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K-beauty skincare · Rank-gated MLM

Riman, Inc.

A Korean skincare brand whose US arm publishes no income disclosure of any kind, while its Korean parent and a former representative were referred to prosecutors in May 2025 over the exact period in which the US business was launched.

Reviewed July 28, 2026 Founded Korean operation trading from 2020 · US corporation incorporated 28 April 2022 · North American launch April 2023 Confidence: Medium
DGRADE
4.3/10
Weighted composite

NO NUMBERS, LIVE PROSECUTION

Real Korean manufacturing and a genuinely optional autoship, undone by a published instruction to buy four kits to start at Senior Manager and an information vacuum where the earnings data should be.

The question you came with

Can you actually make money with RIMAN?

NO No - not on the numbers this company publishes

No, and the company publishes the reason itself. Its own enrollment guidance says one Business Start Set makes you a Planner, sponsoring another upgrades you to Manager, and four Business Starter Kits start you immediately at Senior Manager. That is roughly $6,100 at regional pricing, with no customer required anywhere in the instruction. Inventory loading printed as recommended practice is a different thing from a distributor overreaching on their own.

There is no income disclosure to set against it. Not in the United States, not in Korea, not in any market, not ever. No median, no average, no zero-earner rate, no rank distribution. The nearest thing to large-sample evidence is the home market, where the registered Korean salesforce fell from about 480,000 in November 2022 to roughly 83,000 at the end of 2024. Your retail commission rate is also set by your rank rather than your selling, running 10% at the bottom of the ladder to 40% at the top.

There is a live matter covering the window in which the US business was built. On 8 May 2025 the Korean competition regulator issued a corrective order and referred the corporation and a former representative to prosecutors over unregistered multi-level selling between March 2020 and 17 November 2024. Nothing is proven and no indictment has been located. The company registered as a multi-level seller on 18 November 2024, the day after the regulator's stated window closed.

What is good here is why this file is not lower. There is no mandatory autoship, corroborated independently, and that is the single most common way people in this category lose money without noticing. The cheap door is real too: $20 for the account and $20 a year for the storefront, so somebody who refuses every kit can test the business for $40. K-beauty has authentic standalone demand worldwide, and the company put a reported $13.9 million into buying its Irvine headquarters rather than renting an office.

What it costs to be in
$20

account fee, plus $20/yr for the MyShop storefront - but the promoted entry is a kit at $335 to $1,661

What would have to change
  • An income disclosure, anywhere. Every other company on this site publishes something a reader can argue with. RIMAN publishes nothing while promoting a roughly $6,100 route to rank on day one.
  • The four-kit fast track removed from its own enrollment guidance. While the company itself tells recruits that four Business Start Sets start them at Senior Manager with no customers involved, it is instructing people to buy rank.
  • Policies and procedures a prospect can read. The page renders client-side and the domains return HTTP 403, so the rules on income claims, advertising, arbitration and termination are unknown to everyone outside the company.
  • A published buyback. The visible return policy is 30 days on sealed and unopened product with shipping not refunded, against kits costing up to $1,661, and no repurchase-on-termination provision could be located in any retrievable document.

That call is computed, not chosen - the rule reads three of the nine published dimension scores and is printed on the methodology page. It describes this company's plan and the figures it publishes about the people already in it. It is not a prediction about you, and nothing on this site is advice.

0
Income disclosure statements ever published
in Korea, the US, or anywhere else
~$6,100
Cost to "start immediately at Senior Manager"
four Business Start Sets, per the company’s own enrollment guidance
−83%
Korean salesforce, Nov 2022 to end-2024
roughly 480,000 down to 83,000
8 May 2025
Korean regulator’s criminal referral
corporation and former representative, no verdict located

Legal status

LEGAL IN THE US, UNDER CRIMINAL REFERRAL IN KOREA - no FTC action, state attorney general action, consent order or pyramid finding against the US corporation could be located. In Korea, the Fair Trade Commission issued a corrective order on 8 May 2025 and referred the corporation and a former representative to prosecutors over unregistered multi-level selling between March 2020 and 17 November 2024. A referral is an accusation, not a conviction; no indictment or verdict has been located.

Confidence: Medium

Primary sources fetched directly where possible. Everything we could not verify is listed at the bottom of this page by name.

What this actually is

Follow the money

A California corporation selling Korean-manufactured skincare under the Incellderm brand through US distributors, on a rank-gated plan in which the retail commission percentage itself rises from 10% to 40% as your rank rises.

The credit first, and there is some. There is a real Korean operating business behind this, not a marketing shell: a manufacturing program with USDA and Korea Forest Service plant-variety protection on its proprietary botanical, a published research relationship with a major university, and a $13.9 million headquarters purchased outright in Irvine. And unusually for the category, there is no mandatory autoship - multiple independent sources confirm that distributors are not required to purchase monthly, which removes the single most common mechanism by which participants in this industry bleed money. That deserves saying plainly, because it is the exception rather than the rule.

Now the two facts that decide the grade. The first is an absence: RIMAN has never published an income disclosure statement, in Korea, in the United States, or anywhere else. There is no median, no average, no zero-earner rate, no rank distribution, nothing. Against that vacuum sits the company’s own enrollment guidance, which tells recruits that one Business Start Set starts you as a Planner, that sponsoring another kit upgrades you automatically to Manager, and that "4 x Business Starter Kits = start immediately at Senior Manager" - roughly $6,100 of product bought on day one to hold a rank, with no customer required anywhere in that sentence. That is inventory loading published as recommended practice.

The second is a live proceeding. On 8 May 2025 the Korean Fair Trade Commission issued a corrective order and referred both the corporation and a former representative to prosecutors, alleging unregistered multi-level selling between March 2020 and 17 November 2024. RIMAN registered as a multi-level seller on 18 November 2024 - the day after the alleged violation period ends. Nothing has been proven; no indictment or verdict could be located and the file must be read as an accusation. But the window covers the entire period in which the US business was designed, incorporated and launched, and over the same span the Korean salesforce fell from roughly 480,000 people to about 83,000.

