The Customer Advantge is all hype no substance.

Tried to get info for weeks on launch, product, anything just got runaround.

I hear you. I joined to get more info through a marketing group. Just got notified they are dropping out.

This is the email ( redacting names ) but is sounds like even as top builders they couldn't get any information from what you call "The Customer Advantage Scam":

We wanted to send you an update regarding the Team Builders.  We have been inundated with questions and problems regarding the pending launch of TCA.  It has gotten to a point were we are putting in too much time trying to answer questions of which, we do not have all of the answers.  We have tried to contact the corporate office to get some answers and have been mostly unsuccessful.  We have made suggestions from weekly updates to leadership calls so the team leaders can share the informational updates with their teams.  All of our suggestions seem to have fallen on deaf ears.  We did receive a response from the corporate office this week to some of our questions.  We were not impressed with the answers.  We included the latest email response for your review.  

Due to inability of the company to communicate with us, we are putting our TCA business on hold.  We still firmly believe in the concept of The Customer Advantage but we can't honestly continue to invest or time to the extent that we have over the past month.  We have put our lives on hold to build this system and our organization.  Throughout this time, we have received limited support from the corporate office.  Our issues are with lack of communication and support, lack of corporate updates, planning, and deadlines.  

We will leave the Team Builders site up and keep it running.  We will not be moderating the forum and we are cancelling our weekly conference call.  If you continue to recruit new members to TCA and plan to use the welcome letter, please adjust it with this information.

If you would have questions or problems (or getting questions from your downline), we suggest you contact either support@thecustomeradvantage.com or daniel@thecustomeradvantage.com.

We wish you the best of success with all of your endeavors!  We also hope that TCA launches and is hugely successful.

Thanks,

Team Builders

This is the email exchange that seems to have triggered it all:

Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 4:59 PM
To: daniel@thecustomeradvantage.com

Subject: follow up to your voice mail

Daniel,

<redacted> and I wanted to get back to you as a follow up to the voicemail that you left for me earlier today.  We have put together a significant organization over the past 4 weeks and have really put a lot of time and effort into a duplicable system for our team members.  Our drive and efforts were based on the assumption that the company would be launching at the beginning of March in the Seattle area and launching other cities in the near future.  This was based on the information shared on the corporate conference call by John.  We were very disappointed when you told us the middle or end of March and John said some time in March.  When we shared the change of plans from beginning of March to "some time in March", it created seeds of doubt towards the company.  We have put our effort into a holding pattern until we get more information.

I am not aware of John or myself making any commitments beyond that there will be test deals run in specific areas in March and growth from there. I apologize for any misrepresentations or confusion.

We have the following questions and concerns (and are getting beat up by our team looking for answers!):

1.  There does not appear to be a definitive launch date.  Is there a date set as to when the company will launch offers?

I understand that you would love a definitive date. John and I would love that also! The system that is being created is unique and never been done before. TCA is moving forward as quickly and accurately as possible.

2.  We do not know what it will take to launch a city.  What are the corporate parameters to launch offers in a city?  Time frame, number of businesses, and number of members

There are no specific parameters in place at this time re: what will launch a city. TCA will look to member business quality, member saturation, and quality leadership to determine the sequence in which each area of the country and beyond will launch. I am sure clear parameters will be established once a few beta test areas have been completed and TCA is clear what is truly needed.

3.  Why is the company working on a video email and video conferencing system when we still don't have a launch date or offers available?  We are not interested in these tools at this point.  They may be valuable down the line but we are interested in getting the offers launched.  The members can not earn commissions till the offers are launched and that is what most people are looking for, not video conferencing tools.

The video email and conferencing system is a tool that a member business has brought forward and TCA is glad to be able to build the opportunity to give this great tool for FREE to the membership. It is in no way distracting from or delaying a launch. The manpower and resources that are organizing this FREE tool are separate from the other TCA teams.

4.  There seemed to be some negative postings on the community forum lately that did not include moderator follow up.  Then the forum was taken down.  Members are curious if the corporate office is hiding this dissension among the ranks?  There was a lot of good information on the forum for new members and now it is not available on the forum posted in the back office.  Out of the few posts in the "new" forum, there are questions regarding launch dates with no corporate response.  It seems like the company is trying to hide something from us.

TCA development is in the process of building a parallel Support and Community Forum site. This is the site that is accessed through the Help Desk in the back office. TCA Support staff was directed to monitoring and response of this new system. The previous Forum was not user or administrator friendly. The new format has more extensive tracking and will provide a better tool for member interaction.

