WakeUpNow to reboot as Disrupt?
WakeUpNow launched in 2009 and over its six years of operation failed to generate a significant amount of retail sales.
Combining an eclectic mish-mash of third-party products and services, the reality of WakeUpNow was that you signed up as an affiliate, paid a monthly fee and were then paid to recruit others who did the same.
After burning through millions of dollars in losses, the scheme collapsed two months ago with WakeUpNow formally terminating US operations around mid February.
Prior to that there had been speculation the company was going to file for bankruptcy.
Not even three months has passed since WakeUpNow collapsed, with former President Jason Elrod now gearing up to launch “Disrupt”.
Aptly named considering how many lives WakeUpNow going under disrupted, the naming of Elrod’s new company is probably not going to be appreciated by ex-WakeUpNow affiliates.
At the time WakeUpNow announced they were no longer conducting business in the US, said affiliates were owed months of unpaid commissions.
In any event, details of Elrod’s new Disrupt opportunity are sketchy, with a website going live briefly earlier this month over at “disruptedlives.com” (Elrod’s apparently really keen on the “our former company disrupted a bunch of lives” theme).
A visit to the site today redirects one to a temporary placeholder page at “disruptcentral.com” (right).
Not much help there, but with a bit of additional research, here’s what we’ve been able to put together.
First off, both the “lifedisrupted” and “disruptedcentral” domains appear to have been acquired in early March, mere weeks after WakeUpNow collapsed.
On the Disrupt website that was briefly live, we’ve got Jason Elrod and Rea Nichols credits as “founders” of the company:
Before you ask, no, they’re not the same person. Rea Nichols was a Master Distributor with WakeUpNow.
A sales pitch underneath Elrod’s photos above reads:
We started Disrupt with the idea that when people know better, they do better.
It was founded with a strong belief that everyone has the potential to change their lifestyle and focus on making memories, not just money.
We built a company that we would want to hang out with on the weekends. We founded it with people that we wanted to travel the world with. We have reached out and started connecting with new friends and bringing them into our circle.
We know we aren’t doing things “the way it’s supposed to be done”, and we’re ok with that. We may never be the biggest company in the world, but we will always be contending for the title of “most fun”.
So come find us at beach, a bonfire, or in the mountains. Let’s have some fun, make some memories and #LearnLife
“Most fun” hey? Well I suppose making tons of money at the expense of WakeUpNow affiliates who weren’t paid was fun for somebody…
No mention of whether Philip J Polich (WakeUpNow’s COO) is involved.
On the product side of things Disrupt looks pretty much like WakeUpNow v2.0. Something called “Disrupt Finance” is mentioned, along with “Finance 101”, “Wealth Management” and “Taxbot”:
See your money differently. Disrupt Money offers tools and education that will help you shake up your financial life and start controlling your money, and not have your money control you.
Other products niches mentioned elsewhere on the site included travel, business, shopping “and more”.
Unfortunately there wasn’t any mention of a business model or comp plan on the site, so how that works for now is mystery.
If it’s anything like WakeUpNow though, with affiliates signing up to pay monthly fees on stuff nobody outside of the income opportunity is interested in, then this isn’t going to well.
Meanwhile how Polich and Nichols intend to front Disrupt with a straight face, considering the dust hasn’t even settled on WakeUpNow’s collapse and millions were owed in commissions, I have no idea.
Stay tuned…
hahahahaha
WHAT!
hahahahaha
at least these buttcrazy thieves have a sense of humor!
Wasn’t Taxbot one of the products pushed by WUN?
Yeah, this is a reboot. The question is how much backing does he have, and how serious is he, or is this merely a reload there he can blame Kirby for all the previous troubles while claimed “I did my best, give me another chance”.
Looks like “Seemore Green” is on board:
imgur.com/1Wf0XtP
Or maybe he’s reinvented himself as (don’t) Beemore Butthurt.
These guys really do seem to be one trick ponies.
Giddy up, who’s going to get rickrolled a second time around?
well, i don’t think polich can be involved because everyone remembers his ’emotional letter’ to WUN members, when he announced shut down of the MLM side.
polich said WUN would continue to retail its great products because y’know, there’s Such a Huge Market for them!
and polich said he would be working diligently to pay all creditors [which should naturally include unpaid members].
just two months after such a letter, polich dare not start ‘disrupting lives’ again. or dare he?
the moral compass of these guys always points in the direction of their personal bank accounts.
congratulations in advance to the idiots who sign up with these guys again, they can christen themselves Seemore Loss.
Disrupt is NOT Wakeupnow 2.0. It is NOT Wakeupnow “Rebooted”. Phil Polich, Kirby Cochran and others of the original WUN exec team are NOT involved in any way.
