Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - INTERVIEW: Roberta Blevins, Former LuLaRoe Vendor & Anti-MLM Scam Advocate

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

In the 2010s, LuLaRoe leggings were everywhere—promising easy money, flexible hours, and the chance to run your own business. But Roberta Blevins learned firsthand that beneath LuLaRoe's vibrant surface lurked a devastating financial trap. In this candid conversation with Nicole Lapin, Roberta reveals the emotional and financial cost of getting caught up in LuLaRoe’s infamous MLM empire, and how she's fighting back today. For more on Lularoe, check our our episode: GREED: LuLaRoe on Apple or Spotify Scams, Money, & Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. For ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Don’t miss out on all things Scams, Money, & Murder! Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Crime House. Looking back on it, the red flags were there from the very beginning. I got conned. I got scammed. I can't believe I fell for this. No, pyramid schemes are illegal. It's like, yeah, so is murder, right? It still happens all the time.

99.7% of people who join MLMs will lose. As they say, money makes the world go round. What many don't talk about is the time it made people's worlds come to a screeching halt. Whether it's greed, desperation, or a thirst for power, money can make even the most unassuming people do unthinkable things. And sometimes, those acts can be deadly. This is Scams, Money, and Murder, a CrimeHouse original. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Every Thursday, we alternate between covering infamous money-motivated crimes and gripping interviews

with the experts or those who are directly involved themselves. CrimeHouse exists because of you. Please rate, review, and follow Scams, Money, and Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And for early ad-free access and bonus content, subscribe to CrimeHouse Plus on Apple Podcasts. When does fast delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato

salad isn't so famous without its grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy zero-dollar delivery fees on your first three orders, service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Hey there and welcome to Scams, Money, and Murder. Even if you haven't heard of Lularoe, you've definitely seen someone wearing their colorful leggings. But behind the bold patterns and promises of empowerment was a much darker story. At its height, Lularoe sold a dream

of financial freedom. Work from home, set your own hours, and build your own business. But for thousands of consultants, that dream turned into financial devastation. Allegations of deceptive practices, aggressive recruiting, and a business model that was built on endless inventory purchases, not actual sales, sent the company into a tailspin, leaving many in debt and disillusioned. We covered Lularoe's rise and fall in depth in a past episode. If you haven't listened to that yet, you can find a link to it in the show notes for this episode. But today we're diving deeper into the personal side of that story.

My guest is Roberta Blevins, a former top consultant for Lularoe, who walked away from the world of multi-level marketing in 2017 and has been speaking out ever since. We're so grateful to have Roberta here to share her experience and to shed some light on the real cost of chasing the American dream through an MLM. Roberta, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. So let's start at the very beginning. How did you first hear about or get involved in the world of multi-level marketing?

Or did you even know what MLMs were? So I didn't really understand what MLM meant or multi-level marketing or direct sales or anything like that fundamentally, but I can remember as far back as a child having MLM in my life. Mary Kay, Tupperware, Sensei, all of these things that my mom would get into. My aunt sold Mary Kay, so it was like very familiar

with that. It was very common. It wasn't innocuous or evil or scary or anything. It just seemed like, oh, it's just like ladies having stamp parties or jewelry parties in the kitchen with wine or whatever. So when my cousin reached out to me and said she was doing this MLM, it was called It Works, and maybe I would like some of the stuff and can she send me a sample? I was like, yeah, sure, no big deal, whatever. I was doing blogging and stuff and this was back in the early 2010s.

I was like, yeah, no problem. That was the first MLM that I joined and I joined for the discount like a lot of people do. It's very, very common to join for the discount. And I think about three months into trying to sell it, I realized that I was not that kind of salesperson. I'd been a hairstylist for a really long time so I can sell myself and my talent, but wasn't so good at like selling magic shakes and green shoes. And so I quit. And it wasn't until a year or so later that I decided that I wanted to join Lula Rowe, which was I think the MLM that most people that know my story know me from. The reason I picked Lula Rowe was I was a mom. I was already wearing

leggings and t-shirts and things like that. And I wasn't such a fan of the really crazy prints that eventually came out, but the black leggings or the basic things, I was like, yeah, I could wear this. This is my mom uniform anyway. Might as well get a discount. Might as well get some friends. I was really isolated at home with a small child.

And so I think everything at the time just looked and felt really right. And I was like, okay, I could sell leggings. I was watching them on Facebook and like they were always sold out and they were just flying off the shelves. And I was like, I could do this. I could sit at home and sell leggings

to people that want to buy them. This is not hard. So I think that was sort of what enticed me, a built-in friendship and community and something that would take me home. So I wasn't traveling and doing hair and staying in the salon really late because I had a small child and I wanted to be there for her to be a part of the PTA, to be like a room mom, to be a chaperone at field trips and events and things.

And I was like, yeah, I could definitely sell leggings in those little pockets of my day, which is kind of what they were selling. And it just seemed like it was a good fit. And so I signed on the dotted line. So it sounds like LuLaRoe gave you a combination of financial freedom, community. It was the right time. It was the right place compared to It Works, which your friend introduced you to before.

What role specifically did all of the community and the sisterhood and the empowering messaging that they have play for you early on? I was very isolated in my life. I was in a not-so-great marriage that is since not around anymore. And I was a new mom and I didn't know what I was doing. And none of my friends had kids that were my daughter's age. They were all a lot older or people that were like, I'm not ready to have kids yet. Again, just so much isolation. I had a lot of friends online because I had been a blogger.

I had a lot of friends online in that sphere, and a lot of them were doing other MLMs. So when I reached out and said, hey, I think I want to do this, they were like, oh my gosh, I've been looking for a girl to buy Lula Ro from, I'm going to buy from you. We could do parties together because I sell jewelry or I sell makeup and we can do this.

