MLM magnet Utah - why?

[_Sethbag]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23071982/page/2/

This article is about Xango, a mangosteen juice product that sells for almost $40 per 750ml bottle. It's based out of.... [drum roll] Spanish Fork. The article also mentions NuSkin, MonaVie, and Noni, all three from Utah. What is it about Utah that makes it the freaking capital of the MLM scam? I'll grant there are MLMs that aren't out of Utah, like the one my wife's family's been bleeding money to for the last twenty years (Sunrider), but how is it that when MLMs come up in the news, 9 times out of 10 it's some Utah folks? Are we really that stupid up there?

[_Runtu]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23071982/page/2/

This article is about Xango, a mangosteen juice product that sells for almost $40 per 750ml bottle. It's based out of.... [drum roll] Spanish Fork. The article also mentions NuSkin, MonaVie, and Noni, all three from Utah. What is it about Utah that makes it the freaking capital of the MLM scam? I'll grant there are MLMs that aren't out of Utah, like the one my wife's family's been bleeding money to for the last twenty years (Sunrider), but how is it that when MLMs come up in the news, 9 times out of 10 it's some Utah folks? Are we really that stupid up there?

I just got my Utah driver's license and plates today. On my way home from the DMV, I signed up for Nu Skin, Neways, Nature's Sunshine, and Noni. I feel like I'm acculturating well. :)

I don't know what it is. There seems to be this weird desire for instant wealth here, and a lot of people get taken in by these MLMs and their promises of money without a lot of work.

[_Gadianton]

And it's not just hard work, but structured. Just as in the church, they don't have to think for themselves, they just follow the cookie-cutter formula, do what their upline tells them to do, and it all falls into place.

[_dartagnan]

MLM schemes rely on a person having a good social network already established. Such is the case with active Mormons who share their personal network of friends from their ward.

I remember Hubert Humphrey was the famous Mormon millionare in Atlanta back in the late 80's, who broke off from Amway to start his own insurance company called A.L. Williams. I had this guy from our ward try sucking me into that. I That company was banned from military bases and it has sparked numerous lawsuits, so much so that Humphrey had to change the name of the company to Primerica.

Anyway, this guy tried getting me into it so he invited me to one of their "meetings" where new recruits are introduced. I had just joined the Church a month prior and I remember that his roomate also invited me. So when I showed up they were fighting about who should get credit for inviting me. Apparently, they have some kind of quota for inviting potential recruits. "I invited him first," said one. "Yea, well I drove him," said the other.

But what got me most was that before attending the meeting, I had to prove I was eligible. What made me eligible? I had to write a list of at least twenty people I knew, names addresses and phone numbers. You see, after the convert me to the new scheme, i have to go embarrass myself and alienate virtually everyone I knew by trying to sell them on it.

I never did it. I was preparing for my mission at that time, but I remember visiting the Humphrey's house, which had an indoor swimming pool, bowling alley, along with Books of Mormon laid out all over every countertop. It was like a tour for the naïve: "See how rich you can be if you just follow Hubert!"

[_BishopRic]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23071982/page/2/

This article is about Xango, a mangosteen juice product that sells for almost $40 per 750ml bottle. It's based out of.... [drum roll] Spanish Fork. The article also mentions NuSkin, MonaVie, and Noni, all three from Utah. What is it about Utah that makes it the freaking capital of the MLM scam? I'll grant there are MLMs that aren't out of Utah, like the one my wife's family's been bleeding money to for the last twenty years (Sunrider), but how is it that when MLMs come up in the news, 9 times out of 10 it's some Utah folks? Are we really that stupid up there?

A few thoughts...I think it fits the "Mormon way" of selling things -- by a "testimony." A person makes a passionate claim of how a product or company has changed their life, and how "you too" can enjoy the happiness they have had.

Also, it fits the "once warned, warn your neighbor" paradigm. It's almost one's duty to share the lifestyle with anybody you care for in your life -- if you don't, you're being selfish!

