| Comment Number: | 522418-07277 |
| Received: | 7/10/2006 10:25:11 AM |
| Organization: | Quixtar.com |
| Commenter: | John Rowell |
| State: | TX |
| Subject: | Business Opportunity Rule |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 437 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
While I commend the FTC for thier efforts to protect consumers and filter out organizations acting in unscrupulous manners, I view portions of this proposal to be harmful to legitmate organizations operating in ethical manners while not protecting the public. My concerns are as follows: - I am concerned about disclosing my personal financial records to prospects to substantiate claims. Primarily I feel this would require me to disclose private informtion and secondly prospects should not base thier decisions on the results of a small group of other people. These prospects can out perform any other business owner based ontheir own efforts. - I beleive a requirement of a money back guarrantee would protect the public more so that a sevean day grace period and multiple disclosures and referrences. Requiring referrences of 10 buisness owners also opens up privacy and identity protection concerns sicne these names and numbers could be given to anyone. - Listing lawsuits an organization may have lost and found at fault is one thing but to disclose claims found to be untrue seems to be beyond reasonable. In today's litigious climate a suit can be brought for reasons that are often untrue and rediculous. I don't beleive any buisiness should have to acknowledge those in thier efforts to demonstrate credibility to prospects. I hardily agree that shady, new start businesses who promise get rich quick with no effort businesses are a serious problem and hope the FTC can shine a bright light on those companies and protect the public. However, Quixtar and a handful of other direct selling organizations have operated for years in ethical manners. We've faced challenges in years past by the FTC and have been shown to be a great opportunity for many people. Offering money back guarrantees, disclosures of average incomes and disclosures of what it will take to be successful in an endevour should be enough to weed out the legitimate business opportunities from those that are unethically practicing to make their founders wealthy before being shut down. Thank you for your attention.