Current Events > Ever been approached by a Mid-Level-Marketing schemer? (aka Pyramid Scheme)

(+) Yeah! (+)

*Multi-Level, oops

I have lol. It was a coworker. First time he talked about it, it was his business and his products and I knew he was from the suburbs and had a really nice car that his mom had got him so I thought maybe he had connections and like was manufacturing his own line of health products but nope, lol.

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No, but I've had two significant others briefly get in the dildo party business. Also, I thought it was multi-level-marketing?

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Ranting Nord posted...

No, but I've had two significant others briefly get in the dildo party business. Also, I thought it was multi-level-marketing?

Pure romance?

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Yeah I think that was it. It didn't last long for either once they realized they weren't making much money.

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A couple close friends of mine were really into one MLM company. I sat down and listened to one of their seminars and was close to signing up to help support them, but then I saw the monthly fee and backed out.

While they were selling products that were all pretty much useless, the money was in getting people to sign up under you and you constantly needed to sign people on and have your people under you sign people on. It's basically a full time job keeping your community motivated and growing. If you're okay with the source of your income coming from people within your network below you and can persuade others, then I suppose MLM is fine for you. But I'd rather make my money contributing to society with something more valuable (hypocritical line given what a number of crypto projects aim to achieve, I know).

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Ranting Nord posted...

No, but I've had two significant others briefly get in the dildo party business.

that is quite the coincidence lol

Also, I thought it was multi-level-marketing?

oh yeah, duh. crap.


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Ranting Nord posted...

Yeah I think that was it. It didn't last long for either once they realized they weren't making much money.

Yeah i had an employee that got into that shit and they thought they were gonna make bank. Turns out you have to buy the product from someone else and then sell it. so if you dont sell it, youre stuck with a bunch of dildos.

I told this dumb bitch that it was a scam from the beginning, but they were sooooooo sure it wasnt.

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Cutco knives, lmfao

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I know a few people who did Arbonne

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No, but I was involved in a reverse funnel system.

Seriously though, my parents got kinda roped into Advocare crap back in the 90's. Their friends were doing it and they tried it out. Obviously it didn't work out. Their "vitamins" tasted godawful and that spark crap sucked too.

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gunplagirl posted...

Cutco knives, lmfao

What's wrong with their knives? My cousin worked as a saleswoman for them and my mom bought a set of of them. I used to bring my paring and chef's knife to work back when I living the miserable cooking life and they were always, ALWAYS in someone's hands. They are genuinely good knives.

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Sad_Face posted...

What's wrong with their knives? My cousin worked as a saleswoman for them and my mom bought a set of of them. I used to bring my paring and chef's knife to work back when I living the miserable cooking life and they were always, ALWAYS in someone's hands. They are genuinely good knives.

The knives are good. Its about how they recruit people to sell them. Just google Vector Marketing and see.

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Sad_Face posted...

What's wrong with their knives? My cousin worked as a saleswoman for them and my mom bought a set of of them. I used to bring my paring and chef's knife to work back when I living the miserable cooking life and they were always, ALWAYS in someone's hands. They are genuinely good knives.

They're quality knives that are priced way higher than they need to be. The entire recruitment and selling process is classic pyramid scheme style though. One sec, this should explain it better:

https://tinylink.net/0VlcD

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Pisses me off that these are allowed to exist, but not like we even keep our reputable businesses above board.

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My dad got convinced by his cousin to sign up for ACN, a video phone that apparently was endorsed by Donald Trump. He literally gave them his credit card number and social security number right there and even called my mom over the phone to get her information and my mom had to teach my dad about MLM schemes that night.

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gunplagirl posted...

They're quality knives that are priced way higher than they need to be. The entire recruitment and selling process is classic pyramid scheme style though. One sec, this should explain it better:

I would call it more Multi Level Marketing, (not necessarily pyramid scheme as the money isn't coming from you, the employee), but yeah according to gunplagirl's link, these guys are pretty scummy. They have some effective tactics though.

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So like I met with my coworker and even went to one of their meetings and I kept asking them simple questions like, where is all this money youre talking about supposed to be coming from? It was fun watching them try to explain how me selling something for $20 would make both me and the guy above me $20.

gunplagirl posted...

