There’s a Shona proverb that roughly translates to ‘Things should be tested, an old lady from Chivi cooked rocks and drank soup.’ In challenging times, we all try to cook rocks at some point. Just a shot in the dark, a prayer into the ether, hoping against hope that we will catch a lucky break. Hit a lick as the kids say.
A few years ago a number of organisations claiming they were experts in cryptocurrency trading crept up promising they could double whatever money you invested with them every month. It was obviously not possible but many Zimbos cooked that rock and what do you know, there was no soup.
The latest entrant promising to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams is E-creator. You can pretty much double your investment every month with E-creator. And that’s the least you can expect because you can get even better returns. Or so they promise.
My spidey senses tingle whenever I see someone promise to double any amount of money in a month. Not even the best hedge fund managers in the world who manage trillions of dollars promise that. Yet, the likes of E-creator can somehow promise this. I find it hard to believe.
I went into this sceptical of the legitimacy of E-creator’s business, in fact, I was 100% convinced it was a scam but I decided to let the facts take me wherever they take me. Spoiler – the facts made me even more confident in my opinion that it’s a scam. This rock does not produce any soup. Let’s talk about it.
TL;DR
If you get something from this article, here is what you need to know,
-E-creator runs a business where the main activity is posting fake reviews on e-commerce sites
-Posting fake reviews is unethical and illegal in many countries
-E-creator offers unrealistic returns for members who are required to post 10 fake reviews a day, promising about 100% of principal in commissions every month
-E-creator requires members deposit money with them and maintain that balance if they are to get the promised commissions
-There is no reason why they should require such deposits and E-creator has been asked and failed to explain why
-E-creator is not licensed to take deposits by the RBZ, if indeed the monies placed with them could be called deposits
-Stay away from E-creator, save yourself
E-creator, the company
As an organisation, they did well enough in making themselves look legit.
Some of the main red flags that can indicate that an organisation is a scam include:
- The organization is not registered with any government agency.
- The organization does not have a physical address or phone number.
- The organisation’s owners and highest-level executives are anonymous.
- The organization’s website is poorly designed or contains grammatical errors.
- The organization is offering unrealistic returns on investment.
So, how does E-creator fare?
E-creator was registered as a limited liability company in Zimbabwe and they proudly display their certificate on their website. The company was registered on the 7th of February 2023.
Speaking of the website, it looks decent enough to be a legit company’s. However, they lose points for spelling their own name wrong in their URL. It says e-creatoerzw.com when I think they were going for e-creatorzw.com. More points are deducted for not having a phone number on their website.
E-creator ticks another item off the legit business checklist though – they have a physical address. They are located on the 10th Floor, Offices 15 and 16 at Joina City in Harare. You can walk in and see for yourself.
They have also made sure their ‘visionary CEO, Justin Kuchekenya,’ and the company’s office manager, Abraham Mutambu are visible. The guy has been on national TV championing his business. Who knows if he really is the guy behind this business or just a pawn placed there by the beneficial owners?
I say this because the E-creator app, available on Android, looks eerily similar to one that belongs to a Nigerian company – Amita E-commerce. The Nigerian company has a similar business model to E-creator’s and is reported to be struggling to meet customers’ withdrawal requests. More on this withdrawal stuff later.
Then when it comes to unrealistic returns on investment, need I say more? Doubling your money every month is as unrealistic as it gets.
E for Effort
So, at this point, it appears E-creator has done a decent job of making themselves look legit. However, it’s still not enough to shake the ‘scam’ label completely. The misspelt web address, the ties to Amita and the unrealistic promises count against them.
Before we conclude, let’s hear them out. Find out what kind of business they are in that allows them to offer 100% returns monthly.
What does E-creator do?
Here is what their office manager, as quoted by Zimtrending, had to say,
Our job is to rate products online and get commission daily. We don’t sell or sell products,…
That’s pretty much it. Of course, on their website and in their promotional material they will say they are into “Global internet operations, promotion and retail services.” Who could possibly know what that means?
For all the “we offer a range of services for e-commerce entrepreneurs, such as consulting, marketing planning, network promotion, product retailing, and more,” it all boils down to rating products online.
So, E-creator gathers an army of people who go onto e-commerce platforms like Lazada and Zaland and rate products. Never heard of those platforms? It’s understandable, they aren’t popular on this side of the planet. Zalando is German and Lazado has a presence in Asia.
You may be thinking, ‘I rate products on many platforms, but I’ve never been paid for that, how can E-creator promise to double my money just for rating products on those e-commerce platforms?’
Paid/ Fake reviews
You’re big boys and girls, you can handle the truth. Some of the reviews you see online, even on sites like Amazon and eBay are fake. Some sellers do indeed pay people to rate their products favourably on e-commerce sites.
The direct influence of fake online reviews on global online spending is $152 billion. Yes, fake reviews lead to $152 billion worth of business globally. So, you can understand why sellers are incentivised to pay people to post favourable reviews on their products and services.
