iZigg is a new MLM company that promises wealth based on text message advertising.
Let's state the obvious: Texting is a big trend.
Now let's state the not-so-obvious: The cast of characters behind iZigg are the same bunch who were closely involved with Burnlounge, where the FTC filed a lawsuit and shut them down. Then they went on to another company called LocalAdLink, another alleged scam that had people paying a bunch of money to get listed on Google.
The players:
Brian Underwood: Master Distributor Burnlounge, National Sales Director, LocalAdlink
Dr. Scott Elliott: FTC vs. Burnlounge (sued by the FTC), then heavily involved promoting LocalAdLink
Jason Borne: VP and Founding Partner in Burnlounge, Founding Partner in LocalAdLink
Opinion:
This is a classic "lots of hype" money game that will not last. If you don't believe me, here is a list of companies that I said the same thing about. How are they doing today?
- iJango
- Burnlounge
- YTB Travel
- MyMusicTicket
- BioPerformance
- Ad Surf Daily (ASD)
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I am an izigg rep. I personally love it! I did research the company before I joined. I wasnt impressed that Brian Underwood was with another company that had been shut down. Not having his side of the story, I decided to put that matter aside (forgive and forget). I am very happy that I did. Most people know that timing in network marketing is really important. The timing to join is now. Companies are just figuring out the whole text marketing thing, so to be in this company before the big “hit” is very important. You can join as a Sales rep for $99, then you make a residual 25% income from everything you sell. With our economy, that gives a lot of people Hope!
Zepps, with all due respect, you’re an idiot. Show me the pseudo or any celebs promoting Izigg? Ever go to a meeting? Zero, zilch, nada, there are no celeb endorsements at all. As far as your friend doing what he does that’s his business. But you’re wrong – there is NO startup fee if you’re buying a plan as a retailer. You pay that IF you want to sell the product to someone else. There are NO long term contracts as well so he can stop when he wants. What’s with this “good time easy lay” comment about? You’re a moron. As fas as meetings in fancy places. Hmmm… I’ve attended meetings in the back room of a restaurant, in a coffee shop, etc. Fancy places are where big annual things happen like any other company jerk. But mostly, a group of business supporters ’cause that’s what this is, get together more often than any chamber of commerce I know of for support and ways to help each other. It’s always the ones with no money or personal success that bitch and moan.
Cost depends on what you want to do. If you want to become a retailer and sell the mobile messinging service it’s $99. If you want to build a team it’s $350. If you’re a business owner and want up to 2,000 messages a month to send it’s $99 with no contracts or other fees.
I agree with you Nick! I have liked iZigg for the opt in/out feature. Now I’ve been an agent for some time now and it’s working out for me! You have to give you all into this business to be successful. If it wasn’t working for you when you were an agent, then you didn’t give it your all. Each one of my clients like using the iZigg program and have renewed every month.
I was with izigg for all of about 3 weeks. The first time their servers went down my client tried to reach out and let them know but there was no one to contact, check out the website, they don’t give a number for even “support”. The rest of the businesses I had talked to about it in my area were not enthused to find that the keywords they would want for their business were already “taken” by izigg members, many were not even being used-just squatted like a domain name. Some ended up going with Club Texting and the rest with Text2vip. Many people I speak to w/ izigg are not happy that the supposed “value” of 90210 disaapears when the keywords are unavailable and the top people get out of the ponzi with their money….the rest are left to try to sign businesses up on the next short code 90211.
I would like to know from an Izigg rep what is the age that you can become one? Someone sold this bill of goods to my 17 year old & I am trying to figure out how to get him out of it.
Misleading headline/article. You are calling it a scam in your headline instead of proving that it is one. It’s good to question any company because of the people involved. That is justified, but you have to be more fair in your headlines. I get it…you get more traffic by simply calling something a scam, but is that ethical? Kinda hypocritical. I’m not involved with this company but I am doing my research as a marketing professional. I already own my own SMS business but I’m considering iZigg’s platform for my business clients and not for the MLM side of things. What I’ve found thus far is that their pricing packages for businesses is VERY competitive to that of other SMS platforms that are non MLM companies. I may be able to provide more feedback once I complete my research of their platform. Until then, be more fair in your headlines. Had you simply put a (?) after “iZigg Scam” in the headline instead of after the FTC part, I would have less of a problem with it. Just my two cents.
izigg ripped me off for $450.
I made all kinds of promises but after they got my money, no one would return any of my calls.
