Zeek Rewards dodge Ponzi concerns on Aces Radio
When Troy Dooly from MLM Helpdesk mentioned that Zeek Rewards COO Dawn Wright-Olivares was going to appear on yesterday’s edition of radio show Aces Radio Live, I took note because to date any public appearance Olivares (or anyone from Zeek Rewards corporate) has amounted to little more than a thinly veiled PR excercise with little actual substance.
Such was the case the last time Dooly sat down with Wright-Olivares at the first Zeek Rewards red carpet event. Despite the interview running in at just under thirty-two minutes, nothing much was really covered other than a bunch of softball positive publicity talking points.
In what initially looked to be another PR exercise, yesterday’s Aces Radio Live broadcast started to delve into some interesting territory with co-host Jim Gillhouse fielding questions from listeners.
Twenty three minutes into the broadcast I then heard possibly the most important question to date that has been put forth to a Zeek Rewards corporate staff member has been asked publicly…
…but no sooner had the question been asked, Troy Dooly immediately moved to shut it down.
The Aces Radio Live call (linked to in full at the end of this article) opens with a ten minute monologue from Zeek Rewards COO Dawn Wright-Olivares (she actually has to stop and check the two hosts haven’t fallen asleep at 8:46), followed by Dooly gently leading Dawn (“explain to the affiliates who don’t understand”) into explaining why Zeek Rewards’ affiliate support has been plagued by delays and problems.
In answer to this Dawn is given more airtime to go on about Zeek Rewards’ progress before finally bluntly stating that due to the complexities of Zeek Rewards’ compensation plan and affiliates calling in for the wrong support reasons, that ultimately ‘it is impossible’ to provide Zeek Rewards affiliates with adequate support.
Dawn then goes on to accuse Zeek Rewards affiliates of asking questions of their support services which are readily available on the company website, essentially blaming them for the customer support bottlenecks the company has been experiencing for months. Dooly supports this by chiming in and blaming Zeek Rewards affiliates for Zeek’s support problems because they expect to “just pick up the phone… and get an answer without working for it” (21:35).
At this point the call takes a different turn with Jim Gillhouse cutting away from the excuses and fielding questions from listeners of the show (22:00).
The first question from listeners is framed as an overwhelming concern regarding Troy Dooly’s relationship with Zeek Rewards.
Gillhouse: One question that keeps coming up over and over again is are you personally involved in this company and being compensated by this company for some reason?
Dooly: …as a rep?
Gillhouse: you personally as a representative representing Zeek Rewards yes.
Dooly: No, absolutely not. Nor is any of my family.
Dooly has been running around the past few months as somewhat of a spokesperson for Zeek Rewards with the exact nature of the relationship between Dooly and Zeek being somewhat clouded. He claims not to be a paid representative for the company, nor involved in Zeek Rewards as an affiliate.
I’ve personally queried whether or not there’s a financial arrangement between the Association of Network Marketing Professionals (of which Troy is a committee member) and Zeek Rewards, to which I received the following response:
None of the companies Rex Venture Capital, Zeekler or Zeek Rewards, or any other company or entity controlled by Paul Burks or anyone else for that matter who might have some form of vested interest in any of the above companies are members or sponsors of the ANMP outside of Dawn & Alex.
Dawn and Alex are paying members. She paid the $50 annual individual membership fee.
Dooly has also in so many words flatly denied having any financial interest in Zeek Rewards operations whatsoever (“I have no skin in the game” as he frequently puts it).
Nonetheless, seemingly on nothing more than covering the cost of Dooly’s flight down and accommodation expenses to attend Zeek Rewards’ monthly Red Carpet event, Dooly increasingly appears to be taking on an official spokesperson role over at the company.
I’m not sure why Dooly had to first clarify if Gillhouse was talking about being a paid representative before answering (is there another financial context to the relationship between Dooly and Zeek Rewards?), but I’ll leave it at that.
The show then continues and pertains to the opening of this article with Gillhouse putting to Dawn what I believe is the most important question of the entire 86 minute broadcast (23:10):
Gillhouse: This isn’t for you (Dooly) this is a question for Dawn…
(Gillhouse then goes on for a bit about gambling and entertainment and how there’s no expectation of a loss in entertainment)
Gillhouse: The profit pool is a 50/50 split, is that correct?
Wright-Olivares: Yeah the retail point pool, the revenue share that we… actually Paul, actually Paul (Burks) manages all that. It gives us up to 50 percent that is paid back in the form of cash rewards to the people who qualify…to the affiliates who qualify.
Gillhouse: Ok now, of that how much of that is taken from the acquisition of new distributors and new reps?
Immediately, before Dawn even has a chance to begin to answer the question, Troy Dooly jumps in:
Dooly: Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Hang-on. I’mgunna, I’mgunna, I’mgunna interject here.
Jim, those are questions that you’re asking that are proprietary to that individual company. And the way you just worded that question, if a regulator was listening then we’ve got our butts in trouble too because you worded that in a way so that the answer when it comes back, would actually be out of compliance with any network marketing company. Because no network marketing company pays out from the acquisition of affiliates, period.
An awkward silence follows Dooly’s answer for a few seconds before Gillhouse corrects Dooly,
Gillhouse: No network marketing company is supposed to pay out from the acquisition of affiliates
Dooly: Well that is correct, but that’s what I’m saying.
Noticeably, Dawn Wright-Olivares remains silent through the awkward exchange.
If we look at the question Gillhouse posed, it’s simple enough. What percentage of the daily profit share paid out comes from the recruiting of new Zeek Rewards affiliates?
Troy Dooly immediately jumps in and claims that ‘no network marketing company pays out from the acquisition of affiliates, period’. He also claims that there is a compliance issue in Wright-Olivares answering the posed question.
But is there?
The question itself only has two answers, a percentage number or ‘none’. By Dooly’s own admission the answer should universally be ‘none’, yet at the same time he claims that Zeek Rewards merely answering this question would place them out of compliance.
Is it just me or is Dooly suggesting that by refusing to answer the question on the grounds it proves Zeek Rewards is out of compliance, that the act of not answering the question makes it compliant?!
If I steal a car and then refuse to answer someone publicly asking me if I stole the car, that doesn’t mean I didn’t steal the car.
Looking at Zeek Rewards’ business model, as far as new affiliates go they are wholly able to sign up, pay membership and buy VIP bids – the revenue of both which then make their way into the daily profit pool and is redistributed amongst existing members, dependant on how much money they themselves have invested into the scheme with the purchase of VIP bids (turned into VIP points) themselves.
Use whatever terminology you want, effectively that’s what happens.
By Dooly’s own admission then, either Zeek Rewards isn’t a network marketing company… or they’re simply not compliant (I refuse to submit to the logic that refusing to answer the question equates to compliance). Even 0.1% of new member’s financial contributions to the company (via membership fees or VIP bid purchases) would make them non-compliant.
Of course keep in mind that you can sign up as a free member… but at the end of 60 days you then need to make ongoing membership payments if you wish to continue to participate in the daily profit share (you can’t cash out in the profit share until you pay for membership).
Rather than answer the question (or let Dawn Wright-Olivares answer it), Dooly closes by accusing Gillhouse of asking a ‘set-up question’. This then sets the tone for the remaining 60 minutes of broadcast time with Gillhouse noticeably restrained and awkward when putting further questions to Dawn
Olivares does eventually find her voice, but suggests that questions like ‘how much money that new members pay to the company is then paid out to existing members’ should be answered by Zeek Reward’s lawyers (26:30).
With the shutdown of what is easily the most important question put forth to Zeek Rewards in an official capacity to date and Gillhouse seemingly restrained from pursuing any similar questions, the bulk of the rest of the broadcast deteriorates into a familiar PR exercise with both Olivares and Dooly singing Zeek Rewards’ praises. Any criticism raised by Gillhouse is dismissed due to company growth (in one exchange Wright-Olivares even fires off a sarcastic quip to Gillhouse asking if Zeek Rewards should have launched with a support field as large as American Airlines’ (52:30)).
Before Dooly and Dawn completely drown him out with PR though, Gillhouse does make mention of an affiliate rewards member who personally called him and told him she was very happy making earning a $2000 daily return on her initial investment.
Rather than address the fact that functionally this is the case with many of Zeek Rewards’ top affiliates, Wright-Olivares buries her head in the sand and complains about the affiliate’s lack of compliance, threatening to terminate the affiliate should her Zeek Rewards username be handed over to her.
It’s all very well to terminate people for speaking about their investment in Zeek Rewards and the daily returns they earn via the profit share… but let’s be honest here, at the end of the day it’s not in the slightest changing the mechanics of the opportunity now is it.
If I joined Zeek Rewards before March 2012, I could have invested an initial principal for VIP bids, paid Zeek Rewards for customers, set the distribution of VIP bids to paid-for customers on auto-pilot via my company backoffice, paid a third-party to publish a daily advertisement on a free classified site nobody reads and again through my backoffice automated my re-investments and daily cash out.
If I joined after March 2012, the only difference with the above methodology is that I’d be paying a third-party for Zeek Rewards customers to dump my purchased bids on, rather than Zeek Rewards directly.
Or I could of course just create fake customers myself, with Zeek Rewards requiring nothing more than an email address for each customer created.
With that level of automation, how on Earth is Zeek Rewards not a passive investment scheme?
Of course take into consideration there’s no outside money and describe the above for what it is, a Ponzi scheme, and Zeek Rewards will readily terminate your account and accuse you of non-compliance.
Problem solved.
…well, not really.
So long as they keep quiet about it, Zeek Rewards’ affiliates are easily able to set their daily investment returns on autopilot as above.
Gillhouse also tries to get an answer on the penny auctions asking multiple times how much money the company makes on an auction vs. what they pay out, but in the end gets a rather vague answer from Olivares that doesn’t really answer the question (she talks about how much money the winner spent, rather than those that lost as a cumulative sum).
She does start to answer the question (by mentioning the 20% referral commissions and matching VIP points Zeek pay out on for each retail bid purchased (49:00)) but then conveniently cuts out of the broadcast before she can finish her answer.
In Wright- Olivares absence, Dooly then attempts deflects the question by portraying Gillhouse’s question as an (anti) “capitalist question”, berating people who “worry or care about how much money a company is making” (49:30).
Finally, towards the end of the broadcast some pertinent information regarding Zeek Rewards’ recent bank problems is elaborated on, with Wright-Olivares confirming that Zeek’s previous US-based local banks (New Bridge Bank and BB & T) severed their ties with the company.
Whilst checks have not been issued these past few weeks and Zeek Rewards have been requesting their members wholly switch over to e-wallet solutions, the company has just now in the last few hours put out a press release claiming their banking issues have been solved:
We have resolved our banking issues, deposits are in the process of being made and the backlog should be cleared up and your certified funds credited within the next 7 to 10 days.
Meanwhile Zeek Rewards make no mention of who their new bank(s) is/are, or whether they are based in the US or are located offshore. Nor is there any mention of whether or not the company will be resuming the currently suspended issuing of payment checks through their new banking channels.
All in all any public discourse and discussion on Zeek Rewards is welcome and despite the issues raised in this article, I’d like to personally thank Gillhouse, Dooly and Wright-Olivares for setting aside the time to record the 86 minute broadcast.
The Dawn Olivares interview on Aces Radio Live aired Friday the 8th June 2012 and can be heard in its entirety below:
Good morning. I have enjoyed reading many of your post regarding zeek rewards. I have of course found them looking for thoughts from people about the company and its program. I am a Zeek Affiliate and have so far enjoyed the program.
I have often wondered about what you have written above and the question that was asked on the radio interview. But my thought is this…if zeek was a soap company and it paid a sales team to sell soap and based on volume of soap sold by each sales person created an incentive program would that be a ponzi scheme?
