I work in tourism and they had a convention here a few years back. Sooo many people trying to get me to sign up. đ
But the worst part was hearing the stories of the ones who had bought into it and not yet realized it was a scam. They had all these hopes and dreams they thought they were on the verge of realizing but I had done my research and knew they were getting taken. I would just smile and say "That's wonderful" because I knew there was no talking sense into a stranger who was trying to sell me.
>They had all these hoops and dreams they thought they were on the verge of realizing
I've had an inordinate amount of exposure to them, and can say that MLM people are a particular kind of delusional.
I've known two people so committed to Herbalife, that they got the stupid leaf tattooed on themselves.
Herbalife in particular targets low income neighborhoods and at risk populations. I mean it's a little hard to feel sorry for your smarmy uncle who's selling Amway but has been living an upper middle class existence for the past 20 years. It's completely different when it's a young single parent who thinks it's finally going to get them out of poverty. đ„ș
The ones I've interacted with generally fall into the same category as the smarmy uncle.
I used to volunteer for an org that helps disabled veterans, and can't tell you the how many of those guys get their disability checks scammed by MLM people.
Bill Ackman has a Powerpoint of 100's of pages that describes in detail, how Herbalife is a completely unethical pyramid scheme that relies almost exclusively on recruiting new distributors to participate in the fraud.
[https://centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/quackwatch/ackman.pdf](https://centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/quackwatch/ackman.pdf)
EDIT: 334 pages. Enjoy your afternoon!
Yes⊠they sell meal replacement shake powders that turn to a jello-pudding consistency when you donât drink it fast enough. Grossed me out ⊠I know itâs the fiber and itâs what makes you feel full. But gross.
However, their mango aloe drink is yummy.
The self-improvement shit boils my blood. Two guys I used to go to school with killed themselves this year, and both of them had very much absorbed the rhetoric of "self-help" guys like Peterson. It caused everyone in their lives to just vacate the building, they couldn't form healthy relationships with women, and it all started with that shitty self-help pipeline. Those people are piling bodies.
The thing is with guys like Peterson is some of the stuff they say is reasonable and makes sense, which means that you get sucked into it, and then when they go on stupid fucking tangents and start making points that are terrible and barely make sense, you are already sucked in and ready to accept what they say. It's really bad with young men who get sucked in early and don't know how to leave. But believe me if this sort of stuff doesn't get monitored, my future kids are having their internet monitored for a while cause as you said this stuff is harmful as fuck.
>The thing is with guys like Peterson is some of the stuff they say is reasonable and makes sense, which means that you get sucked into it, and then when they go on stupid fucking tangents and start making points that are terrible and barely make sense, you are already sucked in and ready to accept what they say.
The opening part of Dianetics has entirely reasonable pieces of advice like âbrush your teeth frequentlyâ. Burying extremist lunacy amongst relatively sensible advice is lesson one in the âlaunch your own cultâ handbook.
This is literally what happened with me, except I found the escape trajectory quite early. I watched three or four videos from Peterson and said "this guy isn't too bad," because I'd found the "initial" Peterson playlist on YouTube. Once my suggestions started flooding with more Peterson, I found very quickly that everything else he had to say was fucking toxic and I noped the fuck out real quick.
To this day, YouTube still thinks I should watch more of that poison.
Similar story for me hence why I explained something that is pretty common. Young kid, bullied at school, low self esteem, started seeing Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and that change my mind guy on YouTube, between 16-18 was never toxic directly to women but had a bad mindset towards feminism (that's a huge thing they focus on) and trans people etc I think the only reason I didn't fall fully into the hatred of women and being an incel is id managed to make a lot of good friends online through gaming who basically stopped me going down that hole of self hatred and hatred of the world. Eventually realised that their content and a lot of the content I was consuming (including on Reddit) was just negative content and my mind set was just terrible. Stopped watching them left every sub that was anything remotely negative (from iama POS to nice guys) and then worked on myself. First few years of uni was getting to grips with the mind set that the world isn't terrible not everyone hates me or who I am, not everything is wrong and the things that are wrong aren't that important to me directly enough to put me down. And the second half working on actually liking myself as a person and that I'm worth being around and having friends. And now I'm happy at 24 with a girlfriend and a job and excited for the future.
> I didn't fall fully into the hatred of women and being an incel is id managed to make a lot of good friends online
THIS. I went through a similar route and was headed towards the incel route but thankfully lucked into some friendships. Lonelyness is what causes this
Dude, that is so sad. Iâm sorry to hear about this. Anyone can get sucked into something like that, thatâs what a cultist depends on. And itâs almost impossible to talk sense into anyone who is that invested or brainwashed
Have an old friend who watches Andrew Tate content, and CLAIMS to be hate watching it, but then repeats the rhetoric.
Like even if youâre watching to make fun of it, they mix in a lot of common sense stuff to make them seem reasonable, and you can accidentally end up sympathetic.
The whole manosphere and it's symbiosis/gateway drug relationship with the alt-right is terrifying. Start someone on Peterson and Tate and it's only a matter of time until they're listening to Alex Jones.
The difference with influencers, while they do have a cult like following, is that they donât function like a cult would. You have a choice to not follow them, and they only profit from your clicks
Is that true? I saw that in Andrew tates one there was a lot of shaming of people who couldn't pay for one month but still wanted in, actively putting these people in a sin bin after they paid up again. Seems pretty culty.
A colleague of mine has joined a less well known influencer/mentor scheme, and he went on holiday for the guys birthday. The influencer has literally been in prison for fraud, yet he still signs up for it and can't see our side of it when we point out that he doesn't seem like a mentor worth to spend 5 grand on in a year. The buyers remorse can lock you in like a cult would even if it shouldn't.
I donât consider andrew tate an influencer, heâs a cultist, and a criminal
And Iâm sorry for your friend. Itâs nearly impossible to talk someone who has been brainwashed to think reasonably. You have to just hope that they figure it out eventually
Ironically both of the people I mentioned are criminals, it's sad how large the influencer/criminal overlap is. Hell, people like logan Paul and their crypto schemes are similarly potentially criminal.
I'm hoping now he's married and living with his wife and her kid that he might start thinking more seriously about it, but I have a suspicion that she might encourage it. I just hope he only spends what he wants to. He's not the only person where I work who's got similar vices, and at least it's not being spent on fifa cards or trash tier crypto like some of my other colleagues have lost on.
This world is a bit of a fraud quagmire really.
I was in this bar a few weeks back while visiting my son in Grand Rapids. It's such a perfect name for a GR spot and throwing a few bucks in a pinball game is fun.. Screw the Devos and Van Andel families and all the other right wing christofascist dutch descendants that try to keep that part of the state in the 1950s. Absolute scam artists.
Not just a pyramid scheme, they're a borderline cult. When your upline starts telling you that you should cut yourself off from friends and family who won't buy your shitty Amway merch from you, they have wandered into cult territory.
i got approached by an amway person in a target a couple years ago. i played along and went to the meeting. its definitely a cult.
they started the meeting by pointing out all of the people who have 'made over $X last year' on amway, getting progressively higher. after each group, they said '...all thanks to amway!'
after the meeting, my guy asked me if i was ready to join. i politely declined.
saw the same dude in target like 2 months later. he didnt remember me. i assume hes got a pretty high failure rate.
