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theloosecannon posted:This thread makes me sad and happy all at the same time. Sad that so many people fall for this and happy to know that I'm not really alone out there. The ones my girlfriend's mom dragged up started with this wonderful piece of poo poo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Financial_Group The worst part is she bought their loving insurance plan for the grandmother and their own, and to my knowledge, never replaced it with something reputable. So there's that. Promptly after she finally figured out the place was a scummy scam, she dragged us all to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonaVie They were charging like, if I recall, nearly 60 bucks for a wine bottle worth of Acai berry juice before anyone knew much about Acai berries. And yes, those Acai drinks you can get for 99 cents have roughly the same amount of berries, but "We have a patented freeze dried process!" Then, the real kicker and the angle from a con perspective I have to admire, every single article and promotional thing they showed was about Acai berries. Big celebrities endorsing them, the works. The thing is, again, they were talking about the loving berry, one that you could easily obtain for pennies on the dollar. Then they doubled down: They would let you sell it to fund bottles for yourself. Yes, that's right - she bought several thousand dollars worth of stock (had boxes stacked for months) with the intent of selling the product.. to earn the product for a discount. ED: It was basically just Acai berry fruit punch sold at a 60x mark-up. So I guess it's only redeeming feature is "not tasting too horrible." Honestly if they had sold the stuff for 99 cents in stores it might have worked out better for them in the long run. Blazing Ownager fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Mar 29, 2015 |
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Mar 29, 2015 19:58
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babypolis posted:why the gently caress does mexico have thirty thousand of those fuckers? The answer was already in the thread.. Pittsburgh Lambic posted:
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Mar 29, 2015 20:07
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Blazing Ownager posted:The ones my girlfriend's mom dragged up started with this wonderful piece of poo poo: The creators of these companies are just hyenas. Teaching people to literally prey on their own families. Whatever happened to the grandmother? And that's the most convoluted way of getting a discount I've ever heard. How'd they even explain that with a straight face to people??
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Mar 29, 2015 20:29
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Jastiger posted:Has anyone heard of Beachbody, a type of MLM? I have this person that vociferously is defending the Beachbody and MLM model as legit since "All businesses funnel money upward". What is the story with this one? A friend of mine got into Beachbody and was fully aware that it was a MLM rather than denying it would be different from others. He gave it a legitimate shot and pushed it really hard with the angle "look, I know this is MLM, but the products are quality and it can also benefit you" for a while but eventually gave up. I think no matter what level of effort you put in to these things, the chances of you turning a profit that is even worth the effort are extremely slim. It seems to be structured like any other MLM. As part of "Team Beachbody" you pay to become a "health coach" which grants you discounts for yourself on the products they push. They give you coaching tools and other tools to help "grow your business." You are supposed to play up the health coach angle to push the products onto others through you for a discount, or convince them to become a coach through you as well. Typical pyramid structure. They are known for their workout programs like P90x, but they really, really push Shakeology, a nutritional shake that is essentially a protein shake and multi-vitamins. It's retardedly expensive - $130-150 for a 30 day supply. I believe being a coach meant you paid about $90 a month instead. It also tastes terrible and they openly market that you are supposed to find "your mix", which means you have to waste time preparing it rather than just putting the powder in a shaker bottle. I thought that letting anyone who paid to push these products represent themselves as a health coach was really irresponsible.
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Mar 29, 2015 20:37
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Can anyone find on YouTube the hilarious MLM commercial where they're meeting with "big investors" at a suburban Denny's, and the investors are totally gobs marked when they see the Bentleys the MLM guys own. It's such, such sad wish-fulfillment fodder.
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Mar 29, 2015 21:00
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the best was a hot tinder girl wanted to have lunch with me but she worked a lot so could I meet her at work? *looks up address* it was an address for a herbalife store lol
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Mar 29, 2015 21:02
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babypolis posted:people always tell this story but no one ever provides a quote it may be a goon urban legend http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2503040 Boom quote:Last month my girlfriend came home after a day at University excited; some people from "Southwestern Company" wanted to interview her for a position selling books, in America. The selection process was gruelling, she said, and they only take the most driven, most capable students from each University in the UK. It would be tough but she looked forward to the challenge, she is that kind of person. Dead Precedents fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Mar 29, 2015 |
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Mar 29, 2015 22:09
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Yeah my coworker tried to get us all to buy her stupid Shakeology drinks. A few coworkers tried it out and it was terrible - they decided it's easier to just eat more vegetables to lose weight. Meanwhile the coworker selling the stuff had lost weight but she wasn't necessarily some fitness inspiration. She moved and gained it all back and now she's working with Mary Kay
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Mar 29, 2015 22:49
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Blazing Ownager posted:
Companies like Vitamin water and Fiji are smart because even though you're getting ripped off you're only paying like a dollar or two more than a regular bottle of water so no one cares.
