Many of you might have heard of it as a social network platform that live streams different sports and sponsors programmes of many TV channels.

Maybe, many others have found it a means of earning by taking a membership, Silver at Tk12,000 or Gold at Tk22,000, to this platform and are working as a "referee" to tag new clients to get commission.

An apparent money-making scheme, identical to the pyramid structure of a typical multi-level marketing company, might eventually leave them with no exit route in case it collapses.

It offers earning opportunities probably in the simplest way possible - making money is just for watching commercials. 

The users can earn Tk250 to Tk500 per day just by watching advertisements, an economic model, although not clearly explained, - it is well enough for ringID to prowl on several lakhs of students or youths, who are waiting for jobs.

The brains behind the venture are Ayrin Islam and her husband Shariful Islam, chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director respectively at ringID, a Bangladeshi couple now residing in Montreal of Quebec, Canada.

The announced goal of the duo, once detained in Bangladesh overrunning an illegal international call business without paying revenue to the government, is "to create jobs for unemployed youths".

But investors have already started airing worries, prompting law enforcers to initiate a probe into suspected money laundering through ringID, but its local executive denies any wrongdoing.

How it works

ringID, which follows a typical MLM model but calls itself a "community business", multiplies the number of its members, offering them Tk1,500 to Tk1,700 for adding a new member.

They give money to students for viewing and sharing adverts, adding new members to ringID, selling its products and coin transactions.

Lured by hefty earning offers, existing members assemble their family members, friends and acquaintances on ringID platform.

Under the brand promoter of community jobs, ringID now offers two types of memberships – Silver and Gold.

For a Silver category membership, ringID charges Tk12,000 and gives an option to earn Tk250 per day by watching 50+ advertisements. For a gold membership, it takes Tk22,000 and gives an option to earn Tk500 each day by watching 100+ ads.

Through this system, a Silver member can earn Tk7,500 a month and a Gold member earns Tk15,000, excluding the Internet cost, Mustafijur Rahman, a ringID agent in Sylhet, told The Business Standard on Sunday.

The transaction happens through mobile financial services, such as bKash, Nagad, Rocket and SureCash etc, and a mobile number is a major tool of the business.

Apart from earning through watching and sharing ads, ringID also offers earnings for the existing members by adding new clients to the platform - for this, the company gives Tk1,500-Tk1,700 per new member inclusion to old members who work as referees.

Transactions also happen through ringID's own agents across the country.

Sources said the platform now has around 600 agents of three types - Silver, Gold and Diamond.

For Silver category agents, ringID charges Tk1 lakh, while the fee is Tk2 lakh and Tk5 lakh for Gold and Diamond agentship respectively.

In addition, the company also has a digital coin transaction business in the ringID application.

The value of each coin is Tk86. Members can convert coins to Taka and can cash out through MFS providers.

Pandemic paved new way for ringID

ringID, a social networking platform designed and developed by Ring Inc. and located in Montreal, Quebec in Canada, was incorporated in 2016.

From the incorporation, ringID was known as a platform that offers live broadcasting, voice and video calls, TV channels, news portals, instant messaging, stickers, media cloud, newsfeed, secret chat, multimedia sharing, and many more.

But from last year, it has started targeting unemployed college and university students who remained idle owing to the pandemic-led closure of educational institutions.

With attractive Facebook advertisements of stay-at-home earnings by taking a shortcut on offer, ringID started to lure students into investing money on its digital platform with good returns per day.

Through its community jobs, the platform started the money-making business across the country.

Investors start worrying

As of now, six lakh people, including college and university students, have invested their parents' savings in ringID, in the hope of earning money through a shortcut.  

But, most of them are allegedly facing problems in making money only a few weeks into investments, as ringID stops allowing them to watch advertisements and cash out their earnings when it reaches the amount equal to their initial investments. 

Investors now fear t