Big Co-Op, Inc.

This company offers a business opportunity to become a travel agent via a multi-level maketing plan. The company advertises on internet websites and offers participants the opportunity to own and maintain their own website. Advertised discounts on travel services are made available to members by the requirement that each participant become an Independent Travel Agent (ITA). ITA's may recruit others from their website presentations to establish upline and downline commissions, and are paid a commission for every new agent recruited. The company's promotional literature indicates ITA's earn a 70% commission on all travel booked from their website.

We urge caution. Complaints for similar offers typically allege that earnings claims are exaggerated at best, affiliates are not paid as agreed, and the company fails to disclose total costs involved for website development, or purchasing up-line positions. Generally, our experience has been that affiliates do not receive refunds or full commission for their sales efforts.

To help you determine the real differences between a pyramid and a multi-level sales plan, consider the following. A legitimate multi level plan encourages successful distributors to recruit and train a sales force, but the distributor must also assume ongoing wholesaleing and managing responsibilities as well as, selling to their own retail customers. Emphasis should be placed on selling the product or services offered as a means to earn money, not recruiting others. In an illegal pyramid, the recruits on the bottom level pay money to a few people at the top. Some pyramids are easily recognizable and are as simple as a chain letter. Others are very sophisticated, and disguised to look like legitimate multi-level marketing companies to fool investors and law enforcement. As their disguise, they may take on a line of products or a service and claim to be in the business of selling to consumers. When in realtity, the real money comes from recruiting and not from marketing the products. Recruits themselves run a significant risk of arrest and fines by authorities for participation in the offer.