Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Are MLMs Pyramid Schemes?

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

When it comes to MLMs (multi-level marketing) brands, Nicole is torn. She's heard some horror stories exposing an exploitative underbelly of MLMs, but she's also spoken firsthand to people who attribute all of their financial success and happiness to their work with MLMs. Today, Nicole hears from Roberta Blevins, who was once a seller for It Works! and LuLaRoe. Roberta shares her firsthand experience, and why she unequivocally believes MLMs are pyramid schemes. Find more of Roberta's work, and her podcast, here: https://robertablevins.com/

One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that

I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details.

I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. It's only in the last few years, really, that people have been looking more critically at MLMs, the multi-level marketing model. Even if you haven't heard them called MLMs, you know what I'm talking about. In some ways, it has some overlap with the franchise model. If you're participating in an MLM, you buy the company's product, maybe it's makeup or leggings or home goods, and then you turn around and sell that product. That in and of itself is pretty standard and above board. The issue with MLMs is that it is often a big part of the strategy not to just sell the products, but to recruit new salespeople to sell them products to sell.

So that is why MLMs are often referred to as pyramid schemes. Today I'm chatting with Roberta Blevins. She's an anti-MLM advocate. And as you're about to hear, the jury for me is really still out on MLMs. While I've heard a lot of horror stories, I've also heard some really good ones. Like I've heard from full-time parents who do some MLM work on the side and they say that MLMs have given them financial independence and a greater sense of purpose. But where I think Roberta and I can both agree is that MLMs can really go wrong. It can go from

being a side hustle to a money pit very quickly. And Roberta tells me some of these horror stories today. Here's that conversation. Roberta Blevins, welcome to Money Rehab. Hi, thanks for having me. Well, you're here to talk about MLMs today. So for some context, you were embroiled in the MLM world as a consultant for all these companies, right? It Works, LuLaRoe, many others, I assume, and a customer, I'm sure. Customer to many and a rep of three, two intentionally, one accidentally, which happens often in MLM. Let's get to that. But before we get started, actually, can you just define MLM and And for now, just a definition, like of what it is, how it's structured for anyone who might not know? Absolutely. So MLM is short for multi-level marketing. You might know it from its various other names, direct sales, network marketing,

social selling, anything where basically you're getting a message from somebody who's like, hey, do you want to buy the products that I'm selling? And it's essentially set up like a legal pyramid scheme. And I'm assuming as soon as I said that, a bunch of people are like, oh, yeah, like this one, like this one, like that one. Yeah. Every single one that you just thought of is an MLM. Yeah. So like Mary Kay, doTERRA.

Oh, yeah. Amway, Young Living, Modere, Unique, all of them. There's so many. There's like over 300 active and over a thousand, thousands that have been around. Okay. So you're not mincing words saying that this is a legal pyramid scheme. I think we all know how you feel about it. But definitions aside, how did you even like get drawn into the MLM world to begin with? So I was just a vulnerable young mom looking for something to make my life more.

So just a very normal story. I think most people stumble into these because of a vulnerability. They need money, they need an identity, they need something for themselves, whatever it is. And for me, I just didn't, I wanted to be more than just a wife and just a mom. I wanted something for myself. And I was working out of the home. And I wanted to bring it in. Because I didn't want to miss the early years with my daughter. And so I just started looking and my father had passed away. And I had seen some unflattering photos of myself. And I was already in that mindset. And I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. And my cousin was selling it it works at the time and it was the thing that was really big back then were those crazy rap things which is like wait what things they were called raps but they said the slogan was ask me about those crazy rap

things was sort of like we're on like everywhere anybody back in like mid-2000s that was in the circle of MLMs remembers and they were essentially like I missed that plastic sheets that had some sort of like fancy magic lotion that you wore you wrapped yourself in saran wrap and you sweated out a couple pounds and then you're like they work it's amazing um that sounds terrible absolutely super sweaty super gross stinky just the fact of like wrapping yourself in saran wrap it's like very Kathy Bates. Yeah. And it's just it was like it was too much for me.

I lasted maybe three months in that company. I was like, this is a scam. Everybody's selling the same thing. I'm not interested in wrapping myself in Saran Wrap anymore. And in fact, the roll of Saran Wrap that I bought because I really thought that I was going to be so successful and need so much I still have that and I still wrap my food in it like since 2000 oh god since like 2007 well at least you're not wrapping yourself in it so they kind of got you at a vulnerable time absolutely it's actually it was actually early 2010s because I had just had my daughter and she was born in 2011. So, yeah, early 2010s, actually.

