The Plague of Multi-level Marketing (Part 4) - What You Can Do

Hi, friends!

Now that I've gone into great detail about many reasons why pyramid schemes are manipulative, financially crippling, and overall horrible, I want to talk about what can be done.

If you know someone in an MLM, which pretty much all of us probably do, know that buying their products is not the way to help them. It's what they want you to do and it feels like you're being supportive, but that only gives them false hope. If they get a few people to buy something from them, that makes them believe that they really can earn money with that company and that belief can push them to invest even more of their time and money into trying to make it work. It's better to do things like encourage them to keep track of their income and expenses. Sales and recruiting might be bringing them some money, sure. Does that make up for the money they've put into the business or the taxes they should be paying as an independent contractor (or for the friendships they've potentially lost)? Probably not.

Obviously, you don't want to damage your friendship with the rep, so tread carefully. MLMs train their recruits to see any negativity toward the company as hostile, toxic, and false, so a direct confrontation could result in them blocking you. They may see your attempts to help them as an attack. MLMs are a lot like cults in that way.

If they aren't very familiar with how MLMs work and the dangers they pose, you could suggest that they watch the informative (though sporadically crude) John Oliver video about them. There's also a documentary called Betting On Zero that's available on Netflix and a handful of podcasts dedicated to exposing MLMs for the treacherous, despicable things that they are. A lot of the people who get recruited into MLMs don't realize what it is they're getting into until they've already sunk money into the company.


If you are in an MLM or thinking of joining one, I implore you to thoroughly scrutinize the situation. Look into the company and pay attention to how much money its distributors earn. It can be hard to find the statistics (because these companies don't seem to like admitting that barely any of their employees are actually making money). Ask the person who recruited you or is trying to recruit you about how much money they made with the company last year after expenses. Ask them what percentage of their profits came from selling products to people outside the company. Ask how much time they spend on their efforts per day or week and how long they've been with the company. Find out what the company's refund policy is like and what the requirements are for staying "active" over time. Learn about the products and whether or not they're worth the expensive prices. Has the company had lawsuits, scandals, or other issues? How complicated is the compensation plan?

If you want to earn money from home while taking care of your kids, there are legitimate ways to do that. I take surveys on my phone using an app called QuickThoughts and earn Amazon gift cards. There's also a website called Swagbucks that lets you redeem gift cards to various stores with the points you earn by taking surveys or other methods. You can get cash back when shopping online through the browser extension Rakuten (formerly eBates). If you want Google Play credit, Google has a survey app that will let you earn the credit for apps, books, or movies on the Play Store. None of those are likely to earn you enough money to live on, but they will help a bit and won't end up costing you money like an MLM will.
As stated by Dr. Jon M. Taylor in his excellent and comprehensive book, The Case (for and) against Multi-level Marketing, "MLM makes even gambling look like a safe bet in comparison." He also wrote that gambling is more honest than MLMs because everyone has an equal chance and gambling establishments don't pretend that their games are a business opportunity. In chapter seven of that book, Taylor shows that, according to his research, 99.78% of Nu Skin participants lose money, along with 99.84% of Tupperware participants, 99.91% of Amway participants, and 99.92% of Herbalife participants. The accepted average percentage of MLM participants who lose money is 99.7%, so this information isn't exactly surprising. Blackjack gives you better odds. So I guess gambling is another option you could pursue, but please don't.

Succeeding in an MLM isn't a matter of putting in the right amount of effort, it's dependent on how early you were to join the company. If and when you aren't able to profit from your MLM, it's not your fault. It's how they're set up! Please don't join an MLM. If you're already in one, please consider leaving the company before you lose any more money. You're not a "quitter" or a failure if you do. Getting out of an MLM is making a wise and difficult choice for your financial and emotional benefit.

Jake Peralta isn't someone I'd normally tell you to take advice from, but he knows what he's talking about in this case.

Thank you for sticking around through my barrage of words! Hopefully you learned something or at least got some entertainment out of it. This is a subject that I (clearly) feel quite strongly about. I've seen too many people get hurt in multiple ways by these companies. And not a single person I've known who's joined an MLM has had the success that they were promised. (On Mary Kay's website, I found an article from 2012 saying that there were about 5,600 pink Mary Kay Cadillacs on the road at the time and 2.4 million "beauty consultants" total. Of all the reps dreaming of one day qualifying for that iconic car, only about .23% actually get there. Yikes.)

Hopefully these companies will get shut down someday for being predatory and designed to scam their employees. Until then, I'll be here grumbling about how atrocious they are to anyone who will listen.

Love,
Lizzie

The Plague of Multi-level Marketing (Part 3) - Overpriced, Underperforming

Hi, friends!

Welcome to the third part of my series of posts about why multi-level marketing companies are flimmy and flammy. Yep, I'm still not done talking about why I hate pyramid schemes. This time, I thought I'd share some product comparisons between things sold by MLMs and legitimate businesses.

If the products being sold by MLMs were decent or at least decently priced, it would be easier to ignore the awful setup of these companies. However, MLM products are usually expensive, awful, or both. (After all, the people at the top of the pyramid make money off of the sales of the people they've signed up. That money has to come from somewhere!) There are exceptions, but even a nice product being sold at an okay price can't make up for the fact that pyramid schemes are designed to suck money from the people who join them.

