Review of Motor Club of America- Auto, Health & Life Benefits + Referral Program

While Motor Club of America is not a new program, it has started to gain popularity in recent month. For those who are not familiar with the program, Motor Club of America offers a variety of auto, health and life benefits in the form of monthly motor club memberships. These memberships range from about $10 a month to just under $20 a month for the standard memberships, and new benefits and services are being added regularly.

My fiance and I were first introduced to Motor Club of America back in August by a friend of the family who is known to be involved regularly in home business opportunities. At first I was interested because we were both working part-time and not eligible to receive health insurance through our employers. While my fiance was excited, I was very skeptical at first. We were only told about the program from the money-making aspect. When we began to do research, what we found were mostly affiliate sites promoting the money-making opportunity, proof videos and reviews that weren't really reviews but sales letters. It was very hard for us to find key information such as:

• When the company was founded
• Who runs the company
• Where the company is based
• The difference in the company's membership levels
• Real testimonials about the PRODUCTS and SERVICES, not the money-making opportunity

Rather than becoming frustrated and writing it off as not-so-legitimate, we decided to take a week and really dig into the program to see if we could find anything else of importance. During that research I learned several things about Motor Club of America as a company and an opportunity:

• The company was first founded in 1926 and is based out of Oklahoma.
• The company partners with Auto Help Line, a national dispatch network for auto services providers.
• Its benefits are backed and provided by Zurich American Insurance.
• The pricing difference in memberships is due to different types of vehicle coverage as well as different types of accident coverage. Some benefits are provided in the same amount regardless of membership level, but their Total Security membership includes additional vehicle options and increased accidental death coverage.
• Motor Club of America's memberships include roadside assistance, emergency transportation / hospitalization / trauma care, legal coverage for auto accidents, theft rewards, travel discounts and benefits, health care discounts and accidental death coverage.
• Interested individuals can join the referral program and earn commissions that start at $80 per sale for referring new members. In addition, referral partners can earn commissions from every sale their own referral partners make.

After further research, I was able to locate auto services providers who are a part of the dispatch network, profiles for a few of the company's executives and testimonials from a few individuals who have used the services. I also learned that members receive a membership pack in the mail with the cards they need in order to redeem their services as well as an explanation of how to redeem them.

I became a member myself about a month ago in order to learn what the customer service is like and how long it takes the company to provide its membership pack in the mail as well as how you go about redeeming certain services. I was pleasantly surprised at the level of customer service. The wait time when calling can be a bit longer than you'd probably like, but they do answer and get your needs taken care of. The membership pack takes about 2 weeks to arrive in the mail (actually about 11 days for mine), and it contains a membership card for the roadside assistance and emergency services and a separate card for the prescription, vision and dental discounts. Overall, I am happy with the service I've received and the benefits that I am now covered by.

Has anyone else had any experience with Motor Club of America? I would be interested to see how others have been able to use the benefits, what the process of placing a claim for an accident is or maybe how quickly a claim is processed. I'm very curious about this, so your thoughts or experiences are welcome.

http://www.tvcmatrix.com/

[Generic link added - Admin]

MCA is a nice opportunity that offers a chance to increase one's cashflow kinda quickly with the advance commission plan. Of course it's an advanced commission that could be charged back in whole or part. However, the product is awesome and many true customers will want to keep it indefinitely.

I joined back in February and have enjoyed the $80 paydays. I'm not sure it's a very exciting opportunity for depth residual income because of the requirements to produce "x" amount of volume in sales a month but it's good for some great cashflow if one is actively sharing the service product and opportunity.

I agree. The chargebacks are something that I am not quite used to with business opportunities. However, they don't concern me much. Something I learned is that if you do incur chargebacks, they don't apply to income that you haven't earned. I was concerned about that when I first read it and had the question answered when I called the company before joining. I certainly didn't want to be in the negative for a business that I work so hard for.

My feeling about chargebacks is what it has always been. They are possible with just about anything you choose to do that involves money, that much we can't avoid. Even when we're told they aren't allowed or recognized, they can still cause trouble. I was with an opportunity for a few years that expressly stated that it did not allow refunds because of the nature of our products (they were digital and could not be returned to the company or could not be proven unused). Despite that, I often had to deal with disgruntled customers who demanded refunds and tried to report complaints and request their refunds directly from Paypal. And on a few of those occasions Paypal would take out the amount in question while they decided who was allowed what. At times that even meant amounts of $1000 or $1500. It eventually came back once the contract was looked into, but it sometimes took months.

The optimistic part of me says that chargebacks can be avoided though, or at least lessened. If you're honest with customers about what they're purchasing, recommending what they need and not what you want them to have, and providing them with good customer service they aren't as likely to discontinue or request refunds. You'll always have the few that will of course, but I don't think they will outnumber the happy customers if you're doing the right thing for them and providing them with high quality services.

In terms of depth residual income you may be right. I think that depends though on the quality of your members and the training and support you give them. I think residual income is what you make of it. You can treat it as if the amount is insignificant or you can let your focus be to build your team up the residual income will follow. To me, no additional amount of money is insignificant and neither is the success of my team. So whether or not I'm able to earn residual income isn't as much of a concern as whether I'm able to help my team members succeed.

