Last week I celebrated my 12th year as a member of Wealthy Affiliate. As much as it has grown since it started, there’s still people who question if it’s a scam.
And I am going to openly talk about that in this article (no holding back!).
So is Wealthy Affiliate a giant scam or is it legit?
It is not, otherwise why would I be there for 12 years?
Yet, I would be insulting your intelligence if I asked you to trust my assessment of this program just based on how long I’ve been there.
What I want to share with you is something that no other member is talking about regarding this program and why there’s rumors of it being a scam. Once you understand this, you’re going to understand why it’s 100% legitimate:
3 reasons why people believe Wealthy Affiliate is a scam:
I’ve read a lot of blogs on WA seen a lot of videos of WA on YouTube and here are the 3 most common reasons this question is asked…
1) Competitors hate that it’s so good.
The industry within which WA operates is the make money online one. It teaches people everything from affiliate marketing to starting your own consulting online business and it teaches it well.
But this is also an industry where there’s a bunch of other programs like it. In fact, here are 6 other programs that are like Wealthy Affiliate, of which I’d say Income School is second (to Wealthy Affiliate of course). Now these other programs aren’t talking smack about WA but they are good places to also consider.
But while there are good programs like those, there are other, opposite type programs and communities out there which participate in the strategy I am about to unveil, make the people who follow them believe that the program is a scam.
What they do is, they piggyback off WA’s popularity. They basically blog about how their program is superior to WA’s in every way and often times, they make up stats and flat out lie about it.
And to be fair, there is the opposite end of this point where WA people also piggyback off competitor products.
The marketing principal of using another program’s popularity to pitch your own program isn’t anything new, nor is it illegitimate (as long as it’s honest) but there are people who misuse this strategy and end up spreading lies about WA.
They’ll call it a scam. They’ll say their program gives faster results, and they’ll have people believing that. And considering that WA also has some of the highest if not the highest rate of success stories, it’s no wonder many competitors dislike it:
I have at least 30+ success stories to share:
- Here is one where you’ll find 10 success stories where I detailed success stories of some of the most elite members of WA.
- I also recently wrote another over 10 Wealthy Affiliate success stories here that you can check out.
- And ONE of my many success stories from this program can be found here where I show you Wealthy Affiliate’s bootcamp course.
- And I also have my own personal success story + about 50 others here in my official review of Wealthy Affiliate.
2) Some of WA’s affiliates mis-promote WA.
There’s people within the Wealthy Affiliate University program who also engage in piggybacking, but in the opposite method.
What happens is that there’s a small portion of affiliates within WA’s program who go out, and blog about other sites and do bad reviews on them, purposely.
Very often, these bad reviews are completely false and this gives the other program a bad name, as well as ruins their reputation.
The competing product owner and/or his fans/affiliates see that and then think that Wealthy Affiliate is teaching it’s promoters to do this and this is what makes them think the program is a scam.
I don’t blame them for thinking this, as this practice is disgusting. But…
This is 100% false.
And I say that because Wealthy Affiliate DOES NOT endorse nor teach it’s promoters to engage in such disgusting tactics. The whole program down to the very bootcamp program which teaches us affiliates to promote WA does NOT tell us to do this.
What these rogue people within WA do in their own acts of promoting WA is of their own volition and if they lie about another program to pitch WA, call them out on it, WA certainly does.
And I say this with 100% confidence because I’ve gone through the training, several times and I can guarantee you that what they teach is legitimate. Yes, they do teach about reviewing other programs, but the method by which they teach us to do this is through honesty and giving a program a fair look.
It is very difficult and honestly impossible to date to find any program that has the benefits WA does. Coaching, support, webinars, live help, hosting, SSL, free membership, ect… (full benefits explained here) and what the good people promoting WA usually do is, they compare another program’s perks to WA’s and very often if not all the time, they cannot compare to WA.
And I have reviewed a lot of programs and seen empty promises and training methods which are doomed to fail those who use it. When I see that stuff and review the program, I call it out on that.
But anyway, getting back to the point of #2, do not let people who falsely promote WA at the expense of other programs (lying about them) make you think that this is what WA teaches.
3) People within WA seek to destroy it, like this:
Bad apples are going to be in ANY program/group and while WA does it’s best to seek and kick them out of it’s system, they still come around through fake accounts, fake names and other illegitimate tactics.
Specifically…here’s what goes on:
There are people who purposely enter WA in order to piggyback off it’s huge member base and what these weasels do is they try to lure WA’s members out of the program and into their other systems.
There have been people caught trying to “steal” WA’s referrals out of the system and into things like private high ticket coaching programs.
