The article linked-above appeared in the personal finance section of the Express online, January 13th 2024. It has only recently been brought to my attention.
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| Temie Laleye |
The article has obviously never been researched, and it is not clear what was the actual motivation of Temie Laleye - the journalist who signed it.
Director General of the DSA, Susannah Schofield OBE, on BBC Radio (youtube.com)
I could be wrong, but I suspect that Ms. Laleye has been approached, and groomed, by Susannah Schofield, 'Director General' of the so-called 'UK Direct Selling Association,' who is quoted in the article. Despite its official sounding label, this corporate structure is a privately controlled limited liability commercial company - a member of the US-based, so-called 'World Federation of Direct Selling Associations.'
Whatever was Ms. Laleye's motivation, the article reports the pernicious 'MLM' fiction as fact - ie. highly-misleading carefully-scripted, anecdotal statements made by a 43 year old British woman, Kelly Quick, who has been under contract to a UK registered so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing' company, known as 'The Juice Plus + Company (UK) Ltd.' These take-it-or-leave-it 'MLM' contracts invariably have clauses which prevent their signatories from making 'unapproved statements' to the media. Thus, Kelly Quick has been programmed to tell a 'totally positive' Utopian story of how she freed herself from powerless employment and entered the perfect world of 'MLM financial freedom.' Susannah Schofield OBE, who has been employed by the so-called 'UK DSA', is a different case. She recites essentially the same Utopian script, but she has been previously trained in transparent marketing techniques, and these are what she is employing. Susannah Schofield's reputation, as well as her salary, currently depends on maintaining the Big 'MLM' Lie, but evidently she knows enough not to use the contraversial term, 'MLM.' The Express article is tailored to fit the instinctual desires of women. It's signed by a woman and it only includes quotes from two women who are portrayed as empowered and wanting to empower other women. However, if either Kelly Quick or Susannah Schofield were asked the right common-sense questions, they would be revealed as powerless fakes playing a pernicious game of make-believe. Their role has been to try to lure others into playing the same game. Sadly, to date, there has never been a journalist in the UK with enough insight to keep asking the right questions about the 'MLM' cult phenomenon.
'The Juice Plus + Company (UK) Ltd.' is a subsidiary of a contraversial American owned multi-national corporation. As explained in my previous article, in the past, 'Juice Plus' was fronted in the USA by none other that OJ Simpson (who has recently been in the news, due to his sudden death). That is, until OJ Simpson found himself compelled to break his own employment contract and to tell the truth about his fraudulent paid-activities on behalf of the wealthy bosses of 'Juice Plus.'
Weeding Out Juice Plus' Illegal Health Claims - Truth in Advertising
Had Temie Laleye applied her critical faculties, the briefest research would have revealed that 'Juice Plus' has faced various civil regulatory investigations/prosecutions around the world, because what the American bosses of 'Juice Plus' have actually been peddling, is quite obviously a poisonous-cocktail of 'medical' and 'financial' quackery, designed to exploit the vulnerable and financially-illiterate.
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| Kelly Quick |
Sadly in the Express article, Kelly Quick is pictured with her young daughter. She claims to have been earning as much as £2600 per month, and to have been able to give up her traditional employment and spend more time with her daughter, as a result of becoming 'an independent direct seller with Juice Plus.' Tellingly, the article does not specify whether Ms. Quick's income claims represent a net-income (after deducting all previous operating expenses) or a gross-income (before deducting all previous operating expenses). Indeed, the journalist who signed this uncritical piece, will not have seen, and will not have asked to see, any quantifiable evidence (in the form of income tax payment receipts) demonstrating the reality of Ms. Quick's financial situation with regards to 'Juice Plus.'
The Express article completely fails to explain that 'Juice Plus' offers a so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing Income Opportunity.' Tellingly, so-called 'MLM' has never been described by those peddling it, as a 'net-income opportunity.' The Express article merely describes Kelly Quick's activity as, 'Direct Selling.'
