When I was in high school they had a class called “Life Skills” it only lasted a year but I’m so glad I got to take the class. They taught about bank accounts, credit, pyramid schemes, MLMs, etc. it was such a great class and I was shocked when they didn’t continue it. They need to have more classes like this available in high school. It’s such important information.
We had a class like that in my high school called Consumer Economics and it was a required class for graduation. Taught everything from how to balance a checkbook to how to buy a car to how to spot a scam.
I had a class called Business and Personal Finance that went over business structures, credit, filing a tax return, and managing a budget. It was only a semester and it still is a requirement to graduate. I wish they would have had it for each grade year.
I've seen a weird amount of women on social media defending the MLM business model lately, and they're very crafty about it. They compare the MLM model to a traditional business structure, where the CEO is the top of the pyramid and the workers are the bottom.... And their defense is that at least they have the opportunity to reach the top, unlike other workers who start at the bottom and stay there. It's a very sneaky PR campaign for MLMs.
Is there any example of a woman joining an MLM and become the CEO? Lol In a normal.business you actually can work up to being a high level manager. Not likely in MLM
I once got trapped in an Uber here in NYC with a women forcibly trying to get me to sign up under her to sell Melaleuca. She kept driving around the block of my work building and practically BEGGING me to join. We got to a stoplight and I just hopped out of the car right there. Then I reported her to Uber. It was extremely unnerving.
I don't think that's quite as bad trying to manipulate someone after a miscarriage but that is pretty damn close to the worst mlm pitch I've heard about. Kidnapping is a bold and desperate choice for sales.
Not gonna lie… there are a couple products I loveeeee made by Melaleuca. I’ve never been able to find comparable products. I just do with out, but I do miss them!
I guess the most predatory part is that they convince you that "it's your own independent business" "that is why you are not an employee but an 'independent consultant'" and try to use the excuse that "you have to 'invest money' to start a business, and the money you 'invest' in starting your *insert mlm name here* business is much less than starting your own actual business from scratch". Or the "It's your own business, it's like a franchise", which is also not true, the company is required to have standards and support franchisees with marketing training and anything the require to be a part of the brand, plus when franchisees invest they are guaranteed that another competitor from the same franchise won't be given that brand in their area, unlike mlm not only the allow competitord in your area, you are encouraged to recruit your direct competition. They also try to trick you with that "you pay for univ or college and when you become a consultant we train you to 'succeed' in your business" which is a complete lie or there is a disconnect in their way of thinking. the training and certification you get at a trade school, university or college, is useful and valid regardless of where you apply for a job as log as it pertains to the skills you acquired; and if a business requires you to have specific training that they offer(like call centers as an example) *you are paid and compensated* to get trained, because you are getting trained to better perform at your job and that benefits the business, even if the training the business wants you to have is from an outside source and you will be able to list the certification/diploma in your CV/Resume, the business pays for your certification and for your time for taking the course. For example my father is an Electrical engineer and was the director maintenance for industrial plants, he was asked to take defensive driving certifications, first aid certifications, ISO 9001 certifications, along with getting educated in updates to the expertise necessary to new advancements in technology in his area, and all of that was covered by his employers, because it could only make my Dad better at his job and more profitable for the company in the long run.
@@kkay6838 Grants and scholarships paid for my college. And it's a degree that I can use to get into a well paying career anywhere. I'm not paying to start the job to the job itself.
The only ones that are okay are jobs that require specialized training and certification to pay for before you can start, like lifeguarding or coaching.
Women are easy targets. In the US especially, because of awful wages, high costs of day care, and women still being expected to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to home tasks and child rearing while also working a job outside, there are a lot of young women desperate for a quick way to make the load lighter. I know a lot of fairly young, single moms who fell hard for the "Stay at home! Make money fast! Take care of your kids, Boss Babe!" bs that these MLM's were pushing, and they ended up losing *so much money*. One of my friends got involved in some makeup version called Unique (?) a couple years ago that sold really expensive, not-very-good makeup. She kept trying to recruit me because she knew my husband and I were spread pretty thin after getting our first house together, and after so many awful "don't you wanna help your husband pay the bills?" messages (despite me already having a job) I snapped and told her that 1)the product was awful 2) she's spending more money than she's making 3) she's running her friendships into the ground badgering us to get us to sell shit that she KNOWS is bad and not worth the money. She broke down and told me she was $2000 in debt and couldn't afford day care for her two daughters and that's why she got involved. The woman she spoke to that recruited her promised quick and easy money to care for her kids, and she was so desperate that she invested what little funds she had into Unique. Not long after I got her an interview at my Aunt's restaurant, and now she's the head waitress. She can pay all of her bills and have money left over to save, and her mom retired and offered to watch the girls' so childcare is no longer an issue. Long story short, MLM's are predatory as hell. Edit: Cristine just mentioned Unique. That's wild
Ugh, Younique is absolute garbage quality! It really bothers me that the makeup MLMs don't bother to teach their "consultants" how to actually apply makeup. These people don't know much about makeup when they join (or else they wouldn't join it in the first place) and they're told to do live tutorials and post lots of pictures of themselves wearing their stupidly expensive yet crappy products. :(
Ah! Younique! You should definitely check out a series of blogs by 'Elle Beau', about their experience of joining and then quitting Younique (they call it Poonique) and how the brief stint almost cost them friendships and close relationships.
I genuinely hope the rise in flexible and remote work options will hobble future MLM scams. If we empower and enable women and SAH moms through legitimate means, maybe they won't be as easily victimized.
Maybe one good thing can come out of this pandemic, because the work force was just about 50/50 genderwise and then many mothers went back home when schools closed/went online and then childcare closed as well. It was a huge step back for women and honestly could breed more MLM girl boss babes
Actually in my experience the pandemic has increased the MLM businesses because people are jobless and desperate. There is a local electrician in my area. He basically used to have electrian job and on the side he would fix stuff in people's house for a small fee mostly on weekends or late at night. During the pandemic he lost the job and now he works for a cosmetic MLM. He keeps calling us and our neighbours if anyone wants any work done. We did call him to fix something and he kept trying to recruit us that he has been selling cosmetics in the last few months and made money, so we should try it too. We tried to sell us some products too, we bought a santizer. I guess it was kind of useful at that point.
I wish this was true but I’ve just had a friend and a distant family member start in MLMs, despite already being employed in decent paying jobs. It makes me quite worried that they’re managing to target and convince people who aren’t even that vulnerable.
Hey cristine and Ben! I loved the episode! Would you be willing to talk about frat/sorority culture? I am in college and i think there are so many problematic aspects and I’d love to hear your opinions!
Oof fr. I remember seeing some of this in college and calling it out and then I got verbally assaulted at work by a president of a sorority in front of a lot of people so 😬
It’s not really a thing in 🇨🇦🤷🏼♀️ I was in a sorority but it’s not as big of a deal. Lots of universities don’t actually have sorority’s they are female fraternity’s (UofA)
The faux feminism part is so crappy. Especially the “girl boss” shit, and “retire your husband”, because it preys on the feeling of powerlessness and poor self esteem that comes from living in a country (America) with no federal maternity leave and a society that wholly depends on the labour of women, but also demeans them for it and acts like they’re not contributing by raising the future of the country that capitalism depends on. Being a woman in a position of power is a good thing, but a key phrase in the promotion of that has been bastardized.
my mom got some of the CS nail strips for Christmas from an aunt, and loved them. not wanting to support a MLM, I looked up the manufacturer and they literally make the exact same thing and sell it at Walmart for cheaper. If you’re into CS and don’t want to continue supporting them after this podcast, look up Coconut nail art by Incoco. ❤️
I love coco nails! I didn't even know they were the same people that made the mlm lol. I get them when they're on clearance for $1 and they work great when I'm in a rush or want some design that I can't do xD
@@glitterberserker1029 just plain “incoco” ! coconut nails has more cutesy designs, incoco has fancy glitters and more refined type strips. (I think they’re $5 too instead of $7 for the coconut ones? I don’t remember, it’s been a few years.)
I refuse to buy products from MLMs on principle. I know a married couple who are very deep into Amway. I bought one face cream (that was not even a good face cream and overpriced) because I felt bad. Since then, all of our communication has resulted in attempts to get me to buy more, or to "make more money than I could even dream of". It is so sad because I love these people, but they have not been able to divide their friendships from their "business", so I don't talk to them any more. They also tried to convince me that I could make more doing Amway than at my engineering job... umm, no. I can see how MLMs have to prey on vulnerable women, because someone who already has a good career would never consider joining, except as a hobby if they really enjoyed the product.
That happened to me. A neighbor and friend invited my husband and I over for a small "party". The other 2 couples were Amway reps too They started talking about "if money was no object what would your life look like? well, you know if you signed up to sell Amyway you could have that life". It tarnished our friendship, we were never more than a head nod and wave kind of neighbor after that.
Yeah, they used to tell me to call the client at least once a month to "ask how the product was working" and to nudge them to buy more. Even when I left, they still called me on a weekly basis asking me to make a new order and to come back to the business.
@@nail_fiend1962 yeah it's better to tell them and that's it. I had to blocked them because they didn't wanna give up on me even after years of not selling. So great 👍
“Should have picked better names for your kids” Ben is so sassy 😂😭 Back in the day someone tried to get me to do a timeshare mlm and I can’t remember the name. I hope it doesn’t exist anymore.
Timeshare scams are designed to have decades of owning the building and economically exploiting those that bought timeshares of the rooms during the initial pressure sales scam.
So I have a personal connection to this topic. My mom is working full-time for an MLM. She started getting involved when I was in high school and has only gotten deeper and deeper into the culture since. Everyone else in my family was pretty strongly against her joining, but it's basically impossible to convince her that her company is anything less than perfect. She completely bought into the whole, "you're in control of your life, you run your own business" speal and genuinely believes she is helping people by recruiting people into the organization/selling their products. I tried for years to convince her to stop, but have now given up. She makes enough money to support herself and the kinds of arguments we used to get into about it were literally ruining our relationship. No matter what I said, she just wouldn't listen. It's really like the company is a religion and she's a hard-core member of the cult. Honestly, still makes me so sad to think about it, but at this point I don't know what I can do.
Would maybe showing the Vice documentary or the Amazon series on LuLa Roe help at all? Perhaps a more neutral perspective that shows the disaster unfold would help. Sorry that it happened though, thats the thing--- it can happen to anyone.
There's definitely a connection between MLMs and Mormons/religion and I'm glad you addressed it in a respectful way. I've seen way too many people take the conversation from "MLMs are harmful" to "I'm going to straight-up attack religion in general now." My perspective as a Mormon: We're prone to pyramid schemes for a lot of reasons. There's a strong emphasis on family in this church and a lot of women feel guilt if they have a job outside the home because they think putting their kids in daycare means they're not a good mom, but they also feel guilt if they stay at home with the kids because then they're not helping their husband support the family financially. A job where you can work from home on your phone with your own schedule seems like the perfect fit. We socialize a lot with our church congregations and there's some inherent trust there. We automatically assume that the people we see on Sundays wouldn't mislead us or drag us into a scam. Our congregations do a lot to help each other - moving in or out, babysitting, bringing food to someone who needs it, decorating for a wedding reception, weeding someone's yard... you name it, we do it. And it's hard to think that the lady who teaches your kid's Sunday School class or the friendly guy who sits in the pew next to you might be recruiting you into something they (might) know will lose you money. Because of our tendency to invite people to church and how often that leads to rejection, some of us get really good at pitching stuff to people in a way that makes them want to accept even if they don't initially want to. Our missionaries get doors slammed in their faces constantly. Another side effect of that is that we know how hard it is to be excited to tell someone about something that has a positive impact on your life and get a rude response, so we want to be polite to the person inviting us to have a "free facial" for their Mary Kay "business." LuLaRoe in particular is very Mormon-heavy because of the clothes themselves. Mormons are supposed to dress "modestly" and that tends to mean no spaghetti straps, no midriff, low amounts of boob visible, and shorts/skirts coming to the knee. Have you ever tried to find a dress that 1) has sleeves, 2) doesn't show ~too much~ boob, 3) goes to about your knee, 4) isn't see-through anywhere, and 5) is still some how cute? It's a royal pain. So the idea of "modest" clothes in fun patterns sounds appealing. And for whatever reason, Mormons tend to be really hung up on how they appear to other people, so that might be why the sizing is so ridiculous. Everyone wants to be able to say they're a size small when they buy something from their friend. Oh, the horror of [gasp] admitting you wear a large. :| Anyway, I hate MLMs a lot and I think it's disgusting that they target SAHMs and military wives who just want to make friends and feel like they contribute to their family's finances. I hate that they're so prevalent among religious people. People already love to crap on religions, especially Mormons, and we don't need to give them more reasons to hate us. Ugh.
