MyDay1.com, Mark Seyforth

[webhick]

A yard sign caught my attention today. It said "Donate to your charity and earn a full wage. CharityDay1.com." That may not be an exact quote, but it's close.

I'd like to say that I visited the site with an open mind... but a bad handmade yard sign planted at the end of an off-ramp doesn't exactly scream "I'm earning a living wage" and the claim that donating to charity earns you a "full wage" sounded like utter bull.

Of course, if you go to the site, you find out it's an affiliate site for MyDay1.com. Okay, time to bypass the affiliate portal by deleting any applicable cookies and going straight to the main site.

The first thing you'll notice is the guy in a suit holding an invisible beach ball. Or he wants to tell me something. We'll never know because I'm never going to click that "play" button. And just as I was imagining this suited figure playing invisible beach volleyball, I caught something interesting in the menu bar: "Linear Pay System." It brings up a PDF which sort of explains the four ways you can make money with them. I should note that it calls the recruiters (?), "Consumers for Charity," which probably shouldn't make my eyes roll but it does. I'm still going to call them recruiters. And each recruiter gets a "replicated website," which I usually call the affiliate site.

1. Retail Bonus - It says "Pay: Minimum 52% of Total Wholesale Product Sales
(Certified by independent CPA accounting firm)." I would really love to know what an "independent certified public accountant accounting firm" is and why I should trust any firm with numbers when they allow themselves to be referred to with such idiotic redundancy. To make money under this, you either sell to the consumer via retail orders, internet orders via the affiliate site, or order wholesale through your own affiliate site and then sell retail. It sounds like that 52% claim only applies to the wholesale end of things. I can't find where it says how much you make off the non-wholesale sales. And how much do you have to buy for a minimum wholesale order anyway?

2. Profit Sharing - Under this, you get paid with an "exclusive proprietary formula based on LINEAR PAY, TIME OF ENROLLMENT and NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN THE COMPANY (outside of your Direct Pay)." That's a whole lotta nuthin' right there. It also says that there's a $500 cap per month per individual and that a seller will participate and earn income from the "free money" pool.

3. Direct Pay - I'll cover the easier part first. You get $2 per retail order (I'm assuming that they mean per product purchased via retail and not actually per order) or 2.5% of the wholesale price. There is a cap on Direct Pay of a quarter million dollars monthly. Now the slightly more complicated part: Your Direct Pay consists of the quantity of product orders you do a month times your recruits plus their recruits for 15 compressed PayLines (reads an awful lot like a DOWNLINE in the glossary at the end of the PDF). It's not clear if you're being paid for the recruits or for the orders they're making. This is followed by some charts and claims about what happens if you enroll two people and stop and everyone under you does the same, and then if you enroll 4 people and stop blah blah blah then you hit the monthly cap.

4. Flex Bonuses - I have to start by saying I love their little visual aids here. I mean, here they are saying it's not a pyramid scheme and then shows us pictures of four little people in the shape of a pyramid. And the icing on the cake is that the top guy is a genderless, faceless icon while the rest are not. And only the one in the middle looks like it could be a woman. Which is directly under the faceless eunuch at the top. In addition, they are all faced away from the faceless eunuch, so it looks like they're running away. As fast as they can.

Ahem, I digress. It starts by saying that it pays 52% of wholesale product revenue to the recruiter. Which is strange because I could swear they said something similar in part one of the pay plan. Any unearned commissions is dumped into a pool and paid out to all the recruiters. It won't tell you how that's divided up and even goes to far to say that it changes based on the best interest of the recruiters. Then it reassures us by saying that 100% of that pool always gets paid out to the recruiters. And here's where it gets weird:

4a. Flex Bonus 1 - If you recruit three people in a month, then you qualify for one share. If you fail to recruit three people in any given month, you don't get the share.
4b. Flex Bonus 2 - Christ, I'm too tired for this shit. I'm just going to quote it.

At the end of the calendar month, if ANY 3 members on your PayLine 1
have 3 members on their PayLine 1 (your PayLine 2), you will qualify for Flex Bonus 2.
You do not have to enroll new members every month in order to qualify, provided
you have met the qualifications of 3 who have enrolled 3. The “3 that have 3” can be
a combination of new and repeat member orders for any calendar month.

