ijango : The Next Big Scam on The Web

If you haven't heard of ijango.com yet, you will soon. I have had at least 10 people send me emails asking if this site is legit or not. So I thought it would be a good subject to cover. The goal of Tech Ding is not just to review cool gadgets, but also to give readers information on websites and services that may not be such a good idea.

Let me start by stating this, the website, just like any other social marketing product will make some people a lot of money. ijenga has nothing but a login access on their main page. In order to join or get more information, you have to be given a link from one of the current members. And that is exactly how it works. The first people to join give out their links to as many people as possible and then those people give out the links and so on. The origional person gets a cut all the way down the line. I personally watched all of their marketing movies and read through their entire agreement and payment terms.

The site gives promoters anywhere between 20%-60% of the revenue generated from consumers/members that visit the site that they have signed up. They offer search, shopping, a social network, news, etc. Basically trying to be a one stop shop for the internet. When the consumers click advertisements or buy things from the site, then the commission is earned.

Here is why I am hesitant to believe this will really work for most people:

1. They require money upfront.

In order to join the site to get paid, you will have to pay upfront. There are different member packages. From what I can tell, it is $50 for their cheapest package.

2. It seems like a legalized pyramid scheme.

The first people in will probably make money, but everyone farther down the line will find it incredibly hard. Let me explain the math....in order to get the account to start paying at a higer level, you have to sign up 20 people on your own. This is 20 people that have paid at least $50. By the 6th generation, (20 people sign up that get 20 more people each, then it happens again, and again, and again, and again) it would require 64 million members. Lets just think about that, that is roughly 1 out of 4 americans. On the 7th generation, it would require 1.28 billion people to sign up to the site and pay the $50. That is basically 1 out every 5 humans on the planet earth. This is always the final flaw with any pyramid based process. You very quickly run out of people.

3. The site doesn't really look that great in my opinion.

It does offer all these services, but they didn't seem to come close to the competition in each category. Yes, they are all in one place, but its not that hard to simply type in a URL. There are already sites that specialize in each aspect. Is a consumer really going to go to ijenga.com to search for something when they can go to yahoo and google? Are people actually planning to shop on ijenga when they can go to amazon.com? I dont think so.

I highly encourage people considering joining ijenga to consider all these things and make an informed decision. You should probably let anyone that tries to sign you up know the math as well.