The supporters / members for both, needless to say, are very offended when Oz (on Behindmlm.com) and I pointed out their problems with the comp plan. Somehow, in the supporter's mind, having a legitimate product is all that's needed for the business to be legitimate.
So, what's the problem with AiYellow Internet's income opportunity?
AiYellow started as AiAmarilla in South America, but that's not what's important here. Basically, they are an Internet Yellow Pages service, claiming to create a lot of SEO-friendly links for most businesses and locations, and affiliates buy the "codes" (from $35 to $325) from AiYellow, then sell them to businesses who wants to appear on such listings. Nothing wrong with that (I doubt the viability of an "Internet Yellow Pages" in the times of Google... but that's NOT related to whether they are operating legally or not).
The problem is they are paying you for YOUR purchase of these "ad packages", not on your sale of them. This violates the "Weber vs. Omnitrition" clarification of the Koscot test.
According to their own webpage, you are paid several ways:
- Retail Commission -- not really a commission, but explaining that if you resell the codes you can pocket quite a bit of money. You pay $30 for 5 codes, but you can sell them for $30 EACH. That's great.
- Residual Commissions -- this pays people for their recruited downlines (who pays monthly fees), and there are four levels. Higher the level, higher the "monthly residuals". This is VERY MUCH in danger of getting them declared as a pyramid scheme, even if they have some sales requirements for each level.
- e-Voucher -- if you recruit a member, you can have a voucher to recruit the next member for free. This is like getting paid to recruit, and again, makes them potentially liable of being a pyramid scheme.
- Director Pool Bonus -- if you have enough "directors" (no sales requirements) under you, you get a piece of the profit pool. There are even two versions of this... local and international. This is debatable whether this is "securities" or not. If you buy in, and recruited enough people who also bought in, you'll get paid. THAT makes it potentially pyramid, again, and maybe even Ponzi as well, as this is clearly NOT a sales bonus pool.
- AiRewards, some sort of additional bonus payment that can be applied to something TBA.
The pool bonus, NOT being a sales bonus, is likely illegal as well. The only requirement pretty much is to buy in (and recruit other people who also buy in) which makes it in danger of passing the "Howey Test", making it an investment.
In other words, this company has several compliance problems at the corporate level. I hope they hire a US compliance attorney to look over their comp plan ASAP.
P.S. Someone asked for specific citing, so here goes:
At p. 5 of its March 2012 Amended Final Judgment, the Burnlounge Court ruled:
AIYellow compensates its affiliates based NOT on sales to businesses, but on sales to affiliates. Thus, AIYellow is in danger of being declared a "prohibited marketing scheme"."Prohibited Marketing Scheme" means an illegal pyramid sales scheme (see e.g., Webster v. Omnitrition Int'l, 79 F.3d 776, 781 (9thCir. 1996), Ponzi scheme, chain marketing scheme, or other marketing plan or program in which participants pay money or valuable consideration in return for which they obtain the right to receive rewards for recruiting other participants into the program, and those rewards are unrelated to the sale of products or services to ultimate users. For purposes of this definition, "sale of products or services to ultimate users" does not include sales to other participants or recruits or to the participants' own accounts."
I have never seen a company in my life with the in demand worldwide product that they have, the leadership we have been shown, the great people in the program and every one has the strong desire to help out others become a success most likely for the first time in their life in internet marketing. Their are no monthly auto ships required ever and they only keep on increasing the features of and adding in more exciting ad codes. The have a new complete website coming in a few weeks and it WILL become one of the top 10 websites in the world before 2014. The yellow Books will soon become a museum display and we will save a few million tons of paper a year also.
ReplyDeletehttp://marketing.aiyellow.com/KevinAlaskaAiYellow
As I said, Kevin, nothing wrong with the product. The problem is how it's being sold. They are NOT paying you for stuff you sold. They are paying you for stuff YOU BUY.
ReplyDeleteYour right we buy at wholesale and sell at retail and put a 400% return on investment right into our hot little pocket year after year when they renew their ads. Sounds like a pure winner to me! Which program have you found that meats all of your criteria and is paying you monthly or more often?
ReplyDeleteKasey, You do have to buy an ad code package at wholesale to sell them at a 400% markup or profit and then again every year so they can renew their ad to run for one more year. This is money that goes right into your pocket on each sale.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering what program your using to earn an income! There must be one out their that you swear by.
Then why have a MLM component at all? Just straight out sales rep, no problem with FTC or pyramid scheme allegations.
ReplyDeleteAnd you'er going way off topic. You're arguing viability, when you should be discussing "legality".
I'm not in MLM, I merely analyze them.
Hello all
ReplyDeleteI really dont understand your post about the legality of AiYellow, but it seems the success of AiYellow is messing with all the people, because as you said in one of your answers to Kevin, even in other site like this they are also talking about our company, to us its very good, because show us that people start knowing our company.
