Sure, it's looking pretty ragged around the edges, and the chrome has a layer of rust, but they ain't dead just yet... Maybe we could start a pool on when it will completely collapse in on itself?
Sure, it's looking pretty ragged around the edges, and the chrome has a layer of rust, but they ain't dead just yet... Maybe we could start a pool on when it will completely collapse in on itself?
Awwww. One of my favorites... Am I being overly pessimistic to think that YTB will be dead by Christmas? That would be such a nice present...
Don't take life too serious. You'll never escape it alive anyway.
~ Elbert Hubbard
YTB sued as pyramid
June 15, 2010
(Thanks to Judge Roy Bean from Quatloos!)The class claims YTB generates about 75 percent of its revenue by using independent marketing representatives to recruit referring travel agents to buy online travel agencies from the defendants.
75% of it's revenue comes from the fees people pay to join? If true I wish the best of luck in court to the plaintiff class.
Kind of a bummer since they used to be so fun to kick around and now they're pretty much dead. Of course the main YTB thread was deleted at scam.com with no reason given. Just one more MLM that will fail. Who's next? I'm going with TraVerus followed by WorldVultures (in the travel MLM field). But for every one that fails, a new one will emerge. More on that later.
GEORGE DRANICHAK - OWNER OF SCAM.COM, PORN MOGUL AND KING OF THE PORN SPAMMERS
I. for one, will always be happy to kick YTBs ass. I swear if TW puts them on the 'power list' again I'll know for sure Coach scratched up some payola from the Scamzoo coffers.
But it's a dry heat!
YTB gets some local ink...
YTB target of another class action | ytb, suit, claims - Local News - The Telegraph
And they say there's no such thing as bad press.
:p
Unbelievable!
I just opened my new issue of Travel Weekly and they list YTB as #29 on the PowerList 2010.
2009 Sales: $252.1 million
Employees: 210
Previous Ranking: 25
This is impossible.
GEORGE DRANICHAK - OWNER OF SCAM.COM, PORN MOGUL AND KING OF THE PORN SPAMMERS
DSN report 2009 (for what it's worth):
Then there's this:YTB International
Sales: $67.3 million
Wholesale Corporate Revenue: $67.3 million
Marketing Style: Person-to-person and party plan
Compensation Plan: Multi-level
Products: Sales of travel, travel products and travel websites
Markets: 6
Distributors: 41,175
Employees: 150
YTB Expects to Report $9.9 Million Loss for 2009
A half-truth is a whole lie.
Let's compare here. Both are travel MLMs on the PowerList.
YTB
Rank 29
2009 Sales: $252.1 million
Employees: 210
Previous Ranking: 25
ARC sales: $11.2 million
Hosts 41,174 travel sellers
90% of sales from leisure, 10% business
Global Travel International (GTI)
Rank 52
2009 Sales: $102. million
Employees: 70
Previous Ranking: 53
ARC sales: $18 million
Hosts 20,000 travel sellers
70% of sales from leisure, 20% from business, 10% unmanaged (corporate travel, sales meetings, incentive trips)
Notice the huge differences? The ARC sales which go hand in hand with online booking engines which both utilize nearly exclusively. And GTI has less than half of the "travel sellers." I'm not buying the YTB results. It's impossible.
GEORGE DRANICHAK - OWNER OF SCAM.COM, PORN MOGUL AND KING OF THE PORN SPAMMERS
That number was reported on the year end report. And you also need to remember this was the snapshot six months ago. But I agree, the numbers are cloudy. Even in the SEC report they say that the sales "reported by the travel vendors" is $252M. What travel company does not know to the dollar how much travel was sold in their company?
But to further amplify the fudging, they reported travel commissions received of 12,201,000.
ARC Sales $11.2 million that is about 22K tickets issued (nat;l avg $500). They make nothing on the sale other than the $5 fee they used to assess. So that is $112K of commission.
That leaves them with 12,089,000 in commission on leisure sales of $240,800,000. This is a solid 5% commission. Leisure commissions for the weakest agencies are at 10%. YTB does about 70% of their business wiht Carnival and in 2009 they were at 16%.
So 70% of $252,000,000 is is $176,400,000. NCFs are about 10% with Carnival, so subtract 17,640,000 for a commissionable total of $158,760,000. AT 16%, if their numbers are accurate they should have realized $25,401,600 in commission from Carnival ALONE!
I wonder why the DSN numbers and those reported to TW are so vastly different? I agree...the numbers just don't add up. TW must not have a calculator in their office.
But it's a dry heat!
If we can't kick around ytb, can we at least kick around Rod and doofus?
Well, it is July 2 and I am sure that VanPatten is busy figuring out how to present the financials. Will ZamZuu be the savior? I doubt it. But I do believe this will be a good opportunity to cloud the numbers even more by combining YTB and ZAM ZUU recruiting numbers to show that the bleed has stopped.
Hey John, welcome to the light at the end of the dark tunnel. lol How are you? Please return anytime and add to this forum. Feel free to contribute anywhere or start a thread or whatever. Hope this post finds you well.
Hey, so this is where you all have been hiding at. Guess what I'm back!
Hey Malique!!! Where the heck have you been, buddy! PIOTB here!!! lol Really glad to see you! Don't be a stranger, visit often and feel free to participate anytime. Hope you and your family are well.
By the way, for any reading who don't know about John's blog, it's a great source for all things YTB over the past few years to the present!
MLMs and Travel: A Bad Mix
"Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes...
Because then it doesn't matter, you’re a mile away and you have his shoes!"
Hey, thanks for the plug--and be sure to click an ad on your way out--baby needs new shoes! LOL
I guess the next thing will be the release of the 2Q numbers August 15th at the latest. But they also have that note due at the end of August and the convention in there.
"Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes...
Because then it doesn't matter, you’re a mile away and you have his shoes!"
GEORGE DRANICHAK - OWNER OF SCAM.COM, PORN MOGUL AND KING OF THE PORN SPAMMERS
I googled 'Zamzuu' as I was curious as to what it was. It is a shopping portal, right? You are suppose to go through that site to get to another site to make purchases and hopefully get a discount or rebate, is that correct?
I clicked on one of the stores listed there and an annoying form popped up asking for my email address if I wanted to 'Earn Cash Back' or I could click on 'No, Thanks' and enter the website without giving my email address or so it looks. When I tried to click on 'No, Thanks' the same window popped up again. Maybe my computer was was blocking something or maybe you aren't suppose to go to a store website without giving up an email address.
On the home page there is a link to 'Nutraceutics: High Quality, Safe & Efficacious Supplements' but I can't get there without putting in the business owner who referred me.
The visit wasn't a complete waste, however, I learned a new word today, efficacious and it is a doozy. According to Wikipedia it means "having the power to produce a desired effect". Umm, doesn't that sound like a fancy version of the word 'placebo'?
The reason for the email is that you will then be contacted about the opportunity to own your own mall and eaarn commissions off the people who shop online. It is not a new idea and I know I heard a pitch for the same deal from Market America back in 2002 or 2003. The only difference is YTB/ZamZuu has a few exclusive products--several of which (the water and the girdles at least) are in fact companies that are owned by some of the "online mall operators" themselves.
Funny how you can hardly find any mention of YTB on Candi May's blog - one of YTB's stars, a "real travel agent". YTB doesn't even make her bio anymore, and her rented website is way down in the fine print somewhere...
Don't take life too serious. You'll never escape it alive anyway.
~ Elbert Hubbard
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