'FL / MLM' Thread 3

[Eyespying]

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

I did a search on ebay for Clarins and Body Shop and found far more products.

We're not encouraged to buy lots of stock, in fact we're always being told how little you need to do a party.
I buy extra when I do fayres and events but you can do sale or return on it if you wish to.

NYR is only linked to other MLMs because it's signed up to abide by DSA rules. I am not being sucked into a cult, I'm selling aromatherapy oils, face cream and make up.

I'll alert my family to your email though should they have any cause for concern in the future.

WrenNatsworthy Might I ask you, what exactly do believe so-called 'DSA's' to be?

i.e.

What is the legal identity of the so-called 'UK Direct Selling Association?'

(Despite its official-sounding name it's actually registered as a privately-controlled, limited-liability, commercial company).

How has the so-called 'UK DSA' actually been financed?

(It's been largely financed by a percentage of profits stolen from a never ending-chain comprising millions of UK citizens, by US-based 'MLM' racketeers).

Who has actually controlled the very specific wording of the so-called 'UK DSA's' rules?

(These rules were written by board members of the so-called 'World Federation of Direct Selling Associations' i.e. US-based 'MLM' racketeers including members of the DeVos and Van Andel crime families)

Who actually has enforced these 'DSA' rules?

(No one , because the idea that 'MLM' companies are lawful, and ethical, commercial enterprises which have been self-regulated, has been just another reality-inverting chapter in the overall 'MLM income opportunity' fairy story).

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By the way, I spent several hours interviewing a man who resigned as Director of the 'UK DSA' in protest at 'Herbalife' being allowed membership, back in the late 1980s. More than 20 years later, this guy is still genuinely scared that he could be sued for breach of contract if he tells the truth publicly.

And thank you for crediting me with some intelligence

A women I went to university with has recently given up teaching to become a 'full time FL consultant'

Through Facebook she's worked out that I must be due back at work soon after maternity leave. Yesterday she started messaging me (first time since leaving uni 5 years ago!) and trying to recruit me to her team. Sorry I mean 'share a fantastic business opportunity'.

I know all about FL and Herbalife so saw her coming a mile off, but how manipulative can you get! Actually targeting parents who are due to finish maternity leave, may be feeling anxious etc.

Messages started by pretending to make small talk. 'How are your children?' 'Are you still teaching?'

She told me that she was 'helping Mums who wanted to change jobs and work around their children' bla, bla, bla...

I mean just because you've jacked your job in to spend your days harassing your friends and family over FB doesn't mean I'm going to join you! You can feel the desperation just dropping off of these people.

As far as I'm aware, the DSA was formed in order to regulate direct selling companies behaviour.

I can see that you're looking at the bigger picture here.

I believe that NYR conducts it's business with integrity.

If it stops doing so, then I will stop selling it.

WrenNatsworthy 'Intelligence' is not a word I usually employ in connection with anyone.

I would, however, say that you appear to be a well-educated (and thoughtful) person who should be capable of understanding that any individual's levels of psychological/ intellectual development, can be restricted, and even regressed, by his/her instinctual desire to justify his/her previous behaviour and protect his/her self-esteem/ego and related psychological function.

In more simple terms, once you've fooled a person who prefers to believe that he/she cannot be fooled, self-evidently, it is then very difficult (if not impossible) for that person to face the truth (even when it is staring him/her in the face).

Such persons make perfect targets for con-artists and cults.

In this instance, the ego-destroying truth (which apparently you have already accepted) is that, despite what you might have previously been led to believe, all the worst 'MLM' cults remain fully-paid up members of so-called 'DSAs' all over the world; for the so-called 'DSAs' have actually been a significant reality-inverting layer of the mystifying corporate labyrinths controlled by the bosses of all the worst 'MLM' cults.

The so-called 'DSA' rules might as well not exist; for when you pass any law, but then fail to enforce it, you effectively authorise the very crime(s) you apparently sought to prohibit.

Clever.

No matter how I reply I'm in the situation where whatever my response I'll look like I've fallen for the cult master plan.

I don't know, but I'd surmise that it would be difficult to run an MLM without having some links with the DSA. I agree that MLM has a shady history. If I went and got a job in Boots, Asda, Primark etc I'd have to sell products made by companies whose ethics I dislike.

Wikaniko are another company who are attempting to direct sell ethically. I don't believe that they are all the same.

Like I said before, if I'm proved wrong, I'll find another company's products to use in my treatments once I'm qualified. I'll leave the discussion there, as I spend enough time at my laptop working (on both my businesses) and I'd like to get out for a while as I have given myself a day off.

www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/working-childcare-692/working-yourself-self-employed-76/wfy-self-employed-chat-clubs-501/1355149-fl-distributors-out-there.html

Found this while looking for the other thread mentioned. Be interesting reading the replies.

sounds like another victim :(

dang.

I have been reading the fl policies. I couldnt believe if the flbots spouse has nothing to do with fl, they have to abide with fls policies, if they dont the flbot could be terminated. Whatever happened to free-will. So if my hubby joined fl (which would never happen), and I wasnt involved with it at all, I would be told to behave in a certain way. This could cause such a lot of trouble , I dont know if this applies to other members of the family.

Annie65 - These are all standard clauses in take-it-or-leave-it 'MLM' contracts. They usually cover everyone close to adherents, who might be present during attempts to recruit, and who might speak out or complain.

