Did Empower Network “defraud” Mack Zidan?
In September of 2012 CEO David Wood “gave props” to Mack Zidan and named him Empower Network’s “top recruiter”.
I’m not sure whether now, over a year later, Zidan still holds the top recruiter title, however to date Zidan claims to have personally recruited over 2900 affiliates into Empower Network.
As a result Zidan, who refers to himself as “Mack Millions”, was a regular fixture at Empower Network’s 2013 events, winning multiple affiliate recruitment competitions held throughout the year.
Whereas once upon a time David Wood would refer to Zidan as “pure internet gangster”, these days the relationship between the two appears to have deteriorated.
How bad have things gotten? Today Mack Zidan openly accused Empower Network of fraud.
Taking to Facebook to share his story, Zidan published the following warning to Empower Network affiliates a few hours ago:
How to DEFRAUD your customers – 101!
Here’s a pic of an email from EN teaching you the basics on how to do that!
(Take notes you up and coming company owners who wish to fuck over the people who created your empire).
After you’re done reading the email I read from a few minutes ago from one of my teammates, check out 2 ADDITIONAL screen shots today, December 16th, 2013 showing that I am in fact active, yet having my downline cohered into paying again, because I supposedly “left”.
Interesting that EN corporate emailed 2900+ of my personals (and power line payments from my teams pass ups) claiming I was no longer active and advising them to CREATE a NEW payment under my sponsor, Chuck Marshall (hey at least they tried to get the downline compressed to the right sponsor and not KEEP IT like they ALWAYS DO when someone QUITS EN – which again – I did not).
The Empower Network email Zidan refers to is reproduced below (click to enlarge):
Your powerline payment of $25 to sponsor mack in EN Basic Membership needs to be updated as mack has left the program.
Sent from “Site Administration”, it does appear to request Zidan’s personal downline redirect their monthly payments to Zidan’s upline, Charles “Chuck” Marshall.
The email is dated December 11th, with additional information provided by Zidan raising some concern about Empower Network’s actions.
Along with Zidan’s warning above, he also included two screenshots which, as of December 16th, appear to show his Empower Network affiliate account as “active” and receiving commissions (click to enlarge):
This would, as Zidan notes, seem to contradict Empower Network’s claim that Zidan has “left the program”.
It’s wholly noted that Zidan is using the situation to shamelessly promote some new opportunity he’s a part of. I thought this was a bit strange as typically, getting screwed out of close to three thousand direct recruits would result in far more than an angry Facebook rant.
Combined with five days between Zidan’s “active” screenshots and Empower Network’s email to Zidan’s downline, I’m thinking there’s more to this story. What though I’m not sure.
In addition to whatever new opportunity Zidan is currently pimping, he’s also been involved in numerous other opportunities for some time now. Empower Network haven’t had a problem with this in the past so I’m doubting they do now.
And it’s not like Zidan has been secretive about his involvement in multiple MLM opportunities. Through his “EZ Money Formula”, released earlier this year, Zidan openly targets affiliate recruitment into GVO, Pure Leverage and Empower Network.
On Empower Network’s end David Wood offered up his thoughts on multiple streams of income in August, writing
I don’t knock anyone’s game, the way they want to play it – but I protect my team from nonsense.
Multiple income streams works – for people who already know what they are doing only. For people who are full time only. For people with massive lists only.
Focusing works.
Focusing builds bigger, more successful, more long term incomes with less management, maintenance, skill, and work, though – there’s nobody in direct sales who can debate that with me successfully.
Look at the largest incomes, the most long term, with the most leadership – and you have ALL… and only people who focus on one thing for a long time at the top.
It takes a long time to develop leaders. Occasionally you sponsor them. Developing them though is the way to the greatest future.
So do what you want to do – but stay away from distracting my organization – because I’m better at distracting them towards focus.
Here’s the thing:
We welcome both in our team. Someone can come in, slam as many people in as they want – then move to the next thing. Not a big deal. They’ll still get their income. We’ll never, ever terminate them.
They are free agents – allowed to promote what they choose. And, we still love them.
Wood does mention “protecting his team” so I can’t help but wonder if Zidan crossed some line. If he did though, that still doesn’t explain why Empower Network are telling his downline he left when he didn’t.
As for Zidan’s claim that Empower Network keeping downlines of affiliates who leave the company, that I can’t personally comment on but the BehindMLM reader who tipped me off on this story shared their own experience:
I signed a guy up last summer and several of his payments mysteriously vanished from me. The same thing happened with a lady i signed up. She joined through MY blog, yet her account joined right under Dave and Dave.
On Zidan’s Facebook page similar comments by other Empower Network affiliates have been made:
Scott Smith: That’s what happened to me with the launch if ENV2 lost huge amount of team member who had to re new there 25 & 100 the $19.95 worked but not what pays me and I still can’t re new mine to Tony Rush and I’m down about 7k a month.
Cerron Pritchett: Yep that explains why I signed up people and then the next month didn’t get a recurring commission!
In a comment left on one of his posts, Zidan goes on to claim that Vick Strizheus (an Empower Network millionaire) was removed from his downline:
Meanwhile whether Zidan knows why Empower Network have moved against him is unclear.
