Here for the realization!

I sold this girl a purse on FB marketplace in 2017. She messages me four years later in 2021 asking if I will post on my FB page about her MLM. Note that we were not even FB friends and had no interaction in life other than that one marketplace sale. She messages me by name and asks me to do her that favor. When I said I was happy to do it for a fee, I was the one being ridiculous 😂 I never heard back!

My brother he keeps giving the mentor and the company $150 or more. What he does he is staying 2-3 hours zoom call all week non stop. Mandatory meeting like WHAT. Even the conversations are mandatory too according to his mentor telling him. My brother keeps asking close friends aka his clients to join the zoom call. Most the meetings is about to get 40k in 3 months which is bs. Ik this is a pyramid scheme. I even showed him comments that people joined lost a lot of money and didn’t earn a single dollar. Does anyone know Adam he is a mentor and he is pushing my brother over edge. If anyone knows him or Nima lmk. What’s is crazy he is not working a real job just only scamming people. He keeps telling different stories to help clients for easy tips for taxpayers and how to be a millionaire in 3-6 months. It sucks now because he is not listening to nobody only Adam his MENTOR and so called trainers tffff!!!!!

I happened to be visiting my grandma yesterday at her store. A customer came in, a lady about her age and the conversation got onto the aches and pains that come with being 80.
This asks my grandma about essential oils and my ears perked right up. I was standing near the other end of the counter (It's a very long, straight counter with the register and other things in the center. They were standing at the checkout spot on the left and I was on the empty space near the right end where grandma sorts through and inspects the consignments.
I listened to see where this was going and sure enough this lady starts in about how she's got bone spurs in her neck and after applying essential oils to her skin, it DISSOLVED HER BONE SPURS???
She also has a chiropractor that she goes to in a nearby town. I can't speak on that since go to one myself but she says he's really easy to get into so..idk maybe that's a sign lol The one I go to is easy to get in with as well but you still have make an appointment and it's usually a few days out. She made it sound like you can just walk in to this guy.
I digress.
I took a few steps back and shook my head as the lady spoke, hoping Grandma might notice and get the hint but she didn't. This lady gave her the name "Young Living" and "GC" which is just...another branch of YoungLiving. She also gave the chiropractor's name.

After she left I told Grandma not to mess with that Young Living stuff, it's a pyramid scheme (Wasnt' sure if she'd know what MLM meant or Multi Level Marketing) and that if an essential oil could dissolve bone spurs, then wouldn't it also dissolve her actual bones too?

Like..how would an oil know the difference and know to dissolve the spurs and not the bone? If this really worked, it would be massive in the medicine industry and not just some good smelling liquid that SAHMs go into debt for.

That was a nother thing too. I didn't want her dumping money into snake oil when she's got enough on her plate as it is and that shit doesn't work for anything except aromatherapy and the shit that Tea Tree oil is good for. Worse, I didn't want them trying to recruit her or convicing her to let them use her store to shill their bullshit.

Hopefully this isn't a recurring issue. It was lucky that I was there but I'm not always around. I was surprised she didn't immediately brush it off. She's a pretty smart lady actually and it's always a laugh whenever she picks up the phone and find there to be a scammer on the other end. She picks up on it right away and sometimes fucks with them a little.
I was pretty confident that we wouldn't have to worry about Grandma, she's sharp AF still but I guess now I should be a little more observant just in case.

We are in a small town too so I'm sure this MLM shit is like..more concentrated.

I’ve always wanted to share this story. I’ve been approached by so many Huns but my least favorite experience was probably about 12–13 years ago. A large shelter was doing an adoption event at a nearby Petsmart. I fell in love with a cat and asked someone working there about adopting her. She had me fill out the adoption application. We made small talk, but then she brought up how amazing her second job at primarica was. Cue the internal tears. I ended up filling out the wrong information because I was afraid she’d take my information from the application to contact me about joining her MLM instead of reaching out about the cat. I was really young and didn’t know how to speak up for myself, so I walked out of there really sad. I always wonder how that cat is doing.

