It was held at a Holiday Inn. I asked several questions about the product they were suppose to sell, but never got a clear answer. All I kept hearing about was how they need my $200. $100 of that for a background check and $100 for processing fees. They showed pictures of luxurious houses and cars that they didn't own and talked about how much money they earned. Chris Hanson from NBC did an investigation on this.

My cousin is no longer in it. He told me they had to pay for their trips to the conferences and pay for all their training materials and pay monthly subscription to the website for more training and tips. They were never licensed loan officers. He had recruited 3 other close relatives and now they're all mad at him for scamming them.

Red Flag #3, even when we go to a store, the reps there expect us to buy stuff even if they don't get bonuses out of the sales, so this flag goes for EVERY business, even fast food.

Red Flag #4, just as if you were working on a big Corporate company, the difference is that in Corporate America you have a boss, schedule, salary and 0 overrides :o(

Red Flag #5, in Primerica you do not get paid by recruiting someone itself and they get BIG commissions from helping a family that "purchases" one of their products and/or services.

So I guess Primerica does fall into this category.

My suggestion, just listen to someone who is financially independent or about to be, if you don't know someone like that then try reading their books and/or listening to their tapes, it will sure truly help.

I think in life the worse thing you can ever do, is the one you don't do.

Hope this helped.
Best of Lucks!

Second off, you clearly didn't do your research and sound like a fool to anybody who has been to one of ACN's presentations.

ACN hasn't only offered long distance in years.

Their core business products are, Long distance (like you said), All major cell phone carriers, DSL (in some markets), Direct and Dish TV, and video phone service.

That's not the problem with ACN. If you look at their payment model the only way to make great $$$ is to recruit like mad. The commissions on the products only start out at 1% and work up to 10% after you have recruited enough hard workers.

I have friends in ACN and they are trying to recruit me, If it wasn't so front loaded on recruitment I'd be more interested.

ACN offers the following services:

-Digital VOIP VideoPhone
-Tradtional Digital VOIP
-Traditional Local/LD
-Wireless thru Verizon, Sprint, Altell, Nextel, T-Mobile, AT&T
-Residential Satellite TV thru DirectTV and Dishnetwork
-Business Satellite TV thru DirectTV
-Home Security through ADT
-DSL internet

ACN currently operates in 19 different countries.

ACN has a legal advisory board consisting of 3 former State's Attorney General (Kansas, Kentucky,Arizona) as well as former consumer regulatory chairmen from Australia and Canada.

ACN is personally endorsed by Donald Trump.

ACN, it's Videophone and it's leaders will be showcased on a 2-hour long NBC Primetime episode of Celebrity Apprentice on Sunday March 22.

A simple Google search will yield RECENT info that in 12/2008, ACN purchased a 63% controlling interest in videophone maker Worldgate and has finalized an agreement with that company to purchase $50 million in videophones over a 2-year period.

I was eating dinner the other day at a local restaurant and heard this guy trying to recruit some people into a pyrmid scheme. It was hysterical and sad all at the same time.

Does it look too good to be true? Yes? Then it probably is.

Does it look like a scam, smell like a scam and sound like a scam? Yes? Then it's probably a scam.

Then I started getting pestered to sign other people up. Can't just sell, gotta recruit. That's when I stopped paying attention to my chain of distributors and just sold a few things to people who couldn't live without Amway driveway cleaner or whatever.

Eventually, I just let my annual membership lapse.

Fast forward, I'm in my 30's and working full time in IT, and an old friend from college calls me up and starts chatting about the old days. I ask what he's up to, and he mentions that he's into something new, he wants me to take a look at it. He says he's got some tapes to send me, that he wants me to listen to. This is a guy who, in college, everyone pegged for Governor or President some day, so I figured if he was into something new, it had to be hot.

Get the tapes, and sure enough it's Amway. I politely decline the next time I talk to him. Oh well, he could have been Governor of Illinois one day, and now he sells Amway.

>_<

you do understand that anyone who did that (buy term life and then invest it in Primerica-Citigroup's own mutual funds) in the past year and a half has been slammed by the crashing stock market harder than a screen door in a hurricane...

In fact, without even looking at the specifics, I'd say about 99% of them are doing worse than if they'd have just kep their money the way they did before Primerica...

My friend joined and I watched him try to call his friends and family members to get them to switch phone service to ACN's. He honestly tried to work hard in the program and recruit more people. But after a while, he never mentioned anything about it. I think it was shame when he found out the hard way :(

Lost a bunch of friends this way. Fortunately, the closest friends ultimately gave up before we got to that stage.

I was at a meeting of my AA cult and some asshat tried shilling Primerica. we heckled him.

