Flex Review: Dan Putnam adds AI spam grift to B-Epic
Flex operates in the AI spam MLM niche.
The company’s website names Robert Sacco and Dan Putnam as Flex’s co-founders.
In its compensation documentation, Flex identifies itself as “a B-Epic company”.
Putnam (right) owns B-Epic and attached MLM companies B-Eco and Govvi (suspected owner based on exclusivity representation).
Other MLM companies Putnam owns/owned include O2 Worldwide, LurraLife and Against All Odds.
Putnam is also a serial Ponzi scammer.
The SEC sued Putnam and Angel Rodriguez, his partner in crime, for securities fraud in 2020.
Through various scams, the SEC alleges Putnam and Rodriguez defrauded consumers out of at least $12 million.
Putnam settled the SEC’s Ponzi fraud charges back in January. Monetary penalties and ordered restitution remain pending.
Robert Sacco’s FaceBook profile cites him as a Pruvit distributor.
In 2021, Sacco fell down the crypto bro rabbithole:
CluCoin was a typical short-lived pump and dump shitcoin scam:
Sacco (right) also owns BitJar Labs, which claims it
fill(s) the voids and solve the pressing issues faced by ALL DIRECT SELLING companies.
As per Sacco’s BitJar Labs’ corporate bio;
For the past 20 years President and Founder, Robert Sacco, has seen back office development in the network marketing industry fail to answer the most pressing issues.
Robert has built large organizations in the industry and has been a Master Distributor 5 times.
He has led in corporate roles as VP of Marketing, VP of Business Development, VP of international Expansion and President of multiple International Direct Selling companies.
He has consulted numerous companies in back office development, international expansion, and IT throughout the industry and has written and collaborated on many compensation plans that are live in the industry today.
One of BitJar Labs’ projects is Selfles, launched last year.
Selfles combined a humanitarian frontend, silicone bands and an NFT grift backend.
As of August 2023, Selfles appears to have flopped.
Read on for a full review of Flex’s MLM opportunity.
Flex’s Products
Flex has no retailable products or services.
Affiliates are only able to market Flex affiliate membership itself.
Flex affiliate membership provides access to an AI spambot they’re calling Rubi.
FLEX Technologies is a cutting-edge company revolutionizing the AI industry with its flagship product, Rubi.
Rubi, powered by XO AI, offers an unparalleled content generation experience. It goes beyond traditional content creation by leveraging microservices such as SPI, Xtract, and Personify.
Rubi provides a limitless opportunity for businesses and content creators. It empowers users to generate high-quality, tailored content quickly and efficiently.
With Rubi, you can save time, increase productivity, and deliver engaging content that captivates your audience.
Access to Rubi is priced based on how much spam you want to generate each month
- Basic costs $15 a month and lets you generate up to 15,000 words
- Pro costs $25 a month and lets you generate up to 25,000 words
- Premium costs $50 a month and lets you generate up to 50,000 words
Flex’s Compensation Plan
Flex affiliates pay a monthly fee. Commissions are paid when they recruit others who do the same.
