Youtube is currently full to bursting with videos of people talking up YourNetBiz like it's the best thing since sliced bread. If you are short on sleeping pills I can recommend watching a few.

There are hundreds of different videos, usually featuring an amateur videographer facing the camera and telling their audience how great the opportunity is.

And from looking at the main sales site it does seem like a valid biz opp with hefty commissions available.

Unfortunately, although YourNetBiz tries to offer value through its membership site, it's really nothing more that a borderline pyramid scheme.

The idea here is that you join up by choosing a "mentor" or "sponsor" and then pick which package you'd like to purchase.

There are four in total with the most expensive (called the "Platinum" package) priced at $2,995. Others are gold ($1,995), silver ($995) and bronze ($495).

For your $2,995 you get access to "2,000 carefully selected, in demand, red hot products", you also receive coaching and training and, perhaps slightly out of place, you also receive access to some kind of holiday club where you can get holidays for "mere pennies on the dollar".

As well as the three grand entrance fee you also have to pay $59 per month plus another $10 a month if you decide to sign up for the "Quick Video Marketing" training. This monthly fee goes directly to the owners of the YourNetBiz site.

If you decide to join you send the $2,995 directly to the person who introduced you. This person then dishes out the money as follows:

(1) They send $495 to the owners of YourNetBiz

(2) They send $500 to the person who introduced them to the business i.e. their sponsor. This $500 is therefore a second level affiliate payment

(3) If your sponsor decided to let YourNetBiz do all the work and utilised the "Personal Business Assistants" (PBAs) to close you on the sale, they have to send $300 to pay for that service.

(4) Whatever is left, your sponsor keeps.

Without counting advertising or other related expenditure (hosting, autoresponders etc), your sponsor will pocket between $1,700 and $2,000 of the $2,995 that you pay to him.

And so whilst doing your research you may find that it is very difficult to find a negative review of this opportunity because everyone is very eager to make sales and claw back some of the huge expenditure it takes to join up.

The main aim of the opp is to draw in other people so they pay up to $3,000 and you take a hefty commission on that purchase price. In the background there are some products and others "goods" to make the opportunity seem more legitimate but the recruitment is where the money is made, suggesting this is more of a pyramid scheme than a real marketing venture.

YourNetBiz started life back in April 2008 as a venture called "MyInternetBusiness" or MIB for short. Earlier this year the name was changed as part of a relaunch. It will be interesting to see if the name is changed again in 2010.

As per usual this type of opportunity is usually only profitable for members who have previously been successful in other similar ventures i.e. cash gifting schemes or 1-Up pyramid schemes (see "Prosperity Automated System" on this site).

Marketers who have made a success of other schemes can offer proof that they can be good mentors - they can also offer proof that they have made a great deal of money from the internet. New members cannot prove that they have made any money and will always be at a large disadvantage.

New members will also find that they are joining an ever increasing number of competitors for the same leads. Because the opportunity is basically reselling the opportunity on, every member is a competitor to the others.

Conclusion

If this was a simple membership site costing $70 a month it's doubtful there would be many members.

The products offered with resale rights are available elsewhere for next to nothing and "coaching" is difficult to value when the identity of those giving the coaching is not revealed.

The only reason this opportunity has become so widespread and popular is the huge commission available for introducing members.

Adding the products and coaching may make the scheme legal in the UK but in reality it is little more than a zero-sum pyramid scheme where the early entrants will be paid by the late entrants injecting their money into the scheme.

At some point in the near future the interest will die down and the big marketers will move on leaving the later entrants and the dreamers nursing heavy losses.

Take note that all money is paid to your introducer and that the guarantee is only a meagre "3-day money-back satisfaction guarantee on YourNetBiz Product Packages" which doesn't give you much time to check it out fully.

Recommendation: Avoid

Comments are welcome about YourNetBiz on the following blog post:

YourNetBiz - Probably Not the Great Opportunity it is Made Out to be