Just got back from a bait and switch dinner party

I'll pass on the akai, but boy, do I have a bridge in Brooklyn for you!

How old are you, six? And who is this guy who invited you to dinner? Didn't have the stones to throw him a 20 and walk out once the sales pitch started?

P.T. Barnum sure was right.

I'll trade you some Amway products for your acai juice.

OP, is you dumb?

OP I don't know if you're an idiot or an EST, but this story literally has me falling off the bed with laughter. Thank you.

Jeez - my brother went through that with some other juice with Mangosteen in it. Whatever that is.

Tried to sign me up - nope. I did like the juice and it did make me feel good, but I think I was just highly suggestive.

R4, why is it funny. Acai is the future.

Punch (Acai) and delete.

Acai is people!

Acai is other people!

R5, why didn't you sign up if you liked the juice? Maybe you could have been rich by now. Imagine if you had signed up 10 people, and they had each signed up 10 people, and they had each signed up 10 people, and so on. You would have so many people working under you making you money.

You should have called the police right away.

If you get in first you make a lot of money. The top is always best in a pyramid.

OP, I feel for you. I think you were being too nice and didn't want to offend him... but this is exactly how they get people to sign up. And yes, you were used. Period. the guy's a jerk.

He will make it sound like he's a great guy because he wants you to be rich too! And reap all the same rewards .. because you are his friend! I have heard the same shit. From Amway, to Arbonne to some bullshit "E Fusion" energy drink below:

"Make 2 to 3 thousand dollars a month working PT. Simple, Easy product. Great new healtly energy product called Efusion contains no caffiene and very low sugar. Its main ingredient is the Supernatural brazilian acai berry that was seen on OPERA" (YES, they wrote "OPERA") see link.

Did you pay by check or credit or debit?

If I were you, I'd cancel the check(s) - the one to him AND the one for the forthcoming cases of acai. If they are credit cards, see what you can do by calling your CC company and explaining you wer decieved. Not sure if that will fly, but there has to be something you can do there.

Call the Acai company. be proactive!

Let us know how it goes!

PS: It was MonaVie wasn't it? I was ambushed by them as well.

R10 - Bernie Madoff tying from jail

- MonaVie: Claims they are pioneers in the health and wellness industry, have a productive no one else has, and getting in now will mean huge growth as the health and wellness industry grows 10 fold in the next few years. There is no published proof of this claim beyond the one MonaVie have paid to have written.

2. MonaVie currently has about 2 million distributors, 95% of which are here in the US. 2 million distributors for a single product? This is hardly ground floor.

3. MonaVie’s product is priced too high for profitable retail sale and can only really be sold through MonaVie’s Network Marketing structure.

Fact: It is very difficult to sell a health product to the average person that is going to cost them $45/week to purchase. The average American Citizen simply cannot afford this.

How could this product be ground floor if it is financially out of the reach of the average person?

4. MonaVie’s Business Model is based on a concept that everyone involved in the model is a user, a buyer, and a seller. Unfortunately, VERY VERY few of those who participate in the MonaVie Business Model in this way can actual do so and get more money out of the Model than they put in. In fact, the opposite is what will meet most new distributors: That is, they will spend far more than they will ever make. This is why so many people quit.

In fact: 60% of those who sign on as a MonaVie distributor will quit within 90 days of joining. Less than 2% of those who join the business opportunity will ever make more than poverty level. The lions share of those who do not reach this level will quit within 6 months of joining.

Less than 1/50th of 1% of those who join MonaVie will ever make anything close to middle income level ($50k/year). And, less than 1/800th of 1% of those who join MonaVie business opportunity will make an income that could be considered financial independent.

5. 97 out of 100 people who join the MonaVie Business Opportunity FAIL to make more money than it takes to be involved with the opportunity.

6. By in large, MonaVie’s distributors are very unqualified to present the material about MonaVie and quite often mis-represent the product. The average MonaVie distributor gets next to no training before they are sent out into the wild to promote a product that they know very little about. Remember 60 out of every 100 quit within 90 days.

MonaVie CEO Dallin Larsen is a Mormon homophobe, by the way.

Scam artist

MonaVie CEO and founder Dallin Larsen was previously a senior executive with an MLM company that sold a similar juice product prior to being shut down by the FDA for illegal business practices. According to Newsweek correspondent Dokupil, Larsen, who was “a 20-year-veteran of the multi-level marketing industry", "left a senior post at another juice company in 2002, a year before the FDA destroyed the company's ‘bogus products’ that were being falsely promoted to treat ‘cancer, arthritis and attention deficit disorder’."

The company in question, Dynamic Essentials, distributed an MLM juice product known as Royal Tongan Limu juice. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Dynamic Essentials, from 2001 to 2003, had illegally advertised that Royal Tongan Limu ””was clinically proven to cure, prevent, or treat a range of diseases and disorders such as allergies, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.”

And one more thing:

Like R13, I recommend that you cancel the checks and/or cancel the credit card transactions.

I've cancelled a credit card transaction before. The credit card company just cancels - no problem.

And if the cases do arrive, send them back to sender unopened.

You should not be involved in this.

