Talk:ACN Inc./Archive 1

/Archive 2

Question

why was there a good page on ACN Inc. That talked about its controversial multi level marketing (aka pyramid scheme) business techniques, with such a low rate of success for employees, and now it is basicvally advertising? No other article on a company would be allowed to promote itself as the largest ANYTHING company in world. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.92.159.110 (talk • contribs) 18:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

if you keep deleting what i write about the company, wikipedia will more than likely take notice and force this article to have bare facts, which doesnt work in your favor. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.92.159.110 (talk • contribs) 09:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

i used to be a part of ACN and i hated it. I'm just not the type of person who likes bothering people,and it pretty much is a pyramid scheme —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.154.24.107 (talk • contribs) 09:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

First of all, understand that I know where you're coming from- I did a similar venture and hated my experience there. However, Wikipedia is not a soapbox, so your rants are better served on a blog. Now, if you can find verifiable sources for what you are contributing then you can put them in the article.-RomeW 07:40, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

crap,sorry.Won't happen again —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.154.24.217 (talk • contribs) 12:08, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

This article needs a heavy rewrite

Just browsing though the revision history seems to suggest this article is in dire need of attention. Both sides- anti- and pro-ACN- seem to have reverted this article several times so it ascribes solely to their views, and we can't have that here. Surely both sides can find sources to create a balanced article -RomeW 07:40, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

For those who are entirely ready devote themselves to their work, ACN is an incredibly honest business. Unfortunately for those who think that you can make something out of nothing than you havn't even began to live in the real world, where you must work in order to get paid. To those who believe that ACN was too difficult and quit, I'm sorry that'll you'll never reap the benefits that this company has to offer. Regardless of whether you think it isn't a good company only facts can decide that. It is a multi-million dollar company mentioned in INC magazine as well as Fortune. I ask you why would they merit a company that was completely hopeless and void of success.

SM

Well it is completely hopeless for those people that join the company now, maybe those that started the company and were part of the early adopters were relatively successful, but for those joining now, they are pretty much flushing their money down the drain, along with a good portion of their time. It is not a matter of devotion. It is impossible to be successful by being involved in a scheme such as ACN Inc. when it has reached market saturation and it must surely have done so in most developed countries in the world now. If it really was a successful business model, don't you think we would know more about the success rate of the individuals involved. If it was successful, surely they would publicize this information, as it would provide a great incentive to join. They should also publish the average income of those individuals that joined 1 year, 2 years, etc ago (including those that lost money and dropped out). Also what sort of legitimate scheme encourages people to recruit people into the scheme, knowing that 99% will fail and loose money and the other 1% will earn a very meager income? You must know 99% fail. Read my other comment to find out what would happen if people were actually successful (every atom in the universe would be involved in the scheme).

Oh and why does being mentioned in a magazine imply a successful business model? You will find an uncountable number of unsuccessful and/or dodgy businesses mentioned in both those magazines. It would not be very intelligent to invest a company purely because it was referenced in a well known magazine.

Also read http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html and tell me how it does not apply to ACN Inc.

Tristan.buckmaster

In response to the comments above, allow me to say this: I personally know several people who have earned the second highest paid position (out of seven) in the company in a matter of 1-2 years. The company started in 1993 and the people I'm speaking of joined in 2005. Perhaps you think ACN offers a "get rich" scheme, but that concept is devoid of thought and has little gravity. The owners themsleves have publicly stated that it is not. I 've heard that from their very mouths and not the mouths of indivdual representatives. Please don't begin to offer advice on something you don't know about. Also, if being mentioned in two of the most influencial finance magazines is not enough for you, perhaps the endorsement of Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki will be enough. Surely two of the most influential and succesful businessmen in the WORLD who have more of an idea of what they're talking about when it comes to businees than you or I would. Easiersaid3

You have failed to answer any of my questions. Please re-read my post and try to answer some. ACN is made up of network, so surely you must know many people in that network. I am sure you probably know a few people that have earnt some money from it, but I am sure you know 200 people for every one of them that have lost money and failed. It is also quite likely that you would exaggerate the success, as you are probably part of the scheme yourself and you want it to be successful. I have made my opinion clear about Donald's comments. It is funny that you use an endorsement by Robert Kiyosaki to support your claim ACN is not a great rich quick scheme. Robert is king of the get rich quick books! Thats how he made his money, he is a lousy business man / investor. Although he is great at writing best-seller books about how great he is at investing. Read the "Criticism and controversy" section of Robert Kiyosaki wiki.

211.28.215.68 01:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It is true that not everyone makes money in ACN. This however has nothing to do with the company itself. The system the ACN has designed is not to blame. The reason that people do not do well in ACN is due to their own faults. ACN does everything they can to help EVERY representative succeed. Trainings are held frequently to teach representative what they need to do to succeed. They are also taught at these trainings that succees sometimes takes a while and is not always immediate. If the representatives do not follow the instructions given at these trainings or simply don't attend the trainings then ACN cannot be held liable for their failure. It was the representative's fault alone and ACN is not to blame. Anyone that is coachable, has a good work ethic, and a long-term mindset can and will succeed in ACN. 208.187.220.2 19:50, 14 June 2007 (UTC)cy

That is simply not true and a lie. Every representative cannot succeed, simply because they are required to recruit at least 2 people. If everyone was to succeed the number of representatives would grow exponentially with time and very quickly they would run out of people to recruit. The system is to blame for this problem. Please stop going around spreading such blatant falsehoods. Anyway we should be discussing the wiki contents

211.28.215.68 04:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-NPOV

As discussed, the previous detailed ACN article has been removed with what is essentially advertising in the form of an "impressive" history of ACN's achievements. The old article included quite a bit about problems with ACN as perceived by some. Mduser63 04:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what happened. It used to be a good page. It became NPOV because it had both advocates and antagonistic views. Whoever deleted this is a moron, and I'm not smart enough to find out who did it, and don't care enough, but someone is a moron. Thank you moron. Dan 02:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Self promoting

The last few paragraphs sound very self promoting. Lines like: "We are honored to include..." don't sound very unbiased to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.116.137.10 (talk • contribs) 19 April 2007

Encyclopedic context

Prior lawsuits that have been dismissed years ago clearly do not qualify to be put in prominence in an encyclopedic context. Deleting this is not vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Louispgagne (talk • contribs) 00:05, 24 April 2007

If you do not want this lawsuit to be put in such prominence, then please add other information that is well sourced to supplement the content. Blanking wikis is considered vandalism. The information was reported in serveral large newspapers and was important at the time. Encyclopedias are not just for current information, but for that of the past. Tristan.buckmaster 00:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedic context

Tristan, you know like I know that ACN is the greatest opportunity today. Instead of trying to putting it down, which clearly you do not have the power to do so, try to do something useful with your life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Louispgagne (talk • contribs) 01:05, 24 April 2007

It is clear that you are involved in ACN and have a very biased view on the Company. Please behave on wikipedia, or I will seek action against you. Tristan.buckmaster 01:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Well Tristan, is it clear that you have either quit ACN or that you heard from others who have quit ACN and adopted their negativity so how can you say that YOUR opinions are unbaised? If you've never belonged to ACN and worked the way the company has designed you to work than you can have no viable basis for your opinoins.

No actually I have never being part of the scheme, I study mathematics, I am not that stupid. I do not know anyone that has been part of the scheme, although I do know someone that was contemplating joining and thankfully I talked him out of it. If we adopted your approach then surely only scientologists should write about Scientology, as everyone else would have no viable basis for their opinions.

Tristan.buckmaster 02:03, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedic context

Tristan, it's clear that it irritates you that many people will succeed with ACN regardless of your opinions and actions. A lawsuit that has been filed and dismissed is not to be put in prominence in an encyclopedic context more than the types of services that the company offers. It's an obvious and weak attempt at blackmailing the company. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Louispgagne (talk • contribs) 01:16, 24 April 2007

Why do you not write the types of services the company offers? You might want to however mention where the actual profit comes from, not just the income pools that have the most considerable costs (the telecommunications area of the company). Tristan.buckmaster 01:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry but you are wrong. I am simply making the wiki contain proper information, instead of advertising material for ACN. ANL like most other MLMs have far greater failure rate for participants than success, which I do not bother to mention on the article as I am sure you would object to informing people about the real nature of ACN. There is also no need to make claim that I am committing a criminal offence (black mail). Stick to the truth, without the spin and we can all be happy. Tristan.buckmaster 01:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Credibility

With backing such as Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki, Fortune Magazine (twice), Success from Home Magazine, Paul Pilzer etc... We do not care what a Tristan.Buckmaster may think of this company. Your opinion is worthless to us. People are not interested in your thoughts.

Information with a valid source is not necessarily encyclopedic. A case that has been filed and dismissed 3 years ago and clearly is written in a biased way against ACN to mislead others into thinking that the company is a pyramid scheme is not considered encyclopedic content. If for some reason that case needs to be included, then it should by no means whatsoever constitute 75% of the article. It should at most have a small reference to it near the end of the article.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 01:44, 24 April 2007 (talk • contribs) Louispgagne

Hahaha, you fail to mention that Donald Trump got PAID to support ACN Inc. I haven't heard of the other reports (got sources?) but I am sure they received compensation as well. I am sorry but I will have to report you now. If you want it to be a small reference, then you should write some of the article. I clearly stated that ACN Inc. was not found to be a pyramid scheme. You should also calm your tone a little, if you do not care what my option is, then why complain? I am sure people that are thinking of joining ACN Inc. would like to know it's history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 02:07, 24 April 2007 (talk • contribs) Tristan.buckmaster

Hey Tristan... I'd like to know where you read that Donald Trump got "PAID" to endorse the company cause unless you heard that straight from his mouth.. I'm pretty sure you made it up.

Not to mention that claiming that Donald Trump endorsed ACN soley because they paid him is not logical at all. Donald Trump is a multi BILLIONARE!! He does not care about whatever money ACN could offer him becaue he has way more than they do. What matters to Donald Trump more than anything is his name and reputation. If you had read his books you would know that Donald cares about Donald and he is NOT willing to put his name and reputation on the line simply to make a quick buck. The reason Donald Trump is endorsing ACN is because he knows it is a GREAT company and when ACN goes big he wants to be there to say "I told you so". Donald Trump DOES NOT attatch his name to ANYTHING without it being attatched to something larger in the future!

Pyramid scheme allegations

this pyramid scheme allegations in Australia is a case that has been dismissed. It is not relevant here. I kept deleting this due to its irrelevance in an encyclopedic context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Louispgagne (talk • contribs) 00:02, 24 April 2007

How is it irrelevant? It was a very important lawsuit that shut ACN down in Australia. The fact that it was reversed was mentioned quite clearly. Legal cases involving companies do constitute encyclopedic content, even if they are dismissed, especially when they close down the operations of a company. Please read other articles on other companies (try pharmaceutical or tobacco companies) and you will see this is considered encyclopedic content. Tristan.buckmaster 00:16, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Also note that this is the only information a news search on the company usually turns up. It was covered in many important Australian newspapers, such as The Age. Here is one such article http://www.theage.com.au/news/Breaking/ACN-avoids-pyramid-injunction/2004/11/26/1101219715017.html?from=moreStoriesTristan.buckmaster 00:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

If you happen to have some verifiable information, such as that of the lawsuit about ACN, then please go ahead and improve this wiki, as it is very brief. There does however seem little information about the company readibly available, other than advertising material by ACN, which is not suitable for publication on Wikipedia. Tristan.buckmaster 00:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I've moved the most recent conversation (24 April) to the bottom of the page to maintain the chronological order of discussions. No change have been made to the order of discussion. — ERcheck (talk) 02:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about? "ACN shut down in Australia" It's still there. Get your facts straight.