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Mar 29, 2015 23:14
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I have a friend who has gone through quite possibly every MLM scheme on the planet in his search for a job , despite his only actual skill being "is a pretty good DM". He's got a million and one really fascinating stories because he's been a carnie worker, a day laborer, gone door-to-door selling vacuums and magazines and a ton of other poo poo, worked for ACN, done telemarketing a number of times... basically if it's been in this thread, he's been roped into it. And it's not like he's particularly dumb or greedy, he's just constantly desperate for money; he's got no real job-related skills and no eduction, his wife has no education and all the ambition & drive of a paper cup. So he constantly gets hooked by those newspaper ads promising $25/hr as a "sales manager" or some such and then when they tell him it's all commission based "but if you work hard you could make even more!" he puts the Sunk Costs fallacy into overdrive on his spent time and goes "well maybe it'll work out this time!" Then 2-3 weeks later, after he's completely burnt out on trying to sell useless overpriced poo poo to anyone who will listen, he gets his $80 paycheck.
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Mar 29, 2015 23:18
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The expose from a higher level Amway member is called Merchants Of Deception by Eric Scheibeler. It was at one time distributed for free as a pdf. I don't know if it still available for free, as the first google link goes to Amazon. I found it worth reading. It did not paint a pretty picture of Amway, or the Amway support materials businesses like Britt Worldwide.
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Mar 29, 2015 23:46
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Shnooks posted:I had a coworker who was really into Beachbody and would try to sell it to us at work. We told her multiple times it was a MLM and she told us that "Technically every job is an MLM. We all make money for someone higher than us" "Perhaps the same could be said of all professions. But enough talk, have a taste of Shakeology, the once-daily shake that has all your daily nutrients!" Chomp8645 posted:Hey you're on a roll let's hear it. She's married to a guy who falls for every get rich quick scheme to come along, I don't think it's a very complicated story. raditts fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 00:11
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raditts posted:"Perhaps the same could be said of all professions. But enough talk, have a taste of Shakeology, the once-daily shake that has all your daily nutrients!"
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Mar 30, 2015 00:13
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raditts posted:
Pretty much. Also, he can be a verbally/ physically/ emotionally abusive dick. The older he gets, the better he gets. But every now and again, he's a right bastard.
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Mar 30, 2015 00:57
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theloosecannon posted:Pretty much. Also, he can be a verbally/ physically/ emotionally abusive dick. The older he gets, the better he gets. But every now and again, he's a right bastard.
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Mar 30, 2015 01:16
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Just to clarify, the reason why "making money for someone higher than us" is different than an MLM, is that MLM encourages recruitment of distributors, distributors who are doing the EXACT SAME JOB that the recruiter is. Whereas a typical company has a wide discrepancy in the jobs each rung has: CEO handles stockholders and major decisions, COO coordinates daily operations, Upper management monitors earnings and makes personnel adjustments, Middle manage babysits employees, and employees do the work the company needs done.
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Mar 30, 2015 01:39
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FactsAreUseless posted:Wow, maybe he should have your username instead. All of his issues boil down to the most fragile of egos. Rage when he feels small or embarrassed, too easily stroked by these vulture "companies". At his deepest core, he's a good human, or at least wants to be. I especially hate these MLM scams because all too often they started the familiar routine: excitement at a new opportunity that would make us rich beyond our wildest dreams, and over time the slide into depression and despair that they (my parents) haven't "worked hard enough at it" and it's "not happening for them." Those demons stole pieces of my childhood, one failed home based business at a time.
