Flex operates within the AI spam MLM area of interest.
The corporate’s web site names Robert Sacco and Dan Putnam as Flex’s co-founders.
In its compensation documentation, Flex identifies itself as “a B-Epic firm”.
Putnam (proper) owns B-Epic and connected MLM corporations B-Eco and Govvi (suspected proprietor based mostly on exclusivity illustration).
Different MLM corporations Putnam owns/owned embrace O2 Worldwide, LurraLife and Towards All Odds.
Putnam can also be a serial Ponzi scammer.
The SEC sued Putnam and Angel Rodriguez, his accomplice in crime, for securities fraud in 2020.
By means of numerous scams, the SEC alleges Putnam and Rodriguez defrauded customers out of at the least $12 million.
Putnam settled the SEC’s Ponzi fraud fees again in January. Financial penalties and ordered restitution stay pending.
Robert Sacco’s FaceBook profile cites him as a Pruvit distributor.
In 2021, Sacco fell down the crypto bro rabbithole:
CluCoin was a typical short-lived pump and dump shitcoin rip-off:
Sacco (proper) additionally owns BitJar Labs, which claims it
fill(s) the voids and clear up the urgent points confronted by ALL DIRECT SELLING corporations.
As per Sacco’s BitJar Labs’ company bio;
For the previous 20 years President and Founder, Robert Sacco, has seen again workplace improvement within the community advertising business fail to reply probably the most urgent points.
Robert has constructed massive organizations within the business and has been a Grasp Distributor 5 instances.
He has led in company roles as VP of Advertising and marketing, VP of Enterprise Growth, VP of worldwide Enlargement and President of a number of Worldwide Direct Promoting corporations.
He has consulted quite a few corporations in again workplace improvement, worldwide enlargement, and IT all through the business and has written and collaborated on many compensation plans which can be reside within the business right now.
One among BitJar Labs’ initiatives is Selfles, launched final 12 months.
Selfles mixed a humanitarian frontend, silicone bands and an NFT grift backend.
As of August 2023, Selfles seems to have flopped.
Learn on for a full overview of Flex’s MLM alternative.
Flex’s Merchandise
Flex has no retailable services or products.
Associates are solely in a position to market Flex affiliate membership itself.
Flex affiliate membership offers entry to an AI spambot they’re calling Rubi.
FLEX Applied sciences is a cutting-edge firm revolutionizing the AI business with its flagship product, Rubi.
Rubi, powered by XO AI, gives an unparalleled content material technology expertise. It goes past conventional content material creation by leveraging microservices comparable to SPI, Xtract, and Personify.
Rubi offers a limitless alternative for companies and content material creators. It empowers customers to generate high-quality, tailor-made content material shortly and effectively.
With Rubi, it can save you time, enhance productiveness, and ship participating content material that captivates your viewers.
Entry to Rubi is priced based mostly on how a lot spam you wish to generate every month
- Fundamental prices $15 a month and allows you to generate as much as 15,000 phrases
- Professional prices $25 a month and allows you to generate as much as 25,000 phrases
- Premium prices $50 a month and allows you to generate as much as 50,000 phrases
Flex’s Compensation Plan
Flex associates pay a month-to-month price. Commissions are paid once they recruit others who do the identical.
Flex Affiliate Ranks
There are twelve affiliate ranks inside Flex’s compensation plan.
Together with their respective qualification standards, they’re as follows:
- Influencer – enroll as a Flex affiliate
- Model Influencer – buy and proceed to pay for a Flex product and recruit at the least one affiliate who does the identical
- Certified Model Influencer – preserve a month-to-month Flex order and recruit at the least two associates who do the identical (positioned one on either side of your binary workforce)
- Silver Certified Model Influencer – preserve a Professional or Premium tier membership, preserve two recruited associates with an energetic membership order and generate at the least 1000 GV per week in your weaker binary workforce facet
- Gold Certified Model Influencer – preserve a Professional or Premium tier membership, preserve two recruited associates with an energetic membership order and generate at the least 2500 GV per week in your weaker binary workforce facet
- Platinum Certified Model Influencer – preserve a Professional or Premium tier membership, preserve two recruited associates with an energetic membership order and generate at the least 5000 GV per week in your weaker binary workforce facet
- Diamond Certified Model Influencer – preserve a Professional or Premium tier membership, preserve two recruited associates with an energetic membership order and generate at the least 7500 GV per week in your weaker binary workforce facet (should qualify for 3 consecutive weeks in a row initially)
- Blue Diamond Certified Model Influencer – preserve a Professional or Premium tier membership, preserve two recruited associates with an energetic membership order and generate at the least 7500 GV per week in your weaker binary workforce facet (should qualify for 5 consecutive weeks in a row initially)
- Double Blue Diamond Certified Model Influencer – preserve a Professional or Premium tier membership, preserve two recruited associates with an energetic membership order and generate at the least 25,000 GV per week in your weaker binary workforce facet (should qualify for six consecutive weeks in a row initially)
- Double Black Diamond Certified Model Influencer – preserve a Professional or Premium tier membership, preserve two recruited associates with an energetic membership order and generate at the least 100,000 GV per week in your weaker binary workforce facet (should qualify for ten consecutive weeks in a row initially)
- Inexperienced Diamond Certified Model Influencer – preserve a Professional or Premium tier membership, preserve two recruited associates with an energetic membership order and generate at the least 250,000 GV per week in your weaker binary workforce facet (should qualify for twelve consecutive weeks in a row initially)
Referral Commissions
Flex associates earn a 25% referral fee on personally recruited associates.