I just want everyone to know that ACN is perfectly legal. They have 3 former state atourneys general that make up their legal board. A "pyamid scheme" is only illegal when money is paid out without it being traded for products or services. In ACN no money is paid unless customers are aquired. AS to the organization of ACN being shaped in the form of a pyramid.. this is no different than any other traditional business. Any corporation will have someone at the top and then the levels get larger as they go down. EVERY major company is organized this way!! 71.199.13.1 00:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)cy

The difference is the number of levels. A traditional business has a set number of level, 5, 6, 7, depending on the size of the business. The last level is of course the customers, which is a huge level compared to the rest of the levels. So at the bottom of the bottom is just short of flattens out like this:

                         O
                        OOO
                       OOOOO
                      OOOOOOO
                     OOOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

(I don't know how to get this to display properly in wikipedia)

ACN keeps it's pyramid shape:

                           *
                          ***
                         *****
                        *******
                       *********
                      ***********
                     *************

Tristan.buckmaster 02:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

What is your point? It was never stated that ACN does not have a pyramid shape. The point is that ACN is perfectly legal in every and all aspects. 208.187.220.2 19:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)cy

Opening sentence source

Personally, I don't have any opinion on if it is referred to as "a Multi-level marketing (MLM) company" or "direct-selling telecommunications-based company"... but DMOZ isn't a valid source for any text. It's a volunteer edited database; that is akin to using Wikipedia to source itself. Find a better source.--Isotope23 17:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Please Unprotect the page or change the current version

The ACN article now contains 75% of its bodytext discussing a pyramid scheme court case that has been filed and dismissed years ago in a foreign country. This should in no circumstances make up 75% of the article as it is aiming to discredit the company. Unprotect the page or change the current version. At most, a small reference should be given to the australian case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.68.28.221 (talk • contribs) 04:57, 25 April 2007

Please point out articles written about ACN Inc. by media that has wide circulation that does not involve the court case in Australia. That is the only articles I can find about ACN Inc. by mass media. The fact is ACN Inc. is a very small telco company and that is the reason it does not receive larger coverage. The only interesting thing about the company is that it's structure is very similar to a Pyramid scheme. Please do the mathematics. Let us assume 70% of revenue comes from it's telco business and 30% from registration and other costs to "independent representatives". Now let us make the generous assumption that it gets 10% commission goes to the "independent representatives" from it's telco business. That means that only 23% of the representatives income comes from it's telco business. (since there is not much cost in the other side of the business) We both know if it was not for it having the telco business it would be considered a pyramid scheme, although the legitimate accounts for so little of the representatives income. The problem is you see is that of the incredibly representatives per telco customer. A legitimate company cannot operate if all its customers are members of the company, it just doesn't work. So basically ACN Inc. is just uses a legal loop hole so that it is not classified legally as a pyramid scheme. Unless you are near the top of ACN Inc. I suggest you find a better way to spend your time, as it is likely you are earning very little money and you would be better off getting a proper job and investing in the stock market, than supporting a morally corrupt company. Tristan.buckmaster 05:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

References

"Tapping the Network," Smart Business Detroit seems not to be a trustworthy reference. The credited author does not list Small Business Detroit as one of her credits on her website and the start date of the company is wrong. The business started in 1992 (http://search.detroit.bbb.org/nis/newsearch2.asp?ID=1&ComID=0332000028000808), not 1993 as reported. The magazine is also in very small distribution and it seems highly likely that the article was simply a thinly veiled paid advertisement rather than a proper article. Tristan.buckmaster 06:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Smart Business Detroit may not be a largely circulated magazine but ACN has been featured in plenty of other credible magazines. One of which is Success From Home magazine. This is a magazine that is published and sold nation wide. ACN is not just mentioned in this magazine but has been FEATURED.. twice!! Success From Home Magazine believes that ACN is such a great company that they have dedicated 2 entire editions of the magazine to tell people about ACN 208.187.220.2 21:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)cy

They would, going by the name "Success from Home", they would love these type become "financially independent" schemes. These sort of magazines is why the big heads of all these companies are so rich, because a lot of theme make most of there money from selling propaganda that claims to help them be successful in these schemes. One of the founders of Amway said he maid 2/3 of his money from such 'tools'.

Tristan.buckmaster 02:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a Message

I just want to warn people who try to discredit ACN that you guys will not succeed. It may irritate you, but ACN will help thousands of people to reach financial independence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Louispgagne (talk • contribs) 05:40, 25 April 2007

If you have achieved financial independence, then surely you do not need to defend ACN, since by definition your finance is independent to your actions, you should be retired by now, living on a private island.......... :-) Tristan.buckmaster 06:21, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Tristan.. Are you wealthy? Seriously.. Are you financially set for the rest of your life? If you quit your job today, would you have no financial worries in the future? Who are you? Seriously.. Who the heck are you? No one! ACN is backed by people who have been in the direct marketing field for longer than you've be been alive. George Zalucki for instance. ACN's legal team backed by two former attorney generals. The co-founders have years of experience in business and network marketing. ACN is filled with doctors and lawers and loads of already successful people who saw that value in being apart of it. I've met them and they are some of the most genuine people of my acquaintance. So tell me.. who are you? You have a bachelor.. in math? Oh my gosh! I'm sorry, I didn't realize who I was talking to.. No one outside of this webpage even knows or cares who you are, excluding maybe your mother and even that might be doubtful. You are not financially set, so why the heck should I take advice from you about being financially free? You are simply air. A few words written in the nothing of cyberspace. Why don't you lie out your credibility? What makes you so great that we should listen to your advice regarding.. anything?! You say the company is immoral and yet you say you have a neutral opinion on the matter? Are you kidding? The word immoral is an opinionated. You're a phony. You are no better those the ill-educated people who tear at others' religions. You have no faith or hope in anything, whether you claim to or not, and so you feel the need to destroy the hopes of others. You're nothing. And that's what pisses you off the most.. Cause no one cares about the information you put out in the world. ACN is an incredible company. People don't fail in ACN. They quit. Easiersaid3

Don't you think you are being slightly hypocritical? I have no clue who you are. I do not see huge advertisements for new "Easiersaid3" drinks or books with that alias. Obviously if you quit working, you would have no financial worries. Then stop trying to defend ACN! You are financially independent. You do not need to defend them as by definition your financial well being is independent of their wealth. Also why do you believe personal attacks on people is a good method of getting your opinion across? If I am wrong with my opinions then you should answer my questions, which you have failed to do on numerous occasions, instead of dodging them by quoting ACN propaganda. Oh and btw I earnt $10 000AU (which is not bad considering I am only 22) last year from shares, how much did you earn from ACN? I did not have to do any work for that money, as I brought the shares the previous year. How much time do you waste on ACN?

Tristan.buckmaster 02:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey

Tristan, you have suppressed dreams. You work at a dead-end job. you feel the need to try to bring down others to your level.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Louispgagne (talk • contribs) 06:27, 25 April 2007

hey unsigned, you're right, this is a great way to waste 500$+230$/year ESPECIALLY if your the kind of person who's always stuck in dead-end jobs (especially as if pyramid scheme peddler wasn't the lowest dead-endest of jobs !!! ) I'm trying to convince my boss NOT to enter this scam, it'll be easy because everyone who is biased for this company is easy to spot since they are desperatly sensitive to anything bad said about this ponzi scheme !

-shodan 69.159.255.32 00:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

the Australian legal case

ACN inc. is a small company compared to most telcos. As a comparison, consider Telstra, it has a revenue of 23 billion or Optus which has a revenue of 8 billion. Both of these company are solely based in Australia and yet they are far larger than ACN Inc. ACN inc. claims to have a revenue of 500 million, which is tiny considering that they are spread across the globe. As they are spread, it means ACN incs footprint on each country is very, very small. This is why ACN Inc. receive little media coverage. The only time they receive media coverage (from mass media) is when a scope such as direct marketing is mentioned, that includes them. Like the link below:

http://www.timeinc.net/fortune/services/sections/fortune/corp/2003_08direct.html

Or, when they are involved highly controversial legal cases. Like in the links below:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Breaking/ACN-avoids-pyramid-injunction/2004/11/26/1101219715017.html?from=moreStories

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/02/1096527989866.html?from=storylhs

The latter links was actually specifically about ACN, unlike the Fortune article which was about direct marketing. So since this case received such high relative prominence in the media (I say relative, because ACN does not receive high prominence in the media), it should receive prominence in this wiki. The argument that is less important because it is in a foreign company does not make sense as ACN is registered in Australia as Australian Communications Network Pty Inc and its business is in the country it is registered, not in a foreign country. ACN is a multi national country and thus its business is relevant in all countries it operates in.

The date at which this legal case occurred is inconsequential as this is meant to be an encyclopedia, not a pop culture magazine. If the date mattered, then I would imagine most of the wikis on wikipedia would have to be removed, since they happened years ago.

Finally since Louispgagne has admitting to be involved in ACN, it is obvious that he has a conflict of interest. Any perceived negative comment on ACN inc. may have a negative impact on the success of his business with ACN. This is one of the most obvious conflict of interests and therefore he should exclude himself from these discussions.

Tristan.buckmaster 04:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Wait wait wait.. Are you saying that simply because Louispgagne is involved in ACN, he doesn't deserve the right to defend it? So what if he's involved? If he wants to discuss it, it is his right, just as it is your right to discuss it not being involved. In your scenario, only those who have heard about ACN from a third party would have any right to speak about it. How does that present an atmosphere in which correct information is handed out? Easiersaid3

It should also be noted that the 500 million dollars figure in revenue should be taken with a grain of salt, as it is from a small print magazine that looks suspiciously like ACN inc. propaganda. It is not uncommon for companies such as ACN to greatly overestimate their revenue and since it is a private company and not a public company, it is very difficult to verify these figures. Their revenue is also misleading as ACN is only a reseller and does not own the telecommunications technologies they sell, either physically or through intellectual rights and thus makes only small margins on their products. A large portion of their revenue is also probably directly from their "independent representatives" and it would be interesting to know exactly how big a portion it is. (Maybe this figure could be obtained by a request to the ACCC).

Tristan.buckmaster 07:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I have a hard time understanding why you prefer a version which is clearly biased against the company over a neutral version. The issue is not whether or not the pyramid scheme allegations is valid or not. It's clearly valid. What irritates me is that you keep allocating it roughly 3/4 or the article. This is a direct attempt against the reputation of the company. by Louispgagne

Neutral does not mean avoiding addressing controversies; it means presenting both sides. Actually, since the full court held on behalf of ACN and required ACCC to pay court costs, the end result of the section is not negative against the company. I hear your concern that the length of the section feels disproportionate in length compared to the rest of the article. I don't see a shorter way to neutrally cover the court case, and in fact, I did lengthen the section a bit by adding the sentence on the ACCC being required to pay court costs, but I felt it was important to fully explain the ruling on behalf of ACN. On balance, I would guess there is more verifiable NPOV information about the company that can be added. — ERcheck (talk) 03:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The article will not be neutral until the Australian court case section is reduced to less than roughly 5% of the article. Therefore, in the meantime, the article is clearly biased. Right now, the article is screaming and pointing at controversy. More information need to be inserted. Since that information had not been added yet, I deleted the Australian case to have a short but neutral article instead of having a longer but biased article. It is not right to settle for a biased article as a temporary measure.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Louispgagne (talk • contribs) 06:05, 28 April 2007

Do not remove the material, instead expand the article. The controversy section is NPOV, and fully referenced. — ERcheck (talk) 16:18, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

duplication of information

The second paragraph repeats some of the information contained in the first. This needs to be cleaned up. As it is obvious Louispgagne is unhappy with my edits and normally reverts them, it is probably better that someone else rewrites the first two paragraphs in order to remove duplication.

Tristan.buckmaster 06:04, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Tristan, do you actually think you are stopping me from succeeding in ACN? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.68.128.181 (talk • contribs) 20:18, 29 April 2007

This is a place for discussions regarding the content of the ACN Inc. wiki. Personal messages should be moved to the relevant user's talk page, although this particular misguided comment belongs nowhere.

Tristan.buckmaster 07:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Basically, what you are saying is that it is okay to misrepresent ACN and make it look controversial until someone takes the time to write a full article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Louispgagne (talk • contribs) 01:31, 1 May 2007

My comment was about your personal comments that do not belong on this page.