@@Sika6061 that has a lot to do with the laws around pyramid schemes though. Many mlm founders are also Mormon, but the reason why many start in Utah is because Utah laws basically make it impossible for a business to be classified as a pyramid scheme as long as they have products, regardless of where the money is coming from. As long as they can show a flow of products to anyone, distributors or retail customers, it's nearly impossible for the law to classify it as a pyramid scheme
Very well said. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints too. It makes me sad that people have such a clear connection in their minds between MLMs and members of the church. Anyone with sense, religious or not, should know better than to join one.
When I was a teen we had this class called "formation personelle et sociale" and I am so grateful for the teacher I got. He taught us all about pyramid schemes, ponzi schemes, precautions about leases (always sign a lease, don't fall for a verbal contract), how to see the cycle of violence in a relationship to get out of it, etc. I thought everybody learned this in school. Everybody should learn about this in school.
Check out the book "Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism" - it talks in length about the overlap in language between MLMs, cults, and other similar structures. Super interesting stuff!
As someone who was in an MLM as a teenager, they can rely a lot on good motivational speakers to sell you your dreams and then tell you that if it's not working, you just aren't working hard enough. A lot of toxic positivity tbh. Cults really are just the more intense version of MLMs. It's also why I'm suspicious of motivational speakers in general, they're usually saying a lot of nothing but know how to make you feel good.
41:34 look into what these MLM’s did when the stimulus checks went out. They were telling people who were unemployed to “invest in yourself!” People were desperate and trying to support their families. It was absolutely disgusting what these MLM’s did when those checks went out.
I’m at 18:16 and I think ben’s totally spot on about this. The documentary shows how the one lady refuses to acknowledge how much money she made off of sign ups, and there was the other lady that left with the goal to help 75 out of the company because her team was of 75 people. I respect that second lady for recognizing how she contributed to the predatory environment, and she said that she’s reached her goal to ‘mend’ her ways several times over.
Second lady not only got out those 75 people but thousands more, I had to rewatch that part a couple times even with captions to make sure I got it. I really respect her for being so honest and genuinely sorry for her part and genuinely wants to help fix that because that takes a lot of humility and strength and clearly many others aren't showing to have that ability.
Roberta (the second woman) was one of the key people in the Washington state lawsuit too and one of the most outspoken opponents of MLMs, I don’t think she’s on RUclips but she’s on a lot of social media
Roberta Blevins is a badass! She has a podcast called Life After MLM and it's amazing! She has interviewed over sixty people at this point and has a secondary series called Lula Bitch interviewing some of the people from the documentary! It's worth checking out! She is a genuinely good person!
I'm so glad you talked about this. The MLM business model makes me crazy. I let me bleeding heart get roped into Younique a few years ago because my friend was "desperate for help." The products were awful, the management of the business even worse. It's a nightmare. Needless to say, I slid out of that hamster wheel post haste, and I've hated the MLM business model since. I will not support it. It pains me to see the number of intelligent women being sucked into these, and then touting how well "their small business" is doing. Honey! IT'S NOT YOUR BUSINESS!! Ok. Off soapbox. I really enjoy these types of discussions. Thanks for bringing them up!
I don't think intelligence has anything to do with it. They prey on hope and desperation and when it starts to crumble many of these women have nowhere to go and so they desperately try to recruit and sell to save themselves from debt. I was in an MLM as a teenager but I could leave easily when I realised that I wasn't a good sales person and I didn't enjoy trying to force people to buy things. I hadn't recruited anyone and I was about to go to uni, so I had plenty of options available to me to build a future career and life. Many of the women I knew in the MLM were disabled and couldn't work most jobs, stay at home mum's wanting to have more income and/or some career success, and older women making a last attempt to make something more of their lives before retiring on a tiny pension.
Yes! When Arbonne was growing in Australia one of my mum's friends invited us to a makeup party and I was genuinely so confused when she kept saying it was her business. On the drive home I kept asking my mum how she managed to start an entire makeup brand and I couldn't wrap my head around how her "business" worked. Now this woman has moved to the country in her white Mercedes and she's not friends with my mum anymore hahaha
The worst experience I've had is one time a client of mine (that I did graphic design work for) messaged me to ask to meet up and discuss a business proposition. I thought it's going to be some bigger graphic design related thing, took my time to meet him at a cafe, just to sit there listening about Amway!! I was pretty young back then and felt like the polite thing to do was to listen to what the had to say, but now I would have just left and never continued business with him. I still feel bad about the situation, wasted my evening.
Ugh, that gave me a flashback. Something similar happened to me with web development right after I graduated from art school with my artsy tech-y degree. It was almost as good as the time a "cool new record label" wanted me to work on their website, so he asked me to coffee... to ask me to work on this, long-term, for free, because who could pass up getting in on the ground floor?! And they wanted a very fancy, media intense layout... With good performance. Ugh.
oh my god, that’s so upsetting and so true. i was constantly attacked to be in MLMs once i was out of highschool but THANK god i had seen the awful experience my mom had with an MLM and i will never go near that. i pass by the amway arena everyday and it just makes me roll my eyes 🙄
Same thing happened my best friend from junior high was going to UC Santa Barbara and when she came back home she wanted to meet up and seemed so excited. I meet up with her at some random persons house with like 30 people there and it is for Verve that energy drink. I was so sad because I missed her so much but she just wanted to sign me up for a MLM.
As someone who did dance and whose dad was in the military, I grew up around a lot of stay at home moms who wanted to make money and the big one was Scentsy. My mom would go to these parties and we would buy from Avon but it never seemed malicious to me as a child. Its just so difficult because the childcare burden is still disproportionately placed on women so its hard for them to have a job and parent when their partner is not sharing the burden. Not to mention how isolating it can be being a stay at home mom
As a fellow military brat, mlms run rampant through military spouse, especially since it is so hard to keep a career when you move every couple of years.
yes, it's still happening on military bases in Canada too. Scentsy is still going strong, Tupperware (although a lot less than few years ago), there was also some leggins brand but I don't remember what was it.
I grew up in blue collar middle class suburb. Back in the day, mom would order from one Avon lady she would buy lotions. My mom would keep her catalog in her business for her friend and people would order thru her. But, I don’t recall recruiting. My mom ran a tailor business, she had her word of mouth clientele and was super busy with weddings, upholstery and alterations - it never occurred to her to sell it herself. She just was helping her friend move product.
I can’t stand the people in MLMs who say they’re a small business owner to solicit support from their facebook friends. No, you work for a multi-billion dollar corporation.
There is a joke that MLM stands for Mormons Losing Money. In mormonism, there is a huge focus of women being stay at home moms. Therefore it lends itself to this model. Utah also has at least 15 mlm headquartered there.
There's dozens and dozens of business headquarters and distributors in Utah. Big business hub. Of course mlms will be in the mix with that amount of businesses
A lot of practises from Mormonism eg approaching strangers to start conversations also lend themselves very well to MLMs which contributes to the high correlation between Mormons and MLM participation
It's a self perpetuating cycle also - the existing MLMs (and the Mormons in them) are a powerful enough force to ensure that Utah's laws stay friendly to MLMs, which attracts more MLMs even if those companies have no prior attachment to the state or Mormonism.
I fell for an MLM a few years ago and it really made me feel dumb because I knew there is a fine line between an MLM and a pyramid scheme, but because I was jobless I went for it and in the end I lost even more money. Going to their meetings where they "train" you to convince people to join you and they even give you booklets of what things to say to make the sale made me realized that I fucked up but it was hard to get out without seeing if I can make some money back. And yes, this MLM would offer you 50% off the products you were selling, but when you go deep enough, that's when they bring up that you can make even more money if you recruit and I couldn't find myself to "trick" people into joining destroyed my soul. That 50% was a scam because they didn't count that you needed to pay for the product's shipping which was expensive and pay all the taxes, and the packaging also comes from your pocket so, in the end, the profit was pretty low and not worth all the hassle. So it's better to stay the fuck away from any MLM because they are pretty much legal pyramid schemes that learned how to jump the fence.
Same. I was newly out of college and trying to earn extra to pay off credit card debt. The one I joined didn’t have a direct payment method for customers. Basically, the customer paid me the full price, I deposited it into my personal bank account, and when I placed the order, I paid the total discounted order cost from my account and kept the remainder. It felt super sketchy. Edited to add: at the time, I didn’t know what an MLM was or how similar they were to pyramid schemes. I did one party, didn’t make a profit, and decided it wasn’t worth my time.
@@caitlins1303 the one I was in, you needed to have inventory with you, so the person would pay you and you deliver the order. The thing is, you didn't know what was gonna sale or not, so I was more like manipulating people to buy something that they basically didn't need. I only had 2 options if someone ordered something that I didn't have: ask another seller if they could sell me one with only a a small discount which meant that I was gonna make pennies, or do an order and buy more stuff for my inventory since their shipping was like $40 no matter how ma y items you ordered. So the more I buy, the more profit I did if I sold everything. But basically that never happened. I still have inventory which I'm ending up using 🙃
You shouldn't feel badly for getting involved with an mlm. Whoever recruited you was trained to manipulate people into joining. You did the best with the information you had at the time. It sucks that it happened but now you know better and can make better choices going forward.
I’m a mom who actually did start a business at the age of 17, and my number one beef with this MLM hype is that when I tell people I “own my own business,” they automatically assume I’m talking about an MLM, which is ever so slightly soul crushing, especially after 8 years of post-secondary education…15 years of experience…20,000 hours honing skills…etc. I wish that type of language wasn’t used. It’s not the same. We are not the same.
My mom threw Tupperware parties specifically because it was the only way she could get a specific orange peeler she liked. It wasn't at all her job and it was only occasionally but God damn did she want that orange peeler.
There's a youtuber named Briannah Jewel who I highly recommend. She does videos specifically about health and fitness related MLM's. She's a personal trainer and in grad school to become a dietician, so she's actually informed on this stuff and points out bogus claims and unhealthy aspects of the programs. It's honestly pretty scary that people will mess around with other people's health to make a quick buck.
Never knew about it before but honestly the fitness and health sphere is the perfect place for MLMs with the constant pushing of healthy stuff with no scientific basis and guilt tripping and fear mongering of fake synthetic chemicals etc etc
Season 1 of The Dream podcast talks about MLMs if you want to learn more about them! Super entertaining but also extremely frustrating. I think it's free to listen to on most podcast platforms (I use stitcher) Edit: this podcast looks more into how the companies prey on women and the impacts on these women's lives (what Ben was wanting to learn more about)
I came here to say this! Even if you’re pro MLM and you don’t like the attitude the host has going in every episode is legitimate and a revelation and is done with the same investigative integrity of NPR/CBC/ BBC
I listened to that podcast and I have to say I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t enjoy when they started talking about vitamins… I mean it made me stop taking vitamins all together and I told all my family and friends to stop as well but it was too medical for me at that point
There were a few times where the patterns were so blatantly stolen that someone’s watermark was still on the pattern on the leggings the designers had just inverted the colors
The one time someone tried to recruit me-they tried to tell me that if I drank their powder that all my health problems I have had since BIRTH would just disappear and I wouldn’t have to take my meds. Hilariously-I pointed out a spelling error from their “medical” experts from their video trying to recruit.
Is it weird to say that I look forward to these so much? I jump on them faster than I did on your nail tutorials back in the day. They’re so informative, so interesting, so entertaining...this new direction for the channel has been a breath of fresh air and I hope you guys enjoy making them as much as I enjoy watching them! 💕
My favorite was the guy who casually quoted Star Trek and was genuinely upset he can't listen to Kelly Clarkson anymore. I love that man and he must be protected!
@@liketopaintmynails His plan to sit on the patio of a restaurant near the LLR home office and watch as a repo crew came and took everything from the Stidhams was pretty epic too.
