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Thanatosian posted:I have a cousin who is apparently telling everyone on Facebook that she's making tons of money through an MLM (I don't have Facebook, so am hearing about this second-hand through my mother). I am enormously skeptical. She's not. I promise. Ask her to show you her tax returns. Like I said, she might show you a CHECK she got and it's probably legit but if it's for, say, 500 bucks the part she's leaving out is the $2000 of overpriced poo poo she bought that she never sold.
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Dec 12, 2017 01:38
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Panfilo posted:No denying that however desperation can lead people to making questionable choices. When there is a serious shortage of solid full time jobs in an area even practical people can throw critical thinking out the window. Most of the people that got sucked into MLM 's were the most economically vulnerable. There's also the cult like brainwashing factor and exploiting people who are lonely and feel like "losers" being made to feel like a part of something. Like joining a gang almost. I "lost" a good friend to the Amway cult. Dude had lost his parents, was socially awkward and couldn't find a girlfriend. The MLM types pretend they're like family and tell the suckers that all their friends are holding them back and standing in the way of their dreams and success. Motherfucker wouldn't talk about anything else after like 6 months. He started wearing suits and ties everywhere, constantly talking about Jesus and handing out energy drinks and poo poo; like at beach parties or cookouts. He was an OK dude before and I dug hanging out with him. He was a little hosed up but no more or less than the next guy to my eyes. Then he started acting like a Manson family member (minus the murdering) inside of 6 months and was pitching my wife "the plan" even when I explicitly asked him not to once I'd found out his "new business venture" was loving Quixtar. They pretend to care about the person and create an entire...well...cult; where they shut out everything but "the business" and straight up brainwash these people. It's loving scary and sickening and financial desperation is only part of what they exploit. The way they isolate their members from the people who used to be their friends and the religios furvor of their rallies are straight up cult 101 tactics. Props to the dude who linked "Merchants of Deception" btw. It's a great read. Panfilo posted:This also makes me wonder if MLMs are like gold in that they get really popular during times of financial insecurity. I mean if most people were in a position to work a stable full time job with benefits then why would they bother with something like Amway? They do. They're increasingly prevalent in poorer third world countries where people don't know any better. RenegadeStyle1 posted:Absolutely. I agree and also I don't think just because someone was dumb/gullible and fell for it that it makes it right. It should be illegal and I have no idea how it doesn't count as fraud or an issue of workers rights (I know lol america and all that but still). Lobbyists. Google the DeVos family. Sorry for the long post but MLM's really burn my rear end. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Dec 14, 2017 |
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Dec 14, 2017 01:22
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Professor Shark posted:I finally got around to reading Merchants and it’s driving me nuts that he doesn’t talk about how much money he’s making at each stage None. Especially after buying all the tapes and attending the rallies and poo poo.
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Dec 19, 2017 11:37
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Professor Shark posted:I'm on Chapter 7 now and he just said that their combined workload of 100 hours a week was pulling in $25,000 a year. That would be horrifying, if not for the part a few sentences later when he talks about his kids reading the Amway produced children's book Just Wait Until We're Diamonds to explain why mommy and daddy are tired all the time: He's not CLEARING $25,000 a year is the thing. And, yeah, their whole deal is to get it to where you get to be up on the STAGE and pretending to be successful. It's loving disgusting what they do and I can't believe people fall for it. Then again, it's 2017 and people should know better but televangalists and faith healers sell magic spring water that cures cancer and armageddon pancake mix. At a certain point I find myself getting mad at the people buying it.
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Dec 20, 2017 02:50
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MightyJoe36 posted:I'm curious. Jim Bakker. THAT Jim Bakker. The convicted felon.
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Dec 20, 2017 13:01
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Professor Shark posted:Why are Zack and Amway so gung-ho about their victims getting their wives to stay at home and eventually quitting their jobs? It seems like having at least one person working a real job would be good to keep the money coming in. Same with when Kerry and Chris drove away all the new recruits with their aggressive insanity and Zack refused to replace them, even though John and Kathy were bringing in all the people/money- they prize unquestioning loyalty over making more money? Basically it's because that flies in the face of how Amway brainwashes people into becoming True Believers and 100% ONLY buying everything from Amway. It's similar to the way they grind recruits down to abandon and ostracize themselves from their friends and family. Anyone who is not totally committed or all in is seen as a threat which is framed as them being an obstacle to your success as an IBO. The whole model is built on creating a rabid and fanatical (cult) customer base who are being told that they are "Independent Business Owners" that are only a little more hard work away from success, when, in fact, they are brainwashed consumers who often resort to basically buying from themselves in order to rack up points (PVO). They get to where they spend $5,000 a month in order to get a $1,200 check that they've convinced themselves is "income". They're also told they can wrote off that $3,800 difference on their taxes as a business expense but they can't. https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2014/04/28/tax-court-denies-amway-losses-again/#68060b7f584a It's like spending more money at Walgreens and stocking that poo poo in your basement just so you can get more reward points.
