MLM History: DSA Killed a Bill in 2010 That Would Have Saved MLM

Network Marketing is in an identity crisis, and it had been for decades.

At the beginning MLM was really about selling stuff. It is in the past 3 decades that MLM had morphed into an industry no longer cares about retail. And their industry organization, Direct Selling Association (DSA) does not even bear the MLM or NM name.

(Frankly, DSA had existed LONG before existence of MLM, and was basically "taken over" by MLM companies. But that's a different story for another time. )

Previously I've addressed how DSA managed to condemn FHTM in 2012, a pyramid scheme, mainly by dissociating itself far from FHTM and claimed FHTM was denied membership 3 years in a row. My conclusion then is DSA is not making any efforts to clarify the differences between its members and a pyramid scheme, and it may not like how FTC will shape the industry in the future.

I've also addressed that DSA has basically ignored the existence of product-based pyramid scheme, and this action is clearly deliberate, because it needed to defend Herbalife in 2013 amidst Bill Ackman's long and epic short. DSA should instead lead the effort to stamp out product-based pyramid schemes and lead its members to strive for retail volume. But it won't.

Later, I discovered a DSA position paper where it basically denied the existence of legal precedents (i.e. just ignore it) and everybody can self-consume to their own riches. That, I predicted, will lead to the eventual destruction of MLM itself, if not by Ackman, then by the government.

But what surprised even me was the DSA's reluctance to even nail down the definition of "customer"... and how they killed a legislative bill in Tennessee back in 2009/2010 that attempted to separate a legitimate MLM from a product-based pyramid scheme. It wasn't launched by a "crusader" who's out to kill MLM. It was launched by a MLM insider.

And it went down in flames, killed by DSA lobbyists.

Can You Forgive Your Pastor Defrauding You Because He Said it's "Not Intentional"?

Imagine this scenario:

Your pastor is a man you trusted because you trusted people who are men of God. You've seen him save people from alcoholism. You know him to be a moral man that came from humble origins.

So when your pastor claimed that he's started a business where he needed money to make money, and promised a hefty return, you did not hesitate. Your pastor claimed the money will be invested in foreign currency, or perhaps commodities...

But after a few months, perhaps a year or so of paying out... There is no more payment. That's when the pastor admitted he wasted all of your money. And money of hundreds of other churchgoers and his other associates.

But he didn't mean it. It was "not intentional". He lost money too.

Can you forgive him? When your life savings are gone? When you will probably lose your house and declare bankruptcy?

For hundreds of people around the country, this is not imagination. It is absolutely real.

Welcome to the world of religious fraud.  We got two sob stories for you.