United First Financial agent compensation plan
In researching United First Financial and the Money Merge Account, there weren’t many sources of information on the compensation structure for agents. What I do know is this: The official corporate website does not mention “the opportunity” or “business opportunity,” as most other multi-level marketing companies do. I came to the conclusion that the company doesn’t want to be labeled as a MLM or potential pyramid scheme.
The logic is obvious: Consumers are becoming more educated about the pitfalls of MLM. They realize that because the company has to pay so many levels in the food chain of an MLM, the actual seller of a product receives relatively low compensation. If the company wasn’t worried about building and paying the pyramid, there would be far more money to reward and compensate the actual seller of the product.
I was told that agents of United First Financial are paid this way: “The commission structure is similar to the mortgage broker industry, the real estate industry and the insurance industry.”
That seems to make the company and the pay plan legitimate, doesn’t it? Because I don’t often hear consumers complain about how insurance agents or mortgage brokers are paid – on a commission based structure.
But that explanation wasn’t really true. In fact, the United First Financial Compensation Plan looks exactly like the typical pay plan in your average multi-level marketing (MLM) company. UFF pays up to $2,500 to up to six levels of agents on one $3,500 sale.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? They’re paying out a ton in commissions. How wonderfully generous of the company! But the compensation really doesn’t mean that at all. It just means that, like all other MLMs, the customer is paying an inflated price for the product so that all these levels of the pyramid can be paid.
Look at it this way: The associate who actually sells the Money Merge Account concept to a customer is paid $900. UFF itself keeps $1,000 from the sale. Why not just price the plan at $1,900 for customers? Because in order to rapidly grow the number of agents peddling this overpriced, nearly useless product, they need to offer a bunch of others a piece of the pyramid action.
So you have the $3,500 price for the customer, and the people in the upline can get up to $1,600, while the actual seller only gets $900.
If you’ve recruited enough people and your downline makes enough sales, this could increase up to as much as $1,575. You could also theoretically make all those sales yourself to qualify for $1,575. The problem is doing that with the overpriced system. And your upline still gets a piece of the action from the $2,500 total commission.
You can read the entire United First Financial Pay Plan yourself, but here are the highlights:
Branch Manager – 9 sales, 3 of which must be personal (Cumulative 35 sales, 13 personal) – $1,575
Director – 8 sales, 3 of which must be personal (Cumulative 26 sales, 10 personal) – $1,350
Division Manager – 7 sales, 3 of which must be personal (Cumulative 18 sales, 7 personal) – $1,237.50
District Manager – 6 sales, 2 of which must be personal (Cumulative 11 sales, 4 personal) – $1,125
Senior Associate – 5 sales, 2 of which must be personal (Cumulative 5 sales, 2 personal) – $1,012.50
Associate – $900
Just like your garden variety MLM, it is far more lucrative to recruit new members… up to $1,575 for someone who recruits, compared to $900 per sale for someone who doesn’t recruit.
Some will argue that the higher commission levels for people higher in the pyramid are justified because they spend time training and managing the people below them. I disagree. Once you have basic training in your MLM, there is very little other training that goes on. Most “training” events are really recruiting events. So let’s not pretend that there is this massive training effort that needs to be compensated!
A training bonus of $75 to $225 is paid to the person at the top of the pyramid (Branch Manager) for each sale.
There is also a Bonus Pool of up to $225 per sale split between the selling associate and the various Branch Managers in the upline of the associate. The selling associate gets $60 if 3 personal sales are made. The amounts paid to the Branch Managers depend on how many personal sales and “base shop” sales are made.
As with other MLMs, there is a fairly complicated commission structure with lots of buts/ands/ifs/ors that dictate how much you will get. I suspect most agents have no idea who is getting paid what on each sale.
I think it’s clear that this compensation structure is not like any insurance agent or mortgage broker’s compensation. There are many more levels and contingencies. Typical multi-level marketing pay structure.
Tracy, not a problem.
In addition to the broad statements that I mentiond above that seem factual but are very broad, I will outline some of the errors with the report. That said Tracy, I would challenge you as well to find a source for these claims.
1) The report utilizes earnings data that is 10 years old when more current information is available on the company websites. Mr. Fitzpatrick indicates that the numbers have not changed significantly in 10 years, so I have to ask why not use the most current data to show that the companies profiled are updating their information on a regular basis.
2) Mr. Fitzpatrick indicates that the report profiling 10 companies is representative of the entire MLM industry. So there are hundreds if not thousands of MLM companies selling kitchen appliances, home decor, clothing, makeup, cleaning products and nutritional supplements. The report profiles only 10 companies that sell nutritional supplements. Where are the companies that sell other products mentioned above? The selling method of the above companies is primarially one on one, where are the companies that sell their products in a party or demonstration type of meathod represented. This ommission very narrow focus of companies would be similar to talking to 1000 people in a low income neighborhood and determining that because all of the people you talked to were from a certain ethnic group that all people in that ethnic group were throughout the state also made a low income.
