| Comment Number: | 522418-05227 |
| Received: | 6/30/2006 6:17:15 AM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Srikanth Jampa |
| State: | TX |
| Subject: | Business Opportunity Rule |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 437 |
| Attachment: | 522418-05227.pdf Download Adobe Reader |
Comments:
Dear FTC, I think that you have made a very good decision in combating fraudulent schemes, by requiring the direct sellers to furnish the prospects with the necessary information needed to make a proper decision. This is exactly why the Quixtar business opportunity is the best, as it provides all FTC approved literature to the prospects. Personally, I and the IBOS (direct sellers) in my organisation have always been following the same. However it would not make sense on the part of the distributor to disclose his personal income or his/her time period of involvement in the business opportunity to the prospect, as it would benchmark the prospect's personal ability to perform in his business, against a standard which would never be the same for every individual prospect/seller as everyone has different reasons for their current level/income in the business, and these reasons would definetely have no relationship to the business opportunity/marketing plan provided by Quixtar or any such genuine company. From my personal experience in dealing with new prospects and sellers, i have found that every individual has his/her own ability to perform which cannot be prejudiced by the performance of the sponsor/referring Distributor(Seller) in the opportunity. Hence it would not be fair on part of both the direct sellers/IBOS and the FTC to make it mandatory to disclose the income of the seller to the prospect. The income claims can be substantiated by the already existing literature used by the Quixtar direct sellers/IBOS. The Quixtar Corporation has been extremely accountable to all those who are or have ever been involved in the opportunity as a seller/customer as they have a 90 day money back guarentee on all of their coreline products and most of the products sold by the partner companies. There has been a recent example of the same, where in one of the distributors who got started almost 4 months ago, realised that the products were not to his liking and the Quixtar Corporation, upon this seller's request had agreed to refund the entire money even though it had been more than 90 days past the registration and purchase of products by the seller. This just goes to show the credibility of genuine companies such as Quixtar, as they are really focussed on satisfying the customer/seller. Hence it would not make proper business sense for the neither the prospect nor the IBO to wait for a time period of 7 days before getting registered. Distributors would in no way be able to provide the details of all the legal allegations/lawsuits/ arbitrations against Quixtar or any genuine company for that matter, as it is not uncommon in the United States to find any credible corporation like Quixtar, to not have such baseless allegations, because of the common misuse of the freedom to file lawsuits/allegations. Hence it would not be sensible to put forth such a rule. The sellers/customers are always welcome to get references as it is already being implicitly done at the business opportunity/product awareness meetings, where the prospects have a chance to meet the existing sellers/customers in person and the rule to provide references would only be redundant. Also it would not be appropriate on part of the seller to provide phone number/address information of other existing sellers, as it would intrude the privacy of other sellers in the opportunity, by a prospect, who might not be genuinely pursuing the opportunity and it would only be a serious misdemeanor to provide the reference of other sellers/customers. The prospects are anyways most welcome to come and meet the other sellers at the seminars conducted by the Organisation. In my honest opinion, the new rule being proposed, would affect genuine opportunties like Quixtar and hence it would not be fair to the people who are already involved in the opportunity and those who would be considering getting started as a seller/customer. Regards Srikanth Jampa