Emma, MLMs are not religious cults, they are called commercial cults. They use the same techniques of mind control that cults use.
There is a leader at the top who is revered.
People are encouraged to work on their mindset. They have to change their thoughts.
Friends and family are disowned for being concerned about the person.
Other bots become the 'family'.
Blind faith is encouraged that it will all work out.
A new belief system is introduced called the Law of Attraction that explains everything.
Any 'negativity' is ignored, effectively shutting down critical thought abilities.
Anyone who leaves the group is bad and hates the group and will try and disrupt the group (hence suspecting all of us as being escapees).
Everything will work out if you just do as you are told- follow the system.
They are sleep deprived because they have to work such long hours and trainings are held at the weekend and evenings.
There is low level stress continuously of uplines checking on progress and giving targets to achieve. Targets for themselves to achieve for various levels of promotion and prizes, the need for recognition and the fear of failure and shame.
Have you seen any footage of shizzles or success days? It has CULT written all over it!
It is easy to identify a religious cult from the outside, but more difficult with commercial ones because it all looks so innocuous on the surface. "I'm just selling lip gloss to women" "It's just pocket money" People don't complain when they leave because they have been taught to believe it is all their fault.
The reason people get into financial difficulty is that they purchase whatever needs to be purchased to qualify for rewards. They travel to meetings and trainings and success days. They purchase training manuals and pay out for websites, samples, P&P. Don't forget also that you are encouraged to fake it until you make it. People sell their little houses and rent large ones, buy bigger cars, go on expensive holidays. They get into debt trying to look rich whilst pretending to have made it rich through the scheme.
There are many many examples of this sort of thing going on and it is easy to find. There are many many examples of financial analysis of how people do not make money in MLMs.