| Comment Number: | 522418-06446 |
| Received: | 7/6/2006 11:35:11 AM |
| Organization: | Bishop Unlimited |
| Commenter: | David Bishop |
| State: | VA |
| Subject: | Business Opportunity Rule |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 437 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
Greetings! I wanted to share my viewpoint on this proposed law. I am excited that the FTC is going to try and police the current growth in home based businesses, especially the illegal ones or ones that take advantage of people. While I applaud the FTC's efforts and intentions, I do think that punishing legal businesses in the process sends the wrong message. I am a Quixtar IBO. I have been so for coming on 3 years now. Quixtar has helped me reach both busines and personal goals. To me it is one of the few opportunities that allows equal opportunity to everyone involved. When I first registered, I was almost given too much information. Everyone I register is given enough information and time to make a quality decision. I actually try to talk people out of it it, rather than in it. If I talk them in and they do nothing I actually just wasted my time. Even though $150.00 is not a lot for most people, it is still guaranteed back to them with in 6 months. Everyone I have had that has quit, received a full refund including for the products that they didn't even have to return. When I read over the proposed pieces of the law there were a few pieces that caught my eye. In my opinion being experienced with what Quixtar itself does, I believe some of these will be crippling to our business team. The first of these issue is the 7 day waiting period. While this may seem like not a big deal it is huge when it comes to growing a team on a national/international basis. A lot of the travel is only for small periods of time, usually a weekend and with sometrips being at long distances making someone wait an extra month to get registered because you will not be back till then makes it tough. I cannot see any benefit to having people wait 7 days, especially with the 6 month refund. Furthermore with a brand new IBO the waiting period would in effect harm their initial boost of momentum. I believe it would hamper a new person's ability to acheive quick growth and profit. As far as the references section goes, I believ that is something that would bog down an otherwise interested person. If I provided a list of other IBO businesses not only do I run the risk of losing my prospect to a different business owner but I also take the chance of releasing someone's private information. All new prospects usually have met way more than 10 IBO's by the time they register. As far as the litigation list that would lead a large list of problems. The paperwork could be so numerous that the average IBO couldn't afford to print it out repeatedly. Since it could be litigation against IBO's or Quixtar itself, that makes the paperwork extremely open to deception based on fale court claims or the such against certain IBO's and not the team as a whole. As far as the Specific Earning's Disclosure, that would be a very confusing situation. For every level you ever quoted and discussed you would need a binder to show averages. That would be once again too much for a new person to try and figure out. Not so much before they get in, but it would hamper them growing their business. And finally as for the financial substantiation I think that once again falls under some privacy as well. Employers do not have to tell their new hires their income, it is a privacy deal. Plus let's say we have an IBO who has been around for a couple years but has been too busy to build anything, he decides to start his business and now he has to tell a new person that he has been in the business for 2 years and he makes 100 bucks. That is walking on peoples privacy. In closing, while I applaud your aim in helping to determine the good businesses vs. the fraudulent ones, please make sure you don't punish the proper ones because of the negative ones. Thanks and god bless!