r/antiMLM

talking about how she didn’t get the last trip and is still trying for the next one and wants to take her whole team.

Wasn't expecting to see something like this in the wild.

Sorry for the weird angle; I took the best pic I could without touching the thing and then cropped and rotated it for readability.

$500 to attend a Primerica “networking” event just to take photos with senior leaders? Yeah… no thanks. 😳

It’s a Tuesday evening and I’m driving myself home from college when my phone rings. I recognize it as a number I’ve been declining as unknown for the past few days, and decide to answer it and ask who it was.

I’m greeted by a lady who says she saw my application on Instagram and wanted me in for an interview. I have never replied to a job listing on Instagram before. Caught off guard and thinking like a broke college student, I agree and ask when I can come in, she explains the interviews are virtual and she will send me a link for this evening. She tells me to have a nice day and hangs up. As I’m waiting for the email to arrive, I realize she never told me which company she called from, I had to wait until I received the email almost two hours later and then look up the company by the website. Vector Marketing, selling Cutco, something I’d never heard of before in my life.

I got home and ran to my father excited to tell him I finally got an interview, and I gather my note paper and pens and wait in front of my laptop for the meeting to start.

I’m in a zoom call with 6-8 other kids (we can’t see eachother, only the woman who I was contacted by) and she has us fill out these questionnaire about ourselves, shows us the product, cuts a penny, shows us some videos, then has us fill out another form. At the end of the presentation she calls two names out and says we were chosen for a formal interview, I was one of those names. She pulls me into a private video room and asks me questions about myself, my situation, school, work, and follows all of that up with a very robotic “well, you sound like you’d be a great fit for our company then!” That should have even my first red flag. She then tells me that she will send me an address and time for training to start.

Training is two days later on Thursday/Friday. I arrive at the location only for it to be a grimy, boxlike pale yellow building with rusted green trim, and red doors placed unorganized around the perimeter. There’s a door on the second floor with a slide coming out of it that leads into a small kids playground that’s chain linked closed and overgrown with mold and moss.

There’s no parking lot, I park in the grass around the back and stagger up a wooden staircase, navigating the labyrinth of doors just to find the training office. She greets me and has me sit down while making small talk. The first thing I notice is all the cameras. Outside the building, in the hallways, on the doors. Second. The building is warm, humid, and swarming with mosquitos.

When everyone else arrives, there’s me and 7 other youths around my age. We sit through 4 hours of her talking, showing us demos, cutting things with these knives, and reading scripts before she lets us eat. As soon as we’re done, it’s phone call time. She makes us go through our entire phones finding “HM3s” (their target audience) and calling all of them to schedule appointments. I’m calling adults I barely remember and whispering into my phone that my job is making me read off a script and they just have to roll with it for now.

I schedule 5 appointments out of my 11 I’m required to have by Monday. She tells us by morning we need to complete a vision board and come back with 30+ names and numbers of people we can call, I came back with 3 and didn’t “win” the knife that the other kids did for bringing in names.

She makes us download an app, not off the AppStore, through a link. She shows us how to go into our phone security and disable it to allow the app to run, it restarts our entire phones and leaves them bricked for a good 5-7 minutes.

When it finally comes back on, we have to upload every contact in our phone, refer every single person over 18+ for a job (their whole name and contact info is shared), and she tells us to download WhatsApp to join a group.

We go through the pamphlet listening to her speak for another 3-4 hours, and now she wants us to read the entire pamphlet to a partner for practice. While we’re doing these demos the manager steps out of the room. I ask my partner what she thinks of everything going on and if she genuinely thinks this is a good idea, she expresses her concerns about the situation and I mostly agree. It wasn’t until I grabbed my phone and looked up the company into Reddit to see if anyone else shared the same idea that I was brought here.

As soon as I saw the hundreds of people sharing their horrible experiences with this company, I decided I was done. I stopped trying, wasn’t spaying attention to her, and was just waiting for it to be over. At the end of the day she had us pull up the apps so we can put in our bank information, and I put my phone down. When she questioned why I told her I didn’t want to do this anymore.

She tells me to follow her outside and explains that we need to discuss why out here because the other kids are nervous and if they hear me they “might get the same idea to leave too”. Every time I try and express a problem I have or see she stops me and tells me that they can “figure something out” or “find a way around it” and she tells me to think it over and try to get through the weekend because I might actually sell something and decide to stay.

I spend the last 45 minutes of the day sitting outside in the 95° sun on the phone with my grandmother sobbing because I didn’t know what to do. Was it too good to be true? Was the internet wrong? I need the money, but is this worth it? I pulled myself together, walked back inside to grab my things, and didn’t say a word to anyone on my way out.

I left behind my “sample kit” of knives, the knives I’d “won for free”, and a notes in the car windows telling them to genuinely look into the testimonies online and think their choices over.

I managed to snag my presentation pamphlet, which is something I’d like to share with you all. Every single page (except the contact info pages) is pictured, showcasing the manipulation they use to reel kids in, the marketing script were expected to memorize and present exactly the same to every individual we meet with, and all the the guided annotations she was making sure we wrote in while she presented.

If you have any questions about gaps in my story, about the pamphlet, or additional about my experience, I’ll be replying to comments.

TL:DR - If you’re a young person looking for a job, this is NOT IT! It’s a scam for you, your friends, and your family. It’s a massive pyramid scheme, don’t get caught up in it!!

$14 mini bottles of balm - get 'em whilst they 're hot! Profits go to charity.... Source: Trust us, bro!

