Why Women Are Quitting Their Side Hustle: Leaving LuLaRoe

[Music] lularoe made me feel so good about me and have boosted my self-confidence [Music] women someone would go there's a sale tonight everything was like sold sold sold sold next sold next sold next 25 people want this pair of leg and she only had three pairs this is crazy this is selling out like crazy the here I am 35 36 years old and I was on my way to be a millionaire instantly I had this huge network of women who just wanted nothing but the best for me I love you guy is her amazing heart everybody everything they did was just fit every party I've ever been to very elaborate felt like the best person ever you felt like a celebrity [Music] the quicker you rise the harder you fall then FL you tell the people you love they're in a pyramid scheme and they go no I'm not you're just a hater I own my own business I'm very successful my orders would smell discussed it it was just insane the amount of hoops I had to jump through to get them to ever admit that their product was faulty I would sometimes open bags and they'd be wet you have to look a certain way you have to be a certain way people talk in the company and you would like weird so-and-so and they've like oh you didn't hear all day wouldn't got the surgery surgery bypass pills weight loss they did everything in Mexico everything and then they would come back and girl be snatched beast the more I shared my story the more friends unfriended me they invested all their hard-earned money for you guys and you guys screwed them all I wanted to do is sell some clothes lularoe is a clothing company that empowers moms and everyday women to sell their colorful clothing on social media or at pop-up parties back in 2013 lularoe had just started out and became known for their leggings often brightly patterned and described as buttery soft now Willa Rose sells all types of clothes in different patterns and prints what's different about lularoe is that you could only buy their clothes from at home sellers were referred to as consultants in the company headquartered in Corona California lularoe was started by married couple Marc and Deanne Stidham the company started taking off and by employing their at home sellers they made two point three billion dollars in sales lularoe became more than just a clothing company it became a lifestyle being part of the lularoe family meant big incentives cruises conventions private concerts with celebrities like Katy Perry and Kelly Clarkson this is a story following three women who paid the five thousand dollar minimum to start down the path of a lularoe fashion consultant every order will come as a free pair of leggings hey Anna thank you and their pajama leggings than their dog scarfs right me Roberta Blevins she's a mom living in San Diego California she first heard about lularoe through a friend she met online Roberto was curious about it so she started looking to the company herself I started calling into these opportunity calls that they would have and all of these women were talking about all the success they were having and all the friends and and this sisterhood that was so empowering I was getting very like motivated like I can do this I can sell leggings on the internet this is easy in 2015 the owner Diane would be on these opportunity calls they would be live and she would be talking and I thought that was amazing that the owner of this company would take time out of her day her busy day to sit on a phone call with women and empower them and you choose to be lifted by one another and everything is up in a place where you can make your life better lularoe market themselves as a family-oriented company and would be an opportunity for part-time work for full time pay the idea of making your own schedule and making new friends through social media attracted many moms like Roberta despite her husband's doubts she found a team and paid close to $7000 for her first package I didn't have friends because my daughter was so young and I was stuck at home and then instantly I had this huge network of women who just wanted nothing but the best for me they became like sisters every single time anything good happened I had an entire brigade of women behind me that were like go you and I was like yes and it felt amazing and then we've got white and purple that's Amelia number ten feeling the love Roberta quickly became a part of the lularoe world she was live streaming on Facebook two to four hours a day and customers would watch and shop she was doing all the things they told her to do to be successful including buying a lot of lularoe I was told constantly to reinvest what I made into back into my inventory until I got to a place in my inventory that I was comfortable and I said I don't really know what that means and my upline would say well I would say between five and ten pieces in each size of every style you carry and so my inventory just grew and grew and grew and grew and grew and really got big but my upline kept saying yes yes yes that's that you're in the sweet spot you're exactly where you want to be you can't sell a ton if you don't have a ton two leftover classics and two leftover carly's if anybody is looking for anything like that um and then I have 30 pairs of TC and 30 years of OS so just like so much stuff you guys in lularoe the ranks or trainer and then coach and then mentor so to hit trainer you have to have ten people underneath you and those pea started recruiting people and then my tree went from like me with a few people to this massive tree of people joining under people joining under people joining under people and at the height of it I had 75 girls underneath me for me I am a total like you tell me there's a price and I'm gonna get that prize and so when I found out I got a cool watch that I could show off and be like oh look at me I'm a trainer you know I was like I need that watch it's a picture of momma and Poppa row so thank you for being the kind of leader that you would follow these are the last of the max seeds right here it just felt so empowering and so wonderful and I was somebody in lularoe you know like that's how it felt I was completely addicted to dopamine getting a sale sold 88 dopamine getting a new box dopamine give me more and I remember my upline going oh you'll hit coach no problem you'll hit mentor you'll be mentored by this time next year for Roberta things were at an all-time high across the country in Greenville North Carolina Courtney Harwood was also part of lularoe she joined almost a year before Roberta and reached the coveted status of mentor which was the highest rank in the company Courtney built a team of thirty five hundred women beneath her and collected monthly Commission's that were called bonuses when I had trainer level which is the