Empower Network – A Scam for the Ages?
Name: Empower Network
Website: www.empowernetwork.com
Price: $25/mth basic, $100/mth inner circle, $19 payment, $500 Costa Rica Intensive, $1,000 15K Formula, $3,500 Master’s Retreat
Owners: David Wood & David Sharpe
Overall Rank: 30 out of 100 points
**UPDATE: Empower Network Collapsed. The Company and Domain No Longer Exist.
The Product
Empower Network (EN) has been often times confused as being a REAL opportunity because of the relentless marketing taking place by the people pushing the product. However, there are many folks with real experience with Empower Network that are not happy and I am going to uncover some of the reasons why within. In this review I am going to be walking you through what EN is and help you decide whether or not it might be your path to Internet success.
Before I get started though I just want to clarify one thing. Empower Network is one of the lowest ranked products that I have ever reviewed and you are going to get a good idea why. If you are reading this, chances are you have been subject to someone “shamelessly” promoting EN to you and that is a normalcy. They can be very slimy, they promote slimy promotions, and if you become a member you are going to unfortunately be required to pass on the “slimy” tradition.
To put things into perspective, take a look at how Empower Network compares (or doesn’t) to other programs in the industry, you can get free websites (the foundation of your business) online. This can be accomplished through platforms like wordpress.com as well as many other hosts. There is a low price point to get started and a low price point to keep going, you won’t be subject to high ticket purchases in the same way that you are going to be within Empower Network. Plain and simple, you do not have to spend $1,000’s + monthly fees to create and grow a business online.
Pros vs. Cons
There are few pros and a lot of cons with Empower Network. The problem is that there is no real product behind the program, rather YOU are the product. The goal of the program is getting you to promote the very same scheme to other people and building a downline. Unlike other MLM products where there is actually a product that you are selling to customers (ex. Avon, Melaluca, etc), Empower completely lacks this element.
Here is a breakdown of the Pros & Cons of the Empower Network program:
Pros:
- Get your own empowernetwork.com blog
Cons:
- Has all of the common attributes of a PYRAMID Scheme
- No clear description of what the business is about, what you will be doing or what kind of interests you need for success.
- If you join, you have to become a ruthless sales person promoting Empower Network to others
- Riddled with “upsells”
- If you want to succeed, you are going to want to invest minimum $140/mth
- You have to PAY $20 per month just so you can get paid
- Widespread COMPLAINTS online about Empower Network
- No free trial
Who is Empower Network Intended for?
They claim everyone is going to earn money, with little money, with little work, on autopilot! Sounds like the DREAM we are all envisioning doesn’t it. However, that is not the reality of this program. Although anyone can join this product, it is intended for people that are willing to work very hard to build a downline and in many cases, do so in an unethical way because you are not actually “selling” anything to people, you are selling the fact that they will be able to sell what you are selling.
Here is a breakdown of how the compensation model works:
Confused? Well, that is because the more you dig into this apparent product, the more confusing it becomes as to what it actually is. It is reminiscent of “pen mail” where you send 5 people, they send another 5 people…and then so on and so forth. The person at the top of the pyramid (or triangle) gets paid the most, just like any other ponzi-like scheme the Empower has unlimited levels and payouts are always going to be “passed up” to the people at the top.
Guess who is not at the top. YOU. Guess who is at the top? The owners and the first few folks that got in at the starting point.
If you are not good at aggressive recruitment and hard selling people on the idea of a scheme like the one above, Empower Network is not going to be for you.
Tired of Ruthless Schemes Like Empower? Get REAL Help.
Empower Network Tools & Training
There are several different layers to the training offered at Empower, each have an additional price point. The training provided is really dependent on “whom” you sign-up through in this scheme. Some “upline” affiliates will offer you wonderful support and help (in attempt to build more success by having a successful downline). The actual materials within Empower very weak in nature because they are centered entirely around “how to promote empower network to others”.
There is also A LOT of emphasis on upgrading once you get into the system. This is called going “All In” and your sponsors will likely encourage you to go all in by calling you a “wussy” and other derogatory terms. Why? Because if you don’t buy all the training modules within Empower, then you are not going to be making others money.
That is what it is all about. You buy all the stuff (over $5,000 in total, which I will get to) and this money is going directly to your uplines and their uplines. If you don’t buy, then nobody is going to make money off of you and you can expect to be shunned by those “above” you.
If you are looking to earn money online and do it in a way that is ethical and can be applied to any niche, Empower will not be the community for you. Their primary focus is going to be training you how to promote Empower to other people. You have to look no further than the top affiliates, they are showcased within the program…but they are promoting the program itself versus earning money through other affiliate programs/niches.
Does Empower Network Offer ANY Support?
If you want a personal support system, EN is not going to be your program. There is no training or support offered without an extra cost (Inner Circle which is $100 per month for videos), and even at that, it is not personal training it a series of audios and videos. I never recommend any program that does not offer personal support and in which you do not have direct access or help from the owners. You will likely never have any meaningful contact with the owners directly. The owners are active in the promotion of their product and motivating the “crowd” to promote EN, but you will not see them selflessly helping folks within the bottom tiers.
Also, many folks complain that they are belittled within Empower Network by their so called “team leaders” if they don’t go all in. Going all in means that you buy all of their low grade products (which make your team leaders money) and if you don’t buy into the up to $5,000+ in products over the course of a year, be prepared to be called some really vulgar names (Read REAL customer comments below this review if you don’t believe me).
**In comparison, you can get started and get full support for completely FREE from experts…this includes FULL 1-on-1 mentoring and support and the owners are actively involved.
There are weekly calls from the David’s which is more of a “rah rah” session than anything else, aiming to recruit more people into their scheme.
How Much Does it Cost to Join Empower Network?
The pricing of Empower is complex and much more than it initially appears.
Blog Beast – Blogging System ($25 per month) / ENV2 – The fee just to take part of empower and to get your own blog (that every other member gets). There is nothing unique about this blog and you are tied to the EmpowerNetwork.com domain which is starting to get caught as SPAM by many search engines (not good!). And you can get much better blogs, in fact, your own FREE WordPress blogs where you are not tied into promote EN (you can promote your own niche).
You also do not own the content you create on your blog. I have received many complaints from folks that have quit Empower and have not been able to delete their websites because when you join, you sign a disclaimer stating that you don’t own any of the content you create. In essence, you basically get nothing for this $25 per month fee other than fact that you are creating content for someone else on a blog that looks the same as everyone else.
Important Update: These “paid” blogs have recently lost a lot of their “mojo” within the search engines (late May, 2013). In fact, EN no longer holds the #1 ranking under their own keywords (you can check for yourself if you like). This is because Google has deemed a good portion of the website as SPAM within their latest Penguin update. You can get much superior blogs for free elsewhere, so if you are buying into this program just for the blog, then I would suggest you save your money.
Also, if want to get the full scoop on Empower Network 2.0 (ENV2), you can get that here.
See a full comparison of Empower Networks PAID blogs vs. free websites here.
e-wallet ($19.99 per month) – In order to get paid, you need to pay for their payment processor. This is unheard of and the only reason that Empower Network has to do this is because they are working on the fringes of what is legal. There is absolutely no way a company like this would ever get approved by a reputable credit card processing company. Paypal or a normal Merchant account (Mastercard, Visa, Amex) would never allow payments to a company like Empower because they deem it as ILLEGAL or too high risk!
Inner Circle ($100 per month ) – This is hardly an inner circle. Other than giving you access to a some inner circle audios, becoming part of this program allows you to get paid even higher commissions ($100 residuals). So again, you are not paying for an actual product, you are paying to further promote the product that doesn’t really exist. It is like having a bag of air that you are selling for $25 and then paying $100 more to be able to sell you bag of air for more. But the EN pricing structure gets even more ridiculous than this!
Costa Rica Intensive ($500 one time payment) – This is a video sequence that focuses on building a business for the longer term…a business that again revolves around promoting Empower Network to others. I think you are probably getting the hint by now that the EN product is promoting the same product to others
The $15K Formula ($1,000 one time payment) – This is another video series that includes 9 videos in total, each video being a couple of hours in length. This covers a variety of topics outlining how to promote Empower network online. An example of this is using Youtube or Facebook…HOWEVER, Empower Network can no longer be promoted via these channels. This should throw up the red flags for you, the fact that Empower has been completely banned from Facebook and Youtube!!! This is the first product or service I have ever heard of that has been banned.