3) The report states that there are no retail sales occurring. Again, there is no factual evidence for this statement referenced in the report, but for a moment let’s assume that this “fact” is true. Later the report indicates that the “market is saturated” which would seem to indicate that there are infact products being sold to end users which contradicts the “fact” that no product is being sold. So I have to ask, is the market saturated, or are no products being sold?
4) On page 3 of the report it states “MLM products are sold almost entirely and only to the MLM’s sales forces, not to the consuming public.” Lets look at a home selling party where there are 5 – 10 guests attending and several products being demonstrated. Most if not all of these guests will purchase a product. I myself have kitchen products, cosmetics, and home decor items purchased through MLM at my home, and I have not sold any of these items, in other words, I PURCHASED them. And I am not alone, several of my friends and neighbors have also purchased similar items through similar parties. If the products are sold almost entirely and only to the sales force, how is it that I and my neighbors who have never sold these products have them in my home?
I have several other areas where the report is inaccurate, but I will let you comment on the above for now. I am very interested in finding the source for the claim that billions of dollars are lost.
Reading Sue’s comment, I thought I just had to respond. Sue, you make some good point. Yes, Virginia, er Sue, Pernicious Business Cults do exist. Generalizing is what presents the gaps to basically appear in Robert Fitzpatrick’s report. Yes, there indeed are some MLM’s that succeed where the vast majority do not. Yes, house parties are the link to legitimacy of many operating procedures, but where they succeed others like my favorite subject, Amway Global, er formerly Quixtar Rolls. They really are too busy exploiting the recruitment scam to take precious time to have a party. Yet the hustler’s in this Penthouse situation do not receive a “pelt” reward. They seek the volume reward. That actually speaks PYRAMID SCAM, SCHEME, SORCERY choose one. The Pernicious The Business Cult perform the dance known as simply as Buy All Your Products that you would normally buy from us as if this were a guaranteed method to success in their–yes Sue–PYRAMID SCHEME! One that is badly broken in favor of the Pharaoh and his Chamber Hoes. The rule is, no one climbs to the top of my pyramid! This pharaoh receives rulers of the land who bow down at his feet for a trinket from his Treasure Room.
All the while the Amway duped believer’s all now members of The Business Cult headed up by Tool Selling Kingpins, vultures who turn and prey on the cult followers wallets for carrion. Duped drones of the cult believing in the Amway System start buying monopoly priced products whereby the purchasers are sucked by the Amway leach. While the Kingpins distribute the motivation, mostly repetative truly unimportant blundering bullshit only designed to keep the Amway believer believing, it is as simple as that. You have a cult member that follows the leaders. They resist information that might stop their own failings. They fail because they never achieve the incredibly difficult circumstances that are required to achieve the higher pins. Even then the person succeeding in jumping through all the Amway hoops like a circus clown, has bought literally millions of dollars in product, spent on average half their work life, devoted their own money to pay for Amway Pharaoh his due. The Cult attends cult religious rallies to keep the believer’s always believing. Amway falls apart just as soon as a IBO stops believing and sees through the Scam, and who realizes that Amway has done for them what it has done for many others, make them the loser in a situation that was designed that way.
Saturation in MLM, dear Sue, doesn’t not intentionally describe product sales, but recruitment. Product sales in a few companies only create a situation where companies like Amway want to by association act as if they did not operate the cult that feeds off of its own children. There is a Dudes movement. That is what makes the recruitment part of the bad situation MLM can be. People are not the stupid completely blinded by the light people they once were. They have become jaded by bad MLM scam businesses. Enter Amway, the poster child for bad businesses. Correct?
Market saturation for the buyers of MLM Stock are hard to find. New recruits, the Dudes reject even being invited to one of these cult recruitment parties, which are full of blithering deceit. Here again distributors, believers are stuck in a situation where they are buying all the products and motivation while they find few new adopters of their own cult. A negative situation that makes almost 100 percent of them, save a thousanth sliver that pie graduate to tool scam kingpin.
Sue, I have a few products that have been purchased by my ex wife at a party, Pampered Chef, I believe. Believe me, there is a recruitment scam waiting in the wings for some of the people attending these parties. The products sold are incidental many times to the selling of the Pampered Chef Dream.
Not all MLMs roll exactly like Amway, Pampered Chef, and the like, but you can only generalize that they operate in some similar fashion. All in favor of the Owners/Operators of the business model.
Seems like there are more and more new and even more deceptive MLM sellers, even those selling financial instruments. UFF being one of these. We can generalize all we want, but when a person is specifically targeting a specific scheme, one does not have to generalize.