I will show you with some examples of other companies our legality, Amway ( a company that i work 15 years a go ) the affiliates from this company win money from where? Isnt from the purchase of products of their downlines? Herbalife? Isnt the same? Now, my question is, what is the rate of sales in those companies to outside the networks, i can tell you that is not even 40%, its auto consume from their affiliates most of the times. In AiYellow we have a rate of 93% of sales to clients outside the network, so we can say for sure we ARE a real DIREC SALES company.
But, like any other network marketing company ( i advice you to read what it means NETWORK MARKETING ) the affiliate who enroll a new member in his network will get commissions each time that affiliate purchase the product from AiYellow to retail to his clients, because its impossible to AiYellow pay a commission in each sale, since who gets the payment from the client is the affiliate who sell the ads, but you can see from this point of view, in each 5 sales of our downlines ( in the Standard Program ) the upline will get $15 in commission.
About the quality of our product, it seems you dont understand too much about SEO, search engines and other things on the internet, but i will explain you here. To be present on google you must list your ad in any business directory, or you must pay hosting of your website or you can pay to Google Adwords to be there, the question is HOW MUCH IT WILL COST?
I challenge you to take a look in one of our examples of our ads, search on google for: new motorcycles east rand
You will see this ad in the 1st page on google: www.aiyellow.com/holeshotmotorcycles
And i can give you thousands of other examples worldwide, thts the power of AiYellow ads, we sell the most complete advertise with the best rankings in all search engines and we also offer to all our Premium clients a 6 page website for free, YES FOR FREE, no monthly fees in domains and hosting.
( e.g. www.youngproperties.amawebs.com )
All this for only $200 per year and our profit in Direct Sales is up to 950% ( In each sale we win up to $185 )
I believe with all this you can change your oppinion about AiYellow, and start looking to other companies as a target of your blog.
Oh, i almost forgot, which company in the market have a partnership with a bank institution? We have with Red Lion Bank, check here all the informations about our company: http://mysite.aiyellow.com/viriato
Regards
Appreciate your info, but it seems you are again, answering the WRONG questions.
DeleteYou claim "sales to clients outside the network is 93%".
The problem here is the company sells YOU the codes, then YOU sell them to the advertisers, right? So the correct answer "What percentage of those codes did company sell to advertisers?" would be 0%.
Thus, it's clear that your "clients outside the network" does not mean what you think it means. (Where's that documented any way?)
Hello Kasey Chang, are you sure you have the right skills to make evaluation of MLM companies? Check what is Network Marketing and research again all the informations you post about AiYellow, the value of the products, the commissions and all the things you post are all wrong
ReplyDeleteWhat is Network Marketing?
Brilliant question, ok! Let’s get started by clearing the dust. So what really is network marketing? When individuals or entrepreneurs associate with other individuals or organizations at different levels in the
hierarchy for the purpose of doing business, it gives birth to a marketing phenomenon called Network marketing. In this context the word “network” in network marketing signifies people and the word “marketing” symbolizes companies /organizations. Both of these together lay the foundations of the Network marketing business model. In view of that which has been said above “market” paves the road for marketing while networking creates the channel required for marketing. Thus the words “network” and “marketing” complement each other greatly. Companies carry on marketing their products and people go on building profitable networks, thus building up their own enterprises, and this is what network marketing is all a bout.
Along the way an individual is compensated for his efforts in the network marketing endeavour. Such compensation is referred to as commission that an entrepreneur earns on account of the business he or she generates for a company or an organization. A network marketing company can deal in several products ranging from cosmetics, health and wellness products, insurance, financial services, legal services etc. Some of the major network marketing companies are Amway, Herbalife, Avon Products, Syntek Global, Fmgroup, Monavie, Usana, Shaklee, Nu skin, Mary Kay, Forever living product, Pre-paid legal, to name a few of them. Statistics have revealed that around 50% of goods and services are being distributed through Network Marketing.
In view of the above it is implied that there is much scope to learn and to earn from the Network Marketing business model. The products and services sold through this business model are qualitative par excellence and distributors or entrepreneurs
promoting and distributing them undergo constant and continuous training programs to enhance their knowledge about the product, to improve their marketing skills and to be at par with the market standards and demand, this is done so that they may do better business.
For the benefits of those who has no clear knowledge about what is happening in the market place, this and subsequent articles are compiled so as to give you a clear picture of the “network marketing” business model and to clear any misconceptions you may have regarding the subject.
I'd rather discuss specific compensation plan of AiYellow, rather than your strawman argument. WHERE exactly did I get wrong? Please name the specific part and offer proper documented evidence. I'll gladly correct the mistake if it is a mistake, but your "wiki-copy" defense leaves much to be desired.
