octopustravelclub.com - a "good" pyramid scheme?

octopustravelclub.com - a "good" pyramid scheme?

I received a link from an acquaintance about [broken link removed]

At first I dismissed it as yet another pyramid scam but on examination I suspect with horror that it may have some merit. I'm ignoring the end product (holidays and travel bookings) as I've no idea how good / bad / indifferent the actual travel agent is. But that not's my point.

The trouble with most pyramid schemes is tht they promise countless millions to gullible or greedy souls by suggesting that there is no limit to the number of levels at which you can get paid. Eventually the number of levels becomes unsustainable and the pyramid collapses.

This crowd offer a 2% commission on the sale with a maximum limit of five levels between you and the end buyer. So on each sale there's a potential five introducers to be paid commission, or 10% total commission. This actually seems like a viable business model.

What do others think?

P.S. - In case this reads like a veiled plug to sign up loads of members for my own benefit, it's not. I cannot benefit even if millions of AAM posters sign up as the Octopus Club could not identify me as the introducer. And I have no connection with the company as a whole. I'm just curious to see if anyone else thinks ths is actually a viable "pyramid" scheme.

Re: octopustravelclub.com - a "good" pyramid schem

Naturally, I'm very cynical about these things, so I did some price checks for a double room at Dublin hotels for 1-4 March and compared against the price available at the hotel's own website.

Plaza Tallaght - own price £390 - Octopus price £240
Clarion IFSC - own price €765 (£531) - Octopus price - £418

Re: octopustravelclub.com - a "good" pyramid schem

...look like a typical network marketing company. Did a quick scan of their flash presentation there & saw that any commissions earned are paid to your Visa or Mastercard account....do you fancy giving them your CC number?

ninsaga

Interesting

Thanks for the bit of research, RainyDay.

Ninsaga - I certainly take your point about CC security. I presume it's possible to open a credit card account with an absurdly small credit limit, to protect yourself against the possibility of this being a CC scam.

As it happens, I'm rather less interested in the working details of this particular scheme, more in the viability of it as a marketing medium. For example, do people think that this type of marketing would work if it was allied to a very well-known and trusted existing brand?

Ninsaga - you refer to it as typical network marketing, which suggests that you're aware of many other examples. I've probably been living in a cave as regards the internet until recently, but I haven't come across this before. Have you examples of other such schemes in operation?

Thanks.

Re: Interesting

There are plenty of Network Marketing companies operating in Ireland...some with good products..some more questionable.....

Tele cos such as Euphony (which I did and since 'retired', Cinergie, EXEL (vartec).

Others such offer other products such as Kleeneze, Tahitian Noni juice

..each have different products & marketing (or commission) plans

ninsaga

Re: Interesting

In terms of company reputation
This company runs the hotels link when you book from the aer lingus website
and also the link off of the usit website is powered by this
i have compared them with other web sites in the past and have not found them cheaper than most other discounters eg hotels.com etc but if you have an added incentive like here might be worthwhile

OctopusTravelCLUB

I saw an article about it on TravelMag www.Travelmag.co.uk/article_735.shtml and joined on launch.

I did some more digging and believe the thing is genuine and truly new - here are two more press articles:[broken link removed] and www.travelwirenews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000026/002609.htm.

I now have over 80 people in my circle of friends and nearly £25 in commission. As this has been achieved in about a month and it's free to join, I only see an upside.

Some of the travel deals are excellent. I received an Email from the travel club today with one or two amazing offers in it - propper 5 star deluxe properties at very reasonable rates for this quality of accommodation and a decent looking 3 star hotel overlooking Niagra falls, with rooms for under £30. I travel on business quite a bit so I know that decent hotels do not come cheap.

Finally, they have built in a very clever feature to help you recruit others (though this is not immediately apparent): when you use the site to compose an Email to introduce others (you must be logged on at the time), it gives you a personalised link to send on to your friends. When your friend clicks on that link to sign up, they are automatically added to your circle of friends.