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Dec 21, 2017 00:51
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Terrible video quality but Dateline did a special on this MLM stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5xu6bIFSeE Seems legit and not at all like a mega church or a cult
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Dec 24, 2017 03:40
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Re-reading Merchants of Deception and this passage caught my eyequote:We were taught to remain loyal to our product line with 100% self-use, which often This is the business model and the scam in a nutshell. The only people "selling" anything is Amway corporation itself and the use the MLM structure to create millions of blindly loyal consumers. They buy this overpriced poo poo and then get a "commission" check that they convince themselves is "income" or profit. These are the checks that people who say "there's a lot people making money with Amway. my cousin did OK" are shown as proof that money can be made. It's almost like cash back credit card rewards or rebate offers, neither of which are loving "income".
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Dec 25, 2017 17:11
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Far as I know Avon is legit and Mary Kay isn't. Basically, if you're encouraged to recruit people to work under you, it's bullshit.
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Dec 25, 2017 21:39
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Or you can just go into Carmax and get ripped off conveniently. Saves a lot of stress and time. I'm making GBS threads on Carmax but I did buy a car from them once that I was quite happy with and it took maybe 90 minutes. I probably got ripped off though.
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Dec 29, 2017 00:49
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Vinny the Shark posted:When I was car shopping back in 2012, a Suburban Ford dealership offered me $2000 for my trade in. Later that day, I went to another Suburban Ford dealership and they offered me $500, telling me that "your transmission is slipping." When I asked why literally a few hours earlier another dealership of the same franchise was willing to offer 4 times as much and never mentioned such a serious defect, the sales lady tells me "our mechanics are really good." Isn't it more like the first place was gonna offer more but make it up on the sale and hidden costs?
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Dec 29, 2017 15:15
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Pilsner posted:Just buy a car used car from a regular person, and pay in cash. Problem solved. You do realize that many people simply don't have $5,000 in cash laying around, right? Also, to your second point about getting cash for your car: yes, that's a great idea but a LOT of people NEED the car they have to get to work to pay for the car you're talking about them buying. Meaning, if I needed to sell my car for $2500 in order to have enough cash to buy the $5000 one, there's a whole lot of logistical issues there and saying "just buy a car" is not always helpful advice. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Dec 31, 2017 |
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Dec 31, 2017 16:36
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Pilsner posted:Am I wrong? Speaking for most Americans, yes you're wrong.
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Jan 1, 2018 07:18
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Pilsner posted:If someone has less than $1000 in savings, how exactly are they putting down money on a new car from a dealership then? I'm talking against walking into a dealership and buying a car on a downpayment/loan "deal" here, and recommending buying used for cash instead. With less than $1,000 in savings how else can they buy the car? You're not getting poo poo for $1000. Your arguments seem rooted in some form of "well, duh, make more money" and "who the hell can't save $150 a week? A lot of people can't, actually. You can finance with no money down, btw, which is a big reason people go the financing route. This might be why some posters are calling you a moron. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 17:58
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mostlygray posted:My uncle's ex-girlfriend drove a Mary Kay pink Cadillac. She made hella bank by defrauding people. Mary Kay products aren't bad, but no-one ever made money selling them. It's all about the game. I was in traffic today and some dude had his truck all tricked with Herbalife decals and wraps. Not sure if he works for the company itself or doing the fake it til you make it bit but the motherfucker was committed in any case. Whole vehicle looked like an Herbalife NASCAR vehicle; if NASCAR cars were Toyota pick up trucks.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:29
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Professor Shark posted:Amway people have to buy anything they can from Amway, it's how they bleed their victims and cover themselves legally (by having a product). They sell stickers that your "friends" can put on your non Amway products when they visit. Vinny the Shark posted:A friend of mine was into Amway/Team for a time. They sold XS brand energy drinks that were more expensive, and he would buy a case or two per month. Basically, the company convinces its' distributors that other energy drinks are terrible, don't work and are bad for your health, while XS brand is a "natural" energy booster without all the harmful caffeine, chemicals, or whatever else is in Red Bull, Monster, etc. Also, they sell some BS about how you should buy your products from Amway, since it's money you're going to spend anyway, so why not spend it with your own company instead of Wal-Mart? This is basically why Amway and the DeVos family are rich as gently caress while everyone else who tries that racket goes broke. The "salespeople" basically buy all the products for their own consumption and there's no wholesaling or retail profits for IBO's whatsoever. They totally convince everyone in the chain to continually buy their overpriced products yet even if you bought 100 cases of vitamins or whatever you still can't sell it and make a loving dime. It's fairly astonishing. Amway frightens me in ways I can't entirely articulate. They're like a microcosm of supply side economics, empty platitudes, cultish brainwashing and misplaced faith and materialism wrapped in promises of freedom and empty patriotism while labeling anyone who calls bullshit a loser. It's like an army of Super Republicans. Impressive in its way but that way frightens me.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:39
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Professor Shark posted:Fake it till you make it is so drat dumb Worked for Trump.
