Revenue-sharing, profit-sharing, a daily leadership bonus, daily bonus pool, a VIP points pool, a retail profit pool… whatever you want to call the latest attempt to marry MLM to the Ponzi scheme business model, the good news is that this industry damaging niche appears to be on its last legs.

Today we take a look at the last two major revenue-sharing MLM companies still in operation, AddWallet and JubiRev.

Why these two companies? By and large they are seen as the last two major “we are not a Ponzi scheme” MLM companies still in operation today. The final twin bastions of so-called legitimacy in the Ponzi points business model.

Both companies initially attracted investors on the heavily repeated profession that their revenue-sharing schemes were above-board and not just rehashes of the Ponzi points schemes flooding the MLM industry.

As collapses appear on the horizon and declining daily ROIs plague the MLM revenue-sharing niche, how have AddWallet and JubiRev weathered the storm?

addwallet-logo

AddWallet is undoubtedly the closest to a straight up and up Ponzi scheme out of the two companies. Launched suspiciously on the same servers as the failed Ponzi scheme Wealth Creation Alliance in early 2013, upon reviewing AddWallet I concluded that

The whole “Retail Profit Pool” meanwhile is pretty much just a member-funded investment scheme. Given that it’s obviously only going to be funded by AddWallet affiliates, why AddWallet have decided to call it a “Retail Profit Pool” is beyond me.

In anycase, members invest in units and then earn a daily ROI subject to the completion of a pointless task. View seven ads a day, pat your belly, drink 9 cups of coffee… take your pick because it doesn’t really matter.

With no other identified revenue source and nothing being sold to retail customers, all that matters is that members continue to invest real money and recruit new members who also invest new money in advertising units to keep the scheme afloat.

Quick to respond, albeit unofficially, AddWallet dismissed concerns raised about their business model, with affiliates told the following:

Yes, this has come to the attention of AddWallet and Brandon Bradshaw, who does not want to get into a match with (Oz), behindmlm, which has his information incorrect.

Do not always believe what you read on these websites, he doesn`t always get it right. Those are false rumors being spread by people with selfish motives… people just jump to conclusions without bothering to find out the truth..

In a couple of weeks, the ADDWallet site will be moved to servers in Ecuador…that is where ADDWallet’s CEO Louis Cordero is based….Brandon, their VP from USA will also be moving to Ecuador next month.

I have spoken to Brandon and Lee from the ADDWallet management team, and I specifically asked about whether they had any connections with the WCA management….they explain to me the above, and also laughed and said that WCA management team were a bunch of rookies…

AddWallet management have a lot more experience in internet businesses and online marketing.

Soon you will see the AddWallet address and phone number up on their website, and they will be welcoming members to take the trip to Ecuador and meet with them.

As is typical with Ponzi points MLM startups, as new investors came on aboard in the initial months following AddWallet’s launch things looked to be going well. The daily ROI sat well above 1%, AddWallet affiliates enjoyed their passive  returns and were actively promoting the business to increase their point balances.

Fast-forward to May 2013 however and things began to fall apart.

Coincidence or not I have no idea but in the same week the Liberty Reserve payment processor was shut down by the FBI for money laundering, AddWallet’s daily ROI plummeted.

It is noted that AddWallet didn’t receive or pay out affiliates using Liberty Reserve, but whether or not the company held its own money with the payment processor or re-invested affiliate money in similar schemes who used Liberty Reserve has never been publicly clarified.

Following the dramatic drop in daily ROI percentage being paid out, AddWallet scrambled to reassure affiliates that they had things under control, blaming the reduced ROI on a “company-wide DDOS attack”:

Yesterday there was a company-wide DDOS attack, meaning that all external revenue sources were under attack. Subsequently no money could be made.

As the days went by and the daily ROI continued to hover around the 0.4% mark, AddWallet was quick to put out another affiliate announcement in the hope it would restore confidence:

As most of you know we have had an unusually low profit share for the past few days. This was due to a large attack on our servers and slowed revenues of the company. Once all the servers are fully functional then revenues will begin going up once again.

This will correct itself over the next couple of days and everyone will see restored activity. We are an online business and we will experience such things from time to time so please, just be prepared for it and don’t panic.

We do have a talented group of people behind the scenes that help us through online attacks, so know that nothing will be permanent.

How did affiliates respond?

The smart ones tried to set their withdrawals to the maximum whilst simultaneously urging their fellow affiliate investors not to pull their money out of the scheme.

No doubt hemorrhaging money as affiliates went into a panic, the company responded by sending out another email:

As most of you know we have had an unusually low profit share for the past few days. This was due to a large attack on our servers and slowed revenues of the company. Once all the servers are fully functional then revenues will begin going up once again.

This will correct itself over the next couple of days and everyone will see restored activity.

And prohibiting affiliates from withdrawing any money out of the scheme by initiating a company-wide compulsory 100% re-investment rate.

Now, almost a month after the initial ROI drop the mandatory 100% re-investment rate has been lifted, however AddWallet’s daily ROI percentage remains well below the 1.11% daily ROI affiliates need to break even (ignoring point expiration, AddWallet points expire after 90 days).