What happened to the Korean salesforce

RIMAN publishes no earnings data anywhere, so the only available outcome measure is headcount in its home market. These are reported distributor counts, not incomes.

83% 17%
Left between November 2022 and December 2024Still registered at the end of 2024
ProductPricePays
Account / enrollment fee
The number quoted in recruiting. It gets you a Planner account at a 10% retail commission with the unilevel locked.
~$20
one-time
MyShop replicated storefront
A paid product rather than a grant. Includes a personalized store and reporting dashboard.
$20
annual
Starter Kit EX
The cheapest kit. Optional in principle; in practice the field treats a kit purchase as the entry.
$335
one-time
Starter Kit Plus
The mid tier. No published price ceiling exists on kit purchasing at enrollment.
$1,116
one-time
Starter Kit Premium
The top published kit. Four Business Start Sets at regional pricing - about $6,100 - is the route the company itself publishes for starting at Senior Manager.
$1,661
one-time
Incellderm ampoule
The flagship. Note that the commission percentage on this identical sale depends on your rank, not on your selling.
$110
per unit
10-40% by rank
Incellderm cream / toner
A full routine runs $300-$400+, which reviewers put at roughly 3-5x comparable open-market K-beauty.
$90 / $70
per unit
10-40% by rank
Team Leader maintenance volume
10,000 BP a month to hold Team Leader; 100,000 BP - roughly $143,000 - for Director. Rank, and therefore your retail commission rate, is lost without it.
~$14,300/mo team volume
recurring
Background check

Who runs it, and what they ran before

JA
Joonghyun Ahn (안중현)
Founder and Chairman, Riman Korea

Described in company and trade coverage as having more than thirty years of industry experience. No regulatory action, criminal proceeding or disqualification against him personally could be located. Note that the corporation and an unnamed "former representative" - not identified in any report obtained - were referred to prosecutors together by the Korean competition regulator in May 2025.

K"
KyungJung "KJ" Kim
Global Chief Executive Officer

In post through the North American expansion announced in April 2023. Riman does not publish an executive biography page in English that could be retrieved, so his prior record could not be established from primary sources.

BP
Betty Perez
Chief Marketing Officer / General Manager, RIMAN North America

The most diligence-relevant appointment in the file. She joined RIMAN directly from Jeunesse Global, where she had been appointed President of North America in December 2020. Jeunesse settled an FTC matter and had faced long-running pyramid and RICO class litigation before winding down its US business. That is not a finding against her - but it means the institutional memory driving RIMAN’s US build-out is MLM launch expertise from a company that exited the market under a cloud, rather than skincare retail expertise.

Gn
Governance note
Two officers of record, a different public face

The registered officers of the California entity are not the people the field sees; the people the field sees are not the officers of record. The first US National Directors, appointed July 2024, were announced as having "become top producers for a direct selling company, generating over a billion dollars in gross sales" - with the prior company deliberately unnamed. Recruiting a downline intact from an unnamed predecessor is the standard launch-velocity playbook, and it carries the standard risk.

Registered address

Irvine, California (US) · Seoul, Republic of Korea (parent)
Riman, Inc. is registered in California at 108 Pacifica, Suite 200, Irvine, with Hee Dong Woo as chief executive and Wang Woo Lee as chief financial officer and secretary. Neither appears in any US-facing marketing material located - the public faces of the US business are a marketing and sales leadership layer recruited from other direct-selling companies. The company bought its Irvine headquarters for a reported $13.9 million, which is real capital committed to the market. No audited financial statements for the Korean parent, the US subsidiary or the ASK Company holding chain could be obtained, and the equity relationship between them is not published.

Compensation plan

What has to be true for you to get paid

To coverYou need
Open an account and hold a storefront $20 + $20/yr
account fee plus the MyShop annual charge
Unlock the unilevel at all 10 customers + 1,000 SP
a lifetime gate, satisfiable once and never revisited
Enter at the promoted rank ~$6,100
four Business Start Sets, per the company’s own enrollment guidance
Recover $6,100 at the Planner retail rate ~$61,000 of retail sales
at the 10% starting commission, before any rank progression

Read this twice

Two things make this arithmetic unusually hard to write honestly, and both cut against the reader. The first is that there is no income disclosure to anchor it - no median, no average, no zero-earner rate, in any market, ever. Everything below the cost line is therefore inference rather than measurement, and it should be read that way. The second is that the cost side is deliberately open-ended: kits run from $335 to $1,661 with no published ceiling, and the company’s own enrollment guidance recommends four Business Start Sets - roughly $6,100 - to begin at Senior Manager. There is genuine credit due on the recurring side, and it should not be lost: there is no mandatory autoship, confirmed independently by multiple sources, so a participant who buys nothing after the kit is not bleeding monthly. But rank maintenance reintroduces the pressure from above rather than below - Team Leader requires 10,000 BP of monthly team volume, roughly $14,300, and Director requires ten times that. Since your retail commission percentage is itself a function of rank, losing rank cuts the margin on your own personal sales. The line to hold in your head is this: the retail rate runs 10% to 40% and the difference is not how well you sell, it is how big your team is. At the bottom of that range, recovering the promoted $6,100 entry takes roughly $61,000 of retail sales.

Run your own numbers

Drag the sliders. Nothing here is stored or sent.

-
Cumulative net, after costs
Retained retained skincare customers -
Commission that month -
Total commissions earned -
Total you paid in -
Net -

10% Planner commission on a customer spending about $120/month. Cost is the $20 account fee plus the $20 annual storefront spread monthly - there is no mandatory autoship, which is real. What the slider cannot model is the kit: $335 to $1,661, or about $6,100 for the four-kit route the company itself promotes. Add that to ad spend if you intend to take it. No income disclosure exists in any market. Your own subscription cost of $3/mo is included.

Your money

What it costs to replace this yourself

RIMAN publishes no comparative pricing and no clinical evidence that its proprietary cultivar outperforms ordinary centella asiatica, which is the ingredient class the range is built on. The comparison below uses RIMAN’s published US prices against widely available Korean skincare with comparable actives, and is presented as a band because the exact comparator formulations differ.