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Jan 3, 2018 02:52
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Guest2553 posted:I got mixed up with herbalife as a 15 year old when a high school biology teacher had a friend pitch her bullshit to a class I was in. How is that even loving legal? Man...with these loving MLM's, it's real simple. If anyone ever tries to pitch you this poo poo, ask THEM how much money THEY have made and how long they're been wrapped up in this bullshit. Not only they get crushed just buying overpriced poo poo, they're also taught to buy things they can't afford (like cars, suits, jewelry, etc.) just to give the impression of "success". My former friend who got into it and vanished down the Amway rabbit hole tried to sell me and I said "give me a call when you even make $10,000 in one year and I'll look at it." I never heard from him again. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jan 14, 2018 |
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Jan 14, 2018 18:22
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I seriously suspect that within the next 5-10 years all of our SS #'s will be compromised and the government will scramble to fix it, if they're not already. That genie is out of the bottle and it's only a matter of loving time to my eyes. Only thing keeping people secure at this stage of the game is that hardly anyone has any loving money or net worth that would make someone even bother to go through the trouble of stealing it. I'm not even kidding.
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Jan 17, 2018 01:37
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Are things like Lifelock and ID protection services generally scams?
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Jan 17, 2018 19:00
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goatsestretchgoals posted:Gonna split this off into it's own post. This poo poo happened to me. It certainly wasn't child porn but I got the "FBI is coming for you" pop up during a normal FAP session and the browser basically froze. A hard reboot and a malware scan took care of it but I won't lie. poo poo stopped me in my tracks for a brief moment. Not that I thought I'd get locked up but more worrying about WTF I'd done to my cpu. There are porn sites that have Traci Lords scenes for instance and you never loving know. But I think this poo poo plays more off the "Oh, poo poo. My wife and family will find my jacking habits" on a shared laptop and genuine ignorance about how to remove the malware more than any real belief that the feds are coming to arrest you.
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Jan 21, 2018 20:05
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Thanatosian posted:While there may be some overlap, "weed dealer" and "drug dealer" are generally two very different things. Can confirm.
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Jan 24, 2018 01:37
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EL BROMANCE posted:I've noticed whenever a big concert is announced, immediately there are tickets up on StubHub for silly money in specific blocks/rows. Anyone know the specifics of what I'm sure is a scam? They're before any pre-sale so the only way I can see them being legit is if they're employees of the venue or similar who know they have allocations in certain places. Buying from Ticketmaster is such an rear end, it's not as if they can even rush in at the beginning of a pre-sale and buy these specific seats, as you get offered tickets rather than choose them. Doesn't StubHub require you to even upload the tickets/proof before listing even these days? In my experience, the first ones to show up on a Google search are the scams. I took my son to see Marvel Universe Live a few weeks back and, when looking for tickets, all the links at the top were like double the price. Not sure that's a scam so much as a "shop around" warning but I'd at least expect the actual venue to be the first hit for a show that was no where near sold out.
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Jan 26, 2018 02:27
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Cradle to the Grape posted:I got a Google Hangouts (which I don't really use) message supposedly from a doctor, claiming he's upset I left him a bad review online. He said perhaps I went to his office while he was out of town and a different doctor was covering for him. He'd like to discuss this privately with me, as the bad review could hurt his business. Stop saying mean things online about that nice doctor.
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Jan 29, 2018 01:22
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Have we discussed mechanics and repair men in this thread? I remember Dateline or one of those shows used to the hidden camera under the hood trick and bust shady car repairers. I guess it's not exclusive to auto mechanics because the whole "scam" revolves around me not knowing how to fix whatever the gently caress it is - be it a refrigerator, a car or a computer - but I've seen auto mechanics actually break things that weren't broken in order to rip someone off. My grandma had trouble with her AC once in her car and the dude said she needed a compressor and every other loving thing. I took it to a shop and turns out she needed a belt and some freon. Auto shops can get away with it I think because none of us know what the gently caress we're doing and usually are somewhat forced to simply go to the closest place rather than act out of loyalty if they find an honest one, which is too bad. Anyone got any shady auto repair stories?
