Meet Paul Fredrickson, Author and Researcher

Paul Fredrickson has been researching multilevel marketing for 13 years. His research indicates that virtually all MLM companies including Shaklee and Herbalife, operate much the same way as a pyramid scheme. His focus is on Shaklee reviews, which the company itself appears to design. His research shows that hundreds of fake review sites have been built by companies to block unbiased information from consumers and past participants. For more information, check out http://shakleemlmreviews.pyramidscheme.wiki.

1. What first got you interested in wanting to learn more about MLM companies?

My interest in MLM began as the result of my sister's involvement with Shaklee in 2013. Loretta is the loveliest person one could hope for in a sister, but I think the issue was that she naturally trusted people; we were raised by a Baptist minister in Illinois farm country. Our mother worked from home turning our small farm's produce into jams and flavored ciders to sell. So when a "friend" offered her a "business opportunity," she believed everything he claimed was true. The money would be fast, and there would be plenty of it. She was excited to start her own business.

It was a combination of Loretta's excitement over this investment coupled with her lack of any plan set off the alarm bells for me. I began to do Google searches for MLM experts including Jonathan Brand, Bob Fitzpatrick, and others. Mr. Brand was able to speak with me by phone briefly when I asked his advice about Loretta.

And I guess that was the first time I understood how organized fraud is allowed to dupe American consumers. Brand, Fitzpatrick, and Taylor shared the same expert opinion. They arrived at it independently of one another, and each of the top US pyramid scheme experts explained the exact same thing in various levels of detail. They top minds in MLM fraud explained that the members of US oversight committees in congress annually agree not protect US consumers from multilevel marketing fraud, but rather, to accept lobbying, meaning bribe money, from the central pyramid scheme lobby or Direct Selling Association aka the DSA. This is astounding to me still. I built the Shaklee products and MLM reviews sub-domain at pyramidscheme.wiki in order to test a theory that the American rule of law can be restored one day by the FTC or Federal Trade Commission.

2. When and why did you decide to set up your website?

I decided to set up the website after my sister lost the remainder of her college savings chasing the business opportunity. Of course she was chasing something that others could see didn't exist, and she was losing the money my father and mother always worked so hard to earn and put away for her. I was left with this sinking feeling which stemmed from a dark place, from the reality that despite having a physical office in Washington DC and a realistic logo on the letterhead used by its employees, the FTC was not and is not a legitimate consumer protection agency. The laws against pyramid schemes in Section 5 of Federal FTC law already makes Shaklee and Amway and 1000 other MLMs illegal. But known, named politians are taking money from the pyramid scheme lobby/DSA in return for allowing criminals to scam people like my sister out of their entire savings. She lost more than $10,000 since they brainwash victims to buy.

3. How can consumers tell the difference between real and fake reviews of MLM companies?

That's an easy one--thank you for that. If a review of an MLM company contains widget links or any links to MLM tools systems or ways to build your MLM downline, it is a scam. Leave the site, and try again to find a real MLM review. I have learned that all MLM companies want to manipulate Google into showing fakes high in the list for these specific searches:

"[MLM name] + products"
"[MLM name] + reviews"
"[MLM name] + complaints"
"[MLM name] + scam"

In other words, I had to make a website that came up high on the first page of results for the searches, "Shaklee products," "Shaklee reviews," "Shaklee complaints," and so on. So I did this, and now the site is getting tons of traffic. I have never seen one of my sites get so many visitors each day. I'm spreading the truth for free, and I'm doing it in memory of Loretta because I loved her very much. I always will in some ways--you know how family is. It's for life and her memory is with me wherever I go.

If an MLM review site suggests that more than 1% of the scheme's participants will earn back their initial investment or buy-in cost, it is a fake reviews site, so move on to the next. This is because Brand and Taylor have shown that more than 99% of MLM participants fail to make their investment back, and this statistic appears to be true of the MLM industry as a whole.

4. What can people do when searching on Google and elsewhere to find unbiased information, rather than information put out by the companies themselves?

