5 ms·

All MLMs are scams. I hate using the term pyramid schemes, because if you use that term all of the MLM apologists will start cranking out very long-winded philo

by Top19 9y ago

All MLMs are scams. I hate using the term pyramid schemes, because if you use that term all of the MLM apologists will start cranking out very long-winded philosophical definitions of pyramid schemes that obscure the true point. The MLM "model" can be summarized thusly: - 1. Give people pretty good business advice from a host of good business books - 2. Give people a very positive exciting environment - 3. Give people literally the WORST job ever created with a product that cannot exist on its own in the marketplace if it wasn't being artificially propped up by hundreds of thousands of distributors MLMs are scams. And no matter how much they try to attack other industries by saying how unethical they are, or how much they lie about their products, that can never and will never absolve them for the damage they have done to so many lives. ALSO: something else you'll notice is that people who've been involved with MLMs might recall them fondly. This is just a defense mechanism (an extremely understandable one) to prevent having to view oneself as being duped. I think it's a shame though because we'll all be duped or scammed to some degree in our life, no need to change the past. Anyway reading "The Big Con" by David Maurer right now, a book by a sociologist about con-men in the 1940s. It's the basis for the movie "The Sting", and its remarkable how many people in the book are conned but refuse to believe it, and even years later still think their guy is out there, about to return their money at any time with 20x the profit or whatever. EDIT: Also it is nearly impossible to look this stuff up on Google. MLM people have so carpet bombed the search sites the first 30 or so links will be links to Youtube videos with titles like "Is XYZ company a scam??" that find of course it's not. Occasionally a random legitimate news article will leak through. Otherwise they've literally walled the world off from anti-MLM information.

