Spotlight on the 'Nu Skin' racket.

It is universally accepted that lying to, or withholding key-information from, people in order to take their money, is fraud which is a form of theft. Unfortunately, as numerous cult instigators have proved, the broad mass of people will more-easily fall for a big lie than a small one, and if you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to accept it as the truth. Fortunately, you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time (with the notable exception of  the many lawyers at the US Federal Trade, and Securities and Exchange, Commissions).

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Bearing the above statements in mind, it doesn't seem fair that the poisonous chapter of the 'MLM income opportunity' lie, entitled 'Herbalife,' has been attracting all the attention of the mainstream media recently (due to the interest of Bill Ackman), whilst the effectively-identical, and equally toxic, chapter of the same fairy story, labelled 'Nu Skin,' has been largely-ignored. That said, there are plenty of people who now understand that 'Nu Skin' Shares are effectively valueless, because, exactly like those of 'Herbalife,' they are shares in a dissimulated criminal enterprise. I, therefore, think that it's about time that this injustice was corrected. 

A version of the following article was published on this Blog last April.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSV2fsTrisU


When you examine the absurd, self-gratifying fairy story entitled 'Nu Skin,' it's difficult to believe that any educated adult could swallow this up-dated hybrid of snake-oil, and pyramid scheme, quackery. 


In essence, the authors of the 'Nu Skin' fairy story have steadfastly pretended that: 

They have not only found the secret of halting the human ageing process, but they have also found the secret of transforming ordinary, powerless people into happy and beautiful, superhuman multi-millionaires. 

Furthermore, the creators of the 'Nu Skin' Utopia are willing to share their exclusive secret knowledge with anyone (for a price).

The following Orwellian statement has been taken from  'Nu Skin' propaganda:

'The success of Nuskin Enterprises which has allowed it to become a billion dollar company is due largely (to) their business model which allows any individual to have the opportunity to earn money by becoming distributors and resellers of their various top quality products. Today, Nuskin Enterprises is composed of a 750,000 distributors and the number is still growing. This growth in membership can be attributed to the fact that they offer highly sellable quality products...' 

http://mlmsponsoringnow.com/MLM-Business/mlm-companies/nuskin/nuskin-review/

It is very interesting to note exactly how the opening of this essentially-meaningless statement has been worded. Notice, it doesn't specifically claim that a significant number of non-salaried commission sales agents of 'NuSkin' have earned an overall net-income lawfully from regularly retailing 'NuSkin' products to the public for a profit, because that would be a direct lie. On the contrary, it specifically says that 'NuSkin has become a billion dollar company by allowing any individual to have the opportunity to earn money by reselling NuSkin products.' The final two phrases are a further, mystifying, 'Amway'-style inversion of reality: 'Today, Nuskin Enterprises is composed of 750,000 distributors and the number is still growing. This growth in membership can be attributed to the fact that they offer highly sellable quality products...'  It would be far more accurate to say that, the number of constantly-churning, losing investors around the world under contract to 'NuSkin' (but who have been arbitrarily defined in their take-it-or-leave-it contract as 'distributors'), is counted in the hundreds of thousands, but one of the reasons why 'NuSkin' has not been closed-down, and its bosses slapped in prison as racketeers (for running a dissimulated Ponzi scheme), is the fact that key- information has been maliciously withheld from both the public and from the regulators, by the beneficiaries of the 'NuSkin' fraud and by their de facto agents.

  

'NuSkin' instigators (1984)

                       Nedra Roney                        Blake Roney                            Sandie Tillotson

Steve Lund               Sandie Tillotson          Blake Roney

In reality, since (the ironically-Orwellian year) of 1984, 'NuSkin' has been the label hung over the entrance to a typical, totalitarian labyrinth of corporate structures, which first appeared in the USA, then Canada (1990) and Hong Kong (1991) as a series of legally-registered, privately-controlled, limited-liability, commercial-companies comprising 'NuSkin International.' 

In 1992, 'NuSkin' reached settlements with 5 American States (Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan) over allegations of misleading marketing practises; admitting no wrongdoing, but paying the States' costs, refunding numerous losing participants and changing the wording of its literature. The Connecticut Attorney General sued 'Nu Skin,' charging the company with misleading its participants and running a pyramid scheme. Following a 1994, low-level civil investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission,'NuSkin' was allowed to continue in the USA after paying $1 million and signing a effectively-toothless consent decree prohibiting it from making 'deceptive or unsubstantiated claims about its products.' 