Robert Fitzpatrick is generalizing about MLM situations in their totality. He is not saying that there may be some variation or exception. He realizes that all these companies band together so as to gain some degree of respectability for one another. Selling a high priced product that most people really do not need can be a hallmark of a offering. I believe this UFF product fits that category perfectly.
Good try Sue, but you have failed.
1. That’s not an error in the report. Data is data, and as long as it’s sourced, there’s no problem with it.
2. Again, not an error in the report. Robert profiled 14 companies, which happen to be almost the only ones that release their data, and they also happen to be some of the largest and most popular. Of any companies, these are likely to have the BEST numbers for distributors, based upon name recognition and the widespread knowledge of the brand. (But he doesn’t make that claim.) I’m sure Robert would be happy to analyze 1,000 companies if they’d just give him the data!
3. The report does NOT say that no retail sales are occurring. You’re lying. I’ll ask you to produce a page and paragraph number, but you won’t be able to because the report doesn’t say that.
4. You have not offered a factual basis for discounting what Robert says. He has said that MOST of the product is sold from the company to distributors. You haven’t disproven that. You’ve only said that some product is sold at home parties. Robert never said it wasn’t. Please address what he actually said (rather than what you’re pretending he said) and back it up with some proof.
You haven’t proven any of these points. Please try again.
Quixtarisacult:
I agree that there are some good players as well as some bad players, and there are many who are walking the fine line of legal/ethical. I personally do not want to get into a discussion of who is good and who may be bad, primarily because I do not have what I would consider enough working knowledge of individual companies to accurately make such a determination, and I choose not to focus the majority of my attentions on one company as you have done. You have your opinion about Quixtar, and are certainly entitled to it and I can respect that.
I also agree with you in that there is no “Guaranteed Success” and it is those people (or companies) who make such guarantees that need to be stopped. On those same lines however, I feel that personal responsibility also comes into play. People who may be interested in getting involved need to conduct their own research and find out what “the catch” is (if there is any). Distributors also have to remember that they are trying to build a business, and that means watching both your income and your expenses. People who are bringing in sales of $500/month should not be spending $1000 month after month.
While “saturation” could refer to recruitment, the argument that Mr. Fitzpatrick makes is that there are so many distributors that everyone who wants to buy a product/service is already a distributor and that there are no more customers who are outside of the distributor chain. My personal experiences do not support this statement and as I will show below, neither does the available data.
My contention is that the broad generalization that Robert Fitzpatrick makes can be damaging at trying to weed out the bad players and correct the real problems. Mr. Fitzpatrick is what I would personally consider an extremist on MLM, effectively “All MLM is bad, and it needs to simply go away”. The problem is, that MLM, when done properly, is legal and lawmakers can not act on broad generalizations, they need specific points that they can act upon, and a report that states, as if it were a fact, that Billions of dollars are lost will not correct anything. In my opinion, it is more realistic to identify issues and work on correcting the bad or questionable behavior. Doing this would hopefully raise the good players, kill the bad players, and improve the actions of the questionable players so that they will hopefully become a good player.
Tracy:
1) I will give you that using 10 year old data may not be inaccurate, but when more current data is available why not use it? It raises the question in my mind that there was something included in the newer data that did not fully support the claims that Mr. Fitzpatrick was making, just a personal thought that makes me question the rest of the report.
2) It is certainly not an error to analyze a sampling of companies, but to look at only one on one selling of companies that primarily sell nutritional supplements and then to make a broad generalization that based on this small subset of companies and products is what I would contend is inaccurate.
3) On page 5 Mr. Fitzpatrick states “These scams can continue to recruit salespeople and sell them inventory in regions where market saturation for retail sales and for recruitment, sufficient to sustain many at the bottom, has long since been reached.” Notice the “Retail sales” that he mentions. In reading the above quotation, he contends that Retail sales have been saturated which would indicate that retail sales are being made. Are you with me so far? Now, lets turn back to page 2 of our report where he states “Additionally, the report shows that on average no net income is earned by MLM distributors from door to door ‘retail’ sales.” This would imply that on average no sales are being made. Just to review, on page 2 no retail sales are made, but on page 5, retail sales are saturated.
4) I am sure that you will dismiss this data as flawed as the research was funded by the industry that represents many MLM companies, but the DSA indicates that 50% of American adults purchase products or services through direct selling a year, and as the majority of direct selling companies are MLM, it is safe to assume that about 50% of Americans purchase products or services from MLM a year. According to the US Census, the current population in the US is over 305 million and approximately 72% are adults which means that there are over 219 million adults in the US and over 109.5 million (50% of 219 million) have purchased through direct selling. Going once again to the DSA statistics which state that there are about 13.5 million distributors leaves you with approximately 96 million who are not involved in MLM who are purchasing products through MLM. DSA does cite the several surveys conducted by independent consultants as the source for the data (and I am sure that you will assume that because of the source it is flawed), but using your own words “Data is data, and as long as it’s sourced, there’s no problem with it”
So back to my original question, what is the source for the claim made by Whackashill and Mr. Fitzpatrick that Billions of dollars are lost through MLM?
