BryteLyfe Review: Wes Melcher reboots WorldVentures model
BryteLyfe operates in the travel MLM niche. The company does not provide a corporate address on its website or social media profiles.
Heading up BryteLyfe is founder Wesley Melcher (aka Wes Melcher, right).
Both BryteLyfe and Melcher are based out of Texas.
As per his LinkedIn profile, Melcher (right) started his MLM career off with Cutco in 1997. In 2005 Melcher cites himself as a co-founder of WorldVentures Holdings.
WorldVentures Holdings was behind WorldVentures, a travel-niche MLM pyramid scheme.
As the regulatory fraud warnings began piling up, WorldVentures began to collapse in 2018.
Around this time Melcher filed suit against WorldVentures Holdings in September 2018. I don’t have access to any filings but Melcher abandoned the case a few months later.
WorldVentures would go on to eventually file for bankruptcy in late 2020.
Around the same time Melcher joined IM Mastery Academy.
Despite fraud warnings from Colombia, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, the UK, the CFTC in the US and Peru, Melcher claims he did “months of due-diligence and investigation” before joining IM Mastery Academy.
Describing IM Mastery Academy as “the next legacy company” when he joined, Melcher quietly ditched IM Mastery Academy in late 2023/early 2024.
During Melcher’s time at IM Mastery Academy;
- IM Mastery Academy received a securities fraud warning from Columbia;
- IM Mastery Academy promoters were arrested in Spain;
- IM Mastery Academy received a pyramid fraud warning from Poland;
- the FTC revealed it was investigating IM Mastery Academy;
- IM Mastery Academy received a securities fraud warning Luxembourg;
- IM Mastery Academy promoters were arrested in Luxembourg; and
- IM Mastery Academy promoters were charged with promoting a pyramid scheme in Poland;
After ditching IM Mastery Academy in late 2023 or early 2024, Melcher published a video titled “The REAL TRUTH about WorldVentures, DreamTrips, Seacret, and all TRADING and CRYPTO MLM Companies!!” on his YouTube channel.
In the March 23rd video, Melcher claims he left WorldVentures because he and others “weren’t getting paid”. Melcher also confirms this was the reason he filed suit against the company.
Notably, Melcher doesn’t address WorldVentures being an unsustainable pyramid scheme. Instead, Melcher blames WorldVentures’ management decisions.
[25:53] In the beginning the trips were good, the discounts were good, the culture was good. Everything was working.
But then we started to realize that the trips were not scalable. And the other thing was that we were continually trying to build a search-engine to compete with Travelocity and Expedia.
That is a bottomless pit that is a for sure loser … there was absolutely no way that we were gonna ever compete with Travelocity and Expedia.
But we still haemorrhaged millions of dollars in the beginning, trying to build a search-engine that never worked. It was broken from day one and it never worked.
And we were never able to do it and we wasted millions of dollars, millions of hours of resources. Okay?
And on top of that, we couldn’t spend properly. Because, y’know, they wanted to be like Google. They read the book, “The Google Effect”, and so we needed to have this big office and, y’know, Wayne [Nugent] just had to have a building with WorldVentures’ name on it.
And so we’re spending hundred plus thousand dollars a month for office space. We hired all these fancy, y’know, degree people.
Half of the executive team over about a ten year period had no experience in network marketing.
And then we go buy Rovia, we go buy Putnam Travel, a guy who doesn’t even believe in the MLM industry, who doesn’t even believe in our model, who’s a traditional travel agency.
And you go get all these people to come in and try to run a company that have no MLM experience, that have no direct sales experience.
[27:50] We went through like three or four CMOs over like a three or four year period. We had a new CMO like every six months, nine months.
And you know what’s crazy? At the end in 2017, we had a higher payroll for severance than we did for the employees that were actually still working there. Because we hired terribly.
[28:17] I remember coming into a meeting and having to explain [to] somebody who was the new CEO, how MLM worked. What? Are you serious?
And so literally, these were just the beginnings of the problems.
Melcher claims that he “brought people to the company … that could have saved the company”, but wasn’t listened to.
[29:59] I knew we were hemorrhaging money. I brought it up, I was shunned in meetings for bringing it up.
People didn’t care because the company was growing.
While WorldVentures’ management and poor financial decisions no doubt contributed to its collapse, at the end of the day it was still recruiting inevitably drying up that ultimately killed WorldVentures off. Financial overextension and a reduction in revenue tied into each other.
I also want to stress that, despite being a co-founder, Melcher didn’t leave WorldVentures until the money dried up.
Melcher also briefly touches on his time at IM Mastery Academy. From a regulatory perspective, Melcher claims joining Im Mastery Academy was “a mistake” ([56:33]).
Towards the end of March 2024, the same month Melcher released his video, BryteLyfe launched.
Arguably Melcher’s video is long enough to perhaps warrant a separate article. I’ve included it here though as the video is basically a preamble to BryteLyfe. And it is through the lens of Melcher’s words that we will analyze BryteLyfe in our conclusion.
Read on for a full review of BryteLyfe’s MLM opportunity.
BryteLyfe’s Products
BryteLyfe sell access to an app for $199.99 and then $179.99 every 28 days.
BryteLyfe markets an app through which paid subscribers can access discounted travel services.
