BBB ‘Remains Concerned,’ Still Has Questions About Narc That Car After Firm Says Only 1 Percent Of Commissions Stems From Sale Of Data To Third Parties
Narc That Car has told the Dallas Better Business Bureau that only “1% of total commissions paid out to independent consultants are for the sale of license plate information to third parties,” the BBB said today.
That 1 percent, which Narc That Car referred to as “client share,” is the “only repeatable form of compensation which does not involve the recruitment of others into the opportunity,” the BBB said.
Although the BBB said Narc That Car has provided “some” information since the organization opened an inquiry Jan. 18, the BBB added that it “remains concerned as to whether the business model, in practice, truly provides any significant method of compensation which would not require sponsorship of additional program participants.”
“The BBB warns consumers to be wary of participating in business opportunities that primarily derive compensation through the recruitment of other participants rather than through the sale of a product or service,” the BBB said.
Critics have raised concerns over privacy and the propriety, safety, and legality of Narc That Car, which says it is building a database of license-plate numbers for sale to companies that repossess automobiles.
Longtime MLM aficionados have questioned whether Narc That Car affiliates are selling a product or a business opportunity. The BBB’s interim report — and Narc That Car’s 1 percent assertion — is apt only to fuel the concerns.
A note on the BBB’s website says the inquiry remains open and that it still is awaiting responses on Narc That Car’s advertising claims. Visit the BBB site to read the updated report, which includes a list of “other facts” it has learned during its inquiry.
The other information on the BBB site:
Other important facts to consider include:
1.) An independent consultant must obtain, at least, 12 individuals in its “down-line” and received 2 paying third-party clients before they begin to receive commissions on “narced” license plates.
2.) Independent consultants will be charged $7 for every compensation check they receive. It is automatically deducted.
3.) Access to the Web Portal costing $24.95 monthly is optional for independent consultants.
The advertising review is still pending.
Jack:
Hmmm, interesting…. Am I reading this right? Is this clause saying that a NTC reps/consultants must refer two buyers of some part of the license plate database (i.e. “third party clients”) before being eligible for commissions?
If I’m reading that right that puts a whole new spin on the “write down license plates and earn money” pitch. Not quite that easy now if a NTD rep/consultant has to go out and make two sales to buyers of the database.
Am I understanding correctly what that means?
ARWR
Ah, but ARWR, the secret is that they get 2 ‘client credits’ when paying $24.95/month to go along with their only needing to write down 6 plates (which still defeats the purpose of such an allegedly vital ‘database’) as per the sales pitch video. They really have to ‘find’ no one.
Hi ARWR,
Not Jack — and I’m not sure if you’re reading it right, but your take sure seems reasonable.
Let’s say you ARE reading it right. All of the promos about how “easy” Narc That Car is have just been turned on their ear. The suggestion, of course, is that Narc members who currently appear to be selling no product at all might be asked to sell the database product on a date uncertain.
That introduces the pesky little problem of unringing the bell — in a couple of ways, really.
For one, people selling Narc may become known as people willing to record license-plate numbers for a fee, thus potentially subjecting every person who drives a car to an invasion of privacy: a data blueprint of personal behavior.
Narc members could be subjected to public ridicule, painted as the neighborhood snoops and spies and Big Brothers who will do anything for an MLM commission.
I’ve already seen a few Narc/DNA posters make the claim that people who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. That’s what the Nazis and the KGB said.
In other words, the Narc/DNA members are denizens of a police state foisted upon the American people by a PRIVATE business. Narc won’t even name its clients, and yet is encouraging people to write down plate numbers. Narc wants its privacy, but seems less concerned about the privacy of anyone who owns an automobile.
For another, the affiliates who’ve already bought into the “easy” part may discover they actually DO have to sell a product — the database — and that might prove a hard sell. It sure seems as though they started out selling a bizop and are being transitioned into selling the DB product.
Moreover, imagine being an NTC salesman and attaching your name to a product that very well could lead to one privacy lawsuit after another. If NTC shows the repo man the various addresses at which a license plate was sighted, it could lead to extraordinary, untenable invasions of privacy:
The repo man (or any database customer) might be able to determine:
* Whether you’re seeing a psychologist, psychiatrist, oncologist, heart surgeon or ANY medical professional.
* Whether you’re seeing a financial counselor or an attorney.
* Whether you’re seeing a clergy member for spiritual counseling because of an intensely personal matter or whether you simply are a member of a faith and attend religious services.
* Whether you visit a pharmacy
* Whether your car is parked at your girlfriend’s house at 3 a.m. or 3 .p.m. or anytime (or whether your girlfriend’s car is parked at your house at 3 a.m. or 3 p.m. or anytime).
* Whether you’re doing anything, anywhere, at any time, regardless of context.
Let’s say you’re a federal judge and your plate number gets recorded. People could begin to monitor the movements and patterns/practices of federal judges.
Let’s say you’re a Supreme Court Justice or member of Congress or a staff member of the President of the United States.