Besides ACN should look controversial, since it is an immoral company, where a small minority profits and vast majority looses money. For someone to succeed with ACN, they need a large number of people under them to succeed, who also need a large number of people under them to succeed..... and so on. ACN reps loose their registration fee of $500 straight away if they fail to recruit 2 people in one month. If representatives were to be successful then say the company started with 1 representative in the first year of ACN operating:

1993: 1 rep

If everyone was to be successful in recruiting 2 reps, then the following projections would be true for the following years:

1994: 4096 reps (2 ^ 12, as there is 12 months in a year)

1995: 16 777 216 reps (population of The Netherlands)

1996: 68 719 476 736 reps (10x population of the world)

....

....

2007: 3.74144419 × 10^50 (of the same order of the number of atoms that make up Earth)

Since it is clear ACN does not have that many representatives (most people have not even heard of the company), it is obvious that most fail and loose $500. Basically how ACN works is that the very top people that started the company earn a lot of money, a very, very tiny percent of people do ok for themselves (for a the relatively few years that ACN is around), a very tiny percent of people break even or earn very little and the majority (95% or so) loose all the money they invested in the scheme, which ends up in the wallets of the greedy founders of ACN.

It is simple to identify such illegitimate pay structures like ACN's. If everyone is required to recruit people to work under them, then it is illegitimate (like ACN). Most companies do not work this way for obvious reasons (otherwise 99.999% of people in the world would be poor).

Tristan.buckmaster 06:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Tristan.Buckmaster, you shouldn't be allowed to make such projections for 2 main reasons; 1-you do not understand ACN's business model 2-your mathematical abilities are deficient.

Your model assumes that all ACN representatives are expected to recruit 12 people per year. You assume that the first reps recruited 36 reps in 3 years and the last reps recruited one person.

Like I stated before, ACN is backed by very powerful business figures and publications. The general population does not care about Tristan.Buckmaster's assessment of this company. People are not interested in your thoughts. Louispgagne 22:14, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

No, that is not what I assumed. I assumed every rep recruited 2 other reps within the required 1 month period and then did not recruit any more people (if they did, it would be even worse). To make it simple, if in January 1 person recruits 2 people and then those two people recruited 2 people each and those four new recruits would recruit 2 people each and so on.

January 1 rep (total 1)

February has 1 old rep and 2 new reps (total 3)

March has 3 old reps and 4 new reps (total 7)

April has 7 old reps and 8 new reps (total 15)

May has 15 old reps and 16 new reps (total 31)

June has 31 old reps and 32 new reps (total 63)

July has 61 old reps and 62 new reps (total 127)

August has 127 old reps and 128 new reps (total 255)

September has 255 old reps and 256 new reps (total 511)

October has 511 old reps and 512 new reps (total 1023)

November has 1023 old reps and 1024 new reps (total 2047)

December has 2047 old reps and 2048 new reps (total 4095)

January next year has 4095 old reps and 4096 new reps (total 8191)

So you are right, I did make a mistake, I made an underestimate! Take all the numbers I provided, times by 2 and subtract 1 and you will get the correct predictions. By the way I have a Bachelor in Mathematics, so I believe my mathematics abilities must not be too bad.

Tristan.buckmaster 11:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Without going into details, it seems like what is being discussed here is what is already said in the pyramid scheme article (I am not arguing whether ACN is a pyramid scheme or not). --Knverma 11:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, basically what I am doing is demonstrating the likeness of ACN's business model to a pyramid scheme. Showing that even though it is not legally considered a pyramid scheme, it has basically the same results as one. Tristan.buckmaster 12:07, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Are not all corporate companies gloified pyramid schemes? True many MLM companies turn out to be scams or they cave after a short period of time because their products are not in high demand, but the fundmental principles of a pyramid scheme are inherent in any corporate company. There will always be CEOs and stock holders who employ store owners (who have to pay a fee to own a piece of the franchise, I might add), who hire managers, who hire employees. In every store you see managers and they hire department managers and they hire employees. That's the way it is in small businesses as well. I worked for a small bread company a while back and because my boss owned a franchise license part of his earnings went to the Corporate Offices. Now, working at his company, I could never have his position. I could never exceed his level or pay, no matter how hard I worked. I would never own his business. It's the same with all corporate companies. I can never become a manager unless the person above me gives up there position entirely or dies. Even then, my promotion would be politcal, so there is a chance I wouldn't get the position anyway (and most MLM/direct marketing programs promote you by your numbers, not whether they like you or not). So I don't understand all of the negative hype that surrounds the pyramid scheme when the majority of the world's workers belong to one. It's not the concept of a MLM company or the concept of direct marketing that is to blame for bad experiences, because in my opinion, they are both very good ideas. Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki agree. They said so.. look it up. It's the money horders who abuse a good idea or those you join with a "get rich" attitude who are to blame. But, even then, you should research the credibility of a company and the people who elong to it before you join on the basis of someone's word. Besides, not all MLM/Direct Marketing Companies are built the same. There are some pyramid schemes that are inverted and if you do more work than the person who got you into it you can overcome their position. Trust me, ACN is not a pyramid scheme because if a person does nothing but get you into the business and never aquires ANY customer or other reps, he will not get ANY of the bonuses that would have been available to him due to your hard work.

Normal companies have a set number of levels, ACN and other MLM companies do not. It is that simple. At the bottom of a normal company you have it's customers which is huge compared to all the other levels. Therefore normal companies flatten out at the bottom and do not form proper pyramids, MLM companies never flatten out and due to that they form pyramids. I am saying the obvious and you should already know this.

Tristan.buckmaster 02:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Controversy section

ERCheck and others, you seem determined to maintaining a biased article for this company. Is it wikipedia's mission to portray half of ACN's history as controversial? The argument that users should add content instead of deleting the controversy section is totally invalid. Adding neutral and well-referenced content to rebalance the article requires considerable time and having a biased article as a temporary measure is unacceptable. Louispgagne 02:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The goal is to have a neutral article. This does not mean leave out controversy. It means present both sides — which must be verifiable. Both sides of the controversy have been presented: (1) that a case was brought contending ACN was engaged in a pyramid scheme and (2) the dismissal of the case, ruling that ACN did not violate the law with the added requirement that ACN be compensated for court costs. You have contended that this case takes up too much space relative to the rest of the article. I repeat my suggestion that you (or any other editors) expand the article with more information about the company. Deleting material because you don't have time to add more information is not an acceptable reason for deleting npov, verified information. — ERcheck (talk) 02:56, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Right now, the article doesn't present both sides of ACN. It presents both sides of the controversy. Meaning, the bulk of ACN's article is made up of a debate on its controversial nature. Basically, what your last reply is suggesting is that since no wikipedia users seem to have the time to write a balanced and neutral article, we should settle for what we have so far; a biased version that attempts to discredit the company. That is not encyclopedic.

. Louispgagne 03:16, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

It does not attempt to discredit the company. It says that there was a charge that was found by the courts to be without merit and in fact required the group that brought the charges to pay the court costs to compensate ACN. This does not discredit the company. My reply says that you cannot delete the section because you don't like it. You are free to address the issue of not enough information to balance it. — ERcheck (talk) 03:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I would not hire you for a public relations position. Regardless of the outcome of the court case, a reader reading the ACN article will remember one thing; controversy. You seem to be determined to let some editors portray ACN as a controversial company which clearly is not even remotely the case.

Again, I repeat your consensus right now; since no wikipedia users seem to have the time to write a balanced and neutral article, we should settle for what we have so far; a biased version against ACN. This is wrong and there is nothing really that you can argue. Wikipedia articles should be neutral at all times, not just at the finish line. Louispgagne 04:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The role of wikipedia is to present objective, verifiable information. The reader should be informed about ACN, instead of coming to a pre-determined conclusion; to satisfy which the article must be structured, or contrived, accordingly. This is absurd. There is not a lot of information on the company available. Unless I am mistaken, you are proposing to remove information for no other reason than that it might give people a negative opinion of the company. This is a better ethic for a PR firm than for contributors of an encyclopedia. If the article is missing something, you may address this. It seems you are most interested in making the Google hits for ACN positive. RedRabbit1983 10:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the idea that there is not a lot of information about this company. The information is overwhelmingly positive; Fortune Magazine (twice), Smart Business Detroit, Success from Home Magazine (twice), Donald Trump endorsement etc... Previous articles on wikipedia somewhat reflected this but were deleted by overzealous administrators. Retrieving all this information to rebalance the current attack on ACN (the Australian case) requires considerable time. Meanwhile, we have a blatant anti-ACN article. Strangely, Wikipedia seems to be determined to base the bulk of its article on a court case filed and dismissed 3 years ago in a foreign country. I do not want a pro-ACN article here. I want something neutral and well-referenced. There is nothing really that you can argue about this situation. Louispgagne 20:34, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

The article is well-referenced. As for foreign country, this is the English-language Wikipedia, not the U.S. Wikipedia. Australia is an English-speaking country. As for balance, the article could include other cases brought against ACN, such as this one in Canada.

One additional comment — this page is to discuss the article, not to comment on other editor (WP:NPA). This applies to all sides:

• "Whoever deleted this is a moron."
• "...you have suppressed dreams. You work at a dead-end job..."
• "I would not hire you for a public relations position."

If these personal attacks continue, the editor will be blocked.

— ERcheck (talk) 22:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

These 2 court cases are meaningless. They have been dismissed for a reason. You can include them but they will be insignificant once an extensive and neutral article is complete. Meanwhile, the article remains biased. Louispgagne 23:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Paid Advertisements / Endorsements

Paid advertisements/endorsements should not be used on wikipedia to support the credibility of a organisation/individual. Otherwise we would have to mention that Coca-cola is the greatest soft drink in the world and list all the famous people that have said so. This is clearly a ridiculous idea, as is saying that ACN is a fantastic organisation because Donald Trump said so after being paid a large sum of money. Donald Trump previously made a joke when he was asked what he would do if he suddenly went bankrupt. He said jokingly that he would join Amway (another MLM company). Why has he changed his mind now? Because he got paid, it is as simple as that. Donald Trump doesn't do anything unless he somehow benefits from it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.215.68 (talk • contribs) 07:57, 26 May 2007

That has nothing to do with what should be put on wikipedia. Louispgagne 05:26, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This is not a place to post advertisements. That should be obvious, although you can read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox . Also I hope that you refrain from future edits of the 'ACN Inc' wiki as it is clear that you have a conflict of interest, as you endeavour to make an income from ACN. For more information on what constitutes a conflict of interest, please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest . Tristan.buckmaster 14:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Please do not re-add the Donald Trump "endorsement" without reference and consensus. Is this a paid endorsement? Likely. If so, that information needs to be included, else it is misleading. The investigation by his legal team definitely needs to be verified, else it is WP:OR. If this is continued to be added without reference / consensus, the editor may be blocked for disruption. — ERcheck (talk) 19:28, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you seriously think that Donald Trump.. big time businessman would put his name on the line for a company that is debunk? He has a reputaion to uphold. ACN could not have paid him enough to endorse their company if he forsaw it failing in the future. He states himself in an interview with Greg Provenzano that he had his entire research team look into ACN and he would not have endorsed it if he hadn't found it to be credible. Of course I can't prove that to you because that interview is on the dvd that ACN distributes and if I offered that as a resource you would either claim that he was put up to it (as if Donald could be put up to anything) or that I was selling you on the ACN concept for financial gain. You won't let me prove it. But the fact remains that Donald endorsed this company of his own free will and he's on visual record for it too. Anything written can be a fabrication. But I've watched him say that. So you guys can get over it.

Well there you go, you have answered your own question. Most people have never seen this interview (me included). ERcheck mentioned that ACN were not legally allowed to use his name in anything but that promotional material, which seems to be the case. So if only people that are part of ACN and who have already been brainwashed into thinking it is a good idea are able to see this footage, there is no prospect of it ruining his reputation if ACN turns out to be a dodgy scheme. If ACN was such a great scheme, why would Donald restrict the distribution of that said interview?

