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Alexander Herr, the German who gave us a MonaVie miracle juice sales network, starts new company in Estonia.
This spring, invitations to Qnet network begun to arrive in inboxes of Estonia. The regional head of Qnet being Alexander Herr, who «during 4.5 years has helped hundreds of people build successful teams, and has personally, over a very brief period of time, reached the highest level in two companies».
On April 9th, Qnet announced via Facebook of «e-commerce giant Qnet coming to Europe», soon followed by references to calls, in poor Estonian, to be among the first to join the European network.
On April 15th, 400 new Baltic participants were hailed. On April 18th, the first training was held in Qnet’s Tallinn office for those interested and registered, with Alexander Herr interviewing over 30 people. On April 24th it was added that, in addition to Tallinn, trainings were soon coming to Tartu as well. Pictures started to trickle of Estonian events, featuring Mr Herr introducing network to locals.
From scheme to scheme
To Estonians, Mr Herr is known by the MonaVie miracle juice network marketing company, covered by Postimees last summer. According to Estonian Consumer Protection Board, the MonaVie juice was marketed, in Estonia, on the basis of a pyramid scheme i.e. using forbidden sales tricks.
The board issued NC Eurotax Anstalt, the company marketing MonaVie, a precept to terminate such activities. Initially, the company desired to contest the precept in court; later, they waived that. According to Consumer Protection Board’s public relations manager Hanna Turetski, it was thus essentially acknowledged that a prohibited form of sale had been used.
Last year, however, Mr Herr left MonaVie and is currently busy introducing in Europe, including Estonia, a new network marketing company, Qnet, of Asian origin. According to its website, Qnet was started in 1998, by a coterie of Filipinos in Hong Kong. The company started out under the name GoldQuest. In 2003, it was renamed QuestNet; this, in 2010, was abbreviated to be Qnet.
While at the beginning coins were sold to collectors via a web shop, mainly in Asia, by now the company has considerably widened its product range: it sells jewellery, health and weight loss products, as well as household technology. The company is based in Hong Kong, its products being marketed, by independent sales representatives in 100 countries.
Qnet also has been called a pyramid scheme; according to Wikipedia, their activities have therefore been prohibited in numerous countries. According to Qnet communications manager Ramya Chandrasekaran, they have indeed had misunderstandings with authorities, but in no country have their operations currently been officially prohibited.
True: in Rwanda official ban was proclaimed in 2009, but it was cancelled in 2012. According to Ms Chandrasekaran, it is being debated in Iran and Saudi Arabia whether network marketing business conforms to Islamic law.
No basis for proceeding
Ms Chandrasekaran said the pyramid-scheme-accusations originate from developing countries lacking laws regulating such business models, breeding misjudgements.
Ms Chandrasekaran underlined that pyramid schemes do not sell decent products; Qnet, however, offers useful quality products, the sales representatives making profits on selling products, not by requiting new people to the network.
Alexander Herr told Postimees by e-mail that he had left MonaVie for good and desired not to comment on their working methods – Qnet, however, being different.
«For registration fee of €30 only, those who desire may buy products from e-store and resell these. Should they want to order products, they are able to do so; however, they are not under obligation to do that. I do not like it when people are forced to buy [things],» said he. (To stay in the MonaVie business, at least one box of juice has to be ordered, monthly – K. I.)
According to Consumer Protection Board PR-specialist Kadri Paul, they are aware of Qnet coming to Estonian market; however, having little information on the network, they have yet to find the basis to initiate proceedings.