Has anyone here gotten involved in pyramid-schemes?

[Izabella]

Or have had friends/family try?
Companies include Vemma, Amway, Herbalife, Mary Kay, Primerica, Cutco, etc. the list goes on.. "Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM) is also another word for it,
what are your experiences on it?

I had a "job-interview" for a company called Primerica. Let me just say, a girl in a mall approached me and asked me if I was looking for a job. I was, so she offered me an interview. Just that alone should have given me red flags.. who offers someone an interview by coming up to them in the mall? Anyway, I go, and she interviews me, asking me generic interview questions. I try to ask her what specifically the job is, and she keeps telling me to come to an orientation meeting to find out about it. I then realize she is my age (20 years old). I knew something was off about this company, it was a tiny office with like three people working. So I come home and Google it, turns out it's a pyramid scheme. I'd have to pay $100 to get a "licence", then sell insurance to my friends and family in order to get commission, and the girl who hired me would get a cut of my commission. No thank you.

Then, a few weeks ago, one of my closest friends invites me for drinks to this guy's house, and wants to talk to me "about a new business venture." I go there, they're feeding me alcohol and Verve (an energy drink) and the whole time they're bragging about having a BMW, making money, etc. Then ask me if they can take 20 minutes of my time to explain how they make this money. It ends up being a 2 hour presentation trying to pitch a pyramid scheme to me. I'd have to pay $500 to get in, my friend would get some money, I'd have to sell the product (Verve) to other people in order to get money, etc. I say no thank you, I don't have that kind of money right now. Now my friend won't stop texting me trying to convince me to join and borrow money from my mom (wtf?). I'm scared this will ruin our friendship, as these kind of schemes do ruin friendships. I also googled this and turns out most people don't ever end up making back their initial $500 investment. Plus, you have to keep buying their products in order to stay in, so you even end up losing money.

Anyway, just wanted to share my two experiences. Anyone else ever come across these MLM scams?

[Great_mmm2]

To be fair, not all pyramid schemes are illegal(legal ones are multi level marketing types), and I've never been involved in one but several people I know have been in Amway, Mary Kay, Herbalife, and these other rando businesses.

[kittycatpancake]

My boyfriend's mother is a complete botard some of the time and she fell into one of these. They sent her business cards and everything, in exchange for cash obviously.

Some friend I'd never heard of set her up with it, and she said the friend had dozens of people working for her and she was making tons of money. I was like 18 at the time, she was trying to recruit me to go under her. I immediately saw it was a pyramid scheme and she didn't believe me.

She ended up being out a couple hundred bucks and didn't get anyone joining under her.

[Username]

I was almost recruited for Primerica a few years ago!! I was in a bookstore and a guy approached me and asked if I was interested in making money from home. I was a broke student at the time so I agreed. He gave me his number and I called him and asked what the company name was. He said Primerica so I googled it and found out it was a scam. Good thing I found out last minute or else I would've wasted over 2 hours of travel time just to find out it's a scam. What a scumbag that guy was to have no respect for people's time and lure them in all for a scam.

[babotokki_]

My lifelong friend (our mums are friends and we meet as babies) has been bothering me a lot about hanging out with him and he wants to talk about this business thing with me. Anyways, i kept denying it because I'm broke and cant afford to go out to the places he's telling me to go. the more he kept inviting me, the more i thought he was trying to drag me into a scam. He said i needed to pay $800 first to start up the investment and he didn't even tell me the company name when i asked him..
When i told him i have my own plans for my future he told me he was disappointed in me and thought i was smarter than that.
.......WOW.
im kind of upset that our friendship might be ruined because of this but i also want to belt that asshole in the faceeeeee D:<<<<<<<<<

[Fairycake]

Oh hell no. I have this friend on facebook from back when i lived abroad who asked me if i was interested in a new carreer opportunity, i always saw her posting her supposed new business where she sells stuff to lose weight and how successful she was with it when its obvious that its a "detox" where you dont eat for a week and lose a ton of water. Anyways, not the point. Shes under something that she paid about $400 for to get some products she had to sell to friends, and it has worked out for her, yeah, she throws parties where she sells that shit and she made it quite high up in that business, so she asked me if i wanted to buy my own 400 dollar box to start my business under her. Haha. I was 25 at the time, neither i nor my friends would have been interested to buy some overpriced aloe gel to supposedly lose weight with and make money with. I would have NEVER made 400 dollars out of this to even get back what i paid for it in the first place.
I still see her posting about it and how shes going to events from that brand and how shes being rewarded and promoted all the time for being such a good seller (aka scammer) so yeah one lucky one out of i dont know how many people might make money from it, but that will never be the ones being asked if interested in a new opportunity haha.
Its also not in my nature to be patient and fucked up enough to scam people long enough to finally make some money.

