Aibu to ask you to talk to me about younique!

[Pitterpatterpotter]

I have lots of friends on social media who try to sell stuff, eg tropic skincare and body shop, but I’ve noticed my 2 younique fb friends post all the time and have sent me message asking me to post their posts etc (which I haven’t done).

Anyway my lovely and usually sensible friend has now announced she is a younique presenter and I am worried about her. She has invested a lot of money already and seems to mostly be buying stuff herself. I have another friend who sells tropic who buys £200 a month of stuff off herself so I know this is common, but this particular friend doesn’t have any experience with makeup and doesn’t have much money. She’s changed completely and talks about younique all the bloody time. I’ve watched some anti mlm videos and read a good blog about younique and I’m genuinely worried about her. The company seems morally questionable with their charity work with vulnerable women apparently used to recruit new younique presenters. How can I help her? She’s investing money and time into this that she hasn’t got and every single time I speak to her she now tries to sell me something

There’s nothing you can do sadly. Until the fog lifts, just hope she doesn’t lose too much money.

Just be there for her when the shit hits the fan. But don't give her a penny!

Unfortunately, you probably can't help her.

She's in the loved up phase, and is being groomed to write off any criticism as coming from jealous haterz

Do very little - sidestep the issue as far as possible. Do not buy anything, ever, or write, post/repost anything. Tell her you are simply not interested in the products (don't ever give a reason, or she may well pick at it, just be dull).

She may need/want friends when it all goes wrong (which it's 99% certain to do), so if you've been quietly in the wings you can help then.

Or, in between these two ends, if you ever detect the shine coming off you could perhaps help foster the disenchantment before she throws yet more good money after bad

I don't think there's anything you can do until she wakes up. Her uplines need to keep her in and will be saying that anyone who doesn't get behind her business needs to be kept at a distance because she doesn't need that negativity in her life. They'll be piling the pressure on in an oh so smiley way and suggesting that if your friend isn't making money then it's because of her lack of work. They won't say the system is designed to stop your friend making money.

In time she'll probably start looking for 'teamies' because she'll need to recruit to even begin to get some of the money she's spent.

The most you can do is probably send a link to ElleBeau and say it's there for when she's ready.

You're right to be concerned but the sad reality is there is almost certainly nothing you can do to open their eyes. First priority is to look after yourself and not get dragged into it in any shape or form. Even just buying overpriced tat that you don't want is too much. The best you can hope to do for your friends is maintain just enough of a connection so that you might be there for them if and when they eventually see through the bullshit.

Annoying and shit. I hide those people from my newsfeeds until its safe to reinstate them, which is never that long becasue once they've enlisted all their friends to 'work for them', they no longer have anyone to buy the crap.

I fully support friends who set up legit side businesses but these pyramid schemes really get on my nerves.

Don't give her any money at all. Cruel to be kind. She's overwhelmingly likely to fail at this, because that's an inherent part of the MLM system. It's in her best interests for this to happen as soon as possible.

I have another friend who sells tropic who buys £200 a month of stuff off herself

That’s bonkers. MLMs need to be regulated, this is insane.

I’ve not had experience and I suspect pp are right there’s not much you can do.

Do you have other food friends? Know her sister? Can you stage an intervention? I know it’s grasping at straws.

*mutual friends

That is what I thought you’d say - u feel sorry for her as she’s vulnerable financially and I’m angry that someone has approached/ brainwashed her about younique in lockdown when she was struggling. The things I’ve read make me genuinely concerned about our friendship as she’s already talking about her new ‘friends’ from younique and I know they’ll be telling her how awful and unsupportive her old friends are. What should I say when she raves about their charity work?

Also can I ask, my tropic friend (one of my best friends) has convinced herself it’s different to other MLMs - is this true? I confess, not knowing much about them, I have bought from her in the past. She is less pushy but she’s buying her own stuff as gifts for people and I worry she’s just as deluded as the younique presenters.
These are 2 lovely, kind and bright women and I don’t know what has happened to them

I've honestly only ever heard of yournique and tropic on here - Avon yes but that is only one! But it definitely sounds like a scam!

They all think theirs is different to other MLMs.

Unfortunately there isn't anything you can do to help.

