A few days now I started to research a new MLM opportunity that had just begun its prelaunch. Starting around the 25th of July, PreLaunch Australia hit the internet with a mysterious and much hyped up web campaign.

In the niche of covering MLMs and naturally curious, I set about investigating the website, trying to establish exactly what they were representing and who was behind things.

After a tipoff from Troy Dooly from over at MLM HelpDesk which provided an email address listed on the WHOIS information for the PreLaunch Australia website’s nameservers, all signs pointed to a Sam Fawahl (photo right) as being behind the scenes.

This was further confirmed by his Twitter feed (Fawahl just happened to be co-incidentally promoting Pre-Launch Australia), as well as the connection to Fawahl’s The Beehive Strategy, which is the ‘income strategy’ mentioned on the PreLaunch Australia website.

Without getting into too much more (you can read the full writeup here), fast forward a few days and it seems Fawahl isn’t happy about being outed.

Yesterday morning Sam Fawahl sent me the following email;

To whom it may concern, Recently you posted an article named Exposed: Pre Launch Australia. The information you have posted about Pre Launch Australia being connected with other Pre Launch companies and information about myself is misleading and untrue. You have also used a photo of me without my permission. I have contacted the authorities about your actions and they have informed me to first try and get the information removed by contacting you. I expect the information to be removed immediately. If the information is not removed immediately the authorities have informed me that they will take further action without hesitation in noticing a cease and desist notice as this is a serious breach of privacy! Sam Fawahl

Despite providing no proof to the contrary or explaining what exactly was ‘misleading and untrue’, Fawahl appears to be under the impression that somehow his privacy has been breached.

Everything published in the article is publicly available and has been referenced, if someone wants to prove me wrong… I’m all ears.

In response to Fawahls threats, I sent the following reply;

Gday Sam Are you (on the record) denying any and all involvement in PreLaunch Australia and the Beehive Strategy? If not, care to explain how exactly the information provided is misleading and untrue? There is no breach of privacy as it is all publicly available information. Your email address was found on a publicly listed whois database and the photo is taken from a publicly viewable YouTube video, uploaded by yourself. All of this is covered under ‘Fair Use’. Best of luck with your pre-launch, -Oz

Amusingly, Fawahl utilises many copyrighted logos on his website, despite it not being related to news, reviews or commentary. Note the disclaimer at the bottom of every page on PreLaunch Australia;

All logos of CNN, FOX NEWS, ABC, NBC, Mastercard, Google and Groupon mentioned in the video and on the Website are trademarks wholly owned and registered by respective companies.

Seems it’s ok for Fawahl to ripoff other companies logos for commercial means and misleadingly imply a business relationship or endorsement, but watchout anyone who does a writeup on PreLaunch Australia.

At the time of publication I’ve yet to receive a reply but for now I’m publishing this to further highlight the deception that goes on behind schemes like PreLaunch Australia.

Internet marketers like Fawahl operate on the premise that they don’t want you to know what it is you’re getting yourself into. Anyone who blindly submits their details and joins something like PreLaunch Australia without knowing anything about it, is probably someone that’d be easily convinced to part with a few dollars.

Get enough people to join and ‘just a few dollars’ really starts to add up.

In the case of PreLaunch Australia, there does appear to be something tangible behind it in ‘the Beehive Strategy’ but Fawahl has been trying to launch the strategy for months now.

Don’t you think if it was anything more than trying to game company’s compensation plans it would have already taken off? And what happens after everyone’s joined and nobody wants to actually work the business opportunity they’d joined?

Not only can this potentially devastate a company (sudden large influx of members who aren’t interested in anything beyond the recruitment commissions of those who join with them), it also serves as an example of the types of opportunities the Beehive Strategy is compatible with – shallow recruitment focused companies.

A recent 11-11 forum thread provides insight into the calibre of marketer and serious MLM entrepreneur joining something like PreLaunch;

I have no idea what this is, but everyone is sending it to me and telling me to just sign on right away. It is most likely BS, but 3 of the people who sent this to me have made a lot of money off of stuff like this and have done very little for it except to get in at the top level when it was started. When they ask for money they can kiss my… What can it hurt? Well it would be hysterical if we made money. Those friends would be right and I would be wrong…who cares… But if nothing happens we will all have a good laugh about it here.

Sound like something that’s going to be a viable business opportunity for years to come?

To further cement Sam Fawahl’s involvement in PreLaunch Australia, sometime over the past 24 hours Fawahl has updated the PreLaunch Australia website to include the (hidden) text ‘SEO powered by Quantum SEO’ at the bottom of all PreLaunch Australia pages.

Quantum SEO’s webpage displays nothing more than a ‘coming soon’ message, but guess who owns the domain?

Domain Name quantumseo.com.au Last Modified 12-Jul-2011 11:14:09 UTC Registrar ID Aust Domains Registrar Name Aust Domains Status ok Registrant FAWAHL, SAM

He’s also stuffed the meta tags with lots of Singapore prelaunch related keywords indicating this might be his next target market for the Beehive Strategy.

But I digress, what do you think?

Does Sam Fawahl have nothing to do with PreLaunch Australia or is he simply talking out of his arse?

You decide.