And it was very welcoming. That's what MLM sells is this sort of like false sisterhood and community that only exists when you are all in. And I was like so ready to be all in because there were all the things that I was missing in my life at that time. And I thought if I can get friendship and community and support and empowerment and trips and vacations

and discounted clothes. I'm all in. There seems like a win, win, win. I didn't see any downside at the time. But you said false sisterhood. So early on, Lula Rose seemed to deliver on some of the promises that drew you in in the first place. But as time went on, the cracks started to show. I want to

get into those suspicions and the red flags that started to creep up. When did you first notice that something seemed off? In hindsight, almost immediately. Back then then it took maybe six months until I was like, that's weird. And then a year till I was really consistently seeing the red flags, but not really realizing there were red flags because I was still wearing my rose colored glasses of like, I can do this. I can be a boss babe.

But yeah, looking back on it, the red flags were there from the very beginning. What were some of those red flags you ignored at the time? Yeah, so now that I'm educated on the language and really understanding what these truly are inherently, it was a lot of gaslighting. It was a lot of love bombing, a lot of blowing smoke up my ass, a lot of just encouraging me to make bad decisions that I didn't realize were bad decisions

because everybody else was making them too. That's what I did. It worked for me. A lot of this like anecdotal proof that I never saw as something to be hesitant about. It was always like, okay, yeah, okay, if that worked for you and you're really successful, then it'll work for me and I'll be successful too. You can float by for a long time on that anecdotal proof of your friends. I know a girl that got a car. I know a girl that got the cruise. And a lot of times we find out that we're all talking about the same person. We all know that same girl.

So it's not tons and tons and tons of people that are getting the cars and the cruises and all these benefits. We're literally bragging about like the same handful of people. And I didn't realize that until much later. Did you bring any of those concerns up? Oh, I mean, you bring them up. It's a hierarchical structure. So you really just, you talk to what you would call your upline and you bring it up to your upline.

And usually they're pretty good at saying, that's not that big of a deal. I saw that too. And I asked and they give you sort of like a really quick canned response. And you're like, oh yeah, okay. That makes sense. No problem. No big deal.

I get it. You never like punch down. You never would go to your downline, which are the people you bring in and complain about things, you would always complain upwards. And every time I brought those concerns up, they were like, oh yeah, I noticed that let me ask. And then I would never either get like the response that I needed or it would be forgotten.

Or if I then went above and asked, it was kind of like, well, did you talk to your upline about this? I'm like, well, yeah. And like, I got nothing from her. So then what started happening is I started talking to my crossline, which are like kind of the people on the same level that you're on, which is kind of not advised

because when you start talking to the people that are at the same level as you, they're like, I had that same concern. And then we started going like, okay, but if we know this is a problem that's still happening or a concern that's always being brought up and never addressed, what's the point of that? And so I started having these like, isn't this supposed to be a business kind of thoughts

in my head? Wouldn't a business fix this? Wouldn't a business want this advice to like make things better? Because it was always like, well, we're a baby company, you know, assume innocence. They always told us to assume innocence. And they always said, well, we're a baby company. We're still working at the kinks. And somebody who's never owned an MLM or like a big business,

I would be like, OK, I understand. Like, we're in the ground floor. We're the ones that are like forging through and creating this business. We're going to encounter Kinks. OK, I understand. And so I wrote a lot of that stuff off as just being like, well, that's what happens when you're

in a ground floor opportunity. You kind of roll with the punches. And did anyone that was on your downline, am I saying that right? Complained to you? Yeah, all the time. And I tried my best to answer. But again, it's that same. Like I go above and it's, I don't know, I'll ask.

I'm like, I don't know. They said they would ask. I'm assuming this or let's try this or maybe we can find a workaround for this problem that you keep encountering. Let's talk. let's hop on a call, let's try to figure this stuff out. But it really, really truly felt like a bunch of people who didn't know what they were doing, leading a bunch of people that didn't know what they were doing. In this pyramid.

In this pyramid, yes. So noticing red flags is one thing. I mean, watching everything, Roberta fall apart is a whole other thing. So let's talk about the collapse ultimately of LuLaRoe, which wasn't a baby company. It was a quite big company and how it impacted you personally. The downfall for me was I started noticing really bad policies being implemented,

trying to make everybody happy. Got like a happiness policy and a buyback policy. And it's so long ago, it was like eight years ago. So it's like, I don't remember all of them, but there were all these policies where I was like a happiness policy and a buyback policy. And it's so long ago. It was like eight years ago. So it's like, I don't remember all of them. But there were all these policies where I was like, how are they gonna do that? That doesn't make sense. They can't make everybody happy.

We have to have legit policies because this just seems like a blanket. And one of the policies was called the buyback policy. And if you've seen Little Rich, which is great, and I recommend anybody watching it, the buyback policy was essentially like a hundred percent buyback program. And what they thought would happen was that everybody on the fence of joining Lula Rowe would join going, oh, there's a hundred percent buyback. Well, I'll join because it's a guarantee that if I don't like it, I can get all my money back. Most MLMs have about a 90% buyback just

generally. So this hundred percent was like, oh oh wow, like it really is risk free. And so everybody allegedly, I think the thought was everybody that was on the fence that wanted to join and was hesitant about spending, I mean, upwards of $5,000 to join would be like, oh, here's my chance to join risk free. But what actually happened was all of the people on the other side of the fence that were like looking for a reason to leave were like, oh my God, I'm going to get all my money back. Here's my reason to leave. And so tons of people started leaving.

And I was super supportive of my team because I cared about them. And I said, hey, if you need to leave, then leave. If this isn't working for you, great. This is your out. This is a great opportunity for you. I think because they assumed more people would join the more people would leave. The buyback policy that was told over and over and over again, this will never go anywhere, this will never go away. We'll always have this a hundred percent buyback because we care about you.

