Want to join a cult? Get a job with a political party. And getting downsized due to restructuring isn't much different than disfellowshipping. They lose the seats, and therefore their budget, forcing them to terminate employees, but the termination is the most hostile I've ever encountered. Former coworkers are even afraid to be listed as references.
Pre paid legal inc. is a cult
by zengalileo 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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cyberjesus
I wouldn't say it's a cult...It's a Multi-Level Marketing scheme
Multi-level is not a scheme is a marketing system
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Band on the Run
I studied politcal parties in college. No one takes the org. seriously in Manhattan. They come to solicit votes from people standing on line. One g roup revealed they were teachers to capture the vote. Everyone voted against them b/c of it. When I arrived here, in exurbia, I had time to kill so I thought it would be interesting to see it on the ground level. I was shocked. It is coffee klatch, insider time. Merit or willingness to volunteer long hours counts for nothing compared to being friends with the area leader. DEbate is cut off. Policy is never discussed. Most of the people could not tell you the themes in the party platform or the DNC chair. They are rabidly committed to capturing meaningless local seats, such as dogcatcher.
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Morbidzbaby
cyberjesus: I've heard that before...and I maintain that it IS a scheme. Recruiting your friends and family so that you can move up, making those on the lower rungs invest in the company by buying their materials and all the necessary advertising crap, and doing all the grunt work while the ones at the top sit back and collect. Any company that wants you to sell their product should provide you with the means to do so with no cost to you...the money invested by them would come back tenfold if their product was any good.
I've been involved in such a "marketing system" and no matter how much work I did, how much I pounded the pavement and looked for sales and introduced people to the product, it did nothing. I lost money in what was supposedly a rock-solid company that was growing. In short, these companies sell over-priced merchandise that can be bought or made for a fraction of the price...and they make their money, not on sales to new customers, but on sales to their representatives who need to replenish their own demonstration stock! $200 for a skin care system that I'm not using, but letting other people try? And it comes out of MY pocket, and I only get a portion of the sales IF I sell anything...meanwhile, my upline or Area VP is raking in the cash and driving a Mercedes because I'm spending MY money, yet I'm not making one red cent. To me, that's a scam.
In this day and age, there is no need for MLM's. And the ones out there are scams. They equate to a cleverly disguised pyramid scheme...and those are illegal.
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skeeter1
There are commercial cults, religious cults, exercise cults, art cults, literary cults, etc.
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cyberjesus
OK I will respond to all your statements.....
>>>cyberjesus: I've heard that before...and I maintain that it IS a scheme.
If it was a scheme it would be illegal. and they arent. They have to comply with a lot of legal requirements. They are more carefully monitored that other types of system. So just because you say its a scheme.... it doesnt make it so.... sorry. you might think it is and that is your opinion.
>>>Recruiting your friends and family so that you can move up,
Who recruited your friends and family? you or the company? you right? did you try to run a fast one on them? then probably the one with the scheme its you not the system
>>making those on the lower rungs invest in the company by buying their materials and all the necessary advertising crap,
EVERYBODY buys the products, not only the new ones.... if you enter in the "business" then you buy a business. AND all businesses need that "neccesary advertising crap" for some reason is necessary. In business 30 percent of the cost is production 70 marketing.
>>and doing all the grunt work while the ones at the top sit back and collect.
I think you need to understand the power of leverage. LEVERAGE is key....... but guess what? everybody has that opportunity...
>>Any company that wants you to sell their product should provide you with the means to do so with no cost to you...the money invested by them would come back tenfold if their product was any good.
If you didnt like their marketing system you shouldnt have started in the first place. Period. But dont join just to later compain on how the business. Or start your own company with your own rules.
>>I've been involved in such a "marketing system" and no matter how much work I did, how much I pounded the pavement and looked for sales and introduced people to the product, it did nothing. I lost money in what was supposedly a rock-solid company that was growing.
Great i bought a business and no matter how hard I workd i didnt make any money.... owning a business is a scheme
>>In short, these companies sell over-priced merchandise that can be bought or made for a fraction of the price...
ah..... duh! that how business is. you buy at a fraction and sell with a margin...... How much do you think it cost to manufacture the computer you are working on right now? perhaps less than $100.... and how much did you pay? over-priced uh? Yeah all business should sell at cost.
>>and they make their money, not on sales to new customers, but on sales to their representatives who need to replenish their own demonstration stock!
How much does it cost to own a business? how much investment do you need to start your own company? $30k? or more ..... how much did you pay to join ? $200? wah wah wah i started a business with $200 and I dont make money if I dont keep investing..... what did you wanted? not work either?
$200 for a skin care system that I'm not using, but letting other people try? And it comes out of MY pocket, and I only get a portion of the sales IF I sell anything...
>>thats any business. you invest you demonstrate you invest more and you make money of the sales....
meanwhile, my upline or Area VP is raking in the cash and driving a Mercedes because I'm spending MY money, yet I'm not making one red cent. To me, that's a scam.
>>In this day and age, there is no need for MLM's.
Yeah all those companies investing on MLMs and all those millionaries making all that money are just idiots... Warren Buffet, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump... you idiots didnt you read here in this forum that there is no need for mlms... you stupid people.
And the ones out there are scams. They equate to a cleverly disguised pyramid scheme...and those are illegal.
