ACN - American Communications Network Freedom Express Unlimited Tough salesman, Too good to be true. Bothell, Washington

I am an ACN Independent Representative.  I am NOT employed by ACN.  Although I’d like to read more specifics on what predicated your initial contact with the ACN Independent Representative that you are complaining about, after reading your story I completely understand your frustration.  It sounds as though you may have answered some type of advertisement for employment but when you were contacted, instead of being offered a “job” the individual tried to “sell” you a business opportunity. 

 

About the company, ACN Inc., in my opinion it truly is a fantastic company that provides top notch services to millions of customers around the world.  It’s also my opinion that ACN strives to provide excellent customer service and competitive prices to its customers and lastly I feel that ACN provides to individuals wishing to be in business for themselves an incredible opportunity to share in the exploding trillion dollar telecommunications industry.

 

Obviously sir, you are not one of those individuals looking to be in business for themselves.  You are an individual that needs a job and it sounds like you responded to an advertisement that sounded like it was supposed to be just that, a job.  If that is the case then absolutely you should be upset with the outcome.  In fact, I too am upset with this situation because it damages the credibility of our business and makes it more difficult for individuals such as myself to be successful.  Independent Representatives are NOT ALLOWED to advertise our business opportunity as any type of “job”.    If this is truly the case, the individual responsible needs to be made aware that these deceptive practices are not tolerated.  I urge you to please gather all of the information you can and contact ACN Inc. directly to report this problem.  You would be doing a great service to everyone by doing so.  

 

Thank you.

I just want to ask a couple questions for the independent rep.

1.  Do you get more money by selling more products or getting more recruits under you?
2.  Why do you have to pay a 500 fee up front?
3.  Do you make anywhere near what they say you can?  6 figures?  7 figures? 
4.  Did you pull family and friends in underneath you?
5.  Why do you say I don't want to be in business for myself?  I would love to actually!  But a legit business that I created and not recruited.  Only so many people can recruit til there are no people left...

This sounds to me to be pretty multi-level, but even more like a pyramid scheme considering the up front fee... 

Hello sir,

I am a former representative of ACN and hope I can put an ease to your worry about the company.  I am not the same person as the one above but allow me to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

1.       The only way you earn money from ACN is by getting customers. You earn a percentage of their monthly bills every month for the life of the customer (Residual Income). You do not get paid for just recruiting people. The advantage of recruiting is that you also earn a percentage of money from their customer’s bills as well (similar to the hierarchy of traditional businesses).

Note:  The definition of a Pyramid Scam is any company who neither has a product or service that pays people to recruit other people. A company must make its profit through customers.  Anything else is definitely a scam and there are quite a few out there.

2.       Becoming an Independent Representative of ACN is the same as becoming a contractor to sell their products (just like Direct TV does). As a contractor, you are a business owner working for yourself. You control your hours and how much you want to work. To make it short and simple, the $499.00 you pay to ACN gives you the rights to use their products and tools to build your business.

 

For example (I’m sure you don’t need it but this is for any other concerned reader): Wal-mart does not produce its own products. They use other people’s products from other companies and sells them to make a profit.

 

3.       Although I never made millions, I have made a lot of money from the company. I do know personally quite a few people that are millionaires now because of the company. The very first person I recruited into the company was a high school friend of mine from Nicaragua. Someone you’d never expect to be in business. He now drives a Mercedes Benz and never wears anything less than $2000 with all the Armani and the Louis Vuitton that he has.

 

So yes, it is possible to make the amount that they say you can make. But let me be up front with you and tell you that not everyone will be able to do so because not everyone has the work ethic to do so. To succeed in ACN as with any other company requires a great deal of discipline.

 

4.       Every single person that I personally recruited into the business is a close friend of mine. Some are doing great and working harder to become better. Some quit and started other businesses using the lessons they learned. And some quit to go back to the old school way of making guaranteed money by getting a job. Which is ok because business is not for everybody.

 

5.       Like I said in my #2 answer, you come in to ACN not as an employee, but as a contractor/representative of the company. Some sign up with ACN using a business name. The person who introduced you to the company was probably a rookie of the business. Although the way he presented the business to you was misleading. He probably did it because he was new and didn’t know how to present the business to you correctly. Which is why he probably wanted Spencer to do it for him. Spencer is one of many Vice Presidents of the company. He is not the owner. He is like you and me. He is also a representative that was recruited into the company and succeeded in achieving what he wanted to get out of it. Although I never worked with him personally, I was lucky enough to have met him.