We care about the business, blah, blah, blah, blah. When the opposite of what they expected happened and so many people left, they could not afford to give those refunds out The buyback was implemented at the beginning of 2017 and about six months in or so they could not sustain They had given back like 50 million dollars in refunds and they just could not sustain that level of refunds and they canceled it overnight I had seen so many of the people underneath me that I really, truly knew before Lula Rowe that were friends from school or friends that I had just known in my daily life suffering.

One of my friends was like, hey, I don't know if I should pay my mortgage or buy more Lula Rowe. My husband is really mad at me and I'm spending all of our money on this. When I started seeing those real-life implications,, I was like you need to get out. And I started to have these real conversations with my downline. Like we had like a wine and cheese night where we just sat around and told me like this is what's happening. I have inventory I can't sell. I can't trade it with other people. Like nobody wants to buy it. My husband's telling me like I've got 30 more days before we're pulling the plug.

I don't know how to turn this around. And I saw it as a human problem and not just as a business issue. And I was like, you guys got to get out, you got to leave. And those conversations made me start to have that internal dialogue with myself as well. Because when I reached up to my upline, it was like, just give it six more months. You're so great. Christmas is coming. People are going to want to buy it. and that's when I started going This is the same advice I get all the time It's the same advice to just stay a little longer Just wait to see what happens and I was like, this is not business advice I'd run my own business before I knew that what they were doing was just

Trying to keep me in longer because I would spend more money And so having the conversations with my downline, having that internal conversation with myself, and then having that really weird conversation with my upline, I realized I can't do this anymore and I decided I was going to quit. And the day that I decided I was done was the day that they pulled the 100% buyback. And I knew I wasn't going to get anything back because I had been a leader and I had gotten bonus checks and my bonus checks Exceeded what I had to return and so I would have not gotten anything back under this policy So I knew that I was just gonna have to sell it for super cheap out of my garage

Which is what I did all of these people that like needed that buyback program They're screwed all of them everybody that joined because of this, everybody that wants to get out. If you did not have your shipping labels in hand, you were not grandfathered into the policy. Even if you had been promised you were going to get the buyback, like you weren't. And so many people got screwed that day that it solidified. This is exactly why I left. What they just did, and again, it was on a Friday, right at close of day, which is what MLMs always do when they close. We see it all the time. These MLMs are like, we have a really big announcement. Friday, five o'clock. I'm like, it's not good news. Yeah. So to not get too much press, because the press is presumably at happy hour, checked out.

Right. Yeah. And you can't do anything. You can't even complain because they've all left for the day and you have the whole weekend to ruminate. That's what I did. I'm glad I made the decision. Their decision solidifies my decision. There's no going back now. I absolutely hate this company. I cannot believe they just screwed all these people over.

And so that for me was like the really big red flag. This is not a business. They're not treating it as a business. They're hurting people. It's obviously about the money. It's obviously about them. I couldn't be a part of something like that. I finally kind of saw everything for what it was. Let's follow the money trail here. Do you remember how much you put in

initially? Over the course of 18 months about $78,000 in inventory. What do they have you buy to just get started? When I joined there were three different packages. There was a $5,000 is-ish package, there was a $7,500 package, and there was a $10,000 package. And if you bought the biggest package, you got a bunch of free stuff. And so I thought I might as well do that because you can make the most money by spending the most money. Haha.

So I bought, it was like nine something, so around $10,000 to start, plus I bought a new desk and I bought an iPad and all the things that they said I needed. So I probably put in about $12,000 to start. And to contextualize that, that was a lot of money. Yeah, I put it on a business credit card. Did you start making money? Yeah, immediately. I made $8,000 the first month. So I was like, oh, cool. This is great. I'm going to make my my money back no problem. Do you remember what you made the next month and then for the rest of that year? I was making steadily in sales between

like five and ten thousand dollars in sales a month. Plus my team bonuses for having a team in the pyramid. If somebody doesn't understand how that works, can you explain when you sign somebody up under you for your team, how much money do you get and how does that work? So in an MLM, when you sign somebody up underneath you, your bonus is 100% completely dependent on how much that person purchases. So I'm getting a percentage of what that person purchases,

not what that person sells, just what that person buys. In an MLM, and they're all a little different, but your first line, which is the people that are directly sponsored underneath you, you're going to make the most percentage on. It's usually, depending on the MLM, I've seen from three to eight percent on that first line. The next line, that not always can you unlock that next line if you don't have enough people on your first line. There's a lot of gamification

There's a lot of like I feel like I'm in a video game having to check all these boxes before I unlock the next level That next line I want to say you can make anywhere from two to five percent depending on the MLM I think Lula Rowe was five percent and then three percent and Then usually it's like a one percent underneath that and then one percent and depending on how high you get in the pyramid, I know this is so convoluted and confusing, but the higher you get in the pyramid, the more levels you lock underneath you. And there can be levels like 1% indefinitely forever. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments.

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From now until June 30th, lease a 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Condition supply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. With your team and the sales that you are making at its peak, how much were you bringing in? The highest bonus check I ever got was $6,500 for a month. Mostly the bonus checks were between, I'd say 2,000 and 4,000 a month, plus my sales. So what I was actually selling,

I was purchasing the inventory. You purchase a pair of leggings, that was the most popular item for $12 and 50 cents. You sell it for $25, so it's like a 50% markup. I was selling $5,000 to $10,000 in sales, which half of that goes back into ordering more inventory, because when you sell a pair of leggings, you have to buy another pair of leggings to replace it. Do you have to do that? I mean, you don't have to, but you can't sell anything from an empty cart.

