So tell everybody you know…through the “warm” market…
Can any of the Viridian Associates answer these questions:
- Have you ever seen the company’s financials? The only way to tell what a company “does” is by following the money. My bet is they make all (if any) profits not from selling energy, but from selling “the right to sell Viridian” for $399, as well as selling Web sites for $20 a month.
Why do I believe this?
a) Energy is a commodity, so you can’t really beat anyone on price unless you are somehow subsidizing that price (with things like, say, $399 memberships for Associates.)
b) The utilities are required to sell energy supply (the stuff Viridian is selling) at cost, which is why they don’t care if you switch. They actually encourage you to switch, because it’s less hassle for them. Utilities make all their money off distribution.
…Is this a sustainable business model? What happens when the growth of Viridian’s “Associates” business slows down? Do they jack up their power prices? Do they go under? What happens to the MLM business that you’ve built?
I saw a presentation that says Viridian has 100,000 customers in NJ and 3,000 Associates! Can you imagine a company with 1 sales rep for every 30 customers!
All great questions. Many of which have been addressed at meetings.
I am on my phone so short and sweet. I made my money back the first month we went live.
There are millions of meters available to us associates, so while the ratio might be high now, attrition, and growth will adjust said ratio.
Who knows, maybe one day they do raise the rates, if they do it will be business suicide, as their customers are not locked in and will switch to someone more reasonable.
As to what if the “MLM” model dries up? I am a firm believer in multiple streams of income, which protects me in case of this very scenario. My Viridian money here invested.
I will ask if the financials are transparent.
Full disclosure: I switched my home to Viridian, and I was so happy when I saved $12 the first month that I looked into the Associates program. I passed because of the questions above, plus I noticed they have ALREADY raised their rates for PSE&G customers. See here: http://www.viridian.com/assets/marketing/Viridian_Historical_Rate_NJ-PSEG.pdf
Plus, the rates they quote for PSE&G are B.S. (or commercial rates, which is just as dishonest.) I was paying about 11.5 per kwh with PSE&G. That’s how I saved money with Viridian’s 10.5 cents. At 12 cents, I’m going to lose money. How could I sell that to friends and family?
You are not understanding. They are variable, just like the public utility. The public utility will fluctuate, and so will Viridian. You will still save over the course of a year. Viridian has cost anyone more.
PSEG uses “fuzzy math” to show their price to compare, or rates. BGE just got into hot water for that and has to now use their summer rate/winter rate etc as their price to compare, instead of what’s called a blended rate.
You could sell it to anyone if you educated yourself No offense meant either, I had no clue until I learned about all of this.
I understand it’s variable, but an increase to 12 cents from 10.5 is 14 percent … in one month. Could you imagine the outrage if PSE&G jacked its prices 14 percent in a month? Did they explain to you the justification for a 14 percent increase? Bad energy trading month?
Also, I called their customer service line today and told the rep the historical prices they are posting for PSE&G are wrong. He said, and this is no joke, “I know. I’ve told ‘them’ that and they haven’t changed them yet. I’ll tell them again as soon as I get off the phone with you.”
Bottom line: They are lying on their Web site. Doesn’t that bother you? I’ll give them three or four months as a customer to see if I save money, and then cut bait.
LOL, PSEG has before and will again raise, and drop by 14%. Who cares if it goes up and down 14% if it still is CHEAPER THAN PSEG?!?!?!?! I don’t get it, they are selling green energy CHEAPER than the local utility and people still want to bash them.
And lying? Come on, if there’s a discrepancy, there’s no way it could be a mistake, right :smack: I just reported a mistake on their site today myself. There is no reason for them to “lie”. I mean, the rates are clearly stated on most public utilities websites.
I guess the many thousands of people who have been saving the past 2 years have it wrong? 
It certainly does not bother me to be involved with a company that is saving many people money, and greening the grid. I hope they fix the website to your satisfaction ASAP though…
I asked the COO about this and he sent this reply. So it is incorrect, and they are fixing it. This constitutes lying in your book?!?!? Especially when it can be easily checked?