Tristan.buckmaster 02:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Financial status

The following was added to the article (quote mine):

“ ACN Energy lost $1.6 million in 2000 and $18.4 million in 2001, according to the financial statements of its parent, ACN Utility Services. ACN Energy first contracted with Aquila Merchant Services in July 2001. At the time, ACN chief executive John Huffman said that the company anticipated "a long, healthy and prosperous relationship with Aquila." ”

A section on the financial status of a business is relevant. But, for NPOV/balance, if a note is going to be made about one portion of the business losing money a number of years ago, full context of the parent company's financials and financial history through the present needs to be added. Rather than completely deleting this, I'm bring it to the talk page to save until additional information is gathered to present a NPOV.

— ERcheck (talk) 00:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure if this is actually possible. ACN is a private company and thus does did to be as transparent with it's financial record as a public company. Tracking down ACN's financial history would be quite difficult. The best bet is information gathered from documents made public through suits against ACN. The only other information available is that from ACN advertising or from its numerous advertorials, although this information would not be very reliable as it would be surely construed to frame ACN in a positive light. I think what is more interesting than ACN's financial status is that it no longer has a energy business. Was ACN offering telecommunications products since it was founded or did it start as a direct-selling energy company that lost its partners and changed products to telecommunications? The current wiki has no reference to ACN's energy business, so this is an obvious place to improve on. The information above would seem very out of place without some explanation of what ACN Energy and ACN Utility Services was.

Tristan.buckmaster 09:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Page semi-protected

There has been a continual insertion of POV on the company, which has been removed and then reverted by a series of different IP addresses. As such, I've semi-protected the article. All editors are required to follow Wikipedia policy, including WP:NPOV and WP:3RR. — ERcheck (talk) 19:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Question

What gives??? Please unlock so that facts may be added. You are doing Wikipedia a diservice.

I wrote about ACN and backed it up with fact....it was deleted. Nothing I said was inncorrect or biased. Why? I sourced and everything? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.146.164 (talk • contribs) 23:51, 4 July 2007

70.55.146.164 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

As noted above, the article has temporarily been semi-protected due to continued insertion of POV material, which is contrary to Wikipedia policy. However, the talk page is not. Feel free to either register a username and edit or discuss your proposed edits here. — ERcheck (talk) 00:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

If there is anything wrong with what I wrote then please tell me and I will fix it. All information is accurate and verifyable.

OK, well the first paragraph is an opinion and as much as I agree with it, it should not put on the wiki. If you find a reference that backs up this opinion, then you may mention that, but I think you would be hard pressed to find one explicitly referring to ACN.

The 2nd paragraph is not properly referenced. The first sentence is not backed up by the quote you mentioned and you made no reference to an actual document you are quoting.

The 3rd paragraph is really meaningless. "Slamming" as it seems to be called in the US is very common in the energy business. You will find every energy retailer in the US would have improperly transferred some customers to their service. You can see by the magnitude of the fine, it was a fairly minor issue. In my brief time at a major energy company in Australia, it was quite common place, caused mainly by mistakes or over-ambitious salesmen incorrectly reporting sales.

The 4th paragraph does not relate to controversy. Just because a company loses money, doesn't make it controversy. Maybe if use your (or was it ERCheck's?) original paragraph, mentioned by ERCheck above, that would qualify as controversy. ERCheck seems to believe it should go in a ACN Finances section, although I am not sure how that would work. (read my previous comments)

Tristan.buckmaster 09:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Tristan, Though you are not a proponent of ACN, you show an interest in making sure that the article is written in accordance with Wikipedia guidelines. Though it is difficult to find much documentation, if you could find neutral financial information and add it to the article, it would be helpful toward the goal of creating a balanced article. BTW, the paragraph above that I removed from the article was not my contribution. — ERcheck (talk) 16:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think we should stay clear from reporting financial information of a private company, due to the complexities involved. So I think we should leave it as is and not add the information that ACN Energy lost money in 2000. Tristan.buckmaster 01:55, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Success of ACN

I understand that ACN tell new recruits that 90% fail to reach "Team Trainer". Does anyone know if this is written on any document, so I can quote it? If 90% of people fail to reach any position and less than 1% of people that reach positions where they 'could' earn 1345 euros a month (the rest earning hardly anything and most losing money), that means that less than 0.1% of recruits reach a level where they can earn any proper money. That is not even taking into account the number of people that quit after becoming "team trainers", so I would imagine it is more like 0.01% of people reach the stage where they can earn any proper money. It pretty pathetic really.

Tristan.buckmaster 11:21, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, I understand that 80% of statistics are made up on the spot so as to give the inventor an appearance of knowing something he doesn't. You seem to lack even the most basic understanding of the ACN marketing plan (evidenced by your statement that "90% fail to reach 'Team Trainer'"), and this leads me to gently suggest that your qualifications for commenting on ACN are more than somewhat slim. Your prime qualification seems to be that you don't like MLM or network marketing (evident from virtually all you have written on the subject).

Allow me disabuse you of some of your apparent ignorance.

"Team Trainer" is the position one has upon paying the $499. You see why your "90% fail to reach 'Team Trainer'" stands out as really inane?

It's true some people never get to the next position, as that position actually requires some production. We have one guy in our team (out of 7) like that, who's been in two months and hasn't so much as signed his own telephone up to ACN, or invited a single other person to be a customer, including his mother who said she'd be happy to do so if asked! This is rather like renting a storefront, purchasing the stock, and never opening the doors to the public. This isn't ACN's fault, except insofar as ACN allows anybody with $500 to sign up.

"Qualified Team Trainer" is what you get if you achieve a certain minimum number of "phone points". In our team of 7, only one who has been in over 30 days hasn't achieved this. This happens to be minimum for being able to receive commissions from personal phone customers -- currently it is 8 points, or about four customers (including oneself). There is no restriction on how many personal customers one can develop, and the more one has the larger the percentage of the commission. But the really good money requires recruiting at least two others who are likewise active. Once you are "Qualified", the next step is Exective Team Trainer, which means you have 12 customer points (i.e. get two more personal customers), and two recruits who are Qualified.

Executive Team Trainers can earn up to $3,000 per month (US) on customer acquisition bonuses (meaning that their team below them are recruiting new reps who are themselves becoming qualified by acquiring the minimum number of new customers), as well as commissions from customer bills. My wife just got promoted to ETT two weeks ago -- we're not quite to the point of earning bonuses, but it will be soon. An ETT who gets about six more customers and has two ETT's below him in his organization becomes an "Executive Team Leader".

Executive Team Leaders can earn up to $7,000 per month on customer acquisition bonuses, as described above, in addition to customer commissions. Our upline ETL (about three levels above us) is a former schoolteacher whose full-time occupation is now ACN.

I'd write more, but it's bedtime. In my observation, the only people who fail at ACN are sitting on their butts doing nothing. And there's enough of them, and they make lots of noise about how ACN "doesn't work" when its them who doesn't work. More later. Mike 07:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for educating me on some of the finer details. You did however fail to mention another detail, how many people after paying $499 (more in the EU) fail and quit the scheme? If this is 90% which I believe it must be at least, then my point still stands. By the way I do not care what people might earn (your earn up to statements), I care what they do earn. Also anything you say about your own situation in the scheme, you can say without retort, since there is no way I can check the validity of your statements. I have learnt in my years not to trust a salesmen, even if they are telling the truth, sometimes what they don´t say is much more important than what they do. I note again you like others in the scheme fail to recognise the inherent flaws schemes that prevent people from succeeding, instead you choose to blame the people. I can see why some describe MLM companies as being like cults. Their members repeat like drones the same messages that their leaders tell them. Tristan.buckmaster 00:05, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

How many people fail and quit after paying $499? Sorry, didn't "fail" to mention it, just don't have all the time in the world, nor all the data. You think it is 90%+, for what reason you don't say -- and given that you don't really seem to know all that much about the company I have to assume that your "stat" is a WAG, not even a SWAG. You're right you can't check the validity of my statements, and you seem to want to start out assuming I'm lying, and that's fine. And I especially like how you attempt to "poison the well" by discounting in advance anything I might write as coming from a cult-addled drone. That's a classic logical fallacy, in case you weren't aware of it.

You will note that the following is completely anecdotal, but having had the recent experience of viewing one of my upline's complete downline report, I can tell you that of the 15 people in the report I have met nearly all of them, and though some haven't done much, they are generally all "active", some by expressed intention rather than action. Nobody has quit so far. Perhaps a few will quit in the future. And as to whether I am blaming the people for failure and not the system? Of the many who fail in business every year, any business, a few will admit to their own inadequacy, their own poor decision making, or their poor sense of timing, but quite a few perfer to blame something or someone else for their failure. That's human nature -- and these days being what they are, instead of just being quietly grumpy about it, many of them decide to tell the world how they got screwed over. I've been in several MLM ventures, and I can tell you that my failure in them has every time been squarely my own fault -- like many others I simply did not do the work necessary to succeed. A lot of preparation and no follow-thru, for the most part. I have seen others who have struggled with genuine effort and were not getting much progress, but these have been in a small minority. And some people are just not cut out for such things.

Your notation that I fail to recognize inherent flaws in the "scheme" is a presumption without basis. Assume all you like, but every scheme has flaws, especially including standard business models. I find that the flaws in MLM generally are more than made up by the low overall risk. I wasn't born yesterday, and I have had the chance of observing many MLM "schemes". I have also observed friends and acquaintances attempt to start "standard" businesses. I am sure you are aware that the chances of failure of small business startups over a five-year period is something like 80% (so if failure were 90% in ACN as you speculate, then I guess I would have to say that's pretty comparable and not much to write home about). But when conventional startups fail, the entrepreneur doesn't take a mere $499 bath, the business generally takes the entrepreneur's life savings and leaves them with crippling debt (if they don't declare bankruptcy). With a good deal of pain, about 20 years ago I watched an acquaintance of mine open a computer store and after one year in the business he went out of business (he sold exactly one system), taking everything he owned, including his two houses, and leaving him with over $100K in debt. Tough deal, especially for someone who was legally blind. He would have been better off to have joined Amway and found out the easy way he was no businessman.

I did happen to mention that my upline ETL has been in ACN for a little over a year, and it is his primary source of income. His first customer acquisition bonus check was $4,000, a month after he started, and while his income has fluctuated, it has been sufficiently regular to have enabled him to recently buy a new car -- and not a cheap one, either. No, he doesn't bring his checks around for me to inspect to make sure they're real, but he definitely exists, I can call him any time of the day and he definitely isn't moonlighting as a 7-11 clerk on the side to make ends meet. I have met many similar people over the course of the last few months, far more than I ever found in Amway, Melaleuca, Excel, or a number of others. All of them have been in ACN for less than 4 years, and my past experience leads me to be strongly convinced that ACN is genuine, despite all the naysayers, including yourself. Mike 07:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry I should have been more careful with my wording, when defining fail. Since I should have defined it more broadly to include all people that have lost money which is a much higher percent. Instead of fail, I should have used the word quit. Why would 90% quit after paying $499? Because they are loosing money, only 1% of active members have the possibly of making a reasonable income. Look at it this way TTs loose money (according to the french legal document), to become a ETT (which does not garantee that you will earn any money) you must recruit three members (according to the document). It is reasonable to assume that someone that is losing money over several years will quit. So if the retention rate was high, then it means that most people would end up being ETTs after a certain number of years, for that they need to recruit at least three new representatives. Now it is obvious to see that this would mean that the number of representatives would grow exponentially and would soon encompass the world population. Since ACN has been going for many years and only has around 100 000 representatives 92% being TTs (from document), it is obvious that they must have a very low rate of retention. Yes my percentages are just made up (like most), but it is based on pretty simple logic.

