" My female parent was call for in one years ago . She told me she quit when she realizedshe border on every new friend with an intent to make a cut-rate sale instead of making a friend . "
Chances are you’ve gotten a “Hey girlie!” from someone you went to high school or college with, aka someone who’s now neck deep in amultilevel marketing scheme, or MLM for short.
Recently, we asked theBuzzFeed Communitytotell us their experiences with MLMs, and their answers were nothing short of harrowing, TBH. Here’s what they told us:
Please note that some of these resolution are fromthis Reddit thread , simply because they were too interesting not to admit .
1.“My spouse’s old family friend tried to recruit us for a magical vitamin/wellness MLM. Now, this man had known my spouse’s mother very well and was there when she was dying from cancer. Fifteen years later, the dude had the nerve to say, ‘I wish these vitamins had been around when your mom was sick,’ as a manipulation tactic to get us to sign up. He has never been invited back to our house again. That’s some dirty low stuff right there.”
— seekyou
2.“I was in an MLM for almost a year. I got roped in because it was a product I liked and I wanted to supplement my income. I ended up having too much product, couldn’t sell it, couldn’t recruit people, and was never ‘performing well.’ I was constantly hounded to have more parties and recruit more people. Then COVID hit, and there were MULTIPLE uplines suggesting we use the pandemic as a way to gain sales. This was when COVID first hit and people were losing jobs…I thought it was the most disgusting tactic I’d ever seen. I stopped immediately and thankfully managed to sell my inventory. Never again.”
— summerchristina
3.“I’m a lesbian but most of my family and friends are straight so it’s rare that I meet other gay women at family or social events. A few years back, my friend threw a party and introduced me to this beautiful, fun woman who almost immediately started flirting with me. I was so flattered that I didn’t question it. We went out the next night, but the conversation kept veering to her ‘investment opportunity’ (aka a beauty product MLM).”
" She render to convince me to link ( coquettishly ) , but I observe avoiding saying yes as it seemed suspicious , but I did n’t desire to push her away . She then invited me to this ' party ' which turned out to be a recruitment seminar for this MLM . At the close of it , she pressed me to fall in and present me to her superscript to convince me . Neither of them could answer my questions or business organisation , sothey told me to leave as I was n’t smart enough for this speculation . I never heard from her after that . She literally led me on sexually and took advantage of me just to get me in her ' downline ' " .
— ruthierob4166
4.“My recruiter told me she made $400 at the party I was at. I later learned she made 25% of that. I was told if I could get 2 people under me, I would make $400-$500 per month. Then I was told I needed 4 people instead of 2. Then I was $2,000 in debt with nothing to show for it. After that, I deleted them all and changed my phone number.”
— Trawhe
5.“I drank the MLM Kool-Aid and was a jewelry consultant for one year. When I voluntarily cancelled, I had over 5,700 pieces of jewelry that cost $2.75 each, for a total of $15,675. I was told to buy, buy, buy, and recruit, recruit, recruit. I was getting sick of not making any money while everyone above me made money every time I bought jewelry. Thankfully, I was able to sell off most of my stuff. I will never ever sign on to another MLM company again.”
— Anonymous
6.“My mother was involved in one years ago. She told me she quit when she realized she approached every new acquaintance with an aim to make a sale instead of making a friend.”
7.“I know a woman who got sucked into one. She constantly makes videos on Facebook and Instagram acting like she has this perfect life, and last I heard, her boyfriend had to call her from a gas station to see if they had any cash in the house because both of their credit cards were declined and he needed gas to go to a friend’s birthday party. Needless to say, he didn’t go. It literally says ‘Boss Babe’ on her Instagram.”
— crockaloo
8.“When I was in college, I had a girl convince me to sell sex toys. I had to pay over $700 dollars and got a bag full of dildos, anal plugs, lube, etc. in the mail. Years later I tossed them all in a dumpster out of embarrassment (not sex shaming). Looking back now, I should have tried out each one and kept what I liked.”
9.“I got involved in knife sales. The contact info was written on literally every board at my college. The interview consisted of the supervisor asking me how many things I was involved in over my life and how many contacts I had made. It weirded me out, but I figured maybe they wanted well-rounded people who could connect with a lot of people.”
