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MLM bot watch - Discussion of the network marketing companies Forever Living, Herbal Life, Juice Plus etc as a pyramid scheme or scam

982 replies

CheekySmile · 11/11/2015 19:19

Continuing the discussion of the various network marketing schemes or multi-level marketing schemes (MLMs) that people we know are involved in.

If you have a bot of your own then join us and share what they are saying!

Or if you are researching a company before signing up to be a network marketer please take a look at the previous bot watch thread and also this thread which delves deeper into the workings of MLMs.

And don't forget our very own MN MLM Timeless Vie!
www.facebook.com/timelessvie
www.twitter.com/timelessvie

OP posts:
Thread gallery
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Bovnydazzler · 21/11/2015 07:47

The Younique compensation plan makes my head spin... All that effort for really, not a lot. Also emphasis that you have to keep making high personal sales, surely there is a finite amount of mascaras your personal network would want...

www.slideshare.net/mobile/wendyfreden/understanding-youniques-compensation-plan

SocksRock · 21/11/2015 07:49

My bot is coming for dinner with her husband next week. Bringing samples.

She also knows I'm currently SAHM and our finances are tight because of this.

I can't wait to see what spiel she comes out with!

CheekySmile · 21/11/2015 08:03

I'd imagine all Younique bots are doing this, but my bot wants me to tag myself in her photo so that it appears on my friends' timelines and then they know to order something from her for me for Christmas.

No thanks.

Oooh Socks! Yay! Is it FL?

MLM bot watch - Discussion of the network marketing companies Forever Living, Herbal Life, Juice Plus etc as a pyramid scheme or scam
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ihearttea · 21/11/2015 09:02

Considering the magical healing properties of aloe, my FL bot posts a lot of status updates complaining how she's ill/ tired/ run down (in between all the #ad posts!). I always have to fight the overwhelming urge to suggest she drinks some aloe gel & munches on some bee pollen!

CheekySmile · 21/11/2015 10:17

Wow Bovny I know a complicated payment system is a classic MLM feature, but Younique's is super-complicated. But, true to form, the emphasis is on recruiting, not sales. Why, oh why, does this not ever scream PYRAMID SCHEME!!! (I know why, I'm just frustrated!)

OP posts:
sminkypink · 21/11/2015 11:36

Just wonder if the likes on Which? Magazine would be interested. Have been reading some of the 1* reviews on FL Facebook page. There is rather a lot of illegal prescribing going on isn't there?
Apparently the bee pollen products can be dangerous, as can the arginine, for certain medical conditions. But there seems to be only training to revruit more bots, they don't seem to know anything about the problems the products can cause. Then there was the woman, who is allergic to caffeine, sold the clean 9 diet, which contains caffeine, it made her rather ill. She had to go to the doctors. I think the pyramid scheme is one thing, but pushing these products as medicines and dishonesty about their benefits is another. We even see this with products such as Salad Master, the way they tell you your pans are poisoning your family, that only their pans will give you nutritional benefits, it seems to be a common thread through all of these MLMs, the scare tactics and the dishonesty about the health benefits. Even the dishonesty ( in the case of FL) about how 'natural' these products are. I've avoided parabens, silicones, sls for years. Most FL products are packed full of chemicals.

CandyCaneCottage · 21/11/2015 12:27

Wrapping my head around the payment structure. The bots and real company say to be your own boss but by that slide you have to be on the second or third tier to "own your own company" so sole traders don't count huh?. Besides from what I can tell:

Once you get to green or green elite or whatever:

-you buy the products and get a measly amount of "commission" back so it's like your buying it on sale, the higher the level the more "commission" but you have to buy more

  • then as you move up the tiers you need not only more recruiters, BUT everyone on average has to sell more
  • then if you are successful you get penalised as you lose your best salespersons income until they get a decent sales person, but I believe you still need to get the same amount or more in sales. And you get paid less commission %.
  • once they get a good salesperson then you take their commission, until they get a salesperson.

That's where it starts getting confusing for me on the first read. The thing is you can get to the top black tier but you restart on basically the first real tier each month so you depend on your recruits, and your recruits recruits staying in business and hitting targets and just one casualty (assuming you could build up that network in the first place) in your downline that has a bad month selling or goes the MLM equivalent of going nuclear and quits you're screwed. And you haven't anticipated this because you were the top tier last month so your base expenditure was $500 on the products when in fact you needed to spend only $300 so you're an unexpected $200 already.

I mean sure it's a numbers game, it's essentially gambling like roulette you gamble on yourself (1 person) you as one person can generally make only so much (betting on all numbers apart from 1 or 2)

Then you get some one else, you're a brilliant seller but are they you now have 50% chance to make more money but your outgoings have to go up regardless in anticipation.

You get 4 recruits that's 20% risk on every recruit being a good seller, and again more expenditure.

For some reason your best recruits earnings don't go towards your earnings, but you still have to buy the stock ( at normal price) and sell to them to give more money to the person who made you money.

Until essentially the top tier i think is your recruits have recruits, so 4* people with another 4 people that's 17 people all with a 5.88% responsibility for your income BUT it's not because your "first generation" recruit is responsible for about 25% of your chance to make a living (them plus their 4 recruits)

BUT WAIT just thinking about it whilst writing I believe you lose your recruit until they get a recruit or something which is a newbie so can't be expected to have the already sales experience or know how so you are exchanging a seller with a downline that makes you money, for somebody with no downline and 0 sales to their name.

And I'm not sure if on one level it depends on your recruits, recruits, recruit which adds an extra 16 people who you have to hope perform and don't leave, with their downline. So at that stage they all have a 3.3% responsibility with some more important others.