There is nothing being hidden by the “company”. TCA is not able to give a firm launch date until all is complete. Any other statement is speculation. The day that there is a solid launch date we will no longer be in pre-launch!

We have built a large organization and have been in a leadership role to this group of members.  We have put our names and integrity on the line.  We feel there should be better communication between the team building leaders and the corporate office regarding any company updates or reasons why there is not any updates.  We are beyond the hype and fluff, we are sold on the idea.  Our team is in need of some facts and solid information.  

I agree that TCA corporate can do a better job of communication to the members through leaders like you. That is the reason that I originally reached out to Ken and then you. The input of you and all TCA membership will determine our current and future path to the goal. Feel free to send any questions or concerns that you have and I will do my best to respond timely and clearly.

We hope the corporate conference call will address some of the "issues" for the general membership!  Any answers to our questions listed above would be appreciated.

The Reply:

From: Daniel Smith
Date: Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 9:40 AM
Subject: RE: follow up to your voice mail

Hi  <redacted>,

I am sorry to hear of your frustration and I want to be very clear.

TCA is in PRE-LAUNCH. This is a period of time that has great potential for those involved and does require patience. There WILL be glitches and adjustments as this is built. I am glad and excited to work with you and Ken in this process.

See my responses below and feel free to call me if needed.

Thank you for all that each of you has created.

Daniel Smith

The Customer Advantage

Business Processing & Promotion

daniel@thecustomeradvantage.com

The Customer Advantge is all hype no substance.

Sounds more like all hype no product.

This is not unusual in this industry, and doesn't necessarily make The Customer Advantage a "scam". Unfortunately, many companies have tried to launch web-based business initiatives with grand plans and huge initial member bases ( AllAdvantage and AGLOCO for example ) but were never able to deliver.

Based on the email exchange above it looks like there is no tentative launch date, no test offers in place, and no definitive responses from daniel at the Customer Advantage.

I give credit to these marketers who decided to step back and assess the situation and decide to walk away with the loss of time already invested and not continue to invest where they can't seem to get a straight professional answer to reasonable questions.

I too joined the Customer Advantage and have been disappointed....but there is another great site called Moolala.

They already have thousands of members making significant money.  It’s 100% free.  It’s a really straight forward model that pays you 2% for life for anyone you refer (5 levels deep). It’s not as confusing or misleading as other sites I’ve joined.  (some claim to offer 5% but the fine print indicates otherwise)

Moolala has tons of great deals LIVE and most importantly… I’m already getting paid!!!

http://share.moolala.com/r/LC521PT

My wife and I were checking out Customer Advantage. It didn't seem like a scam but we question how CA was going to sign up enough businesses who were willling to offer discounts in order to get more customers. It seemed that there were too many factors involved to make it all fit together to get it off the ground or launched.

JonhyTop - Your wait is over. The first few deals went out this past week. TCA actually has very little hype. Check it our for yourself.

Hey fellas, I recall doing a bit of reading about TCA awhile back, and honestly I'm not sure I think this is as much a scam as it is some type of internal issue that either involves funding or some type of inner company conflict. I tried to find some information on John Milanoski, something negative in particular, and aside from seeing the work he's done in other areas I just can't seem to find anything that suggests he would be involved with anything illegal. I haven't exactly gone on a super search but nothing seems to jump out at me. I recall all the hype about  the Marketing Millionaire training system, and I don't know if that was successfull or not but it sure was popular on the internet.

I have seen some evidence that John never actually came up wih the concept, because it seems like there are tons of other companies doing the same thing. I reckon any MLM company could be designed as a scam, obviously, because how many companies would actually collect on the entry fees and have no clue what direction to take next? In this case, it sure seems like there is an overall lack of information, and even a lack of leads to information. I am most suspicious that Milanoski hasn't directly addressed any of the concerns in a non-robotic way, but I think yall should still give it a bit more time before you worry too much about a scam. It seems more like something internal than grabbin the money and running. The bottom line though, no company should ever sit there silent when its some 1000 members are all wondering where their 75 dollars went.

The one thing troubling me is that I can't seem to find any legit contact info for these guys, where is the company phone number and contact info, any of yall have it?

So I wonder...is this a situation in which there will be no official closure letter? So hundreds of the slower minded people will just hang and try to recruit people for like another year until they finally accept it? That's too bad if so, because its not looking good at all as far as this company amounting to anything..

TCA needs to set a date for launch and then DO IT!   Otherwise, current members will find themselves working hard to recruit members and sign up businesses and then losing them as people lose interest and momentum by never seeing anything happen.  John is asking a LOT of people to join his company and commit to working to put members in his business model when they can see nothing advancing.