Though not explicitly clarified I imagine this excludes the preliminary enroll price, which is paid as a recruitment fee (see under).
Recruitment Commissions
Flex associates earn a 40% fee on the primary price paid by a personally recruited affiliate.
10% is paid to the primary upline affiliate (the affiliate who recruited the affiliate who earns 40%).
Life-style Bonus
Flex associates who enroll on the Premium tier qualify for the Life-style Bonus.
The Life-style Bonus is a recruitment bonus that pays as much as $350 a month:
- recruit two Premium tier associates who recruit two Premium tier associates every and obtain a $50 month-to-month Life-style Bonus
- recruit three Premium tier associates who recruit three Premium tier associates every and obtain a $150 month-to-month Life-style Bonus
- recruit 4 Premium tier associates who recruit 4 Premium tier associates every and obtain a $250 month-to-month Life-style Bonus
- recruit 5 Premium tier associates who recruit 5 Premium tier associates every and obtain a $350 month-to-month Life-style Bonus
Residual Commissions
Flex pays residual commissions by way of a binary compensation construction.
A binary compensation construction locations an affiliate on the prime of a binary workforce, break up into two sides (left and proper):
The primary stage of the binary workforce homes two positions. The second stage of the binary workforce is generated by splitting these first two positions into one other two positions every (4 positions).
Subsequent ranges of the binary workforce are generated as required, with every new stage housing twice as many positions because the earlier stage.
Positions within the binary workforce are crammed by way of direct and oblique recruitment of associates. Word there isn’t any restrict to how deep a binary workforce can develop.
On the finish of every week Flex tallies up new gross sales quantity on each side of the binary workforce.
Certified Model Influencers and better are paid as much as 20% of quantity generated on their weaker binary workforce facet:
- Certified Model Influencers earn a ten% residual fee fee
- Silver Certified Model Influencers earn a 12% residual fee fee
- Gold Certified Model Influencers earn a 15% residual fee fee
- Platinum Certified Model Influencers earn an 18% residual fee fee
- Diamond Certified Model Influencers and better earn a 20% residual fee fee
Word that no matter rank, Flex caps residual commissions at $20,000 per week.
As soon as paid out on, quantity is matched in opposition to the stronger binary workforce facet and flushed.
Any leftover quantity on the stronger binary workforce facet carries over.
Matching Bonus
Flex associates earn a 20% Matching Bonus on residual commissions earned by personally recruited associates.
Generational Matching Bonus
Gold Certified Model Influencers and better obtain a Generational Matching Bonus.
The Generational Matching Bonus is paid out by way of a unilevel compensation construction.
A unilevel compensation construction locations an affiliate on the prime of a unilevel workforce, with each personally recruited affiliate positioned straight below them (stage 1):
If any stage 1 associates recruit new associates, they’re positioned on stage 2 of the unique affiliate’s unilevel workforce.
If any stage 2 associates recruit new associates, they’re positioned on stage 3 and so forth and so forth down a theoretical infinite variety of ranges.
The Basic Matching Bonus is paid on residual commissions, earned on unilevel workforce generations.
Flex defines a technology in a unilevel workforce leg when a Gold Certified Model Influencer or increased is discovered.
This ranked affiliate caps off the primary technology for that specific unilevel workforce leg. The second technology of that leg begins instantly below them.
If a second Gold Certified Model Influencer or increased exists deeper within the leg, they cap off the second technology and a 3rd begins below them.
If no such ranked affiliate exists, the second technology runs the total depth of the leg.
Utilizing this generational construction, Gold Certified Model Influencers and better can earn the Generational Matching Bonus on as much as to 4 generations per unilevel workforce leg:
- Gold Certified Model Influencers earn a ten% Generational Matching Bonus on as much as two generations
- Platinum Certified Model Influencers earn a ten% Generational Matching Bonus on as much as three generations
- Diamond Certified Model Influencers and better earn a ten% Generational Matching Bonus on as much as 4 generations
Diamond Bonus
Flex take 2% of company-wide gross sales quantity and place it right into a International Bonus Pool.
Diamond Certified Model Influencers obtain an equal share of the International Bonus Pool every week.
