Program: Affiliate Business Group LLC
Price: varies, $199+ $1,000’s in upsells
Rating: 0/100 (scam)
Get legitimate training and web hosting for becoming an Amazon Affiliate here
Background: How I discovered Affiliate Business Group LLC
Ever since I’ve been marketing online I’ve always been a big advocate of teaching affiliate marketing to others, and have come to know and trust Amazon.com as being a great place for many to start. I wrote a thorough and heartfelt article detailing the Amazon Associates program and fully recommended it for those just starting out.
But just as I thought I was helping those doing their due diligence a favor, something happened…
I started getting comments on that article as well as several emails telling me they’ve just paid people to become an Amazon Associate and are now left wondering if the offer was actually legitimate. The pricing never seemed to be completely consistent, but ranged anywhere from a $29 monthly charges to a $500 initial fee and then $1,000’s more for upsells.
I was left wondering if I just totally mislead people into thinking THOSE offers were real. The inconsistency in pricing led me to believe it wasn’t just a single company doing this, and as I began doing further research, I found their was an entire group of scam programs claiming to work for Amazon.. One of the most popular was known as Affiliate Business Group, LLC but there were several others very similar in nature; Affiliate Masters LLC, Buckeye Impact Group LLC, Logix9 and several more.
Pricing
The Affiliate Business Group appears to charge a $199 fee for the initial website set up. This gives you a canned website with Amazon links and widgets and you’re told if you can get traffic to the site, you will make big money off the sales. But then of course you have no clue how to bring in traffic to a website such as this, so they try to get you to spend thousands of dollars for traffic hits to your site.
Then, with ABG you can spend another $100 for a unique affiliate link to offer others a chance to join the program as well.
They also promise you a money back guarantee if you don’t make anything after your first year, but according to various complaints with the BBB no such refunds were offered (and of course no such luck making money).
Affiliate Business Group LLC vs Amazon Associates
No matter what company is soliciting you with these types of offers, whether it be ABG, Affiliate Masters or one of the countless others, realize that none of these have any connection at all to the actual Amazon Associates program.
The real program is completely free for anyone to sign up and apply, and while it’s a completely legitimate program it isn’t exactly easy to earn money from it. While the actual affiliate program is free, you’ll still have to spend money on other things like web hosting and training.
Don’t be fooled into thinking you can pay one of these companies to hash out an awesome money generating website for you, because it doesn’t work like that.
The reality – Why none of this will work
Creating a cookie cutter website with nothing but links to products on Amazon is a terrible idea and is pretty much a way to set yourself up for complete failure.
First you should ask yourself:
Why would anyone want to buy from your site?
Where is your traffic coming from?
You need to create quality content within your promotions and a reason for others to want to visit your site. If you have nothing to add to the site aside from affiliate links and regenerated content directly from Amazon then there’s no reason for your site to exist.
While paying for a traffic package may seem like a good idea, you have no idea where that traffic is coming from or even who that traffic is (it may be bots). The point is, if it isn’t focused traffic that is interested in what you have to say or sell then it will not convert, and if there’s no conversions that 1,000’s you just spent was a huge waste.
You’re much better off learning the real way to make money from Amazon and other affiliate programs and not letting some scam artist talk you into a deal that seems to good to be true.
Can you help me out is this a scam ? I’ve been contacted by AMG LLC also in my email identified as alpha marketing group they told me I can create a site and get people to buy from my site from amazon Walmart good ect. It sound legit they told me about the amazon affiliate to look it up they aren’t fake so I went with it I could use the extra money I have 3 days to get my
Money back I paid $195 to get started and an addition $19 they we’re very helpful and answered all my question but if you know if they’re a scam could you please let me know
They left me a number 1800 664 7516
I am not familiar with the particular company but there are so many companies that create websites for affiliate marketing. Here’s what I can tell you – the Amazon Affiliate program and additional ones like Walmart, etc are legitimate programs, but it takes proper training and hard work to succeed with it. Most of these types of companies will start you out with a website and then claim it is all set up for you to earn lots of money… but having a site with affiliate links is NOT enough. If you want my advice, I’d get started here with my top recommendation.
