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Experts warn stay-at-home mums to AVOID online job schemes that promise to make you thousands
Many stay-at-home mums are falling victim to schemes that promise to make you loads of money for just a few hours work, but insiders are warning people to avoid them at all costs.
Being a stay-at-home mum can be extremely tough, but even if you find yourself thinking about going back to your job it’s not always an option. Finding (and affording) childcare or wanting to spend more time with your children are just a few reasons some mums choose not to rejoin the work force.
However, if you have been thinking about going back to work but aren’t keen on getting back into the nine to five office slog, you may have seen some very tempting job adverts on Facebook. They’re the kind that promise a financially stable life by working just a few hours a week AND from the comfort of your own home.
They’re usually accompanied by pictures of someone who has already worked their way to the top and are enjoying the benefits – posing next to a flashy car, or lounging by the pool on a lavish holiday.
It's an attractive offer for stay-at-home mums (Credit: Getty)
Sometimes your friends may even be involved, and they'll convince you to do it too. All you have to do is sign up and you’ll see the money rolling in.
It all sounds too good to be true, right?
Insiders are warning that’s because it is.
The schemes, known as ‘Multi-Level Marketing’ (or MLM for short) usually comprise of people selling a particular product. They’re then expected to recruit people to join their ‘team’, and so on and so forth, until the individuals begin making money from their sales.
Although pyramid schemes are illegal, these are currently legal but work in a similar fashion - the difference being that there is a sold product involved. They work within a triangle structure, with recruitment being the key to actually making money as the cash gets passed backwards.
These schemes target mums (Credit: Getty)
However Kate Dyson, founder of The Motherload, warns mums not to get lured in by these attractive offers. And they can be very attractive. Who doesn’t want to work just a few hours a week and have enough money in the bank to afford all of life’s luxuries?
But in her insightful piece about the inner workings of these schemes and how stay-at-home mums are targeted, Kate discusses the fact that the Direct Selling Association reports that 77.4% of individuals involved in schemes like this are women, and the vast majority of those are mothers.
“Why do women join these schemes? Well, being a stay-at-home mum can be bloody tough, and yet conversely, many of us would give our right arm to do it. Mum-guilt is a powerful factor, that MLM businesses know will lead to new recruits. But many of us feel redundant at home, with CBeebies on constant loop, and burbling baby talk filling our days,” Kate says.
Many women lose thousands of pounds (Credit: Getty)
“It’s understandable that women look for something to keep them ‘busy’, to give them their worth back as a working adult, and generate income. Single mums, low income families are an easy target.”
One former MLM link, Sammy, lost around £10,000 to the schemes she was involved with.
“I was sucked in by Forever Living... Two whole years I dedicated to it. I did ok, but looking back my biggest problem was the success above me. I was VERY close to the top bot in the country (4 levels away from her) my direct upline was earning £6,000 a month, her upline £10,000 and her upline £50,000. This definitely skewed my vision on it...I was just told over and over again that if I just worked a little bit harder then I would be that successful too.
“When I eventually left because I was getting nowhere with it (sucked into ANOTHER MLM which was a complete joke) my lovely supportive uplines turned on me so quickly it was unbelievable! Only once the second MLM flopped did I realise all of what you said in your blog. Looking back it's scary how cult-like MLM is. I felt totally stupid.”
If you’ve seen something similar and are tempted to get involved, make sure you do your research and check out all the information before handing over any money.
copyright Closer Magazine 2017
Sad to see that even this critical article repeats the lie that MLMs are legal and different to pyramid schemes, because there are products - probably the influence of the magazine's attorneys?
ReplyDeleteAgreed Anonymous - Although to be fair, it does say 'currently legal.' Perhaps, along with this slightly timid mainstream media article, I should have posted my own Statutory Warning?
ReplyDeleteMore than half a century of quantifiable evidence, proves beyond all reasonable doubt that:
- what has become popularly-known as 'Multi-Level Marketing' is nothing more than an absurd, cultic, economic pseudo-science.
- the impressive-sounding made-up term 'MLM,' is, therefore, part of an extensive, thought-stopping, non-traditional jargon which has been developed, and constantly-repeated, by the instigators, and associates, of various, copy-cat, major, and minor, ongoing organised crime groups (hiding behind labyrinths of legally-registered corporate structures) to shut-down the critical, and evaluative, faculties of victims, and of casual observers, in order to perpetrate, and dissimulate, a series of blame-the-victim closed-market swindles or pyramid scams (dressed up as 'legitimate direct selling income opportunites'), and related advance-fee frauds (dressed up as 'legitimate training and motivation, self-betterment, programs, recruitment leads, lead generation systems,' etc.).
