PSA - Scams targeting the elderly and MLM

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The great Autozone Annual clearance is going on now and you never see Amsoil at $2 a quart


Aren't retailers just middlemen?

I never understood the anti MLM trope. What value is having an Autozone if I just pick up oil there?
 
Retailers aren't people that are taken advantage of by a supplier.

Retailers aren't encouraged to take advantage of their personal relationships by the same.

Retailers don't end up with a closet full of junk that they can't sell or return after having spent personal savings.
 
Originally Posted By: DBMaster
I worked in the corporate office of an MLM company for twelve years. I know what's wrong behind the scenes, too.

Tell us some stories!
 
I was approached by someone to join her team for MLM. It would "only" cost me $3,000.00 and I would make my money back in savings from buying their products and recruiting new members to the team. I told her I would not waste my money like that. A month after my husband died she called again and said now that I did not have anything to do it would be the perfect time to join and I could meet new people. She even had someone up the line to put pressure on me to join. I feel very sorry for the people that fall for that sort of thing. I am very fortunate that I have some good friends and BITOG. Thank you all for the help and advice you give.

Helen
 
Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Quote:

The great Autozone Annual clearance is going on now and you never see Amsoil at $2 a quart


Aren't retailers just middlemen?

I never understood the anti MLM trope. What value is having an Autozone if I just pick up oil there?


Because it's typically a pyramid scheme. The people who get recruited at the bottom end up getting screwed. They're goaded on to work harder so they can be at the top of the pyramid which just ignores the whole corrupt structure. Ultimately, not everyone can be at the top of the pyramid. Standard retail isn't a pyramid, either people come into your stores and buy stuff or you go out of business. Employees still get paid and don't have to bug their friends/relatives to buy their stuff.

MLM's are a virus, knowledge about them is the antivirus. Stop them from spreading.
 
Originally Posted By: Bandito440
Originally Posted By: DBMaster
I worked in the corporate office of an MLM company for twelve years. I know what's wrong behind the scenes, too.

Tell us some stories!


I was in charge of purchasing and working with the contract manufacturers. The products at least had what the label stated they had in them. That video clip from John Oliver's show with the rock star entrance of the company CEO was a real deja vu moment. If you want to be "successful" in MLM you have to stop associating with "stinking thinking." In other words, you have to ditch any friends and family who speak negatively of the "cult." Everyone you know and everyone you meet is no longer fun to be around or interesting to chat with. They are all sales prospects. Soon, you'll find that no one other than other MLMers will even want to be around you.

MLM devalues relationships. That is its most negative aspect. A very few at the top will make money. The rest will, at best, just get product at a "discount." My employer paid 45% of all revenue as commissions. So, to make a bottom line profit of even 8% the markup had to be tremendous. That's why they have to convince you of how much better their stuff is than anything else out there; because if it was good enough to sell at retail it would be far less expensive. They'll always throw in the religion card, too. Like somehow it's your mission to bring God's bounty to the world (while making yourself rich, of course). Eventually, MLM's collapse. The only way to keep them growing is to continually expand to new territories. Eventually, though, the end result is the same.
 
Some good advice here, but also lots of garbage and mythology. I do agree some really bad apples have given MLM a bad name, but I don't see why the bad apples in store front retailing don't blemish all others.

Naturally I will defend Amsoil. Amsoil is NOT a pyramid scheme, anyone who says that, really doesn't know what they are talking about. Amsoil doesn't require a minimum purchase. We can argue all day long about the quality of the products, which is fine, but Amsoil has been in business since 1972 to sell products. It is not one giant pyramid or some other crazy idea, where the last people put in some money and they all lose out. Amsoil definitely is not some get rich scheme, it takes time and persistence with businesses and shops for commercial and retail accounts, and plenty of interface and question answering for individuals for PC and catalog accounts. Dealers who try and ram stuff down people's throats don't get far, and trying to hard sell to relatives is extremely stupid. Amsoil in no way advocates this.

If you don't understand something, don't attack first. Thanks.
 
Thanks for the input. I didn't think Amsoil was set up like this. Are you able to make money by signing up additional dealers and create a triangle-shaped revenue stream?

It's not so much the direct sales aspect of MLM that makes for a poor business strategy, but the way people are pressured into signing up their friends and family. If there's no control over who becomes a dealer, but the company is willing to collect money from anyone who signs up, that becomes a problem.