Flex Affiliate Ranks
There are twelve affiliate ranks within Flex’s compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
- Influencer – sign up as a Flex affiliate
- Brand Influencer – purchase and continue to pay for a Flex product and recruit at least one affiliate who does the same
- Qualified Brand Influencer – maintain a monthly Flex order and recruit at least two affiliates who do the same (placed one on each side of your binary team)
- Silver Qualified Brand Influencer – maintain a Pro or Premium tier membership, maintain two recruited affiliates with an active membership order and generate at least 1000 GV a week in your weaker binary team side
- Gold Qualified Brand Influencer – maintain a Pro or Premium tier membership, maintain two recruited affiliates with an active membership order and generate at least 2500 GV a week in your weaker binary team side
- Platinum Qualified Brand Influencer – maintain a Pro or Premium tier membership, maintain two recruited affiliates with an active membership order and generate at least 5000 GV a week in your weaker binary team side
- Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer – maintain a Pro or Premium tier membership, maintain two recruited affiliates with an active membership order and generate at least 7500 GV a week in your weaker binary team side (must qualify for three consecutive weeks in a row initially)
- Blue Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer – maintain a Pro or Premium tier membership, maintain two recruited affiliates with an active membership order and generate at least 7500 GV a week in your weaker binary team side (must qualify for five consecutive weeks in a row initially)
- Double Blue Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer – maintain a Pro or Premium tier membership, maintain two recruited affiliates with an active membership order and generate at least 25,000 GV a week in your weaker binary team side (must qualify for six consecutive weeks in a row initially)
- Double Black Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer – maintain a Pro or Premium tier membership, maintain two recruited affiliates with an active membership order and generate at least 100,000 GV a week in your weaker binary team side (must qualify for ten consecutive weeks in a row initially)
- Green Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer – maintain a Pro or Premium tier membership, maintain two recruited affiliates with an active membership order and generate at least 250,000 GV a week in your weaker binary team side (must qualify for twelve consecutive weeks in a row initially)
Referral Commissions
Flex affiliates earn a 25% referral commission on personally recruited affiliates.
Although not explicitly clarified I believe this excludes the initial sign up fee, which is paid as a recruitment commission (see below).
Recruitment Commissions
Flex affiliates earn a 40% commission on the first fee paid by a personally recruited affiliate.
10% is paid to the first upline affiliate (the affiliate who recruited the affiliate who earns 40%).
Lifestyle Bonus
Flex affiliates who sign up at the Premium tier qualify for the Lifestyle Bonus.
The Lifestyle Bonus is a recruitment bonus that pays up to $350 a month:
- recruit two Premium tier affiliates who recruit two Premium tier affiliates each and receive a $50 monthly Lifestyle Bonus
- recruit three Premium tier affiliates who recruit three Premium tier affiliates each and receive a $150 monthly Lifestyle Bonus
- recruit four Premium tier affiliates who recruit four Premium tier affiliates each and receive a $250 monthly Lifestyle Bonus
- recruit five Premium tier affiliates who recruit five Premium tier affiliates each and receive a $350 monthly Lifestyle Bonus
Residual Commissions
Flex pays residual commissions via 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.
At the end of each week Flex tallies up new sales volume on both sides of the binary team.
Qualified Brand Influencers and higher are paid up to 20% of volume generated on their weaker binary team side:
- Qualified Brand Influencers earn a 10% residual commission rate
- Silver Qualified Brand Influencers earn a 12% residual commission rate
- Gold Qualified Brand Influencers earn a 15% residual commission rate
- Platinum Qualified Brand Influencers earn an 18% residual commission rate
- Diamond Qualified Brand Influencers and higher earn a 20% residual commission rate
Note that regardless of rank, Flex caps residual commissions at $20,000 a week.
Once paid out on, volume is matched against the stronger binary team side and flushed.
Any leftover volume on the stronger binary team side carries over.
Matching Bonus
Flex affiliates earn a 20% Matching Bonus on residual commissions earned by personally recruited affiliates.
Generational Matching Bonus
Gold Qualified Brand Influencers and higher receive a Generational Matching Bonus.
The Generational Matching Bonus is 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 level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, 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.
The General Matching Bonus is paid on residual commissions, earned on unilevel team generations.
Flex defines a generation in a unilevel team leg when a Gold Qualified Brand Influencer or higher is found.
This ranked affiliate caps off the first generation for that particular unilevel team leg. The second generation of that leg begins immediately under them.
If a second Gold Qualified Brand Influencer or higher exists deeper in the leg, they cap off the second generation and a third begins under them.
If no such ranked affiliate exists, the second generation runs the full depth of the leg.
Using this generational structure, Gold Qualified Brand Influencers and higher can earn the Generational Matching Bonus on up to to four generations per unilevel team leg:
- Gold Qualified Brand Influencers earn a 10% Generational Matching Bonus on up to two generations
- Platinum Qualified Brand Influencers earn a 10% Generational Matching Bonus on up to three generations
- Diamond Qualified Brand Influencers and higher earn a 10% Generational Matching Bonus on up to four generations
Diamond Bonus
Flex take 2% of company-wide sales volume and place it into a Global Bonus Pool.
