I hate to say I told you so, but I did.

Yesterday I wrote about the latest MLM fad and encouraged you to avoid it.  The fad is called Chat to Text.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one that didn’t think this was a good idea.  Facebook shut down Chat to Text yesterday.

I quote from the Chat to Text web site.

UPDATE – Facebook just shut down the application as of 9:42pm Eastern Time Monday, Feb. 2nd. Don’t worry, everyone that paid already will still receive their commission as per our agreement. But let’s get this back up and running…this is a way for ALL of us to make money. As you all know, MLM is legal and MLM works…this was exploding and Facebook may even have felt threatened by us.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! POST YOUR COMMENTS TO THIS NEW FACEBOOK GROUP – WHAT DO YOU THINK???

Email Facebook to tell them this is a legitimate business model that doesn’t violate any terms. Read Facebook’s terms for yourself, ChatToText doesn’t violate ANY of them! Here is the email they sent, a 5-second copy/paste email:

————————To the developer of ChatToText, application ID #43000236800,

Your application has been disabled for violating Facebook terms and policies.

For further information, please email platform-policy@facebook.com .  Please note that attempting to recreate this application may result in further action.

Sincerely,

Facebook Platform Developer Operations & Support

And just as Chat to Text is trying to create buzz and get support for their application there are groups of people forming who are trying to make sure they stay banned from Facebook.

Here is the group you should join if you want to keep Chat to Text off Facebook.

The problem with Chat to Text wasn’t that they charged money for a facebook application but that they were doing MLM.

You might wonder why I am upset by this. I do MLM and make a full time living doing MLM.  My issue with it wasn’t that it was MLM but that there wasn’t any real residual income here to be made.  All the money was up front money from selling the application AND it was an application that I felt I’d never want to use.

To be honest I don’t do much Facebook chat anyway. Why would I want Facebook chat to come through to my cell phone? That’d be annoying to me and I bet a lot of people would start to use the application, find text messages to their phone annoying and turn it off.

I felt like a lot of people were promoting it not because they liked the product but because they wanted to make money referring the product to other people. Or perhaps even worse, the product was only $6, so “why not” try it.  That’s a pretty bad way to build an MLM.  You will end up with a lot of unhappy people when they realize they wasted their money.

Apparently I was right.

If you are an established MLMer you have to beware of the junk you promote.  Several of my friends started promoting this junk.  One was even promoting it as “Facebook has gone MLM”. You have to remember that your reputation is more important than a quick paycheck. WHO CARES IF I CAN MAKE A PROFIT PROMOTING IT.  It takes bigger guts to not promote something.  If I don’t have to promote every little thing that comes up it shows I’m serious.  And I have a better reputation.

Remember the old tv commercials “When EF Hutton talks people listen”?  People would be at a restaurant eating. It would be very noisy.  Then one of the guys would start to talk and everyone would suddenly stop talking to hear what he had to say.  Then the voice over would come on and say “When EF Hutton talks people listen”.

That’s how you want to be perceived. You want people to listen to what you have to say.

What do you think? Do you think I’m crazy? Do you think ChatToText will be back on Facebook?

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > MLM Hall of Shame > I was right again. Chat To Text was shutdown by Facebook :)