This is a great question, although a slightly harder one to answer. It has an answer, though. If you suspect that information you're viewing online is biased, follow the links on the page to see if they try to sell you anything that would tend to compromise the author's credibility. If you see any site claiming that a company is not a scam, it is a fake. If you see any site that encourages you to join an MLM rather than run from all multilevel marketing, it is fake. This is rather simple to determine because all MLM companies are illegal pyramid scams. I have not seen one exception to that rule. Any site claiming the opposite is fake.

5. For someone who is looking to start a business (or join an established business as an independent consultant, etc), what would you suggest they do when it comes to researching business opportunities?

The first thing is to understand that the entire fraud industry is competing to come up high in Google for the search "business opportunity," so you have a breed or variety of scam that tries to imitate something very specific, "business opportunity." You will not have good luck searching Google for terms such as "income from home," "residual income," "home income," "be your own boss," and so on, because the SEO for these terms is rigged by about 1000 MLMs, all of which are fraudulent chain recruiting schemes.

So I suppose the best answer I have on how to tell the difference between a legitimate business opportunity and a fake is to keep in mind that:

1.All MLM "home business opportunities" are fakes. If it looks good and you find out it has anything to do with MLM, run away and warn your friends. It's a fake, just another MLM scam.

2. Look at the compensation plan. If it requires you to buy any products to qualify for commissions, it's a scam.

3. If the compensation plan requires that you use a different system of measurement for money, it's an MLM scam, run. For example, if you have to convert US dollars to "PV" or "Personal Volume Points," watch out: it's a scam. This is done so that participants get the illusion that they are spending "points." It works because the simple act of figuring out what you've spent vs. the commissions you've earned now requires decimal conversions between real currency and make believe company points. That makes it harder to realize that you're spending 80-$100 for every $15 you earn back in commissions--get it?

4. Look for unfamiliar pairing of nouns where each is capitalized. Jonathan Brand refers to this as proprietary (made up) language. If your compensation plan introduces a bunch of new capitalized nouns that have different, special meanings in the context of the comp plan, you have a scam. Examples include, "Team Bonus," "Diamond Leader," "Upline," "Downline," "Business Leader Pricing," "PV," "Point Value," or anything similarly made-up and ridiculous sounding, it is a scam. I hope this helps readers to make good choices down the road.

Thanks, Paul!

Meet Joe Orsak, Director of Marketing with Improve My Credit USA

Joe Orsak is Director of Marketing with Improve My Credit USA, the consumer-voted number one credit repair company in America, the consumer-voted number one credit repair company in Texas for four years running, and winner of the Houston award for excellence in customer service and marketing for three years running.

Joe provided answers to my interview questions in the form of a YouTube video, and you can also see the answers transcribed below.

1. What are a few reasons why someone would need to repair their credit?

Ya know, most often people discover that they need credit repair because they have been told "no" by somebody--because of a home loan, car loan, or maybe even a job promotion--and people find themselves in that situation of numerous reasons. Identity theft is huge: at least one in eight Americans will experience it. And sometimes it's just because of a financial strain of a situation--medical, divorce, that type of thing. In all of those situations, we always recommend speaking to a credit expert.

2. What are the major benefits of working with a credit repair company rather than doing it on your own?

Ya know, that's a good question. We often are asked that. And in fact, you can work on your own credit. We even have a great ebook on our website (ImproveMyCreditUSA.com), for free, that tells you how to do it. But, there's an old saying that goes, "You don't know what you don't know." Ya see, there's a little over three hundred laws that govern how the credit bureaus and creditors are required to report information on your credit. And if you're not familiar with those rules, then you just don't know what questions to ask when you're asking them to verify information as accurate on your credit report. So it makes it really challenging to move forward. Always work with a credit expert.

3. What are some of the misconceptions that people tend to have when it comes to credit?

Common misconceptions--wow, yes, all the time! In fact, there's a lot about credit that is counterintuitive. You do something that you think is what is going to help your credit, but in fact you could hurt your credit. For instance, dealing with collections. Older collections: when somebody decides that they want to deal with an older collections, and improve their score and they pay that collection, in fact it could cause a great deal of damage to your credit. There's tons of examples, and we just don't have enough video time of give them all, but yes, there's a lot that is counterintuitive that doesn't makes sense about how credit repair works.