I get targeted a lot as I’m disabled and house bound. The amount of dm’s I’ve had this month has increased and if history repeats itself then those numbers will go up as we get closer to the festive period
@@jennymck7320 ohhhh same here. They either want to peddle their snake oil to me or recruit me as they presume I’ve got a tonne of friends who their snake oil “could help”
As a Latina with a mormon background, MLMs have been around my life in one way or another since the beginning. There’s a whole aspect actually about how certain types of MLMs prey on Latin Americans. Luckily my parents never fell for one of these, at least from what I remember, but we’ve attended so many “parties” and they’ve bought so many products to support church friends. Luckily I’ve had good experiences with some, like Mary Kay or Jamberry nail sellers who never even brought up signing me up under them, they’d just take my orders and bring me my goodies, and I was happy with the product. But once, when I lived in Mexico, we had an American lady visiting the church, and since I spoke English and she didn’t speak Spanish, they introduced me to her and had me sitting with her. She started telling me about why she was visiting Mexico City, and she said she worked for a health company. In a matter of seconds she was talking about how her company was bringing so many work opportunities to the people of Mexico, and I was SO CONFUSED, like, so they’re opening offices here and hiring people? What does that have to do? Why is she asking me if I’m interested? I’m just a college student. It was very uncomfortable that I was at church trying to be nice to this person visiting from another country, and she was already pitching me. Needless to say, half-understanding what it was all about, my mom and I actually ended up attending one of their pitch meetings at a hotel, and they tried to sell us the whole “you’ll be changing lives and helping your family” pitch. We did not sign up, but we did end up buying supplements 🤦♀️ It wasn’t until I signed up for a skincare MLM in my mid-20s that I actually learned about how a lot of these look behind the scenes. I don’t have a lot of friends that I actually hang out with often, I hate pitching stuff (I’m a sock like Cristine, pretty much), I just signed up so I could get a better discount on stuff that I liked. But it was so annoying that they kept wanting me to sell and sign people under me. Luckily I got out and didn’t waste a lot of money, maybe lost 250 or so at the most? But I did keep some products I really liked, and donated the rest to some love baskets that an acquaintance was organizing. Afterwards I had someone pitching beachbody so hard, I ended up completely blocking them from social media. They kept trying to get me to become a coach, and I’m like, I like my Job and don’t want to?! But this person kept coming back every couple of months. Gotta admire her perseverance, I wish they could have used it for something better. Anyways, I learned my lesson in my mid-20s, and I avoid buying from any MLMs now. But what makes me sad is seeing the people throwing MLMs parties and inviting my parents, back when I was a kid, still trying with another MLM. I’ve seen so many people try to sell one, then try to sell another. They really think it’s their answer to their prayers and have such a hard time recognizing they’re being used. But they don’t want to hear the truth. I can just hope the newer generations are smarter about it.
I think it's important to note that being a stay at home parent- at least in the U.S.- can be extremely lonely and isolating and society can sometimes act like you "do nothing" or aren't contributing to society at all when you're a sahm. MLMs lean into the guilt and imposter syndrome fears, but also make people believe that this is where they are going to make friends and connections with others. It's very insidious.
When I was like 21 and living with an ex the next door neighbors were super friendly and at one point the wife took me and a group of her friends to a party and when I showed up it was a Pure Romance party. But this was before I knew what MLMs were, so luckily I was too lazy to join or buy anything. My ADHD did me some good that day.
I'm so glad SOMEBODY finally said what I was thinking. I watched the documentary and I agree with Ben that none of them seemed to have a problem with the way they were making money until they changed the way the commissions worked. They were more than happy to collect their bonus checks and not think about the way the people below them were affected, until their bonus pay depended on those people selling products. I also feel it was very telling that the women were reluctant to share how much money they made because they wanted to play the victim and it's hard to do that when you're bringing in tens of thousands of dollars (several times the average person's yearly salary) every single month.
I agree, but I wonder if some women naively believed that they were "helping" other women by recruiting them. I think there must be a spectrum from those who were aware that their bonus comes from signing other people up, and the ramifications that this has on their recruits, to the people who were maybe short sighted or oblivious to the fact that they are directly benefiting from other vulnerable people being roped into a scam. I also wonder if some people signed up optimistically having been sold the dream, realised it was not all it was made out to be, but needed a way to make back their initial sign up costs and didn't see another way to do that without recruiting more people.
I just finished watching Good Girls on Netflix and how they portrayed the manboss mlm was so good. It was funny at first but it turned so scary and sad really quickly. I’ll miss that show 🥲
I graduated high school in mid 2019. Knew about MLMs because reddit and other relatives that got into it and lost money already. I thought it would take way longer to get the stereotypical "highschool acquaintance messages you out of the blue to peddle a pyramid scheme", but i was wrong. I got 2 MLM pitches throughout the pandemic, and its sad because honestly they were probably people who werent in the best financial situations because of the pandemic already :/
Thank you Ben for saying the ladies they interviewed weren’t being held accountable! Ashleigh the 3rd ever consultant was super sketchy and she was very aware of what she was doing.
Everyone should go watch John Oliver's episode on MLMs (Last Week Tonight) it goes more in-depth into the effects on low-level members and how financially devastated some can be by joining an MLM.
@@FukaiKokoro I didn't. It's weird that MLMs are still a thing, since the problems have been known since the 70's. It's more sophisticated, sure, but the structure and indoctrination are basically the same.
A great video that talks about MLMs, in general, is John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode on MLMs. If you google "is this an MLM?" a website comes up that you can search the name of the company and it will tell you if it is an MLM. Some great RUclipsrs that regularly talk about MLM topics are Savannah Marie, Not the Good Girl, the Antibot, Cruel World Happy Mind, Savy Writes Books, Kiki Chanel, CC Suarez, and so many more!
Cristine: "If you remember the Avon ladies from 20 years ago..." Me: *wearing the Avon mascara I bought last week from my aunt that sells Avon to make some cash on the side and I buy her stuff to help her out 😂*
But, and I don't know if I'm wrong, the difference is that some brands are not that bad. In Latin America this is very common as a side hustle, but just with big and "good" brands that you actually feel good buying from, so the girls and women how sell this are actually making money, but they also know is not gonna be a lot of money, just a little to help you out.. Don't know if I'm wrong just because I wanna believe that for all the people I know buying this, but yeah Jaja
I went to a lularoe party with my SAH mom years ago. I had a clue that it was a MLM but didn’t really know what that meant. I got a black pair and remember all the ladies FREAKED the fuck out I found a “unicorn”. All I was thinking like “why wouldn’t you make more black pairs than these ugly ass patterns….” It all makes sense now and I still wear the leggings to this day LMAO
I’m so happy y’all covered this there’s a lot of misinformation out there about MLM’s (in order to recruit) and a lot of people don’t know about it. Thank you for going in depth about the requirements and naming some companies as well.
I definitely recommend everybody watch iilluminaughtii's videos on MLM's, she covers different ones every week and gives comprehensive information on how bad these companies really are!
My favorite thing is when people I’m friends with through social media who I vaguely know from HS, send me messages with a billion emojis and wanting to make me a “girl boss”. Immediately I unfriend and/or block them lol I blame the government for not making education affordable for all because even though I’m super in debt, I have a job where I can make my own schedule and that I love. You have to work hard to get into something reputable and honest. There are no shortcuts.
When I was in university there were always people on Tinder who would match with you, hold a pleasant conversation for a day or two, and then just try to sell you something from their MLM helpp
That woman in the white sweater in the doc was such a snot! She knew exactly how she was screwing over other women. No wonder she refused to share any of her numbers. You KNOW she regretted none of it based on the snarky smirk she gave when she said she was one of their top sellers.
Pretty funny how they say 'let your husband take take of the boring business side' My husband is self employed and I'm the one that sorts tax, income, invoices quotes lol
Very excited for this episode! I made the stupid decision to join lularoe back in 2016 and have regretted it ever since. I'm still in debt because of the amount of inventory I was told to buy. I can't bring myself to watch the documentary but from what I've heard, it barely touches on the shit they (the owners) would say to us in company calls and the rest of the sketchy stuff that went on behind the scenes.
I was a frequent buyer in like 2017 since their clothes really were good for people with sensory issues. It was pitched to me that LLR was one of the only MLM's that you don't need to recruit to make money. I sold for about 2 years and did somewhat decent. I guess I got a little lucky because I lost all my inventory in a house fire and so I didn't lose money. After really toxic messages from my 'mentors' I decided to not start my 'business' again after I had a new place to live. I had no clue about the size of the bonus checks until the documentary. When I signed up I was under the impression they didn't get much if any from recruiting! The manipulation tactics they use to get people to join are just crazy. I was definitely always skeptical even being a consultant, but being able to find clothes I could tolerate was really important to me at the time. I know from a few facebook groups I'm still in just to spy that people are still joining, but I have no clue why anyone would now!
I have a family member that has been in Lularoe since 2013. Watching this doc was very hard for me because it was hyper realistic to her situation (single, struggling mom) and how she has changed over the years. She has spent a ton of her energy combating this doc and refuting the “lies”. She received help from family in the amount of tens of thousands of dollars to start the business, and with all her unused/unsold inventory, I’m not sure she’ll actually make any money in the end. I’ve tried every tactic to get her out (even finding legitimate jobs for her) and it’s no use.
I was apart of a pyramid scheme and I'm so sad to say that. To this day I still use their products but stopped "promoting" because they were more focused on recruitment than they were on their nutrition and science behind their products. You had to purchase every month to receive your compensation. Even if the month prior you bought a multi-month package. They encouraged you to give out your extra product as free samples to recruit more people. And they never were transparent on how you were compensated. It was just a "surprise" every week how much you were going to get deposited.
Just to echo some the conversation you briefly touched on, the parallels I see between MLMs and religion (specifically evangelical Christianity, because that’s what I’m familiar with) is astounding. So I tend to take the more sympathetic route that Cristine takes when it comes to this, because I lived through that and I don’t think I wasn’t intelligent or I inherently wanted to abuse people (although of course I played a part, and certainly have to be held accountable regardless), I just went where the community that accepted me was. So while anyone who is part of an abusive system should acknowledge that and take accountability, I feel the brunt of the burden of that lies on those “at the top”
I do think it's important to say that the founders ABSOLUTELY knew what they were doing. It didn't just grow quickly and run away from them and then they kept perpetuating it. They knew from the start exactly what they were doing - they had history with Amway, another MLM/pyramid scheme. That whole story about clothes out of the back of her car might have grains of truth to it, but they knew from experience the predatory structure of Amway and how the people at the top benefit the most, and they decided to create their own version and be those people at the top. Unfortunately, a LOT of people hop from MLM to MLM, hoping to get in closer and closer to the top, and some of them take the leap to create their own to be the very tip of the pyramid.
I bought the Rodan & Fields lash serum just directly from the website and didn't even know it was an MLM. I actually really liked the serum and used the whole thing but I switched to a different non MLM brand because I didn't wanna contribute to an MLM that could potentially be sketchy. I decided to switch instead of doing a bunch of research into the company's legitimacy.
Haha I totally used the JamBerry wraps before getting into nail polish -- like you said, just helping out a friend who always seems to find the newest FB business opportunity.
I almost got caught up in the excitement of being a Jamberry rep… I’m so glad I didn’t do that. I do have a full photo album full of Jamberry wraps … I also was invited to a few parties and won some of the Jamberry wraps as a result…
When I was young and job searching I've definitely went to "job interviews" that turned out to be for MLMs. I learned to avoid these quickly but places used to be good at hiding it.
I don't know if Cristine will ever see this but I just wanted to thank her for making this podcast episode. I was approached by a fishy company the day after listening to this podcast episode and it probably saved me from a lot of hardship. I am young and I didn't know what an MLM or a pyramid scheme was before listening to this episode. It's crazy how I was almost roped into one the day after I listened to this podcast. So in case Cristine ever sees, I just wanted to say thank you for doing this. Your podcast has a positive effect on other people's lives. I don't listen to business podcasts or watch these crime documentaries, but I do listen to your podcast. I think it's so great that you are using your platform to make entertaining and informational content. Thank you so much!
My coworker just cornered me last week asking if I want to buy some of her sister’s lularoe after complementing my silk skirt… caught me sooooo off guard but hey I’ll let you know sis
An old colleague of mine sold Herbalife for a few years. In the beginning other colleagues bought it to help out but after a while everyone saw that it was a scam except her and it was so sad to see her realise the mistake she made. She was the classic audience for this which made it even worse.
