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
Another example of how greedy Empower Network is that they just banned one of their top earners Vick Strizheus because of rumours that he was temporarily not promoting EN and that he was thinking of setting up his own MLM.
He’s not setting up his own MLM according to his own blog post, but yet another example of a company that pretends to have the affiliates interest at heart.
I never was a part of EN, but I can sure tell you all this. EN is the Devil’s workshop in action!
Any business that yells at its people, and bullies them is nothing more than a pit of sin! All the cursing, bulliing, name calling and such is nothing more than just pure evil. Its founders should spend time in prison for what they’re doing to people’s lives.
They’re rich because the poor underneath them are doing their dirty work while they play on the beaches of the world, drive in their fancy sports cars and live in their fancy posh mansions while others are struggling to pay their rent, keep the lights on and food on the table. Do these founders even care? Of course not. They probably don’t even give it a second thought that they might be taking some old lady’s last dime. It doesn’t phase them because after all, they’re wealthy and what does some old lady mean to them?
Well I will be glad to tell you what that old lady means to them. She means no more to them than an ant on the sidewalk that they’re about to step on because quite frankly, everybody underneath them is a wuss or an ant ready to be stompped on because the two Daves are ruthless, heartless individuals who are only after people’s money and they will get it no matter what it costs.
These people know absolutely nothing about business. However, they[they’re giving the business if you know what I mean by that. I too have also gotten tons and tons of bogus emails on joining the Empower Network, but I knew from the get go that it was a rip roaring scam. I could see straight through it without having to buy into their expensive blogging system, or into their so-called inner circle or any of the other fancy named stuff that they were offereing.
It is too bad that so many people had gotten ripped off by them, and I wish that they all would get their money back pronto!
One thing that really shows that EN is a scam is the fact that they keep on pushing you to join. Those that are doing the pushing are pushing because they just spent a boatload of money and now they’re trying to make it back pronto! haha! It is a type of rob Peter to Pay Paul kind of thing.
I bet those two daves sleep really well at night don’t they? I know that they do because they don’t care at all about who they had ripped off. It doesn’t cross their minds. All they’re thinking about is all the money that they had stolen from people through their facade that they call a business. It is all a front and nothing more than that. Everyone in EN doesn’t have a business. They have a scam! Nobody in it is running a business. They’re giving the business.
Anybody can put up fake videos and act like a real Internet marketer, and anybody can say whatever they want to convince people on a video and the truth is, just about anybody who is desparat enough would buy into the garbage that is being dished out by EN, or any other type of similar system.
I have seen countless doctored up videos, screen shots of fake commission checks and heard all sorts of bogus income claims, and to tell you the honest truth here, most of all the videos that you see from online marketers all try to show you the money and they all brag about their earnings. They do that to try and convince you that what they’re offering is indeed the real deal.
They even go as far as to say that they’re giving video proof! Woo! impressive! Not! People can doctor up videos too don’t you all realize that?
Every marketing video that I have ever seen has always been all about the money and very little if anything about the system that they’re offering accept for the brief mentioning of it and how easy it is to rake in the cash and such. They press a couple of mouse buttons, walk away from the computer and they they come back a few hours later, log into their accounts and what do you see? you guessed it lots of money! However, what they fail to tell you is about all the hard work that is involved in their system.
They leave all that out of their videos because they realize that if they told people the real truth, nobody would buy into their lies right? I mean come on, there is no such thing as a business that is as easy as cutting and pasting. They even go as far as to tell you that you don’t need any skills to run a business online.
I don’t know who they’re trhying to fool, but they’re not fooling me. You do need skills, you need certain things in place in order to run a real online business. Anybody who tells you that you do not need any skills to make money online knows absolutely nothing about online business and you should avoid learning from that person. They do not know what they’re talking about.
Just because you make money from a system doesn’t mean that the system is legal or good. Like was mentioned in several comments here on this blog, even crooks make money and lots of it but does that make what they had earned legitimate? Of course not.
There are many people here defending EN, but they themselves have been brainwashed and had the wool pulled over their eyes. They’re blind. can’t see what they had gotten themselves into, and that is quite sad.
And let me reiterate on something that was mentioned earlier concerning them telling you that you don’t care for your family if you don’t go all in. That’s a bunch of evil bull! Any business that tells you that you don’t love your family because you don’t pay them thousands of dollars is nothing more than the Devil’s personal workshop! Sure, take food away from your kids, take their educations away but make sure that you pay EN because after all, the big EN is now your new god that you have to please right? Anybody who does this to their families has either got to have their head examined, or get an exercism! EN is totally demonic and evil from its very foundation.
And, let’s talk about their name, Empower Network. Where is the empowering? What are you supposed to be empowered to do? Well I’ll give you the answer right here and now.
You’re empowered to take money away from your friends,family and any associates that you have, you’re empowered to lie, steal and do whatever it takes to line the pockets of your upline sponsors, you’re empowered to go ra ra at their live events and over the phone, you’re empowered to push and praud as much as you can so as long as you get that money. That’s the empowerment that you receive from them. And oh, let’s not for get the empowerment to bully people and to call them horrible names and such. It is not real empowerment where you can run a business or have the skills to really run a business. It is just empowerment to do the evil things that they teach you. It is all smoke and mirrors but it is much worse than that though. People’s lives have been totally ruined, their credit has been ruined, their friendships have been ruined and who knows what else not mentioned here has been ruined as well. EN needs to be shut down. It needs to return from whence it came, and that is from the pits of hell itself.
The two daves need to be forgiven though and they need to know God, the one and only true God who created everything. The two daves need to denounce their love for money and they need to denounce their attachment to Satan and come back to reality.
I am not saying that the two daves are actively worshipping Satan, but they’re doing his bidding by loving money and teaching others to do likewise. They are teaching others to steal, to lie and so much more. There’s hope for the two Daves and we all need to pray for them.
Sorry for the preaching here, but it is true though. Their organization is indeed from the pits of hell itself and it needs to return there where it belongs.
I will definitely check out WA and join it because I am an ebook author and I could sure use some help in promoting my work. I want to write for others and I want to do it all honestly, ethically and I want to make people truly happy with what I provide them.
However, I want to do all that under someone who really knows what they’re talking about and I want to be coached and educated by someone who is honest, sincere and is not afraid to help someone who doesn’thave a whole lot of money because that’s me.
I don’t have the thousands of dollars that some of these crooks require you to pay for coaching and mentoring. I am on a fixed income due to my disability.
I am legally blind and have been since birth. I am not telling you any of this to make anybody feel sorry for me because I don’t need your pitty. I am telling this because I want you all to see that I am a hard worker and that I do believe in myself and the skills that I do possess. No, I am not perfect, but I do have something to offer people as does everybody else. Everybody has something to offer. The Internet is big enough for everyone and not just the so-called gurus. We all deserve a chance no matter what we look like, what educational background we have, what part of the planet we live on, what nationality we are and so on. We’re all human and that’s really all that matters.
I have a very strong work ethic and I am more than willing to work hard for what I get in life. I don’t believe in gettings handed to me on silver platters because that’s the cheap way out.
However, I am not able to pay for a lot of training and such, but I bet through WA I can do quite well and succeed.
When you have to sell your scheme based on the byproduct of what YOU have accomplished (from selling that same scheme to others) and not the actual service itself, then there is a really good chance that you should run for the hills. This is exactly what is happening here with Empower Network and you have broken it down in a very thorough way.
People tend to defend their purchases until they realize they cannot convince people to buy into their overpriced scheme. At that point, the tables tend to turn and people wake up to the reality of the fact they are ripping other people off to make a buck.
I got sucked into the iPas2 system yesterday. I finally made it through the videos today and got to the EN part. I, being fairly online marketing savvy and running my own blog already, realized that this is absolutely a scam. I’m sorry, but if you market upfront one thing and then end your “training” with another you are scamming people out of their money upfront. Now I have to wait and see if I really get this 100% money back guaranteed refund because I”m not sure it’s going to happen, but I hope it does since I need that money to buy things like groceries for my family. I should have known better, but when money is hard to come by and you need it, sometimes you ignore your instincts. Lesson learned! Thank you for this article!
Kyle ~ I wish that my parents would have read this before they got themselves in a world of debt and are now trying to figure out how to get out of it. I am sorry to say that this scam took over $17,000 of their hard earned money and now I am trying to figure out if there is any legal recourse. My parents are elderly and don’t use the internet so they had no idea what they were signing up for. They had to spend $5000 to set up an LLC, $10k for leads, and over $120/month that they finally stopped after 7 months of getting nothing back. Do you know of anyone that has pursued legal action? It is sickening to me how people like this take advantage of others.
Oh my goodness Natalie, I am so sorry to hear this and you are in the same boat as many other people that see their vulnerable parents/family members get taken by this scheme. The best recourse you can do is contact your local authorities if you feel your parents have been ripped off by a particular program (in this case Empower Network) and see what they suggest.
I hate to hear people getting taken for a ride like this and I hope you can find some solutions for your parents. So shameful to see this sort of behaviour almost becoming acceptable in the opportunity industry.
Sorry to hear what happened to your parents Natalie.
I was first contacted by EN with an Email that made a quick reference to Zeek Rewards. That caught my eyes!
Zeek Rewards turned out to be a major global scam that made over $600,000,000 before they recently got busted and stopped by the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) and took receivership of it. Look it up.
File a complaint with them about EN and what happened to your parents.
Also, EN in their Terms of Agreement mention being compliant with the US laws of the FTC (US Federal Trade Commission). They may also be of help.
