Is "Splash Marketing" an MLM?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My brother’s fiance called to ask me about this group. Their business model seems to include:
[ul]
[li]A link farm,[/li]
[li]Desert State Mortgage - a rather dodgy looking mortgage refinancing company that cannot be bothered to put their name in the title of their web site[/li]
[li]Brushfire - a web audio company that I have never heard of before[/li]
[li]Healthcare - a seemingly unnamed and very non-specific “health care” company that cannot seem to afford their own web site, operating under the “Welcome to Success!” banner of the parent company.[/li][/ul]

All of this stinks to high heaven to me. Web advertising seems to be a problem that Google has solved, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t block all those animated ads. The rest of it just gets more and more sleezy the longer I look at it - all the images look like they came from iStockPhoto.com.

And, of course the #1 Multi-Level Marketing warning sign, a friend she hadn’t talked to in a while called and wanted to meet for lunch to discuss this opportunity.

2

I love how the letter N is backwards on the tabs. Looks skeevy to me.

I learned the hard way about MLM when I got invited to a party when I was the new girl in town - it was the first time I heard of Amway… :rolleyes:

3

91 views and not one response? I knew I should have not mentioned the company name in the title and just asked “Is this an MLM?”

Update: Of course I get a response as I’m complaining that I have had no responses.

4

But it must be legit! It’s on Facebook and Twitter! :smiley:

5

So, has anyone heard of any of these companies? I’m worried that she is going to put some money she can not afford to lose into this.

6

I’ve never heard of 'em before, but I agree the web pages have all the earmarks of MLM. Be careful.

7

I’m familiar with Beech Street, which is the “health care” plan. It’s actually a fairly well-established provider network similar to any other preferred provider organization network. My own doctor participates. But the plan this Splash Marketing outfit offers isn’t health insurance; it’s a discount card you pay for. You still have to pay the doctor up front for services rendered, so your costs can still be quite substantial, and the doctor generally has to be paid up front, so unlike health insurance where you can’t be billed while the claim is in process, it’s difficult to budget for those costs.

But overall, yeah, this site smells fishy.

8

I’m sure Beech Street has no more direct connection to Splash Marketing than Apple, Walmart or CompUSA do. They are just advertisers.

Indeed. I’d just love to get some solid evidence of their legitimacy or lack of same.

Interestingly, the fact that the Dope is so well indexed by Google, this thread is on the first page of results on a search for “Splash Marketing”.

9

A legitimate business is going to have a legitimate-looking web site, because they want legitimate customers. A halfway-“decent” fleece job is going to put together a web site that looks halfway like a legitimate business. These folks couldn’t even be bothered to do that. In the immortal words of Dr. Horrible, “trust your instincts”.

10

Here’s the Facebook page and Twitter feed of the 26 year old duuuuude who owns Splash Marketing.

He likes sports, BMWs, nightclubs, the Bible, McCain, Palin, drug tests for welfare and keeping illegals out of Arizona. He graduated from a special high school in 2002 and has a degree in game design.

He recently signed up for OKCupid but never put info in his profile. Just kewl pics of himself in the mirror and out at nightclubs with hawt chix.

Make of that what you will.

11

Thank you very much ZipperJJ. No proof that it is an MLM, but the odds of it being any kind of legit are very low.