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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be left broke and humiliated after an mlm

342 replies

Huniliated · 20/02/2019 19:39

I didn’t think I’d be rich but I am cringing at my Facebook ‘memories’ and pretty sure everyone was laughing at me behind my back.

OP posts:

SileneOliveira · 20/02/2019 22:27

I used to quite like going to a Phoenix Trading greeting cards party back in the day. I guess they are an MLM as well?

Phoenix have gone bust. They weren't MLMy enough. Product was decent, not ridiculously expensive, not as much pressure to recruit.

OP, I really feel for you. MLM is an evil brainwashing cult which should be banned. 99.4% or something of people who sign up will lose money. Look at it this way - at least you're not one of those people who lurches from one mlm to the next, keeping expecting to make a million. You saw the light, and got out. Well done.

fruityb · 20/02/2019 22:33

I asked some very probing questions about that retreat on her old FB page and just got told what a positive message it was for everyone. I read Elle’s blog when they spoke to someone who tried it and she was refused access as she’d taken anti depressants in her life.

My former friend has now been doing it for nearly three years - her mission blue has fallen by the wayside I see. No other “job” requires you to demands sales from friends to get “promotion”! If I wanted a promotion at work then i have to work for it - not everyone else!

She’s training to be a hairdresser so I only hope it tails off. I don’t think our friendship can be salvaged. She’s never even met my son and he’s two and a half - she just cut me off or never showed an interest. She missed my wedding... all because I dared voice an opinion against hers.

Her videos show a very bloated face that is shiny and isn’t particularly well made up. Her selfies show otherwise!! I tried Younique make up and found it utterly overpriced and nothing special - the foundation was more like grease paint. The stupid mascara filled my eye with fibres and it took ages to get them out.

No other “business” requires you to saturate your market with other sellers!!

Op you’ve opened the flood gates for me lol. And good on you for leaving it - and I hope the debt doesn’t cause you too much grief.

Ariela · 20/02/2019 22:35

I am somewhat gutted I refused to sign up to Forever Living - one of the people that brought it over from USA I knew and was trying to recruit me,. In the early years he did well, very well.

YouokHun · 20/02/2019 22:35

ForeverExhausted Yes Stella and Dot is MLM though is withdrawing from Europe in April. Talented Ladies Club wrote some good stuff about them. Anyway, the plug’s been pulled and all those ‘business owners’ are finding out just how much they didn’t have a business at all.

Coldilox yes, UW is MLM.

elvis86 · 20/02/2019 22:38

Serves you right. Consider it a lesson learned, and as others have suggested - own it by posting as enthusiastically on social media about how stupid you were.

that you haven't said who it was?

AssassinatedBeauty · 20/02/2019 22:39

@Ariela he did very well out of scamming his friends, family and acquaintances. Are you really gutted that you didn't do the same?

SileneOliveira · 20/02/2019 22:39

Another reason I hate MLM - it has a negative effect on those of us who are genuinely self-employed or running small businesses. I noticed this especially when my kids were younger and I was chatting to parents at playgroups or activities - they'd ask what I did, I'd say I was self-employed and worked from home and they'd get this look of total horror on their faces. I then have to quickly explain that no, I wasn't going to try to sell them any overpriced tat or offer them a "job".

The whole thing most definitely should be illegal. I remember desperately trying to show a colleague back in about 1999 why investing £300 in a "women empowering women" gifting scheme was unsustainable. She was seduced though by the "sit on your arse and the cash will roll in" message. And MLM is just the same.

Ingesw · 20/02/2019 22:41

At least you’re out of it. Everyone will soon forget, today’s news is tomorrow’s chip paper as the old adage says. There were so many freinds on FB doing MLM that can barley remember who was selling what anyway.

The latest one that I got invited to was a DoTERRA oil ‘party’ , it was cringeworthy (and hideously expensive). I just felt a bit sorry for the person doing it tbh.

NothingOnTellyAgain · 20/02/2019 22:44

Why are body shop doing mlm?