Now there's these restrictions. Of them, the notable ones are that you must have a personal order in order to qualify for anything (a retail order apparently qualifies, even if it's for one of your customers) AND one of your recruits must have a personal order.

So, just off the base plan, you can't make any money without a downline and at least one person in that downline must be placing orders.

Okay, so what do they sell? PetroMaxx Plus. I seem to recall several lengthy threads here which had at least one really knowledgeable person discounting those systems entirely. Also, NatraBoost Energy Concentrate. And, um, that appears to be it.

Under enrollment, I see that they're in National Pre-Launch mode until the end of the month.

Now, I mentioned at the top about how you can donate to charity and earn a living wage. I could have sworn when I saw either the affiliate site or main site earlier today that I saw something about automatically donating a portion of your earnings to charity and the company matching it. But I can't seem to find it anywhere tonight. Was I imagining this or am just too tired right now? I mean the MyDay1 site calls their recruiters "Consumers for Charity" so I don't think it's something that just the local guy is doing. Can anyone else find it?

So, that was a pretty half-assed dissection. They're not giving me a lot to work with. One24 had a lot of information in there and seemed to honestly attempt to explain their convoluted and broken system. This one is vague in all the wrong (or, right, depending on your perspective) places.

Oh, and I think I forgot to mention the Mark Seyforth connection - just click the Media link in the menu bar and they come right out and say that he's their founder.

Bed now.

[Quixote]

Now, I mentioned at the top about how you can donate to charity and earn a living wage. I could have sworn when I saw either the affiliate site or main site earlier today that I saw something about automatically donating a portion of your earnings to charity and the company matching it. But I can't seem to find it anywhere tonight. Was I imagining this or am just too tired right now? I mean the MyDay1 site calls their recruiters "Consumers for Charity" so I don't think it's something that just the local guy is doing. Can anyone else find it?

It's under the "Media" tab.

[webhick]

Now, I mentioned at the top about how you can donate to charity and earn a living wage. I could have sworn when I saw either the affiliate site or main site earlier today that I saw something about automatically donating a portion of your earnings to charity and the company matching it. But I can't seem to find it anywhere tonight. Was I imagining this or am just too tired right now? I mean the MyDay1 site calls their recruiters "Consumers for Charity" so I don't think it's something that just the local guy is doing. Can anyone else find it?

It's under the "Media" tab.

Thanks so much! The page I remember seeing was exactly where you said it was. I then clicked "Charity Pledge" and I've got to tell you that their donation letter is disgusting. It starts "Because you are a legal non-profit organization, I have chosen to support YOU as My Charity of Choice. I know there are over 1.8 million charities that I could choose from, but your organization is the one that is near and dear to me." And then flashes dollar signs and tries to get the charity to recruit new members for the donor.

[GMusantry]

