MLM Bot Watch 35 how to lose friends and alienate people with Younique Forever Living Juice Plus Arbonne Crypto currency and tea and coffee MLM cults

[BSintolerant]

Thread 34 may be no more;
Thread 35 is quite alive.

Let's make sure it stays that way.

This thread is here to expose the garageful of lies pedalled by multi level marketing (network marketing) schemes, i.e outrageous health claims, unlimited wealth and residual earnings, to name but a few.

#sackthebot

Also, in FLP we were instructed to 'Unfollow' upline business pages, bots not part of our team and not to tag upline as we may send prospects to them.

What did they say about these threads? Were they mentioned in one of those Success Day training things?

Yeah, I don't remember exactly but it was just a reference of what negativity is online! I found it at the time and just reading it made me feel a traitor

Telling someone not to look at something online isn't the best strategy to stop someone from doing just that! Yet another stroke of genius on behalf of Forever Living.

Apart from feeling like a traitor, did any of what you read strike a chord immediately or did it take a while for you to think, "Hang on, there's something in what this nest of vipers are posting on Mumsnet ..."?

I think Firgirl has a good point with the crypto ponzi's.

2 big ones have fallen in the past couple of weeks, leading to financial devastation for many and phone numbers for suicide hotlines being posted on messageboards as quite a few people have been indicating that is the only way out for them.

USI-Tech ceased operating in the US and Canada after deciding to shut down there instead of showing the SEC proof of compliance or something legal like that. They are still hoping to get their money back and a lot of people are still believing that USI will come through for them.

In the UK it is still business as usual, with top bots still recruiting and promising everyone it will all be okay. There are problems with withdrawals and it's only a matter of time.

Some people who were affected by the USI-tech withdrawal in the US went straight to Bitconnect, which totally shut down a week later. People have lost thousands. In some cases they have used their life savings and the life savings of their family members meaning they have literally nothing left. It's those type of people who are stating they have nothing to live for.

The one's I see currently being promoted in the UK is Mass Cryp, which is another Ponzi scheme and a litecoin ponzi scheme where I believe it's only $20 to start off.

People put in a little amount of money and see a huge ROI from their investment so they start putting in more and more. Until the money is withdrawn from the scheme all the ROI is will be numbers on a computer screen, there is no return of investment and any withdrawal you make will just be money that people who invested after you put in to the scheme.

People believe that because Bitcoin did so well that anything to do with cryptocurrency is going to get you huge amounts of money. Especially as most people have no understanding of cryptocurrency, which is most people, including myself, but a Ponzi is a Ponzi no matter what it is using to reel people in.

The other bad thing about these new cryptocurrency Ponzi's is that it's all in Bitcoin. USI and Bitconnect needed you to pay into the scheme using Bitcoin. When you withdrew money you received it in Bitcoin. This is bad for getting any money back when the Ponzi collapses.

With Traffic Monsoon it is likely that people will get a percentage of their money back. With Bitconnect and USI-Tech it's possible that because it was all done with Bitcoin that getting money back is impossible, along with no clawbacks for those at the very top.

People are also being encouraged to diversify their investments and invest in more than one thing at a time, i've been seeing people being encouraged to invest in more than one Ponzi at a time. I saw a few people feeling smug because they had invested in both USI and Bitconnect and now have lost twice over.

Not everyone in USI have realised it's a Ponzi yet and still believe they are going to get all of their money and interest on that money.

I find Behindmlm a good resource for Ponzi's. Googling the name of the business you suspect is a ponzi and 'behindmlm' and it's usually been covered.

I've noticed that quite a few serial MLMers have now moved on to investing in Ponzi's after realising they aren't going to make money in MLM's.

I echo what you've seen about the move to Ponzi schemes by an increasing number of mlm bots. It's like they've got so desperate after the fall in income from mlms that they think sod it I don't need to keep up the pretence I'm in an ethical business model any longer.

and they don't end up with a garage of aloe/yazoo with the crypto MLMs.

...just an empty bank account and a shed load of desperation.

Behind MLM and Ethan Vanderbuilt’s websites have been attacked. Behind MLM was down yesterday. These attack’s have been happening for days now. They have both been writing about crypto scams recently.

I didn’t put that apoostrophy in ‘attack’s’

I did, however, just type ‘apoostrophy’.

