“Dear Steve,
The Credit Exchange Corp is now selling a Multi Level Marketing product to clients and their employees. See www.movemynetworth.com. Would love your input on this product that is being sold along side of a DMP. $150 start up cost, $150 distributor fee, $50 a month locked in for 4 years to be a member!!! WAY too much money to pay for a site that you cant get for FREE elsewhere like mint.com or several others. Its causing quite a stir. Please review
Paul”
The Answer:
Dear Paul,
Thank you for sending me your tip and request on this product.
I did spend some time on their demo and thought most of the information was presented in an easy to read format and I like the credit report and score section as well but sites like CreditKarma offer a better credit report and credit score service for free.
However, I was shocked when I got to the debt center section. The Credit Exchange has been mixed up with some rather dubious players in the debt settlement world and has unhappy customers as a result of their referrals to companies that have now been shut down by state regulators and courts.
Rather than just a straight forward presentation of your debt on the site, the visitor is presented with essentially a sales pitch on debt settlement with the graphic shown at the top of the screen.
Click graphic for larger view.
Now on one hand they might argue that it is not a sales pitch but a presentation of facts, but it’s not. It is not a true comparison at all. All you have to do is read The Truth About The Failure Rates and Completion Rates of Credit Counseling, Debt Settlement, and Bankruptcy to know that a minority of people would ever achieve those results with debt settlement.
At one time I developed and offered an online budget tracking tool that had many similar features and one thing I learned from that experience was that few people actually continued to utilize the product after an initial interest in it. After a few months they stopped entering data and using the product. Thankfully our online tool was FREE as compared to what I would, in my opinion, call ripoff rates to use the Move My Net Worth service and site.
I can’t see any single reason to justify paying $150 setup fee and $50 a month for four years. – Source. That means this tool would cost you $2,547 for tools and options that available for a tiny fraction of that. On top of that if you want to cancel early you have to pay a $200 early termination fee. It sure seems like an utter ripoff to me especially since there is almost nothing to setup and nothing involved in canceling the customer.
The MLM Sales Pitch
The Winning Formula
Let’s use our winning formula of sponsoring 6 Members, 3 of which also want become Member/Promoters. For each Member you sponsor, you will receive $50 of Fast Start money, or $300 for 6 members (in this example). With an average subscription fee of $59.95 you would receive $5.99 in residuals, or $35.97/month (in this example). Assuming 3 of the 6 Members you sponsored also become Promoters and they each sponsor 6 more Members, that’s 18 more members, each of which would earn you $40 of Fast Start money, or $720. The residual earned for these members would be $107.91 (or $5.99 x 18). This simple achievement brings your cumulative Fast Start bonus to $1,020 and your Residuals to $143.88/month. Below are charts of what it looks like going all the way to the 8th level with the idea of 3 referring 6, 3 of which refer 6 more all the way to the bottom. – Source
Click on image for a larger view.
So part of your payment to use this service each month is split up and spread out to people up to eight levels above you. I get the idea behind multilevel marketing. What I don’t understand is how it is in your best interest, if you are digging out of debt, to overpay each month for a service just so you can help fund people eight levels above you. And the “income opportunity” is pitched for you to sell this service to others but let’s be real here, do you really see yourself as a successful promoter and marketer of the service? Are you willing to pay an additional $150 a year just for the privilege of selling this service? Seriously? – Source
Let’s cut to the chase here. I just can’t seem to shake the impression this is just another get poor quick scam for the consumer and a get rich quick scheme for The Credit Exchange.
It also really bothers me that this product is being sold alongside a debt management plan as you mentioned. I’d much rather see people use one of the many free products to accomplish similar budget awareness and put the $50 a month into a savings account to build up an emergency fund. If you did and opted not to fall for the MLM promoter pitch you’d have the $2,547 plus $600 in promoter fees or a total of $3,147 in your savings account. It’s your call.
If you have a credit or debt question you’d like to ask just use the online form. I’m happy to help you totally for free.