True Value Savings Review: Retail orientated e-commerce
True Value Savings operate in the e-commerce MLM niche and are based out of Florida in the US.
Heading up True Value Savings are owners Teresa Mongar and Debbie Miles.
We have each participated in multiple network marketing companies in the past. We are well versed in what “doesn’t work”.
At the same time, our previous experiences have helped us put together a company that we truly feel will change the way MLM network marketing companies are doing business.
On the MLM history side of things, in 2011 Teresa Mongar was heavily promoting That Free Thing on Twitter.
The URL she used would suggest that That Free Thing was “better than” Groupon. That Free Thing as it was known in 2011 does not exist today.
That same year Mongar was also promoting AutoXTen:
Dependent on the recruitment of new affiliates to pay commissions, AutoXTen collapsed shortly after launch.
Mongar was also an affiliate of Zeek Rewards, an $850 million dollar Ponzi scheme. Her name appears on a list of net-winners published by the Zeek Rewards Receiver:
All those on the list stole at least $1000 from Zeek Rewards victims. The total amount Mongar made in Zeek is unclear.
Debbie Miles’ past MLM adventures include affiliate membership with LifeVantage (dietary supplements), Scent-Sations (candles) and Amega Global (magic wands).
Read on for a full review of the True Value Savings MLM business opportunity.
The True Value Savings Product Line
True Value Savings has no retailable products or services of their own. Instead the company maintains an e-commerce portal, stocked with third-party products and services.
These are presumably supplied through affiliate agreements between True Value Savings and the respective companies’ the products and services belong to.
Examples of products and services offered through the True Value Savings platform include:
- beauty and skin care
- weight loss
- fitness
- water filtration systems
- health and wellness
- coffee
- pet products
- mobile
- electronics
- travel
- miscellaneous (more)
As for the e-commerce platform itself, True Value Savings use PageDown Technology’s PDShop:
PDShop is available from PageDown Technology’s website for between $39 to $149.
The True Value Savings Compensation Plan
The True Value Savings revolves around the acquisition of retail customers and recruited affiliates, and their purchase of products and services supplied through the True Value Savings e-commerce platform.
Commission Qualification
All True Value Savings affiliates must generate at least one retail sale a month (through the e-commerce platform) in order to qualify for commissions.
Commission Payouts
Due to the products and services being sold through True Value Savings belonging to third-party companies, True Value Savings are paid first before commissions are paid out through the compensation plan.
The amount they are paid is a percentage of the sale made. True Value Savings do not publicly disclose the percentages they are paid, stating that ‘a complete list of products and the Commission Value associated with each product is available in the IBA back office.‘
True Value Savings refer to their commission as “commisionable value” and pay out 100% of this commission to their affiliates.
This is done as follows:
Direct Sale Commission (30%)
The True Value Savings affiliate who makes the sale is paid 30% of the commission amount paid to True Value Savings. This includes retail and recruited affiliate sales.
Recruitment (30%)
- 10% is paid to the affiliate who made the sale’s upline (the affiliate who recruited them)
- 8% is paid to their upline (level 2)
- 7% is paid to their upline (level 3)
- 5% is paid to their upline (level 4)
Matrix Commissions (30%)
True Value Savings use a 10×6 matrix to pay out 30% of each product or service sale’s commissionable value.
A 10×6 places an affiliate at the top of the matrix, with ten positions directly under them (level 1). These initial ten positions branch out into another ten positions each to form the second level of the matrix (level 2).
Level 2 positions branch out into another ten positions each to form level 3, and so on and so forth down a total of six levels.
There are 1,111,110 position in total to be filled in a 6×10 matrix, with positions filled via the acquisition of retail customers or recruitment of affiliates.
