Update: In late 2021, bUnited issued a message on their website which reads: ‘Unfortunately, bUnited has been forced to cease operations.The upheaval caused by the Covid pandemic has made our continuation economically impossible.’
When was the last time you bought bottled water? Did you know that bottlers can mark up water by as much as 4000%1? That is the power corporations have over ordinary people, and you have a chance to fight against it.
At least, that is what bUnited promises. A chance to fight against such blatant capitalism and make money while at it. And the cherry on top is that you also get to conserve the environment and save the earth in the process.
In this in-depth review guide, we’ll cover the following:
- What is bUnited?
- Founders and History
- How bUnited Works and Makes Money
- bUnited Referral Program
- Payment System
- Is bUnited Legit?
- Pros and Cons
- bUnited Reviews
- Availability by Country
- FAQs
Note: Some of the below are affiliate links which helps cover our costs and keeps SurveyPolice free. Full affiliate disclosure here.
What is bUnited?
The concept behind bUnited> is to globally mobilize the numbers necessary to bring about change for the benefit of consumers.
Imagine if 100 million people came together and demanded a change in how water is bottled. The bottlers would have no choice but to listen or face a consumer go-slow.
We could demand more reasonable pricing, more environmentally friendly industrial processes, and more. It is a sure way to help save the earth from plastics and other environmental hazards.
bUnited aims to unite people together from across the world to achieve these goals. With the power of numbers, companies would be paying a lot of money to have bUnited’s influence in their favor, money which would then flow down to you.
In practice, bUnited is a quasi Get-Paid-To (GPT) site where through joining and referring friends to follow suit, you can earn money while achieving common goals.
It is also an affiliate program where the more people who join through your link, the higher your potential earnings. We should also mention that joining bUnited is entirely free!
bUnited Founders and History
bUnited is the brainchild of three visionary founders. They include two successful business people and a UC Berkeley professor, all united by the goal of making the world a better place through consumer participation.
Jim Jorgensen and Johannes Pohle are businessmen. Having worked in leading companies all over the world, they have an intimate understanding of how money flow works. Stephen S. Cohen is Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley.
These three have been friends for a very long time. Under their shared desire to transform the world, the two businessmen officially launched bUnited in 2014 while the professor joined shortly afterward.
bUnited now has 80 team members and advisors who have fallen in love with and believe in the cause.
bUnited Today
As of 2020, more than one and a half million people have joined the cause. This number is growing daily and has already started making waves.
Vodafone Germany has already signed an agreement with bUnited to offer its services and products at significantly lower rates. While it is still early for other companies to follow suit, this is an indicator of what is possible.
How bUnited Works and Makes Money
bUnited uses the power of numbers to create change. The more people who join, the more bargaining power available, and the higher the potential for earnings.
Once the company is in a position where it can negotiate with the big brand corporations, it will offer two incentives that translate into money for its members.
Marketing
Every year, companies around the world spend an average of $500 billion, according to the latest data2. When a cheaper alternative becomes available to them, they will be willing to pay ‘mere’ billions to bUnited for their marketing advantage.
Group Price Reduction
Large groups can negotiate better pricing for their goods. The platform will use this power to negotiate prices of everyday products to 20-30% or more below market pricing.
All registered members could save a lot of money on the most common goods and services.
The money collected can then be distributed to the company members according to a laid down structure, which depends on the referral process.
bUnited Referral Program
The company relies on the popular affiliate marketing model to structure its referral and payment program. Since it relies on numbers, it rewards those who can get the most people to join. As an added bonus, every time someone signs up bUnited saves 10 m² of the Amazon rainforest (they do this by donating dollars they would otherwise use towards an ad budget).
The best way to explain this would be through an example: Let’s say you join bUnited today. You will get a referral link and code, either of which you can use to invite your friends to the movement.
If you get four friends to join through your referral link or code, you have four first-degree referrals.
You can be an affiliate with your referrals up to the fifth generation. That means if your four friends each refer four more people, your total network now has 16 people in the second and third degrees of separation.
bUnited recognizes affiliation up to the fifth degree of separation, and you get to earn from each person who joins.
This affiliate networking concept is very popular with many other companies as well because it offers several substantial benefits:
- The company gains new customers quickly with little effort on its part. The chain can go on endlessly, thereby growing its agenda.
- The referrer gets to share in the gains caused by his growing network. He gets to earn passive income from the efforts of his friends with minimal input himself.