Sue:
1. You already know the answer to your concern, because you stated it in an earlier comment: The numbers haven’t changed. That’s why it’s fine to use the older numbers.
2. Wrong again. The companies analyzed weren’t all selling nutritional supplements. Conclusions are drawn from the analysis. Because you don’t like them doesn’t make them inaccurate. If you’re suggesting something is inaccurate in the report, please cite something specific and also provide proof that it is inaccurate.
3. You wrote: “This would imply that on average no sales are being made.” That is an incorrect conclusion on your part. Robert never said or implied any such thing.
4. What, exactly, does that data prove? And what are you suggesting it disproves in Robert’s support? Please cite something specific.
Sigh… MLM, when will it ever end. This morning I tried, but failed to knock some sense into my friend who just joined Amway. She was in denial, still is, and she insinuated that I am not in a position to comment because I have never joined a scheme before. As usual, I say I do not have to eat shit to know that it stinks.
I believe only 2 types of people will succeed in MLM; those who are so ignorant of what they are doing, and those who know what they are doing is wrong but still continue to do it.
At the end of the day, the entire MLM industry is a cult, those who want to believe will still believe, and those who does not believe but stand to scam people will still scam. Like my friend, after I showed her various calculations why MLM is destined to failed, she replied by saying she cannot understand it with her “small brains”! WTF!?
I am not really in a position to say this considering I am no saint, but it all boils down to moral choice doesn’t it? I do not think I am so bad at explaining things, my students can vouch for that, and I do not think she is that stupid not to understand what I had said. So I guess its a “doesn’t matter who is scammed along the way as long as I make it there” mentality. OR, effective brainwashing. Sigh…
Hello, I am a Happy user of the MMA v4 product. Everyone has a right to their opinion, First off if you can purchase a product similiar at $200 I would be concerned about the quality of the product thats like saying by this melon car vs a car that will last longer and be less expensive in the long run (you get what you pay for) I look for quality. And there are several other companies out there offering a similiar product, the point is its a solution to a problem for many families, its a personal choice and there are thousands of families in the US, Australia and the UK using similiar products for a while now and are happy. If you allow a few comments on an internet blog to make your decisions for you then good luck to you and your families financial future. Network marketing is becoming the fastest growing business in the world and for those who do not like it (work on your self esteem)these are just the people who couldnt make it work for them, instead they sit around blogging bad comments about everyone else to make them feel better, what are their credentials? Maybe we should get their full name and find out if they are in the better business bereau
The sad thing is that the quality of the $200 product will be far higher than the UFF product. So would you pay $3500 for lower quality, or $200 for higher quality? Doesn’t seem like a hard choice to me.
In fact, Quicken and MS Money are far better quality products, and much more feature-rich and useful, and they are both under $100.
What exactly is WGL International that is liked in Susan’s name? I’ve noticed some UFF agents are downline to “WGLI Incorporated” Broker #917758 in the agent list Tracy posted recently. In fact, there is a Susan Lewis (919646) that is downline to WGLI Inc.
Looking at the website, I see pictures of happy couples in front of their shiny expensive cars with the phrase “financial freedom” all over the site. It doesn’t pass my sniff test.
And looking on the “Opportunity” page of the WGL website, under “Product Providers” UFF is listed.
Susan says “Network marketing is becoming the fastest growing business in the world.”
Do you have any statistics to back up this statement? It hasn’t been very long ago that the Direct Selling Association reported stagnation in the Industry. Whereas in times past, bad economic times represented an increase in enrollment in MLM schemes, the recent downturn hasn’t resulted in the upturn MLM had hoped for. Of course economists stupidly quibbled about the US going into a recession just a few short weeks before the Financial Disaster struck. I recall one of the presidential candidates saying that the economy was on sound footing just days before the bottom fell out. Makes you wonder about the rest of the propaganda we hear comes from?
MLM proponents deny the financial holocaust MLM has unleashed on its own children, victimizing nearly 100 percent of them allowing a few top of the pyramid folk and the founders of the scheme to make a small fortune while everyone else pays and loses in the end! To deny this fact just sets people up to be the next sucker in their pay to play game. People paying $40 for a $3 bottle of juice in a wine bottle helps describe one of the many creative ways these companies like MonaVie relieve their own groupies of their cash. The product really provides a means to promote the scam anyway. This money merge affair works in a similar fashion. All MLM operate on some variation of the product pyramid compensation model.
Late2game, I believe you’ve debunked the motivations behind Susan’s comment. There will always be these MLM apologists running around the Internet trying to ‘invert reality’ and promote MLM as a good deal, which is FRAUD. Isn’t it wonderful that the Tracy’s Fraud Files Work if you work it just like AA!