Oh dear, sounds like someone is trying to protect their money in crypto currency if they are hacking those two sites.

I do believe that some of them honestly do not realise that it's a Ponzi, they think it's all tied in to bitcoin. I know that a lot of people would use the rise in Bitcoin price to show how USI was going to be a winner.

The only time bitcoin came into it was that you had to change money into bitcoin and give USI bitcoin to join. When you withdraw money you withdraw it as bitcoin which you then change in to normal money.

Unless you recruited heavily and received money for doing so, then you had to wait approximately 140 working days to receive your interest from the money you invested. Which is about 7 months. So most people who put their money into the packs they were selling still haven't seen them reach the end of the 140 working days, and won't now that the scheme is collapsing.

There is a bitconnect subreddit which is a hard read now. It was full of people telling each other how rich they were going to be and the moderators were heavily involved as well. People would go in and tell them to be careful, that it was a ponzi, that they would lose all of their money when it collapsed. They got mocked and laughed at.

People like the idea of easy money and people get so drawn into these schemes that they can't see reason.

With USI they received a cease and desist notice in Texas due to offering securities. All throughout they have been saying it isn't an investment but a return on capital. You are instructed never to use the word 'investment'. They are blaming the pullout of USI in the US on members who used the word 'investment' or who promoted it as an investment. Thousands of people truly believe that the only reason authorities in America are after USI is because members called it an investment on facebook.

It's a bit like using cocaine and being caught with cocaine, having all the side effects of using cocaine, having a positive drug test and it being obvious you are under the influence of cocaine and turning around and expecting to get away with it because you refer to it as sherbert. The Police are not going to buy that one like the SEC aren't going to buy that USI are promoting an investment.

As usual with a Ponzi, those at the top have gotten away with making lots of money, or in both bitconnect and USI they have made lots of Bitcoin. That might actually work against them, if Bitcoin collapses and ends up back where it was a year ago, they will also have lost out. As will the owners of USI and Bitconnect if they haven't changed their bitcoin into real money.

There was a ponzi called zeek rewards a couple of years back. Investors into that will likely get about 80% of what they invested back as they went after the people who owned it and those who made money from it as if you make money from it you are just stealing it from those who signed up under you. From what i've read it's unlikely that will happen with the ponzi's that you pay to join in bitcoin. I know some people got money back via their credit cards from Traffic Monsoon because it was normal money that was being used. Once it's changed into bitcoin it seems you are on your own.

I wish facebook would do something about this, ban MLM schemes from facebook. Ponzi's pose as MLM's so they would be covered as well. That would go a long way to protecting women from MLM's and protecting everyone from ponzi's, as facebook is the platform they recruit on.

Toobusy - Behindmlm and Ethan vanderbuilt have upset a lot of people by telling the truth.

I know that some in USI are blaming them both for what has happened in USA and Canada. They think that Behindmlm posting lots of articles about it being a Ponzi and being an investment and therefore a security has directly led to the cease and desist. Which in turn caused USI to cease trading there to protect the rest of their definitely-not-investors.

The scary thing is that just looking at Behindmlm and the articles each day, he reports on new Ponzi's almost every day, they are everywhere and most of them are to do with cryptocurrency.

Thanks for that white, really useful.

I genuinely don't think a lot of people understand what a ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme is. Someone above them who sounds clever just says 'of course it's not a Ponzi scheme, that person is just jealous of how rich we are all going to be'.

I work in finance and so it just seems obvious to me - where else can the 'profits' come from if it is not from the losses of the other investors in the scheme - but a lot of people won't have even come across the word Ponzi before now. People are not as financially sophisticated as we all imagine them to be.

This is why I think the Crypto Ponzis are so dangerous. People aren't just spending a couple of hundred pounds on some boxes of coffee, they're putting serious money in and dragging their friends and family in. The top Bots throw around words like blockchain and mining which will be meaningless to a lot of their downline. One was boasting that she gets paid whether Bitcoin goes up or down. Classic hallmark of a Ponzi but they use it as a selling point.
I'm seeing my hairdresser next week - I don't know if anyone remembers but her daughter got duped into taking out a debt consolidation loan and "investing" it with Questra World/Global Asset Management. My hairdresser was going to tell her to ask for her money back - I'll be interested to hear what has happened as she was initially told she couldn't withdraw until February.