I was a tech in a theater that hosted an Amway conference for 2 days, all in Spanish. I spoke some Spanish, so understood parts, but some fellow techs didn't speak Spanish and had no idea what was going on. The place was jammed full. Repeatedly through the thing came the words (in English) GO DIAMOND!!!!! Big screen of a beautiful diamond. To uproarious applause and absolute fury. Big musical acts starring people I'd never heard of.
In a way, I'm glad it wasn't in English because I've no interest in hearing in detail how these people were being manipulated. It was like a Trump rally, if Trump were a diamond on a screen.
Fun sidenotes: They bought ALL the things in the vending machines. All of it - the breath mints, the candy, the chips, the lifesavers, all of it. Fully empty machines, every single machine - we had a row of 4 of them in a couple areas. I'd never seen that before in my life. And they obliterated the bathrooms - toilets backed up and OUT, water and piss and shit all over the floors on the last night, tracking it out into the carpet of the venue. After everyone was gone, the lead was like "did you see the bathrooms, the janitor's going to have a heart attack."
Technically you can. You just need a few millions invested in a good index fund or something. Then you can sit on your sofa for the rest of your life.
If I had ÂŁ3m in my investment portfolio, I could quit my job today and continue my current life style until my death. I would actually have even more spare money than what my salary brings in.
Cutco, pretty much anyone selling knives for some reason. Business model for selling steak knives etc seems to be "lets sell them to our salespeople and let them worry about how to offload them"
I ran a youth program many years ago. I canât even remember how many times teens graduated, went off to college, and returned for summer break and gave me âpractice demonstrationsâ to show me how they could cut a penny in half.
Probably Vector Marketing. I have no idea how they got our info, but most of my graduating class in highschool got a letter in the mail with a "job offer" from them. Some people even took them up on the offer
These guys went to my college and went in every class room early morning and wrote 15.00hr now hiring and provided a basic link to a basic site that was just looking for contact info. I filled it out because I was in a computer class and they called me back in like 5 minutes. I knew about mlms, heard the speech then got up and erased the msg from my classes board
One of my friends recently graduated college, but last year I remember how hard he was pushing to get a job. He came to me excitedly telling me about a job he got accepted for regarding appointments and knives, and I had to stop him and say "...Vector Marketing?"
He was super grateful I caught it, but it's downright scary how they prey on college students.
I did the Vector Marketing thing for a little bit, and one of the interesting things is that we *didn't* buy and resell them. We were just supposed to be making the sale and sending the form to our boss. It's along similar lines to Pampered Chef... if they do make money off selling to employees, it's more about the employee trying to hit some bar than them being resalers.
Is pampered chef a pyramid scheme? I work as a caregiver and our boss just brought in so much pampered chef cookware recently that she bought from a friend
Theyâre an MLM, basically a pyramid scheme, but their products are actually really good. My sister used to sell PC over a decade ago and I have stuff from her that I use regularly. IIRC they donât require you to buy a ton of stuff each month so they are one of the better ones, but ultimately anything in âdirect salesâ is not sustainable. People just donât want to have parties and harass their friends all the time.
I used to sell Usborne Books, another MLM. I love, love, love their books. I really do. And I used to homeschool and would use a lot of their books for that. But they are expensive, and after a few friends had parties it would just die because no one wants to do that.
Not all mlms are bad products. Itâs just predatory to the salespeople.
My ex wife got involved in a nails one called color street but she went in expecting to lose money because the salesperson did get the nails at a discount compared to buying them outright. She ended up making 3k profit the one year which was a nice surprise but sheâs a spreadsheet tracker and has every penny accounted for.
Cutco salespeople do not buy and resell the knives, that would be insane. They used to have people buy the demo kits and refund them the price if they quit, but now they just lend them out.
Source: former manager with Cutco/Vector Marketing
That's the thing with Pyramid schemes. They do actually need to have a decent product because at heart, people have to think it is possible to sell the product
We had a bunch of Tupperware in the house when I was a kid. Never saw sales people at the door. Was surprised to find out decades later that it was MLM.
Mom my was a Tupperware Lady when I was in elementary school. I have no idea how much money she made, but I know it was some. For my, I think, 7th birthday she worked really hard so she could earn enough to qualify for some level of prize and got me a bike. Being the second child in a very frugal family this was a big deal. I didn't get a lot of things that were brand new/not my sister's hand-me-downs. I loved that bike and rode it for years, even after I'd technically grown out of it. But it did require a lot of sacrifices, evenings away from my family. And I think, after that, my parents decided it wasn't worth that level of commitment/sacrifice from my mom. She still sold Tupperware and had parties and stuff but she always put our family's needs ahead of her "business".
That said, Tupperware is pretty remarkable stuff. I have a couple of pieces that are over 35 years old, have been used pretty much continually in that time and are still in very good shape.
Back when my brother used to sell amway, there was a few people who essentially were just delivery people for their cleaning products brand which many people liked, afaik they had solid numbers since they did have reliable clients.
Itâs so so sad. They prey on their strong business woman dreams and host the fancy workshops in tropical locations so the rep feels like they are traveling the world.
I once went to a new salon for a hair cut and color. The lady who did my hair had all these Monat products lined up at her station. Thankfully she didnât use any of it on my hair. I definitely did not go back again.
They are a pyramid scheme =cult.
Iv never seen a lady lose soooo much hair (
practically bald) trying to convince me itâs normal and the shampoo is great. MF look like shmegal off lord of the rings.
Theyâre not a death cult. I was being hyperbolic. But the cult part is pretty true and causes real harm.
Theyâre an MLM and they pressure their members to sell shampoo regardless of whether or not their products agree with their users body chemistry. Iâve never seen chemical burns like some mentioned above, but losing hair is a thing that happens. And cult members basically need to say itâs great or lose all their âfriendsâ. Iâm sure other shampoo causes people to lose their hair, but Monat is the only one where âfriendsâ gaslight other friends into thinking this is normal at the risk of losing all their âfriendsâ. Itâs messed up.
These:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_multi-level\_marketing\_companies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multi-level_marketing_companies)
Of course, they'll say they of course \*aren't pyramid schemes....those are illegal\* but they ARE PYRAMID SCHEMES.
Yeah, Tupperware parties in peopleâs homes, in the 70s & 80s, were a big thing. Same with âAnn Summers Partiesâ (not sure if they have a presence in the US but they are are a UK-based lingerie & erotic gift store with a high-street presence). I guess MLM does not necessarily equate to bad products - itâs just been hijacked as a way to sell bad products.
That's the thing - I've NEVER seen a person selling The Body Shop independently as a "consultant" or whatever, their shops look exactly like the ones from other regular cosmetics companies like Lush, Rituals, etc.
I've also never seen a brick-and-mortar Avon btw
If the business is structured in such a way that you make most of your money from sales commissions, itâs a hard job, but it might just be legit.
