how do people fall for mlm scams

[brainhulk]

someone tried to get me when I was 18 selling cutco cutlery and even I recognized that it was a scam. How is it there are grown adults who I thought were intelligent fall for this crap. They spam their crap on Facebook, try to sell my wife their crap, ... all crap!!!

 

[Ruptga]

Sometimes they post ads around, making it sound like they're actually hiring. Broke people that can't find a job will see that and go through an "interview", then after that they're told that the company would love to have them on board and there's going to be an orientation that week with other new recruits. At the orientation a bunch of slides and numbers are shown off by a woman in a suit, and they're told that they too can have all those numbers if they sign up and pay a $200 training fee. Oh and you can bring your spouse or family in on it too, some of the highest earners are spouse pairs. After that they lead you on as long as possible, trying to get you to spam or scam every single person you've ever met. If they're really lucky they'll convert you into one of them, another turd in a cheap suit that promises the world to people with nothing just so they can sell some shitty life insurance to their families, but far more often their victims realize they're never going to see any real income from the scheme, and they move on.

 

[Ichinisan]

People are stupid. That is why.

 

[Kaido]

I think at the heart it mostly boils down to a combination of greed & laziness, sometimes with the hopes of a legitimate work-at-home job or out of desperation, which is understandable. The line of thinking always seems to be, "If I can just sell this simple product, I'll make it big!" The reality is that it involves people pushing products onto friends & family and having a lot of inventory that you pay for. I know a lot of people who have tried MLM's at least once & finally seen them for what they are, and I currently have two friends who are still completely stuck on them. One sells Monavie (magic fruit juice) & the other sells Doterra essential oils (magic alternative medicinal claims). We've had to stop inviting both to our house...they're so sucked into it that they can't see how ridiculous it has made them. Basically turns you into a scam artist where you believe your own hype. There's just something about MLM's that make people with certain personalities drink the kool-aid.

Not all of them sell bad products, either. Cutco knives are fine. Mary Kay actually has good makeup products. But an awful lot of them are into the pseudo-science side of making medical claims, among other things. MLM's are just so scammy. I don't need people I know trying to sell to me on my personal time. RIP relationship if you do that! I think it is useful for people who get suckered into them to go through the experience at least once, so they can really be exposed to what's going on. And of course, if you're in the top 1% of the MLM, you're making bank in the pyramid scheme...Amway made like ten billion last year.

 

[DAGTA]

Emotional manipulation. That's 99% of sales in every situation.

MLM appeals to the desire to stop working for the man and being your own boss and being successful. It'd be great if they actually worked.

 

[Ricochet]

Like Kaido said, because they do it through friends & family.

My sister almost got caught up with Amway through her coworker. Glad she talked to me first because I had to explain MLM to her.

Personally, I dealt with sales folk pushing Cutco knives, Kirby vacuum, Excel Communication, and Alkaline Water machine. Kirby sales folk are the pushiest and biggest time waster I've ran across.

 

[cubby1223]

I saved a friend from Amway's internet-startup Quixtar, his friend wanted in, got my friend to join along, then I heard the sales pitch. The pitch was mostly diagrams about how money keeps flowing in circles and we want to be in the middle of the circle grabbing what we can. And the way to do that is buying products (not selling products, but buying products). At no point in time were prices of products ever discussed.

I left quite annoyed and with a lot of unanswered questions, then my friends looked into the company further, realized the scam, and immediately quit out. Their friendship with the original guy selling them on Quixtar also ended that day.

 

[destrekor]

I've seen classmates from college and high school on facebook selling and promoting the body wraps and one of the health shake/mix companies, and no, I can't be bothered to look it up at the moment.
And I see a few cars all decked out with whatever MLM brand they are into. I just feel sad for these people. If they make enough money to live, good for them, but damn they got suckered big time.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[destrekor]

A lot of it is desperation. When I was young and out of work I was tricked into attending a few of these 'interviews'. Each time even knowing it was a scam I had to fight the urge to give it a try simply because I needed a job to eat and no one else was hiring.

I went to a job fair and ended up talking with someone at an advertising booth. Got chatty and gave them a resume and they called back but left a message. I looked more into the company and just didn't care whatsoever to even bother with an interview. It wasn't a true or typical MLM but might as well have been, it was all about marketing and building up your own team.

 

[SearchMaster]

My sister sold Kirby's as her first "job" out of college. She has a fairly worthless degree and could not find a job. She sold exactly one vacuum - to our mother. To be fair, my mom cleaned houses for a living and said it was the best vacuum cleaner she ever owned and used it several times a day for well over two decades.

 

[ControlD]

A lot of it is desperation. When I was young and out of work I was tricked into attending a few of these 'interviews'. Each time even knowing it was a scam I had to fight the urge to give it a try simply because I needed a job to eat and no one else was hiring.

Same here. I answered an ad in the the paper and went to the "interview". When I saw what it was (selling knives), I actually went through the training but didn't go any further with it. I was jobless, in debt and looking for anything that would pay the bills. I was tempted but just didn't see how it could ever work without me screwing over my friends and family.

 

[Gunbuster]

The pitch was mostly diagrams about how money keeps flowing in circles and we want to be in the middle of the circle grabbing what we can. And the way to do that is buying products

Reminds me when some investment consultants came in to do a free presentation at work. The women in a tight sweater and skirt who was not wearing her glasses so she couldn't tell their projector was not in focus told us emphatically to keep buying stock as prices go down. because you will have more stock and then prices will always go back up...