If you walk into a Target and there's only one rack of clothes, people are going to find another Target to shop at. And they use these sort of like idioms, so you're like, oh yeah, I sold a pair of leggings. I got to buy two pairs of leggings because my business is growing, so I need to buy even more product. But wasn't this the time that they also ran out of the staple colors, like the black leggings, and started sending some

weird patterns? I don't truly believe that they were ever out of black. I think that they held things back intentionally because if they only put one or two pairs of black in your order, and when you ordered you had to order at least 33 pieces, and when you ordered leggings they came as a two-pack. So if I wanted to just order leggings I would have to order a box of 66 leggings minimum. And of those 66 leggings, I might get three pairs of black. So if I've got a list of people and I did, I had a black list, we called it,

and there was people like, I want black leggings, and we would just put their name on it. And as I got black leggings in, I just go down the list. Sarah, your leggings came in, cool. Megan, your leggings are in. Jessica, like, I only got three pairs this time. Next order, hopefully I'll get more pairs. And they did this intentionally.

It's false scarcity to get you to buy more stuff. Right, there's not a shortage of black legging material, but the problem is that you were left with a bunch of random patterns and colors that nobody wanted. Right, and they have this thing called unicorns, which was just like the print du jour that people were like, oh my gosh my gosh like I really need those ice cream cones because summer's coming up and they'd be so cute I have an ice

cream shirt I want to wear with my ice cream cone leggings. We would join all these groups in these like Instagram pages to see what everybody was searching for so then you knew that if you got that it was highly sought after because then you could use that as bait to get people to join your Facebook group, to join your sale group. Sometimes people would say, you can't get these ice cream print leggings that everybody wants unless you buy two other pieces. If you buy at least three pieces, like I'll sell this to you, but I'm not going to just

sell you the leggings. So there was a lot of gambling and again, this gamification and people really wanted it. I mean, then people would buy them and they put them on eBay and they'd be going for over a hundred dollars on eBay. So we knew that people would definitely spend another 50 bucks on two other pairs of leggings to buy the leggings they wanted,

because they would be spending less than they would be buying it on eBay anyway. It was so chaotic. I can't even, it's like, I'm so happy it's not my life anymore. I know, I was just wondering, as you were recounting all of this, does it sound as crazy to you to say as it does to hear?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But when you're in it and you're just full of dopamine, right? Because every time you get a black pear leg and you're like, oh my God, I'm going to make $25, it's like nothing. But you're so excited. And it just, it fills you with dopamine. Every new box was dopamine. Like constantly consultants would be like, it's like Christmas, my boxes were here.

And Deanne, the owner of LulaRoe would be like, if you want a really good mix of prints, what you have to do is you have to order multiple boxes in the week. So instead of making a big like hundred piece order, break it up, do three 33 piece orders. Then you get a better smattering of prints allegedly. Didn't always happen. It was ridiculous because a lot of times the boxes would be late and you're counting on that box for this party that you booked and you're not going to get new leggings. So then you're calling the girls that are local and saying, can I trade leggings with you or can I buy some leggings off of you? Do you have anything? So the people that are hosting this party

are in my Facebook group. They've already seen all these prints. I need something new to bring to them. It was absolute chaos. Despite the chaos, you were one of the lucky ones who actually made money. Do you know how much you made overall? I had over $65,000 in bonuses

and probably another five to $10,000 in sales and probably another $5,000 to $10,000 in sales after all of my costs. So $75,000 in 18 months. Net. Net. That was less than I was making my regular job. But there are a lot of people, including women, who you brought in who lost money. Absolutely. Do you know how much money?

What was the most amount of money? I don't remember any Lula Rowe totals, but I mean, I've talked to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of MLM survivors, and I've heard people losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Was there any way to recoup money that was lost from the initial investment? If you were able to return things you could get, depending on when it was 90 to to 100% off if you were in the 100% buyback, but you wouldn't recoup the loss of your shipping supplies or your printer or your computer or your desk or any office or anything like that that you would have purchased. A lot of people, because they had these stipulations with returning product, just decided it was

easier to sell it on the secondhand market. So a lot of people didn't like Mercari or eBay or garage sale stuff, but nobody is going to come to a resale site and pay full price. They're just not. As long as you're selling it for more than $12.50, you'd make a little bit of money. But toward the end, when everything was kind of crashing, you'd be lucky if you could sell a pair of brand new Luluro leggings for like $10. You'd be lucky to get that. So people are losing

three, four, five dollars per sale on these leggings, just trying to recoup some of the loss, so it's not as big. There's also the loss of time and energy and effort and social capital. I think walking away from anything that's shaped your life in such a significant way is never easy. So let's talk about what came next, the fallout and what the rebuilding looked like. So what was the hardest part about rebuilding after leaving Lula Row? I always joke that I kind of rebuilt my life out of the Dumpster Fire and that I'm the Dumpster Phoenix. And it sucked, but I've never been happier in my life ever. Like from the moment I said goodbye, I started rebuilding.

And the salon job that I quit, I remember reaching out to my boss and being like, can I come back? And she's like, of course. So most of my clients came back to me. They were happy to be back and I got new clients. That wasn't an issue. My husband at the time was like, Hey, we've got money. It's going to be okay. We can do this.

It's going to be all right. I think mostly what it was, was rebuilding myself from this post MLM, trad wife, picture perfect, internet influencer life that I had to leave behind, which I was happy to leave behind because it's a fucking nightmare. It was rebuilding myself. And I think what it really showed me was that

I was in a life that I didn't want to be in. And I left in 2017. I immediately joined the Facebook hate group that I was told not to join, which was basically just a bunch of former consultants complaining and saying, this is what happened to me. This is what happened to me and this is why and this is the aftermath of me and can you help me? And I joined that and I spent the first week and they're just reading posts and crying going, I'm not crazy. Oh my god, this happened to me too. So I learned what gaslighting was that was something that I didn't know existed I was like, oh my god, I am NOT crazy. This is actually a real thing like other people

