Is Empower Network a scam?

Name: Empower Network

Website: http://www.empowernetwork.com

Price: $25/mth, $19.95/mth, $100/mth, $500, $1000, $3500 products

Owners: David Wood & David Sharpe

Rating: 10/100

The Viral Blogging System

Empower Network (EN) is a hot topic on the Internet when you search for ways to make money online since launching in 2012. They promote themselves as a Viral Blogging System, and help you promote a successful website.

The very first video you see on the main website is designed to hype you up, telling you things like how many people joined Empower Network, and that you would get a successful product that worked after signing up with them.

Some things they tell you in the sign up video are things like how they make millionaires, and how you make money by blogging and 100% commissions.

The truth? Let’s take a look at the Empower Network Review.

EDIT: As of editing this again, Empower network is no longer operating. Read the review and you will know why and all the red flags that I have pointed out.

What product are they selling?

When you first initially visit the website, you will be introduced to the Viral Blogging System:

Once you sign up for $25 a month, you are given your own website by Empower Network that you could use to blog. However, you don’t exactly own the blog and mostly it is used to promote Empower Network to more people and selling them products.

What kind of products do you sell them? Besides the $25 blogging system, there are more products that you could sign up for and promote, such as:

1. e-Wallet ($19.95/month): This payment is for their Payment process system, which is required if you want to be an affiliate and receive commissions for their products. You are required to sign up if you want to get paid too.

2. Inner Circle ($100/month): Some ‘motivational’ videos and audios designed to ‘empower your life‘, providing you inspiration and entertainment, so that you can live life to the fullest.

3. Costa Rica Intensive ($500 one-time payment): Consist of 11 videos designed to improve someone’s businesses. Basically, teaching you how to promote more of EN.

4. The $15k Formula ($1000 one-time payment):  Consist of videos that help you to get traffic, learning about SEO, using social media to advertise your website.

5. The Master’s Course ($3500 one-time payment): Consists of 41 videos that that teaches you things like how to build your team. Some of the videos in this module are motivational videos teaching you like learning how to ‘accept money’.

Some of these points teaches you aspects about MLM, which is smartly disguised as internet marketing. I will cover how people make money from this MLM in a section below.

But first, Let us look at the Pro’s and Con’s

Pros and Cons

 The Pro’s

• Your very own blog after signing up

The Con’s

• There is no trial, and it is not free to sign up. You need to pay $25 minimum to start.
• Your blog is still using the empower network domain name.
• Way too many product up sells, which I have covered above.
• You need to pay an additional fee to get paid and promote their products.
• Pressure to buy all the products.
• No support from owners.
• Promotes itself as a blogging system, but is a MLM scheme beneath.

As you can see, there are way more Cons then the Pros here. I will cover some of these points below and why I state them in the first place.

Earning From Empower Network

First of all, Empower Network has traits of an MLM scheme. You can take a look at the Empower Network compensation plan picture below:

This is an example of promoting the Viral Blogging System and promoting a member called Lisa. Basically when she sells a product, you will get her 2nd, 4th, 6th sale and every 5th sale from then on. Any other sale will go to her.

Every other sale that was passed to you is considered your referral as well, and you will make money off their referrals and so on.

Also to note, in order to promote a particular product, you have to BUY the product in order to unlock it, or any sales commission of that product will go to your upline. Not to mention that you would have to pay the $19.99/month in order to promote their products. So in order to make commissions of all products, you are required to buy ALL the products.

Your upline would tell you to don’t be a wussy and go all in which means ‘buy all the products’.

The reason is that your upline, who introduced Empower Network to you are going to get a commission of what you buy as well, and thus would pressure you into buying all the products so that he or she can make money.

This would mean paying more money than the originally advertised $25/month, which is typical of a MLM scheme that reveals more products that you need to buy to succeed.

Are you confused yet? Usually, MLM systems have very complex earning system to start earning money. They draw you in with a low fee to enter ($25) then reveal that you need to buy products that costs hundreds to thousands of dollars in order to succeed and earn money.

Costs

Here is a summary of the cost of all the products below..

1. Viral Blogging System: $25 per month
2. e-Wallet: $19.95 per month
3. Inner Circle: $100 per month
4. Costa Rica Intensive: $500
5. The $15k Formula: $1000
6. The Master’s Course: $3500

This works out to be $144.95 per month, with an additional $5000 for the initial cost in order to access all content and the affiliate product commissions.

That is way too much money for an initial investment in my opinion, especially if you are new to making money online. Even if you just buy the Viral Blogging System, you are usually pressured to buy in more products by your upline.

If you really are interested in blogging and making money, check it how you can start free!

Some other information about Empower Network

1. BBB rating and Empower Network Complaints

Empower Network is not BBB credited, but they have a rating of B from a scale of A to F. In the last 3 years, they have received 146 complaints in the last 3 years, mostly on advertising issues. As indicated, there is a ‘misrepresentation in selling practices’.

Most of the complaints were due to outdated content, not delivering what was promised, and are unable to cancel their subscription unless they go to BBB for help. This shows that their products do not deliver the amount of content that people pay for it.

For a business with so many complaints, it is definitely raises a red flag to stay away from it.