You are so right

And it’s not just the smoke-and-mirrors crypto currency schemes that prey on people’s naivety

Forever Living, for example. When someone is introduced to the ‘business opportunity’ they need to use some analytical skills to see through the bullshit

Like working out how many products they’d need to sell before actually turning a profit (lots of hidden expenses which are never mentioned such as buying the starter pack. Success Days, buying Pro Planners, petrol etc).
How many others are flogging the same stuff in their social groups
The % profit on each item sold might sound good but if you only sell a few things it’s peanuts
Compare the products to what else is available from places like Holland and Barrett and ask yourself why anyone would pay a premium for the same thing from FL just so that everyone in the upline gets a cut

You have to be able to think clearly, be critical and ask questions, not accept glib answers and not be blinded by all the positivity and love bombing
and not allow yourself to be manipulated by exposing your ‘why’ (motivation) because this will be used to hook you in

I'm hoping that the new things facebook are putting in place where you see less business related things will help. Although both Ponzi's and MLM's target people via personal facebook pages and with Ponzi's groups are a huge way to recruit.

I would love to see facebook crack down hard on MLM's and Ponzi's. If they banned both from using FB it would almost wipe out MLM's, the same with Ponzi's. If you are promoting an MLM or Ponzi on your personal page you get your account closed for a while, do it again you get banned, something like that.

Have something when you report something that says that the person is promoting an MLM or Ponzi that would be brilliant. I doubt FB will ever do anything like that though.

THat would be excellent

When I see bots going to ‘social media training’ these days I think it’s not about constantly posting all over the place and reposting memes like a couple of years ago, they are getting more sophisticated and are using clever techniques to make sure their posts are seen

BS Some times I would read things and justify to myself that you (MN thread posters) didn't understand WHY something was done in a certain way or that you didn't have the full picture. This goes back to a time though when FL was at its peak and I still think now that a lot of the massive incomes were happening genuinely, but incomes have now dropped and people are still promoting it as a lifestyle changer which it once was but no longer is.

Some things I would read and it would hit home a little yes. But I'd decide to stop dwelling on the negative (i.e. stop listening to my rational side) and convince myself that I work so hard that I deserve success and to some extent I decided that my family came first and I would have to be ruthless to better our lifestyle.

In the end though my conscience would get the better of me even if I didn't want it to and affect my productivity.

I definitely felt that my success would come and it was just a case of riding it out as long as it takes. My mentors also encouraged this line of thinking.

In regards to social media training, yes it is so much more than clever wording and pictures!

There are ways to improve your business and personal page so that it has branding and uniform.

You are encouraged to identify your target market then focus your posts to their angles.

My favourite social media training which I tried to implement but was a lot of hard focused on the idea of having 3 - 5 areas of interest to you. These could be

Business
Products
Lifestyle i.e. possessions, car, house
Mum Life
Gym

Plus
1 top tip each week
1 question to generate mass response each week
1 reflective post each week

The idea is that you make sure all of your posts fit into these 5 buckets so your audience know what you are all about and build rapport with you.

@ReformedBot - yes that makes sense. If you look at the profiles of certain top FL Bots they certainly follow those methods!

1 question to generate mass response each week - I've seen evidence of a lot of these recently, only without the mass responses in the cases of the "not famous" bots. A question is asked and you can almost see the tumbleweed move across the screen as nobody replies.

People are getting wise to the tactics.

I've remembered your hairdresser's daughter, fitgirl. I would be interested to know how things go for her.

Talking of tumbleweed moments .... I saw a bot asking if anyone knew anyone with their own business in the area and to tag them . Zero response.

Interestingly she is in the downline of someone who has recently branched out to become involved in a regional networking group that has been discussed on these threads. Also interestingly the area that this lowly bot lives in doesn't have one of these groups which makes me think she's thinking of following suit and branching out.

As the income drops they're scrabbling to find new recruits and new business

Giving all my MN anti mlm huns/bot watchers/viestars and flappy pigeons a #eektastic wave! I was very active on the earlier threads, but gave up as I felt the thread had lost its way a bit and judging by the deletion I am not far off!

I have namechanged since, but I just want to add my support to acat’s (waves) point about getting things back on track, happy to help if needed.