Pyramid Scheme Pariahs

[GV 998]

My wife wanted to get roped into one, and yet she couldn't see it was a scheme. It's for a clothing brand called LulaRoe. They sell really fucking overpriced clothing. And she buys their clothes. She wanted to try to sell it as well, but I had to, for the first time ever, put my foot down. Because she just didn't see the danger,

You, of course, need to buy your own supply of clothing, at a minimum of 10 grand to start with, to become a seller.

I kept trying to convince her, over and over, to no avail. So before you read the next paragraph, understand that this was a couple days of me trying to explain to her why this was a bad idea as logically and diplomatically as possible

She kept trying to convince me, making up reasons why she would be successful and would turn a profit, and I, finally, legit had to tell her if she wasted that much of our money, without my consent, I would straight up divorce her. She wasn't happy with me for a few days, but I frankly don't care. I'd rather her be pissed at me then her hating herself for years when she found out that that company royally fucked her over.

EDIT: She also tried to convince me more recently about some company called "Thirty-one". Same Premise. Except they sell tote bags or some shit. I simply replied "We're not having the LulaRoe argument again" and that was the end of it.

 

[Poop A Loop]

@Galvatron Shit man, that's rough....

I had two experiences with MLM schemes.

One was when I was in college and looking for an opportunity to get into local politics. Lo and behold this really popular local politician called a meeting with ALL of his friends and family and I happened to know some of them and tagged long to talk to the guy. They think it's his announcement to run for a higher office, but instead after all these people show up (like 30 of us) some bozo in a suit comes up with a whiteboard and shows a damn video on the TV for a pyramid scheme. This dude used his entire network to try and set up an MLM. It was kinda sad because you could see the look on his face as time went on and more of his close friends or family just got up and left in the middle of the presentation. Looking back I'd be insulted if a close friend tried to do that to me. Those people were nothing more than dollar signs to him.

The second one is better. I have a shitty sister-in-law who is the personification of the fat, gossipy, spoiled yuppy bitch. My brother makes pretty good money in a job working where he's probably gonna take over the business from the owner and be set for life so that means this chick has nothing better to do than pack on the pounds and spend money. She's been shilling no less than 5 various MLM schemes based on makeup, energy drinks that help you lose weight, or wraps and whatever else yuppie women with too much time and money buy over the past three years. Her facebook is just full of that stuff and she won't shut up about it. I'm thinking about posting some of the rebuttal videos and notices of SEC investigation in her comments to see what happens. She already hates my guts so may as well get some entertainment out of it. Regardless it's always interesting to see how people shake their heads when she keeps trying to set up parties to hock her wares in various people's houses.

 

[GV 998]

@Galvatron Shit man, that's rough....

It's not something I relished doing, or even posted about to brag. I hate ultimatums. They're the worst kind of tactic to use in a couple's argument.

But I had gotten to the point that I really felt there was no other way. I kept trying to explain the things everyone here has said. The main point I kept hammering home was "If you have to pay for your own stock, and you're not a large brand of retail stores, it's NEVER worth it. You'll take forever to sell that stock, if you manage to sell all of it, and you're going to piss off all our friends and family, pestering them to buy your shit."

She wasn't getting it. Why? Because she buys LuLaRoe. She is in a Facebook group where there are countless broads that do nothing but talk about those shitty clothes. So in her mind, she was thinking, Hey, lots of women love these, they will be easy to sell. What she WASN'T thinking was that ALL THOSE WOMEN on her Facebook group were either dealers themselves, or had their own dealer. And she wouldn't be getting sales from them. Even after I told her that, she wasn't convinced. And while we aren't poor, we can't afford to just toss 10 grand at a risky venture (translate: scam)

So I just lost patience. I had to put it to a stop the only way I could think of. Looking back, was there some other thing I could have tried to convince her with? Maybe, but to this day, I still haven't thought of a thing to say that I hadn't already said when we first were discussing it

 

[Fareal]

It's not something I relished doing, or even posted about to brag. I hate ultimatums. They're the worst kind of tactic to use in a couple's argument.

But I had gotten to the point that I really felt there was no other way. I kept trying to explain the things everyone here has said. The main point I kept hammering home was "If you have to pay for your own stock, and you're not a large brand of retail stores, it's NEVER worth it. You'll take forever to sell that stock, if you manage to sell all of it, and you're going to piss off all our friends and family, pestering them to buy your shit."

