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.

@SleepingBunnies21

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.

She texted her friend saying she couldn’t afford the mortgage on her own on her salary and with 2 kids. It stands to reason that a mother would want to protect her children’s home/lifestyle.

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.

I didn’t suggest MLM was the reason for her murder, just that her low pay from it may have been a factor in her staying with him.

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.

Hit the place I was working in 2002. I was pregnant and about to go on maternity leave when someone was trying to get my to "invest". A colleague and I sat for about an hour trying to prove that the pyramid was unsustainable and needed more participants than the whole population of the UK but she still got swept along with it and lost everything she'd invested.

The difference between that and MLM is that the hearts or women empowering women is that those were PURE pyramid schemes. No product. And very much illegal. MLM get round the law by having a "product".

@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?

Oh no, Juicehunbot, we understand perfectly. Fairly clear that you've been sucked into one of those scams with your "if you work hard you'll be rewarded" and the trite shite that every company is a pyramid.

Another thing hunbots do which pisses me off - tell people that their magic juice pills can cure cancer and autism.

Wowsers. Never heard of FM before this thread, but their website is an eye-opener.

Full of mistakes, terribly written, and barely any mention of the actual product they're supposed to be flogging... but instead there's reams of photos of gullible women standing next to cars.

It's actually really sad that so many people fall for MLMs like this, despite "scam" being written all over it.

I know someone who does the MLM thing or did, I think she gave up. She went to Mexico to a 5* all inclusive. I know she didn’t fund any of it herself because she never stops talking about how poor she is

My cousin’s kid is really into her MLM ‘business’. She spent a couple of years running a ‘travel agency’ and according to my aunt made £46 in total. Now she has a different one, something to do with toiletries. She posts lots of motivational messages, pleas to support small businesses, and doesn’t understand why people would rather go to Superdrug or a supermarket... I have to sit on my hands to stop myself responding to some of her posts. I feel so sorry for her.

but she was an educated woman. She could have had a regular job.

This is where people assuming only stupid and vulnerable women are taken in by MLMs is really dangerous. It ignores the social engineering these organisations use to entice people to join. They use cult-like methods and even educated women can be taken in by it.

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?

Hun alert 🚨

Last I saw, the CEO of Sainsbury’s didn’t make their staff buy the products on the shelves to sell on to customers.

Honestly it depends on the level she’s at, the mlm itself.. I know a few people who’ve all worked with a different mlm and some get all expenses paid others just hotel/resort and some credit for meals but not all.. it definitely depends on the company

This is hilarious. I know someone who used to sell FM perfumes, but assumed they were Delboy style market knock offs and hadn't realised it was an MlM.

Off the back of this thread, I have just googled them. Joining FM will improve your mental health, apparently.

I used to sell Pampered Chef. I know if I had a certain number of parties I could get holidays etc. I liked them because although you needed to have about one show a month, you weren't really under huge pressure to recruit or sell stuff unless you wanted it (which I didn't).

@Divamuffin argh thank you I didn't realise it would do that

No problem. I’ve just reported my post to be deleted as the link is still in there

It’s fake - she’s paying

@pollymere
I went to a few pampered chef parties back in the day. The products were excellent and I’m still using them 15 years later.

This is all starting to fall into place.

Around 15 years ago, a friend of mine sold clothes from a company called Weekenders at parties. I always thought it was a slight cheek because when you hosted one of these parties, you ended up supplying wine and nibbles in order for someone else to make money selling their products.

I know realise Weekenders was an MLM. My friend was desperate to recruit me to sell the stuff too because I think the more people you got on board, the higher you climbed within the company. She showed me a video of one of their conferences and it was almost religious! Certainly very evangelical with lots of self congratulation, clapping and whooping!

I resisted because it wasn’t my thing and I didn’t feel comfortable almost twisting other friends arms to participate.

Whatever happened to Weekenders?

www.unhappyfranchisee.com/weekenders-dumps-distributors-without-pay-or-warning/

Weekenders shut up shop in 2008, or thereabouts.

@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?

Most retail businesses pay a per hourly wage to even their lowest employees.

There isn't a store assistant in the tinned vegetable aisle, desperate to sell the D'Aucy Mixed Vegetables 'on special', because she's paid for the entire lot and needs it all to be sold to break even.

She isn't then accosting customers, asking if they too want to sell tinned veg and give her a cut of their income.

MLMs like Body Shop, Avon, Herbalife, Arbonne, Younique, Isagenix and doTERRA put their reps in debt and then pressure them to sell these over priced products and rope in others to also put themselves in debt, so as to keep the chain going.

It's a despicable business, preys on the vulnerable and needs to be illegal.

It only barely escapes being called a pyramid scheme because a product is bought and sold.

Even the Ocean Finance Company issued warnings about MLMs after some of their customers maxxed out their (overpriced) credit cards on it.

www.oceanfinance.co.uk/blog/how-much-money-is-really-made-in-mlms-read-our-global-report/

I just binged watched LulaRich - enlightening.
A relative does Body Shop - I muted her on FB. She already has a f-t job, her dh works too, but they aren’t well off and so she must think she’s benefiting from it financially somehow.

@pollymere

I used to sell Pampered Chef. I know if I had a certain number of parties I could get holidays etc. I liked them because although you needed to have about one show a month, you weren't really under huge pressure to recruit or sell stuff unless you wanted it (which I didn't).

I went to a few parties about 15 years ago! Both women doing them Highly intellectually and degree educated, but with young kids at the time. The products were good but very £££ and they didn’t do it for long.

If only -people- victims asked hun-bots about:

• legal minimum wage requirements
• holiday pay
• statutory sick pay
• pensions
• maternity/paternity leave
• minimum notice (and associated pay) regarding redundancy, resigning etc

And if it truly were the hun-bots own business they would be able to converse at length about the company's:

• anti slavery policy
• anti discrimination policy
• bulllying and harassment policies
• carbon efficiency/environmental policies
• etc

Alas.....

Is Thermomix now an MLM as well? A Facebook friend who is extremely well off (husband and family very well known in the area) has started pushing hers loads. She seems to do it more as a hobby as she doesn’t work and doesn’t have kids but I can’t believe the price of them!

I sell Scentsy. I've never "earned" one of the incentive trips but there's lots in my team that do. The higher up regularly take home £5-£10K each month. The incentive trips are completely all expenses paid. You have to take your own spending money but everything else is paid for. Might be different for other MLM companies though

Hadn't heard of FM, but a FB friend seems to be involved in a similar scheme.

We watched the Kirsten Dunst series on Netflix 'How to be a God..' (can't recall exact title) and it's just like this, but I thought that was just in the 1980s, pyramid schemes.

Seems snake oil sells as long as there are people alive to buy it.