to think my friend has joined a cult?

[PumpkinPieInTheSky]

Known my friend for years, she is lovely. Funny, clever, friendly, raises loads of money for charity etc. One day she got her eye lashes done as a one off for a party and got chatting to the lady who was doing them. This lady persuaded her to buy a product from her - I remember my friend saying at the time that it was a hard sell and she didn't want to buy it.

She did buy it though and she is now hooked and now sells it too. She thinks others need to be persuaded as hard as she did to buy it. She genuinely believes she is providing a really helpful service and has stopped all her usual charity fundraising and all time is spent on "helping people change their lives" - ie sell them this product too.

On FB of anyone questions it she shouts them down and copies and pastes paragraph upon paragraph of "research" on it and then blocks the person.

She is being tagged in all sorts of posts about it now after some kind of huge meet up at the weekend, examples -

"So totally mind blowing experience over the past 4 days with amazing people. Abso loved every min of it guys thanks so much. Can't even put into words how i feel right now. The emotions, the ambitions, where this company is going. The scientific research is flawless... the peer study reviews OMG this is just the start... & where we not only as a company but where we as a team are going... this is ready for take off..."

"This was by far the most amazing experience ever, and to think this is work is just insane. Love the products, love the business, love the people and the positivity surrounding everything we are doing. "

"I'm sooo motivated to take my business to the next level and I want you all to join me!!! I want to make your life better, your family and friends life better. I promise... I can do this for you, all you need to do is PM me and give me a chance to prove it.
Life is too short to wait!
I don't want you looking back in a years time thinking "I wish I took a chance" own your own life starting today. I guarantee it'll be the best thing you've ever done ??
Come to this event tomorrow night (Details in the poster below) I will sort transport for you. An hour is all I ask, it will change your life. You've got absolutely nothing to lose but everything to gain XxX"

What has happened to my lovely friend? It is all she talks about now :( I miss her. Any problem you have she has an answer...her product! Some friends have bought it to shut her up but she doesn't even stop then - she wants you to buy more and more and then start selling.

Capsules laurie they are capsules too. All your needs in a capsule.

I am sure they have some health benefits - especially compared to some peoples diets. She ate crap all the time (take aways all the time, choc for breakfast), now eats healthily and takes JP drinks and capsules.

She doesn't target me, but then I eat very healthily and loads of real fruit and veg, maybe that is why

Yep I've for a friend who's just got into this to the point of obsession.

Ok, so there's nothing wrong with the product? As it's vegetables obviously.

Just the stupid multi level marketing

OMG OP I could have written your opening post myself about my friend. She has started selling isagenix which is supplement shakes. It is literally all she talks about . she and her DP quit full time jobs to 'network market' full time and she reckons that this business model will put them on six figure salaries ($AUD) but at the same time it isn't about the money its about 'helping people reach their potential' and 'living an extraordinary life'. She does my head in.

Recently she sent me some videos of how the plan works and I replied saying it wasnt for me ( I have politely 'no thanks'd her a bunch of times already) and questioning why their business model made no mention of paying income tax. She hasn't spoken to me since and that was about 5 weeks ago....

It is indeed cult-like... I'm hoping they all see sense soon!

"Juice PLUS+ is the next best thing to fruits and vegetables. It is made from high-quality ingredients to support your diet."

I think that is why she doesn't try to sell to me, I love fruit and veg and am always eating them.

You can get the same for £14 on Amazon btw

Juice PLUS+ is the next best thing to fruits and vegetables

Because fruits and vegetables are soooo last century and, besides, no supermarkets sell them anymore!

Not sure Laurie I haven't read enough and any reviews I have read are funded by JP. I don't want to get in to dodgy legal ground but I have not yet read anything that makes me believe they have any additional benefits over normal fruit/veg and maybe some vitamin pills. I am also interested in hearing from qualified impartial Drs about the claims JP reduces allergies etc. So I do not get sued can I state I am not saying this is untrue, simply that I have not personally read anything that has convinced me.

So what's in it then?

There was a powder on the market a few years back that was quite good if you had a need to supplement your diet. Dieticians would reccommend it to patients. The manufacturers stopped making it because they couldn't guarantee the green stuff (I forget what it was) that was being grown because of the ecoli problems in some US crops.

I worry when people think a litte pill can make up for a poor diet (through choice) but then, some people will always want to buy the 'magic' to solve their own issues/problems.

