Herbalife
Money down the drain

My story..
I had gone into semi-retirement and was looking for some extra income when I saw this commercial touting a generic website. The commercial talked about how much money could be made from home, people sitting in big homes, nice cars, you get the picture. Never did they mention it was Herbalife in the commercial.

So I went to the website and there's no information there, only a place to put your name, phone number for more info. Next day I get a call (what I later learned was carefully written script) about how I could get started. The pitch is real clever.

First they send you a 'free' DVD (with more generic information) to go along with a workbook that is designed to get you salivating for more money. Without telling you exactly 'how' or for 'whom' you'd be working for.

I get a 2nd call, same person, and after agreeing to purchase the DVD to get the 'unlock' code to see the rest of the DVD, I find out it's Herbalife. Up to now I had no impression, good or bad about the company. But I did think it was suspicious they kept the name hidden so long.

A couple more phone calls up the power-chain and next thing you know I'm signing on. If you're a basic 'distributor', you pay a higher wholesale price for their products. That equals less profits. But. If you lay down $3,000 they start telling you about the fast-track to a yearly income well over $150,000. This is where the 'forked-tongue' makes it's first appearance.

They have disclaimers in small print about how anyone else's success is not typical, your results may vary, etc. But. Verbally they're really laying it on thick about how they're "on their way" to riches and you could join them for the ride.

So, now that I'm $3,000 deep they send me more materials and a bunch of produce I'd later find was pretty much impossible to sell. You can't put it on eBay either, so forget about recouping your losses. Then. Only to find that I now need to lay down another $750 to $1,500 PER MONTH to purchase leads garnished through tv and internet the same way I was sucked in! Without the leads, you're dead in the water.

Sure, they tell you that you can hold "Shake Parties" at your house with your friends and that the more distributorships and supervisors you make out of your friends the more money you'll be earning in residual earnings. I'm sure Herbalife would come through with the money. But then I looked at my friend who had started Herbalife about six months before I did.

She used to be a nice person to be around. Now, she'd screwed all her friends into buying distributorships and loaded them down with dead merchandise, convincing them that if they just ran up their credit cards NOW. They'll be paying it off and vacationing in Tahiti LATER. Yah, right. She burned her friends and they know it.

Meanwhile, I felt stuck and in retro-spect I should have just cut my losses. But no. I plopped down a total of another $3,000 for leads over the next couple months until I ran out my line of credit on my card. After spending $6,000 on the 'Supervisor' status and leads, plus all the hours I spent on the phone either with leads or my "up" person. All I had to show for it was debt and zero sales. Didn't sell a damn thing. No product, no down-line dealerships, nada.

Now, when all this started my "up" person (who originally called me after the commercial).. Had told me they were laying down nearly $2,000 a month for leads because they expected to be in the 'Millionaire's Club' by next year.

A year later, after her putting in way more money and time than I ever did. She had gotten to the next level. But she ended up saying that she had moved out of her apartment and was living with her own "up" person who had taken her in for the last five months. I guess being a millionaire doesn't mean you could have a place to call your own, or what?

So now, a year later, after paying monthly fees of about $45 a month for a website nobody visits (unless I would spend even MORE money trying to buy traffic to it).. AND paying monthly fees for a merchant account that sucked up about $250 in savings. I finally threw in the towel. All I have left to show for it are;

A box of diet suppressors, stimulants, herbal teas and catalogues. A $6,400 debt added to my credit card, an inflated phone bill from calling all over the United States to speak with 'leads' and no fancy home like the paid actors in the commercial I saw.

I'm sure Herbalife will say it's all my fault I didn't make a million dollars. They'll point at their poster-child success stories, whom I'm sure are real. But what they won't do is open up their real books and show how much HUGE $ MONEY they've made off of people like me who bought $85 worth of crap for $3,000 on a song and dance about wealth and prosperity being just around the corner. They're not content with making a huge mark-up on their product.., no— they have to squeeze another big chunk of change out of people by using their friends to do all the dirty work for them.

Show me a person making more than $15,000 a year (poverty-level earnings by the way) and I'll bet there are another 3,000 people or more to match that have the same basic story I have.

Bottom line: Money down the drain chasing a pipe dream.

Company: Herbalife
Country: USA
State: California
City: Los Angeles
Phone: 8666174273
Site: herbalife.com

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