I am a Client of United First Financial for a little over one year. I have reduced already 3 years off my mortgage and saved over $42,268.23 in interest, that I will never have to pay to the bank.
My husband and I purchased our first home in June 2005. We immediately decided we would send extra money to the principal balance monthly to reduce the interest and years we would have to pay on our home. We had two incomes, so we figured this would be something we could commit to. Two months later Hurricane Katrina damaged our home and extra money was applied to much needed home repairs. As months went by and a child on the way, it seemed as though just paying the minimum balance was all we could look forward to. June 2007 a friend of mine asked me, “ If you could pay off your mortgage and any additional debt in a 1/3 to 1/2 the time with little to no change to your lifestyle, would you be interested?” Uh, Yeah! I said, but how realistic is that? Sounds to good to be true. Now we had one income and a baby on the way IMPOSSIBLE, so I thought.
I pulled out the Ammortization sheet, worked with a mortgage calculator and found out if I could send $500.00 extra a month to my mortgage company I would pay off my house in 11 years. I decided to allow my friend to run my free analysis, and found out with a student loan, car loan and my mortgage I could pay my house off utilizing the Money Merge Account program in 10 years. This comparison was mind boggling. I was going to save 146,304.60 in interest alone. Save $3,500 or $146,304.60 either way $3,500 was going to get paid somewhere. To who was the question? Still being skeptical and after a lot of research, 2 months later I decided I would pay $175.00 to become an Agent to find out the ends and out about the comapny, for myself. It’s so hard to make an educated decision about something when all you see is people wailing about who’s making how much money with this company.
So, from August to November I was still researching the company and during this time I found out that, the owners of the company were really passionate about helping people own their home and get out of debt. They experienced foreclosures as young children and their parents struggling to make ends meet. I’ve also found that these people were genuine, all trying to help each other, there were no additional hidden fees as an Agent,and there was free continual training and support. We took the plunge and invested $3,500.00 for the software.
True you may be able to find something cheaper, but you pay for what you get, the time you save and the interest you save outweighs this one time investment. Now, one year later our pay off time went from 10 years to 8 years, we already reduced 3 years from our principal balance and saved $42,268.23 in interest payments. That is AWSOME!! Did I mention that we did not have to change our lifestyle, we did not have to refinance any of our debt, and we will be totally debt free in less than 8 years. This is so exciting that I have to spread this good news. Being able to see how $1 affects your pay off time is very motivational. I know for a fact we couldn’t do this on our own.
Before we became clients we discussed it with different people and they’ve all told us how to reduce our years to 18 or 23 with bi-weekly and additional monthly payments, etc.. All of these ways either put a strain on our budget or is to time consuming (spreadsheets blah)to figure out for our schedule. How many people know what to do an aren’t doing it or can’t do it? We are utilizing a Heloc, but now you can use a checking and savings acct. This company is constantly adapting to the economic situation. Like all things in life, it may be for one, but not for someone else.
Would $3,500.00 be okay with you if it was in a store versus through a Direct Sales Company or Agent? What I know about MLM is that you need to recruit and make sales and your recruits must also recruit and make sales for you to be promoted. With a Direct Sales company you don’t need to recruit and you can grow with this company solely on your own, and make money on your own.
Everyone has their own opinion, try not to confuse someone’s opinion as fact. Check the company out for yourself, run your analysis, do the comparison, show your accountant or financial advisor. Most people’s goal is to be totally debt free, whichever way gets them there the quickest and most efficient way possible.
On Thanksgiving Day, I thank God for my friend who introduced this program to my family, it has truly been a Blessing.
Hanna wrote:
“I know for a fact we couldn’t do this on our own.”
That’s not true. You COULD do it on your own, and you COULD save more money without UFF. You CHOOSE not to.
Had you not spent $3,500 on UFF, you would be much further ahead making the same extra payments toward your debt as you are now. If you did the math, you would see this, as we’ve explained here many times.
Hannah wrote- not Hanna
“I know for a Fact we couldn’t do this on our own.”
As I said in my post, I did the math, I pulled out the Ammortization sheets, I researched different Mortgage Accleration programs, I looked at the Spread sheets and the Bi-weekly programs, additional money to principal. I counseled with different people -an Accountant whom I shared this with for their opinion is now introducing this to their clients.
We tried sending additional monthly payments to principal. As we all know anytime you do this you are reducing interest and time of your loan. For alot of people living check to check sending extra payments is easier said then done. For my family the Money Merge Account system allows us to see the results and keep us on track. It helps us to stay disciplined to achieve our financial goal.