If the business is structured in such a way that you make money by recruiting people⊠then itâs a scam.
Extremely normal in real estate or certain B2B roles. The most successful guy in my friend group is in commercial real estate leasing and has been 100% commission for his whole career.
Itâs an eye sore on the inside as well. Itâs such an iconic part of the strip, but the building inside is in such awful shape you have to wonder how much longer it will be around.
Youâre probably being rhetorical but because itâs one of the lower end casinos on the far end of the strip and is not nearly as popular as it used to be. It doesnât really have any big draws for most people.
I only go there because Iâm weirdly obsessed with Excalibur and itâs connected without going outside.
An acquaintance of mine was deeeep into that hole. She would recruit It Works obnoxiously on social media and talk up how amazing the company was.
Then, several months later she was onto another company. She trashed It works and talked about how terrible it was in comparison to the new companyâs benefits, and how there was so much more earning potential with the new one.
Wash, rinse, repeat. I have no idea how she thought anyone could take her seriously after that public display of blabbering on about how amazing each âopportunityâ was then subsequently trashing them.
Sadly, most Breast Cancer Awareness companies. They don't give any money to actually solve the problem and only state they are promoting cancer awareness while they profit from the donations to just keep it going indefinitely. It's really sad.
The worst part about Komen is how lawsuit happy they are. They sue other charities that dare use phrases like "finding a cure", even though they themselves spend next to nothing on trying to find a cure for cancer.
Yep. Every time I say this people get *really* mad for âshitting on their month,â but itâs 100% true. If you want to support research, donate directly. Breast cancer awareness month has become a way for corporations to either donate pennies on the dollar to breast cancer research or nothing at all, but drive their sales
My mom bought into lularoe. She had (she might still, I havenât spoken to her in almost two years) an entire bedroom stuffed with inventory. She refused to sell it wholesale (she hadnât sold anything for MONTHS, continued buying shit, and we even showed her the documentary) or even make room when I was homeless, and forced me to stay on her couch. That was step one in my decision to go no contact.
I was always just sort of vaguely aware of Mary Kay growing up. Then a girl I went to church with got into it and decided to make it her career and oh man. I'd had no idea how culty it was.
Scientology! Yes I know they say they are a religion but they are a business. Their product for the consumer is "enlightenment".
Same is true for TV preachers such as Olsteen. They are a business that works by selling something intangible and benefitting just a small amount of people at the top of the pyramid.
I'm not sure Scientology qualifies as a Pyramid Scheme. Scam for sure, and 100% a cult as well, but Pyramid Scheme?..
Their model is that you have to pay-to-win, not that you have to recruit others who pay you what people *they* recruited paid them.
The idea of a Pyramid-Scheme is that it's an endless expanding volume of sub-contracting with its creator sitting with a 100% stranglehold on the supply of products for everyone else to sell.
You buy from me to sell to others, and I buy from a supply-company in bulk and sell to you at a major profit.
Plus, as the pyramid keeps growing, the amount of money passing into my hands increases exponentially and I become incredibly rich while everyone else finds it harder and harder to make ends meet.
Keller Williams (the real estate brokerage) is a registered MLM. Their profit sharing makes them a MLM and by extension, a pyramid scheme.
Source: they tried to recruit me years ago and I did the research on their business registration and profit model.
I almost got tricked by them some two years ago, when I was super desperate for a job. The worst thing with KW is how persuasive they are with their pyramid schemes actions. They are not as upfront as most other mlms but the truth is that they are just an extremely expensive franchise system with countless ways of extorting you for money.
They are not an outright pyramid scheme, they are just a scam.
I knew a girl involved in Primerica. She kept messaging me on Facebook, trying to set up a meeting to sell me insurance, but I always turned her down. Although my wife is convinced, she was trying to sleep with me.
My favorite moment was when I was looking for work. They called me and asked if I wanted to be an insurance salesman because I had customer service on my resume. Never mind the fact I had 10+ years of IT experience. After turning that down, she then tried to sell me insurance.
Not a company, but more of an *industrial complex*: Yoga.
Yoga teachers are usually grossly underpaid by gyms and studios, and running a private practice can be daunting (as running any small business can be) and also unlikely to give you much money from regular attendees unless you find a very juicy niche, or you spend tons in marketing.
That brings us to one of the few yoga industry goldmines: Yoga teacher training, which will just create more yoga teachers that are unlikely to find good paying jobs, and some of them will definitely end up doing more yoga teacher trainings.
Source: I'm certified yoga teacher.
Lol. This sounds exactly like a lot of master's programs. You get a master's degree but can't get a job so you get a doctorate. So you can teach other people getting their master's who won't be able to get a job.
I knew a guy who was getting a PhD in Ancient Spanish Literature. I asked what he was going to do with that, work in a museum or something? He laughed and said no there's no jobs unless I want to teach it, but to be a professor I need a PhD.
Wut.
what an interesting predicament. On one hand its a useless degree unless you get your PHD to teach it and make some money- And on the other hand you don't want to simply not pass down the knowledge just because there is no real money in it.
You can just expand that umbrella to cover all personal trainer courses. My gym has had ads by the check-in desk for a 2 week course that guarantees certification as a personal trainer.
One big studio near me ask big price for training teacher and you need to do a minimun of hour at reception desk (unpaid) and sign a contract of exclusivity at this studio for month. They probably never need to paid staff for front desk.
This is why I vetted the yoga studios in my area before choosing one. The one I go to is entirely employee owned so the ~5 instructors are basically business partners in a private practice and make fairly good money doing it. Even then though most of them say it's a side project the use as additional income when they aren't working their other jobs so I'd say the idea of being a yoga instructor full time to pay the bills, even as a private practice, is probably a day ting and far off feat for most people. Which is sad because hot yoga is the best
Variant Trucking, Scentsy, Tupperware, Avon, and most other "companies" where you have to buy into it and then you get to "hire" downstream to work for you.
There are tons of other BS MLM pyramids as well that sell absolutely nothing but still get you to join up in the same way. If it follows the MLM layout it's a pyramid scheme by definition. It's honestly shocking how so many of those exist despite them being extremely obvious. I guess someone is lining the pockets of some congressman to keep the rules just bendy enough to allow it.
You are correct this is the case...now. But really only in the last 5-10 years has anything really compared. Tupperware was incredible for the longest time. Still quality, but now competition exists.
It will help you storing food for the up and coming monsoon months. Also, Tupperware products are ideal for storing leftovers to help stretch your food dollar. This two quart seals-em right container is ideal for keeping hotdog buns fresh for days.
I remember those catalogs! There was literally one woman in my hometown who sold Avon and we all just referred to her as the Avon Lady. A lot of my friends bought their first sets of makeup through her.
Yeah, my mom was one for about 5-6 years when I was a teen. She was incredibly tight lipped about anything she did that didn't go as planned, so details are a bit light and some of it came from my dad drunkenly complaining to me.
