Complaint Review: Business Group USA

I was approached by this company, Business Group USA by phone one evening in July of 2006, probably through an inquiry I may have made, since I have been actively looking for some type of home business that would eventually lead to a comfortable income that would allow me to retire, and supplement what little social security I would be entitled to.

The "spiel" actually sounded like a "feasible" business, and one that had "multiple" streams of income, that could generate the income I was looking for, so I decided to try it a a lower level of involvement to begin with: i.e. my "involvement" was to advertise the site and bring "leads" in and theirs, to "sell" thes lead, thereby generating commissions for me, and advertising dollars for them, so I decided to "jump on board", the rep I was speaking with signed me up and told me that I would be paying $9.95 a month for three separate "businesses", i.e. a business site, a mortgage site, and a shopping site, sounds good, right??? All needed services. The $9.95 per month was for the maintenance of the sites, and also my back office, which was to allow me to keep track of what my "advertising dollars" were doing.

The rep explained that I would have a "coach" and that they (the company) would be completely accessible to me aand that they would be helping me "build" my business, however, I quickly found this NOT to be the case.

Next, I was turned over to my "advertising coach" who congratulated me on making a great decision to join this company, and proceded to explain that while I could probably build a business at the level I had chose, the $1,000.00 Advertising package, it would take me a LOT longer, since this would have to be split three ways so as to advertise all three businesses, and that the way to go would be to invest in the largest package, which would give me the most for my advertising dollars and "Jump-start" my business, so it would at least start "paying" for itself sooner, and eventually alow me to pay off my credit card (which was how I paid for my business), and start building an income, thereby allowing me to "buy" more advertising, etc......again, it really did all sound very feasible.

Well, I took several days to actually make up my mind to "jump" in, since I was not taking the expense lightly, all this time Jeff Jennings, my "advertising coach" was calling me to see if I had any questions or concerns, he was VERY attentive, at this stage! I finally gave him my credit card information, he sent me the receipts and I WAS IN BUSINESS!!

Within days, I had questions, like where I was being advertised, how did I know that this was only directed to my sites, where could I go to see the advertising, etc.....Mr. Jennings assured me that he was a "veteran advertising specialist" and that the company had convinced him to leave a very lucrative business to come to work for them, HE KNEW HIS STUFF....DON'T WORRY. After my first VISA statement, AND the relization that my payments had more than doubled, I was somewhat concerned, and tried calling Mr. Jennings, WELL, HE was on vacation for three weeks, THEN he was sick, I left various voice mails, talked somewhat to "customer service", finally the SUPERVISOR Mr Jim Ford, who spoke to me very condescendingly, and told me that if I was worried maybe I should try doing some other types of FREE advertising, to which I replied that if I just paid almost $6,000.00 to them for advertising, I should not have to do free advertising, and besides, I wanted to see what my "paid" professional advertising was doing!!!

At any rate, the business site says YOU DO THE ADVERTISING, WE DO THE SELLING!!! I have been in the business since the end of July 2006, and have not ONE COMMISSION!!!!! I asked Mr. Ford if he actually had a "sales team", and he said they did..Further- more, even if you wanted to sell your own "leads", the way the website is set up, you don't even know whol they are, or, more importantly, IF they are even valid leads, since there is NO information given, so you are completely at the company's mercy and totally in the dark as to exactly how well your ad's are pulling, leaving you only "vague" numbers, signifying so called "hits to you sites.

I've watched my site month after month, commissions are paid on the 15th of the month, TO DATE, I have not had even ONE DOLLAR of commission, while I have paid the company almost 6,000.00.

I know it takes time to build a business, I also know that if someone is properly advertising on the world wide web, we should be getting a LOT more "hits" and definitely some sales, especially with the types of "businesses" we are advertising.

I am sorry to say that I HAVE BEEN SCAMMED!!!! So much for my "retirement" income! I am now STRUGGLING just to keep up with my VISA payment!

Penny
Algonquin, Illinois
U.S.A.