MLMs are ridiculously popular in the Midwest where I live. It's heartbreaking to see people targeting their friends and family members who are in incredibly bad financial situations. My mother was in an MLM to try and get herself OUT of debt and ended up getting into even more debt in the end. And when she hit financial trouble again 20 years later she went back to Tupperware because she was venting to a close friend of hers about money issues and her friend coerced her into doing Tupperware again. Long story short it, of course, did not go well. It makes me so sad what money will do to people and to see how greedy close friends and family members can be.
Does anyone else wonder if the “6 week queue” is also meant to further financially cripple people who may already be desperate for money? A lot can happen in 6 weeks. Your bills can be paid and all become due again while you’re waiting in the queue…
I grew up with family members/ friends of the family doing so many of these, Avon, Mary Kay, faster solutions, partylite, dynamax, pampered chef, etc etc I remember when I was 14/15, I was helping my mom at a tradeshow, and was walking around to see the other booths, and accidentally made eye contact with the Avon lady rep for one second too long, and she was all over me trying to get me to sign up, saying I could make all the money I wanted! I told her I was 14/15 (can't remember) and she said "oh well if you mom signs up instead you can sell the products and just use her name!" And I was so uncomfortable, I tried to walk off, and later on she came over to my mom's booth and wouldn't leave us alone about it!
I don't know why Lularoe is still a thing when their leggings look so ugly. i love a good pair of leggings, but not when they look like a Justice x Nickelodeon collab
I watched this docuseries with my mom and we were laughing out loud so many times, but by the third episode it was so sad and I felt terrible for laughing because it really is easy to manipulate a demographic that already gets told by society that their life choices are stupid or worthless. So I totally agree it was “genius in a despicable way”. Like they really took self empowerment and used it against these women and then wanted them to give the power over to their husbands….like wtf!
I'm not sure if its the same MLM, but I've see people who talk about how their "upline" people would encourage them to live beyond their means, and then make a lot of social media posts bragging about buying a vehicle or buying designer clothes or purses and then try to attribute it to their MLM money. They were reassured they would make that money back after they've recruited people.
We were definitely encouraged to portray a much different life online than what was really happening. Even in our closed facebook groups with just our team, there was no negativity allowed per the leaders. We were also told to save the boxes our orders came in, so we could pretend we had a new shipment come in (by posting pictures of the boxes online) to drum up excitement and have more engagement during our parties. There was a lot of "advice" on how to fool people into thinking you were more successful than you were in order to sign more people up.
I'm here for all of this. LuLaRich is such a great documentary!! I'm trying to get everyone I know to watch it. MLM scare the hell out of me. I feel so bad for the people that get wrapped up in them.
I legit thought for a long time Tupper-Partys were like mom-picnic-partys and they bring the food in Tupperware products, just because everyone owns them😂😂
One of my closest friends dropped his job at a bank (he's an economist) when his girlfriend's mom recruited him to sell herbalife. I don't get it. Noone in our friend group gets it. Even though it's been his only income for the past 10 years he doesn't make much money out of it. He's not even with his girlfriend anymore, yet he keeps getting a crappy paycheck from his ex's mom. It's weird.
@@johndododoe1411 Your intentions are probably good, but every time I see a guy say anything about someone being prettier without makeup on, my eyes roll so hard that it hurts. Yes, Cristine is beautiful either way, but makeup is fun and lots of people enjoy it. No need to insinuate that we'd look better without it. I sure as heck don't unless you think acne spots and deep purple undereyes are pretty. 🤷♀️
@@nocturnalizzie I'm not insinuating. I grew up with family that avoided using makeup daily, and I see that simply's own face look like a better version of what makeup tries to create.
@@nocturnalizzie I truly don’t think those were his intentions. It’s proven that makeup ages the face after prolonged use and I agree that she looks fantastic recently even with the rash she suffers from around her eyes. You can tell she is taking great care of herself and skin, it’s truly glowing!
I have never beeeeyyyynn this early to Taco Tuesday. As a former MLM consultant, and the fact that I just watched the Amazon special, This should be good!! 😬
There is just a full genre of Anti-MLM content. One of my favorite creators always says the reason she started doing anti-mlm content is that when she started in her MLM she researched the company and basically just found positive results so it looked good to her. She wishes there had been more information like what she puts out deep-diving with a critical perspective that would have helped her understand going into it what the problem was. Supposedly she often gets messages from people who literally are doing just that-researching the company, they watch her video and go, "oh hell no".
This is the merging of my two favorite types of RUclips content: nail polish/nail art and the anti-MLM movement. THANK YOU!!! An acquaintance tried to recruit me into Color Street, a nail wrap MLM. I did a RUclips search and found Savannah Marie's deep dive video exposing them. Then I looked into non-MLM nail art videos and found Simply Nailogical. And now my nails look way better in Holo Taco than they ever did in scammy nail wraps!
Living for this podcast! I was so mad watching the documentary cuz I’ve had friends get screwed by them and other MLMs! Sending y’all love and positivity 🖤🖤
I remember my high school boyfriend got sucked into Cutco Knives as soon as he graduated and his parents said to get a job. Responded to an ad in the paper (remember the classified ads?) and they talked him into how he was going to be this huge business man if he paid a bunch of money to buy the sales kit and sell these not great kitchen knives to everyone he knew. So awful. If you’re a student looking for a first job be very careful of any job that wants you to BUY IN. You should never have to buy into a job.
Yessssss! First it was NerdECrafter doing lockpicking, now Simply is going over MLMs? Amazing. I have heard a lot about LuLaRich, I guess I'm going to have to go and watch it.
It’s also so sad that I can go to any thrift store in my area and there will be a huge section with Lularoe leggings and dressing that no one wants anymore.
Occasionally while thrifting I’ll see a print and think it’s cute but drop it like a hot potato as soon as I see the tag. I don’t recognize the brand by the patterns, but I know other people do and I’m really grossed out by the idea I’d be mistaken for a supporter, thrifted or not!
I have to say that with every MLM opportunity I've come across, to actually make money you have to recruit people into the business rather than sell/use the product. WFG, doTerra, IM Academy, Young Living and on and on.... And yes, it's not all on the founders, it is about people not tuning into a bigger awareness or making the effort to entertain all perspectives other than what they want to believe from the info that is being fed to them by people who have an agenda. This ties in to how people buy in to herd/group mentality in general and is so relevant to what's going on globally atm with health matters. Great conversation. 👍
31:27 I think you're thinking about Scentsy. They weren't actually candles, they were wax warmers. Similar to candles (used candle wax) but you actually used the warmer (that you had to buy at an exorbitant price) to melt their waxes (which you also had to buy) and they were a "superior alternative" to candles. Pretty much everywhere sells melties now, and warmers. Bath and Body Works even sell plug in warmers for room fragrance (like glade plug ins)
We bought a lot of Scentsy way back when as my husband loved the scents … I’m so glad wax warmers are more mainstream now to get away from supporting these MLM companies.
@@deannascorner8112 Same. My aunt got into it HARD back then and, as far as I know, still is, and my mum bought some to try and help her out. I just bought my spooky spiderweb warmer from Walmart for like $5 and the melties are pretty much the same. Better aesthetic, better price, and no scams involved.
There is or was a candle mom called party light....I went to one party with a friend. I drank a lot of wine and was the only one who didn't buy something.....I just got drunk and trolled in the nicest way possible 🙃
@@Tiggmuffin Oh my gods, you're right!! I COMPLETELY forgot about Party Light! My mum had a friend who got into that, so she has some tea light sconces that are actually really pretty, but not worth the price. Jeez, there's too many of these damn things in everything.
I buy wax melts from lots of places, and I do think the Scentsy brand is a significantly better product than other wax melts. Didn't know about them being MLM as I buy them at thrift stores.
I've run across ONE MLM company where a customer base outside of someone's friends and family consistently ask for products ("Who is selling such-and-such? I NEED it.") This makes it a slightly more legitimate company to me because there appears to be a customer base. If your job is just convincing your friends and family to buy in, that's not an economic model - that's a cult.
When I was in high school they had a class called “Life Skills” it only lasted a year but I’m so glad I got to take the class. They taught about bank accounts, credit, pyramid schemes, MLMs, etc. it was such a great class and I was shocked when they didn’t continue it. They need to have more classes like this available in high school. It’s such important information.
We had a class like that in my high school called Consumer Economics and it was a required class for graduation. Taught everything from how to balance a checkbook to how to buy a car to how to spot a scam.
I had a similar class in highschool back in 2005 called Living on Your Own
Can't teach kids that stuff they might grow up and know how to do stuff and then we can't scam them.
That's amazing! Where did you go to school?
I had a class called Business and Personal Finance that went over business structures, credit, filing a tax return, and managing a budget. It was only a semester and it still is a requirement to graduate. I wish they would have had it for each grade year.
I've seen a weird amount of women on social media defending the MLM business model lately, and they're very crafty about it. They compare the MLM model to a traditional business structure, where the CEO is the top of the pyramid and the workers are the bottom.... And their defense is that at least they have the opportunity to reach the top, unlike other workers who start at the bottom and stay there. It's a very sneaky PR campaign for MLMs.
Thats another great example how some of those women just lack understanding/education ://
they're just regurgitating the talking points they've been given by the people exploiting them.
This is how they got me with Partylite 😔
Last time I checked you don’t have to buy your way into a normal job. 😂
Is there any example of a woman joining an MLM and become the CEO? Lol In a normal.business you actually can work up to being a high level manager. Not likely in MLM
I once got trapped in an Uber here in NYC with a women forcibly trying to get me to sign up under her to sell Melaleuca. She kept driving around the block of my work building and practically BEGGING me to join. We got to a stoplight and I just hopped out of the car right there. Then I reported her to Uber. It was extremely unnerving.
That’s literally kidnapping
I don't think that's quite as bad trying to manipulate someone after a miscarriage but that is pretty damn close to the worst mlm pitch I've heard about. Kidnapping is a bold and desperate choice for sales.
Do you know if Uber took action?
Not gonna lie… there are a couple products I loveeeee made by Melaleuca. I’ve never been able to find comparable products. I just do with out, but I do miss them!
Did you report to police? That’s against the law to hold someone against their will.
Any “job” that requires you to PAY to start working.... Huge red flag 🚩🚩🚩
You have to pay for college to get most jobs
@@kkay6838 yes, you have to pay for a degree for a job that requires it, but that's not what I'm referring to here.
I guess the most predatory part is that they convince you that "it's your own independent business" "that is why you are not an employee but an 'independent consultant'" and try to use the excuse that "you have to 'invest money' to start a business, and the money you 'invest' in starting your *insert mlm name here* business is much less than starting your own actual business from scratch". Or the "It's your own business, it's like a franchise", which is also not true, the company is required to have standards and support franchisees with marketing training and anything the require to be a part of the brand, plus when franchisees invest they are guaranteed that another competitor from the same franchise won't be given that brand in their area, unlike mlm not only the allow competitord in your area, you are encouraged to recruit your direct competition. They also try to trick you with that "you pay for univ or college and when you become a consultant we train you to 'succeed' in your business" which is a complete lie or there is a disconnect in their way of thinking. the training and certification you get at a trade school, university or college, is useful and valid regardless of where you apply for a job as log as it pertains to the skills you acquired; and if a business requires you to have specific training that they offer(like call centers as an example) *you are paid and compensated* to get trained, because you are getting trained to better perform at your job and that benefits the business, even if the training the business wants you to have is from an outside source and you will be able to list the certification/diploma in your CV/Resume, the business pays for your certification and for your time for taking the course. For example my father is an Electrical engineer and was the director maintenance for industrial plants, he was asked to take defensive driving certifications, first aid certifications, ISO 9001 certifications, along with getting educated in updates to the expertise necessary to new advancements in technology in his area, and all of that was covered by his employers, because it could only make my Dad better at his job and more profitable for the company in the long run.
@@kkay6838 Grants and scholarships paid for my college. And it's a degree that I can use to get into a well paying career anywhere. I'm not paying to start the job to the job itself.
The only ones that are okay are jobs that require specialized training and certification to pay for before you can start, like lifeguarding or coaching.
Women are easy targets. In the US especially, because of awful wages, high costs of day care, and women still being expected to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to home tasks and child rearing while also working a job outside, there are a lot of young women desperate for a quick way to make the load lighter.
