multilevel marketing

When the Wolves Bite: Two Billionaires, One Company, and an Epic Wall Street Battle

by Scott Wapner  · 23 Apr 2018  · 302pp  · 80,287 words

for weeks, hoping its arrival would help unmask the man who had threatened to destroy him. It was spring 2014, and the most closely followed multilevel marketing company on Earth was under siege. For the better part of eighteen months, Wall Street’s resident rock star, the hedge-fund manager William A

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over pyramid-scheme cases, finding many troubling similarities to what she’d dug up on Herbalife. She didn’t have to look too hard either. Multilevel marketing (MLM) companies have been heavily scrutinized since the early 1970s, mostly for their controversial pay structures in which people are compensated for how much product

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long as they also made similar investments.8 But on November 18, 1975, Koscot was ordered by the FTC “to cease using its open-ended, multilevel marketing plan; engaging in illegal price fixing and price discrimination and imposing selling and purchasing restrictions on its distributors; and to cease making exaggerated earnings claims

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were causing. One such “long” they were banking on was an investment in a controversial company called Pre-Paid Legal Services. Pre-Paid was a multilevel marketing company that sold services to individuals and small businesses and had more than 1.3 million members nationwide. Not everyone was a believer though. The

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system where the independent contractors, called distributors, were compensated for what they sold as well as for how many new recruits they brought in. This multilevel marketing (MLM) structure was booming at the time.17 Mary Kay Cosmetics, Amway, and Tupperware were well-established brands with histories dating back to the 1950s

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the questions Einhorn had asked, while showing a real-time stock chart documenting the stock’s sharp decline. The reporter had long been skeptical of multilevel marketing companies in general and laid out for viewers why the questions were so damning for the stock, which was now plunging. “You have a situation

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phone open to hear everything. Up popped Einhorn’s first slide. “M-L-M,” it read—an obvious reference, those in the auditorium thought, to multilevel marketing, the kind of business Herbalife was. The assembled journalists and a cadre of finance bloggers clutched their phones, ready to tweet the news when it

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… Martin Marietta Materials. It was all a ruse. M-L-M was the ticker symbol for the construction materials company and not an acronym for multilevel marketing. Einhorn was just screwing with the company, and laughed, as did all in attendance. Herbalife shares spiked 15 percent almost immediately out of pure relief

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around in the media. Loeb called his office from Mexico and had his associates immediately hire former FTC lawyers with expertise in the field of multilevel marketing. The goal was clear—to decide whether Herbalife was a pyramid scheme or not and whether an investment and the risk that came with it

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Commission has the resources and expertise to investigate these claims and determine whether Herbalife is, in fact, an illegal pyramid scheme rather than a legitimate multilevel marketing business,” said the Greenberg letter.3 The NCL said it had met with representatives of both Pershing Square and Herbalife and had gotten conflicting points

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, 31 Messi, Lionel, 53 Meyer, Edward, 153 Meyers, Maxwell, 104 Microsoft, 92, 93, 94 Milken, Michael, 121, 125–126 Minneapolis Star Tribune, 38 MLM. See multilevel marketing companies Model, Allen J., 153 Moelis & Company, 77 Moffett Group, 145 momentum on Wall Street, 166 Monroe, Jana, 6 Moritz, Robert E., 139 Motorola, 128

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Mt. Sinai Medical School, 129 Multilevel marketing (MLM) companies, 13, 14, 30, 43–44, 51, 68, 73, 90, 112, 143, 196 and Amway decision of 1979, 44 Mylan pharmaceuticals, 127 NASDAQ Biotechnology

The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead

by David Callahan  · 1 Jan 2004  · 452pp  · 110,488 words

of health products that are touted as helping people lose weight, prevent disease, and improve their skin. The company operates through multilevel marketing, a business strategy most famously associated with Amway. Multilevel marketing gets ordinary people to act as sellers for a company's products. These individuals, dubbed "distributors," are lured by the promise

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off their own sales but also of making money off the sales of other distributors that they recruit. That's the theory, anyway. In practice, multilevel marketing can often amount to a pyramid scheme. State law enforcement agencies and consumer protection agencies have file cabinets filled with consumer complaints about

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multilevel marketing. Tawnya Cummiskey didn't know any of this when she paid Dr. Braunstein $60 for BioLean. Nor did she realize that her purchase included the

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company recruits leading physicians to help convince other doctors to get in on the selling action. And Wellness is only one of over a hundred multilevel marketing companies that sell health products. A growing number of physicians are caught up in these pyramid schemes—lured by the promise of extra income. Doctors