These people literally lie to WA members and tell them that they are professional coaches and then charge them high prices for this. The people think it’s all part of WA and get lured into it, then they find out they are scammed or see charges COMPLETELY unrelated to WA.
I recently had this with a personal referral I sent into WA. He contacted me privately and told me that he was seeing charges that are not part of the WA system, yet the names of those charges were connected.
What I discovered was going on was that some rogue parasite individual within WA was trying to get people out of the program and into his own membership system, whilst making those people think it was all part of WA.
I told the referral to immediately report the person who was doing this, to contact the REAL owners of WA and this problem was resolved quickly.
Update: That person’s issues were resolved thankfully!
Here’s what you can 100% know that WA will never do:
They will never charge you extra for coaching.
Their pricing is as follows:
- They have a free starter membership (learn about Wealthy Affiliate’s starter membership here).
- They have a premium membership for $49 a month.
- They have an optional keyword tool you can buy.
- They sell domain names for $13.99 a year (but they also offer free ones to test beforehand).
- They also have a $357 YEARLY membership.
As long as you are a member of one of these things, you will NEVER have to pay extra. If you are ever quoted an extra price beyond these numbers I just stated, the person doing that is trying to scam you, do not fall for it and report them at once.
Then you also have spammers. Yes every program has those too.
They enter WA and start throwing out links to their other systems, telling people to join it. Don’t worry, those people are kicked out quickly and this is why WA has a 100% NO spamming policy.
So yeah, there’s bad apples out there who utilize WA’s good reputation against it and then people think those bad apples are a reflection of WA itself, it is not.
Everything I said about WA may worry you, but know this:
With everything I just exposed about what goes on behind the scenes, you may think that WA is some sort of cesspool with bad apples running around trying to scam members.
This is absolutely not true.
In fact, the likelihood of you encountering these bad apples yourself should you decide to join is very rare if not impossible. Considering this place now has over 1.5 million members, you are unlikely to see these bad apples, and even if you do, trust me, they will not be around WA for long.
The bad apples who pop up every now and then are quickly reported and kicked out of this place. That’s something you can 100% expect. This place does it’s best to keep itself clean and helping people learn legitimate ways to build their own online businesses.
And as a whole, this program prides itself on its legitimacy an I stand with it 100%. Remember, I’ve been there for 11 years people.
But I wanted to disclose all of these things that lead to the bad rumors being spread so you know what’s really going on.
This place is 100% legitimate but before you make a final decision on joining, please read my full story with it including everything I explain regarding what WA teaches and what you can expect from it:
With all this being said, if you are a member of WA, or are on the fence about joining it, and/or perhaps you heard other rumors that I didn’t mention here, please let me know below so I can address all of that.
I can 100% guarantee you that joining this place is a safe choice for learning to make money online.
One more point: I personally know the owners.
I consider myself to be very fortunate to know the creators of WA, namely Kyle and Carson who I have met with numerous times during their annual Wealthy Affiliate Las Vegas conference and because I have done so, I have been able to get to know them better and let me say, both these guys are awesome people you can talk to normally, have great conversations with and trust to help you out.
And because their ethics carry over to the WA platform, it’s why this program has been around so long.
In my one year plus of being a Wealthy Affiliate member, I must say I have yet to stumble upon any real negative review on it, but every reason you stated here as to why people may think it’s a scam is very reasonable and understandable.
Once upon a time, in my earlier months, I had a member I recently connected with then, pitch me about one MLM program and encouraged me to join it that and that it was a good way to make money from home.
And having had a negative experience with MLM products years back, I told her I wasn’t interested and to my surprise a couple of days or weeks later I realized she was no longer active.
So I guess she either didn’t succeed with her plan or must have gotten kicked out of the system. Goes to show how strict WA can be. But most importantly I believe that Wealthy Affiliate speaks for itself.
I don’t think there is any online platform that can really educate a total newbie into being a successful entrepreneur like Wealthy Affiliate can.
I’m speaking from experience though.
Cheers!
Hi Queen, I am certain that in the case of the person who was trying to get you into the MLM, that…
1) She probably tried to recruit other people inside the system and couldn’t.
2) She was reported by multiple people for spamming (she did violate the TOS), and was thus kicked out.
In any case, well done on joining the “scheme”. There are many unsuccessful people out there who try to fake it and think that by just throwing a link or saying simple things like how it’s easy to make money (they are lying), that they can get easy recruits, especially in a large community like WA.
Like I said before, these people are handled quickly and the good news as well is that WA is also very lenient. They don’t just ban people, they actually warn them not to do it beforehand. But they are keeping other members of WA safe this way.