I know a lot of fairly young, single moms who fell hard for the "Stay at home! Make money fast! Take care of your kids, Boss Babe!" bs that these MLM's were pushing, and they ended up losing *so much money*.
One of my friends got involved in some makeup version called Unique (?) a couple years ago that sold really expensive, not-very-good makeup. She kept trying to recruit me because she knew my husband and I were spread pretty thin after getting our first house together, and after so many awful "don't you wanna help your husband pay the bills?" messages (despite me already having a job) I snapped and told her that
1)the product was awful
2) she's spending more money than she's making
3) she's running her friendships into the ground badgering us to get us to sell shit that she KNOWS is bad and not worth the money.
She broke down and told me she was $2000 in debt and couldn't afford day care for her two daughters and that's why she got involved. The woman she spoke to that recruited her promised quick and easy money to care for her kids, and she was so desperate that she invested what little funds she had into Unique.
Not long after I got her an interview at my Aunt's restaurant, and now she's the head waitress. She can pay all of her bills and have money left over to save, and her mom retired and offered to watch the girls' so childcare is no longer an issue.
Long story short, MLM's are predatory as hell.
Edit: Cristine just mentioned Unique. That's wild
It's very commandable that after everything, you've helped to uplift her :) Great job
The real problem is that women are NOT expected to rear children while also working a job outside.
Ugh, Younique is absolute garbage quality! It really bothers me that the makeup MLMs don't bother to teach their "consultants" how to actually apply makeup. These people don't know much about makeup when they join (or else they wouldn't join it in the first place) and they're told to do live tutorials and post lots of pictures of themselves wearing their stupidly expensive yet crappy products. :(
From what I've seen online in the US its also super common among military wives who move around a lot and can't really have a career of their own.
Ah! Younique! You should definitely check out a series of blogs by 'Elle Beau', about their experience of joining and then quitting Younique (they call it Poonique) and how the brief stint almost cost them friendships and close relationships.
I genuinely hope the rise in flexible and remote work options will hobble future MLM scams. If we empower and enable women and SAH moms through legitimate means, maybe they won't be as easily victimized.
Maybe one good thing can come out of this pandemic, because the work force was just about 50/50 genderwise and then many mothers went back home when schools closed/went online and then childcare closed as well. It was a huge step back for women and honestly could breed more MLM girl boss babes
Actually in my experience the pandemic has increased the MLM businesses because people are jobless and desperate. There is a local electrician in my area. He basically used to have electrian job and on the side he would fix stuff in people's house for a small fee mostly on weekends or late at night. During the pandemic he lost the job and now he works for a cosmetic MLM. He keeps calling us and our neighbours if anyone wants any work done. We did call him to fix something and he kept trying to recruit us that he has been selling cosmetics in the last few months and made money, so we should try it too. We tried to sell us some products too, we bought a santizer. I guess it was kind of useful at that point.
I wish this was true but I’ve just had a friend and a distant family member start in MLMs, despite already being employed in decent paying jobs. It makes me quite worried that they’re managing to target and convince people who aren’t even that vulnerable.
Hey cristine and Ben! I loved the episode! Would you be willing to talk about frat/sorority culture? I am in college and i think there are so many problematic aspects and I’d love to hear your opinions!
Oof fr. I remember seeing some of this in college and calling it out and then I got verbally assaulted at work by a president of a sorority in front of a lot of people so 😬
You can watch Natalia Taylor video about greek life, it’s interesting
That would be so interesting!
Id be interested in it
It’s not really a thing in 🇨🇦🤷🏼♀️ I was in a sorority but it’s not as big of a deal. Lots of universities don’t actually have sorority’s they are female fraternity’s (UofA)
The faux feminism part is so crappy. Especially the “girl boss” shit, and “retire your husband”, because it preys on the feeling of powerlessness and poor self esteem that comes from living in a country (America) with no federal maternity leave and a society that wholly depends on the labour of women, but also demeans them for it and acts like they’re not contributing by raising the future of the country that capitalism depends on. Being a woman in a position of power is a good thing, but a key phrase in the promotion of that has been bastardized.
my mom got some of the CS nail strips for Christmas from an aunt, and loved them. not wanting to support a MLM, I looked up the manufacturer and they literally make the exact same thing and sell it at Walmart for cheaper. If you’re into CS and don’t want to continue supporting them after this podcast, look up Coconut nail art by Incoco. ❤️
I love coco nails! I didn't even know they were the same people that made the mlm lol. I get them when they're on clearance for $1 and they work great when I'm in a rush or want some design that I can't do xD
I think there is another offshoot that is also a nonmlm but use the same manufacturer. I can't remember the brand name though.
@@glitterberserker1029 just plain “incoco” ! coconut nails has more cutesy designs, incoco has fancy glitters and more refined type strips. (I think they’re $5 too instead of $7 for the coconut ones? I don’t remember, it’s been a few years.)
Honestly when she mentioned them I was like there are sooo many nail vinyl companies nowadays so there's no reason to support an MLM
Yep I did the same thing lol yes win
I love how the woman who started LuLaRoe looks EXACTLY how you would expect her to look.
that's so true hahahhaha
LMAO YES
I refuse to buy products from MLMs on principle. I know a married couple who are very deep into Amway. I bought one face cream (that was not even a good face cream and overpriced) because I felt bad. Since then, all of our communication has resulted in attempts to get me to buy more, or to "make more money than I could even dream of". It is so sad because I love these people, but they have not been able to divide their friendships from their "business", so I don't talk to them any more.
They also tried to convince me that I could make more doing Amway than at my engineering job... umm, no. I can see how MLMs have to prey on vulnerable women, because someone who already has a good career would never consider joining, except as a hobby if they really enjoyed the product.
That happened to me. A neighbor and friend invited my husband and I over for a small "party". The other 2 couples were Amway reps too They started talking about "if money was no object what would your life look like? well, you know if you signed up to sell Amyway you could have that life". It tarnished our friendship, we were never more than a head nod and wave kind of neighbor after that.
Yeah, they used to tell me to call the client at least once a month to "ask how the product was working" and to nudge them to buy more. Even when I left, they still called me on a weekly basis asking me to make a new order and to come back to the business.
@@gayjayy Yes, but I know for a fact that my friends are not head sellers, unfortunately
@@PunkyVal oh my word, that's exactly what she did after I bought my face cream! I finally had to tell her I actually didn't like it that much
@@nail_fiend1962 yeah it's better to tell them and that's it. I had to blocked them because they didn't wanna give up on me even after years of not selling. So great 👍
“Should have picked better names for your kids” Ben is so sassy 😂😭
Back in the day someone tried to get me to do a timeshare mlm and I can’t remember the name. I hope it doesn’t exist anymore.
Timeshare scams are designed to have decades of owning the building and economically exploiting those that bought timeshares of the rooms during the initial pressure sales scam.
Oh dang I forgot about timeshares
@@emilykpaige South Park made a funny episode about time shares, like they went to aspen and kept getting tricked into business meetings.
So I have a personal connection to this topic. My mom is working full-time for an MLM. She started getting involved when I was in high school and has only gotten deeper and deeper into the culture since. Everyone else in my family was pretty strongly against her joining, but it's basically impossible to convince her that her company is anything less than perfect. She completely bought into the whole, "you're in control of your life, you run your own business" speal and genuinely believes she is helping people by recruiting people into the organization/selling their products.
I tried for years to convince her to stop, but have now given up. She makes enough money to support herself and the kinds of arguments we used to get into about it were literally ruining our relationship. No matter what I said, she just wouldn't listen. It's really like the company is a religion and she's a hard-core member of the cult. Honestly, still makes me so sad to think about it, but at this point I don't know what I can do.
Would maybe showing the Vice documentary or the Amazon series on LuLa Roe help at all? Perhaps a more neutral perspective that shows the disaster unfold would help. Sorry that it happened though, thats the thing--- it can happen to anyone.
@@sandstormxx I sent her both the documentary and the podcast, but I don't think she watched it :-(.
Be there for her if/when she falls...
How is this mlm negatively impacting her life??? So much goodluck
Mary Kay??
There's definitely a connection between MLMs and Mormons/religion and I'm glad you addressed it in a respectful way. I've seen way too many people take the conversation from "MLMs are harmful" to "I'm going to straight-up attack religion in general now."
My perspective as a Mormon: We're prone to pyramid schemes for a lot of reasons. There's a strong emphasis on family in this church and a lot of women feel guilt if they have a job outside the home because they think putting their kids in daycare means they're not a good mom, but they also feel guilt if they stay at home with the kids because then they're not helping their husband support the family financially. A job where you can work from home on your phone with your own schedule seems like the perfect fit.
We socialize a lot with our church congregations and there's some inherent trust there. We automatically assume that the people we see on Sundays wouldn't mislead us or drag us into a scam. Our congregations do a lot to help each other - moving in or out, babysitting, bringing food to someone who needs it, decorating for a wedding reception, weeding someone's yard... you name it, we do it. And it's hard to think that the lady who teaches your kid's Sunday School class or the friendly guy who sits in the pew next to you might be recruiting you into something they (might) know will lose you money.
Because of our tendency to invite people to church and how often that leads to rejection, some of us get really good at pitching stuff to people in a way that makes them want to accept even if they don't initially want to. Our missionaries get doors slammed in their faces constantly. Another side effect of that is that we know how hard it is to be excited to tell someone about something that has a positive impact on your life and get a rude response, so we want to be polite to the person inviting us to have a "free facial" for their Mary Kay "business."
LuLaRoe in particular is very Mormon-heavy because of the clothes themselves. Mormons are supposed to dress "modestly" and that tends to mean no spaghetti straps, no midriff, low amounts of boob visible, and shorts/skirts coming to the knee. Have you ever tried to find a dress that 1) has sleeves, 2) doesn't show ~too much~ boob, 3) goes to about your knee, 4) isn't see-through anywhere, and 5) is still some how cute? It's a royal pain. So the idea of "modest" clothes in fun patterns sounds appealing. And for whatever reason, Mormons tend to be really hung up on how they appear to other people, so that might be why the sizing is so ridiculous. Everyone wants to be able to say they're a size small when they buy something from their friend. Oh, the horror of [gasp] admitting you wear a large. :|
Anyway, I hate MLMs a lot and I think it's disgusting that they target SAHMs and military wives who just want to make friends and feel like they contribute to their family's finances. I hate that they're so prevalent among religious people. People already love to crap on religions, especially Mormons, and we don't need to give them more reasons to hate us. Ugh.
Ex mormon here 🙋♀️ I second alllll that you said!
Most MLMs are headquartered in Utah, so that explains a lot.
@@Sika6061 that has a lot to do with the laws around pyramid schemes though. Many mlm founders are also Mormon, but the reason why many start in Utah is because Utah laws basically make it impossible for a business to be classified as a pyramid scheme as long as they have products, regardless of where the money is coming from. As long as they can show a flow of products to anyone, distributors or retail customers, it's nearly impossible for the law to classify it as a pyramid scheme
Very well said. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints too. It makes me sad that people have such a clear connection in their minds between MLMs and members of the church. Anyone with sense, religious or not, should know better than to join one.
This was a really nice comment, thank you
When I was a teen we had this class called "formation personelle et sociale" and I am so grateful for the teacher I got. He taught us all about pyramid schemes, ponzi schemes, precautions about leases (always sign a lease, don't fall for a verbal contract), how to see the cycle of violence in a relationship to get out of it, etc. I thought everybody learned this in school. Everybody should learn about this in school.
I wish I did, also wish we learner about taxes, banking,basic budgeting, net banking , how to deal with bureaucracy etc
I really missed Ben calling us "super simps"
Dude, same!
Check out the book "Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism" - it talks in length about the overlap in language between MLMs, cults, and other similar structures. Super interesting stuff!
That "Bernie with a ponytail"-pic is really cool. Like like!
Thanks for the suggestion!
As someone who was in an MLM as a teenager, they can rely a lot on good motivational speakers to sell you your dreams and then tell you that if it's not working, you just aren't working hard enough. A lot of toxic positivity tbh. Cults really are just the more intense version of MLMs. It's also why I'm suspicious of motivational speakers in general, they're usually saying a lot of nothing but know how to make you feel good.
@@AifosViruset Bernie-ana Grande
Thank you for this recommendation! I was literally just googling the best books on cults while listening to the podcast.
