Volishon in “total shambles”, says former affiliate
Volishon is an MLM travel opportunity that officially launched earlier this year.
The company is headed up by CEO Joel Santiago and based out of Georgia in the US.
As is common with MLM travel opportunities, the core focus of Volishon is affiliate recruitment. Six or so months in, today we take a look at where Volishon is at.
The following is provided courtesy of a former Volishon affiliate. At the time of his departure, he claims to have had one of the biggest teams out of 1800 total active paid affiliates still in the company.
According to the former affiliate, there were problems with Volishon right from prelaunch.
In pre launch is was foretold that we would see something that had never been seen before in the industry.
(We were told) 200,000 kings from South Africa were going to join the company the day after launch and be placed in the company forced matrix this giving everyone massive spillover.
BehindMLM can confirm Volishon affiliates were indeed pitching this in December of 2015.
Of course this never happened despite it being in all the early YouTube (promotional) material.
A couple of months before the launch Joel told a few select leaders that this had fallen through but not to mention anything to our down lines as big to cause mass panic.
Pre launch dates came and went and payments started being taken in March.
Although launch did not happen till May, some people had already made 2 payments before we even launched.
Other than recruitment commissions for their Volishon uplines, what affiliates who were charged were paying for is unclear.
The product which is travel and everyday savings has very little if any value to international people.
The everyday savings are only available to USA people and the travel deals are mainly for USA as well. Meaning international people get no value for the product they are getting at all.
This is not made clear in any promotional material or on any company websites.
Joel had started to get partnerships outside the USA, though any country in question would need at least 500 Volishon members to make that happen.
As the USA has 80% to 90% of the members this is going to take a long, long time!
Also the company gives you a free vacation when you join worth $500!
Yeah right, there are charges galore in the terms and conditions and flights to lay means you end up paying hundreds of $ for a 3 day holiday!
And again nowhere does it tell you these promotions are only available in the USA! If you live outside the USA they are worthless if they are not already!
Betraying the true nature of the business, Volishon initiated “pay to play” rewards just before the eventual launch.
Just before we did launch it was decided by corporate to reward people who were serious about building a business, by compressing the matrix with the “serious” people placed at the top.
The serious people were placed according to the rank they joined at; 3star then 2 star and finally 1 star.
Of course 3 star was the most expensive at $399, 2 star $199 and 1star $35.
It was encouraged to tell our people the best spot to come in at was 3star. All the company was doing was trying to get in as much money in as possible of course.
This came at the cost of other components of the Volishon compensation plan being quietly changed or disposed of.
During pre launch the promotional videos and comp plan explained the POWERLINE that ment 95% of members would get a cheque in the comp plan.
Shortly before launch this was scrapped but nobody was ever told this was taken out the comp plan.
Another thing that changed once launch date arrived was the company introduced a joining fee that was publicised to be $35 ontop of the fee you ranked at.
This changed to $50 around launch.
Post launch, Volishon continued to manipulate affiliate placings within the global downline.
After launch several BIG NAME LEADERS were brought in by Joel.
Names such As Dwayne Parsons, Mike Williams, Shayne Samartra and others – and suprise surprise, they were all placed in Ben Gardener’s leg of course.
Ben Gardner is a side kick of Joel’s in previous companies.
In comments left on our Volishon review, Gardener describes himself as “a visionary (who) know(s) whats [sic] going on”.
These leaders were being placed in higher positions in the matrix than other people who had been in since day 1 of pre launch back in December.
More and more kept coming in, all placed right at the top of Ben’s leg.
When the time came to pay Volishon affiliates for their recruiting efforts, reality did not meet expectations.
Pay day came and went several times before they finally sorted out the payment processor. When they did everyone was in for a big shock.
First pay run saw many unhappy and disappointed people.
In all the comp plan videos it was said people got a cheque match bonus on everyone’s earning within their organisation.
However what they forgot to say was that was only payable on the matrix part of the comp plan leaving many people with little or even no warnings.
People who had paid in $399 and been lead to believe they had a position of equity in Joel’s own words, got payments of $3 for the month!
This naturally triggered refund requests, which Volishon addressed by changing affiliate contracts.
When people then questioned it and asked for refunds, the refund terms and conditions were changed in the contract leaving people being lead to believe they were not entitled to a refund.
Whether Volishon affiliates who requested refunds actually received them is unclear.
The combination of Volishon’s issues and the natural tapering off of any MLM recruitment-driven scheme, saw Volishon’s launch affiliate numbers dry up.
18,000 people pre registered and at launch just over a month ago they said they had 2,000 paid members.
The current state of the business?
I made the choice to walk from the company having saw what a total shambles (it was).
Around the same time Cindy Buchanan was brought in (she was also big in ptp) and promptly placed in a high spot in the matrix, jumping 1,800 or so people who had joined before her.
