Warranty Rewards Review: MLM warranty coverage?
Other than a provided corporate address in Florida, there is no information on the Warranty Rewards website indicating who owns or runs the business.
The Warranty Rewards website domain (“mywarrantyrewards.com”) was registered on the 15th of October 2013, however the domain registration is private.
Warranty Rewards does have a “Company” page on their website, but it only reveals that ‘Warranty Rewards was founded as the direct selling arm of Matrix Protection‘.
There’s no information on the Matrix Protection website indicating who owns that company either. The Matrix Protection website domain (“matrixprotection.com”) was registered in 2009, however its domain registration is also private.
On a marketing video linked off the Warranty Rewards website, titled “My Warranty Rewards Business Opportunity”, Jay Tuerk is credited as the company’s CEO and Yoni Ashurov as President. Both men are additionally also credited as company co-founders.
Why neither Ashurov or Tuerk’s names appear on the Warranty Rewards website is not clear.
Jay Tuerk (right) and Yoni Ashurov appear to have a long-running business relationship, with Tuerk credited as CEO and Ashurov as President in both Matrix Protection and Energy Management Systems International (EMS).
EMS doesn’t appear to be an MLM business opportunity (“emsint.com”), with the company selling what they call “The EnergyMizer”.
The EnergyMizer line of energy management systems is a UL listed and CSA approved line of product engineered to provide numerous benefits to any electrical system.
Warranty Rewards would appear to be the first venture for both men on the executive side of things.
Read on for a full review of the Warranty Rewards MLM business opportunity.
The Warranty Rewards Product Line
Warranty Rewards have no retailable products of their own. Instead the company markets a warranty protection service through the third-party Matrix Protection.
The Matrix Electronics Protection Plan is the most comprehensive electronics service plan in the industry. The plan covers ALL of your eligible electronics, such as TVs, computers, phones, tablets, blenders, gaming consoles and thousands of other items for just one low fixed monthly fee, with no long-term contract!
A Matrix Protection infomercial provided on the Warranty Rewards website states that the company will repair, replace or refund any electronics covered under the plan, “no questions asked”.
According to the Warranty Rewards website, the Matrix Protection warranty service costs $29.97 a month.
The Warranty Rewards Compensation Plan
The Warranty Rewards compensation plan pays affiliates to source customers for the Matrix Protection warranty protection subscription.
Fast Start Bonus
When a Warranty Rewards affiliate recruits a new affiliate and they become “active” within their first thirty days, the recruiting affiliate is paid a $25 commission.
Being active requires an affiliate to obtain at least one customer. This customer can be the affiliate themselves, another affiliate they recruit or a retail customer.
Matrix Commissions
Residual commissions in Warranty Rewards are paid out using a 2×12 matrix compensation structure.
A 2×12 matrix compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a 2×12 matrix. Two positions are directly under the affiliate (level 1), which branch out into an additional two positions each (level 2):
These level 2 positions then each branch out into another two positions each, and so on and so forth down a total of twelve levels.
There are a total of 8190 positions in the matrix, with each filled position representing recruited affiliates who are active (at least one concurrent monthly subscription sale).
Commissions are paid out according to how many Warranty Rewards affiliates are in the matrix, with affiliates needing to qualify to be paid on the 12 matrix levels.
- Levels 1 to 6 – recruit at least one affiliate
- Levels 7 to 9 – recruit at least two affiliates and have at least one personal customer
- Levels 10 to 12 – recruit at least three affiliates and have at least two personal customers
Note that the required customers can be yourself, a recruited affiliate or a retail customer.
Once the above qualification(s) have been met, how much of a commission being paid determined by what level of the matrix a position is filled.
- Levels 1 to 3 – 25 cents per affiliate
- Levels 4 and 5 – 50 cents per affiliate
- Level 6 – 75 cents per affiliate
- Levels 7 to 9 – $1 per affiliate
- Level 10 and 11 – $1.25 per affiliate
- Level 12 – $3 per affiliate
Matching Matrix Bonus
Warranty Rewards pay out a 25% Matching Bonus on all matrix commissions paid out to personally recruited affiliates.
Customer Acquisition Bonus
Warranty Rewards affiliates are paid a monthly Customer Acquisition Bonus per customer of the warranty protection subscription they bring into the business. This includes their own purchase, a purchase by a recruited affiliate and a purchase made by a retail customer.
- Senior Director – $1 per customer
- Area Director – $2 per customer
- Regional Director – $3.50 per customer
- National Director – $6 per customer
No qualification criteria for the above ranks was provided in the Warranty Rewards compensation material provided on their website.
Lifestyle Rewards
Various additional bonuses are made available to Warranty Rewards affiliates, including a
- $1000 a month car bonus (Regional Director or higher)
- an “Annual Leadership Cruise”
- $500 “health and life insurance benefits”
Once again, no rank qualification criteria is provided.
Joining Warranty Rewards
Affiliate membership to Warranty Rewards is $59.97.
Conclusion
On the product side of things, a warranty protection subscription for $29.97 a month is sound. There’s a red flag in that it’s offered by a third-party company, but it appears to be owned by the same people who own Warranty Rewards.
This is murky due to the lack of provided information regarding the business relationship between the two companies. Why this is not openly disclosed, along with company ownership remains a mystery to me.
Unfortunately when it comes to the compensation side of things, that’s where Warranty Rewards starts to fall apart.
The short of it? Retail incentive is lacking.
