MLM-Bot Watch SIX - Juice+, Forever Living, Younique, Arbonne, newbie ARIIX, and our own Parslai-powered Timeless Vie

[stopfaffing]

Here it is!

Thread 5

Quite possibly, temptation. I'd just avoid any 'parties' like the plague. You're only invited to make up numbers.

I always remember a sales-man coming round our house to give me and my Husband a quote for our front window in the 90's. He gave us the usual sales patter, even telling us if we let the Company advertise outside our house we would get a discount. He said we could pay monthly instalments for 5 years, and if we signed up there and then we would get another discount. We came really close to signing, it sounded so good, but we said no, we wanted to think about it. He suddenly changed from being nice to being sullen and patronising. Told us we would lose the discount etc. We worked it out that night, that 1 window would have cost us £1000, we could have all the windows done for that much. This was in the 90's. These pyrimid schemes are exactly the same, giving you the sales pitch, promising you this and that,wanting you to sign up there and then. Then showing their true colours when things dont go to plan for them. The thing is, his sales technique was so good we nearly fell for it, so I can understand how people get drawn into these scams.

Ha ha Cozie, I generally do avoid parties. I am an introvert so any kind of party gives me the horrors, MLM or not :)

It will be partylite, pretty candles but very expensive with a bit of guilt pressure to buy.

Someone local to me is apparently doing very well but gave up things to concentrate on it more.

thetemptation yup, might be Scentsy. Your spidey senses must be clued up now

Nope it's a brown spaniel! Could be some expensive damage to house/furniture!!

I went to a 'party' once - because I quite liked the person and I didn't really realise what it was. It never occurred to me (it was many years ago) that she might have been sitting of an evening thinking 'Who can I invite?' I actually thought it was because she liked me.

Afterwards, I felt used. It ruined any relationship we might have had.

Best to just avoid them entirely - plead cat-washing or something. (To quote a post in another thread.) I half imagine that that person is now MLMing because it just might be a natural progression. She was ripe for it.

Ah - I saw a different dog. Still - not a golden lab which won't help her progression up the ranks.

1gorgeous Shane from Boyzone?

Oh yes indeed. A tweet from Timeless and Bot watch post please?!!

Been lurking on these threads for months. I only have a Younique bot who I have refollowed for entertainment purposes. It's all smashing it, colour levels and bossbabe dream stuff. Her latest claim is that she doesn't have to work anymore thanks to Younique however if you dig deeper she has been signed off work due to chronic illness and probably won't be able to work full time ever again. It's all deception. I really feel for her though.

I did not mean to cause upset, perhaps stupid and greedy was a harsh way to put it...... but still it just seems incredible that people get sucked into these things. At least with religious cults you can kind of get your head around the fact that people are probably looking for answers to life's big questions.

Shane? - Why?

he must need the cash but surely there are easier ways for him - how bizarre.

elliebe13 friend of mine is on permanent sick and Younique have got her too. Thing is she's such a raging socialist and conspiracy theorist, I'm not sure I dare tell her she's funding the Mormon church. She'd have a fit, I'm sure.
I don't think she dare ask me, I'm deffo on her chicken list. I just quietly leave every tarantula leg party, quiz and competition that she adds me to.

SL has form for naivety...he was made bankrupt after being encouraged to make very risky investments in a property business. I suspect he was heavily targetted by FL and is their dream combination of vulnerable, naive and high (ish) profile

Hello All
Delurking (but have enjoyed TV and Bot Watch for a while now)
I'm posting here as I'm a bit confused about Tropics Skincare, and wondered if anyone has any insight into it.
I have one JP Bot (who drives me BATSHIT) and I've now got 4 Tropics ones - all in the same circle of friends, and all recruited by one another - but not recruited on social media. It was all done at the Pamper Parties.

The thing is, the JP Bot is absolutely perfect for the whole MLM thing - no surprise that she has embraced it how she has, but my 4 Tropics Bots are all very sensible, lovely professional women, all with careers. From what I can work out, the product is actually really important - it was developed by a woman who was on The Apprentice (vegan/natural etc) and it seems to be that the investment from Sugar has turned it from a beauty business into an MLM.
There is a definite push on their website to recruit more glambassadors (yes, really) but none of my friends have ever tried to recruit on FB, although they do push the products.

I have tried them - they're quite nice, but really expensive, so I haven't returned as a customer, and no one has hassled me to do so.

So I was just wondering if anyone has any knowledge about the kind of investment the ambassadors (I can't type it twice) have to put in, up front, and if there is an ongoing requirement to invest. If this is an MLM scam, I want to be armed with the facts when I have a chat with my (very good) friend who has just started getting involved.

Sorry to hijack, but it doesn't feel like it fits the mould of JP/FL etc - although I can see it heading that way

My SIL did Pampered Chef for a while, one or two years. I wouldn't have described it as sinister, only very annoying and too expensive. Mum went to a party and came back with the cheapest item she could find (you know, to be polite), a potato wedger at nearly £10. I tried using it but it was rubbish.
SIL certainly didn't make a penny out of it, but did the parties right up until they closed operations in the back end of last year. It was definitely a social thing for her.
She's a SAHM and my brother is an actual six figure income earner with a proper j.o.b., both my brothers are, they're really clever.

So I guess that makes her a prime mlm target, knowing what I know now.
I did chat to her husband - my brother and warn him, about MLMs, there are all of the usual ones in their town, Juice Plus in particular. I read Merchants of Deception over xmas and I was so gripped everyone wanted to know what it was I was so absorbed in.

swashbucklinginbrooklyn So, from my personal experience, I'd say the common thread with mlm is that you won't make any money, but as far as being cultish and hassling you to build a team, they are not all the same, some are far more sinister than others, it seems to be the ones with Mormon/Scientologist links that are the most dangerous and cultish.
My SIL didn't go through a personality change from doing Pampered Chef, I know someone who sells Neals Yard, too and she's not 'gone weird' either.

If all the products from these mlm companies were sold on the high street, they would not be as expensive as they are. The expensive cost is to pay all your upline

The latest from my lovely bot - ignoring all the "aloe is amazing" bumf it makes me feel so sad that (1) she feels she has to justify why she has been late in starting the Clean 9 (unlike the other bots who all started in early Jan) and (2) the reason for said lateness is because she has been breastfeeding her baby! FFS...

That Shane thing shocked me. I know he hasn't been in the public eye much but he is a partner in an extremely successful business back home.

crazycatlady I am so sorry you had all that harrassment, I would have reported it as such right away to facebook. Not the best way but it at least cements over any niggling doubts you may have had over leaving, dodged a bullet there.

Well myself and my friend who both like TV are meeting with our other friends for a meal next week, she is getting deep into Younique. We are planning an intervention. Before I suspect I would have been on my soapbox mouthing off but we are taking as much as we can onboard from the threads and TV to take the softly softly approach.

Shane is being used isn't he? I mean, isn't he the sort of man that is going to appeal to some of these SAHM?

Yes Shane from Boyzone. I had to look up if he was Boyzone or Westlife

or maybe he's just being paid to do it, pure and simply.