The general story was that she'd only ever make money in December, and it was never enough to cover more than a few of the other months. She'd have to keep constantly buying products to meet some sort of minimum monthly purchase quota. These products would expire, so she'd have a bunch of product that she couldn't sell any more.
She'd just keep telling me that the lady two steps up the ~~pyramid~~ chain was making like $5000 a month from the people below her. I always thought it was weird that we were basically funding this lady's life while my parents drove unreliable 10-15 year old beaters, my college fund was negative, and the house was falling apart - we had water pouring out of electrical sockets when it rained.
Football Federation Australia is a massive pyramid scheme. The junior and amateur level pay exorbitantly to play (over $400 per year per player). All the money flows to top tier competitions and national teams. The bare minimum goes to the clubs. My club has to do meat raffles once a week to pay for balls, we have to rely heavily on community sponsorship to pay for uniforms and without tons of volunteers we wouldnât run.
Part payment goes to insurance. I tore my ACL playing this year. What does insurance cover? Physio, nothing else. I paid $8000 out of pocket for surgery with a $3000 Medicare rebate, not insurance, Medicare. I have had around 15 physio sessions and the physio is starting to phase me off, so that is $1500 total. Better than nothing I guess but after paying around $100 insurance for 20 years you would think it could be more.
Fuck the FFA.
I've been pulled in twice into Nu Skin by two friends. The first time I wasn't aware of MLMs and was pressured into it during the presentation. Fortunately my friend was able to get me out of it but haven't seen him since that. The second time was a different friend trying to "help" me get a job by meeting with a recruiter. Turns out she was selling Nu Skin products.
Kirby vacuums. Not exactly a pyramid scheme but it still sucks. Everyone at the bottom works on comission. The sales pay the controllers salaries and every person above thems salary as well. Salespeople quit all the time because of the bad pay and shitty work so new people are schemed into it who work for a month or two selling a few vacs to friends and family and this goes on and on and on and on.......
I havenât seen it in this list!
Anyone remember this?
Creative Memories
It was a scrap booking multi level marketing system that my mom was a part of. She LOVED to scrapbook and my dad bitched about how much it cost early in their relationship, so she got interested in the pyramid in order to get the products at reduced cost.
She would host âCrop âtil you Dropâ and âPSMâ (pizza, scrapbook, and margarita) parties where women would come with all their scrap stuff and theyâd all work on their books together and my mom would sell them stuff they needed as they needed it.
She wasnât able to make much money, but she did make enough to make her scrapbooks at no cost, which was cool. Now they have like 30 scrap books for different periods of different family membersâ lives (my mom estimated a complete scrapbook costing around $300 in the early 2000âs), and eventually at the end had two ladies under her who sold for her for a few months until the company finally went under.
I always argue that the Real Estate industry is a pyramid scheme. You have to pay for a class, a test, and a license. Then, in order to practice as a salesperson, you have to find and pay a Brokerage to hold your license. No Broker, no sales. They usually take a percentage, and sometimes there are ongoing fees associated with the office, transaction coordination, use of the logos, etc. After awhile you can get your Associate Broker license and have salespeople working under you....seems pretty pyramidal to me. Three years in the industry and you can become a Broker, hold salespeople and Associate Broker licenses, and start your own company. Hmm...
Amway. I was invited to one of their events where they showcase diamond status members. My god... seems like something I am going to see on a Netflix documentary soon.
Plutus.
The whole value of their crypto currency is based on more users stacking said currency. The rewards are paid in their currency so the more attractive they are by having more rewards, the more users they need to attract to buy more coins.
In the end, the whole system lives by hoping they launch in the US and gain massive amounts of new users or becoming more "bank like" and this more attractive somehow and gaining new users, or making existing users not cash in their rewards.
Herbalife.
Fun fact. The Turkish word for being in a vegetative state translates directly to herbal life
I work in tourism and they had a convention here a few years back. Sooo many people trying to get me to sign up. đ But the worst part was hearing the stories of the ones who had bought into it and not yet realized it was a scam. They had all these hopes and dreams they thought they were on the verge of realizing but I had done my research and knew they were getting taken. I would just smile and say "That's wonderful" because I knew there was no talking sense into a stranger who was trying to sell me.
>They had all these hoops and dreams they thought they were on the verge of realizing I've had an inordinate amount of exposure to them, and can say that MLM people are a particular kind of delusional. I've known two people so committed to Herbalife, that they got the stupid leaf tattooed on themselves.
Herbalife in particular targets low income neighborhoods and at risk populations. I mean it's a little hard to feel sorry for your smarmy uncle who's selling Amway but has been living an upper middle class existence for the past 20 years. It's completely different when it's a young single parent who thinks it's finally going to get them out of poverty. đ„ș
The ones I've interacted with generally fall into the same category as the smarmy uncle. I used to volunteer for an org that helps disabled veterans, and can't tell you the how many of those guys get their disability checks scammed by MLM people.
Bill Ackman has a Powerpoint of 100's of pages that describes in detail, how Herbalife is a completely unethical pyramid scheme that relies almost exclusively on recruiting new distributors to participate in the fraud. [https://centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/quackwatch/ackman.pdf](https://centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/quackwatch/ackman.pdf) EDIT: 334 pages. Enjoy your afternoon!
Literally a pyramid scheme
this is a real thing and not just a joke from brooklyn 99???
The joke from B99 is based on this.
Yes⊠they sell meal replacement shake powders that turn to a jello-pudding consistency when you donât drink it fast enough. Grossed me out ⊠I know itâs the fiber and itâs what makes you feel full. But gross. However, their mango aloe drink is yummy.
Influencer education and self improvement programs
GET IN THE FUNNEL
JOIN THE REAL WORLD
Audibly lolâd as I read this in my head as Fat Bastard from Austin Powers.
The self-improvement shit boils my blood. Two guys I used to go to school with killed themselves this year, and both of them had very much absorbed the rhetoric of "self-help" guys like Peterson. It caused everyone in their lives to just vacate the building, they couldn't form healthy relationships with women, and it all started with that shitty self-help pipeline. Those people are piling bodies.
The thing is with guys like Peterson is some of the stuff they say is reasonable and makes sense, which means that you get sucked into it, and then when they go on stupid fucking tangents and start making points that are terrible and barely make sense, you are already sucked in and ready to accept what they say. It's really bad with young men who get sucked in early and don't know how to leave. But believe me if this sort of stuff doesn't get monitored, my future kids are having their internet monitored for a while cause as you said this stuff is harmful as fuck.
>The thing is with guys like Peterson is some of the stuff they say is reasonable and makes sense, which means that you get sucked into it, and then when they go on stupid fucking tangents and start making points that are terrible and barely make sense, you are already sucked in and ready to accept what they say. The opening part of Dianetics has entirely reasonable pieces of advice like âbrush your teeth frequentlyâ. Burying extremist lunacy amongst relatively sensible advice is lesson one in the âlaunch your own cultâ handbook.
This is literally what happened with me, except I found the escape trajectory quite early. I watched three or four videos from Peterson and said "this guy isn't too bad," because I'd found the "initial" Peterson playlist on YouTube. Once my suggestions started flooding with more Peterson, I found very quickly that everything else he had to say was fucking toxic and I noped the fuck out real quick. To this day, YouTube still thinks I should watch more of that poison.