2. Bullying and Intimidating

I have mentioned that once you signed up, you are usually intimidated and bullied into buying the higher price products, or you would be called names, such as a Wussy for not going all in.

For one, this really feels like high school all over again, and they want you to feel ‘left out’ unless you go all in. What other kind of business do you know that does such intimidation to its customers to make them buy their products?

3. Income Statistics

Coming straight from Empower Network website itself:

If you take a look at the chart, about 60% of active affiliate make an average of $396, 21% make $1692. At the top of the pyramid, less than 1% are making a substantial 6 figure income. This shows that most people are losing more money than making if they signed up for all the up sells.

Guess who is making the money? Not you, The owners and those who joined early on are raking in the cash at the top.

I have also mentioned that MLM is really not a good home based business. With such low success rate, are you willing to risk your money, especially if it is more than $5000?

Final Thoughts

In my opinion, Empower Network is really designed to suck all your money dry without giving you anything at all. Most people are sucked in by the huge checks shown in videos, the cash that people are making, and so on.

If you really do not have any ethical principles or like to ‘rob’ other people’s money, then this program is for you. If not, I advise staying far away from a program that intimidates people into joining them.

Like any MLM business, it is not sustainable as there would eventually fall as there would eventually be more sellers than buyers in the end. To make money from a MLM scheme is really very difficult, and you are usually in direct competitors with others promoting the same product.

I promote Wealthy Affiliate over Empower Network if you want to make money through blogging, and I have 3 reasons I can state why it is way more superior.

1) The Price

Empower Network requires you to pay an initial price of $25 to start, and so many up sells if you want to get something out of it. If you did not go all in, you would definitely be losing out on some leads. You are looking at $5000+ and $100+ per month.

Wealthy Affiliate lets you try out for free, and are given 2 free
websites as well when you sign up. You are not pressured to sign up at all too. Even if you choose to go premium, you are only paying $47 a month, or $359 a year. There are no hidden cost whatsoever, and by paying the fee you can access the website and all the latest content.

2) The Training

Empower Network training is a bunch of videos that is mostly to hype you up, and some of them even include motivational videos. Some of the videos are inside may even tell you to buy the higher products and ‘stop being a wussy’ and go ‘all in’. Tell me if I am wrong.

Wealthy Affiliate training helps you to build your own business based on your interests, which is a niche, and teaching you how to build a website and get traffic. You will then learn how to make money mainly through affiliate marketing, advertisements, and other ways.

3) The Community

Empower Network is pretty much an MLM scheme, which requires you to recruit people by asking them to buy your products and be your downline, which they then refer more people to their downline, and so on. Your only business is to get people into Empower Network, which makes you a direct competitor with all other members.

Usually, your upline would provide minimal help or no help unless you went ‘all in’. Don’t even expect the site owners to help you with any problems as they are too busy doing other stuff.

Wealthy Affiliate teaches how to build a website and everyone interest is different, thus people are not in direct competition. As such, people are more willing to critique and comment to help each other to improve on their website.

There is really a community spirit of helping each other out, especially the newbies to get started, as the community believe in paying it forward. No one is being called a wussy, and there is no pressure of ever stealing other peoples’ sales as the businesses are all different. You can get help from almost everyone, including the owners Kyle & Carson.

Testimonials

Don’t take it from me only, and see other users that joined Empower Network initially, but eventually joined Wealthy Affiliate as premium members.

Rick joined EN for about 5 months and quit, and joined Wealthy Affiliate and outlined the differences like I did earlier in this post too.

April talks about how some part of Empower Network works, and explains about how the advertised 100% commissions isn’t really 100%, and how the viral blogging system was a joke.

Tommy was lured in by an advertisements and invested close to $1000 just on it before calling it quits and made nothing out of it.

Final Decision on Empower Network

I do not recommend joining Empower Network due to many reasons, such as the bullying culture, the low success rate, the high barrier of entry (Due to price), and many more.

It is very much close to a scam as no one makes any substantial money besides the people at the top.

Final Verdict of Empower Network

Website: http://www.empowernetwork.com

Price: $25/mth, $19.95/mth, $100/mth, $500, $1000, $3500 products

Owners: Kevin Blue & Darin Blue

CLOSE TO BEING A SCAM! NOT RECOMMENDED

What’s next?

If you have got this far to the review, you are probably looking for a legitimate way to make money still.

Like I mentioned about Wealthy Affiliate earlier, I have laid out three reasons why it is more superior over Empower Network if you want to get into blogging and making money from your interests and passion. You can take a look at my review on Wealthy Affiliate, which is also a place where I learnt how to start my own online business and website.

At Empower Network, it would cost you $44.95 per month to set up a blog. If you really want to learn how to blog and make money like I do, sign up with Wealthy Affiliate for free. You do not need any credit card to sign up with, and are even given 2 free websites to begin with! All you need to key in is your Name, E-mail, and Password and you are good to go!

Even if you choose to upgrade, you are only paying at most $359 per year, compared to paying over $5000 at Empower Network (Which could fund you at least 13 years of premium membership at Wealthy Affiliate minimum). You only pay one price and you get access to everything, including training, support, community, hosting, webinars and more!

Check Out My #1 Recommended Money Making Program

If you have any comments about Empower Network, or if you are currently or an ex-member, please feel free to leave a comment. I would love to hear your feedback.