I A B Marketing Associates

Our experience with similar offers has been that earnings claims are exaggerated at best, affiliates are not paid as agreed, and in some cases the companies fail to disclose total costs involved for website development, or purchasing up-line positions. Although there are some legitimate multi-level sales companies, many such companies engage in pyramid marketing tactics. Make sure you are aware of the differences.

A legitimate multi level plan encourages successful distributors to recruit and train a sales force, but the distributor must also assume ongoing wholesaling 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. They generally do not publicly advertise their offer, but instead rely on word of mouth recruitment of new affiliates. They may hold recruitment meetings where they create a frenzied and enthusiastic atmosphere, where group pressure and promises of easy money prey on people's greed and fear of missing out on a good deal. 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 reality, 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 participating or promoting such offers.