Executive Success Programs spells ‘Success’ as Consumers’ Buyline

As the name indicates, Executive Success Programs (ESP) teaches ‘success’.
How does ESP define success?
According to the website for ESP, the company provides “personal and professional development programs that employ Keith Raniere’s revolutionary methodology, Rational Inquiry®. This breakthrough in human performance technology is designed to help people discover, develop and utilize more of their untapped potential.”
On ESP’s website, the executive team includes Karen Unterreiner, vice president in charge of Humanities.
The bio of Miss Unterreiner states she joined ESP in 1998. Before that she worked in “corporate finance and in 1990 assumed the role of Chief Financial Officer at Consumers’ Buyline, Inc., a successful wholesale buying club.”
Since ESP teaches people how to achieve success, it will be good to learn what a ‘successful’ wholesale buying club is.
Consumers’ Buyline was a multilevel marketing company that offered commissions to customers who recruited new customers. The company offered discounts to members who purchased groceries, dishwashers, electronics, hotel stays etc.
It was founded by Keith Raniere in 1990, and its headquarters were in Clifton Park, New York.

 

1024x1024
Keith Raniere showing how to have a successful multilevel marketing company.

According to Mr. Raniere’s website http://www.keithraniere.com  the company had incredible success.

“As an entrepreneur, Keith Raniere transformed a five-person organization into a corporation of nearly 400,000 in a mere two years. His company, Consumers’ Buyline, Inc., was responsible for an estimated one billion dollars in product and service sales in its second full year of business and was featured on the American Spotlight. A millionaire at the age of thirty, Keith Raniere was worth $50 million only two years later.”

Mr. Raniere’s bio neglects to mention that in 1992, Arkansas sued Consumers Buyline for ‘fraud, deception and false pretenses,’ allegedly operating an illegal pyramid scheme.

 

1992 Consumer Buyline Agreed Final Judgment and Order in Arkansas

In 1993, the New York State attorney general filed a civil suit alleging Consumers’ Buyline engaged in ‘fraudulent, deceptive and illegal acts’.

The attorney general’s conclusion was “CBI is a classic pyramid scheme. The emphasis in CBI is clearly not on the sale of a product but on recruiting . . . to boost membership. Like all pyramids, CBI’s matrix is destined to collapse.”

A settlement was reached with the attorney general where Mr. Raniere, Miss Unterreiner and the late Pamela Cafritz were “permanently enjoined from promoting, offering or granting participation in a chain distributor scheme in the State of New York” and Mr. Raniere was required to pay $40,000.

Consumers Buyline Inc. closed down after its matrix collapsed, leaving thousands of members owed refunds and commissions.

 

1993 04 20  Times Union Consumers Buyline a pyramid scheme, Abrams alleges

1990-raniere-consumers-buy-line1consumers-buy-line
eddie-keith
Keith Raniere hired actor Eddie Albert to be a spokesperson for Consumers;’ Buyline.

 

Here is a story about Consumers’ Buyline published in the Albany Times Union.

1997 08 24 tu Consumers Buyline of Clifton Park was forced to close after 25 separate investigations

About the author

Frank Parlato

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About the Author

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist.

His work has been cited in hundreds of news outlets, like The New York Times, The Daily Mail, VICE News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Post, New York Daily News, Oxygen, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The Sun, The Times of London, CBS Inside Edition, among many others in all five continents.

His work to expose and take down NXIVM is featured in books like “Captive” by Catherine Oxenberg, “Scarred” by Sarah Edmonson, “The Program” by Toni Natalie, and “NXIVM. La Secta Que Sedujo al Poder en México” by Juan Alberto Vasquez.

Parlato has been prominently featured on HBO’s docuseries “The Vow” and was the lead investigator and coordinating producer for Investigation Discovery’s “The Lost Women of NXIVM.” In addition, he was credited in the Starz docuseries 'Seduced' for saving 'slave' women from being branded and escaping the sex-slave cult known as DOS.

Parlato appeared on the Nancy Grace Show, Beyond the Headlines with Gretchen Carlson, Dr. Oz, American Greed, Dateline NBC, and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, where Parlato conducted the first-ever interview with Keith Raniere after his arrest. This was ironic, as many credit Parlato as one of the primary architects of his arrest and the cratering of the cult he founded.

Parlato is a consulting producer and appears in TNT's The Heiress and the Sex Cult, which premieres on May 22, 2022.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Parlato,_Jr.

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