Is Team National A Scam? (A Ridiculous Recruitment Scheme EXPOSED!)

Welcome to my Team National review!

At some point, you must've come across an ad or a social media post about selling SAVINGS. 

And no, you're not crazy for reading that. 

That's because you just stumbled across Team National.

First of all, I must Congratulate you for taking your time to do your own research before buying into any "seemingly good" product.

That's the way to avoid scams and find the legitimate way to make money online!

Let me be completely transparent with you, I'm not associated with Team National in any form.

So, rest assured that I'm not here to pitch or sell anything to you.

Instead, I'm here to reveal what Team National is all about, the story behind their unique product line, and what they bring to the industry. 

Is Team National a scam, or is it a legitimate company with legitimate business opportunities? 

Read on and find out!

Team National, also known as “National Companies” is a Multi-level Marketing (MLM) company founded by Richard “Dick” Loehr in 1997. Today, it’s run by his daughter, Angela Loehr Chrysler.

They are also a member of the following organizations:

1. DSA – Direct Selling Association
2. D&B – Dun and Bradstreet
3. The US Chamber of Commerce

They’ve also hit $1 billion dollar in total product sales, joining the ranks of Organo Gold, Jeunesse, Melaleuca, and Primerica just to name a few.

Team National is all about selling discounts, which is an odd idea for some, but there’s a high demand for it. But people who want to save are also hesitant about paying just to be able to do that.

Seems counterproductive, doesn’t it?

In the case of Team National, there isn’t much information about the discounts they are selling through their memberships. I see a few people here and there raving about how good the discounts are, while most people are claiming that the discount aren’t that good.

Here are the 4 different Team National Categories of Memberships they provide:

This is the furniture division of Team National, which goes straight into the manufacture, giving members savings of up to 65%. The product lines include indoor and outdoor furniture, spas, flooring, and saunas.

This is a large group of wholesalers, manufacturers, and distributors that Team National negotiates to secure exclusive discounts.

Members enjoy savings on:

1. Vehicles – new and used cars, parts and service; motorcycles, ATVs, personal watercraft, etc
2. Financial services – home mortgage, wealth planning, debt management
3. Health discount benefit plans – vision, dental, hearing, teledoc, chiropractic, etc
4. Rental Cars & Trucks
5. Communications Services – long distance, digital phone, high-speed internet, satellite tv, etc
6. Business savings – credit card processing, check processing, gift cards, etc
7. Travel
8. Insurance
9. Team National product line – automotive, nutritional supplements, skin care, etc

Sadly, I could not find any specific discounts and big ticket items like cars, trucks, and recreational vehicles rarely sell for their sticker price (which is the only price the discount would qualify for).

Team National Business Exchange allows you to save at thousands of local and small businesses across the USA. Team National provides business exchanges for construction, home maintenance, real estate, automotive, insurance, travel, and more.

This is Team National’s category for allowing members to earn 30% commissions from over 100 popular brands.

They also have their own private label of consumables belonging under the nutrition, kids, and automotive care department.

I couldn’t’ find any specific products to compare because they don’t really make this information available unless I’m a member (which I need to pay for). But they claim that their price tags are 50% lower on average than industry standard pricing.

Members can earn commission on the product that they buy. The site doesn’t clearly state if they earn commissions from others though.

Otherwise, if a member earns money on a product that they buy, it’s a rebate, not a commission.

Team National doesn’t offer physical products per se.

Their memberships allow you to get discounts on a lot of different products. But as I said earlier, I’d expect a lot of positive reviews about their discounts, but those don’t seem to exist.

Most of the reviews that I’ve read were more focused on whether Team National is a scam or not, and if the potential to earn money is even there. Positive reviews lean towards it being the best money making online scheme, while negative reviews call it a pyramid scheme and a scam. 

Here's a good take on positive and negative reviews to see where people stand about this company and its opportunities:

Positive comment:

Negative comment:

Team National doesn’t provide any retail products or service themselves, but they sell what’s called a “discount membership”, or savings to put it bluntly.

Distributors can also purchase branded Team National products for Product Bonus commissions, but no further information on these products are provided on their official website.

Right off the bat, Team National makes it clear that there’s no joining fee. But membership is not free.

There’s a membership fee of $25, which is taken from your first payout. You also need to purchase an IMD Starter Kit, which costs $55. The contents of which are unavailable to the public as of this writing, and I can’t seem to find any other information about their Starter Kit.