4. Your company is based in Houston, but you help people all over the US. What is your most effective way to do this?

Ya know, we have a great office, and you can come visit us any time you want; we'd be happy to see you! But 99% of our business is done over the phone and through email. Once you become a client, we also have an online portal for you where you can monitor your progress 24/7. And if you ever have a question, you can go to our website and engage us through the chat support, or just pick up the phone; we'd be happy to talk to you.

5. Can you share some everyday tips that people can use to avoid running into difficulties with credit in the first place?

Credit tips--absolutely. In fact, we have a website called BetterCreditTips.com where I record all kind of videos and answer questions on the subject, but let me give you one right now. How you use your credit cards is critical in maintaining positive credit. So never carry a balance over 30%. You'll always wanna keep that balance low because it makes up 30% of your credit score. Thirty and thirty, easy to remember.

So we hope you found those answers helpful. And if you think you might have some credit issues, simply fill out the form on this page and we will give you a shout. We look forward to taking care of you.

Improve My Credit USA
(866)802-3470
info@ImproveMyCreditUSA.com
ImproveMyCreditUSA.com

Thanks, Joe!

A Blog about Health and Environmentally Friendly Products

In "how-to" articles about blogging, you'll generally be advised that a huge key to successful blogging is providing interesting and useful content. Suzanne Holt provides just this sort of content on her blog, littlegreencloth.com. She focuses on giving information about healthy consumer products as well as resources for natural methods for cleaning and personal care. For example, her recent posts include advice on natural ways to reduce your family's chances of being bitten by mosquitos, and a series of tips for promoting skin health by avoiding toxins in everyday products.

Suzanne is and Independent Norwex Sales Consultant and Executive Vice President Sales Leader for Norwex, and she's based out of Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota. Her blog includes information about the Norwex line as well. Personally, as a reader, I feel she does a good job of balancing information that's specific to Norwex with information that has broad application and isn't brand-specific; in other words, you will find useful information on her blog whether you're looking to buy (or sell) Norwex products or not.

Check out the category listings for previous posts along the left-hand margin of her blog. You'll find useful information on everything from kids and the environment to gluten-free living.

Meet Mohammed Shaker, Entrepreneur

Mohammed Shaker is an entrepreneur who launched Panda CashBack LLC last year. PandaCashBack.com is a rebate website that rewards shoppers with cash back for shopping online when they shop with affiliate partners. Panda Cash Back currently partners with over 2000 online retailers. Members can also get the latest coupons and offers for these stores as well as locate the best local deals in their city.

1. What inspired you to start Panda Cash Back?

I was always interested in helping people save money. When I was a student, I enjoyed the idea of student discounts, and I ended blogging about them, but I always felt I wanted to do more. I wanted to help people everywhere save money on their shopping without going through a lot of trouble (it sometimes takes hours for a user to find a legitimate coupon on a coupon website). I knew that rebates are a great way to save money, and so we established our website to help shoppers get rebates. We were also able to find a way to allow online shoppers to get the latest coupons directly from the merchants on our website. Our users now can enjoy both coupons and rebates without going through the trouble of lots of searching, or running the risk of using expired coupons.

2. In reading the "about us" page on your site, it seems to me that your company turns the concept of affiliate marketing into a profit-sharing model. Is this a fair way to describe how your site works, and what are some of the brands/companies you partner with?

That is true. Affiliate marketing has always been a one way street for affiliates to earn money. We are changing that trend. Most online shoppers are not aware that a single click can bring hundreds of dollars to an affiliate marketer.

We have more than two thousands partners, and they include big brand name stores in the USA like Macy's, GoDaddy, 6PM, and FTD, and we do have global partners as well.

3. Do consumers need to disclose any personal information to use your site?

We require a minimum amount information from our users: name, email, and payment information.

4. What has been the feedback/response you have received from consumers since you started your site a year ago?

Our feedback has been good since we first started because our priority is always customer service.

5. What suggestions do you have for people who want to get the most for their money when buying online?

Always check if a store has a coupon or offer on our website. On PandaCashBack, we provide our users with the latest coupons and offers. For the majority of the stores on your site, the user can both use coupons or offers and earn cash back.

Thanks, Mohammed!