 

Multi-level marketing businesses are legitimate businesses not to be mistaken as pyramid scams. Some consider multi-level marketing to be easier to build than traditional businesses because a system is already in place which anyone can follow. Not to mention $499 is a lot cheaper compared to what it would normally cost you to start a traditional business (let alone your own telecommunications business).  I have never heard of a successful company today that didn’t cost anything to start at the beginning. If you have let me know because I’d be interested in learning what they did.

 

Lets say you joined ACN, but didn’t do anything and didn’t make any money this year. When tax time comes you are eligible for a 1099 in which you can use to right off the $499 since it’s a business expense.

 

ACN also hired the assistance of multiple former US Attorney Generals to help them make sure that everything that goes on within the company is legal. You can find out more information about this if you google “ACN Integrity”.

 

In case you’re wondering, I left ACN because I believe I found a better company for me with a product that fits more of what I want to do with my life. It’s also multi-level marketing and actually cost twice as much as ACN. And I have to pay it every month to replenish my products. In ACN you only pay one time because they sell a service that people can order online so that you don’t need to buy the product before you sell it. I don’t look at what the company is worth to join. I look at what the company is worth to me, how much profit I can make and the value it can put in my family’s life. To succeed in business takes a totally different mindset than that of having a regular job.

 

In closing, ACN is a great company which will open many doors for you if you choose to become part of it. It has been around over 15 years and spread in over 20 countries. If it was a scam, the company would have been terminated a long time ago. I can tell that you are a smart person. Research the company yourself starting with the website I gave you above. You will find negative things about the company in people’s blogs but that’s no different than any other company in the world. The question you have to ask is are these people business experts with the proper bank account to know the difference from a good company to a bad one? It is up to you to find out for yourself. If ACN is not for you, look for a different company, or learn about how a company succeeded so you can do what they did to succeed as well.

 

I hope the information I gave you helps and I wish you good fortune in your future endeavors.

I think the individual from “Answers” did an excellent job of explaining the legitimacy of ACN.  Since the questions were directed to me, I’ll also briefly answer from my experience. 

 

Question #1:  I’ve never earned any money from recruiting people to join ACN.  I have earned several small one-time Team Customer Acquisition Bonuses when members of my organization met goals of acquiring a set number of new customer accounts. 

 

Question #2:  The $499 we invest to start our own business in ACN is more than reasonable in my opinion.  In fact, I would have been willing to pay a whole lot more.  Knowing that ACN has millions of customers around the world, I’m sure that it would survive if the start up fee was discontinued but come on, it’s a business!  I own an automotive business that cost me tens of thousands of dollars to open and operate.  It costs me thousands of dollars every month.  Opening a cell phone store in a mall would cost thousands of dollars a month in floor space alone.  If it were free, we would get even more people that don’t take our business seriously.    

 

Question #3:  I’m in the 5 figure range currently.  I’ve also been involved for only 14 months.  ACN is not a get rich quick opportunity.  Some people have made a lot of money in their first few months but that’s really not the norm.  I operate my automotive business 6 days a week from early morning till late afternoon and have very little time to dedicate to my ACN business but, the time I have invested thus far has saved my home from foreclosure. 

 

Question #4:  Family and friends?  Absolutely!  It was a friend who invited me to look at ACN.  She saved my home.  The first thing I did was offer the opportunity to my family and closest friends.  Some came to look, some didn’t.  Some joined, some didn’t.   I thanked all of them and show my love and appreciation to them every day.  No Representative should try to convince or force anyone to join.  We’re not here to alienate relationships.  Not everyone will want to be part of this business and that’s totally ok.  My best friend told me it was a scam and to get my money back.  I said “thank you, but I think I can do this.”  He watched my progress for 8 months and then invited himself to join. 

 

Question #5:  I was simply referring to your report.  You stated that you had been on “a hard job search.”  As for running out of people to talk to about ACN, I’ve personally brought 15 people into the business yet my team is over 100 partners strong.  I find at least one new person to talk to per day just by going about my daily life.

 

My final comments on ACN…  It’s a company that’s going places that no other company of its kind has gone before.  It’s changing the industry standard.  It’s becoming more socially acceptable and is earning respect.  Soon, there will be no more reports like yours. 