Experienced the things that I experienced when I was told that's so weird. That's never happened to anyone else. Okay Well, I've met hundreds of other people that it had happened to in this Facebook group So once I realized that I had been lied to and gaslit I started learning kind of those abuse and therapy terms Why would I fall for this? Why would an educated person who had a pretty decent life before this fall for this? Why would I believe all of the lies? So I learned about that and I started speaking out on social media to anybody that wanted to listen. I was called a hater. I

got all kinds of names called, was told I was a plant and all kinds of weird things from people who just weren't ready to hear the truth. And I said, Hey, you don't have to listen to me. But when you're ready, I'm here. From that and just being really vocal on social media, I guess there were a lot of reporters who were in those groups that I was in who had just sort of used that as one of their sources when they were writing about the stories of LuLaRoe and like what was happening with LuLaRoe and they reached out to me and they said hey if you're willing to go on the record I'd

love to interview you. So I talked to like Vice News, I talked to Bloomberg, we did some stuff with Business Insider, I talked to Bloomberg, we did some stuff with Business Insider, I was one of their sources for a while, and then I did a mini documentary with Vice that's on YouTube, and then that documentary led to Lularich, and the producers reached out to me and said, hey we love what you did in this, we'd love to tell this story in a much bigger way. And I think being able to be believed and have people that had the ability to tell my story in a more succinct way where people would actually be really interested to watch it and go, oh my gosh, what?

That gave me so much strength. I can do this. The money stuff, I didn't lose money. So I wasn't struggling like that. And I completely understand how that is. Like I said, I have a podcast where I talk to survivors constantly. And that's something that we talk about a lot. And I completely understand that side. For me, it was all mental. Like, I really felt like I had to completely break myself down to the darkest, deepest place I had ever been and say, I got conned, I got scammed, I can't believe I fell for this. I will never fall for something like this again, and then rebuild myself from that moment. And in that rebuilding, I realized I'm in a marriage I don't want to be in. I want to be there more for my kid. I want to help other people because I don't

ever want to have to go through this again. I don't want anyone else who's ever going through this or feeling this way to think that they're alone or that this is their fault or this isn't something that's literally designed this way. So I started really just immersing myself in understanding like cult rhetoric and the fundamentals of what had happened to me. And then in that I learned that there was an entire movement that had been going on for years and years and years.

We call it the anti-MLM movement. I met these academics and scholars who had written papers and had done research and written books about this. And I was like, oh my gosh, I need to know more. Like I need to read your book. Can I talk to you? Can we have conversations? Can you help me understand this? And I think it was really important to me just to really fundamentally understand what I had been through. And then once I learned that I knew, okay, I need to help other people now from this point on,

like I need to talk to other survivors. We need to have these conversations. And I would just talk to Lula Rowe survivors first. And we'd be like, yes, that happened to me survivors. We need to have these conversations. And I would just talk to Lularoe survivors first. And we'd be like, yes, that happened to me too. And it was just this so cathartic therapy walking away from these conversations. I told you I wasn't crazy. Like, I told you that this was a thing. And then I started finding other people

who had been in other MLMs. And I was like, wait, it's not just a Lularoe thing. This is like an industry wide thing. Like all MLMs are like this. And then I started talking to other survivors from other MLMs. And I was like, wait, it's not just a Lularoe thing. This is like an industry wide thing. Like all MLMs are like this. And then I started talking to other survivors from other MLMs. This is what brings me joy and passion is having these conversations and debunking these myths so that other people won't fall for this like I did. And I think it just, all of that was kind of the dumpster Phoenix moment for me.

I helped 75 women get into LuLaRoe. Womp, womp, shame sound. Karma is watching. I have to get at least 75 women and men to understand what this is and go, you know what, you're right. And help them. And at this point, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. I don't know how many people have been impacted because I only know the ones that I get to talk to or converse with on social

media or on the podcast. I don't know all of the people that I've helped just from them watching or reading something that I've done. Sometimes I'll post something in an anti-MLM Facebook group and I'll get comments that are like, oh my God, Roberta, you literally saved my life. Wait, what? And these are people that I've never spoken to before. So seeing those messages like keeps me going, but also made me realize there was something lacking in this anti MLM world where it was like, it was so much research-based.

This is physically impossible and mathematically impossible, but there wasn't as much compassion for the victims. And so that's what I need to do. I need to talk to victims and I need to have these conversations and say, yeah, that happened to me too. This is how it happened. It's common.

You're not alone. We all got scammed. This is what happens. I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds of MLMs. People are getting scammed every single day. Do you think all of those MLMs are dumpster fires though? Absolutely. All of them, including Mary Kay.

Every single one. That's my personal opinion. They're all legalized pyramid schemes. Every single one of them. Why do you think that is? Because the only difference between an MLM and a pyramid scheme is the product that's sold and the product is just a replacement for money.

And the only reason that a product is needed is Because of legal intervention saying the only difference here is the product so you have to sell a product So instead of me giving you a hundred dollars to join the pyramid scheme I'm giving you a hundred dollars and you're giving me shampoo in return. Where's that shampoo go? It goes in my shower and then the next shampoo I have to buy next month Well, I have enough so it's gonna go under the sink and the next month when I have to buy more now That's gonna go in the guest room in the closet because I have to buy next month, well, I have enough so it's going to go under the sink. And the next month when I have to buy more, now that's going to go in the guest room, in the closet because now I have way too much shampoo and I'm investing all this money into this pyramid scheme and you're giving me an inconsequential item that's a replacement

for money so that not legally in a pyramid scheme, but literally the only difference is that the government allows one. Because pyramid, the definition of pyramid scheme is that you're giving money with a promise of making more money and there's nothing else exchanged. Nobody's selling anything, nobody's buying anything. It's just giving money with the promise of getting money in return and you need more and more people to join below you in order to keep it up, but usually they collapse. So do you think some MLMs are worse than others?

Oh, I think Amway is probably the worst one. Why? Because Amway is the reason all other MLMs are here today. So they're like the grandmother of them all. There's another MLM that started originally called Neutralite, and there was a few other ones that started earlier in like the 1940s and 50s. But there was a benchmark case in 1979. It started in 1975 and went to 1979 against the FTC and Amway.

