'FL / MLM' Thread 3

[Eyespying]

Continuing the valuable discussion of 'Forever Living' and other 'MLM/commercial' cults.

Oh dear Bee1202 did you even read more than one comment on this thread, let alone read back a few pages, or are you trying to be funny? Or has the pro brigade finally arrived.
You really have walked into the lions den.

googlethepoodle In life, it's your real friends who always tell you the truth (no matter how painful this might be) whilst your enemies will tell you ego-building lies.

Thus, what you have just written makes as much sense as saying:

'I think snake oil is a genuinely good product. I know a number of people who have seen a lot of health benefits from drinking snake oil.'

Please take a deep a deep breath and face the embarrassing truth that aloe vera is a commercially-grown, hybrid species of succulent plant that probably originated in N. Africa - where closely-related wild aloes can still be found. These were reputedly used in ancient herbal medicine. Today, aloe vera (meaning extracts of the hybrid plant) is a cheaply-procured common substance - a bulking agent widely-used in cosmetics and alternative/herbal medicine - marketed as having moisturizing, and/or rejuvenating, and/or healing, and/or soothing, properties. There is, however, little scientific evidence proving the effectiveness or safety of aloe vera for either cosmetic or medicinal purposes, and the available (largely-anecdotal) evidence has been widely-contradicted by wholly-independent studies.

Aloe vera has proved to be a perfect pseudo-medical wampum product for the instigators of the 'FLP' racket, but there have been dozens of other essentially-identical, effectively-valueless comodities used to launder unlawful losing investment pyments in 'MLM' rackets.

'Herbalife', 'Xango', 'Nutrilite/Amway,' 'NuSkin', etc. have also all been peddled for exorbitant prices as exclusive products which can transform ordinary, poor, unhealthy, ageing and unhappy humans into eternally young, healthy, wealthy and happy superhumans.

'MLM' rackets can be accurately described as a hybrid mixture of snake oil selling and a pyramid scheme.

Xenu1 - Success days cost PS25 at the O2 with only 5000 tickets available. That's PS125,000, wonder how much Forever pay to rent the room? I've been to a few. Plus there is all the in house trainings which I have also attended ranging from PS5 to PS35 plus travel on top of that.

I wasn't always able to attend and was told that the ones who are successful in Forever are the ones who attend all success days and trainings to help grow their business.

I was told that the ones who were successful were also doing the mindset training with Dave O'connor. (He's not part of Forever but a lot of the top ones use him. It benefits him too as he's had success with Emma Cooper and Natalie Heeley so thats a lot of new business owners wanting to replicate their success through his techniques) I wasn't willing to pay $97 for his 21 day course. I already had money on my credit card.

I hope I'm not sounding bitter. I'm not, I'm just embarrassed that I got involved, I honestly thought it would work for me. We're told that the ones who keep going are the ones who succeed. So by me giving up, then I'm seen as a failure and that it's me at fault. If I just keep going, it will happen.

But I couldn't keep going, it was affecting my mental health (another issue that isn't talked about enough in this day and age)

ray some evening reading for you. A true story.. Most of us have read this in here so it would be interesting to get your take on it. Yes, it's for Amway so there might be a few variations but Eric goes into great depth of his 10 yr experience as a previously devoted mlm'er - despite enormous personal threat for doing so.

www.transgallaxys.com/~emerald/files/MerchantsOfDeception.pdf

Sound familiar?

Rayofhope, I think its disgusting that FL install into people that they are failures if they dont "make it in the so-called business. What sort of people would let their friend's feel like that?? You are the winner rayofhope and I really admire you. Please do not feel embarrassed. You are definitely not a failure. I feel sorry for the people still out there, trying to" live their dreams".

Have you read 'Merchants of Deception' rayofhope? I thoroughly recommend it if you haven't, it may help you understand what happened to you and all the tricks that are employed to keep you going in the MLM.
Link to it here: www.transgallaxys.com/~emerald/files/MerchantsOfDeception.pdf

ray: "Xenu1 - Success days cost PS25 at the O2 with only 5000 tickets available. That's PS125,000, wonder how much Forever pay to rent the room?"

A lot less than 125k :) Wembley charges 250k-750k for 100k places, I would expect ~20k max for a 5k seater.

"I wasn't always able to attend and was told that the ones who are successful in Forever are the ones who attend all success days and trainings to help grow their business."