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Mar 30, 2015 02:02
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Drunk Nerds posted:Just to clarify, the reason why "making money for someone higher than us" is different than an MLM, is that MLM encourages recruitment of distributors, distributors who are doing the EXACT SAME JOB that the recruiter is. the difference between an mlm and a normal business isn't the breadth of positions, it's the business model. No matter how exploitative a company is, it still has to provide some sort of product or service that people unrelated to the company want to buy. There is something actually contributed to the market. In contrast any product or service offered by an mlm is utter dogshit and comically overpriced because its only there to obsfucate where the actual money is made; from roping in more suckers into buying more unsellable garbage by appealing to their greed and promising them they'll make a fortune because everyone will want to buy it. If everyone in the world stopped buying coca cola, coca cola would collapse because it makes profit from selling coca cola. If every guilt tripped relative stopped buying Amway detergent or whatever, Amway would keep shambling on because the money comes from scamming it's own "employees".
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Mar 30, 2015 02:30
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Digiwizzard posted:the difference between an mlm and a normal business isn't the breadth of positions, it's the business model. No matter how exploitative a company is, it still has to provide some sort of product or service that people unrelated to the company want to buy. There is something actually contributed to the market. In contrast any product or service offered by an mlm is utter dogshit and comically overpriced because its only there to obsfucate where the actual money is made; from roping in more suckers into buying more unsellable garbage by appealing to their greed and promising them they'll make a fortune because everyone will want to buy it. I appreciate your mutual loathing for mlm's, but a lot of them do sell solid products, albeit at an inflated price. Nearly every mlm does sell a product that "actually contributes to the market." I find the cutco knives that have been gifted to me to be among the best in my simple collection. Kirby makes one of the best vacuums on the market, etc. it's not that they are marketing "unsellable garbage," it's that by convincing distributors to recruit identical-but-lower-paid distributors, one rockets towards exceeding market saturation. Drunk Nerds fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 02:35
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cutco knives are stamp metal trash and I've never seen a kirby vacuum but know that they're also ridiculously overpriced. if the products were anything above mediocre then they would be selling them themselves.
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Mar 30, 2015 03:03
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sweetmercifulcrap posted:A friend of mine got into Beachbody and was fully aware that it was a MLM rather than denying it would be different from others. He gave it a legitimate shot and pushed it really hard with the angle "look, I know this is MLM, but the products are quality and it can also benefit you" for a while but eventually gave up. I think no matter what level of effort you put in to these things, the chances of you turning a profit that is even worth the effort are extremely slim. Thanks for this. Is it required that the coach spend money to be a coach? The person that I was talking to outright said she spent $0 and was having fun as a coach. She said products are there but you don't have to buy them, and that the commission comes from the home company, not the downline. Right? Or is she lying?
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Mar 30, 2015 03:31
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Digiwizzard posted:cutco knives are stamp metal trash and I've never seen a kirby vacuum but know that they're also ridiculously overpriced. if the products were anything above mediocre then they would be selling them themselves. Kirby's are pretty good vacuum cleaners, but yeah, the issue is that they're ridiculously overpriced in an age where you can buy a decent vacuum for under $50 from Walmart. They're practically disposable assets at this point. My mom's husband got him and my mom involved in this thing called Ignite, which was selling electricity utilities, They frequently tried hitting me up for signing up and handing out flyers in my apartment complex, while I was in college, even though I was living student apartment complex that is all utilities paid. Apparently, the company behind them, Steam Energy, eventually got fined for deceptive business practices. Wikipedia posted:In 2010, the sign-up cost in Georgia was $300, with a $25 monthly fee to maintain a website. Associates typically received between $0.50 and $3 a month for each customer they recruited.[5] According to Robert L. FitzPatrick of the consumer watchdog group Pyramid Scheme Alert, 90 percent of the company’s sales force lost nearly all their investments; 8.5 percent made no profit; 1 percent made minimum wage-level income, and fewer than 0.1 percent earned substantial income. He got really deep into it too, going out to nationwide meetings and such. Then nothing. I suspect that certain financial problems they've been having may have been the result of him literally betting the farm on this poo poo. Young Freud fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 03:35
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theloosecannon posted:I followed up. After the massive, and I mean MASSIVE, Christmas screaming match, I came just short of police and law involvement. Everything was cancelled and removed and I followed up with credit reporting agencies. (At the time, we were selling our home so we were working closely with the bank and our credit was being monitored anyway THANK GOD). unnecessary quote of a post from the last page, but I'm really glad to read this. you can't get back your lost childhood but i'm happy that you can fight back
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Mar 30, 2015 03:39
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For awhile this was an issue with my dad. Not because of the MLM scam, but because of the free lunches they sometimes offer at their orientation. My dad thought he was totally outsmarting them by sitting in a hot crowded space for hours to get a free boxed lunch or a sandwich and chips. He wasn't brainwashed into an MLM, but he thought sitting through the program was worth a free lovely meal. I want to stress that my father has never gone hungry a day in his life. There has never been a lack of something to eat at home. He would skip real meals in anticipation of waiting through some poo poo company's presentation to get a plate of food that wasn't fit for a $5 buffet. It got so bad, that he was actually inviting friends and family to come with him. The last straw for him that sullied this sweet loving free lunch deal was when one group LIED! about a free iPad as part of the orientation. He still sat through it till he got the free lunch, then left. NEVER. AGAIN.