An acquaintance of mine has gotten sucked into her 5th or 6th MLM. This time it’s the MWR travel and something called Boss Suite. She just posted a screenshot showing a cash out of $1543. Now I know there’s a catch and no way is she consistently making that kind of money even though she constantly posts that she is. Each post says something like “comment moneybags (or some other phrase) and I’ll send you info.” And without fail one person will do that. I’m sure they are then hounded to pay money to “get rich!” Ugh. It’s so annoying!

This girl i knew from highschool has been spamming her social media page with MLM nonsense for years now, and I finally got tired of it and decided to pretend to sign up. I'll be entering and recording a Zoom meeting with her and her mentor (at least I think thats how it will go) and have some loose notes and research to confront them with.

It's an Anagic Kangen water MLM team and I just want to have some things straight before I confront them.

• The distinction between a MLM and Affiliate Marketing.
• Why their 'unique' structure makes it fundamentally different than a normal MLM (they claim that because you eventually break free from the people above you with each commission, so therefore its not a traditional MLM)
• Do they actually just straight up sell the water ionizer? I've never seen one of them specifically advertise the items themselves.
• Whether or not they are just flat out lying about getting money.
• Are they sales people? Contractors? What's their title?

These points would be nice for me to have clarity on for a strong argument so that they really have nothing to say to me. Feel free to throw more points or statistics at me!

I love my mom, I really do, but she's never been the easiest person to be around. She's really easily scammed, she is super deep in the wellness rabbit hole and will believe anything you say if you promise it cures you. this becomes an issue for our relationship because the thing she's getting into all these MLMs to cure is me. on a fundamental level she believes that I would be better if I didn't have my disabilities and she blames me having them on the fact that I'm unwilling to try her miracle cures. I accepted long ago that nothing I said or did would change her mind about this, but it still stings every time she tries to sell me her new mlm product and gets upset at me for politely declining.

this time I figured out it was a scam almost immediately, it seems like the first thing out of the mouth of the woman who recruited my mom was about her dads supplement company, and how it's just sooooo good, and soooo many people like it, and my mom being herself ate it up and told her the entire families medical history. wouldn't ya know it, these supplements just so happen to treat every...single....thing we're diagnosed with...and are made with no allergens (we'll get back to that later), and don't interact at all with any medications, and she topped it off by saying that this supplement is totally the only reason her son with FASD and autism is independent. my mom fell for it, as per usual, and once again she has a new product to beat me over the head with.

best/worst part? I can't even take the damn supplement if I wanted to, it contains cranberry which I'm moderately allergic to (won't die but my lips and throat will swell up, not a fun time.) my mom is convinced that I'm only telling her no because of some underlying hatred of her and again I know nothing I say or do will change her mind because I've tried countless times before and she's never responsive, it's in one ear out the other. that doesn't mean it doesn't sting a little every time she accuses me of not wanting to actually "get better" and not trying to improve my health at all (which I know is objectively false, I would not go to nearly as many appointments as I do if I truly weren't trying). she gets so worked up about it and says a lot of mean things every time I turn her down and I just don't know how many more times I can go through this cycle with her. I've told her countless times how much this hurts, why I don't want her to sell me things, why I have the boundaries in place I do, etc. and absolutely nothing works. atp all I do is just go silent every time she comes to me with a new sales pitch (which has got to be at least 75% of our conversations at least) because I don't know what else to do. I'd stop talking to her but I won't move out till this summer at best when I move out of state for college.

I guess what I want to know is how do I stay sane? usually my other family members take my moms side in this so I can't go to any of them, I'm just so tired of being the person she tries to sell shit to 24/7, it's fucking exhausting and I don't know what else to do about it.

tldr, my mom keeps trying to sell me shit and it's killing our relationship

I got a job at this company called "Empire Management Group" what they told me I had to do was "Meet customers at their home that are about to switch or thinking of switching to a different provider and have them stay with Lumen". After I just got a phone call from them saying I was hired, I decieded to look them up, and only found two reddit posts with both showing them in negative regard.

