MLM Bot Watch 21 - chat about Utah based tragicomic cultastic racketeering scamalangadingdongs like Forever Living, Ariix, Herbalife, Younique, Juiceplus etc etc etc

[Twunk]

Links etc to follow!

Welcome all to the new thread

Yes, Twunk. Threads 9 or 10 maybe? (There have been a lot of threads.)

My NuSkin rep has just posted "do you want to earn an extra £20-£200 next week?" and someone has (very bravely) replied "if you can guarantee I'll definitely earn that, then yes". 4 people have liked it! Vive la resistance

Sorry to bring this back to LTW. Roundles said you have to spend £165 to get £200 back and you also have to spend £35 to join.

It is a bit worse than that.
First, you pay £35 to join.
Then you pay £165 for a box full of cupboard items you don't need.
The next month you pay £165 for a box of things you don't need.
The third month you pay £165 for a box of things you don't need.
Meanwhile you have been recruiting three people to do the same as you and telling them to recruit people.
Those three people should have recruited at least another one each.
The third month, three people under you and at least one from under those three all have to spend £165.

This means £35x 7 will have been paid in joining fees.
£165x 9 will have been spent on unwanted boxes of stuff.

This totals £1735. From all of that, £200 will be given back to you.

By the time you get your £200 back you will personally have spent £530 on stuff you don't need, that cost LTW hardly anything.

You would have to keep on spending at least £165 a month and hope that the 6 under you do as well. If one of them doesn't spend or drops out, you get nothing back that month. £165 of Harvest Festival crap in your cupboard with no reward.

Wow toobusy when you write it like that it's so clear. How can anyone think it's a good idea?! Although I'm one to talk having been sucked into and brainwashed by FL.

Toobusy if you take the calculation further, to 20 team members (your commission goes up to £750 at 21) you can see where all the money is coming from.

Of course each of those 20 will be building the same pyramid so it's more

toobusy I think that needs putting on botwatch as a blog post!!!!

That's exactly the crux of it. And of course, based on their rep so far, you are relying on them actually paying that money when payment finally comes due....

I'm going to have a look at their policies to see what other things are hidden in there. I bet it's worse than it at first appears.

Yes, I feel this may fold before then, as it's so blatant.

I believe that my post is fair comment rather than libellous.

Urgghhh that FL launch video ! Apart from the illegal health claims it has ALL the buzzwordy crap my bot uses.

And what is it with Younique bots? Are they told to take endless closeup photos of their heavily made up eyes ? Mine keeps doing this and her eyelashes are all claggy, yuk

I too watched the launch video (now there's 25 minutes of my life I won't get back) - shockerama city. Wall-to-wall health claims.

I see our bots are out whining reporting to HQ. NoLonger's post contained no identifying features at all?

I can't find the guidelines MNHQ posted some time ago.

Thanks for looking, Twunk. It's a daunting task.

I'll have another go later.

I've been away in a limited wifi area this weekend so have missed the drama. Catching up now and am pleased to see that we are rattling some pro-MLM visitors good and proper; their responses are predictable though and I notice yet again that they are careful what questions they choose to answer as there are some MLM behaviours and actions that cannot be justified.

If they do return (in whatever guise) we must continue to ask the pertinent questions and not allow them to derail the thread.

I know there are a large number of lurkers reading these threads, some are involved in MLM and are realising that something is fundamentally wrong but don't know what to do about removing themselves, some will have relatives or friends tied up in MLM and be very worried about them. Others will have witnessed the subtle tactics used to try to persuade people to become involved or to buy overpriced products; i.e. medical claims, which are unlawful.

Twunk's link about Kangen Water is a good case in point.

I like this quote particularly because it is what all MLM companies do, hide behind their reps to absolve themselves of responsibility.

"...successful MLM companies generally dodge government regulators by making no illegal claims themselves; instead, they allow those claims to be made by their independent distributors..."

I like this comment to, about the ,miracle water machine'...

"...Ionizing and alkalizing water machines are a textbook example of inventing an imaginary problem that needs to be solved with expensive pseudoscientific hardware. It should come as no surprise that the most expensive of these machines are usually sold through multilevel marketing: A one-two punch that first takes advantage of a layperson's lack of scientific expertise to interest them in the product, and then takes advantage of their lack of business or mathematical expertise to convince them that they're virtually guaranteed to become a millionaire through a pyramid model..."

If anyone missed the article, I repost it here. It is worth reading and is an excellent example of deceitful practice used to bamboozle people to (a) buy stuff they don't need (in this example for a condition they don't have) and (b) get suckered into joining an MLM.

Going back to kiwi's post right at the beginning. A firm "thanks, but it's not for me"

Expect to repeat it a lot.

People reading may also like to visit on this link.

Are all the FL bots told to post the same stuff at the same time? I have at least 5 on my radar and they are all without exception 'looking for 8-10 people who want to make a change to a healthier lifestyle' unsurprisingly, all they have to do is pay and drink the foul looking shakes and provide feedback for 7 days. As easy as that!

I've just found a bottle of yazoo in my parents' fridge

What is it about MLMs about shakes?

You can make a delicious fresh shake with little fuss. Or drink some milk and eat a bit of fruit and veg....

I knew nothing about Kangen water before today. So much bullshit, so little time.

I think Yazoo has recently been on 'special' in at least one major supermarket, Twunk. Maybe they were feeling daring?

In Waitrose? Seems unlikely

It does, rather.

People are launching yachts, ships, and rented paddle boats with Yazoo because it's cheaper than smashing a bottle of champagne over the bow! It's flying off the shelves in Waitrose.

I've never had the stuff myself.

I was thinking only that people are sometimes given to buying something on a whim and rationalising the purchase to themselves with an 'It's the sort of thing that X would like'. X might not be able to abide it of course, but that's not the point.

I'm afraid that I failed, Twunk. I managed to find a MNHQ post from April - part of which I've reposted below - but I had to leave the earlier one I'm thinking of because I was already suffering from brain melt.

Here is the part of the relevant post. You can all view it for yourselves in Thread 17 at the very beginning of April. It's by RebeccaMNHQ if I recall.

...'We want Mumsnet to be a place where conversations can be had and freedom of speech is, well, free. However, we have to adhere to our own talk guidelines, and to the law. We have asked several times that posters not mention or post up identifying information about individuals on these threads, but the practise has continued.

So we're asking you, please, again, to stop posting about individuals and stop swapping the RL details of third parties. We have received complaints of defamation, harassment of identifiable individuals and hate speech related to the owners' religious beliefs off the back of these threads, and it's important that you're aware that you may be personally legally liable for things that you post here.'...

I guess people will have to take the advice in the opening posts for the rest of it?