Friend taking the piss with home business

[Magicnumbers]

A good friend is supported financially by DH and has recently decided to go into one of these multi level marketing beauty businesses. It's set her back quite a lot to buy all the products.

Suddenly her Facebook account is full of adverts and I have had the sales patter for these products every time we've met.

Keen to support her, I bought a couple of things. They were okay, but really expensive. I have politely declined to buy more but I still keep getting messages from her asking if I want anything more. She's done this will loads of friends in the area and she's so lovely but at least one person I know has shut off contact after a hard sell to recruit her too.

Now there are posts on Facebook with photos of her with her young DS on all these walks and out at clubs with hashtags and captions like "do what you love" "work from home" "would never miss this time with my boy" etc, right next to posts saying "who can help me reach my target this month? Just need two more sales of x product?". This goes to working parents who don't get to take their children to the same things she goes to with her boy because they are working- but she wants them to use their earnings to keep her in business, then posts (slightly smug) stuff like that.

To stop myself from getting more annoyed I have hidden her feed on Facebook, but (a) is she being unreasonable/insensitive and (b) should I try to say anything to her? Am I being crap in not supporting her more? She's my mate, I want her to do well, but this feels like the wrong way of going about keeping friends.

I'm sorry for sounding sharp

(a) is she being unreasonable/insensitive Yes.
(b) should I try to say anything to her? Yes, if you're a close friend, and think she will listen. You might want to start with a gentle hint. She may have already noticed other friends and acquaintances distancing themselves.
Am I being crap in not supporting her more? No.

I am quite a wimp and would just try to ignore all of the sales pitches and hope she got the hint.

I got sucked into the Juice Plus cult a few years ago. I'd just had my baby and my husband saw an advert pinned to a noticeboard in a library saying 'make some extra money from home, working around your family, etc' so I gave the number a call and decided to give it a go. I wasn't on FB at the time so I wasn't aware of MLM and didn't know that there would be so much pressure to try and sell to people you knew so I went into it completely blind. Shortly after this I was invited to the big national Juice Plus evangelical roadshow in Birmingham and saw lots of people (probably actors) on the stage talking about how well they were doing, how many Jimmy Choos they were buying, how they were so happy to be so successful 'helping people' with the Juice Plus supplement. Some of the old timer JP sellers had been shipped over from America for the event. There were loads of mums / students / young people / graduates / men and women of all ages (but mainly women) in the audience there. Many of them were very excited by what they were hearing. I would say that the idea of being a (buzzword) 'entrepreneur' around your family seemed like a really attractive idea.

For a couple of months I tried to attend the weekly video meetings with my uplines, I went back on FB as was told this would 'help your business, hun', was told that if I 'lived' the healthy JP life, posted updates about JP and how it was helping me then my business would grow. Wherever I went I could drop JP into conversation with people I met, that if people took JP they would also be able to change their lives. And they could become part of my team and my earnings could increase.

For a little while I did mention JP to people I knew. My sister in law bought a tub through me but that was the only sale I made. She is in the health industry anyway so was curious about it.

It was suggested I had a little 'tasting' event at home and invite my friends around to let them try JP for themselves. If they heard how good it was for your health, how much better you looked and felt on it, etc, they were sure to want some for themselves. My parents and a couple of friends came to the event. My upline was there. It was the most uncomfortable few hours of my life and I hated it. It felt false and I felt I was pretending to get passionate about a supplement so that I could make a profit out of my friends and family. When my upline took me into the kitchen and told me how I could sell several months worth of supplements etc to both my mum and my dad, I knew deep down that JP wasn't for me. Shortly after that, I told my upline I wasn't going to be doing it and I stopped being friends on FB with the people I'd met via JP. I was fed up with hearing about how successful they all had been (there seemed to be a magic figure of £500 per month they all seemed to be making through JP - how could they all be making that??!! So funny, not). It was such a relief to no longer see all of those posts about how JP had changed their lives and how they were buying holidays on the extra money they were making.