- The referee also benefits from the service offered by the company and gets to earn if he refers other people.
bUnited’s mutually beneficial structure is very powerful in today’s world. It leads to some gratifying financial rewards if appropriately implemented.
bUnited Payment System
You can earn a flat rate of $10 for every person who joins through your referral link and who take advantages of a bUnited discounted offer. This rate also applies to secondary referrals up to the fifth degree of separation. That is, everybody your friends refer through their links also earns you $10.
If you refer a minimum of five people and they each, on average, refer one person who signs up for a discounted offer, your earnings could total over $250. It seems crazy at first, but the logic is perfectly solid.
To understand how you can earn so much money from such little effort, consider the parallel process: If one thousand people joined and they each referred five friends, that is fifty thousand new people. In the fifth degree, you already have millions of people. The company benefits as much as you do, which is the whole idea.
However, the payments are not immediate. Rather, you reserve your earnings to be paid after a future date when (and if) the company starts to make money, after which you may get the money in installments or in a lump sum.
That being said, some members are already reaping benefits from some partner companies. It is already happening in countries like Germany and Brazil, where there are group discounts in effect.
By the end of 2020, the first batch of payments will be issued, according to predictions. The whole idea is legit and above-board from what we can see. After all, no worthy investment produces this kind of returns within a month.
So if you’re wondering how to withdraw money from bunited, the answer is: you’ll have to be patient and wait! Payments will be issued shortly.
How Much Can You Earn From bUnited?
There is no limit to how much money you can make from the platform. While the platform is still gaining followers, it is pretty easy to refer people. With the example we have provided here, you can see how easy it is to potentially make a significant amount of money, if the company does well.
To increase the amount you can earn, you have to keep referring people to the platform and convincing those who have already joined through you to do the same. The key is to expand your network as much as you can.
When bUnited is still a startup, it is pretty easy to convince people to give it a try. There is no sign-up fee required or other financial obligations. Additionally, it only needs minimal details, such as a person’s name and e-mail address.
It has already taken root in companies like Brazil, where you may expect that new referrals will be harder to get. As it grows in popularity and starts issuing payments, it may become more difficult to expand your affiliate referral network.
Practically speaking, the best time to expand your network would be now – before money changes hands and everybody starts running to join.
How Do You Receive Money from bUnited?
You have plenty of options to choose from when it comes to modes of payment. You can opt for SEPA in Europe, PayTM in India, PagSeguro in Latin America, WeChat in China, and various ACM transfer methods in multiple countries.
If you’re paranoid and don’t want to give your bank details, PayPal is the best option to use. Just make sure to use a valid email address.
The company will be paying you in your local currency and is still working on adding more payment options.
To see how much money you have earned or is available to withdraw, visit your account at any time. The bUnited system keeps automatic track of your referrals and earnings and will let you know when the money is available so that you can request a withdrawal.
Is bUnited Legit?
bUnited is a legitimate company based in the state of California. Its founders are public figures and respectable, with resumes and profiles on LinkedIn that seem to lay credence to their past. If you’re looking for a bUnited scam, you won’t find one.
However, the real test of legitimacy needs to take the form of more profound and more pertinent questions. We dug deeper into it and concluded that the company is easily traced from start to finish, has an amazing concept, and is already showing signs of taking off.
1. Proof Concept
Proof of concept is the most important factor to consider. How will the company make money so that you get paid?
To some people, the company model resembles the classic pyramid scheme due to its friends’ referral program. However, the important point here is that there is absolutely no fee when joining. The survey site SurveySavvy have a similar tiered referral program and is perfectly legitimate.
The ultimate test is to follow the money. That way, you can tell what the true purpose of the company is.
As the first step in their business model, bUnited will get a large number of members, which is necessary to command the attention of corporations. Then, it will use a two-pronged approach to get them to pay up to get free advertising.
With a guaranteed customer base in the name of bUnited members, billions of dollars will potentially be up for grabs. After administrative costs, the rest will be members who are the real force behind the company.
bUnited is not powered by your money, but by your voice. This is what makes it legitimate. So long as enough people join to get it off the ground, it may just work.
However, do keep in mind that bUnited is a for-profit company. Despite having higher goals, it wants to make money for itself and its members.
2. Founders
The three founders are all public figures with excellent reputations. Jim Jorgensen and Johannes Pohle are both former corporate big shots with Harvard degrees who have become prominent businessmen.
Most importantly, they have a passion for disrupting the current systems which feeds off the common people as well as mother nature. They speak out against these social ills and have a passion to do the right thing and create a better world.
Professor Cohen is much more reserved, but also has a solid record to his name and distinguished career in education.
You can follow all three on their social media channels, especially Facebook and LinkedIn, to see what they are doing.