OP is an EST who just watched "Go" Start watching from 4:05

This is the most unfortunate invitation since Prince Felix asked Rasputin to drop in for wine and tea cakes.

your friend is an idiot, OP. He is destined to go broke trying to make a buck on this.

Why did he waste the money on dinner? (That ate way into his profit margin, needlessly.)

Or, for that matter, waste the time talking about losing weight and clearing up his skin.

All he had to do was get you aging bitches in a room and tell you it makes you shoot farther and you all would have bought a case each.

Glad that loser isn't in my pyramid.

r12, you are a FUCKING GENIUS! I don't know where you get your insider knowledge from but, seriously, thank you so much for sharing that!

R21 needs to come to a dinner party at my place immediately.

Oh geez, OP. A guy I worked with was sucked into the whole Mona Vive crap. I kept telling him it was a pyramid scheme but he told me that in a year's time he would be so rich he would be retired. That was three years ago and I've heard he's unemployed and pretty destitute now.

[quote]That was three years ago and I've heard he's unemployed and pretty destitute now.

But I'll bet he's acne free and can shoot a load as far as the eye can see!

Thanks to all who contributed as to why MLMs are still kicking and why by the time we po' fools hear of them, IT'S TOO LATE.

I have two good friends who are 1) very bright; 2) academically and professionally accomplished (CPA and former corporate HR); and 3) well-off enough due to partners' work that they do not HAVE to work.

Yet...

Each one sends me missives about the joys of Monavie and Visalus, respectively. I told each one I had no problem with their products, just the price. I cannot spend $100 plus a month on juice and/or vitamins.

I was PROMISED an end to all my health woes, yet neither one sent me the free month's supply they said they would to help me on my way to total health and wellness.

This, even after I had septic pneumonia...

How is it that the MLMs have captured these smart people?

Another MLM is Primerica, another scam place is Direct Buy...

I can smell the melaleuca from here.

"MonaVie CEO Dallin Larsen is a Mormon homophobe, by the way."

Actually SLC and the rest of Utah is known to be scam central, so no surprise to me that there's a Mormon at the top. Indeed, these type of scams are endemic in the right wing communities from libertarian types to the Christianists.

Seriously, OP, how can anyone still be falling for these get rich quick schemes in 2010? It's a pyramid scheme.

Did you even google to find out about it before you spent a dime?

Sorry, OP, you're an idiot. Your friend is an idiot and I would be furious at him for using trickery on me. Maybe I'm just old but I would have just got up and left as soon as I realized what it was. I certainly would not have given him a dime. And I would have been honest with my friend about what I thought.

Back in the 90s when I was still young and stupid I fell for a scheme to visit a HERBALIFE two day weekend seminar (originally they promised to look for people who work in the company's TV studio) I paid about 150 Dollars for the seminar and when it finally dawned on me that they are just looking for salespeople I cut my losses and left.

Anyone who has you over without clearly indicating it's an MLM thing is not a friend. I have one friend who sells that Melaluca (spelling?) stuff but she has pretty good boundaries around it. She's invited me to stuff before but she's always let me know if it's for Melaluca and is pretty cool about me not wanting to participate (she quit inviting me to that stuff pretty quickly).

I know another guy who I met at a couple of networking events who invited me over for a what I thought was a an opportunity to get to know him and his partner better but what turned out to be a pitch for something called Juice Plus. Once I realized what it was I smiled politely, tried the juice, thanked him for the invitation, then left. I haven't responded to emails from him since.

Had I been you OP I would have declared to juice to be lovely and that would have been it. It's ok to say you're not interested in buying it (especially at that price) and it's definitely ok not to agree to sell it.

I can't believe you let yourself be tricked into that. Couldn't you have said you had no interest in becoming an acai salesman?

Then there's the female sex toy party mlm scamerama - Slumber Parties. The company gets 60% and you make 40%, plus you have to buy all the demo toys yourself.

R18, no one looks at complaint boards except other complainers.

It is especially silly to try and sell acai juice like this now, since it's already in every supermarket, and cheap, at this time.

It is amazing the people that get sucked into these types of things. In the late 90's, one of my partner's co-workers got into selling Equinox - some kind of fancy water filter.

The co-worker tried to convince my partner to join so he could join in the riches to come. Needless to say, my partner declined. The co-worker quit to sell Equinox full time and made a speech about how he was going up in the world and those that my partner was an idiot for not following him.

Shortly thereafter, Equinox went belly up and the co-worker had to file bankruptcy.

I would be absolutely furious...your friend sounds like a major asshole to do something so deceptive...but I probably would've ended up buying the shit too..."just to be nice."

My cousin sells Melaluca and it's like she's in a cult, she proselytizes at every single family gathering I've been to. She's no longer her carefree, fun self.

I think a lot of seemingly intelligent people fall for these scams because they're desperate. And you know who I blame? Avon. They were among the first to start with this crap.

Years ago, my dad's co-worker invited him to dinner (those dinners were tax deductible business expenses, back then.) and peddled Shackley products.

For two years we had Shackley shit all over the house, laundry detergent, cleaning products, vitamins, etc. Then the guy's wife got sick and they moved to Arizona. Thank God!

