Crowd2Funding Review: $139.95 a pop recruitment scheme

There is no information on the Crowd2Funding website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Crowd2Funding website domain (“crowd2funding.com”) was registered on the 2nd of August 2014, however the domain registration is set to private.

In the Crowd2Funding Terms and Conditions, the following address is provided for refunds:

Crowd2Funding.com
c/o The Whale Club, LLC
7900 International Drive, Suite 300
Bloomington, MN 55425
United States

Putting aside that this is a virtual office address provided by OffiCenters, the mention of “The Whale Club LLC” would appear to correspond to the website “thewhaleclub.com”:

As above, the club appears to have previously launched several business opportunities.

The Whale Club vision is to build a Billion Dollar Company by enriching Millions of Affiliates Worldwide to attract Millions of Customers via our word of mouth team attraction Network Marketing model.

This simply is done by combining three of the largest online industries in the World; Home Based Business/Network Marketing, Online Casinos and Rewards Programs (Penny saved, is a Penny earned).

All recession proof economy building Globally accepted markets.

They also apparently sell $4995 travel memberships:

After none of those ideas or the selling of ridiculously priced travel memberships went anywhere, now The Whale Club has launched Crowd2Funding.

As to company ownership, The Whale Club LLC website advises that it is based out of the US state of Minnesota and founded by Mark Enderson:

In his Whale Club bio, Enderson claims to have ‘21 years total Network Marketing Experience‘, however no specific examples are provided.

I did try to research Enderson’s MLM history on my own, but outside of failed Whale Club ventures didn’t find anything.

Why Mark Enderson’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on the Crowd2Funding website is a mystery.

Read on for a full review of the Crowd2Funding MLM business opportunity.

The Crowd2Funding Product Line

Crowd2Funding has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market affiliate membership to the company itself ($139.95 annually).

The Crowd2Funding Compensation Plan

The Crowd2Funding compensation plan revolves around the recruitment of affiliates, with commissions paid out via a unilevel compensation structure.

A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any of these level 1 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates of their own, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team. If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

Commissions paid out on the recruitment of a new Crowd2Funding affiliate is $100, with affiliates required to pass up the first two commission generated on any new level of their unilevel team.

Eg. Commissions generated by the first two affiliates recruited are passed up to an affiliate’s immediate upline (the affiliate who recruited them).

In turn, the commission generated by the first two affiliates recruited into level 2 of this same unilevel (the first two recruited by affiliates on level 1), are also passed up to the upline.

This process continues down an infinite number of levels, always passing up the first two commissions generated on any new unilevel level to the immediate upline.

Matching Bonus

Crowd2Funding offer a 10% matching bonus on commissions paid out to recruited affiliates.

How many levels of recruitment the Matching Bonus is paid out on depends on how many affiliates an individual Crowd2Funding affiliate has recruited:

• recruit 1 affiliate = 1 level of Matching Bonus
• recruit 2 affiliates = 2 levels of Matching Bonus
• recruit 3 affiliates =3 levels of Matching Bonus
• recruit 4 affiliates = 4 levels of Matching Bonus
• recruit 5 affiliates = 5 levels of Matching Bonus
• recruit 6 affiliates = 6 levels of Matching Bonus
• recruit 7 affiliates = 7 levels of Matching Bonus
• recruit 8 affiliates = 8 levels of Matching Bonus
• recruit 9 affiliates = 9 levels of Matching Bonus
• recruit 10 affiliates = 10 levels of Matching Bonus

Joining Crowd2Funding

Affiliate membership with Crowd2Funding is free, however affiliates must pay a $139.95 fee to participate in the company’s compensation plan.

As such, the defacto affiliate cost of joining Crowd2Funding is $139.95.

Conclusion

Despite the name, Crowd2Funding has nothing to do with crowdfunding.

Using the concept as smoke and mirrors, Crowd2Funding instead operate a simple $139.95 recruitment-driven pyramid scheme.

Bundled with the $139.95 fee appears to be some sort of product or service (which Crowd2Funding marketing videos incorrectly identify as a “retail sale”), however qualification to earn commissions on the recruitment of new affiliates is really what’s being purchased.

Crowd2Funding affiliates buy into the scheme for $139.95, which qualifies them to earn $100 for every new affiliate they recruit who also pays $139.95.

All commissions in the company are tied into the recruitment of affiliates, with an irrelevant crowdfunding platform tacked on as misdirection.

As with all pyramid schemes, once affiliate recruitment dries up so too will the commission payouts in Crowd2Funding.

Affiliate fees are due annually, meaning that by the time recruitment dries up, those at the bottom of the pyramid won’t realize there’s nobody left to recruit until it’s too late.