[Forever Eccentric]

My boyfriend is currently involved in Primerica and I wish he wasn't.

[NotAZombie]

I know a couple of people who did, whether it is legal or not, I don't see them doing exceptional better than those who only do a 9-5 full time job. One of them are doing some kind of detox products and since she was overweight, she thought it was a good idea that she tried the products herself and if she slimmed down, she could promote her products better. A coach of that company was even helping her with that. During the first few months she did manage to slim down, and each month she would announce how much weight she lost. However another few months have passed, she stopped losing more weight. She is still overweight and she has been very quiet about her products. A failed advertising I would say because I wouldn't even bother to check out her products after this. There is no way you can loss weight solely by detoxing.

[Izabella]

I know a couple of people who did, whether it is legal or not, I don't see them doing exceptional better than those who only do a 9-5 full time job. One of them are doing some kind of detox products and since she was overweight, she thought it was a good idea that she tried the products herself and if she slimmed down, she could promote her products better. A coach of that company was even helping her with that. During the first few months she did manage to slim down, and each month she would announce how much weight she lost. However another few months have passed, she stopped losing more weight. She is still overweight and she has been very quiet about her products. A failed advertising I would say because I wouldn't even bother to check out her products after this. There is no way you can loss weight solely by detoxing.

Was it some smoothie product? A friend of a friend went on this smoothie diet with these products I never heard of. She lost a bit of weight, and invited us to her "losing weight party" where she would let us taste some samples of it. I thought it was weird at the time that someone would choose to throw a party just for losing a few pounds. I never went, but now that I think about it, it makes sense she would try to sell those products at this "party".

I was almost recruited for Primerica a few years ago!! I was in a bookstore and a guy approached me and asked if I was interested in making money from home. I was a broke student at the time so I agreed. He gave me his number and I called him and asked what the company name was. He said Primerica so I googled it and found out it was a scam. Good thing I found out last minute or else I would've wasted over 2 hours of travel time just to find out it's a scam. What a scumbag that guy was to have no respect for people's time and lure them in all for a scam.

I should have known someone randomly coming up to you and offering you a way to make money is always too good to be true haha

My boyfriend is currently involved in Primerica and I wish he wasn't.

Has he been successful?



And yeah, some people can be successful in this, but at what cost? You make more money just working a 9-5 anyway, and you're not going around annoying the shit out of people close to you. Most people end up losing money. I saw a statistic that like 96% don't end up even making back their initial investment. It's legal, but super super risky and most of the time, not worth it.

[fossilfinger]

A couple people have tried to get me involved in these, but I've said no. It's really easy to tell when something is a pyramid scheme, because the only way you can make money is to recruit other people. You do not make money selling the product, only by referrals. I refuse to buy anything from any "independent consultants", even if they are supposedly legit. I think Scentsy and Origami Owl are really terrible products anyway. I'm not sure if those are considered pyramid schemes, but most of those types of products are very low-quality and not worth the money.

[hustle rose~]

Yeah, Primerica. I almost fell for it.
My sister's co worker told me about it and it seemed legit. Mostly she was just talking about her fancy car and how she vavations twice a year, but once they started asking for start up fees I knew something was fishy.

If something sounds too good to be true, it is!

[NotAZombie]

Was it some smoothie product? A friend of a friend went on this smoothie diet with these products I never heard of. She lost a bit of weight, and invited us to her "losing weight party" where she would let us taste some samples of it. I thought it was weird at the time that someone would choose to throw a party just for losing a few pounds. I never went, but now that I think about it, it makes sense she would try to sell those products at this "party".

I'm not so sure about it, never actually check with her but the company she joined also have some smoothie products. She could have been selling that too.

I know business is business but sometimes it is frustrating to have your friend trying to sell you products out of "friendship". Unless you are recommending me a product that you personally tried, love it and you genuinely want to share it with your friends, otherwise if you are just trying to sell me something(that you probably don't know what is its actual effect), please don't even try to approach at the first place.

[Sefij]

^Totally get where you're coming from. I have a family member who's part of ForeverLiving, and I found myself in a similar situation to yours. I don't like the constant nagging that those products are the best when in reality, I have tried cheaper products which do a better job.

I know that business is business, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way when she used to suggest that I would buy their detox kit (or whatever it was) and she would make about 40 euros profit out of me buying it.

[Kleineganz]

The closest thing to an MLM scheme I've been involved with was Pampered Chef (it's definitely one of the legal varieties, but definitely still an MLM). I loved their products and I was talked into becoming a "consultant" with them as a way to earn some extra money on the side. I did it for about 7 months and did several "shows." It was fun at first (and I got a ton of great products super-cheap), but the pressure to make sales and get shows got to be too much and I quit.