There are reasons why you eat fruit and veg as they are and not in pill or juice form - they take time to eat and they fill you up. And then they help you poo. it's not just about nutrients. I don't know about any studies on these but I bet they would not find any health benefits and more likely to be used to prop up an unhealthy diet.

Friend of mine used to do one of the Juice ones (v something??) I had to block her. Especially when she used to say "inbox me for deets"

"Inbox me for deets"..... Pass me the shotgun

Sadly son still not well, must be the lack of Magic Juice in his life.

Last year same son's wife had a baby who was seriously ill after a difficult birth. His fundamentalist FIL gave the baby a "blessing", after bursting into hospital room exclaiming "Im the patriarch of this family".

The baby is fine now and FIL and MIL proudly put it down to the healing blessing.

Personally I think it is because the baby spent 2 weeks in a top neo- natal unit and had first class medical care.

These people, juicers and religious extremists are delusional, if you ask me. Or even if you don't.

My stayed-normal friend that sells them, has lost a large amount of weight and not too quickly.
Since she has been on the JP though, she has overhauled the rest of her diet, swims, cycles, long walks etc.

I am just baffled as to why she puts the weight loss down to the JP alone, well I mean obviously she wants to sell her stock, but surely you wouldn't post about all the exercise if you wanted people to think it was just the JP responsible.

I've got people like this on my Facebook, one day during the summer I complained about how bad my hayfever was and I received a very long winded reply from someone I barely know telling me that she had something that would cure my HF altogether. I can't remember the products name, but it was similar to JP and Herbalife.

This page from Multilevel Marketing Watch is interesting, in my opinion: www.mlmwatch.org/04C/NSA/juiceplus.html

OJ Simpson swore by the fact JP cured his arthritis - yet at his trial he was apparently so riddled with arthritis he could not possibly have murdered his wife (he was also taking prescription meds to treat it!)

I was thinking Arbonne too...

Thanks for the link Bigfoot - interesting read. I knew exactly what product you were referring to OP, I have a friend who has put it all over Facebook in the past few days.

I hope It's nothing to do with 'Younique magic mascara' as DD has been persuaded by an American FB friend to 'Tell her friends about it' I posted about this in the S and B boards earlier this month.

I just looked at the Juice Plus website, which states very clearly that

Juice PLUS+ is the next best thing to fruit and vegetables.

I am puzzled as to why would anyone go for a second-best when the first-best - fruit and vegetables - is easily available.

I hope your friend finds the first-best very soon, OP.

I lost a very good friend to a multi-marketing "cult". She was funny, bright, cynical and just generally great to be around which was why the subsuming of her entire being into this organisation was all the more baffling.

But she took the same line although FB not having been invented then, took to phoning all her friends and offering us a "once in a million" opportunity to change our lives. She couldn't of course, give us any clue about how this was possible unless she could come round and give you the hard-sell or you went to an organised evening at her house. My friends and I truly thought it was a spoof when we turned up and listened to the sales spiel. But sadly, it wasn't. God knows how these organisations manage to turn normally sensible and certainly not gullible people around so radically I don't know. But they do.

More recently, someone else I know got into a similar "health-related" scam multi-level marketing business. She made herself desperately unpopular by contacting many of us who have family members with health issues to say that the product was "proven" to have an effect. As someone with a DH who has been fighting advanced cancer for 18 months, I'm afraid to say I wasn't sympathetic to her approach and neither was a friend with a son who had recently been diagnosed with ASD.

I'd like to think you'll get your friend back, OP. My experience says don't bank on it though.

I had to sit on a bus for 45 fucking minutes last week listening to some woman go on and on and on about JP.

She was a big (I'm also big so I'm in no way judging her for this) woman and she kept saying about how tiny she is now and all the health benefits. The poor woman she was talking to was so sucked in and agreed to become a buyer and seller.

Reading your OP I was absolutely convinced we must have a mutual FB friend - it's word for word the same but she's selling some shite called Clean9 or Aloe Juice to normal people for about 500 x what it's worth. She's full of the same evangelical jibber jabber and seems to get lots of 'likes' and 'PM me please hun' type posts so someone's clearly buying this stuff! Very odd indeed.

I read the OP and was so sold on the product - it sounds completely life-changing - I'm in!!

Oh it's just million-pound juice. Oh well - at least it's almost as good as the fruit and veg I've been buying for the last 20 years. Sign me up.

BeeOrchid - it is outrageous that your acquaintance would use your son's illness as a marketing opportunity. :(