How to Avoid Business Scam: a Bloody Lesson from Emerald Passport (EPI)

MLM Company ReviewTags: Authoritative, business, Business Scam, business scams, Comprehensive, Emerald Passport, emerald passport inc, Emerald Passport Scam, EPI, EPI review, epi reviews, legitimate, lesson, MLM, network marketing, Review, scam

There is no need to stress how important it is to choose a right business opportunity when you start to be involved in network marketing business. One fact you know is there are a lot of people who quitted from several MLM companies in the past. One of the most important reasons for them to quit is that the companies that they chose were not doing well. While it is very difficult to predict how long a company will survive, there are some ways to find out whether a company is on the right direction or is just a Business Scam. One example for this is Emerald Passport Inc.

Was Emerald Passport (EPI) a Business Scam?

• As a network marketing company, Emerald Passport was registered in Panama. It was a legitimate company in the US.  Emerald Passport’s president and CEO Alonso de la Guardia said “Emerald Passport is a wholesale provider of life-enhancing educational products to an elite group of independent business owners–our global network of direct resellers. Emerald Passport offer a unique Web-based business opportunity to anyone who wants to have a business of their own…”.  Emerald Passport claimed that traditional education alone is not sufficient to assist you to become successful and compete in this cent ury. They have educational merchandise to teach you for long-term financial and personal success.
• Emerald Passport was the dominant Top Tier Opportunity in 2005. According to www.mlmrankings.com/emerald%20passport, Emerald Passport Ranks Higher than 371 of 665 Comp anies in that Profile Database.
• However, in November 2009, Emerald Passport declared in its website “The Emerald Passport income opportunity is no longer available due to the severe global economic downturn. There will be no new product sales”. It was over! Hundreds of distributors who spent many years of hard work and thousands of dollars on building their teams and their dreams for financial freedom and time freedom were thrown away on the street by that simple declaration!
• In Australia, Emerald Passport was shut down by The Federal Court. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) stated: “Emerald Passport is an international scam that was created by a company in Panama. It promoted self-help products such as internet-based audio visual presentations with promising titles such as ‘Mastering Money’ and ‘Wealth Fundamentals’. “Success depends on the number of people they can recruit, and in turn on the number those below them can recr uit. Ultimately pyramid schemes must fail as it becomes harder and harder for participants down the chain to recruit people. Inevitably people will lose their money”.

For those Emerald Passport distributors, Emerald Passport was a sad story. My point is how we could prevent this type of tragedy from happening in the future. Emerald Passport claimed the reason for the company shutdown to be severe global economic downturn; some top distributors of this company concluded it to be the poor management. Well, if you have a detailed look back at this company, you would find it was just a cash pyramid scheme, a business scam! At the very beginning it was NOT a real business opportunity! The followings are my analysis:

1.      I do not see the high value in Emerald Passport  product—Business Scam reason #1

A network marketing company has to be built on product.  If you take a look at those successful network marketing companies, all of them provide top quality product and services.

Emerald Passport claimed they provide the best self-enhancement product. Actually their biggest selling factor was their website. Emerald Passport had on the site a four min video that shows you the life you will have and deserve; how the life of those folks that you just approached would change due to this enterprise; how every sale you made will change another person’s life for good. However, Emerald Passport never discussed any details on their digital product. They never revealed the credentials of those authors who made those educational materials to customers prior to purchase. If there were no other reasons, it would be ridiculous for me to purchase any product without knowing any details about that product.  In reality you would find most of Emerald Passport’s products were not unique to their company. You can find those sorts of programs dealing with finances and real estate anyplace.

2.      Product price and value do not match in Emerald Passport (EPI)—–Business Scam reason #2

In order for a company to grow healthily and last very long time, product price and value have to match.  Unfortunately, I do not see this point from Emerald Passport.

a.       Emerald Passport’s preliminary signup fee is $1295. You would be able to have access to their training system (product) after enrollment. In addition to that, you were also required to attend two upper level conferences that cost $8000 and$13,000. These conferences were toward self-development, but were kept a mystery (still not wanted to show you till your spend the cash).  Emerald Passport always held the conferences in Panama, which I doubt the purpose. Without proving the real value that the conferences may bring to people, traveling to Panama might only be just an excuse on the massive expenses that people must pay for some under-the-table reasons.

b.      One indication that represents the value of a product in a network marketing company is the proportion of peoplewho purchased the product as regular clients (rather than distributors of this company) within the total customers.  While I do not know that percentage in Emerald Passport,  I have never heard anybody who paid $1295 enrolling fee, and paid extra $8000and $13,000 to travel to Panama only for the so called great coaching on self-growth, not want to make money from that process. I did not say nobody, but one fact is sure: the percentage of people that did that is very small, if it is not zero. This leads us to the conclusion that the value of Emerald Passport’s “self-improving educational product was over-estimated. The reason why people still buy those products is because Emerald Passport convinced those people that they can make a lot of money from that process. Remember this most important point: making a lot of money FROM THAT PROCESS, not from the result after learning their “self-improving educational product”. How? It is through the Compensation Plane of this Emerald Passport.

3.      Compensation Plan of Emerald Passport (EPI) is ridiculous—–Business Scam reason #3

a.       Emerald Passport is a 2-up program, generally known as an Aussie 2-up plan. It means: you will get nothing from your first 2 sales. They’ll go directly to you sponsor. This is one thing that needs to be seriously considered, as the first 2 sales are usually the most tough to make, and you are truly out a lot more cash than the initial sign up.

You would get $1000 of every sale as rep commission starting from the third sale.  It is difficult to understand how the value of the rep commission is worth 3X more money than what the cost of actual product would be… which would be $295 if there were no payout to reps. Business ethics dictate that the value of the product to the consumer has to come first before any recruiting or rep payout.

b.      The most important point is nobody appeared to have any testimonials as to the success of putting these “educational materials” to use, but rather the testimonials come from those reselling the merchandise and making $1000 on a $1295 product. The people who got “success” in Emerald Passport are making money from those recruiting process, rather than the result of those expensive self-improving and real estate training.

4.      Conclusion: Emerald Passport (EPI) was a Business Scam

From the above analysis, you will be able to find outthat Emerald Passport was trying to cover the activity of playing pyramid money schemes using those “educational self-enhancing” product. That stands out as the exact cause why ACCC declared and banned Emerald Passport as pyramid scam in Australia.

People should have been able to predict that joining Emerald Passport would be just like playing a pyramid money scheme. You are putting your financial future on a foundation that could collapse at any time. After reading this article, after looking back at Emerald Passport, you are supposed to find out that Emerald Passport was NOT a real business opportunity. It was a Business Scam. I hope this review would help you to avoid this type of scam companies in the future.

If you really want to obtain financial freedom by building value on this planet, by offering valuable product and services…. you may want to take a look at a phenomenal business opportunity like www.MagicCashWeapon.com

video: Avoid Business Scam—–Emerald Passport