Multi-level marketing/pyramid schemes and the people who fall for them

[Dolphin Lundgren]

This MLM cult group just got exposed in a scandal.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ell-rescue-daughter-India-sex-slave-cult.html

https://radaronline.com/exclusives/...t-leader-keith-raniere-habits-prison-exposed/

The leader got arrested for sex trafficking and he's coming back in the media again.

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/11/bronfman-201011

 

[Cosmos]

Bette Midler just killed that man so now he's double dead.

Also, I had to share this:

"Natural lemons are toxic, but this artificial oil isn't."

 

[Coccxys]

Another one who fell for this shit hard. Who the fuck stock with $3k worth?

 

[snuffleupagus]

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Bette Middler just killed that man so now he's double dead.

Also, I had to share this:

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"Natural lemons are toxic, but this artificial oil isn't."

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Seeing people post that essential oils are safe to ingest make my head explode. I spilled a bottle of lemon essential oil and it took the finish off my table, all the way through the stain to bare wood. I used orange oil in my diffuser and it ate the rubber seals after two uses. New diffuser with new seals and they were rigid and crumbling when I went to refill. I was pissed and chucked the bottle.

I went to a fancy spa place for a birthday massage and sauna treat. They brought me a glass of water while I was waiting in the lounge area and as soon as it hit my mouth I spit it out. My tongue was burning and tingling and my mouth felt greasy. I brought the water up to reception and asked what was in it; orange essence was the reply. I pushed the issue and turns out the girl at the desk sells doTerra and had dosed the fucking water. I tried to calmly explain that ingesting EOs is dangerous, but she got hyper defensive and refused to acknowledge the fact that some oils can be unsafe because they’re nachural. I canceled my appointment then and there and demanded (and received) a full refund. I ended up in a bit of a social media war, my first and only, after I left negative reviews everywhere I could. Fuckers.

I love essential oils and I use them a ton but I loathe doTerra and Young Living because I can’t even admit to liking oils anymore. If I do it’s like the cockroaches within fifty miles come running to pimp their shit.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

View attachment 539987

Bette Middler just killed that man so now he's double dead.

Also, I had to share this:

View attachment 539990

"Natural lemons are toxic, but this artificial oil isn't."

View attachment 539989

Well, I know who's getting the next Burn of the Month award.

Fun fact: you can give lemons to dogs -- they're not toxic for canines. Of course, most dogs really don't like them (and may give you betrayed looks), so whether you want to is another matter entirely.

 

[neverendingmidi]

Fun fact: you can give lemons to dogs -- they're not toxic for canines. Of course, most dogs really don't like them (and may give you betrayed looks), so whether you want to is another matter entirely.

But the expressions are hilarious. I had one dog try so hard to eat a slice because it was people food, dammit, before I finally took it away.

 

[The Un-Clit]

But the expressions are hilarious. I had one dog try so hard to eat a slice because it was people food, dammit, before I finally took it away.

Hehe, yep doggies will eat ANYTHING a human gives them because of exactly that. Way back in the day my parents went to Mexico on vacation, and eating a picnic lunch, a stray and super starved dog came up to beg off them. Dad gave it a peanut butter sandwich, and the poor mutt couldn't swallow or even chew it, and ended up trying to paw it out of it's mouth. But it was people food! Even after it was disloged onto the grass, dog went for it again. Same story until it FINALLY went down.

 

[Crunchy Leaf]

what's the point of essential oils? if lemons are good for you, why not squeeze a lemon onto your food or into your water or whatever?

my cousin posted this on Facebook:

All my SMALL BUSINESS FRIENDS!
Post one picture of an item you sell. NO price, NO links! If my friends are interested they can contact you.
Only rule.... You must copy and paste so I can comment on YOUR wall or you will be removed from this post.
Let's support one another.

Only (1) Rep per business
Mine is in the comments..

he posted his card for his realty office, and one of his friends posted a description of their trail guide service, but of course, another friend posted a picture of younique. and you can tell that this copy-paste was meant for MLM--"(1) Rep per business". if you were a real small business owner, you'd be the owner, and there wouldn't be more than 1 rep per business since it'd be you. it makes me mad that these people think they're 'small businesses'.

 

[anal_upset]

I had a "friend" in college that pushed hard for an MLM called "Living the Dream".

In short the guy was a bona-fide psychopath. He had a few stories but the one that stands out the most is when he was upset over getting a girl swiped out from under him by a young man. Over the course of the next 2 years he found a way to become friends with this guy and sucked his dick, then invited himself to their family dinner that week just to scream out how he sucked the town's preachers sons dick. Crazy dude.

Anyways,

In short I was in community college, I think around age 18-19 and he called me up out of the blue with one to those canned "hey man I've got a job open for you" phone calls. We lived in a small town in a rural area so jobs were scarce and this was around the financial crisis so anything that could be had I jumped at it. It was weird because we had stopped talking the previous year just due to life and all. He was pushing hard as fuck to meet me at a restaurant and talk. For the next 2-3 days he kept pestering me with random "dude you're going to be missing out so much" SMS messages. It got very annoying, very quickly.

Anyways, we meet at this fucking fast food place and he's got ANOTHER former classmate of mine. They were both just hammering and hammering me about this opportunity for sales and how I was a natural salesman blah blah blah. I kept trying to ask them what the product was but each time they dodged it over and over again. This process went on for a fucking HOUR.

