I am another victim of Thrive Learning Institute. Here is my story.
I clicked on link that said "Google Ad works", it took me to one guy's testimonial about the way in which he is been earning "2000 to 3000" dollars per month from home. I hesitated for a long time and clicked the link which asked me to put my name and address in it. And the web site asked my for my credit card number to send their exclusive package. The web site said it would cost me $1.95 which would be used for mailing charges or something. This is it. I did not know that this is the worst thing I could do to myself. Few days later, I got a call from a telemarketing company named "ABS" (Accelerated Business Solutions). I really don’t know how ABS got my information. A person named Phil from ABS told me about the Thrive e-Learning program. He told me about drop shipping, OPM and how good internet marketing is. All the this time I was thinking that ABS was related to Google Ad Works. He sounded so genuine and I did believe what he told me. He even made me write a business plan. He forwarded me talk to his "Program Director" Brandon Clark. Brandon promised me that it would return all money back in 2 months (or 8 weeks) and it is proven, and in 12 months I would at least make 2 times my initial investment. He told me that it is "Drop Ship" program. He told me that I need to put some initial investment in order to get more money back. He also told me that Thrive will spoon feed me with all the information, and all I need to do is to follow the instructions. He used some high pressure marketing on me, and took $6625 from me on the same day.
I fell into this trap. Then I was assigned to a team called "Team 1A" which had 4 coaches. Somebody named Nate called me on the first day, and introduced me to their student web site www.thriveli.com. And he also told me that there will weekly calls, live chats and I needed to spend 5-10 hours going through their material. He talked as if they are available 24 by 7 to for me.
In less than 2 weeks I realized that the content that they are providing was not at all useful in starting any kind of internet business. Also, I did not get any “world class” coaching from the coaches. These “coaches” gave me useless information about drop-shipping and were not available 24 X 7, not even respond to me when I call them.
Not only that, these people drove me into other companies which took more money out of me. The coaches started pushing me to buy services from another web site called “gogodropship.com” for a listing of drop shippers. (like a Yellow pages for drop shippers). They made me pay another $97 for nothing.
Another company named “IMAX” started approaching me for a Merchant account. At this point I said, no more and started asking for my money back from Thrive. And I tried real hard to reach the people responsible for paying back. They simply ignored my calls and emails.
At that point I approached my credit card company to start the refund process, and I also complained about these companies (ABS, Thrive and gogodropship.com) in Better Business Bureau (BBB), FBI, Federal trade commission (FTC) and Utah’s Attorney general’s office. I am still working on my case.
So, I suggest all of you reading this post to be very careful about such companies, and never sign up (Or sign a contract) for these Internet Money Scams.
I also created a
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