Blue Bird Bids Review: Zeek Rewards Ponzi clone
I first looked at Blue Bird Bids back in early September and in the process of researching the company established links between it and Dwayne Golden’s ‘Green Apple Fridays’ penny auction site.
Presumably using the same backend Blue Bird Bids now appears to be a separately launched company, with Green Apple Fridays still running.
Curiously however Dwayne Golden’s name does not appear on the Blue Bird Bids website, with the company crediting a ‘Mardy Eger’ as being the founder.
Just a few short months ago in June of this year Eger (right), credited with being a ‘top 26 income earner in the home based business industry‘, joined MLM company “Chews-4-Health International”.
I’m not sure what happened there but it appears Eger has moved on with the launch of Blue Bird Bids.
Quite clearly through the source-code of Blue Bird Bids it’s clear that Golden has some involvement with Blue Bird Bids, however why this is not disclosed on the company website is a mystery.
In a post on his personal website, Eger writes:
“Mardy Eger’s Longstanding Association With Dwayne Golden”
Mardy Eger has association with industry professionals of the highest integrity within the Home Business industry.
One such association is with Dwayne Golden, who has maintained a reputation for high achievement and high success for those who work with him.
Mardy and Dwayne collaborate and Mastermind on a considerable number of projects and often spur each other on toward good things.
Mardy has consistently challenged Dwayne in the area of innovation and Dwayne has responded with higher levels of product development.
Dwayne has challenged Mardy in the area of higher powered success coaching and Mardy has responded with success programs that rival professionals that have been there for years.
Because of their Iron sharpening Iron relationship, both Mardy and Dwayne continually spiral higher toward more successful endeavors.
Given this “long-standing association” and the obvious links to the Green Apple Fridays penny auction, there’s a strong implication that Eger and Golden are working together on Blue Bird Bids.
One other point of note is that Blue Bird Bids initially launched with a corporate address in North Carolina:
Blue Bird Bids, Inc., 2302 NASH ST N, STE E. WILSON, NC 27896
For reasons unknown, this has now been changed to a virtual mailing address in the US state of Nevada:
Blue Bird Bids
3960 Howard Hughes Parkway
Suite 500
Las Vegas, NV, USA 89169
Meanwhile the company’s terms and conditions still states that
this Terms & Conditions Agreement and Your use of Blue Bird Bids shall be governed by the laws of the United States of America and the State of North Carolina.
Without in any way limiting the “Dispute Resolution” requirements set forth above, any court proceeding related to this website or these Terms & Conditions may be brought only in a federal or state court sitting in Oklahoma.
No idea what’s going on there.
Read on for a full review of the Blue Bird Bids MLM opportunity.
The Blue Bird Bids Product Line
With Blue Bird Bids being a penny auction based MLM opportunity, the primary product of the company is penny auction bids.
Within the Blue Bird Bids penny auction there are two types of bids, retail and “revenue share” bids.
Retail bids cost $1 each, are purchasable by both retail customers and affiliates and are available to purchase in packs of 10, 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500.
Revenue share bids are only available to affiliates and are sold in packs costing between $1000 and $25,000.
The Blue Bird Bids Compensation Plan
Blue Bird Bids offer members retail commissions, a series of mostly recruitment based commissions and the ability to earn monthly and quarterly bonuses via several revenue sharing pools.
Retail Commissions
Blue Bird Bids affiliates are paid a 20% retail commission on the purchase of retail bids by any customers they personally bring into the company.
Recruitment Commissions
When a new Blue Bird Bids member joins the company their upline receive a recruitment commission. How much of a commission earnt depends on what level of membership a new Blue Bird Bids affiliate pays for:
- Affiliate membership ($99) – $30 paid to the recruiting affiliate, $10 to their direct upline and $10 to their upline’s direct upline
- Super membership ($199) – $50 paid to the recruiting affiliate, $20 to their direct upline and $20 to their upline’s direct upline
- Pro membership ($299) – $90 paid to the recruiting affiliate, $30 to their direct upline and $30 to their upline’s direct upline
Note that whilst the membership fees are recurring, the recruitment commission is only paid out once.
Global Bonus Pool
The Global Bonus Pool is made up of 1% of the company revenue and is paid out quarterly.
Blue Bird Bids affiliates can earn shares in the Global Bonus Pool depending on which level of membership they buy in at:
- Affiliate membership ($99) – 1 share
- Super membership ($199) – 2 shares
- Pro membership ($299) – 3 shares
Residual Commissions
The residual commissions in Blue Bird Bids are paid out using a 3×8 expandable matrix. A 3×8 matrix places an affiliate at the top of the matrix with three legs branching out from under them.
In turn, these three positions branch out into another three positions and so on and so forth down 8 levels. Positions within the matrix can be filled either by direct recruitment of new members, or the recruitment of members by an affiliate’s up or downline.