However, it is generally accepted (even by trade regulators) that far less than 1% of 'MLM' contractors generate a net-profit each year, and this income doesn't come from just selling products. Due to many built in anti-commercial factors and inevitable operating expenses, in reality, it has been effectively-impossible for the average participant to make an overall net-profit lawfully by regularly retailing 'MLM' products to members of the general public (ie. persons who are not 'MLM' contractors themselves) based on value and demand. Thus, so-called 'MLM' companies have all offered commission payments to their contractors based on their contractors' own purchases of products and/or services, and on the purchases of the recruits of their contractors, and on the purchases of the recruits of their recruits, etc. etc. ad infinitum. Contractors' payments from so-called 'MLM' companies have, therefore, really been based on finding further recruits to purchase the products, and/or services, not on genuine retail sales to members of the general public.
In order to lure further unwary recruits into handing over their cash in return for an effectively-unsaleable investment commodity, 'MLM' contractors need to pretend to have been earning money, and to hide their true financial situation. Indeed, 'MLM' contractors are actually indoctrinated to ignore the reality of their situation as 'negative thinking,' and to 'duplicate a step-by step positive mindset plan to achieve success.' What these so-called 'positive mindset plans' actually comprise have been what are technically defined as: 'totalistic thought reform programs.' In everyday terms, 'MLM' contractors, like Ms. Quick, have been programmed to commit themselves to, and robotically to execute, the exploitative, non-rational, pseudo-economic theory, that endless-chain recruitment + endless payments by the recruits = endless profits for the recruits. They have been further tricked into believing that they are 'independent business owners,' and that any financial losses they incurred, must have been 'entirely their own fault.'
Consequently, so-called 'MLM' companies have all set no common-sense limits on the number of contractors being recruited, and have never published (in an easy-to-understand format) the overall net-loss churn rates of their contractors. Imagine if the McDonalds company set no common-sense limits on the number of restaurant franchises it sold, or common-sense restrictions on the sites where these restaurants were located. How could any of the vast concentration of franchisees expect to keep finding enough real customers to make an overall net-profit?
In simple terms, so-called 'MLM' companies like 'Juice Plus' (which has claimed 14000 contractors in the UK) have all been essentially-identical corporate-fronts, hiding in plain sight whilst peddling a financially-suicidal, insidious form of self-perpetuating, blame-the-victim pyramid fraud.
The extraordinary history of the Big 'MLM' Lie can be found in 'Ponzinomics,' by Robert FitzPatrick.
As to the latter part of the Express article which includes ludicrous, and ourageous, false average 'MLM' earnings claims (£833 per month) from Susannah Schofield's so-called 'UK Direct Selling Association.' Laughably, without employing the increasingly-contraversial term, 'MLM', Ms. Schofield is quoted reciting elements of the pernicious 'MLM' fairy story, but she fails to mention that one of the member 'MLM' companies of the so-called 'UK DSA' has been 'Herbalife UK Ld.' Again, this is a subsidiary of a US-based multi-national corporation. The main 'Herbalife' company recently was obliged to hand over $200 millions to the US Federal Trade Commission, in order to settle an outstanding civil prosecution in which the company was accused of fronting a pyramid scheme. Around 350 thousands compensation cheques were then issued by the FTC to recent American victims of 'Herbalife.' This 'MLM' front company is now supposedly reformed and operating under independent regulatory surveillance, but only in the USA. 'Herbalife' is one of several 'MLM' front companies that has never faced the slightest regulatory investigation in the UK. The UK press has been equally absent.
Another 'UK DSA' member that Ms. Schofield failed to mention, has been 'Amway UK Ltd.' This company (again a subsidiary of a US-based multi-national corporation) mysteriously survived a public interest civil bankruptcy petition filed by the UK Consumer Affairs Minister in 2007. The government investigation discovered that between 1973 and 2006, around one million UK and Irish citizens were churned through 'Amway's' so called 'MLM income opportunity.' In private, UK regulators described 'Amway' to me as 'operating like the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.'
'Amway India Enterprises' has recently been charged by the Indian Enforcement Directorate with being the corporate-front for a pyramid scheme preying on millions of financially-illiterate Indian citizens, as well as being the front for a $7 billions international money laundering racket. Around $200 millions of 'Amway India Enterprise's' assets have already been seized by the Enforcement Directorate.
Another 'UK DSA' member which Ms. Schofield again failed to mention, has been 'Tiens UK Ltd.' This is a subsidiary of the world's largest 'MLM' cult, which is Chinese based. Yet infinite level product-based pyramid schemes peddled as 'MLM income opportunities,' are specifically identified as being intrinsically fraudulent, and are banned by law in China. 'Tiens' has lately claimed 40 millions adherents, and it has even been suggested that it could be a corporate-front for Chinese intelligence agencies.