Commissions are paid out on the sale of products or services within the matrix, paid out as follows:
- 5% to the first commission qualified affiliate found in the upline (using matrix genealogy)
- 5% to the second
- 5% to the third
- 5% to the fourth
- 5% to the fifth and
- 5% to the sixth
Bonus Pools (10%)
True Value Savings offer affiliates shares in two bonus pools, a Unilevel Team Bonus Pool (5%) and Infinity Matrix Team Pool (5%).
The Unilevel Team Bonus Pool is available to all True Value Savings affiliates, with their share of the pool calculated pro-rata based on the generated sales volume of their downline (calculated down four levels of recruitment).
The Matrix Team Pool shares are also calculated pro-rata, based on the generated sales volume of their entire matrix (including retail customer orders).
Joining True Value Savings
Affiliate membership to True Value Savings is free.
Conclusion
With no commissions paid directly on recruitment and at least one retail sale required each month (and no recruitment qualifications whatsoever), True Value Savings do a lot of things right.
Unfortunately however I’m not really seeing long-term attraction on the retail front.
As with all third-party based affiliate platforms, shoppers are going to be severely restricted to what they can buy by whatever agreements True Value Savings can sign.
These agreements typically lack any exclusivity and in some instances are even available to members of the general public (open affiliate programs).
As a retail customer, that begs the question of why I’d shop with True Value Savings.
Some of the commission paid through the affiliate agreements could be used to discount the prices of the products offered, but that of course comes at the expense of the affiliate program (less commissionable value paid to the field).
This concept is typically deployed on a personal level, but doesn’t translate so well into an MLM business opportunity. The commissions paid out by the third-party merchants are generally not large enough to sustain any meaningful payout, even for those who do manage to push a decent amount of sales volume through the platform.
Then of course there’s the underlying issue of if an affiliate was able to generate significant volume through a third-party platform, they’d probably be much better off going at it alone and keeping 100% of the commission paid out through the affiliate networks used.
True Value Savings is a decent enough attempt at a retail-orientated e-commerce MLM opportunity but I’m just not seeing any long-term viability on the retail front.
And given that retail sales are tied to commission qualification (a good thing by itself), this is likely to present as problem for many affiliates.
“Savings” and MLM makes no sense any way. MLM commissions means high margins, instead of savings. So if there really are savings, where is the commission coming from? Hmmm?
Not to mention it’s virtually certain that this company is NOT registered as a “Buying Club”, which follows very different rules than MLM.
So the “buying club” is mostly a disguise. It may be legal, but it’s a not-so-good MLM.
i dont think they are converting any commission paid thru affiliate agreements into discount .
the Alcatel ONE TOUCH Evolve 3G Black GSM is offered by true value savings for 100$ , and is available on amazon for anywhere between 64$ to 103$.
this is not discount program but more like a cash back scheme like lyoness.
at least it is an honest attempt ! i hope they succeed.
I checked one of the Raspex personal care products against the Raspex website and found it was $1 cheaper. I figured they obviously weren’t selling for a loss to the discount was likely covered by $1 of the CV the company earns on the sale.
They’d then share whatever was left through the comp plan.
the gap between manufacturing costs and retail margins are usually high for most products .
true value savings should tie up with smaller brands , to get the highest possible affiliate commissions. i would think they can negotiate commissions of 40/50% too , with smaller brands looking for market space.
savings…. cashback…. these MLMs keep popping up left and right!!
there is nothing wrong with savings and cashback . this is not a concept limited to MLM .
if MLM can honestly utilize savings and cashback for their affiliates and customers , more power to them .
MLM need not only be a get rich quick scheme , it can also be just a value creator for shoppers.
Cashback is flavour-of-the-month with pseudo MLMs at the minute.
