Has someone approached you about Neora? They want you to try the age-defying products? Maybe they even want you to try the business opportunity. Of course, you have some questions about this company. You may even be asking if Neora is a scam? Any Neora scam issues will be address in the information provided in the below article. Please check out my Neora review below. It’s packed full of information you need before getting involved with Neora.
History of Nerium
Nerium started in August 2011. It has had tremendous rise in popularity in the MLM community as one of the fastest growing companies. The company started with one anti-aging skin cream and 13 people. Now the company has several products and has expanded it’s business into several countries around the globe.
- 2012: Ranked #86 in Direct Selling News’ Global 100 List of relationship marketing companies
- 2013: Ranked #54 in Direct Selling News’ Global 100 List of relationship marketing companies
- 2014: Inducted into Direct Selling News’ $100 Million Growth Club
- 2015: Ranked #1 on the Inc. 500 list of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies in the Consumer Products and Services category
- 2016: Named on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s Fastest-Growing
- 2016: Direct Selling Association 2016 Top 20 Award recipient
- 2016: Ranked #23 on the Direct Selling News’ North America Top 50 List
- 2017: Direct Selling Association 2017 Top 20 Award recipient
With all this amazing growth, this company has had some problems as well. They have had some complaints about their products, about the business opportunities and some upset distributors. I’ll discuss these in more detail in the complaint and lawsuit section below.
This brings us up to 2019 where the company has decided to re-brand itself. In early 2019, they changed their name from Nerium to Neora.
Why would a company with such amazing growth feel the need to change its name? Keep reading and learn more.
Company Information
- Company name: Neora (formly Nerium)
- Headquarters in Addison, TX
- CEO: Jeff Olson
- Mission: Make People Better
- Countries: USA, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Columbia and New Zealand
- Phone (Continental U.S.): 855.463.7486
- Email: support@neora.com
- Neora website: https://www.neora.com/us/en/
Products
Neora has both skincare products and wellness products. The original anti-aging product of Nerium from 2011 was a skincare products. So these are the expansion of the original product that got this company started.
To be completely honest with you, I don’t use skincare products or wellness products so I have no expertise on these type of products. This rules out this business opportunity for me since I know nothing about these type of products and I have no interest in learning about these type of products. Hopefully, you are truthful with yourself about your level of interest in any product you want to sell. It easily comes across to your potential customers if you have no interest in the product.
In this section, I’m going to list out some information I’ve found about the products and leave it up to you to determine their quality and if the prices are appropriate. Below are the prices listed on the Neora website along with some prices that came from products listed on Amazon.
Neora Advanced Skincare set: $610/$445 (one-time/monthly purchase)
Neora Age IQ Night & Day Cream: $310/$235 (one-time/monthly purchase)
Neora Age IQ Night Cream: $165/$125 (one-time/monthly purchase)
Neora Age IQ Day Cream: $145/$110 (one-time/monthly purchase)
Neora Prolistic Skin-Balancing Lotion with Probiotic Technology: $100/$75 (one-time/monthly purchase)
Neora Age IQ Double-Cleansing Face Wash: $60/$45 (one-time/monthly purchase)
Neora Age IQ Eye Serum: $120/$90 (one-time/monthly purchase)
Neora Eye-V Moisture Boost Hydrogel Patches: $80/$60 (one-time/monthly purchase)
Neora EHT Brain Formula: $120/$90 (one-time/monthly purchase)
Above is a list of products that I found on the Neora website. They do have a few more products not listed here but this is a good sample of products and their prices. Below is a listing of some of these same products and their prices as listed on Amazon.
Couple of interesting observations based on the Amazon listings. First is that the Amazon is under cutting the pricing listed on the Neora website. This will make it difficult for distributors to sell these products at full price when potential clients can purchase at a big discount on Amazon.
Secondly, the review ratings on these products are mixed ranging from 2 to 4 stars. When you look at the reviews they are polarized between 5’s and 1’s. The products with more reviews have lower ratings. Unfortunately, there are not enough reviews to determine anything conclusively.
Business Opportunity
Who wouldn’t want to be part of something special? Especially when the core mission statement is “Make People Better”.