A lot of red flags with this opp. First is the fact that MCA or it's sister marketing company do not offer any kind of marketing support. If you want to promote this deal, you'll have to create your own web-site, capture pages autoresponders etc. or pay your way into another program that is already set-up. If a company doesn't support it's members with anything other then a cheap replicated affiliate page, which is nothing more than a sign-up sheet that tells very little. Another important fact to think about is that a lot of states have lic. requirements to be able to sell a motor club membership. So, be bery, bery, careful. States don't play around. Also, you say your not worried about the canceltation rate is crazy. I doubt very much if you have a high retention rate if your just trying to promote hype. People will cancel if there not making money. Period. All in all Mca and tvc matrix needs to spell out all the details and requirements for this opp. to be legit.

Thank you,
Skydancer

Hi Skydancer, It's great to hear concerns from others. That's why I posted this review. I've talked with different executives of the company at length about their take on marketing and such. They are still newer to the affiliate world, so they're working on more tools for their affiliates to be able to use. I am pleased that they are working on expanding their benefits even more and have already launched some of the new ones. They do provide training manuals in PDF format as well as presentations, scripts and other things that affiliates can use to get a handle on the business, it's benefits and how to answer questions from potential customers. I'm not concerned about the marketing bit because that's one of my areas of specialty (along with website design) and I can assist my members with the marketing training and custom websites. I do think that this is a reason anyone who is interested should be careful about who they choose as a sponsor.

They have spelled out the details and requirements of their opportunity in writing. Anyone who wants can get access to the documents as they're on the TVC website and you don't have to log in to see them.

And as far as retention rate, it really depends on each individual and how they are choosing to promote their MCA business. If they promote with hype (which I have seen many do), then it follows that they'll have a lot to answer to when their members are no longer satisfied. Personally I'm happy, both as a customer and an affiliate. I have heard from others that are as well. I have also heard from some who are not. Some of the main differences were that they didn't do as much research as they wanted to before joining. In some cases they didn't do any at all. For a couple of others, they received no help from their sponsors after joining. That is not a problem that MCA has caused, that is a problem with individual sponsors...and it happens in nearly every home business I've ever heard of.

I do believe that people will cancel if the only reason they joined was to make money and if they have not received any support from their sponsors to achieve that goal. I don't foresee having either of those issues because my focus is on the benefits that a customer is actually paying for first, and even when I do discuss the referral program I don't do so with all the hype.

And finally, as referral partners we are not acting as insurance agents and the benefits are not insurance (though many similar services are offered by insurance companies). Those services which involve emergency care and accidental death are underwritten by a registered and licensed insurance provider. We will not be personally handling or submitting claims or dispatching. However, it is important to know whether your state requires a license to sell motor club memberships. I'm not sure how others do this, but I discuss this in my training with my members. Then they can decide if they care to move foward.

In my research I saw someone ask on the behindmlm site the following questions and though it might help clear some things up:

The real question is… can you join MCA without joining TVC?
Or is EVERY MCA member automatically a TVC member as well?

First off, so people understand, MCA and TVC are 2 different arms of the company that work in partnership with each other. MCA handles the customer-facing motor club benefits. TVC handles the marketing and affiliate program. The answer to question #1 is yes. You can purchase a motor club membership without having anything to do with TVC (the marketing side of things). The answer to question #2 is no. Not every MCA member is automatically a TCV member as well. Those who'd like to become referral partners must go through a separate sign-up process.

At the end of the day, it is simply a referral program that pays advanced commissions (which again are explained in all of their documentation). If your customer does not continue with their motor club membership you incur a chargeback (because the customer has discontinued their product). There are some very important things to consider if you are interested in becoming affiliate and each person must decide whether such a program is for them. If you don't really care about the benefits or don't feel you'd have any use for them, I personally wouldn't recommend that you purchase or try to sell them. That's just my feeling. Customers can tell when you don't believe in what you're selling. I chose this path because it's something personal and dear to my family and situation. Again, everyone has to make that choice for themselves. Just don't let the promise or hope of lots of money be your only guide.

That was a really well put together responce from my earlier post. It is nice to see one do proper due diligence on a opportunity before they promote it.

I'm sure you will be very successful if you continue to treat this as a business and not as a atm machine.

Thjank you
Skydancer

Note to admin. please add spell check for me. Please

Thank you Skydancer. I have been a small business owner running my own business (not an affiliate program) for a few years. I try not to treat anything as an atm machine, that's never been my personality or style. The main reason I even became interested in this program was because of the benefits. I was working part-time and ended up experiencing a health-related issue that I think might have been brought about by my job (we worked very close with people and at times were required to help them dress or undress). But because I was part-time, I couldn't get benefits. And then we were introduced to this and it has solved a few of the problems that the lack of employment benefits created. Not all of them, but a few. At least now I know that if I have to go to the emergency room I have a nice sum to put towards it. Otherwise we were very worried...

