I've been sucked into forever living!! Why do I feel like the bad guy?

[KindergartenKop]

Recently an acquaintance emailed me to ask if I could 'help' her by trying a few products and giving her some feedback. Being the nice person I am I agreed. When the bag of samples turned up the penny dropped and i realised that she's trying to sell them to me (I'm naive I know!). I thought id just buy a little bubble bath. Its fucking 14 quid! No way. I'm sending the bag back and pleading eczema. Does this whole company operate by guilting friends and family into purchasing crap quality at ridic prices?

(or they're all lying)

Oh, I give up trying to understand this Harriet's in third place and the top person scored 46,000 CCs. Which makes a total of more than 68,000.

Now I've Face-stalked Harriet, btw, she sounds really nice. I'm glad she's doing well. If not remotely glad at all that MLM is still legal in the UK.

Gilrac It looks like Harriet has contributed twenty two point eight four five not twenty two thousand eight hundred and forty five. Someone talked upthread (or on a link I read) about getting 4 ccs a month, so 22 would be pretty good.

No idea what ccs actually are though!

Cc's are cash credits. They have their own little lingo. I hate FL.

I feel very special indeed.
I've 5 juice plus friends
1 younique friend who has now branched out into actiderm
2 fl friends
3 bodyshoppers
And
1 betterware salesman.

Cor!

So Harriet had £22 of sales? Woo, go Harriet! I suppose using an actual pound sign instead of calling money "cash credits" is too obvious. Or something.

Finally a thread of common sense! I have posted before in threads about FL but they always got derailed by a member of the cult
My dh aunt sells the stuff. It's absolute shite, same ingredients you would find in a very cheap product on the high street. She Facebook brags all the time about his successful she is but in reality her parents have to help her out financially all the time (and they are her main customers!). She flogs a bit of stuff to -vulnerable- -elderly- neighbours but she clearly mainly focusses on posting claptrap on Facebook to try and persuade people to join her team

Definitely agree this thread should be made permanent!

Thanks for the links Dreaming and Pausing!

I don't have time to read the whole download right now but I really wanna know how the holidays work! Can you explain briefly please?!

And really interesting gilrack! Cc's wtf?!

My two FL bots both posted about "bonus day" yesterday, one of them is going to "go crazy with online shopping!" it took all my will power not to comment..

ATN: Don't know how the FL hols work; but all MLMs live by exploiting the sales force. The Amway System (from Merchants of Deception)
"Zack stated to the group that if we did the following five things, he would guarantee us any level of income we desired from The Business.

1. Read at least 15 minutes a day from a book on the "tool list"
2. Listen to a tape everyday
3. Attend all functions (seminars, training sessions etc.)
4. 100 percent self use of products in our home
5. Show the plan to people we would like to help"

Options 1 to 3 exploit the "business owners"; the "upline" make $$$ on them. Option 4 is how Amway itself makes money (no-one retails). Option 5 is recruitment. Note there is nothing about retail sales here tho distributors should make 10 sales per month - that's the legal cover for a pyramid scheme and no-one takes it seriously. I imagine FL exploits the sales force similarly, profiting off the starter packs and training "tools".

Thanks xenu! That is so worrying, how can they still be legal?!

From the Amway book, IIRC.

Some of the holidays are paid for by the people going on them, at exorbitant rates. They're supposedly a mix of business and pleasure.

Some of the holidays are to luxury homes owned by the people at the top of the business, allowing them to claim the homes are a business expense they should get tax relief on.

Some of the holidays are genuine holidays which are filmed by the business and used as bait for fresh meat.

xenu1
Very interesting, so basically each new recruit is actually a customer for the up line.
These recruits then have to find more people to employ if theu want to earn any money.
Scary

My FL bot has posted posing in a white sports car which she was test driving - however I know she was actually at a sustainability show and the car was there for everyone to sit in (not actually drive)

That's' what I would imagine. The fact they keep trying to sell a lifestyle, post about the family friendly hours, post about bonuses, the holidays, photos of cheques and white range rovers or whatever etc - no one generally just does this in everyday living. They are obviously selling a lifestyle to lure in new people to their team as that is where they get some money.

I imagine all these training nights and seminars is based on how to lure these people in. What words and phrases to use, to promote a glamorous fun lifestyle at all costs rather than actually about the products or retailing to customers. It's purely a deceptive marketing ploy

Apparently the heat lotion is " a gift from the God's" and it can cure most things Ms FL also had her Bonus day yesterday and she's so excited and can't keep calm. Oh do fuck off dear

It can be worse than that, Bambambini. The Amway book describes the bots as being charged by their upline person for training seminars.

And the bots are told they have to go or they're losers who won't succeed.

So, feeling a bit tight? Throw a training night.

FL own a number of holiday resorts too. So all those exotic holidays are part of the same "fur coat and no knickers" lifestyle so excitedly promoted by the bots.

Would like to see Xenu's post on the Amway MLM points posted on folks FB or that long netmums Fl thread. Not that I'm trying to stir or anything!

Amway was one of the first successful internet exposes (with Scientology). Before the 'net, there was no way for those scammed to record their experiences for others; now there is. You can now see all sides. Both Amway and $cn used legal attempts to silence critics, and both have supplied internet filters to their adherents to try and prevent them seeing criticism... Very mind control; no "stinking thining", associate only with fellow members, edify the upline...
As for legality, I think illegal pyramid schemes load the distributors with stock they cant sell. (some 60s jewellry scams did this). Amway doesn't do this and I would doubt if the smart girls running FL do either. You don't have to carry stock and/or unsold stuff can be returned.

(But not the "business tools", tapes, books, or cost of seminars...)

"smart girls" should be "smart women", of course. And I doubt if the £200(!) FL starter pack is returnable either; as another poster mentioned, the sales per member is roughly that of the starter pack cost...

wow, fascinating. I will download Merchants of Deception when I get home.

Interesting FL owns resorts...I wondered about that.

ooo err Minion. you is special

My FL bot takes photos of FL products in her hand next to the Audi logo - i think she's trying to imply FL = Audi. or something.

The more I read, the more I think FL preys on the vulnerable so that top dogs can get rich. Dodgy as hell.