I’ve signed up with a TRUE SMS (long code)company. (They don’t have to go thru agggregators) and they offered me 2 keywords and unlimited messages for $49.00 per month AND a free TEXT Biz card exchange with NO contract! It works even on Pre-Paid phones. (Short codes don’t)
They also have a FREE affiliate program which you make 25% comission when you resell, so why pay $99 per month for 2,000 messages and why pay a $350 or $2500 fee to resell a MLM business model that may NOT work?
I don’t want all of my cell phone contacts lost if the MLM company goes out of business! BTW I own my database, who owns yours if you are with this MLM company?
Do your due diligence before you buy into or resell short codes, they fail…
Can anybody suggest a website or any other media where I can learn all the facts of SMS messaging without these facts being linked (a.k.a. biased) to any company? Not sure what long code, aggregators, short codes, and the like even means and would love to learn to make an informed decision regardless of what company I join. Thanks much guys (and gals)!
joe, what is the name of the sms company you signed up with for $49
all i’ve got to say is hmmmmm
I am so glad that I found this post. We have an office in Boca, Nice building. I noticed a group of like 8-10 guys in gym shorts,track gear hanging out in our Fourier. I could tell this one guy about 45 was pitching hard at the group of 25-30 yro. About an hr and a half later a very excited kid walked in our office and asked what we do. We are a digital marketing company. We too offer mobile marketing. The look on the groups face was priceless. I walked out and handed out a few business cards not one of them took a moment to look at my title. I am the Director of Mobile Marketing. They started a very scattered hectic pitch. After about 2 mins of rambling he grabbed the “founder” of the company. I figured lets have some fun. I asked him about his connectivity, which aggregator they used? No answer. I asked if their short code was a dedicated or shared short code? He said it was dedicated so I asked are you sure.(unless its 1 company using the short code its a shared short code) Then he started to catch on I might be somewhat educated in mobile marketing. I asked if his SC was provisioned across all carriers, “ummm no metro pcs boost and some others I think”. Now his group of kids were looking at him like come on sell this guy. This is when he said he had never sold an account himself!!! He “just hires super aggressive young take over the world guys”
Something just didn’t sit right about these guys that’s why I researched them and came across this site. I have no idea if this is a scam. I don’t really care.
I do care about mobile marketing and hope these yahoos don’t give the rest of the industry a bad name.
For what its worth the $1,500 unlimited messaging is very suspicious to me. I would love to send 10 million msgs across his platform and run up his bill. The carrier look up would cost more than that.
I am 99% sure there is a catch on that.
Great story Boca, thanks for sharing it. The ‘sales agent’ (and I use the term loosely) avatar which izig goes after sets the stage for such ill-informed presentations and they never pass the smell test when they run into a person with experience in mobile and text marketing such as yourself. Typical. As an owner of a text marketing company in this space, I share your concern that izigg’s going to give the industry a bad rap. I’ve already had 4 former people associated with them (quality folks I might add) come over to Text2Vip to sell for us. Good point on the $1500 unlimited msgs too!
Great gig for ex Mobile Home salesman, what could go wrong there.
SCAM, get a real job
The iZigg system seems to offer a good funnel to bring prospects into. What it does not offer is any assurance that the product pricing will stay competitive as “the majors” start getting in the game. And why wouldn’t they? What do you think Paul? Does the possibility of Google offering service like this free worry you?
Hey Boca and Paul Faherty,
I was at that meeting in the foyer of ‘your building’ in Boca Raton, FL. You must mean the suite you rent in that building? I was one of those guys at that meeting. And your account of how that meeting went couldn’t be any further from the truth. I am 28. That “45 year old guy” was 30. He made your job obsolete by showing your boss that our product is head and tails better than what you’ve been working on since 2001! We launched July 4th, 2010. In one year we became the national leader in Mobile Media. Currently beating Google, Yahoo, and AOL. Are you kidding me?! We have done successfully in 1 year what has taken you 10 years to do poorly? Are you kidding me?! You looked like such an idiot after that meeting. Literally your bosses told our National Director to call them. I’d be angry too if I were you. Because you almost lost your job. We literally almost made your job obsolette. It was embarrassing. We walked away and talked about how bad we felt for you. But I don’t feel bad anymore cause your obviously not an honest/quality individual. Bad talking another company to make yours look better? what is this high school? Your 45 years old, grow up.
Our short code is ‘dedicated’. Dedicated to one platform. And we own it. The most memorable Short Code in the world, 90210. Atan Albez (who sold Adlink to Google) did algorithms and found it was the most memorable short code. Learn your jargin before sounding un-educated. Everyone remembers 90210, and everyone uses it, successfully.
