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.

Once, when I was very desperate for money, I almost joined one.

Only the person who tried to recruit me ran a mile when she found out I didn’t have social media and only know about three people in the entire world. When she found out i’d have no one to flog to, she ghosted me.

Ghosted by an MLM person. I must be the biggest loser on Earth 😂

@Siriisatwat

Once, when I was very desperate for money, I almost joined one.

Only the person who tried to recruit me ran a mile when she found out I didn’t have social media and only know about three people in the entire world. When she found out i’d have no one to flog to, she ghosted me.

Ghosted by an MLM person. I must be the biggest loser on Earth 😂

More like the biggest winner - you have magic dust!!

MLM's are horrible, influencers and fake friends trying to sell their overpriced nonsense to you to inflate their pockets.

One on Insta has sold hundreds of those Lumi things, taking advantage of her followers.

@Malibuismysecrethome

Does anyone remember the paper hearts MLM from about 20 years ago?

Was this the "Women Empowering Women" scheme? If I remember rightly, that one involved buying hearts. A former work colleague got sucked into it, with the promise of making up to £24K. Despite warnings from friends and family, she went ahead and "invested" £3K. Not surprisingly, she lost the lot.

This article appeared in The Guardian at the time:

www.theguardian.com/money/2001/jul/07/personalfinancenews.jobsandmoney

@Siriisatwat

Once, when I was very desperate for money, I almost joined one.

Only the person who tried to recruit me ran a mile when she found out I didn’t have social media and only know about three people in the entire world. When she found out i’d have no one to flog to, she ghosted me.

Ghosted by an MLM person. I must be the biggest loser on Earth 😂

lucky escape though!!

If your mate from school has always been honest with you, and tells you she has this new fabulous job and a white Mercedes, you'd believe her, wouldn't you?

Not necessarily, no; in fact my first thought would be that she'd been sucked into something like this
I'd probably let it ride as long as it was none of my business, but at the point of being invited to "invest" money, that's what I'd start checking

But as they say, there's one born every minute ...

The other thing to consider is this - that the women who actually are in the market for extremely expensive skin care or make up and herbal shizz and juices or whatever, well, those women shop at Liberty or Harvey Nicholls or at a minimum John Lewis & Space UK.

They would NEVER buy an unknown brand from some hunning babe on Facebook who posts pictures of her lease car to show 'success'.

So all this nonsense pretend-brand shizz is instead going to have to be 'sold' to the friends & acquaintances of the low income, ill-educated sucker who bought into the MLM.

It really doesn't need much intelligence to see that won't happen. It can't happen. The stuff is not going to be sold at all. It is the friendships that are going to get sold instead.

I have a distant acquaintance who does one of these things and she asked me for months to join her FB group. So the other week, just for shits and giggles, I did.

She's started drifting away from actually promoting and selling the product itself now, and her posts are slowly morphing into the 'Come And Join Me Sisters' approach.

No. lol

I’m wondering if we have the same friend 😂👀
I’ve also been wondering the same thing! It did look gorgeous, my friend took someone with her too! And also didn’t have to pay. I don’t know the answers to your questions, and I’ve also wondered them since I saw the first post last week!

And the 'work event' will be a series of talks and presentations to the believers.

It's all very cult like.

She'll have paid for the flights and transfers on her credit card, the hotel will provide the most basic service and the events will be hype ups to enthuse the hunbots into selling more, believing more and hustling more.

It's despicable

Please what is an MLM. Why do we have to keep abbreviating words.

@notoldjustpastyoung

Please what is an MLM. Why do we have to keep abbreviating words.

Multi level marketing.

All the levels of the pyramid.

Stopped reading as confused by what MLM and FM are!

@notoldjustpastyoung

Please what is an MLM. Why do we have to keep abbreviating words.

Because we don't want to type it out in full every time, because it's a well known abbreviation and if you don't know, Google exists 🤷‍♀️

Not all direct sales companies are cons. I used to work for Tupperware (many years ago, showing my age) and The Pampered Chef and both were excellent companies. The Pampered Chef used to do an annual, paid for, trip that you could work towards. Of course you had to accumulate points by selling stuff but it was a sales business. The trips were fantastic, indulgent and achievable. There are good and bad companies, just as there are good and bad consultants

@ElephantOfRisk
I did type into Google and it didn't really mean anything. FM (other than the obvious radio frequency) is not on Google. It seems from the post to be make up.

