Standard Bank ordered to freeze Lyoness account

The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has ordered Standard Bank to freeze the bank accounts of suspected Ponzi scheme Lyoness SA. The application was brought by Jianliu Lin and her husband Adriaan van den Bergh, both members of the multi-level marketing scheme that was founded in Austria in 2003 by Hubert Friedl as a customer loyalty scheme offering discounts and cash back to participating merchants and customers. Lyoness subsequently spread to 40 countries, operating under a variety of names. Moneyweb reports that the ex parte application was brought late on Sunday so that Standard Bank could be served with the order first thing on Monday to prevent any transfer of funds out of the company bank account. The application claims that Lyoness and various related schemes are ‘being operated almost solely for illegal and/or fraudulent purposes’. Lin states that she invested more than R6m into the scheme, and suspects she may have lost it all. ‘I bring this application not for selfish reasons but rather in the public interest,’ she deposes, adding that she is both a participant and victim of the scheme. The scheme has about 190 000 members in SA.