The so-called 'UK DSA' has lately claimed 630 000 UK and Irish citizens under contract to its member companies - more than 95% are women. However, this figure is just a misleading snapshot, because at least 50% of 'MLM' contractors are known not renew their annual contracts. In some official investigations (like that of 'Herbalife' in the USA), the hidden annual 'MLM' net-loss churn rate, has been discovered to exceed 90%. This means that in the UK and Ireland, at least 315 000 unwary people are currently being quietly churned through these reality-controlling so-called 'MLM income opportunities' each year, or 3.15 millions per decade. However, this figure is a conservative estimate.
Worldwide, more than 130 millions persons have lately been claimed as contractors of 'DSA' member companies, but not all 'MLM' front companies have been 'DSA' members. This means that at least 65 millions persons are being churned through these dissimulated cultic rackets each year, or 650 millions per decade. The true figure could easily be in excess of one billion per decade.
Thus, the Express article (in its entirety) is dangerous drivel - Utopian propaganda that has been fed to Ms. Laleye by the agents of foreign-based cultic racketeers. Indeed, the Express article can actually be used to lure unwary persons into de facto servitude, and eventually prevent them from facing reality and complaining to law enforcement agents, investigative journalists, legislators, etc.
David Brear (copyright 2024)
Another great article, David!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately The Express do not seem to be interested in reporting the truth. My comment revealing the JuicePlus+ income statement disclosure and Jon M Taylor’s report on Multilevel Marketing was censored. Allegedly breaking community guidelines which are not referred to anywhere.
I only found out because I wanted to link the Income Disclosure Statement here to corroborate your article.
So here is a copy of what I wrote in the comments of the article by The Express, which they’ve chosen to hide from the public:
“This [article in The Express] is another PR piece by the DSA isn’t it? Telling lies to get people into MLMs (or Direct Selling, Network Marketing, or Social Selling or Affiliate Sales or whatever they call it this week).
The reality is; this lady is in the top 1% of people in the organisation. The other 99% don’t make any money at all or are losing money. Here is a USA based income disclosure: https://www.juiceplus.com/assets/juiceplus/nala/downloads/pdf-documents/us/juiceplus-earnings-summary-english.pdf
Reported income before expenses and tax, USA based because there is no such legal requirement for the UK.
The odds for Direct Sales are worse than the chances for winning the lottery! See this chapter from Jon M Taylor’s report on MLMs; https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_comments/trade-regulation-rule-disclosure-requirements-and-prohibitions-concerning-business-opportunities-ftc.r511993-00008%C2%A0/00008-57281.pdf
The Body Shop at Home closed down earlier this year, all those people with their ‘own business’, or ‘independent side hustles’, lost their ‘business’ because they’re made to believe they are independent retailers and run their own business. However, they have no control over the brand name, the products, product design, product price, distribution channels, they’re even told what they can and can’t do marketing wise.
In effect they are really cheap labour, getting paid on average less than minimum wages or worse they have to pay to work!! On average someone working part-time, 16.5 hours a week, would make £9,060.48 per year gross income on minimum wages. Only the Top 1.10% of people in Juice Plus+ get anywhere near that before expenses.
These organisations get away with it by calling these independent sales representatives or consultants.”
No one regulates this industry, the government doesn’t care, when adherents complain they simply get a leaflet about pyramid schemes sent to them. This would imply that MPs and Action Fraud are totally aware these are pyramid schemes, but no-one actually goes after these organisations to shut them down. One is left with the question: Why?
I actually think that the day when it would have been practical to shut individual 'MLM' front companies down, has long-since passed in the UK. The bosses of 'MLM' rackets have succeeded in repeating their Utopian Big ('Direct Selling/Income Opportunity') Lie so often, that many people (including civil regulators and criminal law enforcement agents) have come to accept it publicly as the truth, even though privately they know damn-well it's a Big Lie.
DeleteThe terrible reality that the authorities do not yet want to face publicly, is that chronic adherents of the Big 'MLM' Lie, have become the deluded de facto slaves of wealthy racketeers.
As you know, I have witnessed this chilling phenomenon in my own family back in the 1990s, when my brother (then in his 30s and suffering from depression) underwent a sudden radical personality transformation. Bursting with excitement, and in a euphoric state, he convinced my vulnerable mother that he was now a 'financial adviser, involved in a fantastic multi-billion $ business based on the Christian principle of helping other people to achieve success.'