MLM meaning:

www.google.com/search?q=mlm+meaning&oq=MLM&aqs=chrome.1.0i433i512l3j46i175i199i512j0i457i512j0i512j46i512j0i512l3.4262j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

First hit told me it was Multi-Level Marketing.

I'm with you on the company names though. I presume people don't want to get sued by Tropic or whatever since they've said on MNet that they are shite .

Google result if you search what is an MLM...

FM is the name of the company so we can't really add much more to that

MLMs are the least understood styles of business; hence all the rubbish about pyramid schemes
It's true lots of people don't make any money but that's usually because they unrealistically expect to earn loads of money without doing any actual work!
Do you all honestly believe that the CEO of Sainsburys, M & S, Amazon, in fact almost any company you wish to name doesn't benefit from the hard work those 'below' them do? Of course they do, what do you think pays their exorbitant salaries?

[quote Squeezita]@steff13 the point is Shannann Watts was under huge pressure to maintain a happy family image due to her job, and she couldn't afford to pay the mortgage on her home on her MLM 'salary', part of the reason she didn't leave her husband.

If she had a normal job, she may have been able to leave Chris Watts.[/quote]
From what I've read etc. (not exhaustive) Shannon Watts had no intention of leaving her husband; she was frustrated and hurt by his disengagement from her and their family (an affair occurred to her but she dismissed him as not capable of it/the type) and she was trying to recover their marriage.

So so wasn't trapped by a low salary (from mlm or anything else), she was trapped by her investment in the marriage, and not knowing about his affair (until very shortly before he brutally murdered her).

I'm no fan of mum but I has v little to do with the murders.

People have said she was a vociferous social media poster about her family and he may have been irritated and turned off by it, but that's hardly a valid factor on murdering your wife, two young daughters and unborn child. He is a psychopath.. thas the sole reason for those murders.

*no fan of mlm.

@projuicehealth

MLMs are the least understood styles of business; hence all the rubbish about pyramid schemes It's true lots of people don't make any money but that's usually because they unrealistically expect to earn loads of money without doing any actual work! Do you all honestly believe that the CEO of Sainsburys, M & S, Amazon, in fact almost any company you wish to name doesn't benefit from the hard work those 'below' them do? Of course they do, what do you think pays their exorbitant salaries?

No I don't believe that, but I also don't have to pay to work for Sainsbury's or Amazon (like I would if I wanted to join the vast majority's of MLM's) and I'm guaranteed to earn my wage each month.

If you’ve got Netflix watch how to be a god in Florida it’s all about MLM

@projuicehealth

MLMs are the least understood styles of business; hence all the rubbish about pyramid schemes It's true lots of people don't make any money but that's usually because they unrealistically expect to earn loads of money without doing any actual work! Do you all honestly believe that the CEO of Sainsburys, M & S, Amazon, in fact almost any company you wish to name doesn't benefit from the hard work those 'below' them do? Of course they do, what do you think pays their exorbitant salaries?

But at least the employees of Sainsbury’s et al are paid an actual wage, that meets minimum wage requirements, and receive holiday pay, sick pay, pensions etc. Not the case for people in MLMs, and all the research shows that the majority of people who join them actually lose money. So no comparison.

@Haffiana

The other thing to consider is this - that the women who actually are in the market for extremely expensive skin care or make up and herbal shizz and juices or whatever, well, those women shop at Liberty or Harvey Nicholls or at a minimum John Lewis & Space UK.

They would NEVER buy an unknown brand from some hunning babe on Facebook who posts pictures of her lease car to show 'success'.

So all this nonsense pretend-brand shizz is instead going to have to be 'sold' to the friends & acquaintances of the low income, ill-educated sucker who bought into the MLM.

It really doesn't need much intelligence to see that won't happen. It can't happen. The stuff is not going to be sold at all. It is the friendships that are going to get sold instead.

Absolutely correct! Back when I had the money to spend £30+ on a mascara etc., the last thing I’d have done is buy stuff I’d never heard of, from some random online! It was always Space NK for me (and nowadays it’s Superdrug!)