Rant needed: Multi-level marketing and the 'mysterious' messages from those sucked in.

[natwebb79]

I know IABU as this has been done to death. Apologies in advance. BUT. .. I am sick to the back teeth of otherwise lovely people going loopy when sucked into 'Forever Living' and co. I fully appreciate it's a handy sideline for those working around other commitments, but it's the whole 'If you're looking for an amazing opportunity to run your own business...' bullshit they pedal to the people close to them. 'PM me if you want to know more'. A lovely woman I know looked crushed when she sent a group email round about 'the launch of her mystery new business blah blah' and I replied saying 'Are you doing Forever Living? I might need you for the odd tube of BB cream if so'. She's spent the last week posting bullshit inspirational quotes on Facebook and can't actually talk any more without trying to rope people in. Her best friends have no idea she needs to sign them up to earn commission. Aaargh. Yes, I have blocked any more updates now so my bloid pressure will survive but seriously? Why can't they just say 'I'm earning a few quid flogging aloe vera products. You fancy it?' Why the bullshit?

Rhino that link is AMAZING.

Even though the grammar and spelling is awful, my favourite part is that they change from it being an extra £100 p/w to £100 p/m on the same page... Which is it?!

Koala I'm pretty sure it's neither...

#gutted
#iwasgoingtosignup
#sadtomissthe1minvideo
#needthevagueundisclosedadditionalincome

I've just had experience of this!

I run a quite successful beauty group on FB and a lady joined. We have over 800 members and everything beauty related is talked about / recommended etc. she pinged onto my radar because every single thread there she was ... Popping up with her Younique sales chat and her ' oh you want a mascara recommendation? I'll PM you Hun ! ' and she was shoehorning this onto a lot of the posts.

I deleted her comments. She kept doing it so I deleted her from the group.

I then received a very long PM stating how Younique had become family to her , how amazing they were , how she had suffered bereavements and PTSD and this company had kept her going and they were not a cult or pyramid scheme etc etc

I just deleted the message and blocked her but she was very very persistent indeed in the group in a short space of time

Can't stop now as I'm rushing off to s business meeting but that juice plus guy needs to learn how to use apostrophes.

We had s uounique woman on here once

I don't do Facebook. I never see this freak show

Maybe that's a solution

It's like their mind has been taken over. A bit like in Buffy where Giles describes vampires to her.

"A vampire isn't a person at all. It may have the movements, the memories, even the personality of the person it took over, but it's still a demon at the core. There is no halfway"

Dunno about the demon bit but the rest of it is true.

I feel cheated not only do I only have one FL FB friend but she's only made 2 FL posts this month

Also have a friend who's just started trying to flog Juice Plus on facebook. I really liked her but I just can't bear her bullshit posts. The sad thing is I know it's because she separated with her husband, she has a young child and her work was being incredibly inflexible and sending her all over the country. I'm not surprised she felt she had to try something else, such a shame it was this.

This thread started last month with some very interesting discussions

Multi Level Marketing

It rolled into a 2nd thread too and included a very knowledgable researcher / journo

We nicknamed them FLbot's too (forever living + robots)

One (of the many) things which irritates me about FL is the way the pedlars talk about running their own business. They are not and they are not even franchisees. You don't run your own business so someone higher up the chain takes a cut. The really sad thing about it is that the woman I know who does it is bright and capable - she genuinely could run her own business. She's been preyed on by whoever recruited her and they've used her guilt over working full time when she has a small child to ensnare her.

Grammar pedants (I am one) get a bad rap on MN but this is actually a demonstration of why bad English is a huge, red flag.

Anyone who could read, parse and spell just wouldn't be taken in by a word of it. Sad for those who are. YANBU for ranting, OP.

About 15 years ago I was involved with an MLM company. It was shit, and I hated it. I am not a salesperson and I hated all the tips and techniques that were suggested to help me sell and recruit. I also lost a bit of money buying products, samples and having 'stock on hand'.