At the time of publication I haven’t seen anything official from the company or David Wood or Sharp addressing the issue. Zidan’s Empower Network upline, Charles Marshall, also hasn’t mentioned anything about it on his Facebook page (last updated December 12th).
At best, claiming Zidan left the company when he didn’t and getting his immediate downline to sign up under somebody else is deceptive. If Zidan was indeed terminated for some reason, then at the very least his Empower Network affiliate status should reflect that. Furthermore whatever that reason was, that’s what should have been communicated to his downline.
Whether Empower Network will respond directly to Zidan’s claims remains to be seen. In the meantime though, he’s telling Empower Network affiliates to “get the fuck out while you still can!”
Sage advice or just sour grapes from somebody who got caught doing something they shouldn’t?
Stay tuned…
Mack is a cross-recruiter. He goes to events to make friends with everyone then goes home to pitch them on other deals.
He rents exotic houses and cars. Then is filmed going out to the mailbox to collect his “mailbox” money as if he’s living there. He gets drunk at events and hits on women even though he’s a family man at home.
He’s a complete jerk online. F-bomb this and F-bomb that with his broke “followers” feeling like they’re part of something. (Go make some money, losers!)
He’s a liability to any company he’s a part of. Some sponsor. The guy truly needs anger management. And for the record, Vick dropped out the required 6 months and re-enrolled, as per Empower Network’s terms and conditions.
Perhaps Vick quickly realized what it was really like to work on Mack’s team and saw sitting out 6 months as a better option for his people.
This will shine some light on what is going on. Vick is top earner over $4 Million made. He is creaming of his affiliates and the two Dave’s know what’s going on but turn a blind eye, due to the amount of money Vick has brought in.
http://ashcampbell.com/vick-strizheuz-big-idea-mastermind-scam/
Story sounds kinda shady. Questions remain, and there has to be more to that story. Something isn’t clicking right.
I took a look at Mack’s FB page and the “How to Defraud” post was there as well as one (or more) with links to something about a “being in a pickle”.
I tried to click on a link but it was dead and when I went back to Mack’s page, the above post and the others were gone. So something is going on. The post on the 13th about him still being active in EN despite rumors was still there.
Did Mack do something he shouldn’t or has the curtain been pulled back a bit on the Wizards of EN?
Not to defend Mack (never heard of the guy until now)but from what I can glean from his FB posts, he is very upfront about being a believer in doing multiple companies – cross-recruiting usually comes with that.
He doesn’t hide the renting of cars. He posted about renting a Rolls Royce and a Lamborghini. Not sure about the houses or the videos – didn’t check beyond a few FB posts nor would I approve if that is true. But the renting the car thing he seems up front about.
Being a jerk on-line? You mean like posting how to be a bad ass or calling people wussies for not joining or going all in. Oh wait, that’s Dave and Dave who do that (along with many of their followers).
As far as the Vick situation. Apparently, from the FB post, Vick is stacking which is in violation of EN rules yet he is getting away with it. That seems to be Mack’s biggest issue according to the posts.
Not defending Mack, just find it interesting that he is being held out as the “bad person” for things that he is either up front about and/or are being done by EN/others.
Did you forget that David Wood openly admitted he cheated on his wife, Ashley, and got some random woman from Costa Rica pregnant?
David’s own behavior is a liability to his own company.
As for Mack dropping “F-Bombs” (as you put it) perhaps you never heard that word come out of David’s mouth in any of his previous original sales videos for Empower Network, eh?
Don’t see to be a fan to enjoy a mudfight among alleged crooks.
So uh, within hours of this post going live Zidan deleted most of the posts, and now he’s announced he’s deleting his Facebook profile.
He wants people to pay him $20 a month to access his a new account he will set up at a later date.
Alrighty then.
Posts are still there as of 9:26pm ET for me.
Here is a pic http://oi40.tinypic.com/swb9yu.jpg
Perhaps his wall is only set for his friends and their mutual friends to see his status.
(Ozedit: offtopic derail attempt removed)
I don’t actively use Facebook so I don’t keep up to date with their ever-changing privacy settings.
If the posts are still available to friend accounts, I wonder why he felt the need to mark them private? It’s not like the cat wasn’t already out of the bag.
Here’s the link about Vick:
http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/insurance-agent-sentenced-on-grand-theft/?id=89083
Maybe what’s needed here is more MLM inspiration, another opportunity for the Stepfordian wing to showcase its ability to think “outside the box.” Gotta love the spirit of those so-called serial entrepreneurs!
Maybe Craddock could start a kinder, gentler business to help Zidan and EN/Wood patch things up. Maybe something along the lines of “Kinder MLM Clash-Mending with Craddock,” like the old Saturday Night Live skit with “Stuart Smalley.”
With Craddock’s purported expertise on matters of trademark, copyright and libel, he perhaps could find a way to navigate these waters — at least until SNL and Al Franken sued him back to the Stone Age.
Surely Craddock would have a remedy for this. If it’s not an upstart, kinder, gentler one, then it could be the original model. He could declare Zidan an Internet Clown and offer his critic-frying services to EN.