They treat us, and our customers well, I feel I should stand up for them.
*Bob Ulrich
to me
show details 7:13 PM (8 minutes ago)
The Price To Compare chart is incorrect and it is being fixed on our end. The new accurate chart will be updated soon.
Bob
Robert J. Ulrich Chief Operating Officer
*
I have no interest in bashing them. I hope Viridian does well. I hope you do well. Like I said, I’m a customer, and I hope they continue saving me money. I have no love for big utility monopolies.
I actually came to this board because I was so excited about the savings on my first Viridian bill that I wanted to learn more about the Associates program.
But I quickly soured on the idea after:
A) Seeing them raise their prices. 12 cents is MORE than I have been paying with PSE&G.
B) Seeing them put incorrect information on their site about their competitor’s prices. (If your entire business is based on selling energy at a lower price than your competitors, don’t you think you’d make every effort to get that right? So, if they’re not lying, are they incompetent? It’s a fair question.)
C) Failing to find a good answer to the question: How can they sell green energy at a lower price when it costs more to produce? They certainly don’t have the buying power of a huge utility. (It has to be due to the money collected from Web sites and Associates.) What happens when that dries up?
First, thanks for the well wishes!
I agree, they need to be more diligent and make sure the correct info is out there. I think that’s a result of being a fairly new company. Lots of us associates want to be involved with a startup company, but we want the stability of an established company. I’m sure there will be growing pains along the way. I wouldn’t call the entire company incompetent because of a data mistake on the website, sure, SOMEONE was certainly incompetent putting that there.
The answer to how do they sell green energy cheaper is simple. They have no advertising costs, AND they operate on a much smaller profit margin, simple as that.
It is not due to the money collected because they have bonus programs that pay that money back in the first month if you have any skill at all in this business. I’m no salesman, and I more than made my money back the first month.
It was explained to me that the money they charge is to keep every Tom/Dick?harry from signing up, then doing nothing, creating an administrative nightmare.
By charging the fees, it creates an incentive to get your 15 customers, to get your fast start bonus. Then, maybe the associates have picked up a little bit of experience and will keep getting customers.
To be honest, I don’t expect this marketing model to be around forever, I mean Nextel and other companies started out with the same marketing, and later switched to a more conventional model.
Like I said previously, all of my Viridian money goes towards investments. I am not using it for daily living so as not to fall into the trap of counting on it if indeed it would go away.
Everyone should have multiple streams of income in these times anyway IMO.
I do like the fact that Viridian complies fully with the DMA’s code of ethics.
Anyway, I truly hope everything turns out satisfactory for you and you save a lot of money!
Soo i curiously posted a copy of my bill on Viridian Energy’s Facebook page saying thank you for the great savings i have received…with a picture of my bill right next to my post,showing Viridian, charging me $81.75 for my supply…and PSE&G telling me if i would have stayed with them, they would’ve only charged me $81.31…I received one comment on the post from a Viridian Associate saying wow it looks like you only saved $2 on your bill…!..I responded back saying actually i didn’t save anything and invited him to the straight dope forum to see the whole bill for himself …When i came home today after work to check my Facebook, i went back to Viridian Energy’s Facebook page and saw my post was deleted.!..I can not understand why they would not want to address this type of a situation…Maybe im crazy, but to me this is an instant red flag telling me something’s not right…Then i looked further on the page and saw a familiar name from this forum…He was asking why the post was deleted himself because i guess he had posted on it…and from the looks of it he wasn’t getting a straight forward answer either…“That’s no way to address legitimate issues in my opinion”…was his quote…You kno, I find this very frustrating that i can not get a legitimate answer, as to why my bill was more $$$ than everyone else claiming to be saving money…:dubious:
Well lookie here, the rates went DOWN there for September.
Matt, I hope they give us an answer to our questions soon.