Taxbot and the Finance product are “pushed” by several companies including Wealth Generators so why should that even matter?
Jason Elrod as president of WUN had one job, to push sales and be on the road with the sales force. He had nothing to do with the bad executive decisions made by the original founders and CEO’s.
He, just like Rea Nichols and all of the rest of us involved, lost a ton of money.
Wakeupnow was a tragedy, like the Titanic. We thought we could patch the hole in the sinking boat before it went down, but in the end it couldn’t be done.
So who is more to blame, those that abandon ship and cause the downward spiral of insolvency or the “fools” who go down with it?
The point is, just because the ship goes down doesn’t mean those that were on it can’t sail again. Especially if they can learn from the mistakes and do it right the next time with a solid back office, with REAL products, with REAL retail customers, with a different comp plan that doesn’t promote money gamers, etc.
I am owed a LOT of money from Wakeupnow. But I don’t blame Jason or Rea for what happened. I know for a fact it wasn’t their fault. Nobody “scammed” anybody, it was just bad business decisions.
And I agree, at first Wakeupnow was sketchy on its product offering. But they were trying to do the right thing by introducing real, retailable products in the end.
So I am excited to work with Disrupt because I have seen what Jason and Rea have put together, not out of greed, not to try and “scam” the world “again”.
It is something I will be proud to be a part of because it will be solid, it will have real products, it will have functioning technology, it will have something unique that brings value to people, it will have a real retail/customer focus and not a “recruiting” focus.
Believe me, after what I went through as one of the leaders at WUN, seeing the disappointment on the faces of my team members and being accused of everything from thief to hypocrite and worse, I would not go back and do that again.
I truly believe Disrupt is different and will be a blessing for thousands and millions of people.
Looks like the same duck to me..
Yet lets for sake of arguement..
What would these REAL PRODUCTS BE?
Even in wakeupnow – I wasn’t interested in any of the products and so far it looks like you have more of the same here – nothing new the average person would break their neck for to have and or pay for again and again.
So please tell me at least one product that has that “I GOT TO HAVE THIS FACTOR” on a retail level.
I am not talkin about comp plan as you are bound to wrap that around all of this to make it nice and tidy for the members to jump on board to profit from.
I just want to know why or how a retail customer is to find or want any of the products without being pitched on being a member?
That is how they’re playing it, trying to pretend that ALL of the problems were on those two guys and each and every other person in management or leadership were just innocent victims who were forced to stand by helplessly watching the ship sink.
Oh, they all knew what needed to be done, how to get retail products and real customers but that vile ogre Kirby wouldn’t let them do it (stifles a tear).
I’ll reserve judgment till the put their cards on the table, products, comp plans and the like but remember something.
The same field leaders who told you the company was over and how they hadn’t been paid for many months were the exact same field leaders who were hash tagging #wunanddone 48 hrs earlier.
Well, it’s not by the same corporate leaders, but it’s a SPIRITUAL reboot by two of the top “leaders”.
The question is… there’s only so much you can squeeze out of the story that WUN was mismanaged and squeezed by Kirby Cochrane and family.
The fact is WUN was losing money for YEARS and runs virtually like a cult (This American Life Expose was very accurate). So, what exactly will Disrupt keep from WUN?
Here’s to hoping that it’ll skip the cult and have some real products, but history is against them in that regard.
if you want to do it right this time, stop beating around the bush and address the question of WUN’s failure pointedly.
WUN did not fail due to bad decisions by cochran alone, it failed because recruitment slowed and and the company ran out of money. WUN was a ponzi/pyramid scheme.
if elrods job was to be on the road making sales [recruit], then he must be fully aware why WUN collapsed.
BTW who is the genius who christened this new thing ‘disrupt’ 🙂 there is good creativity and then there is horrendous creativity.
Jeremy,
You are a complete idiot. After they kicked Kirby out of the company Jason and management continued to destroy WUN.
They created a story that they knew nothing of what Kirby was doing. But how can you be the President of a company and not know what was going on.
Sounds like incompetence on both sides. Let’s look at the decisions made by Jason and Co.
1. Hire InfoTrax (good start) turns out in February that WUN didn’t even finish paying them.
2. Stated bleeding dry Peru. There most stable and profitable market.
In September / October they took out a loan from Peru. Which they never intended to pay back.
This is called tax evasion. They never paid taxes on this money. (I have a copy of the lawsuit stating Jason as a main defendant).
Then between October and January they pulled out another 300-500k TAX FREE. again Tax Evasion. Then they left the Legal Rep to pay off 120k in taxes.
I can post all the emails and proof that they laundered money and evaded Peruvian and USA taxes.
Please try me…
I agree with you Joe. I will never do business again with these crooks. What a joke. I never received my Wunfit or last commission check.
