Is Shop To Earn a Scam or Legit Business Opportunity?

The problem with your review is that it takes on a biased approach from the start. What you consider important is really quite detailed, and then what others might consider important is really quite vague.. Example..

You harp on how important google search hits are and corelate this to the popularity of the business, without actually doing REAL research. I guess doing actual work to back up your claims is asking a lot, afterall this is just an informal opinion blog, however, had you done real actual legwork you would know that STE now has over 105k members, it had aprox 70k in Dec08 which means its pace is going along just fine. You include nice graphs and ratings data on a google search engine as if this is proof of a decline. Really? I remember seeing a google search meter on Megan Fox, and then next month she was no where on the charts.. Did her stock decline,fall off, and die too? Dear god I hope not, or I must be the only one in love with her 😉 Sadly, google search results are a poor way of proving your point that STE is in decline when actual hard figures on numbers would dictate otherwise. This is why people need to take what they read on the internet as opinion and not fact, because facts require real research and not fluff.

Then there is the important BBB F rating update.. Incredibly, you mention virtually nothing about this.. You state, “Now, granted, in reading the report, the number of complaints actually seems to be rather low”.. Really?? You put up search charts and ratings numbers for a meaningless way to measure the growth of STE, yet failed to mention the total number of complaints against STE were actually just THREE, out of over 100k members?? AND out of the three, one was address and the BBB was not able to confirm if the other two were addressed. Isn’t that being very phony to leave out such important details? You also failed to mention a reason listed by the BBB for the F rating is that the company is very new. Now, you could have posted the BBB rating details, but you chose not to because your intention was not to be fair. This is a disservice to your readers and anyone looking for real information.

You see, I wouldn’t mind if your review gave tit for tat points.. I’ll give you an example.. While there ARE plenty of free affiliate programs out there that offer you cash back options (your point), it can be noted that STE does offer the added benefit of an MLM system on the back of an affiliate program so that large networks of affiliates can benefit each other (STE’s point). Wouldn’t that be more of an unbiased opinion and review? That’s why I, and so many STE members, find your review harmful. You tell half truths, leave out major details as inconsequential, and greatly emphasize meaningless facts (search engine popularity? Come on now..). All we ask is you be more fair handed in your reviews and detail the Pros along with the Cons and dispense with the biased nature of your reviews. This business isn’t life or death to us, but you need to make a greater attempt at being unbiased if your review is to be taken seriously.

Juggy

I’m not looking to advance the STE agenda, I’m just looking to correct biased reporting, and it is biased, not because it goes against STE but because it reflects the negative in a purely hyped up way while reflecting nothing positive. Truth be told I would prefer a review of pluses or minuses or a review from both an STE detractor and an STE advocate. At least this would be fair, rather than your current review. By the way, I did read your full review several months ago, and I was detracted by it. It was so loaded with half truths and inuendos that I steered clear of STE. My friend sat down with me, he asked me to read into it because he knew I was thorough and I did it because of my close freindship with him, and that’s where I learned a great many things in the review were not accurate and some were just flat out wrong. That’s the problem with the internet, people take what is in print as fact because if someone is writing it, it must be true.

Example… From the time STE began to Dec 2008, STE had 70k people. From Jan 2009 to Mar 2009 STE has 105k+ people. Does this seem like a slowing trend? Keeping the current pace, in 2009 the membership should make it to roughly 200k or so, and mathematically that would indicate an increase in membership. I am not faulting google for their charts, it is what it is.. What it is not is an indicator of whether something is dying off (see my example of Megan Fox 😉 ). When a Financial Analyst researches a company, we research many factors to determine the true value of a company. I understand you’re just a blogger looking to garner readers, but you do a disservice to your readers without proper proof of the comments you make. Google is one of many engines (I personally don’t use em) and although we are computer savy, the vast majority of people are not. All 22 people in my business have never done a search on google for a review of STE, that would be 100% of my team. How do you quantify how important “google search hits” as a statistic is? Wouldn’t it be wiser to do the actual research and find the truth behind your comments before spewing that it was dying off? But you didn’t.. And you made a bold statement which is actually the opposite of what was truthful. See what I mean? Reviews are fine, give pluses and minuses, seek true figures and fully reveal all sources of information and let the reader make their own determination.

But you didn’t do that.. You used nice charts and ratings to emphasis your point that STE was dying, even though actual data concludes it is growing, and you were extremely vague on your explaination of the F rating. Also, “complaints filed against STE were rather low” is purposefully vague and meant to gloss over the facts. You know the facts, you chose to be VERY elaborate with charts and ratings on how STE was surely dying off, and extremely vague on the F rating. You knew there were only 3 complaints out of 105k+ members filed, and 1 was addressed by the company and the other 2 were not confirmed if they were addressed. You chose not to mention that because it doesn’t fit the trend of your review which was that STE was bad bad bad.

You can not sit there and guess why people cancel and claim it as fact. Truth is you don’t know, and neither do I, but I do know this.. Some people WILL join STE because they really like what they hear and agree the business model is something they would be interested in, but they never actually think about what is required of them. Most of us have never been in a position where we had to sell an idea to someone, and it is a pretty cold hard reality that most of us do NOT possess the skills or knowledge of how to present the idea of this business to people. I’ve seen people try to send emails out asking for people to join, not get a response, and give up.. Another cancelled member to the list. That is why I advocate you UNDERSTAND FULLY what you are joining and what is expected of you. You can’t sit there, cite cancelled members, and dictate the obvious reason they left was because the business model doesn’t work. Speculation declared as fact is another disservice to your readers.

Do I read reviews? Of course I do.. That is how I found yours, that lady selling her “MLM are the devil” book, and others.. I just wish you would all do real investigative reporting before you released your reviews, as the ones I have read thus far are biased and filled with half truths.. Another example of half truths? The commission rules are so complex, left leg/right leg, it’s just too confusing! I remember reading that.. Really? It’s confusing? at least 1/3 points come from one side, 2/3 from the other. This is confusing? I remember reading a full paragraph on the complexities of the commission system in a review.. When I did my own research I laughed out loud.

My advice to all those looking for info on STE.. Do your own research using actual data and facts YOU yourself dig up, and don’t dig that info up on comments you find on the internet, because chances are they will be written by someone with an agenda. Don’t take my word, his word, or the word of a renowned specialist in the MLM field, because everyone has their own agenda. STE has pros and cons, like any business.. You should weigh them and see if the cons outweigh the pros for YOU.

Juggy:
Thks for taking the time to write all this. I have been involved with STE since June 2008. Those who know my story, know that I was NOT interested at all. I have been approached many times with MLM opportunities, but I couldn’t get excited about selling Super Juice or wrinkle cream to people. However this made perfect sense to me. I think everyone will soon have their own personal virtual mall. Why click on Google and Yahoo and have them get paid, when I can go to my virtual mall / cash-back web portal and pay myself? This has been attempted before, but that was back in the dial-up days . . . Now is the time for this because almost EVERYONE now has fast and efficient internet service at home, the economy is weak and people are looking to save money/make extra money. When you throw in the Go-Green movement (which at first I thought was just hype, but they are VERY serious about it) this is a home run. I have helped literally 100’s of people in NJ/NY area make a few extra thousand dollars a month. Whether its a car payment, tuition or a mortgage payment it all helps.

I find the commission schedule generous and easy once you “see” it. This isn’t rocket science, but you do need to spend some time getting trained ( about 3-4 hours ).

In the end, what I like most about STE is the fact that its is almost impossible not to make your money back. There is no buyer’s remorse. No closet full of some proprietary product that no one wants any more. The only people that cancel are people that read negative stuff on the web and panic ( which mostly comes from other MLM’s freaking out as their people flock to STE – STE is so much easier). These people would probably never been any good anyway. Even if you refer no one, never recieve the $100 referral fees and never score $550. It’s only $448 with a $119 renewal fee. Any decent on-line shopper should be able to make $567 in cash back in 2 years.

In fact I know many stories of people who didn’t shop on line much at all, and STE got them more into on-line shopping – this opened a whole new world for these people and they claim they saved $100’s by just getting better deals not offered at the brick and mortar stores. There are also so many “personal growth” stories about people coming out of their shell and speaking in front of a group or making money for themselves etc.

It’s a shame that these blogs can prevent these nice developments. MLMis not for everyone, I was so convinced it wasn’t for me . . . but with the web and the “virtual mall” product, this is a breeze AND FUN!

Cheers!

Joe O.

As I had stated previously, this isn’t an outlet for wowing the audience with how many tens of thousands of dollars you make per month and how rich this MLM has made you, so I am editing/deleting comments with cheerleading statistics that represent an unrealistic portrayal of what your typical new recruit is ever going to earn. Call it what you will, I’ll allow debate, corrections and a healthy dialogue on the topic, but it’s evident that there are plenty of other forums out there for selling the virtues of STE and this will not serve as an outlet for cheerleading.

Previous comments:
“When a Financial Analyst researches a company, we research many factors to determine the true value of a company. I understand you’re just a blogger looking to garner readers, but you do a disservice to your readers without proper proof of the comments you make.” – Does STE publish the number of members that cancel their membership each month and allow prospective members to review this data? No. Do they publish how many members are making money at a faster rate than their initial signup+monthly expenses to maintain membership? I’d love to see it. As a Financial Analyst, if that’s what you are, I’m sure you’re familiar with Sarbox, 10-Ks and all those nice “publicly disclosed documents”. To act like STE shares such data that you claim I should have assessed is the joke. During the telecon I had called into, some typical aggressive hypester ran through the whole presentation, got everyone worked up over how much money they were going to make, NEVER ASKED IF ANYONE HAD A QUESTION, and promptly ended the telecon. This is fact. This sounds a bit different to me than a quarterly report, Analyst meetings and public disclosure that goes with publicly traded companies and I’m sure you can tell the difference.

“You can not sit there and guess why people cancel and claim it as fact. Truth is you don’t know, and neither do I, but I do know this” – I never purported to know specifically why people canceled. What I do know is that I was disturbed by the number of cancellations I saw in the top of the pyramid of members I was looking at when I had access to one of the early members’ accounts. It really begged the question as to what they knew that I hadn’t yet figured out; heck these guys had signed up MONTHS before me and were way up in the food chain and they were dropping out? That caused me to investigate some more. Regarding transparency, even the guy who signed me up couldn’t answer my questions. He had to go back up the chain multiple levels to ask a guy who was pretty close to the top to ask them and then get back to me. None of these common questions were written in an FAQ, evident in the presentation, etc. Perhaps things have improved now, but my initial review was in the early stages and I am of the opinion that at that time, the amount of information available to prospective members was inadequate.

“All 22 people in my business have never done a search on google for a review of STE, that would be 100% of my team.” – How do you know? Are these 22 lemmings under you ready to run, run into the sea after you? The fact that you yourself came across my initial review in the early stages; were you not performing research on the internet on STE? So, you researched it on the internet, but none of your 22 did? So, you asked 22 people, “Did you even Google STE?”. If so, you’re socially awkward. If so, and they answered yes, they would be implying that they didn’t trust you, so they would then feel compelled to say, “No”. Trust me, 1 out of 22 people who sign up do research online or you’re working with extremely gullible people.