Look Better
Feel Better
Live Better
You have to be excited about such an opportunity, right?
Yes, according to Neora the products quite simply work. Then they provide some testimonials. Of course these people are also selling these products. No potential for conflict of interest. (sarcasm)
The video then goes into providing some true facts about how people make money nowadays. It’s absolutely true that many people have side-gigs to make money. But this business model is not new or innovative.
The video then discusses some achievements of the company over the last 7 years and its rapid growth. The real question is who benefited from this rapid growth and who’ll benefit from the future growth.
“The potential is mind blowing.”
Happiness Movement
Relationship Marketing (direct sales)
Regardless of what name Neora gives it or how they spin it, Neora is a Multi-level Marketing (MLM) company. With this you have the inherent potential and downsides of any other MLM company.
When we get into the compensation plan, in the next section it’ll be very clear this is a MLM company.
All MLM companies have mind blowing potential. Unfortunately, only a few will ever achieve that potential. No matter what Neora or it’s representatives tell you achieving that potential is very difficult.
Here’s a reality check. The majority of businesses that are started every year will fail within 5 years. Most people do not have the skills, work ethic, or aptitude to successfully run a business. That’s just to get the business to making money. Even fewer make it to that mind blowing potential.
Even if you are one of those people who can succeed, you’ll need to recruit a lot of people to your team to find a hand full of people like you to succeed.
I’m not saying you can’t succeed with Neora or any other MLM. But it’s much more difficult than Neora makes it out to be.
What’s the cost to get started?
Compensation Plan
The gentleman in this video does a very good job describing the compensation plan. He is a high level brand partner so he is biased towards promoting the company.
Here are the two methods that Neora list that brand partners can earn income:
1. They build a customer base and earn commissions on sales to those customers.
2. They build a team of Brand Partners and earn commissions and bonuses based on their product sales to customers and their volume.
To get you going quickly Neora offers the Fast start Bonus. It’s only available during the first month. When you meet the qualifications you can earn an additional $200 bonus plus free product during your first month.
The following is what Neora list under Rewards for selling – Of course, you need to meet a minimum sales quota to qualify for these rewards
Retail sales – you sell the products at the full retail price when you purchased at a lower wholesale price. You earn the difference.
Personal Sales commissions – For all sales to your customers or down line (personal use not included) you can earn a commission of 5% to 15% on sales as long as the total sales is greater than $300.
PC first order bonus – You earn a 20% on the enrollment of a new customer if you meet qualifications.
Personal PC Bonus – enroll 3 customers to get free product, enroll 6 customers to get a $5 bonus and enroll 9 customers to get a $200 bonus.
Each customer must meet certain qualifications to be eligible for the bonuses.
Team PC Bonus – This does not seem like a selling bonus to me. It seems more like a team building bonus but Neora has it listed under selling bonuses.
Level 1 bonus – need to qualify for the Personal PC bonus with 6 customers enrolled. 3 of those customers need to have joined your team as Brand Partners and each have qualified with the Personal PC Bonus with 3 customers. Bonus = $250
There are also Level 2, 3 and 4 bonuses which continue to grow the size of your team to get larger bonuses. Bonuses = $650, $1,200, and $2,500
If you remember above that Neora has 2 methods to earn money: Sales and team building. Under the selling bonus, Neora quickly blurred the line between sales and team building. Retail sales and sales commissions are traditional ways to earn money from sales. Then they get into enrolling people as customers with PC bonuses. Wasting no time, they include team building by including Brand Partners as part of the different level bonuses. Within the compensation plan, there are only 3 pages on the selling bonuses. 2 of the 3 pages are about the PC and level bonuses that I would consider team building. Then the next 8 pages goes into the team building and leadership bonuses.
Neora Rewards for Team building
Within Neora, there are 12 levels for team building. Everyone starts as a Brand partner. If you meet the qualifications you will become an Elite Brand Partner. This is the first level for earning team commissions. At this first level, you can earn commissions for 2 generations (levels) below you or in your down line. When you have worked your way to the top, you’ll be a Gold National Marketing Director and earning commissions down 8 generations (levels) in your down line.
