Ncrease launched in late 2020. The company is based out of Texas and operates in the personal care and education MLM niches.
Heading up Ncrease are co-founders Karen and Peter Hirsch. For some reason only Karen Hirsch is credited on Ncrease’s website.
Karen Hirsch serves as Ncrease’s CEO. Peter Hirsch is the company’s Chief Visionary Officer.
Right up until they launched Ncrease on or around November 2020, the Hirschs were iBuumerang distributors.
In July 2020 BusinessForHome reported the couple had earned $1 million over 15 months at iBuumerang.
I wasn’t able to ascertain why the Hirsch’s abandoned their top position within iBuumerang.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Karen Hirsch has MLM executive experience through Traverus Global.
Traverus Global owns Xstream Travel, who offer travel services through Paycation (defunct) and iBuumerang.
Peter Hirsch markets himself as a social entrepreneur. In addition to being an iBuumerang top earner, he also held an executive division at the company’s charitable Buum Foundation.
In 1999 Hirsch was a named defendant in an FTC lawsuit against 2Xtreme and its successor USAsurance Group/Akahi.
The FTC described the companies as “a vast pyramid scheme (that) claims to have recruited more than 60,000 consumers”.
An $80 million dollar final judgment was entered into against Hirsch on January 29th, 2001.
Hirsch appears to have kept his nose out of regulatory trouble since then.
Read on for a full review of Ncrease’s MLM opportunity.
Ncrease’s Products
Ncrease lists two products on their website:
- Selfles Gel – “multi-solution face gel”
- Selfles Cream – “advanced hydrating cream”
Note that Ncrease do not provide retail pricing on their website.
Under the “university” section of their website, Ncrease details “Ncrease University”.
Ncrease University appears to be a forex education platform going by Forex Trading University.
As with the company’s skincare products, Ncrease University retail pricing isn’t provided.
Ncrease’s Compensation Plan
Ncrease’s compensation plan revolves around generating volume across three buckets.
Commissions are paid on retail sales, as well as recruitment of affiliates who purchase enrollment packs.
Weekly residual commissions are tied to Ncrease affiliate ranks.
Ncrease Affiliate Ranks
There are twelve affiliate ranks within Ncrease’s compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria they are as follows:
- Ncreaser – sign up as an Ncrease affiliate, generate and maintain 100 PV a month, recruit and maintain three affiliates (placed one in each bucket) and generate 100/100/100 BV a month across three bucket legs
- Ncreaser 500 – maintain 100 PV a month and three recruited affiliates (one in each bucket), generate and maintain two retail customers, and generate 400/400/200 BV a month across three bucket legs
- Ncreaser 1000 – maintain 100 PV a month and three recruited affiliates (one in each bucket), generate and maintain two retail customers, and generate 1200/1200/600 BV a month across three bucket legs
- Ncreaser 2000 – maintain 100 PV a month and three recruited affiliates (one in each bucket), generate and maintain two retail customers, and generate 3200/3200/1600 BV a month across three bucket legs
- Mpacter 5K – maintain 100 PV a month and three recruited affiliates (one in each bucket), generate and maintain four retail customers, and generate 10,000/10,000/5000 BV a month across three bucket legs
- Mpacter 10K – generate 200 PV a month, recruit and maintain six affiliates (two in each bucket), maintain four retail customers, and generate 20,000/20,000/10,000 BV a month across three bucket legs
- Mpacter 20K – maintain 200 PV a month and six recruited affiliates (two in each bucket), maintain four retail customers, and generate 40,000/40,000/20,000 BV a month across three bucket legs
- Royal Mpacter 50K – maintain 200 PV a month and six recruited affiliates (two in each bucket), maintain four retail customers, and generate 100,000/100,000/50,000 BV a month across three bucket legs
- Royal Mpacter 100K – maintain 200 PV a month and six recruited affiliates (two in each bucket), maintain four retail customers, and generate 200,000/200,000/100,000 BV a month across three bucket legs
- GrandMaster Mpacter 200K – maintain 200 PV a month, recruit and maintain nine affiliates (three in each bucket), maintain four retail customers, and generate 600,000/600,000/300,000 BV a month across three bucket legs
- GrandMaster Mpacter 500K – maintain 200 PV a month and nine recruited affiliates (three in each bucket), generate and maintain six retail customers, and generate 1,600,000/1,600,000/800,000 BV a month across three bucket legs
- GrandMaster Mpacter 1M – maintain 200 PV a month, recruit and maintain twelve affiliates (four in each bucket), generate and maintain ten retail customers, and generate 3,200,000/3,200,000/1,600,000 BV a month across three bucket legs
Ncrease tracks downlines through three buckets. These are arbitrarily set groups that directly and indirectly recruited affiliates are placed in.
There doesn’t appear to be any bucket depth volume limits.
Required bucket volume can come from any of the three buckets (there is no order), so long as the minimum amounts are met across all three buckets.
E.g. if you need to maintain 1200/1200/600 BV, any of the buckets can provide the required BV amounts.
55% of required BV must be retail customer volume.
In this sense as opposed to traditional “Business Volume”, BV in Ncrease’s compensation plan correlates to “Bucket Volume”.
PV stands for “Personal Volume” and is sales volume generated by retail sales and an affiliate’s own orders.
Retail Commissions
Ncrease affiliates earn a commission on the sale of products to retail customers.
