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bebop2653
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Joined: 20 Oct 2009
Posts: 1
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#381 · Posted: 20 Oct 2009 07:48
I had an experience with Thrive. In December 2008, I signed up with them because they promised I would make a lot of money in a short amount of time. My down payment was $1500 charged to my credit card. Then they signed me up for a contract that was an additonal $4500 to be paid out in payments of $150.00 month. For three months solid I worked on my website. Then I called and said My website is ready, why am I not getting any sales. They said because we are not allowing it because we do not like your website. What else do you want? We want a spreadsheet. Ok I did the spread sheet. Still nothing. Same question, same answer. I did another spread sheet. They kept losing it. Months went by and by June 2009, I still had not made any money. I was under the impression when I started that I had 8 weeks to make up my mind. Well, I called in January and they told me it was too late for me to cancel. So when I called in June 2009, I asked if they would tear up the contract, they said yes. They also said they would not give me my down payment back. So I am finally done with them. I am filing a claim with the BBB for my down payment back.
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Str840
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Joined: 21 Oct 2009
Posts: 1
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#382 · Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:18 · Edited by: Str840
Well, it seems that all predictions seem to be off with Thrive. Yea, they're still within their first five years that it takes to really make a business operate (but still will probably end up failing). Utah's Department of Consumer Protection don't seem to care about the way, we the people, were hung out to dry by Thrive and their lying sales floors. Glen Minson, so called investigator for DCP knows who they are and what they do, but apparently having to contact and deal with Thrive's PR person over and over again for so long, seems to have struck up quite a friendly relationship. Anyone who's had to deal with this Glen character knows what's being said here. Thanks Glen, for bending over, stringing along and throwing these innocent people under the bus while you were supposed be getting paid to protect them. The most recent news is that they've gotten out from under that Utah Business Opportunities Act by simply changing their contract and cutting a deal with the state (called "settling out of court"...Oh yea, that's right, the Utah Attorney General already took his donations, didn't he?)
Which means, outside of some embarrassment, Thrive gets to skate...and get back to the business of scamming people as usual. Of course, they can pay the best designers they can find to hawk their wares and a marketing division which does nothing but game the search engines...and top it all off with a complete lack of customer service(weak videos and worse coaching). They don't understand how real commerce works, only how to scam - so their promotion, marketing and delivery sucks because their customer service sucks (what a vicious circle).
What really sucks is that they seem to get away with it. Of course, this really means that when you get right down to it, it's only you and me and other people we know that can shut these crooks down - either they get out of the business (unlikely) or they have the sales floor and learning under the same roof where they have to take more responsibility for what they deliver. Customer service is number one in keeping a business alive...and they don't have any of it.
In case you didn't notice most all the people who had personal blogs have mostly disappeared from the scene. After some research it turns out they were made to sign a little note which probably doesn't have any real legal weight behind it - but no one has the money to take it to a real lawyer to check it out.
What are people doing to get back at Thrive(who don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to this) ? Simple, They just dig up the poop Thrive left lying around in public areas(forums and blogs) and then copy and post it to their blog. A lot of this information is actually in the forums. More can be found by simply looking up Google's cached copies (or checking with other people in the various forums to see if they downloaded those pages.)
Dave Rasumussen has tried to go nearly invisible by hiding his wife's blog. Eric Largin has similarly locked down his LinkedIn pages so that no one can actually network with him (so why does he have a LinkedIn page then?) Colton Moody still has his picture up on facebook with his wife. Zach Bradshaw has been either too busy or too embarrassed to put his real face or info up anywhere - and he'll never want to do this, unless he moves out of Utah or even the country (way to go, Zach - you just blew any chance to enjoy the Internet like the rest of us...)
But a lot of stuff has been exposed on these guys and there is still a lot more out there.
The reason these blogs disappeared is that they tied the personal lives of those scammers. Their actual family, friends, community (as well as the local Chamber of Commerce) don't know what they do. Just like sneaky politicians, they can't stand the spotlight. So, they easily buy off those complaining customers by refunding them - and think nothing about infringing on their First Amendment Rights and getting them to sign them away. Again, it was hard not to notice all the blogs and comments removed from forums and the rest of the internet in the last five months.