I can bring a retail customer into the business, get paid my $20 and $1 a month Customer Acquisition Bonus, and then that’s it.
Recruit an affiliate though and I get the above plus matrix commissions and accompanying 25% Matching Matrix Bonus.
Given this, I find it highly probable that Warranty Rewards affiliates are going to ditch retail and focus exclusively on affiliate recruitment.
The active requirement effectively forces affiliate purchase of the warranty protection subscription. Sure, an affiliate could find a customer but good luck selling the service if you yourself aren’t using it.
With all affiliates likely to purchase the warranty protection subscription themselves, this takes care of the additional customer requirements to unlock all twelve matrix levels (recruited affiliates who buy the subscription count as customers).
This also turns the Fast Start Bonus into a recruitment commission, as an affiliate who joins is pretty much guaranteed to buy the warranty protection subscription as their commission triggering sale.
Let me state that the problem isn’t affiliates buying the warranty protection subscription, it’s the why. Due to the way Warranty Rewards have set up their compensation plan, any affiliate claims of subscription purchases made solely on the value of the subscription itself are called into question.
Then there’s the fact that only affiliates are counted in the matrix. That right there pretty much ensures affiliate recruitment will be the focus of Warranty Rewards affiliate’s marketing efforts.
Retail activity is possible but highly unlikely to make up the majority of sales revenue in Warranty Rewards.
A prospective affiliate can easily check this by enquiring with their potential upline as to how many non-affiliate warranty protection subscription customers they have. Anything less than a rough 50/50 split and you should be able to gauge the focus of their business.
It could be retail activity but when the financial benefits of acquiring retail customers over affiliates are weighed up against eachother, I’m doubtful that retail will come out on top.
There’s a PRWeb article that says the company opened an office in June 2013 in South Carolina.
media contact is… Yoni Ashurov… And the PR says Jay Tuerk and Ashurov are co-founders.
Sounds like the regular $30 plan (and $30 activation) is not moving, so they’re going MLM instead.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/7/prweb10961511.htm
FWIW, There is a Matrix Protection Inc. in SC, but it’s not them, as that corp was founded in 2002 and forfeited in 2006.
I’m pretty tempted to say the warranty deal is pretty close to just window dressing. Look at other companies offering after market warranty services and they all offer the service in a similar way, on an item for item basis, with specific terms and coverages.
Matrix Protection purports to charge you one flat fee for as many or as few insured items you may have or go on to acquire. This doesn’t make sense.
Can you imagine a car insurance company charging the same total fee to someone who owns five Bentleys as they would to someone who owned two Toyotas? Again, this doesn’t make sense.
From a best practices stand point I can look at the websites of a few other after market electronics warranty providers and find out exactly who underwrites their insurance coverage. For SquareTrade and Safeware it’s AM Trust Financial, ElectronicWarranty dot com, it’s AM Best. Clear and verifiable identification of who their fiduciary relationships are with.
Who underwrites Matrix Protection’s coverage? Who are they partnered with?
As far as Jay Tuerk and Yoni Ashurov, they do have something of a MLM background, last year’s blink and you missed it Stahr Meridian. Tuerk was listed as a Co-Founder.
Where some less than reputable MLM companies slowly bleed their affiliate base to inevitable oblivion Stahr Meridian was closer to a smash and grab robbery. Perhaps upwards of 3,000 “Social Entrepreneurs” ponied up $300 each to enroll in a company with a life span that compared favorably to some fruit flies.
Steve Smith and Marty Hale headed up Stahr. Smith of Excel Communications fame and who went on to create a bunch of short lived recruitment heavy more or less MLM companies. Marty Hale has been party to more MLM company lawsuits than most state Attorney Generals and the most recent stop on his Typhoid Marty Tour is as (for the moment) President of Terry LaCore’s B:Hip.
Folks, if you’re following guys like Smith and Hale from one company to another for any reason other than morbid curiosity, you’re either getting screwed or helping people get screwed. Or both.
Tuerk and Ashurov headed up Energy Management Systems and their “EnergyMizer” was Stahr Meridian’s flagship product. And what a steaming pile of a product offering it was:
Honestly, if the EnergyMizer was anywhere near as good as Jay and Yoni claimed why would the timely death of Stahr Meridian have killed the product? Even if it only saved people 5% on their electric bills they could still sell millions of them. Millions and Millions of them.
Unless they were lying their asses off about it at which time switching to the aftermarket insurance deal makes perfect sense. But what if they’re lying about that too?
Thanks for the additional background information Glim, always appreciated.
I bought the Energy Mizer almost two years ago and returned it about four months later. Last week, I received a call from attorney on behalf of EMS threatening lawsuit if I did not pay $300.00.
I had already been billed fraudulently six months after returning unit. There is a special place in hell for these greedy bastards. Get it while you can EMS bitches… Karma is real.
I can also add that one of their top level managers has a long history of working for pyramid schemes. I used to know him.
They have now rebranded themselves to Mwrlife.com
Most likely still a scam though
So glad I came upon this site. I am not only irritated with myself, I am also irritated with the “attorney’s office” that contacted me regarding the energy mizer.
I have already paid them $1,110.10 after being strong-armed last year – after getting sick, and forgetting that I owed the last $248.00 of the agreed-upon amount, he calls back today, after 9 months claiming that I now owe $548.
I am not about to get railroaded (again) with this doggone thing.
I see from one of the comments above that someone else received a similar call. What was your response?