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?

What a bizarre video! But yes, got all these arguments foisted on me too. It's a good tactic, to get the doubter to spend their time and effort justifying themselves. You can and possibly will run out of stream in the face of such persistent nonsense. They've really latched on to the phrase 'pyramid scheme'! Great distraction for the fact they're still asking you to sell your friends £hundreds or thousands of stuff they don't want. They're clever, and quite evil.

I would LOVE to know these stats about FL. Of course they will never disclose them, no one would join:

1. what percentage of FL turnover is from seminars, training material and starter packs rather than product sales.

2. What is the split of the companies profit share. I.e not the average (mean) income of everyone in the company, but e.g
   1% earn over £1m p.a, 5% £10k, 80% £100

3. in the above stats, I'd like to see gross commission stats as well as profit per person after expenses (seminars, incentives purchased for own team etc).

I'm so sure it's all smoke and mirrors. Unless FL is transparent in the above questions, I won't change my opinion.

Just seen that Juice Plus idiots bots are now referring to themselves as missionaries. I nearly wet myself.

There's probably a Juice to help incontinence.

Lol probably. Turns out it's meant to be 'missionaires' they are,they just can't spell

PausingFlatly -

Currently (only after receiving a 'significant number of complaints'), a posse of US federal, and state, law enforcement agents (including those from the FBI) are investigating Herbalife, to discover whether the company's declared multi-billion dollar annual revenues have come mainly from lawful sales (based on value and demand) or mainly from unlawful losing investment payments (based on a false expectation of future reward), but laundered as lawful sales.

The (ongoing) Herbalife investigation started around 2 years ago, but Herbalife has been fronting a blame the victim MLM income opportunity racket for more than 30 years.

Despite what has been reported in the financial press, the Herbalife racket hangs by a thread, and each fresh victim who comes forward, puts more and more strain on this thread.

Yet, if these same law enforcement agents were to watch FLP videos, they would observe that FLP recruiters regularly boast that their 'MLM income opportunity' has precious little to do with selling products.

For decades, the standard defence of MLM cults, when their recruiters are caught red handed committing fraud, has been to pretend that the companies and their senior coporate officers, and employees, were ignorant of, and were, therefore, not responsible for, the criminal activities of their 'distributors'.

Thx for link. Andy Waring has a few gems on youtube..

at 23.50 the slide title is "Sales". But the main point on the slide is personal use of products (PV in Amway-speak: FL is an Amway-clone.)

Xenu1 - Andy Waring, is clearly committing fraud in his videos, by inviting people to participate in a dissimulated closed-market swindle based on the crackpot pseudo-economic theory that endless recruitment + endless payments by the recruits = endless profits for the recruits, but which he claims (and probably believes) is a direct sales scheme based on 'the magic of numbers.'

At no stage does this tragic clown seek to hide the fact that would-be FLP millionaires are told to duplicate a system - in which they must keep obediently buying the products and trying to recruit others to duplicate the same economically-incestuous system of endless purchase and endless recruitment.

Mr. Waring even boasts that the 'FLP income opportunity' is based on 'geometric progression.' He might as well say : High folks and welcome to the FLP pyramid scheme!

Just want to point you all in the direction of the "back to work" forum

(FL bot on a recruitment drive)

Aw Throwing I clicked on that link then DS woke for a feed. By the time he was done the thread had been zapped. I could have had so much fun!

The followers of this thread might be fascinated to witness how Mormon run MLM cults like FLP have managed to place themselves above the law in the USA, and particularly in Utah.

This linked-video shows the former Attorney General of Utah (that's the chief law enforcement agent), Mark Shurtleff (a Mormon), committing fraud and obstructing justice by publicly promoting a Mormon run MLM income opportunity racket, USANA, and explaining to a gathering of deluded USANA adherents, that plenty of MLM income opportunities have been frauds, but anyone trying to complain about USANA in Utah, will be ignored.

It should come as no surprise to learn that Mark Shurtleff has had his nose deep in the 'MLM' trough for years. However, last year, Shurtleff was arrested and charged with acts of corruption in unrelated matters, his immediate reaction was to pretend that all charges against him were politically-motivated lies.

This article was posted 4 days ago.

www.valuewalk.com/2015/06/herbalife-ltd-hlf-federal-probe/

Given the number of destitute victims who have finally had the courage to come forward in the USA, it can't be long before the Herbalife racket is closed-down.

For the past several years, the Herbalife racket has been churning around 2 millions humans per year, that 20 millions per decade around the globe. Whilst the FLP racket has been going through a staggering 5 millions humans per year, or 50 millions per decade around the globe. Yet the mainstream media is still not accurately reporting this historically important criminogenic phenomenon, or warning the public.

Does anyone know an FLBot who has come out the other side and spilled the dirt on what really happens and how much they actually make? Or do they just fade away quietly and never mention how much they were taken for?

CrystalHaze - This is a very good question.

Prior to all the recent publicity (due to intervention of Bill Ackman), few core-Herbalife victims ever tried to complain. Numerous lawsuits have been filed by 'MLM' victims. These have invariably been settled out of court without the front companies accepting any guilt.

However, the overwhelming majority of fraud victims never try to complain, mostly out of shame, and/or fear, and/or embarrassment. All the most effective frauds try to implicate their victims in some way, so that they will become convinced that they might have been guilty of criminal offence themselves.

