Are green energy companies like Viridian and Glacial really a MLM scam?

Great Debates
1

I’m trying to figure out if Viridian Energy is a MLM scam, or a legitimate business model. Sales representatives must pay to join the group, and must sign up 15 other people within the first (I think it’s 30, but it might be 90) days, which sounds like classic MLM.

I’m also reading things about their rates being cheap at first and then going WAY up in a short time. And, supposedly they are not regulated like a normal utility company is. Then I’m also reading other articles that debunk all these “scam” claims, but they may be written by people who are affiliated with the company already.

Does anyone here have any experience with this group, or others like it?

2

Technically, the way these companies are reaching their customers isn’t illegal. They pay “associates” to both sell electricity and to recruit new associates. From the consumer’s viewpoint, this shouldn’t matter so long as the product is what was promised, and the price is fair. They are however frowned upon by their competitiors in the business who market in the traditional ways using direct mail, door-to-door and annoying dinner-time phone calls. It could be that I don’t see the economies in their model, but I have trouble understanding how they can afford to support such a deep and wide network and still charge near-market prices.

Full disclosure…I am an employee of a regulated electric utility in the northeast, but I have no affiliation with any energy marketing company.

3

Legally, as long as the primary purpose is the sale of some actual product (cosmetics or toys or kitchenware, or whatever), it’s not a scam. That still doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good use of your money, though.

4

Please allow me to input some info. Yes, I am a Viridian Associate, and yes I signed up upon finding this thread, and yes, this is my first post.

I have always been skeptical of MLM, Network and Direct marketing. I went to many meetings over the past 20 years and never did anything, until Viridian.
It’s simple, no products to carry, and it sells itself for the most part.

It does cost money to be an associate, from $99 to $399(which I paid) depending on what products and where you will be able to sell them.

You get a fast start bonus of $300 if you switch 15 customers in 90 days. I did it in less than a month, and people under me have done it too. I received my first pay yesterday, I made my initial investment, and then some back. It is ALL profit from here on out.

You do NOT get paid a penny to recruit other associates, like many MLM models, you only get paid on customers. Read that again, it was one of the main reasons I joined up, besides the fact that customers pay NOTHING, nor do they sign contracts or charged fees if they switch back.

People say they have heard they raise the rates substantially after awhile?!?!? What would that do to Viridian? It would cause people to leave, and their business would crumble.

They can afford to pay their associates because they do not advertise, and work on a much smaller profit margin than others, simple as that.

I have nothing to gain by posting here, I just hope to clear up misinformation. I believe in this with all my heart, and the company treats it’s associates, customers, and the environment great!

5

To be honest with you man i was gonna join Viridian as an associate, but i couldn’t come up with the $399 for the All States Package…I thought it was kinda expensive but being that i understood the opportunity i said fuk it…So i had to wait a few more weeks to save up to get the package…The day i was going to sign up something said you know what, why dont i google this s**t to see if its a scam…so i looked it up on google and another company by the name of America Approved Energy came up…It was a consultant’s web page where he was talking about Viridian’s compensation plan compared to America Approved Energy’s compensation plan…i was blown away by how much this company charges to join ($179.00) compared to Viridian ($399.00)…I was thinking this sounds to good to be true, so i checked out there website and saw they had an opportunity meeting the next day in NYC across the street from Penn Station at the Hotel Pennsylvania…I said fuk it what do i have to lose by going besides getting educated…so i went and sure enough it was Legit…There compensation plan kicks Viridian’s into the wall…It’s crazy to me how people are really paying $399 for the package to only make $2 a month on every person…America Approved pays you $20 for every single person you switch over and u make a commission on the customers bill which all goes to a debit card they send you…and that’s only 2/8 ways they pay you every month…and for every customer u sign up, they instantly become enrolled in the customer appreciation program which gives them $500 virtual dollars to spend on everything from Brand name merchandise, to Hotels, car rentals, gift cards,Attraction Tickets…etc…“It’s a no brainer”…America Approved Energy’s current KWH rate in NJ in the PSE&G market is 11.8 …where viridian is 12…I found out about Viridian about a month and a 1/2 ago from this guy who came into my job telling us we could lower our electric bills at no cost to us at all…i was immediately interested and actually went that day to the Viridian website to switch it over with the guys name on it…it takes about 1 bill cycle for the transition to occur…so anyway now a month and a 1/2 later (today) i got my PSE&G bill with Viridian as my new supplier…you ready for this…Tell me why they charged me $81.75 for my supply right…and underneath it, it says if i would have been purchasing my supply from PSE&G, my total would have been $81.31…so much for the 20-30% savings they rant and rave about…smh…so i called the dude i work with who ended up spending the $399.00 to become an associate, and asked him wasup wit that…he tells me to call Viridian and find out…as a rep for the company he couldnt even help me out…Im switching from Viridian right now and going to my company where i can make $20 off myself and a commission off my own bill…If you want i can show u my bill where Viridian charged me more than PSE&G…And if your interested in real opportunity, you should check out the website yourself and make an educated decision about it…www.TheTimeisNow.AmaNation.com and they’re all over youtube…

