To be pissed off a "friend" tried to persuade me to take a job by outright LYING about the hours involved?

[throwingpebbles]

So someone I thought was a friend has spent ages trying to persuade me to work for her; selling products as part of her team. She really pushed me to see how I could get a better work/life balance by working for her and made out I could make good money working part time hours around my family

Now I have learnt that in fact to earn any kind of money working in this business you have to essentially "get rid of your kids"!!

Feel really really misled

[Bogeyface]

Go to the police and say what?

"Waaah!!! Those howwible ladies on the internet are telling the truth about us and we dont like it, make the nasty ladies stop WAAHHH!!"

I really fucking hope they do!

[Bogeyface]

Which thread is the one MN are commenting on?

[ABetaDad1]

A lot of so called 'franchises' are also MLM schemes. They are marketed as franchise businesses but in reality when you strip away the veneer you are a the bottom of a pyramid with each layer having one and only objective and that is to 'sell' as may franchises as possible to the people below who then pay them a franchise fee.

They are very pushy indeed and their 'training courses' are really just cult indoctrination sessions where anyone who asks questions is made into a pariah that the other members mock and isolate.

Not all franchises I should add are like this but some are very clearly just MLM schemes.

[throwingpebbles]

bogey the one In money matters

[throwingpebbles]

That's interesting beta have you got any examples? I feel v naive!

Yes they are eerily cult-like from what I have witnessed and read about now

[Bogeyface]

I think I found it, thanks

I really really want them to go to the police, how funny!!

[ABetaDad1]

throwing - I don't want to name names but I investigated some well known national franchises and in each case there was a very strong sense of coercion and not being allowed to ask questions and a lot of emphasis on going on group training courses.

One I did speak to at some length the senior national manager told me that the franchise wasn't interested in my investment money - they only wanted people who were enthusiastic. In other words, people who they can manipulate and not ask questions about what I was going to earn and what my investment capital was going to yield.

Another one I discovered almost none of the franchisees were earning above minimum wage for the hours they were working. I saw the accounts of several of the operations. Most just wanted to sell out their franchise and get their money back ASAP. The owner of the national franchise had a series of regional franchisees under him and the regional ones recruited local franchise operators. The fees flowed upwards and all the work and the investment was done by the local franchise operators. My local one went bankrupt last year. I spoke to the national franchise owner and he found out I was well informed and he refused to discuss the operation any further.

[Kanga59]

yanbu. your "friend' doesn't sound like much of a friend to me.

why can't she just sell more shit without you on board. surely that will make her richer, keep the spoils for herself

[bumbleymummy]

Beta, was one of them a real estate company by any chance?

[ABetaDad1]

bumble - no I didn't look at any that had anything to do with property.

[RainOhJoyus]

Can someone link to the thread where FL are threatening police action? That's hilarious.

[throwingpebbles]

It's in Money Matters and the start of the thread name is MLM BOT WATCH....

[darceybussell]

Oh I seem to recall my father in law going to a presentation a few years ago by a car chip repair franchise company where they rold him if he joined he was going to be rich. He decided it was too good to be true in the end but now I'm wondering whether it was really an MLM!