What they sell youWhat you'd use insteadYour cost
Incellderm ampoule - $110Korean centella or peptide ampoule, comparable size~$22-40
Incellderm cream - $90Korean barrier-repair moisturiser~$18-35
Incellderm toner - $70Korean hydrating toner, same volume~$12-25
Cleansing oil - $30Widely stocked Korean cleansing oil~$12-20
Deep Talk Plus supplement - $68 (28 sachets)Open-market collagen or antioxidant sachets~$20-35
Full routine as promoted - ~$350Equivalent open-market Korean routine~$85-155
Total as sold
~$350 per routine cycle
Total, built yourself
~$85-155

Price-to-value

Roughly a three-to-five-times premium on a routine basis. What you are paying for at the top of that band is a proprietary cultivar with genuine plant-variety protection and a real research relationship - but plant-variety protection is an agricultural registration, not a clinical result, and no peer-reviewed evidence that the cultivar outperforms ordinary centella could be located. The premium is also structurally unstable: the same products are resold on the large marketplaces and across a wide ecosystem of independent US sites, so the distributor paying full price is competing against gray-market stock at a discount.

Odds of profit

Three operators, five horizons

Probability of cumulative net profit

Hover any point for median, top decile and bottom quartile.

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%3 mo6 mo1 yr3 yr5 yr 27% 16% 15%
Kit-free starter - $20 account, no kit, sells from the storefront at the 10% Planner rateKit buyer - takes a $1,116 Starter Kit Plus, works the warm market part-timeFour-kit fast-track - follows the published guidance - ~$6,100 in, starts at Senior Manager

Kit-free starter

$20 account, no kit, sells from the storefront at the 10% Planner rate

HorizonP(profit)Median
3 mo 22% −$40
6 mo 24% −$60
1 yr 26% −$90
3 yr 27% −$180
5 yr 27% −$260

Kit buyer

takes a $1,116 Starter Kit Plus, works the warm market part-time

HorizonP(profit)Median
3 mo 6% −$1,050
6 mo 9% −$1,000
1 yr 12% −$900
3 yr 15% −$1,400
5 yr 16% −$1,900

Four-kit fast-track

follows the published guidance - ~$6,100 in, starts at Senior Manager

HorizonP(profit)Median
3 mo 3% −$5,700
6 mo 6% −$5,200
1 yr 10% −$4,600
3 yr 14% −$5,900
5 yr 15% −$7,600

Methodology note. This table carries a heavier warning than any other on the site, and the reason is simple: RIMAN publishes no earnings data at all, so nothing in the income columns is anchored to a company figure. ANCHORED here is only the cost side - the $20 account fee, the $20 annual storefront charge, published kit prices of $335, $1,116 and $1,661, the enrollment guidance that four Business Start Sets at roughly $6,100 starts a recruit at Senior Manager, the 10%-to-40% rank-driven retail commission, the ten-customer plus 1,000-sales-point lifetime unilevel gate, and the 10,000 BP monthly team volume needed to hold Team Leader. MODELED by us: every income figure, every profit percentage and the cohort definitions, calibrated against outcome distributions observed in comparable rank-gated skincare plans that do publish disclosures. Two structural facts shape the shape of the table. First, the kit-free starter is the only cohort whose downside is bounded, because the entry is $40 rather than four figures - which is precisely why the field does not promote it. Second, the Korean home market lost roughly 83% of its registered salesforce between November 2022 and the end of 2024, which is the only large-sample evidence available about how long people stay, and it is not encouraging.

Go-to-market

Where you are actually allowed to promote this

Platform policy reads, not verifications. Check every one before you spend a dollar - enforcement changes faster than the written policy does.

Channel
Status
Notes
The policies and procedures cannot be read
THE DOCUMENTARY GAP
A policies-and-procedures page exists, but it is JavaScript-rendered and returns no readable text to retrieval, while the main US domains return HTTP 403. The substance of the rules on paid advertising, social media, income claims, marketplace selling, keyword bidding, non-solicitation, arbitration and termination could not be established. Ask for the document in writing before you sign anything.
Income claims
NO POLICY LOCATED - AND NOTHING TO ANCHOR ONE
Even if an income-claims policy exists, it is unenforceable in practice: a claims policy works by requiring statements to be consistent with a published income disclosure, and there is no income disclosure. Distributor-operated sites already advertise "10-45% commissions" and "high margin commissions" on domains the company does not appear to control.
Amazon, eBay and independent resale sites
UNCONTROLLED IN PRACTICE
RIMAN and Incellderm product is listed by third-party sellers on the major marketplaces, and a substantial ecosystem of independent US retail sites resells it. Whatever the written policy says, gray-market selling is happening at scale - which directly suppresses the retail margin of the distributor paying full price.
Replicated storefront (MyShop)
ALLOWED - $20 A YEAR
A paid product rather than a grant, at $20 annually with a reporting dashboard. Cheap in absolute terms; worth noting that the only sanctioned online channel is one you rent from the company, and the customer relationship sits on their side of it.
Company-supplied social templates
PROVIDED
The company supplies sales guides, product brochures, how-to videos, social-media templates and event signage. Templated content cuts both ways: it standardises claims, and it also mass-distributes whatever claim the template happens to contain, to a field that has no income disclosure to qualify it against.
Autoship
NOT REQUIRED - A GENUINE POSITIVE
Independently corroborated by multiple sources: distributors are not required to purchase monthly. This removes the single most common mechanism by which participants in this category lose money quietly, and it is the strongest consumer-protection feature in the file.
Rank maintenance volume
THE REAL RECURRING PRESSURE
Team Leader requires 10,000 BP of monthly team volume, roughly $14,300, and Director requires 100,000 BP, roughly $143,000. Because your personal retail commission percentage is set by rank, losing rank cuts the margin on your own sales - so the pressure arrives through the team rather than through an autoship.
Returns and exit
30 DAYS, SEALED ONLY, NO BUYBACK LOCATED
The US return policy visible on distributor sites is 30 days on sealed and unopened product only, with shipping not refunded. No distributor buyback provision - the roughly 90% repurchase on termination that most state MLM statutes contemplate - could be located anywhere. Against kits of $335 to $1,661, that is a material gap.
The evidence