6

Never mind…

7

Moving this from General Questions to Great Debates. Here’s my reasoning.

What should be answerable as a general question will involve many opinions. Thus, GQ is gonna be out. Many/most of these opinions are gonna be held by people who are actively involved in the business. You can still get factual answers in all of our forums.

Plus, tomndebb seems to have it quiet right now. Good luck, tom. :smiley:

samclem Moderator, GQ

8

Well, since it’s in GD now, I’ll just say that, based on what the OP is describing anyway, as well as what skargo is saying, it certainly SOUNDS like an MLM. Whether you consider that a ‘scam’ or not is, I suppose, debatable…probably depending mainly on where you are in the pyramid, I suppose.

-XT

9

When I read this I thought: “How is this not MLM?”

The answer (which became apparent from skargo’s post) is that the ‘other people’ highlighted are customers, not other sales people - which I at first assumed.

I would disagree. If they are not paid to recruit new sales people (nor required to do so in order to continue selling the product) it in no way qualifies as MLM.

10

I was also extremely skeptical at first but ended up signing up as a Viridian associate in Maryland. It definitely sounded too good to be true, but I just couldn’t find the downside to it and figured the worst that could happen was I’d be out the $399 that they charge up front. It’s only been a month, but just like skargo I’ve already made that initial investment back and then some.

Just to clear one thing up though, it’s not all profit from here on out, (one thing I was kind of annoyed about not being explained up front, but that’s really the fault of the associate signing me up, not the company). Viridian charges a recurring annual fee to remain an “Associate” ($50) and $20/month for your personal website. I suppose if you’re not actively recruiting customers anymore you can cancel the website subscription though.

There may be other energy companies that offer better compensation plans out there, but I already knew a handful of people who were Viridian associates so I went that route. And that was definitely a good thing for me, because I always come up with tons of questions and have a good group I can turn to for answers with this stuff. MattyMatt, I see the numbers you’re talking about on your bill, but it also says something about an average rate of $0.000000 per kWh, so there is obviously something wrong with the calculations happening to figure those numbers out. I’d be interested to see the itemized part of that bill that actually shows your kWh usage and the rates you’re being charged, maybe on the back (I’m not too familiar with the layout of PSE&G bills). One possibility for the discrepancy is if you are on a budget billing plan sponsored by the utility that spreads out your energy costs over the course of the year, switching providers can (especially in NJ) mess with that. The utility company may not factor your electricity use into the budgeted numbers if you switch providers, so the actual amount due would more closely reflect your energy use, which would be much higher in the middle of summer when energy demands are highest. In that case, however, you should still be saving money in the long run, as you wouldn’t now be making up the difference by overpaying in the winter to compensate. I don’t know if that’s what’s going on in your case or not, but it’s possible.