I mean think about it if I was a sales guy and bought a box of soap to “give away” to perspective clients in hopes that they like it and then buy more isn’t that kinda normal?? If the clients eat the soap rather then wash with it does the soap company really care?
They have made their money selling the soap and I have earned my commission based on volume moved. I have eaten my weight in chocolate almonds because of this very idea (I know not the best for my health). But many many fund raising programs are just that…here is a box of Chocolate almonds to sell to your friends and family to raise money…if you cant sell them then you have to buy them and then you can do what you want with them.
I end up eating half the box…or giving them away as stocking stuffers. Company doesn’t care they made there money and I was able to receive my incentive which was being a part of whatever it was I was selling the candys for…a sports team or trip or whatever.
Now yes I agree with you if customers are not returning to the soap company and buying more soap that would be a problem but the sample give away program is not the problem. Even if “revenue” is generated by the sales team “purchasing” soap to give away the company itself is still making money.
Based on that revenue can’t that company do what it wants with its revenue and spread that out as it pleases amongst its sales team? And if that sales team grows and pushes more sales…??
I have completed the compliance course offered by Zeek and learned a lot. I never really did see this as a true investment anyway, always as an opportunity to make money online…but I knew that I was gonna have to work at it and I always knew that the better the company does the better I do.
I have read your view on this as an investment and can see your point of view but you could say the same about any entrepreneur idea. Your website is the same…you have google ads on your site…you “invest” your time and energy and money and talent into it expecting to get an “ROI.”
I appreciate in legal terms semantics is everything but really this is not your 401k…
In one month I have had 53 views of my classified adds, and that is only on one website I use…I use two different ones. I get it, thats not amazing, but its still more then none and in turn HAS driven traffic to the auction site.
Revenue generated from that I’m not sure about but traffic to a website these days is a big win in most companies eyes and advertising revenue alone would be good. Especially when you multiply my results by the thousands of affiliates in Zeek. Imagine that traffic to your site and the ad revenue it would generate.
Anyway love to hear your thoughts on all this and help me see if I am off…
I personally see two problems:
1) That “as a rep?” deflection was an interesting technique known as “reframing”. The original question was meant as “are you, Troy Dooly, being compensated in any way, shape, or form, by Rex Venture Group or ANY of its officers, affiliates, etc. either directly or indirectly?” Mr. Dooly then reframed the question “as a rep?” and answered “no”.
So what did he deny exactly? That he is NOT a rep? Or did he had absolutely NOTHING to do with Zeek?
2) Mr. Dooly is also increasing answering questions for Zeek directly instead of asking the questions like he originally promised to. He had demonstrated that on his mlmhelpdesk, and now he’s doing it in person.
Since when did Mr. Dooly became such a Zeek expert he’s answering questions FOR Zeek instead of letting a Zeek employee answer the question? And he still tells us that he was NOT compensated by Zeek?
Troy Dooly is acting like Zeek’s PR guy / attorney, deflecting all the “embarrassing” questions that requires a hard answer by “i’mgonna jump in here”.
The two facts don’t add up. There may be a innocent explanation, but I am worried for Mr. Dooly’s sake.
It would be a pyramid scheme. Go read up on “Weber vs. Omnitrition”. (FYI, Omnitrition told reps to give them away if you have to, just buy this much vitamins every month to get paid.)
http://www.mlmlaw.com/saleswatch/omnitrition.html#retail
@Lucas
I’m going to stop you right there.
Zeek don’t pay affiliates to sell anything in the RPP, they are paid based on the amount of bids they give away. These bids are bought by members.
Customers are free to buy bids, but by and large this doesn’t appear to be happening (this is from data from more than a few ZR affiliates who have contributed here). The reason it’s not happening is due to bid inflation, something that doesn’t exist in penny auctions sites without an attached income opportunity.
Soap companies also don’t charge their sales team membership fees, nor can you “invest” in soap (nobody will pay you a fixed ROI (time or % based) on purchases of soap).
Profit paid out on 100% internal consumption is a huge problem. Whack on an investment scheme on top of this and you have an even bigger problem (when you take into consideration where the money is coming from).
I cannot re-invest my time and energy according to the rules of an investment scheme and compound my time and energy spent to earn a larger ROI. In any case this is offtopic.
Ad views != traffic.
That’s easy. You yourself state you’re a Zeek affiliate. So how much of the supposed traffic you’ve generated has converted into legitimate retail auction customers who have made bid purchases beyond an initial test spend?
So why does Zeek pay someone with more VIP points more $$$$ for the SAME AMOUNT OF WORK, i.e. posting one ad per day?
Clearly, it values you generating VIP Points more than the work itself.
And how do you generate VIP points? By buying giveaway bids.
Your posting ads is merely “busy work”, much like the guy in “The Red Headed League” by Arthur Conan Doyle… Go read it. It’s a short story.
In addition to getting paid more with more VIP points to place an ad, why would you get more $ everyday for doing the same work? Anybody out their in their real job get more money everyday for doing the same job?
You will find some of the definittions used here in the link (under my username in the quote):
So we use the same definitions as most others, with the difference that we will usually ignore if a company prefers to call it “purchase bids”, “buying survey panels” or whatever they call it. We are looking at the main motive instead, or the primary function.
So if you seriously believe people are participating in ZeekRewards in order to buy bids (instead of earning ROI), then you have a different viewpoint than us.
Most of the definitions are pretty obvious, like the description of the audience: “Normal people without any specific profession (like lawyers and so on)”. Or the description of the purpose of this website: We are mostly analysing busniess models, not the laws in each and every country”.
One of the reasons for why I will not repeat definitions too often is because I’m telling people something they already know. Most “normal people” will already know that it is up to the correct authority in each country to decide whether something is illegal or legal, whether a business model is a Ponzi- or pyramid scheme or a legal business model.
Hey guys thanks for the replies.
K. Chang I don’t disagree with you I would have liked a straight answer too…but I am not willing to assume the opposite just because it wasn’t given.
Steve Jobs always did that when he was asked about why the iphone did not support flash. His answers were not the truth…but that did not allow us to provide our own truth. Do you remember “…I did not have sexual relations with that woman…?”
Also thanks for the reading I will check that out…education is part of what I am after here…so thanks for that. How is avon not the same?
@oz As I understand it we are being paid to advertise. We are “selling” trying to get people to purchase on Zeekler. And if they do we directly make money off of that…totally separate from the RPP. If we generate customers we get paid. If we advertise we get paid. But they are different payment structures.
I would also like to know the customers purchasing information…I agree with you. Soap was an example…purely metaphoric.
Actually you website is perfect on topic example of different peoples connotation of “investment”. I have another business and it is directly proportionate to what I invest into it, just like yours.
Take your time investment in your website and cut it in half for a month and see what results you get. Then hire two other people to invest there time into it along with yours (3x the amount) for a month and see what happens.
You can call it something else if you want but you are using your time one way or another to create income. You are EXPECTING a ROI otherwise you would work at Walmart. Even the guys that do work at walmart expect an ROI they want to get paid for their time.
Your right ad views dont equal traffic…but I forgot to mention that I can also see how many people visit my Zeekler.com website and the only way they can get there is through my adds…so I know that the ads = traffic.
Unfortunately none of the people that have visited my auction site have purchased bids yet…kinda shooting myself in the foot here…but I do have people that are in my zeek connection that HAVE had this happen.
I’m not trying to be difficult or even debate I am actually trying to learn. By providing my arguments I am then seeing if they stand up or not…so I appreciate your comments. As an MLM guy is there an mlm out there that you see as legit that you can point to and explain the differences that create your feelings on that vs zeek?
@oz All MLM’s work this way…at least as I understand it…also even employees of companies make different salaries based on tenure and not always on task…the task could even be the same.
If I worked for a bobcat company and one of the bobcats was mine and I had worked there for longer I would EXPECT to get paid more for the same bobcat work as a co-worker because I was “in it” more.
What would need to be in place for zeeks program to feel more “legit” for you?
@Lucas – if you use a curse word or have more than 2 links, it will be held for moderation. Oz pretty much approves all posts that are on topic and not total flames or troll bait.
Oz lets a LOT go on here (contrast that to Zeek’s blog and Facebook page with uber-moderation of anything slightly uncomfortable).
I don’t think anyone can claim that Troy Dooly is a totally impartial person when it comes to Zeek. I’m sure he’s getting some kind of compensation for being their #1 cheerleader.
A totally impartial person wouldn’t have shut down the question of where all the money comes from.
I agree Joe Mama. He should remove the word “unbiased” from his website. Furthermore, he’s a representative of Association of Network Marketing Professionals. His involvement with Zeek completely undermines the integrity of what that organization is trying to do.
Rod Cook is also involved with ANMP and he has Zeek listed under Scammy Companies at mlmwatchdog.com. What a mixed message.
The proper way for him to do the interview would be like a fox news correspondent hosting a debate between two opposing views and him staying out of it. We already know his opinion so we’re forced to listen to 86 minutes of psycho-babble.
Troy’s lawyer-like interception of the question is proof in and of itself that Zeek is paying members from affiliate revenue.
To use Oz’s exmple, a law enforcement officer asks you “did you steal that car” and your lawyer jumps in and says “I’m not going to let my client answer that questions because if this goes on the record it could mean that he is guilty”.
How does that make any sense?
When Dooley paused and clarified the word “rep” it implied that he had another relationship that he does not define as a “representative”.
I think that if there was no monetary or “quid pro quo” he would have been able to answer a simple no. I also think that number of customers and actual auction revenue would be a selling point by not responding it puts up flags for me.
Recently I read a post on one of the team boards where they stated there was 1 million affiliates and 25 million customers. With the numbers it does not seem profitable to me and when you add in free bids and affiliates it seems even less so.
@Lucas
When members from 6 now banned countries had their accounts terminated, they weren’t paid for their advertising efforts, which in some cases amounted to over a year of posting ads for Zeek, they were simply refunded money they’d personally invested into ZR.
You can’t sell purchases on Zeekler’s auctions. You can market bid purchases, for which you are directly compensated via participation in the RPP (retail bids have a matching VIP bid payout).
From input by ZR affiliates however, customer bid purchases (not fake customers created by affiliates) is a miniscule minority of the daily RPP (in that nobody seems to have legit retail customers).
Thus the advertising can be largely discounted as worthless, which let’s face it – thousands of people advertising on a free classified site nobody reads is.
And herein lies the rub. You’re just another ‘no customer’ statistic.
Please understand that this is where the ‘we are paid to advertise’ crap falls apart… because nobody has any customers to show for all the advertising they do. All the money being paid out in the RPP is coming from affiliates.
Statistically I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone with retail customers who have made a spend with external money beyond an initial test spend of bids. I’m sure someone in the alleged hundreds of thousands of ZR affiliates that exist has a genuine retail customer or two but they are in the minority.
At this point all we have is your ‘I know someone who knows someone who supposedly has a real customer’. Statistically every ZR affiliate who has come here (along with those that don’t comment) have not had any genuine retail customers themselves.
Your situation is the norm, running around claiming to be paid for advertising for retail auction customers without having any.
The difference between a Ponzi investment scheme and what you’re going on about is that in neither case do I pay myself with my own money, nor am I able to re-invest my time and effort to compound earnings. You also are not able to do so in you business… otherwise you’d be running your own Ponzi.
Not all investments are created equal, and you can’t use it as a blanket term. I have no problem with legitimate investments but I do have a problem with Ponzi schemes. So do the authorities.
Wrong. Anyone who punches in your affiliate URL into their browser can visit your site. I believe they are indexed by search engines too.
No they don’t. MLM companies don’t have 90 day guaranteed ROIs and the legit ones solely revolve around the sale of products to end-consumers who have nothing to do with the company. None of this investment scheme re-invest your profits by pumping your own money into the company to increase your ROI over a guaranteed 90 days nonsense.
For starters pay out VIP points and referral commissions on the actual use of bids, rather than the purchase of retail bids via unverified customer accounts or giving away of bids by affiliates.