FYI: In their presentation copy they show an email labeled Zsecret.undergroundfreedomformula.com which looks suspiciously connected to Zeek?
Good Luck
Yesterday (3rd Feb 15) day I was invited to information evening from the Elite Team for Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Empower Network as I found out, when I was there. The whole thing was very suspicious from the very beginning. As it was not fare from my office, I took the opportunity to find out more about.
First of all, they changed the place form the Hotel Park Inn Airport Zürich to an Industrial Building, too a much cheaper location. The start was 8 p.m. instate of 7.30. My “inviting party” did not know anything about.
Second, the ticket price was 35 Swiss France just for listening to a coach from Germany, telling us about a product without telling what is was.
Thirdly no water, no nothing was offered on the tables for 35 Swiss Frances. After one hour brainwashing us, they made a break to get a bottle of something out of the vending machine. The presentation went one for another hour for a very little crowd.
Fourthly the Lady was so very overwhelming in her presentation, what is very uncharacteristic for Europeans. On top I’ve got to say: never seen such a poorly done power point presentation as this one.
As I was sitting in the first row, listen carefully and making a lot of notes – she observed it with a very critical mine. Till the end I did not understand what kind of Franchise Product I would have to sell. She was also telling, that she started with her coaching in this system and showed us her check over 50’000 € she earned within 9 month. And of course all the winning guys standing on stage at Stuttgart meeting with their checks in their hands and big smiles of course. The also logged themselves live into two member accounts (live as they sad) to show us, how much money every one can make, in very short period of time. Of course only if you start with the most expensive package of almost 6’000$. They only thing made me mild, capped me calm during the presentation was her sentence: we have some changes made for Europe, because not every American system is working here too. I thought to myself, at least something they know! She did not mention any of the adjustments with another word. She was busy to get read of us.
Question where not allowed, or fine leaded to the phone call for the day after. The try to be very smart, smarter than everybody else. A lady collected very friendly all the dates bevor the meeting even started. Wonder why?
Finally today the presenter called me direct from Germany asking: I made my mind up and have been asking myself, if you are interested in, to make any extra money at all! She did not like me at all, doing homework bevor her call. The conversation ended very rude from her side, after I told her what I found on your page about Empower Networking. She was shocked or better read my body language very clearly yesterday.
Well, my English is for sure not perfect – but at least I understood your report and I can tell this is a rat trap! Keep your fingers off!!!
Thank you. Your report confirmed my impression.
Kindly, Ruth from Switzerland
This reminds me of some of the most aggressive “time share” style marketing that has been around for years. They get you into either a free or very low ticket “training” session and then once they have you in there, they pressure you into joining a much higher ticket program, in this case Empower Network.
The one rule in most of these programs is that the best way to go about questions about the program itself is to not ask them at all. The fact of the matter is that outside all of the brainwashing that is going on, once you start digging into what you are really involved in it starts to really feel like a shady business…which it is. You take money from others, then tell others to do the same thing you are doing.
That is so good of you to open our eyes.Always had a bad feeling about them and now I know what kept me away.Thanks.
Thanks for doing this review. You are saving a lot of people like myself from getting scammed. I was in touch with a very prominent person inside Empower Network and they could not answer some of the more what I thought to be, simple questions about the program.
Why are all the people making money in the program selling the program? (ie. pyramid scheme)
Why is their so many complaints about this program online and so many BBB complaints if it is legitimate?
Why is everything you hear about motivation and mindset (brainwashing) and not nearly as much about creating an actual business?
The so called guru got defensive, angry and resorted to name calling, calling me lazy/useless/not cut out for the program.
You’re right I’m not cut out for a program that involves me ripping off my friends to make money. Enough said.
That is too bad that your sponsor cannot help you with some of the most fundamental questions you would ask before getting into any business online.
Perhaps I can help answer these questions here:
Why are all the people making money in the program selling the program? (ie. pyramid scheme)
Because that is what it is. You make money by selling other folks into the program, getting them to upgrade to “all in” status, then getting them to do the same thing to others. I am not sure how good it could feel ripping a family member, a friend, an acquaintance off to the tune of $5K, but you only have to read some of the comments below to realize that programs like this truly do ruin friendships.
Why is their so many complaints about this program online and so many BBB complaints if it is legitimate?
And that is even with “agreements” that they try to provision when people join so they don’t “speak” about the program in any negative way. There would be even more if they didn’t have these sorts of scare tactics.
Why is everything you hear about motivation and mindset (brainwashing) and not nearly as much about creating an actual business?
That is a true sign of a scheme, not a business. When all you hear around you is “rah rah” motivation and very little actual education and business development, there is very little substance to your business. In fact, you are not building a business you are involved in a scheme. Schemes only last as long as the last customer that is fooled into joining them.
Kyle, thank you for the info, I nearly lost over $4,500.00 with this empower network, they are exactly what you say they are. Thank God for people like you. These people after 8 days in this so called business ruthlessly RIP PEOPLE OFF AT ANY COST. How can I forward this info as a whole to help people. Thank you Kyle for saving me a lot of money, I pulled out after reading your posts to the truth. I hope Jon was finally convinced
So glad you didn’t invest close to $5,000 on an info product. It is sad to see people get taken into this program only to realize their money was spent directly into their uplines pockets. Then in order for them to earn money, then you sell others in the same way and in some cases ruining family and long term relationships in the process.
CULT like environment
How cults recruit & indoctrinate their members
1. Invitation to a non-threatening event
Cult recruiters never give you the hard sell right off the bat.
The invitation might incorporate some other tricks.
2. Love-bombing
At the event, cult members shower the potential recruit with attention and praise.
3. Dangling “The Prize” in front of you
At some point, cult members will suggest that if you join or study with them, you can attain something special
At the event, the members will all seem very happy, and you’ll probably be introduced to some “success stories
4. Extracting an agreement from you that you want the prize
After introducing the prize, they get you to agree that you want it
“You do want to become financially independent, don’t you?”
5. Shutting down your dissent by threatening to withhold the prize
You’ll be encouraged to do things that you might rather not, like devote more of your time to the group.
When Sarah raised an objection and she tried to get her money back, and the Leader came back with, “Let’s talk about this. Why do you feel this way? What could you be resisting in your life? What if ‘I want my money back’ is just a story you are telling yourself?”
6. Establishment of guilt
The prisoners had so successfully been made to feel guilty that they came to blame themselves for their own incarceration.
7. Carrot/Stick
Behavior is reinforced by rewarding “good” behavior and punishing “bad” behavior.
8. Control of identity, information, environment the inner circle
A thorough and very accurate analysis.
The most common complaint that I see is that people that sponsors are nice only if (a) you go all in and spending $5K+ (b) you continue paying (c) you don’t question the program itself. So in essence, you are in the clear if you don’t talk about how the program works, if you are go to the rah rah events and you rah rah yourself…and if you spend lots of money on products that are not worth nearly that much (if anything).
is ipas2 a scam as well?, It works together with empower
Yes, ipas2 has many negative reviews out there as well and it is closely tied to Empower Network. You have to question anyone that is actively promoting or involved in these sort of schemes and what their true intentions are. It is usually to earn money at any ethical cost.
I don’t believe that EN is a scam at all because it hasn’t been shut down by the authorities.
Some people get involved with opportunities because they want to get rich quick and dont realise that they need to treat their home business like a real business.
If people were to apply traditional marketing techniques as taught by experts such as Gary Halbert and Dan Kennedy to their EN business they probably wouldn’t struggle as much as they do.
Just because a program has not been shut down by authorities does not mean it is not a scam or unethical. Getting someone to join a program for the sole purpose of you earning money and them being required to do the same to others is by no means an ethical business. There are many programs like this popping up and many of them are being shut down by the FTC and the SEC, some major ones in the last couple of years (banners broker & zeek rewards to name a few).
If you don’t think it can happen Jon, you might want to have a read of this.
Why would the Wealthy Affiliate program have an affiliate option, if it is free, there is no money to be made on an affiliate….Did I miss something?
Wealthy Affiliate offers a service and people can promote that service through the affiliate program…it is the same as ALL other affiliate programs in the world, they are FREE to be a part of. If you are paying to be part of an affiliate program, you are involved in something that is very obscurely presenting themselves as an affiliate program.
Thanks Kyle, I was doing some research before I moved forward with EN and came across your page. After questioning my coach he had no answers to defend the BBB statements or the product statements. I did not move forward. Thanks again, I could have been out of a lot of money. 🙂
Yeah, if something cannot be defended when asked very straight forward questions about the product (why does it cost so much, am I going to be forced into buy upsells once inside, if you are so great why don’t you offer a free trial, etc), then it says a lot about the product.
In an industry like this one that has a lot of people getting scammed on a daily basis, I always recommend you do your due diligence before joining anything Dee. I think you made the right move and you only have to read a few comments deep here to realize what sort of activity is really taking place within Empower Network.
Thank you so much for this blog! I am presently checking out the iPAS2 web site, which is supposedly a traffic producing program for you business, and if you want to get their “profit maximizers”, guess who you have to join with? Yep, good ‘ol Empower Network! After going through the iPAS2 training videos, I have to say they have the stupidest compensation plan I have ever seen! I am with Optimera, and they are nothing like this scam company! Thanks again for the “heads up”!
This is common with many programs out there. The compensation plan benefits very few and the only people earning money are those at the top of the food chain. And when you join Empower, you are not in essence creating a real business. You rely (like all of these similar programs) on hustling and getting new and unsuspecting folks into the program and spending money on over-priced products. Then the cycle continues.
