| Comment Number: | 522418-04103 |
| Received: | 6/24/2006 1:47:42 PM |
| Organization: | Xango |
| Commenter: | Sharon Jackson |
| State: | NC |
| Subject: | Business Opportunity Rule |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 437 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing today on behalf of my family and our concern about the proposed Business Opportunity Rule R511993. We feel that as the rule as currently stated would impact greatly the small business that we have built and depend on to care for our family. We have been distributors for a nutritional company called Xango for the past 25 months. We have thoroughly enjoyed our small business opportunity through Xango. While our small business provides for our family, the company (Xango) donates a portion of their total sales to children’s charities. We are very proud of this. We enjoy the product our company offers and we know we are contributing to our overall well being of the folks that are apart of our business. We initially became interested in the company due to the product, as we developed a belief system in the product, the company, the founders we were comfortable offering this product to people that we care about as we felt confident we could add value to their lives. It has resulted in enabling us to bring a parent home full time with our son. We are able to spend more time together as a family. Before our association with Xango we both worked fulltime stressful jobs. My husband in his (40’s) suffered a heart attack 2 years ago. Now that I am home fulltime and have been able to replace my corporate income there is a lot lof stress that has been relieved from my husband. We have worked very hard and made sacrifices to build our small business to support our family in this manner. We certainly appreciate that the FTC is trying to protect consumers. We have worked hard to educate people on how to pick a company and what to look for in a company. It would be a travesty for the legitimate hard working small businesses that bring real value to people to have their families’ incomes jeopardized because of those that choose fraudulent business practices. I know there is a way to protect the innocent & stop those whose intent is to do harm. The seven day waiting period would kill our business as well as any other! When people want to buy things they want them right away. If they have to wait 7 days the desire will be gone. We are in the nutritional business, people want to be proactive and start doing something today. What would happen to GNC if their customers came in picked out their products and then had to come back in 7 days to pay for them??? It would be ludicrous to think they could have a successful business. I know a small business like myself without employees wouldn’t stand a chance. And disclosing 10 customers……again think about GNC divulging their customers to others, there’s privacy issues, who wants to be bothered with a phone call?? what if they were a competitor gathering your customer base, what if there were people with bad motives ??? could we even begin to be liable for that??? That opens up a very scary can of worms. The bottom line for me and my family and well as many others is that just these two changes alone would make it nearly impossible for us to survive and our months of hard work and sacrifice will have been for naught. We operate on the basis of credibility and trust in our business and both these examples would create elements of distrust and send up red flags to people that the FTC doesn’t trust us as small business-why should they???? Perhaps companies who meet certain standards could have ratings that would exempt them from these proposed changes. That could be a win- win. The companies that earn good ratings would be exempt and could therefore be proud of their rating and use that as a guide for the consumer. The FTC could impose their regulations on all those companies that have failed to meet certain standards. Thus, sending a beware message. We networkers are great at educating people and would be glad to help. We know Xango would have one of the best ratings! Now that would help promote our small business! Thank you for your assistance.