They're quality knives that are priced way higher than they need to be. The entire recruitment and selling process is classic pyramid scheme style though. One sec, this should explain it better:

https://tinylink.net/0VlcD

Giving me flashbacks to how awkward I felt for everyone involved when my coworker (at a different job, not the guy in the OP) came in to work to give his Vector pitch to our boss. >.> He seemed completely oblivious of the scam himself though, so he probably wasnt even embarrassed a bit.

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Not that I can think of. But I pretty quickly brush off people who approach me with unsolicited business ideas

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Yes, but I realized what was going on and ghosted the guy. He tried that my business bullshit and I knew it didnt seem right when he wouldnt tell me about the business. He seemed so desperate to get me to join whatever he was involved in.

He sent me documents with triangle-shaped diagrams basically explaining how once you signed on the dotted line, you would become property of the scheme. His job became approaching strangers in public with lies and try to trick them into falling for the same scheme he fell for.

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For some reason, I get approached by strangers at stores a lot, trying to do stuff like this.
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Way back in college (late 90s) - at first it seemed interesting, but when they started asking me to call friends with them in the room to set up meetings I was surprised. The surprise turned into wariness when they wouldn't let me say anything to the friend about WHAT the business was during the phone call, just wanted me to promise a "great financial opportunity".

Yes, by Amway people.

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when i first started looking for jobs online there were a bunch of them on indeed and i signed up for one. they sent me an email and said they'd call me and while i was looking over the email layout of how their shit worked my brain made the connection and i felt really embarrassed that i'd even gotten that far

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Yeah, my 2nd week at my current job. Some guy was towed to our hotel because he broke down in the interstate.

After I checked him in he tried recruiting me into one. Then it started to get busy at the desk and I couldn't really talk with him. He came back down a few hours later and put on a video for me to watch. He had been telling me it was his business until I saw the video, then it was clear. I told him no, but he insisted on getting my number so he could contact me later after I had time to think in it. I Ghosted him after that.

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Yeah, Primerica when I was in college. I was working in retail at the time, and a coworker was involved and offered to get me an interview with his boss. I didn't much about MLMs so I agreed. It ended up being in a coffee shop, and there was literally no interview. Within 5 minutes, he started trying to get me to sign forms and pay for whatever exams are necessary to sell their crap. It seemed really shady and I left and never called the guy back. The guy himself was also bullshitting me a lot about how when was in college, he also played college hockey and work 2 full time jobs and other bullshit like that.

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Yeah, I remember some people trying to hock this stupid energy drink called Verve, and they were all trying to act like it was a totally legit product because it was the official energy drink of the Phoenix Suns or something.

I remember a friend of mine got semi-roped into it, but he quickly changed his mind and got stuck with just one 40 can pack of the stuff. I was skeptical of the whole thing from the start, but the guy that tried getting us into it gave the whole typical spiel. Showed us some hack motivational video about how the company works and whatnot, inviting us to these stupid meet ups.

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Kanjo (or maybe it was proudclad) once tried to convince me that Vector Marketing wasn't a scam.

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a childhood friend tried to convince me to join one

i didn't have the heart to tell him it was a pyramid scheme

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Yeah when I left my last company, a coworker made sure to get my number and said he might need my help for his side business in a few months. I assumed he was going to ask for some IT work and pay me on the side.

About 5 months later, he called me and wanted to meet for lunch. I made sure to pick the place. He started his half assed MLM pitch before we even ordered food. I made sure to order plenty of food cause I assumed he'd pay for it and write it off as a business lunch. I was right. I played nice while listening to his pitch, ate a lot of free Thai at a place I loved, and ignored all of his calls afterwards.

That's what he gets for assuming I was some young stupid guy that he could take advantage of.

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Geiki Ganger posted...

Yes, by Amway people.

This. I live in Tokyo and they also have a branch here.

Yeah

Guy I worked with got super fucking pissed when I told him I don't do pyramid schemes when he tried getting me to join one of those like 10 years ago.

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emblem boy posted...

For some reason, I get approached by strangers at stores a lot, trying to do stuff like this.

The last time I had any interaction was from a note someone had posted on a lamp post.

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pkmnlord posted...