Scam All the WAY! My husband Credit card was charged over $700, plus another 156 in three different charges(and yes I didn’t know he was doing this)…I didn’t need to see the offer to know it is a scam! I am so mad! I am getting him to cancel his credit card ASAP. I don’t think we will see that money back!?
I just received a call from this company and all the questions they asked were concerning my credit card balances and debt. Also, she wanted to know if I had $1000 or more available credit. Before transferring me to her “CEO”, she played a 2-min audio explaining the company which was mostly double-talk. When her “CEO” came on the line and I asked if this was a pyramid scheme, he disconnected. I am contacted alot by these schemes as I am retired but the big tipoff is the barrage of questions about debt and assets.
Wow, wish I would have read this before I gave them my $25.00 for that blogging platform that was basically crap. I canceled last night and after reading this I am certainly glad I did. Didn’t make much sense to me anyway when I discovered that all my sponsor did was offer me this product for $50.00 and this product @ $25.00 and so on, none of which had anything to do with EN. Felt like he was just trying to get my money…,and he was. Again…, wow. How do they sleep at night?
Very typical stuff here Cheryl. You give your first $25 for the “amazing” (errr…) blogging platform that is supposed to be your entrance to success online, but then you realize once you are inside that this was just to see if you were a serious buyer and on comes the onslaught of promotions/upsells and pressure selling from your sponsor.
Unless you are willing to drop $5,000+ by going all-in, you are more than likely to get shunned by your sponsor which has been a common complaint. You only have to read a few of the stories here shared by past members to find out what really is going on over there within the greater scheme of things.
I totally agree with the buy in costs…that totally turned me off right there!
It isn’t in plain English when you join the program, they convince you it is only going to take $25 per month to start, but in reality if you want to get any help with the program and have what you need to actually get any level of help, you are going to want to go ALL IN. This means spending $5,000+ with ongoing monthly charges of $140 per month…just so you can make someone above you more money.
I joined Empower Network a few years ago and thought it was going to be the answer to my prayers online. I love to blog and have done affiliate marketing so to me it sounded like a perfect match.
After getting into to the program I realised that I would have to try and sell products worth over $5000.00 dollars to get anywhere to people who had come in at $25 a month(and that is a stretch for some) and I didn’t feel right in having to market such high priced mark up on a non product, just info and rar rar. I was all out in a few months and removed all my blog pages before I left.
If you have put in the work on your websites blog with them, I would say copy.paste to save for your own blog and delete the pages you have built there. Why leave your hard work for them to profit from.
And Kyle, I love what you are doing here:-) Thank you x
Too many people have had their blogs taken over and been cut off by the Empower Network program. I would always suggest that if you ever build a blog, do so on a service where you are control and own your work. Most hosting platforms allow this sort of thing.
I also feel you on the sinking feeling of trying to sell overpriced $5,000 products just so you can make money off of that individual, it isn’t an exchange of value for money like every other transaction we make…a true sign of a scheme. To make money within a scheme, you must fool people into spending money on that scheme and for them earn money, they must do the same. The chain continues until people smarten up and stop buying into this junk.
OK so I just got off the phone with a guy from EN trying to suck me into this system. They were relentless to the point of telling me I would never amount to anything in life if I didn’t join empower network. One problem though was that they could not explain what empower was besides some life changing event that i needed to buy into to start blogging and start earning loads of money.
Long story short I did this because my mom got ripped off for $5,000 out of this program and i wanted to find out more about it. My skepticism only grew strong as I started looking into the program and reading one review after another and watching the videos busting this out to be some sort of pyramid. It is that isn’t it?
So F YOU Empower Network and the cowards that are out there ripping folks off by sucking them into this program just so they can earn a buck…off of people like my mom. She is on disability and she dipped into her retirement so she could what…promote the same crap to other people.
You can rest assured the support over there will be hearing from me and so will the BBB, FTC and anyone else who will listen. I am pissed and thanks for shedding a bit of light on these fools.
Wow, I am actually on the phone with my Empower Network “Life Coach” right now and reading your article and comments. Glad I have time to get back my $45 bucks. Sorry I wasted the 2 hours of my time listening to this temptation. Oh well.
Thank you. Your writing has made a difference in my life.
Glad I was able to help you out here Cara. The life coach will only be there to “help” if you are a solid prospect or you are paying them (which in essence you would be doing if you joined this scheme). Your next task would have been doing the exact same thing to others. This has been one of the main complaints from others about programs in the MLM world.
Total SCAM! You feel so pressured to continue to buy the ever increasing prices for everything. Like Kyle said in a previous reply, a glorified blog service with huge price tags. No wonder the owners are rich, or is that just ‘smoke and mirrors’?
This is definitely a SCAM. I was in this network and I purchased the Costa Rica product for $500. I watched every video with a pen an notebook handy ready to take notes and learn. I did not write one thing on the page. All it was, was Dave Woods telling you to buy more of their products in every video. I became so disgusted I requested a refund, got my money back when I threatened to file a dispute with my bank and dropped out of the network shortly thereafter. Dave Woods pats himself on the back on how he is able to hypnotize any of the people watching to do whatever he wants. If anyone could do that why not hypnotize the President of a major bank to hand you 10 million dollars? It was a total joke. My upline kept telling me I made 110,000 in 7 months. I said lets see some proof. Show me a bank statement. He never did. Anyone can say “I made $50,000 last month with EN”. I wanted proof and never got it. Run as far away, as quickly as you can.
the question is why authorities do nothing about this.
Is there a lack of laws on the internet world??!!!
Just remember many people have to lose money for others to make money in this beautiful program to entice dummies. Yes if you are making money from the EN you are considered stealing from others. I’m still looking for a product and not video tapes from a couple of jack asses whooping it up.
Wish I would’ve had the time to read all comments, but read enough about EN to never want to join. There was a girl that was advertising it on Facebook. I clicked on it and made a couple of inquisitive comments. She got upset and very defensive. I think I know why now.
That tends to happen. Anyone that questions the “system” gets an ear full.
The reason is the system is all about you promote the exact same thing (sucking others into the scheme) and has little to do with actually helping people or offering value. This becomes very obvious when you are pushed, often times in a very blatant way, to go “all in” which means you parting with $5,000+ just so you can make others money…not to mention “get to the events” which is going to cost you another $3-5K per year for your travelling expenses.
I wouldn’t say EN is a scam, but it definitely is deceptive in the way they market it. Like you said, the inner circle programs and upsells are very expensive and absolutely not necessary in this industry. Additionally, it’s not ethical to promote a $25/mo program only to upsell people for thousands on the back end after they commit. The network marketing profession deserves better from us if you’re involved in it.
The main problem with their turnkey blogs is that they don’t hold rankings and any attempts at SEO used on them are short lived. I honestly hope more people catch on to this article and read through the comments.
I would call anything that is deceptive and “forces” upsells upon people (ie. folks don’t get help from their sponsors if they don’t go “all in” and spend $5,000) something that is not trustworthy. People get into the program not realizing that after they do, they are going to be hit with a substantial number of offers that they are pretty much obligated to take part in if they want to move forward with the program.
Why? Because you can promote the more expensive, overpriced programs to others without spending the money on them first…that in my opinion is unethical. Unfortunately more and more programs are popping up like this and some of the big MLM’s are being classified as pyramids as well (Nuskin, Herbalife, etc) thus giving the entire industry even a worse name than it already has.
Hi Kyle great review on Empower Network!
I am a WA member now and I can say it is a light years ahead of what EN offers and it actually teaches you how to create a real business. You are not part of some sketchy ponzi that is likely to be taken out by the FTC.
Hope we can help each other down the road:)
Best,
Tony
This is so epically right on. TanaÇae´Danick is the epitome of “All In” and the attempt to “bully” you into the program. She even dropped me from her facebook just because I already had something bigger committed at the time of their $3000 program in Orlando.
Here YouTube channel is pretty funny too. Nothing but a regurgitation of other people’s success stories. She even tells a story about Michael Jordan where she generalizes quite a bit and then manufactures… or to use her own Video Vernacular, “makes shit up”.
If you’re going to tell a success story about Michael Jordan, at least watch a video or two or read a book so you know WTF you’re talking about. Not just a weak attempt at regurgitating a bad Tony Robbins story. (Tony never met Michael but acts like they are best friends.)
She then dishes on ‘haters’. Well, if you would at least be authentic, people wouldn’t judge you so harshly TanaCae!
These are typically promotional tactics that many have expressed their discontent about here Lolly. Bullying is part of the promotional strategy which is taught and the reason you get bullied if you don’t BUY “all in” is because you are not making your sponsor money.
Thanks for the incredible attention to detail. I was introduced to this business in late March by a security guard at the Prudential Plaza, Chicago (He is still a security guard). He is such a nice guy I had to look in to it, but everything I turned up increased a feeling of nausea. The main targets of my friend (bless his heart) are low-income people trying to get off on the right foot. I tried to approach discussions with him and his “Team Leaders” on facebook, only to end up stonewalled by pretentious rhetoric. Here’s one example of a comment I dealt with:
“lol every company has people being sued and Legit multi-level marketing companies have often in the past been accused…but those that actually do it, get shut down, those still alive making BILLIONS, arent say what you want, Amways still around”
Needless to say, every thread was a migraine. The thought of all the people who lost their money just so a select few make a quick buck reflects everything that is ugly about the business world. I reported Empower Network to the BBB, and I hope many do the same.
Yeah, have heard it all. Getting sued is normal, overcharging people is normal, and 99% of the people not making their money back is normal…right? Many folks succumb to the brainwashing but at the end of the day, it is folks like yourself Sean that understand the reality of what is going on. It is people taking money from other people, directly.
