January 1st, 2004 Posted by Petteri Haipola

This is a kind of an answer, which I might send to anyone trying to sell me anything or just disagreeing with my articles about MLM in general or trying to convince me about some special MLM company or its products, that they are so good, so good… I don´t wanna even hear about it! I do not want to get any replies, because most of them are SPAM and hardly ever anything new will come up. I am very well informed by MLMers of all kind of their points of view and am now sick of hearing from them any more. I do know my business and have studied very carefully most of the facts involved. I have been on the national Television pointing out the anti-MLM view and have contacted the Finnish Congress Reps in order to make better laws that would protect consumers against the MLM fraud. There is no way you can make me change my mind about MLM. I know that not all MLMs are as evil by nature as the most vicious pyramids like the SkyBiz was. Anyway, I am not interested in looking into stuff of any MLM. My articles tell my personal experience and have some over all look at the MLM business in general. There is a lot of information about MLM on the web, which you may read. Start for example here, some articles released through the Federal Trade Commission in the USA.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/features/mlm.htm
”Getting to the Bottom of Pyramid Schemes” by James Kohm, Federal Trade Commission.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/invest/mlm.htm
”Multilevel marketing plans”.

If you still want to send some mail to me, please do so, if only you manage to find my e-mail address. I don´t want to give it to the public since the overwhelming SPAM. If you manage to get through my SPAM watch, I still warn you that I am not going to read any critics or responses, which say that MLM is honourable business. I know it is not and that´s it! It´s your own shame, if you do not believe those who have seen behind the lies in MLM and know what they are talking about, without having any biases towards the MLM industry. There are lots of those experts too. Not all the critics are written by losers who have burnt their wings and lost some money. There are still some good people in the world who really care for others and want to warn them not getting involved in deceptive schemes where they will lose money, friends, family and even health. So, if you want to write to me, do it knowing that your response will be most likely sent to trash, unless you want to thank me for my efforts and telling the truth about MLM. Thanks for your kind response in an advance!

You cannot convert me to be an MLMer, ever! Don´t even try: you´ll just waste your time! I have studied the critics against MLM in general and learned to know its nature: I don´t  want to be any part of any MLM ever. If you really tried to see what´s wrong with MLM, you could understand it too.

Yes, I´m trying to convert you to the anti-MLM front, but only this once. It´s your life, time and decision, not mine. If you want to ruin your life and relationships by MLM, that´s your problem and shame. I don´t want to bother you any more than this once.

By the way the persentage of failures at SkyBiz is actually more than 96. That´s a mathematical fact. It doesn´t matter how good and skilled people are at work: evidently more than 98 % are doomed to fail as they join. My math examples tell only the best case in theory. In practice the chances are much worse. /skybizmaths.htm

The main thing in MLM is that you´re getting the money from failures. Actually you´re not really recruiting winners (only a very few reps win) but losers. You cannot hide from this reality behind anything. It´s a fact. Without losers there will be no winners!

If you´re interested in critics against MLM in general, please read the following articles through, which I recommend after a short while. Actually you should do it: it´s your life-style, business and making a living that they say is a fraud from the very beginning. You may though not be the crook, but are being taken advantage of without noticing it. Even if you´re making a buck, you´re just a victim in a deceptive scheme or then you are the crook. The most retailers have been been doomed to fail at the very moment they signed in and payd for their lisence. And what have you been doing? You have been telling these honest people, who are often in a desperate situation financially as they join in and going through some sort of crisis, dramatic time in their lives – otherwise they would not have been interested at all – ”This is a GREAT life-time opportunity for you! You can start a new life as an independant entrepreneur. No risks involved! You´ll get more freetime, hobbies, friends, money, vacations – MLM will help your dreams come true!”

Most retailers will not earn their investments and expenses back, so it will be a lie to assure the prospects that you cannot lose anything. Still they keep on advertising the idea by using false and inaccurate statements. Professional recruiters constantly break the laws of misleading advertising and unfair trade practices. And what do the MLM companies do? Punish them? No. They just collect the money and smile! After all, they´re not responsible of anything the independant sales representatives do: so why bother? Do you want to be part of this fraudulent scheme and even promote it? It is your choice! And your choices tell other people what kind of a man you really are.

http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html A sound article by Dean VanDruff. ”This article will analyze four problem areas with MLM. Specifically, it will focus on problems of I) Market Saturation, II) Pyramid Structure, III) Morality and Ethics, and IV) Relationship Issues associated with MLMs.” See the links at the bottom and the FAQ -site too.

http://www.pyramidschemealert.org/ ”Pyramid Scheme Alert is the first consumer organization to confront the abuses and trickery of pyramid scheme perpetrators.” You´d better read these sites.

http://www.sehlat.com/aux/nomlm.html Since Christianity and ”Christian ethics” have been used in promoting SkyBiz, (and other MLMs too) click here to see that Jesus Christ was not the first MLMer and it is immoral to promote MLM businesses by using Christian faith as a means of marketing.

http://www.apollowebworks.com/amway/argument/ FAQs about critics against the world´s largest MLM, Amway. Answers can be applied to any MLM in general.

http://www.mlmsurvivor.com A site by Ruth Carter, an anti-MLM writer and an ex-Amway distributor.

