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.

I do drink fruit juice with vitamins. I get it from the supermarket for £2 . I don't believe there's any difference.

My sister was into Tupperware even though it's never been so bad. She is getting slowly out as my BIL was pissed off because they were spending so much money on it and her family tried to help out by buying the stuff but there's only that much miracle plastic you can buy.
Recently, I had two FB friend requests from women who when I checked their profiles were involved in Tupperware too. I dutifully blocked both ladies just as I blocked a very nasty person who knew I didn't like her but wanted to promote her insurance selling business.
These are all pyramid schemes and the market saturates quickly so expect more desperation in future.

Ooh tupperway parties! A throwback from my childhood spent eating out of line, Orange and mustard Tupperware!

Aga mentioned Thermomix, very interesting I hadnt heard of it until a friend mentioned it to me, she lives in Australia and it is a long standing joke what a crap cook she is. She was spouting on and on about how she throws half a dozen ingredients in the Thermomix and it produced a five course dinner for twelve and has changed her life.

I know this friend very well, and thought no piece of equipment could get you to cook something worthy of eating.

Then I googled it, saw you couldn't buy it in the shops and knew, she had paid over 2000 AUD for a food processor at a Thermomix party.

She still can't cook, the Thermomix looks pretty in the kitchen gathering dust.

Yes it's a cult

She has to bang on about it all the time because that's the only way she will make money. It's multi-level marketing and the basic "team members" don't make much but once they recruit new team members themselves and then those team members recruit new team members, then there's a bit more profitability - but for every member who can actually make a living from thus there are dozens who are making a pitance. Whilst she's making a pitance she has to trumpet to all the world how much money she is making so that she can attract new team members (fake it till you make it) and the person who recruited her needs her to recruit so that they can also move up the ladder.

You aren't responsible for extracting your friend from this. There is a huge industry with vast resources focused on keeping her and others like her believing the hype. There isn't a magic thing you can say or do to rescue her.

Let her know that you miss the friend you used to have but as long as she is a multi-level-marketing disciple it's impossible for you to maintain the friendship. Then de-friend and walk away. Yes she'll badmouth you as she has with others - just let her know that you can forgive her that when she comes to her senses and don't otherwise worry about it.

I have a FB friend who has become a JuicePlus bot. The first time she posted that stuff about it being the next best thing to fruit and vegetables, I innocently asked why you wouldn't just buy fruit and veg which are a hell of a lot cheaper and give you other benefits. She stopped talking to me.

But it was quite sad, really - she started bringing it into her professional life and imported a couple of JP people to talk at a conference she ran, with the result that no-one wanted to go next time round and it messed up her professional reputation. She does seem to have quietened down on the JP stuff, so I'm hoping she's seen the light.

Don't know much about JP but surely must wreck havoc on your liver taking all those capsules.

Here in the states it's all the "It Works!" nonsense. Ughhhh. They sell wraps that apparently make you thin and supplements etc as well.

The posts are soooo cringey. "Go on and hate, we'll go on making this cash" etc.

That's funny about the Thermomix Plums, they were all the rage here in Australia about 2 years ago. I couldn't believe how many people I knew that were willing to spend $2000 on a little kitchen appliance. Now I never hear them mentioned so I assume there are quite a lot of them gathering dust.

Norwex is the latest thing among some of my aquaitances, it's just overpriced microfibre cloths and cleaning products. A close friend is selling it, it makes me sad to see how gullible she is.

I hate them all, even the weight loss clubs seem a bit culty for me..

I have a friend who does a new MLM scheme every few months, it's really sad. She isn't a very confident person and I feel these companies are just praying on her really. She sees one after another fail and just gets sucked into another.

I went self employed/freelance and had a few of these MLM people inboxed me demanding to know what I was doing (really aggressively) they didn't really like it when I told them that I was doing something that I have trained years and years in and had an actual skill (IT), much like a plumber or electrician etc. And that no I didn't want to sell there shite as I had an actual business to run...

All of it is run on fake science and it's scary how many people will just blindly follow it all and then get so defensive when people point out the actual science, and how it might be a bit foolish to go against actual medical advice in favour for "research" from a company who's sole interest is to make a profit...

I also wonder about paying income tax etc, and if people have told the tax credits office about there new found millions

Thermomix!! My DH bought me one for Christmas after me telling him I definitely didn't want one. I don't give anyone the hard sell though (actually I don't admit in real life to having one). It is quite useful though

I have a JP seller on facebook, and she has lost a lot of weight. But I think it's a shame she thinks (or at least appears to on fb) that it is all down to JP.

She is exercising 3 times a week (up from none) and eating a 'clean' diet which just looks like healthy food to me. It's all the hard work she has done rather than some capsules which you probably piss away most of anyway.

Before I opened this thread I knew it was going to be about a not-a-pyramid pyramid scheme. I guessed FL first though.

I went to an Avon party years ago, hosted at the sellers house, and it was all about the products, nothing about encouraging others to steal your business become sellers themselves. That may have changed, but at least Avon do have actual products which aren't ridiculously expensive.

