Friday 10 September 2021

'Herbalife Multi-Level Marketing' racketeers buy association With Tottenham Hotspur FC

 


Herbalife Nutrition Becomes Official Nutrition Partner of Tottenham Hotspur Women | Tottenham Hotspur




It has recently been announced that 'Herbalife' is going to sponsor the Tottenham Hotspur Women's team.




In reality, what is actually happening here, fits into an overall pattern of ongoing major racketeering activity (as defined by the US federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 1970). For the bosses of a deceptive, American-based, international criminal racket have clearly invested some of their ill-gotten gains to buy association with an iconic British football club, in order to continue to commit fraud in plain sight and prevent their victims from facing reality and complaining.

Elements of the pernicious 'Herbalife' fairy story (tellingly, minus the contraversial and widely-ridiculed chapter entitled, 'Multi-Level Marketing') now feature on Tottenham's website; whilst the innocent-looking 'Herbalife' name and logo also features alongside those of various, legitimate famous businesses all of which sponsor the club. Consequently, if I was a shareholder or senior executive of any of these reputable companies, I certainly wouldn't be too pleased to find out about this situation.


                                                                             Todd Kline

According to 'Herbalife's' own announcement, this deal was bagged for Tottenham by the club's 'Chief Commercial Officer,' Todd Kline, who evidently is an American specialist in the world of sports business. It would, therefore, seem impossible for this apparently-sophisticated fellow to have been entirely-ignorant of the many alarming controversies surrounding 'Herbalife/MLM.' 

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The ‘Herbalife’ parent company has been obliged to hand over $200 millions to the US Federal Trade Commission in order to halt prosecution and closure, and around 350 000 compensation cheques were issued to recent ‘Herbalife’ victims in the USA. ‘Herbalife’ was found to have been quietly churning its contractors (then arbitrarily defined as ‘Distributors’) at a rate in excess of 90% per year, whilst the overall churn rate for contractors (since the company was founded) had long-since reached effectively-100%. 






A minority of contractors who had persisted for several years were found to have lost considerable ammounts of their time and money. They were also found to be suffering from chronic psychological deterioration symptoms. Not surprisingly, it was also found that few, cheaply-procured, exorbitantly-priced, banal ‘Herbalife’ products had ever been sold to the general public (based entirely on value and demand); whilst the overwhelming majority of the company’s declared revenues were coming unlawfully from its own constantly-churning contractors (based primarily on their false-expectation of future reward). ‘Herbalife’ is now supposedly operating under independent surveillance in the USA, but not outside of the USA. Most of 'Herbalife's' contantly-churning contractors have now been re-labelled as 'members.' The true number of ill-informed UK citizens who have been quietly churned through ‘Herbalife’ since the company first arrived in the UK, has never been publicly declared; nor has the fact that, by design, it has been effectively-impossible to generate an overall net-profit from participating in ‘Herbalife’s’ so-called ‘Multi-Level-Marketing Income Opportunity’.

The ‘Herbalife’ parent company has also recently been fined $125 millions by the US FTC and US Securities and Exchange Commission, again to halt further prosecution and closure. It was discovered that, over a period of at least 10 years, ‘Herbalife’s’ senior American executives had directed an international criminal conspiracy to bribe, and to hide the evidence that they had bribed, senior Chinese government officials with more than $20 millions. ‘Herbalife’s’ so-called ‘Multi-Level Marketing’ system is unlawful in China, and traditional single level direct selling companies (which 'Herbalife' pretends to be in China) have supposedly to operate under a government licensing/monitoring system. Contrary to the US federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, at the direction on the company’s senior US executives, two senior ‘Herbalife’ Chinese Executives paid various senior Chinese government officials at least $20 millions (in cash and gifts) in order to obtain operating licenses and to supress any ‘negative’ news about the company. These two Chinese executives, and the Chinese officials whom they bribed have apparently never faced proescution in China, where they would risk the death penalty if convicted. Thus, for years, 'Herbalife's' market value (from which the company's senior executives benefitted to the tune of many millions of $) was supported by a proven fraud, because around 20% of 'Herbalife's' declared revenues were supposedly coming lawfully from China. Despite the fact that the scale of the proven securities fraud here, is staggering, mysteriously, to date, no senior American 'Herbalife' executive has faced criminal prosecution.