Or maybe he could do sort of the opposite: declare EN an Internet Clown, decide EN has been classified a Ponzi scheme and offer to author a cease-and-desist letter for Zidan and other disaffected EN affiliates.
On a serious side note, one of the core dangers of some of these “programs” is the “Internet Gangster.” It’s pretty clear that Internet Gangsters presided over Profitable Sunrise and Liberty Reserve, for two examples.
PPBlog
Zidan, who refers to himself as “Mack Millions”. LOL … that POS has no money to speak of and is wanted in 3 states on hot check charges.
Empower is a joke.
I note today that Zidan’s Facebook profile has been deleted/marked non-public.
In addition to trying to cover up his previously public statements via Facebook privacy settings, this is not the course of action I’d expect someone who wrongfully lost 2900 personal downline recruits to take.
Still nothing official from Empower Network on the matter.
I caught the page probably a few hours before it was pulled. He was showing screen shots of $20 payments for his new, private page.
Why people would pay to be a FB friend is beyond me but then I don’t understand why people do a lot of what they do. I’m wondering if FB smacked him down, there was more to the story, he got a private warning from EN or a combination of those.
As far as EN – they seem to have toned down on going after haters/detractors (though I could be wrong as I really didn’t do much more than scan recent FB posts of the Davids and Tony Rush. But I did notice that they have a new CEO who has taken over one of the Davids’ roles (Wood?)- Jonathan Cronstedt.
Maybe there is a bit of house cleaning going on and they are trying to clean up their “bad ass” image and the likes of Mack Millions are no longer desirable.
(Ozedit: I suggest you stick with one username if you wish to participate in the discussion here)
Is it true that this was actually a mistake and the payment processor failed to take Mack’s payment and indeed he is actually still in EN ?
No idea on my end. Wouldn’t surprise me though, sounds “convenient” enough.
With those falling Alexa numbers, gotta have as many affiliates promoting that new traffic “product” hey.
Maybe the grandfather became the grandfathered…?
Dave and Dave don’t care about Vick doing that, look how many people he brings into the company. Mack is getting a bad rap.
At this point, I don’t think it really matters. Alexa search traffic numbers are down to levels that haven’t been that low since third quarter 2012.
BBB complaint numbers are climbing. Blog Beast failed to generate new interest. Their Miami conference starts in four days and I haven’t seen the frenzied activity like previous conferences.
I strongly suspect that we may only see one or two more conferences (if that) before they quietly disappear (if they aren’t shut down before then).
Are Dave and Dave so ignorant, arrogant and greedy???
They think that someone is going to go ALL EN for five gees just because its on their mobile phone?
Ignoramis!
Hey babe, i got another call… -I’m gonna drop five grand on a website on my mobile that i just saw!!
WTF!?
Clearly the leadership of this company is just ignorant, arrogant and GREEDY.
Mack “Mahmoud” Zidan is a fraud along with David Wood, David Sharpe and Vick “Vitaliy” Strizheus.
Bottom line… These crooks need to be investigated by the feds and eventually have charges of tax evasion, mail & wire fraud brought against them for operating a clear cut Ponzi Scam! They ALL deserve to do time in prison, at minimum 15 years for Mack, 30-40 years for Dave & Dave and 15-20 years for Vick!
Why not just lock them up and throw away the key?
From the few photos that I could find from the Seattle event, it looked a lot smaller than previous ones. I just did a search and found out I was right. A quick search brought up a blog that stated there were only about 350 people there but it was planned that way so it could be more intimate. About another 5,000 watched it on-line.
Now I’ve never been in MLM/NWM but, from my understanding, you want as many people in person at company events. The smaller, “intimate” ones are for regional or specific teams/downlines. Also, why only 5,000 people out of the 150,000 – 200,000 they claim to have? Since EN is an on-line business, all the affiliates would have access to the internet. It doesn’t add up.
Combine that with the fact that they are pretty much pushing only Vick’s stuff to make sales and you can hear death bells begin to toll. They may be out of business before the feds get around to investigating them (though I have read complaints have been filed with the FTC).
Some companies promote the big events to only the higher level folks. Companies like Amway try to get everyone they can to the events, they are VERY profitable to the high level distributors. Amway profits indirectly from this RICO fraud, it allows them to keep their illegal pyramid going.
“Intimate” is just a masking adjective to put a spin on “poor turnout”. Thin realtors and the use of “intimate and cozy” to describe small dumps.
Wood’s already made millions and his insta-family-in-a-box, now with a kid, is probably taking up more of his time. I think that’s why they’ve developed the leadership council.
That’s an old ploy from the personal development companies in the 2000s. Give your top affiliates a psuedo-management title and make them feel like they have an actual corporate stake in the company. That’s so they don’t jump ship.
What tends to happen then is a “too many cooks spoil the broth scenario”. All it takes is one disagreement and the shitstorm begins…
Why do you think the founder lives in Costa Rica…?
Because there’s not the same regulatory laws for conducting a business.
If you guy’s don’t know the interesting thing, When Dave posted images of the people who were top earners in promoting their new product ITF, Mack’s name was in it.
How could his name be in it?, is something which is bugging me.