throwaway7645 9y ago
Yes, they've completely subverted the internet for their own use. You can send people in need to John Oliver's amazing piece though.
- dsacco 9y ago
  I'm of the opinion that John Oliver is not really a good source for changing people's minds. I agree with a lot of his points and he cites sources, but I find him difficult to watch. A lot of his show appears to endorse an echo chamber: he frequently criticizes the subjects by making them appear ridiculous. That's a very pervasive problem in political satire. It's often pandering. You have hosts taking clips of someone doing or saying something the demographic audience is going to clearly disagree with, then acting absolutely gobsmacked at how stupid/malicious/unaware they are. That's not persuasive to anyone and doesn't complement changing someone's mind, it's just ridiculing the people they currently agree with. Ostensibly the show is supposed to be informative, because he does appeal to the other side's rationality to try and persuade them. I think the usual argument for the format is that a sobering account doesn't capture enough attention, which is why jokes are interspersed. But those jokes are heavy handed enough that opponents probably will be put off. If the goal is actually convincing someone that MLMs don't really work for most people, I think there are probably better sources of information if they're willing to be proven wrong in the first place. And if they're not willing, they may take someone who is as abrasive as John Oliver as ridicule.
  - Finnucane 9y ago
    >he frequently criticizes the subjects by making them appear ridiculous That is literally his job description.
    - ethbro 9y ago
      I think one of the elevations to the form that occurred as Jon Stewart and the writers evolved The Daily Show was that the coverage was more fair. The clips were still humorous, but they were generally contextually and fairly presented so as to be an accurate statement of the target's beliefs. The subversion usually came in choosing clips where the true beliefs were exposed, rather than the PR whitewashed version. Oliver tends to overdo the histrionics in reaction to the topic, whereas one of Stewart's most effective rhetorical devices was "... But maybe they {good reason for doing the thing that was done}" -> segue into next clip where target explicitly rejects {good reason} as motivation.
    - opportune 9y ago
      John Oliver's style is more akin to pointing a finger and laughing at someone than actually deconstructing why they are wrong. And even when he does deconstruct things, I think many of his arguments hinge on emotion and non-sequitur (e.g. It's 201X). I am an anti-fan of him, personally. He's basically the young peoples' version of a right-wing talk radio host or TV personality, yet people do not at all seem to realize this.
      - Finnucane 9y ago
        >John Oliver's style is more akin to pointing a finger and laughing at someone Again, as Oliver himself says repeatedly, he is a comedian, not a journalist. That's what comedians do. It's confusing to some people, because he talks about real things and sometimes manages to slip in more actual information than some actual journalists--esp the mock-journalists on TV--do.
        opportune 9y ago
        He's a comedian in the same way that Alex Jones in an entertainer. You can call yourself whatever you want, but if you are functionally behaving as a political pundit, you should be held to similar standards as the rest of them (which are essentially nonexistent anyway)
sharemywin 9y ago
To me you're kind of misusing the term scam. To me it's no more of a scam than buying a stock at the wrong time or working for a startup with options or any affiliate program. A lot of the time the products are really good at first they're usually hard to sell in retail and then usually the market catches up at the retail level and the product becomes a commodity. And at the same time the market saturates with reps and it becomes a bad opportunity.
- sharemywin 9y ago
  working for uber, opening a restaurant, start a music or sports career. All generally pretty bad ideas, but not really scams)
- sharemywin 9y ago
  tupperware, avon, Amway's cleaners were all great products in their day(expensive but some consumers aren't cheap, Think Coach purses - retail example of that kind of product).
- opportune 9y ago
  Often with MLMs you have to buy the product yourself first and then sell it. So people end up buying $1000 worth of energy drinks they can never sell, because their "employers" fed them so much bullshit about it being easy money. I would call that a scam
  - notfromhere 9y ago
    MLM sell their products at retail prices to their 'distributors' who then have to mark it up yet again, making the actual distributors the customer base (since normal consumers won't tolerate that level of markup). If you're buying wholesale stock at retail prices, you are being scammed.
  - sharemywin 9y ago
    That's illegal per FTC. http://mlmlegal.com/MLMBlog/what-is-front-loading-or-inventory-loading/ http://mlmlegal.com/MLMBlog/what-is-front-loading-or-invento...
Vanayad 9y ago
Well, I know people that made a living and brought up two children with the help of Herbalife, so it is not THAT bad. It is not easy, and not a good job, on those points I do agree though.
- Top19 9y ago
  What's with all the survivorship bias in these responses? For every person you know that's made money in an MLM, that mathematically means there were 1,000 people AT MINIMUM below them who were scammed somewhere around $300 to usually $20,000 (when you're poor that can be 3 months worth of savings and the difference between taking multiple overdraft hits + a title loan) to live a hijacked version of the American Dream. The burned relationships are even more significant, again especially with people in poverty where family is everything. Look at "A Framework for Understanding to Poverty" by Ruby Payne for more on this. Btw of course a scam will make some people successful, that's what scams do, take people's money. If someone isn't getting rich, it isn't a scam in the end. That being said, MLMs are weird and quite honestly conceptually bizarre to reason through. They thrive on this and they operate in the gaps and blindspots of human reasoning. Here's another way to describe MLMs: -1). They get you hyped up on success and by borrowing the best of innovations that were mastered by Evangelical churches and various performing arts over the last 200 years (see Aimee Mcpherson, the amazing female preacher from LA and the inspiration for the male preacher in "There Will Be Blood" with Daniel Day Lewis). -2). By pretending to have a business they can sell you a $500 or so "gold" level business kit to launch your business. -3). They then get you so hyped up you talk to all of your friends, reluctantly 2 or 3 of them buy. Now the MLM has made $500 + $1000 or so from your friends. That means you as a "mark" has been taken for $1500. -4). Rinse and repeat with your other friends, burning social circles and harvesting the ashes as you go.
  - ethbro 9y ago
    A shorter way of putting it is probably: If products don't get sold to actual consumers in sufficient numbers to pay everyone, then the money has to come from somewhere. It generally comes from "lower" distributors that one signs up. Those who are successful and see a profit by doing this talk about it; those who lose money do not. Ergo, no social good, the majority of people talking about it are successful, and it ruins lives.

by Top19 9y ago

throwaway7645 9y ago

Yes, they've completely subverted the internet for their own use. You can send people in need to John Oliver's amazing piece though.