The exchange of “products” is somewhat of a facade for the actual agenda that is taking place. You have to buy an overpriced info product and go all-in for $1,000’s so that you can convince someone below you do to do the same things.
I found most of these comment pretty interesting. First of all, everyone purchased these product knowing full well what they were purchasing. There is full disclosure about the products. I have been with EN for almost 30 months and I honestly have not made any money. But that is my fault not theirs. I stay because I find the community empowering. Maybe they didn’t help me make money with their business but their business helped me with other businesses.
You can make money with any program you purchase if you work at it. Nothing magically produces results without your effort.
These products are meant for Internet Marketers. You are selling affiliate products just like you would with Clickbank or JVZoo or Rapbank …but these products pay more. I am not going to say they pay 100% commission because they don’t but they pay way more than Clickbank products pay or JVzoo or anywhere else you go to find someone else products to sell to those looking to learn skills on how to market on the internet. And as an added benefit you make additional dollars from the products someone you sponsored sell.
I don’t understand what the mystery is or what the scam is. This very website sells products and in my opinion reaches people in the most slimy way…by degrading someone else’s product in hopes you will notice his products.
Really, EN is not for everyone…obviously when they do a webinar…1600 out of 130,000 affiliates show up…that’s true with anything…it’s called the 80/20 rule. 20% of the population will produce 80% of the results. But that is because the other 80% just chose not to produce.
Hi Kyle and thanks for this great review.
I can confirm that Empower Network is a complete and utter SCAM! There is evidence to back this claim up because I too was sucked in to this shiny new object not long after it was launched.
However, I did blog away, applied some SEO and my EN blog posts quickly got Google page one rankings which was great. the blog did generate some traffic but ZERO income.
Within 8 months of being a member of EN I had spent over $1,300+, had 3 dead EN leads and NO sales from anything I was promoting.
To add insult to injury, all my EN blog posts were slipping quickly down the search engine rankings!
It is safe to say that EN is a SCAM, it DOESN’T work and the only people making money from it are the so called gurus who have no value to offer in return.
The founders of EN should refund every single penny they have taken from people and the site should be closed down completely.
Neil
Thanks for your feedback Neil and you share the same thoughts that many do about this program. Unfortunately the blogs no longer rank remotely well, for a while they were touting their Alexa rank as if it has something to do with SEO (which is a complete lie).
I have heard recently some of there top GURUS that you have mentioned have had to drop out of the program as the promotion of pyramids like EN are considered illegal in certain states (actually all, just a few are starting to catch wind of this).
Agree there is no Real Product. Is a wrong way to try to make money online. I tasted for a month, MISTAKE. MISTAKE MISTAKE
Been with EN for a month and very dissapointed (spent 45 dollars). I didnt make a dime, I just lost my money. Now when I log in to my EN blog, I’m not able to see my back office, the site asking me to become an affiliate. My visa card is empty so they cannot charge me. But if my card would bee with funds they would charge me anyway??
I’m afraid to put money in my bank acc. Is there any possibility to return my 45 dollars back? thank for a brief review!
I know many people have tough time getting their money back after they toss it into the EN vacuum, you will have to contact their support team or you credit card company if you want to deal with that.
Sorry to hear that you got taken for another scheme Birute, but please don’t think the entire industry behaves in this way. There are legitimate ways to create a business online and if you ever need a hand, I will be more than happy to help you out. Also, check out my Getting Started Guide here if you want to the process of starting a real niche business online.
I paid them $45 and then realised I wasn’t getting anything and needed to fork out lots more money to get any learning!
I then realised (after hunting around) that the only way I would make money was to recruit people and sell all these ‘packages’ to them
So I tried to cancel my subscriptions and that was really difficult despite following their instructions – still don’t know if they’ve been cancelled because it appears they are still active
Tried to request a refund as per their instructions and refund policy and the website wouldn’t let me submit the form
It is one big scam and I’m after them for my $45 back!
That is the model, in order for you to make money within the affiliate program there is the requirement that you promote the same products and services (you have had to invest in) to others. Then the cycle continues, in order for your downline to make money, they have to do the same. The products are vastly overpriced and are that way for a reasons. So that those at the top of the pyramid shaped business can make lofty profits on the loss of the bottom feeders below them.
I wish you all the best with your refund, unfortunately you are not the first to complain about the ease for them to take your money, but the difficulty to ever get it back if you are not happy with their scheme.
I’ve seen that from all these comments. I live in NZ and every time I’ve tried to call I get an answerphone.
I’ve made a complaint to FTC about their website that does not allow a cancellation or refund process as per the terms of their cancellation and refund policies. Would encourage anyone else who has had the same problem to do the same thing.
Hey I had the same problem. Its just card thats connected to them not your bank account right? What you should do is just cancel your card and order a new one from your bank. They can’t charge a card that isn’t active anymore.
Worst case scenario, this is what you will have to do (and it seems what many have to do after buying into it).
Great Post Kyle, and plenty of interesting comments and replies.
My friend and I joined Empower Network last year and we soon realised it was a rip off. All we had was the same old message,buy into all if you want to make money.The truth is very few have made any real significant money, and most end up losing a lot, like one of my mates friends who had bought into all only to find he and his wife were just paying out each month with no returns whatsoever.
Many followers defend Empower, probably because they are too embarassed to admit they are flogging a dead horse. What’s more when your blogs are on their site they are no longer yours. We copied and then deleted our blogs. One of the teams was also ripping off it’s own members by way of getting you to send all your blogs through a certain link and claiming the new sign up email address’s for themselves until the guy was exposed by a husband and wife who left the team in disgust.
We are glad we got out of Empower when we did. Now we have our own sites and our blogs are our own.
Don’t be a wussie, sign up and find out for yourself.
I hope there are no wussies reading this, I will think you may have scared most of them off. Thanks for your insights into your experience within EN Pierce, I know this will be helpful to others looking for REAL feedback on what to expect within EN.
Loved your post, have written two posts myself trying to enlighten people of the perils of empower network and as you mentioned, the loss of “authority” to all the individual blogs on the network.
What leaves me bewildered is that most EN members will defend it to the hilt. They are either morally bankrupt or too embarrassed to admit that they have been sucked in.
Names like Simon Stepsys have been mentioned and if people did their research before buying into these schemes alarm bells would have rung. You mentioned that EN is now barred from youtube but what I have found is that so called reviewers have now hijacked youtube to promote supposedly free paydaynetwork, which is actually just another portal for EN, just thought your readers might like to be aware of that.
It is very similar to anything you purchase, you become very defensive of it if someone tells you it was a bad choice. Fortunately many people do realize that as tehy get involved in this program and are told to “go all in” repeatedly as a theme, they start to realize it is more about them spending money to make someone else money than it is about them really creating a honest, ethical business.
BUT, many people do go on to repeat this process because that is what they are told they need to do…so the cycle of shameless promotions in order to earn a buck continue.
As you said, they are now masking the entrance points under many different names and many different levels of sponsors, so people need to be careful and do their due diligence (I always recommend asking for support before you buy anything online) and this way you can get a good idea of the people behind the program. Thanks for stopping by Paul and sharing your experiences.
Hey Kyle !
I’m presently working on a EN rewiew and I was wondering why you say that EN is “completely banned from Facebook and Youtube”. I still can see their official page on FB and some videos of them on Youtube.
Thanks!
Posting links to this site was banned within Facebook and also within Youtube a year or so back, but over time some listings have eventually crept back into the results.
Glad to be rid of EN. I consider myself to be a bit more tech savvy than the vast majority of other ENers I came across. Most of the folk in the various Facebook groups we had were complete newbies to just being online let alone online marketing. How they ever had a chance of making it pay is beyond me.
To make it pay in EN you had to be a special kind of person, ie you had to become a complete zombie – a slave to their system – and I found I had to change my whole persona. I found myself not being ‘me’ any more as I tried to adapt to the way they work.
The beginning of the end came when I got blocked from a ‘rising star”s Facebook page for having the audacity to point out that many many people, including myself, had never made a penny from EN.
No upliners ever took responsibility for their downline’s failure to make money. The answer was always ‘blog every day, read books, listen to the Inner Circle stuff, buy in at a higher level’. The same tired old Power Hour crap was rolled out day in day out. I remember attending one of the morning calls, can’t remember what they called them but they were supposed to be all motivational and fire up the troops. The guy leading the call asked everyone to scream at the top of their lungs down their phones to express just how fired up they were…and people actually did it. I was thinking to myself as I quietly ended the call what my neighbours would have thought had I joined in this ridiculous cult like exercise.
So there we go, I wrote all of this in one go without a proof read so it might seem a little here and there but the point is I’m lending weight to the side of the fence that says EN was a waste of time and money and effort as I didn’t see a single penny in commission in the 6 months or so I paid my dues (up to Inner Circle). Oh, and one final thing, any company that rolls out Vick Strizheus as one of their big guns has to be avoided at all costs…if you don’t know what I mean then Google the name. Thanks for reading
First of all, sorry for my english. I am living in Europe. But I needed to write my testimonial and I hope it will be helpful to other people in the same case.
Thanks to you Kyle, I just discover why I couldn’t sell anything from EN and BIM. It tooks me 6 months to realize, after having spent the $ 5.000 and after a big work, that it was a scam.
I am one of those who have registered because they are going through financial difficulties and need money. And I indeed bought all EN products (borrowing money) to get my family out of difficulties.
But instead, I put us in even greater difficulties because my conscience prevented me : I couldn’t lie to others. Ethic is fundamental for me but 6 months ago, I only focused on my problem of money.
