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What Is Team National?
WatchForScams Says:
According to WatchForScams, “Team National Is a MLM multi level marketing company that provides savings off the retail price. In almost all cases you would be able to find the same discount or better by searching the Internet.”
Team National Says:
According to Team National itself: “Team National is a membership savings company that utilizes the direct sales method of distribution. Team National was founded by Dick Loehr, who developed our one-of-a-kind membership savings program that provides value in a variety of areas through collective buying power. We connect consumers with savings and value-added services on products they purchase regularly.”
How Team National Works
According to SmartAffiliateSuccess, Team National doesn’t actually provide any retail products or services themselves. Instead, they’re selling “discount memberships”. And if you want to make money with them, apparently you need to recruit other people to sign up to the membership.
The two ways you could make money with Team National, according to SmartAffiliateSuccess:
- In a nutshell, if you pay for a membership, you get access to discounts when you shop online. More ‘savings’ than earnings.
- You also get money when you sign other people up to the membership.
Scam?
A lot of people consider any type of multi-level marketing company a scam. Let’s take a look at what Reddit thinks:
Team National Reddit Reviews
Reddit’s a great place to get authentic reviews from real people. We checked out Team National on Reddit to see what the consensus was:
1. One Redditor in r/antiMLM relayed a negative experience:
Team National from antiMLM
One Redditor says that she and her boyfriend had been approached by one of his old friends and he was aggressively promoting Team National, trying to get them on his “team”.
She thought the whole thing was hilarious and wanted to help the guy out and let him know that the entire thing is purely a pyramid scheme.
Someone in the comments limited that their own mother had been recruited into Team National. They say that she lost a lot of money just during the registration process and that one of the meetings even occurred in a local shopping mall food court.
Another person said that in their experience if you’re not selling enough, the only way to make money is to recruit other people.
2. Another Redditor in r/antiMLM started a conversation about the firm:
A Redditor explained that it’s one of the MLMs that “provide” discounts on insurance, vehicles, etc. You need to pay an upfront, annually renewed fee of about $2,200.
According to the Redditor, Team National members generally save much less per year than what they have to pay for the fee, so it’s not a smart financial investment, to say the least.
The shadier aspect, according to this Redditor, is that there’s an emphasis on recruiting members to get bonus checks and bonus discounts!
3. Another Redditor discusses how she was recruited by a pair of reps. She got into an argument with the reps who emphatically denied that they were pushing her to join a pyramid scheme.
The Redditor said that, in her experience, they’re full of “fake people” who prey on gullible people. She said that in the past she had purchased from an Avon rep- but only because the Avon seller was using the proceeds to purchase life-saving medications.
Lost Friends
One of the top-rated comments in this thread was from a woman who blamed Team National for losing a couple of her friends.
Initially, she said that her friends advertised it as a way to shop like you normally do at places like Walmart but get discounts.
The catch apparently was that you would only receive the discount if you did your shopping online, which was uncommon at the time in her area where people still liked to shop in person.
When she asked the rap how it was different from something like Ebates besides the expensive membership fees, they weren’t able to give a credible answer.
On top of that, when it was clear that she wasn’t going to sign up, she was apparently ostracized from this particular friend group.
Recruitment Pitches
Another Redditor had some good insight into how it works. They say that on the surface it looks like a discount program, but on the other hand membership cost is thousands of dollars and people that are signed up and get referral fees and kickbacks when they get other people to join.
As well, she says that one of her friends constantly posts on Facebook about the savings she is getting.
They weren’t impressed by the actual discounts and wondered why it would be worth it to spend thousands of dollars to get small discounts on large purchases from specific stores when they could just as easily shop sales without paying the large membership fee.
Apparently, the way it is sold is that the reps target friends who are receptive, claiming that they are helping them grow their business, investing in their family’s future by purchasing from then instead of going through a retailer like Walmart directly.
4. Another Redditor relayed interesting experience about his father-in-law:
My future FIL is wrapped up in an MLM called Team National from antiMLM
He said that his father-in-law had been a member of Team National since 1997 and was pressured into going to a meeting. He said that the food was soggy sandwiches and that the official Team National Representatives had driven several hours to meet them and show them some videos.
He even said that one of the presenters leveraged their physical disability to generate guilt and empathy in the audience to drive membership sales. It was marketed as a savings club, but it costs $800 to $2,000 for something comparable to Ebates.
One of the top commenters said that they had their own close family member become involved.
This family member said that it was a buyer’s club that would cost $2,500 to join. They also said that after some investigation they realize that the discounts were non-existent.
Team National Review – Legit MLM Company in 2019 or Scam?
Summing Up
There’s definitely a lot of mixed sentiment regarding team National. A lot of people on Reddit are pretty negative about the viability of the income opportunity, though there are some people saying that if you put the effort in you can make good money with it and even earn savings. In general, this is not how I would recommend building a side income. You can check out some of my niche reports to see how I recommend building an online business.
Last Updated on March 13, 2021 by Ryan Nelson
