Trek Alliance: "Not Quite" Lies
By a Former Insider
If you're like many people who visit mlmsurvivor.com, you (or a loved one) just attended a presentation for a business opportunity that just doesn't smell quite right. You want to do a little research, so you opened a search engine and typed in "Trek Alliance" to see what you could find. You're in luck. In addition to the sunshine and honey on the official site, you've found a source for information from people who have been inside the system and made an informed decision after months of exposure to the people and business practices of Trek Alliance.
You've had a brush with one of the most sophisticated network marketing recruiting machines in the business. The owners of the company learned network marketing with Equinox, a company that was recently shut down for fraud. The two owners of Trek and 30 of the top sales execs all came from Equinox. They will tell you that they left for "moral and ethical reasons," inside opinion is that they left because they weren't getting the promised equity sharing and because they smelled legal trouble. They learned what they can and can't do legally. They learned that strong-arm tactics and traceable lies provide the FTC with weapons to shut a network marketing company down. So the entire system is designed to achieve the same end (getting your money) by creating a culture around telling "not quite" the whole story.
When I called the number on the ad, the recruiter gave a different company name
That's because they don't want you looking up Trek Alliance on the web. They didn't want you to find websites like this, and they didn't want you to know it was network marketing until after they planted the dream of getting rich after a couple of years of work. They counted on you just showing up for the interview when you couldn't find any information. They told you it was a "sales & marketing company in the health and fitness field," right? Not quite true -- there isn't a shred of marketing involved and there's no relation to the fitness, sports or mainstream healthcare field. But you wouldn't have come in if you knew you would be hawking vitamins and bottles of overpriced shampoo.
It doesn't sound like a scam because I don't have to invest. They said I can get product from my sponsor when I have an order to fill, or have my customers order through the company.
That's the soft-sell introduction. It is virtually impossible to make more than a few dollars if you buy from your sponsor. Your sponsor gets the credit for your sales and you can't get promoted. It's just an introductory come-on. By the end of your first month, you will "see" how important it is to spend 4,000 to buy yourself into the supervisor position. You'll realize that you can't sell the product if you don't have samples and you have to buy the product and make up your own samples.
Your sponsor (the person you met with) will make approx $1,200 if you become a supervisor and put in your $100 standing order. They will suggest that you put it on a credit card and they will push you to obtain credit if you don't have it. Or they will show you how to "go supervisor" by recruiting friends and family to put in orders totalling $4,000. Essentially, the company saw that Equinox got in trouble by pushing people to buy into a $5,000 position immediately -- Trek Alliance does the same thing over a few weeks without being quite so blatant. They will make a big issue of timing because they are trained to build urgency -- there will be a training weekend or the end of the volume month. SOMETHING that makes it important for you to act quickly. They know that the longer you wait and research, the less likely you are to plunk down money on your credit card.
All of the people I met at my "interview" were successful, happy, and attractive.
It's all staged. The music is turned on 20 minutes before the first prospect arrives and there was a big scurry to shine shoes, put on lipstick, and "build the energy." The younger women wear shorter skirts, higher heels than any office you've ever seen, right? They are even taught where to stand in the room to create what the leaders call a "happy hour" feel to the recruiting center. They are taught to be bubbly and excited and evade questions before the presentation. They are taught to ask you about your hobbies, family, and where you're from, and what you studied in school to gain clues about what angles to pursue in recruiting you. They are taught to project an impression of success ("project it 'til you perfect it"). You saw a lot of fake watches, fake expensive reptile skin, fake diamonds, and hand-me-down designer suits. They are encouraged to "invest" in their personal appearance in order to create an image that makes you think they are more financially successful than they are.
Once you've been around a few months and are "in," you will learn that most of the "leaders" you met in the office live in group apartments, often have exhausted or bad credit, and are so financially strapped that they borrow from each other for gas to get home. They have no health insurance, so illness or accident is a crisis requiring Mom and Dad or Medicaid assistance. There have been numerous reports of reps stealing products from other reps or "borrowing" products from unsuspecting new people with no intention of returning them, necessitating lockers in many offices. And backstabbing, game-playing? You have no idea! I used to have to stifle a laugh when they talk about "no politics."
