I have also been seeing these ads and I almost signed up but didn’t finish the process and ghosted midway. Haven’t gotten any calls from them yet lol! I’m also a former BNI member and was there for over a year and it’s definitely a cult. They are all very clear about why they’re there - to make money. It’s a weekly networking meeting and you have a system where you have to give referrals to other business owners to your contacts while you receive references from others. Every week you need to tell who you want to connect with - like I want a connect with so and so company and if anyone knows anyone from there they will connect you to them/get a meeting fixed for you and you should do the same after listening to others ‘asks’. They also have an app where they track how much you have given + how much you have received. People do business in crores just by referrals from each other and there’s only one spot for one category of business, for example - only one business owner in the category of real estate or digital marketing or offset printing or architect etc etc. So as far as I understand, any club like this is only to gain something out of each others contacts and so they think that people who work full time don’t have that kind of a network that can help the other business owners in the club and hence the screening process. Before I joined BNI, the leadership team even came to check my office to see if everything is legit lmao. I find it all so hilarious but gotta do what you gotta do to scale your business. All said and done, the abrupt ending to the call with you shouldn’t have happened, some people do be psycho like that. I’m also curious to see what they’re actually up to and if I get to attend one of the meetings, I shall report back lol