MLM-bot watch - LIGHTHEARTED - continued discussion of Juice + Forever Living Younique etc as scams with laughing

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Continued LIGHT-HEARTED discussion here.

For heavy analysis, please check out Eyespy's threads on the same topic.

Our own, fake MN MLM twitter, FB & blog accounts are here:

@TimelessVie
wordpress.com/timelessvie
facebook.com/timelessvie

update: 459 likes on TV FB page, over 6,000 reach

nearly 5,500 views of blog - not bad since it was started in november, and we're noticing more and more websearches for TV too.

Interested in more indepth analysis? On the left sidebar of the blog, under "blogroll" is a list of more serious MLM blogs.

Please keep this thread is bot-watching, sharing screenshots, random MLM info you find and other crazy shit, please and thankyou

And again, we could do none of this without all of you. Thank you.

Will try to write something up tonight - needs stuff like -
How to spot an mlm scam -
Maybe a good idea to use their own training against them.
Also a section on the back for people who are in an mlm - offering no judgemental and practical support for those who want to get out, for instance the book that Erick Sheibeler recommends that people trapped in a cult, read.

Ironically, the US Federal Trade Commission has issued warning after warning about 'Business Opportunity' frauds, including 'MLMs.'

Sadly, these warnings have only made the problem worse, because FTC officials have also spread the lie that some 'MLMs' are legitimate.

www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0065-multilevel-marketing

I am a regular browser of the Active board and the first thread of the "serious" bunch started. I was hooked from then on in.

As background, I have a masters degree in engineering and am a chartered civil engineer. I reckon I still might have got sucked in as I'm currently on a career break as a SAHM, and I want to contribute.

Also, a friend of mine started doing Younique, and that piqued my interest some more.

And then preschool lady...

eyespying didn't matter that UCKG is a legal registered charity in the UK. So are other cults. Our direct action - phonecalls, emails, leafleting really did work. And I witnessed a bit of Anonymous direct action again Scientology in Leeds. No one would go near their stall.
Businesses don't like to upset their customers, so, if you present the facts to them, they quite happily ban scammers and cults from their premises.

Just looked at Success Inspired Limited and the latest accounts are 30 June 2014 (gov site is free to have a nosey at these company accounts). I'm no accountant, but it doesn't look like she's raking it in & I thought accounts were submitted yearly?

of course having them banned completely is another thing entirely, but small steps, if we can get the word out there in their own battlegrounds - school noticeboards, send info in an easy digestable form, to school heads, hospitals, police stations, on Facebook etc.
Point out the way that conventional business and careers are mocked etc.

spikeypants02 you have to pay to find out their turnover and net profit.

just stalking CS's FB and In November 2014 after the June accounts were submitted, she is claiming to be able to work 3 days a week, due to her amazing 6 figure income. Either she's lying (most probably), or the taxman would be interested!!

hmm interesting. I thought she was a "six figure income generator" is this only for those lucky 5 people per month that she "coaches"? how selfless of her.

Small companies only have to submit abbreviated accounts to companies house so the turnover prob won't be available publicly. It's hard to tell from abbreviated accounts as they only show you a balance sheet but it will also depend on how much business they actually put through the company. I suspect some of the companies are just for show because the bots think having a limited company sounds big and important and their average victim won't realise that anyone can set up a company for a few quid.

sminkypink- Perhaps all these points really should be shifted over to the more serious thread?

I've always taken the view that fraud is already banned, and that 'MLM' has been just a very fiendish way of hiding mass-fraud in plain sight.

By passing a law, but failing to enforce it, you effectively authorise the very crime you appeared to be prohibiting.

it does make you wonder what some of them are doing, as some of the big bots, who have been in it for years have very new ltds. Thing is, you don't need to put anything through a ltd at all. You can be a sole trader or partnership.
My accountant advised us against a ltd. Weve been a partnership for 13 years, we dont earn enough for it to be worth the bother. Some of my friends set them up and wished they hadn't as its much simpler if you are not.

eyespying yes I'll carry it over. Serious convo is serious.

Yes it costs a lot more to have them, keep them running, get accounts done etc. Plus now the tax rates are changing so it will cost a lot more to get money out of the company than if you were just a sole trader. So the ones that have done it might regret it in future!

I worked a shift last night in my J.O.B and when I had a few quiet hours I started writing a leaflet about MLMs! Nice, quick bullet points of what they will tell you and what the truth is. I'll post if here when it's done. I was thinking of referencing each point so the evidence is there to see. I was aiming it at anyone who has been approached by a friend and is thinking of joining. Also, a bit on how it is easy it is to be sucked in and signs to look for that mean you need to get out.

If anyone reading this has been involved in an MLM and got out, perhaps you might have some ideas of what might constitute a worrying sign that might make people think twice about carrying on in an MLM?

I remember someone a bit back said they felt uneasy when they saw a vulnerable person being persuaded to join up. Points like that might tug at someone's conscience and make them think about similar experiences they have had.

Personally I'm happy for this thread to contain both funny clips/screenshots and also discuss the serious side- it's hard to do one without getting incensed by it all and talking more widely about the subject! The key thing I see for this thread is it is not dominated by one person so as many people as possible stick around and are attracted to the thread.

toobusy bullet points backed up with evidence sounds great, something we can all use to send easily to any vulnerable targets. I think something was started at the beginning of the thread, but not finalised with evidence against each one.

Toobusytowee - I've found one factor which does give some 'MLM' adherents pause for thought in the UK, is the fact that most 'MLMs' are based in the 'Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free' and linked with the 'Religious Right' (particularly, 'Pentacostalism' and the 'Mormons').

An effective question has been:

Do you honestly think that a bunch of toothy 'Mormon' multi-millionaires in the USA want to help you to get rich?

Sadly, we've now got a growing number of home-grown 'MLM' rackets appearing.

heres the leaflet that Haringey solidarity made, thought you might find it interesting.
www.haringey.org.uk/content/images/hsg/leaflets/leafleta5uckg.pdf

Does being a 'ltd' company protect you against losing your house/car/stuff if the business collapses as opposed to losing business assets? Also, could it be easier to get loans for the business if you are ltd rather than sole trader?

I'm a part time sole trader and have never really looked into it all. I'm not planning to switch to ltd. no need for me to tbh.

But it does raise some interesting questions as to why a business that has little chance of making money and a very high chance of collapsing when it does make money would do it iyswim.

Excuse me if it makes little sense. I have a chest infection and I'm a bit fuzzy :/

sminkypink - 'UCKG' is a classic 'Prosperity Gospel' cultic racket. In a lot of countries, 'UCKG' has mainly preyed on immigrants without visas.

You do get limited liability with a company in theory, but in practice the owners of small companies will have to give personal guarantees if they want any bank to lend to their company. I don't think having a ltd company will ringfence any debt for a bot. There are some tax benefits, but in order to get them you have to leave the money in the company and not take it out to spend on range rovers and handbags.

I'm not sure if she's an mlm bot or not, but for the second time a woman who claims to be an 'happiness architect and business changemaker' is trying to add me on Linked In. Made up job name of the year!

sminkypink and Toobusytowee

mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2014/06/what-does-jimmy-bakker-tragicomedy-tell.html