Oh and Metro PCS and Boost never kept anyone from having success in their mobile marketing company since they represent 3% of the cell service in America. $1500 unlimited messages is very cost effective. That’s why we blow companies like you out of the water. So what your trying to say is we’re a platform that doesn’t work…but we are the number 1 Mobile Media company in the US? If you want to do research, then do research. Don’t stop at one site and act like it’s Gospel.
We have:
Cambelle’s Soup
Snoop Dogg
Pete Rose
Marvel Comics
And if this is not enough proof for you, we have been around for a YEAR! We’ll have all the proof you need soon enough.
See for yourselves: http://www.iZigg.com/press/panella
**The person that made this site is piggybacking on the ‘iZigg’ name to sell his ‘MLM Secrets’ product. Because ‘iZigg’ is the most searched word in Mobile Media.
Luckily I can laugh at all this BS. We have nothing to proove. Our hand is on the table. And we certainly don’t post lies about other Mobile Media companies, because we don’t have to.
Hey BOCA Lies!,
I am a NEW iZigg marketing rep. Before I join a company, I do my Due Diligence. I invested a week’s time of searching iZigg before I joined. I saw that mobile media marketing is the NEXT Dot.Com BOOM. 9-out-of-10 people have cellphones in big Metro cities. I found out that big companies ARE USING the 90210 short code. Like HOOTERS, PAPA John’s, Toyota, & Lexus, etc. Needless to say, iZigg is GROWING FAST! In a year they have grown to be a multimillion dollar company. Soon we will be big as Google and other Fortune 500 companies. Ty Tribble is ‘piggybacking’ and Boca &Paul Faherty have no idea how successful are iZigg reps are currently doing. Let me say this, “iZigg reps are doing VERY WELL”! iZigg has 100s of reps doing well in this business.
To begin my business with iZigg I invested $2600. and have spent surely hundreds of hours training people in my organization of 58 people (while Izigg has NO training program available to help me unless I’m recruiting – and SADLY that only entails a 3 way sales call or my prospect showing up at a meeting where the ‘top earner’ tells them ‘you can text my name to 90210 and I’m available to help you any time, we’re going into business together and we’re a team’), Currently my organization has sold nearly $100,000. and all I’ve earned is $1600. I continue to listen to calls where, inevitably, I hear ‘top earners’ like Dr Scott Elliot, Michael Rutherford, etc.. claim ‘our company pays back .70 cents out of every dollar to agents!!’ On top of this farce, recently there’s been a HUGE push to sell *agents only* a Facebook product that cost $39.95 A MONTH (while they say it is commissionable – for exactly whom I wonder) iZigg’s official basis for this necessity for us of course is that it will help small businesses by allowing them to monetize their social media (months after ‘some’ agents originally paid for this I doubt it has even made Izigg as much as they paid to develop it – and to date ‘zero’ small businesses are using it because it still isn’t available to small businesses). Now I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but it seems to me we have a money racket going here, where a huge majority of sales come from agency and autoship purchases instead of real retail product sales in the marketplace. The technology is out-of-site and the branding is drop dead sexy, people, that said, iZigg is getting rich based on your agency prices and autoships. In February 2011 Brian Underwood and Dave Liniado told us what the ratio between agency purchases and retail was. They said retail sales accounted for 60% of all money made. Now, knowing what I’ve experienced, I wonder if they were including agent autoships…. and how much worse it’s gotten. Am I just another gullible and disgruntled man playing victim to just another MLM or do I justifiably have cause in raising a flag? Either way, if you’re familiar with the FTC’s case against Burn Lounge and you’ve read the Federal Court’s ruling released in that case on July 7…… you have to admit the similarities are scary for any realistic average American.
I received an email from iZigg trying to recruit me for employment. What is this all about? I was thinking it was a scam. What exactly would you be doing?
Its so funny how many idiots this world breeds that defend these outright frauds.
Can't agree with More!
I had a BAD experience with Brian Underwood, Jason Borne and “Dr” Scott Elliott about 4 years ago when Brian was the Chief Whip for bHip. NEVER AGAIN will I get involved in anything that these guys are involved in, and I would assume that Terry LaCore of bHip never will either!!!!!
Brian Underwood=Scam
I have been involved with iZigg for almost a year now. I purchased the service for my business and it has been great for us. It has allowed us to communicate directly with those who want to hear from us.
When I bought my “package” I liked the annual plan, but did not know that it would also allow me to build a business as an iZigg agent. It is a nice add-in to what I am using it for now.