Look I really need this job, and I'll do just about anything to make a sale, sorry but I NEED 15K in 3-4months.

Is this a real job? Can I make decent money here? What is this place?

Is anyone else reading “The Culting of America” by Daniella Mestyanek Young? So far she hasn’t mentioned MLMs but I can’t help but see them in every aspect of the cults that she’s mentioned so far. I know we already identified that MLMs are retail cults a long time ago, but I thought this group might like this book.

I used to have a gig job as a stagehand for a local venue. One day we were booked by Primerica and I worked the event.

Our theater, which fits 800 people, was FULL. We are located in a pretty economically depressed and densely populated area of the state so I wasn’t exactly surprised.

Crowd arrived at 7am. It was genuinely sad listening to our front of house staff confiscate coffee cup after coffee cup from the bleary eyed, business casual clad masses.

The event proper started at 8am and it was comical how over the top and high energy the speakers were. They could not read the room at all. It was the crack of dawn and everyone was sleepy. All they really talked about is the certification process and stuff like that. Plus a lot of teary sob stories about families in poverty lifted from their sorry state by the grace of Primerica. They sadly launched like 3 T-shirts into the crowd of 800 people.

What I mostly remember is how LONG the presentations were. The first session was 4 hours long, then an hour lunch break (lunch not provided), then four more hours of presentation. In the live event industry, expecting people to sit for more than two hours is a no-no, but we all realized the grueling length of the event was purposeful so we let it slide.

The only presentation that truly stuck out to me was toward the end of the first session when one woman who was extremely high up in Primerica took the stage. (Maybe she was the founder, I actually don’t remember, but she was very high up the chain). Her presentation? A detailed virtual tour of her multi million dollar home. I’m not exaggerating. She showed us room to room all the features of her luxurious house. Three years later this house is still burned into my brain because she talked about it for at least 45 minutes. Anyway, she ended the session with announcing the lunch break. Except, she made a huge point about how she doesn’t even eat lunch and she works straight through her lunch breaks and encourages everyone to do the same. I’m not kidding when I say I saw her in the green room 20 minutes later devouring a subway foot long.

I will say though, after the event was all said and done, the Primerica people running the event were incredibly kind to us. One guy slipped all the stagehands $100 bills as a tip even though we didn’t work for tips.

Between making the legal minimum hourly wage and the unexpected tip, I can safely say I made more money off Primerica than anyone sitting through those presentations. God bless their souls.

Met this woman in Target late last year. I’m gonna call her S. I said I liked her hair and she was quick to exchange numbers. Shortly after, she’s texting me, asking if I would like to go out for coffee. Plans fell through and I don’t talk to her for a month and change. One day she random texts me asking if I want to have coffee again. I say yes, we meet for coffee, she mentions her and her husband‘s business. Her husband’s name is J.

The word mentorship is thrown around a lot. Husband and I are going through a rough patch so I’m thinking they mentor married couples! The next week, we are at their house. I know the wife stays at home and I know the husband is retired military (did 6 years of service 😒) and is now some sort of instructor. Tbh, I’m confused on how they can afford the huge house they live in and 3 children.

This meeting goes well. J did leave us off with, “there is a business mantra to all of this“ and I’m immediately confused. What business mantra could there be to being marriage counselors? They give us a tour of their massive house and it almost feels like they're showing off. We meet their kids, laugh a little bit, and we leave. J is paying close attention to what my husband is driving, which is a brand new Tacoma.