And as there is no possibility of refund in EN, when I discovered that these products were poor, it was too late. So, I had no other choice than trying to find “customers”. But I wasn’t able to launch a campaign with their squeeze pages and the only one solo ad campaign I made costs me another $200 for nothing…
Belonging to the BIM team, it is only recently that I discovered that Vick Strizheus was a cone man when I realized that his promises were lies, in the only purpose of making us spending money, again and again.
Indeed, from the beginning of 2014, he made new big promises to “help” us but in fact, it was to sell us last weeks an expensive workshop in Vegas ($ 997) and an expensive call center ($ 97/month). And, to force us to buy, he announced that the “help” promised finally was reserved to those who buy the workshop in Vegas !
Today I really feel like getting out of a sect in which the great slogan is “zero negativity” which forces a certain behavior and limits your expression, where the support is limited to only what you bring as money.
It has been a week that I stopped both EN and BIM and I slowly rebuild myself. This is the first time that I am speaking freely as in EN & BIM, everyone refuses any claim and customers are treated with contempt. Communication about the products is completely non-existent, except for the first sale to their… members.
And for me, the end point was when I couldn’t access to my back-office because EN obliged us signing their new policies where EN is responsible for NOTHING and has NO duty towards its customers, where everything is client’s risk !
I hope my testimonial will help.
Thank you Kyle.
I am a former EN member and I must say I had a mixed experience. I wanted to join just to get an idea about having a business online, make extra money to pay off my credit card and student loan debt, and to have extra money to fund my passions.
After almost 2 years in I can safely say that I don’t regret it. I did learn a lot from my sponsor who is truly one of the good guys. He actually called his team and provided real training every week. I would say that he was one of the ones only making maybe $5 to $7K per month.
As for some of the others they really could care less. These are the ones that sell you hard and don’t offer any help. These are the ones making $40k-60K per month. They say they will never answer the phone or help their team unless you have upgraded to the next product which I think is cruel.
And you are right they are quick to call you a wussy. I am out now and accomplished what I set out to do. My credit card debt is gone. My student loan debt has been cut by 50%, I have money to fund my creative writing company.
Having to upgrade sucks in order to make money. Having to travel every 90 days sucks. I give it another 2 years before it starts to tank.
Their logic is that you are a wussy if you are not willing to invest your next months rent payment, sell your vehicle, or spend your grocery money on your next “hit” within the program. But wussy is a compliment compared to being told “you don’t love your family” if you don’t go all in.
These marketing tactics are truly putting folks into financial distress they should never be in and they are only investing this money so that their higher ups can go around bragging about their trips and their $1,000 pens they are buying.
Glad you came to your senses Maria.
Yes I did come to my senses. Once they “unleashed” the blog beast I knew my days were numbered. I could not see the value.
I did everything to help my team make money but most weren’t making any. I never told them I wouldn’t help them if they didn’t upgrade it felt wrong.
Other sponsors were telling me that I shouldn’t waste time on people who aren’t willing to invest in themselves.
Thank goodness I had a good sponsor otherwise I would have quit a long time ago.
It was easy for me to leave because I was not passionate about it anymore. I also knew my sponsor would receive my team and they would be in good hands.
I give it two years because its already starting to crumble. When they launched the blog beast everyone’s income dropped and A LOT of people quit.
They are still launching products(Blogging Academy, High Ticket, and some traffic generator)left and right and people are still not making money.
It feels like they are doing that so they can get as much money out of it as possible.
Maria,
When you say :
This is also what I feel.
There sure is a lot of energy being placed into slamming a company that has create 70 million dollars in commission for it affiliates. No one that has succeeded with this company is on here complaining…. funny. I’ve been marketing online for the last year or so and their “NON_PRODUCTS” have helped me market other things as well. I see at least 3 people on this string change thier mind and not join because of reading this article….. you could be hurting thier future, not helping…. How do you know this company would be a good fit for them? Not sure is you write positive articles as well, but I’d highly suggest that, instead of this slander. Much love to ya and you have the right to write. You just sound mad, like you failed at the biz and now want to slam it.
Would love to see some of these “non products” you are promoting Stephen. And let me remind you, just because a company is earning money does not prove the legitimacy or the ethics of that given company. If you want to read a recent example of this, check out the ZeekRewards story (hint, they made way more than Empower Network does), which by the way, many of the current Empower Network members were part of. I guess when you are involved in one ponzi style program, the most natural step is to move to another one.
And the only thing I am mad at is the fact that people are getting ripped off, you don’t have to look any further than the 100’s of comments below to realize this. Hopefully one day you come to your sense and find your moral ground, because if you are currently pushing others into this program you have lost your sense of ethics.
Just had a look back to June of last year to confirm.
You don’t post any comments that rebut what you have to say. I replied twice on or about June 14, 2013 and neither post was ever published.
Still have ’em myself though.
This probably won’t be posted either.
Of course I do Bob, but you all say the exact same things. So instead of posting the same senseless banter 10 times, I post it ones and respond to it. If you have anything new to add, I would encourage you Reply to this and I will be more than happy to get back to you.
If you can morally and ethically justify what you are doing, then I will offer a calculated response though. Consider this first though. I am showing people how to get folks 2 free websites, free access to support from industry experts, access to 100’s of training modules, a one click website builder, fully functional SEO friend WordPress blogs (that rank) along with LIVE help…for FREE.
If you cannot offer a rebuttal that can honestly say why you are trying to charge people $5,000 + carrying costs of $140+ per month for something, then I am not interested in having an educated conversation about this.
Hi Kyle,
Thanks very much for your honest and informative review.
I am no longer in Empower Network and really there are so many bad things about the company and opportunity, that I wouldn’t know where to start. I certainly regret promoting it.
First of all, the products are absolutely terrible. In fact, they don’t deserve to be called training products at all. Most of the content is there simply to get you to upgrade, so it’s in their best interest for the training to be lacking. It’s laughable how the leaders speak of them being the best internet marketing products around when you could get far more value from a $17 JvZoo product.
Next, there is the Blogging platform that will only do harm to your online presence. It’s recently been updated but it’s still absolute terrible. In fact, people are complaining about it lots at the moment. There are glitches and lack of support that even the most die hard empower members are complaining about. Also, the whole thing about blogging from your mobile phone is such a cheap gimmick. Their tech people doesen’t know a single thing about SEO. In fact, their lead tech guy was preaching about using the “meta keywords” tag even though it hasn’t been useful for SEO for about a decade!
Those things are bad but what about the horrible cult-like atmosphere within the company. If you are not “all in”, expect to be intimidated with schoolyard insults like “wussie”. Oh, and whilst your watching or listening every day to the training, as they tell you to, you are being hypnotised to go “all in” with Empower and promote it till you die.
This company is an example of an overhyped program that is being sustained by an endless loop of hype and preying on the desperate.
The people who chime in here with support for Empower will eventually fall out of their love spell with it. Or, they will have their breakthrough and will have to sleep well at night knowing that they are making a lot of money promoting “pseudo products” that create more casualties than significant earners.
Just avoid it! There are some fantastic programs you can promote that have incredible value within the products, and don’t need to resort to pressure and intimidation to upgrade.
Thanks for sharing your experience Nick. You like many, came to their senses when you realized exactly what was entailed to become successful. The long and the short of it is the fact that in order to earn money, you literally have to take it out of the hands of someone else. This is through the invisible product structure and the requirement that you have to own the expensive products to earn money from selling those same products to others.
Going “all in” to most folks is more than just some purchase, it is all the money they have, or in many cases, putting them into debt. I have had many post stories of family members choosing going “all in” over buying their kids food. This is the ultimate form of unethical marketing, in particular when one of the coined marketing phrases is “You don’t love your family if you don’t go all in.”. This has an intrinsic effect on the way folks behave and is leading to some really awful situations.
Just so a FEW (lesson than 0.7%) can boast about their mortgaged mansions or the fact they can buy $1,000 pens. Ridiculous stuff.
I just got out of it myself. I was invited to join from a man who’s company had help me market my real estate business, and a man I deeply trusted. To be honest, I think he was also hypnotized by the hype and I believe he has made money. When I tried on advertise on facebook and craigslist, or my ads were blocked, even when I set up a forwarding url address, even when I set up a separate landing page.
If facebook and craigslist (and as posted earlier, youtube) has exerted so much effort to stop anyone from advertising about the Empower Network, then something must be wrong.
Eventually, the Empower Network will crash because of all the blacklisting. Those who are making money now, don’t spend it all, because EN will crash.
I would agree with your sentiments here Chris, if Facebook, Craigslist, and Youtube (Google) have made a collective effort to block a company, then you could probably make a case that the company and their respective members are doing something wrong/unethical.
I always tell folks that if a company has to sell their product on something other than the product itself (hype, a falsified rags to riches story, big oversized paychecks), it is one of my biggest indicators of a scam. Thanks for offering your insights and feedback Chris.
I run an advertising network and I truly hate the empower network. This company is what gives real affiliates a bad name. They sully this industry with their pseudo-affiliate garbage and bash anyone who doesn’t immediately buy into the scam. There is NO product and it all amounts to an army of brain dead zombies trying to infect everyone around them. The problem is that people have become so obsessed with materialism that they will believe anything to keep their “hopes” up. They implants ideas of driving a Ferrari and owning an island. Money is out there to be made, but it doesn’t come easy people.