The Masters Retreat ($3,500 one time payment) – This is a series of 41 videos (mostly motivation) that were recorded at the Empower Network masters retreat. To me, spending $3,500 on motivational videos seems absolutely outrageous considering that most of this information has little to do with creating your own business and more to do with motivation (plus you could get a 10 YEAR membership at an all inclusive online business platform for the same price as well as get access to any of my other recommended top services (see The Good within the top menu)!). This is a high ticket product and the only reason you will see others attempting to get you to buy this product within the EN system is because they earn commissions off of you when they do.
So in totality, you are looking at $5,000+ $140 per month if you want the full suite of products offered within Empower Network. That is a far cry from the $25 price point that everyone seems to be promoting out there. Be forewarned, Empower Network is expensive, is overpriced, and you are looking at $1,000’s if you want all of their included training (going all in).
My Final Word on Empower Network (EN)
The product is YOU promoting the product to others. There surely are different things you can purchase within Empower after you buy into the initial blog, but that is there to drive the compensation model. You are shamed into buying it because your “sponsors” will not give you any additional help if you are not active within Empower and if you ever say anything negative about this network, be prepared to be jumped on.
The product is based around YOU promoting the Empower Network system to other folks (ahem…can you say pyramid scheme?). Need I say more? There are VERY few folks that are part of this program that have their own website, understand the proper way of creating a business online, or that are promoting different products other than EN itself.
You will see a lot of people “excitedly” promoting Empower Network to you and that is ONLY because they are going to earn money if you sign-up through them, not because they believe in the product itself (although they think they do).
I would stay as far away as you can from Empower Network and don’t look back if you are looking to create a real niche, business. One that you are passionate about and one that doesn’t require you to sell the very same system to others to recoup your costs. It may be convincing and people may be “begging” you to join underneath them, but it is not a real opportunity and the promotional module naturally encourages you to promote the very sam program to others. The system is centered around you selling it to others and around you going be forcefully pushed towards going “all in”…which means spending well over $5,000 and going into debt in many cases. Not exactly a $25 product after all.
Again, MY Overview…
Name: Empower Network
Website: www.empowernetwork.com
Price: $25/mth basic, $100/mth inner circle, $19.99/mth e-wallet, $500 Costa Rica Intensive, $1,000 $15K formula
Owners: David Wood & David Sharpe
Overall Rank: 30 out of 100 points (YES, 30…read the comments below to see real user feedback)
Just a Few (of the many) Empower Network Complaints Found Online…
Empower Network Complaint #1: Empower Network – A Not So Favorable Review
Empower Network Warning #2: Empower Network Review…Scratch That…WARNING!
Empower Network Bullying Complaint #3: Empower Network Bullies!
VERDICT: Pyramid-style scheme, VERY expensive, no support if you aren’t willing to SPEND
** Get the TRUTH About Building a Business Online! **
Do you have a personal review or complaint that you would like to share about Empower Network? If you do, I would appreciate it if you could leave your comments/experiences below! Thanks!
Kyle
Owner, WaysToAvoidScamsOnline.com
I received an email from one of the members from Empowerment and his email sounded to good to be true. I replied and asked him what was the nature of the business. He then when on and explaining how much money I will be making. I replied and told him I don’t understand the business and I’m not looking to get scammed. He replied and stated “how I would like to be called a scammer if I had a business”. He got so upset and told me to stop wasting his time. I like how I’m suppose to be recruited and I’m wasting his time for asking him questions (LOL). That’s how I found WA and it’s been a good experience.
Can someone give me contact details for these scammers, They are taking money out of my bank and to contact them you need to go through their support page which I can not enter because the details they gave me do not work, HELP.
You can get in touch of their refund team on their website, worst case scenario, you contact your credit card company/bank and let them know that there are payments that need to be stopped/refunded.
Sorry you are having such issues with this, but I absolutely know you are not alone. Folks trying to quit Empower Network continue to complain about their cancellation policies and the unethical way they treat people that try to get out of their cult.
Kyle, i am indebted to you bro for saving me a pile of auto-billed money and frustration and disappointment. many thanks, i almost bought into much of the Empower scam before i started reading more about it and digging a little deeper, then you really need to put your high boots on. thanks again
Let’s be honest: “You can make money, and even a lot by empower networking” but you can also make money by bank robbery, if your ethic code is so low you can do a lot of money in stealing and cheating your friends, your community and unknown people. That is what most folks are unknowingly doing within Empower Network and it is unfortunate.
That is exactly it!! Damn I hate this program and the fools that are running it. I got ripped out of 5 f’in thousand bucks money that I will never be able to reclaim.
Can you believe they told me I didn’t love my family unless I bought all their products. That somehow made me guilty and I ended up buying their overpriced info and videos.
EN is robbing people out of money and it has to stop. If you have been ripped off like me please spend a minute and report it to the FTC. This program needs to be brought down for their full on pyramid scheme.
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0341-file-complaint-ftc
After being bombarded by 5 different marketers hyping “amazing” results, against my better judgement, I finally broke down and signed up… I got out 3 weeks later after I’ve wasted lots of time listening to same lying pitches and not finding any real value anywhere inside the membership… I’ll say more: I’ll stay away from buying anything from marketers who promoted EN. IMO, no one with integrity would want to promote junk just to cover their losses from someone else’s pockets.
I absolutely agree with you Tom. You cannot trust the future behaviour of someone that is currently trying to rob people and that is exactly what is happening here. I know that many people have and continue to bring to my attention that the top affiliate (Vick) is a convicted felon for insurance fraud. If that is not telling about what type of program this is and the kind of people that are involved, I don’t know what is.
If you ever need a hand creating a REAL business online I would be more than happy to help you out Tom. There are real services out there that do care about something other than just their bottom line (ie, helping people).
Hi, can you tell me how to unsubscribe myself to EN i cant find it. Please
You will find this directly on their website within your back office Bryan.
I foolishly got in last month – luckily only up to the inner circle level. I wanted to cancel before my renewal date and hunted for over an hour. Finally found one place under my account, then affiliate status. I clicked on cancel and it showed up on the affiliate status page when I canceled. I thought I had done what I needed to do but yesterday when checking my bank account I saw that another $125 had been taken out. I filled out a complaint “ticket” and got a response today that basically told me I was stupid. She told me all I had done was cancel my affiliate program but hadn’t canceled my subscriptions so “of course my billing cycle continued.” She told me that because I hadn’t made a phone call or submitted a ticket that she could not refund me my money but that she had unsubscribed me and (supposedly) I would not be charged again. Then she told me to “have a wonderful day!” So, if you still have access to your account, click on your name at the top right hand side of their page, go down to support, login and fill out a “ticket” requesting all of your subscriptions be canceled. I would also mention canceling your affiliate status but I would also go in under My Account under your name and click on affiliate and then cancel your affiliate status there, too. But make sure you fill out a ticket!! I replied to them that it shouldn’t be a game of hide and seek to be able to cancel!
Ouch, sorry to hear about the frustration Janet. You are not the first to complain about the difficult of cancelling your payments once you get sucked into to the myriad of upsells within this system. When you do have a recurring membership it is one’s responsibility to cancel, but if they make it difficult and confusing to cancel they should definitely honour that fact if your payment lapses. Bad business all around and worst case scenario (if you don’t get anything back) you can touch base with your credit card company.
Thanks for the blog post Kyle. I’m 100% sure that this post literally SAVED bunch of people (including myself) from even trying the ’25$ package’. I have heard some good things about this program but so many more bad things from past members.
I’ve registered @WA and hope that I really can create successful online business. Thought I don’t have much free time now, I’ll still try my best. ^^
Thanks again!
Romanas.
No problem Romanas, I know you are going to love the community at WA.
All the negative feedback here is right on par with what I have experienced at EN. Your sponsor only likes you if you go all in which means spending $1,000’s and the Dave’s are rude and condescending. If you want to be part of pyramid program then EN is def one. Not legitimate at all and I am requesting my money back from their website.
You wouldn’t believe how many people have contacted me with sad stories how they have been pressured out of their “rent” or out of money that could have been used for their kids Christmas presents just so they could go all in. To me this is a selfish on both parties, but when you have sponsors of a program like this telling you that you have to go all-in or you hate your family (that is one of the lines that they have used), people do some pretty radical things.
Well the truth is that some mlm companies are good and some are bad.
