Much of my day is spent browsing the web in search of new information. I usually dedicate an hour or so to trying to catch up on the latest scams in order to better educate myself to pass the knowledge on to you, my lovely readers. Usually when you come across a blog post or forum thread giving astounding praise to a program, they’re almost always promoting a scam. Even though it’s deceitful, it’s just smart business.
I came across my first ‘West at Home’ discussion in a forum a few days ago and I didn’t think much of it. The original poster had asked if it was a scam, and the follow-up response denied that claim. There wasn’t any substance there so I carried on about my business. A few days later, I discovered an entire subsection of WAHM.com dedicated to West at Home and that’s when I realized that maybe this is something we should be looking at.
The Program
West at Home hires people as customer service representatives to take inbound calls from home. Those working for West at Home are considered independent contractors and are thus not technically employed by the company, but rather you pick up outsourced work. Essentially, you will be running a customer support call center from your home. There are no start-up fees associated with West at Home other than the required equipment. West at Home requires either a VoIP or landline phone and a broadband internet connection in order to work for them. You probably already have both of these items.
West at Home employs people to do a variety of tasks from their home. These tasks range from customer care, live chat and email, and incoming sales calls. You’ll be assisting a number of companies by handling their customer support. An average day could include assisting an individual with resolving a billing inquiry, helping another customer purchase an accessory for their new wireless phone, or providing assistance/troubleshooting on a non-working product. West at Home offers paid training and claims that if you are qualified, you could be assisting your first customer within days of applying.
If you choose to work with West at Home here are some companies you may be dealing with. Technically, you aren’t supposed to talk about West at Home clients, but this is IveTriedThat.com not FollowTheRules.com.
HSN
H&R Block
Office Depot
ProFlowers
Sears Home Repair
ShopNBC
Toys “R” Us
Virgin Mobile
Walgreens
Whirlpool
And more…
Getting Paid
In terms of payment, there doesn’t appear to be a set $/hour number anywhere. I’m assuming you’ll be paid more on the quality and quantity of work that you do. After browsing around for a little I’ve seen some people saying they were receiving anywhere between $0.12 and $0.30 per minute. That sounds incredibly low in terms of cents per minute, but that works out to be anywhere between $7.20 and $18.00 an hour. Again, these are just ballpark figures.
There you have it. West at Home is another legitimate way to make money at home in your spare time. Now I know some of you reading this are currently West at Home contractors. I want to hear your comments below. Let us know, first-hand, what it’s like working for West at Home.
It’s late at night. You don’t know why you’re up but you can’t sleep. Jay Leno has long since said his goodbye and you’re now in unchartered channel surfing waters. Chuck Norris begins to pitch his ‘All-in-one’ fitness orb as your eyes begin to slowly close. Minutes pass. Maybe hours. You don’t know. You’re stuck in this weird dream-like state when your eyes focus back on the television. It’s a fox. And he’s telling you how you too can make millions from the comfort of your own home.
Surely, you must be dreaming.
You aren’t.
The Claims
The following quotes have been pulled directly from Crazy Fox’s website.
How to Never Need That 9-5 Job Again.
Every day, regular men and women take their first step to saying goodbye to a 9 to 5 job… forever. Right now you have the opportunity to join them.
Sound CRAZY?
DID YOU KNOW that nearly 50% of businesses in the United States are home-based? It’s true! That statistic comes from an eye-opening U.S. census report published in November of 2006!
The fact is, there has never been a better opportunity to work from home, and people everywhere are realizing it. So, what does it take to succeed?
What if there was one company using a proven system to help people build the business of their dreams… for over 25 years?
With annual revenues of more than $1.8 billion dollars!
Sales in more than 62 countries, and…
Tens of thousands of part and full-time income earners.
But, When Is It YOUR Turn?
Right now, you have the opportunity to discover the ground-breaking system that is changing people’s lives.
Be your own boss, work on your own schedule, love what you do, and get every bit of training and support you’ll ever need to succeed.
The key is a product line with explosive demand and a step-by-step system for growing long-term residual income.
Request our Secrets to Success kit while it’s still available!
You’ll see how everyday men and women are taking control of their financial future, while generating significant income starting in month 1!
The truth is, too many people SAY they want to change their life for the better… but they never take a single step to make it happen.
Fill out the form to order our no-obligation success kit, and keep an eye on your mailbox. This may just be the most eye-opening, and life-changing package you ever receive…
You have nothing to lose.