 

I offer my best wishes to you of health, prosperity and happiness.

 

I will keep this short and simple and possibly respond to any other replies with more detail if needed. I used to be an ACN representative and was recruited straight out of high school at 18 years old. This was several years ago. My mom was extremely skeptical of me spending $500 but I was able to drag her to one of the meetings where the Regional Vice President (RVP-3 levels up on the pyramid) told everyone that I had so much potential and would be a millionaire by 28. Nothing unusual, I later learn thats pretty standard in any pyramid scheme- Read Network Marketing or Multi Level Marketing.

The reason I am writing this report is because of the Company itself and its product. I worked really hard on "My Business" being promoted to Sales Representative Trainer in the record time of 1 month. I did this by renegotiating ALL of my clients contracts with their current companies and demonstrating how they will get all their Cancellation Fees money back in 1 year or less and how Digital Cable was superior to the land lines used at the time (This was actually true). However every day I had to go over and reset the modem for at least one of the customers I recruited as well as deal with the pain in the ass of my mom complaining she will get fired if she cant answer our home phone (Which I had to reset almost daily) when she is on call. While digital Internet and phone service was (as of now everyone has it) the future, ACN was seriously lagging as their product is truly inferior.

After dealing with this for 6 months (No exaggeration) I dropped the business. The product was substandard and calling in every day to tech support did nothing. Neither my Team Coordinator nor Regional Vice President could do anything to help, they were dealing with the same problems themselves and just got by on promising everyone the world if they just go into business for themselves. I helped all the clients I recruited renegotiate contracts with REAL phone service companies and apologized for their Double Cancellation fees (Yes ACN has its own Cancellation Fees). It was a very humbling experience.

What did I get from the other ACN members? "Well its not for everyone." LMAO But in all fairness it was one of the best experiences I ever had. Doing serious business ie renegotiating contracts with big phone companies, attending weekly "meetings" dressed in my best and dealing with customers on a daily basis as well as getting used to rejection on a grand scale ALL at just 18 years old has really prepared me for business a lot better than my peers in college. Being about to graduate with a BBA I know that ACN is an unsustainable business model and why and can apply my knowledge and experience to starting a real business in the future and Im still young enough to become a millionaire by 28 if I play my cards right.

"The only way you earn money from ACN is by getting customers."

This is what we call a straight up lie. In fact, the majority of money earned in the ACN "business" is from signing up reps under one's self.  You can google "ACN Compensation Plan" to find a PDF document of the pay structure for the organization, but I'll give you a little taste of what it takes to starting making even 1% residual income on your sub-organization's customer's monthly bills.

To earn 1% commission, you must be a level 4 rep, or a "Team Coordinator". This means that you must have at least 3 organizations under you (read -- 3 reps) that contain 200 customer points each. What does it take to get 200 "customer points"? Well, if you sign up a customer to either an energy account (gas, electric) you get one (1) point. If you're lucky enough to get someone to sign up to a digital phone service plan, you get a generous two (2) points. So, take a moment to think how many customers are required to bring in just 1% of the organizations service bill. It should put things into perspective when ACN admits that their market share is only about 2% (so this 2% of revenue is split between all of the ACN reps in any given region).

I won't even bother to go into the detail about the fine print and how you lose customer points and stop collecting revenue if your customers drop the services. Of course, people would only drop the service if it was poor or problematic. Well, all it takes is another google search (try ACN+complaints) to reveal that there are countless customers who drop the service because of: 1. low quality 2. poor customer service.

Do the math. It is possible to make money with ACN, but, it's mostly the people at the top who are doing so. ACN itself lists the odds at 1 in 100 that a rep will ever break even on the inital $500 investment.

You need to do a better job of doing your homework and "research" before making false statements and providing inaccurate information.



The following is ACN's current compensation plan as of 02/08/2012:



Personal Residual Income

  An IBO with 1-29 Customer Points earns 1% montly residual from all personal customers

  An IBO with 30-39 Customer Points earns 3% monthly residual from all personal customers

  An IBO with 40-40 Customer Points earns 5% monthly residual from all personal customers

  An IBO with 50+ Customer Points earns 10% monthly residual from all personal customers



Here are some of ACN Services point values

  Natural Gas:  1 point

  Electricity:  1 point

  Digital Home Phone Service:  4 points

  Video Home Phone Service:  2 points

  Wireless services from Sprint, Verizon, Nextel, TMobile:  1-3 points

  Wireless service from Flash Wireless:  4-6 points

  Satellite TV:  2 points

  High Speed Internet from Comcast, ATT, Verizon:  1 point

  Business Phone Service:  4+ points



It is NOT required to have any downline IBOs to earn Personal Residual Income.