The good ones have more customers than sellers…but the product is most of the time something someone can hold in their hands or eat ect. I just wanna toss that out there, to let people know that not all mlm companies are bad..you just have to know which ones to join.
I too tried EN and being an online marketer and knowing seo. I didn’t see the value in it as I could just get a free wordpress blog or a blogger blog for free. I also noticed that a lot of places online have banished EN.
My upline was of no use and would only come around when it was time to pay again…which bothered me because I’d rather you leave me alone and let me do my thing before you come bothering when it is time to pay..like bill collectors…
I signed up a few people in EN before I understood how they pay you and you miss out on some of your sales unless you pay a bunch of money to get paid on all of them. The extra charge for their wallet system was not mentioned to me until after I just paid to signup…should have known about this B.S. then.
Then you would figure I would have known better to listen to a guy with his shirt off half of the time calling everyone a wussy.
EN didn’t teach me anything I didn’t already know about online marketing, so it really isn’t for the advance nor is it for the starter because they will not explain anything to you until you pay more then what people working a regular job 9 to 5 make.
Being in this industry for awhile I had a feeling about this and would not shove out anymore money until I understood how this works. Turns out they don’t care and won’t tell you nothing until you kick 10k at them.
I took the time to understand the pay structure by myself 5 hours later I understood how it worked inside and out.
I canceled the whole dam thing and took the other people with me to another mlm business where we are all having success now because we have products that customers really like and are buying.
Lesson learned real actual products = real business.
Furthermore I am not in Kyles program, but I haven’t seen anything bad about it yet. I would welcome you all to join mine, but that would be spamming Kyles blog and I don’t do that.
Thanks for making such well wrote out blog post for everyone to leave their EN story at.
Much Regards!
Anonymous
Hi Kyle,
I agree with you that Empower Network is full of arrogant fools who just want to look after number 1. However, I did want to offer a slightly different view on this to balance out the debate a little.
I’ve been an internet marketer for over 2 years now and I’ve been a member of ALL the products you recommend on this site. They are all quite good, but actually, it wasn’t until I joined EN that I started to actually make serious money online.
Why?
Because I was lucky enough to have a passionate sponsor who taught me everything there is to know about traffic generation and conversion. I’m not talking about video courses and ebooks, I’m talking about skype and telephone support and valuable shared resources.
The point I want to make is that the team you join within EN is absolutely crucial. People should only join a team where they have a solid commitment to get 1-1 support and any additional training they might need.
For me, it has been the best education I’ve ever had, but for many, you are left alone to push products you don’t understand and don’t know how to sell, which is I find very sad and is no doubt why you feel this product is a scam.
Anyway, I hope this information is helpful to you and your readers 🙂
How can they be a scam? when they have paid out millions in commissions? enuff said
Lots of companies have paid out millions and turned out to be some of the biggest scams of all time. Look at Zeek Rewards (which by the way many of those affiliates are now involved with EN) and they had sucked $400 million out of folks. Look at Bernie Madoff…billions of dollars. Look at Enron…billions.
Guess where those millions of dollars are coming from. The people that are joining in at the bottom levels of the greater pyramid. Enuff said.
I have watched many videos, seen many caption pages regarding Empower Network over these past few months. I got an email tonight from one of their elves and I put in my email address and watched the video. The thing that sounded exciting, was the whole iPas program. I mean, I hate selling and this would have been a great way for me to have an online business but have a company do the follow up on my leads I generate through advertising.
I am not even sure how I found this site, I think I googled Empower Network really quickly…but I was just about to order the $25 dollar per month package and then the $19 dollar package…I was reaching for my credit card when I started to read through these scam reviews. All I can say is, wow! I don’t like to judge a book by its cover, but I did find the one dude a little shady in the videos from months back…(trying not be be judgmental)
All I can say is, I have obviously decided to NOT order the product and become affiliated with Empower Network. Thanks to this website. I don’t do, unethical. I was part of Zeek Rewards and it shut down before I made a penny. I’m not interested in another train wreck.
If anybody has any online business opportunity that is honest and can actually make me money and help out the customer…I would love to know about it!
Thanks…!
The thing is Denis, your $25 + $19 per month was just the start of the expenses in this program. You were going to get into the back end only to find that your so called “sponsor” will then push you hard to go all in. This means investing another $100 per month in the inner circle and then $5,000 within the one time courses in the program….not to mention attend all of the conferences they run all over the US.
You are looking at over $10,000 per year when all is said and done if you don’t want to “be a wussy” or “you love your family”…two of the main things they say to you if you don’t BUY BUY BUY.
If you want help from me personally and you want to learn the proper way to build a business online (in any niche you like), I would be more than happy to work with you. J
Bernie Madoff also paid out millions to his investors. Enough said! Besides, Google, Facebook, PayPal, and other bank payment processors also deemed EN as scams.
Wow…I was seriously thinking of joining them because one of them is supposed to be a christian…I friended her on facebook and decided to watch how successful she was doing..plus i wanted to see the feedback in her posts and your right..there is no product..and your right it seems like a pyramid scheme..so thank u for the additional information,and the piles of disgruntled people,You have persuaded me not to join empower network..much thanks
I DON’T BELIEVE IS A SCAM AT ALL… The marketing program from Basic to Master should cost more than what it cost now…I would charge $10,000 for some of this stuff if I could. I mean, the more I can sell this stuff to people the more money I make. Too much value and many important things you do not know and that even if you knew it you would never get to teach it like them… 🙂
Sorry for your unhappy life being a hater, and happy that you are not in Empower Network… 🙂 You giving Empower Network such a big rating and the more people read the comments of people disagree on your words it helps many keep coming. We don’t need Wussies like you or the other bottom feeders that have commented here within Empower. 🙂
Rose, I am sorry that you feel that you should be selling “information” products for $5,000 (or as you wish, $10,000). That is completely ridiculous and the only reason you can convince yourself that this is even remotely ethical is because you are making money off of people that haven’t a clue in the process. These poor people that you are ripping off.
Did you know that you can get better blogs that the “Blog Beast” you are selling for FREE. Empower is charging $25 per month for this.
Did you know that NO affiliate program ever charges folks to be part of their program. Empower does, $19.99 per month.
Did you know that you can get superior training online for 19 years for the same price that people are going ALL IN? Didn’t think so.
So perhaps you should look in the mirror and ask yourself, “am I in this for the right reason…to make money, or to actually help people.” I think if you have an ounce of ethics you would come out of this conversation realizing that you are acting in a very unethical way and you are simply in it to take money from unsuspecting folks…you could care less about actually helping them.
Some of us would rather help the old lady putting groceries in her vehicle, it sounds like you would rather steal them.
“the products should cost more than what they are”
“your a wussy for not joining”
“I dont believe it is a scam”
“your a hater”
Rose, all these things prove how low of an IQ you have and how your so brainwashed by the biggest scam artists (both daves) of the century.
Your silly little phrases crack me up because I already know just how unsuccessful your going to end up being in empower network talking like your the most successful marketer and trying to talk down on long time veterans like Kyle who have been in this industry longer than you know.
I realize that it’s too late to get my money back on it, but how could I cancel it? I don’t want to pay a steep price per month.
You should be able to do this within your back-office Linda and if you cannot get a refund this way, then you will want to contact your credit card company. That is the typical protocol when cancelling any online. Try doing it through their service, if they are being difficult about it, then contact your credit card company.
Great site Kyle! Love the reviews! I can’t believe the FTC has not shut down Empower Network by now. This company is selling a blog for $25 a month with a bunch of fluff to make it look like real products. People are spending a little over 5K on this crap when it’s all said and done. This is all without marketing too. WordPress, Tumblr are FREE! Wake up people! This is sad. So many hardworking people’s money is being taken by these con artists. They are looking for suckers. Don’t be one of them!
Linda, just call your credit card company like Kyle says. Also, I hear you can usually get your money back from scams like this by telling your credit card company it was fraud.
What a small world. I just canceled my EN account 1 month ago. It was easy, you can cancel a lot of it through your profile/account page, but be sure to call to confirm you cancelation. You have to call Aweber to cancel with them by phone only. I was with them for 3 months earn “0” paid out $350, for my membership. Tried to post their instant, not so badass site. Facebook and craigslist rejected every post. So I went ahead and made my own sites with other domains and FB/CL still rejected them..BS system with over spammed tools.