Yawn. This crap presell page almost put me back to sleep. Again we are given the home-based program of our dreams that will set us financially free, allow us to fire our bosses, and let us eat solid gold as we circumnavigate the globe on our privately chartered cruise ships.
The real key is that there are 307 words in the paragraph above and not one describes what you will actually be doing in order to make money from home. There’s a brief mention of an explosive product line, but that’s it. Other than that it’s just buzz words. ‘Eye-opening,’ ‘life-changing,’ ‘vomit inducing’ program you’ll ever see?
No thanks.
The Truth
Herbalife. Again. We saw a similar batch of lies when we conducted a Partner with Paul Review. The last line on the Crazy Fox websites reads ‘You have nothing to lose.’ Since when did an initial $9.95 investment for training materials, thousands of dollars on products that you have to resell that no one wants, and your personal and private information become nothing?
Keep reading for tales from those who have tried Crazy Fox.
The Proof
Crazy Fox is associated with Herbalife (which has been around for YEARS and recently was fined $150 000 by Canadian authorities for Illegal Pyramid-like scheme).
Once you pay the $9.99 fee to Crazyfox – they send you the starter package, which isn’t actually a package of any kind. It’s a booklet telling you how great it would be to become financially free, to never have a boss again and so on…
Then the real fun begins. You start getting calls from Herbalife representatives who are trying to sell all these amazing deals at $200, $500, $1000 and more. They tell you that you have made an amazing choice and you are on your way to wealth…
Since crazyfox sells your personal information to third parties, you will also start getting calls from insurance brokers, credit card companies, telephone companies and many others. They will all tell you: “We have been notified that you are starting a home business, you might be interested in our new Business Telephone Line, Business Credit Card… etc – and it never ends, needless to say that you will not make single dime with these guys.
I had never heard of Herbalife until reaponding to the Crazy Fox ad myself. I was (and still am) looking for a homebased business. It all sounded easy enough but I found out it is not easy at all. I, myself did not have the thousands of dollars to invest in the best package or the best leads and that makes it almost impossible. I don’t mind hard work but impossible is a different thing.
If you go to their website, there is no clear description of what they are and what they do – this is because they do different things; Herbalife, dropshipping… etc.
Okay, so what they really do? After collecting all your personal information (when you order a FREE starter packahe minus shipping fees) they simply sell it to other companies. Yes, all they do is collect leads and resell them.
Now, if you watch the infomercial you will see all these “average” people that claim to make $50 000 per day with crazyfox… but have you ever bothered to read the little text at the buttom of the screen?
Here it comes:
“There are no guarantees of specific income nor are there any representations of actual income.
Amounts stated are for illustrative purposes only and are not typical.
Persons depicted are paid actors.”
So, if you want to lose at least $10 while giving away your private information to hundreds of companies who will continue to contact you from now until the day you die, then by all means, sign up with Crazy Fox. If that doesn’t appeal to you, then I guess Crazy Fox just isn’t the program you had in mind.
Can you make money from home simply by mailing out postcards? How about by mailing envelopes? We’re looking at a couple of programs to sign up for, including moneyformailing.com. We’ll give you the inside story.
I’m skeptical, though. The site is full of red flags. For example, the main page is long on hype, short on detail. If you read it you’ll discover that you can be your own boss, earn as much as you want, get checks every week, say goodbye to money problems, and maybe even get your own pony! (Ok, I might have made up that last one.)
But what will you be doing to make all of your dreams come true? Mailing postcards and brochures from home. When someone you send mail to returns a postcard to the company to sign up for an offer, you get 50% of the sale. That seems straightforward, Joe, so what’s the problem? The problem is the questions they don’t answer:
Where will I get the addresses to mail things to? Joe’s theory: you’ll have to buy mailing lists.
What are the postcards and brochures promoting? The main page doesn’t tell you, but you can find it if you dig for it. They promote work-at-home programs, including…waaaiiit for it…mailing from home!
How many postcards are typically sent to make a sale? I don’t expect they would ever tell you this. But let’s compare it to Internet marketing. In that world, 3% conversion is an okay result. That means that for every 100 people that see an offer, three will make a purchase. So let’s say you’re going to send out 100 pieces to make a sale. 100x.35 (first class postage) = 35.00 in postage alone. That’s not including the value of your time to prepare the mailings and send them out. You’ll have to make a $35 commission per 100 mailings just to break even, and I doubt that’s possible.
But those unanswered questions are not the biggest red flag for me. It’s this:
Q: Why don’t you just mail the postcards?