Excellent blog. I understand where you are coming from as I had the same thinking pattern prior to educating myself on the industry of network marketing. My name is Gregory Musantry and I started in network marketing back in july 2010. 23 months later I retired from my day job because I was earning a stable residual income that surpassed what I was earning working for someone else. Yes there are pyramid schemes out there and a person must do their due diligence before ever enrolling or joining anything. As a matter of fact the SEC recently shut one down. I agree, when something is marketed like "do nothing, make money" that puts up a red flag. There are four things you must look for when getting nvolved in a work from home opportunity. 1. The products. They have to be something you believe in and you would use, otherwise who the heck is going to buy them from you? 2. The leadership. The Founder/CEO etc must have a solid honest background with success. These days with google you can pretty much find out anything about anybody. 3. Company wide distributors/support. Research who is in the company and if they are team players. The last thing you want to do if be in business for yourself but not by yourself. 4. The compensation plan. This must be simple. Im contacted 17 times a day to join this and join that, constantly people telling me that they have the best program. Lol it's simple guys, find something that is simple to follow and that anyone can have success in, not just the top 2%. I don't want to read a 75 page encyclopedia, you will lose me at page 5 I have only been in 1 company since I got started and recently enrolled in DAY 1 and that was One24. Say what you want because this is your blog site and we have freedom of speech in america but it worked for me. I was able to build a stable residual income it's One24. But not only that, I grew as a person, I made incredible friendships with people I would not have normally met if I hadn't gotten started. I still work my One24 business on a daily basis helping thousands of other people to reach their goals. You know it's all mid set and perception, if you believe something is me way, you will always think that. It's all good like I said. Which brings me to DAY 1 because I fell on your website after I was doing some SEO research on this incredible company. Good job by the way being on the first page of google search results for "myday1". DAY 1 is not a pyramid scheme. If it was, I wouldn't touch it, I wouldn't even go near it. Like I said I'm approached with multiple offers a day, some actually being real pyramid schemes lol. But the words "pyramid scheme" is so misconstrued in the public nowadays. Everyone thinks everything is a ponzi or yrmaid scheme. It's funny actually. It's normally out of uneducation or fear that one uses those words. In DAY 1 you have a choice of a product from their line. Currently they just have 2 products however more are on the way. Ok so you buy a product. Great. Now you are using that product for your own consumption. You are not going out and physically selling the product, you aren't keeping a garage full of it, our just buying it for yourself as yu wild a pair of Nike sneakers or a steak dinner, or a movie ticket. The company takes 52% of the wholesale cost and pays it out to the "Consumers For Charity" or C4C's. This comp plan is made to be SIMPLE.p and hire frankly if you are confused by it, then good luck reading the comp plans of every other company out there. Yes DAY 1 is a direct sales company in the industry of Network Marketing however it's not classified as a "MLM" per se and the reason is because of its linear line. I don't want to restate everything you read on the site but the fact is the fact. Yes you saw a diagram of "you" and a couple people under "you" and a couple under them but that's the way it looks for the direct pay when you write it out. I guess he could have designed it like a NCAA bracket board if that made it easier on your eyes. If I'm using a product and I tell someone about the opportunity and they choose to enroll, they are direct to me. So anyway you shape it to look it's the same thing. DAY 1 is designed t be simple and designed to allow anyone regardless of their experience and background to see success and that's an amazing thing my friend. It's life changing to so many people. The way it works with the power of one, it's going to allow the 90% that normally fail in this industry, to actually make a check and that is life changing. I really hope you choose to hit the play button next time you visit the site. All The Best In Success, Gregory M. Musantry

[webhick]

GMusantry,

First of all, welcome to Quatloos.

Now, I actually know a bit about how to tell an mlm from a pyramid scheme. As Wes said here:

When a court decides whether a particular MLM is legit or a pyramid scheme, one of the factors it considers is the percent of income which comes from selling products vs. fees from new distributors - in other words, whether the business is sustained by product sales or recruiting. In making that analysis, only sales to non-distributors count, not sales to yourself or your downline. Webster v. Omnitrition Int'l, 79 F.3d 776 (9th Cir. 1996).

Using that test, it's pretty easy to tell a mlm from a pyramid scheme, provided there's enough information to do so.

There are four things you must look for when getting nvolved in a work from home opportunity. 1. The products. They have to be something you believe in and you would use, otherwise who the heck is going to buy them from you?

I wouldn't buy either of the products sold by MyDay1. I looked at NatraBurst back when I looked at One24. It's overpriced garbage. And PetroMaxx? I remember in an old version of this board that someone who was highly educated in automobiles and someone hocking fuel additives (which sound similar to PetroMaxx) had a debate. It was an enjoyable read and very educational. The impression I took away from that debate was that fuel additives like PetroMaxx are crap. So, I don't believe in the product(s).

2. The leadership. The Founder/CEO etc must have a solid honest background with success. These days with google you can pretty much find out anything about anybody.

Except Seyforth really doesn't have an honest background in success. I mean, hello Herbalife. On top of that, if you google "Mark Seyforth scam" the first site that comes up is MarkSeyforthScam.com. Which is a site defending him. That kind of thing always makes me nervous because if you were such a stellar business mogul and totally not a scam artist you wouldn't need to have a site specifically set up to defend you.

3. Company wide distributors/support. Research who is in the company and if they are team players. The last thing you want to do if be in business for yourself but not by yourself.

MyDay1 is in pre-launch so it's kind of hard to see how they're doing business when they technically haven't started it yet.

4. The compensation plan. This must be simple. Im contacted 17 times a day to join this and join that, constantly people telling me that they have the best program. Lol it's simple guys, find something that is simple to follow and that anyone can have success in, not just the top 2%. I don't want to read a 75 page encyclopedia, you will lose me at page 5 I have only been in 1 company since I got started and recently enrolled in DAY 1 and that was One24.