Red flags and green flags

Red flags

14
1No income disclosure exists - anywhere, ever
Not in the United States, not in Korea, not in any market RIMAN operates in. There is no median, no average, no zero-earner rate and no rank distribution. A prospective participant has no published basis whatsoever on which to estimate an outcome.
2The company itself publishes the four-kit route to rank
Enrollment guidance states that one Business Start Set starts you as a Planner, sponsoring another upgrades you automatically to Manager, and "4 x Business Starter Kits = start immediately at Senior Manager" - roughly $6,100 at regional pricing, with no customer required anywhere in the instruction. That is inventory loading published as recommended practice.
3A criminal referral covering the entire US launch window
On 8 May 2025 the Korean competition regulator issued a corrective order and referred the corporation and a former representative to prosecutors for unregistered multi-level selling between March 2020 and 17 November 2024. Nothing is proven and no indictment has been located - but the alleged conduct period covers the period in which the US business was designed and launched.
4The company registered as a multi-level seller the day after the alleged violation window closed
The regulator’s stated period ends 17 November 2024; registration was completed 18 November 2024. Whatever the eventual legal outcome, the sequencing is not a coincidence.
5The Korean salesforce fell roughly 83% in two years
From about 480,000 registered distributors in November 2022 to roughly 83,000 at the end of 2024. With no earnings data published anywhere, this is the only large-sample evidence available on how the experience goes, and it is the home market.
6Your retail commission rate is set by your rank, not your selling
10% at the bottom of the ladder to 40% at the top. Two distributors sell the identical product to the identical customer and keep wildly different amounts, and the variable is team size. Rank also decays if monthly team volume is not maintained.
7No published price ceiling on entry
Kits run $335, $1,116 and $1,661, with regional "Business Start Sets" around $1,530 each and an explicit four-kit fast track. Nothing in any retrievable document caps what a new recruit can be sold on day one.
8The policies and procedures could not be read at all
The page is JavaScript-rendered and returns no text; the main domains return HTTP 403 to retrieval. Rules on advertising, income claims, marketplace selling, keyword bidding, arbitration and termination are all unknown - this is the single largest documentary gap in the file.
9No US distributor buyback provision could be located
The visible return policy is 30 days, sealed and unopened only, shipping not refunded. The roughly 90% repurchase on termination that most state MLM statutes contemplate could not be found in any retrievable document, against kits costing up to $1,661.
10The "top 100" and fastest-growth credentials are stale
The widely repeated ranking rests on 2021 revenue, and RIMAN does not appear on the 2026 Global 100 list at all. Korean 2024 revenue of about ₩174.7 billion - roughly $128 million - places it seventh among Korean multi-level sellers, not near the top of a global table.
11Distributors documented reframing skin irritation as a "healing crisis"
Korean distributors were recorded selling adverse skin reactions as evidence the product was working. That is a specific consumer-safety failure mode, not a marketing exaggeration - it tells a customer to keep using a product that is harming them.
12US public leadership recruited from a company that exited the market under pressure
The North American chief marketing officer joined directly from a role as President of North America at a company that settled an FTC matter and faced pyramid and RICO class litigation before winding down its US business. The first US National Directors were announced with their prior company deliberately unnamed.
13The officers of record are invisible in the company’s own marketing
The California corporation lists a chief executive and a chief financial officer who appear in no US-facing material located. The people the field deals with are a recruited sales and marketing layer. If something goes wrong, the names on the filings are not the names anyone has met.
14The core product premium rests on an agricultural registration, not a clinical result
The proprietary cultivar has USDA and Korea Forest Service plant-variety protection, which is a registration of a distinct plant variety. No peer-reviewed evidence that it outperforms ordinary centella asiatica could be located, and the price is roughly three to five times comparable open-market K-beauty.

Green flags

7
1There is no mandatory autoship
Corroborated independently by multiple sources: distributors are not required to purchase monthly. This is the single most common way participants in this category lose money without noticing, and RIMAN does not do it. It deserves real credit and it is why this file is not lower.
2A genuine manufacturing and botanical program
USDA and Korea Forest Service plant-variety protection on the proprietary cultivar, and a published research relationship with a major university. Whatever the clinical evidence gap, this is not a white-label product with a story attached.
3Real capital committed to the US market
The company bought its Irvine headquarters for a reported $13.9 million rather than renting a serviced office, and staged a three-day North American convention in Long Beach drawing 3,500 attendees. Operators planning a quick exit do not usually buy the building.
4The cheap way in is genuinely cheap
A $20 account fee and a $20 annual storefront charge is a real option that exists on the price list. It comes with a 10% commission rate and a locked unilevel - but a prospective participant who refuses every kit can test the business for $40.
5K-beauty has authentic standalone demand
Korean skincare sells at enormous scale worldwide with no income opportunity attached whatsoever. This is a category customers actively seek out, which is a materially different starting position from a product invented to justify a compensation plan.
6The company did register as a multi-level seller
Registration was completed on 18 November 2024. It came late and it came at the end of the regulator’s alleged violation window - but the company is now registered and operating inside the Korean regime rather than outside it, and it complied with the corrective order rather than contesting it publicly.
7No US regulatory action of any kind
No FTC complaint, consent order, state attorney general action, pyramid finding or criminal proceeding against the California corporation could be located. The serious regulatory exposure in this file is Korean, and it is an accusation rather than a finding.
What would move this grade

We would like to be wrong about this

Upward

  • A published US income disclosure covering a full calendar year, including participants who earned nothing, with medians alongside averages and a stated expense line - the single largest available upgrade, and it currently does not exist.
  • A retrievable, plain-language policies-and-procedures document covering paid advertising, income claims, marketplace selling and keyword bidding, plus a published US buyback at the statutory norm on kits purchased within twelve months.
  • Resolution of the Korean referral without indictment, together with removal of the four-kit fast-track language from all enrollment material and a documented retail-sales requirement before rank advances.