For instance, a restaurant franchise won't allow ten of their businesses to be built in the same mall because they would compete against each other and fail. If an MLM allows anyone to become a "consultant" when the only requirement is that they have the startup money, that's a problem. In that case, they're just looking to collect fees from people and take advantage.
 
Pablo,
I say it know, and i said it years ago when i joined BITOG:
you, the late Garry Allan, and many other Amsoil dealers who sponsored BITOg and give up their car/oils knowledge here are different animals then the bad apples. and the bad structures/mega-structures of bad apples.
this is what we complain about.

P.S. since winter is here, you are overdue on an update on the subie....
 
Originally Posted By: Bandito440
Thanks for the input. I didn't think Amsoil was set up like this. Are you able to make money by signing up additional dealers and create a triangle-shaped revenue stream?

It's not so much the direct sales aspect of MLM that makes for a poor business strategy, but the way people are pressured into signing up their friends and family. If there's no control over who becomes a dealer, but the company is willing to collect money from anyone who signs up, that becomes a problem.

For instance, a restaurant franchise won't allow ten of their businesses to be built in the same mall because they would compete against each other and fail. If an MLM allows anyone to become a "consultant" when the only requirement is that they have the startup money, that's a problem. In that case, they're just looking to collect fees from people and take advantage.


Sure as a DJ (Direct Jobber) I get a very small amount of commission points from dealers who signed up with me. But it ends at me. That is the meaning of a DJ. There is no start-up money other than a small annual dealer fee. Available is some decent training, and then become a T1 certified dealer to get local leads, that Amsoil HQ handles now. If people aren't making money, they just drop out. Amsoil still is not a common household name, but really how many oils are?

Originally Posted By: pandus13
Pablo,
I say it know, and i said it years ago when i joined BITOG:
you, the late Garry Allan, and many other Amsoil dealers who sponsored BITOg and give up their car/oils knowledge here are different animals then the bad apples. and the bad structures/mega-structures of bad apples.
this is what we complain about.

P.S. since winter is here, you are overdue on an update on the subie....


Already have my winter tires on and enjoyed some ice!!
 
I would not count Amsoil among the like of a scam company.

Maybe not all of Amsoil's products are mind blowing, but alot of them are.

They also have many products for which there is no retail equivalent, and superior products for applications that have either been completely abandoned by the bigs, or left with inferior retail options.
 
Amsoil is one of those rare cases in which the product was both unique (synthetic motor oil was not readily available in 1972) and not of questionable benefit. I became an Amsoil dealer in the early 90's just to be able to buy synthetic ATF, which was not available at retail at the time. The fact that its still around is a testament to the value of the products and the loyalty of its customers. I'm really surprised, actually. Once synthetic oils became mainstream and multiple brands of synthetic transmission fluids REALLY went mainstream (OEM in many vehicles now) I figured Amsoil would die out. The products are still quite expensive compared to the retail model. By nature, you're stuck with that due to the commission payouts in the MLM sales model. There was a product called Metabolife that, in the late 1990's, had such success based upon people's desire to use the product that they decided to pay off their top distributors and convert from MLM to retail sales. Unfortunately for them, their main active ingredient, ephedrine, was later banned by the FDA. Their reformulated product was not terribly effective so they faded away. Heck, it was basically a mild amphetamine. A lot of people thought if a little was good a lot was better and a few of them died as a result. Some of you probably remember Metabolife and Hydroxycut.

But, back to Amsoil. When I joined the guy who was my upline sent me a VHS tape (yeah, showing my age now). He made the program himself and it was almost 100% product based. There was very little selling advice. He mainly extolled the virtues of the products, of which there are many. Problem is that now there is an awful lot of competition.

If any of you are interested, check out a company called Watkins. They are supposedly the oldest MLM in America, dating to 1914. I toured the Watkins Museum on a trip to Winona, MN a good while back.
 
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
I would not count Amsoil among the like of a scam company.

Maybe not all of Amsoil's products are mind blowing, but alot of them are.

They also have many products for which there is no retail equivalent, and superior products for applications that have either been completely abandoned by the bigs, or left with inferior retail options.



I guess scam is a pretty broad brush, but it probably falls under inefficient. Because of the middleman prices are higher than if they were straight retail or an internet based business. Look at how Amazon is killing the retail business. So you're left with the people who think that you get what you pay for and believe they're getting a superior product because they're paying more money. But if they're the type that's changing synthetic oil at 5k, they're just wasting money anyway.
 
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