Multi-level marketing schemes

[heyzeus]

Seems like every mom I know now is hawking some crap on Facebook. Weight loss supplements. "Plexus," whatever the hell that is (apparently it's a health supplement to help you poop or something). Essential oils. That Scentsy crap, which is just smelly wax that you're supposed to melt that makes your house smell like a Garden Ridge Pottery.

It's [expletive] because the idea of these schemes is that you relentlessly "market" to your friends and family, ie, bug them to buy crap. All their facebook feeds are like zombie accounts, taken over by glowy descriptions of the crap they're selling.

Over the past few years, almost all of Mrs. Zeus' close friends have moved away for various reasons. With two little kids, it's tough to make new friends. She met up with some other women in our neighborhood who get together fairly regularly, and it seemed like a good way to make some new friendships.

One of the women in particular was pretty cool. But she gave Mrs. Zeus some skincare products that apparently she sells. Now, she texts Mrs. Zeus every week saying "Hey, had fun hanging out recently! Have you tried that exfoliant yet? Can I put you down for an order?"

Like I said, [expletive]. So it's not a friendship, it's a sales pitch. These stupid marketing companies make it impossible to be friends with anyone, because nobody's being friendly just for the sake of friendship. You're just a mark to them.

[Freed Roger]

Christian purses and bags for sale!

[cardinalkarp]

An old couple friend of ours had essentially dropped off the face of the planet only to resurface recently on wife's facebook acct now hawking these weight loss "wrap" things. It's an absolute joke, not only is it of course a complete gimmick it's your typical pyramid scheme where all they do is try to recruit others to try to sell this [expletive] and be an "employee" beneath them.

I wish there was a way to give them a virtual middle finger

[Freed Roger]

Don't be so commie. Entrepooneurship is the American Way

[Freed Roger]

I meant Entremanureship

[Freed Roger]

Entrebigpile of [expletive].

[Freed Roger]

Entremyclosetsarealreadyfullofshet

[stlouie_lipp]

A buddy in law school won a year's supply of bratwursts shooting free throws at a Wisconsin basketball game. He saved them up and had a bunch of us over for a beer and brat party. We were all sitting around and he said, "now that I have you all here I want to ask: have you ever heard of Amway?". The room went totally silent and we all started nervously looking around at each other. Then he finally said "just kidding". It was pretty funny.

[Freed Roger]

Hey Honey, I'll be home late -going to a Bratwurst party

[Swirls]

Mrs. Swirls got into Rodan + Fields last summer. She's spent (I mean I've spent) a metric [expletive] load of money on it. I'd guesstimate that her total earnings over the past year have been ~$750 or so. Expenses would be well over double that, probably closer to $2k. Some of those expenses are for her mailing out a [expletive] load of small freebie type sample kits, but a lot of it was for her to buy stuff to use to really try it out. She maintained the moral high ground that she wouldn't hock stuff on FB to everyone and promote the hell out of the stuff if she didn't have firsthand experience with it.

A friend of hers from HS is the girl that got her into it, and she (and her recruiter that got Mrs. Swirls' friend into it) were really pushing her hard for the first few months to get a bunch of people signed up beneath her and whatnot. She still doesn't have anyone beneath her where she will get a % of all their sales, which annoys them to no end (again, because they'll get a small % of all of Mrs. Swirls' sales).

She got into it knowing it wouldn't be any sort of a viable financial career, at least not within the first couple years. Her plan is to do it now when we both have full-time jobs and then in a few years when we are boggled down with kids, she can be a stay at home mom and use it as a supplement to my income. One of the other reasons she got into it was to try and meet new people/friends, since we had just moved to South Carolina from upstate New York. And now we're in the Twin Cities, and once again don't really know more than a handful of people.

We'll see. I'm still not a huge proponent of it - partially because I'm against the idea of MLM/pyramid schemes in general, and partially because I've just not really seen much of a return on our investment yet. For example, something like the first $40 you'd make on commission each month is lost for "web maintenance and consultant fees." If you don't make $40 in commission that month, they will auto-debit your bank account for any funds you are lacking.

She only does a FB post once a week or so - a lot less than some other people's feeds that I've seen.