first level my bonuses were anywhere from around five to ten thousand dollars a month when I hit coach my first coach check was around 11 or 12,000 and got all the way up to $20,000 a month and when I hit mentor my checks got into the thirty thousands per month and my highest bonus check was fifty one thousand dollars for a month I was on my way to being a millionaire those are the kids I took to get our bonus checks we had to buy enough inventory we would sometimes get a fill report and it would have how many items you had bought for the month and then it under it it would have your directs and you got five percent commission off your directs so whatever they had bought for the month they really pushed recruiting not so much sales at all recruiting recruiting recruiting and they even said if it's a warm body take them in lularoe when you recruit someone you get five percent of the money they spent on their orders as long as you yourself order a hundred and seventy five pieces when you reach trainer level in addition to making five percent from your direct recruit you also get three percent from their recruits orders you only qualify for this bonus if your entire team orders at least one thousand seven hundred and fifty pieces in total the chain continues as more people are recruited and this is how people at the top of the chain like Courtney made much more money on recruiting people rather than selling according to guidance issued by the Federal Trade Commission one of the tell-tale signs of a pyramid scheme is when a company promises you'll make money from recruiting others to join rather than selling the product now a multi-level marketing company can recruit people and to be a legitimate business the issue according to the FTC is whether you are making money solely from what your recruits purchase rather than sell in order for more people to rise up in the lularoe ranks more sellers need to be recruited and more clothes needed to be ordered to attract people to the company mentors and other leaders were asked to live their best life and show it as a mentor you were put up on this pedestal I was invited to speak out of state a couple of times and to form the corporate jet their private plane I trusted that they had our best interests at heart I mean I jokingly called the owner mama Dee she I felt like she was a second mom to me I felt like she cared so much and say yeah you do trust on the right your bonus check you're not gonna bite the hand that feeds you everything seemed to be going so well for lularoe they were onboarding tons of people and had a growing army of 80,000 sellers for Cortney she was making way more money than she ever did in her corporate job she was even able to start paying off her debt but by the summer of 2016 things started to break we were growing so fast I don't think the system was big enough Lachey Benson was one of the people hired by lularoe to onboard new recruits she worked in the company's headquarters where she saw a lot of things including where the clothing was stored girl we get stuff delivered all the time and we wouldn't have enough room in the warehouses there would be stacks of clothes sitting outside for days they were strictly about getting their money and that it faulty product started becoming more and more common sellers were receiving clothes with holes wet clothes and even moldy clothes Roberta was also getting defective clothing but was asked to stay mum about it I received at least four different shipments spaced out through the summer of 2016 that had either disgustingly wretched stinky leggings in them or soaking wet leggings all three of these pairs that I got were soaking wet they came so he went here is the tag and so I reached up to my upline and our team page and I said hey I got these leggings and they're soaking wet has anybody else got soaking wet leggings this is really weird they smell like mildew and I remember like it being deleted and then getting an instant message from my sponsor going oh no no you can't post that kind of stuff because it's negative and other people will see it and they might have second thoughts about joining lularoe in April 2017 lularoe implemented a buyback policy which guaranteed consultants 100% of their money back for all unsold merchandise and covered shipping and handling the policy had no expiration there wasn't a time frame which he had to buy the clothes the only stipulation was that you had to have purchased them directly from lularoe with this in mind Deborah Goldman from Rhonda North Carolina join lularoe in May of 2017 and spent $5,000 on her onboarding package unfortunately she soon felt like the cards were stacked against her you would open the boxes and it would smell like old food some of it would have a spots on it and some of it would come in and you would open the packages and it would be wet and Here I am once one closed is this the pair I have a pair that a customer gate oh yeah a customer bought these to wear to Disney World she was really upset because that's what her leggings did see that your fingers go right through and it's not about fit I mean we're talking tiny little people can put these on and the same thing happens Lou the road used to when I first started they had a defective or damages policy that all you had to do was like take pictures and then email it to them and they would send you replacements and all you had to do was like basically swear you know on your honor that you were gonna throw the things away then they changed this whole policy with the damages that you have to keep everything until you have 15 lessons six months after implementing the hundred percent buyback policy lularoe abruptly ended it claiming the retailers were abusing the program Debora heard from other lularoe sellers they returned their merchandise and months later were still waiting for their refund she didn't want to risk it so she thought she'd have a better chance making her money back by trying to sell her remaining inventory Lula Road just said well we can change policy whenever we want doesn't matter what your contract says that was such a slap in the face I wish those people that are signing up to sell it would like call me they could they could just take over my my business I'll just send them everything now I've heard some whining lately also about my inventory scale no you're stale your customers are stale get out and find new customers [Music] where is all your stuff anyway the rest of it where are all your racks did you sell everything when you have all my racks - no my rack I thought about like seeing as a goodwill monster buying people started going every time I buy leggings they rip why would I continue to buy lularoe so a lot we lost a lot of customers just because of that I always always said no problem exchange