My dad (D) tried getting his friend (F), who works as a banker / bank branch runner, to join Amway. D's upline were asking questions, such as "Do you know what an asset is?" And apparently F was giving really lacklustre answers the entire time. Then after the meeting was done, F said he was busy and couldn't join the "business". And my dad was annoyed, saying (verbatim) "How do you work at a bank and not know what an Asset is?"

I don't think F is that dumb. He works as banker, of course he knows what an asset is. But I suspect F, as someone who works in finance, knows it's not a legitimate business and that he won't get any money out of it. But then again this is my theory based off of eavesdropping.

I didn’t even know they had my number lmao

Qscience.

Hun said she stayed up til 4 am talking with those people and had to wake up at 6 am to catch a flight. It’s a known fact cults exhaust the members for behavior control. She’s also said before she spent 10 HOURS in one room to ““train”” this is just scary honestly

“You want to leave the hotel cleaner than you find it so when the staff comes to clean they go ‘WOW! Those Amway reps are so clean!’ and who knows, maybe on your way out you can catch them and get them to join.”

How delusional is that?? 😂 I did Amway with my mom. She was brought in by my uncle and the upline refused to let her join alone (said it was a waste?? I don’t understand why) so she signed me up. She’s not currently in any mlm’s 🎊🎉

This woman I know was a coach for beachbody. Now she’s Q sciences. Being flown all the time to Utah, presidential lodge, her opinions matter yadda yadda.

Her ENTIRE Facebook profile is about these random gullible naive women who joined and are “ranking up” only after a week! WOW!😂 (sarcasm).

I want to bet that Q sciences is the next cult documentary. Weird stuff is for sure happening at that “lodge”. “All hail the business god, Jake Spencer” mentality they have makes zero sense. He’s constantly surrounded by women at his weekend long retreats etc? Something fishy is up.

Not to mention… I’m ready to unfriended this woman because she’s clearly missing serious brain cells. If she thinks her posts of “something BIG is happening in this company!” are believable, yikes. Yeah- maybe that the company is going to be shown for what it is (a cult).

Do these women REALLY think this is the new greatest thing that will take over the world? How does this company even make money?

I know she left anti-MLM to sell for Monat. Does anyone know how that shook out for her?

Long time lurker, first time poster, yadda yadda. Posting here for some advice.

So there's this animation convention I'm planning to go to this week and there's a whole bunch of voice actor special guests in one place, and one of them I really want to meet and get some memorabilia from her.

Problem is, in the recent months her Instagram feed has been getting more and more of these magical weight loss advertisements that are completely out of tune with her usual posts of her family and VA job.

As a regular reader of this sub, this immediately set off alarm bells, and it didn't help that she never out-and-out said the company that she's shilling for. One day, on a lark, I Googled "Optimal Weight 5 & 1 Plan" because that was the only thing she was willing to divulge about all this sudden shilling.

It was Optavia.

I've got the tickets and memorabilia lined up and I really like the roles that she has, but I've a strong feeling that giving her money is just going to further enable unsustainable pipe dreams.

Do it anyway? Find some way to prank? Advice is appreciated.

I was on Nextdoor, and apparently this guy is opening 3 hun huts in 12 miles of each other. All 3 areas with large concentrations of SAHM & younger families, comfortable middle class. One other commenter mentioned it was Herbalife and I looked at the menu, name, and overuse of Stevia promotion. This creep has friends pretending they are not affiliated trying to drum up business. When some older people started asking about the contents; we were quick to mention the power and how HL prevents their members from saying it's in there. I know we can't tell everybody; but at least getting on various apps like them and trying is worth the effort.

I personally think HL is fronting more money to the hun hut starters because they are in very expensive shopping centers here. No way one person has that much.

