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

[CheekySmile]

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

This book was recommended in Merchants of Deception, if you want to help someone to escape the brainwahing caused by mlm scams.
www.amazon.com/Releasing-Bonds-Empowering-People-Themselves/dp/0967068800

Anyone have any info about a person being off work sick but actively selling FL?

penny1ane: Many thx for your contribution! as stated, we'd appreciate any info you have. I'd like to know the cost of the "system" (success days, trainings etc) and, only if you feel happy to do so of course, please give any examples that might help others? Glad you got out in one piece tho. You wrote:
"I did get sucked in for a while though. It's hard not to. We all wish for the best in life and when you are told by so many other flpers that you can create the life you dream of you start to believe it. They did it and they are there to help you do it!!"
They probably are not "doing it". They are lying to you and themselves that they make money... See Merchants of Deception et al

lastuser123 wrote "and also thanks to Eyes for giving us the depth and breadth of his knowledge"
I'd also shout-out to eyespying (on the other FL thread). Very informative. (He has been personally hurt by Amway and that does show through though!)
Another relevant link is one of the very first Amway exposes, Amway the Untold Story. Mirror at: amway.robinlionheart.com/
The "comments" files are amazing; those who realise they were scammed support Mr Schwartz and those still in parrot the spiel (its an old site, late 90s but FL is Amway cloned so still relevant!)

We're a chatty lot today, over 900 posts now. Time to start thinking of another Google friendly thread title

Penny1ane welcome and glad you didn't get in too deep. I joined fl a few years ago. Thankfully I didn't get in too deep, (though I do have about £350 of products at home) and a bit of debt on my credit card, which I'm slowly paying off. (I'm sure any fl people reading this will think that won't happen to them as they won't be as stupid as me) but when you need to get your 4cc and you haven't recruited anyone that month, you soon end up buying products (unless you a fab aloe salesperson and have lots of customers) I had a few customers and a small team but it wasn't enough.

I totally get what you mean about feeling like a vulture. I always felt I had to be thinking and chatting about forever when I was out and about. It made me feel really stressed. I just didn't feel it was right to be putting the business on someone I barely knew (and also to my good friends).

I do believe (maybe I'm still being naive) that the top people in Forever are earning a lot of money ie EC, NH, JL etc but at what price? I noticed that EC has achieved over 12.5k cc this year, that's going to earn her a very large cheque in SA in April. But remember when you break it down, approx 1000 people will get cheques in April but there are over 10 million business owners in the world, the percentage at the top is tiny

Just thinking the same thing, panties

I'm still waiting for the first TV success day.
Maybe next Friday mid afternoonish?
Not sure whether you are all free but family commitments may need to be put on hold if you REALLY want to succeed.

rayofhope if they are earning those cheques, then where is it in their company accounts? In the Merchants of Deception it turned out that there was serious fraud being committed. Signing up people to sell when they are on the sick or telling them lies about declaring their business to HMRC doesn't give me a lot of faith. Even if my mother puts £100 in my personal account my accountant jumps on it, 'what is that and where is it from?' And we know that giant cardboard cheques are meaningless, they are only for show.
Penny1ane don't feel bad about it, cults like this prey on smart, charismatic people as it helps them to make the illusion look more convincing.

I'm not completely against forever.
Some of the products are OK. They are not the best and are overpriced but that just makes it a challenge for an enthusiastic salesman.
Although recruitment will always be the main goal in flp there are some people I know and know of that only sell the products. They had achieved assistant manager and manager levels using the products in their current business ie beautician, pt and gym owner.
They had no interest in the business model but liked the products and promoted them while adding to their income each month.
I'm not sure whether they continued to promote the products though because the market always changes.
I think the clean 9 was one of the most googled diet last year so that must have sold loads.
I do believe that the earnings some reps boast about are closely accurate. Of course they don't include business expenses etc but where's the glam in that.
I think if you build a good business with forever by not only recruiting people to recruit, but also recruit business's to promote the products the money will build up.
Before forever I had already studied and worked hard to build a life for myself and my family that we would be happy with.
Not rich, not poor, but a good balanced work and home life to be proud of.
The reason I joined forever was not for riches, not for the range rover or free holidays. They offered me the chance to match my income and work half the hours I do. That sounded great as I would be able to enjoy more time with the family.
However, when I realised that it would take a hell of a lot of work to only just maybe reach that point I left.
I didn't think it was fair on myself or family to give up our most valuable time together while they are young to go to meetings, success days etc.
The only real loss I made was my time.
I did enjoy some of the experience and met some nice people.
I just didn't like what I was becoming and what I could become.
Any money earn was spent on
Products for personal use
Products for a pupp box
1-1 brochures
Some training and success days
Cups of coffee for potential recruits

I had 10 people in my team all of which pursued other careers.

Welcome Penny1ane, Im glad you are ok and read with interest your views. My SIL has got involved with Fl, not sure how far she has got, but dont think she has reached manager yet as it would have been announced. I brought some of the heat lotion from her and the deodorant when she first started last March. I got a pm from her yesterday saying "Im putting in an order later, shall I pop you a heat lotion and deodorant on for you, so you dont run out during the festive season?" I was so annoyed with her for being so pushy. I sent her an abrupt message telling her "I dont need any heat lotion and I dont like the deodorant, so, no, I dont want anything popping on an order form". Havnt heard back from her yet. I know they are told to do this, but dont they realise they just brass people off by being so pushy? They really need to change their training ways. FL has now got such a bad name because of this. I think it makes people very materialistic and makes them become show offs and braggers, but they are trainedto become like this and it is so wrong. I wish you well and it is always refreshing to hear from people like you, I reallydo admire you for coming on this thread and sharing your experiences with us.