Since makeup is something several popular MLMs sell and also something I enjoy talking about, I'll start with some cosmetic MLMs. I won't be mentioning every MLM out there because there are just too many, but I'll try to get all of the major ones.

Avon's prices are about in the same realm as brands like Revlon and L'oreal. I've only used three things from them - a lip balm, a nail polish, and some lotion - and they've all been fine. Nothing to write home about, but they do their jobs. Avon has been around for forever, the salespeople aren't usually too awful or pushy, and the prices and products are both fine. It seems to be the least terrible MLM overall, which is sort of like saying something is the least disgusting kind of vomit. Still not something pleasant that you want in your life, but it could be worse.

Mary Kay's stuff is a bit pricier, more along the lines of Clinique or other brands sold at Sephora. I'm pretty sure I've never tried anything from them, nor have I ever heard anyone outside the company praise their products. Nobody seems to enjoy the "pampering sessions" they get roped into, so I would guess their products aren't exactly spectacular.

SeneGence, the company that has LipSense, is really pushing it with their prices. Their mascara is $28, which is the same price as a mascara from Kevyn Aucoin or Estee Lauder. The only product from them that I've really heard anything about is their infamous LipSense. It does stay on your lips pretty well, but it also apparently burns like crazy, smells like alcohol, and is incredibly uncomfortable to wear. (Sellers like to tell you that LipSense is supposed to feel like you're holding a lighter to your lips and that the pain just means it's purging your lips of inferior products or some nonsense to that effect.) If I'm paying $25 for a tube of liquid lipstick, I'd expect it to be better than that.

Younique charges luxury prices for products that definitely don't seem to have luxury results. I actually went pretty in-depth with this and compared the prices for most of their products to things sold at Sephora, and hoo boy am I shocked at the gall this company has. Personally, I think it's dumb for any brand to charge $26 for a single cream eye shadow, but the fact that Younique's cream shadows are $26 is particularly infuriating when you realize that brands like Natasha Denona and Givenchy are about the same price. In fact, you get a better deal from Natasha Denona (which is a phrase that has probably never been used before now) because her cream shadows are only $2 more but contain 6 grams instead of 4.5 grams. What in the actual heck? I was also particularly appalled at their 30 mL bottle of "beauty oil" that they charge $75 for even though it's basically just squalane oil. Oh, and I can't forget their rose water toner that's so overpriced that you'd be better off getting a 200 mL bottle from Lancome for $27 instead of their 100 mL bottle for $39. When Lancome is the option that makes more economic sense, something is very, very wrong.
I could keep going like this for a while. Just know that Younique's prices are completely redonkulous and their products aren't even nice or in pretty packaging. (This official video from corporate seems like a parody, but it's not. The palette really is that bad.)

Moving on from makeup, Rodan + Fields sells skincare that definitely costs way more than it needs to. Their lash serum is $150 and also the subject of a lawsuit. I highly doubt their $64 eye cream (15 mL) provides results that are actually worth $64.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone I know talk about Monat, but I want to bring it up anyway because I need to warn you all to stay far, far away from these hair products. Not only are the bottles of shampoo $30+, but Monat has several lawsuits against it. People who have used Monat have had their hair fall out and not grow back.

Super expensive shampoo and conditioner that make you bald? I'm going to have to pass.

Scrolling through the Color Street website and looking at the terribly Photoshopped pictures of their nail polish strips made me giggle. What they sell is kind of like stickers made of nail polish. Each pack is around $10-$13, which makes it cheaper than going to a salon but still (probably) more expensive than buying a new bottle of nail polish and painting your nails at home. The advantages are that you can put patterns or art on your nails without needing the skill to do it manually and you don't have to wait for layers of polish to dry. The disadvantages are the price (compared to buying the polish and maybe a small paintbrush or a dotting tool) and the fact that you're buying something from a pyramid scheme. The good news is that if you want the same product (from the same parent company) at a better price and without the dodgy MLM aspect, Incoco is your friend. Sally Hansen also sells the same kind of product for a better price than Color Street. ColourPop recently came out with some nail decals, too, and I definitely trust their quality a lot more than Color Street.

ScAmway has a whole bunch of product categories, ranging from $45 bags of "slim popcorn" (which give you one fifth the amount of popcorn as a bag of Kirkland movie theater butter microwave popcorn, yet nearly half the amount of calories as an entire bag of Costco's buttery goodness) to $22 eyeliner pencils to laundry detergent that costs three times as much per liter as normal brands. The co-founder, Richard DeVos, was the father-in-law of Betsy DeVos and was also filthy rich thanks to all the people his company duped.

Nu Skin's products include a $20 toothpaste, a $29 mascara, and a night cream that gives you less bang for your buck than the Laneige water sleeping mask. If you're feeling extra splurgey, you can buy a $348 kit that has what seems to be a Clarisonic-type brush and a couple of products to use with it. Who is buying this stuff, Gwyneth Paltrow?!

Suddenly, the $169 Clarisonic brush doesn't seem as ludicrous. It still is, but it's not as bad as the Nu Skin version.