Yet again, I've been asked by a journalist (who apparently doesn't understand the above clear statutory warning) to explain what makes 'MLMs' illegal?
ReplyDeleteThe brief answer to this frequently-asked, common-sense question is as follows:
In 'MLM' cultic rackets, the innocent-looking products/services' function has been to hide what is really occurring - i.e the operation of an unlawful (rigged/centrally-controlled) closed-market where effectively no (transient) vulnerable participant can generate an overall net-profit, because the market is (secretly) in a permanent state of collapse and requires its (transient) vulnerable participants to keep finding, and recruiting, further (transient) vulnerable participants.
Meanwhile a tiny (permanent) minority rake in, and control, all the real profits from the closed-market and seek to maintain an absolute monopoly of key-information concerning the closed-market's true unlawful nature and actual catastrophic, ever-shifting results in respect of its (transient) vulnerable participants.
It is possible to use any product, and/or service, to dissimulate a closed-market swindle a.k.a. pyramid scheme. There are even some 'MLM' cultic rackets which have hidden behind well-known traditional brands (albeit offered at fixed high prices). 'MLM' products/services invariable are tailored to fit the existing beliefs and desires of a wide-range of persons.
In 'MLM' rackets, there has been no significant or sustainable source of revenue other than never-ending chains of contractees of the front-companies. These front-companies always pretend that their products/services are high quality, reasonably-priced and can be directly sold to the general public for a profit based on value and demand. In reality, the underlying reason why it has mainly only been 'MLM' contractees who buy the products (and not the general public) is because they have been led to believe that by doing so, and by recruiting others to do the same etc. ad infinitum, they will receive a future (unlimited) reward.
Thus, 'MLM' products/services can also be accurately described as effectively-unsaleable investment-commodities and their criminal function has been to launder unlawful losing-investment payments.
I've been examining the 'MLM' phenomenon for around 20 years. During this time, I've yet to find one so-called 'MLM' company which has voluntarily made key-information available to the public concerning the true quantifiable results of its so-called 'income opportunity'.
The key-information which all 'MLM' bosses seek to hide concerns the overall number of persons who have signed contracts since the front companies were instigated and the overall retention/net-profitability rates of all their (transient) contractees.
When rigorously investigated, the overall hidden net loss/churn rates for so-called 'MLM income opportunites' has turned out to have been effectively 100%. Thus, anyone claiming (or implying) that it is possible to make a living (let alone make a fortune) in an 'MLM,' cannot be telling the truth and will not provide quantifiable evidence to back up his/her comic-book anecdotal claims.
Some of the biggest 'MLM' cultic rackets (like 'Amway' and 'Herbalife') have secretly churned tens of millions of losing participants over decades.
In the UK, the Fraud Act 2006 (section 3) defines the deliberate withholding of key-information from people in order to gain an advantage, as a form of theft. All 'MLM' racketeers have been deliberately withholding key-information from not only their victims, but also from all casual observers (including: regulators, law enforcement agents, prosecutors, legislators, journalists, etc.).
Hi, Anybody has an experience with R+F skincare? Is that also MLM?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - Rodan and Fields is yet another 'Amway' copy-cat blame-the-victim 'MLM' racket hiding behind a labyrinth of corporate structures, and peddling a pay-through-the-nose, step-by-step plan to achieve 'Financial Freedom' (a form of secure future paradise where no one works, but everyone is beautiful drives a big white Lexus).
DeleteIf you Google-search, 'Rodan & Fields scam,' you will also find a dense wall of reality-inverting, jargon-laced 'MLM' propaganda.
This article (in the link given below) doesn't come right out and say thet 'R&F' is a cultic fraud, but it makes interesting reading for anyone who has encountered gung-ho R&F recruiters all preaching the same tightly-scripted Gospel of success, but who will not produce any quantifiable evidence (in the form of income tax receipts) to prove that they are telling the truth.
http://www.allure.com/story/rodan-fields-skin-care-consultants
It is a big shame they get away with it.
ReplyDelete