Critique of Emjay07's blog, part 4

I see Emjay07 has posted a part 4. This may become a regular feature on this blog. As Emjay07 did not seem to do too well in part 1, part 2, and part 3, let's see how well he does in part 4.

First of all, EmJay07 is nobody special. I've critiqued many TVI Express member and supporters websites and blog entries before. I am an ardent critic of faulty reasoning, logical fallacies, and untruths. If EmJay07's support of TVI Express have faulty reasoning, logical fallacies, and untruths, I'll gladly point them out.

So, how well did EmJay07 did on part 4? Not so well. He wrote on his blog:

As it states a pyramid scheme is the exchange of money primarily for the enrolling of other people without any Product OR Service.

OR it is even generally described by people as a scheme where people at the top make money but the others don't.

In regards to TVI Express, the product component obligation is fulfilled by their 6N7D vacation package which is their core product and has now been revised to 7N8D for some of the accommodations depending upon the hotel and availability. Apart from the product fulfillment, they also offer a range of services and what are they? See below:

1.      A big number of discounted deals listed through their travel engine

2.      Lifetime access to a full-fledged travel portal.

Two problems here.

1) the 7D6N package (or 8D7N now with the upgrade), is not a product. It is merely a gimmicky certificate, (even the border design is stolen off another website) that you cannot even redeem directly. You have to pay extra $150 to redeem it. That's not a product. At best, it's... uh... 60% of a product? Yet EmJay07 claims it is the "core product". Besides, you can't buy the product without the membership. How can it be a product if nobody ever sells it? Who's selling what to whom?

And I haven't even mentioned the alleged redemption rate of 1% as per information released by TVI Express itself, and the broken promises of TVI Express for the booking portal for almost a year...

2) travel engine and travel portal is the SAME THING. You can't count the same thing twice. Furthermore, the so-called portal is available on Travelocity.com FOR FREE. So what's the $250 joining fee for? It's not for the 7D6N since you need to pay yet ANOTHER $150 for that. Or put it another way... Before the $150 fee, you *could* say that the $250 joining fee buys the 7D6N trip. Now, you can't even claim that since you need to pay ANOTHER $150 to get the trip.


So when EmJay07 says:

Therefore how can it be a Pyramid Scheme when two of the items that are required to be omitted in order to be a Pyramid Scheme are in fact included in the TVI business i.e A "Product" and a "Service"???

What EmJay07 did not explain is that the product is a gimmick, and the service is available free elsewhere. So yes, it can be FRADULENT pyramid scheme that misrepresents itself, by adopting a disguise with bogus service and product.

EmJay07 continues:

Another thing, as per the MLM Laws, another defining feature of a Pyramid scheme is the criteria which such companies set so that the members are obligated to fulfill them in order to be able to redeem the product such as multi-level movement of money or recruitment of a certain number of people prior to the redemption.

Here is where EmJay07 demonstrates his ignorance of REAL MLM laws, as he couldn't cite any. He had clearly not heard of the landmark FTC cases where FTC gone after Amway, Koscot Interplanetary, and Fortuna Alliance. I have referred to all of them on my blog before, and you can find them on Wikipedia easily enough. The difference between MLM and pyramid scheme is NOT the obligations or redemptions or recruiting. The criteria is actually very simple:

A member's income must be 70% (or more) from actual SALES of products or services to outside customers, and 30% (or less) from recruiting new members, for the business compensation model to be legal under FTC guidelines. This became known as the "70% rule". There are actually two other rules, but the 70% rule is the biggest one. And even if the MLM has all three rules, it can STILL be illegal if the three rules were never enforced.


Does TVI Express distributor even HAVE any outside customers? No. NOTHING is sold to outside customers, except membership, but that's recruiting. In other words, TVI Express is virtually 100% recruiting. That makes TVI Express a pyramid scheme, not a MLM. And the rest of EmJay07's explanations are irrelevant. And without the 70% rule, the other two rules are not applicable.

All that "salesman A and salesman B" stuff? Red herring. THERE IS NO SALES, JUST RECRUITING. Back to TVI Express FAQ again "You do not need to sell any products". No selling, no salesman. Irrelevant.

That's ZERO out of FOUR, EmJay07. Five if you count your lame rebuttal about you reposting TVI Express announcement without their permission. You say it's public service, but in reality it's copyright violation, esp. when the bottom of the announcement page says "do not copy". Yet you seem to be very proud of that violation, that you wrote a rebuttal proclaiming the violation.

I guess I can give you maybe 0.2 of a point for spotting my minor mistake (I left out the "until further notice" about Australia) but you're losing this debate, that's for sure.

Please come up with a BETTER explanation next time. I know you can do better than that.

EDIT: Well, I posted a comment on EmJay07's blog letting him and his readers know that my latest critique of his entry is up. Guess what... he did NOT APPROVE the comment. Guess EmJay07 doesn't want people to know there's a lot more to what he claims to be the truth.