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Shopping Genie
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why dont you install the software,it'll only take 20 sec to install,its free so your not losing out on anything!!search for an item or product that you bought recently or your going to buy and see if the app finds it for less,maybe the business aint for you but at least try the free app and see if it works!!If it does'ent,come back to this thread and release all your fury!!!!!0
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If you read my blog you will see that I am an ex distributor for the genie and you will also find out why I am an ex distributor.
My blog is on http://byfocal.com/byfotech/?page_id=5
The genie is on all the computers in the house. I am gradually removing it and advising my erstwhile customers to do the same.
Cheers,
MLMwatch0 -
some points that have not been made regarding the Shopping Genie.
1 the $199 is not taken from your credit card until the 31st day which means that you have a 30 day get out clause which you control. if you feel within the 30 days that its not for you or you want your money back, you log into your back-office and log yourself out, thus getting your full refund. Pyramid schemes don't give you that option.if after the 30 days you decide not to go on, you again select to opt out and the payments stop as do the cheques coming in.
2. this is not a pyramid scheme, Pyramid Schemes involve a product that you buy from the person above you. with the shopping genie there is no product. do a search on the web for the difference between the two.
3. the point made about the FTC stating that you should "steer clear" seems to have come from wikipedia, an open source information site that can be edited by anyone that wants to. i cant find anything of the sort on the FTC website. please correct me if i am wrong.
4. this business has the Vice President of CNN/Fox behind it for Gods sake
my business partner and i were approached to sign up to the genie about 6 weeks ago. my partner jumped straight in and i held back and did my research and waited to see what he would get from it. in his first four weeks he got $1900. based on the fact that i had seen this proof and that i could get my money back GUARANTEED i joined up last week.
as stated above, this is not a "permanent" source of income, nor should it be considered as ones main income. yes if you work hard at it you will make money, how much you make will determine how much you put into it in work terms, the same as any business. how long it is going to last? i don't know. but while the opportunity is there i am going to take it and run with it. at the end of the day if it does fall flat on its face, and i have made some money out of it then i have nothing to complain about. if i loose $199 because i am too lazy to get up of my ass and make it work for me, then thats no one else's fault but my own.
the thing that people here cant understand and why they think it 's a scam is that the outlay is minimal and the profits are huge. i have seen the proof.
if anyone can show me verifiable proof that this is a scam i will gladly sign myself out and donate the money to a nominated charity0 -
Thanks for the reply Phonez, interesting stuff.
Your definition of a scam is not in line with the law. The law considers it a scam when the people that get in fast and early make a few quid but the poor folks who get in late and last are left wondering what hit them why they bothered. ie - the revenue is generated primarily by network building.
I'll take that bet. Give it till the end of September, if you can say hand on heart that you believe it to be legit then I will apologise to you on here shut up on this forum.
That is how long I would guess until it all blows up. It is approaching critical mass.
Otherwise I would vote for the Simon Community as a worthy charity.
Watch this space.0 -
MLM watch
thanks for your open minded response
bet taken. if i am still happy to be associated with the shopping genie by the end of September then you will accept its legit and publish that on this forum, however if it turns out to be a scam, and i need verifiable Garda proof, then i will donate the sign up fee $199 to the Simon community
i would love to see the actual definition in law that you speak about because, if it is a scam according to the law, why didn't the Gardai come down to the Red Cow and make arrests?
Phones0 -
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Hi Phonez,
I can't guarantee my opinion will change but I am prepared to publicly respect your decision and concede the lack of proof in this forum.
The Gardai grind slow - if you change that from "Garda" proof to "Legal" proof that the Gardai can act on I think that would be fair. It is not up to the Gardai to make legal decisions. They enforce such decisions. They act on their perception of the law which may then be tested in court.
Why haven't they acted ? Probably because there has been no complaint. I certainly haven't complained.
