What happened to MLM's?

Ugh, I went to an Arbonne evening with a mum from the school. Thought we were developing a friendship. We went in her white Mercedes. Turns out she’s in it, loaned me samples, it nearly took my face off. Horrible stuff. She dropped me when I wouldn’t buy anything.

Yep, travel consultants where I am. The most bizarre one is a woman who used to provide a great service doing something you use at kids parties. Always genuinely busy. Let’s call her the cake lady (it wasn’t cakes but you get the drift) she lives in a very modest house (you used to have to collect from it) but suddenly ‘her dream was to travel’ so she ditched the highly successful thing she did in favour of the ‘travel consultancy’ and now posts ‘content’ from what are very obviously bog-standard package holidays (no judgement but she’s hardly staying at aspirational locations) and content from ‘conferences’ where she’s suddenly giving motivational speeches in an echo chamber. I often wonder what her DH thinks.. they still live in the same house (she posts her first day at school pics on the same doorstep) and she must’ve gone from having a great income from the old business where her posts would have sizeable likes and generate more business to having less than 5 likes on her tedious feed of ‘imagine waking up to this buffet breakfast’ (literally every buffet I’ve ever seen at a hotel) ‘comment BUFFET’ and I’ll send you how you could be enjoying it too’

I once got tapped up to sell Arbonne by a woman who was on the PTA years before me who had used the old contact sheet to call me. She sounded like she genuinely needed my ‘business advice’ and given that we worked in a similar industry and she now lived two counties away I met her for coffee as requested as I thought she might be struggling. She then tried for an hour to recruit me and tried to persuade me to take the kit ‘to see how I got on with it’ (this was after saying that it was ‘irrelevant if the product was any good, it was just about recruiting more people’ ) it was excruciating. I went from being irritated by the obvious lie I’d agreed to meet on to utter incredulousness as to the shite she was spouting. I often wonder what happened to her. I suspect she probably no longer has friends.

If they’ve all fucked off to only fans I’m grateful because at least I’m guaranteed not to be seeing that content.

I have one on FB who is trying to sell some machine that magically makes your water healthier. I had to hide her content. This is the third product she’s got into, hasn’t made her millions yet.

I too know someone on the travel scheme and when I tell you she is the LAST person I’d book a holiday with 😬. My question is if anyone on here does that travel scheme have you genuinely made any money from it?! Or do you know anyone that has? I can’t see anyone booking with the girl I know for example so am wondering what benefit does she actually get from it?

They're all trying to become influencers now

I've got a friend who sells some makeup, can't remember the name of the brand. But she's so awful at SM that I can't imagine she gets many sales.

I'll admit that I signed up to younique back when it was first in the UK. But I never lied about how good it was, never claimed it covered sharpie marker or anything. Refused to lie about my earnings. Basically I was a shit seller and didn't last long. I genuinely loved their foundation though. It was perfect for my skin. The moisturiser left my face looking really good too.

ETA: my friend sells Farmasi

A couple that are ‘friends’ tout their travel
consultancy at every opportunity and ALWAYS insist anyone and everyone tries them first before booking anything. Did that once as a favour (I actually found the same holiday £100 cheaper), never again. They played the same game again with a niece who ended up booking via a local travel agent who was clued up on the domestic water situation in Cape Verde and was able to book elsewhere without question (whereas the ‘independent’ was horrified my niece didn’t go with them and had no idea of the issues in Cape Verde (and they they went themselves and filmed videos of how wonderful it all was, despite a couple of thousand innocent members of the public having publicly filed a lawsuit against Tui…….).

WLI. Users spruik those things like crazy.

If you go to events like shows held at exhibition centres, there will often be a few MLM product stalls there. I wish they wouldn’t allow them. Apparently it’s also a problem at local fairs for small businesses and things like that.

Avon is still going and so is that awful tropic that charges ridiculous prices for crap products - every single person who asks for help on any fb group gets the “they tropic it will fix everything!

They are still about. One tried to recruit me to the Herbalife bullshit on the back of my mother’s drawn out death a few months back under the guise of going walking as a support group. Fuck off. Absolute scum the lot of them.

Forever Living did some really good items though, dodgy business aside. They had a really tasty Peach & Aloe drink, and some really Moisturising face creams. I was a bit sad when I heard that a particular family member wasn’t able to supply anymore.

The MLMers are all doing only fans now

I think a fair bit of this goes on - some women who don’t want a normal job or the ties of set hours but also don’t like to feel they aren’t doing anything - but are lucky enough to do a bit of something that looks like it keeps them busy and relevant but without a pressing need to earn much

Stupid question alert...
So when you watch a reel and they'll say "reply with "this is crap" and I'll send you the details", they'll just keep spamming you with nonsense?

I've seen posts where people have put negative comments and the person has just gone down the list and said "thanks, I've sent you the details" clearly not reading them.

I hate UW with a passion. Absolutely no morals - once someone on our local FB group had lost pretty much everything in a house fire…local UW pops up offering them to join them as a rep to earn some money.

You can predict with a very high degree of certainty which posts they will hijack.

and the fucking awful phrases like “fit it in around the nooks and crannies of your life”. Vomit.

