The so-called 'UK Direct Selling Association' - A fact checker searches for meaning in ultimately meaningless 'MLM' propaganda.

Whilst reading the following article, bear in mind that there is no quantifiable evidence (e.g. income tax payment receipts) proving that anyone who has a signed a contract with an 'Amway' copycat, so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing Direct Selling' company offering a so-called 'income/business opportunity,' has actually established a lawful, and commercially viable, business, in which an overall net-income has been generated (after the deduction of all start-up and operating costs) via the regular retailing of goods/services for a profit based on value and demand to members of the general public (i.e. persons who are not fellow 'MLM' contractors motivated by a false expectation of future reward). Thus, anyone claiming or implying that one penny of overall net-income, let alone life changing sums of money, can be generated lawfully by participating in a so-called 'MLM direct selling income/business opportunity,' cannot be telling the truth and will not provide any quantifiable evidence to back up his/her non-specific anecdotal statements.

David Brear (copyright 2025)

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Inspirational Woman: Susannah Schofield OBE | Director General, Direct Selling Association

At a glance, Susannah Schofield looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. As such, she has evidently been very well-chosen, because she is currently employed as Director General of the so-called 'UK Direct Selling Association.' Susannah is supposedly 'a passionate advocate for women and young people in business,' who was 'awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for her work in this area in the 2015 Queen’s Honours List.' Susannah says that 'she continues to champion women in business' and that 'she is a regular speaker on the importance of flexible working and portfolio careers.'

Meanwhile in the adult world of quantifiable reality, the American bosses of the 'Herbalife' racket first registered one of their 'Amway' copycat, corporate Trojan Horses in the UK around 35 years ago. Since that time, 'Herbalife UK Ltd.' has been peddling the Big 'MLM income/business opportunity' Lie and has been a member of the so-called 'UK DSA.'  This corporate front for fraud has never been officially investigated in the UK, by either civil regulators or criminal law enforcement agents. However, a significant number of UK police officers are known to have been 'Herbalife' adherents as well as of other 'Amway' copycat groups. 

Today, it is unclear how much Susannah Schofield actually understands about the Big 'MLM income/business opportunity' Lie, or the damage that deluded belief in it has caused, and continues to cause, to countless millions of ill-informed, temporary 'MLM' recruits around the world (many of whom are lately women) and to their friends and families. One thing is certain however, Susannah will be subject to a gagging employment contract which will prevent her from publicly facing reality and telling the truth. That said, given the quantity of accurate information and analysis that continues to become publicly available, and which reveals the true criminogenic cultic nature of the 'MLM' phenomenon, Susannah cannot be entirely unaware of reality, or innocent in these sinister matters.

Recently I was put in contact with a professional 'fact checker' whom I presume has been contracted by a UK newspaper, or magazine, with a journalist working on a critical article about the 'MLM/direct selling' phenomenon. This person admitted to having not yet contacted anyone at the 'UK DSA,' but nonetheless wanted to know if I could 'explain what various statements on the UK Direct Selling Association's website mean?'

The main statements in question being:

• 'Direct Sellers in the United Kingdom - 320 000'
• 'Percentage of Direct Sellers in the UK that generate a monthly income of up to £1000 - 73%'
• 'Annual Retail Sales from our Members - £908 million'

Direct Selling Association – The Industry Body for Direct-To-Consumer Retail

However, the fact that this question needed to be asked in the first place by a professional 'fact checker,' reveals plenty. For laughably, if readers click on the above link, they will discover that what the so-called 'UK DSA's' website actually contains, is carefully-constructed fraudulent nonsense, but presented by Susannah Schofield and her colleagues as though it is authoritative statistical data.

When deconstructed, the first statement represents a snapshot figure of the total number of contractors claimed by UK registered, 'Amway' copycat, so-called 'MLM' companies at the end of 2024 (i.e. companies that are members of the so-called 'UK Direct Selling Association' - which despite appearances, is just one of a global network of privately-controlled limited-liability commercial companies entirely financed by their members). However, the annual churn rate of 'MLM' contractors is known to be in excess of 50%. In other words, at this rate, each decade, more than 1.6 millions UK citizens are being lured into, and churned through, financially suicidal so-called 'MLM income/business opportunities.' Apparently, more than 90% of this endless chain of British transient 'MLM' converts are lately women.