Compounding this ongoing problem are reports of wildly differing daily percentage ROIs being paid to affiliates (selective payments?), Ponzi points disappearing and retiring in an abnormal manner and the suspension of the company’s “Points Retirement Calendar”, leaving affiliates in the dark as to what exactly is occurring behind the scenes with their point balances.

After a month of reassurances that things will get “back to normal”, now it seems the declining situation has escalated to breaking point.

Previously the public face of AddWallet, Vice-President Brandon Bradshaw appears to be no longer taking affiliate’s calls:

Sent Brandon numerous emails, no reply as to why it took forever to “processing” my payment.

I am really mad!! Sending numerous emails to Brandon and no reply at all!! Think I am the only one left out! What shall I do????? Help!!!

Has anyone had a resolution to the problem of AU’s disappearing?

I sent an email to Brandon 6 days ago, but as usual- NO response

Well, earnings today are less than yesterday. Out of 7798 points I earned less than 20 points. Still no response from the company on this issue.

AddWallet affiliates have also taken to social media to complain about the various problems they’ve experienced:

Wow. Addwallet is dying off fast. The past 7 weeks has been a disaster. I have had my account hacked and seen earnings dry up to nothing. Wow.

Today got $10 on 7800 points as Diamond, it won’t even pay for my monthly subscription.

I don’t know how they can have these conference calls and not address the critical issues, just white wash them.

We need REAL updates on the call. Why is the RPP NEVER really discussed on the call? I think at this point it should be the first thing discussed.

I am not sure what we are supposed to tell our downlines? The RPP was supposed to be fixed a few weeks ago?

It is good payments are coming, but it is hard for a downline to be enthusiastic and recruit if you are making pennies daily.

Also, looks like my commission is $100 for last week but they haven’t put it into my account.

No one is going to join under this scenario and no one is going to promote AddWallet.

As I understand the current situation, currently the daily ROI paid out to affiliates is hovering somewhere between 0.16% – 0.4%. Some affiliates are being paid, with others left waiting and wondering what is going on.

 

jubirev-logo

Meanwhile over at JubiRev, following the gradual decline in daily ROI paid out to affiliates over the last few months, the company abruptly engineered a massive backflip a week or so ago and abolished their passive investment model.

Declaring the “revenue-sharing model as we’ve come to know and love it” dead and buried, the company announced it was dropping its passive investment Ponzi points model.

We’re still waiting for official company produced documents outlining the new JubiRev compensation plan in its entirety, but in the meantime angry affiliate investors have been left wondering where their money went.

A major problem in the case of JubiRev, one which makes it hard to see the compensation plan change as anything but a bait and switch, was the heavy encouragement within the company to invest as much into the company as affiliates could afford, and the recruitment of new investors on the proviso that JubiRev was “100% legally compliant”.

Top affiliates within the company routinely urged their downlines to target what they referred to as “low-hanging fruit”, namely affiliate investors from other MLM revenue-sharing schemes that had recently failed or abandoned the business model due to legal concerns.

Additionally, also endorsed was the use of third-party “customer vendors”, who continued the revenue-sharing tradition of selling affiliates fake customers so that they could automate qualification process to receive their daily ROI.

This environment and culture within the company only made the recent and abrupt compensation plan change all that much of a bitter pill to swallow for the company’s numerous passive affiliate investors.

JubiRev had told them they were safe and taken their money. Now they’d pulled the rug out from under them and there was nothing they could do about it.

As details of the new JubiRev compensation plan have slowly leaked out and affiliates realise that the new model resembles nothing like what they signed up for, as is the case with AddWallet, JubiRev affiliates have taken to social media to express their frustration at the company:

People here keep talking about “hyip mentatily” and “passive income” crap but yet that’s the membership they aimed at when they overhyped the “Revenue Share”.

And even today J.J keeps saying on the conference call that you can join and make money “without sponsoring anyone”, yet 1 second after he says that he says “all you have to do is go out and get some customers, give them products” bla bla bla.

So they aimed for the passive membership, they get the passive membership and then they don’t like it.

They will just try to make small changes, lower payout, etc until they can flush out all the passive members as they already have their money.

Unless changes are made, I’ll be done with it and take my losses. I think the daily award will eventually be a thing of the past.

I would also expect to see some lawsuits since as was noted either above or below my note that they say one thing and do something else!

I can no longer work this program. I will never be able to get one of my customers to spend 30 dollars a month.

I believed all the hype that was going around a couple of months ago like I’m sure many others did and unfortunately I spent more joining this program than I have ever done before.

Another lesson learned (which I thought I had already done). So I decided not to send my renewal money for this month and will just kiss that money goodbye.

I guess there was a reason that I never projected what my possible earnings would be with this company.

I did notice that the DLB had been getting less each day before I was no longer qualified to receive it.

I went all in at 5k+ bucks. The $30 a month cv is no problem, but the 10% qs is going to be a real challenge. Yes, the DLB is dropping dramatically.

If I end up needing to write this one off as losses, along with a couple more I’m currently in, I believe I will throw in the towel once and for all and go back to being a 9-5 wage earner… probably would be more happy doing that anyway… life.. what a joke.

