
Registrations
Now that we have a list of business names and people, we can now cross check their registration. I checked on the following platforms the names associated with EmpiresX and the businesses handled by the “founders”:
FINRA Broker Check: No Result
SEC Registration: No Result
Division of Securities (Florida): No Result.
With these information alone, what do you think, is EmpiresX a scam? I would’ve run if I were recruited just knowing these!
How Does EmpiresX Work?
When you check their website and cross-reference it to their presentation, you might see a disjunction of one’s reality and expectation.
Claims or Expectation
Here are the things that they claim to to attract members.
Well is it really? Let’s check it out.
Reality
This page alone about withdrawal already debunks the Withdrawal with Automatic Payment and Freedom With Your Capital.
As much as they claim that they offer instant withdrawals, they mentioned in the earlier part of their presentation that they require emailing for each withdrawal request with a “secondary security password”. Plus you can read from above that capital withdrawal can only be done three times and they have percentage fees on the first three months. So there isn’t really much freedom with your capital right?
No monthly charges? Yeah right, but the company gets 20% of each profit from the trading bot everyday!
Refund
I looked inside their platform and scourge through their websites and there was no mention of any refund. That’s understandable because they are an investment platform.
Can You Really Make Money Through EmpiresX ?
The viable ways you can do to money through EmpiresX would be through:
- Becoming an Investor or Affiliate then ranking through the network levels through recruitment
- Actual profiting from the trades.
But has anyone actually profited from it?
Surprisingly, their Trustpilot reviews abounds with positive reviews with a 4.3 rating. But the load of positive comments are quite unjustifiable as they were mostly flooded last August:
Here’s some of the positive and negative EmpiresX reviews on the platform:
But here’s a more convincing review straight from their Telegram community. It seems like people were having a hard time with their withdrawals. Take notice of the dates:
And just recently they posted something on the Facebook Page about a “back office issues”:
Source: EmpiresX Global Facebook Page
(December 1, 2021)
Is the system collapsing? Or are they paving new ways to take advantage of people?
How Much Does It Cost to Join EmpiresX ?
You have to options for your membership:
1. Affiliate – $200
2. Investor – $400
7 Red Flags of EmpiresX
- No mentioned associated company which could be held liable in case of fraud
- Not registered on SEC, FINRA and Division of Securities
- Co Founder has inexplicable misspelled surname on registered company details
- Master Trader, Joshua David Nicholasm is continuously impersonating “Josh Gregg” and is actually banned by NFA
- 20% of any trading profit goes to company
- Suspicious flooding of positive reviews last August 2021 on Trustpilot
- Users reports being unable to have their withdrawals and use the platform itself.
The EmpiresX Scam [Is EmpiresX a Scam?]
I really thought at first that EmpiresX will be just the typical MLM with aggressive recruitment tactics, but with all the red flags that I found during my investigation, it’s likely that it is a pyramid scheme or a Ponzi scheme or both. While it’s okay to recruit people into investment opportunities, it much safer and would be best if an investment firm, company or platform are registered on finance, trade and securities organizations.
Since the website and the companies related to its owners are not registered in SEC, FINRA and the Division of Securities in Florida, it’s fair to say that they are illegally operating. Business, corporation and LLC registration is different from the act of registering a firm or company as a regulated firm or broker. Additionally, as Joshua David Nicholas continues to impersonate Josh Gregg and with the possibility of him handling the trades, it’s quite alarming that EmpiresX continues to recruit when Joshua himself is deregistered from the National Futures Association.
Just to be fully transparent with you, I am not an affiliate or investor of EmpiresX myself and I do not endorse it in any way.
I have researched the website, testimonials, and information on the Internet to get to the bottom of what EmpiresX genuinely does. This is because I have been burnt from programs just like this in the past and I want to prevent others from making the same mistakes. If you’d like to learn Ways to Avoid Online Scams then click the highlighted text.
Pros and Cons of EmpiresX
EmpiresX Pros
None
EmpiresX Cons
- Website is not associated to any company
- Website and companies handled by founders are not recognized by SEC, FINRA and Division of Securities in Florida
- Master trader is impersonating an actual trader with a good track because he himself is deregistered by the NFA
- Suspicious flooding of positive reviews last August 2021
- Users can’t withdraw and use platform
Final Thoughts – EmpiresX
I don’t see the point of going on with the impersonation of Josh Gregg. If EmpiresX is indeed an honest and truthful company, they would not trick people into believing that their “master trader” is actually the Josh Gregg in FINRA. For reference here is the FINRA details of the Joshua Nicholas, real name of EmpiresX Master Trader.
Instead of putting out bland community statements about their legitimacy, they should show verifiable evidences of their registration, not just for transparency but it could also double as good marketing strategy.
If they continue to dodge Ponzi and pyramid scheme allegations by just flooding positive reviews or hijacking comments on a defensive mode, they will continuously be branded as a fraud and a likely scamming venture that’s most likely to collapse anytime. However if you, reader, would still wish to try their platform… I hope you won’t stake an amount that you can’t bear to lose.
Yep. We already warned you.
How I Make a Passive Income Online
People would love to have an all-winning portfolio in trading. But the harsh truth is, it’s not possible.
In stocks, ForEx, and cryptocurrency trading, there is a very big chance that the money you may put in could be washed out. There is no guarantee, so whenever an investment opportunity presents itself and mentions that they are a 100% profit and no losses, beware.
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Louee Gonzales has been writing for 4 years now and is a self-confessed coffee-powered content specialist. She enjoys creating valuable investigative articles for EFYL. If she’s not writing, she’s usually taking on small SEO and SMM projects, painting, reading a new book, or travelling somewhere fun.
She has a degree in Psychology, and quick fact: she can’t read your mind. She has authored articles on School of Positive Transformation.
This Blogpost is originally from Is EmpiresX a scam? | 7 Red Flags You Need to Know
source https://earnfromyourlaptop.com/is-empiresx-a-scam-empiresx-review/
