TranzactCard’s Z-Club reselling Walmart products?
A directory on TranzactCard’s website suggests its Z-Store is stocked with Walmart products.
As opposed to an actual ecommerce competitor (Amazon, eBay etc.), this would make TranzactCard nothing more than a Walmart affiliate.
The TranzactCard website directory in question can be found at “tranzactcard.com/account/uploads/imports”:
What you’re looking at are a bunch of CSV databases, populated with product information, details and pricing from Walmart.
I doubt these files are currently active, with TranzactCard more likely to be using Walmart’s API system:
To be clear, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a Walmart affiliate or using their API system – anyone can sign up for free.
From a due-diligence perspective this isn’t how TranzactCard pitched Z-Club. That TranzactCard is just a Walmart affiliate is information that has been hidden from consumers.
Z-Club did launch during TranzactCard’s November 12th-14th launch. The website was quickly pulled down however.
In a subsequent TranzactCard corporate update, unspecified “technical delays” was the provided reason.
Personally what I’m still unclear on is how TranzactCard is going to fund Z-Bucks.
Every time you spend $1 using your TranzactCard, earn a matching Z-Buck.
Z-Bucks can be spent in Z-Club making everything – from everyday items to vacation packages – more affordable.
Walmart certainly isn’t going to eat the loss, and transaction fees alone are nowhere enough to funds Z-Bucks. The only other known revenue stream TranzactCard has is customer and member fees.
I suspect if Z-Club’s website was left online and purchases were being processed, TranzactCard membership fee revenue would be depleted pretty fast. This is why the site was pulled.
Unfortunately Z-Buck funding remains unclear, because TranzactCard fails to disclose this information to consumers. I’ve previously written about TranzactCard’s disclosure failures being potential violations of the FTC Act.
The Walmart Affiliate Program Terms and Conditions state unsuitable websites include, but are not limited to, those that “Promote illegal activities” or “Promote the use of pyramid, “ponzi”, or similar investment schemes”.
TranzactCard could fairly be considered unsuitable as a “similar investment scheme.”
This isn’t rocket science, it’s simply the reality of the banking industry/credit card industry and simple math (I’m simplifying the process in this description).
Credit cards have a margin on purchases… they make a few percentage points when someone buys something and pays for it with their credit card.
The merchants pay, say, 3% of the swiped amount to the credit card company in exchange for the convenience of their customer using their card vs. paying cash for it.
Customers like the convenience and merchants make sales. Banks make money by loaning them the money on the card and if they don’t pay the balance “on time” they’re charged a hefty sum, upwards of 26% per year; usuary IMO but I digress. Banks are happy as well.
How do you think airline miles are accumulated.. .where does the money to pay for things come from? It comes from the fees per swipe, and the banks make some average percentage of interest per month on their customer base. The very high-end percentage can be 5%…maybe 6%.
So, math, spend $100, the MAXIMUM amount returned could be $5-$6. There’s no one on the planet who can get a credit card company/bank/etc. to take a LOSS per swipe by giving back, say, 25%; give me a break.
IMO Z-bucks’ promise of spend a dollar, get a dollar in Z-bucks to use on products you want to buy, makes absolutely NO SENSE in the banking world or the math world.
Even if the affiliate program is taken into account, maybe another 5-6% can be added to the pool, but that’s say $10 max per $100 transaction and that doesn’t include money for the company or the MLM part.
So, Tranzact people, correct me here, let’s hear where I’m wrong. I’ve been told by some of you “I don’t see the vision”. I see it and it is nonsense.
Oh…they could throw in some of the monthly membership charges but that is a pittance compared to the potential spending over everyone. We buy a few thousand dollars online in my household, so again the math makes no sense at all.
Stop Scams:
You are missing a MAJOR component here – it is NOT a credit card. It is supposed to be a DEBIT card.
Banks make zero money on interest, swipe fees are less than 1%.
There is no interest pot of gold in debit card banking.
This thing is way worse math than you think!
So we all know one of the number one logical fallacies is “Underlying assumptions”. There seems to be a HUGE underlying assumption that Zbucks are the equivalent of a crypto or actual cash. They however are NOT.
A Zbuck is an internal coupon. Just like if you were to get a coupon in the mail for $5 off your Arby’s Roast Beef. (Ozedit: snip, see below)
@Logical
I’m going to stop you right there because the products on Z-Club are not “internal” to TranzactCard. TranzactCard is a Walmart affiliate, and Walmart’s affiliate program doesn’t provide products at wholesale to affiliates.
Furthermore, TranzactCard has provided no evidence anything listed on Z-Club’s website is held as wholesale inventory.
In summary, your assumption that Z-Club is stocked with products obtained at wholesale falls flat against the available evidence.
Agreed. Debit cards make for even WORSE math, which equals even greater BS.
And the coupon analogy becomes even sillier, especially given the concept of Walmart now uncovered. How are they supposed to give massive discounts (not little $5 ones) on Walmart products? It doesn’t make ANY sense now. You may want it to work, really want it to work, but it can’t and ultimately won’t.