Now with this being an election year, we can actually have some fun with the candidates by asking them the real questions about what their stand on the Utah scams are. Then post any response to the forums, where others can see, comment, and do their own emails and calls to these offices. Then ask their own questions like, "how they are going to act (or not) on the illegal activities that Utah is becoming known for. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is running against Bob Bennett in the primary. Be sure to give Bennett all the info you have about Shurtleff's campaign contributions...
These forums have been the most effective work in forcing Thrive to reform. These posts don't go away (except where they made taking down forum posts as part of their paper agreement/payoff deal) as long as they are factual. As long as they are true they won't be taken down by the moderators or administrators.
These forums are an open invitation to recover and post the data from those now-missing blogs. And so, people would then be able to simply have all the real, publicly-available information to quote and post on their own blogs.
The simplicity of setting up a blog is nearly as easy as creating a forum post. So it's a no-brainer that if we could simply get in touch with all these people who have given up on their refund and then had them scrape, copy, and post the information found (making sure to link back to where they got it, of course) - these people could get their refunds a lot faster.
Of course, nobody is saying we should organize or anything like that � (we don't want to stoop to racketeering like Colton Moody, Eric Largin, and Matt and Dave Rasmussen). This post is only bringing up ideas that should be made known to anyone who is posting in these forums.
If you want your money back fast, you start a blog and spill the beans. That's just a fact.
Now, what we on this forum and those few who still have blogs out there are really doing is trying to educate the public on how to use the Internet.
(Same thing the scammers are doing, but they cost a lot more for that education...)
So the suggestion here to anyone interested in stopping Thrive and getting their refund, is:
� Copy this post and repost on the forums from time to time(especially if it was removed)
� Contact everyone they can on the forums to see if they are interested in setting up blogs.
� Find people who have the publicly-accessible information on these individuals (which had been posted on blogs and forums before and now have disappeared)
� Get that info recovered and posted to the forums (all of them, if possible) so that this data will always be publicly-known and readily available.
That would mean that everyone has to get several other people blogging before they put up their own blog. Thrive didn't just get those informative blogs removed, they also made that data disappear on the forums. Their strategy was to pick off the hardest working and most dedicated, pay them, and force them to take down all their hard work...all vital public information.
Saundrak is still around and so is Kona - both of whom are willing to work with anyone on getting started with their refund cycles. (And if you want to help these two, visit their blogs and post comments there - it starts ranking them above Thriveli.com.
Thrive Learning Institute is set to go under if they have to start paying off too many refunds (they only make 10% out of every sale), and would have to pay back the rest (which they can't get back from the sales floors). They've probably already spent the money they did get ...serves you right.
Their other option is to declare bankruptcy and start over. However, the same truthful yet negative information will still be in those forums when they surface again.
I'm asking everyone on this forum:
What do you think of that plan? Do you think it's possible? Do you think the people in this forum (and others) will get behind this and get everyone blogging to get their refunds?
Personally, hopes are high...but, I don't think that it will actually get rid of scammers totally. PMI Inc and some others like Pacific Webworks have been around for some ten years. Nobody has ever shut them down and their scamming ways still continue. They are only a little better than Thrive...but only because they have a better business plan (mostly because they generate their own leads and cut out the middleman).
But... what we can do is start picking up people who have been discouraged into quitting and getting these guys to simply put up a blog so they can get their money back.
So, what do you think?!?
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MakeMuchMoney3
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Joined: 12 Oct 2009
Posts: 28
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#383 · Posted: 21 Oct 2009 11:31
I have heard about this and it seems good. But im a bit skeptical though. I will check it out now
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knotalone
Forums Member
Joined: 4 Oct 2009
Posts: 6
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#384 · Posted: 21 Oct 2009 19:59
Bebop,
Thank you for sharing your story.....
We thought we were the only Thrive Loser/Failures out there!
How these incompetent people string you along for so long is unreal. We had a similar LIST/spreadsheet experience. Oh not to mention the benchmarks that you HAVE TO DO that keep changing all the time... Waiting for approval, then all they give you in response is a prewritten canned response...Not once did the "EXPERTS" give us any good quality individual feed back both positive or you need a little work. They totally crushed my wifes spirit she poured all her spare time into our website to have the "EXPERTS" completely trash and discount her efforts. This is unbelievable to say the least. I'm with Nothappy. They did not do what they said they were going to do. We did and even more and it did not work. They have not honored their own contract! They gave us the same assurances about what we were going to be earning and how soon we could pay off our "investment" $ 8000 these were all lies and deception. They need to pay us all back that they have done this to.