I was recently contacted by a company saying they do marketing to help you set up a website, to be successful in affiliate marketing with Amazon , Wal-Mart and other large companies. the woman is very nice talks about her family offers me extra items to help increase sales. She says she works for David and Goliath Marketing. I looked up this company and they do commercials for Kia, Jack in the box and other big companies. They offer 5 packages starting at $10,000 – $50,000?. The packages are a 1 time fee and there are no other fees for the rest of ur life and the business can be pasted on to ur kids.. I asked her when she started making money doing affiliated marketing and she changed the subject. I asked her who D&G does advertising and she said she hasn’t had time to look at their website. Everything sounds on the up and up but I am not able to tell. Have u heardfrom of D&G in CA?
I have not heard of this so I can’t tell you for certain, but it seems a little odd she would change the subject and not know anything about D&G advertising if she works for them? $10,000 – $50,000 is quite a lot of money – did they say what was included? It takes a lot more than setting up a nice looking website to be successful with affiliate marketing so I would be careful with a company trying to sell you on something like that.
Do you know anything about Corporate Marketing Services? The web address is corporatemarketingservices.biz. They are claiming to be a group that can set me up to be an Amazon affiliate.
I haven’t heard of them before, but I can do some more research into the company. What I can tell you up front is a lot of these companies like to use the Amazon Affiliate selling point, and will tell you that they can make you an Amazon Affiliate with your own website for xxx dollars per month. I know it sounds really cool but the Amazon Affiliate program is free to join, all you need is a website. And from what I’ve seen and heard about with these types of companies is they set you up with a generic “amazon” site and offer little to no support. That isn’t a good way to make money with the Amazon program at all.
If you want to be an Amazon Affiliate, I can recommend a place that actually offers great training for that type of thing – here’s some more info.
Has anybody heard of Web Designs out of Las Vegas. Sounds like the standard scam to me too. Pay $500 for a website they built for you and host for another $19 per month.
Haven’t heard of it Frank, but probably a scam. Do they claim to be with Amazon as well?
Got a call from these guys today – JLF Web Design – 702-410-7513. Total scam, saying he’s with Amazon. Unfortunate for him I’m a licensed insurance agent in 31 states and legitimately sell highly regulated Medicare, Obama Care, and other forms of health insurance for a Fortune 100 company, WORKING DIRECTLY AS AN EMPLOYEE FOR THE COMPANY (that’s important! You would definitely recognize the name, rhymes with “Rosanna”) over the phone, and I love to Jack with telemarketers. So I let him take the bait and pretended I was interested (which I am). however, the more questions I asked which he didn’t have the scripted answer to answer, the more pissed off he got! Also, he sounded five drinks into a good drunk. IT WAS 11:00 AM! Eventually, I got down to who do you work for (I would love to give lessons in how to mess with telemarketers!) and he gave the name of the company mentioned above. We played cat and mouse with this question until I finally asked ” so the name of the company ON YOUR PAYCHECK is JLF Web Design…? ” He got belligerent, slurred and said, after what sounded like the sixth drink of the morning ” I’m tired of wasting my time on you! I’ve got better to do…This call is over!” I responded “this call was over when I answered 😉 ” . The number traces to a telemarketing company which scams in so many different areas as per blogs on the phone number.
You know, it surprises me just how many of these companies exist that say they’re with Amazon. Because of these types of phone calls, there are so many people that think the Amazon affiliate program is a huge scam, when in fact it’s completely legit and FREE to join. The way you told that story was great though, hahah… and he’s drunk no less!? I’m glad you knew better, there are people out there that would have handed them their money! Thank you for sharing you experience.
I had three different legitimate Amazon affiliates collect money, made a web site with my name and took off. Forgot to give me the passwords for the back office. Recently
Had another offer a job with amazon three times. Told where to go.
They took your money and left you in the dust? Doesn’t sound legitimate to me! Remember anyone wanting to collect money from you for becoming an “amazon affiliate” and claiming to be part of their program is not sincere – these are people who are taking advantage of you. Amazon Associates program does not call anybody and ask them for money, they are entirely free to join.
Keep in mind that paying for training on how to build a website and learn affiliate marketing is entirely different from these type of scams.
A man had called me a week ago explaining that he was affiliated with Amazon Affiliate web site.. I assumed it was a legit option for me as a business woman to increase my income. I have done business with Amazon for many years and they were a trustworthy and reputable site. Amazon stood behind their product . As i was preoccupied at the moment he called, I told this man, (based on my personal experience with Amazon) to call me back and explain the details.
