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Fhtm Updates

I am sure many of you have noticed a huge change in the attitude that is here on Fortune Social in the past few weeks. It appears as if all of the NSM’s and Paul Orberson are trying diligently to hide the real truth from everyone about the real structure of the business as well as how and who really makes money.

When Fortune Social was originally conceived it was to be an umbrella for everything positive about FHTM. God only knows there was enough negativity in Google and the other search engines. Our primary objective was to help everyone build a profitable FHTM business. There is so much negativity in the search engines from the latest state actions that it will take years and a team of 1000′s to combat this. We refuse to expend the resources, as we are 100% unappreciated by FHTM owners.

The attitude of the administrators of Fortune Social changed when the Montana Securities Commission issued a cease a desist order not only against FHTM, Paul Orberson and Thomas Mills – but also all of the reps and managers in Montana and specifically Mike Misenheimer. When this happened, FHTM feverishly tried to sweep it under the carpet and merely asked all Montana reps to temporarily stop doing business there. We could not! I personally don’t intend to make Paul any wealthier at the expense of my family. I am also sick in tired of hearing that we are pissed because we FAILED. That is so far from the truth as you can get.

What happened to the dreams and financial freedom of all of those 1,600 somewhat reps that counted on Misenheimer and Orberson to eliminate their jobs and become debt free?  Seems to me like all of those dreams have been crushed and all of those reps are forbidden from engaging in any FHTM business. Do they still get their residuals or have they been hung out to dry?

Our staff immediately began an in depth investigation into FHTM and discovered so many irregularities from what they tell you to what is reality. I know this is going to piss off so many of the cult like believers in FHTM and Orberson but if you are going to hang your family’s future and financial freedom on this entity – shouldn’t you all know the REAL truth?

First – they DO not have a single direct relationship with any of the products they represent (except the companies Paul owns or controls) *see attached analysis ~

Secondly – NONE of the CEO’s of any of the companies that FHTM represents ever went to Lexington to visit Paul or cut a deal. S0 many times prospects hear the phrase, “If GE, Verizon and DuPont can align with us – we must not be a pyramid scheme – we must be real”. THIS IS SO BOGUS! Those companies are not DIRECTLY aligned with Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing.

Thirdly – Paul did not come out of retirement to help anyone other than himself. The pay plan is top heavy and if you read below you might understand why so many Stat Attorney Generals are going after FHTM with both barrels loaded for bear. Our research indicates that Montana was a cease and desist for not only FHTM but its officers and managers. What happens when they decide to issue a financial penalty against all of the ESM’s or NSM’s who purported this Fraud against Montanans’? Who pays this? I guarantee it won’t be Orberson!

Additionally another dozen states have FHTM in their radar and are investigating them for the same things.  Friends in California sent us a copy of a suit filed towards the end of last month in CA which not only names FHTM but most of the President’s pool and seeks $25Million in damages. Where does that leave all of the folks in California and the west coast of the USA?  Unfortunately, like addicts, most of the NSM’s are in total denial. They have to be or their business would disintegrate tomorrow. Have they created a huge nest egg from all of the revenues, or spent it on their new found lavish lifestyle?

There is a fine line between illegal scam and a real network marketing company. All of the administrators of Fortune Social are very pro legal network marketing – but we cannot seem to find any real data that supports the fact that Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing is NOT a scam and illegal!

Open your eyes folks. So many of you around the US and Canada got into the FHTM business to build a future for your families and get away from the JOB. The administrators of Fortune Social understand that more than most as they have been entrepreneurs and self sufficient for over 30 years. We hate to see so many hang their hats on a system that benefits 100 or so people and 99% of the rest invest, suffer, quit or get shut down.

As regulators in the telecommunications field for over 20 years we understand the need to be legal, forthright and above board. Paul Orberson and the Presidential Ambassadors tell a great story, except 90% of it is BS designed to enhance themselves and their pocketbooks.

Fortune Social will be adding some new tools over the summer and will try and keep all of its users fully informed as to the latest legal woes of the company so many refuse to quit. Just remember – when you get named in a state cease and desist or lawsuit – YOU ARE OUT OF BUSINESS IMMEDIATELY AND ALL REVENUES STOP! Additionally it may cost you more to defend the fines than you ever made.

Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing (FHTM) Analysis of Product and Business Model

Howard Wagler @ 2:16 PM

FHTM is a multi level marketing company that purports to allow you to work directly with well known companies and make lots of money by taking a percentage back from purchases made through your FHTM representative site. In reality, if a representative stops signing people up under them, they will make very little money, as little as .5% on products sold through the site (unless you have eight levels of representatives sign up under you, and you also get a small cut of those under you who sell services or products). The get rich quick portion of the presentation relies on signing up people under you for $299 a person, and getting them to sign others up, as well as pay for training at $250 a person. Note that you also must pay a $199 renewal fee each year, and if you pay for the trainer course, an additional $100 trainer renewal fee. This is a text book example of a pyramid scheme, with a token product line on the side to try and make the business legitimate.

