How does Amway fit into this nowadays? I remember back when I was a kid, someone tried to get me involved in that. There was apparently a fee to sign up as a "member", and I heard later they eliminated the fee in order to stay in line with the law.

I work with someone that does the Your Travel Biz thing. They had to pay $5K up front and some stupid maintenance fee per month for the personalized travel booking website. Hook, line, and sinker with nothing to show for it after six months.

A lot of Amway income comes from the sale of motivational material the lowbies are strongly encouraged to buy.

My parents are in Amway but they no longer buy into the whole business building scheme and just sell a few products on the side. In Amway you make money off the products you sell, plus the products in your down-line and that percentage is based on the size of your down line. The big scam in Amway was the networks who pushed massive amounts of books and tapes and other inexplicably lame Tony Robbins like crap. My parents finally figured out there's still people who like the product that will happily buy it if you don't mention the plan. Too bad the company didn't just stick to selling soap and the odd experimental product.

I had this experience first with Mary Kay and then years later with Avon.

A lot of kids these days in Los Angeles are doing this scam called "USANA". It's scary how people get caught up in this stuff.

a lot of these things do sell actual products, and some of them are actually of very high quality.

but you can tell it's ultimately a scam when you are discouraged from trying to make a living trying to sell the product, and rather are encouraged to sign up new members or associates, etc etc.

And let's not forget about the biggest Ponzi scheme of all - Social Security...

I sell Avon and I've found that I am pressured (and mildly at that) only to sell products, not to sign up new "Avon ladies". Of course there's a bonus for doing that, but you pay a very tiny nominal fee (I think mine was $10) to start and you don't have to buy a big batch of product up front, which is what I think you do have to do with Mary Kay (hence all the MK stuff on eBay). Avon does give financial ncentives for buying a big batch of stuff at once, but I have only a few customers so I never do that.

Overall, I've been delighted with Avon. It doesn't feel like a MLM at all.

I feel obligated to point out that a Ponzi scheme and a pyramid scheme are different animals.

A Ponzi scheme is where you promise a high rate of return on an investment, but instead of actually using the invested cash to generate the return, you use the invesments of later investors to pay off earlier ones.

See [en.wikipedia.org]

Man, these pyramid guys are ALL over the place here in Richmond, VA. They hang out in Targets, B&Ns, the local malls, gas stations, etc. and always start out with a HORRIBLE "pickup" line. The best was when I had a Yankees shirt on right after the All Star Break. The schemer tried to chat me up about how the Yankees played well the past night. I told him it was the All Star Break, and he continued to say that, "yeah they beat them". I had to inform him the break meant they didn't actually play. At that point he stopped talking, gave up, and just walked away. I was so close to an exciting and profitable business opportunity! Crap!

My wife got sucked into the Avon scheme a while back. She got charged at least three different "fees," and had terms change on her after signing up. We actually had an alleged "credit" agency after us (one of the ones that comes from an "unknown number" and refuses to send letters when requested to do so), even after Avon themselves emailed her to tell us they'd waved the fees.

The company is made up of scammers and those who have been scammed and are trying to turn their investment into a profit at someone else's expense.

You can not judge all multi-levels as equals and come to the conclusion that ALL of them are scams, and specially you can not conclude they are scams because they allegedly make all their money just by selling books. I don't know other multi-levels besides Amway/Quixtar, and in our case the production of educative material is made by affiliated business organizations and not directly by the corporation.

I ask, don't motivational speaker do exactly the same with their "supporting" material?, they get paid tens of thousands for speaking to a bunch of depressed executives, but they get paid millions for selling their self-help books to the ones that couldn't afford to paid over $500 for just attending their conferences. Go ahead, tell Tony Robbins ([en.wikipedia.org]) he's a dirty scammer for selling his books outside his conferences.

In Quixtar, the purchasing of those educative materials is totally optional, and you can perform business and be incredibly successful without ever buying a single sheet of paper, as long as your organization moves products in good volumes. It's market economy in it most pure form, the more products your organization buys/sells/consumes, the more money you get paid, fairly distributed along its whole hierarchy. You enroll 10 thousand people that don't buy/sell a single shampoo and you get paid nada, zero, zip. But you enroll 10 people and teach them to teach to other 10 people each, that also learn to teach their knowledge to other about buying, selling and consuming excellent quality products, and you will get paid tens of thousands per month.

