Qnet
 |
|
| wholly owned subsidiary | |
| Industry | Direct selling |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Founder | Vijay Eswaran, Joseph Bismark |
| Headquarters | Hong Kong |
|
Key people
|
Vijay Eswaran, Chairman JR Mayer, Managing Director Haldun Arin, CEO |
| Products | Consumer Goods, Watches, Health Devices |
| Services | Travel, life style, Education |
| Revenue |
 US$430 million (2013) |
|
Number of employees
|
1500 (2015) |
| Parent | Qi Group |
| Website | www |
QNet Ltd, formerly known as QuestNet, GoldQuest, and QI Limited, is a Hong Kong-based direct selling company owned by the QI Group. The company sells a variety of products including energy, weight management, nutrition, personal care, home care, luxury goods, and fashion accessories etc. on an eCommerce platform. QNet was founded in Hong Kong by Vijay Eswaran in 1998 along with QN Europe and other companies. It promotes its products on its website using claims "that would not pass official muster in much of the world." Despite claiming to be an e-commerce based business, an ordinary retail customer can make a purchase of a product from the website only if he has a referrer ID of an independent representative of QNet. Unlike other e-commerce websites, purchases without this ID are not allowed.
The company's marketing strategy follows a direct selling and multi-level marketing model, relying on independent representatives to refer its products to consumers and receive compensation based on the sales volume of their referrals and the sales volume of other independent representatives in their teams who are arranged in a binary fashion.
The company has operations in 30 plus countries according to its official website and has offices in Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Côte d'Ivoire and Rwanda with franchise companies in India. Singapore and Turkey. It was sued by Egypt,Rwanda, and Sri Lanka for allegedly operating a product-based pyramid scheme. The company and its franchise Vihaan are also being investigated in India. The Bombay High Court denied the anticipatory bail plea of all the directors of Vihaan Direct Selling Pvt Ltd., a franchise of QNet, which included world amateur billiards champion Michael Ferreira after it was earlier rejected by Sessions Court. They were facing charges of cheating and forgery The court observed that "the deceit and fraud is camouflaged under the name of e-marketing and business". The Delhi High Court also called it a multi-victim scam and refused to quash FIR against the directors of Indian franchise of Qnet, Vihaan Direct Selling Private Limited. The Serious Fraud Investigation Office, in its report on GoldQuest and QuestNet India has called multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes run by overseas operators as "a potential threat to national security". The Government of India ordered the Serious Fraud Investigation Office to file prosecution against GoldQuest International and QuestNet Enterprise under the Companies Act and Indian Penal Code. A brief executive summary of the SFIO report is now available in the public domain. The company has denied the allegations.
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Wikipedia