Your browser should do the spell-checking on all websites, not the forum software.
It relies on the dictionary files you have installed for the chosen language.
I use FireFox with no add-ons and it checks as I type, underlining in red.
There are spell-check add-ons for IE or Chrome if you don't use FireFox.
Dictionary files are included with most word processors, I use OpenOffice.org

I joined MCA when my then, 16 yr old excitedly told me about it last August. I was already a Premium AAA member and content...until she pointed out what I *wasn't* getting! I did some research and lo and behold, I was shocked and instantly ready to add this to my roadside assistance portfolio..and I haven't been disappointed once! When my AAA ran out too soon, MCA picked up where they left off and did a much better job! I don't believe in all that hypey type marketing tactics many of the younger firecrackers are using because it borders on ethics violations and could result in some serious legal charges. It's also not needed if you aim this at people and families who want the benefits offered, so /charge backs would never become an issue or a factor. Anyways, I am one totally satisfied member and would NEVER go back to Triple A. Not for all the tea and gold in China!

Overall the benefits that MCA offers are rock solid. But from a true network marketer standpoint it may be hard,for
one to build a large downline or organization.But they do provide all services as promised.

What constitutes a *true* NWM'r since there are many who are doing just what you say can't be done. No, it's not me, but there are plenty of people doing it.

“To be rich, you must learn from the broke and do not do what they do nor think how they think.”

O man... I really like Motor Club of America. They are like Triple A on steroids+.
They have so many benefits I can't even name them all. I always forget some
of them as I'm telling people about the program. MCA Rocks!

WHERE have YOU been?!? There are quite a few MCA lead capture and autoresponders set up for this biz opp! Many of the creators are on Facebook, if you look. *All in all* MCA DOES spell it out, it's up to the buyer to read their Terms of agreement!

As far as your *red flags* of warning, as with any and all businesses, it is up to each individual to run his or her own business affairs but there IS a LOT of Motor Club of America support all over the place! Many are helping others who are not even on their team--which for me, is a FIRST! I can't begin to count the number of MLM biz opps I've joined (Coastal Vacations @ $1,295 in 1999) and got dumped! Another was Rastelli Direct Foods. I got no follow up, no thank you for joining my team--let's get started, no nothing, phone call! So, you want to talk about red flags and sponsor dumpster diving, we can go on and on all day with that. It's not to say that it can't happen in MCA, because it can; but, it CAN be prevented--if you know what to look for in a sponsor.

Choose one (or someone with an upline) who is constantly demonstrating business building techniques to their team!
DO NOT go with someone who ONLY talks about MCA in terms of MAKING MONEY and not the usage of the benefits! If all they show is themselves holding hundred dollar bills and not how Motor Club of America's benefits can benefit your life or how to sell those talking points to others who could use them...leave them be!

Do NOT go with someone who spends more time posting Facebook pictures of themselves/their kids/their extended family/their *cute* dog or cat/their latest, greatest hairstyles/Instagram pictures of houses and cars they DREAM of owning and not showing you how to successfully run your business--RUN! These types of people are not interested in helping you. They are only interested in helping themselves to another commission and will go *ghost* on you, never to be heard from again! Don't help build their business if they can't help you build YOURS!

MCA got many changes in last 8 months - This is running towards best networking companies.

I evaluate everything, and look for value first and foremost, and I saw the value of MCA given I was driving long distances at the time last year. What ticked me off is the sponsor I signed up under had an automated landing page which he had provided to his team. Sounds good, but what a sleezeball, he had an exit capture page pitching Empower Network. Simply put, anyone I generated as a lead to MCA ending up getting sold on EN without my knowledge, and now to make things worse, the capture page is pitching an entirely different deal, also without knowledge.

Granted, he used the landing page and automated lead system to attract those who like passive income opportunities, and it worked very well, but what a lowlife to pull the plug and technically steal our leads while pushing another program which I had no interest in. Simply put, if you are using a landing page system from your upline, and not a company system, BEWARE, this is the second time my efforts were hyjacked and leads I generated stolen by these rip off artists offering the lure of free landing page when companies offer nothing. Lesson learned, make your own capture page if company does not offer one.

As with most similar programs, you have to evaluate the value, and given MCA is a copy of AAA at more cost, it made sense only if you are involved in the marketing side of business where you could cover your costs easily. Just like with my own situation of no longer needing protection given I stopped driving long distances, and given most end up making the same decision to drop MCA like I have done, I don't think this is a recession proof business which can be sustained for the long term in this economy.

Simply put, you have to really hard sell any service which involves a monthly cost when most will not use services. Just like with auto insurance, you pay and pay and pay, yet the average driver has an accident once every ten years. I wonder how many times the average driver breaks down and needs MCA? I know I never used it over last year I was member. In fact, I purchased an extended auto warratee too, and never used that in the five years it was covering repairs. I have never needed road side assistance and was an AAA member for over twenty years when I was driving 35K miles a year in business. It is all about dollar and sence today, and saving cents and dollars given the economic climate these days. Insurance is mandatory, so we have no choice, but over the years I have used a high deductible strategy for years and saving the difference in premiums putting it aside and have saved several thousand dollars to cover the deductible if I even need it in an accident. Everyone has to evaluate their own situation, financially and personally.

Good luck,