My Sister Was A BOSS BABE (anti-MLM / pyramid scheme story time)

hello my dudes welcome back to Internet analysis today we've got a little bit of a different format going on cuz we're here with my sister hey guys long time no see yes a lot of you probably don't even know I have a sister I'm freaking out like dude what win now she's almost two years older than me but anyway today we are here to talk about MLM I made a video kind of just generally all about MLM and the manipulative tactics that they have and I had known at the time of filming that my sister here had participated in one MLM but literally yesterday we were talking about this because we just listened to a podcast and she admitted that she had been scared to tell me that she's been in - MLM it's true it's true so I was like hold that thought I was like this would be a perfect video I think the people might be interested in hearing some details I'm interested because again I'm sure I didn't even know this happened um so yeah we're just gonna ask her some questions about her experiences and give a face to the concept of being tricked by an MLM before we continue I've got to give a quick shout out to today's sponsor which is Amino I have partnered with them this whole summer to create a series on their app called life after high school and I have finally posted my last episode so the whole series is available for you guys to watch and I very much encourage you to download their app and check it out so the series was basically about life after high school and I did an episode on gap years community college trade schools and then rejection and adulting very relatable content what about budgeting I know it can be very painful and scary to actually check your bank account and look at your bank statements but believe me it is so important basically I just want to normalize the fact that many of us at 18 and for many years after perhaps forever don't quite know what we're doing and that is totally okay I definitely consider myself to be an example of someone who has been all over the place in my adult years but I'm chilling I'm trying to figure it out or live in life this is me telling myself it's all okay so again please check out my series now that it's all finished make sure you guys click the link in the description or search for Amino in the App Store and then you can search for Tiffany Ferg Amino follow me check out the series leave me some comments yeah thank you so much me now for partnering with me this summer let's get back into it so first let's just jump in with which MLMs have you been involved in so my first was Nerium when I was 18 and then the second was WorldVentures when I was 20 21 so very very young impressionable and I really believed in myself I wanted to be an entrepreneur where I wanted to be a business on her but that was not the way so first let's talk about Miriam because I do remember this from what I remember we met up with some guy with an iPad at the Barnes & Noble Starbucks near our house and so I must have been like 16 17 and you were like 18 19 I was trying to get you into it's not an I don't I don't think you were trying no no I remember because I wasn't familiar with MLMs at the time but I remember that iPad and all I remember him talking about again like barely talking about the products except showing before and after pictures but I remember him talking about the free like Lexus that you can earn yeah and that was like hmm this seems interesting and seaford we had no idea I never like went to those things and pictured myself driving like that car I know what I mean like I never was like I'm gonna get that level I just thought I could make like a livable wage and to be honest both of those emmalin's I really did believe in the product and I was sold so right so Nerium is a I guess an anti-aging kind of skincare company which actually I don't know if you know but it's actually rebranded to I don't know how you pronounce it like neora neora but yeah they likely branded in like January probably because they've had a lot of lawsuits and things that don't look great even though when you google Nerium it just comes up as new era now so first I want to hear more about like how you were recruited like who approached you as a stranger that whole process and then we'll get into it for Nerium I was shocked actually thinking back on like recruited me because she was not someone that I would have trusted her opinion and we weren't close and I barely knew her she was like I like the quiet girl in school okay so she lighted me up from high school yeah so she invited me I think what really got me in the presentation was I think it was pretty new at the time maybe Miriam was founded in 2011 so that might have been 2012 so and then also you know the whole like we have a patent on this thing and no one else can use it and I want to say that they alluded to like no they didn't say they could cure cancer I don't know it was something crazy though it was something I was like whoa like they got a patent no one could touch them and I did use the product and at first the product really I loved it and then I don't know if it expires or what but I ended up with like multiple bottles and each one's about a hundred dollars and I obviously couldn't go through that yes so we'll get we'll get into that but okay so a random person from high school recruited you do you remember from the pitch whether it was more about selling the product and more about the product or whether it was more about recruiting new people I think it was right down the middle I think because of the anti-aging kind of properties like they would show