MLM’s - what’s the deal? (Multi-level marketing/aka pyramid selling)

[LadyLockdown]

Was stalking an ex on Facebook the other day, he's had his profile on private for yonks, anyway, it's been set to public cos the silly twat is selling nu skin. He's got an insta page dedicated to it with his girlfriend #Power couple.
I'm fucking dead.

 

[Herefortheteeeee]

Saw a 16 year old on a local site asking for any info on any local jobs today. Then FM woman pipes up ‘I may have something for you hun, PM me hun’.
leave the poor girl alone to get some actual work experience!

 

[Justhereforbants]

A girl I work with does nuskin, she posts about sitting in bed and working from home and how great it is to be your own boss in her instagram story yet does shift work in a call centre

 

[PrincessCharming]

My 87 year old friend who lives in sheltered housing was cornered by a carer who is selling FM as a sideline. Oh no, she said,I only wear Estée Lauder or YSL. Not put off this woman tried to tell her all the young ones loved FM and it would be a great Xmas present for grandchildren. Luckily she asked me first.

I wonder if she managed to sell to any residents. Really poor tactics, certainly morally wrong.

 

[Juliet]

If you see someone posting about how their new business has changed their life and how everyone needs to join - you can guarantee it’s an mlm scam.

 

[gigi_93]

God don’t get me started on MLMs. I despise them. I instantly lose respect for anyone who peddles one and assume they’re of limited intelligence

 

[doctordoctor]

The perfumes and aftershaves are actually really good but as you call it “knock off” you obviously haven’t tried it.
The other stuff well yeah... hmmmmm

I bought an FM perfume from a friend and loved it. I bought flowerbomb and it smells the same as flowerbomb. I bought more and my mum and my sisters bought to so I signed up. It didn’t cost me a single penny to join. It cost me time interacting with people on Facebook. I put one post on my personal Facebook and I got orders for 28 bottles and instantly made over £100. Some of that I put back into my business to buy packaging, thank you cards, sweets and samples. I didn’t approach one person. My next order I treated myself to the sample kit. You do not have to buy this I chose to and it’s helped me. I’ve just started my 4th month and I’m just over £1000 in profit. I have signed up two girls, both had bought a product. People should not tar all network marketers with the same brush. You can legitimately make money out of this.
Most of the people that are anti FM haven’t actually tried it. My friends boyfriend has taken every opportunity to belittle me for selling it. He had never smelt it. I gave him a bottle and he’s now ordering from me and so ate his friends.
I have a full time job. I do FM in my spare time. I’m saving to buy a house and the money I have earned so far will help me make my deposit that little bit quicker.
I can sleep at night knowing I have earned that fair and square

Are you Jane Gammons......unless you all do EXACTLY the same thing, buying packaging, thank you cards, sweets and samples.....oh! and saving for a house!! You call it MLM, I call it pyramid scheme

 

[Gembo]

I brought some FM from a friend - mainly because I wanted to save money on buying Chanel and Viktor&Rolf. It’s ok - I paid £25 for two but it barely lasts at all. I brought the dupe from Lidl for 3.99 and it’s by far the superior product.

I don’t have any problem with body shop and their products but I’m added to a group every other day at the moment - I also saw this by a prominent Body shop consultant and it riled me. Some people will feel guilty about not “investing” in their friends “business” and that is fucking shady

It’s not necessarily about not wanting to support friends though, it’s often about the products. There’s only about 2 Body Shop products I like, the rest I’m not a fan of. I’d much rather comfy granny pants from Sainsbury’s than Ann Summers. Boots and Superdrug sell a wide range of products that I’ve tried, tested and liked and don’t get me started on crap like Juice Plus for me I do feel it’s down to the quality of the products half the time. Personally Im happy to buy the original fragrance than a dupe and I like the convenience of just popping in a shop to buy something I know & like than placing an order through a friend. It’s really unfair of them to guilt people.