I just received a call from this individual who called me a few days later. He approached me with the same “Amazon.Com/affiliate program” option to make an additional income. He explained he had been trying to contact me on the phone and left 7 messages to return his call. I DID NOT RECEIVE one message on my caller ID.This deception of (7 messages) was a red flag for me. Another deception was when he called, there was NO CALLED ID listed. It was a blank screen. This was another red flag. I explained that I wanted to check out his website and study the options available to make a quality decision.
As we were closing this conversation, he explained they wanted $1400 up front but would give me a holiday discount for $400 this week;(7 days before Christmas ). When a vendor pressures you to make a quick decision ; this is another red flag as far as I am concerned. Be careful and wary of the ponzi scam pitches and pressure.. This man was very kind; called me “dear”,. “sweetie” and somehow it came to me as another red flag. He doesn’t know me from Adam. I told him to call me again next Monday as I wanted to check out his websites so I could make a quality decision.. He graciously agreed .
As I hung up, I automatically went on line and looked up the Amazon affiliate drop down menus. Thank you for all your feedback and saving me a lot of money that I work hard for. I am senior and thanks to the program “American Greed” I have learned a great deal about the deceptive plans and schemes of evil, greedy men who steal and rob relentlessly and without conscience from innocent, unsuspecting victims.(young and old) Many have hopelessly lost their lifetime savings and have no way to recoup or replenish those lost earnings.. Buyer Beware!!!!! I always pray for wisdom and discernment. I will take notes on our conversation on Monday morning (Dec 21. 2015) and share with you (on this website)more of his deceptions so it may be helpful to you as well.Have a blessed, holiday season.
Thanks for sharing your experience Roberta. I’m sure it will be extremely helpful to many people visiting this page. You’re right, that pressure to immediately buy into something on the spot is usually a sign something isn’t right. I can’t believe people can sleep at night knowing they’re scamming innocent people out of their hard earned money. I look forward to reading more about your experience on Monday!
I JUST got a call to become an “Amazon Associate”. I said you do realize this is Seattle and Amazon is here. She just kept pressing me and I said I want something in writing; how much does it pay? I am an avionics control systems engineer and have done primary surfaces design on jets. I think that went over her head and she at least said it was a data entry, which it probably wasn’t even. No rate estimate, no info. I also said I don’t make instant decisions on the spot, especially on the phone
Just got an offer from Amazon Affiliate Programs to pay them $300.00 to be registered. They gave me an 866-664-8878 phone number that was real, but not what one would expect from the likes of Amazon. I’m not going to send them the money. The program had no reality to it. I would get paid 7 – 13% commission on products sold through my link. All though some of it made sense, some of it did not. I would like to add an additional income stream to my bottom line, but this is not it.
Hey Dennis, Amazon Associates doesn’t charge their applicants and would never contact you personally like that. The real Amazon Affiliate program is completely free to join, you just have to apply with an appropriate website that meets their terms of service.
I can’t recall off the top of my head the exact commissions, but it is relatively low (around 4% – 15%) depending on what you promote and how much you sell. Your commissions increase the more sales you make.
If you are seriously looking for an additional income stream with the Amazon program, you can totally make it happen… just be careful of shady programs like that. If you want to sign up for my email course, I would be more than happy to get you started learning how to properly use the Amazon program 🙂
I also assumed it was SALES and probably MORE SIGN- up recruits
Also when first contacted by Wealth Network Solutions, LLC, all of the questions you ask about what you would do to make the site work and be successful are side-stepped with the response of “that’s would be addressed by your ‘marketing coach’.” However you never get any instruction from any marketing coach and you are later told that you have to go find your own coaching. That is very wrong for a business that is trying to actually sell a service. You are called up to be coached out of more money by being told the importance of having “down lines” so that you are encouraged because “you see your business working”. They tell you that the leads are targeted and so the success rate of the leads is between 6 to 8 percent (of getting the people on the list of leads to join as a member) and you get 100 dollars per lead. They also say you are guaranteed to earn all of your money back with 25%. However only a few people on that list are willing to be their next *victim* of their scam and so you’ve lost several thousand dollars buying those leads. Then the partner advertising firms that call you up say to you,”I am your account manager with Wealth Network Solutions” whom you are vulnerable into thinking that they are your marketing coach. The firm firstusadata.com wanted 17000 to promote your copy of the Wealth Network Solutions website. I have to point out that Wealth Network Solutions had put virtually no effort into making their pyramid scheme work (by giving no instruction on how to make the site work and no “marketing coach” and distributing a manual that gives the wrong information. However they were aggressive about getting members to their no functioning pyramid and that is why I strongly believe they are an illegal Ponzi scheme
What does anyone know about Wealth network solutions affiliate marketing
I’ve never heard of it Scott, so I couldn’t say for sure. I can look into it though.
