ACN MLM Review: Donald Trump Gave His Approval

Are big homes, private helicopters, and fast cars intriguing to you? If so, you may be wondering if you can earn lots of cash selling for American Communications Network (ACN). Donald Trump endorsed becoming a seller for this company so you can have this luxury lifestyle.

I am happy to help guide you in your decision about whether or not you should start as an independent business owner (IBO) with this company.

You can read any ACN MLM review out there so I am happy that you chose to stop right here. I am in no way associated with ACN and I offer you an honest review of the business. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

What is ACN?

Robert Stevanovski, Greg Provenzano, and brothers Tony and Mike Cupisz founded the American Communications Network in 1993. The business operates in 26 countries and the US headquarters is in Concord, North Carolina. ACN provides a full lineup of telecommunications, energy, merchant, and financial services.

ACN primarily markets its services and products to households and small to medium companies. The customer can choose to purchase a singular service or several bundled together. This ACN MLM review uncovered that most people who wouldn’t want to live without their cell phones and social media are already use these ACN services daily.

ACN says they can offer customers better services and prices than what they are currently using. The savings are passed on to the customer because ACN does not have to spend a lot of money on advertising. The advertising is primarily through the thousands of ACN’s independent business owners.

How Does ACN Work?

The company is made up of a pool of independent business owners, called IBOs. IBOs make commissions by selling ACN products and services like internet, gas, electricity, and phone plans.

They can also earn money by recruiting others to join. A portion of the sales made by new recruits becomes commission for the IBOs who initially recruited them. ACN, which has operated for 28 years in 27 countries, encourages IBOs to recruit within small circles made up of family and friends

ACN primarily markets its services and products to households and small to medium companies. The customer can choose to purchase a singular service or several bundled together. This ACN MLM review uncovered that most people already use these ACN services daily. Most people wouldn’t want to live without them.

ACN Services

*Phone Service (landline and wireless)
*High-speed Internet
*Gas and Electric (major US private providers) 
*Merchant services (financial services used by businesses)
*Home security & Automation (security/surveillance systems, monitoring, & Smart business controls
*Television (DISH tv)
*Identity Theft (protecting customer's identity, copyrights, and data security)

Can You Make Money With ACN?

If you are doing research about the best paying MLM’s, ACN may not look so inviting. The company is in a highly competitive telecommunications market and the commission percentage paid to IBO’s is small in comparison to other companies. Other MLM’s have a higher percentage paid up front and don’t rely as heavily on a bigger downline. With ACN, a significant sized downline is needed to make money.

Earnings as an ACN IBO (Independent Business Owner) are from the sale of services to customers and you earn a percentage when they pay their monthly bills. Month after month, you will get paid for as long as they remain on the service or for the term of their agreement. You will primarily earn between 1-10% from your customer’s monthly bill payments.

As with any business, earnings and success are not guaranteed but depend primarily on the individual’s persistence, effort, and results of acquiring customers personally and/or through their team.

ACN says their services are better than what people are presently using. I don’t know about better services, but I think they mean they are able to pass along savings because they spend much less on advertising. The majority of their advertising is done through thousands of independent ACN business owners. IBO’s can make money through personal and team residuals and also recruitment bonuses.

• Personal Residuals This is the easiest way to earn income through ACN. When a person becomes a new customer and pays their bills, the IBO gets paid a percentage month after month for as long as they remain on the service.

• Team Residuals This is where you can earn income from recruiting other people into becoming an IBO. The percentage of income you receive is based on your recruits efforts to get others to sign up as and IBO.

• Recruitment Bonus Every time a new customer is acquired through you or your downline there is a set bonus amount earned.

ACN has a 7-tier compensation plan and the people you recruit are included in your first tier. When your first-tier recruits bring in people, they will be placed in the 2nd tier, and so on until you reach 7 tiers deep. One frequent criticism is the commission increases stop at the 7th tier. The more tiers you accumulate the more money you can earn.

Before you consider joining American Communications Network, I want you to think about who you could possibly sell to. You have to remember that you will only be paid for the people who sign up. If a member cancels halfway through their contract, your commission is revoked. There’s no base pay which means you could spend hours trying to sell memberships to your family and friends and not make much money at all. On top of not making much money, you may lose friends and family from your constant pressure aimed at them to buy or sign up to be a seller.

How Much Does it Cost to Join ACN?

You will need to spend money to operate their business, such as the sign-up and monthly business support fees. The start-up fee is $199 and covers the cost associated with establishing and running your business for one year in any of the 27 countries in which ACN operates. There is an additional $25 per month business support fee, $10 per month meeting fee, $49 annual renewal fee, and $499 to be a trainer for your downline.

