{"id":17952,"date":"2017-11-28T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=17952"},"modified":"2017-11-27T12:44:47","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T18:44:47","slug":"market-america-pyramid-scheme-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/market-america-pyramid-scheme-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Market America Pyramid Scheme Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload alignright wp-image-17970\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/marketamerica-pyramid-scheme.jpg\" data-orig-src=\"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/marketamerica-pyramid-scheme.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"304\" height=\"142\" srcset=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%27%20width%3D%27304%27%20height%3D%27142%27%20viewBox%3D%270%200%20304%20142%27%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%27304%27%20height%3D%27142%27%20fill-opacity%3D%220%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/marketamerica-pyramid-scheme-300x140.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/marketamerica-pyramid-scheme.jpg 600w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-orig-sizes=\"(max-width: 304px) 100vw, 304px\" \/>In May 2017, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/market-america-lawsuit.pdf\">Market America was hit with a class action lawsuit<\/a> in federal court in California by plaintiffs Chuanjie Yang and Ollie Lan. The lawsuit calls MarketAmerica a pyramid scheme that is taking advantage of Chinese American immigrants.<\/p>\n<p>MarketAmerica is a multi-level marketing company that has a number or product lines including Isotonix supplements, Motives cosmetics, and others. It also uses what it calls a &#8220;product brokerage concept,&#8221; which is essentially a massive affiliate program which pays a small amount of cash back to the the distributor when purchases are made at certain retailers while on the shop.com website. (This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/2008\/07\/more-on-why-shoptoearn-sucks-mypowermall-teamnational\/\">sounds just like Shop to Earn<\/a>, a defunct MLM that screamed pyramid scheme.)<\/p>\n<p>Per the lawsuit, Market America requires a start-up fee of $399 and an ongoing monthly fee of $129. Distributors must also spend $100 to $300 per month on shop.com to continue to qualify as an enrollee, and other fees are incurred to attend training and events.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s interesting because Market America calls itself an un-franchise, and touts the following benefits of not being a franchise:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>However, unlike a franchise, there are no franchise fees, monthly royalties, territorial restrictions, little to no risks and minimal startup expenses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The monthly fees and required purchases may not technically be a monthly royalty, but it sounds awfully similar!<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, the lawsuit says:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The company claims anyone can have financial success if they follow a two-year bluprint<\/li>\n<li>MarketAmerica targets immigrant from China, hoping that they will sell products to their relatives in China<\/li>\n<li>Over 90% of distributors in Market America lose money<\/li>\n<li>MarketAmerica has a complicated system in which you create a full cycle (two complete pyramids) and an then re-enter each pyramid as a downline<\/li>\n<li>You can pay a large fee to become a Master Unfranchise Owner, which is nothing but a fee for a speculative change to earn another source of income<\/li>\n<li>Market America encourages <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pinktruth.com\/tag\/frontloading\/\">inventory loading<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Little money is made from retail sales. Money comes from distributors paying fees to MarketAmerica, meaning the distributors &#8220;&#8230; are primarily feeding off each other.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Market America is trying to get the case <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/marketamerica-transfer-north-carolina.pdf\">transferred to federal court in North Carolina<\/a> (where the company is based). At the same time, the company has filed suit in North Carolina to compel arbitration, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/market-america-arbitration.pdf\">the distributor agreement signed by the plaintiffs includes an arbitration clause<\/a>. The plaintiffs assert that the arbitration clause was not part of the terms of the agreement, and that it was a condition that they did not agree to.<\/p>\n<p>Also interesting: In some filings made by Market America, reference is made to agreements and documents executed or signed by Yang and Lan. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/market-america-authenticity.pdf\">They are disputing the authenticity<\/a>, suggesting they did may not have been the people who signed up on line or the people who signed documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In May 2017, Market America was hit with a class action lawsuit in federal court in California by plaintiffs Chuanjie Yang and Ollie Lan. The lawsuit calls MarketAmerica a pyramid scheme that is taking advantage of Chinese American immigrants. MarketAmerica [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[824,184],"tags":[1373,1509,2890,2911,2891],"class_list":["post-17952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumer-protection","category-pyramid-schemes-mlm","tag-class-action-suit","tag-distributor-class-action","tag-market-america","tag-marketamerica","tag-shop-com"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-4Fy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}