Yes, I can well believe that. Amway stresses you have to be "core" or "in the system" - 2 tapes a week, a book a month and attend all the functions. I have a bunch of tapes (bought 2nd-hand for pennies!) They all stress being in the "system" as the only way to success.. It's all smoke and mirrors as the system cost provides the income for the upline... As suggested, MerchantsofDeception is a long detailed account of the scam, and its cost. And the author got to "Emerald" and quit his job - and never made money! You got out in time!

ray: "I hope I'm not sounding bitter. I'm not, I'm just embarrassed that I got involved, I honestly thought it would work for me. "

Don't be embarrassed! Many people much "brighter" than you and I have been caught in the MLM scam

"We're told that the ones who keep going are the ones who succeed. So by me giving up, then I'm seen as a failure and that it's me at fault. If I just keep going, it will happen. "

And, as in any cult, the more you invest and the longer you are in the harder it is to admit you were wrong and leave. It's hard to think of those telling you keep going are either lying or deluded. But they are either one or the other. Well done for releasing yourself. All of us here respect that.

And thx for the SuccessDay info. How often are they held? All info appreciated, if only to understand the costs (if that's OK with you of course!)

Quote by Ray "I honestly thought it would work for me. We're told that the ones who keep going are the ones who succeed. So by me giving up, then I'm seen as a failure and that it's me at fault. If I just keep going, it will happen."

That that in a nutshell is exactly why MLMs continue to exist and are very difficult to pin down and prosecute, Ray.

They play the "victim blame" card to turn your failure into your fault. The thing is, Ray, is that you can never succeed in making money for yourself no matter how hard you try (only the top of the pyramid makes money 99% don't).

Please read Merchants of Deception; its dynamite. And, don't stay embarrassed; you got out, you escaped, in the fullness of time you will be extremely grateful for that.

seekingalpha.com/article/3644506-the-american-long-con-from-chain-letters-to-multi-level-marketing

Here's your prices for the (very recognisable) London Excel Success Day room ...

hirespace.com/Spaces/London/32950/ExCeL-London/ICC-Auditorium/Events

So, priced from £38,590 ... i make that approx. £86,410 clean profit PER success day just at the excel! (not counting the ones across the country) There appears to be one a month too.. so you guys can do the math!

They will have some expenses to account for (propaganda printed literature,flowers, balloons, sashes etc) and will likely be paying the Shill FL 'speakers' (= more money for them NOT made by duplicating the plan!) and perhaps some FL head office staff (and BOB) too if they aren't volunteers (or even worse, paying for the privilege of being there at a 'discount'!!) so obv will incur some expenses. I suppose there are the enviable yellow bags/suitcase giveaways though.. so that must cut into their profit loads....

Every sordid element of the business just reeks. I'm so pleased you managed to break away ray - be prepared to be shocked at what you are about to uncover...

mobiusgeek - When the UK government prosecuted 'Amway UK Ltd.' in 2007 for breaking trading schemes legislation, investigators had discovered that approximately one million UK and Irish citizens had been churned through the so-called 'Amway Income Opportunity' 1973-2006.

During the same period, 'Amway UK Ltd.' never once declared an annual trading profit. This chronically insolvent company had been kept afloat by regular cash injections ostensibly coming from 'Amway Europe' and 'Amway Korea', totalling many millions of stolen dollars.

Mysteriously, at no point in the UK court case did the prosecutors explain to the judge the real reason why the billionaire US-based bosses of the 'Amway' racket had been so keen to keep 'Amway UK Ltd.' afloat. The judge himself never bothered to ask. No UK journalist bothered to investigate.

The staggering truth (which both myself and Eric Scheibeler had personally explained to UK investigators in face to face meetings and documents) was that an estimated one billion dollars had been removed from the approximately one million transient UK and Irish 'Amway' adherents. This mostly came from allied advance fee frauds (i.e. the sale of endless publications, recordings, tickets to meetings, etc., on the pretext that these materials contained the secrets to achieving 'MLM' success). Furthermore, a lot of the profits from this vast foreign-controlled racket were collected in cash and exported out of the UK without any payment of tax, via a parallel labyrinth of US-controlled corporate structures.

The UK National Exhibition Centre had been regularly used by a front company called 'International Business Systems UK Ltd.' to host 'Amway' mass meetings which had each generated several millions dollars profit.

Two UK citizens, Jerry Scriven and Pat Gregory (and their wives, Many and Greta) had been collecting, and exporting, hundreds of millions of dollars to Dexter Yager in the USA, along with a handful of other UK and Irish 'Amway' under-bosses known as 'Diamond Distributors.'

I sent a large body of information to the UK Serious Fraud Office explaining exactly how the 'Amway' racket had functioned. I even gave the SFO the names of racketeers in the UK and USA. The only response I received from the SFO was a nonsensical standard scripted-claim that these matters did not fall under the remit of the SFO. When I persisted with my complaint, I was told not the contact the SFO again and that I was being a nuisance.

At that time, I predicted that the refusal of senior UK law enforcement agents to take aggressive action against the 'Amway' racketeers would be seen as a open invitation for other 'MLM ' racketeers to operate in the UK

I was even verbally warned by supportive employees of the Company Investigation Branch of the old Dept. of UK Trade and Industry, that my life might now be in danger and that I should not give my address to anyone.