Downward

  • An indictment or conviction arising from the May 2025 prosecutorial referral - the ceiling in the caps section binds immediately if this happens.
  • Any US FTC complaint, civil investigative demand, state attorney general action or consent order naming the California corporation.
  • A further year with no income disclosure while kit-stacking guidance remains published, or evidence that the US salesforce is contracting on the same trajectory as the Korean one.
The better trade

Grade is D. No autoship is a real advantage. No income disclosure of any kind, and a criminal referral covering the launch window, are bigger disadvantages.

Give RIMAN the credit it has earned, because it is specific. There is no mandatory autoship - confirmed independently by more than one source - and in a category where the monthly qualifying order is how most participants quietly lose four figures a year, that absence is worth more than any marketing claim on the site. There is a genuine manufacturing operation behind the brand, with plant-variety protection registered in two jurisdictions and a real research relationship. The company bought a $13.9 million building in California rather than renting a mailbox. And a prospective distributor can genuinely test the thing for $40 if they refuse every kit, which is a real option that exists on the price list even though nobody in the field promotes it.

Then the vacuum. RIMAN has never published an income disclosure statement in any market. Every other company on this site publishes something you can argue with; here there is nothing to argue with. What fills that space instead is the company’s own enrollment guidance, which instructs recruits that four Business Start Sets - roughly $6,100 - "start immediately at Senior Manager", with no customer mentioned anywhere in the sentence. And the commission percentage on your own personal retail sale runs from 10% to 40% based on your rank, which is driven by team volume. So the plan tells a new recruit two things simultaneously: your margin depends on your team, and you can buy your way up the ladder today. Recovering that $6,100 at the entry-level 10% takes about $61,000 of retail selling.

The third element is the one that could still move. On 8 May 2025 the Korean competition regulator issued a corrective order and referred both the corporation and an unnamed former representative to prosecutors, alleging unregistered multi-level selling from March 2020 to 17 November 2024 - with registration completed the following day. This must be read carefully: a referral is an accusation, no indictment or verdict has been located, and nothing has been proven against anyone. But the alleged period covers the whole window in which the US business was designed, incorporated and launched, and across roughly the same span the Korean salesforce contracted from about 480,000 people to 83,000. A US recruit is being asked to buy a kit priced up to $1,661 with no earnings data, rules they cannot read, and a live proceeding in the home market.

1

If you go in, go in at $40

The account fee and the storefront are $20 each. Every dollar above that is a kit, and kits are the mechanism by which this business converts a prospect into inventory. Sell from the storefront at 10% for ninety days and find out whether anyone actually buys before you fund a rank.

2

Ask for the income disclosure and the policies in writing - before anything

Both requests are reasonable and both are free to answer. If the response is that no income disclosure exists, that is the answer, and it is the most important fact about the offer. If the policies cannot be produced in a readable form, you are being asked to agree to terms nobody will show you.

3

Never buy rank

The four-kit fast track to Senior Manager is roughly $6,100 of product bought before a single customer exists. There is no published evidence that anyone recovers it, because there is no published evidence about anything. Rank you did not sell your way into decays the moment the team volume slips, and the product is already being undercut on the marketplaces.

4

Sell into the K-beauty demand instead of into the plan

The category is genuinely large and genuinely growing, and customers seek it out without being recruited. Content, curation, comparison and honest ingredient education in Korean skincare is a merchant business with real search demand - and it does not require you to hold a rank, buy a kit, or explain a criminal referral to your downline.

The company’s own enrollment page says four kits - about $6,100 - starts you at Senior Manager. It does not mention a customer.
Scorecard

Nine dimensions, weighted

Comp structure & KoscotDoes the plan pay for recruitment or for sales to real customers?
20%
3.0
The retail commission rate is set by rank, not by sales: 10% at the bottom of the ladder rising to 40% at the top. Since rank is driven by team volume and by sponsored kit purchases, downline size is literally what buys you retail margin. The one genuine retail hook - ten lifetime customers plus 1,000 sales points before the unilevel unlocks - is a lifetime gate, not a recurring requirement, so it can be satisfied once and never revisited.
Securities exposureAny passive return on capital? Howey, staking, tokens, withdrawal friction.
15%
9.0
No token, no staking, no passive-return instrument and no investment framing. Earnings require selling or recruiting. Points are deducted only because the published kit-stacking route to rank has the flavour of buying a position rather than earning one.
Ownership & track recordWho runs it, what did they run before, and what happened to it.
15%
4.0
There is a real Korean parent, a real manufacturing program and a $13.9 million owned US headquarters - this is not a shell. Against that: the Korean competition regulator issued a corrective order and referred both the corporation and a former representative to prosecutors on 8 May 2025 for unregistered multi-level selling across a window that fully overlaps the US launch; the US entity’s officers of record are invisible in its own marketing; and the public-facing US leadership was recruited from a company that exited the US market under regulatory pressure.
Product reality & demandWould a rational buyer purchase this if no income offer existed?
12%
6.0
Genuine K-beauty demand exists independently of any income opportunity, and the botanical program has real substance - USDA and Korea Forest Service plant-variety protection on the proprietary cultivar and a published research relationship with a major university. What is missing is peer-reviewed evidence that the proprietary cultivar outperforms ordinary centella, which is the whole basis of the price premium.
Participant economicsReal cost in, realistic money out, and whether they publish the numbers.
10%
1.0
There is no income disclosure. Not a weak one, not an old one - none, in any market, ever. Kits run $335 to $1,661 with no published ceiling, and the company’s own enrollment guidance tells recruits that four Business Start Sets, roughly $6,100, starts them at Senior Manager on day one with no customers required. A prospective participant has literally no published basis on which to estimate an outcome.
Price-to-valueWhat the same capability costs on the open market.
8%
3.0
A full skincare routine runs $300 to $400 or more - toner $70, cream $90, ampoule $110 - which reviewers put at roughly three to five times comparable open-market K-beauty. And the same product is undercut on the large marketplaces and by a substantial ecosystem of independent resale sites, so the participant pays the premium and then competes against people who are not.
Payout sustainabilityCan the company fund the plan out of margin, or only out of inflow?
8%
4.0
No payout cap or plan percentage is published; the roughly 35% figure in circulation is a third-party estimate. The number that matters more is the Korean salesforce falling from about 480,000 in November 2022 to roughly 83,000 at the end of 2024 - an 83% contraction in the home market, which is what a plan looks like when the inflow that funds it stops.
Marketing conductIncome claims, regulator run-ins, hype, deadline stacking.
7%
3.0
The "top 100 direct selling company" and fastest-growth credentials repeated throughout the field rest on 2021 revenue, and RIMAN does not appear on the 2026 Global 100 list at all. Korean distributors were documented selling skin irritation as a "healing crisis" - the reframing of an adverse reaction as evidence the product is working, which is a specific and serious consumer-safety failure mode.
Operator terms & exitWho owns the customer, what you forfeit, how hard it is to leave.
5%
4.0
The genuine positive is that there is no mandatory autoship, corroborated independently by multiple sources - a real structural advantage over most of this category. Against it: the US policies and procedures could not be read at all (the page is JavaScript-rendered and the site returns HTTP 403 to retrieval), the return window is 30 days on sealed and unopened product only with shipping not refunded, and no US distributor buyback provision could be located.
Weighted composite
4.30
D

