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

[Prgirl_cesca]

A fb friend of mine sells Forever products and calls herself a 'business coach and mentor' on her fb bio and a couple of years ago she went to like a 3 day conference for the business and the big boss running it must be RAKING it in charging these dickheads hundreds to attend her conference at a crappy hotel.

The ones I hate the most are the diet ones like Cambridge/Juice plus as they prey on the vulnerable and those diets are so tit for your body.

 

[Beachbabe]

Scentsy is another one. Every one and their granny is selling this now

I have had two books through my door recently both with some free samples. I thought great, I’ll try them out. OMG how expensive are they???

 

[Horatio]

bleeping hate them and will call them out everywhere I go. Something really insidious about someone you know or have been friends with tapping you for money or to join their ‘home based business’

I know a lady who is very involved with one of these. She SEEMS to have done really well and is always jet setting. Her husband has given up work apparently cos she’s earning so much (although I’m not entirely sure what he used to do anyway). It’s all smoke and mirrors obv but she’s very into it and has been for a few years.A few years ago I had a close family member pass away. I got a message pop up in my FB inbox from this lady. I thought ‘aww how lovely of her to check in on me and send her condolences even though we’re not very close’

And she did send her condolences. But then the next line of her message was about me joining her team. I couldn’t believe it. bleeping shameless. Deleted her and told her where to go. Leeches

Ugh how vile. Seems more than likely she was deliberately preying on you because you’d had a bereavement and might be more vulnerable and easy to manipulate. No wonder she’s done well, she clearly has very few scruples. That’s yet another horrible thing about these schemes - they reward ruthlessness , aggression every morally reprehensible manipulative trick in the book. You aren’t going to do well being honest. Anyone you don’t approach is wasted potential - but especially an emotionally vulnerable recently bereaved person because they are not only more likely to sign up , they are in a position to get lots of others who pay condolences visits to do so out of pity...

God i only had the above thoughts as I was writing them and thinking about @Octopies story but it’s an utterly predatory set up

 

[Juliet]

Yea they prey on the vulnerable - easier to manipulate!

 

[Heyguysswipeup]

If you have time, on instagram and search Miss Valetti and look at her highlights on Arbonne. she has cervical cancer and was approached by an arbonne consultant trying to get her to start a business because ‘she’s dying and should leave money behind for her son’, she called arbonne out and it took them a week or so to acknowledge this and another one of their ‘consultants’ accused her of faking having cancer! It’s toxic!!
Another good article calling out arbonne is this https://www.saucemag.co.nz/beauty/arbonne
Be warned..you’ll be sucked into it

 

[Gemmilton]

This is all I can think of when I hear pyramid selling!

 

[Beachbabe]

To whoever just recommended the documentary on iplayer, thank you. I’ve just watched it. The industry is so fake, it’s unreal!

 

[annanuttall]

OOoh glad their a thread on this as since lockdown have begun these people keep contacting me - day and night! They all over Linkedin and as I'm classed a 'digital marketing' on my profile and on my cv, they just see the marketing bit and keep on hassling me. It always the same story, 'we have seen your cv and we think you are a perfect fit', yet it obvious they never looked at it.
What makes it worst is that every week these scammers are under a new business name, making it harder to keep track.
Has anyone else been having problems with these kinds of companies?

 

[Cjen84]

I've been involved in a few so will share my experience
Ann Summers: Sacked! Because I refused to put it before my job and family
Bluebella: Stopped the mlm side
Younique: Crazy expense for what it is. Didn't sell a single item
Acti Labs: Don't get me started on this. Really bad experience and was bullied by the owner
Fm: Still with, only put in an order every now and again. Find the perfumes to be amazing and long lasting
Avon: Only just joined as its currently free with commission from £1 of sales. No upline support though

Have, as a customer, did juice plus. No weight lost at all, not particularly nice and the company is full of fakes. One leader claims JP is how she lost her weight but won't admit she's had weight loss surgery even though she posted years ago she had. Fell pregnant. Was told it was fine to drink during pregnancy and it would stop SPD happening. Dr made a formal complaint to Juice Plus head office.
Yes a lot of mlms are awful and I've discovered that through painful experiences but the 2 I have, I can't complain. They know I'm not bothered about advancing but just want to sell here and there (plus I think the Avon lady for my estate hates me as I didn't sign under her. I've already told her I have no plans to poach her territory)

 

[urghmummybloggers]

Avon just seems more legit - the producers are value for money? I’ve had some matte lipsticks for years and they are some if my favourites even now. I don’t even hate the Anne summers ones even though you might as well order online. Body shop is starting to do my nut in.