“Another example of half truths? The commission rules are so complex, left leg/right leg, it’s just too confusing! I remember reading that.. Really? It’s confusing? at least 1/3 points come from one side, 2/3 from the other. This is confusing? I remember reading a full paragraph on the complexities of the commission system in a review.. When I did my own research I laughed out loud.” – The commission scheme was deceptive in my opinion at that time. So much so, that it took much back and forth to even have my questions answered by existing members. It’s not as simple as 1/3 and 2/3. There was no information on how members are placed beneath you, how you place new members, what happens if your one leg gets so heavy that you can’t make the 1/3 necessary on the other leg – what happens then? It wasn’t clear. No demonstration, etc. – I thought it took some guy 10 years to build this website; they couldn’t come up with a decent video on how it works? It was some powerpoint presentation that had mistakes in it, which they eventually updated.

I’ll step out of the comment section here for a while, going to focus on some other topics. Obviously, there are passionate proponents and critics of STE out there and it is working out well for some and not so great for others. Interested in hearing from some other folks on this.

STE does allow members access to how many people have joined the STE team.. You could have done 2 minutes of research to see the business was growing just fine before you posted that STE was dying, but you didn’t. Don’t complain that this info isn’t readily available for your perusal, this is not something McDonalds does either. This is an unrealistic request of a business, and it is the reason franchises do not disclose this info.

Also, you are obviously not in the business world because 10Ks and Sarbanes Oxley (Not Sarbox, as you call it) are for publicly held companies on the stock market, of which STE is not. Clicking on some early members and deducing that the business is a failure because THOSE PEOPLE did not succeed is a really poor way to judge a business model. I could have bought Yahoo at $30, and I would have had I known it could lead to $300 a share. Does that mean that Yahoo or Google was a poor stock or was it that I just made a poor decision? Again.. Flawed logic.

As for your comments on the 22 people researching on google.. I will ignore your insult that I am socially awkward, because when you have to resort to name calling then you are losing the arguement, and yes, you are losing this arguement. But.. For your information.. I sent an email to my team members if they were having trouble recruiting people because of any bad reviews on the web and they all responded that they didn’t even know that there was a bad review. I asked this because I wanted to address any concerns anyone had in case they ran into one of these reviews that may have had misleading or half truth facts. This is not socially awkward, this is being proactive and taking care of my business.

I am sorry that you had someone that did not take their business seriously and took the time to learn their business enough to be able to respond to your questions, but you can not blame STE for that. You need to educate yourself before you can educate others and your recruiter failed to do this. The questions you asked were very easy to answer and it was unfortunate that your recruiter was unable to answer them.

Again, if anyone has real questions about the business model, I would be happy to help answer any questions that I can… Honestly, and with real facts and not assumptions or half truths.

Juggy

Has anyone EVER heard of Bernie Madoff? Seriously with this guy going to jail for life how can anyone join these MLM’s without realizing they are just “stealing” from the members below them which in most cases are people/friends they know?

Why do I need a “web portal” to go to bestbuy.com or target.com? Why not just go RIGHT to the webpage? Oh wait if you use the portal then I get a “cut” of my friends sign up fees.

Seriously if people can’t look at his and realize that you’re only hurting the people you sign up ….

Darwin, your assumption that the business was in a downward trend using only the results of a search engine are the reason your report is biased towards the negative when actual facts show exactly the opposite. If you cared to do a fair review you would have made an effort for real hard figures instead of a meaningless google chart. You didn’t give one single positive aspect of the business, overly hyped up the negative aspect with a meaningless search engine chart, and by-passed real data on the rating of the business by the BBB. This reflects a clear bias to the negative of the business. Anyway, it is my opinion that your article is biased and if you don’t want to admit it that is fine but I have stated my case and we can go back and forth over it and we would get no where. If anyone has real questions, I would be happy to answer them. Btw, nobody uses Sarbox, maybe you got it from some cutesy author writing on the web; everyone uses Sox..

“No one”, please get a clue before you speak.. The person hitting your link does not sign up to anything and they do not get billed extra, the commission is paid directly from the company. You couldn’t be a better example of exactly what I was referring to when I said these reviews were filled with half truths and false facts and inuendos..

I have lots of friends, and they would be perfectly happy to click my portal before they get to the final destination, at no cost to them. Again, if anyone has any REAL questions on the business, I would be happy to answer them.

Juggy

Again, your desperation to resort to insults relfects your desire to move away from the obvious, which is that your review’s only intention was to harm STE’s reputation by putting up a review with barely any research.. I did read your full review and although it had about ONE pro listed (maybe one?), they were immediately dimissed and the cons that you listed were mostly half truths and flat out lies, which I assume was the reason you were threatened with legal action in which you complied. I remember a friend cutting and pasting your review in an email and I had to dispell each falsehood with real facts. I remember it vividly because your review was the reason I steered clear of STE, until I did my friend a favor and actually did my own research, only to discover all the half truths..

It doesn’t surprise me that your articles are written in this manner.. Most internet authors or bloggers are skillful in the art of PARSING. Like a politician, you parse the words that benfit your cause, and leave out the whole picture so a fair view is not possible. The reader gets half the picture, but only the half you want them to see. Example?

On your legacy blog.. Everyday Finance.. I wrote: “Skip all the manual work, the forms, the website creation, the accounting AND utilize an MLM affiliate program where not only do I take advantage of my friends and family, but I take advantage of my ENTIRE TEAM’s friends and family network at absolutely no harm to them? This is a hard decision to make? I’m sorry.. I don’t see it.”

And your reply? Parsed.. You wrote, quoting me.. ” “Skip all the manual work, the forms, the website creation, the accounting AND utilize an MLM affiliate program where not only do I take advantage of my friends and family” Well, at least you admit to taking advantage of your friends and family…

And then you locked the thread so I couldn’t point out your parsing of my own words and so that everyone could read your parsed half truth as the final word..

Notice the parsing? That’s some desperation.. I’m done with you as your parsing and resorting to insults is obvious.. You want to play the shell game and hide the truth, but I am still here to help answer questions if people have them.. There are pros and cons to this business, if anyone has questions, I’ll help answer them as honestly as I can without parsing or providing half truths.

Juggy

I will address a few of your questions..

– The yearly renewal fee is due at the end of the year, you do not have to pay it up front so if you do not want to continue your business you do not need to pay. I do not know anything about MWP..

– You do not need to shop at the shop to earth website until you have two full months in the business. Example: You start on Feb 10th.. You will need to shop on the shop to earn website for $100 by the end of May or your points earned will wipe. This is also true of the referals, you need to have referred your qualifying number of people by the end of may to keep your points (although there is a new rule in place to extend this if you merely shop on the shop to earth website for your normal $100, it will preserve your points). Please note this example is *ONLY* for when you first join. After that, each month afterwards you will need to spend $100 at the shop to earn website to keep your points. As long as someone buys $100 worth at your STE website, you will not have to spend the money there. But I will be honest with you, I don’t know many people that would be willing to for the point you mentioned, health and green usually tend to be more expensive. Since you get a 15% discount, this will help offset the normal markup on green for you, but they won’t see that 15% discount. Especially important here is that if you do NOT make much money that month, you are not obligated to buy anything at all at the shop to earth website.. You would just lose the points you have accumulated. You still get to keep the cash back you’ve made from shopping at your website though, it is only your points that you have earned within that month that would flush.

– The 1/3 points on one leg and 2/3 points on the other leg is fairly simple.. You want to try and stay balanced, but it is not necessary to make money. However, the better balanced your business is, the more money you are likely to make. If one side had 100,000 points, and the other side had 3000 points, you could only use 9000 points.. This is because 3000 points + 6000 points (thus the 1/3 from one side, and 2/3 from the other). You see you were only able to pull 6000 points from the 100,000 side? A simple rule is take all the points from your weaker side and multiply it by 3.. That is the max amount of points you can cash in at that particular moment, if you have more than that, you will only be able to use that amount at that moment.

– As for your final question on how much you can make. I do not believe if you just started that you would be making $1000 a week. I’m sorry but it takes a few months to build up your business to start and unless you are VERY good at signing people, I can’t see this happening. Perhaps you can guage how successful you can be from my example.. I signed 5 people within 30 days and made $1,250 in roughly 2 months. If you can sign people much faster, than you will do better than me.. This business is an MLM, and so it takes time to ramp up into something big. It is not a get rich quick scheme and requires effort.

A final word of advice. If you like the business model but are unsure if you could get people interested in it, why not talk to them before you join, let them know you are interested in it and wanted them to get in with you and ask their opinion. There is nothing that says you need to join first before you sign up, that’s what I did.. I had my 5 people ready right away and I got my bonus money. I do NOT see this as something you can go door to door and ask random strangers to invest $450 in this. I think of this as presenting to friends and family so you are all on a team striving for a similar goal.

I hope I have answered your questions fairly and honestly..

You obviously have little or no understanding of “Geo-Analytics” as this science relates to the varying relative time frames of Keyword Trend-Tracking. This group started in Florida — then held fast as a basic cornerstone to their overall growth strategy (note that the top five rankings for relevant queries were within the state of Florida).

As for the BBB (as part of what I do, I am a “BBB Relations Consultant” — yes, we do exist). Their rating system is commonly known, all too often — to be arbitrary, inconsistent, and inequitable.

On the upside, and in most respects, I honestly harbor a deep affinity and respect for the BBB. However — most people don’t realize that on a national level, their business model operates much like a network of independent franchises.

On the downside, their infrustructure — to say the least — is extremely disorganized. They steadfastly maintain a “Dinosaur Mindset” toward their entire operation as if most of them live in a time warp.

Not until this changes will “Accuracy” be their order of the day.

One final word: Every single American Company (MLM or otherwise) in existence has issues of this frequency and magnitude. It just depends on what one CHOOSES TO LOOK AT.

It’s also uniquely American to spin, as well as to post-justify — in order to fit one’s own comfort zone, be it to the yea or the nay.

-DJD-

Juggy:
You spent a lot of time explaining some STE stuff… thanks for the effort . . I used to do that too on the self-serving Tracy Coenen site. I went on and on explaining in plain english from July to November 2008 on how STE works. How simple it is when you understand it. She kept saying there was a high faliure rate with all MLMs and they are all the same yada yada Then I gave great examples of programs like Weight Watchers – where 95% of the people fail and either do not lose weight or gain back more. So is the idea of cutting calories and exercising more really a scam? Should everyone just quit trying?? Is it all just a scam to get people to buy frozen weight watcher brand dinners and pay dues for meetings? Guess what? some people do actually lose weight and change their life . . . but it takes dedication. . . . just like anything worthwhile doing does.
She took ALL my comments down . . . what a joke ! I guess I made way too much sense and her book sales were dipping.