I believe you also know what ”front-loading” (US) and ”referral selling” (Australia) mean? Why are governments in all over the world so worried about MLMs and their practices? (FTC in the USA, Consumers Offices in the Western Democracies) Why are the underdeveloped countries afraid of MLM? Remember Albany and Romania? What´s next: India, Malaysia, Thailand, the RSA, Swaziland, Sierra Leone,…?

I believe you also tell your prospects the real odds to succeed in MLM? What are the real risks involved: costs, efforts, time spent in motivation seminars and working, spoiled human relations, etc.

Anyone can do it? Really? What does the pure mathematics say about it? Honestly? How many per cent of the retailers are doomed to fail as they sign in? (99,9 % ) If each and every distributor was a master in promoting his/ her business, would the percentage still be the same? Yes! Success in MLM is not based as much on your skills and motivation as it is based on propability, maths and the pyramid stucture on an MLM pay out system. Do you tell this figure to your prospects? Why should you? Not everyone can be a winner, or can they? Are there more people on the top levels than on the lower levels? Aren´t there always more on the lower levels? Do the suckers on the lower levels earn a dime? They´re the vast majority! Why should anyone believe that s/he is better than most people and can become a top level distributor and stay there for ever? Remember that ca 90 – 98% of the retailers quit in a couple of years, so you have to find new people in your downline all the time. And most quitters stop buying the products as well: so you cannot support yourself by selling the products but mainly by recruiting new people to the scheme! What makes you say to each and everyone: ”not everyone can do it, but when I look at you I know that you can!”

It can be really hard to admit that you have been fooled. But by admitting it and humbling yourself is the only way out to reach freedom. And if you´re one of the top level perpetrators or innovators (founder/ owner) in an MLM company, it may still not be too late to repent and start all over again in an upright way. Give up frauds and start a legitimate honorable business! Repent, since the Judge and the Redeemer Jesus Christ is knocking at the door!

Sincerely,

Petteri Haipola
October 19th, 2005

Not all MLMs are evil by nature?

This is what many distributors have been trying to tell me and convince me about. Especially MLMers who sell nutritions claim to really help people to be healed from various sicknesses. They say that ”a product oriented” MLM is not a pyramid fraud. What´s the truth? If you seek vary carefully and without biases you´ll see the real truth about each and every MLM.

If the MLM products are so wonderful and miracle, why then do they not sell them the traditional way? Now there´s a great danger that many in need do not get the products, because they are not available by MLM! If the products really were as good as they have been ”testified” to be, then they would be ”a real hit” if only they were sold ”the traditional way”, by chemistries, drug stores, shopping malls etc.! Or what do you think about Viagra, e.g.? And do not forget Aspirin, vaccines, penicillin and a multitude of other life supporting drugs that really are a necessity to human kind. Compare MLM products to vitamins and nutritions, which you can buy from almost anywhere. If the MLM companies really want to help sick people and prevent people from getting ill, they would sell their products in multitudes by using other marketing and distribution methods than MLM. If the MLM products really had ”a demand”, then the drug stores, pharmacies, nutrition boutiques, shopping malls, department stores and all possible sales people would be fighting over the products in order to sell them and they would really be a great success for all parties involved! And everyone would benefit the maximum: also the end-buyer. So, why do they not sell the traditional way?

What if they brought the MLM products to the open market? Would there be a legion of imitations there? Imitations of secundary value, effect and quality? Worthless imitations? Would this prevent the original ”good” products from a break through and everlasting success? Is this why MLMs don´t sell the traditional way?

I still don´t get it. Why don´t they sell the traditional way? It´s quite obvious to me that if they have products that any professional sales person was able to sell anywhere (you don´t need a doctor´s prescription for them) it would be a success to all parties involved. Just think how good it would be for the manufacturing company to have some ”real professionals” to do the sales work! (and not unskilled amateurs like it is the status quo in MLMs at the present time)

They make worthless imitations out of everything – sports equipment, music, arts, food, etc. – but only ”the originals” have got the status and real value, ”the wow!” in them! When I buy running shoes I don´t buy any imitations any more: I simply cannot afford to it! No, I go to the most expensive sports shop instead and use the help of an expert in order to carefully make the right choice! If I bought a lousy pair of shoes it could mean the end of my hobby/ies due to frustration and anger to myself and my stupidity. Aching feet and blisters do not motivate in sports. Worthless copies are useless: it will be more difficult for them to persevere on the free market economy than for the originals. Excellent products sold at the right prices will always have their demand and share of the market! So, why do they not sell the traditional way?