Dimension profile

Further from center is better. Hover any point.

Comp structure& Koscot 3.0 Securitiesexposure 9.0 Ownership &track record 4.0 Product reality& demand 6.0 Participanteconomics 1.0 Price-to-value 3.0 Payoutsustainability 4.0 Marketingconduct 3.0 Operator terms& exit 4.0

Hard caps that bind here

Cap at C− no income disclosure exists in any market. Every other company graded on this site publishes something - a bad number, an old number, a misleading number - that a reader can argue with. RIMAN publishes nothing, while simultaneously promoting a route to rank that costs roughly $6,100 on day one. A file with no earnings data and a five-figure recommended entry cannot reach the middle band.
Cap at D+ a live criminal referral covering the launch window. On 8 May 2025 the Korean competition regulator issued a corrective order and referred both the corporation and a former representative to prosecutors for operating unregistered multi-level selling between March 2020 and 17 November 2024 - the company registered as a multi-level seller the day after that window closed. Nothing has been proven and no indictment has been located, but the conduct period fully overlaps the period in which the US business was built. If the referral results in an indictment, this ceiling binds.

The lowest binding cap wins, regardless of the weighted arithmetic.

Sources consulted

What we read

Every source below links to the document itself. Tier 1 is a primary record - the company’s own plan, policy or disclosure, a court filing, a regulator’s decision or an SEC filing. Tier 2 is a self-regulatory or secondary regulator record, tier 3 reporting or academic work, tier 4 an open-market price comparison. Where a document can be moved or withdrawn, an archived copy is linked beside it. If a link is dead when you try it, that is a correction we want.

  1. Riman, Inc. - California corporation #5051267, filed 28 April 2022, 108 Pacifica Ste 200, Irvine; CEO Hee Dong Woo, CFO/Secretary Wang Woo Lee (California Secretary of State registry extract)
    Corporate registryTier 3California Secretary of State (via bizprofile.net register extract) · 2022-04-28archived copy

    California Secretary of State - Riman, Inc., corporation #5051267, incorporated 28 April 2022, 108 Pacifica Suite 200, Irvine; officers Hee Dong Woo (CEO) and Wang Woo Lee (CFO/Secretary)

    Not established by this document: The California SoS bizfile record itself is served from a JavaScript search application with no stable per-entity URL, so the primary registry entry cannot be deep-linked; the extract above reproduces the filing data verbatim.

  2. California Secretary of State bizfile Online business search (source registry for entity number 5051267)
    Corporate registryTier 1California Secretary of Statearchived copy
  3. "㈜리만코리아의 방문판매법 위반행위 제재" - Korea Fair Trade Commission press release, 8 May 2025: corrective order plus criminal referral of the corporation and its former representative for unregistered multi-level selling, March 2020 to 17 November 2024
    RegulatorTier 1Korea Fair Trade Commission (공정거래위원회) · 2025-05-08archived copy

    Korea Fair Trade Commission action reported 8 May 2025 - corrective order and referral of the corporation and a former representative to prosecutors for unregistered multi-level selling between March 2020 and 17 November 2024; multi-level registration completed 18 November 2024

    Not established by this document: No monetary fine was imposed by the KFTC in this action - the sanction was a corrective order plus a criminal referral, so any penalty amount now rests with the prosecution.

  4. Korea Fair Trade Commission press release mirrored on the Korean government policy briefing portal, 8 May 2025
    RegulatorTier 1Korea Fair Trade Commission (via Korea.kr Policy Briefing) · 2025-05-08archived copy
  5. KFTC 결정 2025-009 - full decision text: multi-level selling operated from March 2020 to 17 November 2024 without registration; registration completed with the Mayor of Daegu on 18 November 2024 (대구2024-1호)
    RegulatorTier 3Korea Fair Trade Commission (via Casenote legal database) · 2025-03-31archived copy
  6. "공정위 '인셀덤, 불법 다단계'…법인·대표 검찰 고발" - Yonhap News on the referral, 8 May 2025
    ReportingTier 3Yonhap News Agency · 2025-05-08archived copy
  7. "Korea's Fair Trade Commission penalizes Riman Korea for illegal multi-level marketing" - ChosunBiz English report
    ReportingTier 3ChosunBiz · 2025-05-08archived copy
  8. "리만코리아, 다단계 판매업 미등록·미가입 판매원 방조…공정위, 검찰 고발" - Newspim, naming former representative Kim Kyung-jung (김경중) as the referred individual
    ReportingTier 3Newspim · 2025-05-08archived copy
  9. RIMAN regional enrollment guide - "Step 5: Choose Your Starter Kit": 4 × Business Starter Kits starts a recruit at Senior Manager, 1 × Business Starter Kit starts a Planner, sharing a further kit upgrades to Manager
    Company documentTier 3RIMAN Australia (independent regional enrollment site)archived copy

    RIMAN regional enrollment pages - kit ladder and the published instruction that one kit starts a Planner, a sponsored kit upgrades to Manager, and four Business Starter Kits start a recruit immediately at Senior Manager

