LegacyMax: Zazzed rebooted after owner dies?

LegacyMax launched in late 2013 and appears to have come about following the purported death of the founder of Zazzed.

A Dr. Bob Moore was listed as the owner of the “zazzed.com” website domain, however when I reviewed Zazzed mid last year, I was ultimately unable to conclude who was running or owned the company.

LegacyMax are more transparent about who is running things, crediting a Tim Stevens as the company’s President and CEO on their website.

On his LinkedIn profile, Stevens explains:

The unexpected death of the owner of ZAZZED, LLC in Dec, 2013 created a crisis and challenge for myself and my ZAZZED team mates.

After purchasing the assets of the ZAZZED company I set out to launch a new company, LegacyMax. The intent was to provide the GREEN FUEL TABS marketers, around the world, with a path to move forward with the successes they were having with this great product.

After several months of assembling an incredible team of professionals in all critical areas of corporate and field operations and nearly $100k in developmental costs we have now successfully launched the company, LegacyMax.

In LegacyMax, Stevens served as “Director of International Business Development” and was also an affiliate.

A LegacyMax corporate address in Nevada is provided on their website, however whether this is an actual office or just a rented mailbox is unclear.

In my Zazzed review, I flagged the payment on the recruitment of Diamond level affiliates as being indicative of a recruitment-driven pyramid scheme. Mandatory affiliate autoship and a lack of retail within the business were also concerns.

Has Stevens cleaned up Zazzed with his LegacyMax reboot?

Read on for a full review of the LegacyMax MLM business opportunity.

The LegacyMax Product Line

Zazzed’s product-range was provided via a partnership with  Jim Lynch’s Green Fuel Tabs LLC. This partnership appears to have remained intact with the launch of LegacyMax, with the company marketing the same Green Fuel Tabs product on their website.

Green Fuel Tabs are a fuel additive, with LegacyMax claiming the ‘product has been tried and proven now for over 15 years‘ and provides an ‘average up to 20% better mileage, and up to 50% decrease in emissions and pollution.‘

Various other “performance” products are also offered, including

• Triple-Max – a “performance maximizer”
• Engine-Max – a “top engine cleaner”
• Oil-Max – an “oil change extender”

Unfortunately no retail pricing is provided on the LegacyMax website. There is a “buy now” button on the website which I thought might take me to a retail store, but when I clicked it nothing happened.

The LegacyMax Compensation Plan

The LegacyMax compensation plan is poorly presented and confusing. In place of detailed explanation and clarification, the company instead offers short paragraph summaries that fail to adequately explain the plan to prospective affiliates.

With that in mind, I’ve done my best to work with what’s available and present an overview of the LegacyMax compensation plan below.

Commission Qualification

In order to participate in the LegacyMax MLM business opportunity, an affiliate must “activate” their membership.

At the Silver level, this can be done in one of three ways:

• the acquisition of three preferred customers
• the purchase of 10 BV worth of product by the affiliate
• the purchase of a Silver, Gold or Diamond package

Note that if a LegacyMax affiliate does not activate their membership, they only qualify for single-level commissions (only retail, no MLM).

Referred to as “enrollment packages” and only purchasable by LegacyMax affiliates, the three on offer are as follows:

• Silver – $29.95
• Gold – $99.95
• Diamond – $299.95

Each enrollment package comes with a selection of Legacy Max products.

See below (“LegacyMax Affiliate Membership Ranks”) for full commission qualification at each membership rank level.