Scott,
The business opportunity offered by Wealth Network Solutions, LLC is unbelievably deceptive and I fully believe they are a scam. They provide you with a duplicate copy of their website as their business opportunity and charge you a sizeable monthly fee for the webhosting. There are red flags right from the very beginning that should tell you that they are a deception and very likely a scam, which I ignored. All of my initial questions, regarding what I would do to actually make the opportunity work, were side-stepped with the response of “that will be addressed by your marketing coach.” However I later found out that Wealth Network Solutions does not provide marketing coaches to actually tell you what to do to make money with their site. They do have someone call you, acting as if he is a coach to “coach you out of more money.” He told me that most people give up the business soon within a few months, but to encourage me to continue, I should participate in their “lead program” where I can get leads to downlines who will also be participating and that will help me see the business working. This was at a cost of several thousand dollars. The salesman claimed that the leads were “targeted leads” and therefore the conversion rate of the list of people to actual people, joining Wealth Network Solutions as a downline, was between 6% to 8%. They also claimed that I was guaranteed to get all of my money back with a minimum of 25% return (which was totally untrue as they refused to acknowledge that such a statement was made later on). However, only a few people on that list were willing to be their next victims so the leads purchases become huge losses of several thousand dollars.
I also believe that Wealth Network Solutions, LLC is a scam or illegal pyramid scheme because they distributed a marketing manual to new members, which is actually harmful to their business. The marketing manual was written prior to the existence of Google and does not mention Google at all, but mentions the Infoseek search engine which has long been out of existence. The manual emphasizes registering the website with the search engines, but that is the WRONG thing to do. The site with Wealth Network Solutions is duplicate content, and search engines throw site URLs with duplicate content into a secondary database as trash: they filter out websites with duplicate content. The manual also emphasizes activities on the web that were pertinent to the late 1990’s but the internet has changed so radically since that time and therefor has no relevance. This showed me that there was no initiative whatsoever to make the actual business opportunity function and no research to determine the necessary actions to make the actual business opportunity function or actually be used to earn an income. However their efforts to recruit people into the pyramid was very elaborate, fully indicative of an illegal pyramid scheme.
Wealth Network Solutions also gives your name out to predatory “internet advertising firms” that tell you elaborate fairy-tales of success with the Wealth Network Solutions site (one such firm is http://www.firstusadata.com). They heap details upon details with their claims of success and that they helped other people from Wealth Network Solutions become very rich. This I know to be very untrue, given what I have already told you, so that could have resulted in a very huge loss for me. I did pay for advertising with one of these “predatory” firms, but later brought to their attention that their service was ineffective, and that I was going to blast them all over the internet and file complaints with as many agencies as possible (and that firm willingly gave me my money back, amazingly, so I will not mention them here as I promised them). Anyway, Wealth Network Solutions told me that they had not obtain any information through their website with all of the web traffic I had sent them. I thought this statement to be very odd, given that I had a friend enter information into the site.
With Wealth Network Solutions, getting your money back is very unlikely. They walk you through a number of steps of “that’s how we do the sale” which are actually meant to help solidify their case to your credit card company that “they made their *no refund* policy very clear” and that the customer *received* the product in the case that you disputed the charges. I took the fight one step further, by fighting with the bank themselves, bringing to their attention that I had made them aware of evidence that the merchant was not legitimate, and the bank was obligated, under law, to “do their due diligence” on all information that indicates illegal activity (as I had formerly worked in the banking system and know about the rules established for banks to do their *KYC* or “Know Your Customer”). I did manage to recover most of my money by continuing the fight to dispute the credit card charges, even reporting the bank itself to the Better Business Bureau for not “doing their due diligence” under the law.
The experience was very emotionally draining and depressing. I was vulnerable to them because I was suffering from an illness and thought that I would not be able to continue working my current job, so I was looking for an income replacement. However I am getting better now so I can stay away from internet scams.