I worked for this company (Empower Network) and believe me they are a complete scam not only do the owners not live in the United States for fear of arrest. I called many people about this program trying to recruit them I had the phone slammed down on me 100’s of times. Many people had already heard about this scam.
Stay far away from these scam artists.
Kyle,
Thanks much for your post. I have seen other posts revealing what is really going within this scam. Yours is best I have seen so far.
Keep up the good work. The owners have really fooled a lot of people and have done a good job of brainwashing such a large crowd of followers. It reminds me of Charlie Manson or something.
They learned how to take your money and put it into their accounts, the premise of the entire pyrmaid being operated at Empower Network.
Ed
Yeah, there is definitely a cult like mentality. You wouldn’t believe some of the horrible things sponsors are doing to “earn” money off of the so called people they are helping. People are losing out $10,000’s in some cases to this program, money that could have actually been used to create an ethical business online.
Sigh. I’m a full-time ghost writer. It’s my job to write whatever my clients ask for. Sometimes it’s blog posts. Sometimes it’s highly-researched articles. Sometimes it’s sales copy. Often it’s press releases and very regularly it includes ebooks too.
I have three different clients, all unrelated, all recently sucked into this scam. It’s my job to write their hypey blog posts. It’s my job to write convincing sales copy to get people to join right now! It’s my job to write the ebooks they give away (or one of them sells), touting why this is such a good opportunity and why everyone should join right now! It’s my job to make the whole scam sound amazingly, jaw-droppingly awesome.
Yet here I am leaving a comment on your review.
I think this is because in the tens of thousands of words I’ve ghost-written on the subject, I’ve always known it reeks of pyramid scam. One of my clients secretly gave me access to the “training” videos so I could write about how awesome they are for him. I’ll never get those wasted hours of my life back, sadly. I’ve always hated the orders that arrive for EN topics. I seriously hate that my job requires me to make such a blatant rip-off sound so awesome.
Yes, I’m partially to blame for so many people getting sucked into the hype. Yes, it’s my awesome writing that makes them want to join immediately. It’s the cleverly worded sales gimmick thing at work that makes people overlook the scammy bits and makes them see dollar signs before their eyes.
I feel awful about it. I wish I could make my clients see what they’re doing, but I never do it. I wish I could write on their blog posts “just don’t do it”. But I don’t. Ghost-writing is how I pay my mortgage. I have no control over what my clients order from me. I do have control over which clients I work with though.
On the bright side, it’s not just the EN fees those clients are paying every month. My writing services aren’t exactly cheap, so they’re paying out those costs every month too. The only person they’re making richer in that event is ME!! (I actually like that bit – I just hate writing about EN)
So I just wanted to say thank you for posting this review. I really hope more people read this before jumping onto the Empower Network scam/hype bandwagon. More importantly, I hope more people promote this particular review to help others avoid being sucked in by the evils of my own sales copy.
🙂
Leethal, it sounds like you are in quite a predicament and I would like to make you an offer. I want to help you get out of the world of “ghost writing” and into the world of creating and growing your own business. I want to get you rolling for FREE as well. Do we have deal?
The only thing worse than doing something that you don’t believe in is doing it for someone else (and letting them do it to others). I know you have much more potential than that and I can instantly tell that you can take your existing skills and build out a very successful company through the training and support you will get over at WA.
I keep hearing about something called blog beast coming on October 11 don’t know if anyone has heard of it. Apparently they are saying it is going to be the next facebook or something of the internet.
They said it will be mobile blogging and allow you to add videos from your phone. Is this helpful? Also something about conversion tracking.
Has anyone heard of this I would love to hear your thoughts.?
I will provide a bigger update on Blog Beast and provide a full review once it is fully rolled out, but mobile blogging is not a good idea nor is it beneficial. Why would you blog from your phone when you could accomplish 20x more in the same amount of time from a proper computer. It simply doesn’t make sense. Yes, people digest information on their phone, but no blogger “creates their content” from a phone.
Also from what I have seen, it is a very LIMITED version of a website. They all have the same website template and they all have Empower Network branding on them. If you are planning on using the blog beast platform to promote anything other than Empower, you are going to be out of luck as they are low grade, salesy websites.
Wow, I was trying to explain what EN was to a friend of mine telling him that I was going to try them out until Christmas and if nothing happened by then I would opt-out. He found this write-up and simply said read this and get out NOW! Now that I’ve read your article and most of the comments I’m convinced that I need to break out of the “inner circle” asap!
Just last week EN had a webinar/hangout and like you said it was a complete “rah rah” session (my exact words to my unsuspecting friend that told me about it.) The top people droned on and on about their story from rags to riches not talking about the tools of the trade at all. I should have known better when my friend set up a conference call with her “mentor” and he stood us both up, and when she tried to get him to talk to another friend of hers to explain how EN would help her with her own business he told her to just get her to join in on the $25 level.
If I had half a brain I should have bailed back then.
I just really wanted to believe that EN would work for me and my bf. And you’re right that wuss bs is their claim to fame, or saying things like you really have to “Believe” and work hard that “ANYONE” can make a great deal of cash with EN. You just have get “ALL IN” and take a chance. NOOOOOT! No, you don’t get one on one support, oh and the blog? Here’s a good one! EN tells you that all you have to do is set up your blog and “leave the rest to us.”
So when my bf did some blogging and couldn’t understand why no one commented. I asked if EN linked her blog up to fb, twitter, whatnot so she would get traffic. She said she didn’t know, so she asked her mentor and he said that she would have to do it. Basically, that he wasn’t there to “hold her hand!”
I still don’t know what “leave the rest to us” means, and at this point I don’t care. I’m out! I’m going back to my original plan with WordPress and do the premium thing for $99 a year, instead of $120 a month and call it a lesson well learned. Thanx for this:)
Just blog and the rest is taken care of for you? That is a bizarre approach to creating a business and one that is missing all of the “fundamentals”. The reason this is the approach is because if you really “knew” the purpose of your blog, then you wouldn’t be a member. It has no purpose. It is simply used as “bait” to get you in the door and for you to promote other people into the very same system.
The blogs don’t rank, they don’t get mass “traffic” (or even trickle traffic), and they are built in a way that is only conducive of promoting Empower Network. If you wanted to promote something within your own niche, then you would be out of luck because you have “becoming rich” branding riddled throughout your site. Also, you hear many touting “Alexa” rank as some sort of metric that determines search engine viability. This has nothing to do with rank nor is it a good gauge for website traffic. If anyone had a clue about Alexa, they would realize that this is unrelated.
If you want a WordPress website and want to get your own niche up and running for free, I suggest you check out the website building platform at WA. You get two websites free, much more cost efficient than $120 per month! There are also services like weebly.com, wordpress.org, and wix.com where you can get websites for completely free.
I’ve just started my own wordpress blog for fun. The 3rd person who ‘followed’ me was this weasle from Empower Network, Julian Sherman. The thing about WP is that when someone follows you, you get a notification and you’re excited and want to see who likes your blog, so you check them out! Sneaky, slimy buggers over at EN spamming other people.
That is what they teach, spamming, they got banned from facebook for it
THANK YOU! I have a friend that has been trying to get me to do this and I couldnt figure out how you make money so I Google about them and bam here you are!! THANK YOU!!
Your “friend” is trying to get you to join so they can take money from your bank and put it into theirs. That is what you will be taught when you join the program. Your friend may not be such a great friend afterall…
So what are your thoughts about env2 aka the beast?
A lot of hype about a limited “blogging” platform. There are much better platforms out there and the “$3 million” that is being touted as the investment is nothing compared to the BILLIONS that have been invested into platforms like WordPress. I honestly would recommend that if you want a quality, niche website, you choose a WordPress one and one that is not filled with “branding”. You can get up and running with a WordPress website through my Build a Website page here and literally have your own niche website in 10 minutes from now (for completely free).
Hi Kyle,
I almost wanted to join Empower Network a few months ago because I was on a list of a marketer whom I trust. He was promoting this program saying how much money he has made using the methods taught in Empower Network.
But somehow, I just feel uncomfortable about it. So in the end, I didn’t join the program because it is definitely not a program that I will feel comfortable in promoting.
You always have to feel comfortable with your decisions. If something makes you feel uneasy, chances are there is a reason why and you should listen to your instinct Lubano.