As is typical with any MLM, there are multiple bonuses available and Neora list 7 different bonuses within the team building.
Rewards for Leader
In addition to the team build there are an additional 3 bonuses for leadership. In total between team building, leadership and advance ranks, there are 18 different levels with different commission structures and bonuses. This compensation plan looks very impressive and if you could achieve some of these higher levels you could earn a lot of money. If you watched the video, this guy who has been with this company for 7 years (and doing well) says that he is about mid-level. Also, he said there is no one in the company at those highest levels yet.
Income declaration
This Nerium Income Declaration is from 2013 which was during the early years of this company. This is the only income disclosure I could find online and it’s located in the internet archives. Remember this company started in 2011 so in 2013 there was lots of opportunity for rapid growth because few people knew of this company. As you look at this disclosure, the first thing I notice is that 68% of the brand partners are not running a business but are in it just for the discounts. That would be bothersome that so many are sitting on the sideline. Of those who are trying to make money, almost half made less than $1,000 in a year. There are only 361 (out of 75,276) that made more than $25,000.
Complaints and Legal Issues
Ray Liotta Photos
The famous actor Ray Liotta sued Nerium for using before and after photos of him without his permission. Not only did they have his permission, he has never used the Nerium product and never heard of the company prior to seeing the ads. So his claim is that the photos were fakes. That the company was a pyramid scheme and he did not want his name or photos associated with Nerium. Nerium settled with Ray Liotta for an undisclosed amount. – sources ABC News & My News LA
Princeton Relationship or lack of
In this PRweb article, Nerium claims that the EHT extract was researched at the Princeton labs for over 20 years by Dr Jeffery Stock. This extract is part of the EHT Age-defying supplement sold by Nerium (now Neora). In the these twitter responses found on the Lazy Man and Money website, you can see that Princeton has denied any relationship or partnering with Nerium. – sources Prweb & Lazy Man and Money
The Neora products are developed by their partners at Signum Biosciences. When you look at the Signum website, you’ll see the only products on the site are the Neora products. Take a look at the products page and you’ll see that they are still making the association with the Princeton labs.
How much credibility does a company like Neora have? Well there is more, check out the following lawsuits.
Nerium vs Blogger
According the lawsuit, the blogging site BareFacedTruth had written a critical article about Nerium. Jeff Olson admitted publicly that he hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on the owner/writes of the blogging site.
Smiths vs Nerium
Mark & Tammy Smith are suing Nerium and the founder Jeff Olson for $100 million. Ethan Vanderbilt has a copy of the court documents on his website. So here is some background to this story. Mark & Tammy Smith were top-level distributors at the Pre-Paid Legal MLM. Jeff Olson convinced them to move over to Nerium by promising them things that the average Brand Partner would not receive. They were promised that each would receive 5% equity in Nerium International, 15% of all back office fees as well as named co-founders.
The Smith’s became concerned about the frivolous lawsuits against brand partners and other individuals (i.e. see the above blogger lawsuit.) They were also concerned about how Jeff Olson was misrepresenting the products.
The Smiths have departed Nerium and claiming that Jeff Olson has not kept his promise of equity payments of back office payments.
Nerium & Jeff Olson are now suing the Smiths as well as the new MLM company that they work with.
CBS questions claims by Nerium
In this CBS article, the CBS San Francisco affiliate questions the “science” behind the Nerium product claims. The CBS reporter found several doctors and scientist that counter the claims by Nerium. This really calls into question the truthfulness of the Nerium and now the Neora claims with their products.
Swiatek vs Nerium
Christina Swiatek is suing Nerium claiming that the Nerium AD product caused injuries. Source – Truth in Advertising
The 2 sides had been working on a settlement but nothing has been disclosed and the case has been dismissed by the plaintiff. Source – source BehindMLM
Neora vs Nerium Biotech
This was very surprising when I found this lawsuit. First, who is Nerium Biotech? They are the supplier of the Nerium products to the Nerium International MLM. They created the original Nerium anti-aging products based on the Oleander plant. They recruited Jeff Olson to create Nerium International to promote the Nerium products.