1. Standard Membership - $795

The Standard Membership gets a 2-year access into the following:

1. Team National Factory Direct
2. Team National Group Buying Power
3. Team National Business Exchange
4. Team National E-Commerce
5. Big N Marketplace
6. Additional coverage
7. for grandparents, children, and even grandchildren
8. for up to 5 employees if you own a business.

2. Premium Membership - $2915

The Premium Membership gets you a lifetime access into the following:

1. Team National Factory Direct
2. Team National Group Buying Power
3. Team National Business Exchange
4. Team National E-Commerce
5. Big N Marketplace
6. Additional coverage
7. for grandparents, children, and even grandchildren
8. for up to 5 employees if you own a business.

3. Big N Website - $99 for members / $495 for non-members

This fee covers the following:

1. (2) Personal Big N Websites
2. Hosting and Domain

Distributors of Team National are referred to as IMD’s or Independent Marketing Directors.

Their compensation plan revolves around selling the discount memberships, but it actually goes deeper than that.

Commission and Bonus Qualification

To qualify for commission and bonuses via the Team National Compensation plan, an affiliate needs to make at least two new membership sales a year.

Membership renewals are not considered as membership sales.

Cancellations of memberships does not affect quota, which is quite good.

Direct Discount Membership Commissions

If a Premium/Business or Standard membership is sold, Team National pays out the following commission:

1. Premium/Business Membership (cash) – $100
2. Premium/Business Membership (EFT or credit card) – $50
3. Standard Membership (cash) – $50
4. Standard Membership (EFT or credit card) – $25

If a member decides to pay for their membership fees on finance (provided by Team National), the company pays out either $25 or $50 commission.

Note that these commissions are not paid out until a distributor has sold two membership packages. Commissions start on the third sale.

Residual Discount Membership Commissions

You also have the option of earning via Residual commissions, which is managed via their binary compensation structure.

With Team National’s structure, a point is awarded each time a discount membership package is sold.

1. These points are tallied weekly and when a distributor has 5 matching points on their left and right leg, they earn $500.
2. If they earn 10 points on both legs, then they earn $1500.

Points are also generated on personal sales of a distributor or from those of their downline. These points do not carry over and are flushed at the end of each weekly pay cycle.

Here’s what a sample of their progression bonus would look like:

Lastly, if 10 points are matched, a hosting bonus of $1000 is paid out. To get this bonus, the distributor must have two of their downlines qualified for commissions (which is 2 new membership sales every 12 months).

Note that initial hosting bonus qualifications last for 12 months, with distributors being required to sell at least one new discount membership every 12 months to maintain the qualification.

Presidential Bonuses

Once a distributor reaches hosting qualification, a Team National affiliate also qualifies as a Presidential distributor.

Presidential distributors are able to generate more points per membership sold with 5 levels of Presidential membership ranks.

1. Presidential – qualify for hosting bonuses
2. Presidential Director (generate three 10:10 matching bonuses in your binary) – generate an additional point per membership sold
3. Bronze Presidential Director (have 2 Presidential Directors in your downline) – generate 2 additional point per membership sold
4. Silver Presidential Director (have four Presidential Directors in your downline) – generate 3 additional point per membership sold
5. Gold Presidential Director (have six Presidential Directors in your downline) – generate 4 additional point per membership sold
6. Platinum Presidential Director (have ten Presidential Directors in your downline) – generate 5 additional point per membership sold

Note that only personally recruited distributors count towards above qualification criteria.

Presidential Directors and those ranked higher receive an additional bonus on the sale of discount memberships made by them or their downlines:

1. Presidential Director – $10 on Standard Membership and $20 on Platinum Membership
2. Bronze Presidential – $20 on Standard Membership and $40 on Platinum Membership
3. Silver Presidential – $30 on Standard Membership and $50 on Platinum Membership
4. Gold Presidential – $40 on Standard Membership and $80 on Platinum Membership
5. Platinum Presidential – $50 on Standard Membership and $100 on Platinum Membership

The override commission (sales made by an affiliates downline) is $5 on Standard Membership and $10 on Platinum Membership.

Product Bonus Points Commissions

Similar to the discount membership binary points system, you’re also paid out a product bonus point commission.