I guess we should all be grateful they aren't directly sending Venezuelans shampoo that will make their hair fall out.

These people have so much money - they could just give a personal donation. But no. Gotta collect the tax benefits whilst the unpaid labour force fund the charity.

She’s been a regular that we deliver to for YEARS. (She even gives me money at Christmas). She sent me this massive wall of text after I dropped off her order. Kind of depressing when people in your life do a 180 into MLM insanity. Extra points for her denying that Mary Kay is an MLM

This is from 2015. A friend forwarded this to me years back. All I can say is holy manipulation (!!!!!) as they like to use exclamation marks and CAPITAL LETTERS.
I totally forgot about this. A friend thankfully got out but the crap she dealt with. My favorite line is if you send product back you lose your discount and will never be able to join MK again. Oh the HORROR!!!!!!
Trying to guilt trip her down line she might have to file for bankruptcy for returning product.
Obv the first sentograph is from a stressed out friend. Proud to say we are friends today and both know the difference between you’re and your.
4 screenshots attached.
Edit

Here is the text incase you can’t see the screenshots
The email is forwarded so the sentograph from my friend says.
“here it is check out this mind fuck I will be the 8th consultant to send product back she told me at least 50 fucking times i could send product back so her heart is going to be heavier I am so sorry I tried recruiting you I was just doing what I was taught and thank you for helping me see the light and not ditching me as a friend I love you so much and thankful for you oh when she says this is why i teach you to package she means getting the mark to buy as much as possible that can’t be returned like limited editions ets “

Dear Consultant,
I am sorry this is not sent using my newsletter tools I showed you how to use and this is just a generic email please know I am sitting here sad, stunned, angry, confused and very hurt. Almost every emotion one can have at one time and this is why.
It is with a heavy heart I announce I received my 7th chargeback in the last month. Not for reasons you might think but more importantly, do you know what this means for me? When you send your product back to MARYKAY the commission we are paid MUST be paid back. And that total is deducted from our unit as a whole. This hurts you also.
MARYKAY has a generous buyback policy, yes, no other skin care company would allow you to keep product for a year and return it for a 90% refund but MaryKay Ash stood behind her product and sometimes I think it was to our detriment because they can't allow us to keep our earned commission. Yes, our earned commission is GONE. We are talking THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS CORPORATE ALLOWED THEM
TO RETURN!!!!! This is why I teach you how to package so it will NOT hurt you.
What really ruffles my feathers is not one of the ex-consultants who sent back THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS worth of inventory bothered to come to me beforehand. When you signed up under me as I did with you I make everyone promise if you have any issues or need help you will come to me if you need anything. I make it clear you are to come to me for anything. When I promise someone something, I keep my word. I am sorry it was not done for me.
When I was notified by corporate (again) on my last chargeback, I again reached out to every consultants for an exit interview and not one of them responded to my text messages or emails. I am heartbroken.
How would YOU FEEL IF YOU INVESTED YOUR TIME to make sure you set her up for success and this was done to you? I spend countless of hours making sure you are set up for success, one of ways I do this is with my newsletters. Not only do I take pride in designing my newsletters for you I also take pride in PUTTING THE WORK IN TO THEM FOR YOU.
Here are the last five I sent out. Did you read them?

5/21/15
Tips & Tricks: You Are Guaranteed To Recruit Her If You Read This
5/17/15
Tips & Tricks: Holding Your Skin Care Class. Who?
What? Where? When? Why? Mastering The Class
5/12/15
Tips & Tricks: Your Tax Questions Answered
5/06/15
Tips & Tricks: Overcoming FEAR Mastering The Class
5/01/15
Tips & Tricks: SEMINAR ARE YOU READY????
04/25/15 Tips & Tricks: Warm Chatting? Yes It Works If Done Right Learn to Master Warm Chatting
If you do not read them, I cannot guarantee you success.
REMEMBER YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE GOING THROUGH FINANCIAL ISSUES. THIS IS A VERY BAD TIME FOR MY FAMILY WE JUST GOT A HOUSE!!!
YOUR GOING TO MAKE US FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY.
IS THIS FAIR?
I now need to not only pay these charges back but somehow duplicate these sales so our unit stays afloat.
Will you help? Will you step forward and pull your weiaht? I hope so. There is no "I” in TEAM and I can't do this alone and I am counting ON YOU. Be on the lookout for my next newsletter on what you can do to help.
I have to cut this short because I am running late for a skin care class, but please remember: I can't help you if you don't let me help you. I also want to remind you if you send product back you can never sign up for MARYKAY again and you will lose your discount privileges. Just a reminder.
Until Next Time!”

Everytime they have one of these ‘holidays’ they talk about how little sleep they get because they're always in meetings. The meal times are meetings and whatever might be fun is actually them waiting around for their turn for the photo op that they'll use for upcoming content. When they're not in meetings or waiting for a photo, they're stalking, and trying to recruit other people who are on their hols and are trying to relax, or have some fun.

This girl was a VP in Arbonne and then got kicked out of Arbonne for something unethical business wise. She won’t say why lol, but imagine how bad it is to get kicked out of ARBONNE !

Now she’s a life coach as well. Could you imagine her pitch to clients ? “yes, I was technically kicked out of my previous company and lost all my income, but here’s why you should pay me build your online income!”

And yes in case you’re wondering she’s MAGA, extremely religious, believes in holistic medicine and not vaccines, and ofc refers to her house as a “homestead”

But I’ve noticed a lot of Huns are going to the online coach model, bc it seems MLMs are losing momentum. do you guys see the same