At the time, I made a comment to another person at a distributor meeting that it reminded me of the cult church I had grown up in. The look she gave me was a bit WTF? but everyone was so evangelical. Some of the products were actually really great. But the talk about everything being the absolute best on the market was ridiculous.

Now I'm in a few FB groups and there are infiltrated by MLM distributors. People exclaiming how they've just done the Clean 9 and lost half their bodyweight in 9 days. Then 'I'll PM you details' to anyone who asks about it.
And the people selling essential oils that can cure anything. GO AWAY!

Someone on my FB announced this week that they are leaving their full time teaching job to work for one of these 'companies' instead

A FB friend has just started selling Younique. She's got a baby and doesn't work so sees this as small revenue stream for herself. She's shelled out £70 for the presenter kit and I do wonder how many bloody mascaras she's got to sell before she breaks even. She's really lovely and I'm sad she's got sucked into this as it won't end well.

I'm chair of a PTA and we're advertising for people wanting to take stalls at our Xmas fair right now.

I've already taken enquiries from 2 FL people wanting stalls. In fact the first one was also the first to request a stall. The 2nd wanted to know what other types of stallholders we have already and so I mentioned the first FL seller. Seems to have put off the 2nd seller as I guess they don't want to competition

My SiL has just signed up with Scentsy. Is that MLM?

Torn between warning her off and sitting back to enjoy the show.

Scentsy is another MLM

Urgh, scentsy at looks awful! Cheapo crap.

"Run your own business and secure your family's future! PM me for details hun!"

Yep. Sure.

I will read the MLM thread - thanks for link.

I don't have any friends who do this but I was almost involved once. I have basic legal training but not a formal qualification. With two young DC I was looking for some sort of work that I could fit around the kids - usual story - and I saw an ad for will writers. It sounded workable. You got a list of clients from the agency and took instructions over the phone or face to face in their homes at a time to suit you. Basic wills - nothing too complicated. (No legal qualification needed to write a will and full training would be given).

Off I went to a presentation in a hotel. I was stunned!! It soon became clear that the real objectives were three-fold. (Once we had paid £400 or so Membership and Training fees of course)

First to recruit other members to our team, to "manage" our team and "earn" money for the "total" value of their work - and the work done by the recruits' recruits.

Second to pass on "leads" (from our clients) to the ppi claim teams - and take a small cut for the lead.

Thirdly to "pass on" the name of any client whose will you wrote to a team of a solicitors who would act as executor to the will and take a chunky percentage of the estate.

The guy was very keen to recruit me when I told him I was a mother with kids at primary school as he said that I would have many good contacts and could use them to make a fortune.

I was horrified - came home early and did some research into MLM and the damage it does to communities, friends and families.

My story is on the big thread which MI6 posted a link to but, in brief, I suffered a mmc and a redundancy within a fortnight of each other so I was vulnerable.

My sister had met an Arbonne rep (a MLM which sells v expensive shit facecreams and the like) and she thought the opportunity would be perfect for me (neither of us had even heard of MLMs before). We quickly found ourselves in a hotel for a presentation and were wowed with stories about white Mercedes, endless riches, but only if you were the right sort of person.

It became like a job interview, using psychological tricks where my sister and I had to impress the team so we targets were really bought in. We were told right at the end about the MLM aspect - how you earn these endless riches. Only £1200 to buy your own business (by business, she meant, 6 packs of face cream to lend out to people to con them too).

It took a few days of thinking, researching and meeting up with these frauds before I realised what this was and backed away completely, only £50 and a tank of petrol poorer. I feel very angry still about these cons as ordinary people are falling for them. So, OP, YANBU

I too feel sad that people fall for them. A colleague at work did Herbalife - I didn't know him very well only that his wife had died and he had DC. I suppose he needed to supplement his earnings but needed to work round the kids.

He was charming and sociable and a good networker but after several weeks of being pestered around the coffee machine people started to avoid him. It all went quiet. I suppose he gave up and maybe lost money. It was years later that I realised what Herbalife actually was.

By the way I should say that there are many, many GENUINE will writers doing business - just not the one I came across. ( I think the aim was to go for the older age group who might not be so interested in health and beauty)