Affiliates are paid out a percentage commission on the retail bid sales made by their customers and recruited affiliates. How much of a commission earnt depends on how many affiliates have been personally recruited:
- Affiliate (personally recruit 2 new members) – 5% on levels 1 and 2
- Regional Affiliate (personally recruit 4 new members) – 5% on levels 1 to 3
- National Affiliate (personally recruit 6 new members) – 5% on levels 1 to 4
- International Affiliate (personally recruit 8 new members) – 5% on levels 1 to 6
- Global Director (personally recruit 10 new members) – 5% on levels 1 to 6, 3% on level 7 and 2% on level 8
At the National, International Affiliate and Global Director levels, commissions are extendable past level 8, paid down an infinite number of levels. Qualification for extended level commissions is based on monthly sales volume within an affiliates matrix:
- National Affiliate (250,000 volume) – 0.5% down infinite levels past 8
- International Affiliate (500,000 volume) – 1% down infinite levels past 8
- Global Director (1,000,000 volume) – 2% down infinite levels past 8
Note that when counting sales volume, only 50% of the total qualifying volume can come from any one matrix leg (3 in total).
Finally at the International Affiliate and Global Director levels, the 3×8 matrix is able to be expanded to 4×8 and 5×8 respectively (an extra initial leg at the top of the matrix).
Matching Residual Matrix Commissions
Blue Bird Bids offer matching Residual Commissions of up to 5% on matrix earnings of an affiliates direct downline, paid out down four levels.
The matching bonus is calculated using a unilevel compensation structure. This structure places an affiliate at the top with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1).
In turn, if any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates of their own these affiliates form level 2. If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates of their own these affiliates form level 3 and so on and so forth.
Using this commission structure, an affiliate is paid out a matching commission on the matrix earnings of their downline depending on how many affiliates they’ve personally recruited:
- recruit 4 affiliates – 5% on level 1
- recruit 6 affiliates – 5% on level 1 and 4% on level 2
- recruit 8 affiliates – 5% on level 1 and 4% on levels 2 and 3
- recruit 10 affiliates – 5% on level 1 and 4% on levels 2 to 4
Revenue Share Pool
The Blue Bird Bids Revenue Share Pool is made up of 50% of the company’s daily revenue ‘after operating expenses and charitable donations‘.
Payments within the Revenue Share Pool are calculated daily and paid out weekly. Daily payments are calculated based on how many shares an affiliate has, with shares allocated based on the amount of money affiliates spend on Revenue Share Bid Packs.
Revenue Share Bid Packs cost between $1000 to $25,000 and allocate shares in the Revenue Share Pool as follows:
- $1000 Revenue Share Bid Pack – 5 shares
- $2500 Revenue Share Bid Pack – 20 shares
- $5000 Revenue Share Bid Pack – 50 shares
- $10,000 Revenue Share Bid Pack – 125 shares
- $25,000 Revenue Share Bid Pack – 300 shares
Revenue Share bids can be given away to potential customers and provided an affiliate places a daily ad advertising Blue Bird Bids, they qualify themselves for a daily payout with shares expiring after 120 days (180 days for $25,000 bid pack purchases).
Business Builders Global Sales Pool
The Business Builders Global Sales Pool is made up of 1% of the company’s global sales and is calculated and paid out monthly.
Affiliates can earn a share in the Global Sales Pool by personally recruiting at least 10 affiliates and building an organisation of at least 250 affiliates in total.
Car Bonus
Once affiliates reach specific recruitment goals, Blue Bird Bids reward them with a car of their choice.
If affiliates personally recruit 10 affiliates and have a matrix organisation of 500 affiliates (no more than 1/3rd being counted from any one matrix leg) who have all paid membership fees for at least three consecutive months, they can choose between three budget cars ranging in value from $46,000 to $50,070.
If affiliates personally recruit 10 affiliates and have a matrix organisation of 3000 affiliates (no more than 1/3rd being counted from any one matrix leg) who have all paid membership fees for at least three consecutive months, they can choose between three luxury cars ranging in value from $135,200 to $205,600.
Joining Blue Bird Bids
There are three membership options available for those considering joining Blue Bird Bids:
- Affiliate membership – $99 a month
- Super membership – $199 a month
- Pro membership – $299 a month
Aside from the amount of retail bids provided with each membership, the only other difference between the three membership options are the shares awarded in the Global Bonus Pool and recruitment commissions paid to new affiliate’s upline when they join.
Conclusion
The simplest way to analyse the Blue Bird Bids business is to break down the most important parts of the compensation plan.
Recruitment Commissions – This commission is pretty straight forward. Existing members recruit new members and along with their upline earn a commission based on how much money a new member spends on membership.
