Have a longtime neighbor, whom I've known for 20 years but rarely see/talk to, cold-call me & ask if I was open to the idea of making some money. She's kinda dingbatty & has been involved with Amway & other such MLM crap over the years. I told her upfront that yes I was interested, as long as it didn't involve sales. She lied thru her teeth & said "No, this is an exciting new technology, an opportunity to get in on the ground floor" yada yada yada. I figured it was BS but what the heck, I'll give her a bit of my time.
So I go to the meeting, & as expected there's a few other average-Joe folks there. She gets up & starts the enthusiastc canned intro for the rep, whom she's known for all of 3 months. Turns out he remembered me from years ago, when he was working a roofing job & needed my assistance. It was a crap job that I had a hard time getting paid for & I remember at the time thinking the guy was a schlubby idiot. But, like I said it was a long time ago so I'll be polite & listen to his spiel, for a little bit anyway.
After Ms Dingbat effusively yaps about how great this opportunity is & runs the intro video hosted by the whoredawg mother of all scammers himself (I won't mention any names, but the word "apprentice" should clue you in), she turns it over to Schlubby. He prattles some more vague jibberish ("Now who can argue with that?") for several minutes, then on cue Ms. Dingbat's whipped husband dutifully passes around clipboards with some flashy brochure showing the classic Pyramid Scheme, along with the dreaded trigger phrase "MLM." Just like they taught him at the $499 seminar I guess (more on that in a moment).
At this point I'm thinking to myself "Ohh-KAY what part of 'I don't do sales' did Ms. Dingbat not comprehend?" As Schlubby continues his pull-my-string Chatty Cathy pitch about all the wonderful people he met at some training session thing he went to, I look around at the other Potential Marks (& Markettes), wondering if they are also choking on this load of camel dung but are too nice to cough it up. I mean, people like Ms. Dingbat & Mr. Whipped have always preyed on their so-called friends & families ever since the dawn of MLM! The Conjob Hokey-Pokey— That's What It's All About!
So while Schlubby tapdances & sings I flip past the glossy cover page & illustrated, misleading MLM pitch sheet (you, too can Get Rich!)— it actually SHOWS a frikkin PYRAMID!!! — to find what appears to be some sort of enrollment form with teeny-tiny print. WTF? $499 enrollment fee? Service agreement? Monthly webpage subscription fee? Credit card number? WHOA beeeyatch, time out!
That's when I decided these fools had wasted enough of my time. I stood up, looked Schlubby in the eye (realizing he, Ms. Dingbat & Mr. Whipped must've already coughed up the $499-plus & now were desperately trying to climb up the slippery slope of the pyramid— on OUR poor-bastard shoulders!) and politely said "Excuse me, but I gotta go. This isn't for me, " handed Mr. Whipped his clipboard-with-marketing-materials — convenient-pen-to-sign-away-my-$499, turned on my heels and said AMF.
Schlubby seemed taken off-guard, probably his "trainers" had told him his Potential Marks & Markettes would most likely be far too polite to ever do such a thing. Whatever, dude, rots of ruck finding enough sheep to fleece!
The next day I googled "ACN complaints" & much to my non-surprise, quite the massive manure pile floated up. So I gave Ms. Dingbat a courtesy call & said "I just wanted to let you know I checked ACN out & it's a scam— you might want to think about it before you get too involved." Hey, I'll be a good neighbor even though she tried to scam me— maybe she really DIDN'T know. Yeah, right— she cuts me off mid-sentence, gets all huffy & says "IT'S NOT A SCAM!!!" & hangs up on me. You're welcome!
I guess she won't be inviting me to any Amway-Tupperware parties anytime soon. Boo-hoo!
All I can say is, buyer beware— with friends like her, who needs enemas? Assume everything's a scam til proven otherwise & take 10 minutes to check it out before forking over so much as a wooden nickel!
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