Thank you Robert for leaving such a detailed reply about your experience with Wealth Solutions. I hadn’t heard of that one in particular, I’m sure your insight is very helpful to Scott and many others!
A fraud expert also agreed with me regarding Wealth Network Solutions, LLC. Too bad they posted this blog after I had gotten involved with them.
http://www.justanswer.com/fraud-examiner/97950-wealth-network-solutions-real-debt-consolidation-company.html#re.v/326/
My question is why haven’t the FEDS stormed their very building and seized their assets?
Unfortunately there are so many companies claiming to be with the Amazon Associates program that I don’t think any particular one sticks aroung long enough for an intervention to finally happen… Do you know if Wealth Network Solutions is actually still operating?
Hi Robert
Thank you for sharing your experience and thanks Wendy to run this site. We are facing that bad situation as well. Could you please tell me what to do to recoup money? The credit card institute reversed the payment to us but now took it back again as they said the scam mob has delivered their service. It’s $7,993
Due to his workplace’ volatile, my husband was under depressions, he signed up with Logix9 LLC which he truly believed they are a part of Amazon and believed he can find another income source to support the family.
He paid $40 monthly for webhosting
Paid $1,998 on 23.11.2015 for membership (but in the invoice it states for training) which he was promised to earn upto 10% commission from sell from Amazon.
He can access in their learning centre and set up a website from their terrible presented templates which they assured him he can modify later, and he did work on this site til midnight most days after came home from work (he is not computer savvy). He had to write the content and all the “code” string to make the text Italic or bold or change in color…
I always wary about this Logix9 (until then I still did not know their company name as he said that was Amazon and I did not question it). I myself a full time employee with 2 toddler children. During that time I worked extra hours most of days so I was tired. I Googled “Amazon Scam” but it did not come up any thing. So I let him went on with “his project”.
He paid $5,995 on 24.12.2015 for exclusive membership (again in the invoice it states for training) to earn 50% commission.
(For all of that money he had to redraw from our mortgage to recoup the credit card)
The “peak time” of my workplace was over, I had more time to searched more and found all horrified news about this scam. I showed it to my husband and he nearly collapsed.
We reported it to the credit card institute, Cancelled with Logix9, asked for refund which they refused. Lodged a dispute to the bank to recoup money. The bank reversed the payment to us 2 weeks ago but today we received a letter from them saying the transferred the payment back to Logix9 as Logix9 proved that they delivered the services (they had the log sheet to show my husband logged in the training centre called “back office” to work on his site many times when and they delivered 6 lessons to him.)
I had the trainings and the conversation they promised 50% commission on my mobile when made 2nd sale to my husband (The reason I recorded these because English is not my mother language, so I recorded the trainings just in case I need to help my husband doing his website as he is not computer savvy man. They made the 2nd sale to on their 6th training section).
Your feedback would be greatly appreciate, I even thought to bring this case to a lawyer but we had no money left and a mortgage, plus now a $8000 in credit card debt.
Thank you Wendy! I just had a call from them and they were very suspicious. I was busy when they called and could not invest any time with them on the phone so I requested she give me the link to check it out online and she refused. Anyway, I told them if I can’t look at anything online, then I don’t want them to call me back. She said they would call back and hung up on me.
Michelle
Yeah, they don’t seem to have any sort of public website other than their sign up page, which only prompts you to enter your info and phone number. Once you submit, you’re told you’ll be contacted by a sales rep and that’s it. I guess they need to keep as private as possible so they can continue to scam as many unsuspecting victims as they can.
You would not believe the extent of the scam that Wealth Net Work Solutions is. They sell duplicates of their site which accomplishes nothing, sell leads to down lines for their pyramid scheme and verbally promise a minimum return of 25% in six months (which they won’t honor ) and their leads are junk. But you have lost several thousand dollars by this time. They also give your contact number to predatory “web advertising” firms (firstusadata.com) that tell you fairytales of great successes in marketing Wealth Network Solutions site, which is just an illegal pyramid scheme, so their claims of success are totally fabricated. Also Weatlrh Network Solutions sends out an Internet marketing manual that was written before the existence of Google and the instructions in the manual are either WRONG to follow are irrelevant. For example, the manual has extensive emphasis on registering your site with search engines but the duplicate site from Wealth Network Solutions is duplicate content so the search engines throw your URL into the “trash” database