'Living the Younique lifestyle is a commitment to uplifting, empowering, and validating women everywhere. It’s devoting yourself to helping a global family of women realize their potential for personal growth and financial reward. Together, we make a beautiful team. Are you ready to Live Younique?'
Who the hell buys this shit?!!

I know someone who has got sucked in by the ACN cult. She regularly posts pictures of her on holiday or doing expensive activities, which she credits ACN as being responsible for giving her the financial freedom to do.

She completely neglects to mention she's done those activities and has extensively travelled for years, funded by being landlord of more than a dozen rental properties.

All of her professional acquaintances have expressed concern and avoid her. She won't recognise this, because she's made new cult friends. Every single one of them is projecting fake success.

She even got my partner in it... Thankfully he saw the light in a few months after I spent a good deal of time picking apart every single claim

Someone was trying to flog me some Aloe Vera type stuff. Cures everything apparently.

And was most put out when I told her that if it was that magic, then the Aloe plant in my bathroom and my kitchen blender would become very good friends.

I'm so intrigued by this, I have loooooads of people selling so much shite on my newsfeed and it's pretty easy to see that they are just bots repeating what they are told and the claims about their lives are almost funny if they weren't so sad.

HOWEVER I have one acquaintance who appears to be raking it in. Like buying a brand new top of the range Mercedes every 6 months, shopping splurges where she buys designer handbags, brand new bathroom in her brand new detached house (think footballers wives). She has just had her teeth done and is always FLAWLESS in photos. The company are always sending her on 5 star trips and she's often photographed with one of those oversized cheques with her 'bonus' displayed on it. She's quit her job (I think she was an accountant before) and looks after her son full time (I'm so lucky to work in a flexible way which means I get to spend time with my son).

I just can't understand it, from what I can tell she just sells a couple of bottles of cream now and then.

SO do you think she is genuinely making that much money from it? Or do you think she has a rich husband who is bankrolling her and she's claiming it's from her 'business'.
What's going on?? Do the company really give you cars or do they lease them to you? What about the holidays are they really free or do you pay for them in another way??

I'm intrigued, not because I would ever do it (it's all fur coat no knickers as my made up grab would say) but because I'm a nosey cow.

Have a look at Botwatch and Timeless Vie on FB. Lots of outrageous tales of health claims, cult like behaviour, delusions. I have an alter ego on FB and follow Arbonne, FL, JP, Younique, Vida Divina, Thrive, Maelle and others; it makes very sad reading. I recommend following JuicePlus Testimonials on FB if you want to see outrageous false health claims. The figures prised out of MLMs by the authorities in the US show that under 10% of MLMers make money in these Pyramid Scheme with Product scams. Many lose thousands. Most make under £1000pa and a lot less when they factor in their expenses. I want changes in the law to make MLMs responsible for the behaviour of their 'independent' business owners.

Maxwellthecat She might be one of the very few near the top of the pyramid, so she's profiting from other people getting sucked into the cult. Or, more likely, the money is coming from elsewhere and she's pretending (like most of them do) that she's making a fortune from the cult.

Wow, finding out more about aloe vera and its MLM format explains a big falling out between some old friends of mine. This was a few years ago, but the seller was furious when someone else questioned them and started criticising it and it caused a horrible argument where he got really aggressive. The cultish aspect explains why it quickly went from 0 to 100 and caused a bunch of other aloe vera sellers to pile in.

Rereading these old posts makes me interested in what causes people to fall for this tripe- the man I knew was a well-educated civil servant who seemed to be quite sensible, but once the aloe vera stuff was questioned the teeth came out. It's just bizarre.

Maxwellthecat a lot of Bots are encouraged to 'fake it until they make it'. I.E, a lot of them buy stuff on credit etc and boast about how they are able to get this stuff thanks to their amazing new lifestyle, in the hope of drawing people in.

I've an Actiderm one on my FB too, with all the hallmarks of a scam cult:
Amazing life changing opportunity
Collects charms for hitting diamond status
Might win a car soon
You too could join this amazing family
Empowers women
Truly fabulous products which she really believes in.
Well done to X who's just joined her team.

Saddest thing is that half of her posts are photos of the latest shite she's bought from them for her own use; any cash she makes seems to be put straight back into the cult. I only keep her on FB to amuse me.

Yy, YouOKHun, marvellous stuff by MNers on the MLM Bot-Watch threads in MN Money Matters.

Current thread:
MLM Bot Watch 26 - Powered by Twunks Yazoo. Tragicomic cultic wampum flogging scamalamadingdongs like Forever Living, Ariix, Herbalife, Younique, Juice Plus, Life Tree World (RIP)

(Haven't popped in on you folks for ages - must spend the morning catching up and head-desking at the latest bot bizarreness.)

I have a friend who sells temple spa.
Is that the same?
it's getting a bit embarrassing dodging the party requests and the creams cost £££££.