Is Wealth Masters International a Scam?
Most people nowadays are very interested in having their very own marketing business. Sadly, there are many scams that appear to be legitimate businesses. Many people even wonder if there is truly a Wealth Masters International Scam. Before starting out and selecting the right online business, you should first make it a point to know if it is truly legitimate, or is it just another of the schemes that only want your money.
The Legitimate Opportunity with Wealth Masters International
WMI is a truly legitimate business founded by marketing entrepreneur Kip Herriage and MLM expert Karl Bessey. Together, they have created a company that aims to provide its members a great opportunity to earn the right income.
The company has three levels for you to choose. There is the Master 1, Master 2, and Master 3. The levels have their corresponding costs, with $1495, $8495, and $12,995 joining fees respectively. These levels allow you to become a representative of WMI. You could also join by paying an annual fee of $14. However, you would be required to pass up your first 3 sales to your sponsor to be eligible for 100% commission. With these great compensation plans, there is no doubt that you are joining a legitimate business and not a Wealth Masters International scam.
Popularity: 93% [?]
First, stop the music!
I am already with WMI and had been trying to market through Carbon Copy Pro. Became too expensive. Do you do WMI without CCP?
Hi Mike,
I have been trying to find a way to reach WMI with regard to my account. I left CC Pro and WMI months ago, but WMI continues to draw monthly $20 payments from my credit card. Of course, CC Pro is no help, and they say that I need to contact WMI directly. Would you happen to have an email address of the person that I need to contact?
Thank you,
Josh
Yes, this is a well known problem. They continue to steal your money even after they promise you membership is closed.
WMI is a scam and a pyramid scheme just like Liberty League International and Global Prosperity Group.
WMI is not a scam. It's a great company.
I lost $1995 with WMI the m1 is so weak post a sample you get more online for free and 10x the amount from one money magazine. I couldn't sell the program for they price they were asking so I wanted out. The M1 is worth about 19.95 at most. Search the complaints on google are we all lying or just victims who won't sell crap.
Don't blame WMI, look in the mirror. Is there a possibility that you didn't see the value of spending 100 days on improving your self? It tends to change people and you sound rather negative. I am a product of the product and have put in the time to improve me. Perhaps you think you are perfect and don't need improving however you just stated that you couldn't sell the product and that speaks volumes about YOU. Not only is the product valuable but you DO NOT have to sell it to make money.
Have you been in the WMI or are you going by what others are sayin? I have a friend involved and he is doing very well.
Signed up for WMI got the M1 $1995 didn't think it was worth the money could have got more from one book at The local library. Told I could get a refund but had to complete the 100 day program first. I did it sent them the program and they received it FedEx and then denied my refund. I am more than pissed off I am on a mission.
Of course you say WMI is great company, as you are an active consultant in WMI. The products of WMI is worth almost nothing, this has been proved as they have never been sold as retail. Every sale is also a recruitment of a new consultant, and this makes the pyramid effect.
If WMI was a great company, why have more than 80 % of its members terminated their memberships? And how can it be that more than 50 % of the consultants never do a single sale of these "top-notch" products?
Selling as retail does not make a product good or not good.
Wealth Masters is one of the few companies that actually teaches real wealth building (and investment) information. And that DOES have value.
I don't follow your logic on this "pyramid effect" at all. This is a top tier direct sales company. So the majority of the income goes to the guy or gal who sells it. Seems fair to me.
I don't know where you get your statistics. I really don't know. Most people don't have the discipline to take massive, consistent action. That would be my guess if your numbers (which seem very round) are in any way accurate.
Yes, I am a consultant. I've been making a multiple six-figure income since 2005 in this industry. So you are free to take my position with a grain of salt, but I know what a good product is, and what it ain't!
Note to readers: always take note of who you are getting your info from. And if you're making an investment in any business, follow the money.
The cool thing about top tier businesses like WMI is that all the income gets paid out. Most MLM compensation plans by contrast rely on breakage – which basically means people are unable to qualify for commissions – so they can publish unrealistic income payout percentages.
The irony of the comments here is that both sides are right and wrong.
I am not a consultant at WMI, but I am a business man and student of wealth. Here are some facts.