They have done blind auctions to death, revenue sharing is at the end of its’ useful pseudo MLM life and it appears “cashback” and “charity” MLMs are where the action is ATM.
but, this is true of any shopping experience . if i regularly purchase at a local store , then i AM bound by whatever brands that store is offering . even costco members will be bound by whatever brands costco has signed up with .amazon may sell a very high number of brands , but the whole world does not buy from amazon.
true value savings can be compared to a small store which is distributing products directly from a manufacturer to a customer and sharing some of the revenue. which is why , if they tie up with smaller brands they can negotiate high margins and make the MLM plan feasible.
small brands do not have budgets for deep distribution or advertisement . true value can set up a win win deal with such brands.
could you point out what is psuedo in the true value savings plan ? help them by suggesting improvements , if you can .
We’re not talking about “any shopping experience”.
An MLM business opportunity is a specific environment. The freedom to shop elsewhere is not a factor.
PHEW that was close.
I thought I’d lost the five bucks I bet that Anjali would be by within an hour to add her customary argumentative contribution to the thread.
Made it with only minutes to spare.
Ponzi Detective makes an observation without mentioning names:
littleroundman replies with an observation, also without mentioning names:
In true Anjali fashion, she jumps in and attempts to derail the discussion to suit her own argumentative ends.
nope . what was Really ‘phew! close’, was that chang said ‘buying club’ in comment #1 , and he’s still alive [hopefully].
“True Value Savings” is using the same Sarasota street address as World Consumer Alliance. Oz, I’m sure, will remember that one well. It became a confusing hodgepodge after a while, and there were references to AddWallet.
Something to consider:
“True Value” is the name of a famous American retailer in the hardware trade. There are word marks and service marks recorded in TESS. At the same time, a quick search of Justia shows that “True Value” protects its brand by suing for trademark dilution, trademark infringement and violations of the federal Anti-Cybersquatting Act.
Complaint avaliable here:
NOLINK: domainnamewire.com/wp-content/true-value-lawsuit.pdf
It seems clear that “True Value” monitors the use of its name in domain URLs, given the reference to ICAAN in the action noted above and the allegations surrounding that action.
So, “True Value Savings” potentially could confront what Rippln earlier confronted. The image of the “sales tag” potentially also could cause a problem. OfferHubb and BidsThatGive had similar logos.
PPBlog
from wiki:
true value [hardware] and true value savings have rather distinct products , the phrase ‘true value ‘ is being used to describe the nature of the offer .
the phrase ‘true value’ is not a proper noun like ‘nike’ or ‘levis’, its a descriptive phrase , and should fall within fair use.
MLMers need to get beyond what is superficially plausible and and technically defensible and start dealing with the practical realities. In this context, “True Value” became part of a domain name for an MLM “program” AFTER the same thing earlier happened to Groupon.
Let’s see what we can glean from the story above:
* Teresa Mongar was associated with That Free Thing and further was associated with a domain that used the names of both That Free Thing and Groupon to form its root URL.
* She wasn’t selling for Groupon; she was selling against it, and she was doing it while selling for That Free Thing.
* She also was was associated with AutoXTen, and further was associated with a domain that used AutoXTen’s name to form its root URL.
I’d venture from this that Teresa was employing a highly dubious MLM affiliate SEO strategy that, by its very nature, created trademark litigation risk both for herself and the MLM firms she was pushing.
As I noted above in Comment #14, Teresa now is associated with a company that uses “True Value” to form the root of its domain name and that a famous hardware retailer known as True Value owns certain trademarks associated with the name.
You seem to be arguing that there are defenses to all of this. I’d ask, “So what?”
Why even risk it? All of it can be avoided up front.
Another superficially plausible argument that does a disservice to the MLM trade.
The practical reality is that “True Value” *is* a proper noun. Not only that, it is the official proper noun of a corporation domiciled in Delaware and headquartered in Illinois. It is famous across the United States and has retail stores in Florida — where “True Value Savings” purportedly is operating from.
Arguing about possible defenses misses the point. The litigation risk over trademarks and brand confusion is avoidable going in.
What happens if “True Value Savings” affiliates do the same thing Teresa appears to have done with both That Free Thing and AutoXTen? What if one or more of them, in their zeal to sell for “True Value Savings,” creates a root domain that uses both its name and the name of a competitor?
