World Ventures: 14 disturbing details you should know [Review]

If you love to travel, you’ll be tempted by World Ventures.

World Ventures is a network marketing company that focuses on world travel.

Between travel blogs, travel vlogs, and travelogues, the digital age has ushered in hordes of wannabe world travelers. It’s pretty easy to get people excited about travel.

World Ventures picked a good (albeit competitive) market to be in. They’re the guys posing in pictures holding signs that read ‘You Should Be Here’ as they travel the world.

Should you get involved? Keep reading to find out.

FAQ

1. What does World Ventures sell? World Venture sells travel services and membership of discount vacation clubs.

2. What are World Ventures’s most popular products? People are drawn to World Ventures because they want to travel the world, so the most popular products are trips.

3. How much does it cost to join World Ventures? You’ll fork over $199 to join, then pay a monthly fee to stay active.

4. Is World Ventures a scam? No, it’s a legitimate company. They’ve been listed #1 in the list of Top U.S. Mid-Market Companies, #2 in the $100 Million Growth Club, and #12 in the top 20 U.S. Companies. The real question is whether you can make any money as a distributor. According to the BBB, complaints allege that World Ventures exaggerates the savings realized by their product and fails to give refunds for canceled services. They also report that only 20% of distributors earn a commision, with the median commission being just $200. [1] We’re also hearing reports of unpaid commissions to top earners (see Lawsuits below).

5. What is World Ventures’s BBB rating? C+

6. How long has World Ventures been in business? Since 2005

7. What is World Ventures’s revenue? $926.6 million

8. How many World Ventures distributors are there? 421,532

9. What lawsuits have been filed? In 2018, World Ventures was banned from operating in Norway. [2] In 2018, World Ventures sued Carlos Rogers for breach of contract and stealing trade secrets. [2] In 2018, distributors sued World Ventures for unpaid commissions. [3, 4] In 2017, a class-action lawsuit accused them of operating a pyramid scheme. [5] They sued Abboud Barakat for stealing confidential information about customers, suppliers, and marketing and sales strategies—and starting a new MLM, MaVie. [6]

10. Comparable companies: USANA, Motor Club of America

So should you get involved?

Product-wise this company might be legit, but if you’re just interested in the business opportunity, there are better options out there…

Click here for my #1 recommendation

Either way, here are 14 intriguing details about World Ventures you should know.

#14. Skyrocket growth

These guys are defying the laws of gravity. They’ve been named amongst Inc.’s 5,000 fastest-growing private companies not once, but twice. They also partnered recently with a prestigious networking group called Success North Dallas. [7]

#13. Give back to the community

In addition to regular travel, World Ventures offers voluntourism. VolunTourism is basically when a group of people go on vacation not just to sit around on a beach sipping mojitos, but also to give back to the community they visit.

 

We are partnering w/ @TourismCares to help preserve the beauty of our N. Parks! Which NP have you seen the most beautiful sunrise/sunset? pic.twitter.com/I8yahgRzC5

— WorldVentures (@WorldVentures) September 20, 2016

Members of the South African branch of World Ventures came together recently to give back to their own local communities. [8]

They also have their own foundation that aims to create positive change for children around the world by supporting sustainable programs that support their health, happiness, safety, and development. [9]

#12. Not the most effective way to help others

All of this sounds as sweet as pie and cute as a newborn baby until you do some research on voluntourism. There’s a lot of evidence that it’s not actually that beneficial to local communities, and can even do more harm than good. [10]

Especially given the luxury rates of most of these volunteer trips, the money could definitely be spent more effectively if the goal is to help others and affect change.

#11. Luxury product

Travel is a luxury good rather than a necessity. But this actually isn’t as much of a drawback as it might sound.

Luxury goods come with fat price tags, and if you can find people who can fork over the dinero, fat price tags come with generous commission checks (see: Motor Club of America).

#10. Product is a membership

What reps are selling is club membership rather than a tangible product. The benefit of this membership is access to their proprietary travel portal that includes discounted travel packages and a fantastic travel booking engine, Rovia, that claims to have lower prices than popular travel search engines.