DeleteKasey, I respect what your doing in helping people from getting taken by lousy internet schemes but your completely off base when your picking on aiyellow. This is the GOLD standard of companies and everything they do is to make it better for us, the affiliates, to succeed. They are doing a complete reconstruction of their websites and they will go live on the first of November when they reach four years in business and by then will have paid out almost $58 million to us. Your also wrong on the costs of the ad packages in your narrative, They are $30 wholesale for 5 standard codes which retail for $30 each and $200 for 5 of the premium codes which retail for $200 each, Make one sale and the rest is pure profits of 400%. They have also made the ads even better with a QR code on each one and links to their social media sites. Premium ads also now include up to 200 photo's in 10 catalogs with a 255 character description and up to 5 15 minute videos they can upload to U Tube and embed in their ad. The vast majority of our ads also make the first page on a google search without having to pay a per click price.
ReplyDeleteI always figured that anyone looking to dig up dirt about us would be Yellow Book salesmen, distribution team members or printers since they will soon be out of a job. And adding to the 53% of those now living off of the government, but as a Democrat don't worry since we will be all paying a nice tax bill to ensure that they can sit on their couch and live off of our efforts.
Kevin, while your testimonial and correction is appreciated, it doesn't change the fact that the comp model is very likely illegal. Furthermore, I've never argued that the product is illegal, only the comp plan.
DeleteGood suggestion. But if I want to print QR Codes in excel file, then add them to the ads. How to get such a tool? Any better ideas?
DeleteKasey, We earn commissions on sales of ad codes at wholesale to members of our team so they can earn 400% profits when they sell them to their local clients at retail. It is our reward for training and helping them develop a network of their own direct sellers. Their are no requirements that they ever have to go on an auto ship plan or upgrade to a new level unless they desire to do so! The seller of the ad collects the money due and its put into their pocket as profits. Unlike so many plans on the net that you join in for FREE and then get an hourly reminder to upgrade to their platinum plan at only $47.77 a month this is the fairest one of all. And if I had the skills and strong desire I could blow right by all of my up line members but judging by their talents that will never happen.
ReplyDeleteNow you should buy a standard ad code from me for $30 for a year and advertise your blog about Wazzub. They are only on day 81 of their 42 day launch marathon. The world needs to know that it is a total failure!
@Kevin, you are not discussing the proper issue... case law and legality. I'm afraid I've warned you multiple times to stay on topic, and your repeated comments about how cheap and good the comp plan is will not be accepted is bordering on spam. I already told you there's nothing wrong with the product, merely how it's sold.
DeleteThus, consider this a friendly warning: stay on topic, don't spam. Else, your comment is going into the spam bin.
The problem is they convince website owners that they can bring them traffic. They use stats like ALEXA to show traffic, which is only impressive to people that don't know the true state of Alexa stats. They use validation as a justification to compare opposition, even though Matt Cutts himself states this is not relevant. They insult, attack and get personal when challenged in a constructive format.
ReplyDeleteBut, in the end, the bubble will burst. It always does in this type of schemes.
This I know about legality, the lines are fine, but, whatever you gain by lies and deception will never gain any longevity. The web lives, and this ponzy pyramid scheme will soon be exposed
If Ai yellow has indeed grown as they claim, and if they had pyramid schemes I am sure the authorities would have taken down by now.
ReplyDeleteAuthorities often move a lot slower than you think. How long did India take to move against SpeakAsia? Or for the US to move against RVG/Zeek Rewards Ponzi?
DeleteHi Kasey, I must agree with both parties about AI Yellow. I agree that the AI yellow people are of topic and that you have not investigated the system properly. I think you ask the question of legality. After reading the first comments I decided to investigate the compensation plan of AI Yellow. They pay a commission to the up-line on every product sold in the line; secondly they pay a commission to the direct up line in the form of an e-voucher for a product sold (from the company), Thirdly they allocate a percentage of profit in a country and devide it between the directors structure. This profit is of sales in the specific country from the company, not from the direct sales profits. If I understand it correctly this does not differ from normal companies, lets take a new car sales company. The Franchise recruit sales people, they received bonuses from the sales made from these sales people, if they reach a certain target they receive company cars from their sales (like the e-voucher), the owner have the opportunity to buy shares from the company, the company reward them by sharing profits in the region with these directors (up line bonuses paid by AI Yellow every 90 days). At AI Yellow the shares cost a 1000 dollars which allow to share in the 2% profit of sales in the country that you operate. The up line have the opportunity to finance a new recruit with the e-voucher (make it affordable for everyone). Therefore real money to the company create the bonuses of the up line, not like the banking system where fake money create bonuses (lending out 10 times what they have and receive income from paper). I must however thank you for your views, after reading you concerns about AI Yellow, I investigated the system and decided that it is brilliant, I intend joining them shortly. Like they say any publication positive or negative is better than none
ReplyDeleteWillie Beetge
I'm afraid you did understand incorrectly... as you did not investigate the question: what is a pyramid scheme, and does this fit the definition of a pyramid scheme?
