Here’s an excerpt from a recent article from
KENS 5
in San Antonio:
Oh, there’s cash to be made. And when Lisa in New Braunfels saw what a friend was bringing in: more than $7,600 a month, she was sold.
"She was 24 years old. I owned my own business and I wasn’t taking home $7,600 a month. That’s more than what most men make at a high paid job," said Lisa.
So, Lisa sold her company to become a rep for Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing, or FHTM.
Tom Mills, the CEO of Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing said,"A lot of companies are formed to market a certain product. We’re formed to market products that are already being used." Mills claims FHTM has ties with major companies: GE Securities, Dish Network, A T & T, Sprint and others.
Read the whole story…
Dan, you beat me to this article.
This is from Texas and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see action in that state against FHTM in the near future.
These Customer Acquisition Bonus programs are certainly getting a lot of bad press these days. Do you guys see any difference between the way FHTM and ACN operate?
I still believe that these type of programs can be perfectly legal, if they are presented correctly. Unfortunately (no pun intended), training is either very poor or intentionally glossed over to help induce a frenzy. Of course that statement could be made about most MLM companies. Too much hype and not enough common sense. Short-term thinking that’s bad for everybody.
Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing Hit with National Class Action
September 18, 2010. By Brenda Craig
Louisville, KY: A giant pyramid scheme that has been masquerading as a marketing company appears to be starting to crumble. The only “fortune” the company created went mostly to the company’s father figure, Paul Orbison, and a short list of his confederates.
Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing Hit with National Class Action. Although Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing purports to sell everything from hair care products to cell phones, the real sales job was done on potential recruits to the organization.
“The law against pyramid schemes is clear,” says R. Kenyon Meyer, an attorney who works with the well-known firm of Dinsmore and Shohl in Louisville, Kentucky. Meyer represents four former Fortune sales representatives in a national class action alleging they were victims of Orbison’s operation.
According to the suit, sales representatives were charged $299 for the privilege of joining the Fortune team. Then they were pressured into buying a never-ending stream of services and equipment in order to do the job, says Meyer, who has been researching the company for several months now.
“Fortune requires sales representatives to get ‘frequent customer points.’ Those points are obtained not by selling something, but by signing up for something in order to do your job as a representative!”
Just because Fortune maintained a list of products for sale doesn’t mean it isn’t a pyramid scheme, warns Meyer. “Every pyramid scheme has some product that it purports to promote. The focus on recruitment overrides the focus on the sale of a product to the ultimate consumer meaning somebody not involved in the pyramid.”
Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing was recently routed in a Montana state class action where regulators successfully litigated against the company for operating a pyramid scheme.
Orbison, who lives and operates Fortune from Lexington, Kentucky, tells recruits he was able to retire after he made a million dollars month with another multi-level marketing company. He started Fortune in order “to give back” and allow others an opportunity to get rich.
Meyer’s clients, however, would prefer that Fortune simply give back the money they were duped into pouring into a pyramid scheme. According to the research done by Dinsmore and Shohl, the majority of sales reps actually made less than $90 dollars a month before expenses.
There may be thousands of potential class members across the US and even in Canada and Britain, but Fortune is unclear about how many sales representatives it actually has on the books. “They have made some vague representations from time to time, like we have had tens of thousands of representatives join in the last couple of months,” says Meyer. “But there have been no official numbers released.”
The class has yet to be certified. Meyer believes it will happen soon. “I am really looking forward to the discovery phase,” he says.
FHTM graduates from Pyramid Fraud to attempted murder!!!
It is so incomprehensible to understand how a company (Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing) that claims its mere existence is to help as many as possible, with help of the church, can also be so obnoxiously arrogant to believe they can manipulate the justice system to a point where they can push someone to death. After exposing the truth about Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing (FHTM) the whistleblower was sued in an attempt to shut him up and stifle his rights to freedom of speech.
“If the fate of your business model rests at the hands of one individual, (not me) to the extent that you have to spend millions of dollars to try and shut him up then the system is just fatally flawed. Fix the PROBLEM not the SYMPTOM. This is all just a side effect of what you have created. I don’t see the worst of the worst companies out there that act like this or have to put up with this nonsense. What’s the common denominator? Stop acting like 3rd graders and run a business for once”, says Rob Jenkins.
Not only are they arrogant enough to think they have to the right to destroy Mr. Isaacs financially, but they continue, to this day, the harassment and intentional lies to the Federal courts and American Arbitration Association until he was on his death bed almost gone. Their briefs and motions totally elude any factual statements and are based on unsubstantiated speculation and outright falsities, just like the foundation of their business since 2001. For 10 years they have claimed partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, being 100% debt free, solid enterprise and a money making franchise opportunity.
