Abundance Network merchants pull plug, cite pyramid scheme concerns
Turns out communications service merchants don’t like their networks being used to promote pyramid schemes.
Who didn’t see this coming?
On July 3rd Jeff Long informed Abundance Network affiliates that his merchant providers had pulled the plug.
Initially Long cites “drastic” changes to SMS marketing laws (he doesn’t elaborate), but then gets to the real reason his network merchant cut Abundance Network off.
The overall messaging we are choosing to use is causing some major concern for not just our providers but for CARRIERS.
In the past 4 weeks since going live with this we’ve had the following companies shut us down to one degree or another after calling us a “pyramid scheme”…
Cash App
Venmo
Twilio
Nexmo
(Our last provider who’s name will remain anonymous).
Abundance Network was a gifting scheme that operated via and was primarily promoted through a voice and SMS messaging services.
Potential victims of the gifting scheme called a number, used by existing Abundance Network affiliates in their marketing efforts.
Upon calling the number, the potential victim was presented with a voice message pitching Abundance Network.
If they signed up, funds were gifted to existing Abundance Network affiliates.
This payment in turn qualified the new recruit to receive their own Abundance Network number, which they then used in their promotion of the scheme.
Gifting payments within Abundance Network were made directly between participants. And at no time was anything product or service marketed to or sold to retail customers.
Despite being an illegal gifting scheme, Long maintains Abundance Network was “breaking no laws”.
In the wake of Abundance Network’s collapse, Long has vowed to continue running the business through a new unknown provider.
Rather than address the inherently fraudulent business model however, Long believes it’s the MLM aspect of Abundance Network that’s to blame.
As you know, the MLM world is pretty much hated by the mainstream business world.
PayPal shuts down anything to do with MLM, network marketing, making money from home etc… and the list of providers who love to “throw the book” at us “pyramid scheme people” goes on and on and on…
The ONLY way I can see to eliminate the judgement and perceptions of other providers (and even the world as a whole as we get bigger & bigger) is to remove the thing that makes us look and feel like an MLM.
That would be our “pass up” compensation plan.
Abundance Network’s current model sees participants pass up gifting payments from the second and fourth affiliates they recruit.
In turn those affiliates pass up their second and fourth recruits and so and so forth.
Long is proposing ditching this pass-up model.
Without that…we are as legit as legit gets AND we don’t come off as some schemey, weird, “pyramid thing” and get a bad reputation with the rest of the business world.
The problem is that payments within Abundance Network will still be gifted from one affiliate to the other.
Granted Long might be able to find a shonky merchant willing to take on risk without an MLM component, but the gifting model itself is still illegal.
In an effort to appease Abundance Network affiliates looking to ditch the scheme if it loses its residual component, Long has promised additional payment tiers.
This will allow Abundance Network affiliates to milk those they recruit out of more money.
Whether any of this materializes is still up in the air.
WHEN WILL WE OPEN THE DOORS AGAIN?
I’m not going to pin myself and my team down to a specific deadline just yet… I want to make sure we will meet or exceed the expectations we set with you so once again… let me get a full scope of work with my developer and between him and I working on all of this, I anticipate that we will be back up full swing within 2 weeks.
In the meantime, Abundance Network is playing out like any other short-lived Jeff Long scheme.
Update 6th August 2019 – Jeff Long has revealed Abundance Network will relaunch with a new compensation plan.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer con-man Jeff Long.
Well now, that explains the silence with Yatar and his other big wig recruiters.
I don’t know what they expected to happen. People are tired of their cell phones receiving an overwhelming number of text messages from people they don’t know.
Thank goodness at least one of the sms texting schemes has had the plug pulled.
Long, Yatar and the rest need to go get real jobs instead of ripping people off.
I don’t get it, they have the ability to do affiliate marketing and what not, yet chose to do the easy way out for fast cash despite it being short lived.
These jerks are why so many payment processors scorn all network/affiliate marketing programs.
Now if the IRS/FTC would go take all their money away and put them in little cells they would get 3 meals, a cot and free medical care. One can only wish.
Well, said, Deb. It’d be great to start a “Hall of Shame” for serial scammers like Yatar, Long, Mills, Verrengia, Zubarev, etc. Who pump and dump their lists every 30-90 days with the latest money grab.
Maybe Oz can start indexing the names to make them searchable!
I’ve thought about adding post tags for that but then it means I need to research and keep track of who’s promoting what.
People do mention promoting scammers in the comments but I think I’ll leave out promotion from the reporting side of things.
Well, that was a successful money grab and scram scheme.
That’s the alternative way of requesting an advanced loan without the hassle of paperwork or any intentions of ever paying it back.
People fall for it every so often.
Hence, no victims.
No more pass-ups. “Scam” is gone. The rats will be scattering shortly. This thing will be closed in 2 weeks.
TL;DR: $197 buy-in now. $100 commission to recruiter and Jeff Long keeps the remaining $97.
S’long and thanks for the pass-ups!
Jeff Long is a scam artist. What a waste !!!