Birthday Bonus Club
20th Nov 2009 16,317 Members - Birthdays today 41Today's Visitors 2,766 Pageviews 6,168
A New Model
Firstly, if you are waiting on a reply to an email, apologies but our local telco (Telkom) lost our landline connection three weeks ago and is making no attempt to repair it! I am working through my Internet Cafe at present but will have a new connection within the next few days.
In the mean time, I have just spent a week in the bush and the fresh air and long walks seems to provoke new thoughts and I believe that I have the bones of a new model for 2010 that will benefit everyone.
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From 1 January 2010, membership of BBC will be by subscription only.
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Subscription rates will be $6.00 per month, $30.00 six-monthly or $60.00 per year.
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Payment processor fees will take out +/- $0.48 and we will retain $0.52 to cover admin costs (approx. 8.8%). An amount of $5.00 will be credited to your account. A similar deduction will be made from six-monthly and annual payments.
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Birthday donations will be made on your behalf automatically from your account balance. Even if your account goes “into the red”, donations will still be made provided that your subscriptions are up to date.
I believe that this arrangement benefits everyone for the following reasons :
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Payments are regular rather than being faced with multiple requests in one month and none in others.
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Everyone pays the same amount each year regardless of their position in the network.
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On your Birthday, you will receive a single payment into your account rather than multiple payments to your Alertpay account. You will be able to request a withdrawal for any part of your balance by various payment methods (including Paypal, Western Union, etc). Withdrawals to Alertpay or Moneybookers will be handled Monday to Friday and are immediate. Payments by other means may take longer.
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Confirmations (of all types) will become a thing of the past
- you will be able to check your account at any time. -
You will never have the situation where “..I paid all my donations and no-one paid me!”. If you have 100 people in your network and you are due $5.00 – you will be paid $500!
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Hopefully, you will only subscribe from your own funds in the first year. If you receive enough cash on your Birthday, it is worthwhile to make a single, annual payment for the next year
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There are no network size restrictions – if you have no network of your own, you will still be paid by your sponsor.
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Existing members with less than a Green Rating will be set to Green on setting up their subscription. The only way of improving Ratings will be by Referrals – hopefully, this will encourage members to find their three Referrals.
I fully expect to lose many members as a result of these changes – after all, if members are not paying donations now, why should they sign up to pay regularly?
The loss of these members does not bother me – we are probably better off without them and the Club can continue to thrive with as little as 10% of its current membership.
The Premium Fund
Anyone who joined BBC early is considered a “Premium Member” because they donate to less than twelve Birthdays each year. As of 2010, they will pay exactly the same as all other members. The difference between what they pay and what is paid out in donations will go to the Premium Fund. This Fund will be used to “top up” any shortfalls in donations and to introduce additional benefits – a weekly, random Birthday Bonus, for instance.
The Schedule
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Gift Vouchers will be available from October 2009 in denominations of $30.00 (6 months) and $60.00 (12 months). We have had many requests to set up memberships for kids and grand-kids which we could not do because of the age restrictions imposed by payment processors. If the member does not need to make any financial transactions, there is no reason to prohibit membership!
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6-month and 12-month Memberships will be available from November 2009. During November and December 2009, the two systems will run side by side ie. Birthday Requests will still be sent by email but donations from paid-up Members will be paid automatically. By end-November 2009, all outstanding Rating adjustments should be cleared.
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Monthly subscription will be available from December 2009. At the same time, new members will be given 30 days to set up their subscriptions.
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Birthday Requests will cease from 1 January 2010. At the same time, existing members will be given 30 days to set up their subscriptions.
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The website will be closed for maintenance on Monday 1 February from 06:00 GMT for approximately four hours. During this time, the entire matrix will be rebuilt to get rid of members who have failed to set up subscriptions.
The Guardians
As a result of these changes, donations which would have gone directly to Members will go to a central pool – and that could be quite a lot of money! To keep us honest, I would like the Members to appoint a number of “Guardians” (no more than five). These people will be supplied with copies of our accounts – income and expenditure - each month. Their job will simply be to check that we are being honest and to raise an alarm if they find that we are not! I would like you to make nominations for these positions and I will set up a Poll for their election. Please send nominations to guardian@birthdaybonusclub.com. Thank you.
Once again, I look forward to your comments on these plans.
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September 14th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Hi Tom,
Good to hear something good going on. Well, just keep us(members) inform of any new information regularly hopefully from now on.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:36 am
I’m glad you are working on this great club. Keep us posted.
