To be left broke and humiliated after an mlm

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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.

Tropic Skincare is a MLM - but unusual in that it is a UK based on.

Enjo - never heard of it but their home page says "book a demo with friends" - so MLM.

They're easy to spot - fee to join, emphasis on recruiting others to do the same, no requirements in terms of experience/qualifications, unrealistic promises of earning loads for doing very little.

@neddle yes Tropic is MLM. It’s the one started up by one of Alan Sugar’s apprentices. Lots of people who sign up to these things don’t do any meaningful research so don’t even know the term ‘MLM’.

I don’t understand the body shop one when you have shops and a decent website to buy from

I don't understand the Body Shop one either. A friend of mine started doing it about 6 months ago. She had lots of customers in the because all her friends and family wanted to support her new venture etc etc. The problem is once they've all bought everything there's no customers left! Her regulars now consist of her mum, her 3 sisters and her best friend

A girl i know is 'an entrepreneur' 🙄 i know for a fact she is getting on everyone's tits with the constant, gushing posts about how much 'quality time' she has with her fam..whilst making money from home.Staged days out with said fam and inspirational quote inserted. Doctored photos with so much blending on a beauty app i wouldn't recognise her if she passed me in the street . It's all a bit toe curlingly cringy.

*in the beginning

I love scentsy, I buy from a seller who lives down London way, I live in Scotland so don’t have any connections to her. I do follow her on Facebook but there is never any of that inspirational rubbish just adverts for the newest fragrances etc. I wouldn’t get drawn in to selling it though. Have plenty Facebook friends doing forever living/younique and they are awful had to hide them in the end

They get commission on sales and so to move up to different statuses will bulk out orders with their own orders in the hope of selling it on.

They also get paid in money to reinvest in items - like ycash with Younique. No monetary value. My ex friend said she had 4K worth of make up. Which i would never use up before it went off and also wouldn’t pay my bills!

Yes lots of pressure to buy upfront. Also to buy samples and marketing materials, attend “conferences” costing hundreds, paying out for hosting events, all the “fake it til you make it” stuff. Credit card is your friend.

It’s pretty evil tbh. A lot of people lose money that they really can’t afford to go without.

I have a friend who does Scentsy. Hideously expensive and it makes me cross that she's trying to peddle stuff at those prices to "friends"

Consider the £300 as tuition fees for a relatively cheap lesson in business. You'll never get taken in again, and can now spot some major red flags to help you differentiate future opportunities from 'opportunities'.

Don't worry about the social side, people move on, and if anyone was laughing at you they are not really your friend.

As an aside, I had no idea usborne books are mlm. I love them and buy them from amazon for the little people in my life!

I also think MLM should totally be illegal. It's such a harmful, downright dodgy model, a ponzi scheme hiding behind a fig leaf. There can be no justification for allowing these scams to continue to prey on ordinary people.

Seems like half the people I know via FB are involved in one or more of these. The number if times I see "Never thought a few years ago that today I'd be running my own business..." No, dear, you're not. You've just been sucked into a glorified ponzi scheme.

I have a friend on facebook who pops up every 6 months or so with a new one of these! About how she's a boss base and how wonderful her life is with her amazing new business - then it all goes quiet for a bit and starts again afresh!

Although her latest one is CBD oil and I'm tempted as my MIL has MS and I think it might beneficial! My 2 worries are:
1 it's so cheap from her I'm suspicions (£20 compared to £100 for the same amount and strength other places)
2 I just want to buy it without her trying to rope me into also selling it on and "starting my own business"

is it ever OK to buy from them or does it just encourage them?! Maybe I should just shell out and get it from a proper place!

I know several people who have been sucked in to MLMs. One sells Scentsy stuff and shifts shitloads of it but they're out most nights until quite late. Another sells DoTerra and drives me nuts with their fb posts forover priced oils. Another does UW and I refuse to engage with them. Another does Tropic and seems to jet off at least twice a year to some very exotic places. Am I right in thinking they're paying the flights and hotels themselves?

There is one at the moment on my local FB group who suggests giving her aloe vera stuff instead of paracetamol to babies because paracetamol syrup is "full of chemicals". It makes me so angry. I won't feel any sympathy for her when she loses more and more money.

There's a massive fee for the basic start up package, which won't pay for itself.

Large, unpopular, out of season or wildly expensive items which are sold to you as an example of 'the full range' of products.

Then you've got to try and find suckers customers to sell to.

If they do buy something, they'll inevitably order something that didn't come with the start up package, so you have to order (and pay for) even more stuff, which delivers a pitiful profit for you, as a large percentage of any profit goes 'upline' to your recruiter.

You are pressured to recruit more 'entrepreneurs' as that is effectively how you profit.

By creating your own 'downline' and becoming their 'upline'.

My local Facebook Selling groups have a lot of MLM remnants being sold as job lots, simply to get them out of the house.

There's a Facebook group called MLM Exposed and they regularly post about new scams, taking the piss out of screenshots of 'mumpreneurs'' Facebook and Instagram posts and former MLM victims post screenshots of the sales brochures and pictures of the events they went to.

One even signed up to an MLM that told the truth (in the small print) - Independent sales people (those who won't recruit and just try to sell products by themselves) won't make a profit.

I've got one FB friend who does Body Shop At Home. The surprising thing that she is well-educated professional (dentist) and her husband has a good job too. They have one child and a comfortable lifestyle.

But she's been sucked in. She posted lots before Christmas about how we should all be supporting small businesses and how buying from her funds her child's dance lessons and days out rather than lining the pockets of the fat cats. It's just all such nonsense.

When my closest friend, of 20 years, signed up to one I was worried for her. I tried to talk to her but well you know the script, she thought I was jealous and wrong.
Then I was irritated when she kept pushing and pushing for me to sign up as well.
Then our active friendship ended. We're still on each other's FB and message from time to time but haven't me up for a few years now. I alternated between feeling sorry for her and being concerned. She gave up a secure well paid job that she enjoyed, she had less time with her children than before the mLM and she was spending a lot of money on products, training and the smoke and mirrors holidays, car and luxe lifestyle. Not to mention alienating friends and even some family members.

She's out of it now, thank goodness, but she's been unable to get a job as good as the one she had previously, has lost several friends and has a lot of debt.

The Dream podcast is about mlms. ... well worth a listen

I feel for you but at the same time, the reason you lost out was because you were unsuccessful in convincing other people to lose out, people with probably more to lose.
I'll never forget an acquaintance giving me the hard sell a few years ago, kept bringing up how I was a single mum and student and I could do with the money. She was a clever woman with a decent job but saw me as an easy target. Thankfully I had more sense than money at the time and would never have been sucked in.

Sorry, I posted all of that and didn't actually address the reason for the thread.
I did laugh at my friend, behind her back, once after she posted something ridiculous on FB. But most of the time I was very concerned for her and her children because I knew she was getting into debt. I couldn't be friends with her any longer because she was obsessed with the MLM and constantly harassing me and her other friends to either buy the stuff or sign up, but I was still worried for her.

Spot on, sagrada.