Evidently, right now we have exactly what I predicted - the US-based bosses of 'FLP' and various other 'Amway' copy-cats running exactly the same profitable racket in the UK, whilst UK law enforcement agencies, mysteriously, continue to turn a blind eye.

The wife of the British 'Amway' racketeer whom I identified in my previous post, should have read Mandy Scriven.

The Scrivens, the Gregorys and other 'Diamonds' were excommunicated from 'Amway' in 2007 and their front-companies closed. The company officers of 'Amway UK Ltd.' committed pejury by pretending that all these 'Leaders' had been 'terminated' for breaking 'Amway rules and ethics code' regarding the sale of 'unauthorised motivation' materials, but that the company officers had previously been completely unaware of the 'Leaders' activities.

www.jerryandmandy.co.uk/

Since that time the Scrivens have maintained complaints on the Net in which they openly confess that the company officers of 'Amway UK Ltd.' had been fully aware, and active supporters, of their 'unauthorised motivation business' (for decades).

Re: Natalie's £600k cheque. I genuinely hope, for her sake, this is real money in legal tender that she will receive to perhaps offset against the negative net income shown on her 2014 accounts in company check. Again, just glad you were able to get out and thanks once more for coming forward, ray let's hope others can do the same. X

mobiusgeek - Right up until 2007, the Scrivens and the Gregorys were presented in the Amway propaganda in exactly the same way that the British 'FLP' shills are currently being presented.

Ordinary humans: turned superhumans (thanks to the 'step-by-step plan of duplication').

Jerry Scriven swanned around in an Aston Martin DB7.

Jerry Scriven and his wife (two former schoolteachers turned 'MLM' millionaires) were 'admired and respected Amway' role-models for my brother and his girlfriend (two deeply-dissatisfied schoolteachers). My brother even used to boast about his super 'leader's' super car (and how much it had cost).

If the 'FLP' front company ever comes under investigation in the UK, I will guarantee that the likes of super Emma and super Natalie will also be excommunicated for breaking the 'rules and code of ethics' - of course the bosses of 'FLP' will then be able to claim that Dave O'Connor's motivation scam has absolutely no connection with their own company.

This extensive list was compiled in 2010.

www.amquix.info/amway_exdiamonds.html

It comprises all the 'Amway' shills who had suddenly gone missing in action (upto that date), and whom the boses of the 'Amway' racket had been obliged to air-brush out of their '100% positive' Utopian fairy story.

As far as I know, no one has yet compiled a similar list of defunct/destitute 'FLP' shills, but it will be equally long.

Really interesting reading as usual. Quite disheartening but not unexpected to know that the SFO wasn't willing to act upon information handed over. It just shows again that everyone has an agenda, seemingly based on the most powerful lobbyists and profiteering.
Looking into old shills is something I've considered before as I thought it would lay bare some realities of the claims made. Seeing that Amway list shows just that and is inspiring.
(Puts on researchers hat and ambles out of the room).

ambler21 The former Deputy Director of the UK SFO, Peter Kiernan, had briefly represented 'Amway UK Ltd.' in 2007 when he worked for Eversheds LLP. Kiernan had also been the senior policy director at the SFO and formerly a Inland Revenue tax law specialist. Kiernan's final annual salary, when he was supposed to be protecting UK citizens at the SFO, was approximately £160 000. I don't know what he was paid at Eversheds to protect US-based racketeers.

uk.linkedin.com/in/peterkiernan

In 2007, Kiernan had a long one-sided telephone conversation with me, in which I clearly explained to him exactly what lurks behind 'Amway UK Ltd'. He did not dispute any part of my research and analysis, but I got the impression that he couldn't quite take it all in. This was despite the fact that Kiernan had also been challenged by Ivan Cooper, who was representing (as an insolvency practitioner) a former 'Amway Diamond' from Northern Ireland, Dave McCune.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Cooper

Ivan Cooper actually met with Kiernan and he'd told him in no uncertain terms what he thought of him.

About 10 days after I spoke to him, Kiernan resigned from Eversheds and told the legal press that it was over a question of 'policy.' He then went to work for Crowell and Moring LLP as a 'Partner' in its London Office.

When the 'Amway' prosecution failed in 2008, I called Kiernan again and asked him how much he was being paid at Crowell and Moring and if he could explain why he was now working for a law firm with connections to 'Amway' in the USA?

Kiernan told me that I was impertinent to ask him his salary and claimed to be unaware of any connection between Crowell and Moring and 'Amway.'

At that time, Crowell and Moring had a declared annual turnover internationally of approximately $230 millions, and its partners were each on approximately $650 thousands profit-sharing in addition to their annual salaries. In other words, Kiernan was almost certainly being paid more than one million $ annually.

