A note from a UFirst customer:

"

Well, I was a sucker and bought this program and now I am trying to get my money back. So far, without success. This program did not work out for me. I found it to be extremely frustrating and time consuming. What’s more, I had/have no debt besides my mortgage and was already paying extra on it. I was convinced by the sales people that this program would help me pay it off faster. I did not find this to be true and have now actually lost ground. I am in the process of filing a small claim to get my money back. UFF has refused my respectful request, and even a letter from an attorney. If anyone out there has any suggestions I would love to hear them. I just want my money back!
"

http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/united-first-financial-money-merge-accounts-scam-or-legit.html/comment-page-15#comment-350490

Those were old estimates based on the best information we had at the time, based on ID numbers. The actual number of sales is far fewer. And even today, among the 200 or so per month that they sell, the bulk are financed with little money down. That's why they are bleeding cash, because their income isn't $1000 per sale up front any more, so it's not like they are bringing in $200,000 monthly with MMA sales - it is far, far less. In fact, one agent wrote to the office, asking for a refund for her client who came across hard times:

To Whom IT May Concern: E. S. has now informed me and informed U First that she does not want to participate in the MMA Program. Despite my efforts, she finds it confusing and costly to her in these rough economic times where he annual income has been greatly reduced and can no longe afford the 75.00 a month being deducted from her account. She has stated to me that U First informed her that they will not refund her any monies owed nor stop the auto deducts of 75.00 a month. Please understand the only reason she has mentioned cancellation and refund is that during her early stages of getting involved in the MMA, she was told by my upline at a Prsentation back in Sept, she would get a refund if she was unsatisfied with the program. She is unsatisfed and depsite my efforts, wants to cancel. She has also informed me that if the last deduction of the 75.00 as of earlier this week is not refunded to her along et.al. she will take the neccessary actions to stop payment and report this "hassle" to the BBB. Please, I ask that you grant her her request. She can not be held accountable for an unforseable recession which has now affected her financial stability and tranguility. No one, regardless of obligation she continue to have to pay 75.00 a month when they lose thier income by 1000.00 a month. Please stop, refund, etc, her funds to her.
*****

Needless to say, the refund didn't happen, and the $75 continues to be withdrawn monthly. She can't simply stop the payments, because UFirst has a contract and all her info.

I lost count, thought there were $100K systems sold, half to agents, so 50K non-agent sales. I could be wrong. Unlike MMA agents, I like the truth, even if it proves my own error.

I have their internal report ;)

UFirst recorded the unique users who logged into their version 3 and version 4 MMA accounts from January through April of this year. Here are their findings:

MMA v3:
Jan 953
Feb 896
Mar 891
Apr 787

MMA v4:
Jan 7534
Feb 7328
Mar 7401
Apr 6968

Given there were about 30,000 MMAs sold as of April, (787+6968)/30000 = 25.9%

Therefore, approximately 1/4 of clients are using their MMA in a given month, and falling.

For any UFirst agents who may be reading, don't be alarmed by the brackets and strange characters above - it was just math.

craig, how do you know only 1/4th of users are logging in? given the agents are always throwing around the 95% number, which i never came close to believing, that would be quite a bit of discrepancy. Maybe that many of them lost their houses.

When the servers go down, only 1/4 of the clients will notice, as only 1/4 are logging in every month. That's 3/4 of the liability gone, right there.

And even when the servers do go offline, I expect there to be little recourse for the clients. Clients who have had their MMA direct them to overdraw their HELOC can't get refunds, and aren't suing the company, so I don't think we can assume they will sue the partners of UFirst after they go out of business, or that they would be successful at it.

The best course of action may still be for clients to go after their local agents. They are the ones who (in many cases) misrepresented what the MMA could do in the first place. Agents are the ones who should be nervous, especially if the Competition Bureau shuts down UFirst in Canada, and not just in Alberta. Then we'll have to see if any clients want to pursue a legal remedy.

We can only hope when they go down that he servers go down as well, and the lawsuits start. The scale of this fraud was no Madoff, but it was fraud nonetheless.

http://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2010/07/09/ufirst-financial-this-is-what-a-collapsing-pyramid-looks-like/

The pyramid is collapsing.