I encourage everyone to if they want to work for a legit company, work with leaders who have integrity and a track record of providing products and services to people without the intention of scamming them.
They all failed!!!
Some serious sour grapes from someone who moved his whole Peru team to WG, continued to sell them stolen product from WUN, and then never paid their commissions. Glass house.
Sorry your Peru team lost faith in you Joe, but that’s on you, not WUN.
Hahahahaha….
Stolen product!!!???? Maybe you should check your facts. I paid for the product even before they sent it to Peru.
I saw “I” because I am the one that authorized the wire transfers to WUN USA.
if you would like I can post the wire transfers, email’s and lawsuits pending against Jason and Co. Kazien you need to check your facts and get the whole story before you get in bed with the devil. I really feel sorry for you.
And my team never lost faith in me. One person left And he took his key leader’s. Which is ok… but the same leader left me before and 8 months later when I got WUN stable and growing he came crawling back…
I’m not worried… There are over 11M people in Lima only… only 10k ever came into WUN.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to say that when money was wired back to WUN USA, that you would have been responsible make making sure it was taken care of properly before money was wired out of the country?
I say “You” because you are the one that authorized the wire transfers to WUN USA
Yes it was responsible that is why we have a signed and notarized contract for the 30k that was taken out TAX FREE. and I informed Jason and Phil they were committing a crime and every time I said that that cut me off. Don’t worry the “tell all” video is coming soon.
PS: Stop hiding behind Kaizen… who Is thi?
Right, every time you said that, they told you no, and then you just did it anyway. For someone that was clearly acting as corporate in Peru, you are trying to pass the hot potato as quick as you can.
“Tell-All” video. Ha. Welcome to Network Marketing.
Hey like I said stop hiding behind Kaizen. You don’t have Jeremy’s writing style… maybe Lourdes or Jason? Who is this?
I’m more than happy to clear this up in person. And just FYI September 15th I resigned as corporate. So what hot potato? Your just trying to justify there incompetence.
Now disrupt is “going into” Peru and all this international markets but they have not intention to register there business or products until they get to 1,500 to 2,000 active reps In that market.
Trying to go the FGX model… what your forgetting is that FGX has the support and infrastructure of Forever Green. All Jason wants to do it break laws, evade taxes and make a profit while doing so…
I feel sorry for you. Good luck… Try not to burn too many people.
Please, like Jason has time to worry about what you say on message boards? I’m just enjoying seeing people’s true colors and hanging out for a minute until I’m ready to run again.
Everyone made mistakes in WakeUpNow, including (and especially) you. Learn from it, get better, move on to the next thing.
If all this was going on, and you saw it first hand, and authorized wire-transfers that were “illegal” why would you still be promoting WUN in December? imgur.com/4uHuG70
Best of luck moving forward. Next time don’t take shots at my friend (and yours a few months ago) Jeremy.
Network marketing has it’s ups and down. Learn to ride them. Your emotions will hold you back.
“Your just trying to justify there incompetence.”
The irony speaks for itself.
Oh believe me… I did learn from it and that is why I would never get into business with the same group that crashed WUN.
I did make mistakes trusting the wrong people. Jason was never a friend… business associate maybe President of WUN yes…
And just to clarify… I didn’t authorize the illegal transfers back to the states. In fact I begged them for over 2 months to leave the money in country.
Hey but like you said everyone makes mistakes. All I am saying is that hopefully they learned. I did.. never get in business with Disrupt.
Hopefully Phil will one day pay the debts that Jason left him holding (what a great business partner).
I feel bad for Phil. but at the same time I am sure WUN was compensated for Thunder, InfoTrax, the skincare oils, and other products/assets WUN had the right to. So who is being unethical here.
If you sold your assets you should at least pay your debts.
sorry, WUN was a business and not some private hobby club, where you made mistakes and can just advise everyone to move on.
when businesses fail, creditors have to be paid, or you file for bankruptcy and get all your assets sold to pay creditors.
it is ponzi/pyramid schemes which just shut down with no responsibility to investors. and then the chief proponents walk away and start a new scheme.
so are polich, elrod and nichols ponzi players or real MLM business people? their behavior speaks quite clearly.
some blame lies at the door of WUN members too, who are doing nothing to reclaim the money they invested.
That’s exactly what is happening. WUN liquidated all of the assets and is working with all creditors to pay as much as possible.
Businesses fail all the time, they even fail without filing for bankruptcy. It’s doesn’t always have to be nefarious, unless you are in Network Marketing, where everything has a spin.
You are making a lot of assumptions of what’s happening with only seeing a tiny bit from the internet.
The people that wants answers to questions should consider asking the right people. (Sour Grapes Joe Martinez is not the right person).
does ‘all creditors’ include WUN net loser members too?
when can we expect an announcement from WUN, about all this? polich is a good letter writer, he should keep WUN members informed about his progress in making repayments.