And when did you start to feel like something wasn't right? Well, with it works almost immediately. And that's why I missed all of the red flags a year later when I decided to join LulaRoe. Because the red flags were different and I was wearing rose colored glasses. So they just look like flags. So tell me about leaving. It works like for obvious reasons. I mean, even when you tell me about the crazy rap, I think anyone could find red flags. So what were what were the ones when you went to the next company? Well, I left it works just because it seemed like nothing that I wanted to do.

It just it was really just like this isn't going to work for me, even though they say it will. And I just left and it was kind of embarrassing. And there wasn't a big announcement or anything. I just sort of faded into the whatever, you know. Um, a year later, when LuLaRoe came around, I was still feeling the same emptiness because I hadn't done anything to fix my mental health or really unpack anything that had happened to me. I just buried it even deeper. And so when LuLaRoe came around, the thing that I was missing the most being a mom of a child who was not in school yet was community, was friends. I didn't have any friends that had kids my age. I didn't have any friends that were like local that could hang out or wanted to go hang out at a park for hours on end. And so because I didn't have those friends, that's what I was looking for. And I just randomly stumbled upon a friend of mine on Facebook who was like a mom friend who had these brightly colored leggings and they were cute. You know, I was home most of the time. And so I wanted to just be comfortable and they had matching sets that you could match with your kid. And I was like, this is the only

time in her life where she's going to be super into it. I was actually wrong. She's still super into it. Just a little different. She would never be caught dead in LuLaRoe now. And so it was just really fun and we wanted to have fun and i thought why not and i'm watching people on facebook like selling these leggings they're like flying off the shelves like hotcakes i was like i could sell leggings like that's not hard look at all these people they're like i have a pair of leggings and 25 people are like i want them so i was like yeah that's super like done and so i missed every single red flag but but they the red flags weren't there until after I signed on the dotted line. Like, I guess I could have really done a lot of research and gone and found people that had left and been like, tell me what it was about. But even back then, the big red flags hadn't even happened yet.

So it's still a very young company. Most of the people that were in it were super duper jazzed. Mario Lopez had just been at their like event. I was like, oh my gosh, AC Slater's down. Like, let's do this. Right. Like, like, why not? This sounds like a really cool thing.

And all of the people that were selling it were very much like, you'd be perfect, which is a total MLM thing. And, you know, the people that wanted me on their team were like, what can we do to help? Like, do you need some forms that, what do you need to show your husband? Cause he was like, you don't need to do this. Like you do way too much. You don't need to sell leggings too. And they were like, what did he say today? Maybe you should show him this. You can have him talk to my husband. And so there was always something that was keeping me going for like three months. I was on the hook until eventually I wore him down and he was like, if you gonna do it like just do it because like you're not gonna stop talking about it so just do it and so I joined and

everything leading up to that felt great it wasn't until like I actually started to join that things like were strange because my my upline who's the person that you sign up underneath in the pyramid she was like oh yeah like as soon as you sign up you'll get your clothes in like a week. So be super ready. So I go out to spend all this money, turn a room in my mom's house. I said, hey, can I, you know, come over and have an office? And she's like, whatever. Turn a room into her house into like a little boutique. I buy all these racks. I buy everything that I'm going to need to literally have a clothing store in the office. And I sign up and the first red flag happens. Oh, well, we were so popular.

You're going to have to wait six weeks to get your clothes. I was like, well, like I thought six days. Now you're telling me six weeks and all these other people are joining. I should have been like, whoa, too many people joining. You're flooding the market like it's too much. But I was like, yes, everybody wants this. Everybody's into it. Everyone wants to be a part of it. This is a green light. This is great. Let's keep going. Like, let's do this. I had people that were joining me and joining my team. And I wasn't even in LuLaRoe yet.

Like people are like, oh, you're doing it. I heard about it. I want to be on your team. It was the most wild thing. I was like, this is exactly what they say when you find the right company because I'd heard that before too and so like everything really seemed to be like clicking I was like yeah let's do this and I invested nine thousand dollars into oh my god I mean I invested so much more but initially nine thousand and then plus another couple thousand buying all the racks and the hangers and the printer and the desk and the chair and the pictures for the walls. It's like, she believed she could, so she did. Like, that kind of bullshit. You know what I mean?

