Is ZeekRewards.com A Scam?

Update: Guess my advice and suspicions listed in the review below were right. SEC has called this “opportunity” a ponzi scam & shut it down. Click here for more details.

The Zeek Rewards program is getting a lot of buzz among work at home seekers lately. So my team and I decided to do some digging around to find out what Zeek Rewards is all about and how does it work. Hopefully we won't step in some crap as we sift through it. Too often we do when investigating these opportunities. But it's better we get into the mess than you do. So with that in mind let's get into it.

What Exactly is Zeek Rewards?

Primarily ZeekRewards operates and is based around a penny auction site. Their penny auction site is Zeekler.com

Just in case you don't know what a penny auction is, let me try to explain it to you here but you can also read my past article about this here. It's very similar to the Ebay model where you bid for stuff. The owner of a Penny Action site puts up merchandise and/or gift cards up for sale but at a very low price. Picture an iPad for like $25. But each time someone bids, the price goes up by a penny. It also adds more time to the auction.

Here's why penny auctions are so attractive to their owners. In order to have the chance to place a bid, you must first join the website and put $10-20 in the penny auction account. Each time you place a bid, not only does the price of the item you bid on go up a penny, but you pay the Penny Auction website a fee for the “privilege and opportunity” to bid. This will be anywhere from 5 cents to a buck fifty per bid. Now imagine there are hundreds or thousands of bidders all doing this. So with the iPad example. Let's say the auction ends an a lucky bidder wins the iPad for $100 plus whatever fees they incurred for their bids. The winner walks away with an iPad at a ridiculously low price. But the other bidders don't but the money they spent bidding goes to the auction site and the owner walks away with enough to pay for the iPad at full price and a hefty profit if it had enough people bidding. Can you see how the penny auction owner is “Sheening” aka winning? Wouldn't you want to be the owner rather than just a bidder or both? Well that's sort of what Zeek Rewards is about.

It flips the penny auction model on it's head by actually sharing a portionof it's profits from the Zeekler sites to Zeek Rewards members. The amount it shares is based on your membership level. This is a smart business model because it probably helps pay for the merchandise they auction which means less money coming out the pocket of the penny auction site owner. Their opportunity is based on a MLM model which I'm not really fond of because it often means the compensation break down is usually convoluted and hard to understand. (Well it is for my simple simon mind.) In any event, the company is owned by Rex Venture Group. Supposedly, Rex Venture Group has been in business for 14 years. That's cool but my motto is, let's delve deeper into the program and find out if all the Internet chatter rings true.

How Do You Get Started With Zeek Rewards and Make Money?

The way I understand it, you can't access the sign up form without an invite. You must join under a current Zeek Reward's affiliate. After joining, you choose your affiliate level. As an affiliate, you supposedly earn VIP points every time you refer someone to the program. Those points are converted into cash. This MLM company relies on its 2×5 matrix to pay its affiliates. You can read about it here because I always have problems understanding and explaining MLMs complicated commission structures. I guess that's why I gravitate towards traditional affiliate marketing.

In any event they pay via check or Solid Trust Pay every two weeks. I wonder why PayPal isn't an option since most of us have that type of account.

Are There Any Start Up Fees?

Since this is an MLM/ business opportunity there is an investment required in order to make money. You can join as a free member, however you won't become a paid member unless you join and pay a fee to be a silver, gold or diamond member. Silver investment $10 per month, Gold investment $50 per month, Diamond Investment $99 per month.

How Much Money Can You Make?

How much you will make is determined by your affiliate level, how many you refer to the program and how much your customers and your downline spends on bids. In short like any business it's all about your effort and how successful you are with your recruiting efforts to get new members.

Cons

– In general I have a problem with MLMs because of their overly complicated and various commission structures. Some would argue it gives you more ways to earn money with a company. But to me it creates more confusion and questions which may be a barrier in recruiting other people. If I don't really understand how much I can earn with your company within a few seconds of reading your commission section, I'm out. Because I know I'll have problems explaining it to others.

– No matter what you feel about Paypal they have tons of users. So I always find it suspect or weird when a company doesn't offer that as an option. It's a no brainer since so many of us have accounts because of personal use or because so many other work at home companies use it to pay folks. Sure they offer that Solid Trust Pay option which is an online payment option. But I've never heard of this company. So why not go with one that is already pretty well known and use by many. Just seems weird to me.