like how a neck can like go it was like surge of times yeah like and so you know we're in Orange County we're thinking of like all the people that we can sell this to and at the same time it's like if you have someone that you know that would be good at selling it then you can recruit them yes a little that was something that I remembered from whatever pitch I was present at for some reason I remember them saying all you need basically is like one or two people in your life who could use this three come become a renewing three as the lucky number oh yeah November yeah because they show you yeah yeah so do you remember like your actual starter pack like what you had to invest to start with Nerium I just remember the end result of you having a lot of extra products I feel like you're starting back was $500 I feel like never met me yeah that sounds about right because I think I like I said I had five bottles so right okay and I don't give you sample sizes so they say give this full-sized bottle to someone just say hey like they make it simple right like me use this for like two weeks and let me know and they say that everyone comes like like banging on your door like what is this I want it you know what it's like not true so I did a little bit of research last night and that's why I remembered that yours was five hundred I think they have a starter pack with no products which is literally just training materials for like 50 and then the basic starter pack is five hundred dollars worth of product which again is crazy but I did see somebody else say that they received again a Nerium sample from someone tried it in there and the person asked for the sample back there like in what world do you ask for samples back but if it's a full-size thing that you're like you're stuck and you're like oh I'm supposed to make you a customer I don't know yeah like I mean you really are believing that everyone is gonna come knocking on your door because it like these results are crazy and totally not the case like I think the first person that gave it to is my my friend that I was living with at the time was her mom and I was living with her and I was like hey how you like an in stock and she's just like right that's the thing that's that's the interesting thing because I was thinking about it I was like I don't remember much of your experience with Nerium because I didn't go far I don't know if social media wasn't a huge social media it wasn't that big in 2012 in terms of like Instagram might have been new ish around them yeah I was like maybe a year couple years old so like I was still doing that Instagram filters that they probably my food and dog photos no offense to anyone we don't no but lately we'll put up examples yeah I was thinking I just don't remember you really like selling it outwardly no I didn't go far yeah well that's kind of good like my upline or whatever is someone I barely knew from high school and hurt like I remember the people above her were actually like pretty close to the top and it was this couple and the support was just not there like it was like I would they weren't trying to help me like yeah bro I don't know did you try to recruit me I've been 16 I went to young I don't know maybe you just came with me yeah who was the guy I don't know so the thing about Miriam products I was trying to research like whether they're actually effective because sometimes people say okay ml ends like the structures that the predatory kind of marketing it's bad but some of the products are good and that's what a lot of people kind of have said online about Nerium but you never know whether they're kind of loosely affiliated with an MLM distributor so like it's in their interest to say it works well right you either find people who hate it or love it so it's kind of interesting but yeah some people were like well Miriam's kind of fishy but the product it's really good but the thing is like in skincare first of all it's hard to like prove that anything works and so you see this before and after pictures which again look like literal like surgical results and you're like okay first of all you've got like before pictures that are the worst lighting no makeup and then in the after they have made that they look better and now their skin is like plump and full so like you never know right off the bat now like present day of course I would be like [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] but back then I mom the hair I know but it was big but I think the interesting thing especially about that is like the age that you were at you had just moved to out of like our house you were living with a friend so you were like at the beginning of adulthood trying to like establish yourself yeah we do have pretty like entrepreneurial spirits so I can see why it's alluring to have this opportunity business opportunity I'm really figured especially being in Orange County that it would sell itself yeah I had no experience selling anything right ever yeah and now to this day like I will never be a Salesman because I'd be a terrible salesman I just it doesn't drive for my life I hate it so basically you kind of gave up tell me about like how you reach the point where you're like alright I'm not gonna continue this because you had already invested your five hundred dollars in your starter pack did you sell any of it or we just kept with all that stock no I'm pretty sure like it maybe if I sold it I sold one like maybe my friend's mom bought one but I don't think so I think I literally just ate the cost and I was like that's it I can't believe I did this I came to my senses pretty quickly yeah did you up then