In regards to what your ETL (is that meant to be ETT), I have no idea what to make from it. You gave no indication of what he earns yearly. The $4000 does not impress me at all, I do not know what the mean wage in the US, but it is higher than $4000 USD a month in Australia. You also did not mention any of the cost involved in his job, like phone bills, meetings, etc. He is probably one of the top ACN people, yet he probably earns less than the average wage, you have to ask what is he doing in ACN?? He is better off getting a sales job where he can earn far more. Also what is a nice car? A $30 000, maybe $40 000 car? I do not know what to make of it. Did he buy it with his own cash or with a loan? I am guessing a loan, since it seems he probably wouldn't have the cash to buy the car outright. It would demostrate that he does not have very good personal finance management skills, since car loans are one of the worse things you could do for in terms of your finance. They normally involve high interest rates, and a depreciating asset (the car).

Also don't you think it is a little bizarre that you are not mentioning your own income from ACN. The message I am getting from you is that you are not doing well out of ACN, but you think that one person you know from ACN is. Not a great advertisement for ACN. It is however predictable, as salespeople always talk about potential earning rather than actual earnings.

Finally as I have said before, if ACN's figures are good and you really can be successful, then why don't they publish them publically, that would be a great recruitment tool. The reality is that they arn't great and it is almost impossible to get proper data on ACN, since they do not want people to know. The only decent information publically available is from legal disputes, like the french one.

Tristan.buckmaster 06:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say how much I'm making in ACN, true. But consider three scenarios: "I've made nothing"; "I made $2,000 last month"; and "I made $15,000 last month". It really doesn't matter, because the dedicated critic such as yourself would say to the first: "See!!! It doesn't work!" To the second: "That's not much to live on, is it?" And finally: "Fine for you, but how many people lose money?" Shall I add fuel to your fire by making a claim? I really won't matter, so here is what I made in ACN last month: $0. I shall probably make $0 again next month. So what? I'm not in this for the get rich quick; I'll leave that for the losers. I've only been in this for two months, and I am in this for the long haul. Like my brother who took several months to turn around a money-losing Bed & Breakfast, I am not expecting instant income. Very few business ventures in or out of MLM make money initially, and quite a few never ever pay back their initial investment. Why should this one be any different? I do expect to be making decent money after a time, however, because I will not give up.

This is getting really unmanageable -- and this is not, after all, a discussion forum about the merits or lack of merit of MLM or even ACN in particular. You raise good questions, and I long to give you answers (even if, as I suspect, no answer will suffice for you). I plan to fix this article up with some facts about ACN that should be included, along with the negatives that currently take up half the article -- all out of proportion, I might add. 1200 Euros is a monumental fine, by the way, and really needs to be emphasized -- not. Mike 02:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, thanks for pointing out the fine. I forgot a zero, it should be €15000. They also fined the directors. Anyway the amount of the fine is not that important. What is more important is that they mislead recruits and the dismal success rate of representatives found by the investigators. The questions that I asked you are not the only ones that I asked on this talk page that are left unanswered, there are many more. One very common reason for start-up businesses failing is that the owners forget to do the proper research required for a successful business beforehand. Don´t you think that you should have investigated some of the points that I brought up before wasting your time and money on ACN? I had a friend who was considering joining ACN and he seemed to think it was a brilliant idea at the time. He told me about ACN (never heard of it before then), I then explained why it´s structure is inherently flawed and posed some questions for him to ask his recruiter. The recruiter evaded all the questions and then that was when he decided not to join. He now cannot understand how he could have been so brainwashed into thinking it was a good idea. One thing you have to realise is that sticking to ACN will not guarantee promotion, the problem is that you will need to be continually recruiting to replace the recruits that quit. So you could actually go backwards. ACN started in France in 2004. France has over 2000 active representatives. 1966 TTs, 127 ETTs, 3 TCs and no one with higher positions (as of march 2007). The TCs are the only ones that have the possibility of earning a decent income, although they only make up 0.14%! The later you join ACN, the less chance you have of succeeding (just like in a pyramid scheme). There are only 10 SVPs out of more than 100000 active members and I bet most of them were with ACN from the very start. BTW you should actually say you running at a loss, due to money you spent of registration and also the future money you will have to pay to stay active. I hope for your sake that you reconsider your association with ACN, it will do you a world of good.

Also note that my rate of retention figure is pretty useless, as it should really be something like the percent of recruits that stay will ACN for say 10 years or something. Also it would not be very static, as it would be inversely proportionate to the number of representatives in ACN. The more currently active representatives, the less likely a new representative would succeed with acn and thus the more likely they would quit. This is all because of ACN´s pyramid scheme like structure.

In regards to improving the article, I welcome any improvements, as long as they are all well referenced. Tristan.buckmaster 09:26, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Getting back to this briefly...

Tristan.buckmaster: The questions that I asked you are not the only ones that I asked on this talk page that are left unanswered, there are many more.

As you yourself have pointed out, the talk page is for discussing the article, not the subject of the article -- besides, questions are the easiest thing in the world to generate, answers are always harder. "What is the meaning of life?" Uh, dunno. 42. Whatever. I've tried, Tristan, with the limited time and space available to available me, but I have other things going on and WP is not my foremost concern at this time.

Tristan.buckmaster: One very common reason for start-up businesses failing is that the owners forget to do the proper research required for a successful business beforehand. Don´t you think that you should have investigated some of the points that I brought up before wasting your time and money on ACN?

No, Tristan, I don't. I investigated according to my own concerns and came to conclusions opposite of yours. Not that I think you've really done your due diligence when it comes to investigation of ACN. For a start, I expect that you started with the assumption that it was a scam, and searched mainly for evidence to back up your initial assumptions. Welcome to the land of Begging the Question. And based on several of your comments it seems you know very little when it comes right down to it. One recent comment of yours, in which you seemed to think I had made a typo talking about my upline ETL which you thought should have been ETT, is a case in point. The position of ETL comes after ETT -- it's plain you didn't know it existed, even though this is information is presented very early to potential recruits. As to ETT, my upline ETT is my wife. My upline ETL (Executive Team Leader) is not. He's not even pretty.

You seem to regard having talked a friend out of joining ACN as a major point of pride (I think so because you've mentioned it twice, in fact). I am glad you get so much pleasure out of it. It's a harsh world, and people must take their gratification where they can find it, I guess. When I get a few minutes to stack together in a single pile I will tackle improving this article (if someone doesn't beat me to it). In the meantime, best to you. --Mike 06:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have never been to any ACN training, so I have no idea what they say in training. What I was referring to was the classes in the French legal document. In the document it states that the position above ETT is Team Coordinator. Maybe there are extra sub-levels or there are different names for the different positions, I don´t know. In terms of looking for evidence to back up my assumptions, of course I have done that, as it is only natural for humans to do that. Now that you believe in ACN, you are probably looking for evidence that backs up your belief in ACN. This is the reason why people nearly always stick to the beliefs they grew up with during childhood, like religion. Mentioning this fact does not help in a debate, since it hinders both sides. You say that it is easy to ask questions, harder to answer them, although you fail to recognise that most of my questions are in fact rhetorical and I have provided answers for them. Tristan.buckmaster 07:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It's entirely possible that in France ACN has a different position structure. However, I doubt it. And it is natural for humans to try to back up assumptions, as you say. However, this is Wikipedia, and not a place for polemic or apologetic. Your passion against ACN may make it difficult for you to write in a neutral fashion, precisely because you can find nothing good to say, and are full of pat (negative) answers to your pat (negative) questions -- so much for rhetorical questions with answers supplied. You were never really interested in hearing what those who disagreed with you were saying, were you? A revelation of sorts, for which I thank you.

You may think my passion for ACN may be problematic for me, as well, but I am comfortable with whatever negative aspects of it which may surface, or have surfaced. I would point out that neither the perfect business, the perfect occupation, the perfect marriage, the perfect government, nor the perfect society are possible for fallible humans. There are however things which are adequate, workable, or with a little improvement good enough for most purposes. ACN is, I believe, among those things.

A little addendum to my earlier comment that I didn't need your questions to stop me from "wasting" my money on ACN: I signed up as a representative near the end of April, but had been checking it out since the beginning of September of the previous year. I vowed several years ago that I would never again get into MLM (not because I thought it inherently fatally flawed, but because I felt I was not cut out for it). As I said, I came to different conclusions from yours, and I think that's because I actually set my mind to find out how it worked, or alternatively, didn't work, letting things fall as they might. Instead of starting from the polemic.

I can't believe I am contributing to this Talk page again. It's three in the freaking morning, fer cryin' out loud! Drank too much caffeine, earlier, now I can't sleep. Brilliant, Mike, just brilliant. --Mike 10:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be lacking of a retort to my arguments and thus have resigned to using ad hominem attacks. Your reply contains nothing of substance in relation to ACN. Tristan.buckmaster 11:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

You seem to think that I'm attacking you. No, I'm commenting unfavorably on your research and claims. Disagreement with methods and conclusions does not constitute ad hominem argument. If I were to call you an gibbering idiot (which I most definitely am not because you seem to have a brain, just one that I currently disagree with), then that would be ad hominem. Let's try out addressing some of your "arguments" then, since I don't seem to be able to get to sleep...

Quoting from Tristan.buckmaster's earlier statements:

ACN started in France in 2004. France has over 2000 active representatives. 1966 TTs, 127 ETTs, 3 TCs and no one with higher positions (as of march 2007).

Since you don't know much about how positions are earned, it doesn't surprise me that you can cite statistics like this as if they were damning evidence against ACN. People don't get promoted into these positions because they sucked up to the boss, they get promoted because they have produced customers for ACN. As stated elsewhere, TT is the beginning position and thus may have 0 customers. ETT comes next with at least 12 phone points (services sold to customers, with some services worth 2 points) and two qualified TTs. Here in this example there is no ETL, which in the US is intermediate between ETT and TC. But ETL requires 20 phone points and two ETT's in separate legs in one's downline. To reach TC requires that the rep have three "legs" with at least 200 phone points in each leg. To reach these positions requires time and effort (and success, of course). ETT can be attained in one day; I know a few who have done it. ETL can be attained quickly as well, I know one who did it in less than a month. TC takes rather more time; I recently had a chance to interview an RVP who said it took him 9 months to reach TC and three years to reach RVP. I have also spoken with an RVP who reached that position in a year and a half; this one will probably hit SVP before this year's end. It is not surprising at all that there are only 3 TC's in France, especially considering that local support (in the form of mentoring and so on) would still be quite thin.

The activity that ACN reps are involved in is not employment. It is business. In employment you could work for 40 hours per week and expect to receive raises in pay every 6 months -- you would definitely not expect NOT to be paid at all. You'd stop working and get another job if that were to happen. You speak of people in ACN not making enough money to live on, as if this were some horrible truth that the world needs to be aware of, but this is a commonplace in business. Most conventional businesses fail (as I have pointed out before) in their first 5 years. Risk is inherent in the scenario, and those who think that by signing on the dotted line and paying a fee that they will succeed without effort, time, dedication and further financial investment are massively deceiving themselves. Unfortunately, those who enter into a business with an employee mentality are likely doomed from the outset. And from all the whining crybabies I have seen in the MLM scene, the majority who sign up for an MLM business think they are in a job.

Tristan.buckmaster wrote:

The TCs are the only ones that have the possibility of earning a decent income, although they only make up 0.14%!

As I said, reaching TC requires effort, and it doesn't happen instantly. The reason why I said in another place that 80% of conventional businesses fail within their first five years is because they don't make a profit in those years and then the financing dries up (because what bank wants to subsidize failure?). The business owner is able to live off such a business only because somebody is advancing debt money so he or she can have a salary. With respect to France's TCs, presumably they are the ones who started on Day One and have now advanced to this point, but this is by no means certain. It is possible to become TC in far less time -- in RVP Spencer Hunn's downline organization the fastest TC made it in 90 days. So, without further information one cannot assume that the three TCs have been working at it for 3 years. It is possible that one or more have been in the business less than a year.

Tristan.buckmaster wrote:

The later you join ACN, the less chance you have of succeeding (just like in a pyramid scheme).