You can argue if you want that customers drop services, but I personally have over 100 personal customer points and dozens of happy customers consisting of all of our services.  None of them are so unhappy with Verizon, Dish Network, Comcast, ACN Digital Phone Service, Natural Gas or anything else that are canceling. 



Next topic:  Overriding Residual Income

ACN IBOs can qualify to earn Overriding Residual Income though 7 levels of IBOs below them.

It DOES NOT matter how many directly sponsored IBO or legs an IBO has.



To earn Overriding Residual Income from levels 1&2, an IBO must obtain at least 10 Personal Customer Points.



To earn Overriding Residual Income from levels 3&4, an IBO must obtain at least 20 Personal Customer Points.



To earn Overriding Residual Income from levels 5, 6 & 7, an IBO must obtain at least 40 Personal Customer Points.





In summary, owning an ACN business is definately NOT for everybody.  If you are dumb, lazy, negitive and the type of person that people don't like ACN (or any business for that matter) may not be for you.  If you are intellegent, willing to work hard, are good to people and have a desire to improve your life then going into business might be a good fit for you and I would encourage you to properly review and consider owning an ACN business.



Best wishes to all.

I was not aware that ACN updated their compensation structure just this year. Nonetheless, the claims I made up above were regarding overriding residual income of all the tiers below any given rep. I haven't seen you provide a rebuttal for any of the stats I gave (except to update some customer point values for a specific service). You claim that any rep can qualify to earn overriding income at any level. I never refuted this. My problem is the percentage. At level 2, you're making .25% commission, at level 3, you're making .5%. This is not income you can sustain a lifestyle on.

That said, let's go through a few calculations based on the figures you provided to determine about how much money you are making from your personal (i.e. direct) customers. You say you have over 100 personal customer points. For the sake of argument, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you have 150 personal customer points. Let me also me generous and assume that each point is an individual account which means you would have 150 service accounts (in reality, you most likely have less as some services count for more than one point). Someone might believe that you could make out pretty good (not a millionaire, by any means, like the ACN execs would have you believe) based on the fact that if you have, for example, 150 energy customers (and bills are pretty high now in winter, let's say $200/month), you could be making 10% x 150 x $200. Wow, not bad, that's $3,000/month in personal residual (remember this term "residual", we'll come back to it later) income. However, this is not the case. You see, if you look at the fine print, you discover that ACN puts a cap (aka the "commission earning rate") on most of its services. For energy, you can only earn commission on the first $30 for residential customers (you max out at $125 for business customers consuming over 150 mwh/month). All phone access plans and internet plans, the cap is 50% of the bill (puts it into perspective when you learn that most of these plans are less than $100/month). The only plans you can collect commission on 100% of the monthly bill from is the digital phone service plan (approx. $25 to $40 a month). My guess is, however, that people aren't lining up for this service (this fad started in the 90s and for all intensive purposes, died there). ACN however, is banking on this item as its flagship product.

In this light, let's recalculate your monthly personal customer income. I'll be generous and say that the commission rate is $50 (in most cases, we know it's less). So you have 10% x 150 x $50. This equals $750/month (remember, you are most likely making less because you probably don't have 150 customer accounts as it's not a 1 for 1 ratio of points to accounts). This is also not true residual income because I'm sure you had to go out and build your customer base (and continue to have to do so as some customers quit their service) as people weren't lining up to sign up for ACN services under you to begin with. At this rate, you're making about $9,000 a year. Is it something? Yes. Is it something I'd invest so much time and effort into? No. Keep in mind, if you are making this much; you are believed to be a successful ACN rep because 10% is the highest earning rate on personal customer accounts.

Also, I find it condescending when you imply that someone is dumb, lazy, or negative if they don't want to go into ACN. I didn't spend the last 8 years of my life getting an education to be (indirectly) labelled as such. I would argue that the ACN reps are the lazy ones who jump at the opportunity to make a quick buck, instead of earning it through some other more ethical means.

