Thread: Why MLMs Never Release Their Financial Statements

XANGO 2011 DISTRIBUTOR EARNINGS DISCLOSURE STATEMENT (latest publicly available EDS)



The average monthly Active Distributor earnings for 2011 are $267 or $3,206 annually.

61.38% of active distributors earned an annual average of $1392

4.43% of active distributors earned an annual average of $1009

27.62% of active distributors earned an annual average of $3201

IGNITE ENERGY 2013 INCOME DISCLOSURE STATEMENT



81.93% of paid associates earned an annual average of $117.12

14.28% of paid associates earned an annual average of $1209.45

0.23% of paid associates earned an annual average of $93,891.34

Awesome finds, LRM. A reminder to our new readers, these figures include the reps that got paid a check. Many never qualify for any payment. These MLMs have catastrophic turnover rates with 50% or more of the reps leaving in their first year. So, the loss rates are much more horrific than these Income Disclosures indicate.

All MLMs are scams in my opinion and can be labeled many things including product-based pyramid schemes.

WORLD VENTURES MARKETING 2014 ANNUAL INCOME DISCLOSURE STATEMENT




19.5% of all Independent Representatives earned a commission or override

80.85% of all Independent Representatives did not earn

14.535% of active representatives received annual commission or overrides of $129.50

World Ventures gives us the horrifying reality. Almost 81% didn't get paid a dime. One can see all the money flows up to the top of the pyramid. Trickle up economics!

Originally Posted by Soapboxmom

Trickle up economics!

The income distribution in the real economy doesn't look any more encouraging than the income distribution in the shadow economy. If the real economy looked a little less skewed, the shadows might follow the suit, but not until then. You can't mirror what does not exist in reality.

People in the "real economy" don't "normally"

* pay to participate in the pay plan

* get paid for recruiting or, if they do, cannot make the bulk of their income doing so.

* get offered a "find three and get yours free" bonus or be told it's a sustainable mathematical possibility

* get told untold riches are to be made by following a "plan"

* get forced to buy product

* enroll into an already saturated with employees market

* have the terms and conditions of their contract altered repeatedly

Certainly those things happen in the "real economy" but not in the amounts they occur in MLM and most certainly without the hype and outright lies which seem all too common in what passes for "Multi Level Marketing"

And one more thing.

You don't have to get your friends and family to subscribe to autoship for subpar products!

Originally Posted by Fendaril

And one more thing.

You don't have to get your friends and family to subscribe to autoship for subpar products!

I don't like MLMs any more than you do, but truth is more important than agenda.

Fact: you don't have to drag your family into MLMs if you don't want to.

Fact: some MLMs are legal.

Fact: you can make decent money pimping legal products.

Fact: you can't make the same money in real economy without years of investment into formal education and training.

Fact: most people who get involved in online money making don't have the luxury of debating the fine points of law from the warm comfortable dwellings.

Originally Posted by E2014T

I don't like MLMs any more than you do, but truth is more important than agenda.

Fact: you don't have to drag your family into MLMs if you don't want to.

Fact: some MLMs are legal.

Fact: you can make decent money pimping legal products.

Fact: you can't make the same money in real economy without years of investment into formal education and training.

Fact: most people who get involved in online money making don't have the luxury of debating the fine points of law from the warm comfortable dwellings.

Fact: You can make the same money in direct sales, with zero startup costs.

Originally Posted by Fendaril

Fact: You can make the same money in direct sales, with zero startup costs.

Not with zero startup costs. Just the proper apparel and accessories will cost you a few thousand dollars. You can't look like crap and make money in direct sales.

Originally Posted by E2014T

I don't like MLMs any more than you do, but truth is more important than agenda.

Fact: you don't have to drag your family into MLMs if you don't want to.

Fact: some MLMs are legal.

Fact: you can make decent money pimping legal products.

Fact: you can't make the same money in real economy without years of investment into formal education and training.

Fact: most people who get involved in online money making don't have the luxury of debating the fine points of law from the warm comfortable dwellings.

Most MLMs skate under the radar because law enforcement is underfunded and understaffed. Almost none could pass the Amway ruling for instance. 70% of product retailed and each distributor selling to ten customers (not in the pay plan.) Almost none can even boast that 50% of their sales are to those outside the pyramid pay plan. Some MLMs have as much as 90% of the product going to reps in the pay plan that are on autoship in order to qualify to be in the pay plan. So, almost none are technically legal, but will nonetheless limp along emptying the pockets of their reps as law enforcement will never have the resources to act.

The loss rates are 97% - 99%+ depending on if one includes the forced sales (autoship) and costs of doing business, so the chances of not losing significant amounts of money in MLM are extremely slim. And, many MLMs require or make it necessary to buy a pricey startup kit and have mandatory sign-up fees and monthly fees. The owners and the few at the top of the pyramid are the only winners in the game.