TrueValueIsBetterThan[FamousRetailCompany]dotcom, for instance?
Think it won’t happen? Hell, it’s already happened with the domain name that married the brand names of That Free Thing and Groupon. MPB Today affiliates created root domains that included Wal-Mart’s name.
Such affiliates could create liability for themselves, Teresa and the company. As an upstart, any of these things could put the entire enterprise at risk.
The legal risk is not the sole risk. The entire dynamic in play here creates embarrassment for the MLM trade as a whole. That “defenses” and superficially plausible explanations are available rings especially hollow in an industry known for seeking new and better ways to exploit the gray and for serial disingenuousness.
I’d speculate that Teresa, somewhere along the MLM trail, was provided grossly incompetent “training” by an upline or “leader” and that this incompetence has cascaded across scheme after scheme and now is showing up at “True Value Savings.”
Where does this end? MPBToday affiliates used Wal-Mart signage and videotaped commercials for MPBToday inside of WalMart stores, implying that MPB Today was a Wal-Mart subsidiary.
For whatever reason, one of the affiliates apparently thought that selling against Wal-Mart was a better tactic. This affiliate created a Facebook site that encouraged Wal-Mart critics to “stop making that pipe bomb and read how you can avoid Walmart and still make bank.”
The superficially plausible explanation for that one — made in the name of MPB Today and MLM — was that Wal-Mart “is trying to take over the world and steal your soul.”
PPBlog
i think you’re being a little pedantic , over a simple MLM name.
the practical reality IS that it is plausible to use the name ‘true value savings’ for an MLM which ‘intends ‘ to offer true vale savings . it is also technically defensible. so why not ?
True Value may be in use as a proper noun , by a particular corporation but that does not take the phrase ‘true value’ out of the lexicon of usage in sales and marketing.
‘True Value’ may be a strong mark due to advertising and age , but the words true + value are not a strong mark, in the sense that they are part of common usage and the whole world cannot be stopped from using these words to sell their products.
a seminal decision of the ninth circuit court in AMF, Inc v. Sleekcraft Boats, established 8 points for deciding trademark infringement .
-Strength of the mark
-Proximity of the goods
-Similarity of the marks
-Evidence of actual confusion
-Marketing channels used
-Type of goods and the degree of care likely to be exercised by the purchaser
-Defendant’s intent in selecting the mark
-Likelihood of expansion of the product lines
if you go thru the above case , it will be easy to see True Value cannot establish a case against True value savings . their products and logos bear no semblance , and reasonably cannot cause confusion for customers.
i went thru the case you have referenced in post 14. the internet has no geographical boundaries , how can the whole world be stopped from using true value in its name .
in india there are several companies online like truevalue homes, true value technologies that are selling their stuff across the world .how can True Value USA stop that ?
There is no “SEEM” about it.
Anjali would argue “black” is “white” if she thought by doing so she would give legitimacy to the pseudo MLM industry and get one over those who would speak out against it.
mongar was commercially advertising thatfreething over groupon in a comparable product range .
the thing is that, such usages are common and companies may find it an uphill task to protect their trademark on the internet .
your phrase ‘legitimacy to the pseudo MLM industry ‘ is nonsense. MLM is legal . there is no question or argument about that at all .
there are only questions about HOW to differentiate between MLM and pyramid schemes.
“True Value” is hardly a “simple MLM name.” It is, in fact, the name of a famous American company that has a history of litigating to protect its intellectual property. And it is being used by an emerging MLM “program” whose principal or affiliate has a history of trading on another famous name: Groupon.
“Why not” is explained in Comment #16 above. For additional context, I’d add that the beginning of the end of the notorious Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme came in 2007, when UBS AG, the famous Swiss company, sued for trademark infringement. The Cook schemers somehow persuaded themselves they could get away with creating LLCs that used the brand identities of famous companies.