Some people go to a Financial Advisor with all of their debts and get on a Financial Plan or Map to help them get out of debt. When a situation such as an interest adjustment or income change occurs they need a new finacial plan. ANother meeting with the Financial Planner. How much would this start to cost us?? Our situation is constantly changing. Some months we get paid enough money to last us 2-3 months, some months we make nothing. With the MMA it adapts to our changes, it works with strategic payoff and factorial math, all of that stuff that takes forever for alot of people to figure it out.
As I said in my post, I tried to beat the system or at least come close. From June 2007- Novemer 2007 I researched different ways I even joined the company to find out the ends and outs about this program, the people, etc. I did my homework and yes, I know for a fact I couldn’t achieve the same payoff time without a drastic change to my lifestyle and finances.
Just to pay off my mortgage in 11 years I would have to have send $500 alone to the mortgage principal monthly. What about the student loan and the car and credit cards???? Plus not to mention I didn’t have $500.00 extra a month. SO how could I have reached 10 years on my own without a serious change???
You start to ask yourself, How much is your time worth?? I don’t have 5+ hours a day to figure out how much to send here, there. Hect, I don’t have 30min. a day. The balances are constantly changing and so does our income. This makes life simple and less complicated, it takes the stress out of paying bills, you see an end to your debt.
Like I said before, Someone is going to get $3,500.00 whether it be in interest to the bank or a one time investment that you can add more than one property on it, put unlimited amount of debt on it, pass to your children if you’d like. Now, There are so many features to this program it is actually a great bargain. It is a Financial Management Tool that helps you elliminate debt in the fastest most efficient way as possible.
P.S. $3,500 / 12 is 292.00 a month. If I applied this money monthly to principal as you suggest. I would be able to pay of my mortgage ( this is with a lower balance after being on the MMA program) in 12.8 years. This is not including a 20 year student loan or a car loan or credit cards. Again I did the math. Pay off only mortgage in 12 years or with the MMA pay off mortgae in 8 years and additional debt?
I know we made a wise investment.
Hannah – Even if you keep telling yourself that you made a wise investment, that doesn’t mean it’s true.
You wrote: “Just to pay off my mortgage in 11 years I would have to have send $500 alone to the mortgage principal monthly. What about the student loan and the car and credit cards???? Plus not to mention I didn’t have $500.00 extra a month. SO how could I have reached 10 years on my own without a serious change???”
The only way you get your mortgage down to 10 years, with or without the MMA is by making extra payments toward the principal owed. THAT is what’s achieving the results for you, not the MMA. The MMA money shuffle probably offers you $5 to $10 of savings each month, at most. If you’re like the average person, the MMA doesn’t save you any money with this money shuffle, it actually costs you money. This article will help you understand this: http://www.blog.joetaxpayer.com/archives/archives/334
You are LYING when you say that paying off your mortgage early requires no change in lifestyle. At the very least it requires you to send extra cash in each month, which you say you weren’t doing previously. To pay it off even faster, you need to cut your monthly expenses and also send that extra cash to your mortgage.
Your bit about MMA allowing you to see your results sounds good, but is a flimsy argument. A FREE spreadsheet which several of my readers would happily send you (For free!) would “allow you to see your results” too. It would be easier to use than MMA. It would require less time to use than MMA. And did I mention it is free?
You said you couldn’t beat the MMA system on your own. If that’s the case, then you were making a basic error in math or in paying your mortgage. The simple math behind this shows that “do it yourself” saves more money than MMA every single time.
Your $3,500 is not an “investment.” Had you taken that money an applied it to your mortgage on month one, you like could have saved almost $20,000 in interest rather than LOSING MONEY to the MMA. See here: http://www.sequence-inc.com/fraudfiles/2008/05/16/fun-with-numbers-i-can-save-you-19714-without-united-first-financial/
It’s clear that you think there’s some magic behind the MMA. Sadly, you could have done much better financially without it.
Tracy,
When I stumbled across this blog last night it was b/c I was trying to see how different domain names were ranked on google and why. I guess you decide to blog about United First Financial because you get more traffic to your site that way.
Again as a client my only intent is to share my testimony about how the MMA program has worked for my family. As I said in an earlier post I did research and try other ways including spreadsheets, bi-weekly, additional payments, etc.
Clearly you are rushing through your post. There is no need to
misinterpret what I have stated. As I said in my first post I was approached by my friend and he said “with little to no change to your lifestyle” For my family it hasn’t changed our lifestyle in the sense that we are on a fixed budget that is so rigid it cannot fluctuate at all. We don’t have to cut our expenses. We still eat out, go shopping, vacation, but now we know if we spend x amount how it will affect our total payoff. We don’t have to send a set amount to our mortgage a month. As long as we don’t spend more than we make (which we do not) we can achieve our goal to be financially free by following the program.