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One has to ask, didn't anyone else in a position of responsibility at Tottenham (particularly the club's legal advisors) conduct research into 'Herbalife/MLM' before this embarrassing deal was signed? Since the ugly truth about the 'MLM' phenomenon is continuing to become more- widely understood by the day, I would contend that the permitting of this type of deal will eventually bring the entire sport of football into disrepute.

www.footballinsider247.com/sources-joe-lewis-lines-up-tottenham-sale-after-50-buyer-found/

Joe Lewis and ENIC actively looking for Spurs sale | The Transfer Tavern (footballtransfertavern.com)

Interestingly, in the recent past it has been reported that the current majority owners of Totteham Hotspur FC (Joe Lewis and the ENIC Group ENIC Group - Wikipedia) have been looking to off-load a significant part of their investment in the Club. I cannot imagine that any association with 'Herbalife' will do much to enhance Spurs' market value.



 


It should be noted that the bosses of 'Herbalife' began buying association with LA Galaxy more than15 years ago, because the racket was spreading in south and central America, and because members of the Hispanic community were one of the main targets for recruitment in the USA. These immigrants were more-likely to be fans of soccer than any other professional sport. Over the years, LA Galaxy has signed some of the biggest stars of football internationally and unfortunately, they have all been obliged to play the role of useful idiot.



As part of the same overall pattern of ongoing major racketeering activity, the women's teams of other famous European football clubs have already been infiltrated by the pernicious 'Herbalife' fairy story. These clubs are Atletico Madrid (Spain) and Olympique Lyonais (France). 

Behind all this bedazzling BS, 'Herbalife' has been a classic example of a corporate-front for an 'Amway' copy-cat blame-the-victim 'Multi-Level Marketing' cultic racket.


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 'Multi-Level Marketing' Warning.


The following deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons approaching so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing' from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be a business/industry, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they don't really know what it is.

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More than half a century of quantifiable evidence proves beyond all reasonable doubt that:

  • the widely-misunderstood phenomenon that has become popularly-known as 'Multi-Level Marketing' (a.k.a. 'Network Marketing') is nothing more than an absurd, non-rational,  cultic, economic pseudo-science maliciously-designed to lure unwary persons into de facto servitude, dissociate them from external reality and not only steal their money, but also deceive them into unconsciously acting the role of bait to lure other unwary persons (particularly their friends and family members) into the same trap. 
  • the impressive-sounding made-up jargon term, 'MLM,' is therefore, the misleading title for an enticing structured-scenario of control which has been developed, and constantly acted out as  reality, 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 'Long Cons*'  - comprising self-perpetuating rigged-market swindles**, a.k.a. 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.).
  • Apart from an insignificant minority of shills (whose leading-role in the 'Long Con' has been to pretend that anyone can achieve financial freedom simply by following their unquestioning example and exactly-duplicating a step-by-step-plan of recruitment and self-consumption)the hidden overall net-loss/churn rate for participation in so-called 'MLM income opportunities,' has always been effectively 100%.
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*A 'Long Con' is a form of fraud maliciously designed to exploit victims' existing beliefs and instinctual desires and make them falsely-believe that they are exercising a completely free-choice. 'Long Cons' comprise an enticing structured-scenario of control acted out as reality over an extended period. Like theatrical plays, 'Long Cons' are written, directed and produced. They involve leading players and supporting players as well as props, sets, extras, costumes, script, etc. The hidden objective of 'Long Cons' is to convince unwary persons that fiction is fact and fact is fiction, progressively cutting them off from external reality. In this way, victims begin unconsciously to play along with the controlling-scenario and (in the false-expectation of future reward) large sums of money or valuables can be stolen from them. Classically, the victims of 'Long Cons' can become deluded to such an extent that they will abandon their education, jobs, careers, etc., empty their bank accounts, and/or beg, steal, borrow from friends, family members, etc.

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** The enticing structured-scenario of control fundamental to all 'rigged-market swindles' is that people can earn income by first contributing their own money to participate in a profitable commercial opportunity, but which is secretly an economically-unviable fake due to the fact that the (alleged) opportunity has been rigged so that it generates no significant, or sustainable, revenue other than that deriving from its own ill-informed participants. For more than 50 years, 'Multi-Level Marketing' racketeers have been allowed to dissimulate rigged-market swindles by offering endless-chains of victims various banal, but over-priced, products, and/or services, in exchange for unlawful losing-investment payments, on the pretext that 'MLM' products/services can then be regularly re-sold for a profit in significant quantities via expanding networks of distributors. However, since 'MLM' products/services cannot be regularly re-sold to the general public for a profit in significant quantities (based on value and demand), 'MLM' participants have, in fact, been peddled infinite shares of their own finite money (in the false expectation of future reward). 