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Feb 6, 2018 23:31
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fizzymercy posted:I work at an auto body and frame shop and I would just love to hear a single substantiated story about someone getting actually scammed at a legitimate auto shop. The thing is, everyone on earth thinks they're being suckered by their mechanic. Everyone isn't being scammed, that's stupid. Everyone thinks they're being scammed because cars are mysterious magic boxes that only break because all auto industry workers are dicks that want more money. We're not, we just took a lot of classes and also shoved our heads up the asses of so many cars we've earned your Ignorance Tax. Well, I posted one but I appreciate the post.
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Feb 7, 2018 02:04
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:So one mechanic had one opinion and the other mechanic had another opinion... Which one is the scammer? The one that can't tell the difference between a hose and a blast of freon from a brand new compressor? The one that saw a 72 year old lady drive in and lied to her loving face? That one. That one is the scammer. A shot compressor is pretty easy to diagnose. So is an empty freon tank and a loose hose. Lots of sensitive, defensive car repair men here lately. It's really the same thing as taking advantage of old people who don't understand computers and a simple matter of upselling to the naive which, yeah, I find rather lovely and scammy. Sorry my example was anecdotal. The shop in question was Goodyear to the guy that asked. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Feb 8, 2018 |
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Feb 8, 2018 23:25
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:Why would you assume I'm a car repair man? Because I pointed out that, based on your statement of events, it would be prudent to apply Hanlon's razor? (That's "do not attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence" so people don't have to google it.) ok. I wasn't posting solely at you. Some guy last page got weird about the suggestion that car mechanics could ever be dishonest and another said the hidden video stuff was staged. So far in the thread I hadn't seen an Herbalife or Amway guy come in say "whoa, hold the gently caress on. I DO this for a living so back off" and it just struck me as odd.
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Feb 9, 2018 00:29
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Fil5000 posted:Has the US got anything like the car supermarkets we have in the UK like AvailableCar? CarMax is a lot like that here in the U.S.
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Feb 9, 2018 14:09
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I got an email from a former client - one from my regular job and someone who I've also freelanced for - and it was just link, which I did not click, and a really odd subject line. Looks to me like someone hijacked her email and is phishing I guess.
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Mar 7, 2018 13:04
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Yeah something's going on. Says "answer.c4d-global.com" for the link and "BULK" in the subject line. I sure as poo poo aint clicking it anyway. The woman's name is correct but she would certainly put a subject or a message in there
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Mar 7, 2018 18:04
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Midjack posted:A similar test strategy was used with stolen credit cards, so it makes sense that it would be adapted to a new environment. Yep. I got a call a week ago about fraudulent activity on my CC asking me if I'd made any purchases in Orlando. I've only been between Jacksonville and St. Augustine for the last 3 or 4 months so, no. Oddly, the only registered charges were a couple of $1 service charges but not the purchases themselves. Maybe someone was "testing" the card number but it both charges were at gas stations so not sure how that would work.
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Mar 8, 2018 13:17
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Phyzzle posted:Did you put air in tires using a credit card? Those machines are run by very small, incompetent operations that often report transactions happening wherever the owner is based. No. I haven't even been using that card.
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Mar 8, 2018 14:08
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Yeah, I get them too and it's like the one guy said where I used it once but get updates every month. I think it's like a monthly statement type of thing
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Mar 9, 2018 18:48
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Michael Corleone posted:I was at the grocery store yesterday putting my groceries in my car when a guy came up to me. He asked me what size my shoes were, I told him and he asked me if I wanted to sell them for like $20 because he knew somebody that could use them. I said no obviously. They were dress shoes not Jordan's or anything like that. Is this a scam or just a crazy guy? Even if I wanted to sell them, how does he expect me to get home with no shoes? Are you female? Sounds like a foot fetish dude who wanted take them home smell them or something.
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Mar 11, 2018 02:38
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I'm old enough to remember when "payola" was an actual scandal. Now it's the entire business model. Lot's of things follow this pattern. Maybe it's always been like this and I'm just naive.
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Mar 14, 2018 23:51
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KozmoNaut posted:Absolutely. All that hubbub about streaming services not paying very much to the artists? Further, for the most part, they get to decide who the "biggest acts" are.
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Mar 15, 2018 11:58
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Someone brought this up in another thread and, as a graphic designer, it hit home for me. Those loving contests where you submit a logo or poster design and the winner gets like $200 - if they're lucky. Fuckers are getting hundreds of design ideas for next to nothing.
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Mar 27, 2018 12:56
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SpannerX posted:You're just figuring this out now? Hell, my old man told me about that sort of poo poo going back to the loving forevers, but he was a lawyer so was always suspicious about pretty much everything. no. Just reminded of it now
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Mar 27, 2018 18:06
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I've sold tickets before when i had extras and I just have the guy scan them first before accepting any money. Why would anyone buy a ticket without doing that?
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Apr 14, 2018 14:55
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