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.

That ended up really long!

We don't need to massacre MLMs - the bots are doing the job for us.

#massacretheupline
#touchupthebiznizzwithpubemascara

I was just fascinated by the posting instructions to adherents quoted on Timeless Vie's FB page. A daily mascara post was one of them. I'm glad to see that people on this thread are trying.

I was flicking through my mum's Good Housekeeping magazine at the weekend (I think it was this month) and it had an article about ways to earn extra money (some that are included in the excellent aforementioned blog) but there was a Stella and Dot woman, with the 'In a good month I earn 7k' strapping.

I wonder what the truth is in terms of month on month earnings. I was also not surprised that it was being promoted in GH.

Good luck to her and her husband Moomoo. Maybe reading the links will help.

Apparently my juice plus rep earns enough to drop down to 3 days a week.... But she works in the same place I do and we can do 12 hour shifts so we only have to work 3 days.

Moomoo, it sounds like your SIL was ripe for exploiting . Hope her husband gets back to good health and I'm glad she's got a part time job.

It does sound like it.

I'm just glad she didn't get too sucked in. I know she's done a couple of c9 cleanses herself. But she's now doing slimming world so guess she doesn't believe in her own product.

Moomoo, that's good that your sister in law has got a job. At least she is still interacting with reality and taken positive steps towards actually earning money.

When I was researching ways to earn money for the blog I came across loads of websites with suggestions. MLMs kept cropping up in lists of ideas. By otherwise sensible-sounding people. I think we've got a long way to go to educating everyone.

Some of the wampum sounds so 'trustworthy' and 'dependable' though, Toobusy. You know - 'products you've known from your childhood and as recommended by your family or friends' sort of thing. It saddens me that people are caught but it doesn't surprise me that much.

And especially for BS.

Here is the link to the Timeless Vie Facebook page which includes the 'wonderful' detail on what adherents are supposed to be posting every day, including not only a 'mascara post' but also a 'normal post'.

Sorry chaps I've been away massacring, sorry mascara-ing

Actually we had guests. I spent 20 minutes going on about MLMs. My friend knows a Stella and Dot rep who has cornered the market in her town...a forever living rep, and some makeup one (not Younique but something like show time or show something?). They are all well educated and fairly wealthy. The FL rep is a lawyer so it just shows how anyone can be conned in this way.

I'm relieved you've posted. (I thought you might have been 'gotten' in the night! ( Dog notwithstanding.))

Hello! Me, again.

Seems bots are like buses. An old friend announced today that she's doing Temple Spa. I looked it up and it seems fairly pyramid shaped. Can anyone confirm MLM status? Apparently it's sold in Harrods.

It is sold in Harrods! And there's a blogger who has recommended them in the past and has a strong aversion to the ethos of MLM and refuses to review products from them. Can I name her? She did a whole post on it, a short one and I really just read the comments...

I have enquired about templespa as I want to know more about what they are up to - I do love the cleanser.

just to clarify the blogger refuses to review products by the usual suspects, eg younique, fl, ora gold, arbonne

I guess there's still some difference between direct marketing and multi-level marketing?

Regular direct sales doesn't require any recruitment or creation of a downline, I have a few friends who sell in this way, but mostly they produce what they sell, they don't resell on behalf of anyone else.
Avon used to be purely direct sales but now it's mlm.
I'm speculating but I think it's because in mlm, the sales person is actually the customer that they can be persuaded to spend a lot, lot more than an ordinary customer ever would.

The language might still be all 'positive and motivational' but, as always - Follow the money.

I just wonder how much longer Facebook will tolerate this kind of online selling, you're actually violating their terms if you're using your profile to sell. It should be via a page.

Two things, I think people are very tired of being subjected to people hawking their wares on there in this way and I think Facebook know this. They are a pretty sophisticated operation, they know how to study algorithms, they've admitted tinkering with what they show to people to see what happens.

So, someone selling in this way, joining hundreds of groups and regularly being unfriended for it will throw up some familiar patterns which I'm sure they will be analysing.

We already know that they're moving away from being a free platform for business, they will want people to pay for the priviledge.

So I'd say the heydey of hawking mlm via Facebook is coming to a close and it will become harder and costlier to do it. I bloody hope they do do it as I'm sick of being stalked by mlm sellers.

I'd suspect that FB would go for small cost/large volume at the beginning, I'm afraid. You might get more mileage - and it's a general issue for users - from helping to persuade FB to bring in a facility to prevent being added to groups without your consent, I think it is? (I don't think they've done anything about that problem yet.)

LOL - Don't think anytime soon FB will stop users, posting on their timeline (yes - their timeline!) about their businesses! - Oh - You don't want to see it? Facebook will point you in the direction of the unfollow post link and leave it with you. Those that choose to increase FB coffers with sponsored posts - afterall that's where the money truly is - will pay. Bit like TV sponsored posts a while back- ineffective as it was sent to the wrong demographic - but you get the idea!

Direct sales is a way of life - FB directly target businesses and business owners via feeds - don't pay "sales staff" or advertise (pretty much like most MLM's) but yet remain one of the richest and profitable online real estates ever!

Nicola Mendelson was promoting Facebook's "She Means Business" initiative on Woman's Hour last week (it's on the iPlayer). There's a useful FB page with lots of practical advice. MLM adherants would do well to peruse it, they'll learn more in a couple of minutes than they do from the dreadful waste of time (and money) that parades as their company's "training". Jenny Murray didnt really ask anything controversial and didnt mention MLM/direct selling & Mendelson quite rightly only used legitimate businesses as examples - i was driving so couldn't tweet but there's scope for a follow-up.

I find many bots now stealth-sell their wampum and flim flam. It's certainly not a case of just "unfollowing" as we've all seen many examples of them infiltrating a variety of groups, pages and forums with their nonsense.

Chachaslide, Facebook have rules that you cannot use a personal page as a business page. If you 'sell' in MLM you need to have a page for that. If your personal page is full of business stuff, it can be reported and Facebook will sanction you. I'll pop over there and see how to do it and then I'll report back...