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 listened to a podcast called The Dream about MLMs (a recommendation from another mumsnetter). Fascinating, would thoroughly recommend.

I remember the Avon lady popping round to our house every so often with a catalogue and my Mum absolutely loved a catalogue- she always felt the need to buy something. So she bought endless crap from Avon over the years and it really was utter crap. Her friends had Avon parties sometimes too, so weird.

Guessing this is the modern day version of the Avon except you can do it from home rather than driving around delivering catalogues. I unfollow anyone who sells this shite, they always seem completely brainwashed. The FM perfumes are all over Instagram atm.

Why Body Shop - nearly every city/town has a Body Shop so why does it need to be sold via MLM.

There are at least 2 Body Shops in Manchester City Centre, there is 1 in my local town. If people was BS products they can buy them there.

You can tell her but she probably won't listen.

I know someone who sells FM fragrances.

I don't know if she's made much money off it but she's been doing it for a couple of years now. She hasn't lost anything I don't think but hasn't profited much either. She's a single mum and just does it on facebook.

From what I gather FM is not the worst one out there, but your cousin probably won't really benefit from it anywhere near as much as she thinks she will. No idea about Body Shop but they are a huge legitimate brand so you'd think they wouldn't be so bad...?

Either way, if you've explained your concerns then sometimes you have to let people make their mistakes. If she's a qualified teacher as least she has it to fall back on if it doesn't work.

I work with someone who sells some body shop stuff, does fairs occasionally when it's not covid. I'm sure she said she makes 600 a month from it. And would make hundreds more if she recruited just one more person.

I never really say anything to encourage conversation because I hate mlm, so don't want to ask more in case it makes me seem interested. I want to protect the working relationship we have after all.

How much must she have to sell to make that much though? I wonder if she is talking about revenue rather than net profit. Or just making things up. We do work in finance after all...

@plipplops

Why on earth would she consider giving up teaching for this, rather than doing the two side by side for a bit (so when she works out she can't make any money from it she still has a job?)

I once had a Head who did Amway, she was a pain about it!

I feel sick to my stomach the number of times I have been invited to a friend or relatives house for evening drinks just to find its an evening trying to flog me some crap. I've turned up completely unaware and because I earn a good salary I am seen as fair game for this.
The last time I was invited to a friends house and turned up and it was an MLM party I just turned round and went home and crossed her off my friends list. It's really horrible to be invited somewhere to be ripped off without telling me what's happening. It makes me feel completey devalued.

God so many teachers in my school are body shop representatives. Drives me bloody mad.

@MustardMitt

I would have to be truthful.

Is it Arbonne? My cousin got into that recently but she can afford the losses.

When we went into the first lockdown, a lady on a facebook group saw a post of mine where I'd made it clear I was NHS.

She messaged me saying that she wanted to bring some free stuff for my colleagues. The stuff she brought was Arbonne.

I thought she was so kind, until she started saying she wanted to talk to me about being a rep....

Alarm bells.

No thank you.

Faith restored in the saying 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'.

Ooh I listened to that podcast mentioned above too! It was very good.

Can you have a Frank conversation with your cousin. Surely she could see you want her to be in a good position, financially and emotionally. It's so sad isn't it.

@DickBastardly

She can't be that clever enough to teach anyway if she has fallen for this. Who in their right mind would except for desperate or vulnerable or very stupid or naive people?

That's exactly what I was going to post.

Friend of mine got involved in some make up selling scheme pushed by someone at the church she got involved in. An American company. She alienated family and friends and eventually went bankrupt. She never made any money and had to pay them for various courses etc.. Apparently it would have worked if everyone she knew had only spent £100 a month on the crap she was selling.

I know a perfume lady too! She's back on al local facebook pages, flogging her fake, sorry, close imitation, perfumes.

I had a bit of a full on, over the garden fence discussion about her being a dupe, needing to use her brain cells, to look at the real bottom line of her profit margins.

She hasn't spoken to me since and has been ever more loud on all her SM feeds!

Also it's quicker to order directly from the body shop online than go via a rep, isn't it?

I realise sometimes the reps do offers but when I've looked in to it (I wanted some bars of soap), it was cheaper to buy in store as they had a 3 for 2 offer (think my colleague had offered 20 percent off), so I just picked some up when I was in town.

Ohh my god, I'm self employed so do a lot on online networking and the number of 'huns' in every group is insane.

Always trying to peddle their crap on all of us, really pushy and incredibly uptight about being called a pyramid scheme!