There are three different membership levels that range from standard to luxury.

#9. Huge start-up costs plus a monthly fee

The initial costs for starting up with World Ventures range from $199.99 for the basic package to $999.99 for the luxury subscription, which is insanely high, considering that most network marketers fail to make that much in profit after an entire year.

On top of that, a monthly membership fee from $20.99-99.99 is also required.

#8. Product value is unclear

Whether or not they really have a valuable product is unclear, at best. All they’re selling is access to a travel booking and search portal, which is already available for free through websites like Kayak, Orbitz, and Priceline.

The idea is that you’re getting a better deal through their site, and it’s easier to use. But how good are these deals? Is saving $20 on a flight and being able to use a prettier website really worth forking over close to $100 every month?

#7. Compensation plan

The compensation plan offers some potential to make money fast and some pretty good bonuses on top of that if you can manage to make sales.

Representatives can score a $100 bonus by selling 3 higher end trips in 28 days, and then another $150 for selling another 3. There are also $50 and $75 bonuses for selling lower end trips.

If you sponsor enough customers to elevate your status, you get your monthly fee waived, and/or 8$ commission on their sales.

That being said, representatives don’t start earning commission on their downlines until they’ve hit Senior Representative status, which happens after they have 30 x 2 downlines.

#6. There’s an additional fee

You’re not actually eligible to earn any money at all unless you’re “active,” and to be active you have to pay your monthly RBS (Representative Business System) fee on time. The fee covers things like training programs, website maintenance, and marketing tools. New representatives pay a one-time fee of $99.95…and that’s in addition to the start-up costs I already mentioned.

To be honest, it’s a little ridiculous to pay two monthly fees, especially when the start-up costs are so high.

#5. Smart marketing angle for recruitment

World Ventures doesn’t target your traditional MLM markets – stay at home moms looking for extra income, disgruntled middle-aged corporate employees, and the like.

They target the new wave of younger folk who want to travel the world, teasing budding “digital nomads” with the prospect of making money online while they travel. Their taglines say things like “work less…vacation more” and “work from anywhere!”, and there’s a gigantic market of people who fit this demographic right now that can offer some good money if you know how to tap it.

#4. Complex and restrictive compensation rules

I only grazed the tip of the compensation plan, in part because it’s filled with weird and complicated rules and regulations that would take too long to detail. For example, you have to recruit 30 representatives below you before you even start earning commission. [11] That’s a lot of hustling.

For this reason, most people don’t actually make it to the point where they start getting paid a single penny. Kind of sounds like GWT, right?

#3. Terrible earnings reports

Most MLMs don’t provide much in earnings for the vast majority of their representatives, but World Ventures is pretty bad, even for network marketing.

According to their income disclosure one year, 73.7% of their reps fail to earn a single dime.

Think you have what it takes to be the 1%? Well, if you do, it’ll be a little anticlimactic. Only .1% of their reps even earn an annual income above the poverty level. The average rep? $325 a year. That doesn’t even pay for the start-up costs. [12]

#2. Training isn’t free

Not only do you have to pay a monthly fee for your training materials, but you’ll also be encouraged to attend a host of training events and conferences that can cost you hundreds of dollars. You also have to pay yet another monthly fee of $30 to use the mailing system in order to receive your marketing materials.

You can try to make money with World Ventures, but it sounds like they’re just going to nickel and dime you instead. [13]

#1. Smartcard tech for distributors

Money2020 is a smart card they’ll release soon that will allow their club members to load credit cards, loyalty cards, and IDs and use the cards as payment and proof of loyalty worldwide.

Recap

The idea seems great, I mean who doesn’t want to get paid to travel?

But when you look into World Ventures a little deeper, it seems that actually getting paid is a little harder than it seems.

Look, I’ve been involved with network marketing for over ten years so I know what to look for when you consider a new opportunity.

After reviewing 200+ business opportunities and systems out there, here is the one I would recommend:

Click here for my #1 recommendation

from MLM Companies