To be confused about friend’s Maldives holiday

[Jacobijake]

A friend of mine had a ‘proper’ job but also sells FM cosmetics on the side. I know this is an MLM and so I’ve muted all her posts and she doesn’t try to sell to me so it doesn’t bother me and I don’t think about it.

However she’s recently (last week) been to the Maldives on a work trip which looked amazing, she said she didn’t have to pay for it it came through her ‘side hustle’ I guess I’m just wondering if that’s true? I always thought MLMs were a complete con and no one made money etc but I’ve seen the holiday pics and it’s a 5* resort! Also pictured are loads of other sellers of her particular thing (FM cosmetics).

To be clear I have no intention of buying products/joining/ and I genuinely think all MLMs prey on the vulnerable.

MLMs are all shit, built on deliberately sucking people in and squeezing as much £ as possible out of them for the upline. Anyone shilling them is a cunt. MLM shills spout utter shite.
No one will enter an MLM now and become one of the superstar shills.
Most of those star shills finances have taken a massive dive in recent years.
OP- your friend is full of shit

Apparently FM “hired the whole island”

@fatshitcrazy

I know someone in the same trip, I think they get the accommodation but have to pay their own airfare and for everything else while they are there. It's all a big con

Sounds about right. Hotel in the Maldives or wherever are probably delighted to give away free accommodation in a quiet time, coming out of a pandemic, knowing that the guests will have no option but to buy food and drink.

MLMs actively encourage their sales reps to lie through their teeth and present it as a free holiday though as a way to get other suckers signed up.

When I am Queen of the World, MLM will be illegal.

Also, can you imagine anything WORSE than going on holiday with your colleagues?

It’s all part of the con - maybe she did get a free 5 star holiday but if so it’s all about roping in more people for the “downstream” who will mostly just lose money. I really question why these schemes are legal.

There was an article by a husband whose wife had lost everything they had through Forever Living. I can’t find the blog though!

Anyway, she was encouraged to go on these types of holidays and take her team with her too. All on his credit card! Fake it til you make it is the motto. It’s all about the lifestyle. They divorced and he was left penniless. She spent his inheritance from his parents too.

I personally know someone who used the hashtags ‘car plan’ and ‘forever living’ etc when she got a new car. Her DH paid for it. Nothing to do with her business at all.

sure it seems like easy money, but it's not a career.

It is far from easy money. Over 95% of people make no money or lose money, the next few percent barely scratch minimum wage when you add up the time required. The rest make good money because they have scammed it off the millions below them who are losing homes, families and friends by being enticed into MLMs with stories of “free” holidays (which do not exist) and being bullied into staying by uplines who claim if they are failing they just aren’t working hard enough.

Usually the "free" holidays involve you getting the lowest cost part of the holiday (accommodation) free if you have hit various sales targets but are paying to get there.

The reality is it incentivises people to simply spend loads of their own money on stock to hit the target, they are then left with stock they often struggle to sell.

@CallMeRisley

Was your friend at this event that someone I follow on Instagram was posting about, an FM gathering in the Maldives… it looks like some kind of cult with everyone dressed on white!

So much visible underwear 😱

@Jacobijake, yes she’s probably paid a hefty contribution towards that and/or is far enough up the pyramid that someone somewhere is paying a lot of their own money to inflate their sales figures. She’ll have had a hand in piling on the pressure to some poor sod further down the train to make any money out of it.

That blog posted earlier is a really good insight into how it works.

@MrsMcCluskeysCat

It's like when they get a 'free car'. Except it's a PCP/HP taken out in their name which if they don't hit the ridiculously high sales target each month they won't be reimbursed for so have to cover the payments themselves.

Quite! I pulled up an acquaintance who was showing her free car off all over facebook and she had to admit it wasn't actually free at all.

It angered me as its so duplicitous and just aimed at recruiting more people to the whole awful business.

She also went on numerous 'free' work trips to expensive places which weren't free either.

Mind you she is now a rabid anti vaxxer and covid denier, so not the full ticket I suspect!

Think it's FM one of my neighbours does, don't know how selling knock off perfumes online and two days at the local market is enough to afford a mortgage and a washing machine white BMW but they apparently are, they made a big show on facebook about how the company was paying for the car, I'm going to doubt that though.

Also, unless you're only going to the Maldives for something like 2 days, the price of food and drinks outside of an all inclusive package is normally quite ridiculous due to the captive market.

How much of the holiday is free massively varies by MLM and by rank within the MLM. You have to qualify for the trip but usually there are different levels of qualification.

