To think this is a really thoughtless message?

[Isobored]

A good friend is a MLM hun. She is constantly preaching about how lucky she is to have said MLM in her live which allows her a great lifestyle and to work around her school age children (no mention of her 6 figure earning DH contributing to her lifestyle)
Anyway, not heard from her in a couple of weeks then get this message ...

Hi hun - saw XXX event on social media at the weekend that must be really hard for you.

Anyway I know ages ago you said you'd host an online party and I never got my shit together. But I'm need to meet some major milestones this month. Can you host for me?

AIBU to think this is a really thoughtless approach (plus terrible sales approach) or I am being a grump and should show her some support?!

Your draft reply is a good emotionally intelligent one I think. It is a firm no without being unnecessarily rude.

I also wouldn’t give a reason. As she’ll try to reason against it. Just say ‘I am no longer willing to host a vegan cosmetics party’

Don't leave the door open like that. And I probably wouldn't say I was sorry. Not your problem that she doesn't have her "shit together" and can't meet 'milestones'.

Just ignore it.

If she contacts again to push it say you didn't read it properly but no, you can't host a party but good luck to her.

Classic shitty low rent MLM tactic; find a vulnerability as an inroad. You need to be succinct in your response and don’t give reasons. Hobby jobs propped up by partners is one thing but the trouble is people like your friend are selling the “opportunity” on to people who haven’t got a financial cushion and who stand to lose a lot of money. Right now lots of MLMs are recruiting off the back of Covid job insecurity and pulling people into further debt. MLM makes monsters out of people. Have a look at the BBC documentary On iPlayer called The Secrets of the Multilevel Millionaires, well worth a watch if you haven’t seen it yet and pretty neatly sums up the problems using two MLMs as examples of industry-wide problems.

I had a friend that started selling slimming juice shakes. She kept tagging me into everything. She had only tagged me into a photo of a (headless) body shot for before and after weight loss. She made out it was me! I ended up deleting her. Block and delete is what you should do.

@Handsoffisback Valentus was shut down for a product not compliant with U.K. regs. They claim to have reformulated but who knows. They are busy recruiting like mad at the moment with a new crop of victims who don’t know how badly people got stung last time. There’s a particularly nasty Valentus top Hun at Valentus. Shitty organisation. I guess Your Hun will have to just get burned :(

If it’s Arbonne then that particular MLM is choc full of huns who have a wealthy partner propping things up. Where I live they get in deep buying for themselves and sometimes get quite a few sales among wealthier friends, but they’re all selling to each other. A couple I know have a huge problem with garage promotion; spare room and garage full of product they’ve bought to support their upline so she can get her promotion, loads of stuff they can’t sell (because actually their circle is pretty small) so it ends up in landfill. These videos about Arbonne are very telling m.youtube.com/watch?v=wGWl-ZOFF1g

I think her message was not thoughtless, she was trying to use the information before contacting you for work, for her benefit, she was thinking of herself.

Your reply is good, polite and clear.

Don't leave her the chance to push your boundaries.

Just a message along the lines of "Hosting is no longer an option" and DO NOT make any attempts to explain or justify.

The MLMbots are given advice on how to get round objections, so sticking to a flat NO removes the ability to do that.

I hate this. Have 2 friends who have succumbed to this - Arbonne and the Body Shop too. Hard work. A found a simple, “thanks but no thanks it’s not my thing” on repeat worked well.

I had this recently from a "friend" using Utility Warehouse.

• First message out the blue asking how my first trip out was after shielding for 2 months (saw on facebook)
• Then a few hours later "I need some help with a presentation, can I practice it on you...." Fortunately I know she wasn't after my superior critiquing skills as a friend's husband did this to me years ago!

No...you’re not being explicit enough.
As someone else said it’ll be “no pressure to buy” and whatever other innings she can glean from your message to put you on the spot and make you feel obliged. They are encouraged to do this.
Don’t say sorry either. You haven’t done anything wrong so you’re not sorry.

“Hi. I’m no longer interested in hosting myself but I hope it goes well for you. See you soon!”

Perfect, Pictish!

I would tell her that you have been reading about multi level marketing and have found that they prey on vulnerable people and most people who get sucked in end up making a loss. As such you are ethically unable to have any interaction at all with MLMs including buying the products or hosting parties. It's nothing personal against her, you feel so sorry for her that she has been embroiled in such a thing and hope that it doesn't end up too badly for her. Add 'hun' to every other sentence, because that will make it sincere.

Had a FB friend that bought into a perfume mom. Got tired of seeing all the “coffee and cake for my sales meeting, couldn’t be better” type of crap.

I sort of do this but I don't bother with recruiting or targets. I'm desperate for money and I can't work or claim. Sometimes people have to do whatever they can. I've never had a party and certainly wouldn't put someone into such an awkward position.

Just tell her you've decided not to be involved in anything MLM anymore, and ask her not to ask you again as you don't like to say no. You can't blame her for asking if you've told her previously that you'd help.

To be honest though, it doesn't sound like you like her much. Ignore?

While we are talking MLMs, has anyone come across Glisten and Glow?

It seems to involve a lot of candles with different scents, some of which seem quite strange e.g. Zoflora, Lenor and other household items.

Why not just use Zoflora itself if you are that keen on its flavours?

Can this really be a successful way of making money?

Your message is good.

I had a parent recent ‘friend’ me on Facebook, within a week, there was a post about her daughters new business. You’ve guessed it, an MLM.

I don’t mind businesses such as Bodyshop (until the recent JR Rowling fiasco) and Avon, because the products are reasonably priced, and I’d buy them anyway. However, niche products, no way.

Ergh these people have no shame. Your message is polite, but gives her a lot of room to hound you another time.

@Isobored

If it was her own business I would be there with bells on. But it's vegan skin care and make up that is more expensive than a high end products (MAC, kiehls' Nars, Liz earl, Eve Lom... etc)

I don't understand this point. It is her business. It's how she makes money, the product is irrelevant. Why would you be keener to help her make money (by spending yours) if the product was some crafty yoke she'd made herself?

It’s not her business in the entrepreneurial sense @Thisismytimetoshine, she’s got no control over the content, pricing, marketing of the products, she’s told how and where she can sell and if the MLM pulls the plug like they often do she’ll be left high and dry. She’ll be pressured to minimise her social network and try and get others to join. The MLM sign up is a commission only sales person but more often than not they’re the real customer of the MLM, which is why her upline gets paid on what she buys from the MLM not what she sells. The products are there to bring the pyramid scheme within the law. Most of the products are meh, some are ok, most are horrendously overpriced and non-competitive. I doubt many sign ups are making money selling product. The research shows around 99.7% of MLM sign ups make no money or lose money once expenses are factored in. By buying an overpriced (or reasonably priced) MLM product it’s not supporting a friend in their business, it’s perpetuating the scam and driving people deeper into a con.

On the other hand someone’s small business making bath stuff or whatever is truly theirs if they have invented, priced, marketed and sold the product without lining the pockets of some faceless tax dodge in Utah. I’d rather support the latter.

*monetise not minimise her social network!

Yes, you're right, YouOk. Bottom line though, she's using her friends as customers.

That's what I object to, not how much profit she's retaining for herself, that's not relevant to the final consumer really.
Nobody opens a shop and demands all their friends go in and buy something.