70% of active US ZR members don’t have 2 PCs
Arriving hot on the heels of Zeek Rewards’ announcement that they were making some major adjustments to the passive investment side of their business opportunity, today the company dropped its 2011 Income Disclosure Statement.
Spanning late January 2011 when Zeek Rewards launched till December 31st, the 2011 Zeek Rewards Income Disclosure Statement is certainly eyebrow raising.
The most significant bombshell dropped?
That 89.2% of Zeek Rewards’ US based members are either ‘inactive’ or have failed to recruit at least two preferred customers.
Of that 89.2%, 65.73% are inactive and the remaining 70% are active, but have failed to recruit two preferred customers. Pretty indicative of just how much importance is placed on preferred customers when you consider that every member of that 70% group have been active in Zeek Rewards for over 12 months.
One would think that if there was any real value to be had in signing up as a preferred customer, a far more significant amount of Zeek Rewards members would have signed at least two of them up.
Membership wise for the 2011 year closing Zeek Rewards had 15,318 active members, making up just 34.22% of the total 44,763 registered memberbase.
Note that these are US-based affiliates, with the company choosing not to share its global memberbase statistics.
Income wise not so surprising was the top average income bracket being the ‘Executive’ membership level, coming in at $10,310.
Executive Zeek Reward members are Diamond members who have at least 2 preferred customers underneath them. Diamond being the paid membership level that offers members the highest amount of VIP bids to give away per customer, it only follows that with most Zeek Rewards members participating in the investment scheme, that this bracket would have the highest average income.
Senior Executives give them a run for their money (an average of $5,594) but there are almost four times as many Executives as there are Senior Executives.
Two other interesting tidbits from Zeek Rewards’ Income Disclosure Statement:
- The average annual income for all affiliates worldwide in 2011 was $1076.24
- In 2011 64 % of all distributors worldwide received no income at all (65.73% in the US)
Analysis wise it would be interesting to see what percentage of US members makes up the global memberbase but unfortunately Zeek Rewards has chosen to omit those statistics.
Looking forward it’s going to be extremely interesting to see how the recent monumental shift in focus towards preferred customers plays out.
Quite clearly the bulk of the Zeek Rewards memberbase have just been using the opportunity as a passive investment scheme and now that they have to recruit at least two preferred customers a month, I can’t imagine they’re too happy about it.
Furthermore the two preferred customers a month requirement appears to just have been the start of Zeek Rewards shifting away from a passive investment business model. The company has announced further qualifiers for members that wish to receive company-generated retail customers due in April, but thus far is yet to elaborate.
Either way after just over a year of passive investment it appears the party is over for the bulk of Zeek Reward’s members. Those that thought that Zeek Rewards would around for “years to come” would do well to re-educate themselves on the fundamental flaw all Ponzi schemes have;
Unsustainability.
Getting 2 PRC customers will be easy for those that have large benefits. Just give money away. “I will pay ypu $15 by Paypal if you sign up as a PRC. It will cost you $10 and you get free bids.”
There will also be lots of fraudlent PRC customers.
Nothing really changes except you have to be more active with creating free or fraudulent customers.
The initial outlay is good but it’s an ongoing expense that is only to going to grow exponentially (PRC is a subscription).
Something to consider is that ZR haven’t released their additional qualifiers which presumably will come out sometime this month.
From what I gather a large percentage (the vast majority) of Zeek Rewards members relied on company-generated customers, this puts a bit spanner in the works.
Creating dozens of free customers each day isn’t really viable for those with large point balances, it’d be far more easier to create two fake PRCs a month. Even still, the passiveness of the investment scheme is gone.
The very passiveness which attracted the bulk of Zeek Rewards members to the scheme in the first place (post ads, get paid!).
In other news, Zeek Rewards are pushing this ‘Taxbot’ software pretty heavily onto members aren’t they.
$9.95 a month complete with a Zeek Rewards affiliate deal… dunno how much they get per membership sold but it could wind up being significant (considering the company doesn’t have to do anything except market Taxbot).
@Oz,
Diamonds were paying $1 per automatic free customer before. So all this changes is now they pay $20 for unlimited per month, but they have to find “someone” to sign up.
The discussion in most circles is simply to give away free memberships. Some Diamonds were spending $50 per month before with the 5cc automation (50,000 bids need to be given away to 50 free customers, costing $1 per customer). So the PRC option at $20 costs less, but a little less automated.