It was product based rather than investment based. People don’t “invest” in products like energy drinks or TaxBot. They buy them for personal consumption or resale.
right. so what about commission payments to affiliates who made all these product sales? they are clearly creditors?
a real business cannot just walk away from failure without repercussions. if they cannot pay, they should file for bankruptcy, and deal with the financial restrictions it brings for the future?
what’s this nonsense about, learn and forgive and move on? or we are trying to pay as much as we can? who is overseeing these ‘trying hard efforts’ of WUN?
where is the transparency. what proof do they have, that they are repaying anything at all?
Well for starters yall ruined a bunch of people’s lives…
Im an American and I live in Peru, I was doing WakeUpNow, one of the top leaders in the country, and lets see, you (meaning like Jason and them) totally screwed me over, lost my apartment, phone, everything.
Cuz yall didnt pay me for 4 months, had to sell everything I own just to survive, lost a big part of my team, hurt my reputation and that of my team, and thats just me…
The people here, let me see, families without food, bills not paid, dreams crushed and destroyed, and the industry took a huge blow, and many people were “Disrupted”.
People here bust their butts to get $150 to join a life changing business, $150 is a LOT of money here really, and when they do they dont expect their lives to change negatively.
On that that is such a freaking stupid and dumb name full of negative connotations… Is this a joke???
Also I dont appreciate recruitment attempts where the incentive is to pay me my commissions you owe me… how about paying me anyway???
You wait and see, the truth is coming out, Im very intimate with the inner workings of WUN Peru and the behind the scenes of yall’s big act in the US and this new company has ZERO chance of ever even making a blip on the radar…
Its just sad that so many innocent gullible people are already falling into your money trap… it would be so nice if yall pay the taxes owed here in Peru and the commissions yall owe all my friends and fellow exwunners.
I dont know how you can even try to launch this with a straight face…
On the good side of things, there is always a good side, it brought my team a lot closer, friendships were strengthened and hands reached out to those in need, so as always, this industry bringing out the best in the good and the worst in the bad…
At least now I know what kind of people i work with and we are now a family, and well, thanks to this we found a permanent home in the best company in the world for us… so thanks i guess???
But its still offensive that you be launching a company with my money and i owe no shares, not that i want shares in the next bankrupt mlm, but i just like, I cant tell if yall be serious with this… brass balls i guess or zero shame…
So seemore green Erick Turner is team Kaizen now????
Dont you dare talk ill of Joe Martinez, the only person NOT fiscally responsible for what happened and yet the ONLY ONE doing something about it!
Paying stuff out of his own pocket because he feels MORALLY responsible to the people YOU screwed over, because they trusted him and we all trusted YOU, and NOBODY would hold it against him cuz we all know it is in NO WAY HIS FAULT…
Yet here he is, complicating his life, doing stuff NOBODY would do, to do what he thinks is RIGHT…
No man, you dont get to come over here and talk right and wrong with one of the best human beings on this earth, yall hope to one day reach the top of the soles of his shoes even…
But like my mentor says, the good thing about being honest is that you have truth by your side and proof to back you up… so I best see some money coming the way it should.
And seriously yall should probably disrupt with disrupt and cease and desist even launching cuz we dont need yall making the industry look bad and crushing lives, destroying dreams and playing with peoples hope…
If not, just be ready for whats coming… you will never even make 100,000… you will see.
Bryan Robert,
If you don’t want people to know it’s you, you should try to stop typing “yall”.
uh, if roberts stops typing ‘yall’, will ‘YALL’ pay him and his downlines their commissions ?
i mean, seeing that WUN is liquidating assets to pay creditors, and yall are so honest and all….
I was an IBO that was owed money. Granted, not a lot, but still enough.
Hopefully they do pay us, but I’m not holding my breath, and I’m not casting blanket accusations because the business failed.
if you want to forgive WUN for crashing because of a recruitment driven scheme, that’s your choice.
but other distributors deserve to know how the company is planning to pay them their commissions which they earned selling WUN products.
WUN is not declaring bankruptcy which would have revealed their exact assets and what amount is owed to creditors.
we are only ‘told’ they are selling assets and repaying creditors.
on top of that people like yourself and troy dooly want everyone to move on and forget their commissions.
and then very conveniently people from the same corporate team start a new scheme ‘disrupt’ to fleece the same people all over again.
this is just shameful behavior, and its obvious you’re not holding your breath for unpaid WUN commissions because your’e ready to suck up fresh funds with your old pals elrod and nichols.
this is just shameful, and no amount of weaseling will get you around it.
Same group of scammers that will doop the same idiots into joining a “business” with no retail sales of any kind, products with competitive value, and all “commissions” being generated by sigh ups.