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involved in the multilevel-marketing companies, in turn, represent only a small fraction of those physicians who are pitching health products to their patients. Reports peg the sale of health

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, [>]–[>] Bell Curve, The (Murray), [>]–[>] Bellesiles, Michael: plagiarism scandal, [>], [>] Bennett, William, [>], [>] The Book of Virtues, [>] The Devaluing of America, [>] The Moral Compass, [>] Berry, Dr. Tim: on multilevel marketing by doctors, [>]–[>] BioLean: marketing of, [>]–[>] Blair, Jayson, [>], [>] fabricates news stories, [>]–[>], [>]–[>] Blakely, Edward & Mary Gail Snyder: Fortress America, [>] Blodget, Henry: conflicts of interest, [>] corrupt values of

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, Dr. Jeanne, [>] Digges, Edward, Jr., [>] doctors: bribed by pharmaceutical companies, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>] conflicts of interest among, [>], [>] economic pressures on, [>]–[>] health supplements sold by, [>]–[>] inadequate professional discipline of, [>] multilevel marketing by, [>]–[>], [>]–[>] willingness to be bribed, [>]–[>], [>] Dodds, DeLoss, [>] Dominican Republic, [>]–[>] Drexler, Millard, [>]–[>] drugs, illegal: in sports, [>]–[>] Duderstadt, James: on corruption in athletics, [>]–[>] Duker, William, [>] Duke University

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Trust, The (Uslaner), [>], [>] morality: laissez-faire economics and, [>] Lakoff on, [>]–[>] and social values, [>]–[>], [>]–[>] Turiel on development of, [>]–[>] and unequal punishment, [>]–[>] Morze, Mark, [>]–[>] Mount Holyoke College, [>] multilevel marketing: by doctors, [>]–[>], [>]–[>] Municipal Credit Union: ATM fraud at, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>] Murray, Charles: The Bell Curve, [>]–[>] Losing Ground, [>] and racism, [>] music piracy, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>] Napster, [>]–[>] National Association of Securities Dealers

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

by Amanda Montell  · 14 Jun 2021  · 244pp  · 73,700 words

above and beyond”; “You are the greatest generation of warriors and heroes in this quest for a cancer cure.” “It reminds me of the way multilevel marketing people talk,” she tells me (referencing culty direct sales companies like Mary Kay and Amway—more on these later). “It’s cultlike, but for a

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religious movements,” “emergent religions,” and “marginalized religions.” But while these phrases work in an academic context, I find they don’t quite capture the CrossFits, multilevel marketing companies, college theater programs, and other hard-to-categorize points along the influence continuum. We need a more versatile way to talk about communities that

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, power, community, and belief could legitimately help us understand what motivates people’s fanatical behaviors during this ever-restless era—a time when we find multilevel marketing scams masquerading as feminist start-ups, phony shamans ballyhooing bad health advice, online hate groups radicalizing new members, and kids sending each other literal death

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to notorious “suicide cults” like Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate; part 3 explores controversial religions like Scientology and Children of God; part 4 is about multilevel marketing companies (MLMs); part 5 covers “cult fitness” studios; and part 6 delves into social media gurus. The words we hear and use every day can

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so much time and money to enlist a new member, they avoided wasting resources on someone who seemed liable to break down right away. (Similarly, multilevel marketing higher-ups agree that their most profitable recruits aren’t those in urgent need of cash but instead folks determined and upbeat enough to play

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and culture is also what allows so many corners of the capitalist marketplace to call upon God to promote their products . . . including and especially the multilevel marketing industry (a cult category we’ll discuss in depth in part 4). Christian-affiliated direct sales companies like Mary Kay Cosmetics and Thirty-One Gifts

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and can name a dozen ex–high school classmates of her own who’ve been sucked into the same “cult” as Becca: the cult of Multilevel Marketing. Multilevel marketing, network marketing, relationship marketing, direct sales . . . there are at least half a dozen synonyms for MLMs, the legally loopholed sibling of pyramid schemes. At once

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companies hide in plain sight behind all sorts of euphemistic labels: gifting circles (also called looms, lotuses, or fractal mandalas), investment clubs, and, most commonly, multilevel marketing companies—MLMs for short. Like the challenge of distinguishing between a religion and a cult, there are few objective distinctions between pyramid schemes and “legit

