To delete friend who has joined an MLM

[lastqueenofscotland]

A lady I know from work has joined an MLM selling some sort of laxative coffee.
Her FB and instagram are covered in posts for it and about her promotions/trying to get a car etc etc.
She very much fits the profile of people they poach, she’s a SAHM and it’s been a squeeze of late for her.

I think MLMs are poisonous and I hate seeing her posts flogging this nonsense.
AIBU to remove her from my friend list

(I also wish they would get rid of those pesky bounty people who come round at the worst ever time when you’re recovering from giving birth, but that’s a whole other thread)

some dark colored hair dye because no one likes a fucking ginger, lesbihonest.

No one likes a fucking twat either

Indeed.

I have never known anyone who has made any money from MLM 'businesses' although I'm pretty sure that whoever sets them up in the first place has made a fortune.

I even know someone who was in so deep with Usborne, Forever Living and another one that I can't remember the name of, that she had to give up her business premises (she was doing the MLM businesses as a sideline in the waiting room of her actual business) because she had lost so much money to them that she couldn't afford to continue. Then, obviously her actual business suffered because she had nowhere operate from and she almost lost her house too.

She has dragged herself out the other side and built up her business again, working from an office in her own home. But she had three or four years of hell.

They really are damaging.
Why on earth they aren’t illegal yet boggles the mind

I have a friend who sells this weight loss coffee. I’ve put her on snooze as well .... got sick of hearing about it and of her constantly asking for me to share her posts with my friends list and give the product some sort of thumbs up as well. Also got fed up with her suddenly becoming an “expert” on the supposed science behind this stuff.

Im starting to think there should be warning by midwives in all antenatal classes about unscrupulous saleswomen targeting women at their most vulnerable, when they've had a baby that has changed their life perspective but have to go back to work

Agree @C0untDucku1a. And add parents who have babies under a year. I’d like to see much more information given to new parents about becoming a target and much more information given to healthcare professionals - once they understand MLM they are usually horrified and want it stamped out. I first got interested in MLMs when I was running a PND group for a MH Trust. It was run in a Children’s Centre and MLM was everywhere when I started but stamped out by the time I’d finished 😡. It’s so damaging.

If you do get targeted by an Av0n hunbot, just buy the Makeup fixing spray - and then block them 😏. It's amazing stuff.

I do think that Avon shouldn’t be tarred with the same MLM brush as most (all?) other companies discussed here. They’re well established and have offered women the opportunity to make money selling quality products for decades. It’s never been about selling a fake lifestyle, and it’s still all about sales and not just recruiting teams. As a company they do an impressive amount of work supporting women’s charities like DV and breast cancer.

To declare an interest, I work there (head office) and I’m genuinely impressed with how they behave as a business. Avon reps are business people, and it’s all about helping them sell products that are good quality and value. If it was “MLM” I’d not be there.

Tupperware and Cleaning product parties etc were huge in the 70s and 80s : same sort of principle I think , but without the internet they had to try and sell face to face. My mum went to a few, but could only ever afford the very cheapest thing for sale and lots of people left without buying or ordering anything.

It's always gone on , but easier now with the net it's easier to target people to get involved.
I bet there are very few men doing any kind of job like this.

I keep being targeted by a friend doing an MLM. i lost my job and am heavily pregnant so can't get another right now so she targets me. I keep ignoring. She's suckered into the cult. Claims she's jetting off everywhere, has a flash car and great money. Sad truth is she's broke, her money is supplemented by her other job which is dubious and fucks up her mental health. She can't afford to move out of her sister's place and the car is on pcp which her dad pays for.

It's sad how much she's been suckered in. How much she's lost. She nearly lost all her friends too as she tried some nasty tactics to get them to sign up: telling them they will be infertile, that they are fat, that their long term illnesses would be cured by her product.

She's on her last chance with everyone. The MLM cult mentality changed her. I've seen a few others acting the same and it's disgraceful how they target, how they are taught to target. They are worse than chuggers. Only two i know sell exclusively to family and friends and both are very honest that they barely or don't make back what they spend. Both have real jobs too.

That's a really good idea about it being included in antenatal information.

Genuine question though, @BillMasen. If I wanted to buy Avon stuff why would I bother to find a sales rep, look through a catalogue, place my order and wait for her to drop it over when she had time, when I can just go straight to the Avon website and cut out the middle man?

Avon is indeed long-established and certainly used to give sales reps their own "patch". So you'd know that you had your own little bit of town to sell in and that you're not risking 20 other people trying to compete for the same customers. My aunt was an Avon lady for years. Plus their products aren't ridiculously expensive like most MLMs and they didn't advertise that you'd make £££££ doing it.

However, they have now fallen into the MLM speak trap and say things on their website like "unlimited earnings potential" and talk about being a sales leader with your own team of reps. That's PURE MLM.