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MyChagrin
Forums Member
Joined: 10 Aug 2009
Posts: 13
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#385 · Posted: 21 Oct 2009 21:43
[Post deleted on user request - Admin]
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scammed by utah
Forums Member
Joined: 8 Oct 2009
Posts: 3
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#386 · Posted: 22 Oct 2009 19:30
my wife and I just got off the phone with Joshua Jesnsen from Thrive "learning scam". Joshua is allegedly with the "review board", and the resolution manager, and judging from our conversation the only thing he does is try to continue the scam.
However, I learned at the beginning of the conversation, because Joshua slipped up and revealed, that Mason Parker is actually Arthur Morton. The lies are so deep that they can't even keep them straight. We were also advised that not everyone gets the same material, when you sign up. We also learned that they are all combined with the make money with Google ads. Joshua went so far as to say that Thrive has not had any legal actions taken against them (LIE!!!!!). When I brought up the fact that action was as recent as August of '09 he quickly said I don't know anything about that.
After telling Joshua (if that is his real name) several times that I wanted our money back he said that he could not do that, he was authorized to cover our months credit card payment.
This whole conversation was nothing more than a script, when we asked him something that was not listed he would get very confused and redirect with " I am only here to help you, trust me" followed by "legally we don't have to give you your money back". Joshua, you really sound like "Bill Lumberg umm, o.k.!!!!"
I don't expect to get my money back from these lying pond scum pieces of (insert your own word there), but I will be posting every single solitary place that I can to expose these con artist.
Arthur, Mason what ever your names is and Joshua hear me loud and clear, I am not taking the loss, I am not going to pay a red cent, you can take that to the bank!!!!! Maybe you can go to garage sales and list the products that you find, follow the advice of your coaching staff. And since you do not want to do the right thing and return my money, I will take every cent that I can out of your pocket by informing as many people as I can about your scam!!!!
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scammed by utah
Forums Member
Joined: 8 Oct 2009
Posts: 3
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#387 · Posted: 22 Oct 2009 19:51
lesson learned
The "review board", ha. We have had 3, count them 3 appointments with the "review board". The first was to speak with a woman named "Joanna". The scheduled time was at 12:30 pm EST and by 1:05 pm EST we had not heard anything I called them. I was placed on hold for 5 minutes. Needing to get back to work, I did not hang on past that. The second time was scheduled for 5 pm est about one and a half weeks later. This time, at about 6:15 pm EST we received a phone call from Joshua Jensen reporting that "Brenden was in a crash coming back from lunch and was not going to be able to take our call with the "review board". He then rescheduled our call with the "review board" for 1 week later at 1:00 pm EST. The phone call never came. At about 5:00 pm EST out phone rang. Joshua jensen informed us that we did not schedule the call for 1 pm it was at 5 pm. As for what happened, refer to the above post. I do not think there is a "review board". Just yet another way to string you along hoping you will give up. Don't.
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knotalone
Forums Member
Joined: 4 Oct 2009
Posts: 6
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#388 · Posted: 25 Oct 2009 17:53 · Edited by: knotalone
I was wondering if anyone by chance copied the article that was posted at http://www.scribd.com/doc/15672916/Internet-Scam-Capitol-USA[u][/u] it does not seem to be working   I am just tring to have all possible info available to take these leechs down
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Taken4aride
Forums Member
Joined: 31 Jul 2009
Posts: 30
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#389 · Posted: 26 Oct 2009 11:32 · Edited by: Taken4aride
Dear scammed by Utah -
I was also scammed by Internet Income Solutions so I know what you are going through.
Do you have a contract? They tell me I have a verbal one but if that was really true - they would certainly send me my copy. But then who is to say it is real?
Keep working on them. I am learning the best thing to do is start a blog. Have you noticed how many of them disappear quickly?
Let me know if you are interested in starting one. I certainly am. or if you have one going - let us know so we can help you along.
Just remember you are not alone and we are all here to truly help you get your money back!!!