By the way Juggy, you actually had a mistake in your 1/3 2/3 explanation. The prgram is even easier than you showed . . . its based on 4,800 points . . . so if someone has 100,000 points on one side EVERY TIME THEY GET 1,600 POINTS ON THE OTHER SIDE ( which is 1/3 of 4,800 ) THEY WILL SCORE AND MAKE $550-$600! They will deduct the 1,600 and also deduct 3,200 from the 100,000.
So they will never even get to 3,000 . . . it will get them paid before that even happens!

Lastly, someone sent me this . . . I think its pretty interesting . .
The History and Truth of Network Marketing – by Greg Stewart

Enlightenment vs. En-dark-enment

The most fundamental fact of life in our world today is change. As a rule, people are reluctant to change. We resist it, we like to stay within our comfort zone of what is known and accepted by most. THIS IS HUMAN NATURE.

But it’s true that what you resist will persist, especially when you resist a better method whose time has come. In almost every field of endeavour, the arts, sciences, medicine, and business, most new ideas have always met with resistance and rejection at first. The more unique and revolutionary the idea, the louder and stronger the opposition to it.

People have always been afraid and even ignorant about ideas and methods that may result in change. Fear of change caused ridicule of Christopher Columbus, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein. There are other examples of how fear of change had effects on progress.

In the 1800’s, people bought what they needed at small, family owned shops. Then a man named W.T. Grant had an idea that created change. What if we combined all these separate, little shops by making them individual departments under one roof, in one large store? A new and better way of doing things. Customers loved it.

The individual merchants who owned the old-fashioned retail stores saw their businesses decline. The shopkeepers fought back politically. There were thousands of them with thousands of votes, and they lobbied for their right to do things the same old way.

They finally got the local and state governments to outlaw Grant’s department stores. Eventually, Grant’s department store won out. If there is a better way it will persist.

In the early 1960’s franchising was a revolutionary new technology in business, and it was also met with resistance. Newspapers and magazines wrote what a scam and rip-off franchising was. Stories of people who lost their life savings to some franchise were everywhere. There was a strong move to make franchising illegal. In fact, franchising actually came within 11 votes of being outlawed by Congress.

Today this so-called scam is responsible for over 34 percent of all retail sales in North America. Franchises sell nearly 800 billion dollars worth of goods and services today. Every industry goes through an evolution similar to this. Chiropractors were considered quacks in the 1970’s, the stock market was considered shady and a form of gambling, and the first newspaper in British North America, The Public Occurrence (1690), was suppressed by the governor of Massachusetts. Now, we almost can’t do without these industries.

The Pioneers

Like all-powerful concepts, Network Marketing has also met resistance due to a lack of understanding. There is no mystery to Network Marketing. It’s just another form of sales and distribution. Network Marketing is 50 years young. In the early 1940’s a company by the name of California Vitamins recognized that all their new sales representatives coming aboard were friends and family of their existing sales force, primarily because they wanted the product at wholesale cost. They also discovered that it was easier to create a sales force of a lot of people who each sold a small amount of product than it was to find a few superstars who could sell a lot of products.

So they combined those two ideas and designed a sales compensation structure that encouraged their salespeople to invite new representatives from satisfied customers, most of whom were family and friends, who each had the same right to offer the product and representative status to others, which allowed the sales force to grow exponentially. The company rewarded them for the sales produced by their entire group or network of sales representatives. Network Marketing was born! A few years later, the company changed its name to NutraLite Food Supplement Corporations.

In 1956, NutraLite was joined in Network Marketing by Dr. Forrest Shaklee to gain a broader distribution of the food supplements he had developed.

Not long after, in 1959, former NutraLite distributors Rich DeVoss and Jay Van Andel started the Amway company as the American Way of marketing products. Like many truly innovative breakthroughs, the development of true network marketing was an accident.

Abuses of exponential growth haunted network marketing for years and it is still misunderstood today. One of the first abuses of the concept of exponential growth to generate income may have been the chain letter craze that swept the U.S. after World War I. The letters promised great profit if you would send a dime or a dollar to the person at the bottom.

The chain letters spread as far as Europe, and by the 1930’s the U.S. post office estimated that 10 million letters were being mailed each day. Postal Authorities and law enforcement agencies battled the fraudulent schemes and the chain letter phenomenon began to subside in the early 1940s. Unfortunately, this scam spawned schemes which came to be known as pyramids, where money was given for the right to involve others, as no valid product which was being purchased from the company.

In 1974, Senator Walter Mondale declared such companies to be the nation’s number one consumer fraud.

Law enforcement agencies moved quickly to clean up the abuses. In the mid 1970’s, with no clear understanding of what constituted a legitimate use of network marketing, the Federal Trade Commission and state agencies across the nation turned their eyes to almost all network marketing companies. In 1975, the FTC filed suit against Amway, alleging that the company was an illegal pyramid and that its refusal to sell its products in retail stores constituted a restraint of trade.

Amway spent four years and millions of dollars in legal fees to clear its name. In 1979 the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) ruled that Amway was not a pyramid, that its revenue was generated from the sale of its products, and the FTC acknowledged network marketing as a legal and efficient distribution system. Network Marketing exploded in the next decade.

Who’s Involved in Network Marketing?

Today there are thousands of Network Marketing companies operating throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Japan and the Pacific Basin. Little Malaysia alone has more than 800 active Network Marketing companies. Network Marketing is reported to be a $100 billion dollar industry, internationally, made up of FORTUNE 500 and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) companies.

In 1993, Amway was the fastest growing foreign company in Japan with sales over $1 billion. Discovery Toys markets their products solely by Network Marketing, with sales figures in excess of $100 million. Sprint, MCI and AT&T make their long distance phone service available through Network Marketing companies. The A.L. Williams Company utilized Network Marketing and astounded the insurance industry by outselling Prudential, a giant in the industry, in four short years.

Traditional sales method companies such as Colgate-Palmolive and the Gillette Company have Network Marketing subsidiaries. Rexall Drug is now utilizing the Network Marketing method of distribution with its subsidiary, Rexall Showcase. Network Marketing companies such as Melaleuca outperformed Liz Claiborne, The Limited and John Paul Mitchell while Nu Skin bested the likes of Maybelline, Dow Chemical and Matrix. Mary Kay is bigger than Johnson & Johnson, Amway is bigger than Revlon, and Avon is bigger than Estee Lauder. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart is quoted as saying, “I’d rather run a profitable business in an unconventional industry than an unprofitable business in a conventional industry.”

Network Marketing has evolved in other ways, as well. Companies that began as direct selling companies are now utilizing networking marketing compensation plans. Some examples include Avon, the $3 billion cosmetic giant, Watkins Products, which had been direct selling for nearly 100 years before it converted to network marketing, and Encyclopedia Britannica.

One reason for the decline of direct selling is that beginning in the 1970’s, distributors making calls on people found that no one was home. Women, long standing as the customer backbone of direct sales, had entered the work force, leaving few at home during the day. Companies watching these societal trends moved quickly to revise their marketing plans to network marketing, which allows for more informal methods of sales and greater compensation.

Network Marketing Companies have actually pioneered entire industries: natural vitamin supplements, nutrition and diet drinks, concentrated and environmentally friendly household cleaners. One network marketing company almost single-handedly created the billion dollar home water filtration business.

I was up late working on overseas business and I stumbled on this site from someone who recruitted me for Shop to Earn.
If this was a legitimate, informative, site for bloggers, I feel that it would not be hosting links to sites in the upper right hand margin at the beginning of the site with claims of making $25,000 per month.
As for Ben, if you can not afford to lose $448, then you should never, ever, start a business as this is what STE seems to be.
This site seems to feed off of people looking for information on STE with the hope of baiting them with information so Darwin can “switch” them to the $25,000 site. I think this is more repulsive than the Madoff scheme.
This will probably never get posted Darwin, but at least you can rest assured that you are not fooling anyone with the layout and hype of your site.
By the way, the person who recruited me for STE told me to check out your site and look for the bait and switch claims for other MLM’s. Apparently, the federal authorities have been alerted and you and your site are being investigated to see if you have the proper banking licenses to offer refinancing deals on your site.
You also have an “alternative investment” link. I wonder if you have a Securities License.
So, you seem more like a business that I would find on a computer at the Addams Family on TVLAND…….Remember that those who live in glass houses should never throw stones…..

Whoaaa Nellie,

I must have hit a chord here.

1.) First, I did not get involved with STE as I have too much stuff on my plate. I just was making some observations about your site. The more I read, the more it looked like someone has way too much time on their hands.

2.) What I was talking about is the link on your site on the upper right:

Forget MLM…
I Quit MLM. Now I Make $25k a Month Free Report Shows How…
http://www.WhyGPTvsMLM.com

This is what I thought was really awful in that if some poor soul was looking to make money in STE and that person got baited and switched to your $25k Free Report with delusions of granduer they could be deprived of the chance to make a little extra money on STE. Everyone knows that you are not going to make $25K a month with a FREE REPORT unless you are watching Gilligans Island on TV land with Thurston Howell III.

3.) Ridiculous Clause?? I was only making observations. Thank God I did not join STE! Then I would have to address more info.

4.) My point was that if you are condemming MLM’s like STE, then why would you promote a $25k a month business with a free report. Remember that if it sounds too good to be true???? Nothing in life is free unless you can breath air.

5.) The person who recruited me only wanted me to be aware of what I may find if I did due diligence on this business opportunity that was shown to me. And by the way, if I had the time, I would definitely take a stab at it. I did buy $25 resturant dot com coupons for Bookbinders in Phila for $2. I ate a $25 meal for $10 + a $7 tip (20% of the $35 bill). I will continue to shop on their site.

6.) There is a fine line between making a claim and inferring a claim. There are a couple of blogs about your site on the internet.

7.) Maybe you should take a securities course. And for me, I am a non-smoker. Never have, never will.

8.) As for making false claims, threatening you, etc, my only purpose for this post was to alert you to what your site looks like to someone checking it out.

How does the newest part of Shoptoearn…Shoptofundraise.org fit in?

How does STE compare to other programs?
STE pays 70%
Do some research and find that most others companies only pay 30-38%

What I love about STE is that it doesn’t have 1 proprietary product or line of products. The STE product is a “cash-back web portal”. Over 100,000 sold in the last year or so. Every website owner/broker get cash back for EVERY purchase they make on their web-site . . . always and forever.

In addition, since the Eco-friendly/Health Food “Earth” side of the business includes famous name brand products from established companies. STE does not have any manufacturing costs, research and development costs or FDA approval issues. They simply seek out the very best, proven products that are good for you and good for the environment. They buy them wholesale and sell them retail just like Whole Foods, Tader Joe’s and other green-thinking companies. However, STE pays us 15% cash back and has a generous point system.

While other network marketing companies spend time and money on their “wonder products” that soon run their course, STE offers millions of products with significantly less overhead. Most other business models pay only 30-38% to their members – and higher levels to people that sell more. STE pays 70% to everyone – beginners and grisly old veterans with 6-9 months experience! Unprecedented in this industry (thanks to efficiencies of e-commerce).