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Mar 30, 2015 03:53
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Ceive posted:For awhile this was an issue with my dad. Not because of the MLM scam, but because of the free lunches they sometimes offer at their orientation. My dad thought he was totally outsmarting them by sitting in a hot crowded space for hours to get a free boxed lunch or a sandwich and chips. He wasn't brainwashed into an MLM, but he thought sitting through the program was worth a free lovely meal. That sounds about as worth it as sitting through a timeshare presentation for free tickets to whatever the local theme park is. No matter how short or long the presentation is, it never feels like the reward was worth it and you hate yourself at the end.
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Mar 30, 2015 05:10
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Ceive posted:For awhile this was an issue with my dad. Not because of the MLM scam, but because of the free lunches they sometimes offer at their orientation. My dad thought he was totally outsmarting them by sitting in a hot crowded space for hours to get a free boxed lunch or a sandwich and chips. He wasn't brainwashed into an MLM, but he thought sitting through the program was worth a free lovely meal. i get your dad.
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Mar 30, 2015 05:15
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Tsinava posted:A local MLM is this thing called "herbalife" i think they sell essential oils or some other liver destroying snake oil Holy poo poo it even has the word "oil" in it, I can't believe I never noticed that connection before. On that note, my parents have become bigger and bigger new agers ever since I left the homestead years ago... They are ALL about them magic chinese secret ancient cure-alls now. It's so frustrating because they actually are extremely hard workers and would see right through MLM bullshit but when it comes to pretend health potions, they can't get enough.
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Mar 30, 2015 06:20
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SwizzBuzz posted:Holy poo poo it even has the word "oil" in it, I can't believe I never noticed that connection before. try kidnapping and deprogramming them
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Mar 30, 2015 06:26
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Only 4 pages in but haven't seen it mentioned yet. There was a thread on here making fun of it years ago. But does anyone remember the dude bbq thing? Where you order this overpriced meat and piece of wood or "shot board" and gigantic spatula and invite all your friends over and try to sell them poo poo. It was so terrible like Are you a man? YEAH do you like meat!? gently caress YA BACON LETS GET DRUNK AND DO MAN poo poo
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Mar 30, 2015 06:40
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Nostalgia4Dicks posted:Only 4 pages in but haven't seen it mentioned yet. There was a thread on here making fun of it years ago. Hah, I do remember that, and remember feeling shame for having a penis and being represented in that way
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Mar 30, 2015 06:43
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Jastiger posted:Thanks for this. Is it required that the coach spend money to be a coach? The person that I was talking to outright said she spent $0 and was having fun as a coach. She said products are there but you don't have to buy them, and that the commission comes from the home company, not the downline. Right? Or is she lying? I wasn't sure but according to this it costs $40 to sign up as a coach and $15.95 per month after that. http://www.teambeachbody.com/en_US/coach/faq#01 quote:]b]How do I earn money?[/b] They're probably one of the better MLM's out there and more on the level, but like any of them it involves a LOT of work for very little profit.
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Mar 30, 2015 06:44
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Nostalgia4Dicks posted:Only 4 pages in but haven't seen it mentioned yet. There was a thread on here making fun of it years ago. It's called Mancave I think. They talked about them on Bullshit! and followed a guy who made maybe $50 per event after a ton of work.