Global Bonus Pool – The more money a new affiliate spends on membership, the larger their cut of the bonus pool.
Residual Matrix Commissions – Recruit affiliates and earn monthly residual commissions off their earnings and the earnings of those your upline and downline bring into the company.
Matching Matrix Commissions – As above, but only applicable to personally recruited affiliates and their recruiting efforts.
Revenue Share Pool – the more affiliates spend, the larger their share of the daily revenues paid out.
Business Builders Global Sales Pool – recruit 10 affiliates, build an organisation of 250 recruited affiliates and get paid.
Car Bonus – recruit 10 members, build an organisation of recruited affiliates and Blue Bird Bids give you a car.
As above, the vast majority of commissions offered in Blue Bird Bids revolve around the recruitment of affiliates in one way or another.
This is of course because fundamentally at the heart of the Blue Bird Bids compensation is the Revenue Share Pool. This pool, which operates in a near identical manner to the Zeek Rewards daily profit share pool, effectively pays out affiliates a daily return directly proportionate to how much money they themselves have invested into the system.
Ranging from $1000 to $25,000, the more you invest the larger your share. With share expiry the idea here is that affiliates invest with the expectation they’ll earn a >100% ROI over 120-180 days and then be able to reinvest again to increase their overall ROI in another 120-180 days.
With Blue Bird Bids affiliates being required to publish a daily ad in order to qualify for their daily ROI and give Revenue Share bids away to customers, effectively the Blue Bird Bids offer a more simple version of the proven Zeek Rewards ROI Ponzi scheme.
Whereas in Zeek Rewards affiliates had “points” expiring daily over a 90 day rolling period, Blue Bird Bids simply replace points with a fixed number of shares and offer a much more traditional investment scheme with investments maturing in a lump sum after either 120 or 180 days.
Following months of investigation, after the SEC took down Zeek Rewards it was revealed that, despite having over one million affiliates advertising the Zeekler penny auctions, 98% of the money being paid out as a daily ROI was affiliate money.
In charging affiliates $1000 to $25,000 to participate in the Revenue Share Pool, I fail to see how things will be any different in Blue Bird Bids.
Furthermore the publishing of daily ads and giving of bids away to supposed retail customers is an already failed business model with the SEC revealing that just 0.25% of the bids given away in Zeek Rewards were actually used by customers.
The rest of the bids were just dumped on fake customer accounts because affiliates received a larger share of the daily ROI paid the more bids they gave away (dumped) on customer accounts.
Again, using a near identical business model in the Revenue Share Pool, I fail to see how the same will not happen with Blue Bird Bids.
Ultimately every aspect of the Blue Bird Bids compensation plan can be reduced to affiliates joining, paying monthly membership fees and then earning (either in part or wholly) commissions derived from fellow affiliates membership fees and investment in Revenue Pool bids.
A retail option exists but as demonstrated in Zeek Rewards is most likely going to be ignored and non-existent.
Zeek Rewards had virtually zero retail activity and allowed members to generate points off individual $1 VIP bid purchases, with Blue Bird Bids charging a minimum $1000 for Revenue Pool packs, they pretty much guarantee that the retail side of the business will never match the money coming in by affiliates.
With this same money being used to pay out affiliates on a day-to-day, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis, what you wind up with is a bog-standard Ponzi scheme that pays out on multiple levels.
Simply put, affiliates invest money with the expectation of earning a higher ROI than what they put in.
This made Zeek Rewards a Ponzi scheme and the same is true with Blue Bird Bids.
One wonders what Mr Egar was doing in the period since making those blog posts in December of 2009.
Judging from the marketing material available on the inernet, advertising himself as a MLM marketing and coaching guru.
That recruitment bonus thing means it’s gonna also hit by FTC as a pyramid scheme.
“pay to play” is illegal in the US. Apparently this guru is not familiar with US pyramid laws.
My in-laws are getting into this ponzi scheme after they lost money in Zeek. It’s apparent that this is quite similar, since all the focus is on recruitment of other affiliates with the idea of trying to find actual paying customers being ignored.
I’m concerned about the high monthly subscription fees, though. I don’t think this one will be as big as Zeek since most people won’t be able to afford the $100 a month fee for even the basic membership. I think Zeek’s $10 a month membership fee is what helped it grow so enormous.