And essentially what happened was a judge said, oh yeah, I mean, there's a product, so this looks like a business. And on paper, sure, but that's not what's actually being implemented. There's no regulation within MLM. It's all self-regulated. So I can say, hey, Amway, are you selling? And they're like, yeah, we're totally selling. But the formulas that they use to come up with their retail

sales are all falsified. And they don't keep records that I could even look at to prove myself correct. There's a rule where they are supposed to sell at least 70% of the product to an outside person, right at least 70% of the product to an outside person, right? Like 70% of the product being sold, because product that's being sold in an MLM,

a lot of times, actually most times, it's the reps that are buying it. And it doesn't really ever make it into the hands of an actual end consumer that is not associated with the MLM in any way, other than being just a straightforward customer. So you're supposed to have 70% of sales go to those people. But in an MLM, even though they say it's 70%, with the

research that we've done with the academics that I talked about earlier, only 10% of sales are actually making it out of MLM, where the remaining 90% of sales of the product are staying in the MLM. And it can be, I'm a member and you're a member, and oh my God, I need to hit my quota this month. I'm supposed to sell $100. And you're like, oh no, me too. Here's the plan.

I'm going to buy $100 from you, and you're going to buy $100 from me. And then we'll both hit our quotas, and we'll both get our bonuses, and we'll both get to stay in for another month. But those aren't real sales. Well it's actually called round tripping and that's a form of financial manipulation. The way that they calculate the retail sales, the ones that they purport and say, oh my gosh we sold a billion dollars this year in retail sales. What they do is they take what the reps are buying as their wholesale sales. When I buy $100 from them,

they're going to report that that's $200 in retail sales. Even if it never leaves my garage, it's going to be reported that I sold it, that it's real, and that it's an actual sale. But that's not what's actually happening. But again, because it's self-regulated, they have lobbying efforts to keep all this stuff legalized, to keep regulators out, to keep the truth from coming out. You never will actually know what's being sold. And I know for a fact that I had a garage full of inventory when I left. And I know that there are people that have garages full of inventory because they tell me on the show constantly. That's where people are losing a lot of money as they're buying

this inventory with the hopes of selling in. If I buy $200 I'll make $400, but very rarely are they actually making that $400. It's just sitting in their garages. It's the summer big red sale at Canadian Tire! Save up to 50%! What are you doing? These are the biggest deals of the season! I'm shouting it from the rooftop! We have a radio ad. You don't need to be up there. The Summer Big Red Sale is on from June 5th to June 12th. Conditions apply. Details online. Oh, this is it.

The day you finally ask for that big promotion. You're in front of your mirror with your Starbucks coffee. Be confident. Assertive. Remember eye contact. But also, remember to blink. Smile. But not too much.

That's weird. What if you aren't any good at your job? What if they demote you instead? Okay. Don't be silly. You're smart. You're driven. You're gonna be late if you keep talking to the mirror.

This promotion is yours. Go get them. Starbucks. It's never just coffee. What if you befriended the son of a billionaire and he wanted to help you get rich? By this time next year, you should be a millionaire. His house was stunning, the model on his arm even more so.

When you see him with this younger, attractive girl, it sort of helps sell the, yes, I do have a lot of money. So you give him cash to start a business and wake up in a nightmare. You just scammed your own family. He's a ghost. He's a ghost. Because this guy doesn't stay anywhere too long. Ken Yanai.

Wen Long Chu. K.A.I. Bant Young. And has a ton of aliases. Yanel Kendrick Kazumi Yanai. I was so angry. I wanted to get this guy. So maybe you decide to do something about it. He gets thrown to the ground.

He keeps yelling out, what did I do? What did I do? Well, Ken, I'll tell you exactly what you did. From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is Catch Me If You Can, available now on the Binge. Search for Catch Me If You Can wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. And the Emily started, what, in the 1950s? 1950s, yeah. So much has changed since then. How do you think MLMs're seeing here with social media and influencer culture is that we're seeing it

Right before in the 1950s 60s 70s 80s and even 90s before we had the internet You're gonna remember going to a Mary Kay party or having a stamping out party or doing these things and you're only gonna know What's in your little social circle, but it was there. We just didn't see it because it wasn't in our face now I can see parties in Michigan. I'm face. Now I can see parties in Michigan. I'm in California. I can see parties in Michigan. I can see parties in Florida. I can see parties in Mexico.

I can see parties in Canada. I would have never seen any of that back then. So I think it's become kind of normalized because everybody sees that everybody's doing it and it's not as hush-hush where it's just something that mom does on the weekends or something like that. But the other thing is, with this influencer culture and everybody's showing it all the time, there's more backlash. There's more people going, that's not what this is. This is a scam. And what I've seen happen, though we have had sort of like an influx of MLMs and COVID definitely didn't help, 57% of MLMs reported that they had a better year with COVID because people

were stuck at home with no way to make money. A lot of these MLMs sold health and wellness and a lot of them started selling like hand sanitizer and toilet paper and things that you couldn't get. So people were joining the MLMs in order to take advantage of those deals and those products. There was a lot of people that joined during COVID, but then there was a really big drop off after when people went back to work. But I also think what's happening is there's more victims that are coming out and speaking out. Whereas before, because there wasn't this really rich and robust anti-MLM community, that people are like, oh, hey, that happened to me, or oh my God, my mom was in that. She blew her whole savings, or my mom and dad got divorced

over that, and people are sharing these things. What it's causing is when someone comes out and they share their story, it makes room for other people to come out and share their stories. And in sharing the truth and in sharing the stories and the experiences of everybody, it's hurting the MLMs because people are going, oh my God, this is exactly what I'm in and they're leaving. In fact, MLMs have started changing the way that they operate and the names that they call themselves

because of the quote, negative press of the anti-MLM movement and the news and sort of the media attention that they've gotten and even in the last 10 years. So what are they being called now? So we call it MLM for multi-level marketing, but it's also called direct sales, network marketing, transformational marketing, social selling.