" When the two Clarence Shepard Day Jr. ' training ' go far , I knew I had messed up . They were urge super pushful policies — ' Let me just do the demonstration , ' ' trade the whole set even if they ’re just front for one tongue , ' and ' Call me if they ’re on the fencing and I could agitate them over . ‘I felt exceedingly uncomfortable doing any of these things to my close friends and category , but I also figured I could lay up a few demonstration to people who would get it and just get paid for those times .
Then here is what institutionalise me over the edge : They set up aside part of the training for us to cold call our contact lens at 7 at night . We literally had to keep making calls and trying to put thing on our calendar . I called my boyfriend at the time ( now husband ) and somehow conveyed to him what I was supposed to be doing and he let me basically have a two - hour phone call with him reading the same pitch over and over again . I did not go back the second solar day . No way was I living through that horror again . "
10.“I’ve seen a friend and his wife get into an MLM, and in three years, they sold most of what they had, moved back in with the husband’s mother, and both began selling drugs to support the MLM habit. They still think they’re mere months away from being millionaires — it’s infuriating.”
— PM - ME - leave - Boob_Only
11.“Back in 2014, my mom got roped into and MLM and put in $3,000 to sign up. I don’t remember exactly what they were selling, but it involved affiliate programs. Six months later, the president of the ‘company’ got arrested, and thousands of people, including my mom, never got their money back.”
— eternalrealms
13.“My friend’s mom got in on the ground floor of a very well known essential oil company — I want to say around 2006-2008. She’s now at the very top of the company, only under the President, CEO, and CFO. She literally rakes in millions, which is great, good for her, but she’s been so enamored by this company since she’s able to support her family that now she thinks oils are a cure for EVERYTHING.”
" She does n’t keep a first aid kit or bandaids or any variety of medical supplies in the house , they do n’t see any doctors to my understanding , andthey refused the vaccinum because they think that lavender and peppermint candy oils will repulse COVID.They have two extremely immunocompromised daughter - in - police and during the stature of the pandemic , they all set about COVID but still take care them because they conceive the rock oil could take the disease aside from them . "
— orchis
14.“When my husband died, he left me with a ton of debt. Not long after he died I had gone to a Tupperware party for a friend and made some positive comment about one of the products, and that put me on the presenter’s radar. This presenter happened to be one of those top tier ladies who ignored their family to make it big.”
" I was BROKE.I was pay off so much stuff and nonsense while waiting for the life insurance to arrive through , so Tupperware was spun as a path to pull in extra money . She even kick in me the starter kit without having to pay upfront .
The problem was I work full - metre and it was nearly inconceivable to book company . I did my first presentation at my house and booked no parties . I accomplish out to all my friends and home and still book no parties .
The press from this woman was IMMENSE . She ’d call me while I was at my daytime job . She ’d seek to convert me to chuck up the sponge my day chore to focus on Tupperware . She acknowledge I was pause , but she was intransigent that if I drop by the wayside my task I ’d make it big , and before I knew it , I ’d have a Tupperware car just like her .
She never heed to me . She had a response for everything . Nothing was establish in logic and every clip she call me , which was weekly , I was fill with apprehensiveness .
I started to ghost her . It took month for me to shape up the courage to tell her I did n’t desire to do it any longer . She hale it on and on and on . Finally , she sent me a curt ' provide your kit at the front room access , ' subject matter , which I did .
She try on to enrol me again a few year afterward — I disregard her call .
All I wanted to supernumerary income to assist me . I also wanted to add to my champion group . All I got was tension , anxiousness , and defeat . "
— iamevilcupcake
15.“I worked for a week and a half during the COVID lockdown for a knife MLM’s ‘marketing company.’ They targeted college students looking for extra cash, and I was desperately looking for ANYTHING to do other than my homework. So, after three days of training via Microsoft Teams, I was told to schedule meetings to ‘practice’ my spiel to my family. We were enticed with free knives after our first practice meeting — which I never received —and trips to outlandish places, which I, of course, couldn’t care less about.”
" After the first week and selling a couple tongue to my grandparents , I was tell we would have to wait until workweek three to give our sedimentation info so as to be paid , but we had to keep operate until then . We also had to make certain we kept track of our sale so we could tell the company how much to make up us ! I cognise some citizenry who actually did really well for themselves through this company , and one is a unaired friend who is fully cognizant of the scam , but does n’t wish because she got to go to Florida for gratis . "
— gracerubin1
16.“I sold jewelry for a hot minute in 2019. I only invested a couple hundred dollars, so I didn’t lose much. The thing that was most interesting to me about that particular company was the way they created a false sense of urgency over the release of new products. They dropped the new products at 3:00 pm every weekday, so around 2:45 there would be a huge flurry of group messages from the ‘upline’ saying, ‘Get ready for new!’ ‘Girls, it’s almost time for new!!!’ followed by a long line of complaints when the ‘new’ sold out super fast. That was really annoying to me because I’d be at my ACTUAL job at 3:00 pm and didn’t need a bunch of over-excited women blowing up my phone. I got out of it after about three months when it became apparent to me that you could never sell enough to recoup what you put into it.”