Perhaps you’ve exhausted your supply of reading comprehension ability during your eight years of getting educated, or perhaps it’s a lack of reading comprehension ability that made it necessary for you to spend so much time.  Regardless of the reason you’ve failed in properly understanding both the ACN compensation plan (if in fact you’ve read the ACN compensation plan documentation) as well as the

statement I made in the last paragraph of my previous rebuttal.  I never stated that “someone is dumb, lazy or negative if they don’t want to go into ACN.” 

To spare you and others the trouble of scrolling up to the paragraph I am referring to I’ve copied and pasted my actual paragraph below:

--“In summary, owning an ACN business is definitely NOT for everybody. If you are dumb, lazy, negative and the type of person that people don't like ACN (or any business for that matter) may not be for you. If you are intelligent, willing to work hard, are good to people and have a desire to improve your life then going into business might be a good fit for you and I would encourage you to properly review and consider owning an ACN business.”--

I think we can move on from this subject now and we can move onto the topics of Personal Residual Income and Overriding Residual Income. 

Personal Residual Income, you’re just a complete mess on this topic.  The statement you made about only being able to earn on the first $30 of energy bills is NOT TRUE.  The following is taken directly from ACN’s Compensation Plan documentation:  “ IBOs will receive commissions on 50% of the customers’ actual energy usage, excluding taxes and surcharges. Commissionable revenue percentage may be lower for Large Business accounts depending on rates and terms offered to customers.”  

You also stated that Personal Residual Income is “also not true residual income because I'm sure you had to go out and build your customer base (and continue to have to do so as some customers quit their service) as people weren't lining up to sign up for ACN services under you to begin with.”  I find this comical.  Of course I had to build my customer base!  Every business owner has to build their customer base no matter what the business is.  The good thing is that we market services
that everyone actually uses and customer retention is much higher than you imagine.  My wireless, satellite TV and home security customers are under contract and are very happy with their services.  I have multiple home phone customers that have been with me for years now. 

I have business phone customers that have been with me for months and are extremely happy with their services and have no intention of cancelling.  I have energy customers that are just as happy and your statement about ACN’s “flagship” product is way out of date.  We still offer the video phone but it is not a major focus.  In fact, IBOs get more points for selling voice only digital home phone service then we do for selling video phones.  Our focus is all of our services.  We provide great value on whatever a customer may need.

I am happy to admit that your estimates on my personal residual income are high.  You got me there!  I actually make less than your estimate of $9000 per year.  Shocking, isn’t it?  ACN is a Multi-Level-Marketing or Network Marketing business model.  It is not a Do-It-All-Yourself Marketing business model.  An individual that strictly wants to make commissions on what he or she sells should go sell cars or real estate or something else with much larger price tags than a wireless phone bill.  I’ve had plenty of people tell me that they are not interested in building a team and they only want to offer services.  I tell them not to purchase an ACN business. 

The great thing is that you CAN NOT WIN a debate with me on the topic of Overriding Residual Income.  I have the checks to prove you wrong.  The customer base that I receive monthly commissions on that are from the team that I override GREATLY
outweighs the customer base that have personally created.  I earn 8% per month on the hundreds customers that the dozens of IBO on my 7th level below me have acquired.  The reason we work hard to get a minimum of 50 customer points individually is not to make a residual income from those customers, it’s to make an overriding residual income from the team. Your “Statistics” above made absolutely no since and were not based on ACN’s compensation plan but perhaps on your own flawed understanding. 

You call my statements condescending and argue that ACN IBOs are the “lazy ones who jump at the opportunity to make a quick buck, instead of earning it through some other more ethical means” when it is you that lacks the intelligence to properly understand the words that I have written and the compensation plan that ACN offers.  It’s you that insult people you know nothing about because you view ACN as some get rich quick scheme due to your lack of understanding.  Many people grossly over estimate the amount of money they will make in their first 5 years of building a successful ACN business and even more unfortunately grossly under estimate what can be made after the first 5 years.  This is a business that an individual adds on a part-time basis to their workload and diligently and professionally grows over the course of time until it becomes worthy of full-time attention.  It takes the opposite of laziness.  It takes hard work and dedication.  And I’ll put my years of a professional career outside of ACN as the owner of a very successful business and consultant to other business owners along with my education up against your 8 years any day of the week.  You should keep your mouth shut and quit writing inaccurate reports just because you don’t have the ability to build a successful business with ACN or the ability to understand the compensation plan.