One of the MLMs infamous for having its reps send rude messages to people is Beachbody, which deals with fitness and exercise. Beachbody "coaches" don't always realize that what they see as reaching out to offer their products to someone is essentially telling that person that they need to lose weight. They sell pricey workout DVDs and various equipment, like a $30 yoga mat.

ItWorks! (does it, though?) focuses on products that are supposedly for your health and wellness. They sell supplements, "fat fighter" pills, essential oils, and a single-use facial sheet mask that somehow costs $59. Legally, they have to say that the FDA has not approved their claims about their products and that the junk they sell isn't intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Their sellers sure like to imply otherwise. Please have a conversation with an actual doctor if you think you might need some kind of supplement.

What you don't see in this scene is a guy from Buzz Lightyear's high school trying to give him medical advice.

In the same general vein, Plexus has more expensive nonsense posing as ~wellness~ and weight management products. For $89.95, you can buy 30 packets of Plexus Slim Hunger Control, a 20-calorie drink that's supposed to help reduce your desire to overeat if you drink it before a meal. Do you know what could do essentially the same thing but with no calories at all? Water! They say to use a packet of that stuff one to two times per day, which means you're paying $90 for something that will last you somewhere between two weeks and a month. A healthy rate of weight loss is a pound or two each week. If you're hoping to use this stuff during your weight loss journey, you'd better be prepared to waste a ton of money.

Who wants to hear about even more snake oils? Hopefully you do. Young Living is one of the two main essential oil MLMs. (They also apparently have eye shadow quads that are $55 and have lavender essential oil in them. Who the heck do they think they are asking $55 for four shadows?! Charlotte Tilbury quads are $53!) Sellers of YL get a better price than people who aren't part of the company, but you'll still find much better prices looking elsewhere.
For some reason, YL sells oils meant specifically for children, even though some oils are super dangerous to kids. Peppermint oil is known to cause breathing problems for small children, yet it's found in their "SniffleEase" and "TummyGize" oil blends for kids. The sniffle blend also contains eucalyptus oils, which can cause certain medications to be less effective and cause asthma attacks.
YL also sells animal-specific products even though experts generally don't recommend using any kind of essential oil on or near your pets because so many of them can cause health problems. Their Animal Scents Ointment, which is meant to be used directly on animals, has tea tree oil, which is known to be harmful to both cats and dogs. The Infect Away blend contains oregano, Mendwell has lavender, ParaGize has peppermint and anise, PuriClean has lavender, and T-Away also has lavender. Either someone at Young Living wants to make people's pets sick or they really don't know how dangerous these oils can be to the innocent animals owned by oil enthusiasts.

And now, a look into Young Living's rival brand, doTERRA. In my mind, doTERRA is both better and worse than YL. It's worse because the name is obnoxious, but better because its founder wasn't Gary Young, the baby murderer and phony doctor. Anyway, their oils are even more overpriced than Young Living's. They don't seem to sell oils specifically meant to be used on your kids or pets, though, so that's good.

Thoughts about essential oils that aren't brand-specific:
- Even if the oil you want to use isn't poisonous to your pet, it's probably even more smelly to them than it is to us, and I know I pray that I never get stuck next to an essential oil user on a plane. Diffusing an oil into the air means that tiny bits of oil could land on your pet's fur, which could lead to your pet licking that oil off and ingesting it, which is definitely not something you want. (Don't ingest essential oils, no matter your species!!)
- Essential oil sellers like to say that because their oils are natural, that means they're safe to use. If natural means safe, then I guess things like grizzly bears, arsenic, and poison ivy are totally fine. (Don't worry, campers, that angry grizzly bear is natural so it definitely can't kill you.) Some people are so afraid of "chemicals" that they forget that everything is a chemical. Sellers will sometimes say that their brand of oil is purer than other brands, which actually just means it's even more dangerous if used incorrectly or undiluted. Strike two, #oilymama.
- Basically, don't use oils for your health issues or else you might give yourself even more problems to deal with. Personally, I'd rather be sniffly than having a seizure or developing respiratory issues.

I should stop ranting about essential oils now. Back to MLMs!

Scentsy is escentially (heh) Bath and Body Works, but with even more introvert-intimidating employees. Their wax warmers start at $30 and most other products seem to be around the same price as what Bath and Body Works has... if you're shopping there while there are no sales whatsoever. Good luck trying to find a day to do that!

If you've ever wanted a flimsy potato sack of a dress that has an eye-numbing pattern, LuLaRoe is the company for you! It's harder to directly see the prices of LLR products because of the convoluted system you have to use to buy from their reps, but the general range is about $25 for leggings and $40-$60 for their dresses. Of course, you can also find heaps of LLR clothes in thrift shops because of all the reps who have gone out of business and been left with tons of hideous, unsold inventory. I'd rather brave a crowded mall (y'know, if I had one to go to) and shop for dresses at JC Penney for similar prices but way higher quality. LLR clothing tears easily, sometimes smells musty, and occasionally has stolen artwork as its pattern.

Cutco is one that pretty much everyone has heard of. Their knives are quite nice, but very pricey. Their cheapest kitchen knife is $43. The can opener on their website is $61. If I ever decide I want a $51 ice cream scoop or a $76 cheese knife, I know where to look.