These guys are really running into issues with these proposed BS flash sales where you are basically using a lottery system to supposedly let people buy a cheap cruise or some pantyhose or whatever for free (utilizing your zbucks only and no cash).
The only source of funding is new dbo or new card member signups so they are using actual money from current signups to fund ‘flash sales’ (ie payouts/payoffs). When there are no more sign-ups – there are no more ‘flash sales’.
Love to see the accounting department on this one.
I appreciate all the feedback – when reading your opinions prior to launch there was NO WAY they would Launch….. No Way at all – well, they pulled off the launch in spite of the expert opinions of you and your experts (Ozedit: snip, see below)
TranzactCard most certainly did not launch what was initially pitched a few months ago. Misinformation = spam-bin.
True. Not at all what they were pitching me on months ago.
What kills me about these deals that don’t work out is the people who hope, trust, and NEED something to work out have their hearts ripped out once again and have wasted a LOT of time they could have pursued something legitimate, time they can never get back.
OnPassive is a good example, as are NovaTech and the Mike G deal. I know several people who wasted years on those and a lot of money as well and got their guts ripped out.
You hope if something is going to blow up and go away, do it quickly. Maybe that will be the case here.
Why is my comment above not include all of what I said?
Hahahaha. You call that a launch? I call that an expensive party at DBO expense! What exactly did you receive?
It truly is sad that people are so dead set on their misplaced views. Funny thing is, they have been shouting zbucks since May 2023 or so…
the website with products should have been the 1st thing they built… but they quickly just add a walmart affiliate into site.. scammers.
Because if you open with misinformation it gets nipped in the bud. You don’t get to bandy around false statements and build a conversation around them.
So again the physical cards you can swipe with were not available at launch. They ~may~ be here by Christmas.
Is the Z-Club fully down or is it available but viewing is set to members only?
Neither one seems very optimistic. What the hell did they actually launch in Vegas?
I found this to be interesting:
imgur.com/a/i8NiwrH
The first photo is of a TranzactCard “Flash sale.” They are selling a sleeping bag for what very much looks like 10,000 Z-Bucks.
The second photo is from Amazon dot com and uses the EXACT same photograph of the product. Amazon is selling the exact same sleeping bag for $129.95.
That kinda indicates that, at least in this instance, the real world value of 10,000 Z-Bucks is less than $130.
That makes 1 Z-buck worth $0.0013. And this is the future of online shopping!! ROFLOL!!
The public website is down, looks like it’s only available through the app and backoffice.
Perhaps they haven’t figured out how to hide Walmart breadcrumbs on the ZClub website yet.
In a more perfect world the Z-Club would be open to the public so that potential TCMs could see the massive savings available and rush in to join this opportunity.
That’s how the pitch is supposed to work but now, not so much. Maybe soon, next month or some time soon thereafter.
Influencers. We were promised Influencers at launch.
I’m not talking Trump, Obama and LeBron James. All three were promised by Richard Smith but those were just always and only figments of his overly fertile imagination.
I am talking about any of the promised influencers however, like anyone who could move a needle. Yet another failed launch promise.
Maybe soon, next month or some time soon thereafter. Just like all the rest of their promises.
I just saw a post and discussion of a bunch of people who all jumped on a flash sale for an “18kt filled Pearl necklace” which started out at 10,000 zBucks.
The guy who posted said this…
Multiple people in comments said they also bought it and zBucks were removed. But then, the zBucks reappeared and turns out they didn’t get the necklace.
One guy said he bought it seconds after it appeared for flash sale and it looked like he got it as well, but realized he didn’t when the zBucks reappeared.
One woman wrote, “ Crazy!!! When I went in it showed 50,000 z bucks, which I knew was crazy then I refreshed and it said sold out!!”
Having items “auctioned” that no one seems to get sounds an awful lot like Zeeks Rewards!
And the high zBucks prices to buy definitely devalue the zBucks.
Meanwhile, I keep seeing happy posts of people making leadership levels of manager, but what does that really equate to financially? So many have made manager so easily it also feels devalued and doubtful it amounts to much financially.
People are getting excited over imaginary money and imaginary leadership levels, both of which seem to me will mean nothing in the long term.
I do see more and more people getting frustrated with the website not working or having to uninstall the app to make it work.
So many false and broken promises. Too many red flags for me.
Walmart has two listings for an 18kt filled pearl necklace, they cost $9.99 and $14.99 respectively.
Both third-party Walmart marketplace sellers from China.
Now, trans card is doing KYC/knowYourCustomer requirement with verification that cost the consumer/reps/cardholder money to do.
TranzactCard probably never considered “Know Your Customer” prior to their regulatory compliance epiphany. Banks take into account the manual hours, staff hires, and price of compliance tools.
A KYC analyst alone is maybe $85K. A single KYC compliance check is a big burden for small fintechs potentially costing upward of $130 per customer.
KYC is ongoing with continuing periodic customer checks. Anti Money Laundering failures cost banks $2 billion plus in fines for 2022.
What is TranzactCard’s KYC member fee?