Best of all, this is still just getting started – we will have millions of people in a few years. People will someday say, “You got involved with STE way back in 2011? Wow how lucky! “ Love this business.

Hey JoeO, can you drop me an email at [email protected]? I need to ask you a question..

Roberta,
“So before you write negative stuff you should make sure that what you write is truthful.”
At the time of publication, they were an F, hence the screen shot, which I did not doctor, but came from BBB, so…it was truthful. Apparently, their rating has improved recently, so I have included an update in the post to reflect the current rating.
Thanks for pointing this out.

Yeap Joe e O….it’s exploding alright. Just went to a meeting myself yesterday in the NE area and wow to hear the pitch I did, “BIG MEETING” wednesday (etc., etc., a bit absurd for me but whatever it takes to work/sell folks)…

Darwin, you are “at least” correct in my eyes, folks need to research/google whatever it takes, to do due diligence. I’m sure the graphs may rise again (I know you don’t want to focus any more time on this) as it probably slowed down in FL (saturated the market there) and now heading here and working it’s way like a swarm of bees….gheez and monavie & tru choclat (or something like that) just finished sweeping through (what timing)!

The independent broker that pitched the session did the same thing that you or someone else mentioned here on this site, had a certain allocated time of “fast” speaking, going through the powerpoint slides quickly b/c he couldn’t get it to work well, asked if there were any questions to play devil’s advocate and then abruptly stopped b/c he was out of time, have a big meeting tonight and another one wednesday, got to go….too weird. The repetitive mention of just how much money you’d make was the enticing tool to get you to drop your credit card down right there? I guess their trained to do this? He also had his cronies come in late to the meeting, sit in the back and chime in here and there to say how great this was…it looked so staged. He almost walked right by me at the end, when passing out business cards (for any questions we may have afterwards) and then said “oh yeah your a new person” there were ONLY 2 (me being one of them!!!!)….really? really? He must have just seen the skepticism in my face. It’s behavior like this, that makes it so hard to join in…or trust for that matter. This is the same person that said before the meeting started (b/c I mentioned I hope this isn’t like it) ~ he should have jumped into monavie 3 years ago, now it’s too late….”too late” for what? I was just saying I didn’t believe in the product, therefore can’t sell something I don’t believe in….trustworthy, I think not. I think it’s sad that in this day and age, after EVERYTHING that has happened, losing jobs, losing homes, losing savings, that these MLM’s come to play in order to take advantage of vulnerable folks and have them selling to family & friends (that’s the kicker)…. this is JUST my opinion, as I came across this blog while I was actually trying to “research” it; which I think most folks (hopefully) would initially do before jumping into anything. Being that this is a private company it’s kind of hard to get the “actuals” … I’ve already made up my mind anyway!

Companies like STE and Team National are pure garbage. How you really make money has nothing to do with the shopping. The whole things I was going to buy anyway is complete nonsense. You end up paying more money for stuff you were going to buy anyway. The idea is to alienate your friends and family but not leaving them alone with you presenting them with crap like this. If it was really about the shopping you could just create your own site which is very easy and inexpensive these days. Get yourself some affiliate links to some popular retailers and instead of trying to put your hands in the pockets of people closest to you. Just advertise your site to them so they go through your page to make purchases. On top of that you will get the full commissons instead of just a tiny piece of any purchases made after using one of your portals.

Oh please with this nonsense. My brother with zero web knowledge just created a website by himself using godaddy.com. On top of that he rather easily was able to add some affiliate links. He also quite easily learned the absolutely “free” techniques to move his site up in the Google search rankings. You don’t need these people and you don’t need to be a computer geek. Anyone with a head on their shoulders who can read can do it these days.

If your blog was sincere you would not be promoting “google ads” in the upper right margin of your blog promising people they can make a lot of money every day online.

I think that you are just another MLM business trying to entice people attempting to research an opportunity to join another business opportunity by scaring them away from the opportunity that they are performing due dilligence upon.

What you are doing is clever, but I think it is borderline unethical because you are trying to come off as an unbiased authority of business opportunities. If this was the case, you would never be “hawking” get rich schemes on the upper right hand margins or lower margins of your blog. If I was checking out the opportunity you have been writing about, I would think you would be much more credible if you were not promoting “get rich schemes in your blog’s margins.

By the way, you never addressed that a possible reason for the slowdown of the MLM you evaluated was that the economy tanked in the fall of 2008 and that the high jobless rates have also took a bite out of consumer spending. Factor in the credit card debacle and it is a credit to that company that the MLM is actually stable and not failing.

As for the Better Business Bureau, the ratings really do not mean much as they charge businesses to be members.

I don’t agree with all the comments from Ecommerce Brokers concerning the Google Ads… I’ve read through a couple of them and they are all selling software, books, etc that promote the Affiliate programs.. which is where some of the commenters here should be attacking because they truely offer something that very very few will accomplish, if any. But at the same time, every site, mine included, has the choice to have google ads, or any other ad systems on their site. Choosing to have them is normal business practice as it brings in revenue but if those popups are against the fiber of the site, then one has to question whether to run them. So, there is a choice there and the ability to control it.

When will you brainwashed people realize that MLM has nothing to do with the product? It’s based on the idea of getting people to fork over money to be under you and then they go on to do the same. The better your down line and the more money you make. Unfortunately, most people end up making nothing when their down line collapses or they realize it’s impossible to keep both legs balanced. Stop thinking you found something new. These systems have been around forever and it’s always about the latest and greatest product, service, or membership which in the end all suck anyway.

I believe that what Mike says is true in Most cases because he has grouped all MLM or Network marketing together. What he hasn’t done is looked at each one individually. Although many will argue that STE falls into that category it really does not. There is no one product that gets stuck in a closet. There is no one product that you are forced to buy every month and figure out what you are going to do with it. You do have 800 retail stores that you can buy from each with it’s own online deals and over 10,000 Earth Friendly products to choose from. If you are using these products anyway, then where is the problem? Sure you can start your own affiliate site and you can take advantage of those who find it… you make the money, they get nothing. You can show the business to others that shop online and if they like it, they can earn their affiliate amounts back and get the benefit of those who they refer rather then like referring people to Costco, Sams, any club, doctor or even finding someone a job and receiving no referral back. There is no Balancing of legs.. you can have 150 on one side and 20 or 10 on one side and 2 on the other and make money.. not a fortune that many seem to think that you Have to make if you are in an MLM but enough to make more then if you had to take a part time or second full time time to exist. The money I have made in the past 2 months has been 90% just from my and others shopping. Name me a business, any business, that if you start, buy or join and don’t work it, you will make money? The people that I see that have not made any money for some reason expect that money will just flow in. If someone puts in the initial amount and does nothing to work their business, then that is the amount that they may lose, no more. So, although I can understand some of the harse comments made by some of those above, i feel that they really are looking at the industry as a whole.

I’ve looked at over 100 network marketing business opportunities in the last eight years or so, and the only one I’ve EVER considered joining was ShopToEarn. Here’s why:

– The very realistic chance of making your initial investment back in the first 30 days.
– A compensation plan which far surpasses that of just amout any other network marketing model I’ve seen. I think someone pointed out earlier that calling ShopToEarn ‘network marketing’ isn’t entirely accurate. I would agree with that. It’s more of a hybrid. In a nutshell, though, the STE compensation plan goes deep, instead of wide. This allows you to make a LOT more money a LOT faster. No guarantees… and you still have to work… but I think your chances are much better with this company than others.
– No branded product/inventory
– No home parties/workshops
– The sheer volume of what you can sell through STE allows you to approach several niche markets

There are several other reasons, but those are the biggest.

It seems a lot of people on this site are against MLM as a whole. I really don’t understand that, as MLM, as a whole, has proven to be very successful for a great many people.

Do people fail? Of course they fail. All the time. But if you were to sit down with most of those people and really look at the effort they put into their business, you’ll probably find it wasn’t the business model’s fault. It was their own. Most people like the idea of running a successful business on paper. In practice, though, they just don’t like all the work that’s involved.

This can be said of most business types. Not just MLM.

I think if some of these people would have put half the effort into their ventures as they do into complaining, they probably would have been more successful.

Anika, Mike and Jack..
Thanks for your insight. There are people that need to read what you have said. I get tired of the bloggers that spit out obsenities with no logical or factual backing, on both sides of the fence. Reading posts from those that can state facts, again, on both sides of the fence, help others to make good decisions. That sad part about your posts is that they are not at the top, or right under Darwins good posts. Between those and you, there is a lot of garbage, and that really is too bad.
For me, Darwins comments, when not fighting with others, have been insightful, I hope that your viewpoints are seen as just as insightful… thanks!

If you own Your own business, like a car dealer, and the manufacturer goes out of business, you’ve lost your business (all the dealers that lost their dealerships last month), if you own a franchise, it is your business and if they go under you are out. If you have a independent grocery store and your supplier goes out of business (IGA) your out of business. happens every year. I’m not seeing the difference.

I have spent over 35 years of my professional career dealing with insolvent banks, troubled real estate developers, bankrupt companies, and the many issues of fraud which surround these matters. Over this period, I have been directed over 750 legal matters, hired hundreds of lawyers nationwide, and provided over 3,000 hours of expert testimony on scams, bankruptcies, foreclosures, fraudulent conveyances and defaulted loans (both big and small). To say the least, I am cynical about products, people, ventures, and financial proposals until I personally conduct due diligence and meet the people.
I very much appreciate that many people around the country rely on “Google” and internet services as a source of would-be reliable information. Noting STE negative reports back in 2008 as posted on “Google”, please recognize that you can “Google” virtually any subject (foster children, Bank of America, Chrysler, California government, Monavie, Citibank, etc., etc., etc) and read negative postings, instances of litigation, and “sour grapes” from someone who has allegedly been wronged. In the case of STE, please know that I conducted my own due diligence; STE is not a pyramid scheme. In the pure sense, a pyramid scheme is an organization where the last person cannot earn more money than the person/s above him. I understand this concept as I was once the President of a financial institution, and NO ONE made more money than me. In the case of STE, those that work the hardest, make the most money. Those that cannot handle rejection, are unmotivated, and are un trainable are likely to fall by the wayside…..they will move on to another endeavor, likely fail at that endevour, and then have something else to complain about (probably on Google).
Please know that one other money-making-technique that is sweeping the nation is internet extortion; that being, posting negative material on the internet, then demanding money in exchange for removing the posting. It’s kind of like kidnapping and asking for ransom. STE has been an unfortunate victim of internet extortion. I have always felt that if people were honest and hard-working, there would be a lot less lying, cheating, complaining, and extortion in this world. We also wouldn’t need funny money stimulus packages, bailouts, or “Clunker” programs.
As a baseline, I will earn about a 700% return on my STE investment this year, strictly from sales tax savings, cash back, and internet coupons. I note that Citibank is offering a 2.2% rate on its one-year CD, a terrible investment alternative. The 700% return is without regard to any money earned from the Business Builder side. For those that want to build a STE business, it will take hard work and a commitment of time; there is NO free-lunch……….at least I haven’t found one during my35 year career.