I did it again because this is something I'm really interested in because since I made my last time L on video I have been still absorbing and like consuming a lot of MLM content so I'm just fascinated by it but I'm always interested in like what is the moment that makes people snap out of it and realize that this isn't working like for some people they recommend like literally just look at the numbers see what you've invested see what you've made back see if you're even making any money so well yeah I guess for you it was just like just lost $500 that's it and I've done pretty sure I put on the credit card because I didn't have $500 like like I don't even know who I was working oh you know what I made part-time yeah it wasn't I wasn't making a lot of money at all so if I had always would have been a lot yeah I put on my credit card and I know that now and I want to say that's like your initial startup but you have to of course be buying one of these bottles a month yeah I think they have like an auto-ship dollars I'm Ironman month right again the cost of being in business okay so next let's get into the thing that I know nothing about your experience which I'm still I'm amazed and it's hilarious to hear you say I learned from that and then I let's take again so let's hear that story they will always tell you on believing in yourself but okay so the second time this is why I fell for a second time because between the two I had gone to countless been tricked into going to countless gathering know that we're really like Emma like leading the party of all things yeah juice like verb or whatever those drinks were yeah what really sold me on this one was that a family member was in it so anyways I mean I thought she was like so successful in anything she did and her family member got her into it they both dress so well and they're like so like they have that persona like if they're doing this I feel like way more confident this time around like I have the support system that I didn't have the first time right and this time like WorldVentures was about travel it was an affordable amount per month people really do already save for a vacation yeah I know plenty over here let me quickly explain what WorldVentures is basically from what I saw it's like it's a membership to be able to get like discounted like really good deals on travel so you pay your monthly like membership fee and that goes toward your vacation package eventually but of course there's also the element of trying to get other people to join so classic MLM and so a lot of the photos they show you in their presentation it's like the people you're actually looking at like like my family members cousin who was doing the whole thing he was showing us photos of him on vacation and the key little thing of so you would see it everywhere and it would take off was the blue thing that said you should be here crazy and so everyone would be like having it this great time and like this extravagant like beautiful place and they'd be like you should be here it's literally a lord un capitalizing off of FOMO which is also an element of that's what they want you to do they want you to like promote any of the events that they go to they literally say make people feel like they're missing out but literally when it comes to like travel you should be here like that's of course gonna tug on heartstrings of people people want to travel remember I'm the blue thing to fossil creek once I can I take you but it's like you could be here without being on like I used to be the thing about WorldVentures and your association is that I literally didn't know so again you would think you would know if someone close to you was in an MLM because you didn't know I don't think you posted about it I don't remember you telling me anything again I like to get into it and then I'm like that's fascinating because again we we kind of laugh a little bit when we see these very blatant I'm Allan Poe I didn't want to be one of those how many people do you know who are in an MLM who have paid into it but aren't even posting about it you're such a bad salesman you didn't even want to try I just wanted to go on vacation true okay I did get so for that one you wanted anyone ID able to get a couple people under me oh really yeah who did you who did you recruit okay wait you have to tell the story about Seth sorry Seth so I live in Arizona at this point right I left California and one of my friends from high school was living in Arizona as well but only 40 minutes away though and I totally went through him I said another swindles I threw like a little get-together right thing I said was like chip squat yeah bro I got like the nacho cheese some chips I have some wine probably like barefoot or something you know the whites in the pink one that's not even alcoholic at all but it's just sugar a Jewish but anyways so I had like a little crowd there I mean I did I made some new friends in there you immediately ruin it whatever and anyway so my friend Seth from high school like he you know he drove 40 minutes and he was like did he just think I was I'm into hanging I mean it was pretty vague about it I was like yeah just come up like you know like I don't know like I don't know what I said but I just remember him getting there and immediately trying to leave I like followed him outside and he was like did you really just invite us up here for an MLM and I was like yes maybe okay here's the thing though with WorldVentures did you get that typical like it's not a pyramid scheme pyramid schemes are illegal this is totally a legit thing however did you believe that I think because it wasn't