3. Social Presence
Social presence is a solid way to ascertain how legitimate a company is. By connecting with other people from around the world who have joined, you get to interact and follow up on developments en masse.
If you have any doubts, you can clear them up by hearing what other people’s experience has been so far. Their Facebook page alone has over 1,300,000 likes, with new posts made multiple times a week.
If you’re wondering whether bUnited is a scam, we would answer, ‘it’s very unlikely.’ Every aspect checks out so far, and it is well on its way to becoming a mover and shaker in the business world.
The key is to secure your membership so that when the money starts flowing, you will be in line to receive it.
Pros and Cons of bUnited
Is bUnited worth your time? Like many other decisions in life, it boils down to the pros and cons of joining. You don’t need to spend money to join; in fact, you earn by joining.
That being the case, what do you stand to gain by joining bUnited?
Pros
- You stand to potentially earn a fair bit of money. This is as passive as it gets when it comes to generating income. Once you refer your friends through your links, all you need to do is wait to get paid.
- You get to save the earth. A direct and deliberate goal of bUnited is to create positive change to reduce pollution by transforming manufacturing processes in the industry. By putting your voice with millions of others, you can demand that manufacturers use more sustainable methods to help save the earth.
- You can buy things cheaper – It is no secret that the prices of most goods and services are highly marked up. You pay a lot more than you should because you have no voice. Once bUnited has a seat on the table, you can get highly subsidized prices through your membership. Estimates show you can pay up to 30% less of retail prices.
- Make your opinions count – Share beliefs with millions of other like-minded global citizens to make your voice heard.
Cons
- Waiting – the toughest part about bUnited is that you will have to wait for the movement to bear fruit. It will take time before you can get paid because partner companies can only pay when membership levels exceed millions.
- While the concept is solid, the premise is still in its infancy. Companies don’t have to pay any money to bUnited unless they feel genuinely threatened or otherwise sense a genuine opportunity.
- If the companies do make the payments as desired, the only guarantee you have that you will get paid is a promise delivered electronically.
bUnited Reviews
So far, the company doesn’t appear to have many ratings online. That is a good thing because it means while nobody is praising them, at least no one is complaining.
Many reviewers have given it a shot, and all seem to come to the same verdict: solid concept and transparent operations. The company is still in its infancy, so there is not much that we can say about how effective it is.
Like the rest of the reviewers, our experience with bUnited was better than expected. Information about its mandate, employees, and other pertinent issues were surprisingly easy to come by. From what we could tell, there is a team of very dedicated and passionate individuals behind the cause.
There are no success or failure stories yet, so we cannot give a firm yes or no at this point. The key point here is that you don’t pay anything to join. The only catch might be that users will have to buy the subsidized goods and services they offer for things to fully work.
So far, the company is implementing such plans in Germany. No one says no to a cheaper data plan or phone calls, so it’s a step in the right direction.
Availability by Country
bUnited is a global movement. It would not amass the numbers it intends to if this were otherwise. You can join from every country in the world and it also encourage people from your community to do the same.
What’s more, you get paid in your national currency regardless of your nationality. bUnited uses payment methods that supersede any international borders.
However, it is more advanced in some countries than in others. Brazil, Mexico, and some other countries have embraced it wholeheartedly and will likely be the first to enjoy its benefits.
bUnited FAQs
Below are some of the common bUnited FAQ3:
1. How much money can I make through bUnited?
You can make as much money as you want on the platform. Your ceiling depends on how extensive your referral network is. For more money, all you need to do is keep expanding it by referring more people.
2. How does bUnited pay?
bUnited will make use of several different online payment methods to send your money. Most of these are ACT payments. That way, you get the money in your local currency in a very short time.
3. Is bUnited a scam?
It is too early to say with 100% certainly, but all indications point toward it being a legitimate business and movement armed with a great idea. All you need to provide is your membership and solidarity with its cause.
4. When will I get my payment from bUnited?
All earnings are currently reserved and bUnited will honor them at a later date. Once the company’s partners start paying, the money will reach the members. Predictions show that members could potentially begin receiving money in late 2020.
Final Words
To answer the question, yes we think that bUnited is worth your time. It offers a lucrative promise of earning you potentially a fair bit of money in the near future, with no capital effort from you. You also join a community that is fighting to save the earth by demanding that manufacturers use more sustainable and environmentally-friendly methods.
It has made some strides in the right direction and seems to have gathered the right momentum. Strike while the iron is still hot!
Sources:
1. https://www.rd.com/advice/saving-money/10-outrageous-markups-youd-never-guess-you-were-paying/
2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/236943/global-advertising-spending/
3. https://bunited.com/en/get-paid-to-unite-home/