And again, here they are selling an investment, though I don’t see any prohibition against calling it an investment. What a lot of people don’t seem to realize is this is one of the major complaints the SEC had against Zeek. The one ad per day “work” scheme didn’t work for Zeek, and it won’t work for Blue Bird.
wow this blog seems to really not represent at all what blue bird bids 2.0 is all about. zeek allowed people to invest and receive percentages daily this is not what blue bird bids does. there is no investment and no gurantee.
the presdient paul redmayne and the vice president eric swaim explain this comp plan very clear and precise. nothing like zeek at all not a ponzi.
another issue is blue bird bids started as an auction site and then later added the 2.0 program. also if recruiting others into a business was wrong then all mlm companies would be shut down. this is a real winner and i am happy to be here.
yeah i read this blog but too many inconsisitant things are in the blog, including the address and eveything. the corp offices always been in vegas. othe companies use different addresses for other reasons so whats wrong with it?
this guys heart is huge and has been for years and i aplaud him for what he has done. matter fact i will be on the call tonight me and my teams as we are all excited about 2.0. people it is time to get rid of the negative and ride the positive. this is a stand up program.
Zeek Rewards –> investment in VIP bids –> converted to points –> expectation of a >100% ROI on the cost of the bids –> implied ROI guarantee of >100% per bid purchased
Blue Bird Bids –> investment in revenue share bids –> converted to shares –> expectation of a >100% ROI on the cost of the bids –> implied ROI guarantee of >100% per pack purchased
It’s the same core investment idea. Zeek Rewards demonstrated that this model is largely affiliate funded and I see no reason why Blue Bird Bids would be any different.
What they say is irrelevant, only what the business model actually does is.
Recruitment isn’t “wrong”, paying commissions on the recruitment of others and how this is funded is. In Blue Bird Bids the recruitment commissions come straight out of the new member’s membership fees. This is a characteristic of a pyramid scheme.
So why was there a NC address previously provided and why do the terms and conditions mention Oklahoma? The Nevada address just popped up in the last few weeks.
Zeek said that too. So what?
So did Zeek. Zeekler launched in June 2010 (first launched as FSCAuctions in March 2010). ZeekRewards was launched January 2011.
Then you don’t understand the issues. You CANNOT BE PAID FOR RECRUITING. That’s pyramid scheme. You can be paid for SALES (by yourself or your downlines).
So did Zeek. In fact, can you find anybody who does NOT want to be associated with a winner? Doh!
That’s what Zeekheads said about Paul Burks too.
That’s what they said about Zeek too. In fact, it’s Zeek company policy: no negativity is allowed.
Which is actually quite stupid, because it makes you reckless.
Sounds like you’re really excited alright, but are you thinking with your HEAD, or merely with your heart?
http://kschang.hubpages.com/hub/Danger-of-Seeking-Positivity-and-Ignoring-Negativity
There’s a whole group of us “positive thinkers” climbing Everest in our underpants the weekend after next.
To ensure we all remain “positive” and stay focused on our ultimate goals, we’ve banned any negative thinkers and naysayers.
Perhaps young Chuckie would like to join us.
I checked out the auction site and while it looks a bit more refined, it’s basically a clone of Zeekler. One thing that is different is that they appear to have items people will actually want.
They also appear to set a maximum price the auction can go for. Which is strange, because I saw an auction for an item that had reached its maximum price of $34.00, yet it appeared that bids were still being placed but the price remained at $34.00.
The “top bidder” name kept changing yet the price remained the same. Made me wonder if the entire auction site is totally fake and real people aren’t bidding.
I told my wife today that I didn’t want her getting involved in Blue Bird Bids even if she uses her dad’s money like she did with Zeek.
I explained the problems some ex-Zeekers are having with fraudulent charges on credit cards, not to mention the fear of identity theft if Blue Bird also requires your SSN. She said, “OK” so at least I don’t have to worry about her getting mixed up in this new ponzi.
She was upset at my “negativity” toward Zeek but I think she learned to trust me after it got shut down.
And what do you call this?
Revenue sharing pool is a typical investment.
Blue Bird Bids seems to be a more aggressive version than Zeek, with clear incentives to go “all in” and buy the $25,000 investment. It has also clear recruitment incentives, similar to most pyramid schemes.
I have a couple of questions:
1. Do you have any real PAYING customers? And please don’t include any family members or others if they’re only ACTING as customers for some reasons. In Zeek, I was able to identify 2 real customers in 8 months. People simply focused on building downlines rather than on attracting customers.
2. Have you noticed any difficulties in recruitment after Zeek was shut down? This question is more about personal interest in how the other auctions have been affected by the Zeek case.
WARNING///WARNING///WARNING///WARNING!!…If it swims like a fish, smells like a fish and tastes like a fish, it will get hooked, line and sinker by the SEC!
DO YOU REALIZE THE SEC IS GOING AFTER ZEEKS TOP DISTRIBUTORS? That’s right, those that made money must either surrender ALL of their funds or they will be prosecuted by the government! This is called the “claw back” clause.
Anyone who makes money with these auction ponzi schemes RISKS BEING FINED AND GOING TO JAIL ! The SEC takes these scams very seriously and Zeek has set precedence. I have one word to say to you: RUN!!!