The few that make money are making it off of the losses of armies of desperate reps below them that are losing money.

I worked my way through college. I also had work-study and grants. That is certainly preferable to getting involved in barely legal MLM scams.

Originally Posted by Soapboxmom

I worked my way through college.

So did I. It doesn't change the fact that students in 2015 can pay off tuition by running barely legal (but nonetheless legal) websites. Adult sites are more profitable than MLMs, but require mature thinking few college students possess. MLMs do not.

Originally Posted by Soapboxmom

That is certainly preferable to getting involved in barely legal MLM scams.

That might be your morality. From what I'm seeing, this isn't the morality of the American society in general. More like "let's exploit the poor til they drop dead, there will be more where they came from".

Would You Join A Multi-Level Marketing Company For Retirement Income?
Forbes Welcome

That certainly wasn't the in depth story I expected from Forbes. Finding 3 success stories is easy. If the 1% that do not lose money are interviewed then MLM seems like a very doable success story. What about the 99% who lost money and paid up to these successful recruiters higher in the pyramid?

Many invest tremendous amounts of time and money on businesses that will never succeed. These MLMs all rely on recruiting. If all the friends and family and whole neighborhood has been approached then the last ones in are simply guaranteed losers. Forbes should have given the actual Income Disclosures for these deals so folks could have gotten the real story. Very disappointing!

Originally Posted by Soapboxmom

That certainly wasn't the in depth story I expected from Forbes.

People are going to be o.k. if they don't go much past direct sales. We can warn them about the rest!

Mary Courant Joins The scam artists at Ormeus Coin and Wowe Coin are both using fraud and bots to illegally rip people off. They both buy and sell millions of their own worthless coins back and forth to their own exchange accounts to raise the price and volume and give the illusion that the coins are trading in high volume and that the price is rising.

In reality all that’s happening is that they are buying and selling to their own accounts they control so the only loss is the commission fee. They do this with millions of their own coins (the coins cost them nothing) back and forth continually artificially raising the price and volume.

When people notice the massive fake volume and continual price climb as in 400% in 48 hours with OrmeusCoin they jump on board paying high prices for a fake traded coin.

The problem is people will hold the coins on a smooth sail up so Ormeus and Wowe use shakeup bots that dump coins price at about 20% under value to cause panic selling and buying then they make fake trades and raise the price back up.

This causes a price crash and massive selling and then buying.

Before this even starts Ormeus and Wowe put out hundreds of sell orders that cover every price range and they pre do this on every exchange.

On my images you can see the endless 100, 1000 and 29.49780097 seller orders spread all over the exchanges they use at every price point. This is a huge pump and dump but the pumping is done with fake trades and fake volumes.

With Wowe coin they didn’t have it the scam bots as refined and tuned. You could easily see the endless pump and dump attacks when you zoomed in.

They look like a Square tooth wave form on both the Volume and trade price. See Images:

ibb.co/dZDoF6

ibb.co/mRfqTR

ibb.co/b1R8F6

ibb.co/kb18F6

They are doing this again with Ormeus Coin but they managed to smooth out and cover up the Square tooth wave form now.

I watched the price drop 20% instantly several times now with Ormeus Coin when the bot did a instant 20% price drop sell for no logical reason. I hope someone reads this and prosecutes these felons.

Herbalife, Younique, LuLaRoe And Other MLMs Suddenly Under Fire

Big number: The DSA reported six million sellers generated over $34 billion in 2018 retail sales. DSA membership, however, has declined 40% over the last decade, and the number of sellers plummeted 74% in 2016. Mariano acknowledged membership decreased over the past few years and said the DSA changed the way it tracks sellers, causing that number to drop.

Surprising fact: MLMs are often referred to as “pyramid schemes,” but the FTC has no hard definition. In general, the FTC says pyramid schemes “promise consumers or investors large profits based primarily on recruiting others to join their program, not based on profits from any real investment or real sale of goods to the public. Some schemes may purport to sell a product, but they often simply use the product to hide their pyramid structure.”

Key background: MLMs typically require participants, referred to as “distributors,” to pay startup fees to join along with incidental costs down the line, such as purchasing products and event tickets, and traveling to large-scale, conference-type events. The term “pyramid scheme” gets thrown around colloquially, but only the FTC can determine whether an MLM company is actually operating as one.

What to watch for: “The more the FTC successfully demonstrates the ability to prosecute a firm for a pyramid scheme in this industry, the higher the probability that the next firm could be prosecuted,” said William Keep, a marketing professor at the College of New Jersey. “Because they all fundamentally use the same model.”