The PRC would not renew after the first month, so Zeek will see a wave of one-month-and-quit PRC’s, all added simply so that the affiliate can receive an unlimited number of free customers assigned.
with the zeekrewards news i need to have 2 costummers a month
if i can not find them. that mean i dont get pay for my dailly profit
@thao
No, you earn daily profit based on how many vip points you have. From April if you want to dump these points on the company then you need to find 2 new PRC customers a month.
You can continue otherwise to dump VIP bids on (fake) free customers you’ve created yourself to continue to participate in the profit share. As your VIP point balance grows though this can become tiresome.
Who owns the company….really?
I estimated my return based on “expected” return on plowing bid money back into the company, and by the end of one year-I would expect to make 100K per year.
It has to be a ponze scheme, but what is so tragic…many people are hurting financially that they are willing to take a cash loan on a credit card to buy into this scheme.
@Jimmy
Hi Jimmy, please correct me if I am wrong, but if a person signs up 2 PRC Silver members, which costs $10 per month Subscription fee, at signup it states that the Subscription will continue every month, unless cancelled.
So if ZR decides that their “April and beyond” qualifiers mean that an affiliate must always have at least 2 “active” PRC subscriptions ongoing, (this has not yet been revealed by ZR)then the affiliate will only have to “carry” 2 PRC Silvers (costing $240 yearly ($120 for each) to participate for an additional year in the Ponzi scam (if it lasts that long).
@Harvey
The scenario you described is if ANY 2 PRC’s are needed to qulify for unlimited free customers.
If the requirement is two NEW PRC’s are required, then affiliates will gift only a single month’s subscription to get new PRC’s. The subscriptions become inactive month two because as an affiliate you put $10 on a gift card and give that to someone. Few people will reup on their own.
The entire Paul Burks business model has always been high churn and burn, low value membership, free and giveaway accounts.
They claimed 3 million members for FSCstore. Where are those now? Couldn’t just 10% of those become ZR affiliates or get free bids for Zeekler?
For the next business that Burks starts, you will ask the same question: “what about all those Zeekler customers?” Most either are fake or some spam email account no one checks regularly. High volume, low or no calue, just like FSCstore.
I signed up 2 PRC Silver customers, paying $10 each, and 72 hours have gone by, and neither one has received the 20 bids that are supposed to be provided with the monthly subscription fee. What a joke Zeek is.
Making their affiliates wait with their long delays is one thing. But making their retail customers wait? What a joke Zeek is!
@Harvey
That’s what happens when your business doesn’t rely on retail but rather what your affiliates invest.
If you were running a business that relied on member investment money who would you look after, your investors or those annoying retail customers you don’t really need to sustain the business, except on paper to be able to say they exist to prop up the illusion that you aren’t running a ponzi?
@Oz
Totally agree! And if Zeek Affiliates actually think the spam that we are posting is helping Zeekler, perhaps if they read the 554 comments in your 7 blogs; they might finally get the blinders off.
The Zeek team has now taken the steps to get their compliance issues underway, has now eliminated the 5cc, to keep Paul Berks out of jail. Now all he has to do is lower his RPP and blame conditions on the economy.
Since there can be no run on the bank, all those ludicrous VIP points will expire in 90 days, and the fools who have not changed their Bid Reinvestment Preference from 100% will see a massive drop in their Virtual Points, as the points retiring will be much greater than the new points awarded.
well, the Ponzi continues, as Zeek’s RPP was 1.92% last night, and it didn’t drop much during its very predictable Friday-Saturday-Sunday rate, which has been hovering around .90% for the past two months or so.
the big wigs masqueraded in Vegas last weekend, and now they are bringing in this guy from Og Mandino’s organization to continue to blow more smoke at the affiliates.
Berks appears to be hiding behind his MLM setup and his lawyers, and this will enable him to lower the RPP in the future without getting in trouble. He will blame it all on the bad economy, not the fact that his auction site doesn’t do shit, and never has.
Keep sponging, folks, keep sponging! suck out those dollars and even continue to let some of your ludicrous points repurchase more bids. but don’t send them any more “new” investment dollars. just reinvest some of your existing points, while sucking some dollars out each day!
since I am already in this Ponzi, I might as well cheer it on!