At a glance, the second 'UK DSA' statement implies, but very carefully avoids specifically claiming, that during 2024, around a quarter of a million British 'MLM' contractors were earning £1000 net-income per month or £12000 per year. However, when read more deliberately, the statement does not employ the accurate term net-monthly income, whilst it only says 'up to £1000' (which could mean literally anything, including one pound or even one penny). 

At a glance, the third statement implies, but very carefully avoids specifically claiming, that during 2024, the number of persons under contract to UK registered 'MLM' companies at the end of that year (320 000) had remained stable, and that these people had conducted regular, profitable and lawful retail sales based on value and demand, totalling close to one billion £  to members of the general public (i.e. to persons who were not fellow 'MLM' contractors motivated by a false-expectation of a future reward).

Thus, the fact checker was endeavouring to find meaning in what is ultimately a meaningless use of language - classic, reality-controlling, jargon-laced propaganda designed to broadcast, and hide the true results of, the Big 'MLM business/income opportunity' Lie.

David Brear (copright 2025)

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 The Big 'Multi-Level Marketing' Lie.

Introduction

In 2006, a UK regulatory agency (the ‘Company Investigation Branch’ of the ‘Dept. of Trade and Industry’) announced that it was pursuing a major law enforcement action against ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ In brief, this privately owned company (first registered in 1973), which was a subsidiary of a gigantic, American-based, privately owned, multi-national corporation (first registered in 1959), stood accused of peddling an ‘inherently objectionable dream-selling scheme’ in contravention of the ‘Fair Trading Act, 1973’ and the ‘Lotteries and Amusements Act, 1976’. Subsequently, John Hutton, a trade minister in the Labour government of Tony Blair, filed a ‘public interest bankruptcy petition’ in the UK High Court, seeking the immediate compulsory closure of ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ According to the regulators, this civil prosecution was the result of ‘the largest ever investigation of a British company.’ Indeed, several truckloads of documentary evidence had been seized at ‘Amway UK’s’ head office in the Buckinghamshire city of Milton Keynes. However, after looking beyond a wall of mind-numbing mathematical and linguistic hocus-pocus, the regulators had initially been faced with an enigma.

During the thirty + years of ‘Amway UK’s’ existence, its accountants had never once declared an annual net trading profit. In fact, in just the period 2000-2006, ‘Amway UK’ had chalked up accumulated net trading losses of approximately 15 million £. Although this disastrous company had always been haemorrhaging financially, it had been kept alive with cash transfusions declared as ‘deriving from other Amway subsidiaries in Europe and Asia.’ Yet for decades, ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ had been allowed to pose as ‘Britain’s most successful direct selling company offering an entirely legal, government approved, Multi-Level Marketing income/business opportunity.’ However, completely contrary to this nonspecific, jargon-laced ‘commercial’ cover-story, prior to 2006, there had never been the slightest official attempt to determine what was the real function of this apparently pointless corporate structure. For whilst ‘Amway UK’s’ own comic-book narrative eventually boasted of ‘conducting more than 12 million £ of sales annually, via approximately eighty thousand UK and Irish distributors,’ the regulators had now discovered that, in the adult world of quantifiable reality, the average churn rate for participants in ‘Amway’s’ scheme, had always exceeded 50% per year. Consequently, it was possible to extrapolate from ‘Amway UK’s’ own seized records, that around one million recruits had in fact passed through its ‘distributor’ ranks 1972-2006. Indeed, all these people had signed take-it-or-leave-it contracts which had also labelled them as ‘Independent Business Owners (IBOs).’ Furthermore, after the deduction of their considerable start up and operating costs, not one of this expanding flock of transient would-be entrepreneurs had managed to generate so much as a penny of overall net income lawfully by regularly retailing ‘Amway’-supplied products, and/or services, to persons who were not fellow, so-called ‘IBOs.’ Thus, since by design, there had never been a significant and sustainable source of revenue other than that deriving internally from the purchases of ‘Amway UK’s’ own contractors, the hidden overall net-loss churn rate in the company’s so-called ‘MLM income/business opportunity,’ was effectively 100%. Yet apparently, virtually no one had been complaining.

