My cousin is about to give up her career as a teacher to join a pyramid scheme

[OurHouseInTheMiddle]

AIBU to tell her that she is insane? I cannot cope with her Facebook posts anymore either! She has honestly become brainwashed.

I’m a midwife; one of my colleagues fell for the body shop MLM and left midwifery.
Was back within the year and never mentions it now

Yes, I do agree @LolaSmiles that a key hunting ground for MLM is mothers, especially those with young children and what MLM appears to offer is very attractive and the less option you have the more attractive it appears, not only for its apparent flexibility and earning potential but also for its low barriers to entry. People start out as victims.

The problem with MLM is that it’s not a clear scam with a victim and a perpetrator; the victim becomes the perpetrator. So the person who signed up innocently either drops out early or realises that the only way to survive is to start recruiting and operating in an exploitative way. From my observations people who join MLMs have either stumbled about thinking they have entered a product selling business and left fairly quickly either realising their error in trusting it (the best scenario) or believing they are in some way faulty (concerning). Or they continue, prepared to sell on the lie and pull in friends and family (it gets harder to see these people as victims once they have created many more victims). I guess it depends what sort of ex-MLM interviewee is in front of me (not that I’m going to know the details of their MLM experience)! I guess I also have a positive regard for teachers and the teaching profession and an assumption that despite the attractiveness of MLMs that they would be capable of some due diligence (a generalisation I know). If I was interviewing for any role involvement in MLM would be a red flag for me and I’d have to understand what level their involvement was - their social media would probably tell me what I need to know.

@PoodleJ

Leaving teaching isn’t a one way road. You are able to get back into teaching by getting a job if whatever you left for doesn’t work out!

That's true. But looking for a teaching job is going to be a nightmare in current situation. I joined a facebook group when I was considering teaching and it's currently full of teachers who can't find a job. And applications are apparently through the roof because people want a stable job. So in a years time things could get more competitive.

I do agree with you YouokHun. I think I've seen teaching destroy the mental health of some friends and acquaintances over the years so can understand how someone in a vulnerable position could internalise what the uplines are pushing.

You're right about how they groom victims to be the next perpetrators. The whole thing is designed to trap people.