I had a neighbour that did Body Shop & some other thing & she would do parties for selling it. She’d really pressure you into going & I always felt obliged to buy stuff I didn’t want. It really got on my nerves & you start running out of excuses why you can’t go. I just wouldn’t have the nerve to do that to people. I’ve had quite a few Facebook invites during lockdown from people now doing Body Shop & Scentsy & I’m just not responding, somehow I can still see the posts even though I haven’t joined and they must each be doing somewhere between 5 & 10 posts a day

Ugh, I know someone who has started to sell the FM stuff. What makes me laugh is that she tries to be this designer wife and stay at home mum, buys all designer stuff for her husband and daughter then tries to sell this crap on FB. There's no way that she uses it but she still tries to sell it everyone and now she's signed a few friends up to her 'own business'

Another person I know has started her own 'travel business'. I don't talk to this person anymore but please .

The travel ones boil my blood. I don’t understand them at all. For a start it’s hardly a thriving time in the travel industry. Secondly if I’m going to book a holiday it won’t be with Mandy on Facebook and thirdly if it’s all about being a travel agent why are all their posts about recruiting rather than holidays?!

 

[SqualorVictoria]

I used to make £700 a month on the side of my full time job. I worked 2 evenings a week.

I think the ‘own business’ thing comes from you being self employed & working as much or as little as you want.

To be fair though, it's work on the side, not one's own business. I know someone who is saving up for a house and does the odd weekend evening shift delivering takeaways to make extra cash on top of his normal job. That's in no way his own business

 

[ThreeSteaksPam]

These “life coaches” are like the Japanese knotweed of Instagram. Every man and his dog is doing it I wouldn’t ask the vast majority of them to coach me through choosing an acrylic nail colour, let alone anything else.

 

[Bostonx]

I won a younique eyeshadow once and it just have been in colour transparent because nothing happened when it tried it

 

[Anasnake]

I know a juice plus bot who’s put ‘7 figure earner’ on their profile. They failed maths at school, probably needs a lesson on decimal points.

 

[MissTeddy]

"Do you want to be your own boss hun ?"
No fuck off hun - i've got a proper job.

Its the ones who imply that they have purchased a Range Rover or Merc "all by myself".
No hun ... you've got on a PCP and your husband is paying for it.

There is a MLM platform trying to recruit people to be 'independent travel agents' at the moment. I mean guys, its actually ILLEGAL to go on holiday at the moment, don't try and pretend you're making money. There are big travel brands going bust all the time. Its ALL about recruitment and nothing about the work or the product.

Sorry i've not had a chance to read the whole thread but if you've not seen it, read this article. Its absolutely fascinating and shows the real dark side - the debt and heartbreak these schemes cause to vulnerable women.

'They have you in a cultish grip': the women losing thousands to online beauty schemes

It sounds too good to be true – earn money selling makeup on social media. And for many, it is. What really happens when you join a multi-level beauty business?

www.theguardian.com

 

[Lottiedooda]

I know so many people doing FM at the moment. They must post about 40 insta-stories a day 'buy my products! sale on! join my team!' Its relentless.

I get why people have fallen for it as the whole 'sign up for free!' makes it seem like less of a scam, but I don't understand how people think its sustainable. Soon the people below you will get tired of hustling, and then you have to get others to join under you to make up the team numbers and sales again. Not to mention, you've got hundreds of other people selling the exact same shit as you - why do people think (unless they're friends/family) that they'll buy from you and not from someone else?


I think with the travel one, you basically pay £50 (not sure if thats monthly) to get access to a database with 'deals' on. Then you flog those to your customers and they book through you through the website. I'm not sure why it started popping up again though, especially now...the travel industry is pretty much dead at the moment, and I can't imagine many people booking holidays again until they're sure it won't be cancelled.

Absolutely not a chance would I book a holiday with someone who just signed up to do it as an sideline to make some extra money. If I'm paying for an expensive holiday I want reassurance should anything go wrong.

I want to book it with peace of mind with someone who knows the travel industry and its regulations....not from someone who's been to Ibiza 3 times so therefore thinks they know everything.

I also want this person to continue to look after my booking once its been made and follow it through to the actual holiday should anything go wrong....not someone who will no longer be doing it in 6 months time

They’re all encouraged to ‘live the high life’ they’re selling a lifestyle, it’s how they get people to sign up under them. The car will be financed paid for by FM if they qualify every month so every month they have the stress of whether or not they’ll manage that.