We moved to a new area shortly after all of this and a mum in the area said on FB she was setting up a new mums group. I went along to try and meet some new mummies. In the end it was only that mum and I that went along. Within half an hour of me being there she told me that she'd lost five stone and had done it via Juice Plus. I realised that her attempt to meet new people had been about selling Juice Plus to new recruits! I found it so depressing and think there is something deeply deceitful and morally wrong about the MLM industry. Especially for people like me who go into it blind.

When I hear the words Juice Plus now I shiver!!!!! Stay away folks.

That's Ok gardenmintflower I am well intentioned but sometimes a little verbose and OTT! I am working on it.

Has anyone heard of Thrive/Le-Vel? Am I right to assume that is another one of these MLM type things?

My reason for asking is that one of my FB friends (old school friend) has recently been posting a lot of pictures of herself wearing Thrive patches, holding products etc., and generally saying how amazing the "Thrive" life is and would anybody like a free trial? Only a limited number of trials available......

It's a new one on me. I'm used to FL & Younique.

Yanbu...having one of your friends try to sell something to you every time you talk must be so wearing. The persistence and pestering is off-putting in the extreme. It's a faux pas as far as I am concerned. I'd have no tolerance for anyone doing this to me at all.
Anyone that approaches me with anything like this, be it Forever Living, Younique, Avon, anything to do with juicing or just the fucking Betterware catalogue gets the "No thank you, it's not something I'm interested in " speech. We're not well off and I certainly don't have the spare cash for shit like that. If they push it I reiterate the absolute no. I don't usually get asked a third time.
She'd be getting told, "I don't want your products and I would like you to stop asking me to buy them." Repeat as necessary until she stops. She'll keep at it otherwise. Pain in the arse.

That's a really honest and interesting post, Serenaballerina37. Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm glad you have escaped unscathed. Clearly, you have a great deal of integrity.

You can remain her fb friend and not only hide her from your newsfeed as you have already done , but stop her from sending you messages as well.
There is usually very little you can do in these circumstances, you should not put yourself out financially just so that you feel you are supporting her. She is also unlikely to listen to anything negative that you say about her new venture as she will have been told to distance herself from people that say anything bad about it.
You may even have to distance yourself from her if she keeps crossing boundaries.

That being said, one of the reasons these things become prolific is because people are often too polite to tell people to stop being so pushy and ignorant.

Serena your post was fascinating...and I find I want to give you a little hug. xx

serena well done for getting out.

Fucking Y sisters - I have one on my FB.

I have a friend who has lost tonnes of weight and changed her life through the ariix cult. Happy for her but i minimised her anyway as i just couldnt take any more posts with endless hashtags - never actually saying anything about what it is or how much as you would have to 'pm her hun'. Also thats ruddy puritiiiiiii water bottle that you can drink piss out of is in every photo! #yawn #pmmehun

I have friends (?) who constantly have pampered chef/ body shop / aloe Vera parties... They only talk to me when they hold them and want me to attend

Thank you all for your replies and views, and especially Serena- I wonder if my friend is in that space. Also Motorheadmum, my friend won't say exactly how much she's spent but I know from something she said that it's more than several hundred. Scary!

I have said that I won't be buying any more from her, and I don't feel guilty about that. I will stick to my guns there. I feel bad that I am cynical and not being optimistic for her- if she raises how great it all is and how much times she's got and how lovely the team is then I nod, smile and change the subject. Interestingly, a lot of her 'business meetings' are actually evenings and weekends, so not what I consider to be family friendly given that her DS is at nursery part time in the week but home all weekend with DH.

If the right time comes up I might actually raise with her that some people may take the way she posts about work and life the wrong way (i.e. How great life is, time with DS not to be missed, but please could you working parents who are 'missing out' with your own children fund my business). I was quite offended and angered by this.

On the overall scheme she's in, right now she is a full on convert. She believes in it all, it's the best thing ever. She doesn't expect to makes huge bags of cash, but she expects to be bringing in a fair chunk. She won't talk numbers, but on that front, time will tell. I don't think she'll listen to me at the moment. But I will be there for her if it goes wrong.