[_dartagnan]

Yea, that was true living in Orlando when a newly sealed couple came over to our house and try to sell us on Quixtar. They bore their testimony about it, said they prayed first, got the standard goose bumps, got misty-eyed, etc. But the sick thing about this is that they're making money off of us.

They're just hoping you're a better sales person than they, that way the MLM scheme allows them to reap rewards for all your hard work.

[_Boaz & Lidia]

that's easy.

If these people believe the whole Smith story, believing that fruit juice can heal you is a cinch!

Add in their unwitting trust of "members of the church".

[_Sethbag]

I have heard my mother-in-law, wife, and others in the family literally bear their testimonies of Sunrider. It's one of those topics that we simply cannot discuss rationally, because they have testimonies about the products, and they simply will not budge. I have many times in the past heard my MIL use quasi-religious descriptive language in discussing these products. It totally fits into the Mormon paradigm.

I've told you all how I've had to swat away my BIL's ventures into MLMs having to do with gas mileage extension products. This same BIL's wife (my wife's sister) got involved in Landmark Education and tried to get us to go after she'd gone herself. My wife committed for us to go, but I said HELL NO and wouldn't go. My wife went once but I got her not to go again. Now she's got this other person at her work trying to interest her in Landmark Education.

by the way, Kevin, I've had someone try to sell me Primerica insurance before. At least twice that I can think of. My wife simply cannot say no to people who talk her into coming over to our house to make some presentation to us or other. She then gets all embarassed when I make her call them back and cancel, or else she'll have to see the presentation herself, because I won't be there.

Oh yeah, I have also mentioned the magnet scam that I experienced out in New Hampshire, where a couple in our ward actually had been quite successful in building their magnet product business through whatever MLM that was, and were trying to suck as many wardmembers into it as possible. My wife bought some stupid magnet thing off them, and dragged me to a meeting they had with some bigwigs who gave a big presentation, complete with bogus "magnetic energy" detectors that were no more than coils wrapped around some kind of iron core, which would trip the triggering voltage of a transistor, and let a battery in the device then power a light bulb. Very gee whiz in like an 8th grade science class kind of way.

I'm sick to death of MLMs, and I wish they'd all just die and go to business scam hell. It's personal to me, because my finances aren't in very good shape, and the amount that we're in debt is less than the amount we've forked out to this f*****g Sunrider scam over the last 16 years of our marriage. My wife is finally starting to see how much we've been harmed by her addiction to it. Monthly orders in the several hundred dollar range have been common for years and years and years and years and years.

If anyone out there knows me, and is into MLMs, do me a favor and keep it to yourself. I seriously don't want to know about it, I don't want to buy anything, or get involved with the "business", or whatever.

[_BishopRic]

I was a succor for a few of them earlier (yes, while I was in the church), and I have concluded I will never do a business where I look at my family and friends with dollar signs in their eyes. There is nothing in life worse than that, in my opinion.

[_Dr. Shades]

This same BIL's wife (my wife's sister) got involved in Landmark Education and tried to get us to go after she'd gone herself. . . Now she's got this other person at her work trying to interest her in Landmark Education.

??? How on earth can one make education into an MLM?

It's personal to me, because my finances aren't in very good shape, and the amount that we're in debt is less than the amount we've forked out to this f*****g Sunrider scam over the last 16 years of our marriage. . . Monthly orders in the several hundred dollar range have been common for years and years and years and years and years.

Well, look on the bright side: If you, unlike me, could afford to make monthly orders for anything for several hundred dollars for years and years and years, then you must be doing pretty well!

Now, Sunrider sells some sort of herbal stuff, right? I can't imagine anything herbal costing that much. If you don't mind my asking, just what, exactly, was it that you were buying?

NOW, BACK TO THE TOPIC:

I, too, have been hit up for MLM schemes quite often. If you live in Utah, it's inevitable. My rule of thumb, which I always make perfectly clear to everyone who tries to interest us in their "business," is that I always wait a year after first being introduced to it. If that person is still involved after a year, then I'll go ahead and attend their meeting.

So far, no takers. :-)