The thing I dislike about the internet the most… Any idiot can write anything and not be held liable. 

You know how to distinguish when someone knows their arguement is unravelling? They lower themselves to personal attacks. So now I'm an "idiot" who doesn't do his research?

While I will admit that I based my calculations off the ACN New Zealand Compensation plan, it seems that most of my calculations (as you admit) were in your favor. Here's another great thing about the internet: you can search documents such as the ACN USA Compensation Overview. So I'm not accused of "making up statistics" (which I had not done in the first place; they were only calculated for a different country), I provided a link to the PDF of the US compensation structure.

Here -->  http://c0004016.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/7-COMPENSATION-PLAN-OVERVIEW-FEB-2011.pdf

None of it is really more favorable than the one I outlined previously. You claim that an IBO can make up to 50% off downstream energy accounts. Well, if you read the fine print on page two of the linked document, you'll notice that the commissionable billing cap for energy is $1/therm (for gas) and $.135/kWh (for electric).

On another note, you claim that you are making about 8% commission on downstream customers. This would put you at the level of SVP according to the attached PDF. I congratulate you on accomplishing this, however, where can I find statistics on how many SVP exist in the entire ACN organization? Or, does ACN not want to readily release this information to the public? I won't go on arguing with you as you don't seem to back up any of your claims with actual statistics on how much you earn and you seem very defensive when somebody presents simple figures that may not paint the most positive picture of ACN.  Readers can take a look at the linked and determine for themselves what the probability is that they will strike it rich. The problem I have with ACN reps is that they present a dream (which is not necessarily out of the realm of possibility) and hope to hook a few uninformed people with complicated compensation structures. If the facts and figures would be presented and explained up front to any individual who was considering becoming a rep (before hastily collecting the $500 initiation fee) and the individual still concludes that they believe it to be an opportunity worth pursuing, MORE POWER TO THEM. From personal experience, this sadly doesn't happen.

 

One last question: if you ran such a "successful business" previously, why did you become involved with ACN?

Your inability to understand a very simple compensation plan continues to amuse me.  By the way… Are you from New Zealand?  

I still own and operate a successful business.  I am also still a consultant to other business owners.  I’m an expert at identifying ways of improving business and increasing profits.  When I examined the ACN compensation plan I immediately recognized its potential and decided to join.  If you find my criticism of your abilities harsh, it’s because identifying errors and problems is part of what I do for a living and I’m not at all afraid to tell you when I find them.  I can almost hear your mind thinking right now…  “Ah ha!!!  He is still working!  But he’s a successful ACN Independent Owner.  That must mean that he’s rich.  But he’s still working.  Yeah sure, I bet he’s rich.  Ha ha ha!”  I’ve been involved in ACN for 3 and a half years and no, ACN has not made me rich.  Nowhere in the compensation plan does it state that you will become rich.  If you would visit the website of an IBO and watch the video entitled “The ACN Business Opportunity Presentation” you will not see anywhere in the video where it is claimed that ACN will make you rich.  Any intelligent and realistic entrepreneur understands that starting any business involves hard work and risk and is ok with the fact that he or she may never get rich running the business in which they choose to open.  In fact since you’re so good at looking up statistics, look up the statistics on how many small businesses survive the first 5 years. 

Maybe try slowing down when you read and examining each paragraph more carefully.  I did not write that you can make 50% from downstream energy accounts.  First of all, I was clearly talking about PERSONAL residual income.  Secondly, this is the excerpt from the compensation plan:  “ IBOs will receive commissions on 50% of the customers’ actual energy usage, excluding taxes and surcharges. Commissionable revenue percentage may be lower for Large Business accounts depending on rates and terms offered to customers.”  At this point I really don’t know why, but I assumed that you understood that meant an IBO could earn up to 10% of half the energy usage.  Here is some math for you:

Energy Bill (Procurement Only):  $100
Amount Commissionable:  $50
IBO Compensation if 50+ Points:  10%
Total Commission paid:  $5
10% of $50 is FIVE DOLLARS

And yes, you are correct that ACN “RESERVES THE RIGHT” to cap commissionable billing for energy at $1/therm (for gas) and $.135/kWh (for electric).  Look up the historical costs for the last decade of natural gas and electricity from your local utility and determine how often the procurementcost has been over these amounts.  By the way, PROCUREMENT is what we get paid on which does not include delivery.  We get paid for the gas and the electricity, not for getting it to the customer.  Delivery goes 100% to the utility. 

