VCCA warns against AI powered multi-level marketing schemes

The Vietnam Competition and Consumer Protection Authority (VCCA) has issued a warning to investors about the perils of investing in illegal multi-level marketing businesses run by "AI Robots".

The VCCA has noted a number of organisations and individuals, that do not hold proper certification, inviting people to invest in " AI Robots" through websites and apps like snowai (snowaiapp.com; snowai.cc; snowai.net); inb.network (ai.marketing; aimarketing.link).

In addition, investors are also at risk of financial loss when investment results are not guaranteed. To avoid financial and legal losses, the VCCA warns people specifically not to invest in snowai and inb.network.

These businesses accept investments yet they are not recorded on any official systems or  registered or  recognised by State authorities. Subsequently, these businesses can disappear at any time leaving investors with no way to recoup their investment.

That said, the VCCA also noted that multi-level marketing businesses operating without a certificate of registration can be criminally handled with up to five years in prison under the provisions of Article 217a of the Penal Code. 

Multi-level marketing businesses often invite people to invest money to hire "AI Robots" that will autonomously conduct affiliate marketing programs to promote products for  brands or  conduct transactions on crypto currency exchanges.

Investors can also earn commissions from orders or  virtual currency transactions, including commissions on the investments of people that they convince to join the scheme.

Since 2016, capital mobilisation models, or  variations of multi-level businesses in the 4.0 era, have appeared more and more.

Recently, as the underlying asset market has become more volatile, investors have turned to international stocks and the foreign exchange market. This has led to the creation of applications with the ability to beat the market in a variety of ways. These include: trading robots, artificial intelligence, matrix algorithms among many others./