Commentary: How MLM affects the current presidential campaigns

While politics is usually quite far from the world of multi-level marketing, presidential campaign is big enough that anything anybody ever did figures into the equation, and in this case, two of the presidential candidates have direct ties to MLM... Donald Trump, and Ben Carson.

Those of you who had watched "Celebrity Apprentice" should recall that ACN, the MLM telephone company, was featured on the show... twice.  And Donald Trump even had his own MLM, "Trump Network", which nobody hears about any more.

What you may not remember is Ben Carson previously offered testimonial that Mannatech stuff helped him in his battle with prostate cancer... since 2004.

And let's not forget how big some of these MLM businesses are... and they donated HEAVILY to Republican candidates of all levels. It's already documented that co-founder of Amway, Richard DeVos and two family members donated 25K per person to Scott Walker's campaign AND unknown amounts to Jeb Bush's campaign. When Mitt Romney ran he had support of Amway, NuSkin, and Xango, all big name MLMs.

So, what are some facts about ACN and Mannatech, and perhaps, related to Donald Trump and Ben Carson, that you don't know, but should?

Let's start with ACN and Trump

ACN / Trump

Did you know that in 2010, the average ACN Canada participant takes home about $41.00 per month? That's directly off their website:

"The average ACN Canada active IBO in 2010 earned approximately $500." -- ACN Canada website 

As it is 2015, and there is no update, clearly the figure had not risen (and may even have FALLEN!)


Did you know that despite ACN having sponsored Celebrity Apprentice twice, Donald Trump was quoted by Wall Street Journal of saying, "I (Trump) know nothing about the company (ACN) other than the people who run the company, I’m not familiar with what they (ACN) do or how they go about doing it, and I make that clear in my speeches."

This is also interesting considering that Trump allegedly boasted to WSJ that for a speech at an ACN event he got $2.5 million back in 2008, and pocketed another $1.3 million for 3 more recent (and presumably shorter) talks at ACN events.

BREAKING NEWS: Jeunesse banned in Malaysia, website blocked at national level

According to users in Malaysia, as relayed to JusticeAlwaysLate on Facebook, any one attempted to access Jeunesse Global website (jeunesseglobal.com) from Malaysia is greeted with the following message:

JeunesseGlobal.com blocked in Malaysia by government order
for violation of Control of Drugs and Comestics Regulations 1984

Jeunesse lists an office in Malaysia on their contact us page. The status of that office is unknown at this time.

MLMSkeptic will bring you the latest news as soon as it becomes available.

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Scam Basics: Do you "Google" your upline, the company leader, and so on?

Do you Google your own name as well as those people you know? Come on, everybody does. People who go on dates google each other's name, or even the photo, just to make sure they're not being catfished.

So why aren't people Googling their MLM uplines, and businesses googling their customers, and so on?

(NOTE: Yes, I'm using "Google" as a verb, meaning "to search online, probably using Google search". You are welcome to substitute Yandex , Baidu, or whatever your favorite search engine may be. )

A few years ago I wrote about "due diligence", and the case of Janamjot Singh Sohdi and his scam, and how he managed play an investment advisor and defrauded about a thousand people out of 2.5 million dollars despite having a long rap sheet such as having investment broker license revoked, disbarred from NYSE, and so on.  All of which can be easily Googled.

In the same article, I also wrote about the suspect scheme of "Phil Ming Xu" called WCM777, and how Xu was linked to the "Vantone scam" in China. WCM777 was eventually closed by SEC.

How did I found out that Xu was linked to Vantone scam in China?

I "googled" it, of course.

And it seems that's way more due diligence than most people bother to exercise, even bankers who's supposed to be following Federal "Know Your Customer" guidelines.

Have you ever heard of Daniel Filho? How about his full name: Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho? Still no? How about his company, DFRF Enterprises (named with his initials)?  Yes, it's a scam, closed by the SEC in June 2015.  But what ELSE did you find out through Googling?