It is another pyramid scam run by the same broke morons living the “fake it till you make it” lifestyle.
uhm.. nobody told ppl to put their whole life into WUN.. it was a stepping stone.. should’ve started a business of YOUR OWN… WUN did what it was supposed to do & then some.
Stop complaining. & you bitter ppl sound like you love working for someone else anyway.
you clearly don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. you’re jealous because guys younger than you are doing WAAAAAAYYYY better than you. #LearnLife
If being successful in a pyramid scheme is what the young people in WakeUpNow are using to define their status in life, then indeed they have a lot of #learnlife’ing to do yet.
Oh, sure, blame the victim. Same thing Paul “ZeekRewards” Burks said when confronted by a reporter, “I never told them to put in money they can’t afford to lose. Don’t blame me.”
Do you feel any better after your bout of virtual puppy-kicking?
Remember, when you point a finger at someone, three others are pointing back at you.
Your random accusation of jealousy / sour grapes is purely in your head, and reflects your sour mindset, desiring to blame others while validating your own tilted and tinted worldview.
they just posted their comp plan video.
source – lifedisrupted.com/business/
I have read many of the views and opinions here. And I have to say some are either baseless and without merit, in regards to business acumen.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions but when your views and opinions are just phishing, or you are guessing–that is downright unequivocally unintelligent. I often wonder if it is to creation confusion for people.
If anything, we all must educate one another. And I am thankful for this site and those who offer true analytic dialogue from experience and financial education.
Many have said that WakeUpNow didn’t provide products. First, when you make that assertion, it is because you do NOT know what classes of products a business can legally offer.
Products can be:
1. Tangible (property)
2. Intangible (property)
Tangible products (property) are what we all can touch. You buy the car, big screen TV, house, and so forth. Those are all tangible products. Intangible products (property) can be a movie you see at the theaters, copyrights, trademarks, musical compositions, and more.
What products did WakeUpNow offer? They were a major distributor company folks. There is nothing illegal in that or malafide. No one cries fault when they shop on Amazon, eBay, alibaba, or go into Costco, Wal-Mart, and other stores.
In business, power often comes from being in the middle of a transaction. This happens with real estate agents working between a buyer and a seller. This happens with attorneys working between a plaintiff and defendant, and this happens all the type in commerce.
What I see is a major problem is: people do not understand commerce. I am NOT talking about persons (individuals, corps, llcs, and so forth) creating businesses with the intent to scam. Just watch American Greed, there are a lot.
In closing, anyone of you on here can create the same. You may complain or say you wouldn’t, but you support companies or products like this every single day in some fashion. You are just not aware of it.
Think about the many tax software. Do you need to pay for them? NO! I am a tax professional who has gone to school for it. You could do it yourself as many do, or you can go to a clinic.
I do not see many boycotts or outcries saying that those companies are really defrauding the people in the low to moderate income range who don’t need the pricey software.
There are people who manage their financials. I am one of those. The products and services were meant for those people. TaxBot, as mentioned, is a tax software that can be used by individuals and businesses to stay tax compliance.
You can find that software online for sale, or even on some affiliate sites. Who does it help? It helps Sandy Botkin who created, and the people who sell it make a commission.
All value really perceived. That means it is based in the end-user who may decide.
Even the term ‘intrinsic value’ is far-reaching because that can still be perceived. All we do in this world is perceive. It is form, never really substance or sustenance to keep us going. It is the game we all chose to play in commerce.
Now you can agree or disagree. I am open to learn, educate, and grow with all who are open to investigate based on LAW and FACT and not emotion.
Have a nice day and much love!
@Gee
WakeUpnow failed to carve out a sizeable retail market, making it a product-based pyramid scheme (only affiliates buying anything).
Nothing you mentioned addressed that.
Strawman argument. WakeupNow does have products, but the emphasis was never on selling the products, but rather recruit additional sellers… except the sellers also BUY the products.
So it’s a two-layered fraud: 1) it misrepresented buying product (autoship) as selling (stock up for such), and 2) it paid on recruiting people who were tricked into doing 1).
And even then, it did so very poorly, since it lost money EVERY YEAR of its existence, when the profit margin of such activity in similar companies (and similar marketing practices), such as Vemma and Herbalife, are huge, and those companies are doing great.
Add the cult aspects profiled by “This American Life”, and you have an virtually guaranteed disaster, not only for itself, but all its participants.
not really.
in MLM distribution, courts Actually study the ‘value’ of products sold.
the MLM product pricing Has to be Comparable to similar products sold in the marketplace via non MLM distribution.
it happened in amway [1970’s] and recently in the burnlounge case [2013] too.
in amway the court found the products were priced similarly to market competitors.
in burnlounge the court found that the product was unworthy of the asked price.
you are not educated about MLM. it is however very nice, that you are ‘ open to learn, educate, and grow’. your post is interesting, but not completely relevant to MLM.