So, like, home goods, they got me, too, man. But the nine grand went to, like, product. The nine grand went to product, yes. So when you sign up under someone, that person gets a cut of your sales kind of essentially and then it keeps going it's not really my sales though they get a cut of what i purchase there's no way of knowing what i sell on the back end unless i'm the one taking any sort of accountability for it because once the mlm sells it to you once your upline gets their bonus, like it's your product. Like you're the true customer.

Because you have to buy it in advance. Right. And most, but not all. You see, there's so many caveats and differences. Like every single MLM is slightly different intentionally. So you can be like, well, that's that's like how your old MLM was. Your new MLM, this one's different. We don't do that here. And it's a way to sort of just keep people stuck in the entire complex of MLM, jumping from company to company, thinking that they're the problem. And it's not that MLM is a problem. So everything's a little different. So it's hard to say yes or no

or anything. It's very nuanced. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can

overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at chime.com slash MNN.

That's chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details. And now for some more money rehab. A lot of people just say, you know, onboarding to MLMs is kind of like a cult. Absolutely. Absolutely. MLMs are a cult. I say it all the time. I have no shame in saying that.

And I can back it up. But absolutely, they cults. Uh, they fall underneath commercial cults, which are cults that are bilking you for money. Uh, and absolutely it is the MLM would not work without the cult because it's the control that keeps people stuck and keeps people buying. Like I said, you are the true customer in an MLM. It doesn't matter. The MLM, once they sold me my $9,000 worth of leggings and skirts and dresses, they were like, we got our $9,000. I don't care if Roberta ever turns it into $18,000 because we already got our money. And so it's just, it's a very vicious cycle. People are getting bonuses off of that.

That's why products and MLMs cost so much. You're saying, why are you paying $25 for a pair of leggings when I can go to Walmart and get the same thing for five? Well, at Walmart, they're not paying bonuses on top of bonuses on top of bonuses on top of bonuses because Walmart is not a pyramid scheme. No matter how many people on the internet will tell you that corporations are the real pyramid scheme. They're not.

They're just not. And then also when I would ask questions, I was made to feel crazy. And I didn't know I didn't have language that I was being gaslit. I didn't have that language. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it meant. And I'm like, no, I'm not crazy. Like, I'm not. You're telling me this could never happen. And I'm literally holding into my hands telling you that it is happening. They were like with the stinky leggings and the wet leggings. I got all of this damaged inventory and they refused to take it back or refund me. And they were telling me that I needed to dry them and sell them at a discount.

Or, you know, they'd said the stinky ones, if I threw them in the freezer, they would be fine. And then I could sell them. And I was like, I'm not going to sell damaged goods. Like you should be refunding me. And I, before I did what I do now, I was a hairstylist. And so dealing with even like a faulty pump on a hair spray, I knew that when the rep came in, I'm like, doesn't spray. And they're like, here's a brand new one switch switch. No questions asked. So I knew in a true business sense, when there's a faulty product that the company trades it out, no questions asked. And the amount of back and forth I was getting just being like, why is this wet? I mean, it should have been like, oh my God, I don't know why it's wet. That's a huge problem.

We shouldn't be sending wet stuff out. We're going to fix that. It was like, that's so weird. It's never happened before. Are you sure? I'm like, yeah, I'm literally wringing water out of it. Yeah, I'm absolutely sure. So it was that sort of stuff that sort of started the seed. That was the seed that planted. And I was, that was only probably like eight months into my year and a half that I was there. So that was like a seed. So like anytime anything odd happened again, I could go back to that moment and be like, oh yeah, they did that to me with the leggings. Like they, they, they do that. That's what they do. And it was just sort of like piling on, piling on, piling on. Then I noticed certain people leaving. They did this, this buyback program that, um, in the

documentary Lula Rich, they, they go into it pretty well. So it's understand, it's very easy to understand. And they had this buyback pro buyback program. And as soon as there was this a hundred percent guarantee, a ton of people left and they were like, I can't do this anymore. Like Mark is a narcissist. And I was like, what? And I just couldn't see it. I just couldn't see it. And a ton of people that I really loved and respected left. And I was like, that was odd. Um, and that just sort of kept happening. And then there was this one woman who was sort of reporting on things and I was told to go look at it. And I was like, what is going on? And it was just a little bit and a little bit and a little bit until eventually I was like I can't do this anymore

like this is happening almost every single day you're telling us this I remember we we were saying hey this shouldn't be happening and instead of like having a professional response the owner of LuLaRoe Mark started singing that like song cuz you had a bad day. Like he was singing that to us in a zoom meeting, like telling us that like, we just need to get over it. And like bad days happen. And I was just like, no, like this is I'm done. Like I can't, this is true. Like I just, I didn't know what was going on. I was absolutely being gaslit and I just, I couldn't figure it out. Um, and I remember the day that I left was the day that they pulled the 100% buyback that they said was not going anywhere. And I was like, there's there's the that cemented it. There's the

