Comparing JW's and MLM's

by JeffT 10 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  JeffT

  So one of my in-laws spent the weekend with us. Supposedly she came over to do some shopping for her daughter's wedding. Turns out she was here to make another stab at recruiting us into her latest MLM. Background: she is a wonderful caring person, she will jump at the chance to help somebody. In some ways this works against her on the MLM's; she is really into the health things and is convinced that whatever the latest one to come along is, will save everybody. In other words, she preaches with the conviction of the true believer.

  The latest kick is a company that sells magnets; magnets in mattresses, magnets in chairs, magnets in bracelets, you name it; they'll put a magnet in it. They also sell a pickup load of supplements, and water filters that turn regular water into "hexagonal" water. All this is supposed to stop pain, improve bloodflow, help your memory, eyesight, diabetes, Parkinson's, cancer etc.

  So I did some research. There are number of economics profs, financial advisors etc warning of the dangers of MLM's. This was not news to me, as a businessman I've thought they were bogus for years.

  Here's the fun part: their own webiste and literature warn that there are lots of people out there who want to sabatoge their program. Therefore don't pay attention to negative stuff you see in bookstores and on the net. It is also clear that they say things at their sales conventions (they seem to have a lot of those) that don't make it into the literature. So the sales people are out quoting scientific studies that they heard about at the convention that don't really exist. If called on it, the company can say it never said that.

  Sound familiar?

  I was tempted to ask if the WTBS is like an MLM, or are the MLM's like a cult? Then I concluded they're both cut from the same piece of cloth.
• 

  Borgia

  There exists a book called: Merchants of deception. The author describes his own experiences inside the MLM: Amway - thing. What he described on operational level as almost equal to what JW's are doing/ supposed to be doing in their daily lives. I had read this book before I had read any apostate literature .... but the sheer comparisson was inescapable.

  Cults operate in a certain way. And as you said: they are cut from the same cloth.

  Cheers

  Borgia
• 

  AnnOMaly

  I was tempted to ask if the WTBS is like an MLM, or are the MLM's like a cult? Then I concluded they're both cut from the same piece of cloth.

  Check out Steven Hassan's take on them at: http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/m/mlm/
• 

  WTWizard

  MLMs tend to be easier to get out of. All you need to do is change your account number that they are charging, and they will no longer be able to access your account. Simply ignore the messages that your account has a problem--pretty soon, you will be totally out of it. That doesn't mean you cannot rejoin at a later time--if you so feel like doing.

  Additionally, MLMs are often only scams. I tried Herbalife, and they asked me to hype some products. I found the problems--no indication of the product size on the catalogs, ingredients that were very questionable (including sodium caseinate), and no way to automatically charge the correct sales tax no matter what state the buyer is from (and they would not fix that problem, after all that time). It cost me some money, mostly for the product that I tried but I wasted plenty on their web site service, as well as credit card accounts (I would not start until they got the tax situation fixed). And I could not recommend their products as better than a health food store.

  But, all they did was try to bilk me out of money. As I was stuck at the tax problem, they never got me into wasting days on end trying to sell to people I meet or going door to door. Nor did they impose that I forfeit my sex life (Jehovah Himself, that Almighty Lowlife Scumbag, did that) or that I shun people that had been Herbalife members but quit or broke any rules (which there were none). And, at least Herbalife doesn't go around recruiting known pedophiles, having them molest children that are in the MLM, and then silence their victims. And Herbalife does not go around recruiting children as young as 6, and making binding lifelong commitments on them.
• 

  BluesBrother

  Sorry to be thick but could you pleas define a MLM ?

  It is not a term that I have heard over here
• 

  AllTimeJeff

  MLM and JW's do have one thing in common: They look for unsuspecting, ill informed people to sell their crap too.

  However, that is where the story ends. JW's use MLM techniques and roll it into a psuedo-religious philosophy.

  Just like the Space Shuttle and a Chevrolet, since both have engines that run on fossil fuels, JW's and MLM's are similar in how they market their core products.

  However, one is decidedly a spacecraft. Similarly, one is decidedly a cult. It's the sum of the parts that tell the tale.
• 

  undercover

  but could you pleas define a MLM

  Multi-Level Marketing...

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing
• 

  undercover

  Years and years ago, while I was still a beliving and active JW, my car broke down in the rain on a busy highway about 5 miles from home. Long before the days of cell phones. I was getting ready to start trudging down the road to a payphone when a car pulled over. The guy was friendly and offered me a ride. He insisted on taking me home instead of to just a pay phone.

  He was too darn friendly and I wasn't too trustful of him (as is my nature of most strangers). He gave me his business card...he was self-employed, going by the card. He said he might have an "oppurtunity" if I was interested.

  I forgot about it until a couple of weeks later when he called and asked to come by to show me the aforementioned oppurtunity. I wasn't really interested but since he was kind enough to give me a ride, I thought I'd hear him out (and maybe get to do a little informall witnessing)

  When he showed up he had all his Amway literature and proceeded with his hard sell. Of course, as a dumb dubbie, I explained that I was too busy in my preaching work to take this on and then proceeded to try to witness to him.

  I'm sitting here chuckling as I realize that each scam artist was trying to bamboozle the other scam artist. He used the old JW trick of helping someone in need and then using that as an in to witness to them. And I used the oppurtunity of someone coming to my house to sell me something to try to witness to him.

  Oh, the irony...
• 

  hecouldbewrong

  I had a brief flirtation with an MLM company while still an active witness. The similarities I noted in the mindset made me feel uncomfortable.
• 

  VoidEater

  Kult is as kult does.

  It seems rather like "addictive personality" - the flavor of the month isn't so important as the belonging to an exclusive group.