In 2016, Nerium Biotech (the supplier) sued Nerium International (sales) over contractual dispute. In 2018, the two sides agreed to a settlement with the following requirements:
1. Change the name of Nerium International “to something not “confusingly similar” to Nerium’.
2. Never refer to Neora as a successor to Nerium International.
3. Stop using the word Nerium in its business operations
4. Stop selling products manufactured by Nerium Biotech that used its patented “Nerium oleander extraction process”
5. Turnover all copyrighted and copyrightable materials pertaining to Nerium Biotech’s products
6. Release all trademarks and website domains used to sell Nerium Biotech products
7. Make Neora’s distributors aware of the above restrictions and enforce their compliance.
Nerium Biotech alleges that Neora continues to use testimonials from the Nerium Biotech product on the new Neora products. They claim Neora is intentionally deceiving the public. Source – BehindMLM
Here is the essence of these allegations by the former supplier as I understand them. Neora changed their name in a manner that allowed them to continue to use the same logo. So the products now being sold with the new supplier appear the same as the products from the former supplier. The 2 product package are very similar. The allegation is that this is intentional to confuse the consumer.
There are also allegations that Neora is selling its new products as improved products from the Nerium products. This claim combined with the similar packaging gives the impression that it’s the same product that has been improved. The reality is the main active ingredient in the Nerium is a patented ingredient that is not in the Neora product. So the Neora product is a completely different product with a different active ingredient.
Is Neora (Nerium) a Scam?
I definitely found a lot of negative information on Neora. These lawsuits have either been settled or still pending. I did not find any issues pending with the FTC or any government regulator. As far as I can tell, Neora is still considered a legal MLM operation. So I can not declare them as a scam.
I have been a member of several MLM’s and I’ve reviewed many more MLMs now. In general, I’m against the MLM business opportunity. I think there are better opportunities as presented below. But if you are going to join a MLM, I would recommend that it not be Neora. This company has had issues with it distributors, conducts frivolous lawsuits, problems with its supplier and allegations from many about deceptive practices. In my opinion, this company and found do not seem like good people to associate with and try to build your business. If you must join a MLM try someone like Pampered Chef, Team Beach body or DoTerra. A better choice would be to check out my other alternatives below.
Alternatives
If you are looking for a way to make some extra money part-time or even a full-time income, I recommend looking at making money online opportunities. I’ve been working online part-time for over 6 years. It’s great extra money every month. I’ll be eligible to retire from my full-time job in a couple of years. I plan to grow my online business to a full-time income by then and spend my time traveling the world.
The opportunities online to make money is endless. You can sell products on Amazon or eBay. You can be a writer on Iwriter. You could do a variety of freelance work on upwork. There are so many options. I’ve spent most of my time helping local businesses building their online presence to help them grow their business with new customers. I also use websites like this one to help people online to understand about the scams and opportunities to earn money. If you want to learn about the opportunities that I’ve used online and get personal help from me checkout my recommended opportunity.
Thanks for the very thorough and informative review of Nerium or Neora. I have spotted this pretty often when seeking new platforms or ways to make money online. Products sound pretty legit but expensive and I am not a big fan of MLM scheme. For me it’s a huge red flag if they claim to co-operate with university or claim that university researched some of their extracts and obviously it is not the case. However, thanks for reviewing this, I will take a further look at your website.
If you check out the last lawsuit from the former supplier, I’m not so sure about how legit the products are at this point. I’m not a fan of MLMs either but of those that I have reviewed so far this one seems to have more red flags than most. No FTC or regulator issues yet but I would not be surprised to see them in the headlines some time in the next couple of year.
Exactly yes, most mlm companies actually have the potentials to last long until when the compensation suspension starts and people cannot make money from them. To be honest, neora actually offer some great products to which I am sure that anyone who makes use of it would found beneficial to use but then, later on, I discovered that it often does not work that way. I have lost quite a lot of money to mlm businesses and though they offer great products, I will not be willing to join another mlm
I agree that MLM business model is not good unless you are one of the first to get in. Otherwise, the market gets saturated with people selling the same product. Based on the most resent lawsuit for the product supplier, I would have doubts about the product quality and ethics of Neora.