The attorney general’s Noelle Talley calls Blue Bird Bids a “reload scam” and warns people not to fall for it.
Founder ERIC SWAIM can run, but he can’t hide for long. Mr. Swaim, I hope you look good in stripes.
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20120821/ARTICLES/120829929?p=5&tc=pg
In response to the max bid price. It is true that each item has a max price that the winner will pay. Once the bidding hits the max price, that price will not elevate anymore.
However the names will change because the bidding is allowed to resume, thus affiliates and customers are using their bids allowing the ending bid usage to be as high as “who knows” making the profits better which is what we want.
When the time runs out, the winner will only pay the max price that is listed. I think it is a brilliant strategy because in former auctions, the bids would escalate way above the retail price appearing as if the bids were set on auto-bid without good monitoring.
People come into the auctions at different times with different amounts of bids. It doesn’t matter how many actual bids are placed except for the fact of the more bids place the more the commissions are!! Win/Win for affiliates and winner of item!!!!!
Why can’t they just make it an Investment Program? Like “Blue Bird Investment Program” – You have profit sharing pools, stocks and quite a bit of similar investments that are legal and understandable.
For the life of me, I do not understand why TONS of these programs have a fake penny bid auction in FRONT to hide the simple investment program. Can anyone explain this?!?!
I just signed up with bluebirdbids then read this blog and now I am very curious as to why they can’t just drop the auction crap and say what it is…. it’s alot less confusing if they would just be honest.
I think it’s a good investment program…however, hiding behind a ‘front’ makes me wonder if they are shady.
If there were a program that said ‘hey, put in this much per month and we will all profit share with each other every 60 days, plus you get commissions and bonuses when you find new people’ ..is that illegal?
What’s wrong with that? It sure seems more simple and I wouldn’t mind doing it.
I feel like profit sharing (voluntarily) is good as opposed to, say, being forced by a government to give to things such as social security, which is like a forced and unsustainable ponzi scheme in itself.
Because fundamentally when you’re paying out ROIs from new investor money, that’s neither legal nor understandable (in a legal sense).
No matter what you call yourself it’s still a Ponzi scheme.
OZ..ok, so the crutch of it is that the ROI coming from new investor money…that does actually make sense -, thanks for clearing that up 🙂
No he didn’t. He said there are scams out there to entice Zeek victims. He didn’t name Blue Bird Bids.
Not really. Most of the expenses comes from paying for the bids and SPENDING the bids. if you used 100 bids to win something for $5, and each bid is $1, then the $5 item actually cost $105.
In fact, the “fixed top price” makes things WORSE as you can no longer tell if people are in a bidding frenzy for that item. If it’s over MSRP you know there’s something fishy. If there’s a cap, then you don’t know how many people really bid on it.
Because in almost all countries, investment must be registered with the government, to ensure clear disclosure of relevant facts.
In fact, Zeek’s main trouble with the SEC was “selling unregistered securities”, i.e. investment contract.
In a real investment, like stocks and bonds, you are actually buying something: equity in company, or equity in debt obligation.
Blue Bird Bids is selling shares of “revenue”, not equity, and they claim this is not an investment, but we all see that it is. So, bullsh__. 🙂
I don’t think Blue Bird is a reload scam, I think it’s a copycat ponzi that was in the works before Zeek was shut down in order to cash in on the late penny auction ponzi craze.
To smh, thanks for explaining that to me. It seems a bit scammy to allow bids to keep piling on even though the max price has been reached. I wonder if they designed it this way to keep the auction looking legit and hide the bid inflation that Zeek had.
Looks like they still have the same issue of people who think that bids are basically worthless and are buying them and wasting them in auctions in hopes of winning something, it’s just that the max price doesn’t increase way over retail like happened in the Zeekler auctions.
Not true. If the bidders are the affiliates themselves, they have already paid for the bids (to earn shares). They won’t generate any additional revenue when they spend the bids in auctions, other than raising the price of an item with $1 per 100 bids.
If you don’t have any real customers then the auctions won’t generate any real profit, either. There’s no NEW money coming in when affiliates are spending their bids.
Based on the activities on the internet and here, it seems to be less than 300 affiliates total.
This article can currently be found as #18 (page 2) in Google search hits for “Blue Bird Bids”. It will usually be stable if many people are searching. Less stable == fewer people are searching.
This system produces one winner but unlimited losers on every auction and appears to be pure gambling, requiring no skill so that it is not at all interesting. How can it be popular?
This seems to be the same with all penny auctions and why they have no customers….only promoters.
K. Chang… got a lot of respect for you. You tell it like it is even if it doesn’t support your point of view. Example: when you corrected Dan on the comment by the Attorney Generals office. A lot of folks would let an error like that slide if it bolstered their argument. Kudos to you.