"No hun, I work for myself, I'm a business owner."

Mmmhmm, sure hun.

A friend of a friend tried recruiting me to Arbonne recently and the whole thing just STINKS. Unfortunately the fastest way for them to make money in that whole scheme is to recruit others under you. You spend so much money buying products, and yet I rarely see this woman post about selling them, just about how great her life is and how busy she is but FULL OF ENERGY.
I found this article really helpful in me saying a solid NO to her: travellingjezebel.com/is-arbonne-a-pyramid-scheme/

Sadly I'm not sure there is much you can do other than share the information with her calmly and compassionately and hope she sees sense!

What is the point of the body shop at home? Why would someone not just buy from the body shop website?!

It seems so pointless.

I'm shocked that the rise in ecommerce hasn't put an end to MLM schemes. The buyers must be of a particular age demographic that are resistant to online shopping?

@OurHouseInTheMiddle

It's The Body Shop. But apparently she is also joining one called FM perfume

I reported about 50 (not exaggerated) of posts on Facebook as trying to sell fakes

She could do tuition- that is quite well paid or supply teaching. When it crashes I mean

My friend whose highly qualified has become an avon lady. Each to their own but I don't understand it tbh.

Honestly, I'm just so sad for her. She is a single mum to 3 kids and was on benefits. She put herself through uni and turned her and her children's lives around. She was hoping to buy her council property next year

Unfortunately these are exactly the people they target

You can send her all the "don't do it!!" links you like, OP, but do be aware you'll be dismissed as jealous, a hater and all the rest of the script
Try by all means, but also be aware there's little you can do until she sees it for herself; you can only hope there'll be someting left of your relationship at the end of it and that you can be there for her

@Lostwordsblessing

A friend of a friend tried recruiting me to Arbonne recently and the whole thing just STINKS. Unfortunately the fastest way for them to make money in that whole scheme is to recruit others under you. You spend so much money buying products, and yet I rarely see this woman post about selling them, just about how great her life is and how busy she is but FULL OF ENERGY. I found this article really helpful in me saying a solid NO to her: travellingjezebel.com/is-arbonne-a-pyramid-scheme/

Sadly I'm not sure there is much you can do other than share the information with her calmly and compassionately and hope she sees sense!

This! I had similar actually a few years ago. Was in a London pub and got chatting to a very friendly woman (American actually!) and she turned out to be an Arbonne sales rep. I had no idea or very little about MLMs then and met up with her, went along to meet her 'mentor' who had a white Mercedes etc. I could see then it was a bit false but they were both so persuasive, my final nail in the coffin was when (I kept being told 'don't give up, come along to X meeting!') I went along to a proper recruitment drive, being held in a hotel, and then this 'friend' ditched me like a hot potato, straight onto the new recruits and how she could recruit them, a few men amongst them too. She really believed her own bullshit.

Funnily enough I've got a cousin (not close) who's into those Juice Plus things but I think they're also a MLM, cousin is great but she's struggling with work etc - I just ignore her posts as I can see how silly it is - yeah of course you'll lose weight drinking juice rather than meals but it'll go back on afterwards.

You can't really say much to your cousin if she's insistent on following this path.

EscapedfromGN Was it Amway aka Scamway?

One of DH's employees recently resigned to 'focus on building her small business'. It's BSAH She's given up a well paid and secure career (never has a secure job been so important during these COVID times) to flog body butter on Facebook.

He's really worried about her, she's quite fragile and the inevitable failure and financial disaster of this will be terrible.

He tried to find a way to keep her position open so she'd at least have a job to come back to but unfortunately he's had to fill it.

An old manger of mine jacked it in to sell Juice Plus. He's working there again now at a much junior position, had to remortgage his house to cover the JP debts and his wife nearly divorced him over it. I've no sympathy, he was claiming at one point that JP had 'cured' his child's autism. Dick.

I live in a small market town and I'm not exaggerating when I say there are hundreds of people (mostly women) doing either BSAH or Avon, FM or Usborne books. The market is so saturated, it cannot possibly be maintained.

What is the point of the body shop at home? Why would someone not just buy from the body shop website?!

They have a script for that too ... apparently Covid's caused supply problems which cause online order delays, but they're given priority and can guarantee you'll get whatever-it-is without months spent waiting

I once had a Head who did Amway, she was a pain about it!

I ended a relationship many years ago as he turned out to be an Amway bot.

Intelligence seems to have very little to do with it. I know a very smart hospital Consultant Psychiatrist who gave up work to do MLM.