UPDATE 6/4
Choice Humanitarian has responded to my email asking if Project Ethereum is related to their organization. It appears that they are paying to be a part of the Corporate Social Responsibility program and are donating 20% of their profits to Choice.
The facebook page has had the reviews double to 112 and the score drop to 3.6. They have also posted something of a response to people calling them a scam:
To be clear, I never indicated that Project Ethereum was doing anything illegal like outright stealing peoples money or making false claims.
They don't have to, the claims they're making about the horrible MLM compensation plan can be perfectly true. This does not mean that using the Ethereum Name and branding isn't deceptive, especially now when cryptocurrencies are just starting to break into the general public's view.
Purpose
Reddit user tim1967 made a post to r/ethereum and r/ethtrader expressing concerns about something called Project Ethereum. Here I talk about what I see and call upon readers to help investigate further.
The Site
Project Ethereum's domain was registered on 04/09/2017 under the registrar FASTDOMAIN, INC. according to the whois lookup. This means that there is no direct information linked to the Project since all contact information leads back to the FASTDOMAIN names and location.
When we look at the site, we notice that they have Choice Humanitarian logos and videos plastered on the front page as well as videos from the Ethereum youtube channel.
The only link that provides any indication about who is behind this project is a facebook group and one person by the name John Johnson. Now, John Johnson, or JoJo as I will now call him, does a miraculous job of writing many words without actually saying anything at all.
John Johnson has been in sales and marketing for the past two decades. John has started many different companies over the years and also spent time as a consultant for small businesses. John was previously working within a Crypto Currency Platform and realized there as a better way to assist members on building ad receiving donations.
John enjoys his business, assisting others, and spending time with his family. Helping others is a huge aspect of Project Ethereum and we hope all of our members spend some time thinking about others. By doing so, they will find success and be able to share it with others.
As we see, JoJo really likes to start sentences in one way, and one way only.
Diving into the facebook group, we find an impressive 4.9 / 5 star rating with 54 reviews (55 after adding my own). When looking into who wrote these reviews, there are around 25 4 and 5 star ratings that have no comments at all.
So next I looked into our fearless leader JoJo's personal facebook. Now, I'm no CEO, but I don't think I'd find myself saying this if I was..
According to this update, JoJo has gone from Community College to "starting many different companies over the years and also spent time as a consultant for small businesses" in a short 2 years.
JoJo's LinkedIn profile makes no mention of the Ethereum Project.
The Video
Once piece of original promotional material is a 7 minute video that tugs at the heart strings of viewers. Looking into this, it leads back to Project Ethereum's youtube page. The 169 subscribers and 5k views don't help lend any credibility, but the fact that the comments are disabled really is odd..
The video continues and offers to provide beginner cryptocurrency training lessons on mining, wallets, and other basic concepts. Additionally, they offer an amazing forced matrix compensation plan. If you've never heard of this before, check out this link for more info. It's technically not a pyramid scheme. Their eight level deep plan only looks like this:
Youtuber ONE digital COIN has the video Project Ethereum explained, Make money today. where they talk about how 256 members could net you quite a chunk of change. But when faced with criticism on the video, some strange copy / paste action happened between the youtube channel and the presentor, De Waal Carstens:
They do say that great minds think alike, but I'm not sure this is quite what they meant.
I've reached out to Choice Humanitarian asking if they are associated with the project and have yet to hear back. See the 4/6 update.
Conclusion
At this point, I'm about 98% sure this is a scam. There may be some substance behind the cryptocurrency trading information that they offer, but I don't see any legitimate information about the people behind it or their affiliation with Choice Humanitarian.
The use of the Ethereum name is deceptive at best.
Their own video shows logos of Dash, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, and others. The use of the Ethereum branding and name when the project is not at all related to the Ethereum Foundation.
They use a lot of buzzwords, tear at our hearts, and offer us the opportunity to be millionaires, but all I see is a scam.
Consider leaving a like or even resteem if you found this helpful! If you're really crazy, my MEW address is 0x5B13430b6D2E327DFCDB93D7430FC6e9a2E63E74. Please leave comments below about what content you'd like to see in the future!