The laws that you expressed a desire to see are at -
The National Consumer Association document (which in itself does not have legal standing) provides guidance on this Act:
http://www.consumerconnect.ie/eng/Hot_Topics/Our-booklets/NCA-consumer-protection-act.pdf
-see pages 32-33 for pyramid schemes details and definitions
The Consumer Protection Act 2007 (current Irish law) itself is at:
http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2007/a1907.pdf
-see pages 56-58 relating to pyramid schemes
Rumour has it that RTE have done some interviews re the Genie for prime time. It's on twice a week, Tues and Thurs. I will be starting to watch or record Prime Time from tonight. You might do the same. They are total ferrets. If there is clear legal proof one way or the other they will certainly dig it up.
A contact of mine who is still in the Genie tells me that the Genie guys are obtaining a favourable legal opinion from an Irish solicitor. That would be a huge plus for you.
Have a great day.
MLMwatch.0 -
3. the point made about the FTC stating that you should "steer clear" seems to have come from wikipedia, an open source information site that can be edited by anyone that wants to. i cant find anything of the sort on the FTC website. please correct me if i am wrong.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus28.shtm
under the Pyramid scheme headerMLMs should pay commissions for the retail sales of goods or services, not for recruiting new distributors.
Can you provide a link to prove the above. You do realize CNN and Fox are separate rival companies and would not have the same vice president. If you mean that person worked at both at different times, fine, again please provide link to support this.4. this business has the Vice President of CNN/Fox behind it for Gods sake
How did he make $1900? From the genie or his "tree".in his first four weeks he got $1900. based on the fact that i had seen this proof and that i could get my money back GUARANTEED i joined up last week.
All you have to do is use the genie and ask yourself is this something that can make me $199 dollars on it's own without signing up distributors. If your honest with yourself you know it can't and the only way to make back the money is sign up distributors, which is a pyramid scheme.if anyone can show me verifiable proof that this is a scam i will gladly sign myself out and donate the money to a nominated charity
Asked this off another genie supporter but got no answer, if everything is so legit, will you mate by filling a self assessment tax form. Going on your $1900, he's looking at $22,800 per annum.0 -
Not to flog the horse to death, but this topic has been debated on other links;
- http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056017156
- http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056031488
- http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056024024
In sort sentences, the company is a MLM company (Multi-Level Marketing), this is the legal way to say pyramid.
You buy a licenses to sell/give free a product, on this case the software. The bulk of the money comes from signing other people and those people will sign other people, thus creating a multi-level system.
The Genie doesn't really do anything, all it does is opens other sites (the real comparison sites) and saves you from having to retype the search again.
A real "genie" would search those sites, located the cheapest prices and open a single window with the prices from the other sites, the fact that only opens the other sites makes it something useless. After a while people will go to the sites directly.
The second problem is the $3 a month on residual income from each Genie installed, as explained on the other posts, you will only use the Genie for expensive items, so once or twice a month. People won't use it for clothes (as they will need to try them) or everyday items (milks, eggs, biscuits...) the genie will be use for big ticket items (laptop, a golf club, a camera...).
For the rest of my opinion on this matter visit the links above.0 -
I'm a software engineer and below is my take on why the shopping genie app as opposed to the shopping genie scheme, can't make any money for individual distributors.
The basic premise of the shopping genie is that you give away the app, People use it to search for items, click on adds, purchase goods. You should then receive a % of add and sales revenue.
OK, so lets examine how this would work.
1: To be able to trace that people you gave the genie used it, the genie app would have to have some specific id programmed into it to uniquely identify it as coming from you.
2: The genie app itself does no price comparison. You enter a search term in google and when the google results are shown it provides you with links at the bottom of the screen. These links are redirects of your search term into the particular site's search engine. So if the genie is to make money, it must inform the third party site that is has just sent it a customer, and it also must record somewhere which genie gave the redirect so the appropriate distributor can get compensated.
3. With the third party site informed that it has got a redirect from the genie, it would then have track what that user purchased. Then if it got a percentage of the sales revenue it would have to give that revenue to the shopping genie company so the individual distributor could get compensated.
