The Boyer Sisters: Part 4

[Grimalkin]

I love people's reactions when I tell them I buy Eden's Garden oils or other brands for a fraction of the price. If it costs more it's better duh.

[Lurky]

@Palimpsest I really enjoy the rabbitholes of MLMWTF, a gentle review of them in general http://aceandrich.com/lularoe-review/, a cautionary tale: https://thirtysomethingmomcom.wordpress.com/2016/05/20/first-blog-post/

& LLR admit that their products are tearing, but that's a feature, not a bug: http://uk.businessinsider.com/lularoe-admits-leggings-are-tearing-holes-2017-3

(One of the top criticisms of LLR is that they seem to be very, very slow about getting replacements for sellers, so if anything goes wrong, sellers are basically out of pocket.  The biggest red flag to me, about this and pretty much every MLM, is how they won't buy back unsold stock at cost price, which implies that they're not exactly confident in their wares.  That, plus the whole model)

Oh, and on the off-chance anyone is reading and considering getting involved in any kind of MLM, John Oliver breaks down the issues.  I know it's been posted a lot, but this is my favourite pyramid scheme of all time

 

[Palimpsest]

@Lurky, many thanks.  That sums it up.

And John Oliver is one of the things that make live worth living.

[DancingPhalanges]

John Oliver is gold and his televangelist episode is really on point, it's sad and serious at the same time. The Herbalife stuff in the video posted has so many shades of Plexus. I wish John oliver would do Jim Bakker's doom buckets. I'm now in a John Oliver YouTube binge watching mood.

I had no idea Lularoe required 5k to start with them. That just seems so out of reach for most people and it's almost certain most will not get the investment back. 

I wonder what the buy in is for Young Living and how many in their circle already sell it. 

[hoipolloi]

What a great video - thank you!

Knew that Young Living Essential Oils was a scam but if James & Stacy McDonald are really making as much money as they imply, they're nothing but fucking thieves. 

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, DancingPhalanges said:

I wonder what the buy in is for Young Living and how many in their circle already sell it. 

I'd like to know this, too. The Young Living website has a compensation plan but it carefully omits any data on how much someone has to pay to buy into the scam. It must be a few thousand in order for the upstream sharks to get their cut.

Speaking of upstream sharks, it looks like Stacy McDonald is now at the Crown Diamond level.

ETA: Math is not my strong suit but can anyone here provide a guesstimate as to how many distributors Stacy would need in her pyramid, I mean "dimaryp." 

[SoybeanQueen]

I don't think Young Living requires a huge buy-in, based on the people I know who sell it. I suspect the price is low enough to attract the people who want to get the oils at the distributor price and have no intention of selling to others. $99-$150 would be my guess.

I almost choked when I first saw how much LLR costs to begin selling. And they have zero control over the patterns or colors they receive. Yikes.

I'm not anti-MLM, but I am annoyed that everyone seems to be selling clothes that way these days. The world does not need another leggings brand. There's nothing special about any of these clothes brands and I cannot figure out why people are spending thousands to be hooked up with them versus going with their friends to Old Navy. I love leggings, too! I should be a target customer! Why are they trying to sell me vagina chihuahua leggings? That's not a good thing ever!

[hoipolloi]

27 minutes ago, SoybeanQueen said:

I'm not anti-MLM, but I am annoyed that everyone seems to be selling clothes that way these days.

Thanks for the info on YL buy-ins.

Re: MLM clothing. Is Thred-Up also an MLM? I was interested to see what they offer but it looks like you have to sign up with your email or FB in order to see anything. 

Don't want the stuff THAT badly. The local Sally Ann & Goodwill are fine for me!

[ladyamylynn]

No, thread up just wants your info so they can spam you with 80 bajillion emails a day.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

3 hours ago, SoybeanQueen said:

I'm not anti-MLM

I am unashamedly against MLM. There is no way that it can be a marketing model where customers aren't charged too much compared to the value of the products and there's no way that everyone in the scheme earns a share appropriate to the effort and the investment they put in it.

MLMs are scams and should be illegal. In my country they are theoretically illegal but there are loopholes and they manage to conduct their business scam all the same. Some months ago my sister's fiancé was approached by a former coworker who tried to convince him to become an Amway scammer, I mean seller. My sister's fiancé didn't laugh to his face because he is a polite guy, but told him a clear no thanks.