One24's plan wasn't the simplest I've seen. I mean the simplest I'd like to see an MLM have is "You make X% profit off product you sell to people outside your downline and Y% profit off product your 1st level downline sells to those outside your downline. Nothing to be made off anyone below that." And Y has to be less than X. And no auto-ship. And you don't have to recruit at all. Then it'd be a totally legal MLM and not a pyramid scheme. I'm sorely disappointed in MyDay1's explanation of their compensation plan. they use terms like "free money pool" but don't define it and they mention paying you but they don't ever say what formula they use to do it.

But the words "pyramid scheme" is so misconstrued in the public nowadays. Everyone thinks everything is a ponzi or yrmaid scheme. It's funny actually. It's normally out of uneducation or fear that one uses those words.

I'm neither afraid or uneducated on the matter. I'll admit that I couldn't do math in the One24 thread, so I'm not going to attempt it here no matter how much I want to. But, if I was uneducated on the matter - I would tell you that the downline looks like a pyramid. And I wouldn't be wrong.

The company takes 52% of the wholesale cost and pays it out to the "Consumers For Charity" or C4C's. This comp plan is made to be SIMPLE.p and hire frankly if you are confused by it, then good luck reading the comp plans of every other company out there.

No. It says "minimum 52% of total wholesale product sales." Sales are different than costs. It's not confusing, it's unclear. Wholesale, as it's typically used means that you buy quantity at a cut rate and it's up to you to store it and sell it. Usually the more you purchase, the lower the cost. That explains why it says "minimum 52%" and is not a standard rate. Having customers go through your portal to purchase items isn't really wholesale - it's retail. They never mention what the retail profit rate is, only the wholesale. It's got to be lower than the wholesale rate.

Yes DAY 1 is a direct sales company in the industry of Network Marketing however it's not classified as a "MLM" per se and the reason is because of its linear line. I don't want to restate everything you read on the site but the fact is the fact.

Please stop trying to put lipstick on a pig. "Network Marketing" is literally another term for "multi-level marketing" and the company does in fact have multiple levels of marketing.

Yes you saw a diagram of "you" and a couple people under "you" and a couple under them but that's the way it looks for the direct pay when you write it out.

It looks that way because it is that way.

I guess he could have designed it like a NCAA bracket board if that made it easier on your eyes.

That wouldn't have helped much, since I don't like sports and don't know what one of those looks like. But I Googled it. Did you know that if you turn your head to the side an NCAA bracket board looks like a pyramid? I'm serious. It looks like a pyramid. Linear pay is really the same old mlm pyramid.

In only one of the four compensation plans do you make money off the hard work of selling actual product. And unless you're buying wholesale it's unclear how much you're really making off those sales.

[wserra]

Excellent blog.

Thanks. More a bulletin board than a blog, but thanks.

I understand where you are coming from as I had the same thinking pattern prior to educating myself on the industry of network marketing.

A number of us have been "educating ourselves" for years now.

My name is Gregory Musantry and I started in network marketing back in july 2010. 23 months later I retired from my day job because I was earning a stable residual income that surpassed what I was earning working for someone else.

Y'know, I always find statements like this interesting. Some salesman comes to your door and tells you he is selling this miraculous vacuum: you only need to plug it in and it cleans your entire house in seconds, all by itself. Do you express your wonderment and buy it, or ask for proof? Well, here we have some salesman claiming that he took a business model that royally sucks and turned it into "a stable residual income that surpassed what I was earning working for someone else". Surely you don't believe that anyone should just accept such a representation, right?. So I have an offer for you: give me an authorization to obtain your last few years' income tax records. I'll prepare it and email it to you. I'm a lawyer (New York State bar 1018886); I promise you I will only disclose how much you made from One24. I will shred everything else. Then no one who may be interested in One24 will have to take your word for how well it worked for you, just as you would not take a salesman's word in a similar situation. I'm sure you wouldn't even ask us to take your word for it, right?

Say what you want because this is your blog site and we have freedom of speech in america but it worked for me. I was able to build a stable residual income it's One24. But not only that, I grew as a person, I made incredible friendships with people I would not have normally met if I hadn't gotten started. I still work my One24 business on a daily basis helping thousands of other people to reach their goals.