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Taken4aride
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Joined: 31 Jul 2009
Posts: 30
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#390 · Posted: 26 Oct 2009 13:01
Everyone - if you have not already signed the petition do so now!!
http://gopetition.com/online/27433.html
Keep this going!! Every thing we do counts. Thanks
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Taken4aride
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Joined: 31 Jul 2009
Posts: 30
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#391 · Posted: 26 Oct 2009 14:14
Thrive has had 35 complaints in the last 36 months according to BBB of Utah. What an outstanding record!! That's an average of 1 a month. They are rated "C". I bet they do not have people look this BBB website up when they are trying to scam people out of their money!!
Internet Income Solutions has an "F" rating so stay far, far away from them. They are BAD news just like Thrive!!
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Taken4aride
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Joined: 31 Jul 2009
Posts: 30
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#392 · Posted: 26 Oct 2009 15:02
These states have Business Opportunity Disclosure Laws available as well as FTC. Check out your state and Utah's to see what they say. REMEMBER Thrive is breaking all the rules.
Alaska, California,Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin
BEWARE of THRIVE LEARNING INSTITUTE or anyone associated with them!!!
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Taken4aride
Forums Member
Joined: 31 Jul 2009
Posts: 30
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#393 · Posted: 26 Oct 2009 23:52
Check this out!!
This list the government actions of Sept 18, 2009 by the Utah DCP and Thrive Learning.
http://www.bbb.org/utah/business-reviews/training-program-companies/thrive-learning-i n-orem-ut-22219354
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knotalone
Forums Member
Joined: 4 Oct 2009
Posts: 6
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#394 · Posted: 27 Oct 2009 20:27
BEWARE how slick they are playin with people if you really look at the Utah BBB rating ( C-) it is totally a crock of cr** They tell us that good ole Thrive has only.... get this ONLY[u][/u] 36 complaints in the last 3 years!!! I got news for you BBB on your own Dang site it states that they started up in March of 2008 that would be duh 18-19 Months!!! So simple math would say 3 years more like 65 + complaints Do you really think that is a C-?
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Taken4aride
Forums Member
Joined: 31 Jul 2009
Posts: 30
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#395 · Posted: 28 Oct 2009 13:38
South Dakota is one of the states that have Business Opportunity Disclosure Laws.
Is there anyone out there from South Dakota who has been scammed by Thrive? I was. I would like to get some more complaints from SD to take to the AG of SD.
You can answer here or contact me. Thanks!
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Taken4aride
Forums Member
Joined: 31 Jul 2009
Posts: 30
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#396 · Posted: 28 Oct 2009 14:25
Hey where is everybody?
I was looking for my report I filed against Thrive on Ripoff Reports. I cannot find it. They say they DO NOT delete those but guess what?? I cannot find mine or Kona's.
Interesting!!?? It is my guess Thrive paid them off too.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just pay us off instead of having to pay all the slime bags outside their door??
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MyChagrin
Forums Member
Joined: 10 Aug 2009
Posts: 13
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#397 · Posted: 1 Nov 2009 01:13 · Edited by: MyChagrin
[Post deleted on user request - Admin]
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cmlny
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Joined: 1 Nov 2009
Posts: 25
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#398 · Posted: 1 Nov 2009 09:24
[Post deleted on user request - Admin]
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MyChagrin
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Joined: 10 Aug 2009
Posts: 13
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#399 · Posted: 2 Nov 2009 21:04
[Post deleted on user request - Admin]
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lesson learned
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Joined: 12 Oct 2009
Posts: 2
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#400 · Posted: 3 Nov 2009 03:46
UPDATE. I immediately called and canceled-same day (got an email to confirm my cancel request). I setup a review board appointment, talked to joshua jensen and basically took none of his BS and told him by law I have 3 days to cancel and I believe CA law its 30days. Got another appointment to confirm my cancellation. Setup another appointment to confirm and recieved verbal confirmation (joshua jensen) of a full refund and was told to await further contact for a final refund confirmation-Never got the last call. Initiated a claim dispute with my amex company, amex called and request confirmation of refund and was told email would suffice. 2 weeks after claim sent to amex, recieved email of full refund and credit to amex card. In total it took 3 weeks to get my refund but I got it.
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