The severely deluded Italian woman (Giulia) who has been spamming the excellent blog of David Brear with her thought-stopping, mind-numbing nonsense, raised in one of her last masterpieces of cultic propaganda the point that big companies like Apple are a partner of Lyoness, therewith referring to the ridiculous argument that major corporations endorse the Lyoness business model.
Earlier, this blog reported about the Lyoness instigators and adherents using the deceptive argument that Lyoness is (explicitly) endorsed by major corporations (and certification agencies) with big, experienced and thorough legal departments. This argument builds on two condemnable assumptions (both largely untrue). First, that major corporations care whom they do business with - which is especially questionable when it concerns redundant, irrelevant and unimportant business such as discount vouchers or even gift cards. The second assumption is that the major corporations that have their name and logo featured on the Lyoness website and PowerPoint slides have actually done business directly with Lyoness - and therewith are aware of who and what Lyoness is and what its system comprises.
Readers of this blog will know that this is not true (or at least in most of the cases). Big companies like Spar, Carrefour, Microsoft and Lego have already declared not to have done business with Lyoness directly, but that their gift cards and/or discount vouchers have been sold to Lyoness by third parties. Another way in which Lyoness has established 'partnerships' with big companies is by joining affiliate programmes. It is preposterous to assume that the companies benefiting from such affiliate programmes (by an undoubtedly increased number of sales, and therefore turnover and profit) will check very thoroughly whom they are doing business with, especially whether they are hiding an obvious pyramid scheme (and related scams) behind their innocent facade of a 'shopping community' that receives discounts.
In case of the 'partnership' with Apple, the same logic seems to apply. Apple runs an affiliate programme in which pretty much any reseller can participate (as long as their website works and does not contain objectionable material, such as explicit language or content, or support for violent or discriminatory groups). The commission for the Apple affiliates is 2%.
Coincidentally, Lyoness offers a 2% discount on the products of the Apple Store. As Freidl needs to eat too, only 1% flows directly back to the Lyoness member; the other percent disappears in the pyramid scheme that Lyoness operates as the 'position' or 'unit' system.
Conclusion: there is no evidence to support that Apple endorses Lyoness, and it is highly implausible that this is the case. The far more likely explanation is that Lyoness joined the Apple affiliate programme.
For everyone considering to join Lyoness to buy the newest Apple gadgets there is another disappointing announcement on the Lyoness website:
"Please note that the new IPad(Retina Display), iPhone5, new iMac and IPadmini are excluded from remuneration."
In other words, Lyoness members do not get a discount when buying any of the newest Apple products, but are stuck with the option to buy the outdated versions (i.e iPad 2, iPhone 4) with a meager 1% effective discount (calculated before VAT). Wow!
Tweet
No comments:
Post a Comment