I’ve seen a girl very high up in NuSkin Pyramid Scheme - diamond somrthing - all into crystals and that bullshit, she’s a brow and make up artist so I get why she’s got an air of legitimacy. It just makes me die when they put stuff like this. Why lie? I remember buying the £10 toothpaste off her once and it did duck all, the only people that are buying you £25 mud masks are the poor vulnerable people you are co to sign up into your team.

Notice they all had “confidence” issues?

 

[Horatio]

Ann Summers is MLM?!

This is all I can think of when I hear pyramid selling!

Aaah I had this in the back of my mind last night when posting in this thread !

When i first got into that show aged about 17 I didn’t fully understand what a pyramid scheme was beyond some vague implications of shadiness so didn’t fully get this either. I’ve seen it many times since over the years but not for a while.
Watching all those scenes back now it’s so perfect. They totally capture the ludicrousness of the whole thing, the tactics you’re taught to lure people in, open with a statement they can’t deny framed as a question - “how much washing up do you think you can do without any washing up liquid”
Then the self aware assurances they all have now that it’s not that kind of scenario “first thing to say is this isn’t pyramid selling... does this look like a pyramid ? It’s a pie chart.” literally the same thing as changing the name to Multi Level Marketing

“It’s pyramid selling Barbara I’m terribly sorry” (worth noting just to make that last scene funnier, Jez is actually there for a job interview.)
Everyone should watch the clip for a laugh you don’t need to know peep show to get anything out of it all you need is the conviction that MLM’s are ridiculous scams - which I think we all share.

One great comment there below the video too: “‘what’s pyramid selling?’ The words of a doomed man.”

 

[Notothefakes]

I've been involved in a few so will share my experience
Ann Summers: Sacked! Because I refused to put it before my job and family
Bluebella: Stopped the mlm side
Younique: Crazy expense for what it is. Didn't sell a single item
Acti Labs: Don't get me started on this. Really bad experience and was bullied by the owner
Fm: Still with, only put in an order every now and again. Find the perfumes to be amazing and long lasting
Avon: Only just joined as its currently free with commission from £1 of sales. No upline support though

Have, as a customer, did juice plus. No weight lost at all, not particularly nice and the company is full of fakes. One leader claims JP is how she lost her weight but won't admit she's had weight loss surgery even though she posted years ago she had. Fell pregnant. Was told it was fine to drink during pregnancy and it would stop SPD happening. Dr made a formal complaint to Juice Plus head office.
Yes a lot of mlms are awful and I've discovered that through painful experiences but the 2 I have, I can't complain. They know I'm not bothered about advancing but just want to sell here and there (plus I think the Avon lady for my estate hates me as I didn't sign under her. I've already told her I have no plans to poach her territory)

I mentioned earlier in the thread I got sucked in by one. I regret it, well I regret harassing my friends but actually it’s taught me lots of things about toughening up against bullies etc but the medical part of it scared me. You’d get people messaging with real conditions and your up lines would advise various different things. That’s one thing I refused to do I was getting involved with anything other than a bit of dry skin! Anything more I sent them to the doctor. I saw one woman claiming the stuff had helped her get pregnant I reported that. It’s insane the stuff you see on their pages . The top people were earning thousands a month off us, not off the products in fact I think a lot of them were buying the products they needed to hit their target and unlock their bonuses themselves. The only thing is I did actually really like the make up and skin care stuff. They discontinued a lot of what I used but I would still use it if it were there.

 

[Tintin93]

Kiki Chanel

Vegan & Cruelty Free as of October 2016! Makeup artist from Chicago. Lip swatch videos, hauls, tutorials, makeup reviews! Subscribe for new videos every week...

www.youtube.com

This YouTuber does really good exposé vids on MLM huns. Some of the clips she shows are insane and others are just plain hilarious. Also very informative if you’re interested!
Her more recent ones expose women using the pandemic to make money, truly despicable people.