I just had a call from someone hitting me up about Blue Bird. They were in Zeek I think – so am confused as to why they would hit the “reset” button on Blue Bird.
Personally I didn’t like Zeek to begin with (or any Penny Auction) as it’s basically like making money off someone’s gambling addition. Of course – that’s IF the actual revenue came from the auctions which, in these cases, we know it doesn’t, since they are Ponzi’s.
There are plenty of legitimate companies out there with legitimate products that help people (or at least don’t rip them off). Of course, I think the difference is that you have to actually SELL (or recruit) to be successful.
The Zeek clones appeal to people who think they can put money in and make money doing nothing. If there was a legitimate “investment” that made a 100% ROI – it would be on “60 Minutes” – heck… if there was a legitimate one that consistently made 20% it would be burning up on Twitter.
Misinformation is misinformation, even if it’s for a “good” purpose. Basically, IMHO “the ends do NOT justify the means”.
I think there are a lot of ex-Zeekers, around here at least, who are getting involved in Blue Bird, but I don’t think it’s a reload scam.
I think it’s more a matter of Zeekers losing money and their “free money” investment scheme when Zeek shut down, and now they’re looking for some other scheme to dump money into in order to try to get rich without doing anything while claiming it’s not an investment.
Personally, I don’t think it’s going to be easy to sell any investment scheme attached to a penny auction after Zeek got shut down, especially when a lot of ex-Zeekers are involved in it.
And again, the $99 monthly membership fee for even the lowest affiliate position is likely to keep people from joining, unless they’re totally convinced they’re going to make millions.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t you people listen to the news? Forget all the semantics- The Government can AND WILL go after distributors (not just owners) that make money from these type of schemes.
Before you join ask yourself, “Is it worth ruining my reputation, seeing my wife and kids once a month during visitation hours and losing my assets?” The SEC clearly defines passive income in MLM as being illegal.
I’ve been a lawyer for 30 years and have represented a client that learned the hard way and he’s now serving 5 years in jail! You are required to sell and personally use a product every month.
Those sitting on the side lines making money are part of an I L L E G A L ponzi scheme! That means distributors can be considered CRIMINALS and prosecuted.
As a die hard networker myself, my advice is simple: Find a company with unique desirable products and a great paying comp plan with stellar management at the top. If in doubt, pay your lawyer a few hundred bucks to do some due diligence on your behalf. Sure beats going to jail.
If you do end up ignoring these warnings and join BlueBirdBids, contact me in a few months because I know some great criminal lawyers I can recommend.
You don’t have to convince me that Blue Bird Bids is a ponzi scheme. It looks like it operates identical to Zeek Rewards, and we can all see how that worked out for everybody.
But I don’t think that the average Joe is going to risk criminal charges for putting money into a ponzi scheme. The top people in some of these schemes might, but as far as I know the top earners in ASD haven’t been charged, and so far the top Zeek earners haven’t yet been charged.
True, they’ll lose their gains due to clawbacks but as far as criminal charges go, the average Joe Investor will be free and clear. Mainly because if they lose money in the scheme, they’re victims. If they gained any money, then they might have to face a clawback depending on the amount they made.
Everyone should heed warnings about Blue Bird, do their due diligence before investing, and should just look at Zeek Rewards as an example of what’s likely to happen. But no need to scare people away with false claims of criminal charges.
@M_Norway
You’ve asked the million dollar penny auction question. Why is their traffic coming from Medellin, Colombia and Brazil if their site only ships to the US?
(Ozedit: removed spam)
PAW’s right… according to Alexa, 40+% of traffic is coming from Brazil, with US 2nd place with 19%, and Colombia at 17%.
Here’s a really interesting thing: I was doing Google search when I noticed that there’s an account on Zeek called “bluebirdbids” who bid on an auction July 7th.
AFAIK, BluebirdBids launched on July 12th?
http://www.allpennyauctions.com/auctions/ea7c9adfc948a489/
My mother-in-law has been playing the Blue Bird penny auctions and won around three or four of them. We’ll see if she actually receives the items she won.
I’m guessing that Blue Bird is just like Zeek… only affiliates playing the auctions. If they’re that easy to win then it’s likely there aren’t millions of people all over the world playing the auctions and pouring money into the company.
I too Ronald, am a die-hard networker for the past 15 years- full time, and I 100% agree with what you said.
When I see companies like Zeek and Bluebird Bids, it makes my blood boil! These are not legitimate MLMs but rather Ponzis masquerading as legitimate MLMs.
Just had an email today from a couple I thought was ‘sharp’ until they joined Zeek and pooh poohed me when I shared my concerns and directed them to this site. They have now joined BlueBird Bids. 🙁
I find it sad how many people cannot evaluate a business opportunity. With Google and the vast amount of information to be found on the internet it’s not hard to do some due diligence.