I have personally met each of the founders and leaders of this company. They have admitted that in a growing business, run by people, people make mistakes, miscalculations and choices that don’t work out. I know this to be true having grown several businesses in the last 14 yrs. What separates us from the scammers and lairs is when we own them, learn from them and take steps to change them. I am not one of their top earners, nor am I some huge business that can give them great press. I have little stake in their success or failure at this point, but what I do have is a brain and a gut. Two things that have served me well all of my 40 years.
Put simply, this service works, the company is outpacing it’s “competition” and people like to say bad things about success. That’s your right as an American. Those of us who know what we are talking about because we are using the service and/or growing a business with iZigg know the truth. It’s a great company for businesses and for individuals, period.
If you don’t like us, that’s fine, but SUCCESS DOESN’T LIE!!
Weird, the only people defending these guys are people involved with the company. If your dumb enough to get involved with a company like this, then it’s your own fault for not taking pages like this as a warning. Get a real job.
Like any MLM, the guys at the top make all the money – from the people at the bottom. There usually isn’t much revenue at all with the actual product, in this case “rental short code” 90210. Guys at the top could care less, as long as they have BS to keep convincing newbies into paying the entrance fee.
Example BS: “Atan Albez (who sold Adlink to Google) did algorithms and found it was the most memorable short code. ”
The fallacy with this pitch is that “90210″ being “memorable” is actually of any value. Why is that important when the only time you would use it is when you are looking at an ad that shows the short code along with the required keyword?
If you need to remember it later, then you are stuck having to remember the short code AND the keyword AND the advertiser. Good luck with that.
If no one had smartphones, maybe you could get some consumers to use short codes. But everyone has smartphones. Who is really using short codes??!?!?
Short codes are dead. Actually, they never really were alive. People use Facebook, and Twitter. Which of the following are you more likely to do?
1. Text “coke” to 90210
2. LIKE Coke on Facebook
3. Follow @coke on Twitter
Burn(lounge) me once, shame on you. Burn(lounge) me twice, shame on me!
MLM's often "Over" hype their opportunity to rope people in. Sadly these things never stand up to their claims. I own a SMS Marketing company called HypeText Mobile Media and companies like mine that are legitimate marketing firms get annoyed when companies like IZigg dilute the effectiveness of our industry. Charging people to work is bad ju ju! We offer people the same opp as IZigg for free…and if they want to private label and operate under their own name then we charge a $99.00 Licensing fee and let them keep the lion share of the profits.
Hey! I’m glad I use Izigg for my Small business. For $100/month it has increased business during my slow times and it allows my connect with my customers and let them know what specials I have and if any events are going on. Now I don’t know much about the company, but I do know the man who sold me on using Izigg for my business and he is doing quite well with it. He makes 25% off anything he sells. Not bad for just doing just a little bit of work.
I respond to texts usually immediately. Check my facebook occassionally and very rarely use my Twitter. And I’m guessing most people are like this. Plus, Izigg has made it available to send out a message to all my customers in my database (that I own) and to facebook. So now i am reaching 3-4 times more people because Izigg is doing what it can to help my business grow.
Just Saying
happy business owner and customer of Izigg
@Jimbo22 You say all those at the top make all the money? You clearly have no understanding of how the business model works. You don’t have to participate in the mlm side of the business at all if you don’t want to. For what equates to just 27 cents per day, (i.e. the purchase of the “Retail Agency”) you are in business with iZigg! This qualifies you to start earning 25% passive recurring commisions on all the customers you introduce to the iZigg Mobile Marketing Platform. This has nothing to do the growing a team with iZigg, which is optional.
This article was written soon after the launch of iZigg, I’m sure the pessimistic, fault finding skeptics are now eating their words if you look into how businesses have been transformed over night with the marketing platform.
So the owners had to break through some personal obstacles & failures on their way to success, name one person in hostory who hasn’t. I admire their persistence & action orientated entrepreneurial spirit in the face of adversity.
It is very easy to blame, complain, criticize, find fault & justify your own failures and lack of results in life by pointing fingers to external sources, instead of coming to the harsh realization that you are 100% responsible for creating every aspect of your reality & for your results in life.
The iZigg opportunity allows you to plug into a business model that allows you to create passive income & genuinely help businesses grow without all the overheads & headaches of starting your own business from scratch. It’s called the principle of “leverage”! There has never been a more relevant, socially applicable concept. I advise the wise, true entrepreneurs who can see the power of the concept to get your slice of the mobile media pie before the market is saturated as every business worth their weight will be utilizing a mobile marketing tool of some sort to gain a competitive advantage in the very near future. It’s still a ground floor opportunity, but not for long. It’s not a question of if, it’s when.
I’m off to eat my slice of the mobile revolution pie!