There are also mandatory weekly meetings (see photo below of typical weekly schedule) to attend via Zoom and will require your time and about $10 a month to attend. Also, there are also periodic ACN events and leadership training to attend which you will have to pay for in addition to travel and miscellaneous expenses. ACN offers virtual events since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please remember, this is a start-up fee for a business opportunity, and you will become an independent contractor, not an ACN employee. One major flaw of the majority of MLM’s is the poor success rate of earning any money at all. Statistics show that 99.7% of people who join these types of businesses lose money.

Pros of ACN

• Services are easier to sell because people already use them.
• Services are offered by well-known telecommunication companies.
• By 1998, ACN was listed in Inc. Magazine’s “Inc 500” list as one of the top 50 of the fastest-growing privately-owned companies in the USA.
• Has been in business for almost 30 years!
• In 2011 the non-profit organization ACN Global Reach Charities was founded.

Cons of ACN

• The Compensation Model If you have done any research online, you may have read that ACN’s compensation plan can be challenging just like the programs at Rodan & Fields or Matilda Jane to make money. ACN has a lot of competition in the telecommunication marketplace. There is a low margin of profit and commissions. To receive a bigger paycheck, building several tiers of downline recruits is necessary.

• A Sizeable Team is Required Building a big team requires a lot of work, effort, and many hours to grow your ACN business. There are many personal and team sales quotas to meet to make a significant income. This can take a committed full-time representative a few years to accomplish.

• High Start-up Fee The cost of starting a business with the ACN is almost $1170 not including the marketing expenses.

• $199 signup fee
• $49 per year renewal fee
• $25.00 per month Business Support fee ($300/yr)
• $10 per month mandatory meeting fee ($120/yr)
• $499 fee to become a trainer for your downline recruits
• Additional expenses to market your business

• Don’t Count On Your Sponsor for Training The training from sponsors has been rumored to be non-existent or poor

• Commission Increases Stop After 7 Tiers Why would a company not encourage a larger downline that can potentially bring in more money?

• Critics Say Sellers with ACN’s are Unlikely to Earn Money The company has faced intense criticism for the lack of income of the IBO’s.

• Donald Trump Tried to Distance Himself From ACN Once Donald Trump announced his intent to run for President, he did not want anything to do with this company.

• Slow Internet Speeds Customers have mentioned the poor customer service when complaining about the slow internet speeds. There is a cancellation fee if you disconnect any services.

• No Income Disclosure Statement This statement shows average earnings per month for employees and IBO’s. There is no disclosure listed on their website.

Beware of Lawsuits and Unethical Practices

A lawsuit filed in October of 2018, by four anonymous plaintiffs, claimed that Donald Trump and his children Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump were guilty of fraud and false advertising by promoting a multilevel marketing company called American Communications Network (ACN).

The suit characterizes ACN as a pyramid scheme and accuses Trump of having made misleading claims as a paid pitchman prior to his presidency. All four say they suffered financially as a result.  

One of the four anonymous ACN independent business owners suing Trump said she spent $4,600 in one year to market ACN’s services. She earned a whopping $38.

Because Donald Trump was a spokesperson for ACN she continued to sell for the company even though she was losing a lot of money because she thought she needed to try harder. Trump, with his children at his side on his television show “Celebrity Apprentice,” praised ACN as a “great opportunity” that did not carry “the risk most entrepreneurs have to take.”

The ex-president of the United States also said in a recruiting video for the company, “I work with a lot of companies and I can say with 100% confidence that you’ve made the right decision choosing ACN,”

Just to be clear, Trump received $8.8 million from ACN from 2005 to 2015, which helped save him for financial ruin. Hey, I’d say anything too for that much money.

Is ACN Legitimate?

ACN is a legitimate multi-level marketing company that has been in business close to 30 years.

I’ll give ACN some credit though. In the documentation I read, they do specifically say that it will take a lot of hard work and that this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. At least they are honest about what you can expect, however, they are not transparent about what their IBO’s make like a majority of other MLM companies.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for reading all the way to the end of my ACN MLM review. Just because a company is legitimate, doesn’t mean it is an ethical business. With such high upfront costs and statistics show that most will lose money with any MLM, I would recommend staying away from ACN.

The commission margin is very small and you will only have a chance of making some money if you have a huge downline of recruits. Even if you do have a large downline, that doesn’t always mean you will earn a substantial income.

If I were you, I would take a hard pass on the ACN opportunity. Marmalade Monopoly’s verdict on ACN is a big NO! If you are looking for other MLM business reviews, check out my Uforia MLM review.