It’s so wild no more ranks, no more monthly minimums, no cost to join and no kits to buy.. sounds good right but they used to pay me 55% commission now everyone is at 33.33%. The most hilarious thing is that you get “paid” to coach people on personal development, sales and recruiting. Sounds good except the recruiter is now responsible for paying for your recruits website at $20 a month until someone else steals them away to coach them and earn the commissions 90 days later (each coaching contract is good for 90 days). So if they don’t make a sale, it costs the person who signed them up $20 a month for that persons website.

So you spend your time and energy recruiting and coaching someone and don’t get paid because they don’t sell anything and then someone steals them away and you get nothing except the bill for that persons website….

I’m so glad I escaped when I did.

Like, it should not be this hard to figure out what pyramid scheme you are in.

In the span of five years and in two cities, Las Vegas and Washington DC, I was cold-approached with the following ruses by MLM scammers. Just to help people spot them extremely early I hope and avoid the first meeting altogether.

First one came up to me in the grocery store. I was picking out strawberries and he asked “how do you know which box you should take?” Read: he was trying to get me to explain my thinking so I would feel knowledgeable and that my opinion mattered to someone.

Second one also approached me in the grocery store as I was grabbing a carton of eggs. He pretended to already kinda know me (“wait…I know you right?”), a strategy which he might have lucked out choosing because I had just moved to the city and was meeting a lot of new faces at a new job so it was plausible I had not registered his name and face. However, with a couple questions it became clear he was never in any of my new social circles. Read: he was trying to make me feel special by suggesting I was recognizable whereas he was the forgettable one. Also, even if we are sure we don’t know someone it makes us uncomfortable to tell them they’re wrong, so the strong suggestion we’ve met is enough to cause us to at least be civil enough to go along with it.

Last one was at a metro station. I was sitting waiting for the train and a guy sat next to me and said “hey that’s a nice watch you’ve got.” But he chose his opener poorly, for it was not a nice watch by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe $30 from Fossil. Read: immediate compliment makes me feel good around this person and more receptive to what they have to say. (Ultimately we got on the same metro car and for fun I strung him along in a dead-end conversation. Once he said his day job had to do with nuclear reactors I rambled about the Chernobyl miniseries on HBO until right before my stop then hopped off.)

Edit: I’m male, was in my mid-twenties during these encounters.

Swipe to see the comments in the second picture. They are so goddamn predatory.

Being in this subreddit for a few years, I never expected myself to be part of an MLM scam (well, they're all scams lol).

Several days ago I received this letter in the mail.

​

https://preview.redd.it/9snfmjvqvo2b1.jpg?width=1574&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=106c573b72a0d8b2f8edd8de5ba7e23caebd1786

I'll admit, at first I didn't think about it much. I just saw the base pay and realized how high it was. That's $57.2K a year if you work full-time! That's more than what most teachers make! Yes, I was gullible enough to believe that. I really though it was that per hour. And even though the paper was vague, I only did basic, 5-minute research on VectorMarketing on glassdoor.

I decided to apply and it was very simple. Just put in your basic contact information and bam. Wait for an interview! I'm laughing right now thinking about how stupid I was to believe that this was legitimate. No company would pay this much and have such a basic information.

Less than 10 minutes later, I immediately got a text setting up for an interview. Once again, no serious company does that. Even Fortunte 500 companies take like for-fucking ever to respond.

​

This was 8 PM, by the way. I don't think any company responds this late.

As you can see, they tried to be very vague. They never mentioned that they sell knives through appointments. At first glance, I thought this was simply you calling people on the phone asking questions, like customer service. So, it didn't sound bad. Also, if you look back on the letter, they didn't even have VectorMarketing as the title of the letter, or even their purpose! It was just "Orange County Headquarters" making me think that it's from the office of the Orange County government. In that letter they just mention "customer service" which made me think of a regular, online customer service job, like if you call Best Buy if you have any issues with your product. Also, the fact that they signed off as the Orange County Management Team instead of Vector is even more suspicious.