@Harvey
You are an enlightened risk taker. Better to go in and profit with true insight then blindly follow others who proclaim that Zeek will give every one a 6-figure income in a year.
Even if you do no other analysis of the business model, how realistic is it for any biz opp to make thousands of 6-figure incomes in a year’s time? Only the ponzi scams promise that.
The revenue they would have to generate to do that would eclipse all of the penny auctions combined.
Why do the writer’s of this article and commenters call this system a ponzi scheme. Is it because you feel it is just too good to be true?
How can it be a ponzi scheme when they are a running a successful business and sharing profits? When they earn from more than one source of income? Yes we do not know what they do with peoples VIP points but I have been paid interest everyday.
You do know what bankers do with your money if you leave it in the bank either. Is a bank a ponzi scheme, if no-one puts their money in the bank it would crash?
As it looks like to me they are in complience with the law which protects themselves and safeguards their members investment. If you are going to label it a ponzi scheme then please say why and give evidence.
@Justin
No, it’s after careful analysis of the business model.
Because paying people doesn’t mean you aren’t running a ponzi scheme. Where the commissions come from does and with Zeekler not being as sucessful as you make it out to be, the only other revenue stream is member investments in VIP bids.
Zeek Rewards isn’t a bank, so your tangent is irrelevant.
We’ll see once all those dodgy US tax returns are handed in and the audits begin!
Thought this was interesting, a recent interview with Zeek Rewards COO Dawn Wright Olivares in ‘Business For Home’ states:
That pretty much kills off the claims of tens of thousands of members figures doesn’t it?
FALSE. Banks use fractional-reserve banking meaning the “run on the bank” is just a temporary cash flow problem, which can be offset a number of ways if the run is only against a single bank. The term “run on a bank” is often misunderstood because that usually happens when there are already indicators that a bank may be insolvent, so people rush to get their money out which accelerates the insolvency. That’s a much different case than say if 20% of a bank’s customers want to withdraw their money.
With fractional-reserve banking, your deposits or investments are used for other securities investments. There are real assets underpinning your deposits and every other customer’s deposits. There are specific banking laws that prevents a bank from speculating on your funds or using them willy-nilly for any business endeavor, and there are tests that require a bank to maintain a certain ratio of liquid assets.
How is a bank at all similar to Zeek other than Zeek offering to pay an ROI on an investment? Zeek takes the money from NEW investors to pay PREVIOUS investors. That’s a ponzi.
To make such a comparison and call all banks a ponzi is laughable.
Can someone tell me how to sign up 2 fake PRC without getting caught? I want to sign up 2 PRC for myself, and I plan to use a visa giftcard. But I heard that you need to have 2 seperate Ip because its 1 PRC per household. So should I use two seperate visa giftcard or can I still just use one?
Also, am I allow to have access at my home from the PRC account that I fake? Or should it always be log in from the IP address I signed up?
Is the 2 PRC still aviable. I heard it will only last until March. But I also heard it was extended till april.
So what happens after aprils, when they don’t offer unlimited customers? It will become active for those who didn’t sign up the two PRC?
Zeekanswers (which compliance made the admin take offline) had answered this question. You need 1 credit card per account. Zeek will automatically block a credit card if it was previously used for another account.
The 1-household per PRC and no-stacking policy applies only to affiliates, not for retail customers. There is a 3 customer per IP limit when creating the account, but not for accessing the account.
I think you answer my question and I understand it, but let me make sure if I do.
So if I am an affliate and I have someone in my household that is not an affilate, they can sign up as a PRC under me?
And if my neighbor is not an affilate, then 3 people in his household can sign up under me as PRC? But each one must have a different credit card? Am I correct?
BTW? What happen to Zeekanswers? its gone.
my brother from another mother has recently told me about zeek. i was, a few years back, involved with a MLM called pre-paid legel services. PPL offered virtually free legel services in a multi-tiered marketing sceame. i was sold and for a whole lot less than what i’ve seen from zeek. it seemed legit and that i would be rolling in the dough at any moment, but that never happened. i soon found out that practly everything i had been told about profits for dir. and ex. dir. was smoke and mirrors and fortunately i go out before i had lost more than initial investment of around $20. I think i’ve already learned enough about zeek that i’m wise enough now not to lose a penny on this pig-in-a-poke!!!