I heard that the actor who plays Jason on GH belongs to one of these scams. He sells the junk to fans who believe anything he backs must be good. He has made millions. My newphew used to fall for these scams. His mom had a garage full of water softners and vitimins.

That guy from GH sold this shit to the fans. Made millions. And the fans went broke.

Oh yeah - Steve something....

Steve Burton @ R2

Call the Amway Police Stat!

Why did you give him any money?

People do this shit all the time - from Amway to Herbalife to Pampered Chef and now there are jewelry parties too. It's all a fucking waste of time.

That guy will end up alienating every one of his friends.

You should have said you were allergic. And then since you're "friend" tricked you into having it at dinner, you should have right then and there started having a fake reaction - cough, start spitting up, just so the other guests could have a funny story to tell.

OP --- If it's not a product you would normally buy, it isn't one you're going to be able to sell. If it's too pricey for you, probably it will be too pricey for your friends and family. THAT is what you should've told your friend. 'Good Luck with that .... but it's not really in my budget'. $ 40 for a bottle of juice ? No fucking way.

I'm watching a childhood friend get sucked into The Pampered Chef from afar, via Facebook. I suspected it was a scam from the way she implores people to come to her parties.

A couple of years ago I was desperate to escape my job and posted my resume on Yahoo! HotJobs. Primerica called me every single day to offer me an interview, but for what they would never say. I'd try to ask the nature of the job, and they'd just say shit like "We sell products and services to get people back on financial track!" or whatever. They're little office was too far for me to travel, anyway.

^Their office (I'm so embarrassed).

It is a completely brilliant scheme though. Set up a business, buy your essentials for home, be able to write them off for tax purposes. You can even write off such dinner parties as business dinners.

That's essentially it, isn't it Tax Troll?

Was your friend Steve Burton, obnoxious star of ABC soap opera "General Hospital?" He has recruited half the cast into the MonaVie pyramid scheme and goes around nagging cast, crew and fans about becoming part of the acai movement.

One of my partner's work colleagues sells Monavie. Urrrrrrgh. We ignore the e-mails but he never stops trying.

Where was he when my Shelby needed him?

I would pay $40 for a bottle of juice only if it made my hair grow back and my dick bigger

*knock! knock!* "Acai berry calling!!"

I know Tupperware parties have been around for years, but when did it because OK to invite people to your home for the purpose of selling them shit? And women especially feel obligated to go to these things.

I love that scene, R20. William Fichtner is so fug, and yet so sexy... You just know that that ass of his is incredibly musky. If the rumors are true, Jay Mohr probably helped himself to some of it.

Dataloungers attend more weird dinner parties than the rest of the planet tallied up.

Gee, where did you hear that, r51?

OMG, OP you were mouth-raped. You should have taken him down during the presentation, screaming, "My juice, my choice!"

Acai is another word for buttwater.

My cousin's ex-wife sells candles! Yes. They have parties at her house, and women come over, and she sells candles.

I wish I could think of something, invent something, and be the top of a pyramid.Maybe not a product, but a service or something catchy.

I have a friend who spent a small fortune going to those Landmark seminars. You'd be amazed at how cultish they are, and how gullible people are.

I'm in network marketing and this is a perfect example of why it has such a bad reputation. This should NEVER happen!

I would ask that you do not blame the product because many of the products sold through personal networking are great products - it is the METHODS of some of the companies that can be questionable.

When you are in network marketing you are essentially your own boss and you run your business how you wish, even if there is a business model that is taught.

When I share my product line, it is with those who are interested and want to learn more. I never hold a meeting or gathering to collect sales - I do it to help people. Ultimately, it is my business and there are sales involved, but my business has grown due to the products and results - never ever a hard sell, bait and switch.

I'm sorry you went through this experience, and I would recommend you contact the company and register a complaint about this distributor.

R27, those products have not "captured" those smart people. Those smart people are wily and unethical. They persist because their approach works and they make bank being pushy. I bet there are plenty of people who resisted their constant pitches until they just couldn't say no anymore. And so they became customers.

I have a friend who does this MLM thing with sex toys. She makes a fucking boatload of money but it seems that most of her clients/sellers also do well. All they have to do is throw parties and sell sex toys. I wish I had the salesperson personality sometimes. I'd probably have more money.

I must be a prude or something but at what point do you become so comfortable in a friendship that you ask someone to a sex toy party? I mean I might buy some of those frozen pop tupperware things at a party but a butt plug?

I think everything mentioned on this thread is very tacky and something to stay away from.

I hope the OP cancels the checks and/or cancels the credit card transactions, and sends back the boxes of acai.

Take a proactive approach, OP, and get yourself out of this.

Your 'friend' must be quite the salesman with incredible salesman techniques. Very tacky.

Where is the OP?

The only thing I hate worse than creeps who try to get friends (especially under false pretenses) to buy shit like that, is when the friends don't have the guts to simply say "no thanks, it tasted fine but I'm not interested in buying any, and I'm certainly not interested in selling the stuff".

Thank God I have classier friends than you do OP.

I cannot believe you signed up for this OP. You should have just brought a bottle, thanked him for dinner then punched and deleted.