– You know the saying it takes money to make money. Well some people haven't heard this or just don't want to believe it. So there are going to be some of these folks that complain about the fee. But as I've argued many times, a business is different than a job where requiring a fee is suspect. That being said the monthly fee may be money down the drain if you can't turn a profit. But that's the risk you take with ANY business and why the government allows you to write off some of your losses and expenses. Either way this has to be approached like investing or gambling. Never gamble or invest more than you can afford to lose.

– I've read that regardless of how many bids you have or their values, they expire in 90 days and you have to then reinvest. I hate when companies do that. It's like when you get a gift card and they slowly eat away the amount of the card if you haven't used it in a while or it totally expires. WTF? I'm sure from a business point of view it works well for the company but it screws over the consumer which is never cool.

– I've seen 2 different company that claim to own both Zeekler and Zeek Rewards. They are Rex Venture Group and Rex Endeavor Team, LLC. That seems a bit curious to me. Sometimes companies switch names around after one name has a bad reputation or maybe there is another legitimate business reason like a partnership or something else. Well when I did a BBB search for one of the company names, I came up with a BBB rating of F which doesn't stand for FUN people! It's for failure! If you've read my blog long enough, you already know I don't really SOLELY rely on the BBB to determine a company's legitimacy. After all I'm not listed with the BBB and there are a lot of legit companies that aren't. To me the BBB is ONE of many resources I sift through to do my research which is why I created that scam video that many of you use to research a company. And there are other great sites like Scam.com But for some of you the BBB is the be and end all of research, so this rating would definitely be a major red flag and enough to make folks run away.

– I haven't really read much about training and their marketing techniques. They seem to encourage posting classified ads which worked very well many moons ago when I first got started in affiliate marketing. But it's not as effective as it use to be especially since most recruits will just copy and paste exactly what the company provides them. This may lead to spam complaints on various online resources and thus have your ads blocked or deleted. So I'm curious if they teach you other marketing techniques like SEO, PPC, Social Media which a company WA teaches. They should because it will give their affiliates various ways of promoting their program and thus increasing your chances of success. So I'm in the dark about that.

– Penny Auctions are very saturated on the web. So you're facing a lot of stiff competition. It may not be bad as the herbal supplements or the health industry. But it's still pretty competitive which is why training and marketing is very important. If that isn't up to par their affiliates are going to have a hard time getting visibility for their penny auction.

You can read more complaints or whinning about Zeek Rewards here. Just keep in mind you're reading people's observations or opinions. So try to read between the lines because sometimes folks just have vendettas or agendas. You want to look pass the emotional stuff and find patterns being affirmed by many others to determine the real red flags. I never just listen to people that yell X is a scam. My next question is why? Explain in detail where you came up with this conclusion. Where's your proof? Are others making the same complaints? So just keep that in mind when you do your research. The internet makes it easy for people to spit out anything.

So Is Zeek Rewards Really Legitimate?

Honestly it seems to be a brand new company so it's hard for me to draw a definitive conclusion. The F BBB rating is enough for a lot of people to steer away from this company. But keep in mind it was only 2 complaints at the time of this review and we don't really know if it was in particular for Zeek Rewards since this corporation owns other sites and companies under this corporation name. So you might have to take that BBB report with a grain of salt. I personally want to hear and more importantly see proof of payments from affiliates of the company. That always speaks volumes to me. Unlike some shady MLMs they do seem to have a real product in terms of the penny auction business which we know is very profitable so that's good. That is assuming it's actually a profitable penny auction and not a front of a product so that this isn't viewed as a ponzi scheme. I just don't know.

So for now I would basically take a wait and see attitude with this company. I'm sure there will be a rep chiming in about the company's growth or years in business. But unless I'm seeing consistence proof of payments from various affiliates working this program then all that stuff means nothing to me.

As always I want to hear what you have to say about this company. Have you considered it, are you a member? Feel free to chime in with your own experience or correct me on anything I may have gotten wrong. Your professional and courteous feedback are always welcomed. By the way if you like what you've read be sure to become a subscriber here. If this business opportunity didn't really do anything for you you might want to check out our work at home jobs page which is updated daily or our personal recommendations page. Thanks for reading this and your continued support! I hope to see more of you here or my Facebook fan page.