Diamond Qualified Brand Influencers receive an equal share of the Global Bonus Pool each week.
Note that the Global Bonus Pool is for Diamond Qualified Brand Influencers only. Higher ranked affiliates receive Rank Achievement Bonuses (see below).
Rank Achievement Bonus
Flex affiliates who qualify at Blue Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer and higher with a one-time Rank Achievement Bonus:
- qualify at Blue Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer and receive $10,000
- qualify at Double Blue Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer and receive $10,000
- qualify at Black Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer and receive $40,000
- qualify at Double Black Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer and receive $75,000
- qualify at Green Diamond Qualified Brand Influencer and receive $150,000
Joining Flex
Flex affiliate membership is tied to a monthly fee:
- Basic – $15 a month
- Pro – $25 a month
- Premium – $50 a month
Flex Conclusion
As an author it’d be easy for me to approach criticism of Flex’s AI spam bot from a creator’s perspective.
I’m going to refrain from that and approach it instead as a consumer, as I believe that’s more relevant to the public doing due-diligence into Flex.
Since the AI hype train took off towards the end of last year (coinciding with the launch of ChatGPT launching last November), the internet has been flooded with AI spam content.
Given we don’t have AI capable of generating new ideas, this is rewritten plagiarized content stolen from third-parties.
In my own internet travels it’s gotten to the point where it only takes a few paragraphs for me to realize I’m reading AI-spun spam.
I’d like to see search engines penalize this content but with how deep into AI Google, Microsoft et al. are into AI, that’s probably unlikely for some time.
The point is, nobody wants to read AI spam waffle and over time people are going to get better at recognizing it and noping out.
Arguably, till actual AI comes along, the AI hype train has mostly died out since last year (I’d say it peaked around March and April 2023).
This brings us to Flex’s Rubi;
As above, Flex is marketing Rubi as “the best ChatGPT alternative”. What they’re basing this claim on is unknown.
Call me a cynic, but it’s probably just SEO keyword stuffing for searches for “chatgpt alternatives”.
Rubi is pitched as a way to publish content showcasing “your brand, your voice (and) your persona”.
All it really does however is steal other people’s brands, voices and personas.
Touching on my earlier comments about search engines cracking down on AI spam, beating detection is also one of Rubi’s selling points.
What I’m unclear on is who Rubi is supposed to be for. Flex’s compensation plan incorporates “influencer” into its rank.
How bad of a social media influencer are you if you’re entire “brand, voice and persona” is stolen from other people though? Is that even going to go anywhere? Will it last?
I’m going to make a distinction between AI avatar influencers, as I don’t think big-titty Stable Diffusion avatar influencers are Flex’s target market.
Outside of influencing, we like to rely on authoritative sources for content consumption. Regurgitating content you’ve stolen from third-parties doesn’t make whatever you’re feeding Rubi’s output into an authoritative source.
It’s spam, and over time is more likely to harm your business over any short-term productivity gain.
AI as an automation tool is fine but Rubi is specifically marketed as a stolen content spinning spambot. It’s a more advanced version of the old “stealing articles and changing a few words” bots.
That about sums up my thoughts on Rubi’s AI offering from a consumer viewpoint. You might like having your time wasted by AI spammers, more power to you I guess.
Either way, if you’re willing to pay up to $50 a month that’s what you’re paying for.
Moving onto the MLM side of Flex, we unfortunately have a pyramid scheme.
Flex cannibalizes its retail customers by making them affiliates:
Congratulations on your choice to become an FLEX Brand Influencer.
With no cost to begin and no prior experience required, you have the freedom to work on your own schedule and tailor your business to your unique lifestyle and needs.
Signing up is a breeze, and with just one product order, you’re ready to roll!