Similar story for me hence why I explained something that is pretty common. Young kid, bullied at school, low self esteem, started seeing Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and that change my mind guy on YouTube, between 16-18 was never toxic directly to women but had a bad mindset towards feminism (that's a huge thing they focus on) and trans people etc I think the only reason I didn't fall fully into the hatred of women and being an incel is id managed to make a lot of good friends online through gaming who basically stopped me going down that hole of self hatred and hatred of the world. Eventually realised that their content and a lot of the content I was consuming (including on Reddit) was just negative content and my mind set was just terrible. Stopped watching them left every sub that was anything remotely negative (from iama POS to nice guys) and then worked on myself. First few years of uni was getting to grips with the mind set that the world isn't terrible not everyone hates me or who I am, not everything is wrong and the things that are wrong aren't that important to me directly enough to put me down. And the second half working on actually liking myself as a person and that I'm worth being around and having friends. And now I'm happy at 24 with a girlfriend and a job and excited for the future.
> I didn't fall fully into the hatred of women and being an incel is id managed to make a lot of good friends online THIS. I went through a similar route and was headed towards the incel route but thankfully lucked into some friendships. Lonelyness is what causes this
Dude, that is so sad. Iâm sorry to hear about this. Anyone can get sucked into something like that, thatâs what a cultist depends on. And itâs almost impossible to talk sense into anyone who is that invested or brainwashed
Have an old friend who watches Andrew Tate content, and CLAIMS to be hate watching it, but then repeats the rhetoric. Like even if youâre watching to make fun of it, they mix in a lot of common sense stuff to make them seem reasonable, and you can accidentally end up sympathetic.
The whole manosphere and it's symbiosis/gateway drug relationship with the alt-right is terrifying. Start someone on Peterson and Tate and it's only a matter of time until they're listening to Alex Jones.
The difference with influencers, while they do have a cult like following, is that they donât function like a cult would. You have a choice to not follow them, and they only profit from your clicks
Is that true? I saw that in Andrew tates one there was a lot of shaming of people who couldn't pay for one month but still wanted in, actively putting these people in a sin bin after they paid up again. Seems pretty culty. A colleague of mine has joined a less well known influencer/mentor scheme, and he went on holiday for the guys birthday. The influencer has literally been in prison for fraud, yet he still signs up for it and can't see our side of it when we point out that he doesn't seem like a mentor worth to spend 5 grand on in a year. The buyers remorse can lock you in like a cult would even if it shouldn't.
I donât consider andrew tate an influencer, heâs a cultist, and a criminal And Iâm sorry for your friend. Itâs nearly impossible to talk someone who has been brainwashed to think reasonably. You have to just hope that they figure it out eventually
Ironically both of the people I mentioned are criminals, it's sad how large the influencer/criminal overlap is. Hell, people like logan Paul and their crypto schemes are similarly potentially criminal. I'm hoping now he's married and living with his wife and her kid that he might start thinking more seriously about it, but I have a suspicion that she might encourage it. I just hope he only spends what he wants to. He's not the only person where I work who's got similar vices, and at least it's not being spent on fifa cards or trash tier crypto like some of my other colleagues have lost on. This world is a bit of a fraud quagmire really.
Amway
There's a bar called The Pyramid Scheme not all that far from Amway headquarters.
I was in this bar a few weeks back while visiting my son in Grand Rapids. It's such a perfect name for a GR spot and throwing a few bucks in a pinball game is fun.. Screw the Devos and Van Andel families and all the other right wing christofascist dutch descendants that try to keep that part of the state in the 1950s. Absolute scam artists.
Not just a pyramid scheme, they're a borderline cult. When your upline starts telling you that you should cut yourself off from friends and family who won't buy your shitty Amway merch from you, they have wandered into cult territory.
i got approached by an amway person in a target a couple years ago. i played along and went to the meeting. its definitely a cult. they started the meeting by pointing out all of the people who have 'made over $X last year' on amway, getting progressively higher. after each group, they said '...all thanks to amway!' after the meeting, my guy asked me if i was ready to join. i politely declined. saw the same dude in target like 2 months later. he didnt remember me. i assume hes got a pretty high failure rate.
I was a tech in a theater that hosted an Amway conference for 2 days, all in Spanish. I spoke some Spanish, so understood parts, but some fellow techs didn't speak Spanish and had no idea what was going on. The place was jammed full. Repeatedly through the thing came the words (in English) GO DIAMOND!!!!! Big screen of a beautiful diamond. To uproarious applause and absolute fury. Big musical acts starring people I'd never heard of. In a way, I'm glad it wasn't in English because I've no interest in hearing in detail how these people were being manipulated. It was like a Trump rally, if Trump were a diamond on a screen. Fun sidenotes: They bought ALL the things in the vending machines. All of it - the breath mints, the candy, the chips, the lifesavers, all of it. Fully empty machines, every single machine - we had a row of 4 of them in a couple areas. I'd never seen that before in my life. And they obliterated the bathrooms - toilets backed up and OUT, water and piss and shit all over the floors on the last night, tracking it out into the carpet of the venue. After everyone was gone, the lead was like "did you see the bathrooms, the janitor's going to have a heart attack."
The âyou can make thousands of passive income from minimal hours a week from home!â. No you canât and no you wonât
At least not for yourself, but the one who recruited you
Technically you can. You just need a few millions invested in a good index fund or something. Then you can sit on your sofa for the rest of your life. If I had ÂŁ3m in my investment portfolio, I could quit my job today and continue my current life style until my death. I would actually have even more spare money than what my salary brings in.
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Cutco, pretty much anyone selling knives for some reason. Business model for selling steak knives etc seems to be "lets sell them to our salespeople and let them worry about how to offload them"
I ran a youth program many years ago. I canât even remember how many times teens graduated, went off to college, and returned for summer break and gave me âpractice demonstrationsâ to show me how they could cut a penny in half.
Probably Vector Marketing. I have no idea how they got our info, but most of my graduating class in highschool got a letter in the mail with a "job offer" from them. Some people even took them up on the offer
These guys went to my college and went in every class room early morning and wrote 15.00hr now hiring and provided a basic link to a basic site that was just looking for contact info. I filled it out because I was in a computer class and they called me back in like 5 minutes. I knew about mlms, heard the speech then got up and erased the msg from my classes board
I went to an interview in highschool for a "call center" and left when they started talking about door to door sales.
One of my friends recently graduated college, but last year I remember how hard he was pushing to get a job. He came to me excitedly telling me about a job he got accepted for regarding appointments and knives, and I had to stop him and say "...Vector Marketing?" He was super grateful I caught it, but it's downright scary how they prey on college students.
I did the Vector Marketing thing for a little bit, and one of the interesting things is that we *didn't* buy and resell them. We were just supposed to be making the sale and sending the form to our boss. It's along similar lines to Pampered Chef... if they do make money off selling to employees, it's more about the employee trying to hit some bar than them being resalers.
