To want my usually lovely friend to stop harrassing me about Forever Living

[Pestopastaagain]

She has recently got involved with Forever Living. We used to be in touch every month or so via email, text or fb (We live opposite ends of the country) but since she has got involved with this it's every single day more or less. She sends chatty messages but always drops in 'Have you thought about it some more' 'They are really good products' etc. Another mutual friend told me she has also been emailing her the same thing, again and again and again. Mutual friend and I have both already told her we're not interested in becoming part of it but we wish her luck and hope it works out.

What has happened to our usually sane and lovely friend? It's impossible to have a conversation with her without Forever Living being mentioned repeatedly. It's like she has been taken over by a cult or something the way she keeps going on about it.

I looked into the company and it seems to be a MLM company. Some of the articles I have read make it seem like a very fine line between that and a pyramid scheme. A lot of people also saying they made no or very little money trying to sell inferior products at an inflated price.

She's not made any money yet but is playing a well off future down to them. Is she kidding herself, has anyone here been selling these products and made any money doing it?

Is Arbonne like this? A new neighbour keeps trying to get me involved but hate the idea of marketing to friends. Plus whenever I think about buying v posh make up or expensive cream I hear victoria wood saying "release your inner beauty by smearing your face with overpriced bits of grease" and I just can't do it...

Arbonne seems to be similar, I have a friend who sells it and turned up with a pack of stuff for DH and I to try. Turned out to be about £250 of stuff. No, thanks...but no!

Arbonne, the make up of stalkers!!!

The thing is Cherry (who has answered and hidden the thread), FL reps always defend FL saying its all the other reps who are giving FL a bad name, but that in itself suggests disloyalty to colleagues and poor training.

I also find that because of the sheer amount of people that find FL reps irritating and pushy, at the end of the day, you can't blame "all the other reps" for giving the company a bad name and putting people off. The company has done this itself.

FL has a bad reputation because in my experience, it has put a zealous glint into the eye of several formerly sane and rational people that I know.

You just know that the "my office is the park" posts are a veiled hint to "get in touch so I can sign you up and make money off you".

I'm frankly too embarrassed to ever be a FL rep.

FL sounds like a typical MLM.

There's a good blog about MLMs, "the pink truth" - in this case it's about Mary kay in the US but they are all the same.

Stella & DOt - MLM

IMO, these companies exploit the fact that many women would prefer to work from home, but an MLM is not a sustainable way to do that. In Canada they're now forced by law to admit how much the average participant makes - one MLM I saw (jockey p2p) had an average participant salary of $8,000. a YEAR.

I also had a friend selling Stella & Dot, but the pressure to have a 'party' or join a team was quite off=putting.

They're all the same. Sorry Cherry. You've drunk the kool-aid.

I'm fed up of pictures on FB of my daughter's friend who is forever posting pictures of herself and the "insane" weight loss on Clean 9 - mind I can see it works.....the stuff is ridiculously expensive though and I think it's pyramid selling. She brags about the money she is making and how she can afford new cars and expensive jewellery. Even my daughter's getting fed up with her now as she is always pestering her to buy or become a FL rep.

so annoying isnt it, Ive got one of those friends, and shes constantly harping on about how happy she is because she works from home and how amazing her family is and isnt she lucky to be with them all the time...and you could do the same thing too, just contact me to find out how. I cant believe how stupid she is tbh!

Utter bollocks, the 4 people I know who have been sucked in put the same fb statuses up within days of each other, 'So proud of my colleagues, off for an all expenses paid trip to Singapore as a thankyou for all their hard work - it will be me next year' ..... BORE OFF you brainwashed aloe freaks!!

The weight loss thing works - because you eat hardly anything for 9 days while taking a laxative. You could do that without the aloe..

The very fact that this Clean 9 stuff is touted and sold as a "detox" is dodgy. The woman I know who spouts on about it talks drivel about how the body needs to be detoxes blah blah. Excuse me love. You're not a doctor. Stop talking about stuff you know nothing about. In fact if you knew anything you'd know that the body does NOT need a detox. Especially in the form of revolting looking - and tasting according to anyone who's tried it - goo.

My NDN got suckered in. She posted a picture on her wall of a glass full of what looked like semen with the caption "Tastes awful but it does the job!" Does what job?! By the look of it the only thing it's good for is holding wallpaper on walls. Daft people. They'll fall for any old rubbish.

I was earnestly told that you couldn't get the nutrients your body needs from food alone. I am no scientist but really? Really?! Glances at 7 billion people who seem to be managing to survive on "just" food.

There was a programme on here last week about "Detox" and the Clean 9 was one that was tested - the guy doing it lost something like 7lbs in a week. That's fairly typical of any new slimming programme - Weightwatchers, Slimming World - most new members would pull a big number in the first week because of water loss. One of the doctors on the show said that Aloe has a laxative effect...not something I'll be doing!

Arbonne is similar. Younique too, I think.