Thankfully, Phoebe didn't stick with Cutco for long

Pampered Chef is another famous MLM with nice kitchen tools at high prices. I remember my mom buying some Pampered Chef stuff from a thrift store when I was a kid. She told me she was excited to find those things because they were good quality. I asked why she didn't get more of their things from a regular store and she told me they were expensive and also weren't sold in stores, which was very confusing to tiny me. I now understand that yes, $13 is definitely too much money for a rubber spatula and my 9" x 13" pan is perfectly functional despite not costing $45. Their small offset spatula is $10 and the same thing from Wilton is about $5.

Want to rid your house of all chemicals? Well, that's not actually possible, but Norwex lets you pretend you can! They sell "chemical-free" dryer balls (three balls of wool for $30), a $16 toothpaste for kids, and a $30 bottle of oven cleaner. I really hope the whole "cHeMiCaLs ArE eViL" pseudoscience fad dies quickly. (This is where I could make a really dark joke about kids that don't get vaccinated, but I probably shouldn't do that.)

We're finally approaching the end of this long parade of expensiveness. Were you waiting for me to bring up Tupperware? It's such a widely known brand that the name has become synonymous with any kind of food container. The products are fine - even if they won't withstand being run over by an orange van - but definitely cost more than they need to. A $35 can opener seems excessive, doesn't it?


That was more writing than I thought it would be. I kept thinking of more and more companies to add to the list! Since MLM reps are usually somewhat secretive about their prices and I never exactly asked for more information, it was a bit of a shock to see just how overpriced some of that stuff is. It's also amusing to see how many of the product pages have a tiny disclaimer about how they don't claim to diagnose, treat, or prevent diseases so that the company can't get in legal trouble when its reps start boasting about how they quit taking their medication and just put essential oils in their drink instead.

If I missed a company you've had a run-in with, let me know and I'll gladly shine the spotlight on their ridiculousness, too.

Tune in next time for the final part of my Pyramid Schemes Are The Worst saga!

Love,
Lizzie

The Plague of Multi-level Marketing (Part 2) - Sneaky Sellers

Hi, friends!

Welcome to the second part of my series of posts about why multi-level marketing companies are scummy and scammy. If you missed the first part, here's a link! Last time, I gave an overview about MLMs in general and talked about the sorts of things that these companies do to get people to sign up and keep them from leaving. In this post, I want to focus on strategies that the individual sales reps sometimes use to get sales.

There are a lot of shady things uplines may encourage their teams to do. Not all uplines or reps are malicious or dishonest, of course, but I want to highlight some of the sneaky tips that are shared in an effort to boost sales. Some people have absolutely no shame about using tragedies to market their stuff, trying to sell weight loss products to new moms, or being blatantly dishonest.

Be Vague
Since using your personal Facebook profile for commercial gain is against the terms of service, you aren't supposed to make it obvious that you're selling MLM stuff from your personal page. You're supposed to talk about "your business" and the "great opportunity" and products you have to offer, but not actually say what the company is or how much things cost. I've also seen advice against having the name of the company in your profile or cover photos since that might make people less likely to accept your friend request. (Hm, I wonder why that could be...)

When posting about a product, reps don't usually say the prices outright and instead will send you a private message about the details if you express an interest. It's easier to see someone advertising a $39 foundation, realize that's way too much money, and keep scrolling than it is to see a post about foundation, comment to ask how much it is, and then have to tell your friend you don't want to pay $39 after they reveal how much it is in a one-on-one conversation. That's one of the top pieces of advice given out by uplines.

Get Engagement, Give Engagement
The Facebook algorithm is an annoying creature, to say the least, but MLM reps will often try to use it to their advantage. If they get a lot of people to interact with one of their posts, their posts might show up in those people's feeds more often. If they interact with their friends' posts, that same thing may happen. (Unless the friend has FB Purity, which is one of my two favorite browser extensions!) That's why you'll sometimes see your MLM friends ask questions about what people love about certain seasons, what their plans are for a holiday weekend, what books to read, how many places they've visited, and other such things. They want people to share their opinions so that Facebook thinks they want to see more posts from them.
A recent example of this is the "#HocusPocus witch detector" stuff that lots of people were sharing and participating in. Supposedly, Facebook has a "witch detector" and could potentially show you as being a witch if you comment "#HocusPocus" on something. Most comments are just the hashtag, but some people would instead comment with an image that Facebook allegedly put on their comment because they're a witch, and thus made other people believe that it was actually working. Despite it being fairly easy to disprove, a lot of MLM sellers shared that copypasta anyway because it's a simple way to get a bunch of people commenting on your post, which then makes the Facebook algorithm think that you post things people are interested in.

An easy way to get a ton of comments on your post, even if those comments are meaningless.

Brag
This comes in various degrees and flavors, but the main idea is to post about how great the products are, how the money you made helped you buy a certain thing, or some other benefit you've supposedly gotten from joining your company. People will make up stories about a stranger asking what product they're wearing or post a picture of their receipt from the grocery store and say it was all possible because of their "small business" sales. They may even share before-and-after pictures that may or may not be legitimate or of someone who actually used the product. (Some "before X supplement vs. after X supplement" pictures are stolen from people who lost weight in a legitimate way, sometimes it's pictures taken on the same day but with a different pose/pair of pants/lighting setup, and sometimes they're straight-up edited to look better. It's depressingly easy to find edited pictures posted by people in the makeup, skincare, and "health" MLMs.)