I got into this since early April, compounded late last weeks of May and now i regret.

I have over 1100 Jpoints and have cashed out only $69.

Today’s DLB 2.56 for 1107 Jubipoints. 0.23% for today. Pathetic.

Don’t join this ****.

I think a lot of people were duped by these guys, especially coming out of the gate as “fully legal and compliant”. Total Bull****!

I am so p—-ed off they are handing out points like candy 5x points and 10x points bonuses. Our points will become absolutely worthless.

I hope someone starts a class action lawsuit against them.

To the best of my knowledge no affiliates have yet launched a lawsuit against JubiRev, however some are actively encouraging others to file disputes with the payment processors they used to invest in the scheme:

Everyone who can should open up tickets with the processor they used to fund their account.

Payza has refunded me 100% due to the fact jubimax/jubirev has changed their compensation plan. I told them I wasn’t happy with my product because they have not lived up to what they offered me in order to get me signed up.

Sure enough after 7 days of the Payza claim being opened with no response from Jubimax/Jubirev i got my money back.

I’m starting to think that”s the best advice. They really did mislead us.

It really ticks me off the way they acted all ethical and better than all the others because they new how to do revshare right. They know how to do one thing – Bring their company to a screeching halt.

Something serious must have happened that scared them into completely changing the pay plan. I wish they would just be honest and let us know what really happened.

As per the affiliate discussion above, it appears that currently JubiRev are not contesting payment processor disputes over their affiliate’s initial investments.

JubiRev have announced an extension on the JubiPoints affiliates currently have (with how long an extension determined by how much a JubiRev pay the company in monthly membership fees), however investment refunds to those who feel mislead have not been offered.

To the contrary, it seems JubiRev are all to keen to milk even more out of their affiliates with the company just announcing it will be offering the services of MyPhoneRoom to all affiliates.

For an additional $19.95 a month JubiRev affiliates will be provided access to “mobile powered lead capture pages” and for $39.95 a month, “some access to MyPhoneRoom”.

MyPhoneRoom is of course owned by JubiRev President J. Joshua Beistle, with the company stating on their website that they help affiliates “find more leads” and turn them into “red hot prospects”.

Whether asking JubiRev affiliates to pay more money into the company will appease passive investors who feel they’ve been duped remains to be seen.

Conclusion

As evidenced above, currently both AddWallet and JubiRev are going through some major turmoil regarding their business models.

The common link?

Both companies launched with an unsustainable affiliate-funded Ponzi points revenue-sharing business model.

In the case of AddWallet, what the company is hiding is not clear, however obviously something is up if after one month the company’s daily ROI is what it was a month ago when it suddenly dropped to less than 0.5% a day.

Personally I suspect the closure of Liberty Reserve had something to do with it (the timing is just too co-incidental), but until the company comes clean to its affiliates and explains what exactly is going on, they’re in the dark.

JubiRev meanwhile just appears to have run out of money to pay affiliates out with. The company is attributing the recent compensation plan backflip to legal advice, however it boggle the mind that management were not aware that Ponzi schemes are illegal in the US before they solicited hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars in investments from affiliates.

Centric to both schemes is the core mechanic of Ponzi schemes wherein those who invest first and recruit others to do the same made off with most of the money.

Not so much an issue with AddWallet, who seem content to let affiliates points expire and keep affiliate’s investments, a major contributing factor to the lack of refunds offered by JubiRev, despite such a dramatic compensation plan change, is that top affiliates with the company have already been paid commissions.

I recall mention of some affiliates topping out at over 100,000 JubiPoints, leaving no doubt that they’d be withdrawing a sizeable chunk of money each day out of their daily ROI.

A few months of that happening and eventually somebody at Jubirev HQ sees where things are going… and before you know it they’ve killed off the golden goose, leaving those at the bottom of the scheme penniless.

For all the talk about how JubiRev and AddWallet weren’t just blatant Ponzi schemes, it’s interesting to note how mechanically, both have pretty much played out in the same manner as Ponzi schemes typically do.

Looking forward the future of both companies remains uncertain. With affiliate confidence in MLM revenue-sharing likely at an all-time low, it seems unlikely that any new companies are going to pop up professing the legitimacy of the business model.

I suspect in the wake of JubiRev and AddWallet what we’ll see is a return to the small-scale advertising credit based schemes that last a few months and then disappear.

It’s been somewhat of an interesting ride since Paul Burks convinced the industry he’d legitimized Ponzi schemes under the guise of a points system with Zeek Rewards, however I for one will be glad to see the era end.

Of course it won’t ever completely die out and I’m sure over time the niche will resurrect itself (Paul Burks’ unwelcome MLM industry legacy), however with each organic failure of the model arguing its legitimacy becomes that much harder.

At the very least I hope those that participate will stop running around pretending these schemes were ever anything but affiliate-funded Ponzis.

No matter how great things might initially look and how solid those ROIs might feel, when you’re just taking in affiliate money and shuffling it around to pay out affiliates who’ve already invested, sooner or later it’s going to crash.

A harsh lesson perhaps, but one a lot in this industry have had to learn nonetheless.