Can you please, PLEASE, specify where in the compensation plan it reads that you must reach the position of SVP to earn compensation of 8% from the customers on your 7th level of business?  ACN may want to know this so that they can request a refund on the thousands of dollars they’ve paid me over the last few years.  I am not an SVP.  I am a TC (Team Coordinator).  Even a QTT (Qualified Team Trainer) can earn compensation of 8% from the customers on his or her 7th level of business.  

Here's some more math for you, since you like math so much...You = Qualified Team Trainer with 50 Customer points earning 10% from personal customers who recruits 1 individual that becomes an ETT. An ETT is an IBO with a minimum of 7 points who recruits and directly sponsors 2 IBO's who acquire a minimum of 5 points. For simplicities sake we will assume that everyone from this point on become an ETT with the exception of you, the lone QTT at the top with only 1 directly sponsored IBO.  We will also assume that everyone aquires just 10 accounts at an average bill of $40. 

QTT:  25 Customers x $40/customer x 10%= $100 commission

Level 1:  1 IBO x 10 Customers x $40/customer x.25%=  $1

Level 2:  2 IBO x 10 Customers x $40/customer x.25%=  $2

Level 3:  4 IBO x 10 Customers x $40/customer x.25%=  $4

Level 4:  8 IBO x 10 Customers x $40/customer x.50%=  $16

Level 5:  16 IBO x 10 Customers x $40/customer x3%=  $192

Level 6:  32 IBO x 10 Customers x $40/customer x5%=  $640

Level 7:  64 IBO x 10 Customers x $40/customer x8%=  $2048

Total Commission earned by the Qualified Team Trainer with his one recruit:   $3,003 per month.  $3,003 per month of residual income from the work of 127 IBOs who only get 10 customers.  But all that work for just 3k a month!?!  Funny, I have just a little more than 127 IBO on my team.  Obviously not worth the $499 investment and three and a half years of working an extra 10 hours a week and being really good to people.  I mean, three thousand dollars a month isn't jack.  That not nearly enough.

You are right about one thing, we do present a dream.  We present a dream of financial independence, of wealth and of freedom.  Fortunately our formula for achieving this dream is not as risky or deadly as the dreams of early American settlers or even modern immigrants.  Our formula is not as costly, risky and binding as the more common formula of mortgaging the house to rent the space, purchase the inventory, hire the employees and pay for the advertising while fighting off the state and federal regulators.  Our formula requires a one-time investment of $499, an annual fee of $149 and a little good old fashioned hard work and being good to people.  Have you looked up the statistic on how many people that spend 4 to 8 years in college that are actually employed in the field in which they earned a degree?  Have you looked at the statistics of what percentage of the population earns more than 40k per year?  How about 60k?  How about 100k?  Do you know how much the average household needs to earn yearly to not be considered to be living in poverty?  Are you aware of the current economic climate and unemployment rate?  

Here’s two things you should know.  The Golden Rule:  He who has the gold, makes the rules.  Also… Look around!  The old system is not working!  Why do so many people believe that all they need to do is go to school and get a good job and everything will be ok?  Because he who has the gold makes the rules!

There is no risk involved in becoming an ACN Independent Business Owner.  Anyone who believes that putting $499 on the line is a risk, is broke and will likey stay that way. I'm attaching a picture of your 1 year old compenstation plan document for your review of Overriding Residual Income to support my example above.

Wow, considering you are an ACN rep, I would assume you knew your own pay structure a little better. You claim that with 25 personal customers (at $40/month billing per customer) you would be making 10% commission? In my book, 25 x $40 = $1,000, not $10,000 (which is the required monthly billing to earn 10%). So, with 25 personal customers (remember, according to the ACN compensation structure, you require 40 personal customer points to earn commission from your 5th, 6th, and 7th levels) and $40/month per customer bill, you're actually making 1% commission, or $10 (this assumes that your commission earning rate is the entire billing volume, which we both know is not realistic).

