AmericansAgainstMLM
Multilevel marketing goes by many names. Those being propositioned often think of multilevel marketing as a pyramid scheme or scam; those selling believe the business model is a straightforward way to earn extra income from home. Here’s how it works:
Multilevel marketing companies sell women on the dream of being their own boss, yet as many as 99% may end up losing money.
The Facebook friend – who Lindsay has never met, but added on social media because they were both fans of the musician Jean-Michel Jarre – told her she could earn between £50 and £500 a month if she signed up to a beauty sales business called Younique.
We've investigated Younique a few times in our investigations into the MLM industry. Now we uncover how much you can really expect to earn as a Younique Black Presenter.
Elle Beau didn’t know much about makeup when she started selling it in 2015. As a college student, she was having trouble finding a job that worked with her busy school schedule. So when a friend began posting frequently on Facebook about a new business venture, Beau thought she’d found the solution to all her problems.
Thanks to growing exposure in popular media and entertainment, such as the podcast “The Dream” and Showtime’s “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” the dangers of MLM companies are becoming more widely known. Still, thousands of people (mostly women) are duped every day into joining MLMs, chasing the dream of becoming their own bosses even as their personal wealth and relationships suffer.
For this single mum, selling a product she already used seemed like a no-brainer. But in reality, it took a lot more out of her than she could have anticipated.
...That was until a message came through about her ‘amazing business opportunity’ and how I was such a ‘boss babe’, she just had to ask if I wanted to get involved. I had been ‘hunzoned’; lulled into a false sense of security with someone who purported to be interested in me as a person, but was actually just trying to recruit me into their multi-level marketing scheme.
Like gender reveal parties and painfully public engagements, seeing multi-level marketing scams pop up on your feed has become a social media milestone. At some point, you're sure to scroll past pink and blue balloons, watch vertical videos of couples shrieking at Disneyland, and receive the dreaded "Hey girl!" message from a high school acquaintance you haven't spoken to in years.
"The sun should be shining," Stidham said during an April 22 live broadcast on Instagram. "If it's not, go to the mall, go to Target, go wherever you can where people gather. You go out there and you put a smile on your face."
Stidham wasn't just encouraging her 95,000 Instagram followers to take advantage of the springtime weather. The founder of LuLaRoe, an embattled multilevel marketing company, was outlining a sales pitch.
Chances are you know at least one person who has fallen victim to a pyramid or get-rich-quick scheme, earnestly believed a fake news article or conspiracy theory on Facebook or wasted a small fortune seeking regular counsel from their personal psychic.
There is no shortage of these somewhat devastating stories of being duped on the Internet, many of which are documented on Reddit, YouTube, and podcasts—all publicly available for the world to gawk at. Needless to say, I am one of these gawkers.