For all of the above to work, 2 critical things have to happen,
the third party site needs to know the redirect came from the shopping genie and some central shopping genie server needs to know that distributor Y's version of the shopping genie has just given a redirect so they can be compensated.
The attached image is from an app called Fiddler. It tracks all request that leave your computer and go out onto the internet. So when you click on the shopping genie link, you can see exactly what information leaves. This image shows the request that went out when after searching for ipod in google I clicked on the buy.com genie link. The thing to focus on is Request headers section towards the top right of the screen. This is the information being sent. Trust me when I say there is noting in this request that identifies this redirect has come from the shopping genie app. Also no info is sent to any main shopping genie server.
If there's no way to identify that redirects are coming from the genie there is no way to make money from it.
@carbayon, I have no problem with MLM's if the product or service can make at least some money, but this app can't make a red cent. Therefore its not MLM it's a pyramid scheme.0 -
But i think that it is sustainable due to the main income stream in my chopping genie is advertising income, ie adverts clicks sold to the advertisers..
if any of you have a blog or website and happened to have an adsense account from google, or adbright etc.. than you will know that those companies are charging advertisers, local businesses or internet marketers anything from $0.10 to about $13 per click (the later is for example credit cards or mortgage niche) and that google will publish this advert on say my website as i have a publishing code from google, so if anyone clicks on this add on my website i will earn about 50% of that click charge.. and at the end of the month google will send the cheque to my post.
the shopping genie works the same, only it has a contract with publishers, say google or ebay, and than if anyone clicks through the software that i distributed my net universe (parent of my shopping genie) will get their 50% share of this click and than i turn will share it with me...
so the main source of income is actually from advertiser...
(i think that it is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to approve my shopping genie add on google - as it takes customers from them)
i personally use both of the publishing accounts google adsense and my shopping genie.
think that google slipped on on this one - they should have delivered this times ago - separate services of searching by the prices.
A few toughs of mine...
what do you think ?0 -
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it is not necessary to actually invite new people,
each software you distribute pays you on average $2-3 per month (provided that it is in use even randomly..
so say you distribute 100 of them you get at the end of the month $200
make it 1000=2000 etc...
the idea is good as it actually free for end user and provides real benefit showing the range of prices for one item -where you can select the cheapest one..
so all in all if you good at marketing and software distribution say online - you dont have to deal with inviting new distributors (which is major concern of all people as it seems) what you do is just distribute the software which is for free to end user and actually provides real benefit to the end user...
sound fair to me.
The pyramidal principle applies if you want to get rich by doing not much ( so in other word you want other people to do the work for you and you will be lazy counting profits... than you have to find new recruits.
Me personally - i would remove this option all together if this concerns people to much...
but anyway it is there so it provides those 20% perks from each referral that you refer, etc...
Anyway if anyone of you had a google adsense account and was blocked for any reason at all ;-) you know that you would want tho have some large intermediary company in-between, so that your adsense account would not be just shut down... :-))
any thoughts?0 -
as i am interested in this topic myself and, as all developed and well educated people, want to hear constructive criticism about this topic, ( so that i will keep grow myself, and will not be one full, aqs a frog who just praises its own bog) please post any criticisms and comments here or to my private mail.
thank you and regards.0 -
Does anyone knows how to start new tread here ?
i am completely new to this forum and will appreciate if you email me info as how to start a new tread.
or is it that the one have to be so much days on this board to be able to do so?0 -
I have already posted my criticisms. Maybe you could describe exactly how you are meant to use the genie. Specifically the point where an end user would click on an add and earn the distributor revenue.0
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WHER DO I START???
MLMWatch: ok, happy with legal "proof" but it must be substantiated. i cant find any "legal proof" anywhere on the net that says it is a scam just peoples opinions. i will get back to you on the two documents as soon as i have read through them. yes there is a primetime program, tonight i think, but i can guarantee they are not going to paint a pretty picture knowing the media. yes allegedly they have enlisted a solicitor in Ireland which they do as a matter of course in every country that they operate in but my understanding is that this is for the purpose of suing anyone (media etc) who states publicly that it is a scam.
