“No cap to your income. You can make as much money as you’re willing to work for. Wooh! That’s awesome, that is unbelievable! Think about it, where can an uneducated housewife with no skills, no degree, no nothing, no confidence, where else can somebody like that go in and make millions of dollars?
You know, look I gotta tell you, I’m not kidding you, it’s overwhelming the money you can make here. It is overwhelming. You start thinking stupid stuff like this I mean when once a month you get this massive check and then four times a month you get this other checks that were bigger than I’ve seen my husband make in a year in some years… so I’m looking at this am I’m like you start thinking crazy things like this, Do you really deserve all this? I mean, come on, Do you really deserve all this? And then you slap yourself up and go heck yea I do!”
What is ACN?
Based out of North Carolina, ACN is one of the fastest growing telecommunications and utility multi-level marketing business and now offers all the essential services in 23 countries.
ACN stood for American Communications Network, buy they changed their name to reflect their international presence.
Founded in 1993 by Greg Provenzano, Robert Stevanovski, Tony and Mike Cupisz, the company began as a reseller of long distance services in the U.S.
Its independent businesses owners can earn residual income on their customer’s bill (1 to 10% of a long distance phone plan) and have the opportunity to earn bonuses by recruiting more reps.
The fee to sign up as a rep is $500 in the United States, but is not paid until the representative has at least two to three customers. The exact bonus differs on each country. In the US and Canada, it would be $200 for recruiting and ‘qualifying’ two new reps
ACN Products and Services
Home
Digital phone service, local & long distance, wireless, energy, television, home security, and automation, internet technical support
Business
Phone service, energy, merchant services, security & automation, satellite tv technical support
How Does ACN Work?
Only after you pay your signup fee and sign a contract will your recruiter will reveal all the details of how ACN works.
To be qualified, you still have to purchase their $200 video phone that connects to the internet so you have it for demonstration and a $30 monthly fee when you could be using Skype and MSN for free.
Then you have to sign up with two other ACN services.
In addition, you have to pay $39.99 a month for your own ACN website.
Paying all that makes you barely qualified to their first level, Qualified Team Trainer.
You also have to pay a $150 annual membership fee to stay with the company, but they will hide this from you.
In order earn cash bonuses and advance, you have to build a large downline of people under you. That means you have to keep recruiting and help them recruit others under them and so on so you get more “customer points”.
You have to convince your family and friends to switch over to a different company just to sign up.
You have to sell at least seven services and have at least two people under you in order to make money.
Team Trainers are required to attend a lot of training meetings and expensive seminars so they can be “qualified” to train others where they will brainwash you to think that ACN is incredible, not listen to anyone, and are trained meticulously on how to get people’s money.
As a rep, you will be selling your family and friends inferior services and will cause you to lose your relationships.
How Much Does ACN Truly Cost?
Not only must you pay for your sign-up fee, but you must spend money on gas, airplane and admission tickets to events, hotels, food, ACN yearly fee, and you the time you spend.
Start Up Costs
Sign up cost $499.00 + tax= $550.00-600.00
Video phone= $225.00
Total sign up cost= $550.00+ $225.00 = $775.00 to $825.00
2-3 Weekday meetings= 5-6 hours, personal appointments 1 hour a day = 7 hours a week, total hours in one week = 16 to 20 hours (60-80 hours a month of your time)
Monthly Expenses
Gas= $150.00/month
Website subscription= $39.99/month
Co-Founder Greg Provenzano says if you’re truly serious about your ACN business, you need to invest in the Business Assistant which is $39.99 per month. –Source Facebook
Magazines and dvds= $50/month
Two day international meetings in the United States every three months= $300.00 to $500.00 = $2000 yearly, or about $165/month +wasted working money=$150.00.
Coffee or refreshments= $20.00/month
Yearly renewal fee= $160.00 or $13.33/month
Total monthly expenses =150+39.99+50+165+150+20+13.33= $587
Your first year in this business assuming you put in about 70 hours a month in meetings and appointments would be 70hrs/m x 12/m x $15/hr=$12,600+$575 sign up cost+$225 video phone+$583(12) monthly expenses=$20,396.
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Unethical Business Practices
Many IBOs lie to potential customers about what they will get, pay, and what they are actually signing up for. For instance, ACN doesn’t really offer “unlimited” internet and customers will be cut off once they reach 300GB. Customers are not told about contracts, when preauthorized payments are needed, or what dates the payments will be deducted.
All they do is take your money while providing terrible services because they don’t care about customer satisfaction. There are unfair contract and termination fees if you cancel and agents will try to deny credits and refunds, even if they are merited. Customers will be held responsible for any fees incurred by the misinformation their agent provided.