Of course, I don't expect you guys to believe me, but at least I invite you to research more deeply before discharging your attacks against a whole industry, just because a bunch of con artists exploited its loopholes.

Mary Kay requires new consultants buy a $100 starter kit and $200 wholesale in product. With sales tax, it comes to $350. The value of the starter kit is more than the $100 spent. The value of the $200 wholesale product is $400 retail. After that point, you just need to spend $200 wholesale every three months to stay active. If you go inactive, you have a whole year to place a $200 order before they remove you as a salesperson. There are no "hidden fees".

The company, nationals, directors, and consultants all push to sell product, first and foremost. Yes, there is some emphasis placed on team building, just like all businesses, but that is secondary. Everyone in the company is focused on the makeup and making women beautiful.

And no, I am in no way employed by Mary Kay. However, my wife, my mother, two of my aunts, my (male) cousin, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law are Mary Kay consultants. It has really helped bring and keep my family together, especially after the recent death of my grandmother, who was also a Mary Kay consultant.

Pre-Paid Legal is a pyramid scheme that's still around.

i got "recruited" once by one of these places.

they spent half an hour in their introductory seminar explain why they weren't a pyramid scheme. i was nice enough to not get up and leave right then and there, but i certain let the person that asked me there that "if you have to explain why you're not a pyramid scheme, you are."

@mario: Tony Robbins is a dirty scammer, and you're a brainwashed party-line-spouting zombie. Sorry, mate. Mary Kay opened my eyes to MLM nonsense, and you'll have yours opened sooner or later, unless you're one of those sociopaths who finds a way to get rich off of your downline churn.

The title of this article reminds me of spam I get.

HOT 18 YR OLD BARELY LEGAL SCHEMES. CLICK HERE!!!

Starting a pyramid scheme is where the money is. We (me and my scam associates) would start what we called the "Airplane Game" with a big whiteboard we used to show how the "investment" worked.

For $1500 you would "buy in" as a passenger in the back seats and work your way up to the Captain seat where you would then become rich. Of course you were told to bring in your friends to get you to the Captain seat faster.

To make a long story short, after a quick 20 people signed up we would disappear. This was in 1981 in Texas and a part of my past life.

I can't believe this continues today but in a much more "business" way.

If anybody is interested there is a site called merchantsofdeception.com about Quixtar (formerly Amway) that details this guy's experience as a former Amway distributor.

He even wrote a book that he allows you to download for free. No spam, no catches, no money. Very interesting if you like this type of stuff.

Don't forget Prepaid Legal. I had a friend get into this and it was like he joined a cult.

Although Avon and Mary Kay is trailer park makeup, I know several that makes good money peddling this crap.

I just wish all the MLM systems would just go away!

@mario: The difference between Tony Robbins selling his material directly and Amway/Quixtar charging their members a fee to join them and sell Tony Robbins' material is the joiner/member fee. Tony Robbins doesn't charge me an additional fee for the right to buy or resell his material; I can buy it for cover price if I want it ([www.amazon.com]), and resell it on Amazon or eBay if I want to, no Amway or Qixtar membership necessary.

By the way the word is "Educational", not "Educative".

@humphrmi:

You're right, Mario is wrong. He can sell anything he wanrts because the utlimate goal is not for you to go out and resell it to make him rich. BUT you are wrong, educative is indeed a word. Look it up.

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and it's the law.

@XopherMV:
So you have a family of losers?

[www.lightyearalliance.com]
Light Year Alliance is another MLM scam company.

They tell you how great VOIP is and how easy it is for you tell sell it.
All you have to do is pay fees and recruit your friends to pay fees to become salesman.

Didn't Amway change it's name to something else before becoming Quixtar?

I had a step-brother-in-law try to get my parents and I involved in it years ago. They went so far as to pay our way to some convention in Kansas City. We spent eight hours one day watching their "triple gold diamond what-evers" doing inspirational speeches. What I took away was to make any sort of money you had to go "double diamond", which meant getting x number of people signed under you. And then go "double diamond" again and again.

The other thing they pushed was that you should tell people that even if they don't get people under them they would still be saving a butt load of money by buying the products for themselves. Why give the profit to the big company's when you can keep it in your own pocket? It seemed to be the soft sell to say that they were more of a co-op than anything else.