One point that I have to agree with Darwin on is that this blog has definitely not been an ‘extortion blog’ and I’m not sure that is what the writter said it is. But, there are many out there that are. Just post something that has ‘Scam’ in it and it pops up on Google. Disney Scam is a good example. My problem with the blogs, not necessarily this one, is that when facts are presented, and many times agreed to by the blogger, they don’t delete the previous comments. Most readers of these type of blogs read the first 5 or maybe 10 entries and then bail. Most cases, the opposing point of view hasn’t even seen it yet by them to offer that point of view so fair would be to delete entries that have been proven wrong.
I one thing I don’t get in these is the comments about wasting ones time in STE. The writer commented that they had a 700% return on their investment…. but that return was based on sales tax savings and cash back from shopping online. The cost of the initial investment becomes mute when you have made your money back and the rest is just pure profit and you have done nothing but shop on line. I can see really going after MonaVie, Efusjon and others that have one and only one product in their mix. I don’t get that one at all and never have. But when you can just shop online at just about every store you can imagine and also from some 13,000 earth friendly products, what’s the beef? That part I just don’t get. Ok, make $5,000 a week consulting. Order your airline tickets, hotel, car rental on line via expedia, travelocity, priceline etc and get cash back and make a few extra bucks…or just say, ‘hey, i make enough money, why save and make a little more?’ So what is soooo wrong with that, that one has to question the guy for doing it? Also, using the comment made that only the people that started at the top are making money, they why are people that started long after them now in the top 100 and moving up? That argument doesn’t hold up here for those that are working on the business.

I’m not sure but are you saying that I’m Joe O?

Funny how NOW his website won’t share any information. I wonder why his website as of August 15, 2009, when I posted on this website, STILL showed “0” referrals, “0” shopping, and “0” how many. Now that you have finally answered, I mean I’ve only asked you three times on several websites, his website states “This person has decided not to share this information with others.” Why would he want to hide such extraordinary numbers?????
You’re absolutely pathetic. Go away! Everyone knows your full of **it, you (.)!!!

So.. Now that Shop to Earn has decided to force all of its members to spend $100 on their shop to earth website or lose ALL the points they have been accumulating since the start of their business, I think I am going to have to pass on this business. Sorry, I did not agree with Darwin’s initial review as it was biased, but the STE business has decided to change its model, and keep changing its model until what you signed up for at the start is no longer the business model. I’m not sure if that is even legal but I guess they have consulted many lawyers or they wouldn’t have done it. I guess I will keep my membership open in case they ever decide to change back to the original model and reimburse everyone the points they intend to clear out (yea, right..)

Juggy

For the record…since I deleted my initial “record” due to STE’s legal bullying tactics demanding that I take down an entire website over 2 articles…STE had some sort of vague guidance at the outset that you’d have to buy $100 in stuff from the “Earth” side in order to qualify for your benefits – but they hadn’t put in writing just when that was. So, not only did you have to shell out a few hundred bucks to get started, but then you have to come up with $1200 per year in what at the time, in my opinion, was useless to me. I was told they’d be signing on more partners, but at the time, the only thing I even had a passing interest in was Cliffs Bars. I think I had stated something like “I hope you REALLY like Cliffs Bars” in my initial critique at Everyday Finance. So, yes, STE did highlight the $100/month early on, but at the time I was evaluating it, they didn’t actually have a date when that would take effect. It was “sometime during the next few months”. This lack of transparency and direction contributed to the concerns I had over the program…not to mention the ever changing presentation, slick sales practice, and of course, the “balance” issue.

I know, people try and convince themselves “I shop on line all the time, I can easily spend $100 a month on line”. Well, I’d say just take a look at what you have to buy through the Earth side. Is this something you actually need and would be buying anyway? Can you comparison shop on Amazon or other sites? Are the prices the same or cheaper (including shipping)? At the time I checked it out, it was goofy filters and homeopathic stuff that I wasn’t even sure would work or provide me any tangible benefit. If you don’t need this stuff, but you’re forced to buy it, are you really going to make well over $1200 per year from your downline to compensate you for your time and efforts so you’re at least working for minimum wage on this? I haven’t researched this much further and don’t talk to my friend about it anymore, so I implore you to do your own research and make an informed decision.

Hey Mr “Wake up Joe O”
maybe if you knew the actual website and not his son’s you would be more informed. BTW, its actually more than 4,000 brokers in his biz.
He’s a bit of a celebrity so his #s are private, but they are revealed for the next 24 hours. checkout /oates

Great name there “Wake up Joe O” The only place you hide is behind your keyboard. You epitomize the lowness of a blog, or anything for that matter. My name is real, whether it is my nick name that most know me by or my real name where as you have none.. no identity at all, which is extremely easy to hide what you really do as most internet predators do. Your statements lack sense… You all do realize that those websites you name only pay a portion of the cash back.. maybe 50%. and, you only get back what you spend. Not much of a business there for anyone except the portal that is taking the majority of the money.. but then you don’t understand business so you naturally would look at it the way that you do. You will be getting your welfare check tomorrow, I’m sure. Really not worth our time, Joe O or mine, as you have to work hard to create a question in order to create attention to yourself.

There you go again… you blast others for not saying who they are or using different names and yet you continue. You can’t read.. i said predator not pedifile and you fill that predator model perfectly. You just have no credibility. i’ve only recruited, as you say, 10 people and none this year because that is all that i wanted yet i’ve made much more than i ever invested so I guess that recruiting thing doesn’t work. Anything over my initial investment is fine with me. i’ve scored just on shopping, so that gets shot down. If those you tried to steer away lost more than $448. because they did nothing then they would have lost at anything they have done, which would fit your profile. You can talk but you can’t justify. If those who have multiple sites, which means multiple SS#’s, and they score, who is that affecting? Not me and any other individual. So who might they be scamming? S. Florida saturated? look again because there are people joining all the time from S. Florida.
So again, you type and nothing is said. no credibility.

Again, you are given transparency yet you hide.
First, What do you mean… “if you hit your scores?” Cash back has nothing to do with Scores. You receive that money regardless of the number of people you have, if any, or the number of points that you have collected, again, a lack of credibility.
Yup, about $7,000 earned, hit first 30 days bonus. You say spent a lot on STE products like there is a problem with that? Over 10,000 products out there that I use anyway, that I bought from other places. Not a hard decision. I’ve changed my everyday shopping to more online and enjoy it and take advantage of it. You make extra money from those shopping below you and those points flowing up… No money out of their pockets into yours, only from the company. I’ve made about $7,000 and it is exactly what I would expect. $448 investment, $7,000 return. A large portion after that first month just from points from others shopping. Sorry, your self judgements and misquotes just continue to add to your lack of credibility.

Naw, I’m done. I really see no reason to answer questions to someone that is hiding and has no credibility. You have the site. you see how much I have made, how many i referred, how many people I have and how much I have spent. It’s all transparent and it is all facts. BTW: How do I recruit myself?? Another blarring example.

All this silliness . . . STE has been around and in the news since March 2006. Thats 3.5 years now. If it was all about recruiting it would have been shut down immediately. Do you think the FTC doesn’t know about STE? Do you think that it would have grown from 400 stores last summer to over 1,200 if it wasn’t a briliant business model? Do you think that so many lawyers, prosecutors, CPA’s and celebrities would be active if it was a scam? c’mon now. Let’s use some common sense.

STE and it’s brokers are in the business of selling cash-back web portals. Or virtual Malls. Why pay Google and Yahoo when you can pay yourself? It’s a product that works very well and many people are happy with it. Whether its 1-2% cash back or 25% cash back . . . it works every time. Of course there are other cash back programs from search companies and banks and these products may or may not be cheaper but thats always the case. Some people ride their bike to the train station, some drive a Hyundai and some drive a Benz . . . they all get you there.
However, I don’t believe I would have made well over $300,000 since last summer with any other program. Nor would I have helped thousands of others save money and make extra money either.

If you show your cash-back portal to a friend and they buy one, you get $100. You NEVER are required to shop the $100 on the Earth side to get your cash back when you shop . . . not even to get your $100 referral fee either. It’s $448 to become a broker and $119 to renew. That’s $686 over a 3 year period – you would have to live in a cave to not get $700 in cash back shopping over 36 months. That’s a mere $19/month in cash back. Heck I saved over $1,000 in cash back my first 6 months buying stuff I would normally buy AND saving time and money too.

What I like most about STE is that there are no victims. People watch the program, decide if they want to start a business . . . and if they fail ( and just like any other business 80% will fail ) at least they get their money back by just shopping. If you take a lien against your house and open up a Subway or McDonald’s franchise and you fail . . . you have NO chance of getting your money back.

So say what you want . . . about recruiting family etc. It’s rather silly really.
Joe O.

Still don’t want to answer the question of why you recruited your wife Debra and YOURSELF?? No wonder you and Joe zero are friends.
If STE is such a great opportunity then take on the challenge that I posed to you, xxxxxxxxxxx. I’ll even keep track of it for all to see; as long as you don’t shut everything down to private. As of today your earnings show $7,351., which is not even close to all profit, but even still let’s see where your at on a weekly basis.
Come on, a confident xxxxxxxxxxx man like you should be able to take on a simple challenge like this. Especially a challenge coming from a welfare guy like me.

Alright everybody – deep breath.
Web 2.0 is great in that we can have a healthy debate in real time and nobody’s kickin anyone else’s butt. It’s come to my attention that some personal information was posted in some of the previous comments and I’ve had to go back and delete/alter some stuff. I don’t want to be part of people asking me for IP addresses, altering comments that reveal personal information of people in a debate, etc.
So, let’s chill out for a bit, keep the debate on point and leave the personal insults out – whether I agree with your or not, I’m trying to do right by everybody here and make sure this doesn’t boil into a dangerous personal situation for anyone.
Thanks

Joe, the problem is the products on the earth website are marked up 25-30% so the 15% you make back on cashback still puts you in the hole because of the marked up prices.. I’ve tried to shop there, the prices are just too jacked up.. I just can’t justify shopping there if the prices are marked up.

Examples of items I am interested in..

Nitro tech protein powder.. 2 lb container 47.24
http://www.shoptoearn.net/cgi-bin/genesis.exe/st_prod.html?p_prodid=1557&p_catid=&sid=3stGwB2DwK1Z8i0-52109199648.7c

Same product at another online website, $28:
http://www.vitadigest.com/nitro-tech-straw.html

Same thing with the 4 lb container and all the protein bars from Muscle Tech.

Examples of Twinlabs Products..
2lb twin lab protein.. $36
http://www.shoptoearn.net/cgi-bin/genesis.exe/st_prod.html?p_prodid=3968&p_catid=&sid=3stGwB2DwK1Z8i0-13109251648.04

Other websites.. $19..
http://www.vitadigest.com/twin-protein-fuel-choc.html

And the list goes on and on.. My point is if STE is going to mark up every product and put the money in their own pocket, where do I save while shopping on the shop to earth website? I mean some stuff is close to 40% marked up. So whenever I find something I might be interested in, I search other websites for comparable prices and it never pays to buy through the earth website. I *WANT* to shop there, even if the 15% cash back breaks me even or a little bit less.. But I can’t justify losing 25-40% off every item I want to buy. Even with cash back and points, it doesn’t even out.. See my dilema?