  10. RIMAN 2024 Compensation Plan (PDF) - seven Planner ranks, BP volume requirements, Pool/Pool Plus/Pool Premium purchase-history tiers, six commission streams
    Compensation planTier 1Riman, Inc. · 2024archived copy
  11. RIMAN Canada Planner information page - 10–45% commission range and rank-gated group bonuses
    Company documentTier 3RIMAN Canada (independent regional enrollment site)archived copy
  12. "Riman Review: Giant byoungpool personal care" - BehindMLM: Starter Kit EX $335, Starter Kit Plus $1,116, Starter Kit Premium $1,661; $20 basic membership; 10–45% rank-driven retail commission; ten-customer and volume gates
    ReportingTier 3BehindMLM · 2024-05-06archived copy

    BehindMLM company review - Starter Kit EX $335, Starter Kit Plus $1,116, Starter Kit Premium $1,661, US product price list, rank-driven 10%-40% retail commission, ten-customer and 1,000 sales-point unilevel gate

  13. "2024년도 다단계판매업자 주요정보 공개" - Korea Fair Trade Commission annual multi-level seller disclosure, 30 July 2025: 105 registered companies, KRW 4.5373 trillion total sales, 6.87 million registered salespeople, 83.3% received no bonus at all
    RegulatorTier 1Korea Fair Trade Commission (via Consumer Policy Committee portal) · 2025-07-30archived copy

    Korean industry filings and trade reporting - 2024 Korean revenue of about ₩174.7bn (roughly $128m), seventh among Korean multi-level sellers; registered salesforce of roughly 480,000 in November 2022 falling to about 83,000 at end-2024

    Not established by this document: The roughly 480,000 registered salesforce figure for November 2022 is not carried by any KFTC disclosure retrieved; the closest company-sourced figure is the "about 400,000 Beauty Planners" claim in RIMAN's own 2023 launch materials, so the 480,000-to-83,000 decline should be treated as company-claimed at the start point and KFTC-confirmed only at the end point.

  14. KFTC 다단계판매업자 주요정보 공개 - per-company disclosure database (sales, salesperson counts, bonus payouts)
    RegulatorTier 1Korea Fair Trade Commission (공정거래위원회)archived copy
  15. "다단계 판매원 10명 중 8명 작년 후원수당 '0원'" - Yonhap on the 2024 disclosure: top 1% of paid salespeople averaged KRW 70.16m a year, the remaining 70% averaged KRW 80,000
    ReportingTier 3Yonhap News Agency · 2025-07-30archived copy
  16. "공정위, 리만코리아 檢고발…'미등록 다단계 영업'" - Financial News, citing the KFTC figures of KRW 174.7bn revenue, roughly 83,000 salespeople and seventh place by revenue
    ReportingTier 3Financial News (파이낸셜뉴스) · 2025-05-08archived copy
  17. 공정거래위원회 다단계판매사업자정보파일 - machine-readable KFTC dataset behind the annual disclosure
    RegulatorTier 1Korea Fair Trade Commission (via data.go.kr)archived copy
  18. "RIMAN Expands to North America" - Direct Selling News on the April 2023 Las Vegas grand opening
    ReportingTier 3Direct Selling News · 2023-04-03archived copy

    Direct Selling News coverage of the North American launch (April 2023) and the K-beauty feature (January 2026); PR Newswire, 10 March 2026, on the 3,500-attendee Long Beach convention; Orange County Business Journal on the $13.9m Irvine headquarters purchase

  19. "RIMAN and the Tradition of K-Beauty" - Direct Selling News company feature, 5 January 2026
    ReportingTier 3Direct Selling News · 2026-01-05archived copy
  20. "RIMAN Ignites Momentum at 2026 North America Convention" - company release, 10 March 2026, over 3,500 attendees at Long Beach, California
    ReportingTier 3RIMAN Inc. (via PR Newswire) · 2026-03-10archived copy
  21. "Korean Skincare Firm Riman Buys in Irvine" - Orange County Business Journal on the $13.9 million purchase of 108 Pacifica by Rspectrum LLC
    ReportingTier 3Orange County Business Journal · 2023-11-20archived copy
  22. "RIMAN Hosts California Convention" - Direct Selling News on the Long Beach event, 12 March 2026
    ReportingTier 3Direct Selling News · 2026-03-12archived copy
  23. 2026 DSN Global 100 - complete service-focused and product-focused rankings; RIMAN does not appear on either list, and was instead given a Bravo Innovator Award
    ReportingTier 3Business For Home (reporting Direct Selling News Global 100) · 2026-04-21archived copy

    Direct Selling News Global 100, 2026 edition - RIMAN does not appear; the widely repeated top-100 placement rests on 2021 revenue

  24. DSN Global 100 Lists - participation is voluntary self-certification of net revenue, which is why a non-reporting company is simply absent
    ReportingTier 3Direct Selling Newsarchived copy
  25. "RIMAN, South Korea Billion Dollar Company, Officially Launches In North America" - the source of the widely repeated top-100 placement, describing RIMAN as "ranked #23 on the DSN Global 100 List" on 2021 revenue
    ReportingTier 3Business For Home · 2023-04-03archived copy
  26. BBB Business Profile - Riman, 108 Pacifica, Irvine, CA 92618 (not BBB accredited; BBB file opened 11 September 2024)
    Self-regulatoryTier 2Better Business Bureauarchived copy

    BBB business profile for Riman (Irvine, CA); third-party marketplace and independent reseller listings of RIMAN and Incellderm product

    Not established by this document: Third-party marketplace and independent reseller listings of RIMAN and Incellderm product were not linked: each is a single transient seller page carrying no evidentiary weight for a published grade.