I had similar stuff happen with pre-paid legal. I was like sure, it sounds like a good idea, legal insurance, I'll buy but NOOOOOO! The person wasn't selling me the product but wanted me to start selling it myself. I was like pfft, no thanks.

540 per bottle of acai is beyond ABSURD.

I disagree with R68 - the OP should NOT have even purchased one bottle for himself. The whole thing is too absurd.

So OP, looking back, how does the acai juice taste now?

r70, it was $40 a bottle not $540.

meant to type $40 per bottle

OP...I'll grant you some slack in perhaps buying one bottle of this snake oil to get out of this embarrassing situation; however, you went rather overboard in getting sucked into this ponzt scheme. No balls?

A sucker is born every minute.

I got suckered into the same thing - a friend invited me to a dinner party, said it was going to be "some people from work" that she thought I might like to meet. That sounded fine, but there turned out to be an after-dinner MonaVie sales presentation - each "person from work" had brought a "patsy" and they all tried to work on us.

When "the patsies" started making going-home noises, one seller actually said, "What are you afraid of? Becoming TOO successful?!" I just said I had to go and when my so-called friend called me the next day, I told her to fuck off.

Was the dinner good?

I got a recent phone message from a long lost fraternity brother. I was immediately suspicious because he was always trying to sell something in our college days. I asked around to our mutual friends and sure enough....he was trying to get me to sell some energy drink (Sobo? Soba? Zoba? Whatever..)

Of course when I declined meeting him, he was very disapointed in the fact I was missing out on "this great opportunity". LOL

The sad part is I did really enjoy his friendship years ago, and had hoped he trying to reestablish our friendship. All he really wanted was $$$. What a jerk

[quote]Being that we were his friends we couldn't not buy

You have a strange idea what politeness and friendship imply.

Once he tried to sell it to you at the party, all bets and obligations were off instantly.

G'day Gays, I love you all, but could you take a moment to check out my husband's pyramid scheme with his own version of Acai juice. It's called Zamu and is made from the nearly exctinct Camu Camu berry found only in the Amazon basin. Love and light.

R11, the police were already out busting a goji berry ring.

In suburban America, this kind of this is commonplace. I'm astounded to hear of all these people who throw product parties, though this is a step beyond that. And people seem to go along with it all!

Seriously, I would have given him $40 cash and coldly said 'no thanks' for the juice. Then I would wait about 10 minutes and leave.

[quote] Years ago, my dad's co-worker invited him to dinner (those dinners were tax deductible business expenses, back then.) and peddled Shackley product

Shaklee, not Shackley

Oh yes, Shaklee.

I know someone who peddles Shaklee. We literally have to be careful not to let her find out about loved ones with illnesses like cancer, because she *will* hustle them.

She calls up women from church and hustles them to buy vitamins from her.

She basically implies they will cure cancer.

I don't know if she's a "true believer" or just a cynical con artist, but i can tell you she's been slinging Shaklee nonstop for 25 years and trying to get everyone else she meets to be a distributor.

I had a new bookkeeping client who wanted me to organize her finances and get her set up on QuickBooks. After finishing 6 hours of work she wanted to to know that instead of my hourly wage if she could pay me in Shaklee product.

I told her flat out that my landlord won't accept cancer curing pills for rent. Never went back

I heard some soap stars ask their fans to buy this stuff; that's just wrong.

You can't use your charm to trick people out of their money.

Whatever happened to good old Noni juice?

This guy is not your friend OP. No true friend bugs their friends like this, and deceives them with a dinner party invitation that is really a sales pitch.

Punch and delete.

Avon and Tupperware were not pyramid schemes. They were sales parties. No one had to be tricked into going to a tupperware party. People actually wanted to go to them.

Everyone knew why they were going and you didn't even have to go to the parties to order the stuff. Tupperware was a great and affordable product. Who the hell didn't need tupperware stuff back in the 60s. They didn't have the disposable reusabales like they have now.

The problem was that the sellers/hostesses didn't make much. They got paid in products or "prizes" IIRC. I grew up in Florida where Tupperware was founded and it was perfect for outdoors around pools where glass was unsafe.

Tupperware had this crazy jamboree every year I guess for all their sales people and it was like a Mardi Gras. The company used to lend all their warehoused great decorations to the local high schools for their proms.

Back then, women who sold Tupperware and Avon were mostly making just a little side money for themselves. Now most people really need to make serious money with these products.

Years ago when I started working, people were allowed to peddle Avon and Tupperware at the office, too. I always felt forced into buying something, which wasn't so bad for Tupperware, but I had no use for Avon products.

[quote]Years ago when I started working, people were allowed to peddle Avon and Tupperware at the office, too. I always felt forced into buying something, which wasn't so bad for Tupperware, but I had no use for Avon products.

Interesting. I don't remember feeling pressured to buy either of them. At my office, people left catalogs for both Avon and Tupperware in the break room, and if you didn't feel like attending a demonstration party but wanted to order something you could do it later, but there was no feeling of obligation to do it.

It's like Amway - everyone gets rich!

People had better manners then, 92.