Despite the organization's reputation as an absurd scam, in 1996, 'NuSkin Enterprises' was allowed to be launched on the New York Stock Exchange, and  the criminal enterprise was exported around the globe. In 1997, the 'NuSkin' mob paid a derisory $1.5 million to the FTC to settle ongoing allegations of 'making unsubstantiated claims about its products.' At the same time, the Attorney general of Pennsylvania sued 'NuSkin,' again alleging that the company operated a pyramid scheme through a subsidiary corporate structure, 'QIQ Connections.' The Attorney General's office discovered that that 'QIQ' participants had paid for the right to market something which did not exist. 'NuSkin's' attorneys halted the suit by dissolving the subsidiary, obliging victims who had paid money to 'QIQ' to transfer to 'Big Planet' (a newly-created blind alley in the mystifying 'NuSkin' labyrinth) offering 'Internet technology.' Classically, the head of 'Big Planet' then dismissed the pyramid-scheme charge as 'a few distributors who, in their enthusiasm, have been overzealous in some of their marketing activities.'

a more recent photo

Blake Roney         Sandie Tillotson            Steve Lund

By the summer of 2010, 63 millions 'NuSkin shares' had been sold and these were illegally-trading at $27 a piece, making the counterfeit 'Direct Selling' company theoretically worth approximately $1.7 billions. At this time, 4.46 millions effectively-valueless 'NuSkin shares' owned by Blake Roney, Sandie Tillotson, Steve Lund and the 'Mormon Church' were unloaded for $114.3 millions. 


http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700039356/446-million-shares-of-Nu-Skin-sold-
for-114-million.html

The growing market-value of these bedazzling pieces of paper was based on the demonstrably-absurd lie that the constantly-expanding, and increasingly-profitable, NuSkin/MLM enterprise is perfectly lawful, that $1.74 billions of 'NuSkin' products were sold during 2011 and that this would steadily grow to $2.5 billions over the next two years.  


http://www.gcimagazine.com/marketstrends/segments/skincare/138588224.html


However, some very important, common-sense questions have evidently never been put to the corporate officers of 'NuSkin Enterprises Inc.,' by anyone from the mainstream media, the FTC, the SEC or the FBI; principally:


Where has the bulk of your alleged 'direct selling company's' alleged 'income opportunity's' alleged'lawful sales revenue' actually come from:

the regular retailing of goods, and/or services, directly to the general public by your alleged 'distributors' for a profit?

or 

from an endless-chain of recruits' regular, losing-investments laundered as 
'sales?'

Reed Elliot Slatkin

http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2012/03/reed-elliot-slatkin-while-back-i-was.html

The following is essentially the same common sense question as above.  It was only put to Bernie Madoff, and to Reed Slatkin, after decades of increasingly-grandiose lies and mystifying distortions had been swallowed as the truth:

Has your company's alleged 'constantly-expanding, and increasingly-profitable, investment scheme' had any significant source of revenue other than its own alleged 'investors?'

In the end, it was discovered that the answer to the question was 'no,' and Madoff got 150 years prison for peddling his wealthy victims infinite shares of their own finite money and for going to extraordinary lengths to hide the truth; whilst Slatkin got  just 14 years for doing the same, but (as far as I am aware) neither Madoff nor Slatkin was accused of cheating millions of people or of obstructing justice via the covert bribing of a leading US Presidential candidate with, millions of stolen dollars.

In 2011, it was revealed that two Utah-registered corporate structures controlled by the bosses of 'NuSkin' had each given $1 million  to 'Restore Our Future,' a so-called 'Super PAC' (instigated by former aides to Mitt Romney), to 'support Mr. Romney's bid for the White House.'

Unfortunately, there was no one of a sufficiently high moral, and intellectual, calibre within the leadership of the Democratic party, or within the mainstream media, who had the gumption to put some blindingly-obvious questions directly to Mr. Romney in the lead up to 2012 US Presidential election?

Where does 'MLM' money actually come from, and why do you suppose 'MLM' bosses have given so much of it to you?

If the USA was a rational country ruled by law (which manifestly it has long-since ceased to be), it would be FBI agents putting the above questions to Mr. Romney, but then the ultimately-laughable, non-rational, criminogenic phenomenon of 'MLM Prosperity Gospel' cultism would never have been allowed to become established in the first place.

David Brear (copyright 2013)