Signing as a partner to a Pyramid like scheme!

cormie

My friend has discovered Lyoness in which he is planning to dedicate his time in promoting for the prospect of a high, life-time return. He's pushing me to sign up myself and my business as a partner who can also offer promotions to loyal customers but something from within is just screaming "avoid!". I don't even know what, I just have the feeling it can't be as good as it's portrayed to be. I'm not interested in the slightest, so I'm not coming here to ask "should I join" but more to point out the reasons I'm not as he doesn't understand my lack of enthusiasm.

He says "It is not a pyramid scheme, because it's legal, checked and people below, can earn more, than those who came earlier ( this is major factor to recognise, is it pyramid or not )..."

I'm not too up to speed on what exactly denotes a pyramid scheme and what doesn't but there's something that doesn't sit right with me hearing that you can get up to 69% of, for example, your shopping bill in Tesco back. Also the fact an initial investment of €300 is required, even though you get this back in the form of e.g. Tesco voucher which you can use straight away instead of cash. What's in my head is, that if half the worlds population were signed up to it (unlikely but just out of arguments sake) and each of them signed up one person, so the whole population was now signed up, then the last 3.5bn people who signed up couldn't gain anything from it and that such a scheme is just built on spiralling downwards with the money rising to the top the more it spreads.

Now this scheme in particular seems to have a lot of top brand names who are associated with it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's authentic in what it claims.

Is anyone aware of the scheme I'm referring too? It sounds like a mix of a famous brand of tea with a cat

I'm not doubting that he can make money out of it but he has already invested hours of his time into it and so that's to be expected, as with any job and I believe that unless I'm willing to dedicated time to it, which I'm not, I won't gain anything from it, other than a small discount with each shop, but first I need to invest €300 into the scheme, but I'm sure if I was to spend €300 anywhere, I could probably haggle 2% discount anyway.

Basically the way I see it is that unless you're prepared to take it on as a job, you won't magically become loaded. I'd personally rather invest my time into my own endeavours rather than something like this.

Is anyone out there more knowledgeable and able to give a quick synopsis of just why this can't work the way it's promoted to and can eventually fizzle out?

fasttalkerchat

Lyoness is a pyramid scheme... i thought it ended years ago. They're up in court at the minute.

MOH

There's a long thread on it a few posts down

DubTony

If you're not prepared to put the time into a business (any business) there's no point in starting one. So you're right not to join. Having said that, your premise that half the worlds population could become reps is ludicrous. Herbalife has been around since 1980 and has about 2 million registered reps in over 70 countries and does close to $3 billion a year. Avon operates in over 100 countries, has been around since it's inception as a direct seller of perfumes for over a century, has 6.5 million independent reps and over 300 million customers. That customer base is less than 5% of the worlds population and turns over $10 billion+ a year.

These 2 companies operate a similar business model to Lyoness. There are many others, but the important figure is over $100 billion a year in total global annual turnover from companies that use a direct sales model.

So there won't be billions of people joining Lyoness. The business model is sound, but some of the "products" available from some companies are dubious. I personally put Lyoness into that category. Their upfront fees seem high to me. This startup fee would usually be covered by fully returnable and refundable products for resale, so there's little risk to a rep. I don't know what Lyoness offers. It also has a complicated commission structure but I shouldn't really comment on that as I haven't seen a proper presentation, having only watched a video online.

I always suggest people do solid research into any business like this that they're looking at starting. Cormie, PM me to discuss further if you actually want genuine info about the NWM industry in general, but I won't be in a position to show you why it can't work. It CAN work, and will work for many people. But as you said yourself, it's about commitment and time. Those who commit can make it, those who don't - obviously - wont.

fasttalkerchat

Any idea what % you get back on your purchases? If you're going to buy then refund products to make the money then you could do that on any sale item and keep the difference.

cormie

Thanks DubTony, the example of the worlds population is just to show how the guys at the bottom are generally in a bad position, unless in this case, they put in work. I'm not interested in more info on the companies in general, but thanks for the offer, just thought I'd see if there was evidence that this scheme isn't as plausible as it is made out to be. I'd rather invest my time in something else personally.

Axwell

Theres already a huge thread on Lyoness here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056384591

No need for another, thread closed.