Nicky & Meg
My friend introduced me to Juicy Fields (JF) in January 2022. She had mentioned it a couple of times over the previous year, but I wasn’t interested. Then she started showing me the returns she was getting, and my interest was piqued. She bought my first 5 plants as a birthday/Xmas gift. I did a lot of research before deciding to get on board. There were a few people screaming ‘scam’ on the Trustpilot reviews, but it looked to me like they were the ones who hadn’t done their homework, with most of the Trustpilot reviews being 4/5 stars. I loved the ethos of what JF claimed to be doing and everything looked good.
My wife had a life changing health event late in 2021, and she very nearly died. JF seemed like it would be the perfect opportunity for us to improve, and bring forward, our retirement plans. If it hadn’t been for the near-death experience, we would have been far more cautious and just bought the odd plants here and there. However, I had a small pension pot (£29k) available to me that would never be enough for us to retire on, but it was a good amount to create a ‘passive’ or ‘residual’ income with.
My friend and I have known each other since around 2008. We’ve both been involved in various Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)/internet marketing ventures over the years – some together, but mostly independently. I had sworn off getting involved in anything else since about 2014 because I’m not a very good networker, but JF looked like it was the ultimate opportunity and was too good to miss. It looked like it was exactly what we had been searching for all those years. I liked that the MLM aspect wasn’t the key to making a profit and that any commissions only went two deep – unlike most MLM opportunities. I was also inspired by the medicinal cannabis aspect, the philanthropic aspect and the whole crowd growing platform made perfect sense to me.
I don’t know how, but my friend got me accepted as an ambassador without having to even apply! I don’t have a big online presence, but I think the guy who got her involved might have either been Michael Spring or was close to Michael Spring…make of that what you will! I was never motivated to bring many people in, at least not until I could show my own profits and even then, it was only ever going to be a few people. Having said that, my wife signed up ‘under me’, as did one other friend (who also has a life changing condition to deal with and saw the same opportunity as we did) before I started receiving any profits. A couple of others were inspired to give it a go once I started receiving profits from my plants – both are familiar with MLM/investing/risk and thinking outside the box.
I was encouraged when, back in June, I think it was, the requirements for ambassadors to receive from their second level were increased, making it more difficult for people to earn from that stream. It seemed like they were really trying to reign things in and make this model sustainable. I wouldn’t have been bothered if my ambassador status was revoked due to not being ‘active’ enough. We were happy with the returns we were seeing on our investments and compounding them to give us a very good retirement income from January 2023…That was enough for us. We’re not greedy and we had only ever planned to take it to that point. We would have taken back our initial investment and still had a good income from what was left in the platform. We never planned to get ourselves into the higher rate tax bracket, that’s for sure!
My friend was devastated when it all went wrong, even more so than we were because she was the one who encouraged me to get involved in the first place. We lost around £29k but we have each other, and we are both able to earn an income, even if it’s not quite what it was before my wife’s illness.
Looking back, I can see there were aspects that should have raised red flags. Specifically, no KYC upfront. But I really wanted for my wife to not have to go back to work after her illness. Being able to pay by SEPA was comforting to us. If it had only been via Crypto, I’d have given up on day one!
The first plants I bought myself were via crypto – that’s how my friend had shown me to do it. I don’t mind admitting, I found that very challenging and stressful! I decided that future payments would be made via SEPA and it became much easier. I already had a Revolut account and since their exchange rates were good and there were no fees up to £1,000 a month, I used that. I upgraded to the metal account to take advantage of unlimited fee-free transfers and started using it for all my day-to-day transactions as well as JF. The only warning that I received, if any, would have been on the first transaction where they ask if you know the recipient. Although I don’t remember ever seeing such a warning.
We are both so grateful to be in the group with Daniel, Nina, Lars and the team. Who knows where we’ll end up and what will happen? We remain optimistic that Lars will be able to secure compensation and we will still be able to have a comfortable retirement in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, I am making some lovely connections with some lovely people in the members’ group and for that I am truly grateful.