In a recent video I watched on Joel’s timeline he was suggesting everyone bulk message and copy and paste a pitch script he had made, and basically spam everyone’s Facebook inbox you could with your link to join.
Current Alexa rankings for the Volishon website suggest it might have already collapsed.
This is so timely, I was about to ask you Oz to look into this again as I had my doubts about it and a friend of mine has been taken in by this.
The so called savings portal is generic the videos were amateurish to say the least and the travel portal again was very generic.
This is a Ponzi pure and simple and I doubt the organisers of this could arrange a beer raffle in a brewery!
I guess it’s time to clear the air. Wasn’t going to say anything but since someone wants to try and tarnish my name and brand I’ll talk a little on everything.
First off the person that wrote this article was rarely on the calls so they were never fully informed. A few of the (leaders) did not step up and become true leaders and ensure their people stayed informed.
I and my leaders did because we set the expectations with understanding the math behind everything and not hiding the income potential as a long term income that will build gradually.
It was more about placement then anything at the beginning .. As we all know sometimes emails go to the spam folder from any company so again it is the responsibility mainly of the leader to keep their people informed.
Secondly the thing that happened with SA and the contract was due to a breach of contract on their end. (Which wasn’t outlined here)
Third the organizing of 3 stars at the top was a very smart as it creates constant spillover all the way down and again everyone was informed of this multiple times it was about positioning.
The reason why people expected a large check at the beginning is because of being misinformed and not doing their research.
Without the admin fee being active at the beginning to allow all founders (those that came in within a certain amount of time) to come in without the admin fee at least 70% of the additional in ome that would have been generated was not. Which again my team already understood because I myself and my leaders made sure they did.
Fourth (again a part of not staying informed) when they added the travel vouchers multiple times on calls they informed people there only work for the US and Canada and there WILL be a fee. You can’t stop processing fees.
Fifth Mike Williams and all the other leaders that are under me are due to my whole teams efforts. He actually was brought in by one of my personals Kenny as well as all the other leaders I was not given ANYONE from anybody so again please get your facts straight.
Whoever wrote this apparently was bitter due to the fact they expected more but that was due to THE being uninformed and not fully active.
The CEO nor the COO ever said the 18k people were paid members so again if your getting all this information from someone who was not even fully involved I’m not suprised it is incorrect.
The last thing I’ll say is the FB inbox strategy Joel stated if you don’t have time you can copy and paste whatever message You are sending out and he gave an example.
The main thing is it was not to spam people but to say hi and reconnect NOT pitch. Just a way to strengthen your network.
Well that’s that again I would suggest before posting things like this do your own research you can go through every call at youtube under volishon Inc take notes spend hours piece everything together from the beginning and you will see a lot of the information was incorrect above.
Whoever you received this information from I’ll tell you this I’m pretty sure I know who it is and it doesn’t anger me but more so saddens me that he would stoop to this level and try tarnish my name when all I have done from the beginning is be there for him and even pray constantly for him and his families well being through rough times.
At the end of the day everyone reading this will believe what they want to but unless you go to the youtube channel and write down notes and list to literally over 48 hours of calls easily you will not be fully informed.
Have a blessed day
Benjamin
What’s there to believe? Volishon appears to be DOA.
Your excuses don’t reflect the collapse.
Everything said in this post was false. Everything Benjamin Gardner said was totally true. I will tell you that I am NOT in his downline.
Sorry that you had unrealistic expectations and didn’t follow everything that was said in the live casts as well as calls but to bash the owners and attack Benjamin was wrong.
They are all great people. We are ONLY GROWING! We all are followers of the Lord so I have nothing else more to say but to get your facts straight, have realistic expectations and be more professional.
For those reading, just do your research please. I am blessed to be friends with the owners.
Peace and God bless.
Benjamin is having a hard time showing his face.
I was on his team. He was going hard, shouting Volishon from the rooftops with pride and certainty. Until the truth came out.
Joel Santiago and Joseph Otis got hateful and pure greedy, stepping on everyone. Cheating almost everyone.
These stupids pushed down others to put leaders ahead of them and now those leaders are on to other opportunities but getting paid because they were placed higher.
Now the laughing stocks are Joel And Joseph. In your face, dummies.
Ben hates it in his heart, but to save face, he goes along with the lies.
Why? Because he chose that big check he’s making over the Good guy he promoted as himself to give and help others.
He likes the lifestyle change and help that check gives him. Can’t blame him, but at the expense of all his downline?
So many leaders walked away because of that. Not Ben. How money changes the ones you thought would remain humble and truthful.
VOLISHON is all lies, greed and really a scam. Look at the Chicago crew. Embarrassing. And you want us to give you more money?
No one wants VOLISHON, a dying joke. Hope it’s worth it for now, because it will fail by next year