There's a new affiliate. They call it enhanced affiliate. It is not an affiliate plan. And in fact, I believe this new enhanced affiliate, which I like to call pancake marketing, is the MLM industry's response to the anti MLM movement because as we are exposing the pyramid and showing people what this truly is they are losing the portion of the pyramid that makes it look like a

pyramid. So a lot of these MLMs will go to enhanced affiliate which means that you can build a team but you only get to build your first line. So previously in MLM, you would want to build deep, right? To unlock those five, three, one levels all the way down. And so you'd have, I don't know, maybe five to 10 people on your first line. And you'd encourage them to get five to 10 people and encourage them to get five to 10 people and you build this pyramid. Now what they're doing, you can't make any money on your second line. You can only make money on your first line. So now they're

building very very very very very wide. So I like to call it pancake because you're the little tiny pat of butter on the top of the pancake and you're building the biggest flapjack possible because you can only unlock your team on that first line. So the difference between a traditional affiliate where you would go down on the website to the site map and says like become an affiliate of maybe your favorite protein powder or your favorite workout outfits.

You can get an affiliate code and you get 15% of a bonus on any sales that you make on your social media. See influencers, you go to like their links and you'll see that they like these certain things and they'll get a percentage when you buy something from those links. With this new enhanced affiliate that MLM is doing, you have a team and that team can still be manipulated. You can still convince those people to buy more so that your bonus is bigger.

And that's not how affiliate works. There is no team. There is no like join my team. You might get a referral bonus because you're like, I love these leggings and your friends like I want to be an affiliate, too And you're like, here's my link you get a $50 referral fee Bonus the first time the one and only time you would get it with this new enhanced affiliate You get that every month you want to make sure that the people underneath you are getting there They call it PV which is like personal volume or purchase volume.

There's a couple of different PVs out there, but essentially it's what they purchase. And like I said at the beginning, you get paid on what your team purchases. So if you can still convince people that are underneath you to buy things they don't need so that you get a bigger bonus, it is still manipulative, it is still exploitable,

and it is still in that MLM vein. So they are literally changing their business plans. So an MLM by any other name. Exactly. They're literally changing their business structure, they're changing their rules, they're changing all of this. I got an email this morning from our working group of all these anti MLM people and it literally said the DSA, which is the direct selling association, which is their lobbying arm, they have offices on K Street, just like all the other ones. They are telling the MLMs that are under their purview, we don't want to use multi-level marketing anymore because

it has a negative connotation. We're going to go by direct selling now. This is what we want to be known as. And when you say direct selling, you think immediately to the fuller brush guy or you know the guy that's going door to door with his little briefcase and he's selling directly to you or cutting out the middleman. Just me and you. But direct selling is 100% the exact same thing as MLM. Even if your MLM tells you we're not an MLM, we're a direct seller, we're a network marketer, we're transformational marketing, we're social selling, it is all the exact same thing. If you can build a team of people where you can manipulate them in any way to purchase something

that directly benefits your bonus check, that is an exploitable business model, and it falls under the pyramid scheme of MLM. Now, Roberta, you could have stayed quiet. Speaking out can come with a lot of backlash and criticism. You've had both. What do you think keeps you going in your hardest moments toward advocacy? It's those messages and those comments that say, you saved my life. You changed my life. Thank you so much for the work you do. Thank you so much for the podcast you put out. This one changed my life. This one was the one that made me go, oh my God, she's right. It's

that. You know, I wish I wasn't right. I wish I'm like, it's a pyramid scheme. And they're like, you're wrong. And I'm like, maybe I am, but I'm not. I've been doing this now for seven years. And they are, they are pyramid schemes. It's what they are. They're harmful. They hurt people. And if I can save one person from not spending their life savings, not cashing in their 401k, not putting their marriage on the line, not neglecting their children for an MLM, for the promise of, oh, I know you're putting in all the work now, but in 10 years you'll be just like me collecting this big bonus check and then you'll just get this residual income. It's not real. I've talked to the people at the top of the MLM. I've talked to the wives of the owners of the MLMs. They all know it's a scam. They

can't get out. Every single egg is in that basket. Their husbands quit their jobs and join the MLM. They're all in. And the MLM controls them. I remember like, if you don't do this, you don't get to speak at convention. If you don't do this, we're not going to give you the special perks. We're going to snub you. We're going to ice you out. And in a community that you join thinking, these are my best friends, I've talked to people who are like, everybody in my MLM was in my wedding. And once I left, none of those people talked to me anymore.

Like these are stories that are so common, but I'm like, oh yeah, we've heard that before. It happens all the time. It's heartbreaking the stories that I hear from people who are like, I put everything into this. Everything in my life was about this MLM. Everything in my life was about this company. And the second I said, I don't know about this, I was dropped like dead weight.

So those kind of people who are like, what did I do wrong? What's wrong with me? Why can't I sell this? Why can't I advance? I've done everything I've been told. I've bought the courses. I joined the clubs. I did the things. Why doesn't it work for me? And my answer is it's designed to fail. So if you're failing, you're succeeding in this cycle. 99.7% of people who join MLMs when all is said and done, you have all of the costs associated.

I didn't take this job because I'm in the MLM or I didn't do this thing because I'm in the MLM. Opportunity costs. Yeah, opportunity costs. That's what it is. Once all the opportunity costs are said and done, 99.7% of people who join MLMs will lose. And to put that in perspective, gambling in a casino has a 95% loss rate.

So when you look at a business model where only 0.3% of people are actually succeeding, where you're like, that's what I'm achieving, there are not enough people in the world to recruit underneath you so that everybody can be a 0.3 participant in this system. 99.7% must lose so that the 0.3 can win. Well, you have built an incredible platform, Roberta.