Whatstherush: thanks for the link. Re William Shaw: taken from the Mynetuniverse site: William Shaw has spent nearly three decades working as a Corporate Officer with legendary media mogul Ted Turner, first with Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. and now with Turner Enterprises, Inc.
Shaw has been responsible for various companies, overseeing departments, revenues and employees in the vast Turner Empire. He helped grow TBS from the SuperStation and CNN with 350 employees in 1981 to a media powerhouse with 11 networks, 10,000 employees and two movie studios with a net worth of $5 billion when it merged with Time/Warner in 1997.
also see Ted Turners site, http://www.tedturner.com/enterprises/home.asp he owns turner enterprises inc, who own CNN not sure where the Fox TV link is but William shaw is now Ted Turners right hand man.
my business partner made the $1900 through signing up people and yes he will be declaring it on his tax return, bye the way both he and i have other businesses and are not relying on this alone as i said in an earlier post. your last point is very misinformed, i suggest you go to a meeting and have it explained fully how you get the revenue.
carbayon: looked at the links you sent me but nothing concrete that will make me think otherwise. same contributors
Whatstherush: i will take a look at that piece of software and do some analysis on the genie with it and come back to you on it. yes each persons genie does have a specific ID code that enables the genie people to know who's genie is being used. i presume you have not seen the back office of the genie and how it works, i have and have seen others commission statements and cheques which i will grant you are unbelievable sums of money.
the last comment does not need any comment from me apart from, at last someone who can see the light.
here is a famous quote from the president and founder of Digital equipment in 1977 about home computers.
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
just shows you how wrong people can be:D0 -
It's on Prime Time now.0
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I just saw that prime time programme. It sounds very dodgy allright. Trying to bullshít people with jargon who don't understand it.
I feel sorry for the guy in my local paper with an ad in it saying join up its great!!:eek:0 -
classic, just watched it all on prime time.
ok, its a scam/scheme, imo.
reason, simple. . . . .
I work for a multinational. . . we all know multinationals. . . we all rely on them. . . .
however,
the maner in which these guys came in to ireland, well its hardly thru IDA. .
secondly, if they had nothing to hide, they would have sat down and be willing to be interviewed. . .
If anyone cant see that this is a pyramid scheme, well, put it this way. . .
thats why they exist, its like the lotto form the nertherlands coming in the post. . . . why do they still do it. . . cause thers suckers out there with homer simpsons DNA. . .lol..0 -
yes you are right...
this is one of the grey areas, and i be honest with you, ive spent some time writing email to my net universe about the actual clicks statistics..
they did not released it to me.
so i could not truck exactly what was my income (i am trainee auditor myself)
so my opinion i am given something as income but it c an be anything from 10% up to say 40% of my actual clicks.... and in this case you juts dont know what are they distributing to the software distributors....
uless they make their accounts public with the income streams shown separately.. so than you can compare incomes from clocks and incomes from license sales to the cost line of our share of clicks...
will look into it and once i will have more info will share it here0 -
join my shopping genie wrote: »yes you are right...
this is one of the grey areas, and i be honest with you, ive spent some time writing email to my net universe about the actual clicks statistics..
they did not released it to me.
so i could not truck exactly what was my income (i am trainee auditor myself)
so my opinion i am given something as income but it c an be anything from 10% up to say 40% of my actual clicks.... and in this case you juts dont know what are they distributing to the software distributors....
uless they make their accounts public with the income streams shown separately.. so than you can compare incomes from clocks and incomes from license sales to the cost line of our share of clicks...
will look into it and once i will have more info will share it here
I'm an accountant,
2 questions,
are you a training to be an accountant?
are you in this scheme? like are you a distributor?0 -
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country home wrote: »I'm an accountant,
2 questions,
are you a training to be an accountant?
are you in this scheme? like are you a distributor?
yes and yes ;-)
its a part time income
whats your big point ?0 -
country home wrote: »I'm an accountant,
2 questions,
are you a training to be an accountant?
are you in this scheme? like are you a distributor?