If you read the contracts, they are so worded, and one-sided, that, in effect, 'MLM' racketeers can suddenly take away any de facto slave adherent's so-called 'independent business,' on almost any pretext.

The same exclusion rules apply in more directly religious cults where adherents are always given the 'choice' between their 'negative' loved ones and the group

When I objected to my bother's involvement with 'Amway,' he became angry with me, because he feared his 'business' would be terminated due to the fact that he had a dangerous 'negative' influence in his family. My mother (who was acting under the influence of my brother and his handlers) told me that I would be disinherited and disowned if I 'continued to damage not just my brother's business, but also the businesses of millions of Amway Distributors, around the world.'

When I went to the UK government and filed complaints about 'Amway', I was duly disinherited by my mother and told that I would be arrested if I went near her home and that I needed psychiatric help.

In 'Amway' and other MLM cults, men have also been forbidden to grow beards or to present the opportunity unless they are smartly dressed and groomed and followed the recruitment script to the letter. Similarly the women have been obloged to use the group's makeup and wear skirts or dresses, not pants or jeans. At one time, it was widely-forbidden for women to 'present the opportunity' in 'Amway.' They had to stand and smile, and lamely nod in agreement with their man as though they understood every word he recited.

Ironically, some of the big bosses of 'Amway' (like Dexter Yager) themselves had beards, but adherents never seemed to notice this fact; whilst this type of Orwellian double standard (one rule for the pig leaders and another for the animals) has been common to all cults and totalitarian regimes.

Annie65 - I should have said that these are all standard clauses linked to 'MLM' contracts, because 'MLM policies, rules and codes' appear in separate lengthy documents referred to in the contracts and which can be subsequently produced by 'MLM' racketeers as part of the contracts.

Thus, an 'MLM' contract might say something to the effect that on pain of termination of the contract, signatories agree to abide by all the sponsoring company's published 'rules, policies, codes of ethics etc.' However, the detail of these 'rules, policies, codes of ethics etc.' doesn't actually appear on the contracts; whilst virtually no would-be 'MLM' millionaire has bothered to read what they are actually agreeing to, because this is so vast and mystifying and can also be modified without consulting them.

I think it's clear from your blog, your posts and your book that you don't believe that there can ever be an ethical way to Direct Sell. I am in disagreement. Take a look at Wikaniko.

I tend to dip in and out of Mumsnet, and it's the school holidays! I maintain that I am not an idiot, despite your passionate, and very long, post, trying to convince me otherwise.

I may pop back to this thread in September but for now I need to enjoy some time offline.

WrenNatworthy - At no time have I suggested that you are an 'idiot.' On the contrary, I have been politely pointing you in the direction of an unthinkable truth and inviting you to apply your critical and evaluative faculties.

In my experience, people and organizations who constantly claim to be 'ethical and honest,' are invariably anything but. Someone as feisty as you, should already know this?

Eyespying, are you researching MLM or something? Your posts read oddly, the references to your blog and answering peoples questions seems like you're setting yourself up as an expert- spouting anti-MLM propaganda the way you're doing just makes me not want to listen, as you're not actually discussing.

After receiving your enquiry eh? Wren just asked a question from her point of view, it's not a formal request for your expertise.

WrenNatworthy - At no time have I suggested that you are an 'idiot.' On the contrary, I have been politely pointing you in the direction of an unthinkable truth and inviting you to apply your critical and evaluative faculties No, you've been shoving your opinion at her.

I happen to like NYR, and quite often buy off people like wren as I don't have a shop nearby, and it saves postage charges.

How do you plan to stop MLM? What is your great plan to help stop all these suckers buying into the next get rich quick scheme? Because there'll always be someone willing to "invest".

Micah - Clearly, I have not been offering an opinion. I've been offering an evidence-based analysis which WrenNatsworthy can choose to heed if she wants. However, you are now shoving your opinion at me. Where's your evidence?

Spy, its funny you should say about not being able to wear jeans and joggy pants at their seminars and business days, because its on fls policy too. Makes me laugh its that ridiculous. It was really interesting reading the policy, and I think less people would get involved if they read it first. It would take too long to go into everything, and its very complicated, but it does open your eyes. I personally wouldnt touch it with a bargepole.

I've lurked for a while: is that Stella and Dot jewellery one in a similar vein to arbonne/ FL?

Annie65 All these 'rules, policies and codes' have been designed surreptitiouly to take over as much of the 'MLM' adherents thought-processes and related-activities as possible.

In cults, everything and everyone in a core-adherent's life becomes systematically categorised as 'negative' or 'positive'.

In the most chronic cases of 'MLM' adherence, victims have quite literally thought about their group, and unconciously attempted to further its bosses' hidden criminal objectives, at every-waking moment.

My FLBot posts really cringy shit like "Two ladies in the gym this morning didn't believe my lashes were real!" with a picture of her (completely unremarkable) eyelashes and her Sonya mascara...or, her favourite (seriously, I've lost count of how many times this one has been posted) "Why of course lovely checkout lady in M&S, I'd love to show you my ID to prove I'm over 21 and actually 30...I drink my daily aloe". Snore.

Liked the S&D official vid, thx. Looks like new "business owners" have to stump up $400 to get in. Who cares if they never sell anything if you can charge ~£250 just to join?