A lot of MLM people will make a big deal of how they're an entrepreneur #bossbabe and have their own small business. Those sound like cool accomplishments until you realize that all they did was sign up with an already existing company and start trying to sell the products that they have no control over. Actual small businesses make decisions about things like what products they sell, what manufacturer they use, and what prices they charge. MLM "businesses" come with sales requirements you have to meet in order to stay at a certain level/status or get "promoted" to a higher one (although it seems to me like if you were actually your own boss, there wouldn't be anyone higher up to promote you to mega-boss. You don't see people who own a bakery saying that now that they've reached 400 cupcake sales in a month, they're the Purple Diamond Crown owner of that bakery instead of just the Green Squire owner.)
If you join an MLM, you're actually a salesperson for a large company, and you're not even getting paid as much as a regular salesperson would be despite all the time, energy, and friendships your efforts have cost you. You're not a small business, so quit taking up space in craft bazaars and farmers' markets.

Something else reps brag about is when the company's products sell out. This is something that non-MLM brands do, too, but it makes me roll my eyes every time I see a rep talk about how this certain product sold out so quickly and that must mean it's simply amazing!! That's really not the case. Sometimes, brands do legitimately run out of product and can't meet the demand. A lot of the time, though, it's just a way for the brand to create hype through scarcity. (There's also the fact that reps for some companies are encouraged to buy stuff when it first launches so they can show it to potential customers, so most of the sales that caused the instant drain of stock came from people who are already selling the company's products, not excited customers.) Brands that do this will have an estimate of how many products they could probably sell, but then only stock or produce a part of that number, thus inciting a sense of desperation to get it next time it's available because you might be missing out on something great. It's a known tactic, much like the trend of limited edition items that will only be sold for a certain amount of time. If a brand manages to restock that coveted item fairly quickly, that might be a sign that they were simply holding back on selling as much as they could've, because actually creating more product usually takes time. Take the Holo Taco brand of nail polish, for example. A certain amount of polishes were made before the brand launched, the enthusiasm of customers was way underestimated, and the polishes were unavailable for quite a while because more polishes needed to be manufactured and there's also some sort of shortage of the flakie glitters that one of the top coats uses. Another example is Sugarpill Cosmetics, who sold out of their adorable Fun Size palette at the end of September and have said they won't be able to restock it until December. There are some brands (like ColourPop) who do have the ability to restock and produce new products quite quickly, but they're in the minority.

Seem Exclusive
This is sort of a combination of being vague and bragging. Reps will say that they have a limited number of spots available on their team, that they have an opportunity that will only last for a certain amount of time, or otherwise make it seem like you can only join their company if you act quickly. This is a blatant lie. There isn't a limit to the number of people you're allowed to recruit under you and there aren't certain windows in which recruiting is forbidden. They're simply hoping that this tactic might pressure you into joining before you think about it too much for fear of missing out.

Pity Purchases and Inducing Guilt
If you think about it, the sales reps are the real customers in an MLM, but they'll occasionally get someone outside the company to buy products from them. Some people will buy something small just to get the person to leave them alone or because they want to be supportive of their friend's "small business." It's kind of like when a couple of Girl Scouts confront you outside of Walmart and ask you to buy their cookies, except those cookies are something most people actually enjoy, the money goes to a decent cause, and the price is pretty reasonable. Even if you don't particularly want the cookies, part of you wants to buy some anyway because the sweet little girls want you to. What Girl Scouts don't usually do, however, is try to make you feel bad about buying Oreos instead of their cookies. I've seen people post angrily about their friends shopping at Ulta and refusing to buy their $29 mascara, even sometimes implying that they should've just paid the higher price (for a lesser product) because little Tymotheigh needs new soccer shoes or something. If you tell an MLM person that you don't want to buy their stuff because you don't support MLMs, they may reply with something snarky like, "Oh, so you don't like supporting women who are building their empires from home?!" Ugh.

It's not my responsibility to help you pay for stuff; everyone has their own bills and expenses to deal with. I've bought baked goods from local teenagers raising money for things, bought handmade items from Etsy shops, shopped at the local bookstore, and commissioned some art from an awesome friend recently, but I never felt any sort of pressure or guilt from them. I have no problem with supporting legitimate small businesses unless they try to make me feel like a jerk for also buying stuff from Walmart and Amazon.

...because those are pyramid schemes? Is that an acceptable answer? Also, "Don't think, just do it!" is a terrible philosophy to have when it comes to buying something.

Get Your Kid/Husband Involved
People just love to make their kid pose for a picture that they can use for their MLM sales. Or, if the kid doesn't want to be in a picture, they might make up a story about what the kid supposedly said or did that proves how much they like the products. This seems to come up a lot in the essential oil companies. "LaKynn wasn't feeling very good today, poor baby! She asked mama for the I-Can't-Legally-Say-This-Cures-Anything-But-Who-Knows-Maybe-It-Cures-Cancer oil blend and perked right up! #OilyLife #WhoNeedsVaccinesWhenYouHaveOils"

Reps have also been known to have their husbands model their unsold LuLaRoe inventory (because LLR sizing is meaningless and any dress picked at random has a good chance of being able to fit Hagrid) or subject them to a makeover. Whatever gets the likes, I guess.