Can i ask you a few questions?
did you ever have google publishing (adsense) account ?
do you understand how it works ?0 -
join my shopping genie wrote: »yes and yes ;-)
its a part time income
whats your big point ?
id write it but you wouldnt see it. . . .
dont tell the employers, I'm assuming its not a big 4. . .0 -
join my shopping genie wrote: »Can i ask you a few questions?
did you ever have google publishing (adsense) account ?
do you understand how it works ?
nope, never heard of it.0 -
This message is for smart people only!!
Tutankhamen would be extremely proud of this pyramid.
This country fell into alot of trouble because people who exerted influence over others, and convinced them to buy into something that had no substance.
This is not a good thing, can anyone who is potentially considering getting involved in this, just wise up!!!!
I know some of the people who were previously involved in similar MLM pyramids, and they were heavily involved in shovelling this ****e, with different cover stories, "phone deals" etc. I just saw two of them on the prime time show.
Don't say you haven't been warned!!!!0 -
country home wrote: »nope, never heard of it.
adsense - that is the very same where google makes billoins...
dont tell your employers you never heard of it ;-)
so this kind of income stream is the main one in my shopping genie...
if you do a bit of research on google adsense - than you will understand why they do all the free gmail accounts, google chrome, which they dont make much of, even their failed mobile telephone... but still make billions in profits - it all comes from clicks revenue...
people are bidding online to have their website or advertising shown at the first page of google and paying on average $1 per click (so if you see advert above or below on this page (that says powered by google) and you click on it, that guy where you will go to (the website) will pay google $1 for it.
dont want to do that but, you probably of older generation...
as i see even accounting will run soon on the pc ( so you scan your invoices or bank statement that client will email you and it will give you p&l and b/s ;-)
anyways what they say if you are not from big 4 than you are from big 10 ;-)
wishing all good mood and good evening0 -
Prime time tonight has nailed the genie to the wall. The Sunday Indo will bury it and pour concrete into the grave.
The game is up.
The emperor is naked.
UCD Commercial Law expert declared it illegal on national TV.
No more to be said really.
Cheers.0 -
Carpe Diem wrote: »This message is for smart people only!!
Tutankhamen would be extremely proud of this pyramid.
This country fell into alot of trouble because people who exerted influence over others, and convinced them to buy into something that had no substance.
This is not a good thing, can anyone who is potentially considering getting involved in this, just wise up!!!!
I know some of the people who were previously involved in similar MLM pyramids, and they were heavily involved in shovelling this ****e, with different cover stories, "phone deals" etc. I just saw two of them on the prime time show.
Don't say you haven't been warned!!!!
For very smart people now for sure...
yes you might be right on this one...
but it concerns the way all "developed" world lives...
so that people pays huge money for advertising to promote something that we dont really need,,, fashion super expensive things cloth, extra flat tv, 3d tv, etc,,, and people buy it on credit (please not, they will be very well off without it as they were just few month before...) but htey buy this 3d tv and than work all year to pay it off (nearly as slavery in consumption)
what this genie software does it actually facilitates and delivers this advertising message to the people and so they but this 3d tv and distributors earn their advertising clicks commissions...
not sure yet about morality of it all.
but can i ask you something ? do you think this "developed" world goes in the right direction ?0 -
If it didn't achieve some results for the end user it would have crashed and burned long ago. Well done on the driver. See if your friend is still in the business in a month.
In fairness, while the whole myshoppinggenie business is quite the scam, the app does exactly what it claims to do. Admittedly, anyone can research lots of sites for the best price, but the thing does save time and effort, and a user is bound to find cheaper prices. Using the app is not the issue here, it's the commission structure in the compensation plan that is.phonez wrote:2. this is not a pyramid scheme, Pyramid Schemes involve a product that you buy from the person above you. with the shopping genie there is no product. do a search on the web for the difference between the two.