Don’t try to accuse me of lying, I did not say “paying off your mortgage early requires no change in lifestyle”, You said that! I said in my lifestyle. For another person it may require a little change in their lifestyle. As I said in my earlier post we were making additional payments monthly until we had to fix up our house due to a hurricane. When it is the right time for me to send additional payments to principal balances the software will prompt me to do so, it will tell me the exact dollar amount and when to do this. With the MMA we don’t make monthly payments to our principal balances (as you implied). And since we were making additional payments on occasion (more frequently before the hurricane) it still fits into my existing lifestyle. I’m not sure if you know that this system works differently for each person it is a tailor fit. What works for you may not work for me.
I shared my testimony to how this program is working for me. I never said it was magic, it is and always will be math. Everyone knows if you apply extra money to principal it will reduce the interest and time. What is the best way that will save you time and money that answer may be different for each person. Clearly this blog is a waste of my time. The comments that you make show that you are not reading my post before you comment to them. My intent was never to convert you just to simply share how this program has worked for us in a year.
Many people know how to get out of debt- they’ve read books, applied extra to principal, worked with spreadsheets and financial planners. How many have succeed at this goal on their own?? According to our Econonmy more and more people are drowning in debt, so what is the problem? Most people have access to the internet and can work with a mortgage calculator, or spreadsheets for free and some do. The time it takes to figure out one way that will work, could change when you receive your pay check that was lower than expected or if an emergency happens and you need to use your cedit card. All that time spent trying to figure out the most possible way was wasted and has to be recalculated. People are extremely busy these days and time is what they may not have much of. With this program you can litterally spend only 10 minutes a month with it, if you choose to do so. Again, it is different for each person. This program not only helps you to elliminate your debt it helps you manage your debt. When unplanned things happen you don’t have to feel overwhelmed about increasing your bills if you absolutely have no other choice, b/c the program will adapt to this change and you still will achieve a quicker payoff.
Have you even looked at the MMA v4.1? Have you tried it out?
Just because something is Free doesn’t mean it is for me. That is a penny worth mentality. Why buy a camera for $5,000 when you can buy a camera with the same megapixels, print quality for $500.00? For each person the reason may be difference and to them they will have made a wise choice for their family. For one to say that it wasn’t wise for them to do so or to even attack their reasons why they purchased either one shows one’s ignorance.
As I said in my first post, I am a client of UFF and the program has been the best financial tool for my family. Everyone has their own opinion, this program is not for everyone you have to actually qualify for it.
Like I said in an earlier post, How much is your time worth? My time is very precious to me. Therefore I will not waste any more time contributing any more content that will enable your blog to receive more traffic from me.
Hannah – If you had no change to your lifestyle but you are still paying your mortgage off early, it is NOT BECAUSE OF MMA. It is because you have been (and intend to keep on) putting extra cash each month toward your principal on your mortgage. MMA evangelists would have people believe that managing their debt is highly complicated, requiring hours and hours of their time. It’s actually quite simple, as I’ve noted over and over on this site, and it doesn’t require any extra time. MMA, on the other had, requires hours each month without really helping the consumer.
It’s clear that you don’t understand what the MMA does or doesn’t do for you and your budget, and since you’re not willing to look at the basic math behind the whole thing, you’re wasting thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours. More power to you. It’s a free country and all that jazz. Too bad you’re not willing to put forth less effort, use an easier tool, and save thousands more. If you were, you could be on a simple and effective do-it-yourself plan that could get you out of debt months faster than MMA ever can.
Hannah, you have the gift of compressing the least amount of content into the greatest number of words.
You are welcome to post the MMA report you were given during the sales process – the one that shows your income, expenses, and projected payoff date. We’ve seen dozens of MMA-projected numbers, and a very simple approach beats the MMA every time with realistic rates.
As for choice, this is not a question of a cheap car vs. an expensive one. Yes, the MMA is more expensive than accelerating your mortgage on your own. What you don’t understand, is that the MMA is also more work than DIY, the MMA is more risky than DIY, and the MMA is less efficient than DIY.
The MMA is not like buying a $100,000 car. It’s like paying $100,000 for a $10,000 car with no seat belts and a nasty pull to the left.
Hannah goes on like most who have drunk the Kool Aid, and it’s obvious
some agent must be proud.
She claims not to have $500/mo yet will still have a 10 yr or less
payoff. She was convinced that the random nature of her income makes
anything ‘free’ useless, yet MMA will keep chugging along for her.
Hannah also believes it takes five hours a day to do what MMA does.
Excellent job, agent-man. I bank on line, and am paid (as is Mrs
TaxPayer) every other Friday. If I spend more than 10 minutes every
Saturday morning, it’s a lot. I love hyperbole as much as the next guy,
but if you think those of us who prepay their mortgage are actually
spending time on it every day, some serious deprogramming is called for.