She wasn't getting it. Why? Because she buys LuLaRoe. She is in a Facebook group where there are countless broads that do nothing but talk about those shitty clothes. So in her mind, she was thinking, Hey, lots of women love these, they will be easy to sell. What she WASN'T thinking was that ALL THOSE WOMEN on her Facebook group were either dealers themselves, or had their own dealer. And she wouldn't be getting sales from them. Even after I told her that, she wasn't convinced. And while we aren't poor, we can't afford to just toss 10 grand at a risky venture (translate: scam)

So I just lost patience. I had to put it to a stop the only way I could think of. Looking back, was there some other thing I could have tried to convince her with? Maybe, but to this day, I still haven't thought of a thing to say that I hadn't already said when we first were discussing it

It's a scam. I know personally a number of folk who onboarded and can't get rid of the onboard stock. Since, as you no doubt know, you don't get to order the things YOU want and know you can sell but get sent random designs, random prints, random sizes.

I honestly do not know anyone who is actually making money with LuLaRoe, and I think I know around 20 people who are doing it well enough for them to have admitted to me they were losing money. I doubt most of the other consultants are in a different position. And bad as I feel for them, I'm not buying ten pairs of shitty expensive leggings every month to help them out.

You were absolutely right to not agree to this. Remember the Mary Kay literature has whole chapters devoted to 'overcoming the husband's objections'. I've never personally seen the LLR onboarding documents, but I would be greatly surprised if they don't have something similar.

 

[Dysnomia]

I used to see those tear off flyers in college. But I figured if you weren't being told what the job was upfront something was wrong. I don't see them on telephone poles quite as much anymore. But every once in awhile they will pop up. But I've seen Herbalife and other health scams all over bus stops. Sometimes you see weight loss stuff with a phone number. But no company name. They probably have no interest in helping people lose weight. They just want you to sell diet products that would cost more than healthy eating.

*edit* The signs I see are the big glossy ones you can print at Kinko's. They're usually shocking pink or rainbow banded. I don't know why. i guess those colors are eye catching.

My stepfather almost fell for something a few years ago. I think it may have been a variation of the Green Dot scam. A guy calls up and claims to be a deputy at the Sheriff's office. He says that there are all these traffic violations that have to be paid right now or he'll lose his licence. My stepfather doesn't know of any violations. But he kind of starts falling for it anyway. So he needs to pay the tickets over the phone with a card. I think they may have actually wanted his credit card number. My mom immediately sees red flags and uses her phone to call the local Sheriff's office. They say that no one by that name works there and this isn't the first time they've gotten a call about it and we should hang up and not give them any information at all.

I guess this sort of scam can work really well if you are in trouble for traffic violations to begin with. They scare people into thinking they will lose their licence if they don't pay up now. And desperate people who won't be able to get to work or school pay up out of fear without checking it out.

 

[Ravenor]

I used to see those tear off flyers in college. But I figured if you weren't being told what the job was upfront something was wrong. I don't see them on telephone poles quite as much anymore. But every once in awhile they will pop up. But I've seen Herbalife and other health scams all over bus stops. Sometimes you see weight loss stuff with a phone number. But no company name. They probably have no interest in helping people lose weight. They just want you to sell diet products that would cost more than healthy eating.

*edit* The signs I see are the big glossy ones you can print at Kinko's. They're usually shocking pink or rainbow banded. I don't know why. i guess those colors are eye catching.

My stepfather almost fell for something a few years ago. I think it may have been a variation of the Green Dot scam. A guy calls up and claims to be a deputy at the Sheriff's office. He says that there are all these traffic violations that have to be paid right now or he'll lose his licence. My stepfather doesn't know of any violations. But he kind of starts falling for it anyway. So he needs to pay the tickets over the phone with a card. I think they may have actually wanted his credit card number. My mom immediately sees red flags and uses her phone to call the local Sheriff's office. They say that no one by that name works there and this isn't the first time they've gotten a call about it and we should hang up and not give them any information at all.

I guess this sort of scam can work really well if you are in trouble for traffic violations to begin with. They scare people into thinking they will lose their licence if they don't pay up now. And desperate people who won't be able to get to work or school pay up out of fear without checking it out.

There is something like this been going on in the UK for the last few years, essentially someone buy's a phone book and goes through it by postcode of the lower income areas demanding payment for PDL's and such that have gone unpaid or they will get a CCJ level against them, sadly a lot of these people fall for it and pay the £50 or £60 they normally ask for and don't get a call again for a few months but this time the sums bigger and followed up by official looking letters.