Wow, you sure do have your facts wrong.whatstherush wrote:
All you have to do is use the genie and ask yourself is this something that can make me $199 dollars on it's own without signing up distributors. If your honest with yourself you know it can't and the only way to make back the money is sign up distributors, which is a pyramid scheme.
Perfect definition. Well put.0 -
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Prime time tonight has nailed the genie to the wall. The Sunday Indo will bury it and pour concrete into the grave.
The game is up.
The emperor is naked.
UCD Commercial Law expert declared it illegal on national TV.
No more to be said really.
Cheers.
Yup, you could say that the genie is back in the bottle and the cork has been glued in.
What's a real shame is the slanted presentation. The wobbly camera, the hidden camera, the aggressive finger pointing of the reporter as he "confronts" the alleged "perpetrators of the fraud" all appeal to the base instincts in people. If this is the only way RTE could put the point across it says very little for the journalistic abilities of the reporter.
I was called by an old friend in the network marketing profession (yup, I said profession) a few weeks ago to take a look at "the genie". I'd already looked into it having been a keen networker in the past and knew within minutes that the whole thing was a scam. I went along to a Red Cow meeting anyway, to get the full picture, and was not at all surprised to see who was involved. I can tell you now, that most of the big earners in Ireland do not think that they are doing anything illegal. Except maybe the guy who was presenting that night. Little northern fellah with a bad attitude (I'll say no more).
Many of them were reps with companies like Euphony, Eurexcel, Telco and Tiscali (in UK) that sold phone service. These companies had, built in to their comp plan, a commission paid to a rep when he recruited somebody and introduced a required number of customers. This made it ok. When the new guy got the required number of customers, rightly regarded as sales, the commission paid out. Simple. Unfortunately the big promoters here think that the genie is the same. It's not.
There's no requirement to distribute any particular number of apps to earn a commission. The commissions kick in when a rep recruits one person on each side of his business. Now, as no-one would pay $199 to be a customer and use the genie, these $199s can't be seen as sales of anything. The company maintains that they are selling licences, but are in fact, recruiting new reps, who in turn will give genies away. So the only people who pay the $199 are people who want to give genies away, so they're not customers and so no sale has been made. The "sale" of a licence is not a retail sale. And in order for a network marketing business to be legal, there must be somebody willing to buy the product who does not pay the fee to become a rep.
This is a point that wan't highlighted in tonights Prime Time. The other issue, and this is a lot more devious, is the $29 a month "fee". The sole purpose of this "fee" is to put money in other reps pockets. Ever time 2 people on each side of a reps business pay the $29, a tenner is paid to each person above them. And THIS is the real pyramid scam here. There is definitely no sale, nothing has changed hands and while it looks innocent enough, (it is after all the ongoing licence fee, and sure if you have just 10 "customers" using the genie, it'll be covered every month) it is what actually makes the whole thing a scam.
Unfortunately the UCD Law guy got it wrong. There's nothing wrong with promoting a legitimate network marketing (NWM) business in this country. By their very nature NWM companies emphasise building a team. They ARE effectively mini-franchises and their promotion is not illegal. Pop over to the Entrepreneurial & Business Management forum and if you can avoid carbayons MLM-Hater threads, take a look at the thread about opening a McDonalds franchise. Anyone who believes that McDonalds are actually in the burger business is mistaken. McDonalds franchisees may be in the burger business but the McDonalds Corporation is in the property and franchise business. And for the most part what you buy when you pay a NWM company to become a rep, is a mini-franchise with the rights to sell other mini-franchises.
Most of these companies will require an upfront payment that is (almost always) covered by stock of whatever product they sell. In most cases, the value of the stock supplied exceeds the payment. They will also offer a money back guarantee for all unopened and in date (where perishable) product less a small restocking charge of usually about 10%.
Most reps in NWM companies use the products they sell, and sell some more to people they know. This is the simple basis for the whole business, and it is quite legal.
Please do not confuse many of the legitimate companies with crap like myshopponggenie. That one is a scam using network marketing as its' cover.0
This discussion has been closed.
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