Further, congratulations, you were able to show me (but not really) how much work is required to earn (approx.) $3,000/month in downstream commission! Can you post what the statistics are on how many ACN reps currently have a structure 7 levels deep with the number of IBOs doubling at each level (with 64 IBOs on the lowest level)? I'm sure it's pretty rare, rarer than ACN would ever want to admit. However, if you have personally achieved this level, then I applaud you (as I never stated it was impossible). But what kind of market share does ACN require so that the person on the bottom of your pecking order can actually hope to achieve the same earning rate?

The compensation plan you are referring to is more than 1 year out of date.  I’ve attached an image of ACN’s most recent compensation plan.  Personal Residual Income is no longer based on an IBO’s billing volume.  It is now based on Personal Customer Points, as I pointed out in a previous rebuttal. 

Therefore, my calculations are correct.  25 accounts x $40 = $1000.  $1000 x 10% = $100 per month in Personal Residual Income.

One of the greatest things about ACN is that the Co-Founders of the company along with the Circle of Champions (20 of the top IBO who are selected to work with the Co-Founders on a Board of Directors) are always looking for ways to improve our company.  New services and compensation plan improvements are announced nearly every quarter.

Saying that someone on the my seventh level is at “the bottom of my pecking order” is like saying that I’m at the bottom of someone else’s pecking order and I don’t consider myself to be below anyone.  I am part of a team.  There are dozens, probably hundreds of people whose team I am part of, but I’m at the top of my business and everyone on my team is at the top of theirs.  Successful ACN business owners don’t focus on what the guy above is making from our efforts.  How many people have done what I have?  Thousands have but even more have not and I’ll tell you why.  People are weak.  People hear about it, they like it, they trust their own intelligence and based on reviewing a simple compensation plan and a sound business model they decide to get started.  Then they go home, or get on the internet, or make a phone call and they talk to someone like you, a negative pessimist that couldn’t possibly accomplish what others have accomplished in this business and who does everything he or she can to smash the dreams and aspirations of the excited new business owner and make him or her feel like an idiot.  Why?  Just because you can’t do it?  Because people don’t like you?  Because you have no friends or contacts?  Because other people have said no to you and smashed what dreams and aspirations you had? Because of the beliefs and prejudices instilled in you by your daddy?   I don’t know.  May you are none of these possibilities.  Maybe you are surrounded by people that love and admire you.  Maybe you are extremely wealthy and devote days at a time coaching and teaching others how to achieve wealth and accomplish what you have.  Or maybe you just suck and have nothing better to do than jerk off on the internet all day long looking to smear around as much crap as you can.

Weak people quit because they don’t get customers and I hope other ACN IBOs out there read this part. 

Go out and get 50 customer points.  Spend $499 to purchase your business then go out and get 50 customer points.  Do whatever it takes.  Offer to mow your neighbor’s lawn for a month.  Baby sit for a friend.  Ask for a favor.  Our customers have the benefit of getting the best pricing available for the services they are already using from companies they are already familiar with.  An IBO that gets 50 customer points will make an average of $100 a month.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a little less, a little more or a lot more.  If you’re getting a check for 50 bucks a month from ACN, you’re not going to pick up the phone, call ACN and say “you know I quit.  Please stop sending me those checks.  It’s not worth the trip to the bank to deposit 50 dollars.”  People quit ACN for the exact same reason they close the door on any other business, no customers.  It’s just a whole lot easier to close the doors on a business that cost 499 dollars than it is to close the doors on a business that cost 499 thousand dollars. 

Belief in what we do is all it takes to reach any position in ACN.  Some people have tons of belief in the beginning and promote through the ranks quickly.  Others don’t.  For those that don’t, get customers which will earn checks.  Checks create belief.  Belief will lead you to other entrepreneurs.  Other entrepreneurs will lead you to whatever position you want.  It doesn’t matter if certain PEOPLE want to put you down, tell you that it doesn’t work, tell you that it’s a scam or anything else. 

Documentation wins every time.  If everyone you know is negative, go meet me new people.  Team together with the people that are committed to succeeding and shut out the rest.

I get paid by ACN.  My wife gets paid by ACN.  I brought my own mother into this business and she is getting paid by ACN.  Because of ACN I'm making it possible to retire the woman who gave up her life to create a great one for me. ACN is a great business opportunity and it pays very well the people willing to do the work. 
   

I appreciate your post with a screen shot of the comp. plan (at least now we are comparing apples to apples) and your willingness to be open and carry on a conversation regarding rates and earnings. It's more than I can say for many reps I've come across.