You all are idiots. You dont know hat EN offers cause uour a bunch of broke, pathetic individuals who are listening to a guy who is encouraging you to buy his products on the back end of slamming EN. EN’s blog is to help you market your personal business. Ya’ll aren’t creative or smart enough to create a business so your stupid asses expect to join a “scheme” and 3 clicks and you make money and when your still broke you bitch. You prolly work at burger king where you have a general manger, district manager, store manager, team leaders, low level. Sounds like a pyramid scam to me too. Ignorant ass people.
Well said Jack, you are just about as classy as all of the other folks from Empower that leave comments here. The difference with Burger King and Empower is that Burger King sells “burgers” to whomever wants a burger (business to customer transaction). Empower Networks sells people into a scheme…and yes, you have to be part of the scheme in order to sell others into the scheme and then so on. If you don’t think this program is in the shape of a pyramid, you may want to brush up on your geometry.
Sounds like you may be the ignorant one, they have definitely pulled the wool over your eyes.
HaHaHa, it is the psychology behind it, they call people who don’t join wussies to get the real wussies to join, see how emotional they get?
So folks, if we are allowed to Blog about any program other than EN why did we all lose all our hours of customization when the new BEAST was released. When I asked my upline, his answer was shut up and sell more EN. Totally true story, this is what he said. No one at En has addressed my question about my customizations being lost forever. If they were a true blogging platform you can use to sell whatever you like, it might be a legitimate business model. I have owned a national network marketing company, am a freelance writer and have been a successful business owner for 20 years. No I don’t work at burger king and I can spell as well as not feel the need to have a foul mouth to show my ignorance. Let’s help others not lose their money to a business model that doesn’t really hold water.
I’ve had several friends try to suck me into this scam that had red flags galore from the start. Your article confirmed my gut feeling about it all. Needless to say, I no longer have a sense of security around these people now knowing they are indirectly thieves stealing from the gullible.
I can’t help but think of scams like this as dealing with a casino. There’s no actual product, just being sold on the ideology that you can be a winner too. The house “the Dave’s” have their house rake of any game in the place to make their money and that will always be there. The players “marketers” who win and are profiting are actually just exchanging the losses the other players sacrificed. It may be all sunshine and happiness for those in the profit for now, but play long enough everyone goes broke and the house always wins.
Sounds like you completely understand what is going on Cale and I do think that your casino analogy is accurate. The winning players are absolutely winning at the cost of other players losing. That is how the model works. They are not winning by offering a service that is allowing others to win, if that was the case they wouldn’t need to have a pyramid style structure to their program.
Wow, Kyle, this is the best write-up I’ve found on this truly evil empire. I joined at $25 level, and upped to $100, in the spring, based on believing that the “products” (“training” videos) were what I was told they were–useful tools in promoting ANY business (tools that truly would do this would be worth $100 a month, at least for a few months). When I realized that they were nothing but hype for going all in, as were all of the webinars, I got out after a month, since without valuable products, it was an obvious pyramid scheme.
The tragedy is how many desperate people are being sucked into this. First of all, you didn’t make this point, but I’m sure you will agree, that it has succeeded in morphing into a true cult (think Scientology), where people are brainwashed into believing that this is great, and which makes them impervious to hearing reason. That makes them so dangerous, because true believers can be very convincing in coaxing other people into ignoring their reservations (wow, if this person is so positive, it simply MUST be a good program).
All of which makes me feel really sad, and furious, at the PR blitz that is becoming a loud roar across the internet, of the coming of “the Beast,” a supposedly way more effective set of marketing tools to promote EN. Yikes, how many more poor suckers will be robbed blind and brainwashed into the bargain, by this “upgrade” to this evil scheme. Oh, and along with the cult aspect is, so I’ve heard, the likelihood that people who speak out who are not in EN have the risk of being sued for defamation, or otherwise harassed (forget the pressure that will descend on a member saying such things).
Oh, and one more nasty consequence of the above is that once people who’ve been suckered in recruit their first person, they become complicit in the crime, and so psychologically need to justify what they’ve done to their recruit, which hardens them against coming to their senses, and strengthens the brainwashing. It’s like gangs that force members to commit crimes, so they can never leave the gang.
Kyle, do you know enough people with “clout” on the internet, to try to mount some sort of equivalent to a PSA (Public Service Announcement) for people to beware of EN, to get enough respected internet voices to caution people to be aware that if they join, they are joining a money scheme, not a legitimate money-making program. I hate sitting by helplessly while the “beast” swindles people. Isn’t there anything we can do?
Thanks, Kyle, for this website and this post. Truly a public service.
I will check out Wealth Affiliate.
Kyle did you have a response for Peter Rush’s closing questions? see below…
“Kyle, do you know enough people with “clout” on the internet, to try to mount some sort of equivalent to a PSA (Public Service Announcement) for people to beware of EN, to get enough respected internet voices to caution people to be aware that if they join, they are joining a money scheme, not a legitimate money-making program. I hate sitting by helplessly while the “beast” swindles people. Isn’t there anything we can do?”
Just interested?
thanks again for your efforts
Jan
I know a lot of people industry yes, but I would rather focus my efforts on helping other people out. In other words, instead of ridding the bad, I would rather invest my energies into emphasizing and building on the good. This blog is my way of getting the word out and allowing people to discuss programs and ideologies in this manner and this is the medium for this.
There will always be people out there that are in the business of taking money…it happens within EVERY industry, not just the Internet business world. There are many ways that people can leverage the Internet to build a stable and in many cases, very lucrative business and it will always remain my focus to help folks accomplish this Jan.
You need to file a complaint with the FTC at FTC.gov, if nobody complains nothing will be done, there is no crime until someone reports it, I am a PI, I know these things
Just had the empower network receipt for $259.49 which I have not authorised. The email at the bottom is false. Glad I found your site to see I was not the only one.
If this is the case, you may want to consider contacting your credit card company. Hope you get this resolved Marian!
I bought into their program for $25 and then began to smell the rotting flesh of greed of the owners. My upline was the guy who promotes EMPOWER NETWORK UNIVERSITY and there was totally no help and a rude rub off when I requested for help. Reporting on the internet is of no use. Some one in the USA should complaint to the FBI and interpol and the owners can be crucified and cremated for good and their souls sent to hell. The owners are probably fathered outside the wedlock. Bastards.
Thank you Kyle for bringing clarity to this “opportunity.”
I appreciate people like you very much.
To your continued success,
Charles Stewart
Wow!! I’m glad I googled!! I was just curious about this because I kept getting Facebook suggestions for people who are a part of the scheme. It’s really annoying!!! I report the pages, but there just seems to be no end. It’s disappointing that they are taking advantage of people who are trying to improve themselves and their lives. I think these suggestions were triggered after looking into law of attraction pages. I think the law of attraction is very real, and it’s unfortunate that the Empower Network has come up eventually! Thank you for your review Kyle!!!!
That is how “those” people are making money. They rely on you joining the scheme in their downline and then they teach you to implement the same “spammy” promotional techniques like they are doing. That is how the business (if you want to call it that) model works and to make money in Empower, you have to promote Empower.
Is there any way i can get my 25.00 dollars back? i was going through with the program until the said pay 100.00 after i just paid my 25.00. the only reason i paid the 25.00 dollars was because they said thats all i needed to get started and thats not right. so im very upset and i just want them to refund my money back to card.Can someone please help me?
This is the “smoke and mirrors” approach that ticks off a lot of people. They say $25 per month to run a business, but that is just the start of the upsells and as you found out you need to pay anther $100 per month on top of this right away to be part of the inner circle, $19.95 per month for their affiliate program. Before you can even blink you are paying $144.95 per month. Not exactly the $25 promise given to you on their sales page. Slime ball marketing.
You can try getting a refund through their page but you can always contact your credit card company if you have any issues with getting help with things like this. I am sorry you ran into this Mahongany and if you need any help with getting a real business up and running online in the future, I would be more than happy to help you out.
File complaints with the FTC people, it is the only way to get this shut down, FTC.gov
My introduction to EN was an email with the subject heading “Receipt for my authorized payment of $159.49. This was alarming since I had no memory of any such transaction. I was reluctant to even open the email, but thought I’d better see what this was all about – hoping that my antivirus program would protect my computer. The actual email gave a lengthy transaction number, but still didn’t provide actual purchased product info. There was a button called details, however, which upon clicking landed me on an Empower Network promotional site. The tactics this affiliate used to direct me to viewing the site were so underhanded and misleading that there was no way I would want such a person as a sponsor and I didn’t check out the information there. I was curious though as to whether this was a reputable business opportunity, which perhaps unfortunately had an affiliate lacking integrity, so did a search and checked out your site. Now I’m glad that I was approached in such a manner that there was no temptation to join under this individual, providing me the opportunity to investigate further. Thanks for sharing the EN information.
