Legality
Currently there are no laws specifically naming matrix schemes illegal in the US. However, the US Federal Trade Commission has issued warnings to the public about these sites. Additionally, the US Federal Trade Commission and the UK Trading Standards have issued warnings to the public regarding the ease with which these models can be manipulated for fraudulent purposes. Many of the original matrix sites, including EZExpo.com, are no longer in operation; some of them closed down while defending civil lawsuits. In 2003 EZExpo and several payment processors were sued in the civil courts for running an illegal lottery in the state of California, with the payment processors abetting the scam. However, the civil case is still ongoing. One result of the lawsuit is that those payment processors and some others no longer accept matrix schemes as customers. Currently, no legal precedent exists regarding the matrix scheme in the US.
In the UK, the Office of Fair Trading has declared some of them to be illegal. On July 1, 2005, two matrix sites, pulsematrix.com and phones4everyone (themobilematrix.com), were declared to be running a form of illegal lottery. These two sites promptly closed down as part of a settlement agreement with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). Other similar matrix sites also used this decision to close down their sites. A few UK matrix sites carried on by utilizing contractual law to trade legally, with one major site carrying on until May 2006 when it was sold to a company in Denmark. In the UK there is no specific law against matrix sites.
Other countries may have different laws regarding these matrix sites, but information is unavailable at this time.
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