Crowell and Moring had been long-time attorneys for 'Blackwater' in the USA, a company (connected to the CIA) ostensibly instigated by Erik Prince who is the brother of Betsy DeVos (wife of Dick Devos, one of the Big 'Amway' bosses).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince

Even when this extraordinary, and deeply-disturbing, connection was explained to him, Kiernan still claimed ignorance.

At this point, I asked Kiernan how it was possible that someone so naive, and apparently ignorant of key information, could have once been the Deputy Director of the UK SFO?

Kiernan finally lost his cool and falsely accused me of 'ranting,' before he hung up like a naughty little kid caught nicking sweets.

By a very weird coincidence, Kiernan then worked for 'Axiom' which was the name I'd chosen for my own company to publish my pamphlet on cultism.

www.linkedin.com/company/axiom_law?trk=ppro_cprof

Dexter Yager is just one of the grotesque little American gangsters who have played the roles of ordinary men: turned 'MLM' supermen.

Yager received hundreds of millions of stolen dollars deriving from approximately one million UK, and Irish, 'Amway' adherents( including members of my family). However, for decades, Yager has been receiving mountains of cash stolen from all over the world, but he's almost certainly a front himself.

Mr. Peter Kiernan was once paid stolen money to protect Yager's UK racket from investigation. There were various other staff members at Eversheds who were far more deeply inlvolved in protecting the 'Amway racket, but with whom I never communicated.

Until Ivan Cooper and I spoke to him, Peter Kiernan was (probably) just another useful 'MLM' idiot who hadn't the beginnings of a clue who, or what, was actually lurking behind 'Amway UK Ltd.'

The above Yager link doesn't seem to work.

Wow. Some of those connections are astonishing.
Blackwater.............. Well.... It's surely an understatement when you talk of this as an extraordinary, and deeply disturbing coincidence.
I can now see why the advice to shield your address would not be taken as a throw away comment.
The further one looks down this MLM rabbit hole the more surreal it gets. The intro to your blog that talks of a modern-day totalitarian labyrinth seems increasingly apt to me.

ambler21 Thank-you - this is also why (due to its global scale and largely unopposed infiltration of traditional culture) I have described 'MLM' racketeering as being undoubtedly the most-widespread, and significant, development of the cult/totalitarian phenomenon since WWII.

History teaches us that totalitarianism itself is enduring, but its camouflage is ephemeral.

Some people (including myself) have described 'MLMs' as behaving like computer viruses (for the human mind). However, 'MLM' is merely another strain of the age-old totalitarian cancer (but this time, disguised as all-American capitalisim) which has been allowed to gnaw its way into the heart of not only the American republic, but countless democracies around the world. It's got to the stage now where 'MLM' cancers have become too big, and pervasive, to cut them all out without damaging their hosts.

Unfortunately, as soon as I start to offer a much deeper analysis of the cult/totalitarian phenomenon, I'm usually accused of being (or sounding like) a 'whacky conspiracy theorist.' However, nothing could be further from the truth, because cults, and totalitarian regimes, themselves, are controlled by a form of conspiracy theory. Most people don't seem to recognise the difference between an inflexible conspiracy theorist (controlled by a non-rational fiction) and someone rationally trying to point out how easy it is to control people by presenting a dualist ('negative vs positive', 'good vs evil') totalitarian fiction, as fact.

Intelligence agencies themselves have used essentially the same co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion which identify criminogenic cults and totalitarian regimes. Intelligence agencies also hide behind labyrinths of apparently independent corporate structures in order to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate their real bosses from liability.

It's no coincidence that modern day Intelligence agencies copied the hermetic structures used by traditional fraternal secret societies, and by ancient religious/military orders, to establish and protect their own networks.

I understand why many people react negatively to questioning of the status quo. It's often easier, in psychological terms, not to rock the boat. The human mind craves order and apparent certainty. As I'm sure you're well aware there are many psychological studies which show the lengths people will go to to eliminate cognitive dissonance. Also, to put it bluntly, if something actually is conspiratorial in nature anyone who talks about it is bound to sound like a conspiracy theorist
It's also a very valid point you make about many modern institutions protecting themselves with very ancient and well trodden systems.

ambler21 - Well observed. In my experience, most people don't want to look too deeply at cults, unless they encounter one via a friend or relative, and become determined to find out the full truth. However, there are some people affected by cults who absolutely refuse to accept the full truth

Casually suggesting that anyone might fall victim to a cult, is very similar to saying that anyone might fall victim to cancer.

Have you read my essay: 'A common-sense approach to cultism?'

I published this more than 10 years ago.

In it, I explain how, in order to have any chance of understanding cultism fully, we need to be able to abandon our own self-deceptions supporting our own view of ourselves. It was a soul destroying experience with members of my own family which forced me to abandon most of mine. Prior this, I would have been the last person on Earth to have decided to engage in an in-depth study of cults.