To dread seeing this friend? Pyramid scheme

[oneproudmumma]

My friend has recently gone down a so called healthy eating path which promotes herbal stuff that she sells (some kind of pyramid scheme). Her Instagram is full of pics of her in a bikini sucking her stomach in and of "success stories" etc. I find it all a bit cringe.

She tried to post a link to my Facebook wall to promote something which I swiftly deleted.

I don't see her too often these days but more recently she keeps asking me to meet up with her and I've been putting it off because I'm dreading her trying to push this weird diet and supplements on me.

AIBU?

Haha true! MY DH says it's hilarious how we guard our identities on MN as if we are all assassins or spies.

Oh I've lost a friend to an essential oils MLM. Sadly she wasn't so much my friend as my husbands best friends wife so my refusal to engage has unfortunately had an impact on his friendship.

It was so tiring, couldn't post anything on Facebook about health or even chat to her without her jumping in to tell me an essential oil would cure it. Headaches? Try this blend! My kid has eczema from all the hand washing and hand gel? This oil will help! Worst thing was she wanted to flog us the essential oils to drink! Apparently every problem in life, even my auto immune disorder, is to do with gut health and downing potentially toxic oils is the way to go.

Oh god .. honestly, I feel for you. I hate all this kind of crap stuff too.

You could do what a pp has suggested and make up an allergy to an ingredient (think I may use this excuse one day too).

Or be honest and just say not for me, I'm not into diets/ etc.

I used to work with someone who worked for another one of these type of schemes. Aw God.. what a pain in the arse she was. Moved onto my next Job and someone took up the same scheme. I nipped it in the bud by making a joke of it, something along the lines of - oh god, not you aswell .. i just about took a restraining order out on the last person I worked with who sold this crap stuff, she harrassed me that much to buy something. Cue .. a look of WTF and no messages from her trying to sell me products 🙃

MLMs kill friendships.
There's nothing you can do about it, other than withdraw into the background and hope they come to their senses.

Uggggh.

I have a friend who is in to Herbalife. To be fair, she is extremely beautiful/fit and seems very successful at it, and has done it for a number of years now. She asked me once if I was interested, and when I said no she didn't bring it up again.

Another friend threw a party selling Aloe Vera products. It actually seemed vaguely beneficial until they started telling me stories about how it cures cancer and amputated limbs!

Tell her to watch "Betting on Zero" - an expose on Herbalife.

I hate this, because it ruins new friendships too. I’ve had people befriend me at toddler classes only to find out they don’t like me, they just want to sell their shit! I definitely wouldn’t lie about being allergic to an ingredient, just say I’m really sorry and I hope it works for you but morally I just can’t back these companies.

Don't meet her. There's nothing good in it for either of you. Maybe try contact her in a years time when it's all over.

When you first see her just act a bit surprised and say gosh, have you put on some weight recently? 😜
Nah ok that's a bit mean but sounds like she probably has thick skin anyway if she's going down this route

I once had an excruciating evening with my parents and some friends of theirs whose ds and dil wanted to present a wonderful new mlm opportunity to us. My parent's friends were so embarrassed as I dont think they realised how pushy they were going to be and it just went on forever, no other chat allowed at all. Pretty much ended their friendship as it was an ambush - me and my folks had gone along expecting a social evening and got hit with the whole thing.

I have a friend who did the whole aloe Vera selling shite. Complete with resigning from her job because she was going to make her fortune from it blah blah.

A couple of years later and a friend mentions someone she's dealing with through work. It's my friend. Obviously the MLM didn't work out and she's sneaked back into her previous like of work without mentioning it to everyone on Facebook, unlike the huge announcement of forthcoming riches from aloe Vera selling.

I also have a friend who sells the wax melts. She's posts a lot on Facebook about them, but not exclusively about them. And she's never tried to sell me any. From what I can tell she mostly seems to buy the stuff for herself and her family - every birthday and Christmas her kids get given scentsy related products. Not sure she makes as much money as she proclaims. But as she doesn't push it on me I don't say anything. It's the latest in a long line of MLM stuff she's done.

I had a colleague ask me to go for a coffee (they asked on Facebook, which was weird in itself since we worked in the same office). I accepted, thinking that perhaps they had a work dilemma they wanted to discuss in private.

No, they wanted me to join Arbonne and were waxing lyrical about how amazing and life changing it was.

I was polite but said I don't have time for it. When they pressed and said you can fit it into your free time I laughed and told them that's for Netflix, then changed the topic. They didn't speak to me much after that 🙈

I’d set the boundary if she’s really only pushing meeting since she started selling.

’hey friend, yes would love a catch up! I see you’re selling x now, I’m not into that kind of thing so you could count me out but defo up for a catch up about other things’

see how she responds?

Just ignore her for a while, she'll eventually come to her senses

I'll buy the odd Tropic or Body Shop item, that I'm genuinely using or had a recommendation for, but that's about it.

The one I was most amused with was a lady at work trying to get us to sign up for weight-loss wraps .... and not the tortilla kind! Apparently this wrap is brilliant, she swore by it if needing to get into a tight fitting dress at the weekend ... I asked how many I could wear at once if I had the equivalent of a small person in excess weight. Funnily enough I'm still waiting to hear how much of this stuff I'd have to smear on to lose even just a stone by Saturday ....

I would respond kindly to her message and arrange to meet up but with a caveat, “I’m aware that you are part of XXX, before we meet and in order not to offend I want to make it clear that I am not interested in XXX so please let’s enjoy a catch up but leave XXX out of it.”

There’s a really good Herbalife exposé documentary on Netflix, just have it on in the background when she comes over

MLM’s kill friendships, it’s like joining a cult.

You need to just be straight with her. I have a friend who does Arbonne - when she first started trying to sell it to me I just told her I wasn't interested and that I wouldn't be buying anything from her. She took it fairly well although looked a little put out - but I've been polite before with friends doing this shit and if you show a slight bit of fake interest they will not stop going on about it and trying to sell to you. I'm still friends with her, so it hasn't ruined our friendship, but she doesn't try and sell me anything and I don't ask about it.

Also - my friend who does Arbonne had a tummy tuck a couple of years ago. After she'd recovered, she was posting photos of herself in swimsuits and tight dresses and then linking her 'weight loss' to the products she was pushing. I couldn't get over the fakery, and how she was willing to blatantly lie about how she had achieved her flat stomach. Especially as she hadn't kept her tummy tuck a secret from her friends offline. It's all a massive scam.

Yes, let know beforehand so she can back out and save you both from a waste of time and annoyance

I lost my friend last year to scented candles

I’ve noticed Herbalife use local slimming clubs and church hall type places … you’d only realise once you’d joined up to the ‘ village slimming club’ … must be loads of well meaning people sucked in and good help them with the financial crisis …

I would suspect she’s targeted you because you’ve just had a baby. I had a load of Herbalife and juice plus selling acquaintances try to add me on Facebook after it was apparent I’d had DD. It’s awful, quite clearly an attempt to scam women when at their most vulnerable.

She is no longer your friend. She sees you as a potential customer, potential mark.

You've lost her for now. Lie low until she gets it out of her system.