This is a very nicely done post here. Your review is well done and comprehensive. I think that this company really has some products that are worth trying even though there are complaints about the products. The thing is, I am not a big fan of MLM either. I have had a couple of people tell me how they lost out on it after investing so much. This review is honest and we’ll done. I should share it so people would know that there are some dark sides to neora.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of people that get involved with MLMs lose money including myself.
Very nice review here on neora. It’s actually the first time I’m hearing about it. But the business model is not new to me at all. Infact, I was once part of an MLM too before. One thing I have noticed is that they all decide to go into the beauty and wellness. There are some statistics that shows that MLM schemes are not very much profitable for the lot. I am a testimony of that. Even with the compensation plan, all doesn’t usually go well in the end. Seeing that this platform also has some controversies wrapped around it is just a show of the dark side of MLM programmes. Your review has exposed medium. Great one!
It seems to me that the more questionable companies go into the beauty and wellness fields. These are big niches with lots money being spent, everyone wants to look and feel better and they can make big claims with products that don’t do much. In the end, MLMs are not profitable for the vast majority only those who have the skills and luck to get in at the top.
You stated that is one of the fastest-growing companies, and if I’m being honest, I have never heard of that name before. But again, as you admitted I am not a big skincare enthusiast so I don’t really pay a lot of attention to these sort of things. Though, the prices they have seem like any other kind of skincare company so I’m guessing they must be somehow good. Thank you for sharing this!
I didn’t really connect all the dots on the fastest growing company. They went from being a new startup to a company with 100’s of millions in revenue within a 2 year timeframe. That is very fast growth. But there is something about these MLM companies that most people don’t know about. When you look at the lawsuit between Mark & Tammy Smith and Nerium, you see that they were top distributors at another MLM before working for Nerium. When top distributors switch companies like this, they are able to convince a large portion of their team (i.e down line) to also switch companies. This can be an influx of 100’s or 1,000’s of successful distributors joining the company in a very short period of time. If a new MLM company can convince 4 or 5 of these top distributors at other companies to join them then they can see similiar type of rapid growth. This growth has nothing to do with the quality of product or service provided. But new people being recruited see a rapidly growing company so there must be something good about it not realizing how the company has manipulated that growth.
Great post, I have to agree with you that the Neora program doesn’t look very appealing. The list of court cases and civil disputes are always offputting but to be honest I struggled to see past the fact that the products are cheaper on Amazon.
It can be difficult to know which program to get involved with, you certainly have to do a lot of due diligence before getting involved with any because there are many scams out there.
I thank you for what your website is doing, you are saving people a lot of time and hard work by doing that due diligence for them. Your review was honest, open, detailed and I found it a great help, thanks.
In general I don’t believe MLM is a good business opportunity but this case is beyond that. When you have the top distributors and business partners suing the company in additional to the usual complaints from low level distributors there really is an issue. Since everything so far has been settled out of court there is no hard proof but it definitely creates some questions in my mind about the leadership of this company.
In my research on some nice, the health and wellness aspect is one where there are so many MLM companies which seem to be having a good business going on. Although I’m not a fan of MLM programs I just have to give credit to one when I see its worth it. I love the fact that thi company I legit and there are no false testimonies or fake products to be sold. The business aspect of it is indeed nice. How do they pay their member after the accumulated commission?
I know this is a very long review and there is even more information that could have been added to it. There is information out there that shows the company encourages it distributors to write positive reviews on the products in order to bury the negative reviews. That’s not a false testimonial but how can you determine how good a product is when the majority of the good reviews are from the people selling the product. There is a conflict of interest there.
The most recent lawsuit from the former supplier brings into question the current Neora products. Neora appears to be trying to make the products look like improved Nerium products when in reality they are completely new products. Again not fake products but there does appear to be some deception going on.
I don’t know their payment methods. I don’t believe you’ll find much for accumulated commission. If you don’t meet your monthly qualifications the commissions are lost so they don’t accumulate.