I know I have already lost people that signed up weeks ago.  Not only that, since email addresses are private, I can't even contact my downline to keep them informed. All that work & poof its gone.

And when speaking to a business owner, exactly what am I supposed to say about when they will be able to roll out their offers? 

I surmise that since John says he is financing this out of his pocket, his current staff is no doubt rail thin.  No way can they respond to support for 80,000 members. But if that's the case, ne needs to go back to the drawing board. This becomes a catch-22.  With no support, many who signed up will vanish and lose interest.  How can people maintain interest and commitment to nothing?

And just as disturbing are the boring conference calls on Thursdays where John keeps giving the rah rah speeches but no questions are answered.  They pretend to answer questions, but anyone can tell it is staged to appear to be answering listeners' questions.  Instead, it's just them asking and answering what they want.  No one is even doing the minimum by filling up the back office FAQ section with tons of questions and answers. 

I certainly don't know if it's a scam.  Who would, except for John and maybe even Daniel.  Other than building a HUGE email and mailing list, I can't see how such a scam would benefit anyone unless somewhere down the road, John does start trying to sell members some "side" deal.  Something like that was briefly mentioned on the conference call on May 28.  It sounded quite suspicious.  John mentioned something along the lines of:  "We have found this great new method of recruiting members where people will just sign up . .  wouldn't that be great?"  It went something like that.  An it would NOT be free.  Then he said it was something they did not want to share RIGHT NOW because it could spoil some grand plan.  Gimme a break.  In a a business model where you need people to get involved, why would you want to hold back a novel idea.  Pure horse manure and an insult to my brain.  That was nothing more than a ploy to try to build interest and mystery.

I know they better get those conference calls more focused.  Each one I've heard sounded like John just ran in from the toilet & jumped on the phone with no thought or plans.  Then he just talks & talks & talks & talks a bunch of motivation nonsense about why the concept is so great - and then wham, the call is over.  We all know Groupon s great.  But TCA is at square -2 and I predict it will not make it.

My final comment is about all the goofs in spelling and grammar everywhere on welcome messages, the business sign-up page, etc.  If all you have to back up your plan is your written info and your web site, at least make that present well.  Heck, John could use some high school kid to log on the site and check that.

Okay, my 8 cents worth.

LOL - u call those deals?  too funny . . .

Hi Wallace,

I wonder the same thing about the closure letter...I guess we will find out soon.  (Hopefully!)

Not sure if you noticed my previous post, but you should really check out Moolala.com.

Same model as TCA, but I am already getting paid!

It's worth checking out if you have a chance...good luck!

-krisin

Previously John M said:

" We have more than 1000 businesses on board right now.  We also have the ability through 2 separate agreements to reach over 9 million businesses as quickly as we need! "

If this is the case - why haven't you posted any deals? You haven't provided anything but excuses.  Regardless of the reasons - this is business.  You should have a contingency plan.  I realize being a one man show - that is hard to do.

I reached out to you in several emails on how my team could help you get deals going - but, no response.

If the above is true - you should have plenty of deals flowing.

By the time you actually have any deals - tca will be dead.

Where is the tca corporate office? Who handles your accounting?  What bank is the business account in?  Besides yourself - who is a steward of the rep's money?

Tom

Be careful when they start asking you to open your wallet . . .

run - run fast . . .

Yes they are reals deals offered by local businesses n their community. They are also the first two so adjustments are being made to improve them as well. Watch for other cities and some national offers to follow shortly. They have been in development for 18 months and are committed to creating a strong and innovative platform to support local businesses.

Heya Kland, thank you for introducing Moolala, I just did a small review on them and they definitely seem like an interesting new addition to the club. As for The Customer Advantage, I'm still thinking they are going to be mediocre at best, assuming the banks keep it alive much longer.

I was at least modestly optimistic about this in the beginning, but I have to concur with cruisin, I think this is asking for a fail.

The only time you pay ANYTHING is when you decide to purchase an offer. Joining is completely free for individuals and businesses. There are no hidden fees or up selling with TCA.

Were these the guys that offered huge discounts to people or am I thinking of Groupon, I'm a bit confused..

It's funny, with the exception of some of the more heated threads that involve loads of debating etc, this is one of the most active topics I've seen here lol. This really had a ton of hype, and I'm left wondering how anyone that got that much attention had so many problems getting it off the ground. I'm with the people that say this wasn't a scam. A failure sure, but I don't think John Milanoski was trying to rip anyone off. In the time I've been looking at mlms and researching companies, this has got to be one of the most insane disappointments ever. Just type in customer advantage on google and there is activity up the ying yang. At this point, I'm anxious to hear something, anything, activity of any kind from the source. John M. are you still here reading these boards? Lets cut to the crux of the biscuit and start nailing these tough questions man, what is going on?

