It's not a pyramid scheme...

Samaris · 21-09-2016 09:52PM

Muahahaha wrote: »

A friends mother does (or did) the Forever Living/Aloe Vera thing for about 5-6 years during the boom. She concentrated only on recruiting people and managed to sign up 30 odd people as regular sellers at one point and then they themselves recruited even more. iirc she got 9% of all sales off her "downline" which was considerate, at one stage she had a cheque coming in the door every month for €4k for sales that other people had made.

That is -is- a pyramid scheme. The concept of it is payment based on recruiting other people in as sellers on the rung below, who have to recruit more people each, etc, and money flows back up. For everyone like your friend's mother, there were five others who made nothing out of it and ten who lost money on it. The sales money that she got was as likely as not from the saps beneath her buying out product to try shift. Sure, it works if you get in early, on rung three, four, maybe five. Then it's hot potato trying to pass on the crap side of it to the rung you help create below. The person who doesn't manage to recruit suckers is the one that ends up paying.

jelenka · 21-09-2016 10:55PM

It's probably "world ventures"?
Someone I know is doing it,they travel a lot and quit their actual jobs, but me and the rest of my friends that are not into these kind of businesses have been avoiding them for the past 2 years - they sound brainwashed, only talk about their "awesome lifestyle" , not having to work etc.
In reality they spend all their time setting up meetings to get new recruits, brainwash anyone willing to listen and even approach people to recruit at concerts and events.
The idea is you can travel cheaper ,but you have to pay monthly fees or something like that. The more you travel and more you recruit the more you earn.
It is a pyramid. But they don't say that, as obviously it is not a pyramid because of thousands of reasons they brainwash you with.

astrofool · 21-09-2016 10:58PM

Muahahaha wrote: »

Lots of people seem to think this is a pyrmiad scheme- its not. Pyrmiad schemes are where you invest money into an asset and they pay you money back through the investments others below you make. Forever Living/Amway, etc are network selling, theres a big difference. One is a scam, the other is legit.

A friends mother does (or did) the Forever Living/Aloe Vera thing for about 5-6 years during the boom. She concentrated only on recruiting people and managed to sign up 30 odd people as regular sellers at one point and then they themselves recruited even more. iirc she got 9% of all sales off her "downline" which was considerate, at one stage she had a cheque coming in the door every month for €4k for sales that other people had made. Anyway she got ill a few years back and gave it up and over time some of her downline gave it up so the monthly cheques got smaller. She still makes about €1k a month from it and thats from barely doing anything.

To do it and be good at it youve gotta be really motivated, it takes a certain type of person. But Ive seen it with my own eyes whats possible. No way would I ever do it, its definitely not for everyone. But it does work very well for some, especially those that got in early when it first really kicked off in Ireland in the early 2000s.

Do you need someone to draw you the diagram again?

Owner laughing manically

Person

Person
----Friend's mother---another friends mother---another friends mother
-Person-Person-Person-Person-Person-Person-Person-Person-Person-Person-
..
..
..
Worlds population

astrofool · 21-09-2016 11:01PM

Chinese herbal ants were one of my favourite ones to hear about. Boxes and boxes of ants in people's apartments, very scary what people fall for:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yilishen_Tianxi_Group

Chorcai · 21-09-2016 11:27PM

Direct marketing is another term I heard used to describe pyramid schemes

Calibos · 22-09-2016 12:35AM

MLM

Multi Level Marketing

Mackman · 22-09-2016 02:51AM

Calibos wrote: »

MLM

Multi Level Marketing

This is what my sister in law calls it. She sells some skin treatment stuff. Now in fairness, the stuff seems to work. But it's like $150 for a small bottle for the average person to buy it, if you sign up as a seller or something you get it for like $80, but you have to buy a certain amount a month or something.

Herself and the husband have dreams of making enough money to live on with it, never going to happen.

twowheelsonly · 22-09-2016 03:27AM

To be fair Forever Living Products has been around since about the mid 90s' and quite a few people have made quite a few bob off it. At least it's selling a product (and a fairly decent and reasonably priced one at that..) rather than selling just a dream and a lifestyle.

A friend of mine tried to recruit myself and my Mrs into it way back when it was just starting but it just wasn't for us Thank You Very Much... He did very well out of it and it dug him out of a serious hole at the time. He's still doing well out of it despite not having sold anything in years as he was one of the first ones into it in Ireland, the UK and Spain.

Amway was the same but never really took off here as they never seemed to know what they wanted to actually sell and diversified into too wide a range of what appeared to be basically rebranded products.

For true Pyramid selling there's been a few beauties over the years such as Blueskies and Banners Brokers. I actually attended a BB conference in CityWest a few years ago as a photographer and was left open mouthed at how gullible some people could be. Having said that, it was a super smooth sales operation.

Bit cynical · 22-09-2016 03:29AM

Muahahaha wrote: »

Pyrmiad schemes are where you invest money into an asset and they pay you money back through the investments others below you make.

No, these are called Ponzi schemes.

gramar · 22-09-2016 07:56AM

Everyone who offers you these products not only want you to buy them but sell them aswell. Could you imagine going into a shop to buy something and being asked if you'd like to open up another shop selling the same thing as they do. Just is case there isn't enough competition.

Crea · 22-09-2016 08:39AM

My neighbour got into FL. Her newsfeed on Facebook was full of messages about her great life, free time and holidays. All if these messages were fed to her from her "mentor". Her mentor would post her messages about how inspirational she is and what great friends they are. The reality was that she was always on the road trying to get others signed up. The paid holidays were with groups of other sellers to the FL house in Lanzarote and they'd have to attend meetings to push them to sign up more people.
She'd invite people to her house for drinks and then spring the sales pitch for the FL stuff.
I ended up blocking her on FB and avoiding her like the plague.
All of a sudden she stopped with the fb messages and no more talk of FL and of course no more lovely messages from her mentors. All the relationships are completely superficial and based on trying to get something from others.
The products are fine but no better than what you get in health shops for alot cheaper.

MarkY91 · 22-09-2016 09:29AM

Go down onto any Facebook buy and sell group and it is Saturday with posts like

"Are you a person who wants to make an additional 200 per week sitting at home? Who isnt" blah blah blah...they're the vultures who were mentioned already preying on gullible stay at home mothers.

astrofool · 22-09-2016 10:19AM

twowheelsonly wrote: »

To be fair Forever Living Products has been around since about the mid 90s' and quite a few people have made quite a few bob off it. At least it's selling a product (and a fairly decent and reasonably priced one at that..)

Just to correct this bit, had a look at the site, the products are vastly overpriced based on what you'd get in any bricks and mortar shop, without even looking at other online websites.

It's not a pyramid scheme...

Comments