I think that your analogy is on par with what is going on. Based on the rhetoric from many of the brainwashed folks that have commented here (they all spout the same jargon), it is one brainwashed person, inviting another into the system, brainwashing them and then getting them to do the same thing. Unfortunately they are not getting a real education and the #1 point they are trying to sell each other is that it is all about “motivation”.
I guess it is. Motivating each other to buy the “all in” products at any cost to their livelihoods and to suck others into the program. The vicious cycle then continues.
I like many people out there invested in the $25 level thinking that that is what I was going to need to build a business. I like many people was greased and buttered up until I ended up selling some of my heirlooms to invest into this program.
Then it happened. I caught my sponsor red handed talking about their referrals with one of the main people in empower.
They said “just get them all in, that’s where the money is…who cares how they have to do it, get them to do it.”
To some $5,000 may not be a lot, but to many it is more than they can afford. I lost everything I owned. I sold my coin collection my grandfather gave me just to get that last $1,000 so I could get all in.
Now what I am left with. A feeling that my sponsor is laughing at me, I am the fool. I invested in this program and they used me they used me for my money. Now they are happy with me, they move onto their next victim.
I just want everyone to know that is considering joining this program that if you are not ready to spend money and buy all the products or attend every one of the hype events, you will be shunned. This is an awful company that played my heartstrings to get me to invest money i didn’t have.
Also everyone I talked to at the last Miami conference was not making any money. They were all just pumped it was like a brainwashing event trying to make it ok and to ease the pain of spending all this money on what are at the end of the day totally bogus products.
Please i beg you please do not join this program. I know they say you don’t care about your family if you don’t go all in but if you care about your family and your future you will not join. None of the normal people I talked to at the event had made their money back, not even close and the reason is that it required you to ruin other peoples lives to get your money.
I have no idea what to do now but empower network left me with depression.
Another great article and great comeback to your critic Kyle. You are spot on. I narrowly avoided EN..I actually got to signup because I was able to do a trial on a credit card site which of course would have cost me even MORE money if I hadn’t cancelled. You have to want to do all these trial programs and it’s a real waste of time and money from what I saw. I didn’t think “scam” right away because the two folks I spoke to who were in it were all positive about it..but it didn’t feel right..I would like to share this article but use it as a tool to recruit. Is that cool or should I just endeavor to write my own and use that?
I always suggest that you follow your instinct. If it doesn’t feel right, chances are it probably isn’t. Feel free to reference this post if you want, completely up to you Suzanne. It is great to hear you have moved on and I wish you all the success in the future going forward.
When watching the video Dave tells about how he took his father on vacation to Colorado and bought his mother a vehicle I became very suspicious. If this was so easy and such a great business then why weren’t his parents both making tons of money with the system? Glad I read the article and many of the responses.
Not everyone’s parents “get it” (this Internet thing), so I don’t think it is a fair to make assumptions that they would be rich somehow because their son or daughter would be successful at something. I know most professional athletes have very normal parents that are living middle class lives prior to their son/daughters windfall.
What I do find disturbing is the fact that people are TOLD to sell their vehicles and sacrifice their vacations in order to go ALL IN to this program. People spend their last dollar…even in some cases, neglect their childrens needs in order to pay into this program. That is where the money is coming to fund the folks in the upper echelon of the scheme to buy their families cars and trips. The nature of a pyramid style program. Lots of people have to lose their shirts in order for someone to have 100’s of shirts.
Now I see this is a scam, I know know there is no product and I will no buying into the scam. thanks for opening my eyes
Kyle,
I just wanted to say thank you for this much needed insight into what EN really is all about and I hope it is read by everyone who is thinking of joining. I know I will share it far and wide. Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences too, people need to know this information.
I don’t have anything to share that hasn’t already been said, but I do advise people to go with your gut instincts.
I am so glad I did.
I was flooded with people trying to get me to join their team and asked if I really wanted success or not, that only serious entrepreneurs get what it takes to live a life of freedom and prosperity and if I wasn’t serious, or willing to “go all in”, then I will be a loser in life…yada yada yada. Who does this? I seriously thought about joining and maybe I was missing an opportunity, but every time I listened to a call or asked a question, I felt gross and had that nagging doubt.
I once asked someone, who was all in and who I thought had integrity and would be honest with me, if she truly thought a person living paycheck to paycheck should risk “going all in” and really be able to earn a decent living from this and what was the value I would be providing others by doing so. She couldn’t answer me. I got the same pitch back in her response and I instantly knew there was no value and the only value would be the money I would have to steal from others to pay myself. Nope. Not for me.
I hope it is shut down soon and I hope people stop believing the lie they are selling.
Ha, for not having much to comment on, I said quite a bit!
You are a smart Carol and going with your gut allowed you to realize what is really going on here. Those that are making others “go broke” by ruthlessly promoting the all-in option cannot feel good about themselves at the end of the day knowing that they have just forced another person on the streets. Anyone with an ounce of ethics and morals eventually realizes what they are doing to others and moves on and apologizes to all of the people they ruthlessly had to convince that EN was the way out.
The program is about motivating others to get into the program, and then continuing to do that in a ponzi like fashion. Like other programs like this, it relies on an influx of new members in order for the model to sustain itself, or in other words, new people to get sucked in and abused by the shameless promotions. Wussy, You don’t love your family, along with telling folks they don’t “have it” if they don’t drop $5,000 is ridiculous.
Thanks for posting your story, it is far too similar to almost every other story that comes in about this program.
I must disagree with Kyle because his article is rather prejudiced and ignorant.
I will not touch all the points of this corrupted article.
No Product? There is a product and this product is called “knowledge”. When you go to university what you get there? I spend more than $40,000 to get a law degree and complete the Bar.
So I got two diplomas/certificates without any diamonds or gold on it for the price that I spent 🙂 What I really got is the knowledge that makes me money and saved a lot of money in tricky situations.
So I paid for the knowledge and skills that I developed within me.
So the knowledge and application of it is the key!
People pay a lot of money to be present at the seminars by motivational multi-millionaire speakers, businessman etc to get what? To get the knowledge that will make a lot of difference in your life if you correctly apply this knowledge.
Kyle said that EN is pyramid. No it is NOT. It is a single level marketing. I recently watched video about it where Dave Wood explains this clearly.
So you get commission directly from a person who bought the product. However, you also get just once a commission from their second, fourth and sixth sale. Thereafter, you get their every fifth commission. Why is that? The reason behind it is to help others to get on track if they wish to be an affiliate. Nowadays a lot of people either selfish or very busy. So unless a person gets from you something they are not really interested in helping you. This is the harsh reality in any business. However, not all people are like that. Thanks God!
So in reality you do not get any commission from other people’s sales, except those that are stated above. And yes, you can earn more money than those who are “above” you,i.e. those who sold you a product at the first place. So it is not an MLM pyramid.
Oh, forgot to mention that you get commission down the line only in the instance when the affiliate who sold any product does not have this product himself/herself. That’s why affiliates buy the products themselves when they see that they could earn commission, but failed.
Personally, I think this is right.
How many times salespeople tried to sell you things they do not own themselves due to the lack of quality or anything else? I never buy anything from somebody who does not want to have this product himself/herself.
For instance, if somebody tries to sell me Nokia, but himself uses iPhone. What my reaction should be? It is wrong. If I go to BMW dealership and the salesperson sings praises to all BMW’s but himself owns Audi, will I want to buy from him? I hope you see the point.
I joined EN through Big Idea Mastermind after a thorough research.
I get the knowledge that I needed in running my own business. Sometimes one idea can make a lot of difference in your life or business.
By the end of the day you do not have to promote EN “products” if you have something else to promote ex.your business, but if you do not have one, then why not when it is a genuine product that helps developing business and personality.
A lot of people out there are looking for this kind of product.
I found it and never regret.
Finally, Kyle it is very unethical to put dirt on somebody else’s product or business in order to promote your own. Unfortunately, this is exactly what you do.
Hey Gary,
Thanks for stopping by. Your arguments are very similar to everyone else that has been stung by this program. You are trying to quantify the fact that you have purchased too much for a product just so you could promote that product to others. You are also trying to quantify to yourself that it is OK to take money from people for your own benefit, which you know deep down inside the program is really about.
The difference. You have a degree. With EN you are buying into the product levels so you can promote those products to other unsuspecting folks (at your financial gain). It has nothing to do about acquiring knowledge, if that was the case you wouldn’t be spending $5,000+ on something of this nature.
Is there multi-levels within it? Yes. Are you required to promote the program to others to make money? Yes. You are part of an MLM, one that is based on the requirement of YOU to ruthlessly and unethically (although you are blinded to this) recruit people in your downline. Your sponsors though Gary, are the real ones making money off of you luring your friends and family into this program.
The reason you bought the product is so you could promote it to others though, not for some amazing information. It is a facade for what is really going on. Now it is your task to go and yell “go all-in” to all those you recruit at any cost. Often times it is at the cost of them losing their houses, vehicles, and not being able to put food on the table for their family. But that is OK right because you make money?! Makes no sense to anyone with morals.
If you did your research you would have discovered that this very person you joined through was charged with grand theft. If these are the people you like to associate with then you are in good company within your program. If you had no idea about this, then you should have a look at this news video. The media references him as a “con man” and unfortunately you are not only getting conned, you are conning others now Gary.
People are looking for opportunity. What you are giving them is not that. 97% of the people within the program will never earn their money back and your sole mission is to get people in the door, get them to go all-in, and then teach them to do the same to others. That’s it. This is not a business and if you think it is, you should definitely spend some time looking at REAL businesses out there. This is an MLM, but one in which is reliant on newcomers into the scheme to keep it running. Perhaps you may want to look this up on wikipedia, you are not going to like the famous “scheme” that is reference by this very definition.
