Forever Living

[ribshaw]

A member of Ribshaw Nation asked about Forever Living after experiencing his alligator like skin. Would Aloe Vera help, possibly. Is Forever Living a good business opportunity?

Endless recruiting in lieu of someone actually retailing the product is always bothersome. Income disclosure harder to find than Jimmy Hoffa, well that's downright dastardly.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=162&v=opSiGNO7fT4


Forever Living Products Scam? Yes It Is In My Opinion! - Ethan Vanderbuilt (http://ethanvanderbuilt.com/2015/06/23/forever-living-products-scam-yes-opinion/)

Two things that jump out immediately from what I could find is if a distributor makes health claims they are on their own. Oh and don't advertise income without full disclosure.


20994

20995

http://gallery.foreverliving.com/gallery/GBR/download/Policies/CompanyPolicySept2012.pdf

[ribshaw]

Here is a counterpoint to Ethan's video.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk-EOXWJbmM

20996

What you will notice if you check out Lucy's channel is she hasn't promoted Forever Living since the video was shot in 2015. Two months ago she did upload two videos for another MLM. I'm not going to check, but I'd wager that you would find 100s if not thousands of similar channels on Youtube. People try MLM for a while, realize what they're up against, then quit. On the "retail" side many MLM customers find they can buy comparable products much cheaper.


This high attrition of both customers and distributors is true across the MLM spectrum. Pretty hard to build a business when virtually everyone stops.

The vast majority of the losers in MLM drop out within a year. In a 1999 court case brought against Melaleuca, one of the country's largest MLMs, the company claimed it has the highest "retention" rate among distributors in the entire MLM industry. Melaleuca boasted a drop-out rate is 5.5% per month. This equates to about 60% per year, if the dropouts are replaced each month.

In its annual report to the SEC, Pre-Paid Legal, another large MLM, revealed that more than 1/2 of all its customers and distributors quit each year and are replaced by another group of hopeful investors.

This pattern of 50-70% of all distributors quitting within one year holds true also for NuSkin, the industry's second largest MLM. NuSkin also exemplifies the accompanying pattern in which a tiny percent of the distributors gain the majority of all company rebates. In 1998, NuSkin paid out 2/3rds of its entire rebates to just 200 upliners out of more than 63,000 "active" distributors. The money they received came directly from the unprofitably investments of the 99.7% of the others.

In 1995, Excel Communications, another "fast growing" MLM, reported to regulators an 86% turnover rate of distributors and 48% drop-out rate among all customers.

To obscure their dismal numbers, some MLMs classify their distributors as "active" and "inactive." The Active group includes only recent participants and those still buying products or receiving rebates. Payout and retention statistics are then disclosed only on the "active" group.

If ALL distributors who participate are included the losses and the average incomes are exposed as much worse. And, if all the distributors who enroll and quit over several years are included, the odds of success for a new distributor/investor are shown to be absurdly low. Yet, these companies typically advertise their business as "an opportunity of a life time" with "unlimited potential." https://www.falseprofits.com/MLM%20Lies.html

[littleroundman]

What you will notice if you check out Lucy's channel is she hasn't promoted Forever Living since the video was shot in 2015

With very good reason:

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/8643/AHpMXJ.png

[ribshaw]

Here's one of the fundamental problems I see with MLM. The company gets distributors to sign an agreement not to make health or income claims then turns a blind eye. When called to the carpet they feign a few rogue distributors and promise to do better.


Health Claims

Last year, Forever Living was criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority for making false claims about the health benefits of its products - which have been sold as a cure for everything from diabetes to Crohn's disease. It was also warned not to use health professionals in its promotional materials.

More recently, it hit the headlines after The Medicines And Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency launched an investigation after it was revealed NHS staff were moonlighting as sales people.

Income Claims

As soon as Candice forked out £200 and signed an online form to become an assistant supervisor, the pressure from her 'upline' - the women higher up in her chain of command - began.