Darwin, where did my post go where I linked some examples of the earth page pricing vs other websites? I posted it a couple of days ago but it has never been approved.

FYI:
The Earth pricing is just OK right now. Some things are market priced and some are below and surely some are over-priced. Every shopper knows that you can ALWAYS find a better deal somewhere regardless of what you are looking for. You can find the same Hanes underwear cheaper at Walmart than at Macys and Nordstorm. Doesn’t mean there isn’t room for all to survive and thrive. All 3 have loyal and dedicated customers

Keep in mind that Shop to Earth has just over 100,000 shoppers . . . it’s just a baby. It hasn’t even started yet. It’s still in pre-launch. Once it grows to over 500,000 and then over 1 million in the next few years everything will get even better. The website, search engine and pricing too.

Remember Costco/Price Club 15-20 years ago?
You had to pay $100 to “join” the club. Lots of people thought it would NEVER make it ! They had 1/3 of the products they have today. You had to pay with cash or check only ( no Credit Cards). Then eventually they took Amex CHARGE card only. You had to buy in bulk . . . 24 cans of tuna and a 5 gallon jug of mayo. You still have to put your stuff in a 3-sided used card board box with no help and when you walk out they check your receipt like you are a shoplifter. So what happened? Today Costco is a HUGE success . . . a Wall Street darling for the last 10 years. It didn’t happen in its first 2 years.
Lots of people joined and then MANY did not renew . . . but as Costco upped their game and added more products word got out and it spread. They added quality meat and fish, garden products, even clothing. “Where did you get that pie?” . . . ” I got it at Costco!” . . . so people started coming back in droves.
As on-line shopping becomes mainstream and as SHOP TO EARTH KEEPS IMPROVING LIKE THEY DO EVERY MONTH (last summer they had 400 stores today they have over 1,200)
Experts are predicting the same growth fro STE. The business model just makes too much sense.

The only way STE stops growing if it on-line shopping and the “go-green” movement reverses itself . . . very unlikely.

Onward!

Juggy:
Shop on Earth . . . before its too late! LOl

Truthfully, Juggy, I do see your point. But I must respectfully disagree with your comment :
” It seems like the strategy is geared toward members at the top, because beginners won’t bite.” There’s no “strategy” to help the members at the top . . . just the opposite . . . without growth no business survives. But the success of Earth is crucial.
The “strategy” all along is for Shop to Earth to become the largest shopping portal on the planet and for it to be “the Source” for the country’s eco-friendly/organic products. To force people to make healthy decisions for themselves and the planet. Guess what . . . it worked on me! I am now all organic. I recycle everything and only will use eco-friendly cleansers. If you would have told me this a year ago I would have said you’re NUTS!

The STE founders could have borrowed $200 million from investors and blasted the airwaves with advertising to try to drive traffic to their online “eco-friendly” store. This is very risky and may or may not have worked … instead they chose to use a network marketing model, give away all the affiliate cash-back from the 1,200 mainstream stores and share 70% of the revenue from web-portal sales and Earth profits with its representatives.

The points flushing and $100 Earth shopping etc . . . I don’t think it has to do with how long you have been in, but more of your mindset as to what you actually want from STE. If you only showed this business model to successful entrepreneurs that are business oriented people, real entrepreneurs that are comfortable investing in his/her future with no promises of any real return (except the promise and belief in themselves) then STE compares most favorably to any other venture.

I know dozens of people that signed up and immediately spent well over a few $100 on the Earth side . . . the very next day, even though they weren’t required yet. Why? Simple . . . they wanted to try out some new products and touch and feel their new company! Some people just “get it and go for it” based on experience.

I know of so many real bargains on the Earth side BUT if you say some things are 25% -40% more
(then with 15% cash back plus points) I won’t disagree. Of the 15,000 items I’m sure we can find hundreds of items that are currently overpriced. BUT still, when you compare this to any other business – this is a no-brainer.

Let’s just say, for argument sake, of the 15,000 items, that you could only find stuff that was 30% overpriced. So that means you will spend $100 for $70 worth of brand name products (with 15% cash back + 15 points) that equals a real cost of $85 for $70 worth of goods. (Keep in mind that this is a required business expense and most CPA’s let you write off the $100, so your real net-net cost is $70 anyway – but that’s a personal tax decision)

So let’s say you now spent an extra $15 dollars on your business. I spend that on 2 martinis for a client that may or may not send me any business. That’s desert and an espresso for a client that I don’t like.
Heck, if you start a small business you will spend $1,200 in your first month on letterhead, reams of paper and a cheap desktop copier.

My point is this . . . if you are in this for the long haul and you see how amazing this business model is (compared spending $250k on a Dunkin Donuts franchise etc) You do NOT worry about the $100/month Earth petty requirements.

So Juggy, yes you have a BUSINESS decision to make tonight. Do you spend $100 on some natural organic stuff for you and your planet or do you let your points flush. You need to decide what this will cost you today ( $15?) versus next year’s revenue. Maybe the people in your business just weren’t educated on what they have? Maybe that’s your fault or maybe they just don’t have what it takes to see the big picture.
I think I do a great job of showing people what this is really all about . . . some see this and don’t sleep for 3 days and some just don’t get it. That’s ok.
Deep down you KNOW that you are only a few entrepreneurs away from making some real nice residual income and creating health and wealth for many.

Best of luck whatever you choose!

Joe O.

I hear ya . . . that’s why I shop on the first of the month!!!

Joe O.

i think this is so funny. i signed up the end of june. i’ve reading this article that evidently started early 2008. The biggest mindset you have to have is that starting off, unless you can do this full time, your not going to make a whole lot of money. my wife and i both have full time jobs that range from 50 to 70 hrs per week, but needless to say we still try to do our best as “we” know at the moment this is extra money not to really count on. , but on the other hand, with using coupons and shoptoearn for our kids schools supplies, we purchased 2 pairs of shoes, first pair was $54.99 2 pair with coupon, 7% back , plus even a bogo 1/2 price on the items (sketchers) we only paid $3.43 for the second pair. with Christmas coming, we are sure to save $$$$, plus our gas, mileage, and our time.
Maybe one day we will be “rolling” in the dough, but for just starting i am completely satisified!!

Joe O, thanks for the tip, i’ve been trying all night,lol guess i’ll be back on tomorrow too!! lol

Well the obvious answer is . . . NEXT TIME DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST DAY!
I’m gonna go out on a limb based on my 13+ months experience with STE and guess that NO one will lose any points if they wanted to shop last night. Although that doesn’t seem fair to the serious people.
Again, I have no offical info, but STE has alway been generous with their deadlines especially if it was an issue on their end.
Today is September 1st, and my wife and kids gave me a long list of Earth products they need refilled. Snack bars for school, eye wash, natural makeup for my teenage girl, and other toiletries and cleansers etc. I will spend well over $250 right now.

I doubt even Target has 10’s of thousands of people trying to buy things all on the very same night. But don’t worry. The intent for STE is to be very strict with their commission rules . . . but the truth is they have always been wimpy and try to help us out.

I was reading your website and you questioned, “Do I need a dealership to put a Honda on the internet?” The answer is no, as long as you have owned the car for over 6 month’s and have titled it in your name.

If you bought the Honda within 6 months and you are a car dealer in the State of Pa, you need a dealer’s license to sell the car online. And if you are a dealer and you list the car on ebay motors, some attorneys contend that we will need an auctioneers license.

In the state of Pa, anyone buying a vehicle and selling it within that 6 month period is considered a dealer as long as there is a profit made on the car. People used to be able to sell 5 cars in PA without getting a dealer’s license.

If you search the internet there thousands of “car hustlers” laundering money and selling cars that have anything from undisclosed salvage history problems to mileage rollback issues as well as undisclosed mechanical problems ranging from defective transmissions to engines loaded with honey to mask blown engine issues.

So, to those buying cars on the internet from someone without a dealer’s license be prepared for the joyride of your life into car hustler heaven and remember that if the deal seems too good to be true….guess what, dude, it’s not true…

I don’t doubt the “affiliate referral” portion of the business.. I think they need a great deal more items on the earth store before you force a $100 monthly required policy. 10k items on the earth site is a good start.. They need to increase that to 50k and work on their shipping issues.. $11 for ground shipping needs to be improved.. They are on the right track though..

wow. my head hurts after spending about 3 hours reading all the comments, the STE tour and other info from my recruiter.

Like many on here, and even some who founded and are part of the leadership of STE, i was part of an “environmental” company in the 90’s, the eventually got shut down. I, with several members of my family invested well over 10k in that company. So excuse me for being a bit snakebitten and shy about getting started in another MLM. I swore I never would again.

But there is something about this business model that does attract me. As far as the required $100/mo from the green store, since the nearest natural store to me is about a 30 mile drive, I would save about 2 gallons of gas (@30pg) and about 1.5 hours of time. So even if I pay an extra 10-20% for a product, I am saving in gas + time + my carbon footprint, which is why I was drawn to this company in the first place. This does not even include any cash back I may get. Not a bad deal really. As others pointed out, many of us belong to Sams, Costco or other stores that charge membership fees to shop there. And unless you buy in bulk frequently, you may never realize your savings over your initial investment. Scam? nope, just a way for some to utilize a different way of shopping that may meet their needs.

I do have some questions and am not fully confident yet about joining. Again, many of my loved ones and friends remember clearly what happened with the last ‘opportunity of a lifetime’ that we were involved in. While I do not regret that experience and learned alot about business, the environment, people and motivation, it was a business where the time and money invested were much greater then the return, at least in tangible amounts.

I’ll bookmark this page and if/when I join, I will keep you up to date with as unbiased of a posting as I can 🙂

Best of luck to those in STE and for those opposed, relax….MLM’s aren’t for everyone, just as sales isn’t, being a lawyer isn’t, being a financial advisor isn’t, etc. We all have are own calling and gifts. But remember this, if your chosen field was for everyone, then everyone would be doing it and what fun would that be!

Hey Mr. “Wake up” you really have no life at all. You have nothing better to do but to track a stranger’s part-time business? Maybe Capt. Steve was sailing all month and didn’t feel like working on STE? That’s the beauty of STE . . . no one is asking anyone to quit their day job. Its there for you whenever you feel like shopping or referring. Why don’t you track my site: /nygiants ?
I am FULL-TIME with STE . . . which by the way . . . working STE full time takes about 6-8 hours a week! Love this business.