At Tracy' Coenen's "Fraud Files Blog" comes an email from a top UFirst agent to the company leaders, urging them to spin off a new company before UFirst goes bankrupt. Agent Richard Schaffer says:

* "The ‘Network’ is dead, and it’s not coming back."

* "The Company is no doubt literally hemorrhaging cash right now."

*"We cannot either justify financially or logistically having a National Convention at this time. Both due to finances and the negative perspective that having only 300-400 people attend would create."

He wants to cannibalize the network of it's most productive agents and leave all others out in the cold. If you're an agent with a with active agents below you, and you like receiving cheques, under Richard's proposal you will stop seeing them altogether.

Let the infighting over the remains of United First Financial begin.

Anything that leads from a Canadian agent's site (Ken's site for example: http://www.u1stfinancial.com/CanadaMortgageFreedom ) to the "Opportunity" video seems to be the regulatory problem. From the agent sites, if you follow the link to the corporate site, and then the “Testimonials” or “Money Merge Account Program” or any other link, you have access to “Opportunity” video link.

The opportunity video is in violation of item 55 of the Competition Act:

http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/03035.html#appendix_a

*****

From the Competition Act:

55. (1) For the purposes of this section and section 55.1, ‘‘multi-level marketing plan’’ means a plan for the supply of a product whereby a participant in the plan receives compensation for the supply of the product to another participant in the plan who, in turn, receives compensation for the supply of the same or another product to other participants in the plan.

(2) No person who operates or participates in a multi-level marketing plan shall make any representations relating to compensation under the plan to a prospective participant in the plan unless the representations constitute or include fair, reasonable and timely disclosure of the information within the knowledge of the person making the representations relating to

* (a) compensation actually received by typical participants in the plan; or
* (b) compensation likely to be received by typical participants in the plan, having regard to any relevant considerations, including
o (i) the nature of the product, including its price and availability,
o (ii) the nature of the relevant market for the product,
o (iii) the nature of the plan and similar plans, and
o (iv) whether the person who operates the plan is a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship or other form of business organization.

(2.1) A person who operates a multi-level marketing plan shall ensure that any representations relating to compensation under the plan that are made to a prospective participant in the plan by a participant in the plan or by a representative of the person who operates the plan constitute or include fair, reasonable and timely disclosure of the information within the knowledge of the person who operates the plan relating to

* (a) compensation actually received by typical participants in the plan; or
* (b) compensation likely to be received by typical participants in the plan, having regard to any relevant considerations, including those specified in paragraph (2)(b).

(2.2) A person accused of an offence under subsection (2.1) shall not be convicted of the offence if the accused establishes that he or she took reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence to ensure

* (a) that no representations relating to compensation under the plan were made by participants in the plan or by representatives of the accused; or
* (b) that any representations relating to compensation under the plan that were made by participants in the plan or by representatives of the accused constituted or included fair, reasonable and timely disclosure of the information referred to in that subsection.

(3) Any person who contravenes subsection (2) or (2.1) is guilty of an offence and liable

* (a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine in the discretion of the court or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to both; or
* (b) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding $200,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to both.

*****

There is a link to a complaint form at the Competition Bureau website:

http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/h_00130.html

Ken -

After reading C&H response, I may be agreeing with that stance.

The piece of software in and of itself isn't a scam, per se, it's just inefficient.
The price of a product doesn't make the product a scam, after all, there's stuff out there that's over priced.

It's all about the claims, the marketing. It would never have even come to my attention had the claims not been so outrageous.

You keep talking GPS. I keep asking for you to create a simple example. I can show that the system does not do what you claim. Under what circumstances is it beneficial to over-draw the HELOC by not just a thousand or so, but many thousands? $4-$5K owed on the HELOC at the higher rate.

If you understand the system as well as you claim, the HELOC shuffle (as non-pejorative a term as one might find for this system, cute actually), you'd better understand how the system simply fails. You want to have that conversation, or not?

I don't care about other MLMs. I won't mention them, because true to your nature, you'll latch on and ask what value I find in that product and why isn't it a scam. I'll pass on that rathole.