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One Year Later, Zer01 Web Site Disappears
alphadogg writes "Zer01 Mobile — making promises of flat rate, no contract, unlimited cell phone service — made its grand entrance at the annual CTIA wireless convention about a year ago, but now the company's Web site has disappeared. The site recently began redirecting visitors to Google.com. Zer01, which was lauded for its plans in the mainstream press, aligned itself with a multilevel marketing company called Global Verge (whose founder had earlier been convicted of securities fraud), and the two companies began recruiting salespeople who paid a monthly fee to be part of a sales program. (Since then, Global Verge and Zer01 parted ways and Global Verge filed a lawsuit against its former partner.) But no mobile service from Zer01 ever materialized. Salespeople were promised payment based on how many other salespeople they signed up to the program, although few appear to have received payment. But as late as the fall CTIA show in October, Zer01's CEO was still promising to launch the mobile service."
So, based on no further information than that in the article... can you say Multi-level marketing scam? I knew you could
Salespeople were promised payment based on how many other salespeople they signed up to the program, although few appear to have received payment.
Seriously? How people ever think this sort of plan makes fiscal sense and isn't at all dodgy I will never understand.
jaymz
A simple adage - "If it's too good to be true, it probably is". People never seem to learn it. Always falling for scams. I'm not surprised.
Give me a call, I got a great car to sell you.
Fools and their money are soon parted. And, frankly, I rephrase that as "Fools and their money money SHOULD be soon parted."
There is nothing worse than fools holding onto capital and they deserve to be separated from it.
"Salespeople were promised payment based on how many other salespeople they signed up to the program, although few appear to have received payment."
The only newsworthy part of this is that Slashdot and others thought this business model was newsworthy in the first place.
It's a Pyramid Scheme with the phrase "Cell Phone" tacked on, anyone who bought into this deserved what they got.
If you market to people's hopes & dreams, you will always find suckers for your hollow ploys.
Cosmetics are generally useless from a utilitarian standpoint, and yet mass marketing pushes that shit out to the female demographic as if they would evaporate without it, and now we're stuck with the fucking Barbie generation. Give somebody the hope that you can fulfill their dream, and you will have their wallet.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
They were just copying Equinox's business plan. You'd think people would know better by now.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I have T-mobile unlimited flexpay. It's a no contract, month to month service. while I only have 500 minutes, I do have unlimited data usage. I pay $75/month for the service, and use skype extensively. Usage limits? I've never run into them. This month I've pushed 7GB on my Nokia N900 over the 3G connection, and nobody at T-mobile has ever complained to me or my service been cut off.
Sure, I pay a premium over MetroPCS and Cricket, but I get a decent service that I can use with a GSM smartphone.
Salespeople were promised payment based on how many other salespeople they signed up to the program.
And were those other people promised payment based on how many others they signed up? Was the payment structure a hierarchical top down system like a pyramid?
Is that you Amway?
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
...salespeople who paid a monthly fee to be part of a sales program.
Say. No. More.
Post makes the point that Global Verge is suing Zer01.
Don't infer hostility!!!!!
Collusive (friendly) lawsuits are a fraudulent way one person can transfer money to another person (himself?), thereby dodging legitimate creditors.
Fyi.
I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter, but it appears to have been shoved up some guy's ass in goatse #3. I don't want that copy, TYVM.
Scam is right. Multilevel marketing makes it almost seem legitimate, which apparently it wasn't.
BTW - I'm using the word "apparently" in the "please don't sue me" sense of the word.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Instead of multi tier marketing schemes, we just need more cooperatives: owned and run by members, for the benefit of the members!
That has pyramid scheme written all over it. I wonder why it took so long and why no legal action was taken against them. Or are these scams legal in the US?
The moment somebody comes to me and tells me I can earn a lot of money, but first I need to pay a bit up front will NOT be my new employer. The will NOT be my business partner. They will be sorted under scammer. If I need to recruit people and payed on basis of how many people I can enlist, I will NOT work for that company (unless I am HR.)
Why were they not closed sooner? Even without the links to other dubious companies, this sounds like a first class pyramid scam.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
People who fall for these scams don't know any better. I'd like to change that. Please mail me to join my award-winning program: "MLM Schemes Exposed", and help spread the word. Every person you get to join my program will earn you 10% of their membership fee, and every person they recruit will earn you a further 10% of the 90% they pass onto you. Together we can spread the word: MLM schemes are evil and dangerous. Don't get caught in one!
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com/
Name Server: NS1.PARKED.COM
Name Server: NS2.PARKED.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 07-mar-2010
Creation Date: 13-mar-2009
Expiration Date: 13-mar-2011
The only difference is that it's O1 (the letter 'O'), not 01
Seems to me that, to add insult to injury, the typo-squatter picked the better domain name to begin with...
...and the two companies began recruiting salespeople who paid a monthly fee to be part of a sales program.
Any time that you're required to pay money to work - and I mean this outside of regular expenses such as supplies and travel, etc. - it's probably a good idea to turn around and run as far away as you can. A monthly fee to be part of a sales program? This is even worse than the typical MLM such as Primerica or Quixtar. At least those programs offer some sort of good or service in return, despite having an initial start-up cost.
But to collect money like that on a monthly basis and to vanish?
Best "String" Ever!
Best GNU's on Slashdot all month...
ahahahaha this is funny!