Get up to 65% off retail at over 1 million Hotels, Resorts, Rental Cars, Cruises, Villas, Vacation Homes and much more! You can have access to it all literally at your fingertips through our revolutionary mobile app.
Our powerful AI search tool will help you plan a trip of a lifetime, every time!
It should be noted that BryteLyfe’s app costs aren’t disclosed on their website at time of research (July 2024).
A subscription to BryteLyfe’s app costs $199.99 and then $179.99 every 28 days.
BryteLyfe’s Compensation Plan
BryteLyfe’s compensation plan pays on the sale of app access to retail customers and recruited affiliates.
BryteLyfe tracks commissions through a binary compensation structure.
A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a binary team, split into two sides (left and right):
The first level of the binary team houses two positions. The second level of the binary team is generated by splitting these first two positions into another two positions each (4 positions).
Subsequent levels of the binary team are generated as required, with each new level housing twice as many positions as the previous level.
Positions in the binary team are filled via direct and indirect recruitment of affiliates. Note there is no limit to how deep a binary team can grow.
Commissions are paid monthly, based on how many active app subscriptions are paired across both sides of the binary team.
- two active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $200 a month
- five active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $300 a month
- sixteen active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $800 a month
- thirty active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $1600 a month
- seventy active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $3000 a month
- two hundred and fifty active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $7500 a month
- five hundred active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $15,000 a month
- one thousand active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $30,000 a month
- one thousand seven hundred and fifty active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $50,000 a month
- two thousand seven hundred and fifty active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $75,000 a month
- four thousand five hundred active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $125,000 a month
- seven thousand five hundred active app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $200,000 a month
- eighteen thousands app subscriptions on each side of the binary team = $500,000 a month
“Free travel” credits are referenced in BryteLyfe’s compensation plan but specifics aren’t provided.
Joining BryteLyfe
BryteLyfe affiliate membership is $19.99 a month.
BryteLyfe Conclusion
Being essentially a reboot of WorldVentures as Wes Melcher would have run the company…
[1:13:21] I’m gonna build what I told you I was going to do at WorldVentures twenty-five years ago.
And I’m gonna do it right, and with ethics and morals and values. Without buying leaders, without paying for volume, without having some gimmicky program, without having something illegal … to worry about.
It’s gonna be foolproof.
…WorldVenture’s compliance issues apply to BryteLyfe. And unfortunately they haven’t been addressed.
Like WorldVentures, BryteLyfe’s legitimacy as an MLM company hinges on whether it has more retail subscribers over promoter subscribers.
Like WorldVentures, BryteLyfe does nothing to encourage retail subscriber acquisition over recruited promoter subscribers.
Given WorldVentures’ numerous regulatory fraud warnings, the result of the company operating as a pyramid scheme (focus on promoter subscriber recruitment over retail subscribers), as it stands there’s nothing in its business model to suggest BryteLyfe will operate any differently.
While Melcher is aware of BryteLyfe’s regulatory compliance obligations…
[22:09] This is the first litmus test; If you see a company that says that they are a travel company or that they are doing travel, the first thing you need to do is look at who’s travelling and are they travelling.
This would be a consideration if BryteLyfe paid commissions on travel, but they don’t Commissions are paid on app subscriptions fees. As previously stated, BryteLyfe’s actual litmus test is whether it has more retail subscribers over promoter subscribers.
Within the context of regulatory compliance with respect to BryteLyfe being an MLM opportunity, whether subscribers are travelling or not is irrelevant if the majority of subscribers are promoters earning on recruitment of promoter subscribers.
When Norwegian regulators demanded WorldVentures disclose its ratio in 2013, it was revealed 95% of subscribers were promoters.
For obvious reasons, don’t expect BryteLyfe to ever disclose its own ratio publicly.
Other less severe BryteLyfe compliance issues include:
- no compensation details on BryteLyfe’s website (disclosures, FTC Act)
- promoter costs not disclosed on BryteLyfe’s website (disclosures, FTC Act)
- retail subscriber costs not disclosed on BryteLyfe’s website (disclosures, FTC Act)
- using potential income to market BryteLyfe at the corporate level (deceptive or unfair earnings claims, FTC Act)
The good news is, at least with respect to pyramid concerns, you can do some preemptive BryteLyfe due-diligence on your own.
All you have to do is ask your potential BryteLyfe upline how many active retail subscribers they have, versus how many personally recruited promoter subscribers they have.
Anything less than a 50% split (ideally 51% or higher weighed to retail subscribers), and you’re looking at a pyramid scheme.
Not sure what else Melcher has planned for BryteLyfe but the easiest fix compliance wise is implementing a minimum 50% retail subscriber requirement at each payment tier.
Anything less is just covering up the fact BryteLyfe is following in WorldVentures’ pyramid scheme footsteps. And we all know how that turned out.
I’m a disabled person living on less than a thousand a month and having been in the hospitality industry just sounded intriguing to me I’ve never been part of a pyramid scheme before except for like Mary Kay so I guess I have been in Avon.
now I’m scared and now I feel like I don’t want to do this and if anyone out there has not gotten any answers on the pay scale or how well this works please feel free to comment on my comment.
thank you very much I just don’t know enough about this type of thing and I’m not learning a whole lot.
Joining a business you don’t understand isn’t a smart decision. You already know this.