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Mar 30, 2015 07:05
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My MLM story is that in late 2009 when I was unemployed, I was applying for jobs left and right and always desperate for interviews. So I get an interview on what's listed as an administrative/managerial position, which I had recent experience in. I get to the interview and literally the only items in the room are a desk for the interviewer, a chair for me, a poster of Bulls-era Michael Jordan on the wall, and an old stereo blaring Salt n Peppa. Immediately I realize I've made a mistake, but I figure what the hell, I wore a suit for this and at least I can practice bullshitting interview responses on the fly. The interviewer is a weasly white dude who is dressed worse than me, and his whole pitch is about getting shoppers inside Best Buy to sign up for some vague cable TV subscription. He went on about how your commission increased the more subscriptions you were able to "delegate" to others. Naturally, you incurred up front costs for training materials, clothing, etc. I expect MLMs to become more prevalent until the "sharing economy" inevitably collapses under the weight of its own greed. All sorts of dumb singularity-seeking futurologist nerds will fall prey to MLMs until then. MeatwadIsGod fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 07:25
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Had a friend invite me to an "opportunity"; I was immediately suspicious because she had few details, but she assured me it had to be legit, the meeting was in a bank and they don't let people lie in a bank. I don't remember the name of the company and I had never heard of them before or since. Got to give them credit, they did their best not to draw a pyramid or triangle during the presentation. However, it had something like 16 levels and I'm not good at math, but even I could tell that pretty soon you would run out of people to recruit. Oh, and that opportunity, well it was to join a membership service to help you, and I almost couldn't believe it when they mentioned it, purchase stuff online (with discounts thru collective buying). This meeting wasn't in 1995 or something, it was like 2012. Also, the membership fee was starting at about $800 a year. I was ready to leave after the free food, but my friend was determined to see it to the end. I had to sit her down in an empty office at the bank afterwards and remind her that I had been buying poo poo off the internet for over 10 years without any help before she would leave.
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Mar 30, 2015 07:32
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The "free meal" deal is kinda similar to thing which is popular over here. Old folks are invited (via leaflets dropped into their mailboxes) for a trip to holy place (like sanctuary somewhere or historically-significant temple), mostly during time between Easter and pilgrimage season. The trip is really cheap, cheaper than bus fare to the place, and hey, there's free meal during the trip! So of course grandmas and grandpas flock to the buses, pay the 5$ or whatever, and go to Lichen or Czestochowa. The catch? There's a "sale presentation" on one of the in-between stops, where some really pushy people try to sell poo poo mentioned in this thread: "healthy" matressess, "healthy" pots, "wonder" spices which make meals taste real good and are help your health too etc. Of course the whole pitch is full of the most obvious tricks, pandering to various fears senile folks have. The absolutely most rotten thing in this whole shitfest is that, those pots and herbs cost astronomical amounts of money, so if you can't pay now - you can sign these loan papers here, and you can enjoy your wonder pots in minutes! You can only imagine how high are rates for this loans. The trip itself? You can sight-see around the place for an about hour, go to the mass if you are really lucky, and then need to hop back to the bus. Some years ago journalists made some investigations around these busineses, and guess what - sellers were involved in MLMs, and those trips are just desperate schemes to sell anything. The MLM company is usually somewhere in rent office, working for another company abroad. hosed up on so many levels. laserghost fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 07:46
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On a scale of never getting off the couch to being a japanese salaryman, how difficult is starting your own MLM scheme to get rich off the hopes and dreams of others?
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Mar 30, 2015 08:10
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cool tree bro posted:On a scale of never getting off the couch to being a japanese salaryman, how difficult is starting your own MLM scheme to get rich off the hopes and dreams of others? I like you attitude and motivation  Come to my exclusive showing with an open mind and learn how much you can really make
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Mar 30, 2015 08:55
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cool tree bro posted:On a scale of never getting off the couch to being a japanese salaryman, how difficult is starting your own MLM scheme to get rich off the hopes and dreams of others? The hardest part would likely be finding a reliable source of whatever you're pretending you want to sell to the masses but are really just gonna sell to stupid would-be salesmen. Something you can get en masse from China and believably mark-up like crazy. Probably electronics unless you've got a line on some new kind of bullshit berry. The rest is just copying the same mind control tactics from all the other pyramid schemes.
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Mar 30, 2015 09:06
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I was thinking something extremely new-age because you can make seemingly anything into a healing/warding type device.
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Mar 30, 2015 09:09
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numberoneposter posted:as soon as there is a super intelligent AI it will get my vote to run the world if this actually happened and it had absolute power, it would immediately kill a huge portion of the world's population as the first step in impeding (and eventually reversing) environmental degradation so you might die
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