The Shaklee pitch:

"Dear (blank) -

It was a pleasure speaking with you recently concerning having additional income on a part-time basis where it does not interfere with your primary career income, or, working towards a professional career income that includes a new company car every couple of years, all expense paid trips for you & spouse/family and executive cash bonuses for profitability.

As I mentioned in our conversation, I have made a personal commitment to tell as many people as I can about a great opportunity available right now with Shaklee, the #1 natural nutrition company in the United States, and offer my help to those who are interested in making some money right away.

Under the leadership of Roger Barnett, Shaklee is strong, doing great and growing as we offer products that people want, demand and continue to use during this economic downturn.

We a proven business plan and system that works and I am excited to share it with you—and that you can now share it with others.

Over the last four years, Shaklee developed and perfected a breakthrough in compensation that explodes the notion that you should only be paid so deep. We call it Tru-Infinity, and it is so unique and so revolutionary, it’s patent pending. It really is a true infinity compensation plan.

My greatest strength is in working with those who want to create a different financial future for themselves and their families. And I would like nothing better than for me to help you build the life you’ve envisioned for your life and work.

If interested, let’s get back together so that I can answer any questions that you will have. If not interested, you may know someone who would be a good candidate for me to introduce to this opportunity.

“I’ve earned over 17 million dollars since I came into this business without an infinity plan. With an infinity plan like this I can’t imagine where I would be today.” - Jim Burke, Shaklee Master Coordinator.

With Much Respect and Admiration,...."

[quote]Then there's the female sex toy party ... you have to buy all the demo toys yourself.

They demonstrate these sex toys at a party? Really?

Someone who ropes people he knows into situations like that is not a friend. That's the bottom line. It's not "being nice" to enable that kind of behavior. Leaving abruptly and discretely letting the host know that you don't appreciate being lied to and manipulated would have been perfectly appropriate.

If you don't want to sell the stuff, then don't. There's no need to feel obligated to become a juice-pimp for some asshole who wants to use you for his own ends.

R86, your story reminds me of something my mother told me about a friend of hers who’d been a house cleaner. A few times, she’d had women she was doing work for wanting to give her their children’s old clothes for her children to wear. Then, at the end of the week, her paycheck would be short the amount of money her employer felt the hand-me-downs were worth. After having this happen to her twice, she made it a policy to never accept any “gift” offers from any of the people (who were all rather wealthy, by the way) she was cleaning for.

R98, that story sickened me. Those employers are assholes.

My brother once had someone trying to sign him up to sell Amway. The guy kept telling him how he had so many customers wanting to buy Amway products from him that he could barely keep up with the demand. I then asked my brother to try to tell me when the last time was, if ever, that he saw an Amway truck on the road. Huge demand, my ass.

OP, I posted earlier in this thread, but I have to share a story from this morning:

I met up with a group of friends for breakfast this morning, and one of the women said that so-and-so was probably pissed at her. When I asked why, she told me that she had hosted a dinner the previous night and one of the invitees asked if she could bring some jewelry that she sells (not makes...sells).

A group of us agreed with my friend who told the woman "No" because it would just be in bad taste. If everyone thought they were going to attend a nice dinner and then somebody started invading their space, trying to hock their crappy jewelry, others would feel put on the spot. Also, what if someone was going through tough times financially and everyone else broke down and bought some jewelry?

Yes r96. The sex toy party thing ...I put it all on the r35 post. My friend does that and she's lucky to make $200 which the company makes $400 and she makes more if she recruits people to join (MLM). Slumber Parties

Anyone here ever heard of "Isagenix?" Apparently I've lost a friend to their cult. He posts about it constantly on FB. It makes him feel great! He runs a couple of running "clubs," mostly he-fraus that are crushing on him. He sells them Isagenix and they eat it up. He only hangs out with Isagenix people now...

A childhood friend on Facebook seems to be very vulnerable to these things. At first it was Pampered Chef, but now she's into something she calls "Skinny Juice." It's all she ever posts about. She often posts some phone number that she encourages you to call at a specified time for some presentation or information or something about the product. They're called "blitz calls" or something. It's really annoying.

A typical post from her:

"Ok, everything is a repeat at 8 and the Apprentice is not on until 9 so there are no excuses for not being at my house tonight to taste a great product that is helping people lose weight and make money while doing it! Let me know if you need directions!!"

Where did the OP go? I hate it when people post stories like this and then never report back.

r103, yes! A FB friend talks about Isagenix with every FB update. It's bizarre. I did some research on it, and while it sounds like the usual harmless mega vitamin nonsense, it actually is worse. One, it's about $400. bucks a MONTH! Second, it contains major vitamin A doses, which is VERY BAD. Apparently, nobody needs additional Vitamin A, especially post-menopausal causes a 20% spike in LUNG CANCER! Apparently, the sellers are not sold on science.

Thanks for the info, r106. I think he thinks that Isagenix will prevent cancer or something. Tool!

I hate all of them. Arbonne, Beauticontrol, MaryKay (though I like her makeup), Mona Vie, Partylites. Those are just a few I've been hit up by and gone to party after party given by coworkers. I finally quit going to these. Showers too. Can't stand em.