A: We do! We mail as many postcards as we can every day! We’ve been making six figure incomes for years mailing these same postcards. But the demand for these offers is so big that we cannot reach this ever-growing market by ourselves. We have a small office with under 15 employees and more than 500,000 postcards to mail out at any given time. We need your help to get them out!
I call B.S. People who are making six figures through direct mail use mail processing equipment. 500,000 pieces is nothing for the right machinery. Also, when a business has too much work, it hires enough employees to get the work done so it can make more profit. It doesn’t issue an open-ended invitation for everybody who can operate a mouse to come join the industry. Unless, of course, it’s trying to sell something to everyone who can operate a mouse.
Also, it’s not that “demand for these offers is so big” that they can’t do it themselves. It’s that they have to flood the country a foot deep with junk mail in order to find the few who will read the card and then sign up for an offer. And the more people who send out cards, the less expense for them and the more money they make. It’s a win-win! Or at least it would be if it works.
All this is speculation, mind you. Maybe I’m wrong and it really is as easy as they say it is. We’ll let you know.
We’ve receive a couple of requests to review Partner with Paul and find out exactly what happens when you partner up with Paul. It shouldn’t surprise you when I say the results are less than thrilling.
The Claims
The following quotes have been pulled directly from Paul’s website.
What I’m offering is a realistic plan that can help you make an extra $500 to $5,000 a month, right now, and then we’ll go from there depending on what you want to do.
…
What I’m hoping though is that once you get a little taste of making money online you’ll want to take things to the next level, and maybe even work from home full-time.
…
If you do I’ll personally work with you one-on-one, coach you, and share with you the custom tools I use to make 5- and even 6-figures a MONTH from just a single online business.
But don’t worry, making money online is easy when you know how …
You DON’T need to be an Internet expert or “computer geek”
You DON’T need to have any prior marketing or business experience
You DON’T need a lot of free time – even a few hours a week is enough to start
You DON’T need to mess with the hassles of a “real” business – this is EASY
Even if you get “weeded out”, you’ll still make $500+ a month
P.S. My friend Mike made $862.50 in his first month, $1298.32 in his second month, and is on track to make about $1,500 a month from here on out working just 3-4 hours a week. This has literally changed his life, and he’s really excited about making even more money online.
Disclaimer: This is not a “get rich quick” scheme. You will have to work to make money. While the average person can easily make $500 to $5,000 a month online, making any amount of money requires specialized knowledge and the appropriate effort.
Let’s review our scam checklist, shall we?
Anonymous online figure claiming to make millions of dollars online… check.
Screenshots that “prove” these earnings… check.
Claims that ANYONE can make an upper-class income in their spare time… check.
Absolutely no mention of what you’ll be doing to make money… check.
A countdown timer claiming entrance to the program is going to expire… check.
Once again we have a website from an anonymous figure claiming he makes more money than you do online and you’re a sucker for waiting this long to not send him money.
The Truth
Remember that company that was widely popular in the late 90’s that sold pills that may or may not have caused you to lose weight and either get hepatitis or die? Yes, Herbalife. Well, now for only $39.95 you too can receive a useless pack of marketing materials that show you how to become a multi-level marketer and waste more time and money than you can afford.
I got an email from him (Paul) and it he seems to be upfront and honest.
Seems to be yes!
BUT if he were TRULY ‘upfront and honest’ he would tell you right off the bat that this is HERBALIFE!!
Herbalife may be a good company, but it has definitely suffered from typical MLM associated problems, at least as far as IMAGE is concerned!
That’s why most MLM’s won’t even tell you their name until they feel they have your complete attention.
I got involved though, as far as getting the ‘work at home starter kit’ because, he offered to pay for the shipping. AND, he promised I’d be earning money within TWO WEEKS of receiving the ‘the work at home starter kit’.
Apparently he did pay for shipping.
I got the $9.95 shipping cost refunded to my PAYPAL account.
I see no way in hell that one can make a DIME with that ‘work at home starter kit’ though!
He also offers some free memberships in online opps that are supposed to make money for you.
Since you won’t make any money doing surveys or working an online dollar store either, you will have to pay to ship that ‘work at home starter kit’ BACK to where it came from – and where it BELONGS!
That’s the whole of the story basically but for details:
The $9.95 ‘work at home starter kit’ is no more than an advertisement package:
A 12 page booklet with one CD and one DVD in the inner folds.