Yeah, I remember some people trying to hock this stupid energy drink called Verve, and they were all trying to act like it was a totally legit product because it was the official energy drink of the Phoenix Suns or something.

I remember a friend of mine got semi-roped into it, but he quickly changed his mind and got stuck with just one 40 can pack of the stuff. I was skeptical of the whole thing from the start, but the guy that tried getting us into it gave the whole typical spiel. Showed us some hack motivational video about how the company works and whatnot, inviting us to these stupid meet ups.

Was the drink any good, at least?

Cowthief posted...

Kanjo (or maybe it was proudclad) once tried to convince me that Vector Marketing wasn't a scam.

lmao

BlazinBlue88 posted...

Yeah when I left my last company, a coworker made sure to get my number and said he might need my help for his side business in a few months. I assumed he was going to ask for some IT work and pay me on the side.

About 5 months later, he called me and wanted to meet for lunch. I made sure to pick the place. He started his half assed MLM pitch before we even ordered food. I made sure to order plenty of food cause I assumed he'd pay for it and write it off as a business lunch. I was right. I played nice while listening to his pitch, ate a lot of free Thai at a place I loved, and ignored all of his calls afterwards.

That's what he gets for assuming I was some young stupid guy that he could take advantage of.

damn, nice.

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No, and I'm glad. MLMs should be illegal.
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DifferentialEquation posted...

Yeah, Primerica when I was in college. I was working in retail at the time, and a coworker was involved and offered to get me an interview with his boss. I didn't much about MLMs so I agreed. It ended up being in a coffee shop, and there was literally no interview. Within 5 minutes, he started trying to get me to sign forms and pay for whatever exams are necessary to sell their crap. It seemed really shady and I left and never called the guy back. The guy himself was also bullshitting me a lot about how when was in college, he also played college hockey and work 2 full time jobs and other bullshit like that.

They tried to interview me at a coffee shop, too. Thats when I realized the whole thing was a scam and ghosted the guy.

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Shablagoo posted...

Was the drink any good, at least?

Not really. Just some basic orange flavored energy drink.

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^damn, lol. And probably cost 2-3 times a as much.

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Yeah. I was a summer camp counselor one summer and so was this other guy. He was chill, we got along well.

Few years later, he chats me up on facebook and pitches it. Even though I immediately recognized what it was, I felt bad not at least hearing him out, so I reluctantly agreed to a facetime-style discussion about it.

Most boring 40 minutes of my life

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Yeah, Asea Redox Supplement

They claim that it's "just salt water" but also "engineered to contain redox signaling molecules." The claim is basically that they somehow engineered sodium, chloride, and water to do some redox reactions/ cell signaling or some other vague nonsense. This is in-turn supposed to be beneficial to health. They even have some scientific-looking papers to "show their research."
Luckily, I have a biology degree with a chem minor and immediately recognized it as bullshit.
They just used a bunch of big buzzwords and threw together some graphs in Microsoft office.

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Primerica

A couple of girls I'm friends with on Facebook also were touting "ItWorks."

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Amway
Quixtar
and a few other bullshit companies.

I just laughed and then when I saw the products I laughed twice as hard. One company trying to sell 1 ply toilet paper for the cost of premium 2 ply, I ain't getting no doo-doo finger when I'm paying for a premium product scamway, lolz.

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Yeah Vector Marketing (Cutco knives) tried to get me in highschool. I was out as soon as I found out I had to pay for the knives in my presentation kit.

I was approached by a few of those kinds of MLM companies when I was fresh out of college too. They always operate the same. You go to an interview at a shitty looking office that has no other employees in it than the person interviewing you. They almost always talk about fast tracking you to management. It's all the same shit and I can see why people get roped in with all the flashy promises and big talk.

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Amway twice

Once right out of high school by a former classmate who actually ended up doing well from it for a few years before he dropped it for something more consistent.

And once a couple years ago from some lady at the daycare my wife managed. She invited my wife to the "opening of her business" and we both went to the address and it was a house. Knew from then that it was gonna be a MLM scheme.

Walked in and all these confused looking people were there and some old guy started pitching his life story and then 20 minutes later mentioned Amway and half of us got up and left lmao

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