Your statement is patently false. Where do you get your data, anyway? If it were true, none of the RVPs pictured on this website (http://www.theacnsystem.com/) would be there. All of them are in the downline of Spencer Hunn, who joined ACN just over four years ago. Mr. Hunn, as I mentioned above, is close to going SVP. All RVPs of Hunn's organization are pictured, but only a selection of the TCs are. That's because there are way too many to show. One of the couples pictured with the RVPs, the Deebles, have been in ACN less than a year.

Tristan.buckmaster wrote:

There are only 10 SVPs out of more than 100000 active members and I bet most of them were with ACN from the very start.

A bet that you would probably win, in fact, but only because SVP is a relatively new position and was created so as to give the RVPs something to shoot for. The reason there are only 10 (a number I am assuming is correct, though for the life of me I don't know why I should trust your numbers, since so many of your other "facts" are at best opinions or speculations) is because the requirements for reaching SVP were set dramatically high. If you had done any actual research on ACN you would have seen that. Isn't it odd, though, that the higher-paid positions take longer to reach than the lower in ACN? You wouldn't find that in corporate life, now, would you?

Tristan.buckmaster wrote:

BTW you should actually say you running at a loss, due to money you spent of registration and also the future money you will have to pay to stay active. I hope for your sake that you reconsider your association with ACN, it will do you a world of good.

Thanks for your kind offer of advice, but I think I would rather rely on the advice of people who have succeeded in the business I am working in.

Gads, I hope I can finally get to sleep, now.--Mike 11:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Trying to de-legitimize one´s opponent is a form of ad hominem attack, which is exactly what you did for the entire first paragraph of the post by you in question. My data is from judgement made against ACN which you can view http://mikelpt.free.fr/jugement20070319.pdf. The judgment is however in French, so you must have some sort of understanding of French to read it. I believe this to be a reliable source, unless ACN provided false information to the court or that the data was horribly misrepresented by the Judges. A possibility for the explanation for the lack of a ETL is that they grouped ETTs and ETLs together.

You seem to rely solely on anecdotal evidence to support your claims and not only is the evidence anecdotal it is also all from the same source, that is from members of ACN who´s job is to promote ACN as their financial success in relation to ACN is dependent on ACN´s business model having a positive image. Do you really think those people would tell you all the negatives of ACN´s business model?

While anecdotal evidence can me very persuasive, it can also be very unreliable. For example your reply to my statement that the later you join ACN, the less chance you have of succeeding is patently false since there exists some people that have joined recently and become successful is a non-sequitur. That is like me saying the more raffle tickets you buy the more likely you will win the raffle and you replying that is patently false because John Doe brought only one ticket and won the raffle.

This Mr. Hunn person looks very much like a Alexey Stakhanov sort of person who is put up by ACN for propaganda purposes to support the argument that you too can be like him. This plays well into the human being natural ability to be arrogant (the reason why the majority of drivers think they are above average).

Please do you have any evidence that is not anecdotal? Any at all? Tristan.buckmaster 08:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Please be fair and don't spoil it for others

I would dearly love and unemotional discussion on this company. I have found nothing but good things abut them in practice over 4 years. What surprises me is that a source, an enclyclopedia, would be allowed to put up statements without the full story. I don't know all the facts, but I seem to recall there being more in the Australian story. If this was a scam, then the company and theindividuls involved should have been prosecuted, I live in Ireland and no one has, because it is a limitd company, regulated by corporate governance, the comms regulator and the pyramid selling act.

In summary, this emotive talk, without giving enclycopedic facts, has ruined an opportunity for at least one person who was searching for something, because the entries are plainly biased against thhis company.

--Robert.moloney 08:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Please mention what elements of the article are non encyclopedic facts. BTW there are more cases against ACN that have not been mentioned in the article, like those in Canada. Tristan.buckmaster 00:13, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

In my observation, these days you almost cannot do business without running afoul of some governmental regulation or another. As an example, one of my sons started a lawn maintenance business when he was 22, and the first thing that happened was a $300 fine because he used the word "landscaping" in his first ad -- he didn't know the state regulated the use of the word! Avoiding such problems completely is probably completely impossible, especially for firms that have millions of dollars passing through them. Don't make a bigger deal out of it than necessary -- facts are facts, but when writers choose to overemphasize issues like this it creates an incorrect impression of lawlessness. Of course, if one is heavily biased that way then this is the desired outcome.

The two controversies mentioned were in mainstream media and so obviously they were of interest to the public. I do agree that mentioning every little non-compliance to regulation does not contribute to the quality of an article and for that reason I argued that comments regarding breaches of energy regulations be removed because of their trivial nature. The two remaining controversies are not trivial, one of which ACN was acquitted of, the other they were guilty of misleading advertising in regard to exaggerating the success obtainable by joining the organisation as a representative. The latter case I regard as very relevant, as recruiting representatives forms a central role in their business. Tristan.buckmaster 11:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they do want you to recruit. That's the whole reason reps are rewarded bonus money for helping & training a new rep to aquire a certain amount of customers within his first 30 to 60 days. However u must take into consideration that bonus money is just that, bonus money. A reps main objective is to build up residual income. If you hate the mlm pyramid structure, guess what? YOU DONT HAVE TO RECRUIT TO MAKE MONEY!!! On your personally aquired customers you can earn up to 10%. Will everyone achieve this? Probably not because unfortunately many people suck at selling & marketing however if u want to go for it, it is optional. You need $10,000 worth of customer billing to make $1,000 a month residually. An example of how this can be aquired is by getting 250 wireless customers. Using the internet now this is very possible. I just purchased a website domain and now I have a tracking code to track all my sales so that I earn revenue, and all I have to do is market the site. Of course to some people this may be too much of a hassle. If this is something u suck at u must also consider that there are those customers who dont pay their bills like they should so they get purged. That's the reason for the MLM structure, to give people the option of having a lot of people do a little bit of work rather than 1 person do everything on his own. This type of leverage if successful combined with residual income is what allows a direct selling representative to get a lot more done and have the free time to actually enjoy what he made. The MLM structure for some is simply a matter of common sense. It's a choice between hauling buckets or building a pipeline. Would you rather work harder or smarter? Moe4sho313 07:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

What you described is not direct marketing at all and as far as I know is discouraged by ACN and perhaps forbidden by the contract you would have signed. You should go read your contract and check it out. From what I am told, training mainly focuses on recruiting new representatives and customers are to be obtained by relations of the trainee, for example family and friends. It is against the principles of direct marketers to you conventional advertising such as websites.

Even if it is not forbidden, it is not practical. I see that you have assumed the average customer spends $40 on internet usage (I guess that is what you mean by wireless), that is not very cheap nor did I expect ACN to be cheap. ACN is just a reseller, they have very little actual telecom assets, so they must pay premiums to their suppliers. They also must pay 10% to the rep that recruited them. ACN are not a very large telecom supplier in any of the countries they operate in, so there will be large overheads, in terms of spending their organisational structure, such as support. Also a percentage of the money must go to the ¨up-line¨ representatives. So the question is: how are you meant to attract people to buy a overpriced product from a company they have never heard of (ACN do not use any TV commercials or other conventional advertisements) from some dodgy web page that is not even the company´s web page? The second question is: how are you meant to retain these customers? I do not know about you, but I have changed internet provider several times. Telecom companies spend large sums of money in order to retain customers, ACN likely spends none, since it relies on the representatives trying to retain them, which is not too bad if they are family or friends, it is much more difficult if they are of no relation. You would need to have a steady flow of new customers to offset those that leave. Also not only are you competing against all the telecom companies that spend vast amounts of money on advertising, you would be competing against the 100 000 representatives that make up ACN. Finally if you are one of the smarter people, then surely you could get yourself a well paid job, invest and end up with a nice income from your investments. Tristan.buckmaster 12:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

What I meant by wireless customers is cellphone customers. The plans also are not overpriced. We also have service from all the major providers so we dont have to convince someone to switch companies. They can just get a phone upgrade from a company they're already with through my site & I earn commission off billing revenue. Here's one of my website domains so u can have a look. http://www.cellphonecentral.ws We also have wireless services on distributer websites too so it's not forbidden. The only thing about wireless customers is they're only locked in with us for a 2 year contract and if I mass market my site to cold market customers like u said I may not be able to retain them, then again maybe I can. When customers are near the end of their contract they show up in our back office as scheduled to purge, so all I have to do is call them and see to it they renew. If I have tons of customers however this could be a bit of a challenge. Moe4sho313 17:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok well this is getting really OT (it was OT to start with), so I will reply to your user talk page Tristan.buckmaster 01:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Please be fair and don't spoil it for others

I would dearly love and unemotional discussion on this company. I have found nothing but good things abut them in practice over 4 years. What surprises me is that a source, an enclyclopedia, would be allowed to put up statements without the full story. I don't know all the facts, but I seem to recall there being more in the Australian story. If this was a scam, then the company and theindividuls involved should have been prosecuted, I live in Ireland and no one has, because it is a limitd company, regulated by corporate governance, the comms regulator and the pyramid selling act.

In summary, this emotive talk, without giving enclycopedic facts, has ruined an opportunity for at least one person who was searching for something, because the entries are plainly biased against thhis company.

--Robert.moloney 08:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Please mention what elements of the article are non encyclopedic facts. BTW there are more cases against ACN that have not been mentioned in the article, like those in Canada. Tristan.buckmaster 00:13, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

In my observation, these days you almost cannot do business without running afoul of some governmental regulation or another. As an example, one of my sons started a lawn maintenance business when he was 22, and the first thing that happened was a $300 fine because he used the word "landscaping" in his first ad -- he didn't know the state regulated the use of the word! Avoiding such problems completely is probably completely impossible, especially for firms that have millions of dollars passing through them. Don't make a bigger deal out of it than necessary -- facts are facts, but when writers choose to overemphasize issues like this it creates an incorrect impression of lawlessness. Of course, if one is heavily biased that way then this is the desired outcome.

The two controversies mentioned were in mainstream media and so obviously they were of interest to the public. I do agree that mentioning every little non-compliance to regulation does not contribute to the quality of an article and for that reason I argued that comments regarding breaches of energy regulations be removed because of their trivial nature. The two remaining controversies are not trivial, one of which ACN was acquitted of, the other they were guilty of misleading advertising in regard to exaggerating the success obtainable by joining the organisation as a representative. The latter case I regard as very relevant, as recruiting representatives forms a central role in their business. Tristan.buckmaster 11:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they do want you to recruit. That's the whole reason reps are rewarded bonus money for helping & training a new rep to aquire a certain amount of customers within his first 30 to 60 days. However u must take into consideration that bonus money is just that, bonus money. A reps main objective is to build up residual income. If you hate the mlm pyramid structure, guess what? YOU DONT HAVE TO RECRUIT TO MAKE MONEY!!! On your personally aquired customers you can earn up to 10%. Will everyone achieve this? Probably not because unfortunately many people suck at selling & marketing however if u want to go for it, it is optional. You need $10,000 worth of customer billing to make $1,000 a month residually. An example of how this can be aquired is by getting 250 wireless customers. Using the internet now this is very possible. I just purchased a website domain and now I have a tracking code to track all my sales so that I earn revenue, and all I have to do is market the site. Of course to some people this may be too much of a hassle. If this is something u suck at u must also consider that there are those customers who dont pay their bills like they should so they get purged. That's the reason for the MLM structure, to give people the option of having a lot of people do a little bit of work rather than 1 person do everything on his own. This type of leverage if successful combined with residual income is what allows a direct selling representative to get a lot more done and have the free time to actually enjoy what he made. The MLM structure for some is simply a matter of common sense. It's a choice between hauling buckets or building a pipeline. Would you rather work harder or smarter? Moe4sho313 07:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

What you described is not direct marketing at all and as far as I know is discouraged by ACN and perhaps forbidden by the contract you would have signed. You should go read your contract and check it out. From what I am told, training mainly focuses on recruiting new representatives and customers are to be obtained by relations of the trainee, for example family and friends. It is against the principles of direct marketers to you conventional advertising such as websites.