Groups, Parties, and Contact Info
This is some of the most obnoxious stuff that MLM reps do, in my opinion. If you've never experienced it, consider yourself very lucky. Since it's against the rules to use your personal Facebook profile for commercial gain, most MLM people will have either a business page or a group. The thing about Facebook groups is that people can add you into them without you agreeing to it. Thankfully, you can leave the group and check a box that prevents people from re-adding you, but it's still supremely annoying to find yourself suddenly in a "Color Street by Nevaeh" group and have to frantically get yourself out of it before anyone messages you about nail products. Reps will sometimes have giveaways or discounts for people who add a certain number of their friends to the group.

A very popular strategy among MLMs is to have a non-seller friend host a "party" and invite their friends to buy stuff from there. If it's a physical party at someone's house, there's the awkwardness of not wanting to purchase anything but feeling the pressure from the person standing right in front of you holding out a catalog. If it's a Facebook event calling itself a party, the only thing that really happens is the host makes a lot of posts about how great the products are, the seller tries to incentivize people to buy things by having a giveaway for a random buyer or saying each purchase earns the host a certain amount of product, and nobody else really posts much of anything. Neither kind of party results in any fun whatsoever.

Mary Kay is especially bad about getting people's phone numbers without their permission and hounding them about things. They've been known to get contact information from places like David's Bridal so they can offer "pampering sessions" to people, claiming they're the lucky winner of a giveaway they never entered. Those turn out to be a sales pitch in disguise and Mary Kay reps aren't supposed to apply the products to your face so you have to do it yourself if you do accept. Sometimes they'll ask their friends/customers to write down the phone numbers of people they know who might be interested in Mary Kay, which seems like a great way to get back at somebody you hate.

Include Empty Packaging In Pictures
To make it seem like lots of people are placing orders, some MLM reps will take a product out of its box and then have both the empty box and the product itself visible in the picture they post about the order that just arrived.

Message Anyone and Everyone
If sales aren't pouring in like they were supposed to, reps might simply go down their friend list and try every person who could possibly want to buy their stuff. If that doesn't work, they might get desperate enough to start messaging complete strangers. These messages are never particularly fun to get, but it's especially awful when they're promoting weight loss products. (Pro tip: If you want someone to potentially buy your stuff, maybe don't insult them by directly asking them if they want to buy your weight loss snake oil.)

I actually got a message request from a stranger a few months ago. She wanted to sell me Younique's latest mascara (which is probably a replacement for the infamous 3D fiber mascara that has recently been the subject of a lawsuit).

Why Is Everything Capitalized?! Also, most mascaras are only one step.

We have no mutual friends, so I'm guessing she found me by looking through the comments or likes on a post by Ulta or ColourPop or some other makeup page I follow. (Not a great way to find people to buy Younique, honestly. People who enjoy makeup enough to follow Facebook pages of makeup companies probably know that good makeup doesn't have to be expensive, and some of Younique's stuff is pricey as heck.)

In typical Lizzie fashion, I responded to her with way more text than she was probably expecting. She never wrote back. I'm guessing she stopped reading after "I would not." :/ I tried.

It's easier to give a simple "No" or make up some excuse about why you can't buy their stuff right now, but the best thing to do is to honestly explain why you don't feel comfortable buying from their company. I'll talk more about how to respond to your MLM friends in a future post.

Be Shameless
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, some MLM representatives seem to throw tact out the window in the name of sales. I've seen people try to use natural disasters or things like the anniversary of 9/11 to promote their products. Some people will use the sickness or death of a loved one to guilt people into buying their garbage. The MLMs that are focused on health and/or weight loss seem to be especially awful about this, with their reps directly asking people if they want an easy way to lose weight, which is ridiculously rude. People have been messaged days after having a baby by someone who supposedly wants to help them lose that baby weight and be beautiful again. Just... yuck! I generally try not to fault MLM reps for trying to succeed, but if you're willing to be so distasteful and insulting as to push your products at super insensitive times, you need to take a step back and think about how low you've stooped.

Hurricane causing destruction and killing people? Seems like a good time to sell nail stuff.

Everyone grieves in different ways, but I don't think shilling skincare is a very common way to cope with the loss of a parent.

I'd much rather send the money I would spend on your overpriced R+F skincare directly to hurricane relief. That way, I contribute a little to the cause and no R+F products have to touch my face. A win-win situation.

"Congratulations on successfully pushing a baby out of your body! Anyway, since that whole pregnancy thing made you fat, want to start selling weight loss supplements?"

Have you lost a loved one recently? Here, buy this wax warmer that looks like someone cleaned an old can of corn, punched some hearts out of the sides, and glued some wings onto it. I'm sure that will make things better.

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling mildly infuriated right now. This seems like a good place to end today's post. Look forward to part three, in which I'll share examples of specific products from a lot of these companies and essentially roast them. That one will be a lot more fun to write.