I know the work is far from over, but I would love to hear some final thoughts. You and I connected back in April of 2023, and still so much has happened since then and more is to come. But for anybody who's thinking about joining an MLM, what would you say to them directly? Listen to my podcast. Before you sign anything, listen. Listen to the stories of the people that have lived it. Listen to the stories of the people who have so much regret, whose lives were literally destroyed, whose marriages were

destroyed, whose relationships were destroyed, whose family connections were destroyed, bank accounts are destroyed. I've never met anybody who was like, that MLM was the best thing that happened to me. Even the people that enjoyed it, that come on the show that say, I had a great time opening up fizzy bombs on TikTok. I had a great time selling leggings. They had loss, whether they lost their friends,

they lost their reputation, they lost their families, whatever it is. If you are willing to put everything, and I really truly truly mean everything, on the line for the chance to become the 0.3%, then I really really really hope you know inherently how this works, because if you don't you're doing yourself a massive financial disservice. You should read the income disclosure statement from the MLM.

You should listen to not only the people that are like, oh my God, I got a car. Oh my God, I'm in Cabo San Lucas. You should listen to the people that were like, I bankrupt myself. I lost everything. You should hear both sides of the story. If you really, really think this is the answer,

you should be a smart business person and do your due diligence. And that includes listening to the answer. You should be a smart business person and do your due diligence. And that includes listening to the negative. It's not negative, it's truth. Listen to it. And if you really truly believe that you can beat all the odds and be that 0.3%, then at least you go into it with eyes wide open. Instead of, I didn't know, because majority of people that I talked to say, I didn't know. because majority of people that I talked to say, I didn't know. I had no idea.

I trusted people that were above me who said, oh my God, you'd be so great at this. You don't even know why I would be great at it. You're just telling me I'd be great at it because you need another warm body. Truly, truly, truly listen to the stories of the people that have lived it. You might decide that just getting a regular job is a much better option for you. What's your hope for the future for survivors, for people still in the game, for how society sees MLMs as a whole?

What would you wish for the industry and the victims? I would love to see the industry disappear completely. I know that that is a pipe dream. I know that with regulation and rules and laws and all of the stuff that we've gotten either past or tried to get past, it has not even come even as close as the grassroots movement of just sharing stories and telling people's truths and just having conversations.

So I would love to see people when they see opportunities of like MLM, that they go, oh no, that's a pyramid scheme. No, thank you. And be so confident in knowing it, that nobody's gonna be like, no, pyramid schemes are illegal. It's like, yeah, so is murder, right? But it still happens all the time.

Money laundering, Ponzi schemes, those happen. And they're not supposed to happen. So if that can be what's happening, like MLMs can be pyramid schemes and pyramid schemes can still be illegal and MLMs can have a loophole that makes them legalized. The cult needs the MLM and the MLM needs the cult. Because who's gonna join something and buy a ton of product they don't need,

unless there's the, but Becky really needs to get her bonus this month. And if everybody could just put in $200 extra sales, then Becky can get her bonus. And if it doesn't matter if I buy it or I sell it, I get the same amount of points to qualify for the same thing, then what's stopping me from just buying it and putting it in my guest room? I've literally had people and multiple people, I think we've had at least three or four people on the podcast admit to needing another warm body underneath them to hit their goal and

signing up their pets. I signed up my dog, I signed up my cat, and my cat bought a beach body intro pack because I needed a new beach body person underneath me to be able to rank up. The MLMs, which we've been told by these people, they said, I don't care, just sign up your husband, sign up your pet, sign up your kid, it doesn't matter, you just need a warm body underneath that pyramid. And then that's an account you can control.

So now not only are you buying all the stuff for yours to hit your rank, you're now buying all of your cat's quota PV as well. I would love to see people truly, truly understand what these are and see the grift for what it is and never waver in that decision and just be like, yeah, that's a scam. I'm going to stay far away from it. And is there anything that you're being told about the latest with LuLaRoe? They're still around. I don't even know. I don't follow Lula Rowe that much. There's so many other MLMs to kind of to tackle and debunk.

There's new ones popping up. It's a hydra. Every time you cut off a head, like three more pop up in its place. So there's constantly MLMs closing and MLMs opening to take their place because there's all these people that are like, where do we go now? And it's literally like from one frying pan into another frying pan. So as far as I know, Lularoe is still kicking, they're still selling leggings and all of the things and there's still people like my uplines are still all in.

I've been called so many names by them and it's totally fine. Whatever. I know my truth. I'm on the right side of history on this. I know that for a fact. So, you know, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. I hope that people see it for what it is and they get out sooner rather than later because getting out sooner means you're going to save a lot more money. I like to focus on like the inherent understanding of what MLMs are and what pyramid schemes are and how all of this works because when you see it in one and you really inherently like, oh yeah, that's a pyramid scheme

because this, this and this, you'll see it in every single one. You can ask the same questions like, oh, well, is it like this? Okay, well then yeah. And you can see it because the shape is there. That's how the business structure is built. It is built to fail so that the top can win. And if you see it in

one, you're going to see it in all. I want people to be willfully informed because that is the best way that they can make decisions for themselves. Roberta, thank you so much for joining us. Scams, Money and Murder is a Crime House original. Join me every Thursday for a brand new episode. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support. If you like what you heard here today, reach out on social media at Crime House. And don't forget to rate, review and follow Scams, Money and Murder wherever you get your podcasts.

Your feedback truly makes a difference. And for ad-free listening plus early access and bonus content, subscribe to CrimeHouse Plus on Apple Podcasts. Scams, Money & Murder is hosted by me, Nicole Lapman, and is a CrimeHouse original powered by PAVE Studios. My guest today was Roberta Bluffins. This episode was brought to life by the Scams, Money & Murder team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Stacey Warnker, Sarah Kamp, Paul Lebeskin, and Victoria Asher. Thank you so much for listening.

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