I've been following this thread for a while as one of my friends has recently become involved with FL. She signed up with them in September and she's changed so much, in fact she's become quite distant which is a shame.

She used to have a good job with good career prospects. She quit that job within a few months of beginning FL and is now unemployed and completely sucked in. She has all these new 'friends' who encourage her to grow her 'business' and her Facebook is full of boastful updates about how fantastic her life is. It is worrying because since she's joined FL, she doesn't seem to care about her old friends who know her well. Many of them have become alienated from her as she kept pushing her products on them.

Every conversation we have is about FL and how happy she is/how great the products are/how she needs an outfit for Success Day etc. She gave me a small pouch of free samples (none of which impressed me) and I think she's a bit annoyed that I didn't order anything. Recently a member of my family was hospitalised because they have severe bowel disease and she started harping on about how one of her aloe products could drastically improve, or even cure it It's delusional - who needs modern medicine when we have FL?!

It's amazing how a company like this can prey on people and completely change them. A year ago, she was career minded and things looked good for her. Now she's brainwashed and is using her friends and family to make money. She tried to recruit me but I said from the start it's too good to be true. If being part of FL was that life changing and brilliant, everyone would just quit their job and join.

Unfortunately you are encouraged to do
your 4cc's a month so some are more than willing to scrape the barrel and push the products on existing customers. You're on her list, there's no escape now!!
I only ever had a few customers. I don't think I was great at selling the products. The price used to put me off.
Customers would always mention the price and I would always deliver the line " but these are the Rolls Royce of the health and beauty market "
I stole that line, I rather liked it at the time.
I never really had any interest in flp once I left. I was happy to continue with what I was already doing.
It has only been recently that there seems to be a recruitment boom with young mums that it is all over fb.
I was happy to see the odd post and would make me cringe a little to think I also posted a few things on fb.
What got my attention was the fact all the flp reps were creating new titles. Business coach, life mentor, recruitment specialist, the list went on. I found myself playing a little game to see if I could work out if they were flp reps before clicking on their page.
That's when I thought " forever living is annoying "
So I typed into Google " forever living annoying " and found amongst many other sites discussing the same thing, this one.
It's funny how things have changed. Maybe one day they will be more about the products? Ha, who am I kidding :-)

Just to add, I do enjoy doing other things than playing my flp game.
I am getting good at it though and is very addictive.
My scores are high but get caught out the odd time with a life coach that is a "life coach"
Who'd have thought people actually do that?

Welcome Penny, glad to hear you escaped!

Cheeky, she must be officially a corpse then. 2kg isn't much unless it's on her.

In other news: I have a Twatter follower in the form of NH. What to post....

"Lifechanger!" I've just been a bit sick in my mouth .

There is definitely a shift away from mentioning FL on fb. Looking at NH's and EC's fb pages, it is virtually impossible to spot the words "forever living". Lots of Global Business Coach/Owner though. MLM Professional, that's a new one, somewhat of an oxymoron imo.

You're not gonna sign anyone up at all are you, if you tell them straight away, that the 'amazing opportunity' is to pay £200 for a box of rather nasty looking toiletries that you are expected to sell at luxury department store prices. Dress it all up as a coaching business, pretend you're some kind of executive. Try playing a little game with them, try to get them to tell you what the 'amazing opportunity' is on the public part of their page. Make excuses about viewing the video/ adding them as friends. Ask them directly. They will not tell you. They will not give you a straight answer.
I also note there is quite a bit of passive agressive defensiveness about criticism, now. We are dream stealers, we don't understand the business, we are jealous, uneducated, lazy, passive, etc, etc. Was it Jayne Leech who said, 'go swivel?' Did we touch a raw nerve, there, Jayne? Good.

Exactly, sminky. No wonder they have to create and attend 'success days' though. They have to find some way of keeping up and infecting fl-bots with the almost religious fervour to keep them trying and striving to emulate NH and EC et al. That and the daily 'motivational brainwashing sessions first thing every morning, plus the CDs, books and other paraphernalia fl-bots feel obliged to spend their own money on. Con, Con, Con!

I quite liked the success days. Part of it felt like a big party. They had loud music for guest speakers to walk on to while people were cheering. It almost felt like a real awards ceremony.
Then the music would stop and someone would talk about their "journey" with forever.
I have to say the best bit was the loud music. Some guest speakers chose some good songs to walk on to.
Maybe if they kept the songs running and had no speakers it would have been more enjoyable :-)

Why not buy a ticket for a pop concert?

Haha. I was intrigued by all the buzz that is around the success day.
It was a " you have to go, it's amazing "
I think though once you have been to one the rest are all the same.

I was told by quite a few of my upline that people who were successful always went to success days. After all they were managers and had gone to every one since they joined. And also to go to all the trainings for the products. I didn't get to them all as I have a young family and didn't feel it was right to leave them.

i think people are drawn to EC as she's only been doing it 2 years and is at the top so this 'proves' to a lot that you didn't have to join years ago to be successful

An excerpt about seminars from Merchants of Deception: the buzz is deliberate, all part if the smaoke, lights and mirrors to keep you interested and keep buying aloe shite and keep you recruited.