confirmation that I made the right decision. Like it was literally hours after I had resigned and said I was leaving that they pulled this and screwed so many people. And I was like, yeah, OK, I made the right decision. So it was just little things like that. I didn't even realize it was a cult. Like for me, I felt like it was a scam of a business. Like if it was really a true business that really, truly cared, they would be doing X, Y, Z and they're not. So for me, it was more like I can't allowed to be a part of when I was in LuLaRoe and having everything that had happened to be being confirmed. I was like, oh, all of you got wet leggings. Oh, all of you got stinky ones too. It was like, oh, I'm not just the only one. I'm not crazy. And it was at that point that I was like, okay, we got something here. And I started doing research and I found Dr. Stephen Hassett and I learned more about cults, not just from like a fascination standpoint, but from I think I was in one. How do we unpack this? And it's just been like and that was September 2017. So from that moment,

it has literally been a learning experience for me going forward every single day to figure out what I was a part of how I got into it and and and to how to warn others about this and was it difficult to leave when you finally decided to it sounds like you somehow got roped into the third one even after that yeah so that because what happened there was the woman like fool me three times right actually and i didn't even realize i was joining the woman that had been writing all of the scathing blog articles and exposing all the things that were happening in lularoe when when i got out she had been sued by lularoe because lularoe wanted her sources about all the shit that was being talked. Very interesting story and case and, you know, MLM lore. They wanted her sources and she wasn't going to give them up. And it was sort of just this like they were trying to say like she's not

a journalist and so she doesn't have like the anonymity like and and so I had sent her a couple blog posts about how bloggers could be journalists and different ways to defend herself because I had been in that world and so I was like hey these these might be helpful to send on to your lawyers and she was like oh my gosh thank you so much for thinking of me what are you doing now I was like oh I'm not sure like I just love little row and it was a very like well I'm with this company and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I don't it sounds like I don't really know. I don't think I want to do the MLM thing anymore. And I remember I looked back at our messages and I did say that I didn't want to do MLM anymore. She was like, no, it's totally different. And they're about to launch makeup, which they still haven't launched six years later. And you should definitely try it. Let me send you like a link to get this really good, like tryout pack. I was like, okay. So I signed up for this tryout pack. Apparently that was me signing up for the MLM. I didn't realize it until I got like a letter in the mail,

like two or three weeks later that was like, welcome to the family. And I was like, oh crap. And I never, I never did anything with it. Uh, and the products weren't even that good. And what I mostly did was I resold them all on eBay and made money. That was that was the way I made money in that MLM was reselling all the freebies in the tryout pack on eBay. Is it all that bad, Roberta? I did a speech in Cincinnati, I think, five or so years ago for Pure Romance. Do you know that one? Yeah, I have a couple episodes about that one. Oh, OK. So for anyone who doesn't know, Pure Romance is an MLM for sex toys.

Right. And it was wild. So I get into this huge theater, I mean, or whatever, conference center, and like 5,000 ravenous people. And they were all like wanted to be entrepreneurs. And they were bringing in so much money. And it was around the time that I was promoting my book, Boss Bitch. And they were like, you know, had a lot of questions about being an entrepreneur and, And they were like, you know, had a lot of questions about being an entrepreneur and, you know, incorporating or not or like how to do expenses and this and that.

So it's like, OK, well, these are like, you know, entrepreneurs. Cool. I mean, get after it. They've been promised the idea that if they work hard enough, they might have the opportunity to win the American dream. And it's this really like incestuous gamble that is actually has a worse failure rate than gambling. Gambling only has a 95% failure rate. So it's just the people are wonderful. And I don't think I've ever met anybody who has gotten out of an MLM and understands what they were in and is working towards healing that has been horrible.