41:34 look into what these MLM’s did when the stimulus checks went out. They were telling people who were unemployed to “invest in yourself!” People were desperate and trying to support their families. It was absolutely disgusting what these MLM’s did when those checks went out.
I’m at 18:16 and I think ben’s totally spot on about this. The documentary shows how the one lady refuses to acknowledge how much money she made off of sign ups, and there was the other lady that left with the goal to help 75 out of the company because her team was of 75 people. I respect that second lady for recognizing how she contributed to the predatory environment, and she said that she’s reached her goal to ‘mend’ her ways several times over.
Second lady not only got out those 75 people but thousands more, I had to rewatch that part a couple times even with captions to make sure I got it. I really respect her for being so honest and genuinely sorry for her part and genuinely wants to help fix that because that takes a lot of humility and strength and clearly many others aren't showing to have that ability.
Roberta (the second woman) was one of the key people in the Washington state lawsuit too and one of the most outspoken opponents of MLMs, I don’t think she’s on RUclips but she’s on a lot of social media
I watch her videos on TikTok. She’s brilliant.
Roberta Blevins is a badass! She has a podcast called Life After MLM and it's amazing! She has interviewed over sixty people at this point and has a secondary series called Lula Bitch interviewing some of the people from the documentary! It's worth checking out! She is a genuinely good person!
I'm so glad you talked about this.
The MLM business model makes me crazy. I let me bleeding heart get roped into Younique a few years ago because my friend was "desperate for help."
The products were awful, the management of the business even worse. It's a nightmare.
Needless to say, I slid out of that hamster wheel post haste, and I've hated the MLM business model since. I will not support it.
It pains me to see the number of intelligent women being sucked into these, and then touting how well "their small business" is doing. Honey! IT'S NOT YOUR BUSINESS!!
Ok. Off soapbox.
I really enjoy these types of discussions. Thanks for bringing them up!
I don't think intelligence has anything to do with it. They prey on hope and desperation and when it starts to crumble many of these women have nowhere to go and so they desperately try to recruit and sell to save themselves from debt.
I was in an MLM as a teenager but I could leave easily when I realised that I wasn't a good sales person and I didn't enjoy trying to force people to buy things. I hadn't recruited anyone and I was about to go to uni, so I had plenty of options available to me to build a future career and life. Many of the women I knew in the MLM were disabled and couldn't work most jobs, stay at home mum's wanting to have more income and/or some career success, and older women making a last attempt to make something more of their lives before retiring on a tiny pension.
Mn lo ts5 up a q1
Yes! When Arbonne was growing in Australia one of my mum's friends invited us to a makeup party and I was genuinely so confused when she kept saying it was her business. On the drive home I kept asking my mum how she managed to start an entire makeup brand and I couldn't wrap my head around how her "business" worked. Now this woman has moved to the country in her white Mercedes and she's not friends with my mum anymore hahaha
I don’t think actual intelligent women do this
The worst experience I've had is one time a client of mine (that I did graphic design work for) messaged me to ask to meet up and discuss a business proposition. I thought it's going to be some bigger graphic design related thing, took my time to meet him at a cafe, just to sit there listening about Amway!! I was pretty young back then and felt like the polite thing to do was to listen to what the had to say, but now I would have just left and never continued business with him. I still feel bad about the situation, wasted my evening.
At least it was just an evening wasted and not money
Ugh, that gave me a flashback. Something similar happened to me with web development right after I graduated from art school with my artsy tech-y degree. It was almost as good as the time a "cool new record label" wanted me to work on their website, so he asked me to coffee... to ask me to work on this, long-term, for free, because who could pass up getting in on the ground floor?! And they wanted a very fancy, media intense layout... With good performance. Ugh.
@@kittenseven4269 that’s true!
oh my god, that’s so upsetting and so true. i was constantly attacked to be in MLMs once i was out of highschool but THANK god i had seen the awful experience my mom had with an MLM and i will never go near that. i pass by the amway arena everyday and it just makes me roll my eyes 🙄
Same thing happened my best friend from junior high was going to UC Santa Barbara and when she came back home she wanted to meet up and seemed so excited. I meet up with her at some random persons house with like 30 people there and it is for Verve that energy drink. I was so sad because I missed her so much but she just wanted to sign me up for a MLM.
As someone who did dance and whose dad was in the military, I grew up around a lot of stay at home moms who wanted to make money and the big one was Scentsy. My mom would go to these parties and we would buy from Avon but it never seemed malicious to me as a child. Its just so difficult because the childcare burden is still disproportionately placed on women so its hard for them to have a job and parent when their partner is not sharing the burden. Not to mention how isolating it can be being a stay at home mom
As a fellow military brat, mlms run rampant through military spouse, especially since it is so hard to keep a career when you move every couple of years.
yes, it's still happening on military bases in Canada too. Scentsy is still going strong, Tupperware (although a lot less than few years ago), there was also some leggins brand but I don't remember what was it.
I grew up in blue collar middle class suburb. Back in the day, mom would order from one Avon lady she would buy lotions. My mom would keep her catalog in her business for her friend and people would order thru her. But, I don’t recall recruiting. My mom ran a tailor business, she had her word of mouth clientele and was super busy with weddings, upholstery and alterations - it never occurred to her to sell it herself. She just was helping her friend move product.
My mom is apart of Scentsy😭😭 I’ve told her many times it’s a scam but she says it’s only because I don’t want to see women succeed😭😭
Ben's hair fluff is off the charts 😂
I came to the comments looking for THIS exact observation 🙌🏼
Same!!!
He definitely looked like he'd just rolled outta bed
I came to the comments ONLY to see if anyone was talking about this :D
I can’t stand the people in MLMs who say they’re a small business owner to solicit support from their facebook friends. No, you work for a multi-billion dollar corporation.
They really come out of the woodwork during Small Business Saturday here in the States. It drives me bonkers.
Ben's hair is doing the thing my hair does when I wake up from a nap at 3pm
Oof
Wolverine hair😂♥️
LOL, I saw that too! 😂
omg same me same. the accuracy
That's my hair 24/7 😅 shorter hair is so hard to mantain
There is a joke that MLM stands for Mormons Losing Money. In mormonism, there is a huge focus of women being stay at home moms. Therefore it lends itself to this model. Utah also has at least 15 mlm headquartered there.
i’ve noticed that, lots of MLM people from utah. a lot of religious people get involved in these MLMs too.
Currently living in Utah, can confirm. Just driving down the high way you see MLM HQ after MLM HQ. 🤦♀️
There's dozens and dozens of business headquarters and distributors in Utah. Big business hub. Of course mlms will be in the mix with that amount of businesses
A lot of practises from Mormonism eg approaching strangers to start conversations also lend themselves very well to MLMs which contributes to the high correlation between Mormons and MLM participation
It's a self perpetuating cycle also - the existing MLMs (and the Mormons in them) are a powerful enough force to ensure that Utah's laws stay friendly to MLMs, which attracts more MLMs even if those companies have no prior attachment to the state or Mormonism.
I fell for an MLM a few years ago and it really made me feel dumb because I knew there is a fine line between an MLM and a pyramid scheme, but because I was jobless I went for it and in the end I lost even more money. Going to their meetings where they "train" you to convince people to join you and they even give you booklets of what things to say to make the sale made me realized that I fucked up but it was hard to get out without seeing if I can make some money back. And yes, this MLM would offer you 50% off the products you were selling, but when you go deep enough, that's when they bring up that you can make even more money if you recruit and I couldn't find myself to "trick" people into joining destroyed my soul. That 50% was a scam because they didn't count that you needed to pay for the product's shipping which was expensive and pay all the taxes, and the packaging also comes from your pocket so, in the end, the profit was pretty low and not worth all the hassle. So it's better to stay the fuck away from any MLM because they are pretty much legal pyramid schemes that learned how to jump the fence.
Same. I was newly out of college and trying to earn extra to pay off credit card debt.
The one I joined didn’t have a direct payment method for customers. Basically, the customer paid me the full price, I deposited it into my personal bank account, and when I placed the order, I paid the total discounted order cost from my account and kept the remainder. It felt super sketchy.
Edited to add: at the time, I didn’t know what an MLM was or how similar they were to pyramid schemes. I did one party, didn’t make a profit, and decided it wasn’t worth my time.
@@caitlins1303 the one I was in, you needed to have inventory with you, so the person would pay you and you deliver the order. The thing is, you didn't know what was gonna sale or not, so I was more like manipulating people to buy something that they basically didn't need.
I only had 2 options if someone ordered something that I didn't have: ask another seller if they could sell me one with only a a small discount which meant that I was gonna make pennies, or do an order and buy more stuff for my inventory since their shipping was like $40 no matter how ma y items you ordered. So the more I buy, the more profit I did if I sold everything. But basically that never happened. I still have inventory which I'm ending up using 🙃
Happy that you got out, both of you!
You shouldn't feel badly for getting involved with an mlm. Whoever recruited you was trained to manipulate people into joining. You did the best with the information you had at the time. It sucks that it happened but now you know better and can make better choices going forward.
@@glitterberserker1029 it was one of my best friends, who also left after recruiting me. But yeah, it happens, but believe me it won't happen again
I’m a mom who actually did start a business at the age of 17, and my number one beef with this MLM hype is that when I tell people I “own my own business,” they automatically assume I’m talking about an MLM, which is ever so slightly soul crushing, especially after 8 years of post-secondary education…15 years of experience…20,000 hours honing skills…etc. I wish that type of language wasn’t used. It’s not the same. We are not the same.
My mom threw Tupperware parties specifically because it was the only way she could get a specific orange peeler she liked. It wasn't at all her job and it was only occasionally but God damn did she want that orange peeler.
Yall eat a lot of oranges? Or
omg I know the one, we had it 😂
I know exactly what orange peeler you’re talking about 😂
why is this making me laugh? 😂
Omg I remember that orange peeler from when I was a kid... had totally forgotten about it but they really did work lol
My hatred of these pyramid-schemes-masquerading-as-legitimate-businesses knows no bounds so I love seeing Ben and Christine talk about it lol
There's a youtuber named Briannah Jewel who I highly recommend. She does videos specifically about health and fitness related MLM's. She's a personal trainer and in grad school to become a dietician, so she's actually informed on this stuff and points out bogus claims and unhealthy aspects of the programs. It's honestly pretty scary that people will mess around with other people's health to make a quick buck.
Never knew about it before but honestly the fitness and health sphere is the perfect place for MLMs with the constant pushing of healthy stuff with no scientific basis and guilt tripping and fear mongering of fake synthetic chemicals etc etc
She is great!
Love her! Beach body could really hurt someone, I know a lot of their exercises look really difficult on the joints.
Season 1 of The Dream podcast talks about MLMs if you want to learn more about them! Super entertaining but also extremely frustrating. I think it's free to listen to on most podcast platforms (I use stitcher)
Edit: this podcast looks more into how the companies prey on women and the impacts on these women's lives (what Ben was wanting to learn more about)
I came here to say this! Even if you’re pro MLM and you don’t like the attitude the host has going in every episode is legitimate and a revelation and is done with the same investigative integrity of NPR/CBC/ BBC
Yes, such a high-quality podcast and I loved that it went deep into the roots of MLM's/pyramid schemes and how they became legal.
That was one of my favorite podcasts ever. Super in depth and interesting
Yes I loved that series
I listened to that podcast and I have to say I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t enjoy when they started talking about vitamins… I mean it made me stop taking vitamins all together and I told all my family and friends to stop as well but it was too medical for me at that point
I really tried to keep a friend from MLMs, but it's like keeping a gambler out of casinos.
Thats a very accurate comparison
Such a good analogy. I've never thought about it that way before, but you're right.
There’s a podcast called The Dream where one of them joined an MLM to get an inside perspective. You might find that interesting.
Literally came here looking to see if anyone commented about The Dream.
This sounds interesting. I'm going to check it out. Thanks!
Returning to say - holy crap that podcast was fascinating. Highly recommend to anyone else looking for more information and details.
I’ve never heard of this! Thanks I’m gonna look for it!
Is it all the episodes or a specific one?
There were a few times where the patterns were so blatantly stolen that someone’s watermark was still on the pattern on the leggings the designers had just inverted the colors
The one time someone tried to recruit me-they tried to tell me that if I drank their powder that all my health problems I have had since BIRTH would just disappear and I wouldn’t have to take my meds.
Hilariously-I pointed out a spelling error from their “medical” experts from their video trying to recruit.