Meanwhile, a cease-and-desist letter sent by Visa Inc., the American financial-services company, hastened the end of the Imperia Invest IBC scammers who were trading on its name.
Siemens, the famous German company, actually issued a formal statement and took to Twitter when it discovered that Ming Xu and the WCM777 MLM “program” were trading on its name.
These are not isolated incidents. Most of the recent pyramid-scheme actions by the SEC speak to MLM companies that were trading on the names of famous brands.
The same way the Tata Group, the famous Indian concern, stopped it when an MLM HYIP scheme was trading on its name. Like Siemens, it issued a public statement and identified the infringer.
There is no ceiling to the serial disingenuousness in the MLM sphere. The Club Asteria scammers even traded on the name of Mahatma Gandhi — while taking the names of actor Will Smith, the American Red Cross and the World Bank out for a ride.
CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, regularly publishes information on purported “opportunities” that clone or adopt the names of legitimate firms to create confusion and fleece the masses.
Your arguments are arguments to institutionalize superficial plausibility and adopt it as a best practice. The trade should reject such low-bar arguments.
Avon has. It seems to me that it is sick and tired of observing the trade defend the indefensible and the noxious.
PPBlog
Pseudo MLM = supposed or purporting to be MLM but not really so; false; not genuine
Pseudo MLM: = resembling or imitating MLM, but not MLM
i came across a case :True Value Company Vs Mount Holly True Value Hardware
in the above case , True Value Company really has a strong case to litigate for trademark protection .
in the matter of true value savings , i don’t believe True Value has a strong case.
firstly because out of the various kinds of trademarks , those that use descriptive words are not awarded court protection always.
when a trademark is a descriptive word then the descriptive purpose would be considered the word’s primary meaning with the trademarked meaning being the secondary meaning.
if anyone uses such a descriptive word for its primary meaning without bad faith ,for a different product range, it is not trade mark infringement. if someone trademarks ‘creamy icecream ‘ , someone else can sell ‘creamy icecream cones’.
if companies want to protect their trademarks , they should use coined words like ‘Kodak’, or arbitrary words , like Apple for a computer. you cant pick up normal use phrases, and tell the world to swear off using them .
as far as mongars use of groupon in her URL goes ,i am not very certain it is illegal . her URL said: thatfreethingisbetterthangroupon . this is comparative advertising and not illegal.
secondly if mongar used groupon in her URL for SEO, then also a court will see how much HARM resulted to groupon due to this act.
if mongar had used ‘grouponplus.com’ or something similar, to attract visitors and then sell them thatfreething, that would have been clearly illegal.
Oh, well, that’s settled, then.
If renowned persistent internet troll anjali doesn’t think using the name “True Value” will confuse the general public, then it won’t
@PPBlog
you have mentioned several cases in your post namely:
Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme , Imperia Invest IBC, Siemens and Ming Zu, Tata Group and HYIP.
in all the above cases a famous trademark has been used to propagate FRAUD. this is clearly bad faith use BUT these cases are not relevant to the discussion about true vale savings using the words ‘true value’ in their name.
as true value savings , by inspection of its compensation plan, does not appear to be a dishonest enterprise or a scam , trademark infringement will be decided by the 8 points mentioned in post#17.a more relevant case would be AMF, Inc v. Sleekcraft Boats .
could true value savings have avoided this name altogether and saved themselves probable pain ? of course ! but that’s not the point .
they have a right to use the words and so they should !we cant have big business eat up the dictionary , and attack people with take down notices at the drop of a hat.
but,but,but i formed my opinion on the back of case law i read . i did not pull it out of your arse 🙂
“As ye sew, so shall ye reap” anjali.
Your reputation is forever tainted
You have years of fence mending to do before anyone takes you seriously again.
Following on from Patrick Pretty’s comment (#14):
https://behindmlm.com/companies/true-value-savings-tied-to-world-consumer-alliance-ponzi/