I don’t think anyone have said that?
People have said something about “providing access to third party products”. That’s not the same as “doesn’t have any”.
I can follow you on that one, but I would normally have listed “products or services” in the same list. That’s more relevant if you’re talking about trade.
“What products did WUN offer?” followed by They were a major distributor”? 🙂
That simply didn’t make any sense. Your answer didn’t answer the question you asked, it derailed completely from the question.
WUN offered discounted access to some third party services and products, bundled with the different memberships. IIRC, it also had an energy drink “Thunder”. It also offered a recruitment driven income opportunity bundled with the memberships.
So technically it offered memberships in a product and recruitment based income opportunity. The memberships were the primary products or services.
Try to understand it yourself first?
You had some rather vague theories about “being a middleman”. Most people have that role in business, they fill a part of a distribution chain. Even the consumers may be “middlemen” between the primary distribution chain and the junk yard.
People sold memberships. They didn’t specifically sell Taxbot as a stand alone product.
Please focus on “accountant logic” rather than “consumer logic”? Or focus on one of them? You have used both types of reasoning in the same comment.
“Perceived value” will have some relevance in sales, but it doesn’t have much relevance if you’re talking about taxes or business financials.
The idea simply became too vague in the last part of your comment. “People joined WUN because of the perceived value they saw in helping others than Sandy Botkin to be able to make an income from selling Taxbot”. 🙂
People are generally less complicated than that. In WUN, most people were probably attracted to the income opportunity and the “promises” it offered (their own expectations about what they would achieve as WUN members).
The products most likely had a secondary role. I don’t think the “helping others” theory is correct either.
That may actually be a valid argument, even if we include my correction of “products” to “memberships”.
Some companies sell memberships in “discount clubs” and similar types of solutions. They may even charge a fee for the memberships (e.g. Sam’s Club, Costco).
We will typically see memberships in income opportunities as “not retailable products”. A court will more likely try to identify which function and which value the membership actually has “in reality”.
The court will be more focused on the realities of the individual cases / less focused on “legal theories”.
WUN membership may have had some “product value” in itself. I can point to one case where a court analysed that type of issue, in the Norwegian case “World Venures v. Lotteritilsynet”.
We will typically try to identify “retailable products” and “external consumers”, but a court might accept other ideas than that.
It is much easier to agree with each one of you who responded to what I wrote.
Someone even called my statements points while another did not understand what I meant by the “middleman.” The middleman is a broker who gets paid a commission for bringing buyers and sellers together.
Yes, WakeUpNow provided a suite of services in the form of a membership.
To M_Norway, what I meant by “major distributor” is by the vary word, the promoted it, got the word out, by many mediums on and offline. Just as a record label distributes the image and likeness or the music of an artist through many mediums.
Record labels may also be seen as a type of scheme since the advance given to artist is a bank loan taken out with the artist as surety.
K Chang, you are right. I wonder what is not a cult in this life. Like NBA and other sport players being “trading” as a commodity to free up “cap space” while we all enjoy the entertainment.
It is pure indoctrination. So, you are welcome to call my statements “straw man.” Thanks for your legal understanding counsel.
Anjali, glad to see you could find case law, NOT. Just kidding. At the end of the day, I appreciate you taking out the time.
In closing, one of the greatest frauds… Paying for your drinking water. I know I am going to get attacked for that one 🙂
Much appreciated,
Gee
P.S. Please excuse typos and grammar, for I am on a iPad.
^^ Still nothing addressing the lack of retail and chain recruitment that caused WakeUpNow to collapse.
(Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempt removed, anything further not WakeUpNow/Disrupt related will be marked as spam.)
It was. Read my first response, and I responded to those who responded to me about WakeUpNow and Disrupt. The last person “Oz” just typed a one line statement, so I am not sure why I was singled out. But thank you.
^^ Still nothing addressing the lack of retail and chain recruitment that caused WakeUpNow to collapse.
(Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempts removed)
What were you all expecting as retail from them?
(Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempts removed)
Oh I don’t know, how about anything really?
WakeUpNow sold nothing to retail customers, it was just a big chain recruitment party until it finally collapsed. You keep failing to address that.
well, some people still believe that MLM is a good bussines model but some fails and people behind WUN just give a bad wrap to it.
I´m watching more traditional and well known companies and I like disruption but not loose my money again.
Remember… life is like a restaurant. you can’t leave without paying the bill.
Why do people stay with a “leader” who was promoting a company until the doors closed? That shows as a business person either they were in on some inside information or they have no business sense.
It’s all hype happening again. It’s take no prisoners. If you see the same people expect the same results.