Mr. Wake up:
What is your point exactly? You do not make any decent points at all.
My wife has a website yes, and my partner’s wife has a website too. So? But they are not as succesful . . yet . . . they are doing “just ok” . . . those sites are only making a mere $4k – $5k a month in residual income. That ONLY pays the mortgage or a college bill. They are not retiring next year…It will take and extra year or two for them. Check them if you like (I know you will ) /ecombrokers and /susanmarone Track them!
If YOU were making this kind of money . . . don’t you think you would have lots of referrals too? Am I NOT supposed to try and help my friends pay down their mortgage? save some money on shopping etc?
My original 27 referrals (mostly from last summer) have grown to over 6,850 people. It grows by 20-30 every day. I don’t know these people . . . these are just sharp people who don’t put any value in these silly blogs, and see that there is absolutely no downside at all to getting a cash-back web portal for $448.00 It grows like wildfire . . . are they all just stupid?

And yes 8 or 9 out of 10 will not make any serious money. BUT they all have an opportunity to at least break even. I can’t change the world Mr. Wake Up. Guess what, there are millions of people with their real estate licenses . . . recruited by the local agency . . . some make millions of dollars a year, some make a living, but 80-90% never make anything at all. They spend $1,000 to go to school and get a license and get biz cards and fail. They were sold a “dream” 6% commission for selling a house! . . . is that scam?
Same for people with their Series 7 Stock broker’s licensing, also recruited so that they can bring in their families retirement money,
80-90% of people fail at business too.
I refuse to be one of the failures and I serve to inspire anyone else that refuses to fail. It’s called leadership.
I have been blessed because I tend to succeed at whatever I put my mind to . . . Let me tell you, over the last 22 years, more than once I went into debt to start a business, then I had NO CHOICE but to work 85 hours a week to make it work or go broke. That’s what a typical biz takes.
But STE . . . OMG . . . I have NEVER seen a business model like this. I get to use the web to generate business 24/7 AND I can teach almost anyone to do it in a few hours. Brilliant.
Joe O.

hey wake up:
You really are clueless about this biz. You obviously have never seen the 25 minute overview on h0w this all works and if you did, it must have went right over your head. And YET you keep pontificating and you really know nothing. If I am a ZERO . . . what are you? I am making serious money here in my sweat pants, driving my kids to school, going for a jog, having fun with my STE biz . . . you are wasting time on the web talking about a biz you’re not even involved with. Do you even know how the point system works? clearly not.

Here’s one last attempt to explain how wrong and mis-informed you are.

You said ” sign up your juvenile child just to make more money from recruiting ” Who would buy a site for their kid for $448 just to make the $100 training bonus? that makes no sense at all. Do you realize that when you sell the STE product, which means someone you know decides to buy their own “cash-back web portal”, you only get $100 ! Some people buy their kids a web portal just to have for future use. Kind of like buying a mutual fund and having it grow. In 5 or 1o years there could be 100’s of thousands on one leg and all the kid has to do is grow the other. I wish my parents got me involved in AMWAY in the 1970’s. I’d be a multi-millionaire today.

To answer your questions directly.
HOW MUCH HAVE I MADE FROM ‘RECRUITING’ ?
You obviously can see my site has made over $190,000 since last summer and you can also plainly see that I referred 27 people. So with the $100 referral fee, out of the $190,000 I made a mere $2,700 in showing this business to others and them deciding to buY their own web portal. This is so clear to see. So how much of my income did I make from selling people their own cash-back web portals? ( you call it recruiting . . . whatever). LESS THAN 1.5% of my $190,000

NEXT QUESTION:
Shopping? more simple math . . again, if you knew how this works… You can plainly see that on my site /nygiants . . . all transparent info, that I personally saved over $960 in the first 8 months of 2009 just buying things from my favorite stores. So that’s over $120 a month in pure savings for a $448 investment I made last year (btw it’s only $119 to renew ) That $960 does not include all the money I saved in 2008.
But for 2009, this $960 in real cash back also generated some 960 points too!! It’s the shopping points that make this work so well.

So, for my biz . . . .with 6,850 people in my business all shopping and conservatively saving, let’s say just a mere $25 a month . . . on their own portals (not $120/month like me ), let’s stick with just $25/month average. And let’s assume, like you suggest, that 80-90% of the people aren’t business minded and don’t refer hardly anyone if at all, that’s ok. HOWEVER there’s no denying that if you did buy yourself a cash-back web portal for $448 you will surely be hell bent on getting your money back no? . . so everyone is shopping at Staples, Home Depot, Nordstroms, Macys etc and getting their cash back – this is what is happening every day. So lets say these people only save $25/month which is only $300 a year and actually fall short and don’t make their $448 back. Again, I am trying to be realistic here.

So that’s 25 points a month x 6,850 brokers = 171,250 points a month . . . generated just from shopping. – not recruiting. Divide that number by 4,800 points that it takes to score the $550. That equals 35 scores a month! so again, simple transparent math will tell you that 35 x $550 = $19,250 a month IN RESIDUAL INCOME JUST IN SHOPPING ALONE . . . and my site /nygiants has been doing exactly that.

I answered your questions with clear and transparent math that is reflected on my own site. Please have an intelligent response or no response at all.

Onward!!
Joe O.

Hey Wake up:
go back to bed . . .

You just can’t admit that this is a wonderful program that helps people save money and make money. YOU ARE HOPELESS.

Wake up:
You still have no idea how this works. And you are calling me a liar by saying that my numbers are inflated. They are not. My wife has an account and my biz partner’s wife has an account too. BUT those profits are not included in my $192,000 (which btw grew about by almost $2,000 last night).

You say there are people that get involved that can’t afford this? None of my people are that way. Maybe in your lower socio-economic neighborhood, but not mine. My issue is having people ONLY spend $448 and then do not take it seriously. If they spent $448,000 on a SUBWAY franchise, they would actually get more involved.

There are literally millions of Americans people spending well more than $448 a week on just cigarettes and beer . . . they can’t afford that either AND they are costing all of society big money as we provide healthcare and unemployment coverage. I can’t change the world…but I have already helped scores of people make an extra $3k or $7k a month to help with their bills during these tough times.
This is a business opportunity, and I along with thousands of others, have proven that it works. YOU are nothing but a whacko with no life picking on a random guy that turned $448 into $7,000 and saying he’s been fooled.

You are a very sad person looking to crush the hopes and dreams of others.

Dear Wake Up:
I am an expert at determining what makes people tick . . . you leave lots of clues about yourself through your ignorance. For you to actually mention ” $5 a month to receive your money . . . what about the taxes? . . . and shipping costs!!! . . . ” simply proves to me and whoever may actually read this, that you are a small-time, small-thinking simpleton living check to check. Angry at the world and trying to make others miserable too.

On another note… I dont think there are more than 3 or 4 people actually reading this stuff anyway!!! LOL

keithw Reply:
April 15th, 2010 at 7:27 pm

@joeo, I read it and am quite amused….I think someone just tried to scam me with a money laundering scheme so I did my best to report them to yahoo and [email protected] I still believe in the age old addage, that anything that sounds too good to be true probably is and I have never seen otherwise in my 44 years on this planet. I bust my a55 for every dollar that I earn and then get laid off. Then after attempting to get a job by using careebuilder someone in where “Finland’ attempts to get me to launder their money…….Good luck to both of you in your debate KW looking for honest work in Tulsa

Dear Wake up:

You know . . . maybe you’re right . . paying taxes on a six figure residual income AND getting whacked for $5 a month is surely adding up fast. Thanks for pointing that out. Maybe I should contact Shop to Earn and kindly ask them to please stop sending me this money every month?

Dear STE:

On behalf of my myself, my wife and my business partner, please immediately CEASE AND DESIST from funding our Citibank VISA debit cards with the approximate $30k per month that you have been doing since the beginning of 2009. This total in excess of $360,000 since last summer has been a true burden. The month of March 2008 was particularly aggregious as it suprassed $50,000. I am also simply tired of having to buy $100 worth of healthy products like granola bars, coffee, shampoo, steak, shrimp as well as the many eco-friendly cleaning products my wife now loves to use around the house. I am also worried that I will not be able to write all of this off and may have to pay taxes at the end of the year . . . and that $5 monthly accounting fee should be cut in half!!! how dare you!

If you disregard this letter and proceed to send the $32,500 this September 21st as planned, I will have no choice than to have you speak to my hired blogger attorney “Mr. Wake Up” he knows everything about everything and you will NEVER win this arguement.

Regards,
Mr. Joe ZERO

Wake up:
You make no sense…I told you I have 1 portal with my biz partner /nygiants and my wife has one and his wife has one. We all help each other with training our teams and introductions etc. Yes all 3 made the 10 fast start $4,100 bonuses but that was the summer of 2008! you can only do it once per site. If you sign up 27 people, it doesn’t help for another $4,100 after the initial 10 . You only get a mere $100 per referral after that. You can’t hit the $4,100 again. Sorry to inform you of this.
Were you thinking that I kept making $4,100 for every 10 people? WRONG!

The total of $350k++ we amassed as a team of 3 is after that initial $4,100 x 3 sites = $12,300. The rest of the $340k has all been on others being succesful.
SO STOP TALKING ABOUT MULTIPLE SITES!

btw . . . I havent “recruited” anyone in a year! I also made made over $960 in cash back JUST FROM SHOPPING! Sorry, but the #s are plain to see.

OMG . . . you really have no reading comprehension and LOVE to see failure.

Are you happy that your friends failed? Is that what makes you tick? maybe if you were a little supportive of your “friends” they could have made it a success? Did you secretly wish inside that they failed. What if you knew me personally and I made it work . . .would you not sleep at night. WTF is your problem? were you beaten as a child?
Let me ask you this . . . If one of your “friends” decides to get their real estate license will you start telling them that its ridiculous? because they will spend money and time on seminars . . . and 90% of them probably will fail.

I’m done with you. Too negative!

Well it’s been about 40 days and when we started monitoring it was at $7,351. It’s now up a whopping $52.00 IN 40 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!
LET’S MAKE SURE WE ADD IN THE $149 ON A PURCHASE AT SHOP TO EARN. $52 in 40 days minus the $149 you’ve spent makes it MINUS $97 over the last 40 days. HHHHMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!

Money bags..
You can call me anytime /nygiants

Hi Jerry:
You are great !! I love it !!! not sure where to start though . . . here’s some bullet points as I need to go pick up my son from school in a few mins . . .
I don’t ever check these blogs except when I get an email that there’s a new update.
– my ste biz has made over $380,000 since last summer . . . sorry but its a fact and even though no one really reads these blogs much anymore, the few that are in ste that do check in once in a while, who know the TRUTH . . . know its true.
– I don’t work for STE, I work for myself. Fact is when you are a “full-time” STE broker there’s not much to do! I just had $35,000+ hit my account TODAY and I don’t really know what to do with my spare time.
– you have a cash back credit card? GREAT . . . so do I and I use it when I buy things from my STE mall and get even more cash back . . . duh! and there’s no taxes on any cash rebates
– I love your comment “taking people’s money etc etc ” guess what . . . if you bought your own virtual cash-back web portal mall it would work as well as mine. I ALWAYS get cash back for every single purchase I make forever. However, with your small-minded cynical thinking you would never make a dime with STE as a business. OR perhpas you are another one of those people from a different MLM that is losing their entire downline to STE because it makes so much more sense?