Even if it is not forbidden, it is not practical. I see that you have assumed the average customer spends $40 on internet usage (I guess that is what you mean by wireless), that is not very cheap nor did I expect ACN to be cheap. ACN is just a reseller, they have very little actual telecom assets, so they must pay premiums to their suppliers. They also must pay 10% to the rep that recruited them. ACN are not a very large telecom supplier in any of the countries they operate in, so there will be large overheads, in terms of spending their organisational structure, such as support. Also a percentage of the money must go to the ¨up-line¨ representatives. So the question is: how are you meant to attract people to buy a overpriced product from a company they have never heard of (ACN do not use any TV commercials or other conventional advertisements) from some dodgy web page that is not even the company´s web page? The second question is: how are you meant to retain these customers? I do not know about you, but I have changed internet provider several times. Telecom companies spend large sums of money in order to retain customers, ACN likely spends none, since it relies on the representatives trying to retain them, which is not too bad if they are family or friends, it is much more difficult if they are of no relation. You would need to have a steady flow of new customers to offset those that leave. Also not only are you competing against all the telecom companies that spend vast amounts of money on advertising, you would be competing against the 100 000 representatives that make up ACN. Finally if you are one of the smarter people, then surely you could get yourself a well paid job, invest and end up with a nice income from your investments. Tristan.buckmaster 12:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

What I meant by wireless customers is cellphone customers. The plans also are not overpriced. We also have service from all the major providers so we dont have to convince someone to switch companies. They can just get a phone upgrade from a company they're already with through my site & I earn commission off billing revenue. Here's one of my website domains so u can have a look. http://www.cellphonecentral.ws We also have wireless services on distributer websites too so it's not forbidden. The only thing about wireless customers is they're only locked in with us for a 2 year contract and if I mass market my site to cold market customers like u said I may not be able to retain them, then again maybe I can. When customers are near the end of their contract they show up in our back office as scheduled to purge, so all I have to do is call them and see to it they renew. If I have tons of customers however this could be a bit of a challenge. Moe4sho313 17:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok well this is getting really OT (it was OT to start with), so I will reply to your user talk page Tristan.buckmaster 01:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Please be fair and don't spoil it for others

I would dearly love and unemotional discussion on this company. I have found nothing but good things abut them in practice over 4 years. What surprises me is that a source, an enclyclopedia, would be allowed to put up statements without the full story. I don't know all the facts, but I seem to recall there being more in the Australian story. If this was a scam, then the company and theindividuls involved should have been prosecuted, I live in Ireland and no one has, because it is a limitd company, regulated by corporate governance, the comms regulator and the pyramid selling act.

In summary, this emotive talk, without giving enclycopedic facts, has ruined an opportunity for at least one person who was searching for something, because the entries are plainly biased against thhis company.

--Robert.moloney 08:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Please mention what elements of the article are non encyclopedic facts. BTW there are more cases against ACN that have not been mentioned in the article, like those in Canada. Tristan.buckmaster 00:13, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

In my observation, these days you almost cannot do business without running afoul of some governmental regulation or another. As an example, one of my sons started a lawn maintenance business when he was 22, and the first thing that happened was a $300 fine because he used the word "landscaping" in his first ad -- he didn't know the state regulated the use of the word! Avoiding such problems completely is probably completely impossible, especially for firms that have millions of dollars passing through them. Don't make a bigger deal out of it than necessary -- facts are facts, but when writers choose to overemphasize issues like this it creates an incorrect impression of lawlessness. Of course, if one is heavily biased that way then this is the desired outcome.

The two controversies mentioned were in mainstream media and so obviously they were of interest to the public. I do agree that mentioning every little non-compliance to regulation does not contribute to the quality of an article and for that reason I argued that comments regarding breaches of energy regulations be removed because of their trivial nature. The two remaining controversies are not trivial, one of which ACN was acquitted of, the other they were guilty of misleading advertising in regard to exaggerating the success obtainable by joining the organisation as a representative. The latter case I regard as very relevant, as recruiting representatives forms a central role in their business. Tristan.buckmaster 11:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they do want you to recruit. That's the whole reason reps are rewarded bonus money for helping & training a new rep to aquire a certain amount of customers within his first 30 to 60 days. However u must take into consideration that bonus money is just that, bonus money. A reps main objective is to build up residual income. If you hate the mlm pyramid structure, guess what? YOU DONT HAVE TO RECRUIT TO MAKE MONEY!!! On your personally aquired customers you can earn up to 10%. Will everyone achieve this? Probably not because unfortunately many people suck at selling & marketing however if u want to go for it, it is optional. You need $10,000 worth of customer billing to make $1,000 a month residually. An example of how this can be aquired is by getting 250 wireless customers. Using the internet now this is very possible. I just purchased a website domain and now I have a tracking code to track all my sales so that I earn revenue, and all I have to do is market the site. Of course to some people this may be too much of a hassle. If this is something u suck at u must also consider that there are those customers who dont pay their bills like they should so they get purged. That's the reason for the MLM structure, to give people the option of having a lot of people do a little bit of work rather than 1 person do everything on his own. This type of leverage if successful combined with residual income is what allows a direct selling representative to get a lot more done and have the free time to actually enjoy what he made. The MLM structure for some is simply a matter of common sense. It's a choice between hauling buckets or building a pipeline. Would you rather work harder or smarter? Moe4sho313 07:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

What you described is not direct marketing at all and as far as I know is discouraged by ACN and perhaps forbidden by the contract you would have signed. You should go read your contract and check it out. From what I am told, training mainly focuses on recruiting new representatives and customers are to be obtained by relations of the trainee, for example family and friends. It is against the principles of direct marketers to you conventional advertising such as websites.

Even if it is not forbidden, it is not practical. I see that you have assumed the average customer spends $40 on internet usage (I guess that is what you mean by wireless), that is not very cheap nor did I expect ACN to be cheap. ACN is just a reseller, they have very little actual telecom assets, so they must pay premiums to their suppliers. They also must pay 10% to the rep that recruited them. ACN are not a very large telecom supplier in any of the countries they operate in, so there will be large overheads, in terms of spending their organisational structure, such as support. Also a percentage of the money must go to the ¨up-line¨ representatives. So the question is: how are you meant to attract people to buy a overpriced product from a company they have never heard of (ACN do not use any TV commercials or other conventional advertisements) from some dodgy web page that is not even the company´s web page? The second question is: how are you meant to retain these customers? I do not know about you, but I have changed internet provider several times. Telecom companies spend large sums of money in order to retain customers, ACN likely spends none, since it relies on the representatives trying to retain them, which is not too bad if they are family or friends, it is much more difficult if they are of no relation. You would need to have a steady flow of new customers to offset those that leave. Also not only are you competing against all the telecom companies that spend vast amounts of money on advertising, you would be competing against the 100 000 representatives that make up ACN. Finally if you are one of the smarter people, then surely you could get yourself a well paid job, invest and end up with a nice income from your investments. Tristan.buckmaster 12:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

What I meant by wireless customers is cellphone customers. The plans also are not overpriced. We also have service from all the major providers so we dont have to convince someone to switch companies. They can just get a phone upgrade from a company they're already with through my site & I earn commission off billing revenue. Here's one of my website domains so u can have a look. http://www.cellphonecentral.ws We also have wireless services on distributer websites too so it's not forbidden. The only thing about wireless customers is they're only locked in with us for a 2 year contract and if I mass market my site to cold market customers like u said I may not be able to retain them, then again maybe I can. When customers are near the end of their contract they show up in our back office as scheduled to purge, so all I have to do is call them and see to it they renew. If I have tons of customers however this could be a bit of a challenge. Moe4sho313 17:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok well this is getting really OT (it was OT to start with), so I will reply to your user talk page Tristan.buckmaster 01:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Market Saturation

Tristan.buckmaster has raised some interesting points that probably should be addressed. Let's start with:

Well it is completely hopeless for those people that join the company now, maybe those that started the company and were part of the early adopters were relatively successful, but for those joining now, they are pretty much flushing their money down the drain, along with a good portion of their time.

So, here we have an admission that early adopters could make money in ACN. I am not sure how he knows if any of the early adopters made significant money, but there we are.

I have no idea what sort of point you are trying to make with this comment, since I have never denied that early adopters could make money. In fact late adopters can make money too. My point was that late adopters are very, very unlikely to make decent money and are in fact more likely to lose money, early adopters are much more likely to make money. This is one of the fundamental traits of a pyramid scheme.Tristan.buckmaster 10:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

How can late adopters in a pyramid scheme make money? By definition, late adopters are the patsies for the early adopters. Late adopters can only make make money if the pyramid scheme does not implode, in which case they aren't late, but are still early adopters. But we are not talking about a pyramid scheme here. We are talking about a company with genuine products, genuine sales staff, and genuine customers. You may not like the fact that the salesperson-to-customer ratio is much higher than that in a standard sales organization, but that is another point entirely. How late does it have to be, anyway? Ten years after ACN's founding, a broke college student with a full-ride baseball scholarship started in ACN and two years later went to RVP, and in the following two years brought another ten people to RVP on his coattails, and a very large number of TC's, many of whom will soon be RVP. Do we have to wait another ten years until we see the late adopters in ACN?

A late adopter in a pyramid scheme can if he works really, really hard find enough people to recruit in order to receive some sort of remuneration. As I said at the bottom that you have to admit that ACN would be described by any legal system as a pyramid scheme by any legal system had it not sold telecommunications products to cloak it´s scheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme#Comparison_with_multi-level_marketing). You cannot go on assuming that ACN and pyramid schemes are not related, as they obviously are. Tristan.buckmaster 10:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Tristan has spent a great number of words in this Talk page trying to convince the heathens here that ACN cannot possibly succeed, unless one was in the business at the beginning before market saturation kicked in. Since it has (or must have) kicked in, he says, you can abandon hope, as stated here:

It is not a matter of devotion. It is impossible to be successful by being involved in a scheme such as ACN Inc. when it has reached market saturation and it must surely have done so in most developed countries in the world now.

But has market saturation kicked in? And what is market saturation? For companies trying to sell Widgets, market saturation is everyone who could want a Widget already has one. And for the company that makes and sells Widgets, additional sales could only come from Widget owners whose Widgets wore out, got lost or stolen, or from new consumers who did not yet have their Widgets. Game Over for MLM. Or so might appears, if one were talking about a product for which a one-time sale was sufficient.

The problem with Widgets (see The Demand Problem: Of Widgets and MLMs at http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html), is that this is a massive oversimplification. What if Widgets had long passed their market exclusivity, and though the market was theoretically saturated, new companies could now come in and sell new versions of Widgets, competing on price, features, and style? You'd then have what we have now in the telecommunications market. Personal telecommunications (telephones, Voice over IP (VoIP), cellphones and the like) are perfectly at market product saturation right now. In the US, telephones are considered so essential to life that telephone companies are not allowed to terminate service to some people, even if they never ever pay their bill. And if you don't have a cell phone these days you are quite odd. Something so ubiquitous would seem to have an extreme degree of market saturation, and thus death to MLM. But no! If you can come up with a marketing angle on such a ubiquitous commodity or service, you can continue to sell, even to a saturated market. This is what Verizon Wireless, Xingular, AT&T, Sprint PCS, and the others are doing -- to rave reviews and considerable profit, month after month. Thus, market saturation with respect to the telecommunications industry is a great big myth. Even for MLM. Perhaps Tristan means that it is ACN and not the telecommunications market that has saturated. Nice try, but in the most concentrated ACN market in the world, which is the immediate geographic area around ACN company headquarters near Detroit, Michigan, USA, only 5% of households are ACN customers (figure quoted to me by an RVP I was interviewing). On the other hand, in ACN backwaters such as my home state of Washington there may only be a few thousand ACN customers in the entire state of 4 million people. What this means is that, for Washington state at least, ACN representatives are "early adopters", as Tristan puts it, and thus in line to make some good money. But even a 5% market share seems to leave lots of room for expansion, especially given the business model for customer acquisition.