“Cult of personality”, something heavily relied upon in MLM (or pyramid schemes).
Disrupt will be better than WUN.
Why? We got rid of Kirby Cochran and kept all the same great products: MX (MoneyDesktop), Taxbot, Teladoc, Transparent Language, Hemisphere Travel, and Thunder.
Disrupt is WUN 2.0, buts what’s wrong with that? WUN was making almost $8 million a month and with better marketing and leadership than WUN, Disrupt will kill those numbers!
Teladoc has revenues over $25 million and just raised $50 million in capital.
MX just raised over $30 million in capital and its partnership with Disrupt now partner us with hundreds of banks!!!
Disrupt is legit and will change the status quo. #LearnLife #ThunderStrikesTwice #MX #Taxbot #Teladoc #PeopleWillBeSalty #WUN2.0
The same products nobody outside of the income opportunity were subscribed to, resulting in millions of dollars in losses every year?
Yeah no, looks like Disrpt have totally addressed that problem with those new marketing hashtags.
#millenialmarketersaredumbasses #youcantbeathbasicmath #hashtagsdontgenerateretailsales #noretail=fail
How does a business have losses of $8 million selling other peoples products?
“WUN was making almost $8 million a month”???
For how many months? 0.05 months? 0.5 months? 1 month?
Don’t be he haters because Jason Elrod was smart enough to only invest around $100K and then take an annual salary of $180K, that’s just smart business on his part. #PeopleWillBeSalty #PlayWithTheHousesMoney #BeardedBanditStrikesAgain
Name any relaunch that was better than the original ?
Smart business doesn’t see a company blow through millions of dollars and rip thousands of people off.
Only to launch v2.0 a few months later and hope to do it all again.
There’s nothing smart about it, it’s sleazy. And gullible describes anyone who thinks it’s a good idea.
Just so we can all call a spade a spade, it’s clear Disrupter has nothing to do with Disrupt.
It was suspected with the first post, confirmed with the second.
These guys are retards, and the reason why the Network Marketing industry has such a bad rep right now.
If you want to build a legacy company, it starts as an organization that evolves into a corporation.
These idiots are doing it backwards, AND might I add have ZERO experience in the field as distributors. Mark my words, this will be an epic fail just like WUN was.
I don’t have a good feeling about this WUN reboot. Might last a little longer than WUN, but I have a feeling they will eventually self destruct.
I hope I’m wrong for the sake of those hoping this is the one.
I’m getting funny vibes about this one.
I had the pleasure of sitting through a sales pitch complete with powerpoint presentation and detailed descriptions of the residual income process.
It is literally the definition of a pyramid scheme and a very, very blatant attempt at it. It’s honestly moronic that people fall for this.
They claim they are going to have their own “passport”. They also name their levels after mountains. Basecamp being the lowest and Kilamonjaro being the highest.
I honestly only showed up to the pitch to get the kid off my back that kept bothering me about it. It’s a complete scam and offers no products that anyone can use.
They ask for either 80, 109, or 159 dollars a month for useless apps, a fake passport, oh and access to an energy drink called awaken or thunder, I can’t remember exactly. And you get a percentage of the 50 bucks for each person you recruit.
It was comical, I really felt bad for the poor kid who was presenting it that thought he was going to become rich off of it.
So what really happens after you sign up everyone for disrupting their lives? I mean, the products they “THINK” they are selling is just a mere membership you are REQUIRED pay for to access a slightly discounted necessity which a person will accommodate once in a while.
Travel? Heck, sign up for to priceline (as well as other travel agencies and sites). They have promotions for signup(s) and you collect points or some kind of other credits. I can not imagine how disrupt is able to promote better pricing model. I saw some of the offers WUN had, very similar to priceline.
Taxbot? Pffft, its not how or what you deduct for taxes, my accountant can do it for about for a mere less than $200 (more or less depending on company size) once a year. My friend got audited because of WUN.
Wellness? Retirement plan? What decent paying job does not offer benefits to their employees.
So what is the catch really? just another good cover-up of door-to-door sales, or just another telemarketer, especially on Facebook.
I LOVE talking to them though, just listening to them saying “This will be big!”, or “It’s a great opportunity to join us!”. I just feel like I am in the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio in “Wolf of Wall Street” as one of their customers. (Btw, that was an amusing movie).
Overall, I can not blame them for trying.
My friend was in WUN before, I went with him to accompany him at some of these meet-ups and ceremonies or whatever they were called. its all just a one big summary of “TRUST US! TRUST ME! THIS WILL BE BIG!” and “WE ARE A FAMILY!” and half a year later (last week), I asked him, how’s WakeUp Now? Little did I know, It collapsed. That was a good laugh.
