Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

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Savvy
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Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by Savvy »

My wife's coworker that barely knew her invited her for coffee for an "opportunity". My wife, knowing she's married to a wannabe boglehead asked me first. Instead of meeting, we were able to find out via text message that this was for Arbonne.

I had never heard of it but googled it and then we declined meeting with this coworker. It seemed questionable at best. How would you handle this situation or similar? Any experience with Arbonne or similar?
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cheese_breath
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by cheese_breath »

From what I can judge from some quick Googling Arbonne appears to be a multi level marketing company selling skin care products. You start at the bottom knocking on doors and hounding your friends to buy the product, but most of the earnings go to your distributor and his / her superiors in the food chain. The real way to make money is to become a distributor yourself and leach off the sales of those working for you. Similar to a pyramid scheme, but it's legitimate because there is a real product sold. Think of Amway, Avon, or Mary Kay.
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stemikger
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by stemikger »

My sister was involved in Mary Kay and it was a nightmare. Is it legit. Yes. Is it a cult. It sure seemed like one. It got to the point I was embarrassed to go out with my sister. She became so obsessed with recruting people and selling her product that it consumed her. Her goal was to get a Pink Cadillac and climb to the top of the Mary Kay food chain.

Long story short, this type of obessession is not realistic for the long term so she got discouraged within about 6 months and my mother who was in her late 60s at the time and could not afford much got stuck with a ton of Mary Kay products.

I have a feeling all of these multi-level deals are the same.

Having said that, there are many women in the organization who did make very good money doing this and several got their Pink Caddys, but God only knows the quality of their life. To get to that point you literally have to eat, sleep and breath Mary Kay.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by englishgirl »

Where it has been a friend or coworker who is trying to get a side job going to earn some money, then I will go, and buy some product. I even hosted a party (not for Arbonne - a different product line) for one of my best friends. I view it as supporting them as they are trying to get something off the ground. Luckily (for me), most of my friends have not kept going with such things for very long. And I would never sign up to be a distributor myself.

Some people can earn fairly good money doing these things, but they have to recruit people beneath them to get more income streams. For the consumer, no, it is likely not as good value as you can get elsewhere. But I don't think it's a scam necessarily.
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mike143
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by mike143 »

I would have no problem telling someone I thought MLM was morally reprehensible. Of which historically I participated when younger, Cutco knives. Only good that came out of the experience was strength distrust of everything.
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Kenkat
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by Kenkat »

englishgirl wrote:Where it has been a friend or coworker who is trying to get a side job going to earn some money, then I will go, and buy some product. I even hosted a party (not for Arbonne - a different product line) for one of my best friends. I view it as supporting them as they are trying to get something off the ground. Luckily (for me), most of my friends have not kept going with such things for very long. And I would never sign up to be a distributor.
My wife and I jokingly refer to these as a "neighbor tax" or a "friend tax" - i.e., a friend or neighbor invites you to a party and you buy something you don't really need that much to support them and be a good neighbor or friend. It's like a tax - you just pay it and move on.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by SpringMan »

No experience with Arbonne but had a coworker years ago invite me to a meeting for a "business opportunity". I suspected correctly it was Amway but he would not come out and say it was Amway. I declined to attend but others at my work place attended. There were probably half a dozen Amway reps recruited out of our small work group. Even the most zealous only lasted a year or so. Their recruiting practice was fanatical. They passed out cassette tapes emphasizing the tax advantages and pure materialism. Have two Cadillacs in your driveway and a bigger boat on your boat well :) . Don't ask them about health benefits or lack thereof.
Last edited by SpringMan on Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:09 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by mike143 »

kenschmidt wrote:My wife and I jokingly refer to these as a "neighbor tax" or a "friend tax" - i.e., a friend or neighbor invites you to a party and you buy something you don't really need that much to support them and be a good neighbor or friend. It's like a tax - you just pay it and move on.
We don't attend unless the host says they are fine with us not purchasing anything beforehand. I decided the products I buy I don't need them sold to me. Most the stuff they sell is garbage and overpriced if is a decent product. The host are often motivated by incentives ("free" stuff) for sales. I personally wouldn't strong arm my friends and family for personal gain (disclosure: I did at one point when younger, Cutco).
Last edited by mike143 on Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

Stay away, the only one making the money is the upline partner and they are "NOT your friend" The primary motivation for them is to make money, and it can get addictive for them. Don't go for it. The gimmick is a $29.99 come-on package and you get up to a 40% "discount" on skin care and other beauty aid products as the entry-level distributor. Make no mistake about it though, if you really want to make commissions or extra money, you have to "buy the product" first before you can showcase it to your "marks" (ahem, friends), if you don't sell it - now you have a pantry closet full of Arbonne product which has mixed reviews on how well they work. If you go on their website you'll find that there are so many "tentacles" or what they call an "upline" - something like associate, then district manager, then executive district manager, then area manager, then executive area manager, then vice president, then senior vice president and every single one of them is benefitting from your hard work, while you only collect 4% of some percentage of the sale amount.

