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.

Wow... My 'pusher' is a lovely person.
I hope she goes off the mascara soon.

FB is the worst for all these things. I have a someone trying to sell younique make up with 'virtual parties'... when the party ends this is up instead 'This party is now closed. Thank you everyone for helping me to reach my goals! You can see how I did by looking at the Virtual Party Scoreboard below.'

Someone else's news feed is solely Arbonne.

Anyone's JP 'friend' being sold the 'Puppy Trials'

This is the one my two friends are jabbering on about.

I know three people on this bloody JP thing, two are very overweight and have been despite plugging this 'amazing' thing for well over a year, and constantly whining about colds etc.

One friend has lost a lot of weight through it, but thats simple because she dropped the cakes (she bakes loads if amazing cakes) and started 'eating clean'.

Anyone who east clean will lose weight. Simple. You don't need their bullshit product.

"It's not herbalife is it? I know a couple of people who sell that and the obsession they have with it sounds familiar..."
I though the same. I knew a friend of my dad, a very formal, serious man who became a Herbalife seller and became.. "American", in the worst, most caricatured way possible. Unbelievable.

I've had a 'friend' (old colleague) start selling younique mascara in the past year. She was a lovely girl, but has turned into some fanatic cult like person; literally posy after post after post of pestering, preaching about her 'miracle product' and how amazingly fantastical it is, how it is life changing and empowering it is (it's fucking mascara ) and how we should all get in on it. She posts about nothing else, ever. Just deleted her as I can't read that load of balls everyday. Also interested in how people get so suckered in to obvious pyramid selling -she has a bloody law degree!

How the fuck is mascara in empowering, does it stop sexist comments and earn you more money or something?

Yes its good to be moving to more veg and fruit in your diet but there is bit of new thought on the action of pulverising fruits etc can make the sugar more easy for your body (not good) to absorb than if you tried eating the same things unprocessed.

Have seen similar schemes usually with 'empowering women' taglines though are just pyramid schemes.

Yeah, the guy I mentioned above was an accountant! And in his 50s...

I was just coming on to say, if anyone starts ranting about her life, juiceplus or younique they will be shot down.
As the the fb posts about get togethers and products...I think they are all prewritten as they are all so similar.

I too have seen a good friend become brainwashed by something that sounds similar.She now sells the products on Facebook 24/7, has sent me strange, impersonal emails asking me to buy the products, and also to sell them.

I told her I'm not interested in sales, and she told me "its not really selling stuff, its helping people"??! WTF? Helping people by asking them to pay over the odds for something they don't actually want or need, that has not been proven to actually work?!!

The products in this case are wraps, which claim to help you lose weight. They are expensive and they try and get you to sign up for weekly deliveries or sessions.

She also attends conferences around the country, and then posts photos of herself with various Leaders of the American based company, saying how much she loves and respects them???!

I find it all very odd ??.

I fell for the JP hype as I was desperate to lose weight

It's just meal replacement shakes and you have to eat a 'clean' diet. It works briefly but once you stop it all goes back on!

Utter rubbish IMO and they take money out of your account and then get arsey about it when you want it back!

Your friend will see the light when she realises she's not making any money.

Meant to clarify I didn't sell it, I'm gullible but but not that gullible!

I just drank the vile stuff

"You can't actually make the money, (or even really cover your costs) from your own sales - you have to recruit others, who in turn have to recruit more people."

And that right there is the very definition of a pyramid scheme.

The problem with it is that markets are finite in extent. You can't sell sustainably by turning that many of your buyers into sellers. Successful products and brands are carefully protected and the rights to sell them rigorously controlled. Not sold to any idiot with a bit more money than sense.

Urgh
I have jist deleted a Younique fb pusher. It was amusing for a while - all the posing and "wow, I just earned a new charm!!!! So amazing to work for people who value me!!! PM me if you want to live the dream!!". But then the pictures of her 6 year old daughter in the make up started, and I just had to delete.

I had an acquaintance at university who did Amway - within about 2 minutes of meeting me he said 'you'd be perfect to join my business' - err he barely knew me, how could he possibly know what I might be perfect for? A couple of people I knew went to meetings with him and got scared off - we all ended up loathing him, he was the most fake person i've ever known.

Funniest bit was when he said, very seriously, 'it's great that my mum is a partner in my business as it means I can claim phone calls to her as a business expense' - you're a student, FFS, you're meant to be falling over drunk in gutters not boasting about your 'business expenses'!

I see a lot of the make up and similar posts on FB but not heard of JP before. Most of the posts I see are on local mum FB groups, not my actual friends, and the admins delete pyramid stuff pretty fast. The saddest one is a Body Shop rep who does posts saying 'The first five people to like this post win a BS party!' And no one ever likes them...

Yup ivw got a lovely friend flogging younique :( sad thing is she had a really good small business before this but it seems to have fallen by the wayside.

My sister has also become utterly obsessed. JP is the cure-all. The frying pan idea sounds good. When she comes to stay with me, the subject is banned.

Indeed

I was speaking to a Mum I know who sells Jamberry (nail stickers) a few months ago and asked her if they were going away anywhere in the summer hols. She was quite upfront telling me that any holiday savings they had, had been used to fund her trip to the Jamberry conference in Florida. So they wouldn't be having a family holiday this year. Though of course next year will be different...

It is such bollox and designed to prey upon the most socially vulnerable

Lost count of how many people I've had to hide from my newsfeed because of this product-cult crap.

Suckersssss

ActiLabs is another. Got one FB friend selling that. Posts aren't too bad (yet!) but last week had an invite to a party via an event page. Immediately declined. Guess I wasn't the only one as within an hour I had a FB notification saying the event was cancelled!

Amway, Herbalife, JuicePlus, they are all variations on a theme.

"The primary products in the Juice Plus line are "Orchard Blend" (a fruit juice powder-based supplement) and "Garden Blend" (vegetable juice powder-based) capsules, which are sold together in a four-month pack at a cost of approximately $167 USD"

And that was 2009.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Clinic referred to Juice Plus as a “pricey supplement” that is “distributed through a multi-tiered marketing scheme with exaggerated value and cost."

www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/juice-plus

Which also states "Some patients reported gastrointestinal distress and hive-like rash in clinical studies"

GREAT !

I have a friends DD who also is a J.P agent so guessed from the start what it was it drives me insane all this hype about her skin and hair and nails etc looking amazing now....IF it's that good why the hard sell?.

The juice plus posts are definitely a cut and paste job - I've seen the same posts, word for word on first one, then another ex fb friend's pages. They don't even seem to tell people to change it up. I blocked one woman who claimed you would lose weight and be healthy forever but was constantly claiming to also be knackered and have a permanent cold. Not the best advert! Lost all patience when she started giving her daughter the kids' capsules and claiming they could cure autism in children...

Fuck. Right. Off.