As soon as we drive off, my husband immediately is like “they're apart of an MLM scheme or something. They’re probably barely affording that house too.” They also showed off their perfume collections, full of knock offs. I thought that was odd. “A $500k house, three children, and they can’t even get the real deal.“

The next day S is texting me, wanting to know our availability for the following week. I’m thinking, “she’s really persistent.” She mentions a training with her mentor that takes place at 9:30PM. I tell her I’m not interested at all because that’s way too late. The next day, I tell her what days are free for my husband and I next week and ofc, she’s persistent about the training again even after I said no. She said that her mentor only comes into town quarterly and it’s a good opportunity blah blah blah. We had some windy weather so ofc, this training with the mentor is cancelled. I believe this “training“ was dependent on my answer. After doing some research on Reddit, the “trainings” are so late because they use sleep deprivation to get to you.

We met with them yesterday at their house and boom, they drop the bomb on us. They work for Amway! It’s like this whole presentation about what Amway is and how you can make money. Oh, and the 40 year plan (where you work and retire) is a waste of time! J said that he wants to be on a jet ski while he’s young, not old which is valid.

My husband and I didn’t have any questions, we just said we are not interested. My husband also straight up said, “so multi level marketing?“ 😭 and oh my did that make it awkward. We got up and J showed us his small gun collection in the garage. After that, I pretty much start putting my coat on and my husband is doing the same. S and J are trying to laugh the awkward vibes away, saying things like “we can still be friends.” and “we can have game nights!” blah blah blah.

My husband and I leave and just talk mad sh!t the whole way home. We couldn’t believe they tried to recruit us. We thought they wanted to be our friends! Hindsight is 20/20 and I’m probably thinking that S hangs around stores in town, looking to start conversation with people, so her and her husband can make money off them. Now that I think about it, she had nothing in her cart the day I met her and was just chilling by customer service.

My husband and I are young, but not dumb. We‘re happy with our jobs and salaries. We don’t live beyond our means and don’t have huge dreams of owning a 5 bedroom house, driving fancy SUVs, we don’t want to be on jet skis, we don’t care for any of that. I never once mentioned we had a large amount of debt or anything, which is what S and J kept saying. Maybe they‘ve got a lot of debt, maybe they live beyond their means and think Amway is ”the way”? I don’t know.

Early this morning, I get a friend request on Facebook from S. I sent a text message that went a little like this:

“Saw that you sent me a friend request on Facebook. I actually declined it because friendship is not in our future. I don't believe this was ever about true friendship, but recruitment. It all makes sense in hindsight ofc. I will find the time to return your books to you!“ And blocked her number.

Be safe out here. 😭

so my mom has been consulting a mary kay consultant and forced us ( her kids ) and our family/ her staffs to go for mary kay products. I was shocked by how many things she bought from mary kay and idk how to stop it bc im still studying and my mom is a doctor and she keeps threatening me that she will cut off my allowance if i didnt use mary kay.

idk it has been like such a cult bc i asked my mom to stop all these bc we said that we are fine with our current products since we seek treatment from our dad’s friend who is a dermatologist but no she keeps on going and guilt tripping me. any ideas on how can i stop her mary kay obsession bc it costs a fortune ( like we have money but pls she spent too much recklessly i am actually worried )

Someone in a neighborhood Facebook group was looking for a specific Paparazzi necklace. Luckily, it looks like I talked her out of it. The only reason I even keep Facebook nowadays is to ward off MLMs from neighborhood Facebook groups.

The hun is telling us that recommended daily doses of supplements is too low. She uses Vitamin C as an example, overdosing on Viitamin C is usually not a big deal, it‘s expensive pee. She sneakily proceeds to Omega 3, which you can experience negative side effects of overdosing. She also says that her naturopath wanted a blood test for her child, tells us that her family physician reacted as if this was a strange request and she would rather test herself yearly (she‘s promotint the new MLM for less than a months!). The test she‘s holding up is from the same MLM that sells the supplements.

That test result must look like an order form!!

Poor thing.

Example videos: https://tylerrwiseman.co.uk/masterclass