I will analyze some of the products that a FHTM representative can get a percentage back on (.5%), which is supposedly the primary focus of the business (if it is not, it is possibly illegal, so they have to pretend that this is the focus). From research and hearing actual representatives say it, the way to make money is to sign people up under you. One representative I heard from only made $17 in a month through the products, but made much more by convincing others to sign up too.

The whole point of this analysis is to show that the sale of products and services through FHTM is not a way to make large amounts of money, and in fact is offered to try and mask the true source of most earnings, which are derived from the sign up fees of new people joining. Thus the primary purpose of the company is to sign up new representatives, making it an illegal pyramid scheme.

MyTelTag
This is a product only available to Representatives and costs $19.99 a month. So clearly buying this won’t make you money as a representative, and in fact will cost you $19.99 a month.

Peter Lamas has a direct affiliate program paying 20% that is free to sign up for. So going through FHTM pays you .5%, and signing up for a free affiliate account pays 20%.

Choice Plans RX
This is a FHTM company that they pay Ocenture to set up and run for them. When you go to the website, it has copyright FHTM, but when you look who owns the domain name, all contact emails are to ocenture.com email addresses. If you use this product, remember you are actually buying from FHTM, and be sure to check prices you are paying against a site such as drugstore.com. A spot check of the price list shows the drug Pegasys for 180MCG/0.5 for $1,482.23. It appears to be available from drugstore.com as a 1ml vial for $651.98. If the 0.5 in the ChoicePlanRX price refers to half a ML, then you pay $2,964.46 for 1ml, while at drugstore.com you can get it for $651.98. I suggest you look at the prices yourself.

Health Card
This product is yet another product that FHTM paid Ocenture to run, and Ocenture uses VantageAmerica Solutions, Inc. to run the card discounts. It looks like FHTM paid Ocenture to rebrand their pre packaged product called MedAffordable.

Travel FHTM
This is another service where FHTM paid Ocenture to rebrand and rename their existing product called TrotHop, and to set up an affiliate site through Travelocity, to book tickets through an airline. If you buy from TravelFHTM, you are going through three middlemen to reach the airline (FHTM, Ocenture, & Travelocity). Basically this service uses Travelocity, rebranded to look like TravelFHTM, adding on a fee to each ticket. Tickets tend to be $5 – $10 dollars more on TravelFHTM than buying straight from Travelocity, you can test this by checking the price for an identical flight through Travelocity and TravelFHTM. Also, in order to offer this product, the representative must pay $49.99

Roadside AutoClub
This is simply a service set up by Ocenture to provide roadside assistance.  to look at all the services Ocenture can set up for your organization. It looks like this is what FHTM did.

Ingrid Home Security
The link to this service did not work, so I was unable to assess what this service was. If the link is not working, it’s safe to say you can’t use this service.

Protect America
This appears to be a GE security product that FHTM markets, by going through an authorized dealer, greatalarms.com. So you have 2 middle men, (FHTM and greatalarms.com) As of 2.26.10, the FHTM’s site had free* sign up options, but the asterisk beside the FREE does not have an explanation. It should include this: * “Standard monitoring agreement required with approved credit. “, FHTM is misleading if they don’t show the disclaimer. It is not free.

FortuneTV.info
This is a product only available to Fortune Representatives, and so is not a way for FHTM reps to make money.

EZnet Tools
This is a Quick Website Creation Company that welcomes Multi Level Marketing Companies as affiliates. Information about joining EZnet Tools as an affiliate is available. If you want to set up a simple website, I suggest you use a reputable company like wordpress.com, who can have you online on your own domain name for $15 a year

Dish Network
Anyone can become an affiliate of Dish Network, and be paid $120 per installation, you can become an affiliate here. Compare that to .5% through FHTM, and the best choice is clear.

Magazines.com
You can sign up for free to be an affiliate of Magazines.com, and earn a 35% commission on subscriptions sold. Compare that to .5% through FHTM.

The Wireless Shop
One of the most talked about services at FHTM is the wireless shop. This is a website that FHTM uses Simplexity to run. You can buy cell phones and cell phone contracts through this service. Simplexity uses linkshare.com to purchase these services. By going through FHTM Wireless Shop you appear to be using three middlemen (FHTM, Simplexity, and Linkshare). Linkshare can be joined for free by going to simplexity’s site which can be joined for free  and clicking on “Join Our Wireless Program Today” Alternately, you can go straight to LinkShare.com and create a free affiliate account, and start earning the full commission instead of the .5% FHTM gives back to their representatives. With this free account, you can earn affiliate money from many companies, a list of which can be found here. So FHTM does not really have a direct relationship with Verizon and AT&T, contrary to the impression given by the company.