Thus, in 'MLM' rackets, the innocent looking products/sevices' function has been to hide what is really occurring - i.e The operation of an unlawful, intrinsically fraudulent, rigged-market where effectively no non-salaried (transient) participant can generate an overall net-profit, because, unknown to the non-salaried (transient) participants, the market is in a permanent state of collapse and requires its non-salaried (transient) participants to keep finding further (temporary) de facto slaves to sustain the enticing illusion of stability and viability.

Meanwhile an insignificant (permanent) minority direct the 'Long Con' - raking in vast profits by selling into the rigged-market and by controlling/withholding all key-information concerning the rigged-market's actual catastrophic, ever-shifting results from its never-ending chain of (temporary) de facto slaves.

Although cure-all pills potions and vitamin/dietary supplements, household and beauty, products have been most-prevalent, it is possible to use any product, and/or service, to dissimulate a rigged-market swindle. There are even some 'MLM' rackets that have been hidden behind well-known traditional brands (albeit offered at fixed high prices). Some 'MLM' rackets have included 'cash-back/discount shopping cards, travel products, insurance, energy/communications services' and 'crypto-currencies' in their controlling scenarios.

No matter what bedazzling product/service has been dangled as bait, in 'MLM' rackets, there has been no significant or sustainable source of revenue other than never-ending chains of persons under contract to the 'MLM' front companies. These front-companies always pretend that their products/services are high quality and reasonably-priced and that for anyone prepared to put in some effort, the products/services can be sold on for a profit via expanding networks of distributors based on value and demand. In reality, the underlying reason why it has mainly only been (transient) 'MLM' contractors who have bought the various products /services (and not the general public) is because they have been tricked into unconsciously playing along with the controlling scenario which constantly says that via regular self-consumption and the recruitment of others to do the same, etc. ad infinitum, anyone can receive a future (unlimited) reward.

I've been examining the 'MLM' phenomenon for around 20 years. During this time, I've yet to find one so-called 'MLM' company that has voluntarily made key-information available to the public concerning the quantifiable results of its so-called 'income opportunity'.

Part of the key-information that all 'MLM' bosses seek to hide concerns the overall number of persons who have signed contracts since the front companies were instigated and the retention rates of these persons. 

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 for anyone to make a penny of net-profit, let alone a living, in an 'MLM,' cannot be telling the truth and will not provide quantifiable evidence to back up his/her anecdotal claims.


Although a significant number of 'MLM' front-companies (like 'Vemma', 'Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing', 'Wake Up Now') have been shut-down by commercial regulators, some of the biggest 'MLM' rackets (like 'Amway' ,'Herbalife', Forever Living Products' ) have continued to hide in plain sight whilst secretly churning tens of millions of losing participants over decades


The quantifiable results of the self-perpetuating global 'Long Con' known as 'Multi Level Marketing,' have been fiendishly hidden by convincing victims that they are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred, must have been entirely their own fault for not working hard enough. 


Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM' cults are incapable of describing what they were subjected to in accurate terms. Even though they are no longer physically playing along with the 'Long Con's' controlling-scenario, they unconsciously continue to think, and speak, using the jargon-laced 'MLM' script - illogically describing themselves as 'Distributors.' 

Chronic victims of blame-the-victim cultic rackets who have managed to escape and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For years afterwards, recovering cult victims can suffer from psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse):

depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness, fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.

David Brear (copyright 2021)


17 comments:

  1. Why no media coverage of this??????

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    1. Apart from this latest Tottenham matter, little has appeared in the UK media detailing that the ‘Herbalife’ parent company has been obliged to hand over $200 millions to the US Federal Trade Commission in order to halt prosecution and closure, and that around 350 000 compensation cheques were issued to recent ‘Herbalife’ victims in the USA. ‘Herbalife’ was found to have been quietly churning its contractors (then known as ‘Distributors’) at a rate in excess of 90% per year, and that the overall churn rate for contractors since the company was founded, had reached effectively 100%. The minority of contractors who had persisted for several years were found to have lost considerable ammounts of their time and money. They were also found to be suffering from chronic psychological deterioration symptoms. It was also found that few ‘Herbalife’ products had ever been sold to the general public (based entirely on value and demand) and that the overwhelming majority of the company’s declared revenues were coming from its own constantly-churning contractors (based primarily on their false-expectation of future reward). ‘Herbalife’ is now supposedly operating under independent surveillance in the USA, but not outside of the USA. The true number of UK citizens who have been churned through ‘Herbalife’ since the company first arrived in the UK, has never been publicly declared; nor has the fact that, by design, it is effectively-impossible to generate an overall net-profit from participating in ‘Herbalife’s’ so-called ‘Multi-Level-Marketing Income Opportunity’.