DeleteWebster vs. Omnitrition case clearly established that commission to affiliate must be based on sales to "ultimate endusers", not sales to affiliate him/herself for the Koscot test to have real meaning.
AiYellow makes you, the affiliate buy the codes, then resell the codes to endusers. They don't track the sales to endusers. They track sales to affiliates IN YOUR DOWNLINE, and pay you commission on those sales. That is a violation of the definition in Webster vs. Omnitrition.
You are applying regular business rules, as you understand them, to a direct-sales / MLM company, which operates under far more stringent rules, due to its similarity to pyramid schemes. That lead you to what I consider an erroneous conclusion.
I am afraid we misunderstand each other. The definition implies that the company must know who the end user is, or that he exists. I followed some advertising sales from AI Yellow, it is compulsory that the end user fill in all his details. This includes his business, Address, E mail address and so on; this detail is send to the company before the code is activated. The affiliate only received commission in the form of a discount, I have joint 3 affiliates to AI Yellow and because they decided to use the free joining option no commission was due to me or anyone in the up-line.
DeleteWhat I am trying to explain is that the company does not pay commission to affiliates if they join other affiliates (this would be illegal). When an affiliate sells an advert (the end product) the company award the code to the end user and to his information. The code cannot be activated if this information is not completed. According to me the company now know who is in possession of the code. Nobody else than the end user can now use this code, to make for instance changes, this will comply with the definition of ownership for the agreed period. The end user has now got the right to use the advertising space at AI Yellow as he wishes (within the terms and conditions). If the end user experiences any problems, he sends a ticket to the company for assistance. I bought an advert and had a problem with some changes, I used the ticket system and within 48 hours I had the required assistance from the company. The affiliate is merely a salesman that receives a discount.
I do not believe the company or his main sponsors will allow illegal transactions, some of the main sponsors if I may say are Toyota, McDonalds, La cost, Nike, Apple. These companies will not sponsor illegal trade. I suppose you did see the sponsors during your investigation of the company.
AI Yellow uses affiliates to tell people about the company, in other words effective communication.
The commission structure is shared between the affiliates, surely you cannot expect that the company will pay commission to the end user as this can border on illegal activity in some countries. Kasey contact me I will send you a link to join for free, this will give you access to all the documentation, training and assistance the company offers, you can then test the ticked system, or I can sell you an advertisement for your blog, this will give as the end user access to AI Yellow assistance (from the company). I apologies for the bad example I used in the first reply .
Have a Lovely day Willie
Kasey, sorry I would just like to answer anonymous. An AI Yellow affiliate cannot sell website traffic to you. You should report this behaviour to the company. Yes AI Yellow advertisements do rate well on Google and other search engines. Advertising is not about the traffic you create it is about the response and accessibility of your company. The important thing with your advertisement is the key words, like any website. You need to pick words that your potential clients will use to search for your service. If you use irrelevant words you will find traffic on your website that is not suppose to be there.
DeleteYou wrote: "The affiliate only received commission in the form of a discount"
DeleteCan you clarify that please? Did AiYellow change their comp plan? Last time I checked, you join for $30, you get 5 codes, each of which you can resell for $30. Has that changed?
Kasey their is four ways to join AI Yellow
Delete1. 30USD and get 5 standard codes or 6 USD per code
2. 100 USD for 5 premium codes or 20 USD per code
3. 1000 USD for 50 premium codes or 20 USD per code
The companies aim is for you to recover your investment back after your first sale.
4. Join for free you still get the virtual office and can participate in the click campaign where you earn 0.002 cents per click. The click campaign is there to assist the end user or client to build up a data base of potential clients. The company AI Yellow then send these databases to the client in order for them to use it in their own campaign
On your first question the affiliate that sell the package only receive a discount on the package that he purchase he pays 20 USD per code and sell it for or 200 USD . The person who introduced the affiliate receives 1 USD for the package sold. There is a promotion currently running in the form an e voucher to the direct up line only. It is the companies aim to achieve 1 Billion advertisements in the next few months, the e voucher is an incentive to achieve the target. Remember that up line had to train the affiliate.
The company give 5 USD commission on each standard package bought from them, this money is divided between the 5 lines (five people) each receive 1 USD. The Affiliate selling the package does not receive any commission he bought the package at a discount price.
When you join AI Yellow you can only do direct sales if you wish to do so. The multiplication of MLM pay much less than the direct sales do. Many affiliates join and never bother to appoint affiliates under them, they just sell the product. If you decide to appoint affiliates you must be prepared to train them, spend time with them. The company require that you train your down lines, and that you complete the company training. There are webinars every night for affiliates to get training and to solve problems.