Take care.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Great job, Tom,
I got shocked when I eventually read the plans for selling BBC. I also was wondering why since weeks - if not months already !? - you didn’t come back to me on ANY E-Mail I sent after we started out with such fluent communication at the beginning of the year. But now I’m glad that you apparently have foud a “receipe”, a way to keep BBC alive. And fromwhyt I can tell it’s seems a good and a more fair way, where everybody eventually gets paid what he’s worth on his birthday and doesn’t have to live with the doubt “will or won’t everybody of my downline pay me” (as I got 6 payments out of ~175 members). Just keep us updated as to when this new model will start.
September 18th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Very good news !
Hopfuly everything will be done as announced and working at the dates announced.
If, answer is “YES”, it’s the best things that could happen for BBC.
Thank you.
PS: it was time you take care a bit more of BBC
September 18th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
HI
I would like to strongly suggest that you send this update to all members in an email.
I really doubt that many come to this area and read what is here.
There is no mention in the BBC forum either.
Could you possibly also change the front page to tell new prospects that things have changed and improved in BBC?
If members are aware of these changes the BBC may revive!!
September 19th, 2009 at 4:53 am
What will happen if a member receive only $15 on his birthday, this member can thus pay 3 other members, and this member do not buy subscribtion?
Will this member be ejected immediately or deleted? What is the policy about that, please?
Thank you
September 20th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Tom,
It’s good news to see that you are still positive about BBC, but I agree with Bonnie. You MUST let the whole database know of your plans via a group email, otherwise only a very small percentage of people will even know that it isn’t defunct.
It’s no good having plans for the future unless you are prepared to communicate better with people. Only a very small proportion even bother to come to the site now, let alone bother to read your messages.
Poor communication has been the main problem in the past, so please don’t let it spoil the future.
You have a brilliant concept here, and it would be a pity if you couldn’t take it forward successfully. It’s up to you and no-one else.
It would also help if you could update the payment stats. Iain and I still have people who we have paid in April, still showing as pending! We are not alone in that! Iain has today paid another birthday member. It will be interesting to see if you update his stats accordingly!
Cheers
Jill
September 20th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Hi,
Wonderful idea! A good selling point for this program is “putting away” for the future, to always have a $$birthday present$$ on your birthday even if no one else gives you one! Long live BBC!
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Hi everyone,
OK Tom, that IS a good idea! This should get everything to work a lot smoother and eliminate any problems. I joined near the beginning about Jan 5 and my birthday is Jan3,,, I have paid out the whole $60 and still waiting for my my first birthday to come around for the first time in BBC. I have 148 referrals and 231 in my network. I am in 7th place in the Top Promoters list ( yea, thats me with my daughter Shawna about 15 months ago) and soon to be in 6th place. I sure hope I at least break even this commng january on my birthday. I hope this is going to last for many many birthdays for everyone! What a fantastic idea you had Tom to create this!
Have a great year everyone
Rick
September 24th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Communication is key to BBC being a success. Without Jill sending an email, I might have missed the new plan. It looked (for many weeks) like BBC was truly going down the drain with only a whimper. Know I stopped recruiting and had no need to come to the site except to see if had finally been given credit for payments made. Finally have hope that BBC will keep going. It is a good plan and the new plan is better. The new plan gets rid of the problem of people passing on payments and expecting to get payments from everyone in their group.
As soon as know that the new plan is definite will start advertising again for myself and my downline. Who wouldn’t be willing to pay as little as $60/year or $6/month to get a birthday present each year?
Will be looking for email to all members about definite plan. Remember, communicate with the members as they will determine the success of the plan.
September 24th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Your idea is a great thing, as I have 59 in my downline and recieved 3 payments.
I would have never thought there are so many lowlifes in this world just for a measly 5 bucks. I’d love to dump all those scums. Thanks, Anton Mularski
October 1st, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Tom,
I think this is a great idea and will help weed out those that are looking for a “free” handout. I know I was VERY disappointed when I received NO payments on my birthday and I had 39 in my downline. I hope this will take care of that problem and make this a program that EVERYONE will benefit from for years to come. I have taken the time to personally email the intended changes to my downline, but I do agree that a mass database emailing would be wisest (would also show you which members have since changed their email addresses and are probably not any good anymore anyways - I know I found a couple when I emailed my downline).
Tiffany
October 10th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Tom,
I love the New format and sincerely believe it will get rid of all the riff raff that join in hope of getting a free handout. Again , Kudos
Arthur
October 12th, 2009 at 1:04 am
I am hoping this will make a difference also, my husband and I have sent every gift that we were asked to send, on my hubbys birthday not many gifts were sent to him, but I am hoping that members will start doing what they are being asked to do. The worst part is if admin does not changed the members to receiving the gift even though I sent a copy of all the receipts to the admin, I dont know how this is gonna work. as of right now I have 114 in my network, makes me wonder how many I will receive from.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:03 am
Hi Tom,
Yes! I love this new plan. I wish it had been this way from the start.