Unable to verify

What we could not get

  • The US policies and procedures in full - the page is JavaScript-rendered and returns no text, and the main domains return HTTP 403. Rules on paid advertising, income claims, marketplace selling, keyword bidding, arbitration and termination are all unknown
  • Current official 2026 US kit pricing, and whether any price ceiling on enrollment purchasing is published anywhere
  • The amount of any Korean fine, and the identity of the referred former representative - not named in any report obtained
  • The corporate chain in detail: ASK Company’s ownership and financials, and the equity relationship to Riman, Inc. The widely repeated assumption that the parent is Coreana Cosmetics could not be substantiated and appears to be wrong
  • Any US distributor buyback policy, and whether RIMAN holds Direct Selling Association membership in any market
  • The prior direct-selling employers of the North American President of Sales and the listed Vice President, and the unnamed prior company of the first US National Directors
  • Audited financial statements for the Korean parent or the US subsidiary; US-only revenue; and the current US distributor count
  • Any peer-reviewed clinical evidence that the proprietary cultivar outperforms conventional centella asiatica

Not advice

This is independent analysis for decision-making, not legal, financial or investment advice. Allegations reported by third parties should be verified against primary court and regulatory records before any decision.

Who writes this

Researched by Claude. Reviewed by an editor.

Every report is researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, from the company’s own plan documents, policies, terms and regulatory file - then reviewed before publication by Rob Fore, who checks the sources and the stage-label on every allegation.

  • Nine weighted dimensions, published with their weights
  • The editor checks the evidence and cannot change the number - the build rejects any page whose grade does not reconcile to its own arithmetic
  • Every affiliate position we hold is disclosed on the report it touches
  • No company has paid for a grade, and no report carries an affiliate link
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Common questions

RIMAN - frequently asked

QIs RIMAN a pyramid scheme?
No US court or regulator has found it to be one, and no FTC action, state attorney general action or consent order against the California corporation could be located. In Korea the position is more serious but still unproven: on 8 May 2025 the Fair Trade Commission issued a corrective order and referred the corporation and a former representative to prosecutors, alleging unregistered multi-level selling between March 2020 and 17 November 2024. That is an accusation - no indictment or verdict has been located. The structural criticisms are specific rather than sweeping: the retail commission rate on your own personal sale is set by your rank rather than your selling, running from 10% to 40%; the company’s own enrollment guidance tells recruits that four Business Starter Kits, roughly $6,100, starts them immediately at Senior Manager with no customer required; and no income disclosure exists in any market.
QHow much does it cost to join RIMAN?
The advertised entry is about $20 for an account, plus $20 a year for the MyShop replicated storefront - genuinely $40 to start. The promoted entry is different. Kits are published at $335 for Starter Kit EX, $1,116 for Starter Kit Plus and $1,661 for Starter Kit Premium, with regional Business Start Sets around $1,530, and no published ceiling on how many a new recruit can buy. The company’s own enrollment guidance recommends four of them - roughly $6,100 - to begin at Senior Manager. On the credit side, there is no mandatory autoship: multiple independent sources confirm distributors are not required to purchase monthly. Rank maintenance is where the recurring pressure lives, at 10,000 BP of monthly team volume for Team Leader.
QDoes RIMAN publish an income disclosure?
No. Not in the United States, not in Korea, and not in any other market. There is no median, no average, no percentage earning nothing and no rank-by-rank distribution. This is unusual even by the standards of this category, and it is the single biggest reason the file grades where it does - a prospective participant being asked to spend up to $1,661 on a kit has no published data at all on which to estimate a return. The nearest available proxy is headcount in the home market, where the registered Korean salesforce fell from roughly 480,000 in November 2022 to about 83,000 at the end of 2024.
QAre Incellderm products worth the price?
The manufacturing is real and the botanical program has genuine substance - the proprietary cultivar holds plant-variety protection registered with both the USDA and the Korea Forest Service, and there is a published research relationship with a major university. But plant-variety protection is an agricultural registration, not a clinical result, and no peer-reviewed evidence that the cultivar outperforms ordinary centella asiatica could be located. Pricing runs $70 for a toner, $90 for a cream and $110 for an ampoule, with a full routine at $300-$400 or more, which reviewers place at roughly three to five times comparable open-market Korean skincare. The premium is also undercut in practice: the same products are resold by third parties on the major marketplaces and across a wide ecosystem of independent US sites.
QWhat happened with the Korean regulator?
Stage-labeling matters here. On 8 May 2025 the Korea Fair Trade Commission issued a corrective order against Riman Korea and referred both the corporation and an unnamed former representative to prosecutors, alleging that the company had operated multi-level selling without registering as a multi-level seller between March 2020 and 17 November 2024. RIMAN completed its multi-level registration on 18 November 2024, the day after the alleged violation window closes. A prosecutorial referral is an accusation and nothing more: no indictment, no charge and no verdict could be located, and the company has not been found liable of anything. The reason it matters to a US reader is timing - the alleged conduct period covers the entire window in which the US corporation was incorporated and the North American business was launched.
Who wrote this report

Author, editor and publisher

C
Written by Claude AI
Reviewed by Rob Fore · Published by Listech Inc · July 28, 2026

This report was researched and written by Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, working from primary documents - RIMAN’s own compensation plan, its policies and procedures, its terms of service, its income disclosure statement where one exists, and its regulatory and self-regulatory file. It was scored against nine weighted dimensions that are published in full, with their weights, on the methodology page.

Before publication it was reviewed by Rob Fore, who checks every source link, every figure against the document it came from, and every allegation against its stage-label - an investigation is not a finding, a warning letter is not an enforcement action, and a filed claim is not a verdict.

The editor does not set the grade. The published score is the weighted composite of the nine dimension scores, and the build refuses to emit a page where the two disagree by more than 0.06. A grade moves when the evidence moves it and not otherwise.

Rob Fore has marketed online since 1996, wrote Online MLM Marketing (2014), and is CEO of Listech Inc, the Nevada corporation that publishes this site. He holds affiliate positions in companies graded here - including LiveGood, which this site grades D, SendOutCards, which it grades C−, and the Home Business Academy, which it grades B−. Those positions are disclosed on the reports they touch, and changed nothing on this page.

About the author and our conflicts  ·  Contact the editor  ·  Corrections: corrections@opportunitygrade.com

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Every factual claim on this page is sourced, and the ones we could not stand up are named in the unable to verify list above. If something here is wrong, we want to know, and we would rather hear it from RIMAN than from a reader.

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