I do know that some months Viridian’s rate could possibly exceed the public utility, HOWEVER< they will save you money over the course of a year. Meeting those 10-30% claims, which are backed up by fact/past performance.
Excellent points made…
Very Realistic…!
Hi guys. I came across this thread when I was doing some searching for photos of people who have set up booths/tables at events. I thought I’d chime in with my thoughts.
I actually run and manage TeamV.net. I directly work for Wilmer’s Communications, a company out of Edgewater that has been around since 1941 and is really behind Viridian.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of direct selling. That is just due to the person I am. I’m not a huge talker, I’m not into sales, and I just don’t have the time needed to fully dedicate myself to Viridian.
That said, I first hand have seen it work for people that have those qualities and capabilities. I also know, based on historical rate charts that Viridian now provides, that Viridian has never charged more than the main Utilities for more than a month. I’m going off the top of my head here but I truthfully don’t think it’s ever occurred.
I think some people may think they’re getting charged more when Viridian’s rates go up but they may have not taken the time to check and see the Utilities rates. For instance here is the historical rate chart for PSEG:
http://www.viridian.com/assets/marketing/Viridian_Historical_Rate_Aug2010_NJ-PSEG.pdf
Connecticut: http://www.viridian.com/assets/marketing/Viridian_Historical_Rate_Aug2010_CT.pdf
I’d show others but these get the point across.
Viridian doesn’t require contracts for the most part (only in NJ Corporate/Large Business customers may require contracts due to the nature of their market). So if their rates go up you can just as easily switch to whomever is cheaper.
I don’t care if Viridian ends up only being 5% cheaper. In the end cheaper is cheaper and it’s money in my pocket and not elsewhere.
To the question on how they can offer energy at a lower price. That’s easy and there are many reasons for it. One being bidding for energy is now easier for companies to accomplish. Governments used to dictate the price on what Utilities could buy their energy at. That’s disappearing. It’s just taken people a long time to realize the market is there to take advantage of it. 10 years from now people in the North East will have a large amount of energy companies to choose from.
Thanks to competition energy should become even cheaper. Add to that Green technology becoming more efficient and cost effective and again, that much cheaper.
So in short, it’s not a scam. If you just want to be a customer, this is a great opportunity. If you have some sales skills in you, this is a great opportunity.
I hope this helps. Feel free to email me with any questions you may have - doug@revomediaonline.com. If you’re interested in becoming an associate then please visit TeamV.net, I’ve worked hard to provide people with a lot of good information.
Also on a side note: Budget Billing.
A lot of people take advantage of their Utilities Budget Billing. Where the Utility will try to average out what you pay so that you have a more consistent charge each month.
Unfortunately when you change your energy supplier, budget billing pretty much goes out the window. This is because Utility companies can not understandably deduce what is being used outside of their own company. I think logistically and economically it wouldn’t be feasible for the companies to keep Budget Billing working either.
Anyways, I personally have never went with Budget Billing because I like to pay for what I used. From my experience with people who have used it, it’s never been that consistent anyways. It still changes a lot.
I bring that up because I believe that’s another area where people get confused and think they’re being charged more. They’re actually paying less for their energy still but since budget billing was scrapped they may see an initial boost if they owed their Utility money after Budget Billing was scrapped.
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So despite what I and others tried to do here earlier, this is now turned into a recruitment thread?
The almighty dollar always wins out huh? :rolleyes:
Haha not quite, sir. Education is more like it. Look the deregulation of the enegy markets is gong be the greatest redistribution of wealth this country has ever seen. There will be plenty of room for other companies out there each with their own offerings, perks, upsides and downsides. Let’s face it man, everyone is lookng for ways to better their financial situation. I think they should be informed that there are other opportunities out there for them to take advantage of. That’s all I’m saying.
I’m referring to YOU and to my Viridian associate, trying to drum up business, unlike myself and others here. Justify it anyway you want but it clearly shows a lack of professionalism in the spirit of THIS thread.
Good luck to you.