Originally founded in 1992 by entrepreneur William Gouldd, Equinox International began as a simple multilevel marketing company. Like many MLM companies, it offered distributorship for various products nutritional supplements, skin care products, vitamins, and even water filters. Equinox International was a very discreet and careful operation, choosing to keep its advertising to less visual sources like the classified ads of newspapers. The purpose of these ads was to recruit new candidates for there proposed distributorships. Anyone who actually answered these ads was directed to review sales presentations provided by current members of the company during interviews. Part of this interview process typically involved the established distributor encouraging the new recruit to buy particular products as well as sign up to attend seminars that ended up costing around $300.

Despite the fact that Equinox International made sure to highlight the need to sell its merchandise, its real agenda involved recruiting. In other words, it was by recruiting that the real money was being made and not by the sales of any products. Current members of the company used manipulation and coercive methods in order to get money from recruits both in the sales of products and through seminar fees. In reality, that was all Equinox International was about. They used all possible means at their disposal in order to get away with as much money as possible from the people they convinced to join.

Yet, the scam became more insidious once you joined. Additional money was taken up in subscriptions to special phone lines as well as other programs. This lead many case of bankruptcy as people continued to funnel their money into the system hoping to yield bigger returns in the end. In fact, only a small percentage of participants managed to make any sort of profit.

In time, federal authorities, prompted by numerous complaints against the company, issued investigations which eventually led to the freezing of all of Equinox International assets as well as those of company founder William Gouldd. One of the main charges leveled against the MLM company was for illegally operating a pyramid scheme. Once the recruiting process, the really engine that drove the company’s success, was halted, Equinox International  was no more.