WMI charges a high price for information that can be received from other sources cheaper.
Most people do not even know to look for this information, and WMI goes out and sells it to these people.
WMI does not offer a retail product or service, which is one indicator of a pyramid scheme.
WMI does not pay residual commissions even to people with large downlines, which kind of breaks down the whole pyramid scheme thing because you don't continue to get paid unless you continue to sell.
And lastly, it is not because people won't sell, or won't work, most often that they fail in any MLM business, but because they do not know how to increase their close rate and stop playing a numbers game. They talk to that warm list of 200 or 2000 people, 99% of them will not be qualified or targeted for the product(first rule of marketing, know your target market). I know this to be true because I joined Amway, a fully legitimate MLM company, and sold to everyone I knew, over 600 people, and not one buyer. Why, because they had no interest in owning a business. They wanted a JOB or a CAREER, not a business.
It makes me sad when I see a communication breakdown like the one on this blog. One person vehemently defending his company, because he has seen it work, and one person blindly attacking the same company, because he saw it fail.
Great points Justin.
Look, I love this industry, and I love studying wealth building.
If somebody wants to look in other places to learn how to build wealth, I'd recommend http://www.andrewmurrayhq.com/mike-dillards-eleva… which is]Mike Dillard's The Elevation Group, or Brad Weinman's http://www.andrewmurrayhq.com/wv WealthVault.
The Wealth Masters products are stellar. And in particular, the investment information you get at the conferences is unparallelled. And you CANNOT BUY anything at the conferences.
Now, both Mike Dillard and Brad Weinman – who each teach about investing – are Wealth Masters consultants. (I don't know if Brad is active currently.) But that should tell you something. The knowledge you get here can be a jumping off point.
Most people will never take consistent action.
And you're right, Justin, most distributors never learn a thing about effective marketing.
And you are ONLY going to learn that from someone with integrity and high marketing skills – like, hey, well that's kinda like me, LOL.
But seriously. You have to do marketing. That way you deal only with the 3-5% of the population that is entrepreneurial. There is a huge difference between somebody who entertains in their mind running a business and a real entrepreneur.
(And no, I was NOT one of those kids hawking gum in pre-school. Entrepreneurship can be learned if you want it bad enough.)
To clarify a couple of mistakes – you can buy these products retail. In fact, Mike Dillard got his parents involved as retail customers. (of course, most people buy it for the business system and the products are a nice secondary that is in-line with their main motivation (making money) much more than something like Amway's products. But most people come to WMI looking for a business system. And WMI is a powerful business system if you understand how to drive leads for a top-tier opportunity.
Second, there IS residual income. I'd advise checking out the compensation plan – it's very different than an MLM like Amway, and more stoked towards income produced by you rather than tons of hypothetical people…but there is residual income.
What WMI is – is really a hybrid between a product and a business system. But let's be fair. People don't buy a McDonald's franchise because they like hamburgers. They buy it simply for one reason only – they think that based on their research, it's the best opportunity for them to create a six-figure income.
(Personally, I'd be inclined to disagree – but understand the point that they are buying a business system that actually costs a whole lot more.)
Thanks for sharing, Justin.
It stikes me that one of the simple facts that people who are disgruntled about WMI point out is simply that the company makes it hard to get a refund.I have always found it frustrating when online companies that seem to have unlimited capacity to communicate on the front end simply disappear when problems arise. If the company really stands by its products then it should honor its money back pledges. And I hardly think the negative publicity could be worth the $20 per month or whatever the fees may be. BTW I have never done WMI but am in DD mode with it and several others.
i bought my WMI m2 through Carbon Copy PRO and still pay them a monthly fee. Now they ( WMI & CCP) have split I am totally unsure which one to go with. I haven't made any money YET because i have been working at a full time job and one thing I know is that WMI and CCP systems need to be tackled FULL time! Although the promo blurb says you can do it 15 hours a week.
My current employment is due to end in June so I need to make a decision 1. WMI 2. CCP or 3.Get a job and try to get a refund of my $10,000?
I would be grateful for any advice
Did you get this sorted out?
WMI is a ripoff, their idea of making money is to show you how to sell their program to others who will resell it, there is very little useful information in there. It does not stand alone on its own as far as teaching people how to manage or make money on their own.