Don't mess with soggy-headed sober people, Shill.

Of course, I think there are laws that could slow you down...

They are an incarnation of Smart Circle.

They trained me to go out for 12 hours at a time and find home improvement leads for companies like PJ Fitzpatrick, Power Windows and Siding, and Owens Corning. I was trained to go door to door and find leads by talking about windows, roofing, and siding. I then had to use my cell phone to verify the lead to a call center operator and have the "customer" speak to the call cetner to verify the leads authenticity. Each lead paid $50. It was common to pull two or three a day.

As you advance through the career ladder, you train people below you, and when you promote those below you, you get a portion of their earnings. All the was up to the national consultant, who also gets a portion of your earnings.

The company expects you to pay to drive about 50-60 miles or more per day without reimbursement in your own vehicle, as well as stay for 12 hours 6 days a week.

All in all I made about $400 after a week of hard work, and then on Sunday did my research better to find out the scam. Many of the companies are listed on www.ripoffreport.com. Here is a partial list:

PURE Marketing
Primal Marketing
3W Concepts
Smart Circle
Sea Breeze Marketing
Titan Marketing
DS Max
Champion Marketing
Vizion Marketing
Choice Promotional Group
Quantum Events
JDR International
Granton Marketing
INOVAGE

Cant say I didnt warn you.

PROTIP: If it's Quixtar or Amway, it's a scam!

Someone who had some Quixtar business site used to relentlessly promote his stuff on a forum I went to. right around every holiday. And with his webpage in his signature. Eventually, after a few tipoffs, he was banned. Good riddance.

Could someone elaborate on or clarify Red Flag #5 for me?

@snowburnt:

The signs by me turned out to be part of a phone scam.

The number would have a local area code but somehow was linked to a number in the bahamas that charged ~$10 per minute. They even had a special on 20/20 regarding this scam (this was ~5 years ago)

Also, the fake phone call app for the iPhone works wonders for this too.

Also probably the worst thing you can do with your life is to lose money, become unemployed and lose all your friends. These scams obviously have the power to change people, even if you are unemployed from the start your better off not buying into one of these and just holding onto your friends, because at least you still have something. If you buy into the MLM then you will lose your friends, get yourself deeper in the hole when it comes to finances AND you will still be unemployed.

NOBODY gets in early. The testimonials by those who claim to have joined the MLM early are shills.

Dead giveaway #24: You can't figure out what the "business" actually does.

@jaydez: I'm not sure if it's a pyramid scheme or not, but my father in law got dragged into Prepaid Legal Services... But he had to be a member first. So he signed up for a $35 a month program. Then he has to go to mandatory meetings to sell it. Then he has to buy $300+ worth of materials to sell it. And the more people he signs up, the better money he makes...

I tried to warn him after reading everything over. If anything, it was a waste of money and time. Some websites call it a MLM, others scream it's "AUTHENTIC AND A GREAT WAY TO MAKE MONEY!!" Even though they've been sued in many states for MLM type ways.

@Rugbyjersey: And let me guess - the training material consists of a, 8"x11" laminated photo of your ass?

@Wit: I agree with you, and applaud you for what you did. That was nice.

However, the people I know who've fallen for these things aren't generally the shy, retiring types. They're usually outgoing types who are bad with money, always looking for the easy way, and confident that they can work the system. I suppose the pitch is tailored to the personality type, though.

Rule #1 should be: Above all else, remember that there is no such thing as easy or free money.

I don't know about Tupperware, but every Mary Kay party I've been to they spend at least a half hour trying to get you to sell the stuff.

Personally, I like the brand but it's kind of expensive, and I'd rather get my cosmetics where I can actually pick them up and walk out the door with them right then.

@badgeman46: Makes sense to me. And that just makes it all the more obvious that it's a scam... unless you don't pay attention to that kind of stuff.

@HarcourtArmstrong: that's quixstar/amway! i went to one of their seminar things once...that was the dude's bis selling point. the internet is the way of the future! no one wants to shop in stores anymore! gas is so expensive! he talked a lot about some friends he had who made millions and now sit around at home all day, but he never really said what they actually do.

A little later, her friend and this other gentleman arrive and the gentleman launches into what sounds much, much more like a sales pitch than a job interview. I overhear him telling how he was a psychology teacher of some sort, but wasn't making the big bucks, and somehow he got involved in ACN and he's now making them. There were a lot of high-pressure sales techniques being employed (and between undergrad psych and law school, I was starting to get a very bad feeling about my shy friend's ability to get out of there without signing up and paying $500+). I ended up googling ACN and learning all I could about it - and, since this was at the point where they were successfully sued in Australia, and being sued in Canada and several states, I became alarmed and went to tell the coffee shop manager. They'd taken out the paperwork at this point, and my shy friend was trying to politely decline, but she kept getting badgered to sign. The store manager came over to observe, and in the mean time, the gentleman basically discovered my opposition to his sales pitch and launched an angry attack on me.