dsacco 9y ago
I'm of the opinion that John Oliver is not really a good source for changing people's minds. I agree with a lot of his points and he cites sources, but I find him difficult to watch. A lot of his show appears to endorse an echo chamber: he frequently criticizes the subjects by making them appear ridiculous. That's a very pervasive problem in political satire. It's often pandering. You have hosts taking clips of someone doing or saying something the demographic audience is going to clearly disagree with, then acting absolutely gobsmacked at how stupid/malicious/unaware they are. That's not persuasive to anyone and doesn't complement changing someone's mind, it's just ridiculing the people they currently agree with. Ostensibly the show is supposed to be informative, because he does appeal to the other side's rationality to try and persuade them. I think the usual argument for the format is that a sobering account doesn't capture enough attention, which is why jokes are interspersed. But those jokes are heavy handed enough that opponents probably will be put off. If the goal is actually convincing someone that MLMs don't really work for most people, I think there are probably better sources of information if they're willing to be proven wrong in the first place. And if they're not willing, they may take someone who is as abrasive as John Oliver as ridicule.
- Finnucane 9y ago
  >he frequently criticizes the subjects by making them appear ridiculous That is literally his job description.
  - ethbro 9y ago
    I think one of the elevations to the form that occurred as Jon Stewart and the writers evolved The Daily Show was that the coverage was more fair. The clips were still humorous, but they were generally contextually and fairly presented so as to be an accurate statement of the target's beliefs. The subversion usually came in choosing clips where the true beliefs were exposed, rather than the PR whitewashed version. Oliver tends to overdo the histrionics in reaction to the topic, whereas one of Stewart's most effective rhetorical devices was "... But maybe they {good reason for doing the thing that was done}" -> segue into next clip where target explicitly rejects {good reason} as motivation.
  - opportune 9y ago
    John Oliver's style is more akin to pointing a finger and laughing at someone than actually deconstructing why they are wrong. And even when he does deconstruct things, I think many of his arguments hinge on emotion and non-sequitur (e.g. It's 201X). I am an anti-fan of him, personally. He's basically the young peoples' version of a right-wing talk radio host or TV personality, yet people do not at all seem to realize this.
    - Finnucane 9y ago
      >John Oliver's style is more akin to pointing a finger and laughing at someone Again, as Oliver himself says repeatedly, he is a comedian, not a journalist. That's what comedians do. It's confusing to some people, because he talks about real things and sometimes manages to slip in more actual information than some actual journalists--esp the mock-journalists on TV--do.
      - opportune 9y ago
        He's a comedian in the same way that Alex Jones in an entertainer. You can call yourself whatever you want, but if you are functionally behaving as a political pundit, you should be held to similar standards as the rest of them (which are essentially nonexistent anyway)

sharemywin 9y ago

To me you're kind of misusing the term scam. To me it's no more of a scam than buying a stock at the wrong time or working for a startup with options or any affiliate program. A lot of the time the products are really good at first they're usually hard to sell in retail and then usually the market catches up at the retail level and the product becomes a commodity. And at the same time the market saturates with reps and it becomes a bad opportunity.

sharemywin 9y ago
working for uber, opening a restaurant, start a music or sports career. All generally pretty bad ideas, but not really scams)
sharemywin 9y ago
tupperware, avon, Amway's cleaners were all great products in their day(expensive but some consumers aren't cheap, Think Coach purses - retail example of that kind of product).
opportune 9y ago
Often with MLMs you have to buy the product yourself first and then sell it. So people end up buying $1000 worth of energy drinks they can never sell, because their "employers" fed them so much bullshit about it being easy money. I would call that a scam
- notfromhere 9y ago
  MLM sell their products at retail prices to their 'distributors' who then have to mark it up yet again, making the actual distributors the customer base (since normal consumers won't tolerate that level of markup). If you're buying wholesale stock at retail prices, you are being scammed.
- sharemywin 9y ago
  That's illegal per FTC. http://mlmlegal.com/MLMBlog/what-is-front-loading-or-inventory-loading/ http://mlmlegal.com/MLMBlog/what-is-front-loading-or-invento...

Vanayad 9y ago

Well, I know people that made a living and brought up two children with the help of Herbalife, so it is not THAT bad. It is not easy, and not a good job, on those points I do agree though.

Top19 9y ago
What's with all the survivorship bias in these responses? For every person you know that's made money in an MLM, that mathematically means there were 1,000 people AT MINIMUM below them who were scammed somewhere around $300 to usually $20,000 (when you're poor that can be 3 months worth of savings and the difference between taking multiple overdraft hits + a title loan) to live a hijacked version of the American Dream. The burned relationships are even more significant, again especially with people in poverty where family is everything. Look at "A Framework for Understanding to Poverty" by Ruby Payne for more on this. Btw of course a scam will make some people successful, that's what scams do, take people's money. If someone isn't getting rich, it isn't a scam in the end. That being said, MLMs are weird and quite honestly conceptually bizarre to reason through. They thrive on this and they operate in the gaps and blindspots of human reasoning. Here's another way to describe MLMs: -1). They get you hyped up on success and by borrowing the best of innovations that were mastered by Evangelical churches and various performing arts over the last 200 years (see Aimee Mcpherson, the amazing female preacher from LA and the inspiration for the male preacher in "There Will Be Blood" with Daniel Day Lewis). -2). By pretending to have a business they can sell you a $500 or so "gold" level business kit to launch your business. -3). They then get you so hyped up you talk to all of your friends, reluctantly 2 or 3 of them buy. Now the MLM has made $500 + $1000 or so from your friends. That means you as a "mark" has been taken for $1500. -4). Rinse and repeat with your other friends, burning social circles and harvesting the ashes as you go.
- ethbro 9y ago
  A shorter way of putting it is probably: If products don't get sold to actual consumers in sufficient numbers to pay everyone, then the money has to come from somewhere. It generally comes from "lower" distributors that one signs up. Those who are successful and see a profit by doing this talk about it; those who lose money do not. Ergo, no social good, the majority of people talking about it are successful, and it ruins lives.