You obviously have a very poor understanding of market saturation. Read the comment in the article you reference titled "Everyone Will Want to Buy This Product!". You also fail to note that as the number of representatives increases, the more competition there will be to gain the customers in unsaturated markets. Tristan.buckmaster 08:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I read the reference you supplied, thank you very much. Let's quote it here for clarity:

All products and services have partial market penetration. For example, only so many people wish to use a discount broker, as evidenced by the very successful but only partial market penetration of Charles Schwab. Not everyone wishes to join a particular discount club, or buy gold, or drink filtered water, or wear a particular style of shoe, or use any product or service. No one in the real world of business would seriously consider the thin arguments of the MLMers when they flippantly mention the infinite market need for their product or services.

Of course there is no such thing as an infinite market. There are only a finite number of humans on the planet. The examples in the quote are however straw man arguments. What is the market penetration of the telephone? It's not even close to the market penetration of Charles Schwab (I prefer E*Trade, BTW). The market for telecommunications is SATURATED. Nearly everyone who wants a telephone has one. Sometimes two or three lines, in addition to their cell/mobile phone. The quest is no longer for market saturation, it is for market share. ACN's market share is small, but is increasing. It can grow to 10x its current share and still be less than 1% of the entire market (even in just the US). If ACN grows to a million reps then maybe I can see there might be a problem on the horizon, but that won't happen for decades. But the current birth rate is greater than ACN's growth, so we're safe even then.

Number, dear Tristan, numbers. --Mike 05:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Market saturation, just like other economics terms is just a name for a phenomena that is obvious (economics people like to name things that is obvious to most intelligent people, like the economist that won a nobel prize for showing that people with more more spend more money). The market share will always be very low for ACN, due to the huge competition in the telecommunications industry and ACN´s emphasis on getting recruiting representatives over customers. Please respond to what I wrote at the bottom of the page. Don´t you think the number of representatives is excessive? A normal company could not survive with such number of salespeople, however ACN does not mind because charging the salespeople registration fees is at the heart of the business. How on earth can you justify an annual fee of $500 (or 636 euros in France) for registration, when all you receive is a crappy DVD and some other propaganda and then you are charged with earning other people money, it makes no sense. It is very, very simple, remove the registration fee and ACN is no longer like a pyramid scheme and now like a proper telecommunications company using a referral based system to market. Tristan.buckmaster 10:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If it really was a successful business model, don't you think we would know more about the success rate of the individuals involved. If it was successful, surely they would publicize this information, as it would provide a great incentive to join.

This is problematic. From my own observation, people join ACN because they can clearly see that it can work, but many are either unwilling or unable to do what is necessary to achieve results, or take the inevitable initial "No's" from potential customers too hard, or go at it too slowly to see meaningful results. Success in any venture, not just ACN, involves dedication, a bit of a thick skin, and appropriately-directed work. A case in point: one of our downline, who owns a successful roofing business, saw the potential instantly, signed up, and proceeded to do things that we warned him had been shown to be cost-ineffective. He told us that he knew how to run a business, so he would do it his way. We perforce had to stand back and watch him stumble all over himself. After a month of self-directed activity he had sunk a couple of thousand dollars and quite a bit of time into the effort and ended up with far fewer customers and new representatives than we had gotten for virtually no extra expense doing it the way that we had been advised to. How can you factor such things into any figures that mean anything? The best ACN can do is to showcase those who succeeded, and showcase how they succeeded. If success is not simply a fluke, then it must be repeatable. But if half the people attempting the business fail to do it correctly and thus fail in the business, does saying that 50% of people signing up will fail provide any real information? Too much goes unstated and thus misleads.

They should also publish the average income of those individuals that joined 1 year, 2 years, etc ago (including those that lost money and dropped out).

As I have said a number of times, it is the extremely rare business that does not lose money in its first year.

That is not what I meant at all. I meant the average income made by people that joined in a certain year. What would also be required is the average income earned by people that joined in 1993 after 1 year, 2 years, etc and that of people that joined in 1994 and so on. Then you could compare the income of someone made in X number of years that joined early and the income someone made in X numbers of years that joined late. Then it could be tested whether my claim that people that join ACN late end up worse off. Tristan.buckmaster 08:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I keep trying to make something clear and you keep harping on something else. The point is not whether all people who happened to sign up with ACN made money or didn't make money, because if 90% of new reps sat on their behinds and did nothing or close to nothing they wouldn't make a cent. Then could you honestly lump their incomes in with those who actually worked the business and say that nobody makes any money with ACN? This is precisely what you seem to want to do! If I take a job as a salesman at a new car dealership, and then I only show up twice a week, and avoid customers like the plague when I do show up, how useful would it be for someone to average my income ($0) in with all the rest of the salesmen? And this wouldn't happen anyway, because before anyone would try to average my income in with the rest I would have been long since fired. ACN doesn't fire reps who fail to produce, so they stay on the books so people without a clue can average their incomes in with the producers. Know how many reps I have in my downline organization who have not even sold phone service to their own darned selves? Two out of nine. I have another who has only one other customer besides himself, and another who has no other customer besides herself. And it isn't because everyone they know hates them, either, its because they haven't asked anyone to sign up, including people who have said they would be happy to sign up with them! By all means, lets average their income with the ones who are working and obtaining customers. This happens a lot in MLM. And many of these people complain that MLM doesn't work -- when the whole time it's them (usually) who don't work. --Mike 06:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You do not seem to understand my points, it is not the people that are to blame it is the system. If everyone at ACN worked harder at ACN then you would probably see ACN having a larger market share of telecommunications and more representatives, but the break up would be the same with most people either losing money or not making any and a very small minority making money. If you cannot see the similarities between a pyramid scheme and ACN´s model, then I do not know what more I can say, I have demonstrated them several times in many different forms that all come to the same conclusion. The similarities are just so incredibly obvious, that if you cannot see them then obviously you have been thoroughly brainwashed by ACN and I have no hope in convincing you. You will just have to find out for yourself. What is so incredible is that you admitted to being unsuccessful in a MLM before and think this time it will work. Tristan.buckmaster 10:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Also what sort of legitimate scheme encourages people to recruit people into the scheme, knowing that 99% will fail and loose money and the other 1% will earn a very meager income?

Let's see, colleges and universities enroll people all the time, realizing that a certain percentage will fail to complete their programs and drop out, yet still they do it, and the students still flock to school. Looking at this more closely, even among those who actually complete their programs and get their degrees, a certain percentage will not find employment within their field of study. And some fields of study themselves do not even lend themselves to gainful employment in their field of study -- how many history majors work in history as an occupation? Those who teach history, sure, but there are only so many available places for this, and the rest of the history majors are selling automobiles or something. Is this legitimate? Clearly not, by your logic.

Again you are misrepresenting the facts. Employers are more likely to employ those with a university degree than those that do not. You also fail to recognise that university is not just a degree factory that one uses to obtain a job in a certain field. Some people go to university because they enjoy an area of study and would like to learn more about it. Why on earth else would I have chosen to major in Pure Mathematics? It is pretty difficult to think of jobs that would require knowledge in the subject areas of Pure Mathematics, apart from maybe academics. Tristan.buckmaster 09:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

A legitimate scheme gives its participants a pathway to success that if followed will lead to success, but for those who are unwilling or unable to follow the pathway, failure is automatic and entirely predictable. Prominent among the training materials ACN puts out is the warning:

"Success as an ACN Representative is not guaranteed, but rather influenced by an individual’s specific efforts. Individual results will vary."

and

"No compensation at ACN are earned unless customers are acquired."

There are those who expect guarantees (like yourself, apparently), or who just can't quite bring themselves to acquire customers. Can such make legitimate complaints about ACN? I think not. But if there are individuals who have succeeded by following the advice of those who have themselves succeeded, then this is a clear indications to others on how to repeat the process. It should be clear that ACN is not in control of how they react to proven success pathways.

You must know 99% fail. Read my other comment to find out what would happen if people were actually successful (every atom in the universe would be involved in the scheme).

What would happen if real estate salesmen were known to be successful? Would everyone in the world want to sell real estate? If learning to program computers is a pathway to a well-earning occupation, why are not everyone computer programmers? This week my wife pitched ACN to an old acquaintance of ours, and she asked my wife why she should give up her six-figure yearly income with Mannatech (an MLM marketing over-the-counter nutriceuticals) to sell telephone service? Good question, but the operative consideration is, if she's making a six-figure income how come not everyone else in the world is doing Mannatech? Or every atom in the Universe? What, don't you want to make a six-figure income, too? Why not?

Your argument is nonsensical. First of all it is very easy to join ACN, you just need the cash to pay the registration fee. To become a real estate agent you need to get a job as a real estate agent which only certain amount of people are able to do. Once you are a real estate agent you receive some base income, once you join ACN you must pay some annual fee. The likelihood of you ever making money as an ACN rep is low and the likelihood of you earning a decent income is incredibly low. Once you a real estate agent you earn a base income from day one and if you are good you will keep your job earn a pretty decent income. The two professions are not at all comparable.

The reason I said that every atom in the Universe would be involved had nothing to do with the fact that people would like to join ACN if they saw other people being succesful with it. It was because to be successful with ACN you need to recruit representatives to work underneath you, who then need to recruit representatives to work underneath them and so on. This would mean if most people were successful, then soon the entire world would be working for ACN, since that is not the case, a very high percent of people must not be successful. Tristan.buckmaster 10:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Enough. --Mike 21:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The question is basically is ACN essentially a telecommunications reseller that uses a novel way to market or is it essentially a pyramid scheme that sells telecommunications related products in order to not be classified as a pyramid scheme. One obvious test would be to work out where the money is coming from, is it coming from the representative registration fees or is it coming from the sale of telecommunications products. I assume that you understand that ACN without any products would be classified as pyramid scheme and the fact that it does sell telecommunications related products is the reason they won the lawsuit in Australia and have not been banned in most developed countries. Now working out flow of money in a private organisation such as ACN is quite difficult because they are not required to publish their financial details and their finances are not held under the same level of scrutiny as that of a public company. Nevertheless we will try to get some sort of picture of ACN´s finances.

ACN´s website claims to have revenue of over 500 million dollars. I have no idea how they came up with this figure and I am sure they did everything they did to make it as large as possible. Anyway let us assume ACN does in fact earn 500 million dollars. ACN has over 100 000 representatives (from the french legal document). Now I know that representatives below a certain level must pay a annual registration fee. Correct me if I am wrong but TCs and above are the only ones that are not required to pay the annual registration fee. Since TCs and above only comprise of less than 1% of total representatives, we find that over 99% must pay a registration. Since the registration fee is $499 in the US (it is much higher in some countries like France, which has a registration fee of 656 euros), we will assume the revenue generate from registration is around $50 000 000. Please note if a lower position does not have to pay registration it makes very little difference, since 92% are TCs and they definitely have to pay a registration fee. These are all estimation, they are not required to be exact, they are intended to give a indication of the finances involved. So let now assume that 450 million dollars is the revenue generated from telecommunication sales. Now the big question is how much of that revenue actually ends up in the representatives pocket. I understand representatives receive 10% commission on sales. If that was the only source of income for a representative then the average representative earns $450 annually from telecommunication sales, although pays $500 annually on registration. Does representatives receive commission from downstream sales, or just a flat bonus? Also if a representative quits, who receives the commission for the ongoing sales of the representative? The answers to these question would allow me to better estimate the average income of a representative, but what I have done is shown that the pool of commission money available for a representative is comparable to that of the registration fee. This demonstrates just how important this registration fee is and is probably the source used to pay all the bonuses. What this means is that ACN is essentially a pyramid scheme with a legitimate source of income tagged onto it, so while it is not quite as bad as a pure pyramid scheme, it is still pretty bad, since the legitimate source of income is not high enough above that of the pyramid scheme element. For ACN to be a legitimate business, telecommunications income should be many times that of the registration. In fact there should not really be any registration fee at all. I know normal salesmen do not have to pay the company they work for so that they can earn money for the same company. Tristan.buckmaster 09:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)