Warning about Tiscali Network Free ? Business Opportunity

Bufflowbill

I was approached to join this so called free business opportunity . I quote from their site.

"To become a Tiscali Network Independent Business Associate (IBA) is FREE. Tiscali will charge an annual administration fee of £20 on the anniversary of each year you are active as an IBA. "
Only to find out that you now have to pay £199 plus to do your training.:eek:
So beware !!!! if you have been approached its not as free as they make out.

geordie_joe

Yep, that's because they know most people will never make a sale, so they get the £199 out of them.

At best, if you join, you will make a few sale to friends and family. Who buy "just because it's you", after that your sales dry up because anyone wanting to buy a Tiscali product will go straight to Tiscali and not you.

Lycos have an even better system. They give you a web site to promote their products.

When someone buys a product though your site the payment page has your associate number embedded into the form, and you get the commission for the sale. But two weeks after you open your site the payment form changes to a text box with the question "if you were referred by an associate please enter their number here", But the customer has no way of knowing what your number is, so even if they wanted to enter your number they couldn't.

You spend your time driving customers to your site and never get any commission for it. I did it three years ago. Luckily a colleague at work was interested in web hosting and I persuaded her to visit my Lycos Shop. I got her to click the buy button, just to show her how easy it was to buy (she could easily hit the back button and back out of buying). That's when I spotted that my associate ID had been replaced by a box to enter my associate ID.

I emailed them and they said "Sorry, we've just done a system upgrade and the wrong form got placed in your shop" And they changed the form back to the one with my associate ID embedded in it. But I kept clicking the buy button every day and after a week it changed back to the box.

After a while I gave up with them, each time I complained that my ID had been removed from the form they would apologies and it would come back, but a few days later it would disappear again.

It happened enough times for me to think they were doing it deliberately. My ID would be in the form, then when they thought I'd got sick of checking to see if it was still there they would take it out.

Three years later my shop is till there, and every couple of months they send me an email telling me about special offers they want me to promote. I remember about my shop, visit it and hit the buy button and my ID isn't there. I send them an email saying it isn't there, they reply saying it was a glitch with an upgrade and it appears again. A week later it's gone!

thebusinessbloke

Is anything in life free anymore! I've had friends approach me who are working with tiscali, this opportunity appears to be based around 'referral marketing' - the power of personal recommendation being a potent marketing tool. I didn't know there was a training fee and anyone who charges an annual fee is on a losing wicket straight away!

There are plenty of other business opportuntities out there that have no annual fee, yet the £199 start up cost could be described as 'average'. Often one has something more tangible than training to show for it.

Bufflowbill

Yes its Referral Marketing where you can earn money by signing up people or by building a team. But unlike other opportunities they claim its free to join and participate,and they dont mention the training fee until you sign up,hence my warning.

Yes other opportunities have joining fees but you do tend to get something for them eg literature etc etc and they are normally refundable if you change your mind,unlike Tiscali.

Lycos is of course a different kettle of fish.