Thus, in the absence of publicity, to date, there are few FLP core victims who have ever made a determined effort to blow the whistle. As MLM rackets go, FLP is one of the biggest and most convincing. Like child victims at the hands of influential adult abusers, core- 'MLM' victims often feel that no one will take them seriously or that they were as much to blame as anyone. Also, many FLP victims were recruited by a friend or relative, and in turn, they tried to recruit their own friends and relatives, so this makes it even more difficult to face the truth

Remember, the overwhelming majority of all MLM victims have abandoned their groups within 12 months after losing a relatively small ammount of their time and money. Virtually no one from this main category of short term victims has come forward to complain. Such persons don't know where to go or what to say. If challenged, most ex 'MLMers' will insist that they were involved in a 'business,' and that they made a free choice to participate - no one forced them or deceived them. Some even insist that they made money.

Long term 'MLM' victims are a small, but significant, minority. Often they have to be traced through 'negative' partners and family memebers whom they have abandoned. Far less than 5% of all MLM victims have continued for more than 3 years. They need access to independent sources of cashl, income or credit, as well as physical health and strength, to continue

At this point I should explain that I have personally interviewed an individual in the UK whose ex-partner has been trapped in the FLP racket for around 20 years. This rare witness (who is University educated) estimates that the ex's direct, and indirect FLP, financial losses already total over £200 000. This has been financed by the sale of a share of a property, as well as by going into debt.

I haven't read the whole thread, however I now have four FLBots on Facebook and they are driving me bonkers.

I'm constantly being added to groups without my permission that I then have to leave problem is they are nice people, all proper real life friends that were (I thought) pretty intelligent. They are now living the dream it would seem.

Just found out today that a lad I went to school with who is now a GP is hawking FL products on his website. He's not stupid, so I can only assume it's greed and venality. A shame.

Thank you for the thought-provoking response, EyeSpying.

I can see how it must be very hard to back down and admit to the hundreds of people you've bombarded with hyperbolic claims that, actually, you haven't made the £1000s per month you were promised, along with the added implication that this was due to a failure on your part (given that it's apparently so 'easy', you'd have to be really useless to fail at this stuff, right?)

A friend did Herbalife very briefly ~ she made a few half-hearted fb posts about it then it fizzled out, so I'm guessing she saw through it all. But I currently have a FLBot on fb and I am genuinely concerned by it: all her posts are about recruiting her 'team' and how they're all going to change their lives, etc etc. She's just had a baby, and seemingly so have many of the people she's recruiting as she's meeting them at baby groups, NCT group, etc. What saddens me is that many of these women will be looking for ways to earn enough to stay at home with their babies after their mat leave finishes, and so they're ripe for the picking. And that feels exploitative, frankly: I don't mean that my friend is actively exploiting them, but rather that she too has been sucked in and is selling a lie to others without realizing that that's what she's doing.

I also don't understand what financial model is sold to them: they seem to spend all their time at 'planning meetings', rather than actually selling or marketing the products, but surely it doesn't take a business genius to work out that if you've got twenty people in the same group/area all selling the same product, you're not going to make a killing?

It's got to all come crashing down soon, surely? As I said on another thread, I'd love to see an investigative documentary/article into their recruiting procedures, profit distribution, drop-out rates, etc. I might start looking into journalists who might be interested in doing something like this: if Herbalife are about to get 'exposed', it would certainly be topical.

MuffMuffTweetAndDave - I'll see your FLBot GP and Raise you a Ambot member of the House of Lords.

This comment was posted on the excellent 'Married to an Ambot' Blog, 4 years ago.

One of the most surprising Ambots I heard of, was the editor of a UK national, woman's magazine. However, Britain claims perhaps the most ludicrous Ambot of all time.

This is none other than Merlin Sereld Victor Gilbert Hay, 24th Earl of Erroll (born Edinburgh, 20 April, 1948). Honest Anna, I'm not making this up. You can find him on Wikipedia, but there is no mention of his proud Ambot past.

According to completely reliable sources, the Earl quit 'Amway' after losing a packet of money and deeply-embarrassing other members of his family. He is currently a cross-bench member of the British House of Lords, Chief of the Scottish clan Hay, and hereditary Lord High Constable of Scotland. Not only that, but this former-Ambot is the son of Sir Iain Moncreiffe, 11th Baronet and Diana Hay, 23rd Countess of Erroll, who was educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He succeeded his mother in 1978 as Earl of Erroll, and in 1985, his father as a Baronet.

Although this upper-class twit doesn't want to talk about it now, back in the 1990s, it was reported in a British national newspaper that the Lord High Constable of Scotland was soon going to be making £100 000 per year selling soap as an 'Amway Distributor.' The source of this remarkable news was the Ambot Earl himself.

CrystalHaze - I might be able to help you with finding an independent journalist.

I presume, by your 'thought provoking' comment, that you have worked out who I am, and where to contact me?

Remember, most mainstream media organizations are now run by laywers and accountants and it's surprising how fearful editors can be when faced with the threat of lawsuits.

There is currently a new MLM expose documentary film in production the USA.

vimeo.com/124063366
www.manontopfilm.com/

Ha! Juice Plus bots advertising on the weight loss board www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weight_loss_chat/2414092-Juiceplus-The-Complete-Detox-Cleanse-Nourish

Gone already!

See, I can well believe a hereditary peer might fall for it, simply because you don't need a brain in your head to be one of those. I'm not saying they're all stupid, but there's no entrance exam, and someone of that age could probably have still just squezed into Cambridge when they reserved places for graduates of certain public schools. I feel more disappointed in the GP because at his age (30ish) you don't get to be a doctor without being at least fairly bright. People who do it on purpose offend me much more than people who really think it's their ticket.

is there no low they won't stoop to? those fuckers.

grah.

I've not yet worked out who you are, EyeSpying, but I've only skimmed the thread so far. I'll PM you once I'm done with tea-time / bedtime, etc, if that's ok? I'm getting angrier and angrier the more I think about this.

I dunno Muff...in my experience sometimes the brightest people can be really dumb and lacking in street smarts.