 

[ioni]

In what way is Cutco a scam? A scam implies a cheat. No one gets cheated with Cutco. They pay their salemen. Their knives are the sharpest I've ever used and they are solid. Mine are 10 years old and still good as new. They are expensive as fuck though. 404. Scam not found.

 

[purbeast0]

A lot of it is desperation. When I was young and out of work I was tricked into attending a few of these 'interviews'. Each time even knowing it was a scam I had to fight the urge to give it a try simply because I needed a job to eat and no one else was hiring.

i too got kind of "tricked" into one of these meetings when i was fresh out of school. i was in sports authority and i don't remember what i was looking for, but someone approached me about selling items for extra money on the side. he had fliers, business cards, etc, so it all seemed legit.

when i went to the meeting, there were like 10 other people in there and i listened to what they had to say, but i quickly realized what it was. the guy who recruited me kept trying to call me afterwards but i kept ignoring his calls until he got the idea and stopped calling.

when i heard that i'd have to purchase inventory on my own dime in order to start selling to other people, that is when it was clearly a scam.

 

[Chiropteran]

someone tried to get me when I was 18 selling cutco cutlery and even I recognized that it was a scam. How is it there are grown adults who I thought were intelligent fall for this crap. They spam their crap on Facebook, try to sell my wife their crap, ... all crap!!!

I can tell you exactly why people fall for those scams, it's really a pretty interesting story once you hear it. I just need you to send me $10 first, and I'll get your instructional kit on it's way via Fedex.

As an added bonus, you can use the kit to sell the story to your friends for $10 each, and if you sell it to 5 or more friends I will refund your entire initial purchase price of $10! Everyone wins!

 

[Rakehellion]

Because people are broke.

 

[Kaido]

Like Kaido said, because they do it through friends & family.

My sister almost got caught up with Amway through her coworker. Glad she talked to me first because I had to explain MLM to her.

Personally, I dealt with sales folk pushing Cutco knives, Kirby vacuum, Excel Communication, and Alkaline Water machine. Kirby sales folk are the pushiest and biggest time waster I've ran across.

What kills me is that some of the products are actually good. My dad has a Kirby that cost a mint, but it's going on 25+ years old & still running awesome. But he had to put up with a salesman to get it

Yay for Amazon Prime

 

[ControlD]

What kills me is that some of the products are actually good. My dad has a Kirby that cost a mint, but it's going on 25+ years old & still running awesome. But he had to put up with a salesman to get it

Yay for Amazon Prime

I bought the Kirby as well. Twice actually. lol.

 

[Kaido]

I can tell you exactly why people fall for those scams, it's really a pretty interesting story once you hear it. I just need you to send me $10 first, and I'll get your instructional kit on it's way via Fedex.

As an added bonus, you can use the kit to sell the story to your friends for $10 each, and if you sell it to 5 or more friends I will refund your entire initial purchase price of $10! Everyone wins!

Reminds me of that one comic on how to make a million dollars - just get a mere 200 people to sign up for a $5,000 seminar on how to get rich, boom, you're a millionaire!

 

[Kaido]

I bought the Kirby as well. Twice actually. lol.

His is a metal shop vac with a cloth bag that the throwaway bag goes into. I think he actually got it in the 80's, so it may be closer to 30+ years old. Amazingly solid...I wish they still made stuff like that! Nothing lasts anymore.

 

[jtvang125]

Although some of them may have legit products, their marketing side is mainly based on lies and deceit to exploit people who are desperate or gullible.

Through vagueness and deceit they lure you into an "interview" but they are nothing more than a mass recruiting event. They will keep information on their products/services very vague and will push very hard on achieving "the dream" and making it big. Many of the speakers are extremely good at this and are not afraid to gloat about their success.

They'll attempt to make you feel special by taking you in the back and saying you were one of few chosen because they can tell you have what it takes. In actuality they'll take just about anyone with a heartbeat because the turnover is so high. This is all very fast paced to give you little time to think things through. They also have no shame in putting down the doubters by saying they're weak or stupid. With all this bombardment of success and money to pushy tactics they can easily turn a bunch of doubters into believers in just a few hours. Just rinse and repeat for the next interview.

 

[calahan]

Nothing new for me .... we live in scam world! Isn't it?

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[SearchMaster]

Yea, I don't get it. I was gifted a full set of cutco knives by a friend when he stopped selling them. They were nice, and I can see them selling a lot more if they just stopped with the BS high pressure sales and put them in a store.

The only problem with mass marketing something like that is the retailer pushes and pushes and pushes for lower prices, which then results in lower quality. If the average consumer goes to Walmart/Target/Macy's/whatever and sees Cutco knives for 3x the price of other name-brand knives (Chicago Cutlery, for example) they won't even consider the Cutco's. Something like that requires the goofy demonstrations to show the quality and explain the higher price...ain't no retailer got time for that so they want lower prices. There's a book called "The Wal-Mart Effect" that describes it pretty well.

Do you really think Cutco, et al, has not considered selling through retailers instead of MLM? If they thought they could make more money that way they would. But they would end up being squeezed until they were just another knife manufacturer and not a quality niche manufacturer.