Scams and Multi Level Marketing.
Recently a friend accused Wealthy Affiliates of being a multi level marketing scam. I had told him that I had joined Wealthy Affiliates. I even showed him my website which has nothing to do with promoting Wealthy Affiliates. He still did not believe me as he had been told by another group that WA were MLM’s.
But there are unsrupulous people and groups and you do have to be wary. Let’s delve deeper.
What is Multi level Marketing?
Multi Level Marketing is a scheme or strategy that some companies use to attract new distributors. They use the exiisting members to actively recruit new memebers. And there can be thousnads and thousands of members all across the world, but only a few are making meaningful incomes. This suggests it could be just like a pyramid scheme.
Multi Level marketing, network marketing or pyramid selling is where the money made by the company comes from the new members who join the company. It is made by charging the new members to sell the companies products or services.
It get’s it’s name from the shape of the cash flow. Everything going to the top of the food chain.It might well be an illegal pyramid scheme.
The top 5 Affiliate marketing Scams.
A lot more people are becoming aware of Affiliate marketing. It has gained in popularity over the last several years. There are now a lot of groups advertising on Social Media sites like Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. And they are using these sites to promote the services and products of those groups.
The biggest problem is that when there is an opportunity for money to be made, it attracts the vultures and unscrupulous that are in the business of “taking advantage” or ripping people off. As a result, there are many companies setting themselves up as affiliate marketers and many affiliate marketing scams cropping up.
Please be very careful out there. In this post, I am going to show you what an affiliate marketing scam looks like. And try to help you avoid getting taken in by these vultures..
The Industry is Changing.
When the Industry of Affiliate marketing started most of the revenue was made by people selling the products and services of other Companies. This is what Affiliate Marketing is. People making small commissions by selling the products of other companies.
The reason why companies liked this was because they did not need to pay salaries to sales people. The Affiliate Marketers effectively took over the role of the sales people. And they did it in a more effective way. And these companies were able to attract hundreds and thousands of Affiliate Marketers to sell there products and services.
The Affiliate marketers sales were made on line. The Affiliate Marketers set up a websites in a specific niche’s and then found companies whose products suited that niche.
It was performance based. By which I mean, you only get paid if you sell an item from that company.
Move forward to 2021 and the industry has changed. In recent years we have seen a cross over of companies trying to set foot in the affiliate marketing industry, that actually are not affiliate marketing companies.
Now you see companies charging WAY too much money for affiliate education. You also see companies up selling the heck out of their customers, taking a low cost product and then forcing a customer to pay several thousands of dollars .
This is unethical to say the least.. It is heartless and ruthless, and it is something that ethical affiliate marketers (the ones I work with anyway) don’t stand for.
Fortunately though, there are obvious signs that you can see straight away when trying to figure out whether a program is an affiliate marketing scam or not.
Finally, here they are..
Five of the Top Affiliate Marketing Scams.
There are a lot of different types of affiliate marketing scams. But you can pretty much put every unethical company within this industry under one of these types of scam..
(1) Low Cost to High Cost.
There are a lot of unethical companies out there that will try to sell you on a very low cost item, giving you a price that everything you need to succeed is $6.99 – $48.99, but straight away they will try to up sell immediately after you purchase that product. They will also try to make you feel really guilty if you don’t spend more money.
(2) Free E Book.
I think just about everyone has seen these by now. Send me your email address and I will send you an E Book on How to make Money On Line.
You probably have seen these on your social media accounts. Companies trying to sell you on the idea of getting a free book, plus shipping. That sounds great, too good to be true. They are doing this to get your “contact details” which they are then going to used to promote all sorts of other things to you.. These books are usually lacking in information and totally worthless.
(3) Join Our Amazing Program to Promote Multi level marketing.
Quite often companies that are Multi level Marketers or worse will put themselves forward as Affiliate Marketers however they are not Affiliate marketers.
Anything that smells of Multi Level Marketing probably is. Go with your gut feeling. These companies will suck you in with the promise of rich rewards and get you to pay large amounts of money, only to promote their own company.
Many of these programs are shut down by the Federal Trade Commission every year for being fraudulent and promoting pyramid or Ponzi schemes. If you belong to one of these groups and are actively involved in them and promote them to others, you are just as liable as a participant, the same as you are if you were the owner of the company.
(4) Social Sites “I am in to make MONEY” click for more details.
You see this on Facebook or Instagram all the time, but you will also see it on Twitter, Pinterest and any social websites.
A person tells you how much they are making, how you can “change your lifestyle” and then sell you on the idea that they are going to teach you how to make money just like them.
Most of these people who push these videos on social media are not making any money (unless you buy their stuff), And, they are almost certain to throw you into a network marketing scheme where you need to flog the same rubbish to others.
(5) Look at my Boat, look at my House. Lifestyle and Money.
Any program that sells itself purely on lifestyle or the “mindset”, of expensive or flash cars or houses is normally a scam. These companies tend to lack any substance. They sell on pure emotion and want you to think that you too can be sitting on an exotic beach sipping margarita’s.
So be careful what you get yourself into. Do not listen to others. Do your own research and make your own choices, but be aware of the vultures who hover over the newcomers to the industry.
Why do these Affiliate marketing Scams exist?
They exist because they make money for the owners of these get rich quick schemes.. They make money, because people get suckered into them.
The Federal Trade Commission and the other regulatory bodies are very busy and quite often they will not waste their time on closing a company down until they reach ten million dollars in revenue.
So a lot of the smaller schemes will carry on for some time continuing their unethical practises and scams You can stop these companies purely by understanding they are scams and how to avoid them. If you sign up to any of these schemes you are essentialy feeding the unethical.
Eventually if people stop joining these scam groups they will have to become legitimate companies.
So is Wealthy Affiliates a Scam?
Wealthy Affiliates are innovators in the industry who are helping move the industry forward. They have been in business for over 16 years and are in 193 countries. And they have more than 1,400,000 members. There are more than 10.000 new businesses built monthly and they have 1,800 coaches who provide excellent teaching and learning material.
This is why over 50,000 independent authority bloggers choose and rank Wealthy Affiliate as the “go to” platform for Internet entrepreneurs.
But don’t take my word for it. Check them out for yourself and make up your own mind. Remember everyone has an opinion but sometimes the opposition likes to cut down the tall poppies.
You can check them ot here ==> Wealthy Affiliates <==
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