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am I remembering correctly that you’ve been involved with direct sales endeavors in the past?” I wrote. “I’m writing about the language of multilevel marketing and would love to hear about your experience.” In all of Becca’s “after” photos, she exuded health and happiness, but combine the rules of

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poppycock of direct sales as a hopeless dunce, the truth is that this toxically positive rhetoric is fundamentally baked into American society. The cult of multilevel marketing is a direct product of the “cult” that is Western capitalism itself. In the United States, networking marketing as we know it got its start

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from his endorsements of several MLMs: James V. Grimaldi and Mark Maremont, “Donald Trump Made Millions from Multilevel Marketing Firm,” Wall Street Journal, August 13, 2015, https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-made-millions-from-multilevel-marketing-firm-1439481128. Trump and his three children could be sued for fraud: Lisette Voytko, “Judge Rules Trump

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.” Less a “movement” and more a failed pyramid scheme, NXIVM, joked Trexler, was like “the Amway of sex.” (Though I’d actually argue that the multilevel marketing giant Amway is more of a threat to society than NXIVM ever was. We’ll talk about that in part 4.) * Although, I have found

The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit

by Aja Raden  · 10 May 2021  · 291pp  · 85,822 words

houses in the cul-de-sac, and once they’re all reps, well … they can’t sell it to each other. This is known as multilevel marketing, or MLM. Rather than one big Pyramid in which everyone at every level pays the top and is paid by the top, MLM is a

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sales reps, not from selling the actual product, because even the leviathan of Pyramid Schemes is still a Pyramid Scheme. Most people involved in a multilevel marketing scheme make no money at all, and many go into deep debt. Here’s the fun thing about MLMs: they’re not governed by exactly

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Permanent Record So, you’re too clean (you’re not) for Wall Street, and you’re too smart (you’d be surprised) to fall for multilevel marketing? That’s okay, I’ve got one more. Let’s talk about the biggest, sexiest Pyramid Scheme currently going: Bitcoin. Bitcoin (in case you live

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mind mermaid documentary, of Animal Planet Mesmer, Franz Anton mesmerism Michelangelo Milgram, Stanley Miller, William Franklin “520 Miller” mirror neurons, Gauchais effect of MLM. See multilevel marketing Mona Lisa, by da Vinci money. See also 2008 financial crisis counterfeiting of Guru Con cost of memory and competition over PTL Club donation requests

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seed, magical thinking on televangelists and money-box con, of Lustig Morrison, Jim mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in 2008 financial crisis multilevel marketing (MLM) murder attempts, on Rasputin museums, art forgery in mystical experiences, false-memory effect in narcotics. See opiates natural born liars nature, of lying novelty

Virus of the Mind

by Richard Brodie  · 4 Jun 2009  · 289pp  · 22,394 words

. When you saw “profit viruses,” did you immediately think of Amway? Amway is the most successful of the currently proliferating profit viruses known as multilevel marketing (MLM). Multilevel marketing is distinct from a pyramid scheme and is legal. Instead of selling memberships that have no value except that they give you the right to

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companies, those at the top tend to stay there, making large profits at the expense of low-level employees with relatively little opportunity for advancement. Multilevel marketing is the business of the future. As broadcast media and the competition for the consumer’s mind become costlier, noisier, and more crowded, the opportunity

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them to volunteer, and then having those volunteers call still more volunteers. The volunteers self-replicate, and you can plug in literally any political agenda. — Multilevel marketing companies, as described earlier in the chapter. The product sold is really secondary to the structure of the business. Of course, you need to have

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threat to humanity, xvii–xix Trojan horses and, 143–44 mirroring, rapport and, 139–40 mission meme, 73 mission statements, 203 Morris, Robert, Jr., 36 multilevel marketing (MLM), 199, 206 mutation, 39 natural selection, xiii, xvii, 48–49, 58, 71–72, 79 sex drives and, 100, 109 Nazism, 15 Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken in and What We Can Do About It

by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris  · 10 Jul 2023  · 338pp  · 104,815 words

promises an unusually high and consistent monthly or quarterly return and describes the investment principal as completely safe from loss. Eventually, all such schemes—from multilevel marketing organizations to gifting clubs to phony investment funds—run out of new investors/victims, and those who join last lose all their money.5 Variants

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matter how outrageous it becomes. Cult leaders would see this cartoon as a recipe for success.9 Keith Raniere was the founder of NXIVM, a multilevel marketing organization that offered self-improvement courses but became infamous for enticing women into master-slave relationships and branding their bodies with a special logo. He