Secondly actually verify customer accounts to ensure they are real customers and not fake ones created by affiliates or third party customer selling companies.
Thirdly re-adjust the RPP so that money from ZR members makes up a minority. This will have the side effect of drastically reducing the daily RPP paid out (it’d drop to well below 1% a day) which is probably crash the Ponzi at it exists today (people won’t be able to sustain their VIP bid repuchases over 90 days to sustain their overall balances), but it’d mean it was somewhat legit.
Of course with that happening we know it’s not going to become legit anytime soon.
Zeek don’t pay you for how many hours work you put in. They pay you squarely on how much of your own money you invest and re-invest into their scheme via the purchase of VIP bids (which are then dumped). This is how the passive investment side of the business works.
Most people don’t have legit customers so convincing genuine customers to purchase retail bids isn’t worth factoring in, and even if you do, doesn’t discount the passive investment model the vast majority of affiliates (who have no legit customers buying bids of their own accord) use.
One final note for you to keep in mind – yes there are legit components to the overall Zeek Rewards compensation plan but with the Ponzi aspect of it so close to the forefront that’s what’s being analysed here.
No good having legit parts (the ability to sign up genuine retail customers who can then purchase retail bids with external money) if that’s not what’s happening, or happening rarely. Functionally what is happening is important and by and large ZR is run as a passive investment scheme by its members with there being no overall difference between it and how a Ponzi scheme works.
Most affiliates don’t realize that any time they log into their backoffice, their traffic stat counter increases. So if you log into your office an average of 1.5 times per day over 100 day period, your hit count is 150 from your own traffic.
Any time you “test” your replicated website or give the link to someone else if you are recruiting, when they visit the traffic counter goes up. When you paste your classified ad on the free ad sites, they often have crawlers that check that the URL in the ad is a real URL as part of the ad approval process.
Many spiders crawl the free ad sites and will hit your replicated Zeek Rewards site as well.
Also worth mentioning is most people are posting daily ads to advertise Zeekler (not Zeek Rewards) and the counter in your backoffice is your Zeek Rewards (not Zeekler) counter. There is no counter available for your Zeekler page visits.
So if the only ads you’ve been submitting link to zeekler.com, the counter shown at the top of your back office when you login is NOT showing you the clicks to your zeekler.com URL in your free classified ad.
So whats up with Montana?
I searched the zeeksupport site and didn’t see anything. Has Montana banned Zeek?
Sorry, I forgot to specify “financial” or “monetary” in the definition for investment. 🙂
But here you can also see one of the difficulties. Work and time can also be considered to be investments, but we have never checked any “time and work Ponzi scheme”. That business model is relatively uncommon, while financial Ponzi schemes are far more common.
By the way, you’re the first one (indirectly) mentioning “time and work Ponzi schemes”. In cases like that, I can still fall back on the definition for the audience here, “normal people …”. 🙂
The first few times when I specified some definitions in answers, it was mostly meant to make it easier for people to identify the differences. We use definitions that are very close to what most others will use. The difference is that we will ignore many of the methods used by companies when they try to bend the rules.
I’m not assuming. I supplied logic to explain WHY it’s a certain way.
The ONLY difference between a MLM and a pyramid scheme is MLM does NOT pay on recruitment, but only on SALES (either by you or your team). This is known as the “Koscot test”.
To enforce this, the “Amway Safeguard Rules” must be enforced: i.e. must have retail customers, must have sold 70% of existing inventory, must have clear return policy. The safeguard rules are specifically designed to prevent “inventory loading”, i.e. load down the bottom affiliates with inventory they cannot sell or use in reasonable time, thus letting their upline enjoy sales commission and downline stuck with inventory.
The Omnitrition case clarified that commission must be paid on RETAIL SALES, not merely “sold to participant”, else the company is a pyramid scheme, not MLM. Also, “ultimate user” is usually determined to be somebody NOT in the company.
The link I gave before explains this quite well:
http://www.mlmlaw.com/saleswatch/omnitrition.html#retail
All of this is applicable to ZeekRewards in some way:
1) Retail in Zeekler/Zeekrewards is confusing. You supposedly get 20% commission for bid packs sold, but what if the bid packs are sold to an affiliate, not “customer”? Is “retail only” restriction being enforced?
2) You are given profit share for bids you have purchased (but not used). Is this specifically written to get around “inventory loading”? If there are NO real customers to give away, then this is fraud on several levels, i.e. faking “retail sales/giveaway”.
3) This doesn’t fit the Amway safeguard rules any way. They get around this by claiming these are promotion activities, not sales, but is it really?
Good old Troy Dooly. My first impression of him before pressing the play botton on his first Zeek review has been bang on.
Honestly he is really not worth listening to when it comes to anything concerning zeekler.
I am to the point of over analyzing zeek rewards and beating it like a dead horse. Everything you guys have discussed as being non legit is reconfirmed in this interview by side stepping questions, not allowing self given titles and long awkward moments when not talking the same PR hype of zeek.
Troy and Dawn as smart and deceptive as they may believe they are will no way be able to maintain this business as it is.
@Lucas
One question: For how many months have you been an affiliate?
The question isn’t important in itself, but I am trying to find out how well known certain tax issues are among the affiliates (the ones in the U.S.). “How many months” is just a method to filter different time-periods, so I can avoid asking questions if people are too newly recruited.
On the topic of newly recruited members, I’ve noted that over the last few weeks, along with the claim that ZR doubled it’s affiliates in the last month dating to the last red carpet event, the fact that most of these affiliates are free members has become a talking point.
Quite obviously this is a temporary sitaution and is easily explained by an influx of free members signing on (from outside the US) and are going through their initial 60 day bid re-investment period before they have to pay for membership.
How this became a talking point in attempt to legitimise Zeek Rewards’ business model I have no idea (it’s mentioned in the Aces Radio interview once or twice and I’ve seen it bandied around in other places).
Perhaps they will release a new “conversion rate” ratio? Like claiming X% of free affiliates converted, somehow “proving” that the model is “profitable”?
Given that they can’t cash out their RPP earnings until they start paying for membership, I imagine that conversion rate would be close to 100%.
Well, as long as Zeek Rewards keep paying a >1% ROI over 90 days on each invested dollar converted to a VIP point.
I have over 300 people in my downline that joined last month with names that look like all from China. They are all free.
Looks like they want to ride the 60 days of bonus points and then convert to Silver for $10/month plus inital $10 purchase. Then they will probably cash out or ride it a couple months to build up balance before switching to 80/20.
I won’t make much with the roll up profit share commissions but may make matrix commissions on them when they convert. I will probably leave just enough of a balance in to pay for the monthly FTC to see what happens with this viral free affiliate growth.
It makes sense if you live in a country where a few dollars a day means survival. I can see US family members sponsoring overseas affiliates. Just $100 goes a long ways if the ponzi keeps on paying. As the cultish promoters keep saying “Zeek is changing lives”.
My auction winngs are still not paid. I have 6 tickets now open with no answer. I paid for these auctions all over a month ago. Time to write the FTC.
@genbenz
Not confirmed: All I’ve seen at this stage is that bid purchases appear to be have been suspended. That’s all until further information comes to light.
Update: Spotted this over at MLM Helpdesk:
That appears to be Zeek Rewards rather than the payment processor suspending people enrolling there. No idea what specific laws they are referencing or why Zeek Rewards aren’t compliant with them.
Do you think that Zeek keeps track of whether or not their affiliates are really placing ads? I know for a fact they do not. As an experiment I copied any old classified giant url into my back office. Made no difference at all. There was one day that I did not log in or place an ad yet my account was still credited.
It is exciting to log in and see the points grow every day. Problem is that they are POINTS which have no real value, just the percieved value that people give them. They only have real value if you can actually cash them out.
Points growing is not the same as growing a money tree, no matter how badly you may want to believe it is true.
Zeek isn’t doing any checking. In February they claimed they were hiring a team of people to check the ads. I have heard of a few claims of Zeek asking questions of affiliates here and there so that everyone is scared that if they don’t the busy work they may not get paid. But just think about these issues:
1. ZR can barely handle existing affiliate issues that generate revenue, let alone verify ads are being posted.
2. ZR could have easily created an automated ad checker like Google Adwords does if they really valued the destination page. For example, not only could they verify that the URL is live, but they could scan the page and check for “banned words” like “compound interest” and “investment” and auto-reject the ad placement. Now THAT would be a form of compliance enforcement.
3. Dawn has said on the weekly calls “when you submit your ad, don’t put your name in the URL, don’t put a comment, don’t put a copy of your ad, don’t just say ‘Facebook’ but put your URL, we will be checking”. What she meant was that up until then there was no checking. If you put ANY VALUE in there even a space and hit enter, your status will go green.
4. Checking URL’s is almost impossible if Zeek does not do it at the time of ad placement. By the time the deadline hits, or when the RPP runs for your profit share, it could be 1-2 days since the ad posting (or even longer such as during their server problems in Apr-May).
Some ad postings get taken down. Some free classified sites you have to delete your previous ad to post your next one. So the URL that Zeek would in theory be checking would be gone.
5. Related to #4, how would ZR resolve disputes if the URL is no longer up? Or if the site is temporary down?
6. ZR allows posting to Facebook for your ad, but if you put the URL of your Facebook page, your ad may scroll off by the time ZR checks. But more importantly, unless you changed your privacy setting for your daily ad on your Facebook wall to “public,” it would be impossible for ZR to actually check your ad (because the person checking probably isn’t your friend on FB). So the entire acceptance of FB for daily ad postings is unverifiable by ZR to begin with.
The easiest thing to do if you wanted an automated ad posting is simply get a Twitter account and use one of the free Twitter bot services to post your ad every day. You don’t even need any followers. Then in your back office you can put the same URL in every day (just your Twitter home page), and you can even get a bot to do that for you. Automated posting to Twitter + automated posting to your ZR back office.
No need to actually generate sales traffic to the auctions, because it’s all a farce.
Zeek is for sure a ponzi, hands down.
What I do not understand is why do they go through the trouble with all this. What do they get out of it? Do they actually make money, but all ponzi dies, and now that they are compliant, so they say. If they run, wouldn’t they get caught and arrested. So why go through all that trouble. In the end, they would make nothing.
What do they do with all our money anyways?
Also, Zeek are not paying anyone in checks anymore right?
Trust me no one goes to the zeekler auction. Maybe like 10 in the whole day. But I wonder if Quibids have any actual customer. I think they do from their FB, but Zeekler is nothing like theirs with their bootleg items and once in a blue moon a good product for all VIP members only.
Oz,
Although, we do not always see eye-to-eye you once again have written an editorial which does bring up some unanswered questions, and in a few cases left the listeners with more questions than answers.
In being respectful to you and your community, I will answer the issues, and concerns you raised when I get back into town next week.
I think you bring up enough items, that I will address them in an editorial at my site so that I can make sure both those in favor of Zeek (penny auctions in general) and those are adamantly against them (at least with a compensation structure) can see my responses.
Again, good coverage from a different perspective.
Living An Epic Adventure,
Troy
I applaud Troy for showing up and responding as he did not have to.
I hope we get answers without spin. I didn’t quite understand the “regulator” comment in the interview. How does ACES radio show or Zeek Rewards get in trouble for answering a question?
Don’t you get in trouble only if the answer reveals that the business is doing something illegal? Not the act of answering itself?
I also read this today: http://www.patrickpretty.com/2012/06/10/editorial-a-friday-evening-in-mlm-radio-la-la-land/
(sarcasm on)
So, Troy, when did you take you the “pseudo-CFO” position at Zeek?
(sarcasm off)
Honestly, I haven’t seen a question interception like that since Herbalife’s CFO intercepted the question posed by Einhorn to the CEO.
Source: WSJ
Troy, why take the time to write three or four paragraphs telling us that you WILL answer instead of taking the same amount of time to write three or four paragraphs to ANSWER?