Far from the truth. I am using my opinion the same way you are. I am offering people WAY more help and for free than you are offering for $5,000. If you were selling a car that was in great condition, and your neighbour was selling the same car but the engine was missing, would you not point that out to a prospective customer. Don’t you have the moral diligence to do this. That is my stance.
I wish all the best selling your hot air Gary, I hope at some point you do realize though what you are doing is not right in so many ways. The minute you remove yourself from the “crowd” you will gain some sensibility. I always say that a ridiculous discussion only make sense when you are in the company of idiocy, hence why it appears OK to you to rip people off. I hope I have offered some clarity into what you are really doing…from an an alternative and real perspective.
Yeah, Vick Strizheus another stand up guy. No Idea Masterscam more like:
http://ashcampbell.com/vick-strizheuz-big-idea-mastermind-scam/
Well, after reading this, I will NOT be joining…
Thank you for opening my eyes to the truth about this SCAM!!!
Probably a good move on your part Tonya. The $25 entrance point is just the start of the teeth that were about to get sunk into you. Before you know it they are going to be telling to you to spend $5,000 or you don’t love your family (no joke, that is their sales pitch).
If you need any help getting started online, I would be more than happy to help you do so in a proper and ethical way (and do so for free).
Most of the people on here sound broke and I would’t hire them to clean my dogs poop!
I think I’m going to sign up… If it’s that many haters on here, I think this empower thing might worth looking at.
When this many people are talking bad about you, something is good on the other side of the coin.
Thanks for valuable tips..
Nate.
p.s. If you don’t have haters in your life, you not doing nothing worth talking about.
That is the typical type of verbiage we have come to expect out of your crowd. I think that after reading this, most people will be glad that they are not part of Empower Network as they will not have to interact with people like yourself Nathan. You cannot fool anyone either, you would not speak like this if you were not already part of the scheme…
There is a difference between having haters and people being upset about being “taken” by a scam as well. Enjoy your journey and I hope for your sake you don’t push too many people to spend their life savings on information…or you are not going to have too many friends for too long. All the best nonetheless. 🙂
Thank you! I really mean thank you 😀 But not for stopping me to join this scammers paradise, but to finally find an article saying exactly what EN is all about!
Kyle, do I have your permission to “steal” some parts of your text, translate them and post on my scam reviews?
I am from Portugal and have a website (not fully operational yet), a facebook page and a blog where I study a few ways of making money online as well as I show some of the scams out there.
I have heard (read) about EN on a variety of places. There`s plenty of webpage results when you`re looking for online business. I must say I find EN personal websites (blogs) awful and screaming SCAM on every word and picture shown but, hey, that`s me! Probably most of people would be blown away with the perspective of siiting their arses on the couch, getting a laptop on their… lap and just make money!! (well it actually is possible, but with the right products/services as you stated).
As I said, I came across thousands of their ads. Everyday on facebook I have a sponsored had fro some EN rich dude taking a cruise or driving a sports car!
Always wanted to understand how they worked (already knew they`re Ponzi f***ers) but the only way to dig deeper would be actually get in to the “cult” something that I always told myself “hell no – I won`t pay in order to get paid”! and thanks to you I have a pretty good insight of how they have their scheme running!
So, may I still a few parts of this test to write my own review? I will quote you, of course!
I am also planning on getting interested on EN so I can get in touch with someone, make him answer a few question and they add it to my review!
And, as a curiosity, in Portugal there`s a big group of EN “mentors”. They are so…. hmmm… (what can I say besides “stupid”?)nevermind… what I want to say is that the name of their group sums up what hey really are… and that is:
“LAZY MILLIONAIRES LEAGUE”!!!
PS – Sorry fo my english!
Best regards!
First off, your English is awesome Rui! I think that the agenda of this program is obvious to most people, but sometimes the desire to achieve success and earn more money overshadows our logic. The EN program is sold not on what it is, rather on the falsified stories behind the people within it.
They sink their teeth in the very emotion that is driving people to purchase and using language like “You Don’t Love Your Family if you don’t go all in” has a profound impact on those that love their family and want the best for them. It is sickening and anyone with an ounce of morals can appreciate that.
Anyone selling any program based on a fancy car, a big house or a “cruise” is doing so because their actual product lacks substance. This is happening industry wide and is quite commonplace unfortunately.
Dude Empower is now launching a $10,000 product to their all-in products. Things just went from bad to worse. $10,000!
Enough said, I hope these losers are taken out by the authorities.
It is called High Ticket Academy if you want to look it up. You might also want to add it to your review.
I just join the WA thing too, will be checking it out. Thanks. Bruno
Ouch, $10,000. High Ticket Academy is right, perhaps Over Priced Academy is more appropriate. I wonder how many people are going to lose their homes for this one. I hope people aren’t so foolish to get sucked into this one as well.
But I suppose unless you invest into this program, they are going to use their favorite phrase “You don’t love your family if you don’t go all in”.
Damn i just got involved with these folks!
Hi everyone
I’m not a member on here so thought I’d reply to Bruno’s post. Kyle, can I just say first off how impressed I am both with your review and your clear knowledge, experience, reasoned arguemt and willingness to inform and help people out on here.
This will probably be longer than I want it to be, but I tend to type a lot and although I have a lot to say, I just want to boil it down to a few things.
I was in EN up until last week for over 14 months. I never made a single sale in that time (I never had the money to get even the Inner Circle membership let alone the higher ticket packages). It was my first experience of trying to do any kind of marketing online or make money and I knew that it would be a massive learning curve. I only managed to attend one event back in Denver where they talked about releasing ENv2 (which turned into a lemon and a half). I was despite one or two nagging thoughts about them on the whole, an avid EN fan and this was based partly on some of the genuine people who I’ve made friends with since.
So I will say this; outside of all the money I spent on EN and marketing and going to that event etc, I never really ‘lost’ in my opinion because I DID get something out of it and I learned some lessons and became wiser because of it. And after all, isn’t that what life is all about, right? I also got some value from some of the calls too and even one or two of the member hangouts I’ve been on.
However…..
As I said above, I always had a couple of things eat away at me if you will for the longest time. One of these was that a good friend of mine now who I met through EN and Facebook, told me that David Wood personally told her at an event that she should not be doing hangouts each week on Youtube which she and her husband used to do every single Tuesday night to help out their team as well as anyone who just wanted to watch outside of that, unless those people on the hangout were earning a MINIMUM of $30,000. Now when I think back on this it quite frankly disgusts and shocks me even more at the unbelievable arrogance displayed by the co-owner. Do you mean to tell me that an owner of a network marketing company would be that indignant and put out by someone who is making HIM money each week, wanting to reach out and help their team to be successful too? Of course, this would go in with Mr Wood’s strict policy of if you’re not ‘all in’ and producing large numbers, then I ain’t gonna help ya/got no time for you.
To be honest, just reading some of the posts underneath from either former members or people who have pointed out about the tiny fraction of HUGE earners in the company, I don’t feel the need to rehash this stuff. For those of you who have heard Dave and Dave speak before, you know from their own mouths they said that they started the company with the idea of helping their team succeed. Yes. Their TEAM. A team of already experienced and mostly very successful marketers, super eager and blessed to be in a room of 80 people or less, all ready to join a brand new company that as we know, very quickly went on to huge success. Anyone that lucky enough to have been in that room, even someone with zero list for example, was only ever going to come out smelling of roses.
Now, some of you reading this (maybe you’re one of the rabid EN fanboys or girls) may well be already saying “Err, so what about the people who signed up like, 5 months ago and are doing great then, huh?!”. Well, again, those who have big lists and/or are successful and experienced marketers will MOST LIKELY see a level of success, probably even falling into the tiny bracket of people earning over $1000 or more a month. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t fit that description coming in and making even a couple of basic sales at $25. And some of these people worked their asses off and spent a lot of money to do it. When you have tens of thousands of other people in the same boat, trying to do the same thing and pretty much all flailing and flailing, what else would you expect?
I absolutely agree that success in ANY field like this takes a lot of work, determination, focus and learning new skills to succeed. And I will be the first to hold my hand up and say that I went somewhat lack the last 6 months because I was busy elsewhere and had some family health problems to contend with. But the more I have stepped back and looked at the bigger picture of EN and seen and heard many things, most on good faith from intelligent, reasonable and reliable sources (one being a top earner in EN who told me that he stopped promoting because of personal reasons with the leaders and how he didn’t like how the people underneath were struggling big time, DESPITE some of the claims of them supposedly doing well), the more I realise that I was just drinking the EN Kool Aid for too long and ignoring some of the glaring issues that were staring me right in the face.
The final straw for me really was a hangout the 2 Dave’s did last month that promised to be typically ‘epic’ and that if I loved my family (UGHHH where they f*** do they get off using that shameless bully boy buzz word garbage) I would be in attendance. Well I had to watch the replay because I was out, but for anyone who saw it, it was them explaining about why Dave Wood had fallen off the map of late (yeah, I know why now because he cheated on his wife and knocked a girl up which naturally, he omitted that from his teary-eyed speech – more on that in a minute) and how they knew ENV2 was a bomb and that retention rates were dropping quite a bit etc. Of course, in amongst all this we get to hear more ‘hilarious’ stories because every story they say is apparently the most ‘hilarious’ thing ever and it never actually is.