Now, this is kind of unclear because the video was lacking in presentation but I think you earn a $150 commission paid out if you match 10 product points in your left and right legs.

A $100 hosting bonus is paid out to either a downline hosted by a director or to the first hosting qualified directors in their upline.

To qualify for these bonus points commissions, a distributor must personally purchase $50 worth of products from Team National.

This video will help better explain their compensation plan:

And I am talking about REALLY LOW income potential.

I found an official income disclosure statement from 2016 that shows that majority of the IMD’s don’t earn enough money.

In the entire year of 2016, 93.5% or approximately 45,299 directors made less than $500 for the ENTIRE YEAR! That’s $41.00 a month. You earn more with your daily minimum wage for 8 hours (average of $7.25 per hour) compared to what you would make in a month with Team National.

But what about the other 6.5% of the total distributors? How did they fare?

I would say that the levels that barely matched the minimum wage earnings would be Silver level or higher. At $19,170 a year or $1,595.50 a month, this level made slightly higher than minimum wage (again, at $7.25 an hour multiplied by 160 hours per month).

And how many people are above Silver level, you may ask? 324 people are ranked Silver or higher, or roughly 0.8% of the total number of directors for 2016. 

The program costs too much to maintain, and even for a two-year membership, you’re still shelling out $795. It may not look like a lot of money over a two-year span, it is a lot of money upfront, and is usually a big turn-off for potential recruits.

On top of that you also have the following costs to maintain

1. Independent Marketing Directors: $55 IMD starter kit fee.
2. Membership fee: $25
3. Success Club: $35.95 per month
4. TNAllAccess.com: $10 per month.
5. Information on Demand services for Genealogy or checking your downline: $99 a year or $9 a month
6. Standard Membership:  $795
7. Or Premium Membership: $2915
8. Personal Big N Marketplace website - $75/year or $7/month for members; $495 for non-members

Upfront, you’re expected to pay out $929.95 for the Standard Membership or $3,049.95 for the Premium Membership.

The website is optional, but Team National insists that the Big N website is vital for your success.

 So, if you include the website, you’re shelling out $1004.95 for Standard Membership, or $3124.95 for Premium Membership.

There are far cheaper and more reliable ways to make money online, in my opinion.

I get that they restrict their information about their products only to their IMD’s, but I would think that they’re better off showing actual information rather than keeping it within their circle.

And I think that this is bad for their IMD’s who’re having trouble with recruiting.

Let me explain.

How would a potential recruit do his or her research about their products if information is not made available on the site?

How would anyone know how good or bad Team National is if they can’t see it for themselves?

These questions are rhetorical, but you get where I am going. We’re living in an age where marketing relies on successfully relaying information about a product to the customers.

Team National doesn’t provide enough information about its products to its potential customers, and this affects how IMD’s market their membership products.

Team National only sells savings through its discount memberships, so it’s a very big plus when I say that there are no products to deal with.

There’s no hassle of inventories, returns, and other common logistical issues associated with physical products.

Thanks to Team National’s impressive network of distributors, wholesalers, and manufacturers, members enjoy great savings on buying products from Team National.

If you can enjoy as much as 50% off on a product, I would say that it’s a really good deal.

Team National is far from being a scam, and is actually one of the most legitimate MLM companies out there.

It doesn’t have physical products to sell, but it sells “savings” through its discount memberships. Having one type of product to sell is easier to market, but it doesn’t really apply to Team National.

But with the membership fees, you still need to make it worth your while. If the purchaser of a membership is a business entity, then they’d have access to Team National’s network of distributors, wholesalers, and manufacturers.

You have to know how much you need to be able to save to justify the purchase of a membership too.

Now, I wouldn’t really put much faith into its system when I say that you can make money out of it. Based on its income disclosure statement and its compensation plan, I think the difficulty lies in getting people to buy the memberships.

Honestly, who would spend $795 for a discount membership when Costco only costs $70?

I know I wouldn't.

I'm not a fan of MLM, not because it's illegal or not profitable, but because of all the restrictions and the expensive costs involved.

Instead, Affiliate Marketing is my top recommended business model for anyone to make money online.

The reason is simple...

• You don't have to recruit anyone to make money
• You have the freedom to promote any products you want and not being restricted to only promote the products from one MLM company
• It's Free to get started

In fact, with affiliate marketing...