I barely managed to hold my own, and in the end, he went off without getting anything signed - though I don't know if they just decided to take it up at another time. I do know that my shy friend lingered behind in the bathroom to thank me for standing up for her because she didn't know how to say no to them.

It's really the taking advantage of people that gets me - this gentlemen, the self described "poor psychology teacher" knew full well how to bewilder and coerce his prospective business partner to sign up, and he was using pretty much every trick in the book. And yes, it sucks that she didn't have the self-confidence to speak up and say, "No, I don't want to get involved in this, so bugger off," but that's not really the point. That's why they chose her.

/inchoate ramble-rant.

It's not a pyramid scheme, it's triangular marketing...

..that said, in my younger days I was approached at a Best Buy by a young man who said "Did you go to {insert local college name here}?" I actually went to a meeting with him for fun where he described no product even when I inquired and just explained the system. I said I'd think about it and when I called him to say I wasn't interested, he told me off and hung up on me. Since then, I have seen him at BB, Target, Blockbuster, and the grocery store asking people if they went to Kings College... ass.

@DidSomeoneSayCookie?: Not to mention the unemployed. Once you're out of a job for 7 months or so, and you've gone on what feels like 76,000 interviews with no luck, a sign like that can look like a beam of light from heaven. The shitty thing is, those are the people who LEAST need to be throwing their money away on a pyramid scheme.

@InfiniTrent: Yeah, one of my best friends got into one a couple of years ago because one of his shyster perpetual-salesman-type buddies convinced him to join up. I wouldn't trust the dude as far as I could throw him - he's one of those gladhanding phony dudes who's always got several schemes running at once, but never one REAL job - but my best friend bought right into it, whole hog.

It was really painful when he came to me all bright-eyed and tried to get me involved and I had to turn him down. No way in hell was I sinking my money and time into it, but I was as tactful as I could be. Needless to say, my best friend lost a lot of money and free time chasing this bullshit, and it's not something we talk about at all, because he's embarrassed he fell for it.

But he's still friends with that phony douchebag!!

@Canino: That would have been fiendishly clever if they hadn't blown their cover. Amazing the lengths they'll go to.

@sirwired: For a while, cheap signs saying "Successful real estate investor seeks apprentice. To 100k" with a phone number. I thought, who would believe that a successful anyone would be recruiting using yard-sale signage? But to the naive and hopeful, it could look good.

@Philonius_Louvin: I actually figured those ads out, and why you see the crazy web addresses. You generate "leads" for more MLM businesses. Actually, those ads ARE the leads. That is why they are www.2983crazfox.com or www.388monkeymadness.com or www.29path.com. Each website is an individual's website who is in the scheme.

Yes! I think the common buzzword I've seen/heard with pyramid schemes is "opportunity". It's not a business. It's not a career. It's not a job. It's an "opportunity".

@PittDragon: It may be different now, as this was about 10 years ago that I did this. My guess is it was purchased by Citigroup. But here are the specifics and you can decide for yourself. You refinanced mortgages, except, surprise, you had to find your own leads. In the "interview" the sucess stories were these people who obviously pestered their friends and family to refinance. It was also a recruiting based system.

Then they both got laid off, which I always wondered about (Did our boss know what they were up to? I never told, but we sat in close proximity to other people who must have heard it all). Which wasn't a problem, of course, because they were "moving up the ladder and about to make tons of money, anyway."

Always ask the recruiter what the profit margin is to the seller. Ie Actual consumer purchase price minus product cost to seller = the actual profit. (Of course less operating expenses, etc but you get the idea)

1. If the recruiter has no idea what profit margin is- run.
2. If the recruiter stresses that your downstream recruits will make you the money on what they sell- run.

@HarcourtArmstrong: Sounds similar to Amway's Quixtar deal.

My in-laws are in a different MLM every six months. Here's where they went wrong. About 14 years ago, they were in one that actually worked. They made $15,000-$20,000 per month for three months.

They bought new cars, a big new house on a 15 year mortgage and everything in those three months and it stopped. Some people actually went to prison over it. The money obviously stopped coming in and they have been chasing false dreams every since. And the big new house on a 15 year mortgage, they've managed to keep (they had a pretty good income before), but over Christmas I found out that they now owe 17 years on it due to refinancing and pulling out money to pay debt.