I think you’re a lot like me. You assume the best about people. As sad as it is, people just don’t seem to do the things they commit to doing. This is especially true in cyberspace.
I echo the sentiments of others here. I paid all of my birthdays and got very little reward. BUT I believe in what you’re trying to accomplish and will continue on being optimistic about the future.
I emailed all of the people in my group that I had contact information for, however, I do feel that an e-mail from you would be in order.
Please let me know if there is anything I can do to assist you with as we move forward.
Hugs!
Kathleen
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:39 am
Tom,
I think this system lookss fair. Those of us who took it seriously will keep it up.
What would happen with those of us whose birthday is in January? Our network may not confirm subscription before our birthday comes! There are MANY people in mine, I hope they subscribe, but what happens if they do it at the end of the month?
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:02 am
Tom,
Had it not been for someone spamming me via pm in the forum and me getting an email notification that I had a pm, I would not have found out about this proposed update. (Hmmm I guess sometimes we should be thankful for spam LOL) Anyhow I think this new plan is absolutely brilliant and we keep not only you and staff honest, but also members honest. No more worrying about not receiving our gifts YAY!
I agree with all those that mentioned above please send out an email to all in the database with your plans. It is critical that you maintain communication with those honest members.
I offered before and I will offer again. I am willing to help with support. If you keep me up to date on things I can create an email account, as well as monitor the forum, and help keep people up to date if you want.
As far as the 5 people to help keep things honest,… I suggest having at least 1 or 2 people that are not involved in the BBC at all, and have experience in the book keeping/account field. That way they are in without bias and have no reason to lie about whether the BBC is keeping things honest or not.
That being said I have a friend that is a book keeper/accountant that is her profession. She was the head manager of a bank her in the united states for several years until recently she decided to move to a different area, and thus got a different job. She is very rarely online, however I talk with her constantly, and am willing to contact her to see if she would be willing to help with this matter. As it would not take her long to review the info, I’m sure she’d be willing to do it, and maybe a few members ( myself included) would be willing to send her a donation in exchange for her time?
I can stress to you enough how much I loved the concept of the BBC when I first joined, and this new plan you have will make it so much better. I am willing to help in any way I can but let’s get the communication back on the right track
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:53 am
V.good plan, I have still been promoting, but not much int. as I think most people had the word that payments where not forthcoming, and no replies from admin, which is always taken as a bad sign for the life of a program. I have always thought that perhaps BBC grown like Topsy and got out of hand. Even a small site like mine takes time and effort to maintain.
Will keep a watchful eye on this forum from now on, and will willingly pay my $60 in advance.
Will change a banner in the above site over the w/e to reflect the changes to be.
Peta K..
http://indepenco.eca.sh/ClickforyourAd
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Tom…I think that the first requirement for your board of overseers should be from a pool of members who have paid all of thier request…that way you are dealing with people that actually care for the program….thanks…toptier
October 26th, 2009 at 3:26 am
Hello,
I fully supports your actions and ideas.
Having 99 members in my network - receiving 1 single gift at my birthday, that one from my networks top recruiter, (which I actually returned due to considering this a complete fiasco, and sorry on her behalf to fool her to put efforts into something seemingly not working)
The only thing I logged in for today was actually to cancel my membership.
I may not do that now, but I will wait until the new system are in place before I start paying for other peoples birthdays again. (sorry for that, but I have paid all requests until my own bday popped up)
Perhaps I even get use for the domain names I aquired to use for promoting BBC as well
PS: It will be frankly easy to allow for a online “rss-feed” informing which member - and how much - they received - with the new system. Only thing required is absolutely unique member names (meaning ID’s). To get that is quite straight forward.
This should result in a dramatic reduction in workload for those controlling the system.
Hopefully - the webmasters also can allow them self to make some profit from the system as well. Even the interest rate of having (assumable large funds on account - or in transfer) may generate some funds for them.
This in addition to implementing some kind of advertising schedule at the site.
That is well deserved.
(The word “free” is the most misused word in the world and may only lead to suspicions)
Looking forward to see the new system go live. Count me in!
Kind regards
cheng
November 5th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
If BBC get our money and manages it, then BBC will become a pyramid scheme and is very likely that in their home country to pursue it in court and prison can apply to the founders of the BBC.
I agree with that charge a monthly fee for their benefit by creating this brilliant idea. But do not manage money for participants with or without custodians custodians. In many countries, pyramid schemes are prohibited. I think we should implement a rule that if a person does in two birthday gift to the members in their birthday will receive nothing. Charging monthly users should avoid non-participants. A good price would be $ 5 a month.