Retail commissions are paid as the difference between the wholesale cost and retail price of products ordered.
Recruitment Commissions
Ncrease affiliates earn a commission when they recruit an affiliate who signs up with an enrollment pack.
Recruitment commissions are paid out via a unilevel compensation structure.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.
If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
Ncrease caps recruitment commissions down five unilevel team levels.
Recruitment of an FX or Selfles Pack affiliate
- level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) – $12.50
- level 2 – $7.50
- level 3 – $2.50
- levels 4 and 5 – $1.25
Recruitment of a Visionary Pack affiliate
- level 1 (personally recruited affiliates) – $50
- level 2 – $30
- level 3 – $10
- levels 4 and 5 – $5
Level Requirements
In order to unlock payable recruitment commissions across unilevel team levels, the following additional qualification criteria must be met:
- level 2 – generate and maintain two retail customers
- level 3 – generate and maintain four retail customers
- level 4 – generate and maintain six retail customers
- level 5 – generate and maintain ten retail customers
In order to count towards the above qualification criteria, generated retail customers must be active with at least one monthly order.
Residual Commissions
Ncreaser pays residual commissions based on rank:
- Ncreaser ranked affiliates earn $25 a week
- Ncreaser 500 ranked affiliates earn $125 a week
- Ncreaser 1000 ranked affiliates earn $250 a week
- Ncreaser 2000 ranked affiliates earn $500 a week
- Mpacter 5K ranked affiliates earn $1250 a week
- Mpacter 10K ranked affiliates earn $2500 a week
- Mpacter 20K ranked affiliates earn $5000 a week
- Royal Mpacter 50K ranked affiliates earn $12,500 a week
- Royal Mpacter 100K ranked affiliates earn $25,000 a week
- GrandMaster Mpacter 200K ranked affiliates earn $50,000 a week
- GrandMaster Mpacter 500K ranked affiliates earn $125,000 a week
- GrandMaster Mpacter 1M ranked affiliates earn $250,000 a week
Note that these amounts are subject to change as per Ncrease’s “we won’t pay more than 60% of company-wide volume a month” rule.
Joining Ncrease
Basic Ncrease affiliate membership is $40 annually plus a $24.99 monthly fee.
New Ncrease affiliates can also opt to sign up with an Enrollment Pack:
- FX Pack – $124.95
- Selfles Pack – $124.95
- Visionary Pack – $399.95
No details about these enrollment packs are provided on Ncrease’s website.
Conclusion
Perusal of Ncrease’s website creates the impression of an MLM company not geared towards retail sales.
Which is odd, seeing as the company has robust retail requirements baked into its compensation plan.
Selling products directly to your customers is the start of a solid foundation for your business.
Ncrease affiliates earn commissions on retail sales. Residual commissions are tied to ranks, each of which has its own retail customer requirement.
Not withstanding total rank-based BV must consist of at least 55% retail customer volume.
55% of the Total Volume Requirements must come from customer volume.
I do note “retail” is absent from the above qualification criteria but I’m counting it as retail volume based on Ncrease not specifying retail with respect to customer volume elsewhere in their compensation plan.
Active Customer – Someone other than an ISBO who has placed an order with ncrease in the past month.
Occasionally we’ll get an MLM company trying to pass off affiliates as customers (with the implication being they are retail customer equivalents), however I don’t believe that is the case here.
One thing I’m not clear on is what happens if the 55% retail customer volume rule isn’t met.
Ncrease don’t specify whether all commissions are withheld, or volume up to whatever the retail commission percentage is paid out.
I feel the weakest component of Ncrease’s MLM opportunity is its products. There’s no retail pricing so we don’t know how much they cost.
And forex education and skin care go together like chalk and cheese. Ncrease’s Forex Trading University in particular feels very “me too”.
I get the feeling Peter Hirsch’s involvement in the Buum Foundation has played into Ncrease’s strong charity angle marketing.
This messaging is front and center across Ncrease’s social media channels too:
I obviously have nothing against charity. If I’m looking at competing products and one has a charity angle I might go for it. I might even pay a little more if I think it’s worthwhile.
What I’m getting at is charity is all very well but it shouldn’t be a purchasing motivator. You should genuinely need whatever it is you’re buying, with any charitable efforts on top of that being a bonus.
I don’t get that with Ncrease. I feel like it’s charity first, attached to whatever products and services second.
Why not just directly donate to charity in that case?
One way to address this is for Ncrease to create a better retail customer experience on their website. And sort out whatever they want Ncrease University to be.
“The very best in Financial Literacy and Forex Education” and no other available information doesn’t cut it.
Seeing as retail requirements are baked into Ncrease’s compensation plan, this should be a requirement.
This review was published in April 2021. If you’re reading this a few months or even a year down the track and Ncrease’s retail experience hasn’t been addressed, be cautious.
Something else that could also be addressed is why the Hirschs left iBuumerang. It always throws up a red flag when top earners abandon a company to go off and launch their own.
Karen Hirsch’s LinkedIn suggests there was no downtime between iBuumerang and Ncrease, which could potentially lead to legal action (cross-recruitment, stealing business ideas etc. etc.).
Those concerns aside, if you think you’ve got a shot marketing Ncrease’s limited product range to retail customers, without relying too heavily on the charity angle, good luck!