Wednesday, January 1, 2014

MLM Absurdities: Do MLMers Actually *READ* What They Post?

With the ease of simple share / retweet / like and similar buttons on social media, it seems we are less and les likely to perform any sort of fact-checking and due diligence on the information we "endorse" through our "like" or "share" and similar actions. This had lead to a plethora of spreading rumors innuendos, and just general "crap info", esp. when the original reply was misinterpreted.

Revanchist over at YPRPariah had a great example... Is it true that Coca-Cola offered BK Boreyko 2 billion bucks and he turned them down? Some Vemma noobs seem to think so and every once in a while tries to tweet this:

Tweet: "Coca cola offered Vemma 2.2 billion
dollars to buy them out. Vemma said no because
it will be worth way more. Still think it's a scam?"
The problem is there was no such offer EVER from Coca Cola. Whoever spreading this story was spreading crap info. Even BK Boreyko had debunked this... but only if you tweet him directly, like this:

BK Boreyko: Coca cola offered #Vemma 2 billion to buy them,
CEO @bkboreyko turned them down*  Actually no truth to this rumor. Thx.

But where did this rumor come from?




The source of this rumor seem to be Facebook, where BK Boreyko tried to answer the same rumor, albeit rather... circumspectly, back in August 2013. This probably emerged around August 26, 2013.



Please note that BK Boreyko neither confirm nor deny the rumor. He simply said he would not sell at any price (to anybody is implied). And he thought that's the end of it.

The problem is if you search Google for "Vemma Coca Cola Buyout", you'll find that many Vemma distributors STILL have this crap info listed on their own websites.

Here's one:



The EARLIEST mention of this rumor was found as a forum post on TeamLiquid, a gaming website, where it was spammed.



The poster was identified as 1Focus, part of the Gaming scene in the US. The linked Twitter profile iF0cus identified him as Fred Rivera through a profile on Area 51 Gaming website. That spam topic was closed within 24 hours by forum admin. Twitter profile was later closed and Mr. Rivera appears to be peddling "Air Jordan" shoes online now, and I can find no mention of his involvement in Vemma right now.

If any one can find any earlier references to "Coca Cola buyout rumors" please send me a link in the comments. This is the earliest I can find.

I have ran into people who made up 'facts' before. When I was busting the "TVI Express" scam, I ran into a "Rudy Phan" in Indonesia that basically made up all sorts of crap every few days to embellish TVI Express to help his recruiting efforts, talking about stuff that he claims to understand... stuff like international law (Indonesia cannot shut down TVI Express!), jurisdiction boundaries (Indonesian laws do not apply to TVI Express!), municipal boundaries (TVI Express can claimed to be "based in London" even though they are NOT inside London city boundaries), and so on and so forth.

This only emphasizes the need to do your own due diligence before you repeat any 'facts' your uplines tell you to impress you. S/he may have been exposed to crap info, and if you spread crap info... you not only lose credibility, you also leave a much bigger mess.
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