Is it weird to say that I look forward to these so much? I jump on them faster than I did on your nail tutorials back in the day. They’re so informative, so interesting, so entertaining...this new direction for the channel has been a breath of fresh air and I hope you guys enjoy making them as much as I enjoy watching them! 💕
Me too!!!
My favourite quote from the series was “just get on your knees for 5 minutes and your husband will be happy” 😂
5 minutes a day!! 😆
My favorite was the guy who casually quoted Star Trek and was genuinely upset he can't listen to Kelly Clarkson anymore. I love that man and he must be protected!
@@liketopaintmynails His plan to sit on the patio of a restaurant near the LLR home office and watch as a repo crew came and took everything from the Stidhams was pretty epic too.
I get targeted a lot as I’m disabled and house bound. The amount of dm’s I’ve had this month has increased and if history repeats itself then those numbers will go up as we get closer to the festive period
I had someone try to tell me the oils they sold could cure my incurable illness. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
@@jennymck7320 ohhhh same here. They either want to peddle their snake oil to me or recruit me as they presume I’ve got a tonne of friends who their snake oil “could help”
@@dandelionmel maybe they should use that oil on themselves....get it...cause their snakes 🐍
(I'm funny 😁 😂)
As a Latina with a mormon background, MLMs have been around my life in one way or another since the beginning. There’s a whole aspect actually about how certain types of MLMs prey on Latin Americans. Luckily my parents never fell for one of these, at least from what I remember, but we’ve attended so many “parties” and they’ve bought so many products to support church friends.
Luckily I’ve had good experiences with some, like Mary Kay or Jamberry nail sellers who never even brought up signing me up under them, they’d just take my orders and bring me my goodies, and I was happy with the product.
But once, when I lived in Mexico, we had an American lady visiting the church, and since I spoke English and she didn’t speak Spanish, they introduced me to her and had me sitting with her. She started telling me about why she was visiting Mexico City, and she said she worked for a health company. In a matter of seconds she was talking about how her company was bringing so many work opportunities to the people of Mexico, and I was SO CONFUSED, like, so they’re opening offices here and hiring people? What does that have to do? Why is she asking me if I’m interested? I’m just a college student. It was very uncomfortable that I was at church trying to be nice to this person visiting from another country, and she was already pitching me. Needless to say, half-understanding what it was all about, my mom and I actually ended up attending one of their pitch meetings at a hotel, and they tried to sell us the whole “you’ll be changing lives and helping your family” pitch. We did not sign up, but we did end up buying supplements 🤦♀️
It wasn’t until I signed up for a skincare MLM in my mid-20s that I actually learned about how a lot of these look behind the scenes. I don’t have a lot of friends that I actually hang out with often, I hate pitching stuff (I’m a sock like Cristine, pretty much), I just signed up so I could get a better discount on stuff that I liked. But it was so annoying that they kept wanting me to sell and sign people under me. Luckily I got out and didn’t waste a lot of money, maybe lost 250 or so at the most? But I did keep some products I really liked, and donated the rest to some love baskets that an acquaintance was organizing.
Afterwards I had someone pitching beachbody so hard, I ended up completely blocking them from social media. They kept trying to get me to become a coach, and I’m like, I like my Job and don’t want to?! But this person kept coming back every couple of months. Gotta admire her perseverance, I wish they could have used it for something better.
Anyways, I learned my lesson in my mid-20s, and I avoid buying from any MLMs now. But what makes me sad is seeing the people throwing MLMs parties and inviting my parents, back when I was a kid, still trying with another MLM. I’ve seen so many people try to sell one, then try to sell another. They really think it’s their answer to their prayers and have such a hard time recognizing they’re being used. But they don’t want to hear the truth. I can just hope the newer generations are smarter about it.
I think it's important to note that being a stay at home parent- at least in the U.S.- can be extremely lonely and isolating and society can sometimes act like you "do nothing" or aren't contributing to society at all when you're a sahm. MLMs lean into the guilt and imposter syndrome fears, but also make people believe that this is where they are going to make friends and connections with others. It's very insidious.
So true! Sometimes a community and a purpose is all you want. Not just stay at home moms feel the need for that.
For those who want to know, the antiMLM subreddit has a master list of every MLM worldwide!
How can you find? I tried to look it up and nothing came up
There's even a "bedroom" MLM thing for stay at home moms. Anyone remember passion parties? Those were TOTALLY an MLM.
My sister sold for pure romance for a long time.
One of my co workers did them lol
When I was like 21 and living with an ex the next door neighbors were super friendly and at one point the wife took me and a group of her friends to a party and when I showed up it was a Pure Romance party. But this was before I knew what MLMs were, so luckily I was too lazy to join or buy anything. My ADHD did me some good that day.
I'm so glad SOMEBODY finally said what I was thinking. I watched the documentary and I agree with Ben that none of them seemed to have a problem with the way they were making money until they changed the way the commissions worked. They were more than happy to collect their bonus checks and not think about the way the people below them were affected, until their bonus pay depended on those people selling products. I also feel it was very telling that the women were reluctant to share how much money they made because they wanted to play the victim and it's hard to do that when you're bringing in tens of thousands of dollars (several times the average person's yearly salary) every single month.
I agree, but I wonder if some women naively believed that they were "helping" other women by recruiting them. I think there must be a spectrum from those who were aware that their bonus comes from signing other people up, and the ramifications that this has on their recruits, to the people who were maybe short sighted or oblivious to the fact that they are directly benefiting from other vulnerable people being roped into a scam.
I also wonder if some people signed up optimistically having been sold the dream, realised it was not all it was made out to be, but needed a way to make back their initial sign up costs and didn't see another way to do that without recruiting more people.
I just finished watching Good Girls on Netflix and how they portrayed the manboss mlm was so good. It was funny at first but it turned so scary and sad really quickly. I’ll miss that show 🥲
Ahhhh I cant get myself to finish that show because I know it was cancelled :( Im still on season 1lol
I graduated high school in mid 2019. Knew about MLMs because reddit and other relatives that got into it and lost money already.
I thought it would take way longer to get the stereotypical "highschool acquaintance messages you out of the blue to peddle a pyramid scheme", but i was wrong. I got 2 MLM pitches throughout the pandemic, and its sad because honestly they were probably people who werent in the best financial situations because of the pandemic already :/
Thank you Ben for saying the ladies they interviewed weren’t being held accountable! Ashleigh the 3rd ever consultant was super sketchy and she was very aware of what she was doing.
Everyone should go watch John Oliver's episode on MLMs (Last Week Tonight) it goes more in-depth into the effects on low-level members and how financially devastated some can be by joining an MLM.
What's weird is that a lot of this stuff was known in the 70's with Amway. But with social media, it's actually become more common.
@@FukaiKokoro I didn't.
It's weird that MLMs are still a thing, since the problems have been known since the 70's.
It's more sophisticated, sure, but the structure and indoctrination are basically the same.
Definitely!! The John Oliver episode is fantastic.
A great video that talks about MLMs, in general, is John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode on MLMs. If you google "is this an MLM?" a website comes up that you can search the name of the company and it will tell you if it is an MLM. Some great RUclipsrs that regularly talk about MLM topics are Savannah Marie, Not the Good Girl, the Antibot, Cruel World Happy Mind, Savy Writes Books, Kiki Chanel, CC Suarez, and so many more!
Cristine: "If you remember the Avon ladies from 20 years ago..."
Me: *wearing the Avon mascara I bought last week from my aunt that sells Avon to make some cash on the side and I buy her stuff to help her out 😂*
me looking at my nail polishes that i bought from my mom's friend
But, and I don't know if I'm wrong, the difference is that some brands are not that bad. In Latin America this is very common as a side hustle, but just with big and "good" brands that you actually feel good buying from, so the girls and women how sell this are actually making money, but they also know is not gonna be a lot of money, just a little to help you out.. Don't know if I'm wrong just because I wanna believe that for all the people I know buying this, but yeah Jaja
Yeah I got almost stalked by Mary Kay ladies before... yikes! lol
I love their eyeliner, I just buy it online!
This is hilarious 😂
I went to a lularoe party with my SAH mom years ago. I had a clue that it was a MLM but didn’t really know what that meant. I got a black pair and remember all the ladies FREAKED the fuck out I found a “unicorn”. All I was thinking like “why wouldn’t you make more black pairs than these ugly ass patterns….” It all makes sense now and I still wear the leggings to this day LMAO
I’m so happy y’all covered this there’s a lot of misinformation out there about MLM’s (in order to recruit) and a lot of people don’t know about it. Thank you for going in depth about the requirements and naming some companies as well.
I definitely recommend everybody watch iilluminaughtii's videos on MLM's, she covers different ones every week and gives comprehensive information on how bad these companies really are!
Yes! Her content is the best!
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll give it a watch after this :)
@@bekah4137 Not the Good Girl is a good RUclips channel as well regarding MLMs
Love illuminaughtii!!! She's so good
My favorite thing is when people I’m friends with through social media who I vaguely know from HS, send me messages with a billion emojis and wanting to make me a “girl boss”. Immediately I unfriend and/or block them lol I blame the government for not making education affordable for all because even though I’m super in debt, I have a job where I can make my own schedule and that I love. You have to work hard to get into something reputable and honest. There are no shortcuts.
Lol same, and they always try to make small talk as if they cared about you life
Hey, babe! You've been on my mind lately and I think you'll be great at what I do! (Not going to tell you what that is though)
Message me, hun!
When I was in university there were always people on Tinder who would match with you, hold a pleasant conversation for a day or two, and then just try to sell you something from their MLM helpp
That woman in the white sweater in the doc was such a snot! She knew exactly how she was screwing over other women. No wonder she refused to share any of her numbers. You KNOW she regretted none of it based on the snarky smirk she gave when she said she was one of their top sellers.
Pretty funny how they say 'let your husband take take of the boring business side'
My husband is self employed and I'm the one that sorts tax, income, invoices quotes lol
But ladies, math is HARD, am I right!?!?
Ahhh! When Ben said "Super Simps" my heart for real skipped a beat! ❤
Very excited for this episode! I made the stupid decision to join lularoe back in 2016 and have regretted it ever since. I'm still in debt because of the amount of inventory I was told to buy. I can't bring myself to watch the documentary but from what I've heard, it barely touches on the shit they (the owners) would say to us in company calls and the rest of the sketchy stuff that went on behind the scenes.
Rebecca, I pray that you are debt free soon!🤗
@@prachiarora6245 thank you ♥️ we’re almost there! I chalked it up to a tough lesson learned. Therapy helped a lot.
The vice documentary does go much deeper into what the consultants experienced
I was a frequent buyer in like 2017 since their clothes really were good for people with sensory issues. It was pitched to me that LLR was one of the only MLM's that you don't need to recruit to make money. I sold for about 2 years and did somewhat decent. I guess I got a little lucky because I lost all my inventory in a house fire and so I didn't lose money. After really toxic messages from my 'mentors' I decided to not start my 'business' again after I had a new place to live. I had no clue about the size of the bonus checks until the documentary. When I signed up I was under the impression they didn't get much if any from recruiting! The manipulation tactics they use to get people to join are just crazy. I was definitely always skeptical even being a consultant, but being able to find clothes I could tolerate was really important to me at the time. I know from a few facebook groups I'm still in just to spy that people are still joining, but I have no clue why anyone would now!
i just love the fact that just under this video I got an ad to join a perfume selling MLM
I have a family member that has been in Lularoe since 2013. Watching this doc was very hard for me because it was hyper realistic to her situation (single, struggling mom) and how she has changed over the years. She has spent a ton of her energy combating this doc and refuting the “lies”. She received help from family in the amount of tens of thousands of dollars to start the business, and with all her unused/unsold inventory, I’m not sure she’ll actually make any money in the end. I’ve tried every tactic to get her out (even finding legitimate jobs for her) and it’s no use.
I was apart of a pyramid scheme and I'm so sad to say that. To this day I still use their products but stopped "promoting" because they were more focused on recruitment than they were on their nutrition and science behind their products. You had to purchase every month to receive your compensation. Even if the month prior you bought a multi-month package. They encouraged you to give out your extra product as free samples to recruit more people. And they never were transparent on how you were compensated. It was just a "surprise" every week how much you were going to get deposited.
Herbalife? Sounds like my experience.
Thrive actually.