E-creator is recruiting an army to post fake reviews on the sites they so proudly mention in their pitch to would-be members.
E-creator is implying that they are getting paid to post those fake reviews. Of course, E-creator and others like them have a better term for ‘fake review,’ calling what they do ‘order advertisement campaigns.’
However, even if it is true, they cannot possibly be getting paid enough to be able to offer a 100% return to each private in their fake review army.
That’s not to mention that this is unethical and worse still, illegal in many countries. It is considered to be fraud or deceptive marketing.
People have been arrested and sued for the practice. So, even if E-creator were making boatloads from fake reviews, they would be doing that as criminals. E-creator is a criminal enterprise and that’s not up for debate.
Where E-creator really makes money
If you were starting to think this might all be legit, or that there would be no harm in trying it out yourself, consider the smoking gun – you have to deposit money with E-creator to be able to join the fake review army.
Just why you have to give them your money is not clear. In fact, the office manager was asked this very question and he could not come up with an answer.
This is how it works:
- If you deposit $15-100, you get up to 4% in return (commission) each day after you post 10 fake reviews. They call these fake reviews ‘jobs’. With this deposit, you are considered a VIP 1 member.
- If you deposit $100-$500 and also recruit 5 other people to join as active VIP 1 members you are upgraded to VIP 2. This upgrade comes with a bump to 4.5% in commission.
- You have to deposit over $500, up to a maximum of $2000 and have 5 VIP 2 recruits to be upgraded to VIP 3. Your commission rate bumps up to 5%.
- And so on..
- They also say if you recruit at least 50 people at any level, you qualify to be a manager which comes with a $400 bonus every month, on top of your own commissions.
- Do remember that to remain on the program, you have to maintain your level’s minimum balance. If you’re a VIP 3 member, you have to maintain at least $500 and your recruits have to remain active for you to remain a VIP 3 member.
- E-creator says one can withdraw both the principal and the earned commission at any time and exit the program.
Limitations
Regardless of your level, you have to post 10 fake reviews a day. 10 and no more. They say they limit each individual to 10 for ‘regulation purposes.’
I suspect it could be to prevent the algorithms on the e-commerce sites that they flood with fake reviews from flagging E-creator reviewers. It’s a stretch as it is for someone to be posting 10 reviews every day. Like, how many things does this person buy? Imagine what kind of shopaholic one would have to be to post 10 genuine reviews on 10 products every day.
Note: some sellers utilise bots to post fake reviews but these may be easier to spot for the policing algorithms and so the sellers utilise both bots and humans.
This is a scam
There may be elements to E-creator’s business that actually bring on money. They could be getting paid for the fake reviews.
However, at the very least, E-creator is a criminal enterprise. They are actively posting fake reviews on e-commerce sites, which is illegal in many countries meaning they could face lawsuits and jail time in the future. Where would that leave you as a VIP member who posts positive reviews on products you never purchased or used? You would be placing yourself at risk.
In Zimbabwe, there is the Consumer Protection Act which prohibits businesses from engaging in deceptive or misleading marketing practices. This includes making false or misleading statements about a product or service.
Going beyond the fake reviews that do not really affect Zimbabwean buyers, we find E-creator could be contravening some serious laws in Zimbabwe. In finance, a deposit is defined as ‘an amount of money that is placed with a financial institution, such as a bank, for safekeeping or to earn interest.’
To be a deposit taker in Zimbabwe you have to be licensed by the RBZ and E-creator is not licensed as a deposit taker.
You could argue that the money placed with E-creator is not a deposit since they are not a financial institution and that they are not really promising interest, but rather a commission. They say you are recharging your account and not depositing after all.
We asked the RBZ to weigh in and will let you know when we get a response.
Stay away
If you are still on the line, just ask yourself, what do they do with the deposits that are placed with them? Are they actually buying products to make sure the fake reviews are not flagged?
If so, they would be spending it on products that no one is actually looking for. So, when you then go to withdraw your principal + commission, where do they get the money to give you? From the new schmucks joining the program, that’s from who.
If they are not buying products, where exactly are they keeping this money? Is it just sitting in an account somewhere? I think they use this pool of funds to pay out those that want to withdraw. However, they require new recruits to be able to keep paying out. Classic pyramid and Ponzi stuff.
There is absolutely no reason why you should be depositing any money with them if they are in the fake review business as they themselves claim. So use your brain, this is not legit stuff. This is all a scam. Tell someone and hopefully, we can get this company shut down ASAP, before many more people fall victim.
You will get no soup from the E-creator rock. You will lose your deposit.
Also read:
Beware the scam, you won’t get a UK VISA by sharing an ad on WhatsApp
Scammers can now convincingly fake browser windows, including URL. You can protect against that
Beware of scammers promising to process e-passports for Zim diasporans
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