I hate how this business has made her such a pushy salesperson to her friends

And incidentally, I work during the week but have never considered that I miss out- it's a juggle at times but my children do have my time at evenings and weekends. I am offended because her post appeared to play on the guilt that many working parents feel, especially given that she doesn't have to work so has the privilege of a choice. Even with a choice, I would still work as I struggled as a SAHM.

My husband used to attend residential style fitness camps with an established company. He attended about 8 or 9 of them costing around £1000 a week so not cheap .
Then they started selling fucking juice Plus shit which is the total opposite in my opinion of the healthy clean eating that the camp encourages you to do .
Every camp you had to sit through the fucking presentation of why shitty JP would enhance your stay .They would have a captive audience of anything between the 10 -30 people attending and I would say at least 10 people bought stuff .
It really changed his view of them as a business and he did say that he did feel a bit ( sounds stupid but betrayed lol ) as he really enjoyed the camps and the trainers who he said were inspiring people but he hated the fact that they were selling this shit to people who often had weight & food issues.

I used to live next door to a woman who did Kleeneze catalogues with her husband. She was very lonely because her husband always killed friendships dead by handing out the catalogues. The first day we arrived at the new house they gave us a catalogue. I bought something small to be polite, but then the catalogues kept coming...so I ignored. I wasn't keen on them anyway but one night she burst in my kitchen as we were having dinner saying that I must come to a party with her that evening, leaving my newborn with her husband (who I did not know!). I realised immediately it was going to be a party plan event and made an excuse not to go. MLM made her a pushy, arrogant, money grabbing lunatic who alienated everyone...I know the commission is usually pretty awful on product sales and that senior recruiters are probably the only winners with these schemes as they benefit from the sales of staff below them. My neighbour did work long and hard hours, and I am pretty sure she would have had a better salary if she had taken a job instead. Never sure whether to hate her or pity her.

My dsis and BIL got involved with Amway several years ago. I bought a few products and they were very good. They kept trying to persuade me to join them, but all I could see were their glazed expressions - it was like they'd been brainwashed by a religious cult. They didn't lose any money, thankfully, and gradually loosened their ties with the company, but it was a bit scary for a while watching them become completely obsessed. It was in the days before FB and internet, or it would have been very different, I feel.

I'm reading the notquitefairytales blog, I know Younique was bad(My cousin was a bot) but I didn't realise how bad.

"If the right time comes up I might actually raise with her that some people may take the way she posts about work and life the wrong way (i.e. How great life is, time with DS not to be missed, but please could you working parents who are 'missing out' with your own children fund my business). I was quite offended and angered by this."

Ah no. I don't agree with you there. Sorry.
She doesn't owe working parents her humility. Plus, any fool can see she's being scammed into making a nuisance of herself. No one is envious of her. Truly. Don't tell her what she can and can't post about her life, on the behalf of working parents. With respect, it's not for you to say.

Phoenix Cards is closing down soon, which is unfortunate as I actually liked some of their stuff and have bought it in the past!

I have a friend abroad who is in an MLM, she has had similar MLM businesses before but this time she is really plugging it on FB and - as others have said already - seems to have a lot of stock. It is nice stuff but not cheap. I thought it was not available over here at all but a quick search of t'internet shows it is.

I started a thread a while back regarding sodding 'Younique' sellers.

It is as clear as day they being encouraged to post so much on social media. But it is CONSTANT.

''Monday morning commutes used to be boring. Now we get up when we want''
''I can have my office ANYWHERE. All I need is my phone. Today I'm working from the Garden/SoftPlay/Poolside/Park.....ect

I get messages such as ''Try the new mascara 'Hon'. If it's not for you, don't worry about replying''

Constant make-up tutorials, inspirational messages. Never ending pleas to join the bloody pyramid scheme.

The bit that makes me cross, is the 'photos' of her Dc's....But she is angled to display her lipstick. Her kids are just a marketing tool.

There's an ongoing mom discussion over on the Money Matters board if you want to join us?

Awww thanks pictish!! xx

CotswoldStrife why is Phoenix cards closing down? I loved the stuff, just didn't want to sell it.