There is a woman in my town that just got busted for working in a "massage" parlor. Doing a little digging, it was discovered that she was involved in the MLM company Melalueka. I guess she couldn't make ends meet with tht crap, so she turned to prostitution.

that melaleuca shit still exits?

there was a women that I use to work with in the mid-90s that was trying to sell that shit.

Isn't that a kind of skin cancer? Who would buy that. Back in St. Olaf.......

[quote]Was your friend Steve Burton, obnoxious star of ABC soap opera "General Hospital?" He has recruited half the cast into the MonaVie pyramid scheme and goes around nagging cast, crew and fans about becoming part of the acai movement.

R51, Burton is at the top Black Diamond level of Monavie distribution because of his tactics. He has done very well for himself by recruiting fans and co-workers into his distribution network.

He seems to think there is nothing unethical about charging fans to attend public appearances and then turning the P.A.s into sales pitches for Monavie. He and a couple of his fellow cast members come out and do a comedy routine, then he tells the fans if they want personal time with him and the other guys, they have to attend the Monavie sales event immediately following the P.A.

GH head writer Bob Guza wrote a Monavie pitch into an episode (a group of characters got a virus that could only be cured by drinking a special berry blend). That came to a screeching halt when Tropicana withdrew its sponsorship from ABC and the network lost major bucks.

They were pissed at Ingo Rademacher when he not only refused to join their crusade, he wrote an open letter criticizing them for being unethical.

To back up r112, I found this info on Burton vs Rademacher from 2008:

***Monavie-gate: Rademacher versus Burton!

Want more proof the business is imploding? There’s a controversy brewing backstage regarding the miracle Jesus Juice Steve Burton is hawking to GH viewers at fan events. Burton — who recently told Soap Opera Weekly he’s earned over half a million dollars so far this year as an independent distributor — and his co-star Derk Cheetwood (Max) filmed a promotional YouTube video on the ABC set without network permission. The viral video stars a security guard and a wardrobe employee promoting the cult-like benefits of the Monavie culture.

A furious Ingo Rademacher (Jax) reportedly emailed a letter to the entire GH cast urging them not to participate in this shady and dodgy pyramid scheme because it is beginning to make the show look greedy. Later, I’m told Burton and Rademacher exchanged tense words on set regarding the email. But then Rademacher had to depart for his five-month paid vacation.

When The Suds Report called GH to ask if ABC was unofficially endorsing the product because ABC's creative and physical property were featured in Burton’s video, a rep said he wasn’t aware of the YouTube promo.***

about ten years ago my ex and i got snookered into going to a meeting by our neighbors (from west virginia). they said it was a money making business opportunity, & he & his wife were just going to meet some "friends" who were also involved. i didn't want to go, but the ex didn't want to "lose face" so off we go. when we got inside all these little important acting people in business suits with big smarmy smiles were dashing about. when the meeting started, they shut the doors & guarded them like pitbulls. i was ready to bolt, but the ex told me not to embarrass him. i said "i bet this is an amway thing." it was. i've been terrified of amway products & west virginians ever since.

My partner used to sell do Partylite. She apparently made a nice bit of money on the side. She still has a shitload of the bonus stuff they gave her. Stupid knick-knacks is all they are.

My sister's best friend does sex toys - they're called "pleasure parties". Not slumber parties. Yuck.

I don't get how you could make money selling sex toys at parties. You buy one vibrator and you should be set, right? It's not like you need to buy a new dildo every week. So you sell one to all your friends, what are you going to do at your next sex party? They're not going to buy another one. And it makes even less sense for the friends to become distributers since they can't sell to their social circle yet again. Just how many dildos do you need??

I had a neighbor who was trying to pitch me some noni or pom juice type product, which over the course of a year she told me would help with my back problems, my headaches and my Mom's cancer. She tried to sign me up to buy this stuff by the truckload every month for like $40 a bottle. After I said no enough times, the friendliness went away. We both try to avoid each other now. I researched it and found out that the top of the pyramid for many of these scams is Utah where Orin Hatch makes sure there are no regulations on the Mormon cons who make money this way.

My God, R116 takes the cake. How stupid can one person be?

Does the less expensive Acai juice now sold in supermarkets, make people bleed too?

Even Jamba Juice has gotten on the bandwagon and is now selling acai bowls.

In 2014 do people still believe in miracle cures? Most berries are an excellent source of natural vitamins. How much would you be willing to pay for blueberry juice concentrate?

Couldn't believe those who spent $40 for a very small bottle of pomegranate juice at Whole Foods. Neighbors in San Diego had a tree, and didn't know what to do with them. It was my family, or the garbage can.

All of these proven MLM scams are run by super salesmen with almost the same pitch. "Can't sell? You're the teacher," who will instruct her friends how the products will be of great benefit to them. Think of the social benefits, and the interesting people you'll meet selling XYZ product."

A friend of a friend invited me to a ladies' "slumber party." We all thought that it was an adult version of a sleep over with liquor and shared private romance stories.

Sure for more conservative women who would never go to an "adult store," if one were actually located in their city, it's a way to learn about what's new. Then you're expected to want more fun toys the next month, or at least new flavors of massage oil to taste. Isn't there a pitch at the end of all of these MLM parties to list all of your friends who might want to attend? Better have plenty of wealthy friends.