@BillMasen Avon is now an MLM so any previous cosy images of Avon should be set aside. Avon reps are desperately spamming all over FB selling sites, desperately recruiting because building a large downline is the only way to make some money. Avon has totally saturated and reps are struggling. Avon has gone from Australia and I hear all is generally not well. They also have a very poor record on the cruelty free front which alienates people these days. When the MLM business model is used, it’s damaging - there are no ‘better’ MLMs (though I get that it’s lucrative for the MLM companies, just not for the people signing up).

I think it's partly the Internet that has made the whole MLM thing so much worse. Avon/Tupperware etc did work up to a point, but they were rarely more than 'pocket money jobs' and from what my mum tells me, some of the reps used to annoy all their friends even back in the 1970s. But, pre-internet, there were only so many 'sales conferences' and mailshots and so on that the people higher up the line could push the individual reps with. Now it's possible for the upline to bombard the downline with dozens of social media posts, telling them to do the same to all their friends; there's this cult of fraud where you are instructed to borrow expensive items, take photographs of them and lie that you have bought them with your earnings, etc.

@OtraCosaMariposa it’s all about offering options. Some people prefer to buy via a rep, maybe family or friends, or just still like to try things before buying. Others just want to buy direct and on the website you can. They’re just different ways to sell and part of being a multi channel retailer. The reps are instead of shops.

I can’t disagree on that language but It is true that there are no earnings caps, and you can recruit a team but for me the emphasis is still on the rep and the product, and giving her the opportunity to earn. There are no rewards just for recruitment. I think we need to be careful not to look like “MLM”

I don’t want to come across as a cheerleader for Avon. Just saying that from where I’m sitting it feels genuine and ethical.

@YouokHun just to be clear on the cruelty front, Avon do not test any products on animals and haven’t done for a very long time. They do sell to China though, who test imports.

“Woman shd support each other. ”

Yeah, they should.

Tell me what’s supportive about scamming friends and family.
Tell me what’s supportive about using the money owed to me, a childminder, to buy more MLM stock so you can enable the scam - as one of my clients did.

Women should support each other to kick these greedy, parasitic “companies” into touch.

ReanimatedSGB agree, the Internet has enabled lots of scams including the MLM one. The law around Trading Schemes dates from 1996/7 and needs revisiting as the internet has provided ways round some of the rules set before anyone knew just how much Trading would change.

@BillMasen you might want to tell your distributors because many of them are making false statements about being cruelty free.

My sixteen year old daughter has been targeted by an Avon rep who has got hold of her mobile number and has texted her a number of times to try and recruit her. This says to me that when the cruelty free training has finished Avon needs to speak to their reps about GDPR and about the illegality of trying to get under 18s to sign on the dotted line.

However, the monster is out of the cage now Bill, you have representatives you can’t control or train and who will behave as the MLM model requires. As far as ‘not looking like MLM’ goes; I think it’s too late. Add to that the Avon PR disaster earlier this year which was a very MLM style fuck up, I-think Avon is right up there with the worst of them. Don’t get too comfortable back at HQ Bill!

It’s a really good idea to warn women in antenatal appointments actually. If any other section of society was being scammed on this level there would be an outcry and information campaigns much like there are for phone scammers/letterbox scams.

This thread has reminded me that I haven't seen any posts from the girl who was crapping on about Jamberry for a long time. Looks like she's deleted her FB!
It's the language they use that does it as much as anything.
"Time to get my Jam on"

I remember I was out having coffee with my NCT group and a woman came over and tried to recruit us into an MLM. We saw her approach several people, she was just sat there stalking mum groups.

I like a good puppet theatre

"I’m sure you are just shining examples for your kids not to judge anyone and to stand up to bullies*

😂 And being an example of naivety or example supporting what is basically a scam is ok?

MLM is right there with "Microsoft" scams imho. They count on getting vulnerable elderly people who know nothing about PC while these MLM count on getting vulnerable mums who know nothing about business.
Both are abhorrent. MLM should be highly restricted by law.

Ugh bold fail🙄

I haven’t read the entire thread, so I apologise if this is covered elsewhere.
I actually had to look up the term MLM, although it has been going for years, and my DH and I were approached years ago (pre-internet).
Invited to a friend’s house, who we had not seen for some time, only to get there and find it was a promotion for Amway. Basically, what is now known as a MLM, except the focus was not on the products at all, but on recruiting more people.
My DH and I are not stupid, so we did not bite (and have not seen the ‘friends’ since).
To me, Tupperware, Avon, etc are not like that at all, though maybe I am wrong.
In the ‘old’ days when I occasionally went to what was known as a Tupperware party, etc, the focus was on the product. No one was trying to recruit you as an agent.
They had lots of products, and focused entirely on the benefit of buying whichever product.
I also once went to a beauty products party, and this was similar. (cant remember the organisation. Could have been Avon)
In contrast, it took me forever to find out what Amway were actually selling, as the entire focus was on recruiting more sellers.
A bit like those round robin letters asking you to send 10.00 somewhere, and write to another 6 friends (suckers) and adding their name to the list. No I did not do it, as I quickly realised it was a Mugs Game.