Now 50 / 60 quid isn't much in the grand scheme of things for most people but bare in mind these are people on minimum wage or the dole, often struggling to make ends meet and occasionally have to use legal loan sharks to make ends meet so it's a believable story they are getting fed so they pay and often times have to go into debt to do so giving them the double whammy of added debt, and it's only months down the line they realise that they have been scammed.

 

[sparklemilhouse]

I AM THE KING OF THE ECHO PEOPLE


also this luleroe stockings thing. there's like a thousand housewives trying this now that their Etsy knitting didn't work?;

Etsy is dying because of shit like this and it's so upsetting.

 

[cuddle striker]

Etsy is dying because of shit like this and it's so upsetting.

oh Etsy has been slowly dying since the day they put that Malibu mass produced furniture on their main article feature page.

for a long time it's been dying

 

[ln18]

My experience with MLM was going to a Quixtar (Amway) meeting with friends who wanted to try to rescue two of our high school classmates who had been pulled into it by their teacher (teacher was fucking one of the girls when she was his student, in high school, btw). I remembered a big part of the presentation was "The Parable of the Pipeline".

Bruno is a schmuck that hauls water by hand for other people and never gets anywhere. Pablo is an innovator who devises a pipeline to haul his own water and he succeeds in life.

 

[Angry New Ager]

FUCK LULAROE.

I can't seem to escape that shit. Since just before Christmas last year, it seems like every woman on my FB feed is going on about those goddamned leggings. I see them on women everywhere when I go out; you can't miss those eye-bleedingly ugly prints.

I got pushed over the edge this weekend, though. I volunteer for a nonprofit, and one of my fellow volunteers had a "casual get-together" at her house on Saturday. But no--it wasn't to get together and drink wine and hang out; it was so her bitch-ass sister could sell us Lularoe shit out of the living room. I think two women did buy stuff, and some dutifully looked at what was on the racks and tried to be nice, but a bunch of us hid out in the kitchen until we'd had enough of our hostess coming in to tell us that we were missing out on great deals if we didn't come look, and left.

The last MLM "party" I got suckered into attending was for Pampered Chef (the name of which always made me think the cooks who use it are incontinent), and that was 20 years ago. I didn't buy anything then, either--and I quietly noped out of the friendship with the couple who hosted it. If you're really my friend, you don't use our friendship and your hospitality as a pretext to sell me shit. You just don't.

 

[MetalParakeet]

It seems that almost every "popular" girl from my high school now has a couple of kids and has cycled between 3-5 MLM's in an effort to bring in some money and excitement into their unexciting lives.

Makes my petty ass feel pretty good.

 

[ChurchOfGodBear]

MLM actually made sense at a particular point in time-- mostly the late 19th through mid-20th centuries, when Industrialization kicked in, and companies could make a shit-ton of items, but actually distributing them to people was still very costly. (Lack of interstate highways, etc.) MLM was a logical solution, because it let the customers work out the logistics for themselves, and suddenly, it was just as easy to get soap to Bumblefuck, Kentucky as it wasy to Chicago.

But in this day and age? When anyone can just put their stuff on Amazon and have FedEx do your distribution? It's way cheaper, faster, and requires no middle man to jack up the price. EVERY MLM COMPANY tells you that their business model is new and innovative, when the reality is, it's so old it's been replaced many times over.

 

[AnOminous]

But in this day and age? When anyone can just put their stuff on Amazon and have FedEx do your distribution? It's way cheaper, faster, and requires no middle man to jack up the price. EVERY MLM COMPANY tells you that their business model is new and innovative, when the reality is, it's so old it's been replaced many times over.

The problem is they've replaced a model that was actually about selling goods with several new models, all of which consist of suckering morons into buying shit they'll never turn a profit on. The only money pyramid schemes like this make are by the predators selling a bogus business model to people who don't know better.

 

[cuddle striker]

MLM actually made sense at a particular point in time-- mostly the late 19th through mid-20th centuries, when Industrialization kicked in, and companies could make a shit-ton of items, but actually distributing them to people was still very costly. (Lack of interstate highways, etc.) MLM was a logical solution, because it let the customers work out the logistics for themselves, and suddenly, it was just as easy to get soap to Bumblefuck, Kentucky as it wasy to Chicago.

