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

[CheekySmile]

Still 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 an MLM bot of your own then join us and share their claims and content.

Or if you are researching a company before signing up to be a network marketer please take a look at the previous threads here and here 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
www.timelessvie.wordpress.com

TV now has about 420 likes and one post earlier today has had over 2000 views. It's good fun. It's a different style of engagement with the problem. Some might not read what David writes as he's very detailed but they might find time for some amateur attempts at satire. All working to the same end - exposure of these economic cults.

My Herbal Life bot was beside herself posting a photo showing a This Morning presenter with a HL shake in her hand! Then she had to get back to day 2 of her 30-day 'internal' challenge and day 4 of her 90-day 'external' challenge. They were both making her feel marvellous and hopeful for 2016. Only two comments when I looked 'Well done hun xxx' and 'You deserve it my lovely'.

An embarrassing can of worms, spot on.

Frisk - Please, when you read what I had to say about 'the mumsnet crowd' (in one reply to comment on my Blog) realise that when I first commented on MN, I wasn't exactly made to feel welcome by certain MN members who were regular commentators at that time. These were the 'crowd' to whom I was referring. Indeed, it was even said that I sounded like a 'conspiracy theorist' whilst other members told me to push off so that they could return to a purely lighhearted discussion about FLbots.

That said, wiser MN members sprang to my defence realising that it is a mistake to treat 'MLM' too lightly, but it's also a mistake to be too serious.

If you read my Blog, you will discover that I regularly have state that 'MLM' cultic racketeering would be hysterically funny, if it wasn't for its tragic results.

I agree. All cults are hysterically funny if one discounts the human cost. I only found out about the suicides today, from your blog.

Can I have a blog link pls.

Frisk* - This tragicomic aspect of cultism is one of the keys to understanding the phenomenon. In general, the more absurd cults appear: the more dangerous they have been, because few people look beyond the absurdity.

The Jimmy Savile scandal was identical.

I'm assuming that you are aware of my own nighmare experience with Ambots (inflexible 'Amway' adherents) in my family?

At first, I treated my relative's sudden radical personality transformations as a huge joke, not realising that they were under the control of sociopathic cultic racketeers.

Yes, its both hysterically funny and tragic that the top FL shills in the UK are renting their mansions (or in EC case we suspect commercial let by FL), it's like set design, looks great from the front and on stage, but the closer you get, you can see its not real and there is no substance behind, it's one dimensional and propped up with bits of wood.
I do feel sad for EC, she was a home owner and now she isn't due to this scam. As said before, all fur coat and no knickers.
Oh and my friend who works in the ambulance service in London said that FL bots were trying to recruit her and her colleagues. Fortunately she smelled bullshit.

Kanga59

This linked article details a form of suicide in the 'MLM' cult known as 'Xango,' although it can also be described as a form of murder.

mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2013/06/warning-multi-level-marketing-cults-kill.html

By the way, despite the damage it has caused them, the sons of the victim, Mark and Harley Davidson (who are now good friends of mine), can still see the absurdity of the 'Xango/MLM' fairy story, and even laugh at it.

sminkypink - Thanks, 'all fur coat and no knickers,' is a such a great description of FL shills like EC.

It also takes me back to when I was a kid, because this expression was a favorite of my (usually-refined) great aunt who ran a smart hotel in the North of England during WWI and the 1920s.

About similar smarmy men pretending to be rich when they hadn't got tuppence to scratch their arse, she would say, 'he's all plus-fours, but no breakfast.'

I have one (well 2, but only one is really getting going.). She is selling Younique and, at first, was just dealing make-up and trying to get people to host parties via Facebook. This has just changed into trying to recruit to her team.

I can't say anything to her as she is a sort of friend (small community) and I teach her child. However, I am watching her journey with interest. This thread has been fascinating and I held forth on the subject to DH and the teens recently. My 2nd one (Juice Plus) is someone I have always admired but who has clearly had her boobs done, and was very thin anyway. She is attributing her tan, slimness and general loveliness (she is 25 and beautiful) to Juice Plus and there is lots of "watch this space". I am nearly 50 so no amount of Juice is going to give me her skin, hair and boobs.

Anyway. Thanks for the thread. Great reading.