@Troy
Here’s a method for how to ask the important questions:
Dennis is a typical Zeek affiliate, focusing on his own downline. If you’re asking questions about retail customers, they will usually have none.
But a problem here will be that people don’t LIKE these kinds of questions, so it’s much more easy if you don’t ask them. There’s also a risk that you won’t like the answer they will give you.
Dennis hasn’t answered yet, and I doubt he will answer the question. If he does answer, I will ask some followup questions about retail customers in his downline. “Do any of the 103 happy people have retail customers?”
Troy, it is my understanding that the purpose of Zeek Rewards advertising is to build Zeekler into a large penny auction site on par with QuiBids, correct? The impression we all get is that the penny auction is just an afterthought and that the bids are the real product…a pseudo product to disguise the ponzi and have a way to attach the “investment” to.
My question is (99% sure this will never be answered) what is the monthly sales volume from Zeekler auction? If the company is doing hundreds of million in advertising, yet their auction is bringing in less than $1,000,000/mo. (being very generous with that number), then this is the worst marketing campaign in the history of business.
If Zeek really cared about the penny auction…how is that nobody is getting paid their winnings? If that were the case with QuiBids, how long do you think they’d be around?
And please, respond with something other that “growth pains” and the stupid puppy to great dane analogy. Furthermore, bids aren’t hamburgers.
Stop dancing around the issues please. In my opinion, the reason why you never get down to the nitty gritty is because you’re so non-confrontational and you desperately seek the approval of everyone.
Sure, its easy to be bold in an editorial, but when you’re face to face you collapse and retreat.
Back to Dawns Hamburger analogy (listen to the call if you don’t know what I’m referring to), it’s not really about giving someone a hamburger you bought, a hamburger is a real product.
It’s more like I give or sell my friends 100 coupons for the chance at a free burger. My friend shows up to a packed restaurant with 100 other people and their coupons. The problem…there’s only one burger in the whole restaurant and my friend goes away hungry. His coupons were worthless, but you made money selling the coupons to your friend.
Because of the quality of Zeeks product offering, it was an old nasty stale hamburger anyway and even if you won that nasty hamburger, you’d be waiting for it to arrive in the mail in about 8 weeks if ever!
The problem with the giving hamburger away analogy is that it assumes that the receiver of the hamburger is a prospect, and that prospect will then come back and buy more hamburgers.
If that were the case, the marketing would be effective (leaving in question whether getting paid off other affiliate hamburger purchases is legal or not per the internal consumption and inventory loading rules).
Unfortunately, a more appropriate analogy is you buy a bunch of hamburgers, earn ROI on your purchase, and then go out in the back and dump the hamburgers in the trash.
You now tell all of your friends to buy hamburgers and they can earn ROI on it, after all, they will get a % of revenue from the restaurant based on how many hamburgers they buy. But they most “give away” the hamburger as samples.
It doesn’t matter who they give the samples to. So they dump it in the trash along with everyone else.
i loved the hamburger analogy….and indeed this particular analogy DOES assume that the recipient of the hamburger is a ‘prospect’ heck, if they weren’t a prospect for the hamburger, they’d be a customer…by the prospect eating the hamburger, they either become a customer or they remain as a prospect.
a prospect is anyone who does not currently have, use or want my product (or service)
companies spend money (out of profits) to promote their products (and ideas or services). zeekler has found a way to do just that, expect they’ve turned the equation upside down…its brilliant!
look at the groupon model
What’s even better, the hamburgers are virtual, so it doesn’t cost anything to make them, just a piece of paper or a number on a computer that says “you now own X hamburgers”.
Iam going to give Troy Dooly the benefit of the doubt and see if he truly gets epic in his next editorial. I hope he doesnt go on and on about penny auctions and comp plans individually and put a spin on the overall issues and concerns with zeekler.
I hope he doesnt take the easy route of investor vs member or profit share vs return on investment lingo. Which will probably lead into it being the fault of so many affiliates not following the compliance course theory for zeeks troubles.
Mr. Dooly had the perfect chance to clear up so much uncertainty with Dawn right there, only better if Douglas and Burkes could attend,cmon with nothing to loose ask the important questions for crying out loud…..
As Groupon has lost 2/3rds of its stock value, i think people are tired of the hype and realized it ain’t as brilliant as it first appeared, but that’s another problem. 🙂
@ray
The hamburger analogy is terrible because it discounts membership fees (they don’t fit into the analoygy at all) and the only people coming back to buy hamburgers are the affiliates.
Either in person or with a fake moustache on pretending to be an outside customer (and making sure they present their ‘I was referred by X’ card pointing back at themselves so they get their 90 day ROI).
I think perhaps more than one person here might have suggestions for additional questions you might possibly address on your promised blog post.
Mine would be that as I understand it Zeek Rewards affiliates are paid to drive traffic to the Zeekler auction website and that all affiliate compensation is derived from a percentage of the profits the Zeekler auction site generates.
One of the biggest “push points” in many Zeek Reward’s affiliate sales pitches is just how amazingly the Zeek Rewards web site’s Alexa numbers are blowing up at the moment. And no internet critic can deny the fact, the numbers are there for anyone to see.
Mr. Dooly, the question I would most like to ask you in your (presumed) role as an advocate of Zeek Rewards is why do the Alexa numbers for the Zeek Rewards website dwarf the Alexa numbers of the website all the Zeek Rewards affiliates are being paid to advertise?
Is all that advertising just really not working or is the income opportunity oh so very much more attractive than the auctions themselves? Either way it’s a valid question.
Spotted this on the support boards from an affiliate:
I thought they were going with Hong Kong, don’t tell me China knocked them back too?
Another Alexa-related question you could ask is why it shows 80% percent of traffic to Zeekler is from outside the US (mostly Eastern Europe), and why the list ranking countries in which Zeek Rewards is popular in is almost identical to Zeekler’s (that is former USSR states in the lead, with the US not even at top 10).
A rough estimation of the sales on Zeekler would show you that there’s no way this website is even close to enough to support hundreds of thousands of affiliates, but Alexa implies the website doesn’t even make that (not from end-customers anyway).
Mr. Dooley, it’s becoming harder and harder to find you sincere. You’re saying that you’re going to address some unanswered questions – well some of these questions have gone unanswered because of you deflecting, side-stepping, and now downright intercepting them.
You said on the radio that Dawn answering an answer about the source of income would make ZeekRewars non-compliant, and that’s as incriminating as you can get. I would love to see you trying to put a positive spin on that, but my expectation is that you’ll just ignore it happened.
Well, in all fairness to Zeek they haven’t found it significant enough of a “compliance” issue to bother to tell anyone who they’re doing their banking with and no one having the opportunity to interview them on the record has bothered to ask them about it.
But I do wonder, was it North or South Korea?
@Oz – ZR may be using the online sportsbook approach of changing payment processors or merchant ID’s every few weeks to stay ahead of the large banks blacklisting of high risk/fraud/gambling merchants.
Several Sportsbooks have been indicted by US not for gambling, but for fraud and violations of financial and money laundering laws. There are only a few banks that will service this ‘merchant shifting’ model.
It will also mean all sorts of chaos if they get random declines and fraud alerts for credit card processing. Third party eWaller solutions are risky too. AlertPay has lots its credit card processing ability 3 times in 2 years (still currently do not accept cc’s) and any of the other ones could be taken down for merchant business unrelated to Zeek.
That’s a pretty big risk to be banking on high risk, overseas third party eWallets services for a multimillion dollar business.
@GlimDropper – Zeek had to tell everyone about the banking issues because their weekly check runs were 2 payments behind and commission debits from credit cards (and affiliate MLM commissions) were a month behind. They mail out thousands of checks per week. If they didn’t say something, everyone would panic.
As it was, Zeek was not very transparent, but spun the illusion of transparency. Their information shared was incorrect and they had to change their story (the ‘clawback’ of checks that were never mailed, the lack of transparency on the fact that their current bank cut them off rather than Zeek voluntarily leaving for another bank – being cut off was why the transition was so abrupt and they could not leave funds in the bank account to clear outstanding checks).
Zeek knew this 10 days before telling people, and they did it on Memorial Day weekend a few days before the mailed checks would be returned NSF.
Something that intrigues me is that affiliates use Quibids as a benchmark that penny auctions can be a profitable business.
If Quibids is DisneyWorld, Zeekler is a hokey traveling carnival in your local mall parking lot. The handful of rides are so questionable looking, free tickets are being given away all over town. And because there are so many tickets being given away, no sensible person would buy a ticket at the ticket booth. And the only ride that does not except free tickets is a creaky ferris wheel that endlessly turns with fake mannequin riders.
The Zeekler model of selling bids by baiting them with free bids appears to not be working. The viability of gaining real customers with the Zeekler model is never fairly tested with such a horrendous, flea market-looking website.
Based on the reported 2011 profitability of the company, it makes zero sense that the website is not, at the very least, graphically better. If the model could create a viable amount of legitimate customers, the leaders should rebuild the website and place some products that are actually alluring as fast as possible.
The current auction items on Zeekler are embarrassingly inadequate. Explosive growth only makes the prioritization of the actual product even more pertinent. At this point the website and servers need to be outsourced to professionals. (Unless these brilliant amateurs have some reason to suspect the carnival might be leaving the parking lot soon)
FROM ZEEK MEMBERS AT SUPPORT FORUM:
FUN ZEEK FACEBOOK POSTS RE: BANKING ISSUES RESOLVED! (EACH COMMENT NEW PERSON):
I was so irritated when I was listening to that call. Troy kept jumping in answering all of the questions. I wanted to hear the answers from Dawn.
But I did like Jim. I think he asked some good questions from the affiliates (that never got answered). Troy just seem to dance around every question asked. Troy seemed a bit p***** with Jim to me.
Dawn makes up so many excuses about Customer Service and how they are having such a hard time keeping up. Did you notice how she wanted to do away with phone calls to Zeek so the affiliates could get their problems solved?
Although Dawn misinterpreted what Jim said or at least she acted like it. In so many words, Jim was simply saying, there is no way you can get around not dealing with the people that are making you successful…He said, this is a relationship business and he is right.
Shortly after that, Dawn conveniently disappeared stating she had phone problems.
Next time you’re at Zeek, please ask some of these questions and bring back REAL answers:
1. Why haven’t myself and others been paid on auctions I/they’ve won months ago?
2. Why can’t they get their customer service issues in check…months of unanswered tickets, phone calls been dropped repeatedly, live chat can never help?? This has been going on for months, so that means you’ve had months to fix this problem.
3. Subscription payments haven’t been taken out in months…why? Lots of people in my down-line have money put aside in their back office to pay their subs, but it’s still not taken out.
And since the credit card problems have been resolved, still no subs taken out. We’re loosing a lot of commission because of that. So in my opinion, we’re not getting paid. Is this by design?
@Vicky — which is why I said that Troy is acting like Zeek’s lawyer / spokesperson, not “good cop / bad cop”.
Which brings up another concern. Are the money being TAKEN OUT of people’s account properly for Zeek?
Remember when Full Tilt Poker went down in flames AND exposed as a Ponzi scheme, they had problem with THEIR credit card processor (s), their bank(s), AND at the end they basically stopped debiting people’s account for MONTHS and went under.
I wondered if they actually did or not. Think about it, someone has to sit there all day long and verify hundreds of thousands of URL’s that members posted ads to? Talk about your boring job.
I wondered it it were possible to pass off someone else’s Zeek ad as your own, just by finding an ad on a website and posting the URL as your own.
Not that it matters, of course, because I’m sure that even if they cared the ads are being posted every day, they’d have to know that those ads aren’t driving in the millions of customers they claim.
Verifying URL can be done through web scripting. The question is do those ASP programmers (Dawn’s husband? son? uncle?) have the skills to do it.