The only people that are that are mean are the ones that are projecting and the ones that haven't really gone through it and haven't unpacked it and haven't taken accountability for everything that happens when you're in one of these. But every single MLM is a piece of shit. Yeah. You can quote me on that. Every single one. Oh, we are. Don't you worry. I have not met any MLM that does not have at least like a 95% failure rate. You look at their income disclosure statements and that's just people that are getting bonuses. And it's wild. I mean, the numbers for people that aren't even qualifying

for bonuses is a lot worse because those numbers are the people that are quote trying. And that's not to say that not everybody's trying. It's just it's a game and only one percent can win. And so it doesn't matter if there's one person or there's 100 people or there's a thousand people. If only one percent can win, then 99 will lose regardless of the size, regardless of the company, regardless of the product, regardless of the compensation plan, regardless of anything. And when you say lose, you actually mean lose money. Like you came out net negative at the end of this. You didn't make money. You spent more money than you made. I probably came out with maybe three thousand in the green

maybe oh but that's still money but not for a year and a half three thousand dollars for a year and a half is nothing i mean that's penny that's that's not even a livable wage that's lower than than prison wages totally agree but yeah but people are assuming this is a full time thing, not a side hustle. Because for a side hustle, if you're making three grand, I'm fine with that. Well, most people aren't treating it as a side hustle. I see. Because you have a lot of work to do. A lot of the times when I do numbers, I will use a part time I will use a 20 hours a week figure, I always go the benefit of the doubt of the MLM. I always round up in their favor. I always use numbers that are their favor and their numbers that they produce.

And basically what it is, is Dr. John Taylor. And you can find this. It's still on the FTC's website. But Dr. John Taylor, he's incredible. He passed away a few years ago, but he did an incredible amount of research on the compensation plans of multi-level marketing. I mean, he looked at hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds and he found in his economic research that when all is said and done, when you take into all accounts, you take into the money that you put in, the money you spend to stay in because

it's a pay to play system, the money that you're giving up, the opportunity costs that you are giving up because you are choosing to be in something that is not profitable, the sunk costs of staying in something that's not profitable. When all of those things are taken into account, plus your hours and your time, 99.7% of people will lose. Because I mean, what I think I drove by In-N-Out Burger the other day and my daughter goes, dang, they're paying good. They're paying upwards of $20 an hour at In-N-Out Burger. So if you are working in MLM because you're trying to make your business and you're trying to get the money and you're working even 20 hours a week for less than prison labor, I've done the math with their numbers and it's like 27 to 50 cents an hour.

So if you're choosing to be paid 27 cents an hour instead of $20 an hour, that is the opportunity cost that you are choosing. That is part of the loss of you deciding to be all in with an MLM as opposed to sunking it up, realizing you're in a scam, realizing that this is not going to help you and saying, I'm going to go get that part-time job at In-N-Out Burger or McDonald's or wherever, anywhere that's hiring. You know, it's easier said than done, obviously, to get a job. But getting a job, going to work guarantees that you will get a paycheck. Going, sitting at your house, posting on Instagram and bugging all of your friends from

high school for four hours a day for a part-time job. There's no guarantee of anything. And then that goes into labor exploitation because now you are an unpaid worker for a company that you paid to have the opportunity to promote. So they don't have to, MLMs don't have to pay anything for advertising because all of their reps are doing it for free. So that's that when you really think about everything and nobody ever thinks about everything, right? When you think about everything, everything that you could be doing, everything that you're spending to stay in every time that monthly fee comes around for your website, or you have to, you know, spend your hundred dollars to get your points to qualify for your eighty seven dollar bonus check. You're spending a hundred dollars

to get an eighty seven dollar check. You're losing money. So it's all of those little things. Nobody ever wants to do a profit and loss. Nobody ever thinks about a lot of different things, even when they do a profit and loss. They don't think about the babysitter they had to get or the gas to go to the meeting or this the fast food on the way that they got. All of the other things that they have to account for because they're going to that. Most of the people I talk to come out minus a few thousand. That's terrible. We end our episodes with a tip listeners can take straight to the bank.

If someone is stuck in this vicious cycle of the MLM world, what advice would you give them? First and foremost, you do a profit loss statement right now. First thing, look at all of the ins and all of the outs. And I want you to make a vow that if you are in the red consistently for three months in a row, that you pull the plug, that you really think about it and you go, I'm not making any money. Look at the hours you're putting in. Look at the time you're spending away from the reason you joined the MLM. That was a big one for me. You know, I wanted to be home with my kids and I was missing out on so many things because I was taking pictures or having sales or going to the post office. So look at the sacrifices you're making because that dream, that carrot, that golden carrot you're

chasing next month when I get that thing next month month when I go to convention, I'm really going to rev up. I'm really going to kick it into high gear. If you're constantly saying that to yourself and you're constantly making excuses, it's okay to say, you know what? I think I'm done. It's not great. And then once you're out and you're ready to heal, come find me and I'll help you on the next steps because it's a little tough, but I did it and you can do it too. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes.

Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.