By 2006, with a bit of help, UK regulators had finally woken up and deduced that the real function of ‘Amway’s’ chronically insolvent British subsidiary, had been to act as bait in a heavily disguised human trap. For whilst the UK national media had completely failed to identify it, and the authorities had done nothing to stop it, year upon year, this insidious mechanism had been allowed to lure, and churn, an endless chain of fresh UK and Irish recruits. However, although the overwhelming majority of ‘Amway’s’ unwitting human quarry had remained for less than a couple of years and wasted a relatively small amount of money, a significant minority (around 5%) with access to independent funds, and/or credit, had been able to remain in the trap for extended periods, gradually wasting many thousands of £ and isolating themselves from anyone trying to reason with them. For even though they had no chance of establishing a viable business, just like chronic gambling addicts, chronic losers in ‘Amway’s’ rigged game of ‘commercial’ make-believe were totally convinced that they would ‘soon become winners,’ because they had ‘discovered a sure-fire way to make all your dreams come true.’ Yet, despite the obvious fact that 'Amway's' preposterous so-called 'MLM income/business opportunity' was a cruel fake hiding a highly organized, foreign-controlled fraud of staggering proportions, it was reported in ‘The Times’ in 2008, that 'Amway UK Ltd.' had been ‘cleared at the High Court of dream selling, of operating an unlawful lottery and of being an unlawful trading scheme.' This, however, did not even come close to being an accurate summary of what was contained in the ambiguous, and astonishingly naïve, ruling handed down by one High Court Judge, Mr. Justice Norris, and which was subsequently upheld by two out of three Appeal Court Judges. For although Judge Norris accepted that the evidence demonstrated that the UK government's case had been brought on entirely valid grounds, he then ruled that 'the public interest bankruptcy petition' should be 'declined,' and no other penalty imposed. This dangerous decision was made on the unenforceable grounds that, via their lawyers, 'Amway UK's' company officers had given solemn undertakings to the High Court that their company's previously unlawful 'business model' had been 'voluntarily reformed,’ and that certain of the company's ‘network leaders’ contracts’ had been ‘terminated, because they had broken Amway’s own rules.’ Thus, Judge Norris accepted the demonstrable lie that it was just a few isolated British ‘diamond distributors’ who had been responsible for making ‘exaggerated earnings claims’ and peddling the unlawful ‘dream selling scheme,’ and that these had been ‘unauthorized activities’ that ‘Amway UK’s’ company officers had remained completely unaware of for decades.

However, in his ruling, even Judge Norris felt obliged to express his own doubts that ‘Amway’s’ latest, modified, version of its ‘commercial’ cover-story was true. Nonetheless, Judge Norris’ lack of curiosity as to how much money had been stolen via these ‘unauthorized activities,’ and who had ultimately controlled this abusive racket and received the lion’s share of the unlawful profits generated by it, has never been explained. For Judge Norris’ ruling resulted in the leaders of the British portion of a vast, world-wide ‘Amway Network’ known as ‘International Business Systems,’ Mr. & Mrs. Jerry and Mandy Scriven and Mr. & Mrs. Pat and Greta Gregory, avoiding any risk of being held to account. Yet for many years these characters had starred in ‘Amway UK’s’ bedazzling propaganda as, exemplary ‘diamond distributors and top earners,’ but in 2006, they’d suddenly been air-brushed out the comic-book narrative, after being sacked from their so-called ‘independent businesses’ and made scapegoats. Indeed, not one excommunicated ‘Amway UK’ scapegoat was ever interviewed by law enforcement agents, or tax compliance officials, wanting to know where all the money they’d stolen had gone. Subsequently, knowing that they risked nothing from the authorities, the Scrivens and the Gregorys spent years on the Net screaming their innocence and declaring that, far from being ‘unauthorized,’ the activities for which they had been kicked out of ‘Amway,’ had always been pursued with the full knowledge, and enthusiastic participation, of 'Amway UK's' company officers. Yet, mysteriously, the Scrivens and Gregorys were not called as witnesses to perjury by the government prosecutors during the High Court proceedings, whilst gagging clauses in their 'Amway distributor’ contracts prevented them from going to law. However, the regulators already knew damn-well where all the stolen money had gone and even approximately how much it totalled. They also knew that there was another witness to ‘Amway’s’ company officers’ perjury, but again this person was never called to testify. The reason why I know this, is because I am that witness. I am also the person whose persistent well-informed complaint, first made in 1997, finally triggered the investigation of ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ in the first place. However, I had called for a rigorous criminal inquiry into the entire ‘MLM’ phenomenon in the UK, hopefully leading to the re-establishment of the rule of law, but the regulators had insisted that this would only take place after the compulsory closure of ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ using standard civil bankruptcy procedures.