They also talked non-stop about people's misconception of them. If one speaker said it, then they all said it: "We are not a pyramid scheme", and "We are not a cult." They said this along with the fact that their faith in Jesus was what helped them to succeed. In the hallways of the jam packed football arena (yes, it was held in the KC Chief's arena)they sold tons and tons of kits that would improve your sales and bring you closer to Jesus, or some such thing.

We were suppose to join the step-family the next day but my mom faked being sick and we enjoyed ourselves shopping and eating out instead.

Isn't a corporation structured in the same exact way?

@ceejeemcbeegee: No. Thanks for playing. Go look it up.

I once had a friend that was the most intelligent man I had ever known. He had a couple of doctorate degrees and a masters in something I could never understand. And he spent every waking hour chasing the next ponzi scheme that came along, absolutely positive that the next one would make him rich. I was a poor dumb bastard at the time and was 10x happier than he was. People really get addicted to this stuff.

Prepaid Legal are actually the scummiest I've encountered. This was my experience and I've talked to dozens of other people who've had the same one:

I used to do freelance web development on the side and was always looking for small to medium sized businesses to work with. So I got a call from this guy saying he was interested in hiring me. We agreed to meet and he walked me into a conference room in his office. It was set up for a presentation with about 30 suckers already there. He said "I figure it would help if you knew something about our business in order to build our site". I sat through the first hour of the presentation, and at the break I told him I understood enough about the business and was ready to start talking about the site. That's when he started the hard sell on joining PPL. I politely declined and told him to give me a call when he was ready to talk about the site.

He called me 2-3x a day for the next two weeks to try and pressure me into signing up.

@oncewascool:
Say what you want about Avon. But, if you consider Mary Kay "trailer park" makeup, then you have no idea about the product or how to rate quality.

@ry81984:
So, you come from a family of assholes?

@XopherMV:
I was about to tell ry81984 that his/her comment was uncalled for, but it looks like you've called him/her on it...

@speedwell: Maybe not a single corporation, but corporate parentage and relationship networks often do.

You can also argue that a consumer is the lowest level of a supply-chain that has the same fundamental structure as a Ponzi scheme, if not the same effective result, where the closer you are to the 'top' - ownership of production - the higher your returns. At the bottom you're actively losing money.

In most of these cases though, the money 'lost' is exchanged for a useful product, not just 'sailboat fuel' - one of the most successful sanctioned Ponzi schemes in recent history.

Why would you proudly post that a bunch of people in your family are invovled in a MLM scam company?
Everyone on here knows they are a scam. Everyone on here bashes MLM companies. Everyone on here knows that people who get dupped into wasting their money on these things are stupid.
If you are going to post that MLM companies are great and that a bunch of people in your family are stupid enough to be in one, then do not be upset when someone connects the dots and posts the truth.
You can read all about the Mary Kay scam by searching google or here: [www.thepinkingshears.com]

Also, I do not come from a family of assholes, but I do come from a family where no one is stupid to be scammed by a MLM company.

Here is a link to videos about Dateline doing a story on Amway/Quixtar:
[www.amquix.info]

Here is the top 10 reasons to not join Mary Kay:
[pinktruth.com]

The #1 reason is enough for you to not want to join:
1. People usually work to make money. In MK you'll likely be one of the over 99% who lose money in the venture, and if you do make money, it'll probably only amount to minimum wage.

There is nothing remotely "legal" about a pyramid scheme that uses some sort of product as window dressing. They are all driven by the recruitment of new members, not retail product sales. Recruits are typically required to buy thousands of dollars worth of water purifiers or some other junk that fill up their basement and never are sold to anyone outside the scheme. Notwithstanding the deceptive earnings claims that are used to promote *all* pyramid schemes, it is a mathematical certainty that the vast majority of participants (over 90%) will not recoup their investments, much less make any money. For these and many more reasons, courts that have looked at such schemes have consistently found them to be inherently deceptive and therefore a violation of state and federal consumer protection laws. The FTC and various states have brought numerous cases over the past ten years against some rather large and nasty operations (Skybiz, Equinox, Bigsmart, etc.).