Well, looking at the zeekler.com website and reading all the problems that people are having with zeek rewards, I’d say no. But seeing as how the daily ads are pretty much worthless anyway, there’s no need to verify anything.
One thought that crossed my mind is that any business needs to diversify their advertising anyway. Throwing 50% of your daily profit into posting free internet classified ads is a sure business killer.
And again, if they wanted to save money they could just write a script which would post the daily ads for them anyway (like they supposedly do if you pay them $10 a month), so the whole idea of hiring thousands of people and paying them increasing balances when you could do it yourself it just ludicrous.
@Vicky
I found some of the answers in the leadership call I listened to, the one I found very disturbing.
The answers?
1. TTT “Things Takes Time”
2. TTT “Things Takes Time”
They have certain leadership ideas that makes it impossible to do a good job and solve problems, and they have probably learnt them from the same mentor. So they are very busy most of the time focusing on positive thinking rather than doing something.
You simply don’t know how time-consuming it can be to be a leader, having to make regular leadership calls (because a mentor have told them to do it), having to spend hours each day telling yourself how cool you are (to be able to have any functionality at all), having to read all those books about self development and leadership.
So TTT “Things Takes Time” when you are at that level. Chris Molinari have even written a book about it, called “Molinari’s guide to success”, subtitled “Chris Molinari’s own quotes from various self development books”.
Of course this was a joke, but I really found the leadership call I listened to twice to be very disturbing (if this had been a real sustainable company). Coming from someone in NWM it sounded perfectly “normal” (brainwashed).
The way I see it is that if ZR wanted to be a legitimate MLM opportunity, then what they should do is sell the bids to the affiliates, then have the affiliates sell the bids to the zeekler customers for a higher price. If they claim the bids are merchandise, then treat them like merchandise.
Of course this falls apart when you realize that very few affiliates (if any) have any real retail customers, but then Zeek could help drive business in by firstly, having a decent penny auction site with decent items for auction; secondly, doing some real advertising and not spamming classified ad websites; and thirdly, actually paying people for won auctions in a timely manner.
If they did it this way instead of paying interest on points, it could probably be considered a valid MLM opportunity and not a ponzi. But then, few people would actually want to join because they wouldn’t have the “put some money in, do nothing, and get paid big $$$ (but it’s not an investment scheme!)” angle to the business.
@ M_Norway…good point. I’ve read 100’s of self dev books and I’ve never been able to think my problems away. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have a positive attitude, but positive thinking is not going solve their problems.
I don’t know who there mentor is, but they NEED to get another one. One that’s willing to tell them to stop making excuses…take on their problems and solve them.
I could be wrong, but I do think Zeek could manage to save themselves by making some changes. But at this rate, I dunno.
When I was first introduced to Zeek, I didn’t really understand it, and some parts of it still doesn’t make much sense. It’s probably the most weirdest thing I’ve ever been involved with along with the people that’s running it.
The woman that sponsored me, told me that my VIP point balance was actual dollars and cents. Once I started to study and understand the program and realized once I purchase bids, that’s it. The money belongs to Zeek.
So in reality if you have your repurchase set at 100%, you really don’t have jack…no money. You only have a bunch of bids unless you cash out. When I found that out, I was furious with my sponsor.
I was even more furious when I requested my first check and found out I had to wait two weeks until they process it, then I had to wait to get it. But it was too late then…I had purchased the bids and there wasn’t any refunds either. My sponsor doesn’t even call me anymore. I always had to go to someone else for help.
And if Troy was really looking out for affiliates as he says, he would handle himself differently. He would look those people in the eyes and tell them what they need to do to save face. But he just continues to make excuses for them.
He sounds like he works for them. And I just can’t stress it enough times that customer service is a joke. I would be ashamed running a company in this manner.
On that call Dawn says that most of the questions the affiliates are asking can be answered on their FAQ’s, website, etc. That is far from the truth. What about and issue related to being billed double, Sample bids not showing up after you purchase, money not showing up after a payment request has been made…the list is long.
These are just a few of things that is going on in my down-line. NO ONE has gotten an answer about these issues. I have a support ticket that dates back to February that’s still open. Myself and individuals in my down-line have their tickets closed without and answer or solution. This mess is ridiculous!
Absolutely nothing. In network marketings 60+ year history, none of these companies ever stay around for the long haul…burn lounge, calling cards, coupon deals, travel, gold coins, jewelry, etc.
This industry is built on cosmetics, nutritional’s, skin care and weight loss, whether anyone likes is or not. Primerica, Pre-Paid Legal and ACN are the only exceptions to the rule that really stand out in my mind. Even the Coffee companies have supporting supplement products.
If it’s to good to be true and it’s a fast easy way to wealth, it won’t be around long and lots of people get burned.
The only way for Zeek to be “legit” is to remove the investment component. They can pay based on an MLM compensation plan. They can have subscription plans that give you discounted bids. Keep everything the same except the compound interest paid on VIP points.
If the penny auction was a viable business, this would work. Since penny auctions have a very poor customer retention rate, even if Zeek was doing it right, and since Zeek has a very poor penny auction, they have two major reasons to fail. So the penny auction is simply a complicated disguise for the ponzi.
Troy Dooly said the big difference in his view and hours is that he hadn’t concluded it was a scam yet. Apparently he’s taken it one step further and is being the Zeek spokesperson/evangelist/speaker to various degrees.
When Zeek is proven to be a ponzi when all data is public, Troy will probably still say it isn’t and that it’s just complicated and the authorities don’t understand it.
Good Lord, just got an email from NxSystems Support announcing 2-hour long training webinars.
What the hell could possibly take two hours to learn about an e-wallet?
Of inteteresting note – this is the first email I have ever gotten for anything Zeek related that was sent to all members. Zeek is doing such an amateurish job at email marketing. Even my subscription to ZRN is often delivered 12+ hours later. Their RSS feed wasn’t working last time I tried it.
Zeekler customers never receive any promos or annoucements to buy more bids so Zeekler isn’t serious about the auction, or they are just completely mismanaging it.
Zeek Rewards News’ RSS feed has been broken for some months now.
Such an easy fix too…
The email sent to all members was from nxsystemsinc.com, not Zeekler or Zeek Rewards. They are in violation of CAN-SPAM act as I did not give them permission to sell/share my contact info with partners.
Usually how these training works is that the company you have terms of service with (Zeek Rewards) sends an email from their domain introducing the training.
And many people don’t even want to use NXPay. Zeek Rewards is pushing it as they probably get a cut of the fees or referral. Keep milking the members for a few dollars here and there.
I have only read 20 or so, mostly related to sale. But I gradually found out that I needed to focus on the customers rather than myself, and focus on doing something rather than creating an impression of being something. So I dropped the whole idea 20 years ago.
I’m not sure about the mentor-stuff, but the leadership call gave the impression of someone having taught them to do so. And I really found the call disturbing, I’m not faking anything. I had to listen to it twice. The second time was to make some corrections to my first impression, trying to identify a few more “organized” parts in the call.
And I didn’t listen to it to find something to criticize in the first place, I was only looking for facts. And I will normally focus on CASE rather than PEOPLE, so this is one of few exceptions for me.
One of the disturbing things was that problems were identified to be “out there”, that other people was the cause of problems. So when 2,000 people call their bank then it’s not something in their SYSTEM that has failed, it’s all the PEOPLE. So they won’t do anything to fix it, other than doing some leadership calls focusing on the symptoms rather than the cause.
The leadership call contains tons of material for why some SelfDev and leadership theories fails, but analysing it will be off-topic.
One question:
Do any other than me have the impression that Dawn was getting more and more drunk during the call? It sounded so in the last half part of the call.
@M_Norway
I’m sure like you, most of us were not looking to criticize. We wanted CLEAR answers. Initially, I was really excited about the call. I thought we were going to get some REAL answers to the many problems they have. Not!
This is why I’ve thought he had little credibility since the evidence is fairly obvious that it’s a ponzi scheme. There’s just absolutely no way that any company could stay in business trying to advertise this way, not to mention having to pay off money on increasing point balances to every member out there for each bid purchase they make.
There’s just way too much about Zeek that’s hinky to trust putting any money into it. Now, with all the IT problems they’ve been having, auctions not being paid off, and piss poor customer service, there’s no way they could stay in business as a legit company.
I didn’t say that having the affiliate sell bids to customers would make it successful, but would make it a valid MLM and not a ponzi. I’m well aware that few MLM’s stay in business long, but I’m guessing that the lifespan of most ponzis are even shorter.
Yes, I agree Joe Mama…I was actually responding to Lucas original question. You’re right, that which is valid vs. that which would last. Two different things.
@Vicky
If you could put money into Zeek Rewards without understanding that you bought bids and they became points instead of dollars, then you could not have possibly have even looked at their website, and you failed to do due diligence. I will go further to say you did not have a clue.
No offense but I question that your sponsor is to blame to the point that you should be furious with them.
Points turn into dollars via the 90 day ROI. You can even automate the entire process so that effectively you invest money in VIP bids and wind up with a >100% ROI in your bank account after 90 days.
Zeek Rewards might force affiliates to wordsmith their way around the obvious but we don’t bother with that ‘wink wink, nudge nudge’ bullshit here.
@HC – Every disclaimer says points are just points, that this isn’t an investment. Yet every sales call, testimonial, and social proof offered presents the opportunity as 1 point = $1 and uses 1.4 to 1.5% for compunded income projections.
Just because you wordsmith the website and slap disclaimers on every page doesn’t change the underlying nature of the business and how it is sold. And if you joined Zeek late, up until Aug 2011 it was sold exactly as a HYIP with 125% guaranteed ROI.
So to pretend that the business model has suddenly changed is dishonest.
Finally, even the Zeek back office STILL has the Zeek recommended “reinvest at 100% until you hit 50k points then switch to 80//20” which clearly reads like an investment strategy.
@Oz and Jimmy
I’m not sure what counter point you two are making. All I’m saying is I read the “bullshit” on the website and understand the model and underllying nature. I simply made a point that Vicky did not read the website.
I read the website and clearly understood “you only have a bunch of bids unless you cash out” Then she complains that she had to wait two weeks for a check, and that there are no refunds. These policies are clearly defined on the website.
If she did not understand the original principal invested (the forbidden word) was gone and a point was not a dollar until it went into a cash available bucket, she did not read the website.
All I’m saying is do due diligence before you throw money at any investment or business. If she had studied the website, or maybe Googled, she may have even found this forum and came to the realization it was a ponzi and there were red flags everywhere.
@HC My point is that between ‘don’t mention this, don’t mention that’ “compliance” and all the other garbage going on over at Zeek I entirely understand why Zeek Rewards could be misrepresented to new affiliates.
Entirely Zeek Rewards’ fault for creating the ‘don’t refer to X as X’ environment that affiliates are forced to comply with if they want to keep earning a ROI.
I can also see due diligence being discouraged as a general explanation of “invest x, get >x after 90 days” or a similar variant saves time and pretty much sums it up. Of course that leaves people worried about participating in a Ponzi scheme in a bit of a sitaution when they realise the money’s tied up for 90 days but I can see how it happens.
Are you saying it’s her fault for trusting her sponsor’s explanation being correct?
What if the website was wrong too? (hypothetically speaking)
I sort of understand where HC’s coming from, but blaming the victim for trusting her sponsor ain’t exactly “nice”.
@Oz
I understand your point. Mine is, “be responsible”.
Furthermore I was insulted by Dawn’s reaction when told about an affiliate’s use of the word “investment.” The fact that one would so quickly spew an arrogant threat simply over a bullshit compliance term is almost hateful.
Maybe the affiliate just accidentally said “Voldemort” and Dawn would blast the lady with her compliance wand.
This reminds me of the Nickelodeon show, You Can’t Do That On Television, where one would be blasted over the head with nasty green slime for saying the words, “I don’t know” Lol.
Can’t argue with that.