Kasey I am also a sceptic when it come to Multi Network Marketing, except for the law these companies tend to collapse due to demand and supply problems. Such a collapse caused hundreds of people to lose their investments. This is the reason why they become pyramid schemes. With AI Yellow the end client are renting computer space which is very unlikely to collapse, the product is not manufactured. This is the reason why I believe it can work, as long as the company keep their servers running, and with their sponsors I believe they will.
The reason why pyramid schemes are illegal is the risk that people lose their investment due to collapse. It is a requirement that a multi Level Marketing scheme have a product that reach an end user, and that the company has the ability to serve these clients. When we interoperate law and judgements we need to keep the specific situation and cause of the judgement in mind in order to apply such a judgement. We cannot apply judgement word for word and apply it on any situation; if that was the case lawyers would be absolute. In my opinion you have interpreted the judgement incorrectly when compared to AI Yellow. This was only due to lack of information to you. It is healthy to investigate all MLM companies; you are doing a great job asking the questions.
So you don't dispute the fact that the company sells the codes to you (and your downlines), and pays commission from sales to affiliates/downlines, instead of sales to the actual businesses/customers? Because this is what you wrote:
Delete"On your first question the affiliate that sell the package only receive a discount on the package that he purchase he pays 20 USD per code and sell it for or 200 USD . "
In fact, what you posted is really the SAME THINGS I wrote in the blogpost.
You wrote: "The reason why pyramid schemes are illegal is the risk that people lose their investment due to collapse. "
Actually, you got this one wrong. The reason why pyramid schemes are illegal is because the majority of participants LOSE money so a few people would gain even though everybody was told they can earn money. "Collapse" is a consequence of people realizing that majority of people was defrauded, lose money and stop joining.
The simplest pyramid scheme test: if no more people join the company, can the company still survive? This one, AiYellow is... questionable. While purely on paper, the associates can just keep buying and reselling the codes, as you said, the question is most people would be tempted to recruit people and let THEM sell the codes while they sit back and earn the commissions while doing nothing.
Oh, I'll admit that AIYellow displays a lot LESS warning signs than some of the more BLATANT schemes. But again, it seems to violate the precedent set in Webster vs. Omnitrition case. And none of the stuff you presented so far contradicts that.
Come on Kasey, at 1 USD per sale you will have to sit on the floor watching other people selling
ReplyDeleteThe real money is to sell the advertisements yourself. If you can manage to have 3000 people under you, you will only earn 3000 USD, if everyone sells an advertisement. It will take you approximately two years to achieve this. Who in any sane state of mind will even think that this is profitable option? The company does not make a secret of this; it is more profitable to sell the product than to multi level marketing it. It is in fact a requirement that you buy at least once a month a product to remain active for commission. If you sit back you do not receive commission. The fact remain that interpretation of statue in law is determined by the situation and not by pure application. The USA is implementing strict controls on MLM’s from next year; they ask that all MLM’s must have more than 70% of their clients out of the network. AI Yellow has 90% out of the network. (as I explained every client is registered with the company and not with the affiliate) This is already an exception on the president legal system, and will exclude 90% of all cases up to now. To achieve a similar judgement the situation must be without doubt the same. I cannot find more than 20% similarities hardly a definition supporting “without any doubt”. Please note the client is at no time registered to the affiliate.
Let me explain it better, if I do not sell at least one product a month to clients outside AI Yellow I will not be liable for any commission on sales of my affiliates. Once again this information is not a secret; if you did any proper investigation you would have known this. The Multi level marketing is purely a tool to assist you in finding some residual income. I have attended two training sessions and in both the company made it clear that you will have all the support but you need to work for your money.
Where did you get the $1 per sale figure?
DeleteSeparate but worth repeating the question, and let's be VERY clear: Do you earn money when your downline BUY codes? Or do you earn money when your downline SELL codes?
The 70% rule is a myth. FTC has NOT set any hard numbers.
I have no problem with AI Yellow claiming that 90% of the slaes are "out of network", which I assume what you actually mean is 90% of the codes sold to affiliates were purchased by real merchants and redeemed for a listing?
That makes it less likely to be a pyramid scheme, but again, are there documented audits and such? Or is this announced somewhere?
And if 90% of codes were redeemed, then it should have no problem paying commission on SALES of codes to customers, not to affiliates, and thus eliminate the specter of of possibly violating Websters vs. Omnitrition case precedent.
Your retail requirement is a part of Amway safeguard rules and has been around for 30+ years. It does NOT guarantee the business to be not a pyramid scheme, merely less likely.
As I said before, AiYellow exhibits LESS warning signs than some of the shady schemes out there. But you're trying to dismiss the warning signs instead of understanding them.