I know someone who appears successful at FM but I reckon a lot of what they do is on credit cards or returned after photos. It’s all fake.

Also lanni loves is probably making money from Instagram, plenty of influencers quit their jobs...god how I’d laugh if one day Instagram just turned the app off

There's actually studios and photographers just for this now you can pay for a photoshoot on a 'private jet' which is just a studio, and be stood next to expensive cars with the keys....even have photos in expensive hotels etc.....all paid by the hour

 

[Falkor]

Success Inspired Limited (Claire & Keith Spencer) - directors loan account has gone from just under £10,000 in 2014 to £205,000 in the most recent accounts to June 2019.

Residual Wealth Management Limited (Natalie Heeley) - 2019 accounts should have been filed at the end of June and weren't. The 2018 accounts show a directors loan account of £753,802, up from £631,746 in 2017. Earliest filed accounts in 2014 show no directors loan at all, so that's a LOT of money taken out in four years.

Emma Cooper Global Limited (Emma and Shaun Cooper) - 2019 directors loan account stands at £402,232, the earliest filed accounts for 2016 show no directors loan at all, so again, a lot of money taken out in the past few years.

Basically the lifestyles are being propped up by enormous amounts of money taken out of the business. Crucially you don't pay tax on them if they're repaid to the company within 9 months of year end, but if you fail to repay there's a corporation tax charge of 32.5% - that would mean, in Natalie's case, a tax bill of £244,985.65. Each of these three companies is showing the previous year's loan paid back and a new, bigger one taken out, this is known as bed and breakfasting and if HMRC can prove the loans haven't been paid back, but simply rolled into a new one, they can treat it as if it was unpaid and levy the tax charge anyway. I should think some of the directors have had some pretty sleepless nights with the levels of bonus cheques in recent years.

 

[Whatliesbeneath]

theres one where people think they are travel agents... laughable really

 

[MissTeddy]

No one is making money from travel. Not experts and definitely not random Karen’s .

 

[Maracas]

Check this out!

Elle’s #Poonique Story

The index of Elle’s Poonique story.

ellebeaublog.com

I would say 90% of these women make virtually nothing. The pitch is usually “work from home, work flexible hours, provide for your children“ - the language is very emotive. Its not that easy - I’ve organised enough PTA fairs over the years, and I see these poor women at their stalls flogging Younique, Scentsy, Jewellery, perfume, candles ... whatever it is, it’s usually tat, they make an initial outlay from their own pockets to buy stock that they have to sell. If they don’t sell enough they lose their ‘status’ so some end up buying their own stock. Just get a proper job.

This pisses me off they act like it’s the only job in the world where you can work from home, look around you, we are in a remote world now and things won’t be going back to how they were!

There are plenty of jobs out there, LEGIT jobs where you can work from home. I have one! I get paid a really great wage, my job is rewarding and I’m not scamming anybody, and guess what! I can pick my mini maracas up from school!

 

[Blancmange]

I totally forgot someone I went to school with started one ages ago called ‘Business Bombshells’ which was basically her making a down line for her with Juice Plus. Just had a look on Fb/insta and doesn’t look like it’s still going but lots about it on Reddit

I've just read right through this thread, I hate MLMs.. weirdly someone I know has posted in the past couple of days about 'business bombshells'.. I can't find much info about it tho so will look on reddit.. she's previously sold acti labs, juice plus and limelife..

I was sucked into Arbonne when I was 18 by someone who I considered a friend. My dad had just died and I was vunerable. I was told to fake it till I made it. Soon sacked it off as I saw what it really was, lost £300 tho.

Funny how you never see all this supposed money they make

 

[Bilbo16]

The ‘independent travel advisor’ got back in contact with me cos I never responded to her message trying to recruit me. I just told her I’m lucky enough to have a stable job and I don’t want to get involved in the travel industry during a pandemic when people are being advised not to travel. I just don’t understand why people think that would be a good ‘opportunity’.