In this way, not only was the defrauding of hundreds of thousands of unwitting UK and Irish people by the bosses of the ‘Amway’ racket quietly brushed under the carpet, but also, following this isolated, ill-conceived and ill-fated, civil prosecution, the bosses of various, mainly American controlled, ‘Amway’ copycat ‘MLM’ rackets were given the green light to continue peddling variations of essentially the same mind-poisoning cocktail, comprising an endless-chain (infinite level) recruitment fraud and a dream selling scheme. For today, no UK or Irish law enforcement agency (civil or criminal) is trying to stop them, but then, some of the individuals to have proved the most susceptible to 'MLM' recruitment, have been disgruntled police officers.

So, how can a pile of money be made from a financially suicidal ‘business model’ that has been deliberately rigged to fail?

In 1967, an American satirical movie offered a memorable answer to this conundrum. I am of course referring to ‘The Producers,’ written and directed by Mel Brooks. Whilst this movie went over the heads of certain humourless critics who described it as ‘controversial,’ in 1968 it won its author an Academy Award for best original screenplay. Indeed by 1996, ‘The Producers’ had long-since achieved a ‘cult’ status and was deemed to be of such ‘cultural, historic and aesthetic significance,’ that it was selected by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the United States National Film Registry. For Mel Brooks’ had presented the world with a classic comedy double act - Max Bialystock, an outrageous caricature of a once successful, but now failing, New York Jewish theatrical producer (evidently suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder) played by Zero Mostel, and Leo Bloom, a deeply insecure Jewish accountant (evidently suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder) played by Gene Wilder. In the movie, this pair of physically and psychologically opposite characters come together and perpetrate an absurd swindle - identified by the accountant and peddled by the producer. By first building a bedazzling fantasy of boundless future prosperity, happiness and freedom in his mind, Bialystock overwhelms an initially reluctant Bloom, and persuades him to become his partner in crime. He then sets to work seducing a flock of wealthy, but lonely and vulnerable, old ladies. One by one, Bialystock persuades them to buy the staggering total of 25 000% of the ‘projected profits’ from, what he assures them will be, ‘a sure-fire hit stage musical’ which he and Bloom are producing on Broadway. However, he doesn’t tell them that the show has been written by a deranged devotee of Adolf Hitler, Franz Liebkind, or that it will venerate the ‘führer’ and the ‘Nazis.’ For the show, ‘Springtime for Hitler,’ has been carefully selected by its producers with the hidden criminal motive of offending a sophisticated New York theatre audience to such an extent, that it will be doomed to close after only one disastrous performance. Just to make certain that it will immediately bomb, Bialystock and Bloom recruit an aggressively kitsch transvestite, Roger DeBris, to direct the show, and they find a drug-fuelled pacifist-hippie, Lorenzo Saint DuBois (LSD), to play Hitler. On opening night, Bialystock even makes an enemy of the New York Times theatre critic, by offering him a bribe.