@Chang
Yes I am saying this. She is “furious” with someone she apparently trusted to explain it well enough.
We do not know how smart Vicky is, or how well the sponsor explained the model. I’m simply speculating that if you did not even read the website, poor comprehension or listening skills might be a reasonable possibility.
A fair argument can be made I’m not very nice. Business and investments are often not nice either.
If the website was wrong, they were both duped and they can cry in each other’s embrace.
“one day we will look back at this… laugh nervously, and change the subject”
@HC
There’s something special with Zeek in that they target non MLM-ers, like senior citizens looking for a way to increase their income. Zeek has a clear and distinct investment part that can be attractive to non MLM-ers too.
It means you can’t expect the behaviour of experienced MLM-ers here, and blaming the participants is pretty stupid. Normally it should be the company’s duty to make the information available and understandable for the target groups, if we’re talking about normal and sustainable business.
If we’re talking about “schemes”, then all kinds of methods are allowed. So I specified “normal and sustainable” to avoid any misunderstandings.
When 2,000 people are calling NxPay, it should be pretty clear for most people that something has failed in the SYSTEM. This isn’t something that “just happens” randomly, “because of bad behaviour”. Something has failed in the leadership, not in all the people who called NxPay.
So listening to Dawn using herself as an example (around 20:00 into the call) really disturbed me. She sounded like she totally had lost contact with the real world (and so did the two others, too).
I don’t know about investments, but sustainable businesses are “nice”. They have to be “nice” in order to survive. So I don’t know where your experience comes from? It sounded like your own idea or maybe your own experience.
So when a business tries to be “smart” and focus solely on the profit, it will soon experience trouble if the methods used are not “nice”. Most businesses will need to keep a balance between “smart” and “nice” to be able to survive.
@HC
I found one of the old “approved” PowerPoint presentations that was used earlier.
http://www.slideshare.net/MarcosRibas/approved-power-point-from-zeek
It’s a presentation that probably is banned now, but the methods may still exist in modified forms. It clearly shows ZeekRewards as an investment, not as a “recreational activity” or anything similar. Then, when the investment are sold, they present the rules about purchasing bids in a less understandable way, using terms like “e-commerce activity” and “this is NOT an investment”.
Even if this particular PP presentation is banned, the methods used do still exist. So you can’t blame the customers for believing it’s an investment. The cause of the problem can be found within the SYSTEM (the management), not within the customers.
So when Dawn blames affiliates for being irresponsible, it sounds pretty meaningless to me. The cause of the problem is within the management itself.
The problem with Zeek is it fits MULTIPLE definitions of fraud. It fits Ponzi scheme, unregistered securities (i.e. selling an investment and goes around telling everybody it’s not an investment), pyramid scheme (chain referrals and get benefits from that), deliberate obfuscation of business model, and more.
The fact that it passes the Howey Test means it is an investment, so any claims that it isn’t is lipstick on a pig.
Not to mention that Dawn and other officers/affiliates built their large point balances and downline utilizing what is now banned advertising content. So their interests are in conflict with an affiliate in that their current focus is on maintaining the cash cow, while new affiliates are trying to build their dairy farm.
The social proof provided at Red Carpet Events are also disingenuous because there is no way a new affiliate can build the same size organization with the sanitized marketing, unless there is a serious amount of wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
There has to be a lot of wink, wink, nudge, nudge as well as check flashing in order to sell ZR to new recruits, otherwise there’s no way that anyone would join.
My father-in-law claimed that everything’s legit because of the disclaimer that everyone is forced to read at recruiting sessions, but everything he’s told me and others about it is how much dough people are making in it and you’d have to be a fool to pass up this opportunity to make money.
In fact, all the recruitment efforts thrive on it.
In other words, ALL of the zeek affiliates that join late (after the “compliance” thing) have been VICTIM of a bait-and-switch.
From what I’ve seen they’ve been told it’s not about an investment scheme, but are told that there are huge amounts of money to be made.
It kind of reminds me of the person claiming that it’s not a get rich quick scheme, but you can make $2 million in just two years. They always make sure they say it’s not an investment but end up with the appeal to greed.
I continue to hear the Troy Dooly is getting paid by Zeek. Did anyone ever think that Troy knows that his voice is getting heard and recognized by tens of thousands because of the Zeek draw. I think that’s enough for him. It’s FREE pr for him. Way to Gorilla Market Troy!
Heck behindmlm has recieved massive a traffic increase because of it’s view points on Zeek. Both behindMLM and Troy benefit from Zeek…Positive or Negative views…doesnt matter. I enjoy it. Keep up the good work!
I have been approached by two different people in the last two weeks to join Zeek Rewards. At first glance it seemed like an incredible opportunity, but then I got to thinking, where is all this money coming from?
All it takes is a little common sense and a visit to zeekler.com to see that this penny auction cannot possibly support the money that is being paid out to their affiliates. A little common sense also should tell you that the money being paid out is from the affiliates initial “investment” and surely some sort of ponzi scheme.
That being said, I started doing my due diligence and ran across this website and a few others, and my suspicions were verified.
It was my opinion from introduction that ZR would either collapse at some point after momentum slowed, or be shut down by the government. The first person that introduced me actually agreed with me, but justified it by saying that he knew he was taking a risk but hoped to ride it and make money before that happened.
The second person that approached me kept with the stock answers that ZR uses to justify their business model, although he did admit that it was an “investment“. I have referred him to some links supporting my view, but he keeps with the same “stepfordian” drivel to justify his involvement.
I am thankful for this site an others for exposing this business for what it is. It is too bad so many are motivated by greed alone, and are sure to be hurt.
Corey T., I think you overestimate Troy Dooley’s influence and popularity. Troy’s a lapdog…not sophisticated enough for gorilla marketing. Pat’s on the head and a scratch behind the ear from Dawn is all Troy needs to back Zeek Rewards.
First, it’s guerilla marketing, not the animal gorilla.
Second, Troy Dooly had been around much longer than ZeekRewards (as long as Paul Burks himself, I’d say).
So you don’t really have a point on ZR itself?
@K.Chang
You’re correct it is Guerilla marketing. I had a few typos but you get the message. Even though Troy has been around for a while you still need to find ways to drive folks to your site. It’s called growth. Zeek has helped Troy and BehindMLM with traffic.
Yes, I do have an opinion on Zeek. My brother is a Zeek affiliate and he does well with the program. I don’t see anything wrong with Zeek. They are growing faster than I think anyone expected. Zeek management is taking the necessary steps to make Zeek rewards a sustainable online business opportunity for affiliates.
I think there’s a lot of folks that think that Zeek management is going to run off like bandits into the wind with all the money. That’s normal for people to feel that way. I believe that Zeek is here to stay. Zeek is under the microscope they deserve some credit for what they have accomplished so far.
Here’s to Troy and BehindMLM. Keep bringing both sides of the coin! To all the Zeekamaniacs keep posting your adds. To all the Zeek non believers keep digging and bringing legit facts. It’s all good stuff.
Onward and Upward,
Corey T.
Let’s see…
1. Ponzi’s are illegal
2. Selling unregistered securities is illegal
3. Undisclosed offshore banking institutions, with credit card processor in Korea making cash advance charges (which adds cash advance fees and forex fees) in lieu of a normal credit card purchase is suspicious/high risk
4. Using third party eWallets associated with high risk and fraud services such as HYIP and AdSurf is risky
5. the money will run out and a lot of people will get screwed and not make their money back
6. Commissions haven’t been processed since April due to payment processor issues.
7. Many Zeekler customers have not been paid for months. Hundreds of examples.
8. Many tickets open for 3+ months with no answer. Calling and live chat useless.
9. Zeek leadership blaming members for leadership problems, such as no providing nxpay information and then blaming 2000 affiliates for behaving badly when they contact nxpay for support.
“Onward and Upward”… how about paying Zeekler customer won auctions that have gone unpaid for several months. How about answering customer support ticket that have been opened for 3+ months. How about picking up the phone without having to wait in line for 2.5 hours in the queue.
As far as I understand Jimmy the affiliates are getting paid. My brother had a check Clawed Back but then he did get paid in his 3rd party ewallet account (Are ewallets illegal Jimmy?) My brother has been getting paid since April.
You have bad info on affiliates not getting paid since April. I dont know any source that I can find on hundreds of Zeek customers not getting paid or getting there prizes.
Yeah Zeek has grown faster than the light of speed and the customer service has suffered. You act like they have no money coming in from the Penny Auction. Folks like to try and target the winners and poke every hole they can find. That’s natural to feel that way.
Onward and Upward,
Corey T.
The Zeek Rewards support forums are flooded with payment issues and people complaining they haven’t been issued auction winnings since as far back as April.
Unfortunately Zeek Rewards are going to cut off public read-only access to this forum sometime in the next 24 hours as it appears to conflict with their public ‘we never missed a payment’ mantra.
You appear to have a sample size of your brother. That’s not very conclusive.
Out of curiosity, how many Zeekler customers does your brother have who have bought retail auction bids with their own funds beyond an initial test purchase?
@OZ
A sample size of my Brother may not be conclusive enough for most but it’s good enough for me.
Dunno how many customers he has. I do see his site and watch people walking away with good prizes for up to 90% off. You know how the Penny Auctions work. It’s amazing how much dough they bring in.
Well, if supposing whatever happens to your brother is indicative of what happens to the population of the planet at large… I think that speaks for itself.
Be worth finding out.
Unless your brother has a penny auction site of his own, this doesn’t make any sense.
Also if you’re talking about Zeekler in general… you do know that’s just full of Zeek Rewards affiliates bidding on items right? (confirm this by asking your brother how many legit retail customers he has that have gone on to buy retail bids beyond an initial test spend vs. how many affiliates he’s recruited).
@Oz
My brother posts an ad and then folks come to the site to give it a try. He get’s about 4 hits on each ad that he places. He has to place a minimum of one add per day and he places more than that.
The folks that respond to his ad go and play for FREE to start and then some of them decide to go after a much nicer item than the FREE bid item. These folks end up purchasing bids and play the auctions. This is how the majority of the income is getting generated.
It’s not coming from the affiliates playing the auctions. I hope that clears it up. You should give it a shot. My Mom and Grandmother thinks it’s a blast to play the live auctions.
I think you’re confusing ‘what happens’ with what ‘your brother tells you happens’.
Zeekler links aren’t trackable by affiliates. The only people that know where their traffic is originating from is Zeekler.
I’m going to ask you again: How many legit retail customers does “your brother” have? Customers who have purchased retail bids with their own money beyond an initial test spend?
As opposed to all the actual affiliates who have (to their credit) admitted to having no actual customers and some with access to thousands of affiliate reports claiming to not see one legit retail customer.
There is no attraction for end retail customers to bid against people who couldn’t give a crap about the value of the bids they’re using. And before you mention the different types of bids available, both retail bids and VIP bids are largely bought by affiliates (either by themselves or through dummy accounts) for their ROIs and referral commissions.
Looks like you’ve got the typical ‘I signed up my entire family as affiliates’ thing going on at your house. I’m sure your family do think it’s a blast, how much of their own money have they spent on actual bids?
@Norway
I think you have over analyzed my comments.I simply noted that the lady cited issues that indicated she did not even read or comprehend the company website, yet is she “furious” with her sponsor. In this age of entitlement, why do we so often rush to blame others.
In the book “Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor Viktor Franki makes an inspiring proposal:
I am a seasoned entrepreneur and own multple successful businesses. I have both made and lost a lot of money in the most free and exceptional country of business opportunity. I take responsibility for both my gains and losses.
My point that business or investments can be “mean” is that sometimes we can do all the right things, and do due diligence, and still lose money.
Many of us have made mistakes, but ultimately we are responsible for our own business and investment decisions.
The problem, Corey T, Oz already explained. You are arguing with “anecdotal fallacy”, believing your own example is somehow “typical” of all ZeekRewards affiliates. Unless you have proof (i.e. much larger sample size, hundreds or thousands), it cannot be considered typical.
