Part-time MLM vs. Full-time MLM

If you classify MLM by the potential income and market penetration, you end up with what I would call "part-time MLM", vs. "full-time MLM".

Part-time MLM is something you do as a side-job, convince a few people here and there, and earn some side money that may help you buy some things every once in a while. They typically deal with lower margin stuff commonly available, but with some unique twists. Think Amway, Solavei, ACN. It's not something you'd do full-time.

Full-time MLM, on the other hand, is something you can think about quitting your "day-job" over, if you really really want to take the plunge. Their products are usually luxuries, but high margin, like nutritional supplements, cosmetics, and so on. Think Herbalife, Xango, Nu Skin.

Almost all MLMs claim they are both... start part-time, work your way up, go full-time when you want to. However, reality indicates otherwise.

When Fearmongers Attack: Using fear as a propaganda weapon

Both fear and hope are powerful emotions, and in the hands of a manipulator, can have devastating results.

Scams usually prey on hope (and its relative, greed). Hope for a better life, more money, good mate, sympathy, etc.

And when the critics speak up, they were derided as "fearmongers", "negative people", and so on, by the scammers and their naive followers. This is very ironic, as scammers will use fear when it suits them.

In the aftermath of the $600 million ZeekRewards Ponzi scheme, some fearmongers have continued to play the victims for their own agenda. Take a look at the following example. In order NOT to give them any "link juice" I am NOT linking their website, but you can easily figure out by Googling some of the words.

Note that in the first paragraph, these folks alleged

"SEC mislead the judge in its claim" 

then in the next sentence, they wrote

"they (SEC) did this without even having to provide the judge proof"

So what did SEC mislead the judge with? Hmmm?

BAD EXAMPLE: Ad hominem attack AND changing the subject

When a troll strikes, and attempt to derail a conversation, don't expect any logic, as the following example shows. These comments are posted on PatrickPretty.com:

Note the complete change of subject. When I answered his blah blah on how one is susceptible to propaganda, I asked doesn't that apply to himself. He changed the subject completely and tried to troll the subject of race. Throw in a couple more ad hominem attack with some pretense of logic, and it's rather humorous to read.

Victim, Denial, and Cognitive Dissonance

The shutdown of Zeek Rewards as a $600 million (and climbing) Ponzi scheme provides a very interesting study into the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance, denial, and victimhood.

Cognitive dissonance describes mental state of a person, who, upon finding what he believed to be true turned out to be a lie. There are now two conflicting ideas in the person's head, and somehow he had to reconcile the two, or the person is going to go crazy (maybe not literally, but he'll be uncomfortable for a while as he resolve this problem)  

Read more on cognitive dissonance

And the victims of Zeek are definitely suffering from cognitive dissonance now. What they believed to be a money making opportunity turned out to be a lie.

It is how they choose to deal with that cognitive dissonance that is the interesting part.

People NEVER want to hear negative information about themselves (negativity denial), and LOVE to hear positive information about themselves (illusory superiority). This was proven over and over in cognitive dissonance research.

Read more on negativity denial

Read more on illusory superiority

The Danger of Large Starter Kits

A "starter kit" in MLM is a recommended "kit" of products that you buy and use to "show off" your products in the marketing effort. There are usually several kits, small, medium, and large (though they usually go by fancy names, like "deluxe"). Starter kits can also be called "business in a box", or even named after specific ranks, like "Instant Coordinator Pack".

However, the starter kit and the comp plan will show a lot on how the business really works, vs. how it was described to work. Thus, you need to look out for the warning signs in a starter kit.

First of all, a MLM is NOT supposed to charge an application fee. If it does, the paperwork cost should be minimal (about $20, certainly no more than $50). If it's any higher, it is in danger of being classified as a pyramid scheme by the FTC for doing a "pay to play".

Second, MLM is NOT supposed to sell "training kits" and such material to affiliates and charge a high cost and profit off of that. Training is only sold to members, and that is also a sign for pyramid scheme for the FTC. Training should be sold "at or near cost" and should not be a profit center.

With the two sources of revenue cut, some suspect MLMs resort to "starter kits" they then "recommend" new members to buy. And these starter kits can be quite costly... $500 or more, and comes in big boxes as they contain virtually everything the company makes.

This is out of pocket expenses for you, and if large enough, it will hurt you in multiple ways.

Cognitive Bias: Availability Bias

Availability bias is a cognitive bias where the afflicted person simply goes after the most readily available evidence, instead of ALL evidence available, and decided it's enough. It can also manifest itself as in believing that the more vividly remembered evidence is far more likely to occur than the anything else.

If this doesn't quite mean anything to you, perhaps an illustration is in order...

Do you remember your first kiss with your significant other?

How about the fifth?

Clearly, you remember the first one vividly, and the rest... are just blurs.

[ See "First kiss and last supper" ]

But this applies to all events that is relatively rare but widely reported. Things like mass shootings, stranger-child abductions, plane crashes, and so on are widely reported, but in reality they are extremely rare.

Rebuttal to "Russian Lawyer for Zeek"

In the last day or two, a letter from Anna Makovsky, who claimed to be a Russian lawyer, posted a missive that was spread on various Zeek related forums citing irrelevant laws and various logical fallacies and fractured arguments. In this rebuttal, we shall attempt to discover who she is, and how fallacious is her "argument" for Zeek (and illustrate how smart, or dumb, Zeek followers are for reposting it).

First of all, the woman claimed to be "Anna Makovsky"

CIS has not been dissolved, so there is no 'former CIS'. Yet the English is quite good, though very stiff.