The devious plan being that, seeing as ‘Springtime for Hitler’ has cost Bialystock and Bloom only a mere fraction of their available financing to stage, when inevitably it sinks without a trace, the Internal Revenue Service will have no reason to investigate Bloom’s fraudulent declaration that ‘no profit was made.’ Moreover, the old ladies who collectively have vastly over-financed the show, will believe that they simply made a bad investment. As ill-informed and isolated individuals, they too will have no reason to suspect fraud. Thus, Bialystock and Bloom will be able quietly to keep the large pile of excess finance. However, when despite all their sabotage efforts, ‘Springtime for Hitler’ turns out to be a smash hit predicted to ‘run and run,’ the producers, along with the show’s author, wind up behind bars. Ultimately, they are seen duplicating the same fraud on their fellow inmates and the prison warden, with Bialystock and Liebkind directing rehearsals and Bloom over-selling shares in their latest sure-fire hit production, ‘Prisoners of Love.’

Now most people would automatically assume that, in the real world, it wouldn’t be quite so easy to perpetrate essentially the same absurd, blame-the-victim swindle, albeit hidden behind a far more convoluted and confusing ‘sure fire business model,’ but again one deliberately rigged to fail. A swindle not just based on the same, one-off, financially suicidal modus operandi as described above, but now expanded and duplicated on an industrial scale and baited to keep ensnaring a much wider range of unwitting victims. Indeed, to the average person, the idea that numerous gangs of copycat charlatans have been allowed to keep peddling the same rigged game of ‘commercial’ make-believe as reality, steadily exploiting, isolating and silencing many millions of losing investors around the world over a period spanning several decades, and thereby get away with stealing a veritable mountain of money, would seem to be beyond the bounds of possibility. However, it should be remembered that ‘the best way of hiding something, is to place it in plain sight and make as big as you possibly can.’ 

Thus, I managed to live more than three decades without ever hearing the made-up technical-sounding phrase, 'Multi-Level Marketing,’ or its catchy abbreviation, ‘MLM.’ Today, I wish this contagious nonsense had never entered my life, but unfortunately, I had no choice in the matter. Whilst reading the history of my own nightmare encounter with the original 'MLM commercial' cult known as 'Amway' (corruption of 'The American Way'), bear in mind that, when these disturbing events first started to unfold, I had no idea of the extraordinary level of danger my family was in, or of the true nature, extent and power of the phenomenon I was confronted with. As yet, there was no plain language, comprehensive explanation of 'MLM commercial' cultism readily available. That’s why I began the thankless task of compiling one as long ago the late 1990s. However, at that time, I was still trying to find the right words to identify it accurately. Even when I did find the right words, I discovered that the ugly, but ultimately absurd, truth about the 'MLM commercial' cult phenomenon was still unthinkable to most people. The truth being that what has become commonly referred to as, 'the MLM business model,’ has been nothing more than a classic example of the notorious, reality-controlling, totalitarian propaganda tactic known as the 'Big Lie.' That is to say, ‘the spreading of a falsehood which is so colossal and outrageous that the average person cannot even begin to conceive that anyone would have the audacity to invent it.’ Indeed, when I first began to challenge the Big 'MLM' Lie, I was faced with the daunting situation where it had been repeated, largely unchallenged, so often and for so many years, that a remarkable number of apparently sophisticated and rational people had come to accept it as the truth. Thus, rendering them incapable of admitting to their embarrassing mistake.

The situation is still daunting, but lately it has begun to change in that, mainly due to the Internet, an increasing number of courageous 'MLM commercial' cult survivors have found accurate information, as well as mutual support, enabling them to come forward and describe their essentially identical experiences. Also, whereas in the past many 'MLM' converts were men, who naturally found it hard to admit to the world that they'd been duped, lately the majority of persons being lured into, and exploited by, these pernicious groups, have been women. Furthermore, in 2019, my American associate, Robert FitzPatrick, published 'Ponzinomics.' In this book, Robert not only goes a long way towards identifying the true nature of the 'MLM commercial' cult phenomenon, but he also traces the origins and evolution of the Big 'MLM' Lie and explains how a pair of its earliest creators managed to obtain the highest-level of protection in the USA. As a result, politically appointed senior Federal Trade Commission officials effectively raised the white flag of surrender to predatory criminals, albeit dressed up as respectable businessmen, when, starting in the 1970s and despite rising levels of complaint across the USA, they set aside an established, common-sense legal precedent which had automatically identified and banned all endless-chain (infinite level) recruitment frauds, previously labelled as, 'pyramid selling schemes.' For, even though it had been under investigation for years and was facing civil prosecution, these senior FTC officials eventually latched onto a convenient pretext not to go ahead and shut-down the corporate-front for the original 'MLM commercial' cult, upon which all subsequent versions have been, and continue to be, modelled. This dubious decision was evidently made, in part, because the bosses of 'Amway,' Messrs. Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel, with a Bible in one hand and the Stars and Stripes in the other, had purchased association with their local congressman (fifth Michigan district) with significant quantities of stolen money. The beneficiary of these ill-gotten gains was none other than Gerald Rudolph Ford Jnr. - a politician not exactly noted for his intellectual capacity, but nonetheless someone of great influence. For those readers who are perhaps too young to remember him, Gerald Ford was leader of the Republican party in the House of Representatives 1965-1973, becoming US vice-president under Richard Nixon when, in 1973, Spiro Agnew (who was under investigation for corruption), pled guilty to a minor felony charge and was obliged to resign. Ford went on to become US president 1974-1976 after Nixon himself was obliged to resign rather than face certain impeachment over the Watergate scandal. Thus, Ford remains the only person to have held both the office of US vice-president and US president, without being elected to either. He is also the president who granted a pardon to Nixon for the crimes he'd committed whilst in office.