All that aside, it is generally stretching it a bit to call these trips "holidays". They usually involve group activities (yoga on the beach type thing), and lots of sitting listening to the company poster girls for the company bang on about their "why" and how they made their millions (in case you have doubts), worshipping the founders of the conpany for giving you the amazing opportunity, and learning about new products. So, a company conference crossed with cult. Again, what you get to participate in may be determined by qualifying rank (but you will definitely get the brainwash sessions included). If you want to bring family or extend the trip for an actual holiday you will most likely have to pay, unless you the absolute top tier of rep. In which case you are the type of person who uses your experience on that trip to convince other people to sign up in the belief they will get to experience exactly what you did for free (spoiler: they won't).

In some companies, reps are allowed to bring a guest - again to keep them ensnared with the experience of what they "might" achieve if they keep ploughing money into the scheme and not asking questions.

Yes, the hotel is probably free but the reps have had to pay for the flights as well as for all the food and drinks. The meet ups on these "holidays' would also have products (like planners and mind set dvd's) for sale with a hefty pressure to buy.

Also, how many days is this holiday for? I'd guess for three. Imagine flying out all the way to Maldives and then almost straight back. Even if it was for a full week, it's still a long way to go and that week would be away from the family holidays.

I have a friend who once got into MLM. The lies and faking on FB was unbeliavable. One day she claimed her business had taken off so well that she had given up her job. However, I knew for a fact she had been let go from her main employment. Luckily she came to her senses and have now left the cult.

I’d be highly suspicious of anything like that

I read a statistic that 99 PERCENT of those who join MLMs actually LOSE money.

It’s incredibly rare to make any decent money joining these types of schemes.

Plus recruits are actively encouraged to fake it. I see so many Facebook friends join one, post about how they’re making soo much and how great it is, yet all stop doing it within 6 months.

Unless you are one of the very few tippy toppy 'leaders' you'll get the hotel room for free and that's it. And the whole trip is from 25th to 30th October meaning that you're paying for a 12+ hour each way flight to spend 3 days doing 'training' and enforced group activities.

Factor in the fact that you've probably had to spend four times that just to qualify and it doesn't seem quite so appealing does it?

These pyramid schemes are fascinating.

Watch Lulu Rich on Prime, abut a leggings MLM; so many woman went into debt to showcase a lifestyle that didn't come with the job.

I can’t believe these businesses are even legal. There must be thousands of women left in debt by them. The blog posted up thread is a massive eye opener. My little sister is a bit of an Instagram poser with a large following who frequently gets messages from MLM Huns about joining their “business” It hasn’t been easy to convince her that the dream they’re selling isn’t all it seems.

A friend was heavily into some MLM and got to quite a high tier. Can’t remember which one but it was some sort of weight loss sachets. She was boasting about her all-expenses trip to Vegas with the company. But later I found out that “all expenses” basically meant a bog standard room in a downtown hotel, which probably cost less than $50 a night.

She still had to pay airfare, taxes on the room, food, spending money etc. But did get to go to some shit conference and get to see the exciting new products. Ooooh.

My cousin did something similar. She had to pay for flights, food etc - it will be a 'conference' event type thing where they will have had to sell a certain amount to be able to go.
She's pretty much given it up now I think as she's realised making £3 every month or so doesn't really warrant the amount she has to generate for social media.

@dickiedavisthunderthighs

Unless you are one of the very few tippy toppy 'leaders' you'll get the hotel room for free and that's it. And the whole trip is from 25th to 30th October meaning that you're paying for a 12+ hour each way flight to spend 3 days doing 'training' and enforced group activities.

Factor in the fact that you've probably had to spend four times that just to qualify and it doesn't seem quite so appealing does it?

Yep that's basically the same as my cousin.

@CallMeRisley

Was your friend at this event that someone I follow on Instagram was posting about, an FM gathering in the Maldives… it looks like some kind of cult with everyone dressed on white!

Does t seem like much of a holiday

Most likely free or partially free but it's a blatant marketing trick. The company will budget for all those trips as PR/Marketing which they essentially are because all the reps will post content onto their social media and hopefully lure in more people. A trip for one person will be in the range of 2-3K (maybe even less due to volume bookings and post covid lack of tourism) which is cheap as fuck in the marketing world.

2K won't even get you a single billboard or print advert in any notable location for any number of time. If they are trying social media, only low-end influencers (20K-100K) would settle for 2-3K as payment. However due to the nature of MLMs, having reps promote their lifestyle to potential new victims generates a huge return on investment. So for one of these "conferences" on the Maldives, the parent company might pay around 150K-300K which is absolutely typical for a marketing campaign. It's also fully tax deductible so their actual spendings is only about half of that (depending on where they're based). They just need each rep to pull in enough earnings or downline reps to cover the cost of the trip which is almost certainly guaranteed.

Don’t forget they would have paid any tests etc required re COVID-19.
If you check fb marketplace it is awash with MLM stuff.