You need to be a special kind of deluded stronzo to help a multinational corporation to scam your family and friends in the illusion of getting richer. And to try to sell in Italy US manufactured pasta and cheeses you need to be an idiot too. No offence meant to US products but there's no way that food products imported from US can be cheaper and of better quality than local ones.

[purjolok84]

7 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

You need to be a special kind of deluded stronzo to help a multinational corporation to scam your family and friends in the illusion of getting richer. 

I agree completely with all of this. 

Also I love your use of stronzo - it reminds me of some of my elderly Italian relatives lol.

[GenerationCedarchip]

19 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

I'd like to know this, too. The Young Living website has a compensation plan but it carefully omits any data on how much someone has to pay to buy into the scam. It must be a few thousand in order for the upstream sharks to get their cut.

Speaking of upstream sharks, it looks like Stacy McDonald is now at the Crown Diamond level.

ETA: Math is not my strong suit but can anyone here provide a guesstimate as to how many distributors Stacy would need in her pyramid, I mean "dimaryp." 

The initial buy-in for YL is around $200-ish.  I have a couple cousins who sell it, so I just texted them.  However, once you buy in, there is pressure to keep buying additional supplies so that you have inventory in stock to sell at vendor events and the like. You also have to buy your decanting supplies (if you make samples), your labels, blending tools, sample packets to give out to people, etc... Apparently, they nickel and dime you for EVERYTHING.  One of my cousins sells and she gave me a short dissertation on this.  She also said a lot of folks (including my other cousin) sign on as consultants for the discount but then they only buy for personal use or go in with a few friends on orders.

I have a couple YL oils.  Perhaps I'm an oily philistine, but I really don't see any difference between these and the quality of what I buy from Eden's Garden or Mountain Rose Herbs.  EG and MR have the added bonus of not importing questionable plants from overseas that are described as "carcinogenic" when I google them on the web for more info.

[hoipolloi]

@GenerationCedarchip - thank you for all the detail! So it sounds like Stacy McDonald is sitting on a big fat pyramid of downstream consultants & distributors if she's now at the Crown Diamond level. 

For the record, I oppose MLMs for exactly the reasons so eloquently put by @laPapessaGiovanna. 

[Palimpsest]

44 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

For the record, I oppose MLMs for exactly the reasons so eloquently put by @laPapessaGiovanna. 

Seconded.

I was just patting myself on the back for never having bought anything from an MLM seller, but then I remembered my MIL liked Avon.  I did buy a few things for her from a rather old and very sweet neighbor in the 1990s.  Apparently these days even the respectable Avon Lady has been corrupted.  http://pyramidschemealert.org/has-mlm-corrupted-avon/

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

I remembered my MIL liked Avon.  I did buy a few things for her from a rather old and very sweet neighbor in the 1990s.  

Sorry to read that article. I also bought Avon stuff from friends & acquaintances tho it's been 10+ years since I did so. It was definitely NOT an MLM at that time -- it operated on the direct selling model described in that article.

When I patronized them, Avon products ranged from decent to excellent in quality and were always fairly priced. I haven't seen a catalog in years so I can't say if that's changed. I assume, but don't know, that the sellers received their income from a reasonable mark-up on the products. Certainly, there was no pressure from those sellers to buy more or become a seller myself.

[Flossie]

My mom had an "Avon Lady" for years.  She'd come by every few weeks and they'd chat, drink coffee, look at all the new stuff, and Mom would buy something, or several somethings.  My sisters and I would find flavored lip balm, mini perfume bottles, and other things geared toward the younger set in our Christmas stockings.

When Mom's Avon Lady retired, Mom would ask one of her friends to order SSS for her.

It's sad news to hear that Avon has gone the MLM route.

[hoipolloi]

3 minutes ago, Flossie said:

Mom would ask one of her friends to order SSS for her

This is what I ordered most of the time, along with an occasional lipstick/balm. 

At that time, anyway, it was a great insect repellant -- particularly for the bitty ones like grass mites, a.k.a. chiggers. Definitely smelled better than Deet!

