What are some definitive arguments against multi-level marketing (MLM) business structures?

The basic problem is she believes this will get her rich quick. The flaw in the plan is that people in MLM are spending their time trying to get people into the levels below them, not selling product, yet the money comes from product sales.

Ask her how much product sales she is generating and how much time she is spending trying to find new dupes for her downline. Ask her how much money she has already made. Maybe, you could pretend to be interested in the MLM as a way to start the conversation.

You have to get her back to the reality of what is working and what is not and get her away from the imaginary riches at the end of someday.

And, on top of that eventually there will be people on the bottom that will not get anything. The goal it to be on the top of those people.
I always had a hard time accepting that I would be directly / indirectly setting up people to loose in order for me to gain.

MLM schemes attract people not just because they promise quick money. They support this idea with social engineering. There are meetings where enthusiasm and fervor is whipped up. They give them arguments to counteract nay-sayers. They may even encourage them (as in your example) to cut off contact with nay-sayers as being a source of negative energy. These are common brain-washing techniques.

For more information about brainwashing, this article might be helpful. It talks about hypnosis, but if you just substitute those rallies for individual hypnosis, it’s the same thing. This is another site that explains MLM techniques. I’m not sure these offer any help for deprogramming MLM adherents, but they do help you understand it better, and if you can get your sister to read them, she may understand better.

The only way she can make money is if she got in early and she spends all her time doing it, and she has no compunction about recruiting friends and relatives. If she’s been in it three years, and she’s doing these things, then perhaps she’s in early enough to make money.

To deprogram MLM people, there are a number of steps in this website. Unfortunately, to me they seem to all involve people reading about the problems of MLM. If you can’t get someone to even consider reading these things, you’re SOL. Your problem is with reconnecting with your sister and getting close enough so she will read the materials.

I suppose you could try to appear to have an open mind about these things. Tell her you’d like to give her a chance to make her case, and you’d like to make money, too. Then bring her these articles, and ask her what’s wrong with them, because they have you concerned. You think they must be lies, but you don’t understand them.

Or some such nonsense. The articles will definitively show her the delusion of MLM, but in order to get her to read them, you do, as you say, have to reconnect with her. I suspect that in the end, you’re the only one who can figure out how to reconnect. Whatever you do, I don’t think kidnapping her for deprogramming is ethical, even if it works (and I’m not sure it does). I think you will have to find her other ways to get what she needs (affiliation—a sense of belonging, excitement, passion, etc). These are things we all need in our lives. If you can replace MLM with other things that do this, you might be successful.

MLMs and cults work in very much the same way. Cults also try to disassociate you from negative people.

I don’t think there is one piece of proof you can show her that will definitively show her that she’s being irrational. Logic and rationality don’t work with illogical and irrational people. She must want to change for her to actually change, so the most you can do is be honest with her about how her actions are straining your relationship, never lend her money, stop all discussions if she tries to sell you something, etc.

They are plain and simply Ponzi (pyramid) schemes. Has anyone seen the Amway ads on TV? They have changed their name and talk about the superiority (nada) not the high prices of their product and barely allude to their charges of MLM tactics. Now they refer to your chance of becoming an independent businessperson.

Back in the late 70’s-early 80’s when they were basically unmasked they claimed the their distributers were making enough money to become rich when actually 90% were making less than $100/mo. The FTA started an investigation during the Reagan admin but Amway contributed millions to Republicans so the govt report got watered down, admitting AMway was doing some bad stuff but maybe not enough bad stuff for prosecution.. With such bad publicity, Amway took on different names and and expanded to other countries.

I really hope your sister is involved with Amway/Alticor/Quixtar/Amway because you won’t be able to convince her with math and logic. They have a secret, paranoid, cultish bend that persists in lies, promises of wealth and an almost religious demand for unquestioning faith.

I’ve read a lot about cults and deprogramming. I can’t add much to the excellent advice above, except that I do have to question one point of yours, @daloon: do you really feel that the best way to counter deception is with deception? I would hope that NoCatharsis could one day face his or her sister without having to hear the accusation: you lied to me. Showing enough interest to open the subject seems fair, but telling her that you think these articles must be lies? How will that encourage her to believe them?

@galileogirl, did you mean “I really hope your sister is not involved…”?

Sorry, the longer the answer the more likely the typo-Fluther Hast Makes Waste Theorem

Have an intervention. Get all her closest friends and family together. Bring some of the above arguments with you on paper.

If what you want is your relationship back with your sister, what about not discussing this area of her life? If she has been doing this three years and is not disillusioned, I doubt that you will change her.

How about saying to her something like, “I know you are concerned that I have been negative about your work. I miss you, though, and how we used to laugh together. Could we just have lunch or go shopping (substitute what you guys liked to do) and agree not to talk about our work?”

@jeruba No, I don’t think being deceptive is a good way to go. However, it is a way to go. However, the problem is not countering deception, but countering an unwillingness to listen. In such cases (and really, almost always), I think you get a better response if you listen, and appear to be open (or are open) to other points of view. I think it’s always worth listening to other people, because you can’t know what they’re thinking if you don’t.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t ever get frustrated with what I’m hearing. However, I do know that you can’t understand where someone is coming from if you don’t hear their story. I guess I think it’s overstating it to call what I suggested deception. Whether or not you have an open mind, you still have to appear to have one, or I don’t think anyone will open up to you. After a while though, when you’ve had the same argument with a person over and over, it’s pretty hard to keep an open mind.

It seems like most people’s perception of MLMs is a little off. From your question I can already tell you haven’t understood what they actually do and why they are doing it (your sister). If you opened a store and your family and friends kept bad mouthing it, would you hang around them as much? You probably would feel betrayed by the people you love. if you want to become closer to your sister I would ask her about her business and support her. The likelyhood of you changing her mind is not good.

@asawilliams I agree, to a point, with what you’re saying. I should be more supportive and put the past behind us if I hope to become closer to my sister again. However, using your analogy, if I were to open a store I would not use a pyramid set-up to recruit my employees, and I certainly would not start going to church groups to promote my products. Yes, this “company” is known to infiltrate churches to recruit their “down-line” I think they call it. They use religion as the corporate fiber holding a lot of their business together, which I personally find morally upsetting. I thought perhaps my sister was unique in this aspect of her business, but after doing some research online, I found several blogs and accounts of other recruits using the same tactics.

I think my response here is somewhat generic without specific examples, mostly because I don’t have any references at hand – they are just pieces of information I’ve gathered over the last 3–4 years I’ve spoken out against this. I know there are plenty of MLM companies out there, but do a little search on Quixtar or Amway which is who I’m most familiar with, and you can see similar reports.

Of course, I’m biased, so if anyone has anything good to say about these companies, I would certainly appreciate the information and perspective.

@NoCatharsis, you might call it “infultrating”, but have you asked your sister why they do this? Or why they try to get people in? It might be different for each person. recently I asked someone about MLM who is affiliated with Amway. The reason they gave for them to have people “downline” from them is to help them, not themselves. So, you might want to ask your sister why she does it.
You also might want to look up the definition of a pyramid. It is a common misconception that MLM are pyramids. They are first illegal, so why would the government allow them to exist? In a pyramid the person on the bottom can never get above anyone above them and the only form of funds come from the recruiting of people to the bottom.
You should just ask her questions about your concerns with an open heart. If you come out attacking she is going to become defensive, and you will not find information that way. So ask her questions like you are interested in what she does.

I just ask myself, how is it that people still join these schemes?