What happened to MLM's?

Every ""boss babe"" is selling their own "digital products" i.e. PDF guides to things like workouts, recipes

Loads of travel consultants round here. Always want to talk to me about becoming a travel consultant but never once offered to helpe find a flight or holiday!

They’ve all joined OnlyFans and are struggling to make any money there too

Damn, Elle Beau's Poonique blog seems to have been taken over by some kind of casino spam.

@coulditbeme2323 the MLM “industry” is a shadow of its former self but it does (sadly) live on and there will always be those vulnerable to the fiction of time freedom and limitless earnings if they work hard and want it enough. There will always be those who don’t keep records of what it’s costing them to make the money do make. A lot of people who did fairly well in MLM (through lucky timing and a willingness to exploit people) have mutated into coaching, or rather recruiting coaches to recruit other coaches all selling some kind of system for “success”. The traditional MLMs like Younique, Arbonne are much diminished, even Forever Living, which is still discussed on the botwatch threads in Money Matters, has just closed its MLM business in the US, largely so the owners avoid prosecution for running a pyramid and lying to their recruits for decades.

As for Inteletravel, how does a “travel company” have a boom during COVID when there was a global ban on travel but people were ripe for recruitment 🤔 it’s almost as if their revenue is from recruiting people who pay to play isn’t it?! (Their recruiting arm is called PlanNet Marketing).

As for where the boss babes have gone, if they haven’t become coaches and they haven’t jumped from one MLM to the next while someone else pays the bills then most of them are back in the jobs they trashed (if they’re lucky). Some successful ones actually took out huge directors loans and are not just at zero profit, they’re in considerable debt. No wonder they’re quieter these days.

Dear god the Independent travel consultants! Two of my baby group mum are involved in this and seem to always be posting from foreign locations saying how they made the money for this on commission and I’m mystified as to how people suck it up coz I seem to be the only one who knows how they paid for these holidays…and it’s not based on the commission they’ve earned….shocker!

What is utility warehouse? Someone I know on Facebook is involved in it. I can’t bring myself to message her to find out about it.

Still around, we had an 'independent bookshop owner' on a local facebook page the other day who didn't seem to want to link to any books for sale but did want to 'expand her team'.

It's the dishonesty that gets me with these things, I hate anything that relies on people being a bit stupid, or busy, or tired and basically ending up being scammed (see fabletics and subscription model companies too).

its utility warehouse all over my Facebook now

I’m old too but I know that an MLM is a multi level Marketing scam of direct sales and marketing. They promise participants that they can be rich by recruiting people to sell the goods, and those people also recruit people. It’s basically pyramid selling.

Herbalife is still going.

Totally forgot about these schemes! Arbonne brings back all the memories of school pick up and dodging certain people 😂

Almost certainly!

My half sister does this. Wonder if it’s an mlm?

They're still alive and kicking where I am: Herbalife, Tropic, idenependent travel counsellors, Utility Warehouse.

I give them all a wide berth.

My friend got hooked into an Arbonne one, met up with her twice and on second time her boss was telling her about the new white Mercedes she’d got.

Oh I know you can. The people I have seen set it up don’t seem a natural fit (haven’t worked or trained the role”. Lots of “boss babe” type social media updates. Just feels a bit off

You can make real, decent money being a VPA. I did it for a while, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are scam "agencies" out there. I'd be interested to know the names of the companies you think might be MLMs, if you know them?

I’ve seen a few “virtual personal assistant ones”. Feels very much in the style of mlm but I don’t know for certain.

Thank you. 💐

Lots of travel consultants round my way too. I can see people I know being dragged in and then their social media is drenched with positive quotes and blatant lies about how much they travel.

We have a fairly high up individual round here too and honestly her social media is so cringe

It’s such a scam but they are so good at selling it to vulnerable people.

Haha I read the whole thread thinking whatever happened to that crappy cosmetic MLM where every consultant was pushing the ultimate mascara but couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was called.. until now! 😂

Yep, it was very good. Sadly, the hilarious video of that fabulous woman (Grace, I think her name was?) drawing all over her face with Sharpie to prove Younique foundation didn't hide it seems to have vanished. She was absolutely brilliant!

The changes to how social media works probably hasn’t been in their favour

Multi level marketing

It's a pyramid scheme (my phone tried to change that to 'scam'-its on the ball)

The ones at the top of the pyramid cream off the profits but the poor sods at the bottom lose money

I see the 'body shop at home',some coffee one and travel consultant ones but they dont seem to last more than a few months before quietly quitting