[formergothardite]

Like I was saying in the Jill Rod thread, I would buy the shit out of Avon. I loved looking at those magazines and picking out stuff. It always seemed like fairly good products at a pretty good price. 

7 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

 Apparently these days even the respectable Avon Lady has been corrupted.

Well fuck. 

[charmedforsure]

Avon went way of the MLM when they introduced mark. in 2003 and started recruiting teenagers (16/17 year olds). A good friend of mine in high school (who easily bought into the "get rich quick" type of stuff) got recruited by our church's main Avon lady right after she turned 16 in early 2004 even though she never wore a lick of makeup and thought mainstream beauty/fashion was for suckers (yet constantly shopped my closet since we were the same size). When she passed around magalogs one Sunday at youth group at church but wouldn't let you keep one unless you were for sure going to order right then and there, that's when I knew she had sunk way more money into this losing venture than she was ever going to make. I don't think she ever made a sale. 

Origami Owl is doing the same thing with their Owlette program: recruiting girls as young as 12 into a scam business. I think it's absolutely despicable, especially when the type of product typically is cash and carry to make instant sales, which encourages a larger starter kit investment and additional initial inventory purchase made by an adult that has to sign up alongside them. 

[hoipolloi]

2 hours ago, charmedforsure said:

Avon went way of the MLM when they introduced mark. in 2003 and started recruiting teenagers (16/17 year olds)....Origami Owl is doing the same thing with their Owlette program: recruiting girls as young as 12 into a scam business.

Absolutely disgusting and how is this legal? Because the parents sign for them?

[charmedforsure]

Just now, hoipolloi said:

Absolutely disgusting and how is this legal? Because the parents sign for them?

For Origami Owl (Owlettes), the parent/adult is technically the one legally signing up, as you have to complete the whole contract/pay for starter kit before you even enter the child/teen's info in. The adult is on the hook for all the legal complications (including remitting tax to the state they're selling in) since only their SSN (or Tax ID) is entered in.

The founder of the company (Bella Weems) claims that since she was 14 and started this business (which her parents fronted all the freaking money for and signed the contract at the mall for her kiosk and purchased her initial stock from China), any young girl can do the same thing. I equate it to Trump saying he got a small loan from his father... *facepalm*

The Weems' family isn't all sunshine and rainbows either. Chrissy Weems (Bella's mother) was found guilty of evidence tampering in an underage sex abuse case - her BFF Susan Brock (the now ex-wife of a local politician) had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy and Chrissy did an amateur hack job to delete evidence of the relationship from the boy's email account. Chrissy was also charged with child endangerment/abuse in the early 00s because she left one of her kids strapped into a carseat in her minivan for over 90 minutes in the dead of summer (the temp in the car was over 140 degrees F). Mysteriously, the charges were dropped in that case...

[CTRLZero]

On 4/24/2017 at 10:54 PM, SoybeanQueen said:

Why are they trying to sell me vagina chihuahua leggings? That's not a good thing ever!

I treated myself to a lovely summer print blouse yesterday, and because of this thread (and the penis-pillow thread), I took my time examining the print.  If I buy genital-themed outerwear, I want to do it on purpose, not have it pointed out to me in a potentially awkward situation, lol.

[Palimpsest]

12 hours ago, formergothardite said:

Like I was saying in the Jill Rod thread, I would buy the shit out of Avon.

I didn't know Avon was being discussed there until you mentioned it.  I really should catch up on Jill R.

My MIL liked an Avon cologne as well as the lipsticks.  I can't remember the name of the cologne but they must still be selling it.  I sometimes smell it on old ladies and it reminds me of her.

[Chocolatedefrauded]

I admit I buy Avon online maybe once a year, to stock up on the waterproof eyeliners. Good stuff & decent prices when there is a sale. Did not know it is MLM.

[GenerationCedarchip]

21 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

@GenerationCedarchip - thank you for all the detail! So it sounds like Stacy McDonald is sitting on a big fat pyramid of downstream consultants & distributors if she's now at the Crown Diamond level. 

For the record, I oppose MLMs for exactly the reasons so eloquently put by @laPapessaGiovanna. 

Pretty much.  The markup on YL oils is pretty astronomical, but I'm told that the little portion of that profit that goes to the consultants goes in the form of credits, freebie oils, etc..   The real money is made by having a downline.