ACN Red Flags
- Nearly all IBO’s are losing money.
- In 2010, ACN reported to NBC-affiliate reporters in Charlotte, NC that their income and customers did not increase in four years. But they doubled their USA IBO’s which went from 50,000 to 100,000.
- It’s unlikely that’s there’s an actual demand for residential video phones, ACN’s main product, but they would still make millions out of WorldGate’s revenue.
- “ACN’s owners are also among the owners of the company that makes the video phones, WorldGate. WorldGate (WGAT.OB) happens to sell its stock on the over-the-counter stock market. According to WorldGate’s 2009 annual report to the Securities & Exchange Commission, when ACN’s owners took over WorldGate, they received over 202 million shares of WorldGate stock, 63% of the total, plus warrants to buy another 140 million. ACN pledges to buy 300,000 phones from WorldGate over the next two years…”.- Source PyramidSchemeAlert.org
- You’re selling noncompetitive services- Virgin Mobile’s prepaid, at $35 a month. Data is unlimited, but you have to watch your calling minutes. People claim to get free minutes, free unlimited texting, and data. ACN’s Flash is $52/month
- They don’t disclose the average income, payouts or dropout rates for distributors or the total revenue of the company and how much of that is from the reps themselves.- Source BBB
- On October 10, 2014, a class action complaint was filed against ACN in North Carolina saying that consumers across the nation are being scammed out of millions of dollars in exorbitant charges for electricity and gas. – Source Businessforhome ACN has been charged with operating as an illegal pyramid scheme by regulators in Montana, Canada, and Australia.- Source PyramidSchemeAlert.org
- Most ACN representatives use misleading statements to convince you to join.
- The seven level compensation plan is used to cheat lower level IBOs out of their deserved compensation for sales.
- “The compensation plan allows for five or more levels, which is more than are needed to manage the sales function”. – Source MLMTheTruth.com
- Many complaints with the Better Business Bureau, here are just some of them.
You’re Likely To Lose Money
In 2008, Montana records stated that out of 91 sales reps, none of them made more than $700. Montana Securities Commissioner Monica Lindeen accused ACN of running a “pyramid scheme” and filed a temporary cease and desist order back in 2010.
In 2009, 312 Montana IBO’s paid ACN a total of $234,813.02, an average of $752 per person.
They were paid a total of $16,615.08 in commissions, an average income of $53 and a net loss of about $700 a person.
But from actual sales, they only earned only $896, an average of $2.82 per person in revenue from sales. – Source PyramidSchemeAlert.org
In 2010, the average income was $500.
According to an ACN income study, out of 12 participants, none of them earned more than $220 and the average person lost $605. – Source Bindone
This demonstrates that fewer than 1 in 200 people will recover their initial $500 investment.
Income comes from either service sales, which is small or recruitment.
The services are very competitive and the percentage of revenue is usually less than 2%. 40 customers paying a $30 monthly bill each is $1200. 2% of that will earn you a $24.
Getting a large income from recruitment will be hard because it is difficult to build and sustain a structure seven levels deep especially when there is a high turnover rate.
To be eligible for Customer Acquisition Bonuses (CABs), you need to be an “Executive Team Trainer” or higher.
ACN IBO Marketing Limitations
ACN doesn’t allow marketing or advertising outside of what ACN already provides.
“ACN strictly prohibits IBOs from engaging in any “cold marketing” techniques for purposes of customer acquisition at any time…In order to receive compensation, IBOs must maintain a minimum number of personal customer points per ACN’s Compensation Plan”.– Source ACN Policies & Procedures
The fact that they limit you to selling non-competitive products to yourself and your friends and family really limits your customer base. This encourages the recruitment of others making ACN more money in application fees.
My Final Opinion of ACN
Stay away from ACN as a customer or as an IBO. Customers receive inferior services at high prices and need to pay ridiculous fees if they want to cancel their service. ACN doesn’t make an attempt to retain their existing customers, as if acquiring them isn’t hard enough. You will lose money faster than you will make even if you work yourself to exhaustion. You won’t make anything until you at achieve at least TC status that can take a long time to reach.
They don’t disclose the income you can expect to make on average for this in the United States. The seven level compensation plan cheats reps out of their earned income. They limit you to selling non-competitively priced products to your friends and family and forces the recruitment of other IBO’s. This makes ACN more money with the $499 application fees along with all the other fees. Just because Donald Trump endorses it doesn’t mean it isn’t a scam – pay him a few millions and he’ll endorse anything.
I recommend you start a real business where you can earn passive income online and will be given awesome training, tools, and you will be given expert support when you need it. Best of all, it’s free!
