If you are approached by agents of TMII, Madebig.com or any other related entity, be aware that they have a history and track record of making outlandish promises, taking money and then either never delivering or simply changing the rules at will.
Their supposedly "next biggest thing on the Internet" (an average website that does nothing new or better than the next website) has been around since 1999. Originally it was a web portal, then actively promoted an online Lotto that apparently rarely or in fact never paid out prize money, according to complaints that can be found online.
Since then, it has achieved very little and has not grown at anything like the rate it would require to be able to make any profit for agents who signed up at a tune of several hundred dollars each.
The only ones making money are the President of the company, Richi Roane and his Presidential Leaders (grassroots recruiters and upper pyramid level members) through recruitment fees.
At the third launch of this (by now a social networking website), in the fall of the site was being marketed as a shopping site, with supposed business partnerships with major retailers, such as Old Navy, Wal-Mart, Nike etc. Agents were recruited with the promise that they would make a percentage of each sale through their unique membership page, as friends and neighbors used their code.
In fact, Madebig had simply signed up for as many online affiliate schemes as they could and then passed these off as 'partnerships'. Mysteriously, within a few months of this third launch, the affiliate shopping scheme was pulled and the site reverted to just a place to sell old junk or over-priced gift cards and a space to blog (called 'Vibes').
Additionally, they told agents that they would be putting Google Ad Sense advertisements on the site and to click them as much as possible and encourage family and friends to do the same. The Ad Sense ads disappeared as well within a short space of time. Although Google refuse to officially comment on why this crucial revenue source was pulled, unofficial reports suggest that Google's in-house fraud team discovered the click-fraud that was occurring and revoked Madebig's ability to use Ad Sense.
Meanwhile, the agents that bought into this scheme in 2006 for between $200 and $800 (plus annual renewal fees of around $100) have found that the website is not what it promised to be and has changed at least three times since September.
A drastic change in 2007 led to the complete deletion of all the members' blogs (Vibes). Although TMII/Madebig deny that the Vibes are lost forever, they failed to return them on a promised deadline in May and to date (December), the Vibes have not returned. The site became a games website and pretended that they created the games themselves but this is not true - it simply uses third party code which hundreds of other sites also use, offering the exact same games and often more elsewhere.
Yet another change in the fall of 2008 has led to the site re marketing itself as a 'social entrepreneur' site. It now supposedly partners with a charitable foundation called "Grant Wishes" and if site users buy tokens, they can then pledge these towards the charity of their choice.
Unfortunately, there is no record of the 'Grant Wishes' Foundation being legally registered at this time and it is in any case owned and managed by Richi Roane and therefore suspicious because of his track record.
The new system is that causes are set up by agents (although currently it is only Presidential Leaders or TMII staff that are authorized) and then a deadline is set to get so many thousand pledges.
If the target is not met, no money (if any) is paid out to the cause. If the target is met, supposedly the Foundation then pays something to the cause although the amount is not specified and members buying tokens (for cash) can not readily tell how much of their dollar goes to the charity.
Where the social entrepreneurship comes in is anybody's guess but it is possible that the initiator of the cause gets some kind of kickback for each pledge the cause receives.
In fact, the entire scheme appears to be an unnecessary way to put yet another middleman into charitable giving and reduce the amount of money deserving charities or causes get already.
How long this variation of the Madebig website will last is unknown but given the constant mutations of the site since 1999, it is unlikely to last and has already proved unpopular with many of the original site members who have stuck with it since the last big launch in 2006.
Bear in mind, this site is run by Richi Roane who has a history of being involved in multi-level marketing and pyramid schemes. He also ran the DefyAging.com website up until recently and was a distributor for Destiny Telecom in the late 90's - Destiny were shut down by the Federal Trade Commission.
Countless myths and legends were spread by word of mouth about Mr. Roane, most of which are untrue and he has no track record as a successful Internet entrepreneur. Any investor would be wise to Google search any such claim made to them by his agents and they will likely find them to be untrue.
Supposedly this pyramid scheme is going to feature in a known, paid-for advertisement magazine called 'Your Business at Home'. If you heard of it there, saw the glossy pictures and then did the smart thing and Googled the site or company and ended up here, please think very long and hard before falling for the story the magazine or an agent sold you.
This company works hard to try to keep its past history and track record off the Internet and have people forget that it never keeps it promises and its revenue is purely from recruitment, with the vast majority going to Richi Roane and his top echelon, with very little and sometimes none trickling down to the recruited agents.
My suggestion - put your money into something else and if you wish to give to charities, do it directly so they get more of your donated dollar and don't fall for the line that you can make a living from giving to charity. It simply doesn't work like that and is not an accurate description of true social entrepreneurship.
Good luck!
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