'Suddenly the secrecy surrounding the company lifted. Everyone piled in and I felt the onus was more to recruit than sell,' she says.

'Their exaggerated claims make me shudder,' says Candice


Read more: Can you really earn £350,000 a year selling aloe vera? | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3598017/Can-really-earn-350-000-year-selling-aloe-vera-thousands-women-join-controversial-home-selling-empire-read-Candice-s-cautionary-tale.html#ixzz52O5LvBuO)
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[ribshaw]

Let's hear a little more from the quitters and naysayers...


Pros

Literally none. This requires 5 words.

Cons

Pretty much just a run of the mill pyramid scheme.
They advise you to sell to your friends and family members, scamming them into becoming a part of your chain. There's no real customer here, you're pretty much just selling the product down the line to people willing to buy it and sell it further down the line. If you have any respect for yourselves, or your loved ones, you shouldn't get tangled up with this company.Show Less

Advice to Management

Stop scamming people.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Forever-Living-pyramid-scheme-Reviews-EI_IE5273.0,14_KH15,29.htm

She has recently got involved with Forever Living. We used to be in touch every month or so via email, text or fb (We live opposite ends of the country) but since she has got involved with this it's every single day more or less. She sends chatty messages but always drops in 'Have you thought about it some more' 'They are really good products' etc. Another mutual friend told me she has also been emailing her the same thing, again and again and again. Mutual friend and I have both already told her we're not interested in becoming part of it but we wish her luck and hope it works out.

What has happened to our usually sane and lovely friend?

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2132841-To-want-my-usually-lovely-friend-to-stop-harrassing-me-about-Forever-Living

Therefore the company should regulate their system to make their products not cost as such.

https://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/forever-living-products-c394207.html

[ribshaw]

Despite being a no-no some distributors don't care while x-distributors try to get some of their money back.

20997

12,600 results for Forever Living

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=Forever+Living&_sacat=0&_from=R40

1-16 of 4,845 results for "forever living"

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/136-3967236-0883768?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=forever+living


Garage Qualified:

20998

Distributors who stockpile products in large amounts and store them are considered garage qualified. This is typically done in order to receive large incentives or rewards from the company. It is usually the intention of the garage qualified distributor to sell or use the products at a later date, but the sale of the product is not guaranteed, and the distributor can be left with large amounts of the product without a sale. The term “garage qualified” derives from distributors who store the products in their own garages.

MLM Glossary - G - Terms Defining Multi-Level Marketing - CatalystMLM (http://catalystmlm.com/mlm-glossary-g/)

[ribshaw]

A bitter dispute among octogenarian business partners could put one of Arizona's largest private companies in the legal limelight.

The dispute centers around prices charged by a unit of Forever Living Products, a Scottsdale-based multilevel-marketing business, to its affiliated company in Japan that is owned by two Americans.

The lawsuit also contends that the unit, Aloe Vera of America, engaged in smuggling and bribery of foreign customs officials and other infractions, although it doesn't cite any law-enforcement investigations on those counts.

As a privately held company, Forever Living Products, located at 7501 E. McCormick Parkway, doesn't disclose financial details.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/2017/08/09/dispute-among-partners-puts-forever-living-products-legal-limelight/540834001/

[ribshaw]

Q I recently ran into a friend who had set up a market stall selling aloe vera products at £10 each from a company called Forever Living. She gave my husband and I a very hard sell and also said that she was making £4,000-£5,000 a month from this business.

We met her a second time and again she was very pushy, trying to get us to watch a video about the company. From what she said, it seemed like a pyramid scheme, and she was almost cultish in her obsession. Do you know anything about this company?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2002/oct/18/consumernews.consumeraffairs1



Independent observers, such as Les Henderson, author of Crimes of Persuasion: scheme, scams and frauds, have noted that the products tend to be over-priced and distributors often end up selling to their friends and family - which could explain your friend's eagerness to sell to you.