      The UK media has also not reported that the ‘Herbalife’ parent company has recently been fined $125 millions by the US FTC and US Securities and Exchange Commission, again to halt further prosecution and closure. It was discovered that ‘Herbalife’s’ senior corporate officers had directed an international criminal conspiracy to bribe, and to hide the evidence that they had bribed, senior Chinese government officials with more than $20 millions. ‘Herbalife’s’ so-called ‘Multi-Level Marketing’ system is unlawful in China, and single level direct selling companies have supposedly to operate under license in China. Contrary to the US federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, at the direction on the company’s senior US executives, two senior ‘Herbalife’ Chinese Executives paid various senior Chinese government officials at least $20 millions in order to obtain operating licenses and to supress any ‘negative’ news about the company. These two Chinese executives, and the Chinese officials whom they bribed have apparently never faced proescution in China, where they would risk the death penalty if convicted.


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    2. Anonymous - one of the most-remarkable aspects of the big 'MLM' lie, has been the way it has flown under the radar of almost everyone, including legislators, journalists, academics, law enforcement agents and regulators. The 'MLM' phenomenon demonstrates that the idea that we live in democracies ruled by law, is a complete fallacy.

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  2. Where are Brit herbalife victims like the ones on the video in the US?

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    1. There are an increasing number of Brtish 'MLM' victims coming forward, but as to how many British ex-'Herbalife' adherents will ever get the opportunity to speak out publicly? A more appropriate question would be: why have the UK media and the authorities never encouraged 'MLM' victims to come forward?

      Of course, 'Herbalife' is one of several 'MLM' groups that have co-opted a couple of so-called 'cult counsellors' in the UK. Any 'MLM' cult victim approaching these persons, have not been encouraged to approach journalists, regulators or law enforcement agents. Their complaints have been redirected to the 'MLM' front companies which have paid limited compensation in return for silence.

      The big 'MLM' lie has been sustained by preventing the majority of its victims from facing the reality that they have been defrauded. The longer the authorities have continued to allow blame-the-victim 'MLM' cultic rackets to operate without a serious well-informed challenge, the easier it has been for 'MLM' racketeers to maintain the lie that 'MLM' is a perfectly legal form of business.

      Many 'MLM' victims have not complained, because they have no idea of where they can complain + they do not have the right words to explain what they were subjected to.

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    2. "Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM' cults are incapable of describing what they were subjected to in accurate terms. Even though they are no longer physically playing along with the 'Long Con's' controlling-scenario, they unconsciously continue to think, and speak, using the jargon-laced 'MLM' script - illogically describing themselves as 'Distributors.' "

      They really were brainwashed!

      Delete
  3. Anonymous - It's not just adherents of 'MLM' cults who have failed to understand how cult bosses can take control of a person's thinking, simply by overwhelming and ritualizing their means of thought (ie. their vocabulary).

    Unfortunately, the majority of commentators on the 'MLM' phenomenon have fallen into, and keep falling into, the same trap. Even celebrity short-seller, Bill Ackman, who invested millions of dollars in an attempt to challenge 'Herbalife,' kept thoughtlessly repeating elements of the 'MLM' fairy story - particularly the reality-inverting word 'business' - when he gave interviews to the media. In reality, 'MLM' cultic rackets have had precious little to do with business in the traditional sense of this word. They have been fake businesses offering demonstrably fake income opportunities. It always amuses me that 'MLM' bosses have constantly repeated the term 'income opportunity,' but not 'net-income opportunity.' Indeed, an accurate description would be 'net-loss income opportunities.'

    In 'MLM' cults, the so-called 'step-by-step plans to achieve total financial freedom' have really been step-by-step plans to commit social, psychological, intellectual and financial suicide - and in the most-extreme cases, actual suicide.

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    1. Whats the simplest way to explain to someone who is thinking joining an mlm why they shouldn't?

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    2. Anonymous. I think the easiest, and possibly most-convincing, explanation, is that 'MLMs' are not even multi level, they are infinite level.

      Most people can understand the franchise concept eg. McDonalds, KFC etc. A franchise company sells people the right to operate a form of ready made business. The franchise operators are trained by the franchise company and guided every step of the way. The franchise company handles all the advertising and supplies the franchise operators with products which are then sold to the public. The franchise company then takes a % of the profits from that business. But imagine if no restrictions were placed on the numbers of franchises being sold, or on the locations in which they are supposed to operate. Yet this is exactly what the 'MLM' concept is. Absolutely no restrictions are placed on the numbers of persons being recruited or the locations where these persons are supposed to be doing their marketing.

      Imagine a town with a couple of hundred McDonalds restaurants? or a city with several thousands of them? How could any of their operators be expected to make a profit?