However, the co-opting of Gerald Ford to play the role of ‘Amway’s’ useful idiot was only one step in DeVos and Van Andel’s well-financed infiltration, and subversion, of the US legislative process and justice system. Indeed, there can be absolutely no doubt that, culminating in 1979, the chiefs of an important civil regulatory agency of the US federal government played politics, and in so doing, completely failed in their appointed task of protecting the American public. As a direct consequence, the FTC brought about the birth of the essentially meaningless phrase, 'Multi-Level Marketing is legal.' In this way, a ridiculous, but nonetheless insidious, endless-chain (infinite level) recruitment fraud was effectively authorized in the USA by an unaccountable little clique of self-serving bureaucrats. Furthermore, this major American regulatory lapse permitted the profitable racket of 'MLM commercial' cultism not only to be extensively reproduced in the USA, but also to be exported around the world, now hidden behind the pretence that ‘the MLM business model (as developed by the founders of the Amway Corporation)’ had been ‘thoroughly examined and approved by the US government… So, anyone calling it a fraud must be a deranged, hate-filled anti-capitalist or crazy conspiracy theorist.' Not surprisingly, subsequent generations of politically appointed senior FTC officials have all refused to admit publicly to their predecessors' catastrophic failure and their own gross negligence - for which, one day, a sitting American government might find itself liable. In this way, the Big ‘MLM’ Lie was permitted to transform and expand into a well-oiled machine for stealing and laundering money on a global scale - each year bringing billions of dollars into the USA, and all right under the noses of complacent officials who have continued to allow much of this plunder to be falsely declared, with the paid-compliance of some of the world's largest accountancy firms, as 'retail sales revenue.' However, plenty of senior FTC types, as well as high-ranking US politicians, including a certain Donald John Trump, have all had their snouts planted in this almost bottomless trough of foreign and domestic loot, set before them by the bosses of a multiplication of 'Amway' copy-cat 'MLM' cultic rackets whose essentially identical camouflaged criminal activities they have conveniently refused to identify. Indeed, the number of senior FTC officials who have sold their souls and signed lucrative employment contracts with 'MLM' front-companies, or law and accountancy firms, co-opted to hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil whilst playing along with the Big 'MLM' Lie, is truly astonishing.