I’m glad your family had a blast playing the auctions. But if they got the free bids, SOMEONE PAID FOR THEM. And if they bought bids, great. Again, no proof it’s “typical”.
So what role does fraud play? Or is it “caveat emptor”, let the victims suffer as “lesson prices”?
Then there’s the question… did ZeekRewards commit fraud? Such as insisting their investment (should have no problem passing the Howey Test) is not an investment?
@OZ
I guess we got our lines crossed on the communication. I will be a little more detailed. My brother has to verify the ads that he places with the site(s) that he places them on. The site will send you a link to your email address. You have to click the link to verify your ad. You can go and check out how many people went to your ad.
That doesnt mean that you know how many people actually go to the site and play. Zeek knows the amount of folks that are playing the auctions. These folks get addicted when they win something for a great deal then go and brag about what they won. Then others want to enjoy the same experience and play the auction.
My Mom actually told my brother about Zeek. She liked playing the Penny auction site and she received some free bids to play at Zeek. She told my brother and then he took a look at the auction site and started reading up on the affiliate program. He signed up and he’s doing well.
I think thats a big reason why I believe the process works. My Mom cant be the only person that has answered one of those Zeek ads and likes to play the penny auction.
Ad pageviews != clicking on the link.
How much of her own money has your mother spent on retail bids (bids that weren’t credited to your brother’s account via referrals/matching VIP bid points)?
How many retail customers does your brother have that have spent their own money on bids beyond an initial test purchase?
Free customers = no revenue and leaves the scheme propped up by invested affiliate money. That’s the problem. Start answering the questions please.
@Chang
Interesting question. I am only familiar with that term in real estate. Unfortunately a warranty is not always available. Was there a warranty available on the company website? Nope. So, yes, ” Let the buyer beware”.
Sucks.
My opinion is they are committing fraud. Their lack of transparency indicates purposely. Their amateurish execution hints they are quite capable of unintentional illegal decisions. I am bewildered how the same unprofessionals could craft such a brilliant 90 day ponzi scheme.
Here is an example of purposeful and amateurish actions simultaneously:. Did you notice that Dawn used the term “Clawback,” which is obviously a financial term associated with securities and investments that she did not just pull out of the air.
Then she has the audacity to say that she made up the term to relate to the claw of an arcade crane machine dropping stuffed prizes into slots. It seems to me the attorney’s tried to cover that gaffe.
HC, I did read the website, but it still didn’t make much sense to me since I had never seen a business model like that. Zeek is not that forth coming either with the info on their site or period for that matter.
There is nothing wrong with my comprehension or listening skills. The site sucks and doesn’t explain what Zeek is really all about in MY opinion. You practically have to join Zeek to truly understand what it’s all about. I know exactly what my sponsor told me.
Because she had just joined when she sponsored me, my sponsor probably didn’t understand the business that well herself. So maybe I shouldn’t have been furious with her, but I was at that time.
I think all she understood is that if she placed her ad everyday, she made money. And that’s the way it was presented to me…”all you have to do is INVEST in buying sample bids, join the customer co-op, place your ad everyday and you will make money too”.
The same day upon joining, unfortunately I went out and got a lot of my friends involved. But after studying the this thing, I realized that was a mistake. I COMPREHENDED that my friends and I needed to get our money out. But all is well, because we’re all cashing out now as fast as humanly possible before this thing falls apart. All of us have gotten our original INVESTMENTS out and then some.
Now, I must admit I don’t know much about the SEC and the powers that be as far as shutting down these types of businesses, but I’m learning thanks to this website. I had heard of ponzi/pyramid schemes, but I had never been involved with one. And I just recently discovered what a ponzi/pyramid scheme actually is…again, thanks to this website.
And I’m still furious that Zeek makes us wait 2 weeks before our payments are even processed, then wait until it actually appears somewhere. With all the problems with those processors, we don’t really know where to even send the money half the time, do we? NXpay up…now down. AP, STP having issues etc.
Oh, and forgive me for trusting that my sponsor understood how Zeek works.
Vicky, I”m glad you got out your original investment back and “then some.” Of course, the “then some” you are getting is illegal ponzi money other uninformed souls will lose down the road.
They are going to be furious!
Assuming you mean the “Howey Test”, it applies to all investments, even Ponzi schemes and Pyramid schemes.
See SEC vs. Glenn W. Turner (1973) (who operated a Ponzi called “dared to be great”, which is really a sales tool to sell… itself. SEC nailed him for “unregistered securities” among other things. )
So it may not have started as fraud, but their continued bungled attempt to “spin” their failures would constitute fraud, correct?
Even an idiot can get lucky. 🙂
Personally, I never heard of the term until I heard the guy suing all the Bernie Madoff beneficiaries for “clawbacks”. I looked up investopedia and it’s definitely financially related.
Or she’s making up sh__ as she goes along.
@Vicky — glad you at least didn’t lose any money.
Just wondering: did you ask “the most stupid question”, i.e. “How much money can I realistically make if I join?” of your sponsor?
If so, what was the response? I guess it’d be one of the three here, but I’d like to hear other people’s experiences, if it’s not too painful to share.
http://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2012/06/most-stupid-question-in-mlm-or-is-it.html
I’m helping as many as I can to get informed. And since you seem to be so concerned about those uninformed souls, get off my back and go do the same so they won’t be furious!
@Chang
I was referring to caveat emptor. I looked up Howey Test when you made reference previously.
Their failure is fraud. Their “bungled attempt to spin their failures” (eloquently put) is yes, fraud to the second power, and comedy.
@K. Chang
Yes, I did ask. At the time she told me she was making a little over $3,000 a week. But she dumped a LOT of money in Zeek.
I think she was honest in the fact that she told me the amount I could make would depend on a lot of variables…like how much I invested, how many people I sponsored, etc.
@Vicky
Ok I admittedly was being snarky. However now you are “furious” that Zeek makes you wait two weeks to get your illegal ponzi monies processed. Not only that but you have already recouped your original investment and are working on “and then some.” Give me a break
Its not a pyramid scheme…..its more like a triangle oppurtunity. Vwake up you idiots dawn is stealing your money.
As far as the soap example its no diffent than a soap salesman, except the soap company doesnt charge the salesman for working. Any time your oppurtunity requires you to pay up front to work and get paid later its a scam
Anyone talked with Dooly lately? I’m still waiting for his response to all of our questions.
Last I heard he was going to the red carpet event (being held today) early to interview Zeek Rewards management.
I have been reading every Zeek topic on BehindMLM for about 8 months….Ever since I joined Zeek Rewards. I like to stay informed and I just wanted to put my 2 cents in here…
I make 4x per month what I make in my regular job. I only purchased $300 in bids last October. I love this company!
I get frustrated with the “growing pains” but they seem to always come through for us. I do realize that nothing lasts forever, so I encourage all my affiliates to do the 90/10 so they get their initial bid purchase back.
I am in for the long haul and happy as hell about it.
When the initial investement bubble finally bursts… do you really think there’s going to be a long haul?
How many retail auction customers (who have purchased bids beyond an initial test spend) have you acquired since last October?
What I really want to know is how much of your revenue is based on having affiliates below you vs. retail sales to strangers. I think that is the big question we all want to know.
How many people are making that kind of money WITHOUT others below them?
Great question @jshrow, and one I have been trying to get an answer to myself.
@candice- when you say that you make 4x what you make per month on your normal job (from purchasing 300 bids initially), do you mean you are cashing that amount per month, or you are accumulating the equivalent value in points? Because there is a big difference.
I see people saying all the time they are earning this or that per week/month, but if it’s points not $$$ then it really doesn’t mean anything.
To answer some questions….
I have 10 personally sponsored affiliates. I only cash out about 15% so my income is only from the cashed out amount.
I can say that my mother is a zeek affiliate and she has no one under her nor does she intend to do so. She makes about $15.00 a day average. So in her mind $15.00 a day times lets just say 30 days a month is $450.00 less her $99.00 diamond package still leaves her $350.00 a month profit.
She has $20,000.00 in a bank account that earned her about $30.00 for the entire year and then they charged her $20.00 for a non-activity fee in that account because she had just left it there. I cannot argue with this. These are facts.
She puts in $99.00 a month has a profit at the end much greater than her bank was offering her. I don’t want to start the ball rolling again, but I know what I see.
BTW her original money down or whatever they call it to buy bids was $200.00. Even with that taken into account she is ahead of the game.
@candice
So not one retail customer? …and you really think there’s going to be a long haul with everyone just recruiting affiliates?
Finally you’re not making 4x a month what you made in your previous job as claimed, you’re making just 15% of that (actual take home money, the rest is virtual). If my maths is correct this is just 60% of what you were making in your previous job.
@Dawn
Nobody is arguing that as long as people keep investing new money a Ponzi scheme doesn’t pay. If you’re mother doesn’t have a conscience and is secure in the knowledge that her money is coming from other investors then that’s her business.
Still doesn’t change the overall lack of sustainability of a Ponzi scheme though.
@dawn
You say your mother is making $15 / day. Is she actually pulling that amount out or is she accumulating points which supposedly are worth that amount if she was getting a check?
Is she taking home $450/ month or just accumulating that amount worth of points that hopefully she’ll be able to cash in one day?
@oz
No…my 15% that I take out IS 4X what I make in my “real” job. It is exactly as I said. If I took out more than 15%, then I would have in my hand MORE than that. I am thrilled making 4x what my other job pays me!
The remaining 85% is what is left to grow in my Zeek Rewards account…and growing it is!
Fair enough… but you don’t have any retail customers – which isn’t surprising because nobody does.
With everyone recruiting new affiliates what happens when these affiliates stop investing new money? How exactly is there a long-haul to this?
The “long haul” to me is simply as long as Zeek Rewards will have me. Nothing lasts forever.
You mean ‘for as long as they keep paying me out’. So you participate full well despite knowing and acknowledging it’s a Ponzi investment scheme.
A sustainable business model with real customers does. What an utterly weak copout.
Candice, what do you mean nothing lasts forever. Avon is a 100 year old company. Amway’s not going anywhere. Christianity isn’t going away any time soon.
My advice to you…save every penny of you’re illegally gotten gains. Whatever amount you’re earning/week is the price of your integrity.
I’m a semi-retired network marketing millionaire and my mission in life right now is shutting down Zeek Rewards. I hope you didn’t quit your day job because come August you’re going to be living on 1/4 of what you earn now.
If you admit there’s hundreds of thousands of affiliates, surely you realize that an auction site that brings in, best case scenario, less than 0.4M a day cannot support them, unless there’s Ponzi involved.
Judging by your language, it seems to me you’re upset by what you’ve been reading here, realizing your magic money will probably stop falling from the sky soon, and you’re trying to compensate with attitude.
If I can be of any use, I’d be happy to help. I’m based in Israel, and there are several thousands of affiliates here and rapidly growing (all pretty much under the same one or two leaders, who I have no doubt know exactly what’s going on).
As an experiment, I bought 200 customer leads from Z Customers at $2 each for $400. I theorized it would be a waste of money. I was correct.
Over a month later not one of these potential customers ever bought a single bid. Zero. In addition I have another 20 plus “retail customers” in the sponsorship report that have not purchased a single bid on Zeekler.
When I contacted ZCustomers and questioned the suspicious usernames, a representative explained that Zeekler creates the usernames and sends the customer an email with information on how to sign in and use the free bids they have requested.
When multiple users from the same IP address create or ask for free bids as well, the usernames are generated one right after the other. The rep further explained they do not have control over this, and that they guarantee that I received a unique lead for each one that was ordered.
I do not believe ZCustomers. If I am wrong, I just presented a sample of over 200 leads that did not produce one single real retail customer.