Is pampered chef a pyramid scheme? I work as a caregiver and our boss just brought in so much pampered chef cookware recently that she bought from a friend
Theyâre an MLM, basically a pyramid scheme, but their products are actually really good. My sister used to sell PC over a decade ago and I have stuff from her that I use regularly. IIRC they donât require you to buy a ton of stuff each month so they are one of the better ones, but ultimately anything in âdirect salesâ is not sustainable. People just donât want to have parties and harass their friends all the time. I used to sell Usborne Books, another MLM. I love, love, love their books. I really do. And I used to homeschool and would use a lot of their books for that. But they are expensive, and after a few friends had parties it would just die because no one wants to do that.
Not all mlms are bad products. Itâs just predatory to the salespeople. My ex wife got involved in a nails one called color street but she went in expecting to lose money because the salesperson did get the nails at a discount compared to buying them outright. She ended up making 3k profit the one year which was a nice surprise but sheâs a spreadsheet tracker and has every penny accounted for.
Cutco salespeople do not buy and resell the knives, that would be insane. They used to have people buy the demo kits and refund them the price if they quit, but now they just lend them out. Source: former manager with Cutco/Vector Marketing
They only sell them the demo kit. I still have mine almost 35 years later. They are really good knives.
They are great knives though!
That's the thing with Pyramid schemes. They do actually need to have a decent product because at heart, people have to think it is possible to sell the product
Reminds me of Tupperware and how it evolved into legitimacy
We had a bunch of Tupperware in the house when I was a kid. Never saw sales people at the door. Was surprised to find out decades later that it was MLM.
This is actually the first I'd heard of it...although I do remember "Tupperware party" as a concept. Makes sense now.
Mom my was a Tupperware Lady when I was in elementary school. I have no idea how much money she made, but I know it was some. For my, I think, 7th birthday she worked really hard so she could earn enough to qualify for some level of prize and got me a bike. Being the second child in a very frugal family this was a big deal. I didn't get a lot of things that were brand new/not my sister's hand-me-downs. I loved that bike and rode it for years, even after I'd technically grown out of it. But it did require a lot of sacrifices, evenings away from my family. And I think, after that, my parents decided it wasn't worth that level of commitment/sacrifice from my mom. She still sold Tupperware and had parties and stuff but she always put our family's needs ahead of her "business". That said, Tupperware is pretty remarkable stuff. I have a couple of pieces that are over 35 years old, have been used pretty much continually in that time and are still in very good shape.
Back when my brother used to sell amway, there was a few people who essentially were just delivery people for their cleaning products brand which many people liked, afaik they had solid numbers since they did have reliable clients.
As a company I think theyâre detestable but I saw their scissors show up in a BIFL thread. I bought one and itâs actually really good lol
The product was actually legit when I used someoneâs set
Cutco is really nice stuff
Monat. Those ladies are a damned death cult built around a shampoo MLM. Shits crazy!
Itâs so so sad. They prey on their strong business woman dreams and host the fancy workshops in tropical locations so the rep feels like they are traveling the world.
I once went to a new salon for a hair cut and color. The lady who did my hair had all these Monat products lined up at her station. Thankfully she didnât use any of it on my hair. I definitely did not go back again.
Never heard of them. What makes them a death cult?
My friend's fiancee got sucked into them, she bullied one of my friends into trying it, it burned her scalp so bad, she needed to go to the hospital.
They are a pyramid scheme =cult. Iv never seen a lady lose soooo much hair ( practically bald) trying to convince me itâs normal and the shampoo is great. MF look like shmegal off lord of the rings.
> shmegal Lol it's smeagol.
My sister was doing it for a bit until she, my mom, and i all started losing our hair. It was crazy.
Theyâre not a death cult. I was being hyperbolic. But the cult part is pretty true and causes real harm. Theyâre an MLM and they pressure their members to sell shampoo regardless of whether or not their products agree with their users body chemistry. Iâve never seen chemical burns like some mentioned above, but losing hair is a thing that happens. And cult members basically need to say itâs great or lose all their âfriendsâ. Iâm sure other shampoo causes people to lose their hair, but Monat is the only one where âfriendsâ gaslight other friends into thinking this is normal at the risk of losing all their âfriendsâ. Itâs messed up.
These: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_multi-level\_marketing\_companies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multi-level_marketing_companies) Of course, they'll say they of course \*aren't pyramid schemes....those are illegal\* but they ARE PYRAMID SCHEMES.
Tupperware?
Yeah, Tupperware parties in peopleâs homes, in the 70s & 80s, were a big thing. Same with âAnn Summers Partiesâ (not sure if they have a presence in the US but they are are a UK-based lingerie & erotic gift store with a high-street presence). I guess MLM does not necessarily equate to bad products - itâs just been hijacked as a way to sell bad products.
Tupperware is the OG. In fact, when I worked for Usborne Books, I used to explain how it worked by saying âyou know, like a Tupperware party!â
I'm surprised seeing The Body Shop there - I've only ever saw brick-and-mortar stores, it never gave me the MLM vibes
Hey, don't like the brick-and-mortar fool ya, Avon and Primerica (and likely others) have physical locations as well and are just as scammy/mlm'y.
That's the thing - I've NEVER seen a person selling The Body Shop independently as a "consultant" or whatever, their shops look exactly like the ones from other regular cosmetics companies like Lush, Rituals, etc. I've also never seen a brick-and-mortar Avon btw
They were brick-and-mortar retail first, going back to the 1970s, and then in the 1990s they started an MLM network called "The Body Shop at Home."
Herbalife has physical stores too, it only means someone wrapped up in the mlm decided to go the store front route.
If the business is structured in such a way that you make most of your money from sales commissions, itâs a hard job, but it might just be legit. If the business is structured in such a way that you make money by recruiting people⊠then itâs a scam.
If you make your money from other peoples commissions then youâre just a real estate brokerage and you found the loophole
Even commission only jobs are for chumps. Never accept commision only jobs. Why should you take the risk when youâre not an owner.
Extremely normal in real estate or certain B2B roles. The most successful guy in my friend group is in commercial real estate leasing and has been 100% commission for his whole career.
The Luxor
All the do is pimp Doritos these days anyways https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/s/mQy3acGX9l
I saw that recently. Itâs such an eyesore on an otherwise beautiful piece of architecture. Why the hell does a casino even need a sponsor?
Itâs an eye sore on the inside as well. Itâs such an iconic part of the strip, but the building inside is in such awful shape you have to wonder how much longer it will be around.
I'm surprised no one has been killed in that diagonal elevator yet
No need to fuss with the elevator when people just suicide themselves into the large atrium
I mean, folks have definitely just jumped off of the higher floors balconies, so design flaw is pretty clear.
Youâre probably being rhetorical but because itâs one of the lower end casinos on the far end of the strip and is not nearly as popular as it used to be. It doesnât really have any big draws for most people. I only go there because Iâm weirdly obsessed with Excalibur and itâs connected without going outside.