Yeah, you said that before. Gonna prove it?

Everyone thinks everything is a ponzi or yrmaid scheme. It's funny actually. It's normally out of uneducation or fear that one uses those words.

Well, no. I know the legal definition of a pyramid scheme. When I call something one, I base it on the law.

All The Best In Success, Gregory M. Musantry

So how about proving that you've been successful? You certainly try to close the sale based on your unsubstantiated claim that you have been.

[Kestrel]

23 months later I retired from my day job because I was earning a stable residual income that surpassed what I was earning working for someone else.

<snip>

Ok so you buy a product. Great. Now you are using that product for your own consumption. You are not going out and physically selling the product, you aren't keeping a garage full of it, our just buying it for yourself as yu wild a pair of Nike sneakers or a steak dinner, or a movie ticket.

I never have quite figured this one out... What makes anyone think you can have a "stable residual income" if it's entirely based on selling and recruiting, especially if the typical turnover of recruits exceeds the speed of earth's rotation?

Now in this little gem of a system the outside sales aspect is completely removed. You only buy for your own consumption. Maybe you can explain how to make a profit if you're only selling to yourself; no one else has succeeded in coherently diagramming the math on that.

So that means your "income" is from purchases by your recruits. Given the rest of your system description, it seems the recruits must sign some sort of auto-ship contract, with a percentage of the auto-ship sales going to the recruiter. That must be one hell of a contract, if it surpasses your earnings working for someone else. Either that, or you didn't have much of a day job to begin with. Tell me, was your previous "job" also in an MLM?

Whatever you used to do, you don't seem to find it worth mentioning on your LinkedIn page. You didn't list your education on LinkedIn either. That doesn't surprise me, since the spelling and grammar in your personal summary narrative need some, err, help.

And I'd really like to know the contract duration and termination terms of those auto-ship contracts signed by your recruits. My guess is that in the long run your "stable residual income" will be neither stable nor sufficient to pay the rent, and your "retirement" won't last long.

Edit: I notice on your LinkedIn page that your ever-so-motivating upline leader, Jerry Olsen, has NOT recommended you. I wonder why. I did find a link on your page to a Jerry Olsen, where he lists a personal website that forwards directly to a One24 website [that website address is faulty; you have to add the "www." to get it to come up]. I also notice he has NOT quit HIS day job.

The way it works with the power of one, it's going to allow the 90% that normally fail in this industry, to actually make a check and that is life changing.

About that check... You seem to have skipped the part about how big it is, whether it covers the participant's buy-in costs, and whether it merely is a "rebate" on their own volume purchases. Sure, the 90% could get checks, but unless the dollar amount exceeds their costs it doesn't make them anything but poorer.

[webhick]

Looks like MyDay1 has completely re-vamped their site. I suppose they're out of pre-launch mode, so that's to be expected. They're also now selling a "new" product called "DR. MAX's RAW SUPERFOOD MIX FROM DAY 1." The caps is all them, baby. According to MyDay1, it's a " high protein, high fiber, vitamin enriched superfood mix that is also a grain-free, gluten-free, plant-based formula that fits a variety of dietary philosophies including Vegan, Organic and Paleo. And because every ingredient is sustainably-green, and cultivated in its most natural state. its easy for the body to digest - which helps you create and maintain a healthy weight, and total blood sugar balance throughout the day."

Says a whole lot and nothing at all. I'll look into it more tomorrow, as well as their new site. Maybe they've updated their comp plan or something to match.

[Cathulhu]

The "superfood" sounds suspiciously like alfalfa pellets!

[webhick]

Well, well, well... look who updated their comp plan! Not sure entirely how much is the same and how much changed, but it seems to answer a few of my questions at the least. And then it raised more.

There are now 6 ways to earn money with MyDay1. All laid out in a PowerPoint presentation, which makes me so excited that I flipped them off and went straight for the PDF.

First up is Retail Income. Brace yourselves. This refers to any sale through the free, "replicated website" by a retail consumer. Retail consumers appear to be those who are not signed up to hock product or recruit. It does not say what the percentage you earn is.