Love,
Lizzie

The Plague of Multi-level Marketing (Part 1) - Terrible Tactics

Hi, friends!

If you use social media, there's a pretty good chance you've seen at least one of your friends post about some revolutionary product/company that's helping them earn money while they sleep or letting them own a small business while staying at home with their kids. And if you've been friends with me for a while, you've seen me share huge walls of text about why those companies are horrible scams that ruin finances and friendships. I've never done a proper "why pyramid schemes are the worst" post on this blog and I can add links and pictures more easily on here than in a regular Facebook post, so I think it's time. (If you missed it, I did make a post about products you can buy if you like the kind of thing an MLM sells but don't want to support the predatory business model.)

So, what exactly is a multi-level marketing company and how is it different from a pyramid scheme, which is technically illegal? MLMs get away with what they do because they have products that people can buy. Pyramid schemes are all about recruiting other people to join the company and they don't have a product to sell, so the only way a member can make money is by getting other people to join. In theory, MLM company representatives could make money by selling products, but they're usually still pushed pretty hard to get recruits because that's a much more effective way of getting money out of the situation. Distributors for companies like Younique, LuLaRoe, It Works!, Nu Skin, Young Living, and Rodan + Fields just love to point out that pyramid schemes are illegal and their company totally isn't one because they have things you can buy. Sometimes they'll even try to claim that regular jobs (y'know, the ones that pay you) are the real pyramid schemes because people higher in the company make more money than the regular employees. That's... not how that works. MLMs are essentially pyramid schemes under a different name.

On a somewhat-related note, that "secret sister gift exchange" thing that gets shared on Facebook every December is another type of scheme to avoid. If you've been lucky enough to avoid seeing that, the premise is that you'll send one $10 gift to someone, get a few other friends to be part of the gift exchange as well, and you'll get multiple gifts from other people. It's not mathematically possible for that to work out and it's illegal anyway.

If you recruit six people to join the gift exchange, who gives those people their gifts? The six people they each recruit would. But then who gives them gifts? The people that they recruit. But... You see where this is going.

I know a few of my Facebook friends are or have been in various MLMs and I want to make it clear that my objective is not to make those people feel bad. The only people I want to offend are the ones who started these companies and the reps that knowingly scam others with malicious intent. Joining an MLM doesn't mean you're foolish, it just means you trust people and wanted a way to make some money. Even trying to recruit people doesn't necessarily mean you have bad intentions, because these companies really want you to believe that you're offering a great opportunity and it can lead to lots of money with enough effort. I hope that anyone who's in or supporting an MLM and is reading this will hear me out and consider what I have to say.

MLMs are particularly prevalent among stay-at-home mothers and religious people. They love to target women who either wish they could quit their job and spend more time with their kids or wish they could continue to take care of their kids during the day while also earning money to help with the bills. Sales reps say all kinds of things to convince their friends to join the company, making it seem like a safe investment that will definitely be successful and allow them to make easy money. Sometimes they'll even go with a mom-shaming approach and try to make their potential recruit feel guilty about not spending enough time with their kids or not contributing financially to their family. Stay-at-home moms sometimes feel isolated and miss opportunities for regular socialization, so the popular "This company is more like a sisterhood! You'll make tons of friends!" angle might also be appealing.
Since you tend to trust and love the people you see at church every Sunday, that trust may end up getting used against you when someone in your congregation joins one of these companies; you'd never expect that one of your friends would recruit you into something they know doesn't actually work very well. Most religions I'm aware of want their members to be honest, helpful, caring people who serve others. Convincing your friend to join a company that is nearly guaranteed to make them lose money is not a Christlike thing to do.

There have been studies, warnings, lawsuits, books, and documentaries explaining that making money from an MLM is highly improbable. If 99.7% of people who join MLMs lose money, how in the world are they still around? There are a lot of tricks that these nasty companies use to get people to join and prevent them from leaving. For the rest of this post, I'll talk about some of those tricks.

Upline Pressure
I've read several stories from former MLM reps about how their upline (the person who recruited them) made them feel awful about themselves, told them that any negative information about the company was to be ignored, and insinuated that they would be making money if they were doing better at one thing or another. If you express doubt or fail to meet goals, your upline might berate you and make you feel like you're failing them as a friend. At some point, you did like this person enough to sit through their sales pitch and sign up under them, which means they probably have the ability to make you feel guilty about disappointing them. There's also a risk that you quitting the company will result in them unfriending or even blocking you.

Empty Promises
Something a lot of people are told when they join an MLM with a starting kit/fee is that they'll easily make back that first investment within a certain amount of time, which isn't likely to actually happen. They may be told that they'll make a lot of friends through the company only to find that when you're all trying to sell the same products to anyone who will listen, there's more of a competitive feel than one of sisterhood. (Imagine opening a Domino's franchise, convincing your friend to open one right next to yours, and then still somehow being friendly with them despite fighting for the same customers. Not likely.) One of the big draws is that stay-at-home moms will have plenty of free time to spend with their kids while still having this "side biz" to help them earn money, but they seem to end up spending a lot of time on social media trying to get algorithms to work in their favor and curating the perfect posts to share.