Kasey, Kasey, name one company that pay customers commission to buy from them.
ReplyDeleteI can Jacob Zuma president of South Africa received commission in an Arms Deal, this case is still investigated, He was president of the “customer company”. The commission became corruption as a client should never be influenced to buy any product for his company by financial enrichment.
Let us discuss the case you brought up Webster vs. Omnitrition. The judgement of this case is pages long, one of the paragraphs sections indicate affiliate commissions. The reason why the judgement continues on after this statement is to explain why in the specific case this commission was unlawful. One of the major facts was based on the fact that the affiliate was the salesmen and the biggest consumer. Now if I sell something to myself and I get paid for it, it can therefore be unlawful. I noticed that you use the one debatable part of the judgement to interpret the case and it’s applicability on other companies. The interpretation of statue with regard to precedent is a complicated procedure, so much so that the majority of law students fail it the first time. If the interpretation was as easy as you make it to be, it would have been absolutely a disaster. It would implicate that all companies with any affiliate or share holder that receive commission could be guilty, if the customer did not receive commission. The judgement however covers this basis and should be read as a whole and not partially. The judgement definitely did not mean that the customer must receive commission; it rather means that a pyramid scheme that feed on the bottom of the pyramid might be illegal. Even here one must practice extreme care when applying the judgement. For an example if I open a chain store and sell shares and only the share-holders can buy from me, it might be illegal if and only if the store is forced to sign up new affiliates to keep paying commissions. If this same store can remain functional if no more affiliates join it will be legal again. If store 1 stop signing up affiliates and the last affiliates do not receive commission as promised it might become a civil case for these affiliates and if this store pay the affiliates back, or have the ability to pay them back the legality of the operation become suspect. Please note that both cases are based on Multi-level marketing one become a pyramid scheme due to failure and the other one not. It can therefore now be argued that a pyramid scheme is failure and a success is not a pyramid scheme. Debatable is it not. It is important that the case study of the scheme must be studied carefully and the application of other cases must be totally applicable. What the court try to tell us is, it is illegal to take investment or affiliate money without a sustainable generation of income. By definition this means that the company must have outside income rather than internal generation of income. In other words you cannot use money from one affiliate to pay the next one, the key might now become the client is the end user an affiliate or a non affiliate?
Enough of this free law consultation. I also investigate companies and people; I do however make sure I have all the facts before attacking them. If you wish to investigate AI Yellow join them, get all the facts (it is available on your dash board) and then question them. This is good investigative practice. Once you have facts nail them if the facts are wrong, just make sure you understand legal interpretation before using it as a tool.
Concerning the up line commission it is all in documentation of AI Yellow take the time and read it
Already told you... Not in any MLM schemes. it appears that you still somehow think I'm a member? Perhaps that's a blindspot on your part.
DeleteThere's no debate on Websters vs. Omnitrition, which is actually a clarification of the FTC vs. Koscot case. It states very clearly that in order for Koscot to have any teeth, commission must be calculated on RETAIL SALES. And sales to affiliates are not retail sales. That is NOT debatable.
Here, I'll let Kevin Grimes, MLM Attorney, explain it to you.
http://www.mlmlaw.com/saleswatch/omnitrition.html
"It is common for companies to calculate commissions to their distributors based on the volume of merchandise purchased by their downline organizations, whether at wholesale, suggested retail, or on a point basis. Companies can track these figures and calculate commissions with relative ease. The Omnitrition court determined that such a practice does not sufficiently tie commissions to retail sales. The court stated that payment of compensation based on the volume of merchandise ordered by a distributor is facially unrelated to the sale of product to ultimate users."
This part, AIYellow is NOT compliant of. No ands, ifs, or buts. You can debate how many other companies are compliant of this provision, but that'd be... irrelevant.
I know the legal interpretation. Do you?
Yes Kasey I have 15 years experience in interpretation do you have any?
DeleteSufficiently remain a debatable word and can can only be implemented in a specific case. Incentives and commission can also be interpreted under two definitions. The major thing is and the question that you keep on missing, is the difference between a definable pyramid scheme and a multi level marketing scheme. In court history no successful multi level marketing scheme has ever been found guilty of becoming an illegal pyramid scheme.
Still waiting for the answer show me one company that pay their clients commission?? This was your was interpretation statement not mine!!
Clearly you forgot about Fortune High-Tech Marketing, or Equinox International... They were successful MLM that got closed. Equinox even got to be Inc fastest growing company. You have 15 years of interpreting what, exactly, if you claimed that you never heard of them?
DeleteAs for "company that pays client commission"... Are you talking about a rebate? How is that relevant? I cannot locate any such comment that I had such an "interpretation statement"... Can you kindly remind me?