Giving it back bonus An "exclusive, proprietary formula" which is based on linear pay (funny, I thought this PDF was going to explain what they meant by that), time of enrollment and number of people in the company who are outside of your "direct pay." This is a monthly bonus capped at $500 per individual. A footnote at the bottom of the page says that this "pool" is 9% of company sales. No where else on the page, or in this part of the compensation plan does it mention a "pool" or how it relates to the Giving Back Bonus. I'm assuming that this magical formula they use bases it off the pool amount, which sounds an awful lot like one of One24's comp plans. So much for exclusive. Also in the footnote is the stipulation that in order to qualify for this bonus, you have to have at least one qualifying order and one of your immediate downline members have to have one as well.

Direct pay More goddamn formulas. And more questions. It says that it's the total amount of product orders created by each non-retail customer times the number of your recruits plus your recruits' recruits for 15 compressed paylines. I'm still unclear on what they mean by product orders. Is it quantity or sales? If I made one order for 500 products, does that count as one or five hundred? What do they mean by a compressed payline? Is that everyone in the downline all flattened to look as though it weren't a pyramid, or do they pick one downline (let's say the shortest) and use that?

They then state that the amount you receive is 2.5% of the wholesale price per payline. Now I'm even more confused. I could have sworn they were talking about product orders earlier, not wholesale prices. And what does the wholesale price have to do with the payline? Can I buy and sell paylines at wholesale or something? What crack addict is writing this shit?

Ugh. Moving on. Oh look, an example. It says that if I enrolled three people and only helped them do the same, I would earn $6 based on a wholesale price of $80. Since 2.5% of $80 is $2, I suppose that would mean that I only got paid $2 per member I personally recruited. Okay. I get it better now. Until I look back at the formula and plug in my numbers. $2 x 3 non-retail orders + ???? in the compressed payline. Your example sucks, MyDay1. If I recruited 3 and had them do the same, then I should be earning more than $6 on this Direct Pay thing. Anywhere from an extra $2 to an extra $9.

Flex bonus You apparently earn 52% of the "wholesale product revenue." But only if you qualify! Anyone that didn't qualify gets their unearned commission dumped into a pool which I suppose is the pool they were talking about the pool haphazardly mentioned in the Giving Back Bonus. To qualify for the level one plan, you have to enroll 3 new people a month to qualify for that month only. To qualify for the level two plan, you have to have 3 recruits who have 3 recruits each. You don't have to recruit additional people each month for this one. What gets me though is that it's saying that it can be a combination of "new and repeat orders" whatever the hell that's supposed to mean because I thought we were talking about people not orders.

Quick rewards This one is new (to MyDay1). When you enroll (and only when you enroll) you have an opportunity to purchase a $299 package, valued at $500! "What do you get", you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked! You get sixty ounces of Dr. Max's Everyday Raw Superfood Mix, ten empty baggies, two bottles of PetroMaxx Plus, ten empty bottles, and four bottles of Energy from Day 1! What a remarkable value! Not only do you get the products, but you also get the empty bottles and baggies so you can gain the valuable experience of packaging your own samples! Who cares if splitting digestible product is food safe or if there's a recall and no one knows if they've got a tainted baggie of Superfood Mix! Throw caution to the wind, people! This is network marketing!

But that's not all! When you sign someone up and they buy this package from you, you get $100 and the five people immediately upline from you get $20 each! "How do you do it," you ask? Well, that's easy! We sell absolute crap marked up so badly that even after we take that $200 payout right off the top, and "discount" you the $201 difference, we're still making bank off the $99 left over! And if you think the product costs us anywhere near that to make, you're delusional!

Then they say something about it being 80% of retail and 70% of wholesale. Which I think is only there to mix their jargon which they've been doing throughout their presentation.

Benefactor's circle I can't decide which is my favorite, this one or the last one. There are four circles: Patron, Visionary, Champion, Legacy. If you meet the sales volume requirement of $100k you're in the Patron Circle and get 1%, Visionary has a $250k requirement and you get an additional 1%, Champion has a $1m requirement and you get an additional 1%, and the Legacy has a $2m requirement and you get an addition half a percent. Cheap bastards.

A percent of what? I think it might be total product sales volume, which is defined as total product sales throughout your fifteen compressed paylines. Whatever.