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the most publicized, so it became a template for all later cons of its nature, even though many of them had important differences. 5. In multilevel marketing organizations, entrepreneurs recruit other entrepreneurs to sell for them and pay a portion of their proceeds up the chain, all the way to the founder

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: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise of NXIVM (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2019); her quotation is from p. 10. Note that multilevel marketing organizations are often described as pyramid schemes, which are commonly associated with deceptive business practices. 11. Similar tactics have been employed to interfere with online

Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn From the Strange Science of Recovery

by Christie Aschwanden  · 5 Feb 2019  · 324pp  · 92,535 words

, she spends around four hours per day in the gym, and recovery is crucial. For help, she turns to one of her sponsors, AdvoCare, a multilevel-marketing company that sells a wide variety of vitamins, supplements, and drink powders. Prodromides’s supplement regimen and endorsement deal are hardly unique. The sports supplement

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alone has sponsorship deals with NASCAR, the MLS, and multiple NCAA events, as well as with individual athletes like NFL quarterback Drew Brees. Numerous other multilevel-marketing and supplement companies have struck deals with high-profile sporting events and teams. Herbalife sponsors the LA Galaxy Major League Soccer team and some Ironman

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to build their AdvoCare business can reap life-changing financial rewards, but a 2016 investigation by ESPN reporter Mina Kimes found that, as with many multilevel-marketing programs, very few people make even a modest income from selling the products.4 According to Kimes’s report, participants in the system are pressured

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, 15 mood, 137, 221–23 Moore, Brian, 205 Morgan, Nick, 116, 117 Morgan, William, 221–22 Morrison, Philip, 55, 266n.1 motor skills learning, 147 multilevel-marketing programs, 166 multivitamins, 162–63, 176 Murphy, Robert J., 35 Murray, Bob, 36–37 muscle adaptation, 267n.11 Muscle and Fitness, 169 muscle cramps, hydration

Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside

by Xiaowei Wang  · 12 Oct 2020  · 196pp  · 61,981 words

party for the Facebook age, where hostesses sell goods on social media livestream. Selling parties like this are not just for pearls. These days, the multilevel marketing (MLM) industry is thriving on social media as millions of people hawk aromatherapy oils, yoga leggings, and vitamins across Instagram and Facebook. While MLMs have

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as the oyster is opened for you on Facebook Live during the broadcast by the hostess. She typically calls herself a “pearl consultant” for a multilevel marketing company that distributes these oysters. As a consultant, she purchases the wish pearl oysters from the MLM company up front, and there’s pressure for

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a time when you rarely get to feel special, doesn’t it feel so good to hear that someone cares about you? The model of multilevel marketing, with its emphasis on personal relationships and cultivating entrepreneurship, is not new. It’s been around since the 1950s, with Avon makeup and Tupperware. But

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the power of positive thinking and a “gospel” of prosperity, while entrepreneurs like William Penn Patrick pioneered the MLM tactic of charging sellers in his multilevel marketing company, Holiday Magic, for courses on “mind dynamics.” This blend of mysticism and capitalism paved the way for the 1980s, when

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multilevel marketing morphed into its current form, becoming predatory and insidiously corporate. This form is far more exploitative, wooing people with the illusion of flexible hours and “

Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World

by Bruce Schneier  · 1 Jan 2000  · 470pp  · 144,455 words

. Scams According to the National Consumers League, the five most common online scams are sale of Internet services, sale of general merchandise, auctions, pyramid and multilevel marketing schemes, and business opportunities. People read some enticing e-mail or visit an enticing Web site, send money off to some post office box for

You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All

by Adrian Hon  · 14 Sep 2022  · 371pp  · 107,141 words

deploy the balloons for two days, but in the end, it only took nine hours for MIT’s team to win.61 Their strategy? A multilevel marketing technique that incentivised people to relay sightings to their team by distributing winnings not only to a balloon sighter ($2000) but to the person who

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direct comparisons to games. Instead, it’s often consumers who treat consumption like a game, with retailers only too happy to oblige. Take the LuLaRoe multilevel marketing company, which earns money by selling clothes to its “consultants,” who sell them on to shoppers.27 Unlike normal retailers, consultants can’t order specific

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spend $499 to get started, with many of their orders running into thousands of dollars.29 Then there are the broader similarities between games and multilevel marketing schemes, like LuLaRoe’s giveaways and complex system of leadership tiers and “leadership pool” points that determine consultants’ compensation.30 Plenty of retailers reward customer