[quote]Couldn't believe those who spent $40 for a very small bottle of pomegranate juice at Whole Foods. Neighbors in San Diego had a tree, and didn't know what to do with them. It was my family, or the garbage can.

I agree that $40 for a bottle of pomegranate juice is outrageous and skirts on the edge of legalized theft, but people who shop at Whole Foods should know how they play their game by now.

Having said that, pomegranates have been proved to be among the world's healthiest foods. I wish I knew your neighbors, because I love pomegranates and would gladly take bunches of them off their hands. I usually remove the seeds and either make them into juice, use them in salads or freeze them until I need them.

Pomegranate juice is available at a reasonable price at other stores, and the whole fruit can be bought at regular grocery stories this time of year.

OP proves I was right.

There is NO miracle juice! Repeat

You're right of course, R124. However, there are some things that are so good for us they're considered superfoods.

R125, OK, comparison shop for pomegranate juice, or the next hyped superfood, bypassing MLM 2015 style scams where all products are way oversold. How do you know which new exotic fruit is actually worth the extra money for the value provided?

Note that anything deemed super healthy, like avocados and nuts, quickly jumped in price. Have the money to spend but being from So Cal, remember when avocados were called "poor man's butter," and nuts in shells were used as decorations.

heh heh heh, BUMP!

Why bump a 7-year-old thread, R127? You that spammer guy?

Do people still sell Mona Vie? Who would buy a $40 bottle of acai when you could get it for $3.99 at Trader Joe's now?

Dataloungers are a MLM's DREAM. When you offer your lousy product, they offer you the price in cash and then refuse to take the product!!

Hey idiot, where are YOU in this graphic?

Ugh it sounds like that Juice Plus crap. I have an old high school friend who is in to that. She is constantly posting about it and how it saves lives and shit. She is constantly asking me if I want o get involved.

[quote]Juice Plus+ contains magnesium, a mineral essential for good health but that can cause diarrhea and nausea when taken in large doses. ...

Well that explains the weight loss claim.

I swear, high schools should teach "How to identify a pyramid scheme" so people like the OP can figure this shit out for themselves.

What a weakling you are, OP. You should have punched and deleted.

And here I was just jonesing for a nice case of acai! I guess some people have all the luck.

I would've told the friend "No Thanks" with a smile and would've been "the bitch" in the room and end up excusing myself early from the host's subsequent shade. Oy Vey. As I get older, I find I am able to say how I really feel (esp. if something is inconsiderate or unfair), without worrying about pissing people off - includng friends/family. Bait and switch was not cool, but he knew his friends would feel bad saying no and buy the stuff anyway with resentment.

I went to an Amway presentation once and called it a pyramid scheme to the host's face in front of the group and he was PISSED.

If it doesn't work out OP, you can always sell Mary Kay.

MLM merchandise is generally mediocre and overpriced. Those who sell it often do so with religious zeal. It doesn’t surprise me this crap is popular in Utah.

My former boss, dean of a small college, ,invited about 20 women to a getogether at her house, not repswould be there. Horrid.

Watch those Rodan and Fields girls. They just pulled in one of my friends.

One of our neighbors Des did this recently on the next-door app. She invited people to a dinner party and presentation. She came back the next day and griped that nobody showed up

This exact same scenario happened to a close friends' parents in Boston. They felt obliged to fork over some dough for the juice too. I thought the story seemed really odd, happening amongst well-to-do professors, but after reading this thread and R140's post seems par for the course now.

I hate this kind of shit and anyone who sells this type of shit. I don't want to buy Tupperware, Avon, Pampered Chef, sex toys, supplements or any other type of shit. I will drop someone if they try to get me to go to one of their parties. Friends don't do this to other friends. Scumbags do this

And no, I also don't care what your kid is selling for their school. If your kid's school is selling liquor, hit me up. Otherwise stay away. My tax dollars already support your dumb kid's school

How about a nice Hawaiian punch?

Fleet enema

This is awful.

I had an ex classmate from high school call and chat me up on the phone, then try to telemarket me books.

Books in this day and age? That has to be hard. I’d be more interested in Tupperware.

Whenever people want to do a scenario thread, they should be sent to this one. THIS is how to do it! It's just bizarre enough to be funny and memorable, but it's not too detailed as to seem preposterous or like it's trying too hard.

You're responding to a 2010 thread? I doubt OP will add anything new.

I went to something like this in the Village 40 years ago. It was for Amway, which I had not heard of before. I just said "Yeah, right," and walked out.

Can’t you buy Açai juice at the supermarket for about $5?

[quote] A FB friend talks about Isagenix with every FB update. It's bizarre. I did some research on it, and while it sounds like the usual harmless mega vitamin nonsense, it actually is worse. One, it's about $400. bucks a MONTH! Second, it contains major vitamin A doses, which is VERY BAD. Apparently, nobody needs additional Vitamin A.

