World Ventures

[Thule]

Another scamelem popped up this week, additional information would be appreciated.

Seems the founders (Mike Azcue and Wayne Nugent) were nominated for Ernst&Young's Entreprenour of the year in North-TX/AR/OK-area. Not sure what the criteria are, but the followers are sporting this like a medal.

Their idea is to sell hotel rooms at discount. Based upon statements from members, they can offer a price some 30 % below what other services can offer. The hotels are real enough, and there might be a real discount involved.

Even so, you have to travel a lot to make this a good deal. They charge a $300 sign-up fee, plus $60 a month. I ran the numbers, and I have to spend one weekend a month at a high-end hotel to make this a good deal.

And then the usual stuff comes up. If I can recruit 4 other people, their monthly charges will cover mine, and I can enjoy discount traveling without additional charges. So basicly, I can sign up for a bad deal, but if I can trick my friends into signing up for the same deal, I will get a good deal. Seems familiar.

Anyone else run into these guys?

[wserra]

Another cookie-cutter travel MLM. They've been around for a while, and I think you have them pegged quite accurately. It's not the first travel MLM for Nugent and Azcue - before this one they were involved in one called GT Trends, or GTT. Why'd they leave? They were shocked, shocked to find that GTT was a ripoff.

Me too.

[Funkalicious]

World Ventures is popping up again, this time due to vague threats against a blogger who found their business plan wanting: http://www.popehat.com/2014/07/09/popeh ... dventures/. The blogger ran the numbers and found that only 28% of members made any money whatsoever: http://twenty-somethingtravel.com/2013/ ... the-world/

[EagleOne]

I had a nice Email exchange with Stephanie (the blogger) and she isn't backing down and won't remove her blog post. Getting ready to do a couple of articles and link them to her site hopefully to help drive up her ranking in the search engines. Maybe she will be #1 if enough link to her blog and keep commenting in the forums.

One gutsy lady and I applaud her and her husband for standing firm.