But then it went serious as Dave Wood started to visibly cry and he talked about how he was getting divorced and gave a heartfelt shout out to those people in his circle who really lifted him up at such a bad time in his life. All stirring stuff, even got me slightly emotional too (oh they are MASTERS at this I can assure you, NLP experts to the core). And then the stirring almost stream of conscious diatribe that Dave Wood does so well about how the next EN event in Miami is the most important and biggest event they will ever do (like every single event before is the biggest and best one ever and cannot be missed) and that everyone should buy not just one but THREE tickets to Miami MINIMUM (because if you love your family, you will bring ’em along!) in fact, buy TEN tickets! Get all of your team there….and right now there’s someone sitting on this hangout and he’s making a decision to go all in RIGHT NOW and he’s pulling his wallet out RIGHT NOW because he wants to go forward and step into his power NOW by deciding to go all in not just financially but spiritually and emotionally (another key catch phrase from usually David Sharpe).
At this point in the hangout…….I went from feeling almost moved and thinking that “You know what? YEAH! I’m with EN all the way! Sure, I don’t happen to have around 2 grand to go to Miami all the way from the UK, but I’m with you Dave and Dave! let’s do this thing!”…………to “Heyyyyyyy! WTF just happened?! Did you just go from being almost cut up to the point of breaking down to babbling more NLP related pitching knowing that someone out there is so already moved too that they will pull that credit card out and go all in like their life depends on it?! I’m calling BULLSHITTTTTTTTTTTTTT!”
And then it hit me that this wasn’t the first time I’d seen this happen, but rather multiple times (for those of you who were in Denver last year for example will know they have everyone flock to the stage who will go all in once they’ve pumped them up even more by jumping and carrying on).
And that’s the moment when I made MY decision to go ‘all out’ and quit my membership. Don’t forget btw, kids that $25 basic membership is more $45 because everyone gets into EN to make money as an affiliate, RARELY is it just as a customer and that you can also add on having an autoresponder (another $20 for Aweber which is what I had) plus money spent on solo ads (solo ad vendors hate EN ads btw and for good reason) plus money spent for marketing, plus money needed to go the events and of course, it’s time to sell the furniture you use and the clothes off your back to go up, up, up the higher ticket chain for products that quite frankly (and this is going just from a good friend of mine who went all in), aren’t worth the money for what you get.
I’ve gone on longer than I wanted too, but I just wanted to again, thank Kyle and indeed everyone else who has put forth their accounts and their experiences and to say to anyone who is looking to join EN – think long and hard about joining and weigh up everything as best as possible. Especially from reading what Kyle has talked about with regards to what you are actually getting compared to what WA offer. And no, I’m not a member of WA although I may well take a look sometime 🙂
I can’t tell you how great it feels to have got out of that cult (and make no mistake, it IS a cult). The owners even laughingly refer to people calling it cultish, but it is. I’ve seen how people talk about them and write about them with unwavering enthusiasm and love, yet if you ask them how they are doing financially and if they get the proper help and training and support they need from their sponsors and associates, the reality is much different from the fantasy they paint. There ARE people who are killing it with EN but there are are even MORE who aren’t even covering their basic membership ONCE let alone every month. I liken my experience with EN to standing an inch away in front of a picture and then taking a step back and then another and then another until I can see the whole thing for what it is. And frankly, I don’t really like what I see at all.
*inhales deeply Ahhhhhhhh! Feels so good to be me again 🙂
Peace and best of luck and success to you all and if you’re in EN and doing well? Hats off to you. I just hope that if EN is ever exposed for what it looks like to be and that it all comes crashing down, I just hope you don’t lose out TOO much. There are some great members in this program and some who I am proud to call good friends of mine after all.
Steve
P.S. Btw, I’m not sure if I am allowed to post links in here but if I am, check out a great video review by a former all in member about why he not only left EN, but also why he believe it to be dangerous too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QDpsOkTB6w
EN has no real value. They are also quick at receiving payment from subscribers but when comes to paying out commission, it takes ages and they actually eat up the commission with holding period, processing fees, rejection fees etc. What you will receive is only probably at most 60-70% of your entitled commission. EN is just a SCAM.
Most people never earn their money back (as in over 95%) and that is indicated directly on their website.
Thanks for your post Steve, I am sure your experience will help many. Glad you are back to feeling yourself and you are a talented writer in my humble opinion. All the best to you!
Hey Carol, thanks very much for the compliment, much appreciated!
I really didn’t mean to go on for so long, but I guess it had built up a lot over the many months and every day that I’m out of that crap-fest, the more ‘normal’ and reasoned I feel again! 😀
Hey Kyle, this post made me smile (and laugh) because I was once a victim of empower scam. Their program is quite expensive and after I joined them, nobody was teaching me just what to do to make money. They just squeezed cash from me! The first time I logged into my personal empower network blog, I was shocked to see that it’s just another wordpress blog with a seo-optimizing widget and nothing more. And so, I said to myself, “Is this what I am getting from my cash? Hey, I can just have this simple platform for my personal WordPress blog without joining EN and have the least overhead possible.”
You can get much better, much more powerful, and websites that give you control to promote whatever you like for FREE! Also the EN blogs as you likely found are geared towards promoting Empower. If you wanted to promote your own niche or take an idea of yours online, think again. If you are in Empower and not promoting Empower, you are not going to be treated well…that is the only reason this scheme continues.
People join the opportunity for the purpose of promoting the opportunity to others (although they are unaware of this when they join). The more people you can take money from, the better you do.
I just reported these fools to the FTC and I hope others will follow me in my attempt to bring this epic scam down. My story with them is probably the same as most people, but since you got a good discussion going on here I thought I would offer my thoughts.
First, I joined with the intention of spending the $25 they claimed would get me rolling. Never once was I told about what I was getting into.
Well, silly me, this was followed by an additional 19 per month, $100 per month, $5,000 one time because out of a senseless act, they told me that if I didn’t buy all the stuff I didn’t love my family. This is how they get you to buy stuff also known as going ‘all in’.
I am a single mom and this hurt to the core. When someone tells you that you don’t love your family, I started crying…I felt guilty, I spent money that I should have been spending on my daughter. I feel like horrible person for doing this, but Empower network seems to take normal people and someone turn them into horrible ones. I didn’t like who I as becoming. I found myself trying to recruit my friends into this just so I could make a buck.
well…I am just waiting on my credit card company to see if I can get this money back from Empower Network. They can give me my money back for the motivational products they shoved down my throat.
A few other things that you should know about this program:
*They owners have been caught in a lie about their stories of rags to riches to sell the program. They weren’t poor. You will notice they never talk about their product within their marketing, because they are bogus.
*Several of the top sponsors have criminal records for fraud. How appropriate. I got ripped off personally by Vick in the past.
*The owner cheated on his wife and got another girl pregnant and is now with that girl. He brags about it. To a single mom like me, I find this so disgusting.
*Their top sponsors all met and had a secret agreement before the program even started.
*Recently some top affiliates have been calling out the David’s for stealing affiliate income.
I don’t want to use more words than I should here so I will end it. I have been taken by this company and you should read what everyone is saying here about them.
PS. Report them to the FTC if you have had a negative experience with this program.
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/#&panel1-6
Please post this too Kyle, I want people to know my story.
Sarah
So sorry to hear about you and even more so about the fact that they used the “you don’t love your family” approach. It is usually that one or they call you a wussy and worthless if you don’t buy into their program.
I am even more sorry that you ended up feeling bad about yourself as a result. You sound like a wonderful person and I am glad you came to your senses here and it sounds like you have turned a corner. I appreciate you bringing your story to the attention of others here within my EN review so they can make a more educated decision based off of others experiences.
I wish you all the best and if you ever need a hand getting things headed in the right direction (in respect to an online business) I would be more than happy to help you out for free.
I was on there as an affiliate and you all are right, when your not making your sponsors any money your so called support system fall thru the cracks. They had me convinced that I can promote the business I already within EN and before I knew it, I was no longer promoting my previous business I was forced into promoting EN and getting NO WHERE FAST!
I signed up one guy from Chicago and I felt really awful about it because I really had no idea what I was trying to convince him to buy I just new that he should buy it until I just couldn’t do any longer. So that was my only and I convinced him to cancel and get his money back which he did.
Now my problem is the card I registered with EN no longer works and they’re saying my account is in “shut down status” I shouldn’t have anything to worry about right??? They can’t get anything from the card, or hopefully have some magically way to bill me.
It sounds like you are a grounded individual Sade, unfortunately for every person out there like you that “feels bad” about ripping others off, there is a vulture within EN that continues to generate revenue by convincing others that if they buy $5,000 worth of info products their life is going to magically change.
Sorry to hear that you got into this program with the intention to promote your own business with no luck. The program at EN is about promoting EN to others, that is it. If you don’t, you are going to hear about it from your sponsors or get no support as you suggestions. If you ever need a hand with your current business, I would be more than happy to help you out and get you rolling in the right direction for no cost Sade.
Thanks for sharing your story and I wish you nothing but success going forward. You deserve it!
PS. If your credit card no longer works, you have nothing to worry about (thankfully)
Hey Kyle,
I just spent about an hour reading your post on EN and then all the comments. I’m furious. I was lured into this program several…manipulated and taken advantage of…I am so disgusted they are still ripping folks off.
They have some new thing coming out that is going to be pushing more overpriced products, if you thought that their $3,500 course was ridiculous, just wait…
Thanks for bringing exposure to a program than needs to be rid from the Internet forever.
More expensive products…just as people thought they were done spending at $5,000 + $145 per month with Empower, they are looking into more ways to make money off of them through overpriced information.
Sorry to hear about your situation Donnie, you are not alone but you have better days ahead now that you are free of a program that appears to only have “making more money” as their key interest.