R106 I got Vit A poisoning from poorly-prescribed isotretinoin, and it is no joke. My hair & skin thinned out, my mood went haywire, I fell into a deep depressive fugue and couldn't leave my house for three years. I lost my appetite and sex drive completely and became hypersensitive to sunlight. My asthma worsened drastically too.

Does anyone have a snappy MLM answer for r153?

R125 - there are many, many articles online from actual nutritionists about the stupidity of the whole ‘super foods’ label.

Cos that’s all it is - a label. A marketing gimmick. It’s just bullshit really. Go google and read some stuff.

R138 - had a friend who was sucked into the Amway nonsense years ago - and I said I’d thought it was a pyramid selling set up - and she responded - straight from their playbook! - that no, it was a ‘circular’ method of selling - and a jumble of talking points meant to back that up. So much bullshit. But you have to admire the work that’s gone into manufacturing such a lot of it - it really gets people in! Even ones you’d assume would be smart enough to know better. From a psychological perspective it’s fascinating - really pushes many peoples’ buttons.

The friend I mentioned used to fly from Oz to Indonesia with her partner - I think some Amway groups were making a determined push into the market their at the time - and she was hoping to get in on the ground floor and be one of the earliest distributors and so get a cut of anything sold down the line. She told other friends it was extraordinary to be up on stage with an audience of thousands - all cheering and reaching out to touch them as if they were rockstars - or in some other way blessed. I found that kinda creepy and frightening. Never felt the same about her after she joined the cult.

This sounds like trump's style.. with a voter for him now asking, "What the hell did I do? Did he lie to me?".

I had a really nice Filipino-Canadian boyfriend for a few years, we're still friends, and his mother, a single parent, was a doll. She told me there were two types of Filipinos, and both knew Amway was bullshit. But it was a stereotype for Filipinos back then.

Reminds me of "Go," when Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf think they're going to get asked to join William F. and Jane K. in an orgy, but...

Bonus = Fichtner's hot bod / ass in the first scene

^Ah, I see R20 beat me to it!

Cannot believe that the adult men around here actually need to be told to grow a pair. Not only would I have refused to part with one penny, I would have made a big fucking scene, along the lines of "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? YOU'RE TRYING TO SELL ME $40 BOTTLES OF JUICE?" And then I would have flounced out of the room, slamming the door so loud the house would have shaken.

This has happened at regular parties to me. Once it was friends of friends at my friend's house selling tea. She's really nice otherwise and asked me if I like tea. I said not usually, I just drink decaf coffee. She right away pulled out a bunch of catalogs and went right to the herbal section. I said I'm really not into tea, and that I wasn't interested. She persisted a little more and I said, in front of everyone, "we're both adults here, I'm telling you no thank you, please respect my choice". They'll usually stop.

Another time in the mid/late 90's I was at a party which was predominantly lesbians. I noticed this mousy little Vietnamese woman wandering from person to person. She made her way over to me and some friends and we find out she's begging for money for some sort of sponsorship for her family back home to come to America. The white guilted lesbians were all over it and practically whipping out their cash. Thankfully there were two black ladies there and they started going off on how you don't beg at parties. They also told her that they have their own problems here at home and don't have time to help someone who's not even American. She just stood there, and went into "I don't understand mode".. It took awhile to figure out who she even came to the party with. The hostesses were told of her shenanigans and she got asked to leave. That's all she was doing at the party, trying to get money. No drinking, socializing, eating....

SUCKERS!!!

I would have said "sorry I'm NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR SCAM JUICE"! Then I would have gotten up from my seat and flounced out of there like a mad hen.

Uh, you could have said no.

$40 for a bottle of some rot gut that probably cost less than a dollar to make.

Fuck, I just noticed this thread is almost 8 years old.

R158 you know, GO! annoyed me with the way the gay characters were portrayed so sexlessly in it.

There was nary a kiss or a handhold to be had, let alone groping or sex onscreen. Mohr & Wolf may as well have been playing buddies or brothers with the way it was scripted (I saw it like 10 years ago; did they even mention being gay in the movie? Or was it all in the deleted scenes?) Even the likes of James Van der Beek were agreeing to play sexualised gay characters in 1999 so idk wtf was up with this movie.

You can buy a 32 oz. bottle of pure Acai juice at Walmart for $20 & change.

Looks like Acai juice has lost its allure since the OP started this thread 8 years ago. I wonder what scam crap his friend is hawking these days.

[quote]You're responding to a 2010 thread? I doubt OP will add anything new.

You seem the only poster who actually realized you were posting on old as hell thread that r129 pointless bumped.

No, r148, it wasn't "this day and age."

It was 1994.

Sell acia juice to DL elder gays!

I knew a guy who pulled a similar stunt...I bought some stuff, but used the incident as ammo when telling others how broke/oblivious/morally bankrupt he is.

R160 = Cheapskate. Not one single PENNY will be pried from his cold, hard hands until he dies. Newsflash, gramps 👴🏻, you can't take it with you.

R172 - a real sweetheart who doesn't mind being invited to a dinner which turns out to be a pyramid scheme for a ridiculous product. The world needs more like him.

There was a candle thing going on in the late 90s, I don't remember what the name was. A coworker pushed it.

I believe it was Partylight or something similar R174

That's what it was, R175. Thanks.