Besides, what prevents other companies from making imitations of MLM products right now, at this present time? The products are there and it´s very easy to get them for scientific research and analysis in order to make imitations of them. So, are the cheap and low-standard imitations the real reason why the MLMs don´t come to the open market? Of course not! There must be another reason and you know it! Or do you?

If the MLM products had a superior effect on people, it would be most definately the best idea to sell them the traditional way. MLM is actually a bit inefficient, as you will see! Due to malicious and ill fame of a cult it is very difficult to sell anything via MLM, even if the products were good. Me among with the vast majority of people prefer and will always prefer goods and services sold the traditional way. That´s another fact. People have an evil image of MLM. A company that really wishes to expand its share of the market would go selling the traditional way. That´s how I see it. At least I would do so, if I had a ”must have” product to sell.

Do you still claim that some MLMs are good by nature? We have a huge disagreement here. I believe that all MLMs are evil by nature: they are planned to be that way! The pyramid structure is designed to produce more losers than winners and saturate the market, not only by demand of products, but also by demand of retailers. In order to succeed every retailer needs to recruit more retailers in their downline, which of coure is not possible. There are not enough people in the world to make everyone happy in the MLM. There are customers and new recruits to some of the distributors, but not for everyone as there should be if all distributors want to gain profit. I do not know any distributors who do not want to profit, so most of the losers have been decepted by false promises and income representations. If more than 99 % of distributors will eventually lose money, there must be something fundamentally wrong in the business. The foundation of the pyramid structure is wrotten and corrupt. When the foundation of a building will fall down, then the whole building will collapse. How do big MLMs then continue in business for decades? Why do they not vanish? Because, once an MLM has spread widely enough, there will be enough people to support the company, but only a few will make a living as a retailer. The MLM network spreads ahead in cycles. There are times of high seasons, when there may be hundreds of thousands of distributors in one company in one country. After the saturation point has been passed, the number of those people joining in will be much less than those departing the scheme. The pyramid will collapse, but not entirely. The range between low season and high season may be millions of distributors worldwide. There is always a limit, which one company cannot pass. After the limit has been reached, the number of retailers will go down dramatically, but after a few years of low season, it will come up again. This is what I mean by `cycles´ and that´s how the MLM train keeps on going, unless anyone stops it by law enforcement.

To me it doesn´t matter at all if the MLM is ”product-oriented on paper” and not based on recruitment. In practice all MLM is based on recruiting recruiters who recruit recruiters etc. The nature of MLM is fundamentally flawed. MLMs are merely nothing but recruitment schemes based on false income promises. (expectations, false hope) The mathematics of such a plan ensure that only a few will ever earn anything at all, but each and everyone will be represented by great hope of easy success with no special skills involved. You ought to remember and keep it clearly in your head all times that there is no such thing like easy money. Someone´s got to pay the price and in MLM it is the sales people who do it.

I know that there are some people who are involved with MLMs because they have received some help to their physical condition via the good products – or at least they believe so. But for me MLM will be the last place where to look for help if I got some problems in my health. It´s the same with most people due to lack of confidence on MLM in general. If there will be a time when I need to buy health products from an MLM I would most likely not try to sell them any further and become a distributor. I could say – as one Christian distributor says – that ”the product has worked on me, but I cannot guarantee if it will work for you”. Even if I could benefit for a good MLM product by selling it and it worked for me, I still don´t think that I would be willing to build my own business selling the product and promote MLM that way. So, frankly speaking, I am very very rigid on MLM. Still I don´t blame such Christians who really believe they are doing a favour by selling products that work on them (or anyone without doubt), if they do it honestly. (This includes honest income representations and telling the real odds in order to become a winner or even earn back the money invested in the scheme) Yet I don´t believe that cure from sickness is result of the products only rather than all things together starting from faith, exercise (hiking e.g.) and diet.

A simple example

Let´s imagine there´s a MLM that sells nutritions which REALLY cure people. The products can be bought only via this MLM company from distributors. There´s a patient in Finland who suffers from multiple diseases and symptoms that products of this MLM company only could heal. But the network has not expanded to Finland yet. (maybe it ever will be) So, what to do next? The doctors in his home town don´t know how to cure this man. They don´t know anything about this MLM nor its products. How on earth could this man get help from the MLM? (There´s no answer!)

So, if they sold these miraculous products the traditional way, the doctors would have been aware of them. They just simply could have told the poor man to go to the nearest shopping mall and buy the products from there. Very simple and effective – isn´t it?!

So, why don´t they sell the traditional way?

Petteri Haipola, the 4th of January 2004, last modified October 19th, 2005.