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.

How to report a FB personal page for being a business-

Go to their profile
Report page
Report this profile
This profile represents a business or organisation.

Hi
Good to see all of your successes and influence! FYI some worrying news from the USA - hope H.R. 5230 is voted out. See www.truthinadvertising.org/why-hr-5230-is-wrong/

(I got the link from Dr Barrett's Quackwatch.com blog - he's a long time critic of MLMs, which as you know often promote health bullshit. The above webpage has links to open letters to US Reps; hope H.R. 5230 fails)
Anyway keep the faith and the struggle huns! :)

(I've posted the above to eyes' blog too)

Spongebobette mentioned - wrt Maelle I think - "It's got the usual structure but is calling down lines 'circles'"
"Drawing Circles" is an old Amway phrase - part of "Showing the Plan". Which is apt I suppose as Amway is the granddaddy - or perverted elderly relation - of all these MLMs

Further to my comments I think there's always an inherant risk to using a platform you don't own in order to run a business from. I recall people I know selling on ebay (second hand books) and them suddenly changing their terms, hiking the commission up and it destroying their business. Or other things such as falling out with Paypal. If you put all your eggs in one basket its a big risk.
I don't use FB for my business, its not where my clients are likely to be, I use other platforms, but I rely more on my own website than anything else as that's the thing I can 100% control.
I can also see that Facebook is getting a lot more sophisticated at banning personal profiles that are used to spam from, it used to be a nightmare to identify them, not anymore.
I see Facebook as being where ebay was about ten years ago, it's coming of age, they're identifying people who they think they can make more money out of and deciding how to go about it.

prettyusefulsometimes Yes, that's my problem with it, the stealth, from the entirely scripted private messages I've received, to being added to groups without asking first, to the prospecting scripts intended to deceive me into agreeing to be shown 'the plan'. I just want to be left alone, but you block some of them in one place and they pop up elsewhere spouting the same scripts, it's like that fairground game where you hit the things with a hammer and they pop up elsewhere.
and as anyone who admins a Facebook group knows, they are a pain in the bloody arse.

Personally I promote keeping your personal FB for "personal" use and set up one for business - but nothing wrong will sign posting your business page on your page as and when.

Adding people to groups happens not just with MLM - I am always being added and I take myself off if group is of no interest - so I understand how annoying that can be - ultimately FB is not the only platform that you can use - but it's the most used and has the most eyeballs globally. If you are in business and in marketing of any kind, you cannot ignore it.

Ha! You changed your tune chachaslide That's right, you must use a business page but then what happens when a particular MLM business page (waves) has say around 10,000 "people" who like the page but the vast majority of posts promoting the business get less than 50 likes. But a similar, or the same, post on a personal page gets a good 20-30% more likes? Let's face it most MLM pages are one big circle jerk with added wampum and flim flam, I bet more money changes hands every day on my local FB selling page than through most of the MLM pages.

Prettyuseful, as you will know - likes does not equal cash in the bank, it suggests the page has been visited and liked accordingly. Converting those likes to customers is the job of the marketer. Having a conversation regarding whatever wampum, flim flam, flibergy jamberry pokery with one of those "many" likes could prove to be a "lot" more profitable!

Bah! In general, a bot's personal (or 'lifestyle') posts tend to have a fair few likes. Whereas anything product-related - fucking tumbleweed. Nobody wants overpriced, useless and cheap looking shite. That's why FL and its ilk play the 'lifestyle' game. They can't sell the bizarre and terribly designed products, they instead sell false hope and fake dreams.

Here's a shared FB post from one of my Filippino friends. It doesn't mention MLM explicitly however I'm sure you'll see the connection.

www.entrepreneur.com.ph/startup-tips/become-millionaire-under-5-years-a729-20160126-lfrm?platform=hootsuite

I know she's involved in something called Silly Snapz and I can't quite work out whether that's MLM or not (it's a photo booth thing) but I know she has lots of other things on the go - as do many of that community - but I haven't really had the time or energy translate from Tagalog so far.

CAM

And I was worried for this friend who posted until I read it ;)

overheard.liketodiscover.com/why-kale-juice-drink-is-more-than-just-another-healthy-drink/

CAM

How did you get on with your younger friend, CAM? (If you can say.)

No response so far :( Just hope it has made her think.

CAM

Hopefully.

That kale juice piece is an absolute hoot by the way. If your friend posted it knowing the contents, I'd have no concerns for her.

Oh don't worry, I'd already bent her ear about MLMs and she's no mug! I just couldn't read the text before I opened the image. My first thought was that if they've got her then the body snatchers really are on their way!

CAM

And then you read it!

Ooh a sponsored advert for timeless vie just popped up on my Facebook, awesome work!

The Timeless Vie likes are continuing to rise.

And here's a link to the Timeless Vie Facebook for anyone joining the thread.

Sorry - and also the main Timeless Vie.

Aargh, another one bites the dust, just been added to an actiderm group!

My juice plus rep is driving me mad... She's obviously had a couple of days off work as she's been posting a couple of times an hour. The capsules will help with diabetes, Crohn's, arthritis.... And more!
Also, you can earn £500 by July 10th.
No likes, except from other juice bots, so guessing no-one actually believes it!

If you have a look at the Timeless Vie FB page - down a bit at about 30/5 - you'll see the list of posts that one MLM requires adherents to make on a daily basis.

Although I suppose that you're at least spared a daily mascara post.