@ry81984:

When your first post is on the level of a twelve year old, don't get all upset for someone replying on a twelve year old level. I have no idea whether your family are a bunch of assholes, but I certainly know about you.

Mary Kay is a cosmetics company that recruits throughout the community. It is a MLM company, but it is no scam. People can an do make money selling the cosmetics. People do set up legitimate businesses that are successful. THAT was my point bringing up my family. Granted, few of them are making a great deal of money, but they are all making some kind of profit. Given the low number of hours most of them put in selling to their friends or coworkers, that's to be expected.

And no, these people aren't stupid. My wife has a master's degree in Marketing. My mom has a master's degree in Public Health Nursing. One of the directors my wife works with is a former executive of Microsoft. Another director is a Neurosurgeon selling on the side.

That website you bring up was put together by a religious nut who believes the bible gives her credibility to bash the company, "My credentials lie in that scripture." She dislikes Mary Kay because of the materialism of the culture that -gasp- actually wanted her to sell. She dislikes the company because -gasp- she had to work hard. She sounds like any other former employee who bitches about their former company. No company is ever as bad as someone like that complains.

@ry81984:

Let's go through that list:
10. Customers don't want to order product through you. They expect you to have the items they want when they see you. That's why Mary Kay consultants drive around with their car trunks full of cosmetics. And yes, -gasp- you need inventory to be able to sell. The more inventory you have, the more you are likely to have what a customer wants. That's business 101.
9. I'd agree with that regarding some of the costume jewelry. However, my wife did get a mini-fridge that was cool. We also got a pink 4-slice toaster that fits bagels. And let's not forget that the pink Cadillacs are prizes as well, although that does take a considerable amount of work. They do offer two other cars that require a lot less effort.
8. Actually, you can advertise your business. However, you can't sell through Ebay. There's a reason there are no Mary Kay stores, although there certainly could be. They really want their consultants to connect one-on-one with their customers.
7. There is a lot of saturation. However, this is an exaggeration.
6. This complaint is applicable to any business. Why buy the new 2008 Ford Mustang? How much better is it over the 2007?
5. This is a little old-fashioned, but so what? Again, this complaint is applicable to any business. Try working in an office some time.
4. My aunt sells to her sisters. She's a housewife looking for some extra cash. She's not looking for a full time job. But, this brings in some money. And, she doesn't spend a great deal of time doing this.
My mom sells to everyone. She brings catalogs to her day job and places them everywhere. She gives catalogs to my step-dad to place at his work. And, she talks with people and drops the fact that she's a consultant. It doesn't take much time. But, she brings in about $1000 a month in profit doing this work part-time.
You can make money without recruiting. But, you do need to be able to sell, which obviously this person couldn't figure out.
3. Nonsense. Become successful and people will respect you.
2. Yes, you have to work. And that means working some nights and weekends. That's certainly not all nights and weekends like this person exaggerates. This sounds like more grousing that -gasp- they actually had to work.
1. Yeah, it is difficult to get a business up and running and making money. Yes, you can put in a lot of time and earn nothing. However, I don't buy that 99% figure. 57% of statistics are made up on the spot, and I believe that's one of them.

This whole article and the previous one sounds like they are upset because they didn't become instantly wealthy overnight. They're just grousing because they actually had to do some work.

@XopherMV:
Well that shows masters degree mean nothing because if they really had them they could be making more money getting a real job.

Anyways Mary Kay has to provide statistics in Canada.
Out of 34,272 independent Mary Kay Beauty Consultants:;

2,422 earned more than $100 Canadian;
362 Directors earned more $16,500 Canadian;
16 National Directors earned more than $100,000 Canadian;

I doubt that those in the US make much more than in Canada. Are you saying all the people in your family are in the top 1% of Mary Kay?

Also, would you trust any company that would make you buy your inventory up front and then only let you get 90% of the value back when you return it?
Mary Kay is a scam company no matter what you say. They make money recruiting. They can care less about their consultants because they already got their money and loose nothing when they quit.

10. You do not need inventory to sell. You can easily take orders and then give them their products a few days later. Stores that have huge inventories like Walmart receive full credit from their suppliers when they cannot sell the products. Thats business 101. Mary Kay sells you the products and keeps 10% of your money if you have to return it. They make money if you cannot sell which is just wrong.