For more on pyramid schemes, cons and scams, see Les' excellent website Crimes of Persuasion: Nigerian email scams, pyramid schemes, consumer frauds. (http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com).

[littleroundman]

Read more: Can you really earn £350,000 a year selling aloe vera? | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3598017/Can-really-earn-350-000-year-selling-aloe-vera-thousands-women-join-controversial-home-selling-empire-read-Candice-s-cautionary-tale.html#ixzz52O5LvBuO)
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/4114/Kao45v.png

https://vimeo.com/248786817
https://imageshack.com/a/img922/6954/R27app.png

[path2prosperity]

This seems to have caught in in this part of London. I saw stalls plugging the products on several Christmas markets which I visited in the run up to Christmas. Glad to see that "ribshaw" has drawn attention to the matter. Hopefully this thread will soon become top in Google.

[laidback]

This seems to have caught in in this part of London. I saw stalls plugging the products on several Christmas markets which I visited in the run up to Christmas. Glad to see that "ribshaw" has drawn attention to the matter. Hopefully this thread will soon become top in Google.

Yes, this once again shows that even "legal" MLM's by their very nature screw all but the top half percent of distributors, and , of course the manufacturer gets to sell a product that is usually more expensive and lesser quality than available on the open market...!

[littleroundman]

Not really any need to say much more, is there.

Forever Livings' own Income Disclosure statement reveals:

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/3299/6oaR8B.jpg

In 2016, Forever Living members had an average ANNUAL income of $25

BTW, that's Gross income, it doesn't take expenses into account

In 2016 the median ANNUAL income of all Forever Living members was $0

51% of all members who joined Forever Living in 2015 did NOT make a purchase in 2016

57% of members who enrolled in Forever Living in 2014 did not continue in 2016

Good luck to anyone who thinks they can buck the odds and be as successful as the serial pimps promoting it CLAIM to be.

[EagleOne]

And of course Faith Sloan was pimping this heavily even after being told not to do so by the court because of the indictment she received in TelexFree. How she is still not in jail to await trial is beyond me. It's not like the authorities don't know what she is doing, unless they plan on adding more charges before she goes to trial. One can hope that is the case. She needs to be put away for as long as possible. She is a habitual crook.

[path2prosperity]

They or some of their reps claim that their products are good for the kidneys. Fresh,clean water should be a lot better for kidneys than the Forever remedies (in my opinion.) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=forever+living+products+charity&client=firefox-b&dcr=0&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMnaqw_qrYAhUMBMAKHRvtBqAQsAQIZw&biw=1280&bih=639#imgrc=E4jy_L8PC-BUmM:

[path2prosperity]

Their charitable mission? Our Mission — Forever Giving (http://forever-giving.org/our-mission)

[okosh]

They or some of their reps claim that their products are good for the kidneys. Fresh,clean water should be a lot better for kidneys than the Forever remedies (in my opinion.) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=forever+living+products+charity&client=firefox-b&dcr=0&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMnaqw_qrYAhUMBMAKHRvtBqAQsAQIZw&biw=1280&bih=639#imgrc=E4jy_L8PC-BUmM:

Chicken soup with matzah balls works better than any snake oil from some scammy mlm!!..

[okosh]

And of course Faith Sloan was pimping this heavily even after being told not to do so by the court because of the indictment she received in TelexFree. How she is still not in jail to await trial is beyond me. It's not like the authorities don't know what she is doing, unless they plan on adding more charges before she goes to trial. One can hope that is the case. She needs to be put away for as long as possible. She is a habitual crook.

Please keep up all updated on her court stuff when there is news...

[path2prosperity]

The weight loss experts.(!)

See the prices in GBP. Over £100 for what? https://shop.foreverliving.com/retail/entry/Category.do?name=weight-managementR
scroll down the page to see "delicious" weight loss chocolates and vanilla drinks. Over £100 of course.