Myinterneteducation

MIE, also known as MOBE (My Own Business Education) purports to be an online money-making opportunity. They also refer to it as a "business" and the program supposedly leads to having your "own" business - but having also a "back-office" provided that does all the follow-up and closes the sales. They promise very high commissions. There are several levels, increasing rapidly in cost - but they do not tell you that at the beginning. They provide "steps", which are videos that you watch on your computer, with summaries; and a "coach." They also have DAILY "live calls" and they encourage you to listen to the calls and to contact your "coach": daily. At first they seem very persuasive... they tell you that the "education" they provide is practical, and they mention that people who went to business school often find themselves unable to make money. The initial buy-in is $49.00, and they imply that is the only cost to participate. I was looking for an online work-at-home opportunity, and this one sounded good at first - but I suppose I was very naive. After you complete the first few online "steps," they introduce the idea that in order to be "competitive" you need to "invest" in "your business," and "be competitive with other businesses"; and they start offering more costly "classes." Eventually they tell you that there are several levels: silver, gold, titanium, (one I don't remember), and diamond. They show interviews with "diamond" level consultants, who all rave over the large amounts of money they are supposedly making. Your "coach" also tells you to "think big" and that you can easily make $100k or more, much more - and all they are suggesting you do is to "work leads." Later it comes out that you have to buy the leads. If you supply them with a "lead" that results in sales you supposedly receive very high "commissions", up to 90% commissions. The primary owner of this business is a young man named Matt Lloyd. He boasts of having an extremely high income, and repeats over and over that "you have to be willing to invest. Successful business owners don't hesitate to invest in their businesses." It is like the boiling frog story... you put a frog in lukewarm water and gradually increase the heat; the frog doesn't notice that it is getting hotter until he is boiled to death. Once you get out from under the spell they weave around you, the pattern they use to deceive you becomes more clear. Everything they present to you is carefully planned to cut off your objections and encourage you to continue. They also require that you pay for "newsletters" and attend meetings that are held in places that sound like good places to visit - big cities, and outside the US resort areas like the Bahamas. They show pictures of very happy people going on about how they never thought they could be so successful, and there are always testimonials, every day. You see people meeting with the owner, and later you are told that you can have testimonials where you appear to be meeting with Matt Lloyd and others in MOBE, that it is easy to meet them at the expensive "seminars" and that it will promote your business. They also state that you will have a website with "badges" that show what level of the MOBE business you have completed. They tell you that potential buyers will see this level and that if you are at "diamond level" people will be impressed. Of course, if you are at a lower level, people will see that, too, and they will not put their trust in you. The commission goes to the last "consultant" to be contacted, just before prospective customers buy, and the thought enters your mind that other people can steal your "leads" - and I began to wonder if the people at higher "levels" can steal your "leads" just before they buy. After all, who is closing the deal? People higher up than you in the MOBE business, yes? Then they offer you financing. This is what all the "you need to invest in your business to make it successful" carefully designed persuasion has been leading up to... and they tell you how easy they will make it for you to borrow. At this point, I realized that the business they are really in is this: get prospective "consultants" to go into deep debt for their "educational programs" - and further, these are the ONLY products they sell, the very "classes" that you are by that time involved with. They send you "free" books and motivational materials that are designed to keep persuading you. They surround you with a bubble of "suspension of disbelief." That is also why they have the daily calls and testimonials. These masquerade as "motivation" - but they are really designed to convince you to keep buying their products, their "educational steps", their "mastermind classes." They require that you sign a "contract" that includes a statement that you "realize that you cannot bring legal action," and a non-disclosure agreement. However, if you contact the issuer of your credit card, you CAN get a refund. The purpose of the "contract" is to convince you that you cannot get your money back, so you need to succeed in this "business" since you have already "invested" in it. The refund, in my case, came VERY quickly. I think part of the reason was that I provided negative feedback in somewhat public ways: they have facebook pages, and of course there are the "testimonials" that they insist you start making at the very beginning of the "steps." This can backfire on their plans, because they have quietly told you that these "testimonials" are actually fake. Another reason I was able to get a refund quickly