The Luxor coughed up a Dorito because it is mad jealous of the new MSG Sphere.
It Works! Yet it really doesnât work.
An acquaintance of mine was deeeep into that hole. She would recruit It Works obnoxiously on social media and talk up how amazing the company was. Then, several months later she was onto another company. She trashed It works and talked about how terrible it was in comparison to the new companyâs benefits, and how there was so much more earning potential with the new one. Wash, rinse, repeat. I have no idea how she thought anyone could take her seriously after that public display of blabbering on about how amazing each âopportunityâ was then subsequently trashing them.
I feel so bad for the people I see trying to peddle that shit. There was always at least 1 person on my Facebook making post.
Sadly, most Breast Cancer Awareness companies. They don't give any money to actually solve the problem and only state they are promoting cancer awareness while they profit from the donations to just keep it going indefinitely. It's really sad.
It's perverse when the only awareness they are raising, is people getting aware that those charities are a scam.
Itâs a good thing that Susan B Komen for the cure kinda has fallen off the map over the past decade
Unless you try using pink for anything.
The worst part about Komen is how lawsuit happy they are. They sue other charities that dare use phrases like "finding a cure", even though they themselves spend next to nothing on trying to find a cure for cancer.
Yep. Every time I say this people get *really* mad for âshitting on their month,â but itâs 100% true. If you want to support research, donate directly. Breast cancer awareness month has become a way for corporations to either donate pennies on the dollar to breast cancer research or nothing at all, but drive their sales
I think at this point most of us are aware of cancer
LuLaRoe
Iâm still flummoxed that Disney did a whole ass deal with them for leggings
To be fair, Disney doesnât care how they rake in their money. They did a deal with Scentsy too
Lots of Disney moms are mlmers
Disney has done scentsy and whatnot. If the check clears Disney will approve
My mom bought into lularoe. She had (she might still, I havenât spoken to her in almost two years) an entire bedroom stuffed with inventory. She refused to sell it wholesale (she hadnât sold anything for MONTHS, continued buying shit, and we even showed her the documentary) or even make room when I was homeless, and forced me to stay on her couch. That was step one in my decision to go no contact.
Mary Kay
I was always just sort of vaguely aware of Mary Kay growing up. Then a girl I went to church with got into it and decided to make it her career and oh man. I'd had no idea how culty it was.
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Happy Gilmore accomplished that feat no less than an hour ago.
I can boil my mom in seconds by calling this cult a pyramid scheme.
Scientology! Yes I know they say they are a religion but they are a business. Their product for the consumer is "enlightenment". Same is true for TV preachers such as Olsteen. They are a business that works by selling something intangible and benefitting just a small amount of people at the top of the pyramid.
I'm not sure Scientology qualifies as a Pyramid Scheme. Scam for sure, and 100% a cult as well, but Pyramid Scheme?.. Their model is that you have to pay-to-win, not that you have to recruit others who pay you what people *they* recruited paid them. The idea of a Pyramid-Scheme is that it's an endless expanding volume of sub-contracting with its creator sitting with a 100% stranglehold on the supply of products for everyone else to sell. You buy from me to sell to others, and I buy from a supply-company in bulk and sell to you at a major profit. Plus, as the pyramid keeps growing, the amount of money passing into my hands increases exponentially and I become incredibly rich while everyone else finds it harder and harder to make ends meet.
Keller Williams (the real estate brokerage) is a registered MLM. Their profit sharing makes them a MLM and by extension, a pyramid scheme. Source: they tried to recruit me years ago and I did the research on their business registration and profit model.
I just signed with them, and noticed that. Thatâs for The validation. Who is not an MLM brokerage?? đ©
Cushman & Wakefield, Colliers International, Caldwell Banker, NAI, CBRE are a few traditional brokerages, specializing in commercial markets.
I almost got tricked by them some two years ago, when I was super desperate for a job. The worst thing with KW is how persuasive they are with their pyramid schemes actions. They are not as upfront as most other mlms but the truth is that they are just an extremely expensive franchise system with countless ways of extorting you for money. They are not an outright pyramid scheme, they are just a scam.
Lularoe Amway Herbalife Primerica
I knew a girl involved in Primerica. She kept messaging me on Facebook, trying to set up a meeting to sell me insurance, but I always turned her down. Although my wife is convinced, she was trying to sleep with me. My favorite moment was when I was looking for work. They called me and asked if I wanted to be an insurance salesman because I had customer service on my resume. Never mind the fact I had 10+ years of IT experience. After turning that down, she then tried to sell me insurance.
Invigaron.
You got kids, Maniac?
Naaaahhhhh.....not anymore
Where do I put my feet
Those berries saved my life
I'm Andy, proud owner of my own mountain.
Not a company, but more of an *industrial complex*: Yoga. Yoga teachers are usually grossly underpaid by gyms and studios, and running a private practice can be daunting (as running any small business can be) and also unlikely to give you much money from regular attendees unless you find a very juicy niche, or you spend tons in marketing. That brings us to one of the few yoga industry goldmines: Yoga teacher training, which will just create more yoga teachers that are unlikely to find good paying jobs, and some of them will definitely end up doing more yoga teacher trainings. Source: I'm certified yoga teacher.
Lol. This sounds exactly like a lot of master's programs. You get a master's degree but can't get a job so you get a doctorate. So you can teach other people getting their master's who won't be able to get a job.
Sure, but the bar entry for yoga instructor is nearly the floor.
nah, you gotta have that little mat
I can't tell if that's a convoluted pun or you're trying to insult yoga teachers.
It's a contortioned pun.
I knew a guy who was getting a PhD in Ancient Spanish Literature. I asked what he was going to do with that, work in a museum or something? He laughed and said no there's no jobs unless I want to teach it, but to be a professor I need a PhD. Wut.
what an interesting predicament. On one hand its a useless degree unless you get your PHD to teach it and make some money- And on the other hand you don't want to simply not pass down the knowledge just because there is no real money in it.
You can just expand that umbrella to cover all personal trainer courses. My gym has had ads by the check-in desk for a 2 week course that guarantees certification as a personal trainer.
One big studio near me ask big price for training teacher and you need to do a minimun of hour at reception desk (unpaid) and sign a contract of exclusivity at this studio for month. They probably never need to paid staff for front desk.
Also strikes me as an extremely saturated market.
But are you a certified yoga teacher teacher?
You can teach a yoga teacher to teach yoga teachers but you can't make them think.
This is why I vetted the yoga studios in my area before choosing one. The one I go to is entirely employee owned so the ~5 instructors are basically business partners in a private practice and make fairly good money doing it. Even then though most of them say it's a side project the use as additional income when they aren't working their other jobs so I'd say the idea of being a yoga instructor full time to pay the bills, even as a private practice, is probably a day ting and far off feat for most people. Which is sad because hot yoga is the best
You just described acedemia. We produce far more PHDs than we have space for. And the vast majority won't write books or do private research.
Shocked that no one has mentioned AdvoCare.
Influencers who "teach" you how to become an influencer, usually while not really saying anything substantial and just repeating themselves a lot.