She knew enough to throw in my favorite MMA word ‘factorial’
math. Now, if you have those other debts, why were you prepaying the
mortgage at all? If you really need software to tell you that you should
pay more towards the 20% card than [extra towards] the 6% mortgage,
perhaps MMA was actually the right product for you. By the way, does MMA
account for the after tax cost of money? You see, when you line up your
debts you need to look at them in order of real cost. The mortgage may
or may not be more expensive than the student loan. The 0% teaser rate
credit card should be targeted for payment coincident with the rate
expiring. I am asking you – does MMA account for these things?
Joe
Take a look at middle management, uneducated know nothings searching the internet for ideas on how to run the company, the call center better. And how about bringing in entire familys, husbands, wives, children, sisters, brothers. Bringing in entire familys who rise to management within 90 days. If your lucky your parents will be in skylers ward and you’ll suddenly be given a promotion and pay increase, it’s almost incestuous…the commission schedule changes regularly which also provides nathan the accounting manager the ability to cheat agents out of promotions, points, and money, all with a pat on the back from upper management. Someone mentioned that 100% money back, well the only way you will see a dime back is if you make a complaint with the better business because they want to keep there name out of that office at all cost, or threaten with an attorney, other wise the 3 day right to recision starts the day you have access to the software, now you may not have your first coaching for a week and by that time your 3 day right to recision is done. The 100% is only if the software does not perform as advertised, so there is no real 100% money back. Now lets look at those folks in client support who are coaching you on your financial software. Most are uneducated, some are college students, but the majority are those who can’t find a job elsewhere or are happy not to continue working at JC Penny or some other retailer at the mall for 6.50 an hour. And I don’t want to leave out agent support, please don’t get the idea one department is anymore or less than any other and management raises out of this crop. Support agents recieve no formal training regarding training clients on there software, employees teach themselves and each other and then teach clients. Agent support is no different, there are no classes on the analysis, no manual, what may be true today may not be next week. Now consider when 4.0 came out, it didn’t work and they new it and sold it anyway. Yes you heard me correctly, it didn’t work, but those at the home office were instructed to use words like updates, to explain why the software didn’t work.
But it’s a money maker, they even have an in house attorney now who makes it clear ya better not leak home office out of office.
I would like to know what exactly founded your conclusion that UFirst’s product is ‘useless’? How do you explain the thousands of clients who have already paid down over 1,600,000 in interest in using this product? They certainly would not agree with your conclusion that the product is useless and neither do I! What do you think a product should cost that helps you save $55,000 in interest and cancels out 6.5 years worth of mortgage payments in just 3 months of using it- all using the same money you’ve always had? What do you think a product should cost that gives you a 3800% return on your investment (ROI)? That’s exactly what the Money Merge Software was able to give my middle-income family. If we continue to follow our software – we will have saved over $168,000 over 7.8 years instead of the 29 we were originally facing. As an actual client of this software, I can assure you the Money Merge is NOT inflated solely to pay those involved in the sale, but rather because of the value it brings to the user! Where else can you get that kind of return on any investment?
The software should be free, since it offers no advantage over a simple spreadsheet that takes less of the consumer’s time and effort, and offers more interest savings than UFF MMA. The savings you have made on your mortgage have nothing to do with the software. Your savings are solely because you put extra money toward your mortgage. And you paid $3,500 to do so. You’ve flushed money down the toilet. You could have saved more, for free.
Gillian Reed,
It sounds like you have a lot of knowledge about some of the workings of company and management. If you don’t mind, whose “parents” were in the same church that Skylar Witman goes to and received a promotion? While I’m not an agent, I have heard that sales were very slow Dec-Jan and the company recently cut back on operational staff. I can’t believe that management in their right mind would allow a non-working update to be released (Version 4.0). Makes me wonder how any of their other offerings will compare (ie UDeduct, the home business Tax Deduction tracker).
It’s funny. The only complaints I read about are from people who do not use their service. So how can you complain about a service that does not affect you in a negative way but helps someone else in a poistive way?
Phil – I’ve done an objective evaluation of the product, its costs, its features, and its results. Based on that analysis, I determined it’s a very bad product for customers. This is very similar to the way I determine that cancer is a bad thing to have, even though I’ve never had cancer myself. Evaluate the facts.
Phil, you need to look back into your own heart. Your question implies you are quite the misanthrope. “Why do you care about others getting scammed, so long as you are not scammed?” is really what you are asking.
Those who are ignorant to the scam are still out a lot of money nonetheless. Just because they are too ignorant to understand this doesn’t make it any less a scam.
Well if you like many other mortage scheme look at this it is the same pay me 3500 and I’ll show you how to reduce your mortage. Better than that pay me 10 bucks I will show you something better and you do not need a computer or a program to do it. For 10 bucks I can show you how to reduce your debt and mortage by 40% over 4 years..Even if you are living pay check to pay check. Better than that I’ll do it for free.
There are as of 5/22/2009 20 complaints on the BBB for U1st. 15 for non refunds, 1 for high pressure sales, check them out. DON’T give thema dime.