Just like it is peculiar to any MLM business, they are the mixture of both the good and the bad. And most times, it has to do with one’s desire whether to join or not. In this case, Neora is not too convincing due to the various complaint issues they have going on. However, I have to mention their products line and how quality they appear. But then, Neora being an MLM and instability in the chances of making money with them is the reason I will not be joining them.
I agree with you comment about MLM companies in general. At this point in time, Neora seems to have some very questionable leadership and not a company that I would want to be a part of. If I had to join a MLM, there are many better MLM companies than Neora.
Hello stephen, it is very sad to know that you had also lost money to MLM programmes before finding out that it is very hard to make money from it. Like many other MLM platforms, neora is into the wellness and beauty products niche. This niche is already saturated and so selling any product will be very hard. I like how you have presented the details of this one. There is always a better option out there. Nice post.
I had to lose money in multiple MLMs before I learned my lesson. I agree that the wellness and beauty niche has a lot of competition but it’s not to be avoided. It’s a huge niche with a lot of money being spent. With such competition, you have to make a well informed and intelligent decision on what business opportunity you go after within that niche. There are still many opportunities to make money withing wellness and beauty if you approach it correctly.
Hello Steve, its nice coming across this article. I aam quite new when it has to do with MLM programs and online businesses at large, I have read some things about online business where some MLM companies includes recruitment of new members as a means to having a better ranking. I intend to be a sale person for this company, but how much is the fee to be a member, and also do I need to recruit other people to gain points?
If you go the business opportunity section above, you can see the fee ranges from $49.95 to $1,000 depending on the package you chose. Your up line is probable telling you that you don’t need to recruit in order to build your business. Which is true but as a sales person in an MLM you are competing for sales against every other distributor in your market. That makes sales difficult. Plus your products are higher priced that similar products on the market. Plus distributors will offer discounted prices to people who join their team as a distributor. So your only option boils down to recruiting people. Plus that is where the money is made if you can grow your team large enough.
In scenarios like this, I just always wish platforms like this don’t follow the Mlm business offer. The quality of the products offered by the Neora Nerium is just simply immense and for anyone who would love to make good money with MLM, these might be a good offer for them as it won’t take too much sweat to sell the products. But MLM success records have proven that the business is usually for the benefits of the owners alone and the distributors do not get to benefit unless one is among the earliest to join it. So, I would no be taking my chances with the odds stacked against me
Sounds like you have some MLM experience because everything you said is correct. In every MLM Income disclosure that I’ve seen, only a handful of people in the company are making a living wage or more. It’s very difficult for the average person to make money with the MLM business model. Where if they sold these product with a normal sales commission or affiliate program so many more people could make money without the need to lose money.
It seems to me that every single company that is into health and wellness or beauty decides to just go and start-up an MLM business model to market their products. I do not believe that this is a good way to make money. I am happy that you have mentioned here all the lawsuit issues surrounding neora so one can know that there are reasons not to join apart from the obvious MLM programme statistics. Nice in-depth review.
There are a lot of health, wellness and beauty companies that are not MLM. So I would not agree with your first statement. But many many MLMs go into the health, wellness and beauty niche. I really don’t know why this is. Is it just that this niche is so big it can handle the MLMs? Is there something about this niche that is easier for the MLM model to grow? I would be interested in hearing people’s thoughts about why there are so many MLMs in the health, wellness and beauty niche.
A great company as neora Nerium that has so much benefits for anyone with the skills in selling as these shoud not have adopted this MLM means because it would have being a great offer for me to just pounce on had it being they offer affiliate program. Irrespective, Neora Nerium really convinced me going by what I read here and though I am not thrilled to get involved with them myself, my friends would be interested in it. I even have a sales representative who would be interested in this though.
With the on-going lawsuits against Neora and the questionable ethics of the leadership, I personally would avoid this company at this time. Once the lawsuits are worked out then maybe things may change but based on past history the lawsuits will be settled out of court and no real answers will be provided. They have had some great products but the lawsuit with the former supplier really brings into question the quality of the current products.
There are better MLMs and better business models out there. If you have some friends with sales skills, I would recommend affiliate marketing, Amazon or any number of other sales gigs over a MLM company.