The difference between MLM and pyramid scheme is clearly defined by FTC. vs. Koscot via the Koscot test, in that the compensation to affiliates must be tied to SALES OF PRODUCTS. Then Webster vs. Omnitrition clarified that to mean sales of products to "ultimate users", which is clearly intended as people OUTSIDE the company and not part of the comp plan. Does AiYellow do that?
Good day.
DeleteI am realy interested in this oppertunity - can anyone be honest and tell me if this is worthwhile? and how to start?
Regards
Simply ask yourself the question: do you really think people will pay $30 for an ONLINE yellow pages listing, when they make a real website like a blog for free?
DeleteWhen you search for a business, did you see ANY results from AiYellow's listings? (Obviously, this depends on where you're at, so you'll have to test this for yourself) If not, who would then buy such listings?
I'm pretty effing certain that the people behind amarillasinternet are up to no good.
ReplyDeleteAnd your logic of that is?
DeleteThank you Kasey for taking the time, I have learnt a lot! I think it's easy to overlook the legality of AiYellow's product. It's like selling a pocket of air at a price. They keep on throwing these big names around like gaining 1st page rank on Google. Besides the keywords that AiYellow openly proclaims does very well on Google, I have yet to find one advertiser (I had randomly picked) who's advert actually comes up on the first page of Google. They are selling something that does not exist but have cleverly devised the AiYellow pages as proof of product. Besides the keywords that AiYellow is doing well in customers are a long way from getting what they had purchased! I must say the guy who thought up the Ai scheme is without a doubt a genius! Peter Sinclair
ReplyDeleteSelling business listings online is nothing new. Maybe it's the South America thing that got people confused? Do people there still see Internet as this wonderous thing?
DeleteKasey, interesting reading.
ReplyDeleteas I am in South Africa, and Today I was approached about listing my company with AiYellow, for R3380( $300) a year, to get on page one of google and eventually top spot. After reading all these articles I am not sure if these are the same company?
As long as it does what you WANTED I don't see it being a problem for you.
DeleteI merely question how can this be more effective than a website you control, with your domain name, and such on, for probably less money, depending on how much web hosting costs in your area, and how much they charge...
I am a consultant for Ai Yellow in South Africa and I challenge anyone to build a webpage for R3800 as we do at Ai Yellow. It is not necessary to run the company as a MLM company. In fact I am so busy selling I dont have time to recruit people. For an investment of R3000 we are given stock in the form of codes at almost 30 times the value of the investment. Leave Ai Yellow alone. Clients pay money and receive a good products that works in return. Personally I wonder why you seek out Ai Yellow in particular to bash.
DeleteYou may have issues with the way the company works. But facts are facts - It is an OUTSTANDING product, at an AMAZING price. Compare it to any other Online advert in the world and you will not find one as complete, as affordable and as successful. It is way worth the minor yearly cost. Above all else it is helping create jobs for people around the world! Even with a global charity program called Yellow heart to sponsor hundreds of thousands to help those in need. No problem here I see. Kasey a website will cost vastly more, and is vastly more complex for like minded people to run, not to mention the time it takes to maintain and update it. I know this as I have been a web designer for many years for many companies. Aiyellow is a great product and a great company.
ReplyDeleteGreat product? What's great about using someone else's domain when website hosting and web design are cheap as can be? What about social media presence? Search engine holding spot is so... last century.
DeleteYou haven't check how low are website hosting nowadays, did you? How about $5 a month? They don't need to run it or maintain it if it's just a "business brochure" type website. That sort of website could be as low as $2 a month. Design? There are free design templates everywhere.
Come on, don't tell me AIYellow is better than a website, It simply can't be.
Does the website rank on top pages of search engines? Does the website get 6 million visitors per month? Traffic and exposure of such a magnitude to any business signed up?? Does the website have a world ranking of 5000th most visited website? Is the website backed by major brands, endorsed by the ICC, BBB, Trustguard? No. So to answer you - it is WORLDS better than a website. For that traffic, exposure, features. Do some research before you make such statements. I am very experienced in IT, Web design, Networking, Advertising and all things IT related. You seem to not be.
DeleteICC, BBB, and Trustguard do NOT "endorse"companies. TrustGuard verifies that the company's genuine, that's it. Same with BBB acreditation. And that's ICC? Internet Chamber of Commerce? BBB says "phone disconnected"
Deletehttp://www.bbb.org/denver/business-reviews/business-and-trade-organizations/internet-chamber-of-commerce-in-denver-co-18000492
Did you even bother verifying the marketing claims you've been citing by rote?
BTW, AIyellow's ranking has dropped to 7000th range. You appear to be out of date, you 'very experienced' guy.
Deletehttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aiyellow.com
In South Africa Aiyellow is ranked among the top 100 most visited sites. It jumps between 80 and 130. It gets South African visitors than even Gmail. One of the worlds biggest if not thee biggest website company and email provider. To put it plain and simple. Why would a business owner not want to invest in Aiyellow for its growth, exposure, sales and success? Here are some reasons why. Unbeatable traffic! Unbeatable amount of features! Free setup! Free support! Smartphone App! Advertise your business on a platform that receives more traffic than Gmail itself! Fully responsive and can be accessed by any smartphone and device! This and more all at a price that is 1/3 or less than any other Internet Advertising company and Internet Directory. There is no competition when it comes to our services, traffic, functionality, support and price.
ReplyDeleteThis article has caused many businesses to think Aiyellow is rubbish, just by your URL. Why would you write such an unfair and unjust article on a Company that can really transform businesses? It already is! Already Aiyellow has 2.5 million registered businesses behind us. They have given small businesses the power to match up to the large businesses and get their products and services to the eyes of many customers searching for their products or services.
I'm not going to reply further here. This is just how it is, and I find this article highly unfair, based on simple assumptions and not enough research. You have the right to your opinion, but to hamper so many businesses and good people who could transform their businesses is not right.
So anyone reading this who is trying to decide to sign up or not, contact GoYellow SA for more information, proof, statistics and any other questions you may have on Aiyellow. We are happy to give them to you, have a great success with this Blog Kasey.
Regards
The overall site may be popular, but with bazillion listings visits to individual listings is miniscule. It's literally a drop in the ocean.
DeleteThe real question you should be asking is what is the EFFECTIVENESS of AiYellow? Do you actually have like referral codes and thus, tracking how effective are your ads?
or perhaps, you should ask... how many of those 2.5 million businesses are in South Africa? And why is the traffic so high there? perhaps it's really from your fellow sales teams touting the benefits, NOT from actual searchers for services.
What exactly is unfair and unjust about this blogpost? You're just whining about "negativity" because you don't like the facts I presented. if there are inaccuracies, please point them out.
Your rebuttal is known as "demand for fairness" fallacy. You are insinuating that there is a bigger picture, and you demand I include alleged factoids that puts AIYellow in a better light. Facts don't have sites. Your INTERPRETATION of facts does.
Please come back with some FACTS that we can discuss, rather than lame accusations like "hamper so many businesses and good people". THAT is your opinion, not a fact.
For those who still don't see the problem, take a better look at Alexa stats:
Deletehttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aiyellow.com
Only 9.6% (16% in latest month) of Aiyellow's traffic comes from search engines. Thus, "unbeatable traffic"? Nah. Unbeatable traffic to YOUR website or listing? UNLIKELY. "Does the website rank on top pages of search engines?", no it doesn't.
Keep reading down Alexa's page: "Which sites did people visit immediately before this site?" 19% came from AmarillaInternet, which is Aiyellow's parent company.
6 million visits a month? Nope. More like 5 million since the 19% is "internal" traffic.
Makes you wonder what ELSE did the salespeople, like Mr. Sampson here, did not tell you?
Imagine a regular YellowPages book. You are one tiny line in the book of 1000+ pages.
So what if 5 million people reads the book a month? What are your chances being found among the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of listings?
Aiyellow.com is also quite hilarious in claiming W3C and TrustGuard "certified" their business. Quote from their website: "Our service is certified by the most renowned regulation entities at a global scale: TrustGuard, W3C."
TrustGuard is NOT a regulation entity, but a private corporation who simply verifies that you are who you say you are.
And W3C? They check if the HTML used in the website are properly written. (it's not, AiYellow.com has 2 errors when I checked a minute ago)
Neither are 'regulation entities' in the sense implied by AiYellow.
NOTE: also look up "pigeon chess", which Mr. Sampson seem to be doing.
ReplyDeletehttp://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2013/11/whats-common-among-pigeon-chess-scam.html
No matter what argument I present to explain that he's wrong, by dissecting his every argument, he refuse to accept any of them, insist that everything is great, and in the end, dump the board and never to be back.
There is an update to this article:
ReplyDeletehttp://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2014/08/an-2014-update-on-aiyellow-is-this.html
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Amarillas_Internet_Redmundial.pdf
ReplyDeleteYou can see the logo of the chamber of commerce that allegedly backs AI which, despite having been founded in 1992 (so they say) only shows up in AI related sites. Virtually nobody else knows about this continental chamber of commerce. It has a listing in Facebook with 1 (one) like and then at expomercosur.com which is a free business list that anybody can join. People involved with AI for example.
They list two websites. Camaramercosur.com is 404. Camaramercosur.org literally sells a sexual enhancement pill in Japanese. I kid you not. You just have to wait long enough for the site to load.
This is the site's html Head:
"Speaking of, in the famous that can not erection disease, are increasingly more you want Nayame in Japan. To satisfy the sexual life, treatment of ED also to leave the gene is important and has been developed."