If you really want to stump someone who's trying to recruit you, ask if they'd be willing to pay your initial fees since it's such a sure thing that you'll be able to pay them back for it in a few weeks. If it's not a risky move for you, it shouldn't be a risky move for them, right?

"Fake It 'Til You Make It" / Constant Positivity
Recruits are often told that they need to make their social media presence very positive and glamorous, even if they're struggling. It needs to seem like they're perfectly happy and having a great experience with "being their own boss" and being part of the company. Some uplines even assign homework of sorts, requiring a certain number of posts per time period or dictating what kinds of things to post. (One recipe/meal, one picture of a kid, one inspirational quote, one post aimed at getting lots of responses, one post featuring products, etc. See this link for a Younique example that I found online. It disgusts me that they put a quote from an LDS apostle on it even though the Church leadership has warned against these kinds of schemes.) They want to duct tape rose-colored glasses onto their friends' eyes and make people think that they aren't at all having trouble getting people to buy their expensive skincare or hideous, shapeless dresses. That way, when they go to recruit someone, they can point to their posts and say, "See? Look how well I'm doing! You could be this happy, too! Just sign right here and enter your credit card information."

Echo Chamber
The people at the top of the pyramid know that looking into the company too much will result in discovering the truth, so they like to make sure the recruits don't ever hear anything negative. If they do, they're trained to think of it as just a bunch of lies made up by people who are jealous because their job is inferior somehow. (I think getting a regular paycheck seems nicer than only getting paid a small amount per pair of paper-thin leggings you convince your friends to buy, but whatever.) MLM representatives are told that they shouldn't pay attention to people who say bad things about their company and are often added into Facebook groups and group messages with a bunch of other representatives. They're told to befriend other sellers, interact with their posts, and even unfriend or block the "haters" who try to point out red flags. I've personally been blocked by a couple of people at this point because I do things like recommend inexpensive products and share articles about the dangers of MLMs. I guess trying to help my friends not waste money makes me a jealous hater.

"Just Use Credit!"
When the money is inevitably not rolling in as promised, some reps start to worry about the state of their finances. If they voice those concerns to their upline, they might be told to just keep trying and use a credit card to fund the expenses of their new business. This is, of course, terrible advice. Ideally, credit cards should be used for A) things you have the money to pay for and B) emergencies/essentials. It's best to be able to pay off your credit card(s) before any interest accumulates so you don't pay more than you need to. That isn't always possible, especially for the people who get targeted most severely by these companies, but definitely don't use a credit card to pay for the opportunity to lose money in a pyramid scheme.

There are so many things wrong with this post "debunking" reasons to not join Monat. Don't open a credit card to join an MLM. You won't make your money back at all, let alone in the first month. Selling Monat does not help others in any way. Your hair will not be beautiful or healthy if you use Monat and, frankly, you'll be lucky to have any hair left if you do.

"Anyone Can Do It!"
When you have someone trying to sell to you or recruit you, they're equipped with canned responses for all kinds of negative answers. If someone wants you to buy/sell makeup and you say that you don't wear makeup very much, that doesn't faze them at all, which is a pretty big red flag, in my opinion. "Oh, but anyone can sell Younique!" they'll say. No experience with makeup whatsoever? That's alright, buy the starter kit and broadcast a live video of yourself applying it anyway! Surely that couldn't possibly lead to anything embarrassing because everyone is great at using makeup when they first start, right? (No. No, they're not. Makeup takes practice and I, for one, would not want to have my practice be shared live for anyone on Facebook to see.)

It simply doesn't make sense that someone who doesn't have experience or practice with makeup would be successful at convincing other people to buy it from them, especially without being given any kind of training. If you've ever been to a Sephora or Ulta and had an employee offer to help you find foundation that matches you, didn't you check to see if their foundation matched them before accepting their help? Why would I take makeup advice from someone whose eye shadow is an unblended stripe? (As a side note, the woman who co-founded Younique isn't known for having very flattering makeup. I know I keep going after Younique specifically; I have a special hatred for that company because they sell makeup that is both terrible and ridiculously expensive. It can easily be outshined by just about any drugstore makeup out there.)

Would you buy makeup from this lady? I sure as heck wouldn't. This is Melanie Huscroft, co-founder of Younique.

The reality is that not everyone has the personality to be a successful salesperson, especially if they're trying to sell something they don't personally have a lot of experience with. Nobody would buy baby products from me because A) I'm not very assertive or pushy and B) what the heck do I know about babies?

Sunk Cost Fallacy
After spending money to join the company (another red flag, by the way - you should never have to pay to start a job) and buying their products, it's easy for sunk cost fallacy to sneak in and convince you to keep trying for just one more month. Admitting that something was a failure, especially when you've put a bunch of money into it and made a lot of public posts about how happy and successful you are, is hard to do! If Jared and I hadn't had success with our calorie counting after a few months of trying, it would've been tempting to quietly delete my posts about starting to diet rather than owning up to our lack of weight loss. It stings to feel like you've wasted your money and effort, but it'll sting even more if you keep throwing money and time away by trying to make an MLM work despite the system being rigged against you.


Since this is already getting overwhelmingly long and I still have more topics I could cover, I'll continue talking about reasons why MLMs are terrible in future posts. For now, just say no to pyramid schemes!

Love,
Lizzie