Arbonne is actualy owned by a private equity company called "Harvest Partners" - they are making a proverbial killing tryinig to reel vulnerable SAHM's. I know someone who's selling this crap - since joining seems less herself and more wrapped up with the cult of Arbonne women. :shock:
There is nothing easy about earning commissions when you have to cajole others including family and "real friends" into buying this junk. Let me see, alienate friends and family with the come-ons so you can sell it, otherwise you get downgraded in rank which makes you lose "valuable benefits". :oops: They don't recommend selling it online, but if you search for it on Craigslist or Amazon, you'll see a number of people trying to dump this stuff, because they got in way over their head inventorying it at their home and zero cash in the bank as a result or worse, huge credit card bills.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

stemikger wrote:My sister was involved in Mary Kay and it was a nightmare. Is it legit. Yes. Is it a cult. It sure seemed like one. It got to the point I was embarrassed to go out with my sister. She became so obsessed with recruting people and selling her product that it consumed her. Her goal was to get a Pink Cadillac and climb to the top of the Mary Kay food chain.

Long story short, this type of obessession is not realistic for the long term so she got discouraged within about 6 months and my mother who was in her late 60s at the time and could not afford much got stuck with a ton of Mary Kay products.

I have a feeling all of these multi-level deals are the same.

Having said that, there are many women in the organization who did make very good money doing this and several got their Pink Caddys, but God only knows the quality of their life. To get to that point you literally have to eat, sleep and breath Mary Kay.
+1 - Right on the nose, my friend. They target vulnerable women who are looking to fulfill a need of being "wanted". I knew someone who sold Mary Kay and tried to get me to join (i'm a guy!) and then tried to get me to buy the products :oops: . Her closet at home was like a mini-store, her bank account was nearly zero and her credit card bills were up the wazoo from buying all the Mary Kay product on credit. Nuts!!
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

SpringMan wrote:No experience with Arbonne but had a coworker years ago invited me to a meeting for a "business opportunity". I suspected correctly it was Amway but he would not come out and say it was Amway. I declined to attend but others at my work place attended. There were probably half a dozen Amway reps recruited out of our small work group. Even the most zealous only lasted a year or so. Their recruiting practice was fanatical. They passed out cassette tapes emphasizing the tax advantages and pure materialism. Have two Cadillacs in your driveway and a bigger boat on your boat well :) . Don't ask them about health benefits or lack thereof.
Ha! I got the same sell with the cassette tapes which the Amway rep has to buy first with their own money. I especially liked one of the stories "Pigs don't fly". :oops:
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

cheese_breath wrote:From what I can judge from some quick Googling Arbonne appears to be a multi level marketing company selling skin care products. You start at the bottom knocking on doors and hounding your friends to buy the product, but most of the earnings go to your distributor and his / her superiors in the food chain. The real way to make money is to become a distributor yourself and leach off the sales of those working for you. Similar to a pyramid scheme, but it's legitimate because there is a real product sold. Think of Amway, Avon, or Mary Kay.
Worse - once you make it to Executive Area Manager, you qualify for a discounted lease for a White Mercedes Benz convertible, that you still have to pay for and the associated insurances. :oops: Some people are so gullible - it's not like you even "own" it, you are renting it for a discounted price (the discount is taxable income).
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by cheese_breath »

kenschmidt wrote: My wife and I jokingly refer to these as a "neighbor tax" or a "friend tax" - i.e., a friend or neighbor invites you to a party and you buy something you don't really need that much to support them and be a good neighbor or friend. It's like a tax - you just pay it and move on.
Right on. My wife never finds anything she wants, but she always feels obligated to buy something after drinking the host's tea. Fortunately she's cheap like me, but from what she tells me some people spend small fortunes at these parties.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by Bob.Beeman »

A long time ago my father heard a presentation for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_Magic Holiday Magic at work and asked me to go with him to a presentation. It was a scam, and is often used today in law school as an example of a Ponzi Scheme.

We took notes during the presentation and checked out their claims for how many distributorships could be realistically supported in our area. A call to my broker (This was before I became a Boglehead) unearthed the fact that Holiday Magic's projected annual sales in the Chicago metro area were greater than the gross annual revenue of Avon. Obviously, we chose not to get involved, and I formed a permanent dislike of MLM schemes.

On the other hand, a relative of mine and his wife had Amway as their only means of support during the 1970s and 1980s and they did extremely well. Nevertheless, my dislike of MLM persists.

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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by Savvy »

Thanks for the stories and feedback. I felt insulted and a bit mad when she kept contacting us to meet, since I wonder whether my wife would have known it was an MLM or not without me...plus this coworker already has a great job.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by Raymond »

stemikger wrote:...Having said that, there are many women in the organization who did make very good money doing this and several got their Pink Caddys, but God only knows the quality of their life. To get to that point you literally have to eat, sleep and breath Mary Kay.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by boomergeneration »

I'm not familiar with Arbonne but not all MLMs are scams. After all, Warren Buffett's company owns Pampered Chef, a MLM that sells kitchen items.