Trust me, if you think that is shady then just wait until what happens once you get inside. You are going to be belittled into investing $5,000+ into their programs and if you don’t, you will be shamed and called a wussy. That is what is really going on and you are mislead right from the get go into thinking that this program is $25 per month…when in actuality, you are going to be thrown to the sharks and will end up spending $1,000’s more once inside…that is if you want the respect of your sponsor.
I’m glad I came across this. I was trying to work out what the hell they were talking about. Their videos are low quality and made me think they were shonky. Thanks for clearing the air. Now I know what I wasn’t missing out on. I didn’t plan on going ahead with it, just trying to find out what the product was. Now I know why I couldn’t find one, there is none. The perfect Pyramid Scheme that gives REAL MLM companies a name they don’t deserve.People like that should be banned from the internet.
It is a true sign that you may be dealing with a scam (from all my experience) if a company does not tell you exactly what you are getting when you join and what the “extra” costs will be. There are too many companies selling people on the “broke to rich” videos without letting them know what their product actually is. This should be a definite red flag!
Wow that’s where I got stuck, in all the early hype of continuous emails. They followed me on twitter, no I have several others following me???? I couldn’t find out really what the product is either?? For me I had to watch almost two hours of emails, blogs, videos and my potential sponsor introduction was so low class it was scary before I found your site.
I’m just glad I didn’t invest and waist my time. Do you know of any other real opportunity along these lines? If you have no online business or products to sell?
cheers Jan
You are not alone. You will not get a proper explanation because people “feel bad” about what they are doing. The real premise behind it is YOU join under your sponsor, you pay money directly to them, they try to get you to buy a bunch of upsells totalling $5,000 + $140 per month (which they also get), then they try to teach you to do the same to others. Sound ethical?
If you want to create a business online, you DO NOT need your own products to sell. There are 10,000’s of affiliate programs out there that you can leverage and MILLIONS of products that you can promote without having to ship or distribute them. This is what we teach and this can be done within any niche, regardless of your interest. You can basically help people and you can earn a full time living in the process (which many people do).
Here is a letter I received from a former member of EN:
“I’ve been a member of EN for almost 10 months now, joined at the end of 2012, right after I lost my job, and didn’t know how I would support my family. I followed everything they teach and am yet to see a dollar of profit. This article/review captures my thoughts exactly and is 100% correct. Thank God I did not have the extra money to “Go All In” because there is no way to get a refund, and even canceling the membership is a hassle. My bank ended up sending me a new VISA card, since they updated their security measures. THAT IS HOW I CANCELED!
1. Pay $25/month for your very own WordPress Blog – when wordpress.com gives you one for FREE.
2. Pay $100/month for EN membership – Inner Circle recordings – recorded Monday night calls.
3. Pay $500 for the Costa Rica Intensive Video series – recordings of their workshop in Costa Rica ($2997 discounted for a “limited time”; seo, outsourcing, copywriting
4. Pay $1000 for the 15K Formula – more videos about marketing
5. Pay $3500 for the Master’s Course – more recorded workshops
6. Pay $25/month for EN video hosting (?!?!)
Basically they make their money by selling their Regional event tickets. Later you can purchase recorded versions online, like the Chicago Intensive. They also have their own store with many useless items like t-shirts, coffee mugs, cheap 3.5mm speakers and such, of course all with EN logo. For example you can buy a spiral notebook with EN cover for a measly $15.00. They also provide their own Video Hosting service. Trial is $1/14 days, then you pay yet another $25/month for Video Hosting up to 50GB. If you go over the 50GB mark you pay $0.50 for each GB you go over.
There is a video out there of all member options. It does not show you the actual product videos, but you can see EXACTLY what the member area gives you. The video is called “waytoavoidwastingyourhardearnedmoney”, one word. I’m sure you’ll find it somewhere online. Google it!”
I just had to share this e-mail with everyone after finding this post. Thanks to everyone who helped others save their “last” buck on another “opportunity.”
Good luck to ALL!
Thanks for sharing. As anyone can see the $25 per month is just the start of the “outlay” of cash you are going to have to pay your sponsors if you want to be part of this program.
$5,000 + $170 per month…not exactly what most people are anticipating when they join for $25.
Wow! Thanks so much! I have heard of EN before, but I didn’t know that David Sharpe was one of the owners. I was in his downline for another product, and spoke to him on the phone a bit. I quit because I didn’t like him and his style. Looks like my instincts were correct from what you are saying here!
Hi Angie – wow, you know David S too? I sorta felt the same way – didn’t jive with him/his style/personality.
Hi Kyle so glad people like you are around and care..Just to let you in on something. I have these two guys sending me emails everyday on this EN. All I do is read it and wonder what are they really selling? I spoke to my family about it, however I have a very smart daughter and she was checking for me to see how true these people are. She came across an article of an Ex-EPN and he explained what’s all the hype about. I could not believe it what I was reading basically all that you have said in a nutshell. Then I came across your site wow that truly validated any doubt completely. I also read all the not so nice comments on people and feel very pleased with how you handle these people ( straight to the point with without sounding like a hater).. I’m looking for an opportunity to make money in my house not pay $25 or $100 month or even a one time payment of $5000 for me to make money that defeats the purpose. Thank you thank you and thank you. I will tell you what I’m going to do. I will reply to these guys and ask them a few questions. What are you selling? Do I have to invest if so much? Do I have to get people to join me similar to what you are asking me to do? And see what is his reply. Maybe he would call me a wussy for not clicking and joining to the 10k challenge or maybe not. One thing I’m glad I came across this information because maybe I would of been brainwashed with all their success story and got caught up with the hype. Good for you Kyle and keep doing what you are doing. One more thing you are not bashing you are merely stating the facts and honest of all your dealing. Best wishes. Ps. Will let you know how that email goes down. 🙂
I think you are likely going to get a convoluted answer. You might even hear something like “if you are not serious about making money, this business is not for you”. The reason you won’t get a straight answer is because the program itself is not to be talked about in a way that reveals what it is.
A scheme.
They are selling you on a blog…er hum…but really, this means they want your money to join Empower at the $25 per month level. Yes, you do get a blog but it doesn’t rank, you don’t own it and there are much better blogs out there for free.
Ask them about the “All In” which they are going to push really heavily to you, because if they can shame you into spending $5,000 on the upsell products, they will get to take all that money from you and put it into their bank account. Then they will tell you, “to make money, you need to get other people into this program”. So really, there is no product, rather a scheme with products that serve as a smoke screen for what is really goin on.
Report back when you get your answers, I would love to hear how “educated” they are. I know a lot of people that have “questioned” what they would be doing hit some serious resistance and in some cases were talked down upon.
Hey Kyle – completely agree; your comments resonated with me brother. I’ve had some experience in this as well… will write more but just wanted to say I completely resonated with your comments. Thanks Dan in Orlando
Hi Kyle,
I have to be completely honest with you here. After me and my husband read your review after being recruited into the Empower program and going ALL IN (have the bracelet to prove it), I was a little hurt when I initially read your review.
Actually I was really angry at you. Not because I was mad at you, but I was mad at myself that I might have been taken for a ride again.
For fairness, I wanted to see exactly what you are promoting on your site here and I decide to check that out as well. I wasn’t expecting much but boy can I tell you that you guys have something really special going on over there at Wealthy Affiliate.
I am sickened that I paid money for empower after seeing the free part of your website. It is WAY better than what me and my husband just paid over 6 thousand dollars for.
You guys have my business forever and that is just on the free starter part. I have yet to upgrade to Premium but will be doing so today. 😛
I am going to be having a long talk with my credit card company and disassociating myself from the scoundrels at EN. You have shown me the light I am glad there are some honest, good, and ethical business people like you left in this world. God bless.
Your honesty is very much appreciated Sally. We have been fighting an uphill battle against the many scams that are within this industry and people do get scammed and then make assumptions about the industry as whole. I am glad that you did decide to take us up on our Starter offer and realized that we do really care about helping people create REAL businesses online. People mistake opportunties for business and we teach you how to take ANY niche or passion at Wealthy Affiliate and turn it into something you can be proud of.