However, there is a great blogger Elle who has written about her time in Younique and what happened to her. It might help you navigate and help your friend.

ellebeaublog.com/poonique/

she’s vulnerable financially and I’m angry that someone has approached/ brainwashed her about younique in lockdown when she was struggling.

This is exactly how these things work. They sell a dream and target women (and it always seems to be women) who want the dream.
Sadly your friend will lose money. She’ll have already paid into the scheme to buy her “presenters kit”, which I think is about £100. Hopefully that’s all she’ll lose. I had an old friend who joined Younique early on, right when it started in the UK. She’s out now and often shares old memory posts on Facebook, apologising for how cringey it was. She actually did make some money...in two years she turned a total profit of £41.

Send her the link to Elle Beau’s blog linked above.

That’s the blog I read. I’m worried if I send her the link that she will just stop talking to me. She’s already really keen.
I’m seeing her next week so I might say something like this to her face to face ‘I know you’re excited about younique but have you done plenty of reading up about it? I’ve found a blog which is a completely different side of the story to the one you’ll have been told. You might think it’s rubbish but maybe just give it a quick read for balance as I really don’t want you to lose money’.
What do you think?

God I hate the people that try and sale you this kinda shit.
I just say I don’t need any X Y or Z at the moment

Unfortunately all these MLM schemes are the same. Way back in the early 2000's aged 19/20 I got myself involved in Virgin Vie after being introduced to a girl who (seemed) to be doing very well at it. She was a couple of years older than me, had just bought her first house, had a nice car etc and insinuated all this was because of Virgin Vie.

I lost about £900 and a LOT of friends before I wised up.

Turned out the lass who recruited me had a contract farmer for a partner (they earn a lot of money through very hard work) which was how she afforded the house and car and her income from VV was pennies and was all through recruitment.

You’re overthinking it.

Just send it with a ‘wow, did you know all of this!? Crazy!’

Cannot bear these predatory MLM schemes that particularly prey on vulnerable people who are often already in financial difficulties.

If you do an internet search there are a multitude of blog posts & YouTube videos exposing MLM schemes. Maybe send a select list of links to your friend then have no further discussion about it?

Had a friend do it and made no money. She didnt loose any money either. Lasted about a year then gave it up. I did buy a few bits because I needed some new makeup at the time and tbh it's really nice stuff. Dont know what I'm going to buy when my eyeshadow palettes finally run out.

It's a shame its all a con. Only the people at the top make the money. The girl that recruited my friend moved to a massive villa abroad, new cars etc, her hubby gave up work. That's only because she got in at the start and recruited (took advantage of) so many people.

They all think theirs is different to other MLMs.
They do. I know a couple of people who jump MLM to MLM and each time it's because the new company is so much better.

One of them was very successful getting to a higher status in an MLM by joining early on and then they left because apparently it was an unsupportive company. I thought they'd woken up, but no they moved to another MLM.

I also know of a few teachers who've got sucked into MLMs. Every single one of them did it on maternity leave when they wanted to go part time in teaching. The recruiters look for someone's weak spot and in the case of the people I know it was selling them the ability to stop working 50-60 hour weeks teaching to spend time with their children.

I have different friends who sell Younique, forever aloe, Herbalife and body shop.
They are a complete pain in the arse, constant bombardment via text or fb, constant invites to parties to buy their products.
Not one of them has made any money but they invest heavily and are constantly trying to recoup their investment.
Iv bought from them to support them in the past but it just encourages them to try to get you to buy more.
I buy from the body shop and have a points card which cant be used when buying from my friend, I also like younique mascara but its £20 odd when bought off my friend but I can get it on ebay for £6.99.
I just ignore their attempts to sell me anything now, you're wasting your time trying to explain that it's an mlm as they will have spend a lot of money setting up and will be desperate to make that money back

As well as the Elle Beau blog (I literally just got that pun despite having read it loads of times), there’s an excellent episode of John Oliver’s show about MLM:

I think the only MLM when ch is different is Avon, because it's pretty clear about likely earnings if you only sell (ie profit, but not very much) and it has way lower overheads for sellers. It's not weird/cultish/brainwashing. The products are known, some very much liked, and are very competitively priced.

But yes, it'll still dangle the prospect of recruiting your own network and how much commission you make if you do.

It's not as superficially attractive as many of the others, because it doesn't go in for selling the dream. It just gets people to flog cheap toiletries