Lying for Money: How Fraud Makes the World Go Round

by Daniel Davies  · 14 Jul 2018  · 294pp  · 89,406 words

Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America

by Erik Baker  · 13 Jan 2025  · 362pp  · 132,186 words

The Wealth Dragon Way: The Why, the When and the How to Become Infinitely Wealthy

by John Lee  · 13 Apr 2015  · 202pp  · 72,857 words

5 Day Weekend: Freedom to Make Your Life and Work Rich With Purpose

by Nik Halik and Garrett B. Gunderson  · 5 Mar 2018  · 290pp  · 72,046 words

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back

by Douglas Rushkoff  · 1 Jun 2009  · 422pp  · 131,666 words

Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition

by Charles Eisenstein  · 11 Jul 2011  · 448pp  · 142,946 words

Dawn of the Code War: America's Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat

by John P. Carlin and Garrett M. Graff  · 15 Oct 2018  · 568pp  · 164,014 words

Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game by Walking Away

by Julien Saunders and Kiersten Saunders  · 13 Jun 2022  · 268pp  · 64,786 words

Howard Rheingold

by The Virtual Community Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier-Perseus Books (1993)  · 26 Apr 2012

Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves From the American Dream

by Alissa Quart  · 14 Mar 2023  · 304pp  · 86,028 words

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

by Devon Price  · 4 Apr 2022  · 456pp  · 101,959 words

The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family

by Jesselyn Cook  · 22 Jul 2024  · 321pp  · 95,778 words

The Rough Guide to Australia (Travel Guide eBook)

by Rough Guides  · 14 Oct 2023  · 1,955pp  · 521,661 words

Mastering Blockchain: Unlocking the Power of Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts

by Lorne Lantz and Daniel Cawrey  · 8 Dec 2020  · 434pp  · 77,974 words

How Boards Work: And How They Can Work Better in a Chaotic World

by Dambisa Moyo  · 3 May 2021  · 272pp  · 76,154 words

The Six-Figure Second Income: How to Start and Grow a Successful Online Business Without Quitting Your Day Job

by David Lindahl and Jonathan Rozek  · 4 Aug 2010  · 228pp  · 65,953 words

The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime

by Mj Demarco  · 8 Nov 2010  · 386pp  · 116,233 words

The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

by Jimmy Soni  · 22 Feb 2022  · 505pp  · 161,581 words

Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity

by Edward Tenner  · 8 Jun 2004  · 423pp  · 126,096 words

Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980

by Rick Perlstein  · 17 Aug 2020

Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry

by Helaine Olen  · 27 Dec 2012  · 375pp  · 105,067 words

Team Human

by Douglas Rushkoff  · 22 Jan 2019  · 196pp  · 54,339 words

Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments

by Michael Batnick  · 21 May 2018  · 198pp  · 53,264 words

Dead Companies Walking

by Scott Fearon  · 10 Nov 2014  · 232pp  · 71,965 words

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

by Jane Mayer  · 19 Jan 2016  · 558pp  · 168,179 words

Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall

by Zeke Faux  · 11 Sep 2023  · 385pp  · 106,848 words

Money Men: A Hot Startup, a Billion Dollar Fraud, a Fight for the Truth

by Dan McCrum  · 15 Jun 2022  · 361pp  · 117,566 words

It's Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO

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Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism

by Jeff Gramm  · 23 Feb 2016  · 384pp  · 103,658 words

Give People Money

by Annie Lowrey  · 10 Jul 2018  · 242pp  · 73,728 words

How Medicine Works and When It Doesn't: Learning Who to Trust to Get and Stay Healthy

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Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way

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Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal

by Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz  · 20 Jul 2020  · 520pp  · 134,627 words

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

by Jeremy Scahill  · 1 Jan 2007  · 924pp  · 198,159 words

Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination

by Adam Lashinsky  · 31 Mar 2017  · 190pp  · 62,941 words

I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories From the Edge of 50

by Annabelle Gurwitch  · 6 Mar 2014  · 200pp  · 64,050 words

The Thyroid Diet

by Mary J. Shomon  · 31 Aug 2004  · 384pp  · 90,089 words

Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth

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Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

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The Kickstarter Handbook: Real-Life Success Stories of Artists, Inventors, and Entrepreneurs

by Steinberg, Don  · 14 Aug 2012  · 163pp  · 46,523 words

The Trade of Queens

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We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body's Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds

by Sally Adee  · 27 Feb 2023  · 329pp  · 101,233 words

Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories From the Frontline

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Women and Other Monsters: Building a New Mythology

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