Word that the International Bonus Pool is for Diamond Certified Model Influencers solely. Greater ranked associates obtain Rank Achievement Bonuses (see under).
Rank Achievement Bonus
Flex associates who qualify at Blue Diamond Certified Model Influencer and better with a one-time Rank Achievement Bonus:
- qualify at Blue Diamond Certified Model Influencer and obtain $10,000
- qualify at Double Blue Diamond Certified Model Influencer and obtain $10,000
- qualify at Black Diamond Certified Model Influencer and obtain $40,000
- qualify at Double Black Diamond Certified Model Influencer and obtain $75,000
- qualify at Inexperienced Diamond Certified Model Influencer and obtain $150,000
Becoming a member of Flex
Flex affiliate membership is tied to a month-to-month price:
- Fundamental – $15 a month
- Professional – $25 a month
- Premium – $50 a month
Flex Conclusion
As an writer it’d be straightforward for me to strategy criticism of Flex’s AI spam bot from a creator’s perspective.
I’m going to chorus from that and strategy it as a substitute as a client, as I imagine that’s extra related to the general public doing due-diligence into Flex.
For the reason that AI hype practice took off in direction of the tip of final 12 months (coinciding with the launch of ChatGPT launching final November), the web has been flooded with AI spam content material.
Given we don’t have AI able to producing new concepts, that is rewritten plagiarized content material stolen from third-parties.
In my very own web travels it’s gotten to the purpose the place it solely takes a number of paragraphs for me to comprehend I’m studying AI-spun spam.
I’d wish to see search engines like google penalize this content material however with how deep into AI Google, Microsoft et al. are into AI, that’s most likely unlikely for a while.
The purpose is, no one desires to learn AI spam waffle and over time individuals are going to get higher at recognizing it and noping out.
Arguably, until precise AI comes alongside, the AI hype practice has largely died out since final 12 months (I’d say it peaked round March and April 2023).
This brings us to Flex’s Rubi;
As above, Flex is advertising Rubi as “the perfect ChatGPT different”. What they’re basing this declare on is unknown.
Name me a cynic, but it surely’s most likely simply search engine optimization key phrase stuffing for searches for “chatgpt alternate options”.
Rubi is pitched as a solution to publish content material showcasing “your model, your voice (and) your persona”.
All it actually does nonetheless is steal different individuals’s manufacturers, voices and personas.
Relating my earlier feedback about search engines like google cracking down on AI spam, beating detection can also be one among Rubi’s promoting factors.
What I’m unclear on is who Rubi is meant to be for. Flex’s compensation plan incorporates “influencer” into its rank.
How unhealthy of a social media influencer are you if you happen to’re complete “model, voice and persona” is stolen from different individuals although? Is that even going to go anyplace? Will it final?
I’m going to make a distinction between AI avatar influencers, as I don’t suppose big-titty Secure Diffusion avatar influencers are Flex’s goal market.
Outdoors of influencing, we wish to depend on authoritative sources for content material consumption. Regurgitating content material you’ve stolen from third-parties doesn’t make no matter you’re feeding Rubi’s output into an authoritative supply.
It’s spam, and over time is extra prone to hurt what you are promoting over any short-term productiveness achieve.
AI as an automation instrument is okay however Rubi is particularly marketed as a stolen content material spinning spambot. It’s a extra superior model of the previous “stealing articles and altering a number of phrases” bots.
That about sums up my ideas on Rubi’s AI providing from a client viewpoint. You would possibly like having your time wasted by AI spammers, extra energy to you I suppose.
Both method, if you happen to’re prepared to pay as much as $50 a month that’s what you’re paying for.
Transferring onto the MLM facet of Flex, we sadly have a pyramid scheme.
Flex cannibalizes its retail clients by making them associates:
Congratulations in your option to grow to be an FLEX Model Influencer.
With no value to start and no prior expertise required, you may have the liberty to work by yourself schedule and tailor what you are promoting to your distinctive way of life and desires.
Signing up is a breeze, and with only one product order, you’re able to roll!
Based mostly by itself advertising, Flex doesn’t seem to separate retail clients from individuals in its MLM alternative (i.e. everyone seems to be an affiliate).
The FTC has repeatedly clarified that MLM corporations with out vital retail gross sales quantity are working as pyramid schemes. MLM corporations with no retail gross sales quantity are most undoubtedly working as pyramid schemes.
That Flex is working as a pyramid scheme isn’t solely shocking given Dan Putnam’s previous.
Loads of crypto grifters have moved onto the AI bandwagon. Putnam and Sacco are simply two of them.
As with all MLM pyramid schemes, as soon as affiliate recruitment dries up so too will commissions.
It will see increasingly more associates cease paying month-to-month charges, ultimately triggering an irreversible collapse.
The mathematics behind pyramid schemes ensures that once they collapse, the vast majority of individuals lose cash.