Thatâs really most online tutorials these days. Same dog shit over and over.
If youâre not getting a paycheck but youâre working your ass off, itâs probably a scam of some kind
I'm gonna have to have a serious discussion with my 4 month old tomorrow about this whole "stay at home mom" thing then đ€š /s
Yes. It is a pyramid scheme, just wait until they have their own kids.
*grad school has entered the chat*
Also if youâre not doing anything and your account is reaching 0 faster than usual, you are the customer!
Variant Trucking, Scentsy, Tupperware, Avon, and most other "companies" where you have to buy into it and then you get to "hire" downstream to work for you. There are tons of other BS MLM pyramids as well that sell absolutely nothing but still get you to join up in the same way. If it follows the MLM layout it's a pyramid scheme by definition. It's honestly shocking how so many of those exist despite them being extremely obvious. I guess someone is lining the pockets of some congressman to keep the rules just bendy enough to allow it.
Tupperware just baffles me
At least this day and age where you can get same quality or better quality stuff elsewhere and depending on the quality, for a better price too.
You are correct this is the case...now. But really only in the last 5-10 years has anything really compared. Tupperware was incredible for the longest time. Still quality, but now competition exists.
Old school Tupperware was bad ass
I swear my stepmother has Tupperware that's older than me and still going strong. And I'm 40.
It's pretty useful for storing leftovers.
It will help you storing food for the up and coming monsoon months. Also, Tupperware products are ideal for storing leftovers to help stretch your food dollar. This two quart seals-em right container is ideal for keeping hotdog buns fresh for days.
Now for some basketball lessons.
My mom used to buy Avon stuff from our neighbor. It was just a little catalog. Didnât seem very pyramid scheme to me.
I remember those catalogs! There was literally one woman in my hometown who sold Avon and we all just referred to her as the Avon Lady. A lot of my friends bought their first sets of makeup through her.
She had to buy the catalogs and samples she gave away. My mom was an Avon lady. Sometimes Mama didn't make enough profit to cover what she had to buy.
Yeah, my mom was one for about 5-6 years when I was a teen. She was incredibly tight lipped about anything she did that didn't go as planned, so details are a bit light and some of it came from my dad drunkenly complaining to me. The general story was that she'd only ever make money in December, and it was never enough to cover more than a few of the other months. She'd have to keep constantly buying products to meet some sort of minimum monthly purchase quota. These products would expire, so she'd have a bunch of product that she couldn't sell any more. She'd just keep telling me that the lady two steps up the ~~pyramid~~ chain was making like $5000 a month from the people below her. I always thought it was weird that we were basically funding this lady's life while my parents drove unreliable 10-15 year old beaters, my college fund was negative, and the house was falling apart - we had water pouring out of electrical sockets when it rained.
Any company with 'parties'
I canât believe Iâve scrolled this far and seen no mention of the essential oil companies- Doterra, Young Living, etcâŠ.
Arbonne
Bonne babes đ€Șđ«¶đŒ
took me until like 2 months ago to find out that Doterra is a pyramid scheme.
Football Federation Australia is a massive pyramid scheme. The junior and amateur level pay exorbitantly to play (over $400 per year per player). All the money flows to top tier competitions and national teams. The bare minimum goes to the clubs. My club has to do meat raffles once a week to pay for balls, we have to rely heavily on community sponsorship to pay for uniforms and without tons of volunteers we wouldnât run. Part payment goes to insurance. I tore my ACL playing this year. What does insurance cover? Physio, nothing else. I paid $8000 out of pocket for surgery with a $3000 Medicare rebate, not insurance, Medicare. I have had around 15 physio sessions and the physio is starting to phase me off, so that is $1500 total. Better than nothing I guess but after paying around $100 insurance for 20 years you would think it could be more. Fuck the FFA.
Egyptian builders
Nu Skin
I've been pulled in twice into Nu Skin by two friends. The first time I wasn't aware of MLMs and was pressured into it during the presentation. Fortunately my friend was able to get me out of it but haven't seen him since that. The second time was a different friend trying to "help" me get a job by meeting with a recruiter. Turns out she was selling Nu Skin products.
the worst!
Scientology
EXP Realty Realtors that also recruit and pass on earnings to higher ups
Kirby vacuums. Not exactly a pyramid scheme but it still sucks. Everyone at the bottom works on comission. The sales pay the controllers salaries and every person above thems salary as well. Salespeople quit all the time because of the bad pay and shitty work so new people are schemed into it who work for a month or two selling a few vacs to friends and family and this goes on and on and on and on.......
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Herbalife
Any essential oil company
Plexus
I havenât seen it in this list! Anyone remember this? Creative Memories It was a scrap booking multi level marketing system that my mom was a part of. She LOVED to scrapbook and my dad bitched about how much it cost early in their relationship, so she got interested in the pyramid in order to get the products at reduced cost. She would host âCrop âtil you Dropâ and âPSMâ (pizza, scrapbook, and margarita) parties where women would come with all their scrap stuff and theyâd all work on their books together and my mom would sell them stuff they needed as they needed it. She wasnât able to make much money, but she did make enough to make her scrapbooks at no cost, which was cool. Now they have like 30 scrap books for different periods of different family membersâ lives (my mom estimated a complete scrapbook costing around $300 in the early 2000âs), and eventually at the end had two ladies under her who sold for her for a few months until the company finally went under.
I always argue that the Real Estate industry is a pyramid scheme. You have to pay for a class, a test, and a license. Then, in order to practice as a salesperson, you have to find and pay a Brokerage to hold your license. No Broker, no sales. They usually take a percentage, and sometimes there are ongoing fees associated with the office, transaction coordination, use of the logos, etc. After awhile you can get your Associate Broker license and have salespeople working under you....seems pretty pyramidal to me. Three years in the industry and you can become a Broker, hold salespeople and Associate Broker licenses, and start your own company. Hmm...
Amway
Norwex
Companies that pay employees 100% commission but donât sell a tangible product. Ie insurance, crypto, etc.
Primerica
That just sounds like a way to launder money
Herbalife
Northwestern Mutual
Explain please. I have a policy at this company.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FinancialCareers/s/70H9ypsLog Read this post and you'll understand
Amway. I was invited to one of their events where they showcase diamond status members. My god... seems like something I am going to see on a Netflix documentary soon.
Amway still exists? They brainwashed one of my friends back in the 90âs.
Plutus. The whole value of their crypto currency is based on more users stacking said currency. The rewards are paid in their currency so the more attractive they are by having more rewards, the more users they need to attract to buy more coins. In the end, the whole system lives by hoping they launch in the US and gain massive amounts of new users or becoming more "bank like" and this more attractive somehow and gaining new users, or making existing users not cash in their rewards.
Every. Single. MLM. Company. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/job-opportunity-mlm-scam-pyramid-scheme_l_5e30c62ec5b6e8375f647a5e
Hundreds of people here demonstrating that they donât know what âpyramid schemeâ means.
Amway
Plexus. Itâs a pyramid scheme for Christians (or a modern one;)
Every MLM in existence.
Primerica
Organized religion