      The infinite level 'MLM' concept is completely contrary to all accepted commercial practise as well as being contrary to common sense.

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    3. David, surely what you are describing here is illegal in Britain?

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    4. Anonymous - no specific legislation has ever been drawn up in the UK to identify this form of blame-the-victim endless-chain recruitment ('pyramid') fraud hidden behind products/services and 'MLM direct selling' jargon. That said, the latest version of the UK Fraud Act, which arrived in 2006, specifically identifies fraud by the withholding of information.

      Of course it could be argued that 'MLM' rackets have been a form of latter-day slavery by deception, and therefore, contrary to the UK's Modern Slavery Act of 2015. Again, this legislation does not specifically identify this form of blame-the-victim endless-chain recruitment ('pyramid') fraud hidden behind products/services and 'MLM direct selling' jargon.

      When you pass legislation, but fail to enforce it, you effectively authorize the very crime you were apparently trying to prohibit.

      In the final analysis, the 'MLM' phenomenon is yet another example of how self perpetuating non-rational ritual belief systems can be instigated for the hidden purpose of human exploitation. Sadly, this is a crime which, for obvious reasons, has never been accurately identified by legislators.

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    5. Can franchise laws be applied to MLMs?

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  4. Anonymous - The short answer to your question is, yes, but it's much more complicated than that. In many respects, so-called 'MLM Income Opportunities' have been a form of effectively-unregulated, and (by design) economically-unviable, franchise business. In other words, they are fake franchises that have been guaranteed always to bring in a profit for those selling them and drawing up the 'MLM' contracts, but never for those buying them and who have had absolutely no say in the content of the contracts they have signed or in the rules thay have allowed themselves to become subjected to.

    That said, when franchising first exploded in the USA in the 1950s, the concept was open to abuse, because there was no specific legislation to control it. Many people (particularly WWII veterans) who dreamed of operating their own business, fell victim to crooks who attracted them with glossy brochures and apparently even television adverts, offering 'risk free franchising income opportunities' at knock-down entry prices. However, in the contracts they offered, these crooks set no limits on the numbers of other franchises being sold or on where they were being sold. Many 'franchising' front companies took their victims' money and simply vanished over-night whilst other longer-term victims found themselves tied to take-it-or-leave-it contracts which attempted to compel them to keep buying cheaply-procured products/services at grossly-inflated prices and prevent them from going to law with any complaints. The problem of franchise abuse became so widespread that specific common-sense laws were introduced in the USA to regulate franchising; particularly, the content of franchise contracts.

    You might be surprised to learn that there have never been any specific franchise laws in the UK, whilst the concept has been subject to regulation in the UK by more general laws applying to commercial contracts. Franchising has, thus, been more or less self-regulated in Britain by trade associations. However, it has obviously been in the financial interests of franchising companies to draw up common-sense clauses in their contracts which have been designed to allow persons buying, and operating, franchises the opportunity to make a profit. Thus, franchise trade association rules have been drawn up to protect both parties entering into franchise contracts.

    Franchise contracts have limits on the numbers of franchises being sold in geographical areas, but the franchise companies actually came up with this notion and no respectable franchise company could possibly object to it.

    Tellingly, before the appearance of so-called 'MLM' companies, traditional single level direct selling companies used to be obliged by their own trade associations to set common-sense limits on the numbers of their sales agents operating in geographical areas. Direct selling companies actually came up with this rule. This was prevent counter-productive competition between sales agents, and thus give their sales agents a reasonable chance of finding enough regular customers to make a living. The rule was also designed to keep bringing in sales revenues for the direct selling companies.

    For obvious reasons, such common-sense rules were abandoned as the endless chain ('MLM') recruitment phenomenon gradually infiltrated 'Direct Selling Associations' and hid behind the once-respectable identity of 'direct selling.'

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    1. Thanks. The more I've discovered about MLMs, the more I realise how uttery ridiculous they are!

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    2. Anonymous. If it wasn't for its tragic consequences, then the 'MLM' phenomenon would be comical.

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    3. Surely laws could be easily passed that ban all sales schemes that have no limits on the number of people being recruited as sellers?

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    4. Anonymous - 'MLM' bosses now claim that, despite what was previously written on their contracts, most of the people who have been churned through their so-called 'direct selling income opportunities' weren't 'distributors/business owners' (ie. sellers) who were trying to earn income, they were 'members/customers' (ie. buyers) who merely wanted to obtain goods/services at a discount.

      Any technical law which seeks to ban endless-chain recruitment frauds would have to be very carefully drafted, and it would need to identify how 'MLM' racketeers have been able to dodge prosecution/closure by arbitrarily re-labelling their victims.

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