Just realised where EC lives.

nypost.com/2013/08/17/death-of-a-dream-top-herbalife-pitchman-takes-his-own-life/

When looking at Emma Cooper's 'FLP/MLM' fairy story, one should never forget that essentially the same unsubstantiated bullshit has been broadcast about many other expendable 'MLM' shills; including Herbalife's' John Peterson's whose corpse was found (in 2013) slumped in a Ford pickup truck at his trophy-home in the upscale ski resort of Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Although the 'Herbalife' Ministry of Truth initially said that Peterson's death was an accident, soon afterwards, the Steamboat Springs Sheriff's office informed the press that 'Herbalife's' top salesman appeared to have committed suicide via a single gun shot to the head. However, this explanation was by no means definitive.

Due to the fact that they have to keep acquiring, and flaunting, the kitsch trappings of wealth (trophy: cars, helicopters, planes, yachts, houses, wives, etc.), 'MLM' shills like Peterson invariably turn out to be living the lie that they are financially free, when they are actually up to their eyeballs in a sea of mounting debts.

...and on that cheerful last sentence, this is what my boy's upline bot I'd punch her for brainwashing my friend if it wasn't frowned upon posted on her own page:

This is what bot-I'd-like-to-punch aka herself.

They apparently had a positive and emotional team meeting tonight. Crying about how deep in debt they really are?

acatcalledjohn the irony is the 'ultimate lifestyle' is not supervisor level. That's only the first promotion. Definitely not earning thousands per month.

I've found eyespying's information on mlm very helpful since having my eyes opened. Before I posted on here, I actually messaged him as I was concerned about posting and people working out who I was and that I could get into trouble. He assured me that paranoia was a completely normal feeling when leaving mlm.

I just wish more people come forward so show that it's impossible to sustain.

rayofhope Thanks, but all I've told you is the truth - it's your own common-sense, courage and strength of character that have allowed you to accept it.

By the way, since the activist investor, Bill Ackman, began pumping millions into the investigation and exposure of the 'Herbalife' racket, more than one thousand victims have come forward in the USA and filed complaints with trade regulators and law enforcement agencies.

If a really good article appeared in the mainstream media exposing the effectively-100%, hidden, loss/churn rates in the so-called 'FLP income opportunity,' then a flood of victims would also come forward.

Thus, the bosses of 'FLP' need to maintain their kitsch monopoly of information, and (just like Jimmy Savile once did), they do this by hiding in plain sight, repeating their script and making the truth about their crimes, unthinkable to all casual observers.

Ray, that's it exactly. She is lying. And she will get my friend to squander her savings, I just know it.

FL is evil. We need to get more exposure somehow.

acatcalledjohn - Currently, the 'Amway' copy-cat blame the victim 'MLM' cultic racket known as 'FLP,' is alone is churning in excess of 6 millions individuals annually around the world through its so-called 'income/business opportunity.' That's a staggering 60 millions+ each decade. Yet, there is absolutely no quantifiable evidence (in the form of income tax records) to prove that anyone who has ever signed a contract with 'FLP' has generated an overall net-profit lawfully by regularly retailing products to general public. In the UK, it would literally take no more than a morning's work for trade regulators, and/or law enforcement agents, to apply common-sense and contact the income tax authorities and begin to establish the extraordinary truth.

Given the above key-information (which cannot be refuted), it beggars belief that the makers of this grotesque video (linked below) have not been long-since arrested for fraud: when lying to, or witholding key information from, people in order to take their money is clearly defined as fraud (a form of theft) in the UK.

rayofhope just like Amway, I think we proved there is no 'ultimate lifestyle' only a handful of shills (half a dozen?) who might be on a six figure income, but it came from selling mindset training bullshit and other sources.
The fact that Jayne Leaches husband is a retired surveyor makes me think. My partners brother runs a surveying practise. At the age of just 40 he's already well into building a property portfolio. Because you get to hear about the good deals and its well paid, you can do very well indeed.
Jayne Leaches husband is old enough to have a considerable property portfolio by now. Perhaps they sold a few rental properties to buy that barn, who knows?

eyespying it took an ex-boss of mine (who was a crook ever since I'd known him), 25 years to be found out and charged and to then go to prison for fraud related to his business. That was just regular wholesale/retail garment business, not mlm, so no wonder these mlm frauds can carry on with impunity. They are even less visible, being away from the high street and in peoples homes.