All this begs the not unreasonable question: other than enabling a growing number of unoriginal gangs of devious con artists to get away with thieving from the entire planet for the best part of half a century, what exactly has been the point of having such a spineless, easily-corrupted and, therefore useless government agency as the FTC?, when in 'Ponzinomics' one independent American does far-more to protect his fellow citizens from the Big 'MLM' Lie, than the entire one thousand five hundred+ FTC staff (including more than five hundred attorneys and seventy economists, with an annual budget of hundreds of millions of dollars) have ever done. In fact, Robert explains in great detail why, completely contrary to the ambiguous official message broadcast by the FTC for decades, it has not just been ‘a few bad apples,’ but all 'Amway' copy-cat so-called 'MLM income opportunities' that have been centrally controlled rigged-market swindles, hiding their inevitable, effectively 100%, overall net-loss/churn rates of endless-chains of transient losing investors. For the crack-pot pseudo-economic theory which has been falsely-labelled the 'MLM business model,' was maliciously designed to be flawed-financially, to the point where it would be impossible for any so-called 'MLM' company to derive the majority of its revenue lawfully from persons who are not unwitting contractors of it, motivated by the false expectation of a future reward. In even more accurate terms, 'MLM commercial' cults have all comprised groups, and sub-groups, of susceptible individuals who have been subjected to identifiable, co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion designed to shut down their critical and evaluative faculties, and thereby convert them, without their fully informed consent, to the self-perpetuating and self-gratifying, but ultimately self-destructive, delusional belief that: endless recruitment + endless purchases by the recruits = endless profits for the recruits. For this reason, Robert FitzPatrick coined the word, 'Ponzinomics,' in an attempt to place an appropriate label on the financially suicidal activity that, to their eternal shame, generations of senior FTC officials, their advisers and political masters, have permitted to be passed off and normalized around the world as, ‘a viable and legal part of the direct selling industry.'

Thus, 'Ponzinomics' can be briefly defined as the dark art of peddling unwitting persons infinite shares of their own finite money, because what the FTC has consistently refused to acknowledge publicly, is the undeniable fact that any claim, or implication, that one penny of extra net-income, let alone life-changing sums of money, can be generated lawfully by participating in an 'MLM income opportunity,' is dangerous comic-book nonsense designed to entice and deceive. Indeed, it should be glaringly obvious that the Big ‘MLM’ Lie is far-too-good to be true, whilst it's no secret that what used to be the traditional direct selling industry (once known as ‘door-to-door peddling’), has long-since died out. Its demise being due to many evolving social and economic factors; not least the arrival of supermarkets, hard-discount stores and online shopping. Furthermore, 'MLM' products/services have been offered at fixed, often exorbitant, prices, rendering them effectively unsaleable on the open market to persons with fully functioning critical and evaluative faculties; whilst no so-called 'MLM' company has ever set common-sense limits on the number of contractors being recruited, or on the areas of population where these so-called 'distributors/direct sellers' are supposed to find customers. Just imagine what would happen if the bosses of McDonalds fixed the price of their company’s hamburgers at twice that of their competitors and set no limits on the number of franchises they sold, or any restrictions on the locations where all these demonstrably unviable catering establishments were supposed to operate shoulder to shoulder?

Once the utter absurdity of the so-called 'MLM business model' is fully understood, anyone with a modicum of common-sense, and/or the most-rudimentary hands-on experience of commerce, ought to be immediately able to deduce that no ‘Amway’ copy-cat company can ever have been, or will ever be, found by the FTC (or any other civil, or criminal, law enforcement agency for that matter) voluntarily disclosing the true results of its economically incestuous activities and operating lawfully. Indeed, this ongoing situation is beyond farcical, because when asked the most obvious of questions, it goes without saying that American regulators and their academic advisers, have never been able to come up with one solitary example of a so-called 'MLM' company that would be able pass independent rigorous inspection. Yet despite the lengthy list of common-sense reasons proving that there can be no such thing as ‘a viable and legal MLM income opportunity,' FTC officials, guided by a cabal of smug dunces with diplomas, came up with a truly pointless and stupid ‘test.’ This boils down to them throwing common-sense out of the window whilst laboriously trying, on rare occasions and on a case-by-case basis, to determine that a so-called 'MLM' company, suspected of being a pyramid scheme, has not been deriving the majority of its income lawfully from authentic retail sales (based entirely on value and demand) to members of the general public (persons who have not been contractors of the so-called 'MLM' company motivated by the false expectation of a future reward). Thus, since 1979, less than forty ‘Amway’ copycats have been investigated and shut down by the FTC as dissimulated pyramid schemes, whilst hundreds more have continued to appear, but without the slightest attempt to stop them. Laughably, FTC officials have listed other ‘pyramid scheme red flags' for the public to look out for, and the agency has even posted warnings that 'MLM companies have caused, and are still causing, extensive damage to consumers, because some MLM income opportunities are pyramid schemes in disguise.' At the same time, American regulators, without the slightest concern for the extensive damage they themselves have caused and are still causing, have continued bleating the Big Lie, by insisting that 'MLM is a viable and legal branch of the direct selling industry.' Yet no one at the FTC has ever seen a shred of quantifiable evidence proving that this ridiculous adult fairy story can be true. In fact, when asked in the most specific of terms, if they have ever seen such evidence, like income-tax payment receipts, it has been impossible to get any meaningful, let alone the only truthful, response to this simple ‘yes/no’ question. Another highly revealing question that FTC types have obviously shied away from answering, is: what would be your own reaction if a vulnerable individual you care about suddenly underwent a radical personality transformation, and declared that he/she had signed up for a so-called 'MLM income opportunity?' Thus, in respect of their Orwellian refusal to tell the truth publicly, and identify this text book example of a Big Lie, Robert FitzPatrick has compared the inflexible attitude of FTC officials, and their advisers, to a body of humourless scientists who have been paid to investigate the manifestly preposterous claim that 'pigs might fly,' but after decades of examining an assortment of wingless swine, they still insist on continuing their futile, but financially profitable, quest whilst systematically refusing to consider even the suggestion that there can be no such mythical creature.