By the way, those apps never worked properly, mostly TaxBot. There was very number amount of complains about hotel and travel reservations. The thing I was fond of was the language section, that was fun, at least until he decided to quit the company.
I figured, I would share my experiences when I was with my friend in testing out these apps and discounts.
My opinion: MLM will never work with these so-called products. BTW, NEVER EVER say pyramid scheme when talking to one of reps, they feel threatened.
Jason is 100% con man. He, Kirby and Phil bilked honest hard working distributors and employees out of millions. They regularly looked us in the eye and lied. They are despicable and should be locked away.
Anyone who wold even consider joining any venture they are involved with will be sorry.
Lawsuits are coming.
Jordan Harris (aka Kaizen) was the biggest mistake WUN, and now Disrupt, ever made. The guy couldn’t even graduate from college just like his buddy Jason Elrod.
No real job experience before WUN, just a guy that started there making the minimum and kissed the right butts.
He thinks he is Steve Jobs reincarnated; laughable. The only thing him and Jobs have in common is that they both were pricks and didn’t graduate, besides that, he has nothing else in common. Well maybe the beard, I’ll give him that.
I hope they all end up bankrupt and in jail, that is the least they deserve for perpetrating a fraud.
I’m glad I bailed on WUN when I saw the writing on the wall, wasn’t worth the commission to be part of a sleazy operation that lied in their marketing efforts so they could keep getting a paycheck, all the while planning their exit for Disrupt. #enjoyprisononeday
Im with them now, Its the SAME THING with a few tweeks.
They have 5 packages 2 top ones which they push at 109.99 or 129.99 plus shipping. The products are over priced and the comp plan is a joke.
After you join you unlock most of your products, i say most because you need to buy another 60 dollar kit to activate the travel club.
then when you place people under you you cant really do much unless you upgrade your back office for 30.00. Then add 10 or 15 dollars per training dvd. You get the picture.
there is alot of fine print that they dont tell you before you join.
Its all smoke and mirros. But what I don’t understand is why after being burned so many times do people continue to join these trap businesses.
It would be very interesting to see Disrupts financial numbers can anyone point me to their location?
Because they want to believe
Disrupt Enters the Magic Hologram Market
I searched all over the zunatechnology dot com website and could not find the name of the major university which conducted those tests (significant omission don’t you think).
And I’m listening to a recent Disrupt call which mentions a paper about this “amazing technology” published in a peer reviewed journal, but they so far have neglected share the name of the journal.
Business as usual in MLM world.
So they’ve officially gone from “WakeUpNow clone” to “worse than WakeUpNow”.
Oh dear.
This would be a nice way to not go 8 million dollars in debt. Selling worthless hologram disk packs.
I recall another group selling these, where are they now?
OK, I pealed this back a bit a feel closer to something like some answers. From a recent Disrupt event we find among the listed speakers:
That company was (and is) CieAura which is a MLM company despite no less than five years of paying any chiropractor or naturopath desperate enough to trade an endorsement for money, has gained so little traction that the company’s main website has an Alexa ranking in the low two millions.
I think I tracked down the “peer reviewed journal” and at least a few “placebo controlled studies” but I’m still coming up short on anything like a “major university.”
The journal in question is Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine (ATHM) and here is what CieAura paid to have published:
cieaura.com/images/cieaura_sponsored_supplement.pdf
Perhaps I’m putting too fine a point on it be the masthead does not read “Published by Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine” but rather “Published by Innovision Professional Media as a supplement to Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.”
Innovision being the magazine company that owns ATHM.
The disclaimer reads in part:
Further, under the Archives tab at alternative-therapies dot com you can browse their list of published authors by year, I only went back to 2000 but no Atul M. Gupta is listed as an author published in their journal.
All taken together i rather conclude that the sponsored supplement that CieAura’s studies are printed in is considered as being published in something other than ATHM’s normal journal.
As to the studies themselves, what of them? The company that produces and markets the consumer products tested in the studies designs the tests themselves, carries them out, collects the data and pays to have the results published.
It should come as a surprise to no one that under such rigorous conditions the products preformed remarkably well.
But those “test” results do prove one thing, Disrupt’s Zuna products are in fact rebranded CieAura products. Look at the results for the first “study” listed for holographic paid relief.
83% of the 246 people using the “real” hologram stickers reported significant pain relief. 240 subjects got the “fake” stickers and only 18% of them felt better.
The zunatechnology page for their Relieve stickers says the following:
486, 460? Close enough when you’re pulling everything else out your ass and they both purport an 83% success rate.
I think it’s safe to say that Disrupt’s magic holograph stickers are every bit as good as and in fact functionally identical to CieAura’s magic hologram stickers.
DSA member “David Schmidts Lifewave” is another of the Purveyors of Pathetic Patches.