9. Those prizes could be paid for with much less work having a real job. Also, The car is not yours, its leased by Mary Kay and then taken away as soon as your sales are too low to make the lease payment. Also they technically charge you hundreds over what they actually pay the dealer to lease it for. It is actually much cheaper to get a real job and lease a Mary Kay car yourself.
8. So there are Mary Kay billboards out there?
7. That is not an exaggeration.
6. Again a real supplier would take back their old stock and give you a refund or full credit.
5. No real company would force their woman to wear skirts only. They would not want to be sued.
4. Its MLM, you have to recruit to make money to live off of and thats why people do not make much money. It can be tough to scam your friends when they know you do not make money. The profits are too low on the garbage you have to sell.
3. Who can respect someone who tries to rip off people who they are supposed to care about. You can get better makeup at Walgreens and for much cheaper.
2. Some or all, that does not matter. You know the BS your family has to go through.
1. I certainly believe the 99% statistic. Just look at the real numbers from Canada.

If you actually read the website you will see those people have done Mary Kay a long time.

One person wrote "I have been a director a little over 10 years, and a consultant for a long time before that." "This experience with Mary Kay has caused more heartache for my life than I can explain. I want to see us all work together to expose the truth until there isn't a guest left who will listen or attend a recruiting event."

Another woman who was high in Mary Kay:
"I was on top when I left MK. Not only did I have 1 offspring Director, she had potentially 2 DIQ's that would have offsprung by Christmas and I had 2 or more that would have done the same. One week before my decision to quit, my National called me and presented me with an option to go National in 2 years with her daily support. I have no doubt in my heart, with my ambition, and my drive, this would have happened."
"The question is, what would I have accomplished in those 2 years? Probably divorced…. my kids would have had to gone back to the public school system and who know where that would have led them with a mother too busy to intercede… .tons of women in debt because they wanted to "help" me reach my goal of National"

Again, I guess those in your family must be in the top 1% of Mary Kay for them to have such a great experience.

@ry81984:

I dug up your statistics, which leaves out some critical information. First off, they were referencing commissions, not total earnings, which as they state are higher. Secondly, those commission numbers were from consultants with recruits, and not every consultant has recruits. Finally, those commission numbers were of the 34,272 who had been part of the sales force for one year, which again limits those numbers.

It comes from this page. [www.marykay.ca]

"The vast majority of the independent sales force members' primary source of profit is selling product. In addition, all Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants can earn income from commissions, dovetailing, prizes and awards. To be eligible for commissions, Independent Beauty Consultants must be active themselves and have at least one active recruit during the relevant period. Members of the independent sales force are considered active in a particular month (and for two months after) when they place at least $200.00 in wholesale orders for cosmetics intended for resale during the month.

In 2006, there were over 34,272 members of the independent sales force of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Ltd. in Canada. Of the 4,843 who were in the independent sales force for at least one year, and who earned commissions, 50% earned commissions in excess of $100. Of the 724 of those who were Mary Kay Independent Sales Directors, the top 50% earned commissions during the year of $16,500 to in excess of $100,000. Of the 21 of those who were Mary Kay Independent National Sales Directors, 76% earned commissions during the year in excess of $100,000."

Your post is intentionally dishonest. So, excuse more for not taking any more of your nonsense seriously. As you have proven time and again, you are an asshole. Now that I've conclusively shown you to be a dishonest asshole, I'm done with you. I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of your nonsense post or any others on this topic.

Wait. Since when is $40 to put up and maintain a webpage overcharging? I don't think that'd get you half an hour from most web design firms, and probably no more than an hour from the cheap ones.

If that's a yearly hosting fee, that's $3.33/mo - which makes it a reasonable price in cheap web hosting.

Please tell me you had something else in mind?

"Starting a pyramid scheme is where the money is. We (me and my scam associates) would start what we called the "Airplane Game" with a big whiteboard we used to show how the "investment" worked.

"For $1500 you would "buy in" as a passenger in the back seats and work your way up to the Captain seat where you would then become rich. Of course you were told to bring in your friends to get you to the Captain seat faster."

Back in the 80's I was a wacky morning drive radio DJ in the Allentown, PA area. This exact same scam came through the area. As I've long had an interest in scams, etc., I did several on-air rants on it, advising people that it was illegal and wouldn't work.