LegacyMax Affiliate Membership Ranks

There are nine affiliate membership ranks within the LegacyMax compensation plan. Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:

• Affiliate (inc. Founding Affiliate) – Pay $49.99 (founding: $29.99) affiliate membership fee
• Silver – “activate” affiliate position (see “Commission qualification” above)
• Gold – acquire 12 preferred customers, or purchase 40 BV of product, or recruit 6 Silver or higher ranked affiliates, or purchase a Gold Package
• Diamond – acquire 36 preferred customers, or purchase 120 BV of product, or recruit 6 Gold ranked affiliates, or purchase a Diamond package
• Double Diamond – must qualify as a Diamond first, then go on to recruit at least 2 Diamond or higher ranked affiliates
• Triple Diamond – personally recruit at least 5 new Diamond affiliates (after Double Diamond qualification), and have a total personally recruited downline of at least 20 affiliates (all of which must have been recruited since becoming a Diamond ranked affiliate)
• Blue Diamond – personally recruit at least 10 new Diamond affiliates (after Triple Diamond qualification), and have a total personally recruited downline of at least 60 affiliates (40 of which must have been recruited as a Triple Diamond)
• Presidential Diamond – personally recruit at least 15 new Diamond affiliates (after Triple Diamond qualification), and have a total personally recruited downline of at least 120 affiliates (60 of which must have been recruited as a Blue Diamond )
• Presidential Ambassador – personally recruit at least 20 new Diamond affiliates (after Triple Diamond qualification), and have a total personally recruited downline of at least 200 affiliates (80 of which must have been recruited as a Blue Diamond )
• Global Ambassador – rank as a Presidential Ambassador, and then have a personally recruited affiliate qualify as a Presidential Ambassador

Note that ongoing commission qualification requirements are tied into autoship (or the equivalent manual self-purchase of product by an affiliate).

Retail Commissions

Retail commissions in LegacyMax are defined as ‘the difference between retail and wholesale‘ price paid for products ordered through an affiliate’s replicated storefront.

No further information or examples are provided.

Preferred customers are able to sign up with a $29.95 a month autoship order, with the affiliate who signs them up collecting a $5.99 commission. Presumably this commission is residual as long as the customer continues to place an order for LegacyMax products each month.

Recruitment Commissions

When a LegacyMax affiliate purchases one of the three enrollment packages, a recruitment commission is paid out to the affiliate who recruited them:

• Silver Package ($29.95) – $5
• Gold Package ($99.95) – $20
• Gold Package upgrade to Diamond – $50
• Diamond Package ($299.95) – $75

There also appears to be an upline recruitment commission payable on the sale of the packages, starting at the Double Diamond affiliate rank:

• Silver Package – $1 to Double Diamond to Global Ambassador ranked affiliates ($7 in total)
• Gold Package – $5 to Double Diamond, $2 to Triple Diamond to Presidential Ambassador and $1 to Global Ambassador ranked affiliates ($15 in total)
• Gold Package upgrade to Diamond – $10 to Double Diamond, $5 to Triple Diamond, $4 to Blue Diamond, $3 to Presidential Diamond, $2 to Presidential Ambassador and $1 to Global Ambassador ranked affiliates ($26 in total)
• Diamond Package – $25 to Double Diamond and $10 to Triple Diamond to Global Ambassador ranked affiliates ($75 in total)

These commissions aren’t adequately explained, however it’s typical that the system will payout the recruiting affiliate at their paid rank. Then the system searches the immediate upline for higher ranked affiliates until rank level of the residual commission from Double Diamond to Global Ambassador has been paid out.

If an affiliate is at a higher rank then is pending to be paid out, they also collect all the applicable unpaid rank level commissions that haven’t been paid.

Binary Commissions

Residual commissions in LegacyMax are paid out using a binary compensation structure.

A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of two binary teams, left and right:

Positions in each binary team are filled via the recruitment of new affiliates, with both binary teams able to theoretically extend out to infinite levels deep.

Commissions are paid out via the tracking of generated business volume (BV) on both teams, with LegacyMax paying out $15 per 100 BV matched on both sides of the binary. This is a daily commission, with affiliates being required to have a standing  autoship order if they wish to preserve any unmatched BV at the end of each day.

Matching Bonus

A 25% matching bonus is available on binary commissions paid to an affiliate’s downline, payable down four levels of recruitment.