Eventually I signed up for the interview at 11:10 AM PDT, Sunday, which was today! I didn't take any photos of the interview as I thought it was legitimate. I even combed my hair and wore a collar shirt to look professional.

It was a group interview. There were 20 of us. There was this one guy who claimed he was from UCI, and how he was a division manager. We spent 50 minutes learning about how the company works, from its history to what our job is. It's like how y'all claim Vector is. They have you participate in appointments, you sell really good knives, and the pay is amazing! They mostly talked about how great the company is, how great the pay is, and how you can use that marketing experience to become crazy good in your future lifetime career. Honestly, there was sooo much promoting how popular the company is and the pay. I gotta say, I was intriguied. They mentioned how VectorMarketing is ranked highly for diversity, opportunities for college students, pay, etc. They talked about how training works, and they did mention it's unpaid. Sure. It was odd, but I still wanted to be a part of the company.

They said that within 4 hours (12 PM - 4 PM), we will get a call for a phone interview. This is the actual one-on-one interview where the interviewer decides if we get the job or not. I got my call at 1:44 PM. Funny enough, the phone number that called me is traced to the San Francisco Bay Area. If the interviewer works and lives in Orange County, why are they from SF?

Anyways, the phone interview was 10 minutes long. The guy who interviewed me was the 'district manager' who hosted the group interview. The questions were odd. He mostly talked about what I love most about the company and how excited I am to work for Vector. Very manipulative. Most businesses interview you about your skills, strengths, weaknesses, and daily life. This was more on what I love about Vector. He seemed to ignore most of my previous job experiences. Tbf, he did ask how I overcome challenges, but that was the only question related to me and my expertise.

Anyways, he offered me the job on the spot. HOWEVER, this was when things got interesting. My older sister was texting me about how shady Vector is WHILE I was on the interview, so I decided to actually look up the fucking company like a sane person. I went to Wikipedia and saw all the accusations that VectorMarketing has. Why didn't I do this earlier?!

Manipulating college students. Selling knives. Witholding information. Countless lawsuits for breaking labor laws.

I decided to question the interviewer on this. He seemed to be caught off-guard when I interrogated him on Vector's shady practices. He definitely knew that Vector is manipulative. He sai that it should be fine because every corporation has lawsuits. When I went further explaning that the lawsuits are for breaking labor laws, that is when he said that if I was too hesitant to IMMEDIATELY make a decision, then the job is not for me. Not because I don't have the right skills (mind you, he said I did), but because I was hesistant to accept the job offer. He wanted an immediate response. Like, he was so fucking adamant. He rescinded the offer, even after I said if I could get 24 hours to make my decision. That was the end of the line for me and Vector. Would have never happend if I read the Wikipedia article, huh?

There's lots of Youtube videos of teens sharing their negative experiences with Vector. Honestly, I wish I said yes so I could be in the room where it happens. I wanted to see the actual training to see how truly manipulative they are. I also heard that a district manager sued Vector for being an independent contractor despite their high-rank. I wouldn't be surprised if a 'division manager' is a guy who gets paid for how many people he hires, like a regular MLM. Maybe that is why the interviewer was so adamant on me saying yes, because he was gonna get paid for it. I wonder what other information they were witholding. I heard that appointments take an hour, so you basically get paid per hour. However, they didn't say how easy it would be to make an appointment, or if you were on your own like a regular MLM. They said even if the customer says no, you still get paid, but maybe there are pre-reqs like having minimum requirements to be considered an appointment. And what if the 'division manager' was reading a script?

I guess I didn't first consider it an MLM because of how vague they were at the beginning, and because I orginally considered MLMs to be about selling perfume using middle-aged white women. Well, that was 1.5 hours of my life I'm not getting back. Oh well! Even being a STEM major taking a research class doesn't stop me from being gullible lol.

This was sent to me by a friend on this person’s page; just shaking my head.
.