 

[Lalalalaaaaaa85]

I've been involved in a few so will share my experience
Ann Summers: Sacked! Because I refused to put it before my job and family
Bluebella: Stopped the mlm side
Younique: Crazy expense for what it is. Didn't sell a single item
Acti Labs: Don't get me started on this. Really bad experience and was bullied by the owner
Fm: Still with, only put in an order every now and again. Find the perfumes to be amazing and long lasting
Avon: Only just joined as its currently free with commission from £1 of sales. No upline support though

Have, as a customer, did juice plus. No weight lost at all, not particularly nice and the company is full of fakes. One leader claims JP is how she lost her weight but won't admit she's had weight loss surgery even though she posted years ago she had. Fell pregnant. Was told it was fine to drink during pregnancy and it would stop SPD happening. Dr made a formal complaint to Juice Plus head office.
Yes a lot of mlms are awful and I've discovered that through painful experiences but the 2 I have, I can't complain. They know I'm not bothered about advancing but just want to sell here and there (plus I think the Avon lady for my estate hates me as I didn't sign under her. I've already told her I have no plans to poach her territory)

FM is the one I’m seeing all over my Facebook. Do you know what the deal is with the Maldives trip? Two different people in my friends list claim they’ve qualified for an all expense paid trip there?! That can’t be true surely? What’s the catch?

 

[Horatio]

Kiki Chanel

Vegan & Cruelty Free as of October 2016! Makeup artist from Chicago. Lip swatch videos, hauls, tutorials, makeup reviews! Subscribe for new videos every week...

www.youtube.com

This YouTuber does really good exposé vids on MLM huns. Some of the clips she shows are insane and others are just plain hilarious. Also very informative if you’re interested!
Her more recent ones expose women using the pandemic to make money, truly despicable people.

This sounds really interesting thanks

 

[Tintin93]

This sounds really interesting thanks

she has a whole playlist on anti MLM’s so you can just go straight to that to skip her other content! Your welcome!

 

[SarcasticEllis]

One of the in-laws is currently flogging Tropic and is ridiculously evangelical about it (just like when they were selling Younique and Forever Living...)

The social media posts are so similar to the those by other Tropic sellers (Mrs Meldrum for example) it’s laughable that they expect everyone to believe their claims.

They’re now bringing other family members in to it (either that this is the only skincare that works for their parent, or adding hugely emotional posts about trying to give their child a better life) and my slight guilt at ignoring their messages is now more an icky feeling. They’ll be left hundreds of pounds down with (yet more) unsold stock.

 

[Horatio]

she has a whole playlist on anti MLM’s so you can just go straight to that to skip her other content! Your welcome!

Just checking one out now. Love that she does hauls, lifestyle videos etc all that generic content that the mid level YouTube market is absolutely saturated with... and anti MLM videos.
There’s nothing wrong with lifestyle content but it’s refreshing she shows she’s got other interests.

 

[Cjen84]

FM is the one I’m seeing all over my Facebook. Do you know what the deal is with the Maldives trip? Two different people in my friends list claim they’ve qualified for an all expense paid trip there?! That can’t be true surely? What’s the catch?

You have to be quite high up in the company to qualify with a big team. I don't actively recruit I just buy for family and friends

Ann Summers is MLM?!


Aaah I had this in the back of my mind last night when posting in this thread !

When i first got into that show aged about 17 I didn’t fully understand what a pyramid scheme was beyond some vague implications of shadiness so didn’t fully get this either. I’ve seen it many times since over the years but not for a while.
Watching all those scenes back now it’s so perfect. They totally capture the ludicrousness of the whole thing, the tactics you’re taught to lure people in, open with a statement they can’t deny framed as a question - “how much washing up do you think you can do without any washing up liquid”
Then the self aware assurances they all have now that it’s not that kind of scenario “first thing to say is this isn’t pyramid selling... does this look like a pyramid ? It’s a pie chart.” literally the same thing as changing the name to Multi Level Marketing

“It’s pyramid selling Barbara I’m terribly sorry” (worth noting just to make that last scene funnier, Jez is actually there for a job interview.)
Everyone should watch the clip for a laugh you don’t need to know peep show to get anything out of it all you need is the conviction that MLM’s are ridiculous scams - which I think we all share.

One great comment there below the video too: “‘what’s pyramid selling?’ The words of a doomed man.”

The party side is yes. But it's insane targets, you have to phone your upline every Sunday to let them know how many sales you did, parties you had and how many were booked in. I got sacked because I used to be at work at the time phone in was on (I'm a HCA) so one day I told my upline what I thought about her so area manager sacked me

 

[Barb]

I don't know if it had been mentioned earlier in the thread but did anyone see the one on Netflix a few months ago about Herbalife? Whole communities are getting themselves into trouble while the fat cats sit at the top. It's disgusting.