eYellows Review: Cloned AiYellow business directory?
When I started researching eYellows, I had immediate flashbacks to AiYellow.
Yellow themed business directory playing off of the Yellow Pages name with a primarily Spanish-speaking target demographic?
Right off the bat the similarities between the two companies were too obvious to ignore.
Other than the basic Yellow Pages ripoff design both sites share, what initially caught my eye was these two paragraphs from eYellows’ “Privacy Policy”:
That had me convinced this was a reboot, until I dug deeper.
Not expecting it to be up, I was surprised to see the AiYellow website was still up and functional. Surely they’d have taken it down if eYellows was a reboot?
I also at this point realised eYellows had just copied AiYellow’s Privacy Policy in full. All they did was swap out mention of “AiYellow” for ‘eYellows”. Or try to anyway.
Next was eYellows’ disclosure of company management. To date, AiYellow do not disclose company ownership or management structure on their website.
In contrast, eYellows list a “Humberto Bazán” (right) as their “corporate founder”.
Possibly due to Spanish language-barriers, I was unable to track down an MLM history for Bazán.
His eYellows corporate bio meanwhile is laughably vague:
A man with clear ideas with extensive experience in human development. He has a huge zest for life that is contagious to those surrounding him. Leads by example and know how to activate the full potential of each person.
Excellent motivator with an unswervingly global vision of business trends.
Absolutely determined and committed to bring a genuine opportunity for a better life to the world with humility and respect, but with intelligence and character.
Well gee, what a swell sounding guy.
Both eYellows and AiYellow provide rented virtual office space as their points of contact, with where they are actually being run out of not revealed.
The eYellows domain registration isn’t much help either, with “eyellows.com” having been registered anonymously.
As such I’m not sure what the deal is between these two companies. eYellows obviously got its inspiration from AiYellow/Amarillas, but there’s enough difference between the two sites to create an air of uncertainty.
Read on for a full review of the eYellows MLM business opportunity.
The eYellows Product Line
eYellows in its current state appears to have no retailable products or services.
The eYellows website currently hosts an online business directory, however it appears to have nothing to do with the MLM business opportunity.
The eYellows Compensation Plan
The eYellows compensation plan revolves around the recruitment of affiliates, with commissions paid based on the number of recruited affiliates in a downline.
Access to the eYellows business opportunity is via “investment”, with two levels of investment positions available to affiliates:
- Junior – $125
- Senior – $499
Note that affiliates are able to invest in more than one position, with eYellows affiliate membership only tied into the first position invested in.
Direct Recruitment Commissions
A $250 recruitment commission is paid out to Senior eYellows affiliates everytime they recruit two new affiliates.
Whether or not this only applies to the recruitment of other Senior affiliates or not is not clarified.
Investment Position Commissions
eYellows’ residual recruitment commissions pay affiliates to recruit get their downlines to invest.
Commissions are paid out upon certain downline investment position milestones being reached, with Senior affiliates being paid more than Juniors.
Junior Affiliates
- $50 when 12 additional investment positions are made by recruited affiliates
- $75 after another 12 investment positions have been created
- $100 after another 24 investment positions have been created
The total ROI for an eYellows Junior $125 position is thus $225.
Senior Affiliates
- $500 when 12 additional investment positions are made by recruited affiliates
- $750 after another 12 investment positions have been created
- $1000 after another 24 investment positions have been created
The total ROI for an eYellows $499 Senior position is thus $2250.
Joining eYellows
Affiliate membership to eYellows is tied to investment in either a Junior ($125) or Senior ($499) position.
Note that any additional investment in positions will add to the cost of eYellows affiliate membership.
Conclusion
AiYellow saw affiliates purchase a bunch of useless directory codes, which in turn qualified them to receive commissions when those they recruited did the same.
eYellows are a little more brazen in their offer, having affiliates invest directly in positions and paying out a ROI once a fixed number of new investments have been made.
In this aspect eYellows’ compensation plan differs from that of AiYellow, with eYellows operating more like a Ponzi scheme. The recruitment commissions offered to Senior affiliates infact drag eYellows into hybrid pyramid scheme territory.
eYellows affiliates invest in either $125 or $499 positions, and are then paid once a fixed number of new investments have been made. The ROI paid out naturally is sourced from invested funds made after an affiliate’s initial investment, hence the new investment position requirements.
As with AiYellow, the business directory is just smoke and mirrors.
In this day and age online business directories are pretty much useless (when was the last time you used one?). These days people just search, rendering directories obsolete.
That of course doesn’t stop eYellows building a Ponzi investment scheme around one though.
In essence, eYellows functions as a fractured straight-line cycler. Whereas straight-line cyclers usually have a company wide queue however, with eYellows an affiliate joins the queue of their upline when they sign up.
This of course can be traced back to the master position in the queue (likely owned by Humberto Bazán and his silent partners), however I believe an affiliate’s own queue is only populated by their own recruitment efforts, their downline and perhaps that of their immediate upline.
As with all Ponzi schemes, once affiliates stop investing in positions the cycler queues stall. And when that happens, people stop getting paid.
Kaboom.
This is more pyramid scheme than Ponzi scheme, IMHO. And a blatant one too.
Affiliates can purchase multiple positions. I’d agree more pyramid than Ponzi with single positions, but with multiple positions you’re essentially waiting on a fixed number of new investments to be made.
The Senior direct recruitment commissions are straight up pyramid scheme though.
There’s no stopping someone from buying multiple positions in a pyramid scheme to “cycle faster”. (of course, why don’t they buy ALL the positions… hahahaha!)
True, but the structure of the cycler is such that it depends on enough new positions being invested in. The Senior position recruitment commissions are only one component.
The investment in positions is what triggers the ROI, not necessarily recruitment.