People have a lot at stake besides their time and money – they have their CREDIBILITY at stake. I actually know two FINANCIAL PLANNERS that were in Zeek. I wonder how many of their customers left when they realized how little due diligence they actually did.
=>>> MARDY EGER had a wonderful home at chews4health with great products and management. Seems he got the need for greed and opened his own penny auction pyramid even after seeing Zeek and 2 other companies shut down for being ponzi schemes. Ingenious move Mardy!
His website brags about his A rating with the Better Business Bureau. Boy will that be ending soon! Typical corporate greediness- take money from the people below to pay the few at the top and pocket the rest.
These ponzi schemes give GOOD network marketing companies a bad name. Lets all work together and put a stop to this one. They say Sesame Street’s Big Bird will soon be unemployed, hopefully Blue Bird follows in his footsteps.
If you are not happy with this ZEEK copy cat taking advantage of people, you have the power to stop them. Simply contact the following organizations and file your complaints:
easternnc.bbb.org
sec.gov
ftc.gov
I found that BlueBirdBids did copy the zeek program some but they had their lawyers go & find out why zeek failed & fix the problems so BBB would work & be legit.
Everything they are doing is now legit & it has been proven to be legit. So all you naysayers can stay out if you want to but if you don’t like it, keep it to yourself unless you can PROVE it wrong.
And that is something that you can’t do. So Shut Up.
I know what you mean. My father-in-law, a small businessman, fell not only for Zeek but also got involved in Blue Bird Bids after Zeek was shut down.
He still maintains that Zeek wasn’t a ponzi and obviously doesn’t think Blue Bird is either. Yet as a businessman, he should be able to see that a cheesy penny auction site wouldn’t bring in enough revenue to pay off thousands (or in Zeek’s case, millions) of affiliates.
I still believe that the main reason otherwise intelligent people get involved in schemes like these is greed and the attractiveness of making huge amounts of money for doing little or no work.
Right Joe. I try using this… “If there was a LEGAL, safe, passive investment program that had a 100% ROI in under a year… don’t you think it would be on 60 Minutes?”
Sort of like for those Creationists that believe the Earth is only 6000 years old… “Do you believe in Dinosaurs? Yes? Then if the Earth is only 6000 years old… why aren’t Dinosaurs in the Bible?”
Ah, but you know what they’ll say: “This is a secret! We don’t want everybody to know! I trust you enough so you’ll not exploit it too much!”
Seems every Ponzi relies on secrecy… from Madoff to Zeek, except Zeek got too greedy and gotten too bid.
“Confirmation Bias” = People will automatically look for the type of information that confirms what they already believes in, or they will consider that type of information to be more “trustworthy” than the opposite type.
I’m pretty sure you were looking for some excuses to avoid being recruited into your in-laws’ downline, when you visited this website the first time. 🙂
There’s also a bit of “subjective validation”… that anything they say that’s “nice” about you is going to be taken to be more “true” than anything “negative” about you, including your “interpretation” of the words (i.e. you interpret them as something that’s gonna be GOOD for you).
http://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2012/05/subjective-validation-or-why-you-see.html
Rooster said…
But Rooster.. that is what Zeek said when people started questioning them. They even said the had some of the “top mlm lawyers” working for them to make sure they were legal. Didn’t work out so well for them.
Bottom line is that Ponzi’s are illegal because they are unsustainable and people at the bottom always get hurt and lose money.
Even many MLM’s that are technically legal fall into that same dynamic because they don’t have a product that the public (non-members) will buy so, once they reach saturation, they fall apart.
There is no “get rich quick” scheme that works long term. Focus on a REAL product, learn how to market it and build a slower, but solid, and legal business.
Nobody asked me to join Zeek, however if they had I’d definitely told them that I wanted to check it out before putting any money into it first. But I don’t need excuses, I will tell anyone outright that I’m not interested in multilevel marketing to begin with, and secondly I’m suspicious of any get-rich-quick scheme.
Luckily nobody approached me to join Blue Bird either, especially after they knew I thought Zeek was a ponzi and was shut down by the SEC for that very reason.
So maybe I have some confirmation bias thinking that Blue Bird Bids is a ponzi scheme, but seeing as how its business model is virtually identical to a ponzi scheme that was recently shut down, I have something to base my bias on.
Ah, the old “they hired lawyers so it’s 100% legit” defense. Didn’t work for Zeek very well, did it?
By who?
I see the cult-like hostility toward naysayers is starting to pop up in BBB affiliates now. Won’t be long before we start seeing a lot of BBB’ers coming here posting the same lame arguments and comments to where we’ll need K. Chang’s pro-Zeek post generator.
as a former SEC agent I can say with 100% certainty BBB is light years different than Zeek. Totally legal for many reasons. No % guarantee is just one.
