Allen Botnick DC
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Joined: Mar 2004
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|  | MLM is a scam- My Experience With Prepaid Legal
« Thread Started on Jan 8, 2008, 12:37pm » | |
About a year ago I became involved with a company called Prepaid Legal that I thought could supplement my income while only putting down a small amount of money. After wasting several months trying to market their products I learned that these companies are a scam. I like the product but the business opportunity is misrepresented and oversold. Basically what you have is a situation where the company pumps out an unlimited number of distributorships that oversaturate the market. The company benefits from this because they charge for the distributorship and marketing materials. They don't disclose high drop out rates and a slew of other problems. Perhaps the biggest problem is the fact that so many distributorships means you aren't guaranteed territory as anyone could service the customers you were interested in. Once I started to question and refuse the company's insistence that I purchase lots of extra materials from them and attend expensive seminars, my upline dropped me like a hot potato. Counting supplies, seminars and the distributor fee, I ended up wasting about $1,000 on the misadventure as well as about 100 hours of my time.
There are a number of excellent summaries on the internet that explain why we should avoid MLMs like the plague. Here are three of my favorites:
http://www.mlmwatch.org/01General/10lies.html
http://www.quatloos.com/mlm/mlm.htm
http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html
Has anyone else had experiences with MLMs?
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"In God we trust, all others bring data"
-W. Edwards Deming
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proudmarine
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| | Re: MLM is a scam- My Experience With Prepaid Lega
« Reply #1 on Jan 8, 2008, 3:39pm » | |
Yep done them all.
Selling insurance, NAA, calling plans, vitamins...
Not once did I make my money back to even cut even...
But of course everyone else was making millions.
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rulerboyz
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| | Re: MLM is a scam- My Experience With Prepaid Lega
« Reply #2 on Jan 8, 2008, 10:35pm » | |
Because chiropractors are basically salesmen whores, pyramid schemes are never more than a couple doors down. I believe I told you about the girl in my quarter who was heavily involved in a MLM scheme and was trying to recruit new members directly out of class. The class was nutrition. Her idea of nutrition was selling a variety of grocery type items such as eco friendly detergent, and specialty protein bars. They were so good, according to her, that she would take them on the go whenever she couldn't eat a proper meal. 
She caught many guys off guard because all of a sudden there was this semi-attractive woman who was showing them some attention and getting all friendly. Of course she was doing so only in the hopes of recruiting them into the MLM group she was a part of.
She was Canadian, so my apologies to anyone who might have been annoyed by her. I remember wondering at the time what the legalities would be of "working" in the MLM company when you are a foreign student who probably doesn't have a work visa.  I think she tried to smooth talk Doctorsj one day while he was trying to order a souvlaki pita at the Veggie Hut. She got all pouty when Doctorsj informed her point blank that he was not interested.
I bet proudmarine ran into her at some point as well.
She drove me to the Cobb Gallery Center one day after classes, and there was a big meeting there. She was telling a couple upper level suits that I probably going to be interested in joining. My mistake was in letting it go this far. These pyramid scammers will walk all over polite and honest folks who are simply trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I sort of led her on with some vague weasel words such as: "I'll think about it". She gave me an audiocassette that explained the program. After a couple weeks I had still not listened to the tape, and she showed up at my apartment. She was visibly peaved when I said I wasn't really interested. She grabbed the tape and drove off in search of another sucker.
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Allen Botnick DC
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member is offline
Joined: Mar 2004
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,331
Location: USA
| | Re: MLM is a scam- My Experience With Prepaid Lega
« Reply #3 on Jan 9, 2008, 5:32am » | |
Presto,
I had a cousin who was into that in the first quarter. The nutrition company was called Shaklee and they were all about misinforming people that their vitamins were better than others because they came from natural sources (there is no difference if the chemical structures are the same) and therefore were worth paying double the price. They continue this deceptive practice.
http://heatherjohnson.wordpress.com/category/health/shaklee/
Quote:| Why take a natural vitamin supplement? Your body recognizes the difference between a synthetic and a natural vitamin and may not respond well to the synthetic. * Shaklee vitamins are guaranteed to be absorbed and assimilated into the bloodstream. If your vitamin doesn’t break down in water in 30 minutes it may be passing right through your body. *Shaklee does not process with heat and pressure which can damage the enzymes that allow the body to absorb the nutrients. |
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Funny, I thought humans have an organ called the pancreas that makes enzymes to digest nutrients. Looks like Shaklee has just invalidated human digestion.
My experience with my cousin was the same-he was around as long as I was doing something for him otherwise I was ignored.
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"In God we trust, all others bring data"
-W. Edwards Deming
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rulerboyz
Guest
| | Re: MLM is a scam- My Experience With Prepaid Lega
« Reply #4 on Jan 9, 2008, 7:28am » | |
Allen,
That sounds like it must be the same one. Here is something else our readers will no doubt find interesting. The company Shaklee was started by a chiropractor in 1915. That virtually guarantees that it's a scam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaklee_Corporation
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doctorsj
Guest
| | Re: MLM is a scam- My Experience With Prepaid Lega
« Reply #5 on Feb 28, 2008, 12:18pm » | |
A recent episode of "The Skeptic's Guide To The Universe" podcast features an interview with Robert L. FitzPatrick of Pyramid Scheme Alert.
You can download the MP3 and listen here:
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/skepticsguide/podcastinfo.asp?pid=135
One interesting thing he pointed out was that if you join a multi-level marketing company where you are expected to recruit five people below you, and they are expected to recruit five people below them, and so on.....
By the 13th level of this, the number of people required for the pyramid to work would exceed the number of human beings on Planet Earth.
MLM companies flourish in Chiroville, especially on chiropractic college campuses. The big ones at Life University when I was there were "Nutrition For Life", Melaleuca, and blue green algae. There were a few others that I saw in practice too (Metagenics is the one that comes to mind first).
"Nutritional Supplement" MLMs seem to go with chiropractic like peanut butter goes with chocolate.
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