FHTM has not only engaged in a malicious prosecution since the very beginning but they have had their representatives call and threaten Mr. Isaacs life. Filing a trademark violation case for using the world “Fortune” which they knew was owned by Time Magazine, and not them, was just a way to take advantage of the system by someone with more money that the poor defendant had. The ex- FHTM general counsel, Judy Hammerschmidt, who was not even licensed to practice law in Kentucky, during her tenure with FHTM, has displayed a great deal of malice and wrongful intent. Her attempts at intimidation as their general counsel were hilarious considering the fact that she was acting as a lawyer illegally. She has since been reprimanded by the Kentucky Bar Association. No evidence existed or exists to back any of their claims. If FHTM had a case with legal merit they would have never agreed to a settlement and dismissal in June 2011. They didn’t win anything as they have rumored through the ranks of their cult-like followers.
FHTM continues to purposefully engage in behavior that is extreme and outrageous which is intended to cause severe mental anguish and they should be penalized for the intentional infliction of emotional distress. The FHTM attorneys, who are milking their cash-cow client, have outright said that they will not be satisfied until Mr. Isaacs is homeless, without family, living on welfare in a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere. Their intention is not to get at the truth but instead to bankrupt Mr. Isaacs.
One year ago, in June 2011 a settlement agreement was negotiated, which was intended to eliminate the proceeding, unbelievable financial and emotional stress and put the issues to rest forever. The agreement was entered into under false pretenses and with great malice as during the last year they have done everything possible to continue the manipulation of the judicial system in an effort to stall or delay its finalization.
Mr. Isaacs took a sabbatical since the settlement in June 2011. He has given no further media interviews, no television appearances, no AG complaints and no internet blogging. It doesn’t matter if he discusses FHTM or not. The FHTM legal team is so bent on blaming Mr. Isaacs for every negative comment or complaint made against them anywhere that they are blinded by the fact that others despise them as well of not more than he ever did. They have made Mr. Isaacs the poster child for not going against their cult and fraudulent business model. Bernie Madoff ran his Ponzi scheme for thirty years before being shut down. If FHTM spent as much time fixing their lies to act more like a real business then they wouldn’t need to continue to harass and destroy anyone.
Their continued malicious prosecution and harassment resulted in Mr. Isaacs stress level hitting the roof in August 2011 causing a major life threatening heart attack. He underwent two major surgeries inside of a month to save his life. Doctor’s orders were to eliminate anything stressful in my life including the FHTM litigation and work. He was forced into retirement and has been going broke as a direct result of the litigation by FHTM in their attempt to kill him literally. It is like they smelled the blood and won’t let up till Mr. Isaacs is gone from the face of the earth permanently.
Who in their sane mind would ever think that such a supposedly respectable company, run by the “King of MLM” – Paul Orberson, would spend all of their resources on attempted murder? Their intentions are clear – don’t rest until Mr. Isaacs is dead and gone.
On January 28, 2013 the FTC in conjunction with the AG's from NC, KY and Illinois closed FHTM and seized all of their assets.
Dr. Peter Vander Nat, examined FHTM’s financial data for the FTC and determined that at least 88% of the compensation paid by FHTM is in the form of recruitment bonuses, not sales-based commissions. Furthermore, most recruits will never recoup their investments in FHTM. Conservatively, at least 90% of FHTM participants earn nothing through FHTM, and 94% of recruits drop out within a year. In fact, this massive loss rate is the inevitable mathematical consequence of FHTM’s business model.
Not only are FHTM’s earnings claims false, but, by its very design, FHTM’s compensation plan ensures that only those at the top make money. By prioritizing recruitment over product sales, resulting in a system where rewards paid for recruitment are unrelated to sales to ultimate users, FHTM is operating an illegal pyramid scheme.
It has been hard to get to the root of Fortune Hi-Tech’s sales figures up until now. A few days ago the Federal judge unsealed the FTC v. FHTM case. After scouring through the exhibits their sales spreadsheets from 2006-2010 were found. Almost 50% of all of their combined 5 year revenue came from recruiting fees, renewals and tools for reps only. Product sales were less than 50% of total revenue and most of that was internal consumption by the representatives. The sales charts are available at:
http://www.joseph-isaacs.com/courtcases/FHTM%20sales%2006-10.pdf
Happy reading. BTW – these are not the same figures given to the Texas AG or Direct Selling News to get listed in the top 100 a few years ago.
How many victims ever knew what the real numbers were. Now they do thanks to the KY subpoenas and the FTC action.
Whistle-blower Joseph Isaacs (www.joseph-isaacs.com), who was made famous by exposing the Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing (FHTM) pyramid scheme and fraud back in 2010 has just released his memoir called, “Skapegoat – the FHTM Blame Game Story” via Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C43JKQG
This compelling, true and personal, story is about a successful semi-retired 30+ year entrepreneur that turned whistle-blower after getting involved with an illegal Ponzi style MLM called Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing (FHTM) in 2009. Top FHTM leaders and its founder Paul Orberson tried to destroy his life after he developed a FREE Facebook style tool-set for the industry. Subsequent to FHTM receiving their 2nd cease and desist from Montana, he filed a complaint with the Kentucky BBB explaining their fraudulent ways, in an effort to get reimbursement for unwanted inventory. Shortly thereafter they make him the global scapegoat for everything bad happening to FHTM.