Based on its own marketing, Flex doesn’t appear to separate retail customers from participants in its MLM opportunity (i.e. everyone is an affiliate).
The FTC has repeatedly clarified that MLM companies without significant retail sales volume are operating as pyramid schemes. MLM companies with no retail sales volume are most definitely operating as pyramid schemes.
That Flex is operating as a pyramid scheme isn’t entirely surprising given Dan Putnam’s past.
A lot of crypto grifters have moved onto the AI bandwagon. Putnam and Sacco are just two of them.
As with all MLM pyramid schemes, once affiliate recruitment dries up so too will commissions.
This will see more and more affiliates stop paying monthly fees, eventually triggering an irreversible collapse.
The math behind pyramid schemes guarantees that when they collapse, the majority of participants lose money.
I believe Dan Putnam is also involved with EpicKube, which sells delta 9 cbd gummies.
Oh, khazan and Glinsky’s membership fees are commissions that are not ponzi, they are not pyramids. This site is ridiculous.
If the majority of an MLM company’s revenue is tied to recruitment, it’s operating as a pyramid scheme.
Whether you think a fraudulent business model is ridiculous or not is neither here nor there.
I agree this company is bad. BUT, your hate for AI generated content shows you don’t understand AI at all and you lose all credibility by being so anti.
AI is a TOOL, and it isn’t binary. Sure, many use the tool poorly, but again, doesn’t make the tool bad.
You don’t understand how it works and just buy into “all AI is bad because stolen”, so much for investigative journalism. Too biased.
AI generated content is theft at present. That’s why every company behind AI generated content won’t disclose where they stole the source data from.
Then you have chucklefucks like Adobe holding user-generated content hostage. Fuck AI generated content in its current form – and yes, I am absolutely biased on this as a full-time publisher of original work.
Any bias I have doesn’t negate the fact that AI generated content in 2024 is 99.9% theft of copyrighted work though. As a content consumer AI can go fuck itself too. I don’t want to read regurgitated AI-generated SEO bullshit on any platform. It’s ruining the internet.
And fuck every company trying to ram AI into every product because marketing. Who the fuck asked for pizzas made from glue?
I have dumb fucks on YouTube trying to sell me courses on how to sell fucking AI
generatedregurgitated “short ebooks” on Amazon to replace a full time income. And the ads are on fucking AI script generated robodub videos combined with stock footage that I can’t click off fast enough. Go fuck yourselves.I have nothing against actual AI but we’re not anywhere near close to that. LLM = summarize bots that steal content.
Bringing this back to Flex and Rubi AI, my issue is not the use of AI (fake LLM AI), but rather;
Instead of addressing that you went with “yOu JuSt DoN’t LiKe Ai, YoU’rE bIaSed. YoU dOn’T uNdErStAnD!”
Killer comprehension skills bro.
Whether Dan Putnam is involved in something… I/we don’t know.
What I do know is this:
There is a difference between a pyramid scheme and MLM(Multi-Level-Marketing/NWM (Network Marketing).
MLM and NWM are just a different (and legal) business model, compared to a pyramid scheme which is illegal.
MLMs involve the sale of legitimate products or services, while pyramid schemes primarily rely on recruitment and promise unrealistic returns.
My opinion: Rubi is a SaaS-tool where ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, MidJourney and other tools are integrated.It saves you more time (and money) so you don’t have to switch from one AI platform to another.
Putnam was named as a co-founder on Flex’s website… and you’re claiming you don’t know if Putnam is involved in Flex. Uh?
“But we have a product!” hasn’t worked with regulators for decades. Product-based pyramid schemes are a thing.
These days if the majority of MLM company-wide sales aren’t to retail customers you’re running a pyramid scheme.
We do know.
This is a watered-down definition to try make some pyramid schemes more palatable by linking “sales” of nonsense, like “Education packages” or Useless software to the MLM.
Valueless products are not really products – just lipstick on a pig.
Cute, but if the majority of product sales are not to non-members it’s a pyramid. Pay-to-play means everyone loses.