Also, so sorry that you were taken for $6K by this scheme. That really sucks and I hope you can at least get some of this back. You could have operated a business online for 20 years (including full support, training, community, networking, expert help, weekly live video classes, classrooms, unlimited websites, unlimited hosting, unlimited keywords…etc) for this amount of money!!
I think it’s interesting that their own sign-up page has the following statement:
“I also understand that I can choose to become an affiliate in my online back office for only $19.95/month, and when I do, I will get the ability to re-sell this high-value blogging system online to my prospects and earn 100% of the commissions!”
An affiliate program is where you sell the product for the company and make a commission on the sale. The company does not charge for this service you do for them. You work for them and they pay you. With this scheme you are paying for the privilege of working for them. That is never a good sign.
Exactly, this is NOT an affiliate program. There is no product to sell to the outside world (they have to join the same scheme) and I have never been associated with an affiliate program that you had to pay $19.95 per month for.
Hey Andy – I completely agree brother!! Dan in Orlando
Credibility = Respect
Bashing a company before promoting one`s own = Disrespect
Disrespect = No Credibility
No Credibility = Kyle (the man who wrote this post)
Credibility = Helping People for 8 Years (in 99% of cases, for completely FREE)
Credibility = Steering people away from scams
No Credibility = Defending programs that are a scam.
No Credibility = The inability to articulate yourself in a way that would defend your opinion.
Until you can honestly come to the table with a real discussion and refuting a thing that I have said, then you are actually the one with no credibility. You are part of a program that..
(1) Charges $25 for a blog that doesn’t rank and where there superior blogs for FREE
(2) That requires you to SELL other people into it in order to earn money from it
(3) That uses smoke and mirrors and “belittling” practices to sell people on $5,000’s worth of info products
(4) That charges to be part of their affiliate program (merchant account) because they can’t get approved by any credible merchants like Paypal, Mastercard, Visa or American Express
(5) That touts “Alexa” as status for service quality and rank. This has nothing to do with rank and perhaps if you are using Alexa as a metric, you want to do a bit of research on what little data Alexa has (and how it is in no way associated with Google or ranking in SE’s).
When you have helped people succeed online and done so in an ethical way for 8 years (and done so in a very affordable), perhaps I will give you some credibility. Until then, please do yourself a favour and stop promoting schemes to your friends. You won’t have friends for long.
My upline was Simon Stepsys in Empower Network. He doesn’t help one single bit, he just takes the money and ignores people.
Thank you so much for all the updated information about Empower Network. I just canceled both subscriptions after being a member for 5 months and blogging daily with no sign ups or anything that they said would happen if you followed their 90 day plan.
I also researched before I joined and was spoken to very rudely a few times from my sponsor Jon Mroz. He has no time for you unless you pay the total $5000.00 which he makes.
It seems to me that almost all programs online you can not make money on that I have went into over the last 8 years or so. They always wind up being a scam and me losing money.
If you have any suggestions for a Single Mom to earn a living from home that is finally a real thing for an income please let me know 🙂
Have a wonderful week!
That is the problem I hear over and over again from folks. Unless you go “all in”, which means essentially taking money from your bank account and putting it directly into your sponsors, you are not going to get much help at all. Those on top are on top because they are taking money from those down below. I am sorry that you have been subject to this and I can tell you that there are ethical ways to earn a living online.
I would be more than happy to help you out and show you how to get started within the online world for free Lisa. It all starts with a passion (niche) and does not require you to sell shady programs to others. A successful business within the online world (the same as the offline world) starts with a website and the ability to help someone. If you can help an audience, you can literally scale a business to as big as you want.
This program is pathetic and so are the guys behind this. Not sure if you are aware Kyle but just the other day David Wood admitted to others that he cheated on his wife and got another girl pregnant.
As a woman this disgusts me and there is nothing honorable about publicly admitting to this. I trust him even less than I did when I was in the program and I think that any female that is thinking of joining this should think twice before getting involved with cheaters like this. If he can cheat on his wife and have a kid with a random girl then he is probably going to cheat you out of your money as well.
I am so glad I quit empower and got a refund.
If they were only this transparent about how they are “cheating” people out of money.
I was lucky to stumble accross this. In all truthfulness, there are a lot of desperate and broke people out there. I’m one of them! These EN people seem to know and understand that. I was also close to taking the bait. It’s true when you hear someone say ‘If sounds to good to be true…(U can finish it!)
I’m certainly going to check out WA.
Thanks Kyle!!
I think you will be glad you did Chuck. When a program is sold off of a “down in the dumpster and now super rich” story, then you should think twice about joining. A program should be sold based on the quality of it and that is definitely not the case with Empower. You not only saved yourself $25, but $1,000’s that you would have been sold on as soon as you walked into their door.
EMPOWER NETWORK IS NOT A SCAM! IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE IT’S NOT A SCAM
Maybe you could elaborate on how it has changed your life (besides taking money from you and teaching you how to take money from others).
WOW you are really a class act. I have to agree with Megan on this one. Now to all those here before you go agreeing with this guy here let me give you the real facts. And let your own common sense kick in.
First of all in his opening act of this blog he mentions many people are not happy who are involved with Empower Network, Wow! A BIG of a give away! What this guy here is trying to do with his sad attempt is to manipulate you into thinking that Empower Network is some kind of Scam or Ponzi scheme and what a stupid thing to say. Think about it, how many people you know who are involved with other opportunities regardless of the legitimacy of the program who are actually happy??? Well here is a BIG wake up call, about 95% in any network marketing or affiliate program people fail and a bunch of them sure tried hard but are not happy either with the results or did not have the proper guidance and many of them will go out and scream SCAM so this is bashing example No.1 by the author of this blog.
Now he mentions that there is no real product and the product is actually you but he has failed to mention that the video tutorials itself are products and about building this business and all about mindset. And is it not a fact that every business model is different? And what’s the big deal that the product is about creating wealth by selling a system and the system itself is the product? That’s just NUTS! Is it not that every opportunity that is being promoted out there is about promoting their business model in order for you to make money regardless what their products are? Bottom line, your still selling yourself and the company or whatever it is they are offering and at the end of the day it boils down to you’re promoting whatever it is you’re promoting so you can make money right? So this whole nonsense about not having any products is purely BS. Nice try Kyle but you don’t fool the wise especially about it having all of the common attributes of it being a PYRAMID Scheme. Wow that was a good one and pretty pathetic attempt to make others believe it too.
You complain that there is a merchant fee? Another stupid comment. What are you looking for a FREE RIDE it’s called a business expense maybe you have heard it. Yeah so what if they don’t or can’t offer PayPal in Fact PayPal is notorious for freezing people’s money and you have no control if they freeze your money for 6 months like they did with me and many of the people I know. They once froze 54 thousand dollars of my money for 6 months so good luck to that! In fact do you know the actual cost of having your own 3rd party merchant? It’s not cheap but Empower Network was smart enough to implement a merchant system where they handle all the major charges and a 20 dollars business expense to use that merchant is quite generous in my opinion regardless if it’s for charges or commissions. That’s a sweet deal.
You mention that one of the owners is located in Costa Rica and in your opinion to avoid the FTC? Wow your really hilarious and desperate to discredit Empower Network aren’t you? You even go further to say to avoid taxes because Cost Rica is a Tax Haven. WOW WOW WOW. Just shows how very little you know about business and how to protect your money and the company from being shut down. This is actually a benefit to make sure we stay in business. In fact I think the Government is to over critical and in many cases interferes with ruining people’s lives when involving great companies and opportunities. Its great to know that his in Costa Rica. You sound like a broke bitter person to me with that comment alone. You should be given the noble prize for bashing.
Funny how you say widespread complain about Empower Network. What company does not have complaints? Is Amway a Scam or Forever Living a Scam? One of my buddies work for their customer service call centers and according to him they get some many complaints daily you can’t even count them, LOL! Your so your hilarious. So does that mean they are a scam too?
Then you say NO Free Trial, why is that a bad thing? Another stupid thing to say, I don’t consider that a con, In fact I feel that’s a benefit because people for the most part never take action on free trail, they do nothing when things are free because they have no vested interest so also no result, but when you invest into something there is more of a tendency you will actually take action. You also say upsell is a con?? You are kidding me right? That’s the beauty of the system something you completely missed! Obviously another desperate attempt to promote your program. The upsell is the best part of the system and creates better leverage to make money. You are aware that you show all the signs of knowing nothing about sales with your nonsense gibberish right?