At some point I tried to leave and they pretty much had one guy block the door (mind you this is a crowded fast food restaurant at lunch time) and tried to coax me into going to meet with their "boss". Through enough hammering I somehow was able to ascertain that this company was loosely related to Cutco Cutlery but did not sell knives. I'm still not exactly sure what they sell but I think all they did was recruit for Cutco.

Be warned.

 

[Coccxys]

Anyone want to be the assistant for someone's "small business", they can't pay you but you can get credit for their shitty clothes. Seriously who falls for this enough to term it "owning a small business" and think that someone is going to come childmind for them for basically nothing.

 

[AlmightyMagichan]

I would love to babysit for clothes, but I only trust people who call me hun.

 

[John Titor]

Sorry to be that guy that posts anime shit but this actually sums up the whole process pretty nicely.

That show takes me back. Here's a relevant scene:

Anyone know of a similar incident where the MLM schemers try to sweet talk their prey into staying?

 

[Cosmos]

This is a parody of your typical MLM post instead of a real one, but I had to share it anyway because it's hilarious.

 

[Iceland Heavy]

Fresh out of high school Cutco and some home security company called Vivint were trying to sucker as many of my classmates into being salesmen as possible. Ended up interviewing for Vivint but found out pretty quickly I didn't want to be and didn't have what it took to be a salesman. Naturally I found out later about the scummy sales tactics the salesmen use and just the general shittiness of the company and their products.

 

[Cosmos]

This is the satire I signed up for.

 

[The Great Citracett]

Found this earlier today:

THIS IS NOT A SCAM JUST GIVE ME YOUR BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER!

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Found this earlier today:
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THIS IS NOT A SCAM JUST GIVE ME YOUR BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER!

The scams get lazier and lazier. The other day I was bitching because I got a robocall scam claiming to be from Microsoft, that my Windows key had expired, and that I needed to call them back to fix it.

Seriously? What happened to the good old days of live scam-attempts, when I could try to troll them?

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

Last night, someone called me claiming he found my resume online. When he said the position was part time, I cut him off and told him I wasn't interested.

Plugging the number that called me into a lookup site found posts dating back to 2013 stating that the number belongs to someone trying to get people to work for Primerica. One such report:

Spoiler: Text of screencap

carksharky
23 Jun 2015

Got the same voice mail from {number}. Did some Google research. Primerica Financial Services ("PFS") is a real company involved in the sale of term insurance and mutual funds. The issue with the setup is it an MLM company, that is multi-level marketing. In order to be successful you must recruit salespeople to work under you. It's not a scam. You actually have to pass separate State tests to sell insurance and Mutual Funds. If you're good with people and think this can work for you. No hurt in checking it out. I used to do this for about a year maybe 15 years ago but it wasn't for me. I worked for a different PFS group in {city}.

Caller: Wolf and Associates

"It's not a scam"

 

[The Un-Clit]

Last night, someone called me claiming he found my resume online. When he said the position was part time, I cut him off and told him I wasn't interested.

Plugging the number that called me into a lookup site found posts dating back to 2013 stating that the number belongs to someone trying to get people to work for Primerica. One such report:
View attachment 652659

Spoiler: Text of screencap

carksharky
23 Jun 2015

Got the same voice mail from {number}. Did some Google research. Primerica Financial Services ("PFS") is a real company involved in the sale of term insurance and mutual funds. The issue with the setup is it an MLM company, that is multi-level marketing. In order to be successful you must recruit salespeople to work under you. It's not a scam. You actually have to pass separate State tests to sell insurance and Mutual Funds. If you're good with people and think this can work for you. No hurt in checking it out. I used to do this for about a year maybe 15 years ago but it wasn't for me. I worked for a different PFS group in {city}.

Caller: Wolf and Associates

"It's not a scam"

Primerica is a fucking plague. Had my TAXI DRIVER try to plug this shit at me, said it was a 'great way to make contacts'. Since he was young and stupid, and still going to college I MAY have talked him out of it. Never saw that driver again, guessing he got shitcanned eventually because I can see a LOT of people complaining about that.

 

[Spunt]

In the late 2000s the company I was working for went under due to the sub-prime crisis and I ended up in a tiny room in a shared house in literally the worst part of London (lowest life expectancy, highest crime, lowest employment) trying to make ends meet as a self-employed advertising copywriter, which as I'm sure you can guess didn't pay well in the middle of a massive recession. I was pretty fucking broke, but not as broke as the dude down the hall from me. He was constantly behind with his rent, kept "borrowing" essentials from the rest of us and the guy upstairs who was a Domino's delivery driver (a financial powerhouse compared to the two of us) would bring home leftovers at the end of his shift, which formed the staple part of my housemate's diet because he couldn't afford food. But credit to the guy, he worked his ass off. He'd leave just after dawn each morning, in a sharp (if rather worn) suit and head off to conferences...

...where he'd sell people MLM courses on how to get rich.

How you can get through the day doing that without the cognitive dissonance being bad enough to give you brain damage I dunno.

On one notable occasion, he left his heavily pregnant cat with me to look after (I say "his" cat, he stole it from the drug dealers next door because they hadn't bothered to look after it or get it spayed and it got knocked up by the local feral Tom) while he went to the other side of town to one of his sales events. The cat started to go into labour on my bed and I called him to say he might want to come home early or he'd miss it (and you know maybe lend a hand as it was his fucking cat). He said he'd love to, but he hadn't made enough money at the conference yet to afford the £3 tube fare home .

So I ended up Skyping an acquaintance who was a veterinary nurse and she helped me play midwife to 4 cute fuzzy kittens. Later that night someone on our road was stabbed to death. Those were Interesting Times.