At this point, I should perhaps declare that, although I am an 'MLM commercial' cult survivor, I was never an adherent of one of these pernicious groups. Unfortunately, I found myself shackled financially to a person, my only brother, who at a time of vulnerability, had fallen completely under the spell of the Big 'MLM' Lie. Again, when these disturbing events started to unfold, I did not fully understand that my brother was perfect prey to be lured and defrauded, then used as bedazzled-bait to lure and defraud others; all for the benefit of a little gang of sanctimonious American billionaire-charlatans posing as 'Compassionate Capitalists,' and whom he had never met. Yet my brother was an ideal subject to be deceived, for the simple reason that he was completely convinced that he was far too smart to be deceived. Thus, once enslaved inside the ‘MLM’ trap, the most powerful weapon in the hands of the criminals exploiting him, was my brother’s own mind. However, initially I failed to grasp just how dangerously deluded and devious 'MLM commercial' cult adherents can be. That said, like many people whom they approach, I immediately realised that they are living in a parallel reality, completely obsessed with trying to recruit you into what is quite clearly a ludicrous pyramid scheme, but which they insist is 'part of the legal MLM direct selling industry and definitely not a pyramid scheme.' What took me much longer to fathom, is that core-'MLM commercial' cult adherents are also living by a parallel, and perverted, code of morality. Their destructive behaviour is controlled by the self-righteous guided-delusion that, by recruiting you, and even by lying to you, they are ultimately helping both themselves and you to achieve future redemption in a secure Utopian existence - a form of Capitalist Paradise on Earth - where no one has a job, but everyone is his/her ‘own boss’ - a happy, healthy, prosperous and free 'MLM business owner.'

Thus, it should always be remembered that chronic 'MLM' adherents' belief can be quite genuine, but what they believe in, and have bought into body and soul, is a colossal and bedazzling fake. The irony of all this being, that the Big 'MLM' Lie has continued to thrive, because its most-fanatical adherents have been tricked into wasting their own time and money spreading it and hiding the truth about it, combined with law enforcement agents' and legislators' chronic, and catastrophic, failure to identify it accurately. Although they have no idea what they are really involved in, active 'MLM' adherents are, in fact, proselytising-evangelists for a camouflaged, non-rational, ritual belief system (call it a 'perverted religion' if you like) which has been maliciously designed not only to spread like a contagion - enticing, deceiving, robbing, exploiting and abusing susceptible individuals and their friends and families - but also to load its victims with shame and guilt for their inevitable failure to succeed, and thus, prevent them from facing reality and complaining. Consequently, whilst they remain under the control of the Big 'MLM' Lie, its most-dangerous adherents should be seen for what they really are - the deluded deployable agents of a de facto syndicate comprising the bosses of some the most widespread, socially, psychologically and financially destructive organized cultic crime groups to have emerged in recent history.

David Brear (copyright 2025)