Another funny remark you said when you join you have to become a ruthless sales person? WOW WOW WOW again. In any business you do, you are selling yourself and your products so I can say the same for you. What are you doing now to promote your opportunity? Are you not doing the same thing but with a twist of being unethical and bashing Empower Network to grab the attention of others to divert them to what you are promoting? Sorry but your busted!
What’s funny is you mentioned something very stupid. You said:
“Their primary focus is going to be training you how to promote Empower to other people.”
What the heck is wrong with you and what is the problem with that? Of course just like any business you join they teach you to do the same thing, HELLO!!!
This blog is such comedy! There is just so many things you said that are all wrong and if I went on this would become a book or novel.
Don’t let this guy fool you! And just so everyone knows, in any business there are people with good and ethical practices and bad ones too so my best advice if you are looking into Empower Network it’s probably one of the best and easiest way to build a solid residual income with one of the best wealth system out there in the industry of sales but then again find a good sponsor with a good support group and you will do great. Don’t listen to Program basher like Kyle. His main objective here is not to give an honest review but to bash Empower Network in hopes he can fool you to join his slow moving opportunity which most likely his not making any money by promoting it anyways.
I’m not part of Empower Network but I have many friends who are and doing extremely well. So unlike Kyle the blogger here I know the real facts. DON’T LET HIM FOOL YOU. Empower Network is a legitimate and great opportunity when teamed up with the right ethical sponsor and team.
I wish You all the best. Integrity is Everything!
Is this a good example of how Empower participants don’t berate or shame other?
You say you are not a part of Empower Network but you have friends who are. That doesn’t qualify you to know the real facts. That qualifies you to know how they tried to sell you on it. People who believe what anything someone says without research or proof are the reason ponzi schemes work in the first place. Thanks for being an example.
This guy lost me in the first paragraph of his diatribe with the plethora of grammar, spelling, and syntax errors. I’ve found this to be true on all of Empower’s sales pages and marketing missives.
Since you guys are raking in the cash while paying no US taxes, why don’t you hire a competent proofreader; or at least have your attorney look over the words you attempt to compose.
It is NOT a scam. Apparently you haven’t researched that much. You must have come in contact with ugly sales people. I am sorry to hear that. Not everybody is like that in this company. And you don’t have to buy all the products to become successful. And there IS a product. Like I said before, this just shows you have not done enough research. You are just promoting YOUR business you part of and BASHING others. I’d say that is bad marketing. Just wanted to sum up this nonsense about what I am reading on here. Get on it Buddy.
No, this is a review of the ACTUAL program. I am not referring to the shameless promotions going on for this program, I am referring to the fact that the scheme is all about promoting the scheme to unsuspecting folks. Are you not doing the same thing Megan? Are you not promoting Empower Networks “blog” to others for $25 per month…knowing deep down inside that there are $5,000+ in products that you WANT people to join after they get in to you can get paid? I hope you are not trying to promote this to your friends because you may not have friends for long if you take money from them like this…
And these blogs don’t rank and there are SUPERIOR blogging systems and website that you can get for free…and that are not tied to only promoting Empower Network. Say I really loved “dog training”, there is no way you can promote this within a templated website promoting Empower Network.
Are you promoting other products or are you promoting EN to others? I think the answer is probably yes. In order to make money from the scheme, you have to get others to join the scheme and then they have to get others to join under them. The vicious cycle continues.
Megan’s online presence is limited to the Empower Network and facebook friends promoting the Empower Network.
Exactly Andy. When you hang out with a bunch of people that all think they are doing the “right” thing, then that is all she is probably going to know. You can only feel sorry for people like this because they really do not have an idea of what they are part of and what there really is out there (that is actually legitimate).
Hey Megan, I was sorta buying into this whole tear down EN thing since sooo many people were saying the same thing…so this is NOT your experience then? Curious, thanks, Danny in Orlando FL
Thanks Kyle for this very informative and money/time saving post. I have been pounded with emails to join EN for the last year to six months and I was on the fence quite a few times with it and an inner voice just kept telling me something wasn’t right.
A few people whom I thought were intelligent, honest and wanted to truly help others have been “all in” with empower network for some time. I sent them an email with valid concerns and links to this review and also Ian’s review at No BS and asked them to explain these many red flags. I was ignored by a few and the others told me that I was not serious about success, my mindset was wrong and I was unteachable. What?? Really?? Sad that so many stand behind a system like this and use name calling as a way to make a living.
No thanks.
Their idea of an “empowering” call in is 2,000 people yelling “Get All In!” and nothing else.
That is exactly it Carol. If you question the people within Empower on what they are actually doing, they will either ignore you or belittle you. The reason they are doing this is because they cannot explain the program other than, it will empower you and change your life. But how?
If you dig in and get to the bottom of what is going on, these “friends” that are trying to promote EN to you are only concerned about you joining through them and them taking money directly from your bank account and putting it into theirs (by going all in).
Hallo
I have just been scammed by these people. I paid my first 25 dollars yesterday and was now hoping to see this blog they are talking about. Needless to say none of my mails to them got answered as far. My big issue now is they say it is 25 dollars per month. So they are going to continuously take 25 dollars out of my credit card very month? How do I stop this because I know they won’t if I asked them.
Rita
You should be able to cancel your membership directly from their website. If you cannot, then you should escalate with your credit card because that is unethical business conduct. Good luck and if you do need a hand setting up a real business and want to build a REAL website (in any niche), then let me know.
You claim to have trained 10000 over 8 years perhaps you would be proud enough to display their average earnings? EN has full disclosure on each page.
Great question Steve and I have a very concise answer for you.
In Empower Network, you are part of a scheme. Those controlling the scheme and the “herd” that is involved, can also determine what each and every person earn within that given program. You promote EN just like everyone else in the program. You are a notch in the scheme and you are a controlled entity (they know exactly how much money you are making). Therefore, they can report exactly what people are making within the scheme.
At Wealthy Affiliate, we offer an education. We teach people how to properly create a business online and like any other education platform, what “becomes” of the people that get an education through you is really dependent. Like those that go to Harvard, some people go on to work at a coffee shop (hopefully not though), whereas others become owners of very successful, million dollar corporations. The EXACT same thing happens and WA and we in no way expect others to “report” their success.
People earn anywhere from $0 to MILLIONS, but again, we don’t sell based on “claims”, we sell based on that we offer a quality service. Someone could be very successful and we would never know, which is totally cool with us. Those that “brag” about their success is about as low as you can go in the business world (unless again, you are part of a “scheme” that relies on that).
Therefore we make no claims, our business is not based on “gloating” about success, rather teaching business and providing the people with the tools, the services, and the websites, the platforms, the training, the network and the help.
So….does that mean that your company does not have an average income site?
We are an education platform and a service. We don’t guarantee income and we don’t sell our service based on income claims. People are not required to share their earnings within WA, it is like going to Harvard and to being expected to report back and tell others how much you make. Only schemes have to report income and companies that sell their service based on “unrealistic claims” like Empower.
We are an education platform and a service that teaches REAL business. Thank you for your concerns.
Kyle you are talking around the question. If you are going to slam a company that does have people who are making great money, and people who are not making any money by all the people that I see on this blog complaining they lost money. Empower does not guarantee income but they do let you know what you can have with a little hard work, so if you are running a business which you are and people are paying you for your upgraded package and you are not giving them everything for FREE that they get for your upgraded package then YES you should have some results to to post SIR!! Because if you care as much as you say why charge at all for it SIR!! I know, because in the end its still about making money sir!! You said it best some will take what you learn and make money and some won’t, so why should it be any different with EN!!
It is not all about making money, if that was the case “robbing banks” would be a sound business model. Just because there are people making money within a program, does not mean it is a good program Carl. Take a look at ZeekRewards. This program was recently shut down by the SEC and yes there were lots of people making A LOT of money within it, much more than Empower. Was it deemed legit because people were making money? NO. Because they were taking money from others to make that money.
The problem with what you are doing is that you are taking money from folks and taking money directly from folks in your downline. You are not selling them a service, you are selling them into the system. In order for them to recoup their money, they have to sell others into the system and so on. Yes, some will make money sure…but those few that are truly WINNING are the result of lots of people LOSING.
You are so right about them. Add Scott Raley to your list of scammers, he totally duped me out of my money.