What is a Money Merge Account

Factual Questions
1

I had never heard of this, but an acquaintance tried to “sell” me on this concept. Off I went into Google Land because I had never heard of such a creature.

I pulled up several sites (none of them appear to be banks) that look like people who have nothing else to offer but this “service”.

Stranger still, reading through the FAQs of several seemingly unrelated sites, I noticed that the wording in their FAQ section was almost word-for-word identical. Maybe a slight rephrasing here and there but the sites all look like they were created from the same template.

Does it involve a HELOC? No, according to the FAQ, it uses a totally new concept: the ALOC! What’s an ALOC? It’s a big pile of money that pays off your mortgage and bills guided by expensive software (the software appears to be an up-front $3500 cost for the [del]sucker[/del] customer). Where does the big pile of money come from? According to the FAQ:

So it is a line of credit that is advanced to you. How is that not simply a loan or a HELOC?

The concept is being pushed at financial seminars that travel from hotel to hotel. Ick.

Is there any chance that this is not just an expensive excel spread sheet?

2

Based on my limited reading, yes.
There’s a strong possibility that this beast is, in fact, a very, very, very expensive excel spreadsheet.
Let’s wait for the FiscalDopers to chime in…

3

Slant’s Guideline [1]:
If you Google a term + the word scam and get more than 7 hits, you’re probably looking at a scam.

From Google, as of 01/11/2008, 2233 EST:
Results 1 - 10 of about 23,000 for “Money Merge Account” + scam. (0.31 seconds)

[1] It used to be Slant’s Rule, but was later clarified: It’s really more of a guideline.

4

It’s a scam. Previous thread.