Anyway, thanks for the laughs!
Onward
Joe O.
Morristown, NJ

Hey Mr. Wake Up;
There’s an ancient Buddhist philosphy that says (paraphrasing) “if no one accepts your challenge or insults . . . then to who do they belong?”
You offer a challenge to some stranger as if he cares and as if anyone is watching. You’re nuts.

I know you’re probably also monitoring my website too /nygiants and see that its making $500-$2,000 a day, every day…but we won’t go there. What you don’t understand is that STE works. Its not on trial. People do with it what they please. It’s a simply a cash-back shopping mall that can be a side business. You will also see on my site that I received $1,200 in cash back in 2009 from simply shopping and buying the stuff my family needs.

STE does not encourage people to quit their jobs and try STE full-time like so many supposedly “legit” non-pyramid companies do every day! The well-respected financial planning and insurance firms like Merril Lynch, Paine Webber, Northwest Mutual etc recruit 24/7, trying to get people to leave their full-time jobs, get licensed and then open up accounts and sell insurance to all their family and friends . . . 1-2 years later, 90% realize that they can’t make a living at it and they need to start over with something else. Meanwhile, the company used and abused that person. They made big commissions and opened up a bunch of accounts. Many of the family and friends keep their money at the firm because they can’t be bothered switching again AND THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP GET TO GRAB ALL THOSE ACCOUNTS ! By anyone’s defintion, is not this a scam? Why is this so acceptable? Doesn’t that set these poor gullible people back years with their family income and future?
Yet network marketing . . a part-time venture, gets bashed by some old school closed minded idiots.

But truth is…the tide is turning fast . . . network marketing is becoming mainstream ….why? because its a great business model where everyone wins and you get exactly what you put in. Love it.

Of all the MLM’s out there, I can NOT find a better biz model than STE.
Peace,
Joe O.

Hello Casey,
I for one am a HUGE fan of Cashbaq and have mentioned it on many other STE blogs about. People that join this STE crap don’t understand that they could get easy money back through sites such as your by simply logging on and clicking the links. I just did the other day for the Entertainment book and will receive $6 (plus my other purchases) cashback in around 90 days. Another great part is that if you don’t get the amount necessary for payback in 30 days, it doesn’t get wiped off your account like STE.
When I first signed up I also referred two friends and received those sign up bonuses. The best part is it’s FREE, no catches!!!!!!!! I’m glad I didn’t have to spend $400+++ for a “BS business” that is free through your employers website. To you, I say Thank you!

It’s awful funny that I know about 20 people that have tried STE and not one of them are millionaires. As a matter of fact none have become “rich” doing it either. I think we showed a typical person on STE in the numbers that have been updated on a member that was posting on here previously (Capt.). If you continue to open multiple accounts, recruit and recruit, then yeah you’ll make money. Your website you put up is hilarious too. I can’t believe people fall for that crap. HAHA!!!!
Wow, Bing . com is offering 20% cashback on Walmart purchases how about STE
Bing is offering 15% through ebay how about STE
Bing was offering 20% at Dell for three days last week, how about STE

Rich:
So you actually think your friend’s wife is an idot??? That’s nice.
Does your “friend” know what a crappy friend you are?
Joe O.

So boring when you have nothing left but to criticize a typo.

I guess the case is closed. Shop to Earn works for people who are coachable and determined . . . just like anything else in life.
I have helped save dozens of marriages/homes by showing people how to make a few extra thousand a month during the worst economic crisis of our generation. In addition, thousands are now using more eco-friendly products helping save the planet and themselves. What have you done for the world lately except spread negativity and crush some hopes dreams of people seeking a better life?
Loser.

Anyway . . . hope you all have a great Holiday Season!

Joe ZERO
/ nygiants
/ ecombrokers

Hey zero,
I just received $45 cashback notice through bing for a $200 Macy’s order. How much would I get through STE!!!! LOL!

Hey Wake up:

The cash back you get through Bing is only on selected promotional items that you probably will get anyway by going either directly to Macys.com or going through our STE site (and 4% cashback on top of that.) So, only through those “selected items” are you able to get cash back (which is probably items that no one wants and the stores are trying to get rid of.) What that compells people to do is buy a whole bunch of stuff that they don’t need, only because it’s on sale. Through STE, you can buy everything you NEED on a monthly basis and receive cash back. Not to mention how valuable the weekly webinars that are held by STE to educate people on how much they can save with coupon codes, etc. Also, there is NOT ONE rewards program out there that has been able to partner up with all the environmentally friendly companies that STE has partnered with. NAME ME ONE OTHER COMPANY THAT DOES IF YOU DO HAVE IT “WAKE UP.”

As far as the $448, it would cost a lot more to construct a website that will have attactive designs and have all the tracking that our STE website has (i.e. the cash back, the points, the members, the comp plan, the overview page, etc., etc., etc.) And on top of that, be able to start a business for $448. If people would just do all the shopping they normal do on a monthly basis through their website, without refering a soul (by the way, you are not required to buy $100 through the green side if you are not making money), they will surpass the $448 in cash back two-fold. So where is the scam?…

By the way, I joined in June 2008, have made just over $87,000 (my user ID is “leyva”) and helped many others earn $1,000’s, I’ve only opened that ONE account, i.e. no other accounts and I was foolish to stop working the business months ago. Out of my organization of over 3,000 people, there hasn’t been anyone joining my business for months, but yet I’m earning a residual income purely based on everyone’s shopping.

Now, “Wake up”, you say that we buy over $100 / month of products we don’t need. Dig this….Before I joined, I was already buying brand name green products in Whole Foods (which was always over $100 / month.) Now I’m buying those same, EXACT, products, same brand names, through my website, from my computer in the comfort of my own home, Saving time, money and travel, and have conviniently delivered to my door step. “Wake up”, I know you don’t care about the environment, that’s why you see the products as useless, but others do care. All you care about is bashing others’ hopes and dreams for what I see.

So “Wake up”, you keep mentioning that you know of Joe’s multiple accounts? Why don’t you just post them here on the blog? That goes to show that you are just LYING and putting out false information, possibly to try and recruit others to your business model.

Anyway, like Joe said, not everyone is successful at anything, i.e. not all doctors are successful in medicine, not all lawyers are successful, not all Real estate agents are successful, not all business people are successful. It all depends on how much drive a person has towards whatever they do that will determine success or failure.

Anyway, enough for now.

P.S. See how respectful and honest this post has been. Now watch me get insulted and bashed by all the grumpy anti-MLMers.

Hey Wake up . . . Yes.. As I always mention, my biz partner and I have 3 sites in total. We share a site and our wives each have a site. Which you just don’t understand is that it is MORE DIFFICULT to make money with multiple sites. We didn’t really know how to best do this when we first started. We made our ‘fast start’ $4,100 on each site, which made us over $12,300 the first month or so . . . but then it becomes harder to manage going forward. Yet we are still wildly successful just “showing” people how simple this really is.

So keep your $500 STE broker fee ( actually its only $448 ) and your $45 from Bing (a multi billion dollar conglomerate that couldnt care less about you or me or the environment) and remain a frugal, miser and ‘ small time’ loser.

Really . . . how do you compare $500 to what people are doing with STE? Again . . . its not just the six-figures plus I have made, nor the $1,000+ a day I make every day whether I like it or not, its the fun! I find this to be lots of fun . . . helping others pay for their mortgage or college.

I really dont see why you even would respond. Go away.
Joe Zero

Wakeup: I havent signed anyone up in months! That’s the beauty of network marketing. Work hard in the short term and the kick back forever.
With regards to a Youth league . . . again you are clueless. I donated the $448 website myself, 100’s of moms and dads are shopping on the league’s site and the league makes $$$ doing next to nothing.
You see if YOU were also successful you can start giving back and donating $$$ to great causes . . . but you’re not about positive energy. You like to stay mis-informed and try deflate people.
You only live once on this planet . . . why be so negative?

Joe Zero

I’m going to predict some “Major League” deflection folks. That’ll be from Mr. zero who has went on other websites slamming STE posting under numerous names.

Show the proof that “100’s of moms and dads are shopping on the league’s site and the league makes $$$ doing next to nothing.”
YOU SAID IT and it shows on the website that 11 purchases in over a year have been made. I’m not a mathematician but 11 is certainly far from hundreds isn’t it?
As I stated, we would see serious deflection and it’s exactly what we got from it. You won’t answer because you know I’m right. I’m sorry you think I’m juvenile but at least I’m not BSing about numbers and facts.
If you knew me you would definitely not believe I’m a negative person. I just hated seeing friends by into this crap. Most have lost money and a couple who recruited the heck out of people made money and it certainly wasn’t from shopping.

Hi Deborah:
Not sure about the “devil’ comment. I know all the details of the ste contract…especially the commission schedule portion. I know everyone gets paid on time and accurately each month.
STE is a business for me. Typically with any business venture there is risk involved. Buying a franchise, signing a lease and personally guranteeing the lease, hiring employees and hoping that they don’t sue YOU if a co-worker looks at the them the wrong way. This is a huge undertaking. And we all know that most will fail and the person ends up in debt. When you compare $448 to buying even a small sandwich shop or starting a hair salon etc, this is a no brainer.

How many ” old fashioned” businesses can turn a profit in their first 3 months?how about the first year? STE can return your money back in hours. If you fail at the business end…well then just shop and get your cash back…no victims here.

There are lots of rewards malls all over the internet. They make their money by skimming some of the cash back (STE pays it all to us) and by the credit card usage fees they broker too. That’s ok. But its NOT a business. Realistically, probably less than 2% of American even know about cash back portals and even less use them effectively. Part of my business is getting paid to spread the word and sell cash-back ste webportals. The more that are sold the more money me and my team makes. We sell a “Mercedes quality” cash-back web portal for $349 . . . not everyone appreciates a fine machine…some want a hyundai….that’s ok…both will get you to the game on time. Both have a place in the market.

STE accepts Discover, so lots of people double dip. STE even gives cash back on gift cards so some people buy them, get 5% cash back, then use them on the website and get another 5% cash back. Most stores allow this and dont mind this double-dip . . . why? because on-line shopping is 50-70% more profitable for the retailer than brick and mortar.
Anyway… I will keep running my business . . . each month I do less and less and make more and more. Its been almost 20 months now.

When some skeptics ask me ” hey Joe, how’s that pyramid thing you got involved in last year? ” I respond, ” You mean Shop to Earn? yeah . . . I am almost done with that thing.” They get all smug and say, “hmm didnt work out huh?”. I say, “No, actually it worked out just as I planned … focus for 2-3 years and walk away with $150k a month forever and ever”
How much cash in a CD do you need to earn that every month?

livin’ the dream!
Have a great 2010!
Joe O.

The owner now opened a new company after his old one failed and basically just changed the name. There are very similar things about it and there were lies told to founding members.