In the 1980's, the Lehigh Valley area was, along with much of the rest of the country, in a recession. $1500 was a lot for people there to lose.

I kind of became the local expert on that type of scams, getting me a few death threats, apparently from people involved in it. I also heard from people who decided not to get involved in it, thanks to what I said on the air.

The forecast for the American economy isn't looking good, at least short-term; I'm predicting that we will see more of this kind of thing as people get scared and try to make big money quick.

@XopherMV: Don't forget this religious nut is selling stuff as well ("Shop the Pinking Shears") !!
I hope if your quoting scripture as your 'credentials' that the money you make on those shirts goes right to the church, dear, or you're starting to look a little like the moneychangers your own self.

@XopherMV:
My post was not dishonest.
You are being dishonest to yourself and everyone else by just trying to say anything to justify what a bunch of people in your family do. Your just being self serving, and I guess you have to or all those brainwashed women in your family will hate you and no one wants that.
You are an asshole to try and explain that a company that makes money off of people that fail is a good company. Mary Kay, just like any other MLM company, does not view cosultants as employees, they see them as customers and treat them as such.

Its irrelevant to say the one religious person's personal experience is wrong because they are religious so that makes Mary Kay great. Mary Kay uses religion to recruit and to guilt people to buy stuff, so that lady using religion as a justification makes sense.
Here's another account:
[www.pinklighthouse.com]

Also, it does not matter that one site is religious or if the woman is selling things, she does have to make back the money MK scammed from her somehow. There are thousands more personal accounts that show Mary Kay sucks.
Just search "mary kay sucks" on google and you will see the truth.

How can you argue with people who have been in Mary Kay for many years, moved up in the company, and realized their life sucks and would be much better off getting a real job.

I see several people commenting about Amway/Quixtar, Avon, Mary Kay and others. Each one of these companies offers a buy-back policy of unused inventory for 90% of the purchase price. The advantage of this is that if you jump into this opportunity and purchase several thousands of dollars in inventory, if you later decide that the business is not for you, you can return it and get 90% of your money back. When you compare this to the classic pyramid scheme (like the airplane game), you could not get your money back. Whether you like MLM or not, the buy-back policy can minimize your loss if you decide you want out. I just wanted to make that distinction

@Rachacha:
No respectable supplier would only give you 90% back. Real companies like walmart return their product for full refunds to suppliers.
The MLM companies sell product for $2000 and make at least $200 off of it if you return it. Then they can resell that same product to another consultant and they save money by not have to pay to warehouse all of that inventory. You pay them to warehouse their inventory for them. The MLM company keeps making money and they can care less about their consultants and if they actually sell anything.

The buyback is just another way to scam free money from consultants.

A consultant to a MLM company is just a customer, not an employee.

Here is a great Mary Kay video courtesy of National Sales Director Gloria Mayfield Banks:
[www.youtube.com]

And here is what she is REALLY saying:
[www.youtube.com]

All you need to know to see exactly why anything like this is bunk is efficient markets. You exchange your time recruiting people for Quixtar or whatever for money, in essence earning a wage. Since there is little barrier to entry, anybody with a voice can try their hand at it. Thus, the wage is a reward to little more than time, and amounts to beans.

If most people could earn real money providing this service, then everybody would do it, and the rewards would necessarily fall until it was again worth beans.

.01% of people are able to leverage their innate ability to schmooze or whatever into real rewards; everybody else is best off just picking up some more hours at their regular job.

If anyone ever offers glittering prizes with no mention of commensurate risk, kick them out like they're on fire.

@rbb: @tadowguy: Social Security is a ponzi scheme only to the extent that our growing national economy is. I think most people would agree that having a basic financial safety net for our citizens is worth the government intervention (after all, that's the whole point). And investing the money is probably better than our government keeping all of the nation's Social Security in a shoebox buried in the rose garden, no?

Yes, I'll be extremely irked if our government has toppled and our economy collapsed by the time I'm supposed to cash out of the system, but methinks lost SSI will take a backseat to other problems in that situation.

Pinktruth.com is a *fascinating* look at the cultish practices that keeps the Mary Kay pyramid scheme afloat. Personal stories, exposes on the stupid business mores, husbands' stories, tips on how to get out and sell your thousands of dollars of unmovable inventory on Ebay.