Everyone has bills and in a way lives to their means but you could so easily be top tier one month and back to the lowest green the next, making little money and considering they are your friends and family, you would consider most would live in a similar area so really you're all buying the products yourself because you have to hit a certain amount of pre sales buys or whatever they call them (taking money away from the downline in the process) and essentially mass marketing hoarding mostly the same people

acatcalledjohn · 21/11/2015 12:33

Candy, that hurts my head. I'm quite an intelligent person, and that to me is absolutely gobbledygook.

Then again, that is the purpose of it.

At the same time: If a business model is so very complicated that you don't understand it, why on earth would you join (just taking the 'fake it till you make it' pressure out of the equation)?

I suppose the lure of ££££££, trips abroad at your own cost, and a white Land Rover, is just too much to resist.

acatcalledjohn · 21/11/2015 12:43

Bee Pollen are to be avoided in pregnancy, Smike. However, we did have someone on one of the previous threads (possibly pre TV) who had a bot tell her it was safe in pregnancy.

I did go through an ingredient list of a certain Fl product (can't remember which) and it was all pretty legit stuff I was most disappointed, from the more natural side of the chemical world.

I'm keeping a quiet eye on my bot's event today. So far I have seen two cancellations, though they were from the 'interested' list.

acatcalledjohn · 21/11/2015 12:46

Smike? Sminky. Sorry.

Tiredemma · 21/11/2015 12:48

One of my bots is en route to London to see Mindset Master Dave!!!! Car full of bots. No kids in tow. will update.....

acatcalledjohn · 21/11/2015 12:52

Can you imagine the buzzing in the car afterwards?

It'd be like a mobile beehive buzzing with buzzwords.

sminkypink · 21/11/2015 13:26

acatcalledjohn I was looking that the ingredients list on one of the shampoos. I usually use Faith in Nature for my hair. I wouldn't clean the toilet with this one. Full of all the usual gunk, parabens, silicones etc
.

CandyCaneCottage · 21/11/2015 14:31

i am working on writing it all down and doing math i am on green elite at the moment and it is getting confusing talking about company sales i took it as just a bonus, i don't know if i've included them in the figures so far or if they are saying that its another bonus and apparently if you get one green recruit whilst you're green, you get 3% on them but 30% on the rest seems a bit OTT especially as they're encouraging you to get everyone green (which i interpret as them going back to 3% for each.

CandyCaneCottage · 21/11/2015 14:36

i've gotta say, whilst i was a marketing student, i did some finance modules so whilst i don't pretend to be an expert i know a little and admittedly i haven't done anything in a while this just seems a head fuck but i will get it conquered over the weekend

bunchedpanties · 21/11/2015 15:39

Logging a timelessvie request for after Christmas before I forget. I predict an onslaught of clean 9 posts as the bots target the post Christmas fattys like myself. Can we rip that overpriced shit apart please with some real facts. I'll chip in to boost a FB post Grin

stopfaffing · 21/11/2015 15:57

Just checking EC's fb page and see a comment from a fl-bot about not attending the latest success day rally that EC has organised today "Wish I was there. I'm going to go & do a bit of Christmas shopping though today & try my hand at a bit of contact marketing! Need to get my cc's up if I'm gonna make it to Coops castle"

This is precisely why we have to have the truth told Angry.

Annie65 · 21/11/2015 16:43

Stopfaffing, that is so patronising of EC. Its Queen Emma saying "If you are good girls and boys, and work harder to get me higher up the pyrimid I will allow you into my ( rented) Castle, you will be one of the chosen ones. FFS get a grip. Hmm

Tiredemma · 21/11/2015 18:03

All the bots I know who are madly plugging C9 as we speak are quite morbidly obese

xenu1 · 21/11/2015 18:12

candycanecottage thanks for your efforts to decipher the Younique payment maze! Appreciated!

My only comment is on this: "then as you move up the tiers you need not only more recruiters, BUT everyone on average has to sell more"

Replace "sell" by "purchase for their own use or to store" for accuracy. No-one really retails in MLMs...

SocksRock · 21/11/2015 18:21

My dinner party bot is Younique! Next Thursday... Maybe she can explain the payment structure...

bettyberry · 21/11/2015 22:51

Tiredemma mine is too. It's certainly not a glowing report for its effects.

It does scream desperation though. Along the lines of the detox foot pads that change colour due to sweat not actually detoxing you. Clean 9 offers a quick fix without actually doing anything positive.

acat that was me. On several sites (boots, NHS, Mayo clinic) the advice was not to use bee pollen during pregnancy because it is not considered safe. Basically those with asthma and hayfever/pollen based allergies can suffer nasty reactions and/or asthma attacks but also those who don't have allergies can have problems too. Honey is different because it's the processed pollen and a very different product to bee pollen. (This was from my GP) Quick google screenshot too.

MLM bot watch - Discussion of the network marketing companies Forever Living, Herbal Life, Juice Plus etc as a pyramid scheme or scam
Beeswax2017 · 22/11/2015 07:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CheekySmile · 22/11/2015 08:24

Stopfaffing I've just seen that my bot was at EC's day yesterday. Yet another trip to London and a day away from her kids. Her status starts:

Working on your mindset is like washing. You need to do it daily!

I so want to comment about the fact she's spent the day washing her brain...

OP posts:
acatcalledjohn · 22/11/2015 12:02

My bot has posted pics of her event. Thing is, not a single one of them feature people. I'm sure they were taken at set up stage, but still.

Cheeky, my fingers would be itching too. She's right though, washing of the brain needs to be done daily in order for it to work.

Emma, any news from the Mindset Mastery brainwashing trip?

Betty, I remember now. I think I gave you a link and you then threatened to kill your bot and blame it on hormones. Did you ever get round to that?