Is ZamZuu a scam? Not really. But here's why you don't need ZamZuu to earn rebates shopping online.

The "ZamZuu Scam"  is nothing more than a revamped version of the same online shopping model that has failed over and over and over again.

ZamZuu is an online shopping rebate program. Their program is the same rebate you can find on ebates, ocrebates, and several other sites that have been around a lot longer than the Zamzuu scam.

The reason they've been around is that they don't charge - they give the rebates away for free.

ZamZuu Compensation

The ZamZuu compensation isn't about rebates. It's about reselling the ZamZuu shopping portal to other members. YTB Travel had the same model for their travel, before industry complaints made them look in other directions for revenue.  You earn rebates on your own purchases, but you earn commission on the sale of the ZamZuu Shopping Site to other ZamZuu reps.

Cost to Join ZamZuu

The price for the ZamZuu shopping mall is $249 to sign up, plus $49.00 a month, every month, to keep your portal running. Bear in mind that these are replicated sites.  They are activated at the flick of a button ( metaphorically. Usually it's automatic, at the press of a button when you enroll ).

The average online shopper earns about 3% back on purchases. For you to earn back just your monthly fee, you would need to spend roughly $1600 a month on your site to earn back the rebates just to cover your monthy expense.

Part of the pitch is that you refer your friends and family to your ZamZuu portal, and they shop and you earn the rebates on their purchases. What is their incentive to shop on your ZamZuu portal?

Lets say that you could get 16 friends and family to shop on your site and each spend $100 each month.

You would then earn $49.00 in ZamZuu commission ( or shopping rebates ) but you wouldn't have really earned a dime, since your cost of doing business is what you just took in.

Even if you had 32 friends and relatives shopping on your ZamZuu shopping site, you would still only earn $49.00.

That is so unlikely it borders on the absurd.

The only way to really make money on ZamZuu is by selling others on the idea that joining ZamZuu is a great idea and that you'll make a fortune having others shop in your ZamZuu shopping portal, so that they can go out and sell others on the idea of making a fortune with their portal, and so on.

ZamZuu seems to be just an expanded version of the YTB Travel portal, which was a collection of travel affiliate programs.

YTB was hit with a lawsuit by the Attorney General for the State of California, naming YTB.com, YourTravelBiz.com, J. Lloyd Tomer, Scott Tomer and J. Kim Sorenson for operating an illegal pyramid scheme.

The complaint outlines exactly the same thing that is wrong with the ZamZuu Shopping Portal business model:

"While Defendents purport to be in the business of selling travel, their real business is the operation of a pyramid scheme that relies on the sale of essentially worthless websites they refer to as "online travel agencies". For the opportunity to own and operate an online travel agency, consumers pay Defendants over $1000 per year.

To entice consumers to participate in their scheme, Defendants make untru or misleading claims that consumers can become millionaires and receive special travel discounts offered only to professional travel agents. However, in 2007, consumers paid of $103 million to Defendants for websites, but made only $13 million in travel commissions in a business Defendants advertised as the 'easiest way to make money" and earn "serious income" without any selling. Of the more than 200,000 consumers who purchased or maintained Defendants' websites during 2007, 62% failed to earn a single travel commission -- not even on their own personal travel. The typical participant made no money on the sale of travel. Furthermore, the typical annual travel commission earned was less than just the cost of one month for a consumer to maintain his or her website. Even among those California residents who participated in Defendants' program for at least one year from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007, and who paid Defendants at last $1000, 45 percent did not sell any travel and 61 percent made less income on the sale of travel than the cost of one month's use of their website.

...only 14.5% of Defendants' net revenue were generated from the sale of travel. In short, Defendants sell an illegal pyramid scheme that uses the minor, incidental sale of travel as a front for their scheme."

Bearing in mind that these are the exact same defendants as now operate ZamZuu ( And also ZamZuu Travel Network, the new name for YTB Travel ), if you were to take those exact same paragraphs from the Attorney General complaint and instead of the word travel, subsitute online shopping, you have exactly the same problem as they had with YTB Travel.

It was probably the complaints by travel agents and the strict seller of travel laws in California that initiall got the AG's office interested, but how long will it be before they take a long hard look at ZamZuu and the same principle partners engaged in the same business model?