— absepa
17.“I joined a jewelry-based MLM thinking it would be cute to sell jewelry as a side hustle after I relocated across the country. I got roped in to the ‘be your own boss’ and ‘make money while you sleep’ mentality, and for a while, it boosted my confidence because I truly thought I was doing a great job running my own business. On paper, I brought in good money (about $100 per live show, which was one hour a week), but I had to ship out the jewelry to people, which ate about 20% of the profit — then the money earned went back into ordering more jewelry.”
" A couple months later , once the glitz and excitement of it all wear off and I earn nothing was coming back to me , my fellow differentiate me the only way to earn money in the business was to add fresh ' job pardner . ' I told him I was n’t interested in doing that , but that was part of the strategy . I was so hurt by the citizenry who had roped me into the business concern that I quit that same day . fortunately , I made it out with only like $ 30 lost , but I still have a short ton of jewelry and backpacking materials taking up quad in my house . "
— StarBunnyBun
18.“Some dude tried to recruit me into buying and selling energy drinks. It was a known scam throughout school at this point, so I decided to go along with it to see where it would go. The guy’s dad was a friend of mine, and my dad has a pretty well known computer shop in town.”
" Anyway , I go to clean up MLM man from his house to go to a meeting , and this guy loaded three cases of vigor beverage into my car . I was already sketched out and this was a financial obligation I did n’t want to encumber myself with , so I state him I had a family emergency . He find out of the car and narrate me to keep the 85 or so energy drinks . The three case were in my motorcar for a few week , and I never touched them . About a month after not hearing anything , one dayspring , there were possibly 8 - 10 cases of the energy drinks stacked right outside the back door of my dad ’s shop.2/10 , would not render to conjoin a furore again . "
— Taste_my_ass
19.“I almost got sucked into an MLM in college because my professor was also a representative for the company. At the time, I was desperate for money because my job paid less than minimum wage, and I had an upcoming surgery. It sounded interesting because it involved selling fair trade coffee. I had my parents nearby on the Zoom call to get their perspective, and they immediately knew it was an MLM. I wasted over three hours trying to be polite, while also trying to make the right decision. Class for the rest of the semester was rather awkward, especially when he told me, ‘There won’t be any other opportunities like this.'”
— flowerchild0190
20.“A college roommate of mine joined an MLM and attempted to recruit me. She was 18, came from a really small town, and was pretty naive. She wouldn’t tell me the name of the ‘company’ because her up-line said people spread lies about the company. Major red flag.”
" I hang a recruiting meeting to support my roommate , and the recruiter went on and on about ' being your own boss ' and ' take in financial independency ' andavoided every head I had about the company , what her role was in the troupe , and even the NAME of the company!She noticed I was get suspicious and got ace passive aggressive and end the confluence . My roomy stay with them and miss so much money going to all these required out of town ' conference . ‘MLMs prey on naked individuals and gaslight them into reckon they ’ll be able-bodied to achieve financial achiever when that ’s is very seldom the case . "
— meowKat
And lastly:
21.“I worked for a jewelry MLM for about a year and a half. In the beginning, I loved it. I thought the Facebook Lives were a lot of fun, and enjoyed the ‘social’ part of it. However, behind the scenes was a different story. I witnessed a LOT of toxic positivity. Some of the uplines’ livelihoods depended on their downlines buying product, so they would want us to buy, buy, buy all the time. Didn’t matter if we couldn’t sell it, just buy it! I witnessed the uplines tell women they weren’t doing enough, or trying hard enough, if they couldn’t sell their inventory. It was always their fault.”
" If we ever examine to air out about issues within the companionship , we were tell to hush and that we need to consider positively . I also gain that the company ’s consultants were the main customers . I experience so stupid . Getting out was the estimable decision I ever made , and I will always warn others to stay away . "
Answers have been edited for length and/or clarity .