But in this day and age? When anyone can just put their stuff on Amazon and have FedEx do your distribution? It's way cheaper, faster, and requires no middle man to jack up the price. EVERY MLM COMPANY tells you that their business model is new and innovative, when the reality is, it's so old it's been replaced many times over.

yeah like Avon and Tupperware parties. they didn't lie; they just said "I'm having a Tupperware party/Avon party, come try out mini lipstick or egg salad and maybe buy a thing" and they'd literally sit around and gossip and hang out and that was where a lot of women actually bought those things, instead of a store. it made sense then.

not now though

 

[ChurchOfGodBear]

yeah like Avon and Tupperware parties. they didn't lie; they just said "I'm having a Tupperware party/Avon party, come try out mini lipstick or egg salad and maybe buy a thing" and they'd literally sit around and gossip and hang out and that was where a lot of women actually bought those things, instead of a store. it made sense then.

not now though

60 years ago, a very large chunk of the population didn't live within driving distance of what we'd consider to be a big-box store. There was no internet for people to find what they were looking for, television was of dubious help, the only real way to reach customers outside of major metro areas was through a catalog... and catalogs weren't ideal for certain types of items that sold best when you could see them in person. So if you needed someone to do your marketing, you gave them a piece of the action.

If you want to see if a MLM program is a legit opportunity (hint: most of them aren't) then all you have to do is ask yourself "Is there any reason in the world someone would want to buy this from me in person rather than shopping in their underwear and getting it on Amazon? No, people are not going to buy leggings, vitamins, or soda from you. Fuck off, it's just not going to happen. They might, maybe, buy makeup or scented candles from you, since you kind of need to experience those things in person. And you could say the same for sex toys, since apparently that's a thing, but I really don't know how the "try before you buy" aspect works for those.

 

[SaharaSafari]

My experience with MLM was going to a Quixtar (Amway) meeting with friends who wanted to try to rescue two of our high school classmates who had been pulled into it by their teacher (teacher was fucking one of the girls when she was his student, in high school, btw). I remembered a big part of the presentation was "The Parable of the Pipeline".

Bruno is a schmuck that hauls water by hand for other people and never gets anywhere. Pablo is an innovator who devises a pipeline to haul his own water and he succeeds in life.

Most of the people involved in MLM (or other schemes like real estate) are Bruno. They're retailers without the benefits of the big stores (return products to manufacturer, loss-leaders, etc.). If they wanted money without work, they'd turn over their money to an investment firm or become a silent partner in a restaurant or something (not without risk, but safer than MLM).

If you want a laugh, check out the Warrior Forum. It's a forum for Internet Marketers who are in denial that what they do is basically MLM (sell marketing solutions to other marketers to sell to customers). It's like Glengarry Glen Ross over there.

Fun fact: PUAs basically come from Internet Marketing. Terms like "last minute resistance" and "gatekeeper" were all used by these marketers.

 

[Shiny Marshtomp]

Yo these people keep shitting up the local farmer's markets with their leggings and candles and bags and lord knows what else. I don't mind the people who sell the things they knitted/sewed themselves, though. Anyone else have the same thing happening?

 

[sparklemilhouse]

An it works lady bombarded a lady who just had a baby! in target.

 

[ANDTHEBEAR]

Oh, boy! I got some top-notch lolcows that are so delusional with the MLM shit. These two fine gentlemen are obsessed about the non-existent qualities of Kangen Water (aka alkaline water). I was thinking of making a lolcow page out of one of these two because the sheer amount of the Kool-Aide they've consumed is enough to kill all of Jonestown:

https://www.facebook.com/IStanTall?ref=br_rs

https://www.facebook.com/alex.fowler.319

 

[cuddle striker]

Oh, boy! I got some top-notch lolcows that are so delusional with the MLM shit. These two fine gentlemen are obsessed about the non-existent qualities of Kangen Water (aka alkaline water). I was thinking of making a lolcow page out of one of these two because the sheer amount of the Kool-Aide they've consumed is enough to kill all of Jonestown:

https://www.facebook.com/IStanTall?ref=br_rs

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https://www.facebook.com/alex.fowler.319

this is the kind of guy that sends marriage proposals to strangers in Facebook messages

I can just feel it. also what's up with this alkaline scam? dude take a rolaids.

Yo these people keep shitting up the local farmer's markets with their leggings and candles and bags and lord knows what else. I don't mind the people who sell the things they knitted/sewed themselves, though. Anyone else have the same thing happening?

sorry to double post but yeah it's made it impossible to find a good real flea market these days.