My mother-in-law thinks that my wife and I are stupid for not getting involved, not to nmention the dozens of friends they have alienated since getting involved in this crap. I think they have had to change churches 8 or 10 times because of getting people involved in MLMs.

@Canino: @InfiniTrent:

I second the opinion on the numbers as a tracking method for the specific commercial advertisement.

As a side note, my local poster of those signs has "downgraded" the promised income. It's now "MAKE EXECUTIVE LEVEL INCOME FROM HOME".

Just a theory, but as a marketing guy, that's my best guess.

Or...

If it looks like simply selling a stupid product will allow you to make a living, when people who sell things like CARS and HOUSES are having trouble making ends meet.

I went the next day and some guy gives me a whole presentation about this company. He never told me what they did. All he said was that they were using the internet to cut out the middle man, and link companies directly to consumers. They had set up a "toll booth" on the internet so everybody has to go through them. If I wanted to learn more I had to go to an information session, because it's easier to just explain it once to a bunch of people.

The guy seemed to focus more on how much money I could make, and refused to talk about what they did. That was my tip off that this was a MLM scheme.

Also, they'll encourage you to recruit your customers, though I'm not sure how that works out to be profitable -- yeah, you get a commission for every product they purchase, but you'd think it would be easier and more lucrative just to sell the products to them.

I wonder if anyone called

@sirwired: It has always baffled me that people actually fall for this crap.

That reminds me of a dinner I was at just a couple of years ago, and the people at the next table were going on and on about this "opportunity" they had been offered, describing it to their friends they were with. It was a classic MLM deal someone was trying to get them into. Six adults were at the table and not one of them sounded like they had ever heard of MLM. It was all brand new to them. The one couple explained it carefully to the others and they all discussed it and couldn't see any downside. They seriously all sounded like children with no common sense or business sense whatsoever.

I wondered how six different people could get to be in their 30s and 40s without having ever heard of this, but apparently the pool of naive people is unlimited.

Senior year of college I had my resume on the college intern/job finding site. I got a call and an interview ON CAMPUS with Primerica Financial. I thought it sounded like a good opportunity until I went to their seminar. I was there with about 10 people with me being the only college student (everyone else was over 40). The guy kept talking about how much money we could make by just selling financial advice and we could be own own bosses by setting hours and clients.

I got up and walked right out.

@microcars:

Does that have anything to do with a "Financial Panther"?

One classic catch phrase they use is "You don't like making money?"

They never have a good comeback when you say "Actually...no."

How about if you see a tv ad for a work at home opportunity, people sitting poolside with their laptops and fruity frozen cocktail hard at work, and the web address for the company -- www.[some number]crazyfox.xom -- changes everytime you see it?

@badgeman46: Why? Were they chanting "Peer a mids keem Peer a mids keem"?

Exactly. Plus if someone wants to sell a $300 "system, package, or kit" in order to make $10,000 a month or whatever just say "Great, take the $300 out of my first paycheck."

There. Wasn't that easy?

Generally, if they seem to spend more time selling the opportunity to you than interviewing you to see if you are qualified, run away.

What crap. The key to a successful business is getting enough people to buy something you have to sell, and getting them to pay more for it than it cost you. Marketing is a part of it, yes, but all the interest in product (which is what marketing does) is worthless unless people actually buy something.

If the lion's share of sales are genuine retail sales to people not participating in the "opportunity" (Tupperware, Mary Kay, etc.), it is likely to be legit.

SirWired

@InfiniTrent:

Rule 7: If the person giving the presentation says multiple times, without provacation, "This is not a pyramid scheme", it is, in fact, a pyramid scheme.

I once went to an "interview" with Primerica, which is some sort of mortgage fianance scheme. I walked in and there were a bunch of other people and there was weird chanting going on and people passing out checks. The chanting was a dead givaway that this was a pyramid scheme of some sort.

1. How much money you'll make
2. How much better the quality of your life can be
3. How you can "set your own hours" and "run your own business"

as they do telling you about the product itself - run away.

Rule 6: If anyone approaches you about a great position at a "marketing" company, it's definitely a pyramid scheme.

The last MLM thing I went to was at the home of a guy I knew, and out of the 12 people who showed only myself and one other person weren't already in it. The rest were ringers who all acted like they were interested and excited, but I overheard several conversations about how much they had already sold, etc. So cheesy.

My ***hole uncle keeps trying to get me involved in crap like this. The most recent one 3 years ago was Burnlounge. Before that was Herbalife and Melalucia (sp?). He has always done really well in them but always tries to sucker me into to them. I just feel bad that my brother fell for them more than once.