For several years, my mother's home in the N. of England (worth several hundred thousands £), was turned into a rent-free 'Amway' recruitment centre. My brother was programmed to pretend that 'MLM' had enabled him to give up his hated-job as a teacher, and that he was making piles of money as an 'Amway Independent Business Owner.'. Using my mother's home as bait, my brother probably lured more than 100 other people temporarily into the 'MLM' trap, but he will never have made a net-profit.
When I tried to confront my brother with the reality that he was being defrauded and used to defraud others, I was systematically branded a 'negative threat to his business,' and effectively-assassinated by the totalistic controlling 'MLM' narrative. I was told that I 'needed psychiatric treatment' for believing 'Amway' to be a fraud and a cult. Eventually, I was falsely-accused of trying to 'defraud and kill' my own mother with lies, and threatened with arrest if I went to mother's home. There were several local police officers in my brother's 'Amway' group.
To this date, I have never found any agency of criminal law enforcement in the UK that has been prepared to interview me and take an official statement from me.
As far as I know, my brother (whom I have not seen, or spoken to, since 1997) has never faced reality, but how can he admit that his mind and body were taken over and exploited by wealthy foreign racketeers? Yet my brother became a powerless pawn in a reality-controlling game of cultic make-believe and he was used to defraud and destroy his own family.
Sadly, chronic 'MLM' victims like my brother, who in the main have remained silent, have been part of the reason why the authorities have refused to acknowledge the existence of the criminogenic 'MLM' cult phenomenon in the UK.
"if either Kelly Quick or Susannah Schofield were asked the right common-sense questions, they would be revealed as powerless fakes playing a pernicious game of make-believe."
ReplyDeleteWhat are these questions?
Susannah Schofield should be asked :
Delete1. Have you personally ever examined any quantifiable evidence (e.g. income-tax payment receipts) proving that any non-salaried contractor of any member so-called 'MLM' company of the so-called 'UKDSA' has actually generated an overall commission-based net-income (after the deduction of all start up, and operational, expenses) from regularly-retailing products/services for a profit directly to members of the general public (i.e. persons who are not 'MLM' contractors), based entirely on value and demand?
2. Exactly how many persons in total have signed contracts with the member so-called 'MLM' companies of the so-called 'UK DSA,' since 'Amway UK Ltd.' was first registered back in 1973?
3. Between 1973 and 2024, exactly what % of contractors have managed to remain under contract to member so-called 'MLM' companies of the so-called 'UK DSA,' for more than: one year, two years, three years, four years, etc.?
4. What has been the actual overall net-loss/churn rate for 'MLM' participants in the UK?
5. What lawful reason can you offer to explain why the important information contained in truthful answers to the above questions has never been disclosed (in an easy-to-understand format) by yourself or any other employee of the so-called 'UK DSA?'
In response to numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 of these common-sense questions, Susannah Schofield will probably plead ignorance, by stating that none of this data has been collected by the 'UK DSA,' and that's why the 'UKDSA' has never disclosed it.
As to question number one, if Susannah Schofield answers, 'yes,' then clearly she would be lying.
In reality, truthful answers to the above questions would reveal that the so-called 'UK DSA' has been an integral part of global monopoly of information which, starting with the bosses of 'Amway,' has been maintained by 'MLM' racketeers since the 1960s. What the members of this crime syndicate have been hiding, is the fact that the overall net-loss churn-rate for 'MLM' participation, has been effectively 100% by design.
The questions that Kelly Quick should be asked are:
1. You claim to have been earning upto £2 600 per month from 'Juice Plus? but what has been your overall commission-based net-income from 'Juice Plus?' ie. How much have you spent overall in 'Juice Plus'-related expenses and purchases, and how much have your received overall in commission payments from 'Juice Plus?
2. Can we examine your 'Juice Plus'-related income-tax payment receipts?
3. Have you personally ever examined any quantifiable evidence (e.g. income-tax payment receipts) proving that any non-salaried contractor of 'Juice Plus' has actually generated an overall commission-based net-income (after the deduction of all start up, and operational, expenses) from regularly-retailing 'Juice Plus' products for a profit directly to members of the general public (i.e. persons who are not 'Juice Plus' contractors), based entirely on value and demand?