How many levels an affiliate is paid the Matching Bonus on depends on their affiliate membership rank:

• Diamond and Double Diamond – 1 level
• Triple Diamond – 2 levels
• Blue Diamond – 3 levels
• Presidential Diamond or higher – 4 levels

Leadership Bonus

LegacyMax Blue Diamond and higher ranked affiliates are eligible to earn three Leadership Bonuses as follows:

• Vacation Bonus – must have earnt at least $2000 in binary commissions a month for three consecutive months
• Luxury Car Bonus – recruit at least 5 affiliates and earn $2000 in binary commissions a month for three consecutive months
• Lifestyle Bonus – recruit at least 10 affiliates and earn $2000 in binary commissions a month for three consecutive months

Global Ambassador Infinity Bonus

The Global Ambassador Infinity Bonus pays Global Ambassadors ‘1 level of override on the Global Ambassadors below them’.

I’m not really sure what this override is paid out on and no further information is provided.

Founders Only Profit Sharing Pool

Open to “founding affiliates” (affiliates who sign up and pay $29.95 instead of $49.95), the Founders Only Profit Sharing Pool pays out monthly according to shares acquired by Founding Affiliates.

Founding Affiliates acquire 1 share in the pool per new affiliate they recruit into the business.

No information as to how the Founders Only Profit Sharing Pool is funded is provided.

Special Geographical Bonuses

No specifics on LegacyMax’s “special geographical bonuses” are provided, other than the names of the two bonuses offered: A “Country Manager Bonus” and “Market Maker Bonus”.

Joining LegacyMax

Affiliate membership to LegacyMax is $49.99. An annual fee of $30 is payable after an affiliate’s first year with the company.

Founding affiliate membership is advertised at $29.99, offering a cheaper alternative. The only major difference between regular affiliates and Founding affiliates is qualification for the “Founders Only Profit Sharing Pool” (see compensation plan).

Conclusion

While the introduction of actual retail commissions from Zazzed’s non-retail compensation plan is welcome, unfortunately LegacyMax have only added it as somewhat of a novelty addition.

The core of LegacyMax’s compensation plan and business model is still firmly planted in recruitment.

Any retail qualification is included as optional, with the liklihood of affiliates instead concentrating on recruitment prevailing. It is possible to advance in ranks via preferred customer acquisition, but it’s far more probable (and incentivized with recruitment commissions) that a newly recruited LegacyMax affiliate will just buy their way into the Silver, Gold, or Diamond level of the compensation plan.

They focus on recruiting other affiliates who do the same and they get paid, ignoring retail (preferred customers or otherwise) altogether.

Throw in a defacto autoship requirement for MLM commission qualification (the autoship BV and monthly manual purchase BV are identical), and you’ve got an opportunity that appears to primarily focus on the recruitment of new affiliates who sign up to autoship.

Not problematic in itself with healthy retail activity occuring, but given the recruitment/autoship skewed nature of LegacyMax’s compensation plan, I’m just not seeing it.

The Founding Affiliate joining option is problematic too, the purchase of which qualifies an affiliate to generate shares in a “revenue-sharing” pool, whose funding source is not disclosed.

Worse still, shares in the pool are awarded solely on the recruitment of new affiliates.

I also saw mention of “Corporate Bonus Leads” in the compensation plan, which appears to be company-generated leads offered to Blue Diamond and above affiliates:

All Blue Diamonds and Above are included in the distribution of Company created leads which are sent to them on a rotational basis throughout the month.

First of all it is unclear whether or not these are retail leads or affiliate (recruitment) leads. Second of all the practice of an MLM company providing leads to its affiliate-base (at a cost or as an incentive) is generally frowned upon.

How LegacyMax source their leads is not disclosed, but it does imply that they themselves are competing with their affiliate-base (albeit sharing the results of their marketing efforts).

I’d strongly advise and prospective LegacyMax affiliates to check with their potential upline as to how many recruited affiliates vs. retail customers they have (including preferred). Due to the recruitment requirements and qualification criteria and overall focus built into the compensation plan, I’d be very surprised to learn of any measurable amount of retail activity occurring within the company.