NOTE: I am no longer a member of the RIOY: Retire In One Year Program as of March 2008 and so I can offer an unbiased viewpoint without any conflict of interest.

Very honest appraisal of a home business or passive residual income program where Karl Green or Mark Stubbins claims that:

• You don't need to advertise or recruit at all, professional marketeers do that for you.
• Absolutely no effort or computer time required on your part. * It comes with a guarantee of at least a monthly income of US$4,000 net within 12 months.
• There is no additional setup of autoresponder emails, website, blog, classified ads, safelist ads, FFA ads required... just to follow some simple instructions
• You only pay US$72.90 for the first month.
• No training is required and everything is handled by the same group of people, so the results are almost always consistent.
• It claims that there is no need for Traffic Exchanges, Safelists, List Builders, Classified Ads, Solo Ads, spamming, websites, etc.

I joined RIOY on August 25 2007. Since then in 4 months, even without advertising, I have reached 27 TrafficWave downlines and countless other Bigorilla downlines through the recruiting efforts of the RIOY Team. Unfortunately, a lot has happened since it's inception and it has been plagued by many problems.

Well, by now you've probably been approached by at least one new and eager MLM recruit, or perhaps a seasoned network marketeer asking you to try out this great new product or service, and by the way you can also introduce these products to your friends and earn money.

After a bit of deal-sweetening later, you've probably signed up and are left with a truckload of products that you can't seem to consume/use or sell.

After maybe one or a few such "hole-in-the wallet" experiences, you'll swear you're never going to fall into such a trap again. You're yet another sorry statistic in MLM who's beginning to realise there isn't any truth to the network marketeers favourite adage "Everyone can make money from it... including you!"

So is RIOY: Retire In One Year a program that feeds on hype?

Let me just say first up that I believe that the concept is sound. Unfortunately, the devil is in the execution.

Previously RIOY: Retire In One Year System consisted of TrafficWave, Bigorilla and the RIOY advertising co-operative (Made up of Mark Stubbins, Karl Green, Brian Cook and Linda Acosta) which promotes and recruits for you so that you can earn a monthly income without changing your daily routine.

Unfortunately, the RIOY team made a serious error in judgement when it incorporated Bigorilla as one of it's programs. Bigorilla is basically a pyramid recruiting scam run by Steve Sigman, the creator of other scams like 14DayWealth, ProWealthBuilder and BigMoneyPro. Don't believe me? Just run a who.is on Bigorilla.com. You'll see it is registered through BigMoneyPro.

That's not the only thing. When I was sending support ticket after support ticket to Bigorilla for my missing commissions, Linda Acosta replied to one of them and told me that I did not qualify for commissions. When I repeatedly asked for clarification (you need 2 personally sponsored affiliates to qualify), there was no response. I finally filed a complaint with Paypal and got a refund of my monthly subscription.

Linda Acosta is still part of the RIOY team. Hmmh...

As of now RIOY consists of TrafficWave ($17.95/month), The Online Ad Network (TOAN - $19.95/month), the RIOY Advertising Co-op ($35/month) and All-Teamed-Up (one time fee of $35). Basically, that's about the same price as the previous incarnation of RIOY (see RIOYsystem.net - now defunct).

BTW TOAN is owned by Brian Rooney of TrafficWave.

Well, that's not all. Just get a free account at RIOY and you'll see that they have a barrage of other optional programs in their back office: Top 3 Percent, Driven Rapid Wealth, Retire On Spending, Freebie Force, ZLinkPTP, S4PMI, Savings Highway, Music Forte and TriVita. That's a lot of programs!

In Conclusion: Looking back at RIOY's past history I believe that it's a good concept but there is a history of bad judgement and a lack of honesty. In business, honesty, trust and integrity are critical.

There have been some who have made a comfortable income from RIOY but on the whole I have yet to see anyone come out and proclaim that they've made $4,000 a month from RIOY. Let's wait and see.

Basically my advice is be careful about the claims of RIOY and make sure you read the policies and procedures of every single program you join BEFORE you join. As for me, I'm sticking to TrafficWave alone. I know of a cheaper and more effective way of promoting it, thank you very much.

Latest Update of RIOY from Karl Green

December 16, 2008 Message from Karl Green:

Dear Members,

Unfortunately I have some not very pleasant news to pass along to you all.

We have certainly been hit by many challenges in the past few months, From PayPal shutting us down, problems with the merchant account, a company we invested in running off with some of our money, DRW collapsing, and probably the biggest is the current economic problems in the US.

Now I must tell you that our most dependable, and since the demise of DRW, our biggest cash provider has announced that I will not be receiving any funds from them until the end of February at the earliest. I have tried everything I can to work this out with them but I absolutely will not receive any cash outs from them until at least the end of February.

My hands are now effectively tied and there is nothing more I can do, Behind the scenes I have also been putting all of my available personal resources into RIOY, and I have nothing left to give. My worst fears have been realized and it is with much sadness that I am forced to close the doors on RIOY.

If this company does, in fact, come through in February you will all start receiving refund checks in March. I have already started the process of determining what each of you have sent in for the various programs such as MFM, LSO, TriVita Option, One Time Deposit, PostCard program, balance of RIOY dues paid a year in advance, etc. and hopefully I will be able to start paying everyone back depending on the amount over 36 months. In some cases if you paid in a very large amount more time may be necessary for me to pay you back.

If you wish to continue with LHN at any level and/or MAXeGEN, while I cannot provide payments for products, my upline and I will do what we can to help you promote the business(es) and continue to help build your income.

I hope that everyone knows and understands how badly I feel about the current situation. My goal has always been to try to help all of you build a substantial income. I have tried my best and have been met with challenges at every turn, some of which I just can not control. I am frustrated beyond belief and I regret that I have to shut down RIOY at this time.

There will be no further conference calls, and the website, message forum, and helpdesk will all be taken offline. I will be contacting each of you to let you know my plans for a repayment of your money paid in for MFM, LSO, One Time Deposit, etc.

Please be sure to cancel your monthly RIOY subscription in AlertPay or SolidTrustPay. Look for RIOY or Innovative Financial Services under subscriptions and cancel it.

I have enjoyed working with you over the last two years plus and wish you all the best.

Sincerely, Karl Green

karlgreen@embarqmail.com

(940) 626-4806

202 Happy Trail Rhome, TX 76078

PLEASE NOTE! We have negotiated with Liberty Health Net and with MAXeGEN to provide special consideration to my team members. Prior to making a decision about your positions with either company, I strongly encourage you to contact the Liberty Health Net or MAXeGEN Corporate offices. Please ask the operator to connect you to the Field Support Department.

I wonder if anyone got back their refunds or that one year free resort stay guarantee. I highly doubt it.