MLM Bot Watch 23 - Powered by Twunk's Yazoo: Tragicomic cultic wampum flogging scamalangadingdongs like Forever Living, Ariix, Herbalife, Younique, Juiceplus, LifeTreeWorld.

[ForeverYazoonique]

Still going strong here at bot watch HQ on MN!

Previous thread here

Botwatch on Wordpress and on Facebook

Timeless Vie on Wordpress and on Facebook

Eyespeying's Blog aka #manhun, even if he's been banned by MNHQ

Hommetepreneur on Facebook

NEW Link to the Daily Mail article of 20 May 2016 regarding an ex-bot's treatment at the hands of her 'spline' at Forever Living UK

NEW Link to NastashaBarnbotShingles' refutation of the above.

We have our own regularly returning bots to tell us how bullying and hateful we are.

Glossary:

Bots: our affectionate name for victims of the MLM racket

MLM: Multi-level Marketing schemes - essentially pyramid schemes that are just legal because you sell a product. Reliant upon constant recruitment despite there not being enough people in the world to go beyond about 12 levels if everyone recruited 6.

Downline/Upline: the people you recruited and those who recruited you (going up and down the pyramid inverted funnel)

Timeless Vie: Parody of MLM schemes (though you might spot one in particular) that also carries out fearless investigative work

Hommetrepreneur: also excellent parody site focussing on the menz

BotWatch: Rather more serious, keeps an eye on what the Bots are claiming next, particularly in reference to health and income claims. Also fearless.

Inverted Funnel: Timeless Vie is NOT a pyramid - it's an inverted Funnel, OK?

Eyes: Our former member Eyespying who knows LOTS about MLM schemes. He's still our very own #manhun.

Twunk (AKA ForeverYazoonique) has a bottle of Banana Yazoo in her fridge. She's still too afraid to drink it. Yahoo is important as seems to be the primary retail product for Life Tree World.

The organisation, by early 2016, had had a long period of decline followed by a number of months of revenue growth. As I recall, increases in the numbers of 'sales associates' and 'active sales consultants' corresponded with the period of increased revenue growth. (I'll stand to be corrected on those of course, and I draw no conclusions from them.)

In many organisations, though, a period of decline might just cause a sales department to look outside their own company to see what others were doing - and to adopt any practices which appeared successful.

An attractive and/or 'trusted' product would help of course.

Follow the money.

Also loving the TV post today. Forever Living are truly being exposed for exactly what kind of 'company' they are. This whole experience has, IMHO, been pretty damning for them. And the bots messaging Candice have shown the hidden nastiness that exists within this racket.

Its not hidden anymore, thankfully. It's now out in the open so women can make their own minds up. At first it was difficult encouraging even one woman to come forward. That first woman was so brave! She opened the door for all of the others. What a heroine!
What made me realise how far we'd come with this was when Forever switched off the visitor posts and reviews section on their page.
Once upon a time there were no complaints on there either, but it got to the point where they were struggling to keep up with the deletion of them. And it did seem to coincide with them finding out when the Daily Mail article was going to print. Because that's what mlms do, pretend it doesn't exist, threaten anyone who complains, or delete, block, ban. They do not want to take any responsibility for you, the only thing they want is your money.

Yes. I really do think FL are panicking - certainly in the UK. Uber bots are jetting all over the place - the middle east appears the latest target market - and middlish bots are hitting the motorways to locations out of their locality. The poor old worker bots seem to be just doing what they always do - 'inspirational' memes, crappy new web sites, 'training' and so on.

I kind of feel really sorry for them...

As for Candice, I say absolute props to her - and the vile abuse she got from other FL bots shows just how unpleasant many of them are.

Not clever PR for FL - and if I was 'Country Manager' or whatever they call it, I'd be going absolutely ape shit! #vivelamlmresistance

You're right, smiinky, and it's bloody fantastic to be honest. I think this 'movement' becoming so much more public has truly opened a lot of eyes to the reality of MLMs. Our uber-bots are soon gonna be struggling to build those downlines...

I've read about the CC alterations a little, but if anyone can explain, that'd be great. Do we have any thoughts or guesses as to why FL are implementing these changes?

Also, has anyone seen this www.aloe-vera-gel-shop.com/daily-mail-forever-living-article.html (it's probably been discussed but I've missed it). Do we know who's behind the site itself? Sorry if I'm being dense!

Bleak - I've not seen that before - excellent find! Seeing as it's a public website I have no qualms in reporting that it's run by Jay Lane, an independent distributor for Forever Living - this is clearly stated on their About us page. (The qualification is for the attention of MNHQ mods).

Bleak blimey at least she doesn't write for a living! That's really quite random.

At the bottom it says, 'FLP is an ethical company and takes malpractice by distributors very seriously'

OH YEAH?

if I'm being blunt I'd say they do not give a flying fuck.

They scored a bit of an own goal by printing the DM article extracts first and in darker type. Guess which people will read first?

Or have I misread it? Lordy, what an ........undistinguished response.

It's bloody awful, isn't it? Damn, I searched for the 'independent distributor' but for some bizarre reason couldn't find the name before posting the article! Thanks Foreverfibbing.

Have you noticed how there's a WHOLE section in the navigation bar called 'Daily Mail' with a link to the blog?

Methinks this bot has been feeling the backlash .

Ignore me. It has now gone?! I'm sure my eyes didn't deceive me.

I think they all have, Bleak - hence all the panicky reactions!

And yes - there was a Menu item for the Daily Mail. FL is TOTALLY monitoring every single post on these threads in real time. Happened to me yesterday too. Good work!

Awful marketing practice allowing the email subscription/become a distributor pop up to appear so often. Every 10-14 days is best practice! But of course, FL bots couldn't give a fuck about pushy or negative marketing techniques.

Foreverfibbing thank you!! I was beginning to think I'd gone entirely batshit then!

Ha - love the word, batshit :)

There's a click to chat window that follows you round. Sorely tempted to "engage" it.

won't though

It's Friday night folks so you know what that means. Time for some FL adherents to drink too much wine and eat too much cheese and to come on here to tell us we are all nasty hatzers. Everyone got the bingo cards ready?

Just in case you want to see how normal organisations deal with the reviews on their social media page after receiving bad press, take a look at this:

www.facebook.com/PwCUK/

Reviews are still open and people have used it to tell them exactly what they think of their recent bad press.

Normal businesses don't try to shut every single person up who has something bad to say, even if they think it is unfair.

Oh I do like my new user name ...

It's all sparkly and bright .... twirls.......

Hello bots!

Shot I love it! Such an expressive name. So elegant. So shiny.

Reporting for duty.

Waiting for DH to get back from a business trip to London so he can't look over at me and sigh because I'm MNing.

That blog post is really really weird - I could hardly work out to start with if it was pro- or anti-FLP.

I and still writing my dissertation - Jack Daniels is helping....