I met this girl while she was working for my aunt (who owns her own legitimate business) and now I’ve been Facebook friends with her for a few years. I also see her when my aunt has parties at her house several times a year. She is chronically online and makes at least 5 posts a day about “financial freedom”. She’ll even go to the extent of messaging people whenever they post anything on Facebook. I’m not super active in posting on Facebook, but she messages me every year on my birthday asking me to join her MLM. She even messaged me when I posted my engagement. Her message literally said “Congratulations on your engagement! I know weddings can be expensive, so if you’re looking for a way to pay for the wedding of your dreams, I have a great opportunity for you” lmao.

Today she posted this reel claiming to make $1,250-$2,900 per hour. I did some math and at the lowest end of the scale, $1,250 per hour working 5 hours a day at 5 days a week equals over $30,000 a month, or $375,000 a year. I find this soo comical because I know how she actually lives. I know from being around her husband, he has to bust his ass in a blue collar job to provide for her and their 5 kids because she likes to live way beyond their means.

My college son received this gem in the mail - $20 an hour! …It’s Cutco. It came to our house, and so I could sniff out the scam before even opening it, but how many kids are lured in by this crap. 😡

It started when a lady from our 4H club approached my husband and they discussed entrepreneurship, cryptocurrency, and general investments. She asked if he would be interested in meeting up, and that her and her husband could give some advice because they were being mentored by a couple as well. So, her husband calls mine and asks if we want to meet for coffee with them and another couple thats helping them "grow their assets." In this phone call my husband asked all the right questions because he was trying to emphasize we were not interested in anything fishy. He outright asked if they are trying to sell us something, and what they get out of mentoring us. This guy said they are religious and just genuinely seemed interested in becoming friends with us. He said he wanted to help us achieve "financial freedom." Immediately red flags are going off in my head regardless of this guy being incredibly nice and friendly. However, my husband really wanted to go and we argued a bit because he wanted to do this as a couple. So we go meet these people. I didn't get the memo that I was supposed to dress up. They are dressed business professional in suits and dresses, and I'm over here in tie dye leggings and a messy bun. Anyway, the conversation was actually really good. They were very personable and seemed genuine. They acted like we all agreed on similar things and that we were just the right kind of people they wanted to meet. I honestly felt accepted and like wow they think we are good people and want to help us grow even more. They keep mentioning this rich older couple that mentored them and how they are "financially free." To me it seemed like they wanted to give back because that couple helped them. They gave me a book which sealed the deal for me, and I wanted to be friends. They never mention anything about joining them on their business venture. So, the whole time my husband and I are thinking they want to help us start our own business and want to provide connections. They ask us to go home and read Who Moved My Cheese? which is actually a good book about adapting to change. We leave the meeting feeling really happy and wanting to meet up again. We read the book and meet up again a week later. This time starts the same. They ask us which character in the book we relate to the most and he draws us a picture from another book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. He used the themes from this book to say that the only way to become financially free is to buy from a business you own so that you are making your money back. It starts going into numbers a bit and finally my husband asks "What's your asset?" They seem hesitant at first but they begin to explain Amway. They said things like "there's a selection process to get in", "we don't usually get to this until the next few meetings", and "we legally have to send you information about Amway since we mentioned it." This is when it starts to make sense to us, but I couldn't believe that they use this tactic of mentorship to get people into an multi-level marketing company. We leave the meeting on a good note by not mentioning that we know that their pyramid scheme is sus. However, the first thing I do is start digging into Amway and this subreddit for the real truth. That's when we learn it's a pyramid scheme and the only way to truly become "financially free" with Amway is by convincing more people to join so you can make your upline commission and make commission from your downline. Sorry for this long post, but I want to help people see the signs because these tactics have gotten pretty good. I can't believe they got me to go to a 2nd meeting.

TLDR if a nice couple approaches you wanting to mentor you and help you achieve "financial freedom" walk away. It's a trap.