Zeek Rewards didn’t directly guarantee a % ROI either… at least not after the first 6 months.
The problem is the implied guaranteed ROI. Affiliates wouldn’t participate without the expectation that they earn back a >100% ROI on their bid investment.
Thus both companies operate on the implied guarantee that affiliates will earn a >100% ROI on what they invest.
What’s so different? They both claim to pay/have paid affiliates from 50% of the daily penny auction profit, you receive a bigger share of the profits depending on how much money you pay into the system, and you get bonuses for recruiting new investors.
And from the looks of it, Blue Bird Bids is similar to Zeek in that all the focus is upon investment and recruitment of new affiliates, with no focus upon recruiting actual paying customers.
What made Zeek illegal was Howey test. And Howey test does NOT involve “guaranteed ROI”.
If you really are ex-SEC you’d have known that.
why is Blue Bird having such a hard time launching 3 tries now in 90 days – are they out yet?
Have they not launched yet? My in-laws invested in Blue Bird Bids, and my mother-in-law has been playing the auctions and winning some items, which she received. Are they only allowing affiliates to play the auctions? Or is it all phony and allowing a few affiliates to “win” the auctions so they’ll convince others that it’s all legit?
Not sure if this is a sign of things to come but Rod Cook of MLM Watchdog has published an email sent out to affiliates by Blue Bird Bids management:
Reading between the lines, their merchant processor wasn’t comfortable accepting monthly payments from Blue Bird Bids affiliates anymore and pulled the plug.
Shades of Zeek Rewards with all the payment processor problems they were having.
Why are they referring themselves as Blue Bird Bids International? Did they reincorporate elsewhere?
Bluebirdbids is the biggest joke that ever hit the net. They took peoples money since August of 2012 and made every promise in the world to do something big over and over and have not done anything.
The SEC and the DOJ of N C owe Zeek Rewards an apology if they let them by with what they have done to a lot of people. People paid money supposedly to purchase bids and was suppose to earn from what they called the ultimate comp. plan which never went anywhere except down.
And the surprising part is they are still trying to hold recruiting calls and continue to scam more people. Well, from experience it would take a fool to join such a stupid bunch of know nothing idiots.
Please don’t put any money or time in this toy penny auction. You will never get it back or make any money. This thing needs to be shut down before more people are hurt.
I would be happy to join with anybody that wanted to file complaints with the SEC or a court of law to stop this scam.
Last night my in-laws said that Blue Bird didn’t go anywhere and implied that they were out of it. I could have told them that when they got involved, but at least they’re not pouring money into that scam any longer.
They are still involved in some other kind of MLM scheme called Triple A Marketing (or AAA Marketing, not sure how it’s being presented) that just recently started up, but hard to tell if it will take off or even if it’s legit and not another Ponzi scheme.
Glad to hear some progress is being made Joe. We’ve been following you and your relatives story for nearly a year now! Yours and Erin and her crazy husband :).
I wouldn’t really care what they do if it weren’t for the fact that they keep talking my wife into joining. She joined the AAA marketing deal but I insisted that any money she makes has to go into a separate bank account and she can’t touch it for a year or so in case there are any clawbacks.
From what little I’ve heard about it, it sounds like another Ponzi since they were “getting in early” in order to make money.
Just checking and it looks like the Blue Bird Bids website is now defunct. It still shows up on a google search but none of the links work. Looks like yet another penny auction ponzi scheme which went belly up.
Honey Boo Boo loves Blue Bird Bids
Unofficially I believe Blue Bird Bids jumped ship to PureNrg FX, however that opportunity appears to have flopped.
I just checked again and it looks like the site is back up, however there are no auctions going on right now.
The Bluebirds “team” now consists of Paul Redmayne, President and Marcy (Tess) Littlejohn, while the BlueBirdBids.biz domain is registered to:
Seriously! blue bird bids is the only penny auction company that was out there that was legit with best intentions and fought till the end and is now pure nrg fx. same company guys! just out of this rat race penny auction crap!
i’m here and am loving it! much love and respect for Gregory Williams and staff for keeping this alive now with this killer playboy product the sky is the limit. I along with everyone else that is a distributor are excited.
so come along or get left behind and stick to the facts. come visit the office try the product. why end the year with negativity when there is so much positive going on seriously!
So I’m taking you didn’t read the Blue Bird Bids review then…
The product idea is OK, “energy drink + the Playboy brand”. But did the idea work? It looks like people bought “initial wholesale quantities” for a short period of time, and then it slowed down completely.
The excitement is probably related to too many Pure NRG drinks in too short time.
We can wait a little, but you can start without us and build up a downline structure first. And then we can join later. The opportunity is probably still there in a few weeks or months.
The sky’s the limit + I’m very excited + come join us or get left behind = Kool Aid talk.