Just to echo some the conversation you briefly touched on, the parallels I see between MLMs and religion (specifically evangelical Christianity, because that’s what I’m familiar with) is astounding. So I tend to take the more sympathetic route that Cristine takes when it comes to this, because I lived through that and I don’t think I wasn’t intelligent or I inherently wanted to abuse people (although of course I played a part, and certainly have to be held accountable regardless), I just went where the community that accepted me was. So while anyone who is part of an abusive system should acknowledge that and take accountability, I feel the brunt of the burden of that lies on those “at the top”
When discussing MLMs, I cannot recommend the podcast, The Dream, enough. Such an amazing and heartbreaking insight into how hurtful MLMs can be.
*multi leggings marketing scheme*
I do think it's important to say that the founders ABSOLUTELY knew what they were doing. It didn't just grow quickly and run away from them and then they kept perpetuating it.
They knew from the start exactly what they were doing - they had history with Amway, another MLM/pyramid scheme. That whole story about clothes out of the back of her car might have grains of truth to it, but they knew from experience the predatory structure of Amway and how the people at the top benefit the most, and they decided to create their own version and be those people at the top.
Unfortunately, a LOT of people hop from MLM to MLM, hoping to get in closer and closer to the top, and some of them take the leap to create their own to be the very tip of the pyramid.
I bought the Rodan & Fields lash serum just directly from the website and didn't even know it was an MLM. I actually really liked the serum and used the whole thing but I switched to a different non MLM brand because I didn't wanna contribute to an MLM that could potentially be sketchy. I decided to switch instead of doing a bunch of research into the company's legitimacy.
There's been lawsuits about people losing their eyesight due to the rodan and fields lash serum
Haha I totally used the JamBerry wraps before getting into nail polish -- like you said, just helping out a friend who always seems to find the newest FB business opportunity.
I almost got caught up in the excitement of being a Jamberry rep… I’m so glad I didn’t do that. I do have a full photo album full of Jamberry wraps … I also was invited to a few parties and won some of the Jamberry wraps as a result…
When I was young and job searching I've definitely went to "job interviews" that turned out to be for MLMs. I learned to avoid these quickly but places used to be good at hiding it.
I don't know if Cristine will ever see this but I just wanted to thank her for making this podcast episode. I was approached by a fishy company the day after listening to this podcast episode and it probably saved me from a lot of hardship. I am young and I didn't know what an MLM or a pyramid scheme was before listening to this episode. It's crazy how I was almost roped into one the day after I listened to this podcast. So in case Cristine ever sees, I just wanted to say thank you for doing this. Your podcast has a positive effect on other people's lives. I don't listen to business podcasts or watch these crime documentaries, but I do listen to your podcast. I think it's so great that you are using your platform to make entertaining and informational content. Thank you so much!
My coworker just cornered me last week asking if I want to buy some of her sister’s lularoe after complementing my silk skirt… caught me sooooo off guard but hey I’ll let you know sis
sarcastic “I’ll let you know”
@@laurenwith your sarcasm came across in the comment 😁
@@laurenwith I'm slow, so this comment is appreciated
My two loves… SimplyNailogical and Anti-MLM/Lulano content 😆
An old colleague of mine sold Herbalife for a few years. In the beginning other colleagues bought it to help out but after a while everyone saw that it was a scam except her and it was so sad to see her realise the mistake she made. She was the classic audience for this which made it even worse.
MLMs are ridiculously popular in the Midwest where I live. It's heartbreaking to see people targeting their friends and family members who are in incredibly bad financial situations. My mother was in an MLM to try and get herself OUT of debt and ended up getting into even more debt in the end. And when she hit financial trouble again 20 years later she went back to Tupperware because she was venting to a close friend of hers about money issues and her friend coerced her into doing Tupperware again. Long story short it, of course, did not go well. It makes me so sad what money will do to people and to see how greedy close friends and family members can be.
I’m so excited for this one! I’ve been following anti mlm content for a while now
I'm so exited a popular female entrepreneur addresses MLMs
Does anyone else wonder if the “6 week queue” is also meant to further financially cripple people who may already be desperate for money? A lot can happen in 6 weeks. Your bills can be paid and all become due again while you’re waiting in the queue…
I love that you're covering this!
The crossover we need! ❤️
I grew up with family members/ friends of the family doing so many of these,
Avon, Mary Kay, faster solutions, partylite, dynamax, pampered chef, etc etc
I remember when I was 14/15, I was helping my mom at a tradeshow, and was walking around to see the other booths, and accidentally made eye contact with the Avon lady rep for one second too long, and she was all over me trying to get me to sign up, saying I could make all the money I wanted! I told her I was 14/15 (can't remember) and she said "oh well if you mom signs up instead you can sell the products and just use her name!" And I was so uncomfortable, I tried to walk off, and later on she came over to my mom's booth and wouldn't leave us alone about it!
I don't know why Lularoe is still a thing when their leggings look so ugly. i love a good pair of leggings, but not when they look like a Justice x Nickelodeon collab
Every time I go to a thrift store I see tons of their products, and I'd say 1 out of 100 is a dress that's actually cute. Leggings, never
I watched this docuseries with my mom and we were laughing out loud so many times, but by the third episode it was so sad and I felt terrible for laughing because it really is easy to manipulate a demographic that already gets told by society that their life choices are stupid or worthless. So I totally agree it was “genius in a despicable way”. Like they really took self empowerment and used it against these women and then wanted them to give the power over to their husbands….like wtf!
I'm not sure if its the same MLM, but I've see people who talk about how their "upline" people would encourage them to live beyond their means, and then make a lot of social media posts bragging about buying a vehicle or buying designer clothes or purses and then try to attribute it to their MLM money. They were reassured they would make that money back after they've recruited people.
We were definitely encouraged to portray a much different life online than what was really happening. Even in our closed facebook groups with just our team, there was no negativity allowed per the leaders. We were also told to save the boxes our orders came in, so we could pretend we had a new shipment come in (by posting pictures of the boxes online) to drum up excitement and have more engagement during our parties. There was a lot of "advice" on how to fool people into thinking you were more successful than you were in order to sign more people up.
Thank you Cristine and Ben for bringing us weekly podcasts I look forward to taco Tuesday every week ❤️
I'm here for all of this. LuLaRich is such a great documentary!! I'm trying to get everyone I know to watch it. MLM scare the hell out of me. I feel so bad for the people that get wrapped up in them.
I legit thought for a long time Tupper-Partys were like mom-picnic-partys and they bring the food in Tupperware products, just because everyone owns them😂😂
One of my closest friends dropped his job at a bank (he's an economist) when his girlfriend's mom recruited him to sell herbalife. I don't get it. Noone in our friend group gets it. Even though it's been his only income for the past 10 years he doesn't make much money out of it. He's not even with his girlfriend anymore, yet he keeps getting a crappy paycheck from his ex's mom. It's weird.
Is simply getting prettier as she ages? I truly think so 🥰
Clean face with no makeup will do that, even if it's because of allergies.
@@johndododoe1411 Your intentions are probably good, but every time I see a guy say anything about someone being prettier without makeup on, my eyes roll so hard that it hurts. Yes, Cristine is beautiful either way, but makeup is fun and lots of people enjoy it. No need to insinuate that we'd look better without it. I sure as heck don't unless you think acne spots and deep purple undereyes are pretty. 🤷♀️
@@nocturnalizzie I'm not insinuating. I grew up with family that avoided using makeup daily, and I see that simply's own face look like a better version of what makeup tries to create.
@@nocturnalizzie I truly don’t think those were his intentions. It’s proven that makeup ages the face after prolonged use and I agree that she looks fantastic recently even with the rash she suffers from around her eyes. You can tell she is taking great care of herself and skin, it’s truly glowing!
I have never beeeeyyyynn this early to Taco Tuesday. As a former MLM consultant, and the fact that I just watched the Amazon special, This should be good!! 😬
There is just a full genre of Anti-MLM content. One of my favorite creators always says the reason she started doing anti-mlm content is that when she started in her MLM she researched the company and basically just found positive results so it looked good to her. She wishes there had been more information like what she puts out deep-diving with a critical perspective that would have helped her understand going into it what the problem was. Supposedly she often gets messages from people who literally are doing just that-researching the company, they watch her video and go, "oh hell no".
This is the merging of my two favorite types of RUclips content: nail polish/nail art and the anti-MLM movement. THANK YOU!!! An acquaintance tried to recruit me into Color Street, a nail wrap MLM. I did a RUclips search and found Savannah Marie's deep dive video exposing them. Then I looked into non-MLM nail art videos and found Simply Nailogical. And now my nails look way better in Holo Taco than they ever did in scammy nail wraps!
ruclips.net/video/onCCTRBjOIw/видео.html
Living for this podcast! I was so mad watching the documentary cuz I’ve had friends get screwed by them and other MLMs! Sending y’all love and positivity 🖤🖤
I remember my high school boyfriend got sucked into Cutco Knives as soon as he graduated and his parents said to get a job. Responded to an ad in the paper (remember the classified ads?) and they talked him into how he was going to be this huge business man if he paid a bunch of money to buy the sales kit and sell these not great kitchen knives to everyone he knew. So awful. If you’re a student looking for a first job be very careful of any job that wants you to BUY IN. You should never have to buy into a job.
Yessssss! First it was NerdECrafter doing lockpicking, now Simply is going over MLMs? Amazing.
I have heard a lot about LuLaRich, I guess I'm going to have to go and watch it.
It’s also so sad that I can go to any thrift store in my area and there will be a huge section with Lularoe leggings and dressing that no one wants anymore.
Occasionally while thrifting I’ll see a print and think it’s cute but drop it like a hot potato as soon as I see the tag. I don’t recognize the brand by the patterns, but I know other people do and I’m really grossed out by the idea I’d be mistaken for a supporter, thrifted or not!
36:15 gives me James Welsh, “allegedly… in my personal opinion…just a thought…” vibes. 😹
I have to say that with every MLM opportunity I've come across, to actually make money you have to recruit people into the business rather than sell/use the product. WFG, doTerra, IM Academy, Young Living and on and on....
And yes, it's not all on the founders, it is about people not tuning into a bigger awareness or making the effort to entertain all perspectives other than what they want to believe from the info that is being fed to them by people who have an agenda. This ties in to how people buy in to herd/group mentality in general and is so relevant to what's going on globally atm with health matters.
Great conversation. 👍
31:27 I think you're thinking about Scentsy. They weren't actually candles, they were wax warmers. Similar to candles (used candle wax) but you actually used the warmer (that you had to buy at an exorbitant price) to melt their waxes (which you also had to buy) and they were a "superior alternative" to candles. Pretty much everywhere sells melties now, and warmers. Bath and Body Works even sell plug in warmers for room fragrance (like glade plug ins)
We bought a lot of Scentsy way back when as my husband loved the scents … I’m so glad wax warmers are more mainstream now to get away from supporting these MLM companies.
@@deannascorner8112 Same. My aunt got into it HARD back then and, as far as I know, still is, and my mum bought some to try and help her out. I just bought my spooky spiderweb warmer from Walmart for like $5 and the melties are pretty much the same. Better aesthetic, better price, and no scams involved.
There is or was a candle mom called party light....I went to one party with a friend. I drank a lot of wine and was the only one who didn't buy something.....I just got drunk and trolled in the nicest way possible 🙃
@@Tiggmuffin Oh my gods, you're right!! I COMPLETELY forgot about Party Light! My mum had a friend who got into that, so she has some tea light sconces that are actually really pretty, but not worth the price. Jeez, there's too many of these damn things in everything.
I buy wax melts from lots of places, and I do think the Scentsy brand is a significantly better product than other wax melts. Didn't know about them being MLM as I buy them at thrift stores.
On Becoming A God In Central Florida is a show about an MLM in the 80s starring Kirsten Dunst. I watched it on Netflix, it's good.
I've run across ONE MLM company where a customer base outside of someone's friends and family consistently ask for products ("Who is selling such-and-such? I NEED it.") This makes it a slightly more legitimate company to me because there appears to be a customer base. If your job is just convincing your friends and family to buy in, that's not an economic model - that's a cult.
All MLMs are bad… but the Pampered Chef garlic press is truly phenomenal
Which company is it?
@@houseofschenck6230 A well-known candle company. It's still an MLM, though.
@@TeaDeLuxe Scentsy? Body Shop? PartyLite?