SEC Facebook

The Commission has received information that individual
s
or group of persons
representing an entity named
SOS VENTURE
are
enticing the public to invest their money in
the said entity with the promise of high monetary rewards or profits.
Information gathered from the Facebook (FB) Page of
SOS VENTURE
shows that the
said entity
operated by its CEO/Owner
DEONNAR
C.
DAVID
,
has been inviting the public to
invest in its
Products Incentive Program
for a capital amount of Php 500.00 for Starter
Package, Php 5,000.00 for Regular Package, and Php 50,000.00 for Pioneer Package with a
promise of receiving the following: (1) freebie
s (coffee products); (2) discounts on products
incentives program for a certain number of days
;
and
(3
)
a daily products
–
incentive
income
depending on the packages availed of.
In the same FB Page,
SOS VENTURE
advertised the
S.O.S Ways to E
arn
as
follows:
(1
) 20% / 40% /
80% Products Incentives Program;
(2) 10% Referral Rewards;
(3) 20%
Sales Matched Rewards;
(4
) 1% up to 2
nd
–
5
th
Level Indirect Referral Rewards;
(5
) 20% /
40% / 80% Reactivation Prod
uct Incentives Rewards;
(6) Cryptocurrency /
SOS
Coin Buy &
Sell / Merchant, and NFT / E
–
Games and more.
In the Facebook p
age
SOS Venture Official
, Deonnar David posted and advertised the
amount of money that a member may get depending on the package availed of and subject
to the following compensation plan, as shown below:
1.)
Starter Package (Php 500)
–
a member will get the following:
(a)1 bottle
of
10ml Chill Amore;
(b) Binary Commission equivalent to Php 50 as Direct
Referral Bonus, Php 5 Indirect Referral Bonus (2
nd
–
10
th
level) and Php 100
P
airing Bonus
(5 Pairs/day)
;
and (c) Venture Bonus equivalent to 20% (Php
600) in 30 days.
2.)
Regular
Package (Php 5,000)
–
a member will get
the following:
(a)
10
bottles of 10ml Chill Amore;
(b) Binary Commission equivalent to Php 500
as Direct Referral Bonus, Php 50 as Indirect Referral Bonus (2
nd
–
10
th
level),
Php1,000 as P
airing Bonus
(5 Pairs/day)
;
an
d (c) Venture Bonus equivalent
to 40% (P
hp 7,000) in 30 days.
3.)
Pioneer Package (Php 50,000)
–
a member will get the following:
(a)
100
bottles of 10ml Chill Amore;
(b) Binary Commission equivalent to Php 5,000
as Direct Referral Bonus, Php 500 as Indirect
Referral Bonus (2
nd
–
10
th
level),
Php 10,000 as P
airing Bonus
(5 Pairs/day)
;
and (c) Venture Bonus
equivalent to 80% (Php 90,000) in 30 days.
Further, investigation reveals that
SOS VENTURE
through its CEO
Deonnar C. David
is offering to the public a cryptocurrency called
“SOS Token”
which may be used to purchase
goods and/or services of
SOS VENTURE
business
partners
and retailers.
The aforementioned schemes focus on the referral and recruitment of new members to gain
profit.
There was never any mention to market
their supposed consumer
products to earn more
income.
Rather, the campaign concentrates on the recruitment of downlines.
Stripped to its core, the scheme of
SOS VENTURE
with its focus on recruitment, is
undoubtedly a pyramiding scheme masquerading as a
Multi
–
Level Marketing program
and
therefore, involves the offer and sale of securities in the nature of investment contract to the
public.
The
p
yramiding scheme involves securities because for payment of a sum of money, often
nominal, the investor participates in a recruitment scheme that
promises a stream of profits. The
scheme that requires recruitment in a
binary or
two
–
pronged structure takes the form of a pyramid,
one that grows wider at the bottom, and thrives with the supply of new recruits to the scheme. Here,
the recruitment fees
collected from new recruits are used to pay the recruiting commissions to earlier
recruits.
A
lso
SOS VENTURE
is offering its
SOS
Token
for sale
at an arbitrary value of Ph5
each with a promo selling them at bulk discounted price with a
promis
e of
rewards
/p
eer to
peer possibilities or use cases
to its early investors thereto during its
Initial Coin Offering
(
ICO
) or what it calls “
seed sale
.”
A
s mentioned in our
SEC
Advisory on
Initial Coin Offerings
and
Virtual Currency
posted
08 January 2018
, an
ICO
is
the first sale and issuance of a new virtual currency to
the public usually for the purpose of raising capital for start
–
up companies or funding
independent projects.
Depending on the facts and circumstances surrounding their issuance, some of these
new v
irtual currencies follow the nature of a security as defined by Section 3.1 of the
Securities Regulation Code (SRC) whereby a person invests money in a common enterprise
and is led to expect profits primarily from the efforts of others.
The same goes for
the
SOS Token
where
SOS VENTURE
seeks to use the money it
gathered from the public to fund its purported project on the promise of profits.
SOS VENTURE
is
NOT
REGISTERED
as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) with
the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
(BSP)
NOR
DOES IT HAVE A CORRESPONDING
CERTIFICATE OF AUTHORITY
as a Money Service Business (MSB) required under the
Guidelines for Virtual Asset Service Providers
(BSP Circular No. 1108, Series of 2021)
Likewise, its name
DOES NOT APPEAR
among those lis
ted as registered MSBs as of
January 2021 with the Anti
–
Money Laundering Council under the Anti
–
Money Laundering
Act
.
As the above described scheme
s
of
SOS VENTURE
involve the offering and sale of
securities to the public, the S
RC
requires that these securities are duly registered and that the
concerned company and/or any of its agents must have the appropriate registration and/or
license to sell such securities to the public pursuant to Section 8
and 28
of the SRC.
The public is
hereby informed that
SOS VENTURE
is
not registered
with the
Commission and is
not authorized to solicit investments
from the public, not having
secured prior registration and/or license to sell securities or solicit investments as
prescribed under Section
8 of the SRC.
Those who act as salesmen, brokers, dealers or agents of the said entity in selling or
convincing people to invest in the investment scheme it is being offered including soliciting
investments or recruiting investors through the internet ma
y be held criminally liable under
Section 28 of the SRC and penalized with a maximum fine of Five Million Pesos
(Php5,000,000.00) or imprisonment of Twenty One (21) years or both pursuant to Section
73 of the SRC (
SEC vs. Oudine Santos, G.R. No. 195542, 19
March 2014
).
Furthermore, the names of all those involved will be reported to the Bureau of
Internal Revenue (BIR) so that the appropriate penalties and/or taxes be correspondingly
assessed.
In view thereof, the public is hereby advised to exercise cautio
n in dealing with any
individual or group of persons soliciting investments for and on behalf of
SOS VENTURE.
The public is further advised
NOT TO INVEST
or to
STOP INVESTING
in the investment
scheme being offered by the subject entity or its representatives.
Should you have any information regarding the operation of the subject entity,
please call the Enforcement and Investor Protection Department (EIPD) at telephone
number 8
818
–
6047 or email at
epd@sec.gov.ph
or visit the EIPD at Ground Floor, North
Wing Hall, Secretariat Building, PICC Complex, Pasay City.
For the guidance of the public.
Pasay City, 27 January 2022