So to answer OP’s questions, no, I can say pretty confidently that it’s not a scam. One big thing that made up my mind on that question is the fact that you are not required in any way to bring new associates on board (as qpw3141 just mentioned). Sure, there are financial benefits to doing so, but you can do just fine by yourself too. We haven’t been online long enough here in MD to see any actual rate hikes or anything like that, so I can’t say for sure it doesn’t happen, but it doesn’t make sense for the company to want to drive away the customer base they just spent so much time and money recruiting, so I trust them when they say they will remain competitive. I suspect most of the complaints come from people who don’t understand how the budget billing system can be affected, then switch providers in the summer when usage is highest, and then get a huge bill they don’t expect without realizing that they will indeed pay less over the course of a year. That’s not necessarily that fault of the customer though. Whether the fault lies the associate for not explaining it properly, the company (Viridian or whoever) for not educating the associate well enough, or the local utility company (for printing somewhat misleading info on the bill) is debatable, but it’s probably some combination of all those in most cases.

11

Gibbs, thanks for pointing out the website fee, and the renewal fee. The only people that will pay these fees are successful Viridian Associates such as myself and members of my team. If you don’t make enough to pay for the renewal, and the website, this business definitely is not for that person.

Here is a copy of a bill from the same utility as MattyMatt, I fear he left out a portion of his bill, intentional or not, I do not know.

http://www.gogreenpowerco.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/PSEG-Viridian-1-Page.pdf

BTW Gibbs, that website is for NJ, but they have some excellent materials and articles. I use that in addition to TeamV.

I have a booth at the MD BBQ bash in Bel Air today and tomorrow, if you are around stop by and introduce yourself!

12

@SKARGO…That copy of that PSE&G bill i think is from a cop in Rutherford…!!!.wow…Viridian must give all there associates that bill as proof to show prospects they really can save money…but at that amount for an Electric bill, of course the savings are gonna be higher…And i honestly only feel some kind of way about it, because of how much they brag and boast about being able to save a customer 20-30%…i say that because i actually work with at my job a Viridian Energy Associate…S0 i hear him all day,and his main pitch is always…How would you like to save 20-30% on ur electric bill at no cost to you while going green at the same time…and regardless of why they charged what they charged me…(im calling customer service tomorrow)…Going with them should NOT be costing me more monthly than i WAS paying with PSE&G…

13

Show your whole bill MattyMat…

14

If I’m understanding this properly, the company spends neither time nor money recruiting their customer base. Rather, the customer pays an annual fee for the privilege of being a customer, and the other customers spend their time and money doing the recruiting.

Perhaps I misunderstand, though…

15

Yes, you misunderstand.
The customer pays NOTHING. NEVER a fee. And customers do NO recruiting.

Associates pay for the privilege of owning their own business, THEY spend their time and money getting customers. For example, I had a booth the past 2 days at a BBQ festival.

There is a huge difference between an Associate and a Customer. :wink:

16

Ah. That’s what I was missing.

17

I’ve seen the same misunderstanding on multiple sites on the net.

They are legit, and save people money. Not sure what is going on with MattyMat’s bill though. I have sent this thread to corporate and they are checking it out.

We associates make money in a SIMILAR vein to MLM, with the exception that we do not get paid a red cent for recruiting other associates, only for getting customers signed up/ That should have no bearing on a customer if they are saving money.

18

Yess…so i just received an email from “someone” telling me if i send them a scan of my whole entire bill, through email, I’ll receive $50.00…!!..can you believe that…not the amount…lol…but someone willing to pay for this…hmm…im starting to think this may be a very good marketing tool…Maybe that’s why some may feel the need to contact “corporate”…??..either way this is interesting…going to contact my upline to see there opinion…andd i have the hard copy sitting on my desk…!..soo…we’ll see what happens…

19

The only reason “some”(me) would contact corporate is because every single customer I have seen has saved money, except for you, who ironically is a competitor, and is someone who only put up a portion of their bill.

Who offered to pay you $50 anyway?

20

@Skargo…What other part of my bill would you like to see …the only place that changes is the supply portion…everything else remains the same…The only place on my PSE&G bill where it shows KWH usage is from the Delivery Segment of the bill…On the bottom where Viridian Energy PA, LLC is listed, the only thing that IS listed is my Grand Total…