>>yes all you illegal companies... the FEDs are blind cuz they cant see the millions of people involved in those pyramid schemes.... that are all illegal ATTENTION FBI you should come here and talk to Morbiz cuz he just discvoered a scam.....
Also the Gyms are scams... they dont work. people dont lose weight..... you suckers!
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NewChapter
Just because something is legal doesn't mean it isn't a scheme. I've had a few brushes with this type of marketing and it is disturbing. I've also known friends who get hooked in over and over---but nobody is making any money except those at the top. I saw a television breakdown of multi-level marketing and it's pretty shocking. The proof is in the numbers. A few will do well in the system, but they do so off the backs of their recruits which come in and out through a revolving door. Unfortunately, I've known some pretty motivated people who also lost chunks of money to this crap. They talked, ate and slept their business---all for nothing. They generally quit exhausted and disillusioned.
LOL, I remember this guy who wanted to meet with a friend of mine over lunch about a business proposition. He wouldn't tell us the name of the company until he had gone through this long prepared presentation. He talked about how the place we work decides what kind of car we drive, what kind of house we buy, what vactions we take. We need to be freed from someone else setting the terms of our lives and he had found the way. Well, it turned out it was AMWAY! LOL No wonder he kept it a secret for the first 45 minutes.
NC
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NewChapter
I would like to add some details about a certain company that targetted 3 people I knew.
The first person was kind of down and had lost his job etc. Well he went to this meeting (which turned up in the help wanted ads, as though it was a job) where they convinced him to sell fragrances that smell like expensive fragrances. He went to meeting after meeting, and it turns out, the money is not made by selling the fragrance but by getting other people to sell it! And when he got so many sales people under his umbrella, he could open a regional office! And then the money would be rolling in boy.
The person running the meetings kept approaching him and acting like he was real special. Played on his emotions because clearly this man was at a low in his life. The person would tell him he wanted to talk to him alone after the meeting----only he never did. He kept putting it off, like he probably did with everyone else that he said the same thing to. My friend would get excited before a meeting because this guy had seen something special in him, only to come home and say they didn't get the chance to talk.
So this man tried to sell the fragrance---put his heart and soul into it. It was unsellable. He gave up, but they had given him one bottle of fragrance (with the understanding that after his first sell, he would buy his own inventory) and they said they'd call the sherriff if he didn't return the used bottle. LOL
Just a few months later, I was talking to a childhood friend. She had made a lot of bad choices, and they showed in the way she looked and acted---she screamed desperate. She told me about this meeting she'd been to, and how the guy who ran the meeting told her how impressed he was with her and how he wanted to talk to her after the meeting---which of course he didn't. She was so excited because he had convinced her that he had seen that something special in her, and now was her chance to shine. I asked what they were selling. She said fragrances. So I related what had just happened a few months before. She was crushed. A few weeks later, her sister called to excitedly talk about this business prospect---selling fragrance.
Knives, Fragrance, Protective Lotion, A cleaner that even kills bugs but can be used as toothpaste, makeup, credit cards---the products are endless, the scheme is always the same. You don't make money from the product but from the recruits.
One young woman got caught up in one of these schemes where they had regular pep meetings. The kids were always asked to go on "business trips" at their expense naturally. Business lunches--again at their expense. Regional meetings---you guessed it.
I wouldn't be defending this kind of company. If you are a customer, likely you get the product you paid for. However if you are selling it, that's where the nightmare is.
NC
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DaCheech
A Co-worker tried recruiting me to A.L. Williams............ He did not tell me, until I was at the sales meeting. There was 1/2 the meeting devoted to the few that became millionaires selling it.
It was life insurance, they told you that your family can be recruited easily. Earn commission right off the bat.
Here is a write-up I have googled on that company. ---->
From "The A. L. Williams Replacement Empire" (April 1981)
There should be no objection to the sale of reasonably-priced term insurance when it is appropriate in view of the individual's circumstances and objectives, and there should be no objection to replacement when it is justified. We believe that the sales activities of ALW [the A. L. Williams organization], however, frequently will result in the sale of inappropriate, high-priced term insurance, and in replacements that are not justified.
The operations of ALW involve the recruiting of large numbers of part-time sales representatives, the use of excessively complex replacement proposals, the obscuring of the high cost of the mod-11 policy through the inclusion of figures for the annuity rider, and an inordinate emphasis on the alleged opportunity for sales representatives to get rich quick. The organization displays some of the characteristics of a chain letter, and like a chain letter will sooner or later run out of prospective recruits and prospective customers. Until the operation runs its course, however, we fear that many people are going to be seriously hurt. Among those to be hurt are persons who replace policies that should not have been replaced, persons who buy high-cost term insurance when they should have purchased low-cost term insurance, and persons who enter the organization with high hopes that are dashed.
The word "churning," as used in the securities industry, refers to the rollover of a portfolio for the purpose of generating commissions. We believe the sales activities of ALW are designed primarily for the purpose of channeling the cash values of existing life insurance policies directly into commissions for members of the ALW organization. For this reason, it is our opinion that the ALW organization is engaged primarily in the churning of life insurance.
[ALW persuaded the North Carolina insurance department to ban the above article in North Carolina. However, a federal judge lifted the ban.]
"part-time" salesman does not know what is best for the consumer!
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NewChapter
I thought people had to be specially licensed to sell insurance. Disturbing.