And I have been selling educational children's books through a reputable MLM called Usborne Books and More for 16 years, on and off. I started when my 2 children were under the age of 5. I love books, especially childen's books. I don't make much money at it but I enjoy it. Unfortunately, the company is not making much money either. It is a very small publicly traded company, sticker educ.

I guess my point is that you can't lump all the MLMs together. Some are very ethical and others not so much.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

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cheese_breath wrote:Think of Amway, Avon, or Mary Kay.
When I was finishing undergrad decades back, I was first introduced to Amway. Listened to the pitch and when the guy went around doing the usual, "How much do you want to make?", I told him I was studying to do something that would generate for me $500k / yr (made up number to test him). He said I could make more with Amway. I pulled out some paper, scribbled and told him I'd made a calculation error, that I'd actually be making $5 MILLION / yr. He said I could make more with Amway.

To this day I see all those things as pseudo-pyramid schemes.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by nisiprius »

In general, it is better to look for "opportunities" than to listen to the oh-go-generous pitches of people offering opportunities to you.

I would not even consider something of this kind unless you had personal experience with the actual products, and knew for sure that they were real live products that, you know, people have heard of and like. Every legitimate business has just a streak of Ponzi in it, in the sense that it is always better when the business is growing. Multilevel marketing schemes are sort of mixtures; they can be a little bit about recruitment and a lot about selling products... or they can be a lot about recruitment and only a little about selling products.

Personally? We have a little bit of Tupperware in our house, and very durable it is, too; we still have an Avon item (a toddler's toy). I don't believe my wife has ever, ever, ever bought any Mary Kay. No Amway, no Herbalife, and can't remember ever talking to anyone who said they'd used either of 'em. As for Arbonne, I literally have never heard of them.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by sadie wess »

cheese_breath wrote:
kenschmidt wrote: My wife and I jokingly refer to these as a "neighbor tax" or a "friend tax" - i.e., a friend or neighbor invites you to a party and you buy something you don't really need that much to support them and be a good neighbor or friend. It's like a tax - you just pay it and move on.
Right on. My wife never finds anything she wants, but she always feels obligated to buy something after drinking the host's tea. Fortunately she's cheap like me, but from what she tells me some people spend small fortunes at these parties.

+1

I agree that those horrid "invites" to parties that exist only to sell junk that I don't want or need are a "friend tax" or "neighbor tax". I refuse to attend such things. I just never heard the term "friend tax" and think it is an apt description.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by lawman3966 »

I have an acquaintance who has risen in the ranks of Arbonne and is doing well. She has an MBA in Marketing and previously worked for a series of Fortune 500 companies doing marketing studies and the like. She got laid off and decided to expand her participation in Arbone.

I was as skeptical as anyone when she started and still don't know how it will turn out in the long run (though it's been about four years so far, which is longer than she worked at some of her prior jobs).

However, for now, she makes good money (don't know the exact amount), lives in, and supports with Arbonne earnings, a one million dollar home, and has a leased Mercedes (which some other posters described above).

I've read that 1% or fewer of the people who sign up last any appreciable length of time there, and I assume that's true. However, many of the people who initially sign up may have little real intention of making a career of it. Thus, a highly motivated and persistent person can make headway and succeed. I wouldn't have believed it in 2009, but I have been proven wrong.

My friend isn't shy though. She has about 2000 Facebook contacts, and will contact people if they're the second cousin of someone she met during recess one day in the second grade. I think she's already reached as far as fourth cousins of her immediate family. If doing that would be awkward, then you have your answer as to whether this career is for you or not. Moroever, she spends an enormous number of hours per day generating new contacts and keeping track of her various downstream salespersons etc.

In sum, it may be a dead end for the vast majority of people who attend the initial meetings. But, some people do actually succeed.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by mlebuf »

My observation has been that the very few people who make money in MLM are those at the very top, those who speak at MLM rallies and those who sell books/audio/video programs to members. It's common to find people in the business that do all three of those things. As if by sheer coincidence, those are also the very same people who bang the drums loudest hyping their particular MLM "opportunity."

I'm sure it's possible to start the bottom in MLM and become wealthy but it's also possible to win the Powerball Lottery. The question is: What are the odds? Most people simply don't have the personality to continually pester friends, neighbors, knock on doors, etc. Anybody with that amount of zeal for selling a product or service is far more likely to make more money working in sales for a big company or as an entrepreneur.

What troubles me about most MLM companies is that they sell false hope to desperate people who have lost their job, spouse, etc. and are looking for a lifeline. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's ethical.

Bottom line: Don't go there.
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Re: Any experience with Arbonne (scam?) ?

Post by nisiprius »

mlebuf wrote:I'm sure it's possible to start the bottom in MLM and become wealthy but it's also possible to win the Powerball Lottery. The question is: What are the odds? Most people simply don't have the personality to continually pester friends, neighbors, knock on doors, etc. Anybody with that amount of zeal for selling a product or service is far more likely to make more money working in sales for a big company or as an entrepreneur.
+1
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