At this point, it's back to talking about the direct pay system. Most of it is sideways charts that are trying hard not to look like pyramids by not showing more than one recruit per individual payline. I'm not buying. Either way, it's pretty repetitive, but I have to tell you that it's also revealing. After you break into your second level of recruits, they're saying that you can qualify for the direct pay if no more than 75% of your total sales comes from any given level of your line. So if any level of the pyramid below you earns more than 75%, you're boned. Of course, this requirement doesn't take place until Feb 1st. Leads me to believe that when they're figuring it'll all but collapse.

Oh, and I just noticed that they're not really calling themselves MyDay1 anymore (even though the domain name is valid). It's Day1 or Day 1 or The Day 1. Pick a name, dammit!

[notorial dissent]

Two points. One, the actual product sounds green, and most likely incredibly gross to look at, smell, and who in their right mind would drink it. I would be very leery of someone's "miracle" food drink if I didn't know exactly what and everything thing that went in to it, and even then I'm not so sure.

Two, their compensation formula sounds like something that would make movie industry accounting sound simple and sensible by comparison.

[lvi56]

Over the weekend I had a chance to attend one of their launch events. My GF and her family keep getting into these network marketing things (they are in herbalife, some makeup thing, Primerica and another I can't remember), despite not making any money from any of them. So I tagged along out of pure curiosity, see if I could talk them out of it, and to hear it straight from the horses mouth.

Arrived at a hotel in San Diego where they packed in about a hundred people, mostly latinos into the conference room for the presentation. Oh, and there was a raffle including a 43" TV, no doubt to get people to show up. Most there had already enrolled and were just bringing potential recruits or they just wanted to see their savior... er, the boss man himself, Mark Seyforth.

On to the presentation, it was a whole lot of no information. He went into story time, about how he became successful, how he hated jobs, how he wanted to help people. Claimed all you have to do is give people a flyer and wear a button and you will make money. The big theme seemed to be charity and "helping others as you help yourself". Personally, I think it is immoral to use charity as your main selling point for profit. Anyway, the whole thing left me with more questions than answers. The presentation closed with a "skeptics argument", describing how it may look like a pyramid, it isn't (but it IS!), and by making us skeptics look like the bad guys, saying we are selfish and don't understand. Wow.. really?

Everyone was so taken in by the presentation, and most signed up if they hadn't already. Many of them on the idea that they are joining the next big thing. I still don't quite understand exactly how it works. Mark said you didn't have to sell, but from what I understand, you do have to sell. It gets into the whole "consumer for charity", you aren't "selling" but "consuming".

Also, I was given a bottle of that Pertomaxx. Details of exactly what it is are lacking, no ingredients on the bottle, no where can I find any information about testing and results. I'm a bit hesitant to try it. I do keep very detailed MPG of my car, and my car gets the EPA estimated MPG. I really don't see how I can do any better considering the age of my car (15 years). But with gas here in Southern California going above $4 yet again, I can see how people are drawn into anything claiming it saves gas.

[notorial dissent]

lvi56, welcome.

FWIW, I think your instincts are spot on. I suspect you are wasting your time with GF and family, if they haven't caught on by now, they most likely won't. As to the Pertomaxx, if there is no ingredient listing on the label, it is one violating several Fed packaging rules, and two not something I would risk my safety on. If you don't know what's in it don't go drinking it, applies to all sorts of situations, but this one especially.

[Doc Bunkum]

As to the Pertomaxx... If you don't know what's in it don't go drinking it, applies to all sorts of situations, but this one especially.

This one especially.

I wouldn't suggest drinking it either because PetroMaxx is a fuel additive for your car!

[notorial dissent]

Considering some of the things I have heard about some of the nutritional supplements that have been peddled the last few years, it might be safer to drink the gas additive.

[Gregg]

PetroMaxx is probably Naptha, or more or less mothballs, which ain't good for your car.
Trust me, modern engine tuning is done in a computer in the car that is optimized for the fuel you get at the gas station. We even have sensors that adjust and correct for the differences between cheapo gas from the C Store and expensive stuff from the big name gas stations, and the car figures it out and runs about the same on any of them. (there are differences in gasoline brands and formulations, but the biggest difference in them is not how the car runs today, but how long it will run well before it gets all gooked up and dirty inside....so you're paying for it to last longer in 20 years not run better today)

And additives like PetroMaxx usually have something in them that screws it up long term and don't do much for it now, either....

[notorial dissent]

Or more likely screws it up almost immediately and makes for some really expensive repairs along the way.