Here is the most recent update from John and the TCA Staff...

Hello TCA Members!

As you may have already heard activity here at the central office is rapidly picking up speed.

There are many areas ready to go with TCA and the very first test deals were sent earlier on Wednesday to a select number of members in the Bellingham, WA and Boston, MA area. We will be watching the results closely, making adjustments as needed, and reporting back to you with the results as soon as they are compiled. One exciting aspect you will notice is how easy it will be to share deals with your networks and purchase them as gifts. Those implementing these features are expected to cause a tremendous growth in their personal group memberships. If you would like to listen to our most recent webinar which offered a preview of these two deals click on this link.

There is also a shorter highlighted version on this page that you can view. This webinar will show many of the exciting aspects and tools that you have with this first deal and show many of the great features we have built into our offers.

After more than a month of throttling up, the email systems are set to send out over 60,000 emails to our members every hour. We are set to scale this to any size needed!

We are happy to announce that we have hired five additional support staff and we are in the process of training them on the specific requirements and structure of the TCA system. Because you are part of this company and compensated for sparking growth it is only natural that if you need help the first place to go is to the person who told you about TCA and be there for those you helped to enroll. If that person is not available or is not able to answer your questions, then move up to their sponsor and keep moving up until you get the help you need. There are many leaders in the field and you will benefit tremendously by working as a team with them. You can always go to the TCA Forum (accessible from your back office) to see if your question had been answered. If not, you can then have your question answered by the members by listing it in the "Community Q. and A." section. If you have experience with TCA, that’s a great place to contribute as well!

As we begin delivering more and more deals we are shifting focus to installing our innovative revolutionary FIRST payment system that will even work for those that do not have a bank account. This will be just one of many game changers we will bring to market! You are definitely at the right place at the right time!

One of the most important and unique aspects of TCA is that, we the members, are the ones growing this company. In order to be the best we can be, we strongly suggest you review the 5 videos located in the "How To - Presentations" link on the left side immediately after logging into your back office. They are a wealth of information and can answer many of the questions that come up in our forum or sent to support. For those who are approaching local businesses, the first two and the last video are especially tailored to help that process.

Our "member focused" philosophy encourages controlled growth and allows us to build out gradually to ensure each of our participating merchants get the attention they need. By supporting local leaders, TCA will launch in a number of local areas and expand outward from there. This strategy will organically build a structure of support and information created by the membership.

Because of who we are and the size of TCA we have the unique position to get the attention of amazing people. As part of our ongoing commitment to offer our members the most value at all times, we have put together a very short survey to help us understand better the things we all would like to learn, share and have access to. We will put some great people and items in front of you. This survey is important to you to get what you most want!

Also, is there someone in the world you would love to ask a question of? Who is one person you would love to have an interview with and what would you ask them? Answer that question and we will gather the most mentioned person and make it happen. This will be great value to all of us! Think BIG… This can be ANYONE! Make it count! If you could talk to anyone… who would it be?

All the best to you…

The entire TCA Team!

Hello Avalon,yes this company, Groupon and of course the new Moolala are all similar companies that offered discount links. I think that many people are being hard on The Customer Advantage however, as I do not see it as having been a scam. I believe The Customer Advantage gave it a fairly honest shot but that things simply didn't pan out the way they had planned. Companies rise and fall all the time and there are sometimes looses and the inability to pay what needs to be paid. It is a difficult economy all over the world, and it is natural that some businesses will simply not succeed. I feel that The Customer Advantage was something of a prototype, and that companies like Moolala will simply utilize the mistakes made and learn from them. That is basically how some of the best services in the world evolve into what they have become.

Namaste

Per your request and like you said before...."Let's cut to the crux of the biscuit!!!" 

"The Customer Advantage" MATH. The below link explains it all...I mean, to the DETAIL! 

in the email sermon it said:

"Also, is there someone in the world you would love to ask a question of? Who is one person you would love to have an interview with and what would you ask them? Answer that question and we will gather the most mentioned person and make it happen. This will be great value to all of us! Think BIG… This can be ANYONE! Make it count! If you could talk to anyone… who would it be? "

Yes - we'd love to ask a question of - somebody that will answer the corporate phone.  Do they even have a home office number?

LOL - too funny . . .

What would you like to know?