Dazy, I’m not sure how things work in Israel, but there has to be some sort of consumer protection agency you can report Zeek to. I’ve written the FTC and SEC. I’m also writing the attorney generals of all 50 states. That’ll get some attention.
I love the network marketing industry when done correctly. A company like Zeek ruins things. When it collapses, there will be hundreds of thousands of unhappy distributors that will either bad mouth networking or find the next quick cash deal.
That does sound suspicious. Why would they need to create usernames when real customers would just sign up and create their own? I’ve never heard of any other online business working that way.
I’m sure the “leads” are just another way for Zeek to get money from affiliates, or just a way they can claim 25:1 customer/affiliate ratio.
@MB
Meanwhile Zcustomers state this at the bottom of their website:
When you order directly from Zcustomers, how are Zeekler creating customer accounts for people and sending them emails?
Shouldn’t ZCustomers be directing leads to Zeekler to sign up?
Clearly there’s some sort of relationship evident if Zeekler are cretaing accounts for leads Zcustomers have generated before the lead customer (purchasing from Zcustomer) or the generated lead know they’ve been signed up?
Otherwise why would Zeekler bother to create accounts (or know which emails to register the new customers with?)
More importantly, does that constitute Zeekler signing up its own customers…? How do you run a penny bid auction site, sign up your own customers on nothing more than a list sent to you by a company who claims to have nothing to do with you?
Am I missing something here…?
Why would ZCustomers even need to exist if the hype Zeek puts out about the spam ads driving in so much business is true?
I thought the daily ads that affiliates place were supposed to bring in customers?
Oh and another important question: Where are ZCustomers getting all these “leads?”
Does anyone actually think that there are a bunch of clueless potential Zeekler customers going to ZCustomers trying to find affiliates to buy bids from instead of going directly to the zeekler.com site or finding an affiliate through the thousands of spam ads?
ZCustomers is run by Gary Bessoni, a well-know spammer… I mean lead seller.
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/news.admin.net-abuse.email/MEYfj-TohLs
He also runs G&B Marketing, and was affiliate of multiple MLMs/potential scams including ACN and GDI (global domains intl, a web hosting/domain reg pyramid scheme)
Back in early 2000’s he was pushing TrafficOasis, touted as the world’s greatest marketing leads program (of something or another).
http://www.mail-archive.com/cypherpunks@minder.net/msg45222.html
Looks like deja vu all over again.
I wouldn’t doubt if ZCustomers is getting their customers from fiverr. You can get all the free customer you need for $5.00.
Just go to fiverr and type in the search gigs box (zeekler) and presto tons of people offering to get you all the customers your heart will ever desire.
See, that’s what I mean. If Zeek Rewards were legitimate and affiliates really were bringing in all sorts of customers due to daily spam ads, then why are there so many places offering to sell customers?
That fiverr page, the fact that companies like ZCustomers being in existence makes it fairly obvious that Zeek affiliates are desperate for customers they can sign up to dump bids onto. And again, if they’re that desperate for actual customers, it means that there are very, very few real customers bringing money into Zeek.
So Zeek is lying if they say they’re sharing 50% of the daily profits (which apparently keep increasing by ~1.5% daily). Apparently the daily spam ads aren’t having the effect of driving in business like they claim, not that I thought they would.
@Oz
I’m missing what your missing. Based on the response from the rep, ZCustomers claims to give unique to ZeekRewards who then place these in your sponsorship report for Zeekler/FSC customers. At least this is my understanding from the email I received. If this is the way it works, there is obviously possible collusion. The purpose of wasting $400 was to see if I could get a real retail customer from a sample of 200 leads. Somewhere, someone received my money and is laughing.
To give you an example of how ludicrous the “Zeek is too big for BB&T bank,” claim is, I just had a transaction with RedBox that I disputed and they reversed the charges right away.
The RedBox machine I was returning the disc at was not functioning, and so I submitted a request for a refund and it was manually processed by a customer service rep within 24 hours. In the past, I had a disc that was skipping and complained and got a full refund within 24 hours.
I looked up how many RedBox rentals per day occur and they rent 1600 discs per minute! That’s probably an average of about 1500 credit card charges per minute (because some rent more than 1 disc at a time).
So RedBox can handle ~1500 credit card transactions PER MINUTE and handle returns/disputes within 24 hours, and their per transaction revenue is way less than what Zeek makes. If RedBox can do this with their US bank, why does Zeek have to run off to a China or Korea or wherever they ended up?
You might say “RedBox has more employees than Zeek” but that’s not the point. The point is Zeek is claiming they are too big for their bank when here’s an example of a business that does vastly more volume and higher gross revenue than Zeek and they have no problems with US banks.
More bullsh*t news from ZR News:
I thought their “Banking Issues” were resolved? Yes…more bullsh*t.
A Zeek insider gave me an innocent enough explanation. Zeek underestimated the amount of withdrawals via NxPay so didn’t have enough funds transferred to NxPay. They said the size of bank wire was large so it requires a few days to clear. AlertPay and STP were no affected.
This does raise the question of why they are managing weekly cash flow so tightly, and why their execution was so poor considering they had 2-3 weeks between withdrawl request and clawback and a few more days delay before payment.
Ok, well this sort of explains a little bit…. and I can *almost* understand why a large wire transfer might take a few days to clear, but yes, exactly the point – they had two weeks lead time on how much they needed to transfer.
And what’s going to be their next f-ing excuse next week?
That’s the problem working with THREE payment processors who are NOT banks. With banks you can arrange for a credit line to cover the stuff. With payment processors, they only pay from the amount of YOUR money they have in your account. No money, no pay.
You can now be sure that the amount they are transferring requires a disclosure to the Feds, esp. when all these payment processors are offshore.
Hey Guys, I am a new zeek affiliate, and me and my fiance, sent $ 20000 to Payza, in order to purchase our 10,000 bids each, but thanks God I found this blog. You save my life. Thanks
Welcome Lagerence.
Someone further up the thread said something about a ” doomsday” type collapse in August…did I misread?…
There are a lot of affiliates that are not dimwitted enough to know this is not a ponzi. It amazes me the sharp intelligent folks that are buying in at a 10k minimum knowing there’s no product being bought or sold.
Knowing its a ponzi, isnt that their risk versus reward?
@harrison
We’re not discussing risk vs. reward. If people want to invest in Ponzi schemes that’s their business but enough with the psuedo ‘we are not an investment scheme’ compliance crap and enough with the trashing of the MLM industry with dodgy programs like this already.
Zeek Rewards launched openly as an investment scheme and then decided to hide behind MLM, penny auctions and ‘don’t call our investment scheme an investment scheme’ compliance. That’s the problem, here.
Look past your own personal finances and see the big picture.
All I can say is OMG! The thing is, my upline says its all negativity and he’s getting paid…this is such a scam!!!! I just wonder how long will it be b4 Zeek is over.
I’m so sorry I invested in this and now I have to wait to get my investments out. Its set to pay me 100% but its only Mondays and then its a 2 week lag…
When oh when will I actually find something that is truly legit! After 10 years of these programs, I’m so done. Some of them have been legit but its an arm and a leg monthly for autoships, etc… please someone email me with a legitimate biz that doesn’t take a lot of $$ to start up or a lot of recruiting. I don’t like to recruit!
(Ozedit: email removed)
I personally don’t take much stock in pure speculations.
Yes, but you’re assuming everybody knows what they’re doing That would be a fallacy as lots of them are pulled in by their friends and family and went in solely on “trust”, not full examination of the factors
Add to that this “compliance” thing on ‘don’t call this an investment’, and while it, IMHO, obviously pass the Howey Test of “investment”, would make this a deliberate fraud, not merely a Ponzi.
Here is something to consider… Zeek and Troy and many affiliates are gushing at “how easy this is” and how Paul Burks has solved the problem of “97% people failing” (or whatever the actual MLM statistic is).
If it was really this easy and all you had to do was some 1 minute busy work, isn’t that by itself, irregardless of any other details, a huge red flag?
Isn’t it much, much, much more likely this is a scam/Ponzi than it is the first ever MLM that allows 97% of the participants to earn rather than lose?
From an economics perspective, if the top 3% are STILL raking in the dough with Zeek like they would with any MLM, then how could the remaining 97% be so profitable as well? The revenue has to come from somewhere.
I could see where a program did more socialist redistribution where income from the top 3% earned was redistributed in a comp plan that paid more about to the average distributor, but that would mean the top 3%’s share would be greatly reduced.
In Zeek, you have the top 3% still earning at the same high ratios as other MLM’s and Ponzi’s.
So now we’re expected to believe that this is not a Ponzi and Paul Burks has someone figured out a magic formula that maintains the same high 3% earning ratios in a traditional MLM/pyramid/ponzi, yet at the same time has ALSO enabled the bottom 97% to ALSO earn equally as well and be profitable?
Look at it one other way:
1. In an MLM, if you stopped all new sales and only maintained autoship and existing customer retail purchase volumes, the company and distributors flat line but earn the same amount month after month.
Some distributors may drop out because their autoship is more than their revenue, but the overall structure of the business is not completely dependent on a constant flow of new distributors and customers.
2. With Zeek, if the flow of new affiliate money stops, everything falls apart.
So how is Zeek not a Ponzi?
I would add this is why many critics have been extra critical of Troy Dooly on this. Many MLM distributors have their doubts, but they see Troy’s endorsement or “professional opinion” as the credible justification that it’s not as risky as their gut instinct is telling them.
Yes it IS a ponzi. I don’t doubt it! 🙁
Like I’ve said countless times, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Which is what made me suspicious of ZR in the first place.
Why would any penny auction website share 50% of the daily profits, paying out what would have to be millions of dollars to so many people just for placing one spam ad a day, when the company could hire people for far cheaper to advertise this way, or advertise in more effective means?
But if you did that, then you would have a harder time selling the idea to new recruits by saying, “Joe Blow is now making $30,000 a week.”
I have read a few of those comments, but they are special cases where people already have made their decisions, and are asking a SPECIFIC person to confirm their own decisions and viewpoints. They are looking for confirmation rather than facts.
Asking for an advice is more a part of the communication style than a real question. The real question is something like “Can you add something here to confirm my own decision?”.
If their own decision fails, they can defend it with “Even an expert like Troy Dooly was not able to see the problems, so how could I have seen them?”.
Which is why I said Troy Dooly isn’t endorsing ZeekRewards. He has a Pro-ZR BIAS, and it’s interpreted by Zeekheads as an endorsement.
My thanks to all the posters here and on your other hubs and postings. I alomost fell for the trap recently but when none of my questions posed to the sponsor or his cohorts could be answered by anything more subsatantial than “look at all the $ we are making” I blew them off. I know a rat when I see one.
I told him from the first conversation that it looked way, way too good to be true (read PONZI) and it only took a little research to substantiate my skepticism.
When they started waving the last big red flag of instead of answering my challenges of where’s the payout money coming from with the old, “well, if it’s too risky of an INVESTMENT for you then you better not do it” BS, (Oldest hard sale 101 trick in the book), I chose to run, not walk for the nearest exit.
I’m currently unemployed and trying to start a business of real estate INVESTING. That’s where you take your own or investors real MONEY (not bullshit points) and negotiate a profit in the resale that everyone knows and is fully disclosed in the HUD1 statement. Or buy the property with real money, (Oh crap another fallacy when talking about our soon to fail fiat currency nightmare, but that’s off topic here) and improve it physically with rehab to increase resale value in the REAL WORLD.
What seems clear to me is the blatant criminality of this PONZI SCHEME and I can’t wait to hear of it’s collapse and the prosecution of all those involved.
Oh, and for the record, I listened to as much of Troy what’s his name for as long as I could stomach it and that dude is full of 100% USDA grade A Horse Hockey.
He talks in more pontificating go nowhere circles than a politician while making no mention whatsoever of the critical questions that once answered will expose this PONZI SCHEME called Zeek Rewards! (End Rant)