'Too much is as bad as too little'.

Shit! I've just realised I'm getting NO aloe vera at the moment, never mind 'too little'.... and yet, strangely, I'm fine.

The FL stalls at schools fairs are the stalls no-one goes anywhere near!

I have not had the misfortune to come across Arbonne as yet but my friends list is as full of Younique as it is FL - endless selfies, pouts, eye after eye "comparisons" plus actual videos of people putting on make up day in and day out. Plus I have been invited to endless online "parties" where you are badgered to buy the make up as if they are doing you some sort of favour by letting you?!

I have a friend selling this shite. It's very weird - she announces she's doing the Clean 9, then posts up a photoshopped "after" picture of her looking stones slimmer, and then - around three months later - does the same thing. Again.

So either it's all bollocks or she's gaining and losing stones of weight every few weeks....?!!

The weight loss thing works - because you eat hardly anything for 9 days while taking a laxative. You could do that without the aloe..

Yes exactly JoJo. You eat nothing but aloe gloop for a couple of days, then you introduce fruit and veg only and then there's some tricky list of things you can eat, and bingo! after 9 days you're thinner. It would probably work just as well with say, apples or water, and won't cost over a hundred quid.

Exactly !! And it's impossible to sustain.. Unless you complete the FIT programmes 1 and 2 afterwards .. I think around £200 each? Massive rip off and I think it's dangerous to encourage such drastic weight loss

Earlier post: Would you like, dare, to like, omg, try eating the inside of a leaf? Er, yes my dear, I eat both the inside and outside of leaves, multiple times, daily- otherwise known as eating your greens, a completely non-alien concept to people with healthy, varied diets.

Ok I know this post is a bit old, but so glad I found it! Being driven mad by a few people selling FL on fb for a while, but just hid them from my newsfeed. Then the woman im buying a house from has started harassing me! When I said I ran my own business she was like 'wow me too! I've just started a forever living business! Maybe you could sell forever living alongside your products?'.... At this point she didn't even know what I sold! When I explained that my business has been established for a few years only selling baby clothes and accessories that are handmade by me, she suggested that the products go hand in hand and I should add them to my website. I was actually pretty offended, I've worked really hard to start a business selling my own products that are my own creations, and I've managed to do it without harassing everyone I know into purchasing and selling on my behalf. Whether in social media or in real like there's just this awful air of desperation from anyone selling FL. So off putting - the products really could be life changing and I'd still not touch them with a barge pole!

Exactly! No matter how good the products are I would never buy them on principle!

Not Forever Living, but my Facebook feed has suddenly started filling up with very similar crap!
I used to follow these types of threads with a "oh, they're not harming anyone, let them get on with it", and "they can't be THAT bad"....
then started getting it myself. Those who say it's like a cult, you're bloody right!
It's non stop status updates of "started taking these tablets and I can now fly about the room Superman styleee" or "never felt so uplifted and hydrated since I started on this mud mask".
One FB friend has posted "these tablets are working SO well, I feel so much less bloated!" and a picture of a pair of scales at 10 stones. I'm sorry, and this is going to sound completely bitchy, but if she's 10 stone then I'm the Queen of England!
On closer inspection -snooping of one of the products pages-- it turns out the picture posted is one that others have been posting too!
Gawd, if you're going to post stuff like that at least make it believable lol!

If someone tries to sign you up as a distributor / recruitor for Forever Life or similar company, with tales of how well they are doing and thier wonderful relaxed rich life, tell them to show you proof in the form of thier bank statements to prove how much money they are making ...and if it is proved they are stinking filthy rich from salary earned from the company and how wonderfully successful they are, you will consider joining. If not you will not. I can assure you when faced with that approach you will never hear from them again on the subject of Forever Life or whatever similar company they are trying to sell you the virtues of. Ever. It is all smoke and mirrors, a complete waste of everyones time. The foot soldiers clearly are barely scraping a living, if at all, you are merely boosting the ego and pockets of the top players.

To be honest, I don't really see the big objection. It's a sales job. Some people are really good at sales and make masses of money, other people are NOT, and if they work for a company like Herbalife, they are reduced to harassing their FB network for orders, which is deeply irritating.

I don't think that the MLM thing is particularly objectionable. I DO think that the parent company should make it REALLY REALLY PLAIN in their material that doing a hard sell on your personal network is a super quick way to lost about half your facebook friends, and that a quick rustle around your friends ONCE is fine, but that if you are going to make any money at it, and turn it into a business, you need to practice professional marketing. Surely it is in the parent co's interest that their reps should be minting it?

I am a digital marketer, and I haven't posted even once on my FB wall that my friends should hire me, because it would be really unprofessional. I have my own professional network and set of marketing skills to pitch my work.

The problem isn't with MLM in principle, so much as the fact that it hoovers up unprofessional amateurs and doesn't spell it out well enough that only professionals can make, well, a profession out of it. But maybe that is the principle behind MLM...