I joined WMI at the M1 level, realized that I was not well enough to 'take consistent action' and am now having trouble getting a refund. The fact that I'm ill and on disability is two strikes against me. I feel foolish and regret my initial decision. This business is for folks who already have money and/or want to 'have a business'. You for sure need to be in good health and wealthy enough to be able to afford to lose your initial 'investment'. Take lots of time to assess a business as to whether you can actually do it and experience success.
Every single company in history is a Pyramid. You have a CEO then managers, then supervisors and then even more workers. Those at the top get paid lots and those just starting get paid less. This isn’t true for direct selling companies like WMI. I made 25k + in my first 6 weeks, I just had to listen and learn. With the economy crashing around us I wanted to take every strategy I could to earn more money for my family. WMI makes you money like any sales job. If you work you get paid. A lot of people trying to get refunds because it didn’t work for them is crap, suck it up. You can’t get a refund on a car because you bought it and then found out that you can’t drive. The car works as it should, just because you are can’t make it drive doesn’t mean the company should give you the money back and take the commission off the sales guy.
David, you wrote:
"Those at the top get paid lots and those just starting get paid less. This isn't true for direct selling companies like WMI"
Well, you are completaly right in one thing, this is not true for WMI. Actually the situation in WMI is that less than 5 % earn anything at all, and the rest have to pay a lot of money and do a lot of work just to realize that they can't make it. More than 15.000 people have experienced a significant loss, some people more than $40.000.
It is not about a car that work and a bad driver. WMI is designed to produce losers, at least 95 %. When there is no retail sale at all, there is no way this can be avoided. Basicly, the income of the winners is paid by the loss of the loosers.
In a regular company all people get paid, even the people cleaning the toilets get paid a 5 figure income a year. In WMI, less than 3 % ever reach a 5 figure income, and more than 80 % never get paid at all as they don't get a single sale.
If you made 25k in your first 6 weeks, you did it by recruiting other people that believed they could make a lot of money in WMI. Not because they considered the WMI products to be something they needed or would consider buying without the WMI opportunity. Since you joined in October 2010 about 1400 people have signed up for WMI. Less than 500 of these are still members. Actually people are leaving WMI 3 times faster than new people are signing up, it is a sinking ship!
There is another big difference between the car and the M1. When you buy a car you know that you can't get a refund if you can't drive it. When you buy M1, you are promised a complete refund. The problem is that the WMI will not make this refund when anyone asks for it. It is called fraud which is illegal as well as pyramid schemes. That is why WMI is banned in Norway. You are participating in a criminal network, and you know very well that this is only about deceiving gullible people.
MLM (or what some euphemistically refer to as "pyramid schemes") are mainly about recruiting people to create a downline, not actually selling a product. Income for you is created mainly by those people in your downline buying into your business. MLM professionals are good at one thing: creating a "business" that isn't about selling products so much as creating a downline.
From what I'm reading here, WMI is a MLM business opportunity with the main emphasis being on creating a downline. A good tip-off that they are MLM is they don't reveal what it is they sell, just that they sell something (wealth-building strategies & information concerning same…?)
If the original founders have aggregated information about wealth-building strategies, and people are willing to shell out money for that "product", great. What concerns me about MLM, and more specifically WMI, is the initial investment required vs what you get for your initial investment. You know, the "product" you're supposed to be marketing.
With Amway, you at least get products to sell. Same with Mary Kay, Shaklee, Market America, Body Wise, JUS!, or any number of other MLMs. Don't get me wrong, MLMs aren't inherently flawed -except for the uninitiated. If you don't understand what MLM is or how to "work it", you will fail and lose your initial and all subsequent investments.
Another problem with MLMs is where are you in the downline? If you're waaaay down there, chances are unless you're a real go-getter, you won't make any money at it. The people at the top of the "pyramid" are the ones who make the most because of how compensation is structured -to benefit those at the top, not at the bottom. Those at the top are consummate MLM experts, they know how to get lots of people involved, but moreover to open their wallets and shell out cold, hard cash.
As long as you understand how MLMs work and you're willing to talk, talk, talk to many people and can close them, you'll make money.