Connectingusall.org before eliteactivity.org has worked very well for over 10 years without touching the money from the participants as they are gifts to participants, if not given away the cycles are closed and no money. Think they are making a mistake.
Translated by google.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
What I am about to do, I thought never would had happen.
I had never thought, you should read a review from my hand about a program, that should be categorized only as a cycler, hyip, or a gifting program.
Under normal circumstances it would be most unlikely, that I even spend time visiting such site, but I was introduced by a friend, who asked me my honest take on if he had got scammed (once again).
Read on and decide if he is or not your self, because honestly I can’t make a decision.
‘Birthday Bonus Club’ is set up as a WordPress blog. Nothing wrong in that; it’s fast, easy, cheap, and the site can be very professionally designed. Lots of professional and very serious businesses do set up their home pages in this manner, and in fact most of my sites are based on either Joomla or WordPress scripts.
Now; the design of ‘Birthday Bonus Club’ is absolutely alright, though I believe I have seen the theme used times before, and I am pretty sure they have got it for free. Nothing wrong with that either. Why pay for something if you can get your needs covered for free? I don’t, and again you will find that I too, make use of free themes if you visit my blog, though I have made some changes to the original template.
Ok - so far no real red flags waving, but what is the program it self all about?
Basically it is a gifting program. You join and hope for (some really seriously believe) strangers to pay you a certain amount of money over time. The likeness of a pyramid scheme / scam is not hard to see, and in most countries, if not all, both gifting as well as pyramid programs are illegal with a very good reason.
What makes ‘Birthday Bonus Club’ standing out from the outright scams, and most likely also makes it legal most places, is that it doesn’t cost you anything to join.
You read that right - it is free to join!
Of course there must be money involved somewhere or where is the ‘bonus’ part of the birthday? Why run such a website if not to earn money somehow?
First off - you are never to pay anything to ‘Birthday Bonus Club’ directly. The owners will make their income from advertising, eventually bought by you and otherwise. So that’s where the owners expect to make their money - and lure me if not they participate in the program at top positions too.
Once again, nothing wrong in that; why shouldn’t they? - It’s their program. I know for sure I would if in their shoes.
Now; what’s in it then for the general public - my friend from before, you and I?
Well after reading the program through, for I don’t know how many times, I decided this to be such a cozy and funny idea, I just couldn’t resist to participate my self.
Because that is exactly what it is: A cozy and funny idea, but with the potential giving you an unexpected and very nice surprise at your birthday. How would you like lots of people you don’t even know, to pay you a small gift at your Birthday? You see; that is what ‘Birthday Bonus Club’ is all about.
You join the program for free, but every now and then, on their birthday, you are asked to pay some other members between $2 and $5 as a present. The most you will have to pay in total is $60 a year.
This is because of the nature of the program. When you join, you are placed in a forced matrix (3×9), and the members you will be asked to pay a birthday present, is limited to no more than 12 people (only once a year of course - at their birthday - max. $5 x 12 = max. $60).
You are not even required to donate to any member ever.
When you are asked to give a donation to somebody on their birthday, you are given a ranking on how well you give on other people’s Birthdays. At your birthday, the system behind the program will determine according to your ranking, how much other members should give to you (between $2 and $5).
It’s like that very important saying: ‘Give, and it shall be given unto you’. If for some reason you can not afford or just will not pay the birthday child, you can do so 3 times. The fourth time you will be dropped from the ‘Birthday Bonus Club’.
Of course any such program will work only, if everyone do their best to get new members. The goal for any member would therefor be to refer at least a couple of people. The more people in your downline, the more people will be giving you a birthday present.
It shouldn’t be hard though to make people join to a free program, but as the club is build on a forced matrix, even though you are not able to convince anyone at all ‘Birthday Bonus Club’ is worth joining, you are likely to have a downline build for you over time That’s because of ’spill over’ coming from your upline from time to time. One just has to remember not to rely on ’spill over’ as if everyone did that, the organization would stall immediately.
Your potential birthday bonus is more than $140,000 a year, and I find that to be a very nice present indeed. But I know that even if I got only a few bucks, I personally would still find it to have been a lot of fun just to have participated.
As a last remark; the club has an active forum, where support of all kind is available. By reading just a few postings, I recognise an admin that take good care of his members and the club.
For (most likely) the only time ever, I recommend a ‘gifting’ program.
As mentioned earlier, I have chosen to participate in this ‘free to join’ program my self, and I consider it as a fun and cozy lottery ticket. If you do not consider joining right away too, at least have a closer look at ‘Birthday Bonus Club’. I find it entertaining and who knows; perhaps even able to make my next birthday a very profitable one.
Internet Marketing Strategist Michael Johansen (MSc), has been online since 1997 and operates a well recognized class-based online course on how to build your own Internet business.
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