like a product and it was like we're all gonna go on vacation like join in with us right now and if you want to quit at the end like after you've done it for however long we all take a fun vacation together yeah for like no money whatsoever basically and then you don't want to do it like so it didn't seem as much because of risk or you weren't buying product all your money was going toward a ssam where you could take a vacation did I ever take that vacation no let's get into that so I had to research world venture because I didn't know anything about it and basically like you had told me yesterday they only let you choose your vacation from like a very select like group of packages and the dates that they pick so it's like not open at all it's not like whatever your dream vacation packages it's literally like oh here you can pick from these few limits okay like no more than I started looking through them I was like not gonna happen not gonna happen not gonna happen also I don't know if like Groupon was a thing at the time like come on like there was there's so many well from when I saw also WorldVentures does not have and never had any of its own travel deals it would literally just put together deals that already we're out there and then I did some fees on top so it literally wasn't even the cheapest option literally like you guys do to get all that ever any any travel website that you can use to find deals would be a much better this this is a completely irrelevant middle bunk ah you know what I found recently called the I note okay God so I found a notebook which obviously was filled with other things but I found a [ __ ] page that was from when I went to like one of the big things the big did you go to an event the only when they closed well pretty sure no I don't know so go down right you have divided ticket oh my god I don't know I don't know why the notebook entries that I found right it's like the pump you up [ __ ] that they spewing so it was like whatever like negative mind like whatever [ __ ] like it was and I [ __ ] like came across it and I just had a moment I keep turning that's so much embarrassment yeah Wow another thing about WorldVentures is that so like you're accumulating these points or credits or whatever from your monthly payment and then it says it said something like you can't even use the points that you've accrued within the first 12 months so they want you to pay your monthly fee for twelve months before you can even use what you've earned [ __ ] scam insanity so yeah alright you're going through or you're paying for months and months I've paid for a man's Lexus literally so then okay in WorldVentures then when did you realize this isn't working out I don't want to be affiliated I'm not going to keep trying to sell it or pay for it that one like a little bit longer for sure I got at least two people below me so you've recruited a guy who had a crush on you not on purpose I just told him about it it's like I'm so into this so then we were setting up like parties together oh my god and I mean awesome things didn't work out so yeah he is one of the two people fail but I'm glad that I failed I'm glad I didn't swindle people yeah you know well that's the tricky thing is when you look at people who are successful in emmalin's they're like see it is possible for people to be successful but as I pointed out in the last that's at the expense of other people so like you can maybe even the people directly below you are doing decently well but somewhere down the line their downlines are being screwed over and they're the ones who are putting money into it and getting nothing out of that you constantly have to be helping the people on the bottom but eventually when you're up at the top like that like I said like my first company like those people didn't reach out to me they didn't help me everyone's Lexus right don't care well that's the thing you're supposed to rely directly on the person above you and if they don't really give a [ __ ] and they're literally just trying to recruit I mean it seems kind of counterproductive because really if you want a successful downline you'd want to really help the people below you actually do well actually so but again that's that's the failing of an MLM it's not really about the products it's not really about saddling it's about selling the dream yes we listened to a podcast called swindled it's great yeah you guys should definitely check it out crime junkies recommended it got us through our cross country road trip yeah by the way we just got back from a road trip and now we're gonna leave for California tomorrow yes the driving number is okay well thank you guys for watching I hope you guys enjoyed this I will be back to my normal format soon when I get home but obviously what's travelling it's a little more difficult to make these videos but I'm happy that you guys got to meet Heather and hear some of her words her Congrats in terms of business but look at her now a successful self-employed entrepreneurial boss [ __ ] okay I'm going to show them the room and I follow her on Instagram by the way if any of you are in the Phoenix area for some hair tonic Scottsdale Tempe Mesa Chandler anything she just did my hair middle so but it's all okay thanks [Music]

Channel: tiffanyferg

Views: 457,550

Rating: 4.9423699 out of 5

Keywords: Tiffany Ferguson, tiffanyferg, internet analysis, commentary, video essay, MLM, multi-level marketing, Nerium, Neora, anti-MLM, scam, pyramid scheme, WorldVentures, r/anti-mlm, hunbot, anti MLM

Id: cSaN7PGLiu0

Length: 21min 35sec (1295 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 06 2019