Isn't there a big risk it will damage their brand?
Ethical is (was) a big thing for them
What would anita r say

Biscuitsneeded · 20/02/2019 23:06

I have a colleague whose wife does Thermomix. All my instincts tell me this is also an MLM. Is it? So far I have managed to avoid being roped into one of her 'presentations' .

BadLad · 20/02/2019 23:07

What would anita r say

That would depend on whether there was a fat pile of cash on offer for her, rather like when she sold Bodyshop to L'Oreal.

MyShinyWhiteTeeth · 20/02/2019 23:14

MLM businesses are almost like a cult. I can understand how young and vulnerable people were targeted and recruited by ISIS. I can't understand why intelligent people are taken in by MLM. Why is it so hard to see these companies for what they are?

ginandbearit · 20/02/2019 23:15

When i was training to be a nurse one of our fellow students invited us to a party and a bit of a presentation...a dozen of us went ..she was lovely and one of us ..it turned out to be an Amway recruitment drive . Her parents were Amway through and through and she'd been guilted into doing it .We were angry on her behalf and the two suits doing the presentation didnt help matters by mocking the need for degrees not realising we were all doing a degree course . we heard later that her parents lived and breathed Amway as a cult almost but never made much money .

Ingesw · 20/02/2019 23:15

A Thermomix machine costs £1049! I thought the DoTERRA was expensive, it was a snip by comparison at a mere £200 for a starter box set.

YouokHun · 20/02/2019 23:16

NothingOnTelly I think BS@H was first conceived as early as 1994 so Anita was in the room at the time. I understand she was much more commercial than she was ethical. BS’s brand was terribly damaged by their sale to I’Oreal as Badlad mentions and even though they’re now owned by Natura I think lots of people moved on from them and let’s face it, if you want that kind of product there are many others to choose from. As for the MLM model, BS report it’s one of their most success arms - it’s a real blessing for the owners but someone is paying a heavy price.

Ariela · 20/02/2019 23:16

@AssasinatedBeauty the sarcasm clearly went over your head.

AssassinatedBeauty · 20/02/2019 23:21

No doubt! Sarcasm doesn't come across well in written form, if you're not careful.

Meralia · 20/02/2019 23:21

Don’t feel embarrassed. I also fell victim to this some years ago, with virgin vie. I was terrible at doing parties though! Think I only did 2 then I packed it in. This was before Facebook so I didn’t have to do all the social media marketing stuff for it.

It happens, try not to think to much about not. Your friends and family may have forgotten about it.

londonrach · 20/02/2019 23:22

I am disappointed ive yet to meet any mlm on my facebook. I have so many excuses really. Well done for leaving op.

Pk37 · 20/02/2019 23:24

I deleted so many friends from Facebook because of this type of crap.
Everyone was at it and none of them ever made anything from it .
I hope they cringe at the memories as atleast it means there is a sensible person in there somewhere .
The new thing seems to be friends becoming nail or lash technicians..
face palm

spudlet7 · 20/02/2019 23:36

Don't worry about it OP. We all do things we cringe at, even the posters of some of the more self-righteous posts on here will have embarrassed themselves plenty of times one way or another! For what it's worth, I was silly enough to sign up too. I found the whole thing cringey af so I never got to the hounding people bit. Just a few mortifying Facebook posts lol. But you are one of many and honestly, people will just forget it happened.

Graphista · 20/02/2019 23:51

"Ethical is (was) a big thing for them
What would anita r say" Anita was behind the ethical myth of body shop it was never as ethical as we were told.

neddle · 21/02/2019 00:02

Is Tropic an mlm?
I’m on a networking fb group and commented on a post from someone asking about joining up. I said it was an mlm and one of the bots disagreed with me (of course), but I couldn’t find anything online to say either way.

Happymac1 · 21/02/2019 00:13

Is enjo a mlm?

Namechangeforthiscancershit · 21/02/2019 06:35

I like the idea of Anita R turning in her grave about the MLM arm which was launched 13 years before her death

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