Having said that, a colleague did it for a few years and still earns a fairly good residual income of a few hundred pounds per month.

i still wouldn’t do it for all the tea in china as my dignity and morals is more important to me.

There are a lot of LinkedIn AI grifters - how to use AI to reach more sales, comment to get a free guide to reaching more customers with AI and then a hard sell on signing up from some AI generated content course to learn more.

Years ago,the wife of a lad i went to primary with (and I hated him then) friend requested me

I thought she was someone else so accepted

I was then promptly added to some younique group (id never heard of them) and I unadded myself,having zero interest in being part of that group as I dont wear make up (no 'hello' or 'how are you?' just 'I have your name and your going to be added to my page')

She re-added me,I unadded myself,she re-added me and this went on for about 20 times

I messaged her to say I wasn't interested and could she please stop?

She didnt answer but did re-add me so I took myself off the group again

Feeling pissed off,I emailed the company saying that I wasnt interested and could they please ask her to stop adding me?

I got some shite back,saying they did not encourage their members to harass people (!),they understood i wasnt interested and they'd have a word with her

The next day,I found id been re-added so I blocked her

The only way I could get her to stop!

She was that desperate for customers/idiots to join her in this scam,she had trawled her blokes fb friends,then their friends,then their friends etc adding people on the way

If she'd bothered to ask her husband,he would have told her not to bother with me as we didnt like each other in the first place

I wasnt the best person to add!

Another had a body shop at home page and did ask if she could add me

All sunshine,roses and 'i love my hubby' all over the group with pictures of shower gel and lipsticks (and lots of yellow/pink emoji flowers)

This went on for about 6 months when it suddenly vanished,she dumped her bloke,found another one within a week,dragged her kids to live with new bloke and quit her full time job

I dont know her well enough to ask if turning her life upside down was connected to the body shop in some way!

I did have a bot flogging black coffee ages ago

All 'calorie free!' 'super slimming!' 'full of goodness!' and 'will cure every single ailment from cancer to acne!'

I pointed out that black coffee is naturally calorie free and the other claims where bollocks

I was slung out of that group and she blocked me

Shame,we where besties at school

One of my oldest friends has become part of a travel consulting mlm. I didn’t realise that was what it was to start with as she just talked about booking holidays. Then her videos started changing and it was all about her team, that she’s a CEO, that she’s running a legacy business which gives her and her children security, and it got me curious because she was speaking just like an mlm bot. Once I actually looked into her “business” it was clear what it was. She’s always pushing people to join her team, bombarding people with messages if they so dare as like anything she posts. So now no one is liking anything she puts up for fear of being hounded. There is nothing much about the travel business side of it anymore, it’s all her posting videos of her dressed up and sipping Prosecco with her team, receiving awards for her CEO successes, banging on about her financial security since becoming a travel consultant. And a few passive aggressive posts about people calling her business “her little travel business” and how outrageous that is because she’s a CEO keeping her family afloat in hard times.

What really grates on me most of all with these posts is the utter BS she spouts to manipulate people into joining. She talks about supporting her family, being present for her kids, that being a CEO gives her financial security during the COL crisis. She put up a post saying that she had been able to buy a house to ensure her children always had a home, implying that without this mlm they had no security. And going on about how she used to worry for her children’s futures but this job is now providing security for them for life…however…the reality is she married a very successful man about 15 years ago who earns up to £1 million a year with bonuses (possibly even more), he bought them a beautiful home in North London and she lives the life of Riley- always shopping for designer clothes, getting her hair and nails done, going on ridiculously expensive holidays, driving huge expensive cars, kids in private school, a bunch of expensive pedigree dogs. She makes out like she is providing this lifestyle with her CEO wages when in reality it’s her rich husband supporting them and she uses any money she makes on buying clothes. It’s honestly makes me so cross that she is exploiting poorer people with these tales of her business success when she lives the most comfortable and easy life imaginable. I have lost all respect for her tbh, don’t particularly like her anymore and haven’t spoken to her for years now. It’s a shame because she used to be so much fun.

MWR travel pops up…seems like a lot of saddos pretending they are living their best life, no 9 to 5 for them. Then deny it’s a pyramid scheme.

Yeah I follow her and think she’s great for raising awareness. It’s quite scary how they all come together to defend what they are doing, they can’t see it’s cultish behaviour.

We have one as well. Their angle is that their weekly weight loss sessions are free and oh so supportive and lovely but hidden in the very small print is that you have to buy stuff. I knew there was a catch but it took me a little while to figure it out. Apparently they are very, very pushy if you attend not realising it's a sales pitch.

Travel consultant being touted , get discounts on your holidays …all the same scam/MLM.
Recruit people for commission blah blah

I really hate how the "Independent travel consultant" mlm plays on women's anxieties about being away from their kids/ promises women they can work around your kids.
I have four in my aquaitances circle. Another mum I know just asked for part time job ideas and someone immediately suggested travel agent! 🙄

I used to love watching this woman on Facebook trying to flog her Younique make up 😂 I wonder what she is up to now.