Same for prosecutors, police officers, clergy, visiting nurses, counselors, attorneys, school teachers, college professors, medical professionals — any single member of the public in ANY occupation.
Same thing goes for students. Same thing goes for people going through divorces or horrible break-ups.
Let’s say you’re a battered wife who is living with your children in a shelter for abused women at a secret location. Let’s say your car gets “narced” at the shelter. Well, there’s the roadmap.
Let’s say you’re the receptionist for a psychiatrist and you want to supplement your income by joining Narc. You might be able to peer out your window at the office and get ALL of the plate numbers or simply venture “inconspicuously” into the parking lot.
Hey, you could do the same thing if you’re the secretary at the church! When a couple or an individual spouse is receiving marriage counseling or spiritual counseling, you could grab the plate number and sell it to Narc!
So, if you’re a Narc promoter now, you’re telling the world you’re willing to record license-plate numbers for a fee, thus potentially subjecting every person who drives a car to an invasion of privacy: a data blueprint of personal behavior.
And, as noted above, Narc could end up having that pesky problem of unringing the bell. If members also must sell the database, what was the company BEFORE it made that conversion?
It sure looks as though the current members are selling a business opportunity, not an actual product.
Patrick
The whole concept of a totally arbitrarily gathered and random data base, which is also collected by a load of raving MLMers trying to make a quick buck, with no confirmed clients and no security and privacy systems in place, is….
mind boggling in the extreme.
Someone is taking the mickey and I strongly suspect it is the founders and principal promoters of the scheme.
The only error that the BBB has made so far was to let it slip through the first time, but since then they have been spot on.
I read on one promoter’s website for DNA that you can have multiple accounts. I also have seen the table where if you join for free, and ten peoople under you join for free and ten people under them and so on… you can make $2 million dollars. Well, seeing as they now allow non payers to enter data on the net, a half dozen people with some programming skills could set up a web of thousands of accounts, all free, spend a few hours capturing plates on a busy interstate and viola! Millionaires!
Anyone up for trying?
“Anyone up for trying?”
Only if we could insure that the only license plates we reported belonged to other D.N.A./ N.T.C. affiliates. First off that largely mitigate any fears of civil complaints for violating peoples privacy, citing the precedent of Pot V. Kettle. Also, listing members of a pyramid schemes would increase the interest of the law enforcement community and people lacking the basic financial literacy to recognize how flawed these business models are have have a higher than average chance of being of interest to repo men. Either way we’d be significantly enhancing the market value of the data base.
What if DNA, or NTC was only interested in collecting their members information to sell? Think of the value of this information on the open market to all kinds of entities, even those who would want it for identity theft. Just wondering.
Yes Lynn, just think how valuable such a list would be…..just think of it — a ready-made, long list of people dumb/greedy enough to send their money in to an obvious Ponzi scheme. That would be a promoter’s dream come true…. Oh, wait! Watt and the gang already have such lists!
NOTE: Two consecutive spam posts for Narc That Car targeted at this thread deleted by Admin. Post times were 10:03 p.m. ET and 10:08 P.M. ET.
Posts included NTC sign-up link/URL, a phone number and this message:
“With a team of leaders to lead the way and training material this opportunity is a good start to a residual income!”
Posts also advertised something called “the DNA Get-2-System.”
Patrick
The noted Ponzi Promoter, jah/allwyn didn’t like me calling NTC an obvious Ponzi/pyramid/fraud scheme over on scam.com, and claimed I had nothing substantive to post…..in response, I thought I would enlighten him to the hard math of NTC……
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OK allwyn, I’ll leave you out of it and rely on cold, hard math. Do you know what NTC would look like if the database was robust? For example, let’s say that robust means that there is a 90% chance that a given license plate was seen and entered into the NTC database in the last week. Fair enough? That actually might be of value to some people. Let’s limit the scope to the United States. The inescapable math is that that would mean that NTC would be equal in size in revenue to McDonald’s, and of course FAR bigger than McDonald’s in the US, since McDonald’s gets much of their revenue outside of the US. Now, you can try to refute the numbers, but you better be armed with data and not try to blow smoke. Here’s how it is done……
The key question is, how many entries into the database are required before the probability of a car plate NOT being in the database is 10%? Start with a single entry in the database. The probability that the desired plate is not in the database is 253,999,999 out of 254,000,000 (rounding off to 254 million cars/trucks in the US). The combined probability after N observations is:
P=(253999999/254000000)^N
When P=.1 (10%), N is close to 580,000,000
In other words, in order to have a 90% probability that a given car is in the NTC database, we need 580,000,000 observations entered into the database.
Now, the one week limitation means that these 580 million entries need to occur each week on the average. Multiplying all of these things together, along with the $2 per plate entered into the database that you cite, we find that NTC’s annual payout of funds to people entering these plates is $60.3 BILLION. To me, this shows the degree of absurdness of NTC’s claims that you are supporting. To get to this point, NTC needs to be bigger than Microsoft in the US, bigger than Intel in the US, FAR, FAR bigger than Google in the US, etc…..
OK, there you go. No personal attacks. Just math…..