Thank you for being honest and discussing the risks people might have at Wealthy Affiliate. I like Wealthy Affiliate because of its hands on training and resources, timely assistance with technical issues and community where people only help each other. Luckily I’ve never seen anyone talking bad about WA to sell another program or seen anyone trying to recruit me to another program.
Thumbs up to your 11 years with Wealthy affiliate!
Thank you Saori!
Wow! It is impressive you have been with Wealthy Affiliate for 11 years. I remember seeing Wealthy Affiliate about 10 years ago.
Back then, I thought it was a scam because of the cheesy name, thinking people could become wealthy by being an affiliate. I joined several years ago mostly to promote WA as a business opportunity for others.
I didn’t think there was anything Wealthy Affiliate could teach me since I had been marketing online since the last century. I was wrong. With that premise, I worked through every lesson step-by-step, doing every task, and watching every video.
The end result was filling in the missing pieces of my knowledge. So for anyone considering a training program for affiliate marketing, they can’t go wrong by choosing Wealthy Affiliate.
Awesome Glen!
Wealthy Affiliate is not a scam. It seems like every group or site has some bad seeds so it seems you can not avoid that popping up anywhere online.
What I love about Wealthy Affiliate is training and community support. There is so much training it seems like I can never finish, especially since they are always adding new training. If you have any questions about anything you can ask the community and someone is always willing to help you.
Being a member of Wealthy Affiliate for 11 years is impressive!!
Hi Anita, I agree. One may get the impression that “too much training” means you will never finish. The fact is, you don’t need to do all of the training in WA to get results. I haven’t gone through all the training personally, but I did complete the main core ones like bootcamp and my results were and are awesome thanks to it.
You’ve reported a lot of bad news, here. But it’s hard to say that you’ve made any of it up since, as you said, bad apples can be found anywhere. And it’s kind of a shame that those apples are found in Wealthy Affiliate, because, from what I understand, WA is about as ethical as they come.
Yet, I imagine that even an organization such as this would have its work cut out for it, trying to police its own and purge its rolls of those who are ethically challenged. I also imaging that, if WA is like most people–most ethical people–it tends to give others the benefit of the doubt and doesn’t expect those who are its members to game the system.
I’ve only heard good things about WA; I’m kind of saddened to learn about those who are trying to twist a good thing around into something that it wasn’t designed for.
Hi Kevin, indeed WA is truly one of the most if not the most legitimate program I’ve been in business with and I personally know the owners and how generous and lenient they are. You can’t avoid bad apples though, and usually an organization that’s kind and inviting will attract the attention of these bad apples too, it’s unavoidable but WA does have good regulations to stop this stuff.
There are also those who come to WA with prior experience in internet marketing which isn’t exactly ethical, but they don’t see it that way and in some cases, they may even be good people who don’t understand that what they are doing is wrong.
We do our best to correct these things and help people see the right ways to market, so overall, Wealthy Affiliate is doing great, even in spite of the issue it sometimes has to face with a few bad people here and there. But I’ll say this, it happens more and more rarely because they are good at monitoring these things.
You are right about WA. There are many different ways to do affiliate marketing but most of the time you had better already know the who, why, what, when and where in the business or you won’t last.
At WA they provide all the resources, tools and a community of people to help beginners find their way. I especially like the personal attention from the people that found WA. That personal interaction is a 5 star rating.
I started WA a year ago but I left only to find out that this is the only platform that teaches step by step instructions on what I needed to do to purse my business. It did not take me long before I came right back to this platform.
Yeah you are right Christy and in fact, there is somewhere between a 30-40% re subscription rate in WA where the people who return have the exact same reasoning as you mentioned, they couldn’t find better training and decided to come back.
Hi Vitaliy,
This was a great review and testament about the Wealthy Affiliate platform and I confirm every point you are making.
I’m been a member at WA for 4 years now and I never look back. When I came to this platform I was greener then green and knew nothing of any affiliate marketing stuff or building a website and niches.
However, I have come a long way and now have 2 successful running websites. I have learned everything from WA and its awesome community.
I sadly, also, have to agree that there, unfortunately, are parasites out there who like to hack into WA and want to do harm. This is the time we are living in.
Great post thanks for sharing.
Sylvia
Thank you Sylvia!
Wow, 11 years! That’s truly an accomplishment! I’ve only been with Wealthy Affiliate for 5 years and it is most definitely not a scam.
In those five years, I’ve never come across any of those folks you’ve described here. I most certainly would’ve questioned unexpected charges. Admittedly, I remember being skeptical when I first joined but you join for free so you really can’t be scammed out of anything.
