FreeIQ, Marketplace for Sharing or MLM

Unfortunately, for me, FreeIQ is not the place to go to increase ones IQ level as I surmised when I first spotted the name. FreeIQ does however, offer what it terms a Marketplace for sharing ideas.

According to Brad Fallon, the founder of FreeIQ, “At Free IQ, the emphasis is placed on exchanging valuable information not frivolous entertainment. We believe that everyone knows something that is of value to someone else. We let people share that knowledge through video.”

FREE being a key word and as you all know when it says FREE it is buyer beware until proven otherwise. In the case of FreeIQ, those exact words suddenly came to mind. What was the catch?

The fact that he played golf with NASCAR driver Dave Stremme meant that FreeIQ must be hot. Surely, I was being overly paranoid, right.

I decided that best place to start would be to read Brad Fallon’s Learn More section of his website wherein the following caught my eye.

Question: “Free IQ sounds great, but why would all this information be free?”

Answer: “Great question, and the answer is simple. You see, most of the speakers, authors, experts, consultants, gurus, coaches and trainers are experts because that topic is what they do for a living. …their area of expertise may be their whole career.”

“…whether it’s a video of a seminar, an audio recording …or even a free e-book – many of the experts have even more information and content for sale.”

“…We’re talking about entire presentations and seminars with very valuable content, some of them that last hours – and all for Free!”

I found it intriguing that Fallon would use the words FREE and sale almost simultaneously to answer a question. I had questions of my own and I realized the only way to get them answered correctly was to join and see for myself.

Inside FreeIQ

Immediately after logging in and landing at My Account Manager page I was surprised to be visually confronted with not only affiliate product sales ads and product detail but also the opportunity to listen to 4 hours of FreeIQ training videos. I had expected to see a simple welcome and a brief introduction about the services offered at most. FreeIQ really took me by storm in this particular instance.

FreeIQ also offers you the opportunity to join their affiliate program where you can make money by referring others and when they join you get not only a referral fee but also they become YOUR CUSTOMER. As FreeIQ states, “Free IQ Pays You for Making the Introduction . . .Over and Over and Over Again.”

They, FreeIQ, continue by stating that, “And we pay your affiliate commission with or without a cookie!” “That means if you refer a person to Free IQ and they sign up a free account, then that person is signed up as your customer; you’ll be paid an affiliate commission for any purchase that person makes for an entire year”

As noted on the FreeIQ, ‘Official Team Blog’, “One of the keys to Free IQ is the ability to promote other people's content and make money from the sales generated. With that in mind, today we introduce the initial beta version of the place you will go to select content for promotion: the Marketplace.”

‘Okay stop right there!’ FreeIQ will pay me for schmoozing my friends and business contacts into joining FreeIQ in anticipation that they will not only join, but purchase product from other members as well so I can earn even more money. It seems that I need to make a choice, friends or money, at their expense tough call.

Conclusion

In my initial research I was a little disappointed to only find two press releases for which the April; 2^nd link did not work. As I delved deeper into FreeIQ on my own reconnaissance I realized that what ever minute press release and any other form of good will marketing Mr. Fallon had, was not as factual as he would like it to be, at least not from this scribes point if view. Even his commentators on his blog are of the same cut, as each site I was re-directed to were of third rate product sites you normally find in an annoying pop-up.

I also found myself drawn to know more about another site called Planet FreeIQ which while giving a raving review and support of FreeIQ it states, *Planet Free IQ is not related to Free IQ (It's a big planet, someone's got to organize it!). At this point in time I decided to do a cross check on the mailing address of both sites and was not very surprised to see they were in fact in different cites which is easy to accomplish. However, when I did a domain search I was even more surprised to see that FreeIQ, Planet FreeIQ, FreeIQ Official Team Blog and Brad Fallon’s blog are registered with Godaddy.com. All registration details are the same except for the site registration name and creation dates, with the registrants name kept private in each case. You can draw your own conclusions from there.

In respect to his comments I presented in the beginning of my commentary where the emphasis is placed on, “exchanging valuable information not frivolous entertainment”, the more I looked into FreeIQ, two and two did not equal four as he (Fallon) would have us believe. Rather, I am reminded of the Shaklee Corporation and Amway for which both, despite their heavy online presence and praise are about as safe as live rattlesnake in your back pocket.

Just a word of caution that Fallon is also involved in an SEO program called Stompernet 2.0, but that is another story.

I despise MLM programs under which category FreeIQ falls, and while to they (MLM programs) do appeal to the inner greed in each of us, the only ones benefiting are the guys and gals at the top. Meanwhile you become your own best customer in order to stay in the program and all the while, they make you think you are making money in the process. FreeIQ is no different then Yaari, which I exposed prior, as another example and it (FreeIQ), is definitely not a program I will recommend to any of my contacts soon, I respect them too much to do that.