is that my credit card issuer already KNEW this "business" is a fraud. The "coaches" tell you that "there might be a problem with your credit card, and they state that they "can only run it three times." The "coach" is very focused on getting the charge through on your credit card, and they keep calling you to make sure you insist on it being approved. Of course, the contract also includes a statement that you "were under no duress." And there is big time pressure from the "coaches" - they tell you that the only way you can "earn commissions" is to work fast. Also, there was a big problem with their system being down, and being unable to log in made me very, very wary. After all, they know before you do that you have "earned a commission," and there seems to be no way to track it yourself. The only way to know if you have "earned a commission" is to rely on their computer system. You have doubts, but the "coaches" insist that they themselves once had doubts, but now they are making very high "commissions", and many of them, supporting a lifestyle they "never knew" they could attain. Look them up by their address - at some point they will tell you where they live. The owner of MOBE, Matt Lloyd, tells you that "you can live anywhere you want" and discloses that he lives in a country - I forget where it is - some small country in southeast Asia - that he likes better than living in the US. Why? He says it is just a very lovely place to live. But when you think about it, you realize that the taxes are low there and that it would be difficult for investigators in the US to track him down. He probably is able to evade the law, although many people have realized that MOBE is fraudulent. The "coaches" really pressure you to purchase more "mastermind classes," and if you admit to any doubt they tell you, "Don't be afraid. Fear will prevent you from succeeding." There is a good reason why they say this: if you don't continue purchasing, they won't get their "commissions." They also say that they will provide you with "a traffic coach" who will help you understand how to "work leads" and to "earn commissions." After you have received your money back, the "coach" continues to call. They obviously are not eager to let the "coach" know that the prospect has fallen through. It is all very slick. Once they have your credit card information, they begin making charges to your account without really notifying you - in order to "remain in the program," you are told that you will have to pay monthly fees for the "newsletters" and other items. But you are not explicitly asked for permission to charge your credit card after you buy in, only at a critical juncture. They use many different names when they process these charges, and they explicitly tell you that the charges will "come in" under these various names - but they don't emphasize this, and they don't explain why. When you do take a moment from the brainwashing to look at your transactions, you see a number of fairly small but frequent charges from several entities - still, they are all MOBE. Why do they use so many different names? Well, that is a very good question to ask yourself, and you must ask yourself, because if you ask them you will not get an answer. As you proceed through the "steps", it dawns on you that you are throwing good money after bad. It is magically being charged to your credit card and you really aren't aware of it until you look at your transaction records. The feeling at that point is of being trapped, and needing to get to the point of making money in order to pay yourself back. At this point their "motivational support" begins to fall apart. Many people at this point will stay in the program, because (1) they have insisted that you will make "very high commissions" selling "big ticket items" (2) they have used very persuasive subliminal methods to convince you that the only thing standing in your way is your hesitance to purchase more "classes" from them, and (3) they have indicated via the "contract" that once you are in, you can't "legally" get out. And at this point they start sending you very transparently tacky emails stating "It's like legally robbing a bank!" and they tell you that you can easily "receive a car" and afford to live a much nicer lifestyle. They apparently figure that if you have gone this far you must be very stupid; and they are no longer so careful to be subliminally persuasive. As I said, you CAN get a refund, particularly if you contact your credit card issuer and tell they that this "business" is trying to profit by getting people into debt. When my credit card bank filed a dispute, the money they had taken from me was very quickly returned. But, as I say, I made it clear very publicly in their facebook pages that their system was down for about a week, that a long time passes without making any "commissions" at all, and that the only "products:" they sell are the very "steps" you are working through before making ANY money at all. I also made it very clear that I did not trust them. Complaining to the Better Business Bureau or the FTC does not work. They are based outside the US, and they will officially respond to your complaints by saying that it was a misunderstanding, and that they have refunded your money. I hope this review helps to protect you from these scamsters. I admit to having some trepidation about even posting it; but there were no repercussions from criticizing them in an open forum on social media. Don't ever buy in - and if you already have, get out as soon as you can and get your money back ASAP.