The money that is implied to be available to be made to Representatives (as much as $80,000 a month is shown) is derived almost entirely from spreadsheets showing what would happen if you signed up three people at $299 a person, and they each signed up three people, and so on, down to eight levels. The problem with this type of business model, besides possibly being illegal, is that in order for people to make the money they were told they could, they have to continue signing up people. Whenever people no longer sign up, then all of the people at the bottom of the pyramid will lose their money. So even if you can get into a pyramid scheme like this before it collapses, and make money off of signing people up under you, when it does fail, most of the money that you made would have been taken from those under you, and they would lose it. For ethical and moral reasons, I would not want to take other people’s money, knowing that sooner or later the money I make will be lost by someone down the line.

If you are still not convinced that this is not a legitimate business, the North Dakota attorney general issued a cease and desist order against FHTM in December (it has since been lifted).

Update 2: You can read the Temporary Cease and Desist Order here. It is lengthy, but has a lot of very relevant information.

How to Identify a Product-Based Pyramid Scheme (“Recruiting MLM”)

© 2003, Jon M. Taylor, PhD

Multilevel companies that are based on profits from recruiting rather than retailing should be regarded as pyramid schemes or “recruiting MLMs.” This article describes five ways to distinguish them from “retail MLMs” in which the company pays generously for retailing products without recruiting a large downline. “Recruiting MLMs” typically display five features:

1. Recruiting of participants is unlimited in an endless chain of recruiters recruiting recruiters.

Ask whether unlimited recruiting is allowed. When a given market is saturated, and the program must move on to another location or introduce new products or divisions to continue, the opportunity for each new person to make money becomes less and less as the programs expands.

2. Advancement in a hierarchy of multiple levels of “distributors” is achieved by recruitment, rather than by appointment.

Ask whether participating “distributors” advance their position (and potential income) in a hierarchy of multiple levels of “distributors” by recruiting other “distributors” who in turn advance by recruiting distributors under them, etc.? If so, the result is self-appointment through recruitment to ascending payout levels in the distributor hierarchy. If the only way a person can profit significantly in the scheme is through recruiting to advance to higher payout levels (or to buy another’s downline), this strongly indicates a pyramid scheme.

3.”Pay to play” requirements are satisfied by ongoing “incentivized purchases.”

These are purchases of goods and services that are required to participate in commissions or to ascend in the distributor hierarchy. If they are required to participate in the “business opportunity,” then whether they are used, sold, given away, or stored is irrelevant. They should be considered a cost of doing business.

Ask whether prospective “distributors” are encouraged to make sizable investments (“front loading”) in “incentivized purchases” in order to take advantage of the “business opportunity” and later to continue qualifying for advancement or higher payout in overrides (commissions and bonuses). This practice, can result in large losses if the products cannot be resold.Also be wary of plans that require minimum periodic purchases (“pay to play”) to qualify for commissions or advancement. Do not sign up for continuing product purchases on auto-ship through an automatic bank draft or credit card, rather than making occasional purchases as needed. Such purchase requirements may be disguised investments in a product-based pyramid scheme or a clever attempt to disguise pyramid investments as product purchases.

4. The company offers commissions and/or bonuses to more than five levels of “distributors.”

Ask whether the company pay overrides to distributors in a hierarchy of more levels than are functionally justifiable. Even in major corporations, the entire world marketplace can be covered in five levels of sales management ­- branch, district, regional, national, and international sales managers. Paying commissions and bonuses on more than five levels in an MLM program primarily enriches those at the top at the expense of those at the bottom. You would be wise to avoid any program that pays overrides on more than five levels. Breakaway compensation systems are particularly exploitive, as payments are on a hierarchy of “breakaway” organizations of whole groups of participants, not just individuals — creating an extraordinarily high loss rate, except for those at the top of a “mega-pyramid of pyramids.”

5. Company payout per sale for each upline participant equals or exceeds that for the person selling the product, creating inadequate incentive to retail and excessive incentive to recruit — and an extreme concentration of income at the top.

Ask whether a “distributor” purchasing products “for resale” would receive about the same total payout (in commissions, bonuses, etc.) from the MLM company as participants several levels above who had nothing to do with the sale. If so, the company’s payments to the person retailing the product would be pitifully small, while those at the top of the upline can compound the small commission per sale by the sales of hundreds or even thousands of downline distributors. This is great for the upline leaders but lousy for those attempting retail sales. Avoid any MLM company that pays less than half of all distributor payout to the person actually selling the products to outside customers.

Never accept income projections of retail sales at full retail prices, especially for products that are overpriced and not competitive in the marketplace. Also be wary if you are asked to choose between two options or “tracks” — one for those who want to “retail” the products and another track for those who are serious about “building the business.” This sales pitch usually indicates that the incentives are heavily weighted towards recruiting

Where valid data are available, recent research has demonstrated that when all five of these red flags are found in an MLM, the percentage of participants who lose money is 99.9% — even worse than the loss rates for typical no-product pyramid schemes and for games of chance in Las Vegas.

BEST OF LUCK TO ALL OF YOU HERE ON FORTUNE SOCIAL. WE HOPE ALL OF YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE, ALTHOUGH IT PROBABLY WONT BE IN FORTUNE HI-TECH.

http://www.fortunesocial.com/fortune-hi-tech-blogs/fhtm-updates.html

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