The ENTIRE DVD is a presentation on the value of a home based business v. working for someone else.
(Does anyone already looking to do a home business really need this kind of reminder?
Seems like a waste of a DVD to me!)
The CD is an audio collection of success statements of those who got involved with OBS (online business systems – but really HERBALIFE).
The 12 page booklet partially describes this ‘opportunity’ in every way, except to tell you that it’s HERBALIFE!
And, you won’t find the word HERBALIFE mentioned in the DVD, CD, or booklet!
AMAZIN’!!
This 12 page booklet and CD/DVD will ‘cost’ you $39.95 if you don’t return it in a ‘resaleable condition’.
But I fail to see where a 12 page document (hardly even a booklet) and two discs are worth $39.95 in the first place!
I also fail to see where this is a ANY kind of ‘work at home starter kit’ either.
I know I can’t start work at home using this kit!
‘Paul’ said that within 2 weeks they will ask you for $39.95 but ‘you will have earned way more by that time’.
I guess this is supposed to refer to the programs he offers in conjunction with the ‘partner with paul’ package:
SURVEY SCOUT
FREE ONLINE DOLLAR STORE
And some other program so equally useless, I am not even going to go through the trouble of trying to re-locate the name of.
You will finally find out you are previewing HERBALIFE when your ‘coach’ gives you the call.
My coach was polite and informative and also mentioned that ‘they’ weren’t taking a hard line on the return of the $39.95 ‘package’ as to deadline or condition – just be reasonable.
That’s good.
BUT THAT PACKAGE STILL AIN’T WORTH $39.95!!!
Doing HERBALIFE requires scheduling phone calls so I would reject their offer on that basis alone – which could have saved EVERYONE involved in this both time AND money, if they had simply told me that beforehand (I will have to pay to mail this package-thing back after all!).
I believe my coach was making money with HERBALIFE but, once I heard the name HERBALIFE associated with OBS – after doing some ‘googling’, I was turned off and hoping that I would discover something different when I received my package.
FINALLY,
Mr. ‘Upfront and Honest’ says that the offer expires on ‘midnight or sooner’ of whatever day you click on to partnerwithpaul.com.
And apparently, this ‘offer’ hasn’t ‘expired’ yet!
I followed a link in a ‘Manifestation Meditation’ newsletter from Justin Blake at newsletter@jbvirtualnews.com promoting a home-business via Partnerwithpaul.com. This website showed a video of ‘Paul’ w/ a ‘fuzzed-out’ face, (red-flag #1) and blacked out last name (red-flag #2). He was promoting a home-business that he ‘developed’ and wanted to share it with those interested in having a business also. He talked about ‘trust’…ha, ha! You were asked to fill out a form and he would send you a DVD explaining his business. I rec’d a DVD/booklet w/ a letter from someone claiming to be my Personal Coach, Kristy Borrowe. I was charged $9.95 for S&H (which I agreed to & paid w/a cc). Got it yesterday. I wasted almost 1.5 hrs. of my time reading/viewing a DVD that was all about HERBALIFE and was hosted by an Herbalife distributor(s) called Emiko and Doran Andry, trying to recruit. This Andry guy was convincing at first, but I became very suspicious when he would reveal the name of the business or company & claims to have made $1million in one month during his career. I didn’t want a DVD about an MLM..that is NOT what I believed I was going to be receiving.
If I had known that, I NEVER, EVER would have followed-through. This absolutely constitutes deceitful, and unlawful business practices on the behalf of everyone involved in this transaction: Justin Blake, Paul (whatever his last name is), Kristy Borrowe, the Herbalife Corporation and its distributors, Doran and Emiko Andry.
For any of these individuals to admits to being innocent of this knowledge is flat-out WRONG. If you have to stoop this low to get people to ‘buy into’ the business, your trust & your MLM goes out the door. Shame on you!
York2007
Daly city, California
U.S.A.
There it is.
Don’t partner with Paul.
How Does Partner with Paul Compare?
I’ve Tried That has been reviewing products since 2007. In that time, there’s one program that stands above the rest. It’s free to get started, has no ridiculous hidden charges, and will help you build a sustainable income from home.
I call B.S. People who are making six figures through direct mail use mail processing equipment. 500,000 pieces is nothing for the right machinery. Also, when a business has too much work, it hires enough employees to get the work done so it can make more profit. It doesn’t issue an open-ended invitation for everybody who can operate a mouse to come join the industry. Unless, of course, it’s trying to sell something to everyone who can operate a mouse. 