If you decide to upgrade, like I have, you do realize many more benefits but the choice is always yours. One of the things that I love about WA is that there are no high pressured sales tactics to get you to upgrade. It’s truly a great platform to learn the industry and get the ball rolling. Thanks for spreading the word!
You are welcome Kris! I would bet the reason you didn’t see those bad apples in WA is because they have created a platform where these people would have a very hard time, if not impossible to do their bad work. But in rare cases where these people do sneak through, they can’t help themselves and start violating the policies and are quickly reported on and dealt with.
I will say WA is very lenient and understands not all people who practice those bad things are doing it maliciously, so they give people a chance to fix things, but if they don’t, they are gone.
Wow, have you been there for eleven years already? I have been a member for three, so am still a newbie compared to you.
Wealthy Affiliate is anything but a scam. For one, they let people try the system free of charge for as long as they like. What other company let’s people do that?
For those that do upgrade, there is a multitude of benefits, which to me are worth a lot more than the monthly cost. The hosting alone is second to none. The training and support are also world class
I have seen both good and bad reviews, but you get this in all companies so I don’t take too much notice. Wealthy Affiliate does teach a method of doing reviews on other online businesses, but to keep them honest. That is only a small part of the training in any case.
Thanks Michelle, it’s great to meet a fellow WA veteran 🙂
This is a great justification as to why Wealthy Affiliate is not a scam. I believe its competitors accuse WA of being a scam because they can’t compete or compare their products to this unique business model.
You’re right about what you say about rival companies piggybacking on both the program and the affiliate’s success.
Just today I read some reviews about Wealthy Affiliate on trust pilot and every review was five stars bar one which was a one star review. And this person was obviously promoting another company which I wouldn’t mind but it is a prime example of what you’re talking about here.
I like the honesty that Wealthy Affiliate promotes. It is true that people join to piggyback of their success and I have had people offering me their services through private messages. Every time, I have instantly reported them.
For what you pay each month for premium membership in Wealthy Affiliate, you get so much for it that I do not believe there is another company out there online that gives you as much as these guys do.
Thank you for this great honest review!
You’re absolutely right on every front there Darren. Good work on reporting that member who was trying to solicit you. It’s happened to be me too and I’ve also reported these people.
This is how Wealthy Affiliate maintains it’s good reputation and keeps producing the success stories.
Great article on Wealthy Affiliate. Of course there are going to be people putting down a program which competes with their program. Some people give negatives reviews just based on what others have to say. It would be great if people actually tried the program before discrediting it.
Wealthy Affiliate has a component which I really like, which is you can test drive it for free before making a decision. As far as I know it isn’t a scam, but rather a program which requires dedication. Thanks for the heads up for those who need to read without blinders on.
Good point on people parroting negative reviews just because they see them, but those negative reviews themselves may not have any merit whatsoever either Jag.
But let’s be honest, it works both ways, since I did mention some people inside WA negatively report on other programs too, but like I said, its a practice that WA does not teach, it’s the member’s choice to do it, but it’s an inescapable thing. As long as people understand it doesn’t come from WA’s teachings and that the program does work, that is what matters.
I can confirm that wealthy affiliate is not a scam. Why? If it is a scam, why does wealthy affiliate let you build a website and learn to make money for free? Scams are in place to get your money and run. They have all the valuable education and tutorials in there to teach and guide to build a website and make money online. If there is something with value, it is not a scam. Plus the account is free.
You make a good point Kit, indeed many programs promise something for free, but there’s always some sort of sign up or trial involved where in the end, you are charged something if you don’t cancel. That doesn’t happen in WA.
Interesting article. I’ve read a bunch of the negative Wealthy Affiliate reviews. But I had a hard time believing them as there have been so many more positive ones. It makes sense that there are people out there trying to give WA a bad name to try and bring them to their own competing sites. In your 11 years with the site, what has been the most helpful things about that site?
There are a lot of members inside WA promoting it, and this is why you see many reviews about them on the internet Paul. And I will say most of the positive reviews are legit, as the positive experiences they cite are ones I can relate to as well.
Regarding what the most helpful thing about that place has been, there’s just a bunch of things I can point to, but if I had to pick one, it would be that it has the most solid internet marketing training I’ve ever come across.
It is not a get rich quick scheme, it doesn’t follow the traditional things other programs teach, but ironically, it’s method is the most well organized one I’ve seen and following it has allowed me to get to the point I’m at today.
Mix that in with the fact that they also evolve in every other area, including the support and tools they give, and it’s really an ever evolving platform which is constantly improving.