it no problem then I would have a box full of holy leggings if someone would send them back to me or defects smelly ones wet ones moldy ones I remember trying to get my my money back or my credit back so that I could buy new things and just going round and round with them I started to see the scam for what it was and I started to realize like I can't be in this she was always down in the garage selling lularoe then I was always stuck stuck with my dad he's a nice guy though you're stuck with him it's just not the same huh yeah I said I can't do this anymore I'm leaving his personal decision the end it was my sponsor who called me and had a 45 minute phone conversation and turned me around she was like just give it until the end of the year christmas is coming elegant is coming there's so much good stuff coming you're gonna miss it all I was like you're right you're right I'll stay and I came home and my husband was like did you quit and I said no I just I told her I'd stay for three more months because what are you doing you just have to quit it so I sat down I wrote it all out everything that I felt I handed in the iPad and I said proofread it if there's any misspellings or weird and then just hit post and he just goes post and like just goes back to life I'm just watching the news or playing a game or something and I was like it's done it's posted it's out there it's on the internet it's for real now like I'm done I just announced immediately within 15 minutes I got a text message from my sponsor how dare you do this to me how dare you leave without telling me oh I didn't know this was about you all right cool so that friendship is gone ruined it's heartbreaking and then it happened with another person someone that I thought actually cared about me the more I spoke out the more I shared my story the more friends unfriended me it's just it's it's mind games it's cult mind games thank you then I mean I've got pieces that are hard to let go like actually wore this more than one time and there's just there's I guess there's memories attached to some things because I spoke in this when I was in Detroit I believe and so there's that memory attached to it this is a couple thousand dollars worth of clothes then I have closed them at twins bedroom closet it's just over running everywhere when I went on the coaches retreat and felt ashamed because I didn't have a husband there and I took myself shopping and bought this Louis Vuitton purse it was my first ever like really big purchase and it was around $4,000 and then these fobs alone or I think like 275 each and I said you know what I'm buying for the stuff myself because I worked hard I worked so hard for this and I was so proud of myself that I was able to do this I was called by Dan to speak in Detroit and Indianapolis they said to meet in the hotel restaurant for a dinner I see Dan and her son talking about what they're gonna split and Dan looked at me and she goes the reason we split meals is because our stomachs are really small because we've all had the gastric sleeve the N have surgery 23 months ago in how many pounds do you lose the end 72 pounds she goes you know my sister Lee Ellen egg coordinates at all we mean her we'll work with you and you go to Tijuana you have the gastric sleeve then you can come back to my house the next day in California and then we'll fly you home how many people do you know that had done surgery with dr. Michelle excitedly refer to you two I think we brought down a team I counted the other day Beach Dan actually added me to this group chat called the Tijuana skinnies and it was people that had gone down there and they were thinking about going down there Courtney said she felt pressured to undergo the gastric sleeve surgery from Deanne and her sister Lonnie both in and out of the alleged Tijuana skinnies group chat Lynnae I mean she was texting me every day Courtney we've got to get you on the schedule I'm taking six people down there we have room for one more let's go and get on the schedule they hype me up so much to feel so beautiful when I was looking in the mirror I when they're looking at me and I'm fat and I need to have this surgery to be like men I needed to be monitored because of my medications and so my sister actually was the one that said Courtney why don't you try the or bear a balloon in the u.s. first they put it inside of your stomach and they take it out after six months it's not invasive so restraint you had to eat right so I went and had the or bare a balloon put in two days after Christmas I walked down my stairs and I looked at my husband I was like and my eyes were like rolling all around I was like I can't walk anymore we got to the doctor's office and he said she needs this removed immediately the next thing I knew I woke up and I remember looking around and thinking I woke up I woke up I am Alive so of course on the Tijuana skinny's thread people were asking a houseful were bearable and going Courtney how is it going and I said well I had to get it removed I had a really bad reaction to it and I get a text from Lynnae TN sister he said see I told you it wasn't gonna work when can we get out you down to Tijuana to have the gastric sleeve now I was thinking to myself lady I just about died but you don't say no you do not say no and I said well I need to heal a little bit and then I'll I'll get on the schedule so she would text me like every week or two and I'd be like I need some more healing eventually she had to lay off the text because I think I had strung her out enough where she knew that I wasn't gonna go down there next thing I knew I was kicked off the thread because I haven't gone obviously and gotten the gastric sleeve that was taken off the text/chat mom we're gonna have to go through the boutique room - I just because of public scrutiny lularoe decided to change their bonus structure to abide by FTC regulations in July of 2017 bonuses were required to be calculated based on clothes sold instead of clothes bought after the bone structure change Courtney's bonus checks started dropping she felt lularoe was no longer a sustainable business for her October 2nd of 2017 was officially the first mentor to leave lulara [Music] poly 150 150 to 200 pieces so this is probably probably about 4000 orth of clothing at $15 each average my lawsuit against them is 450 thousand for what I'm owed and had a set my inventory back that would have been another 50 to 70 thousand dollars I look back and I was like that's what I used to make in a month and now I can make that stretch for a whole year we were always told stick with it your bonus checks we keep going up and that's what I believed and it did it did for a while until started dipping back down and that's when he really got scared and that's when I started trying to like you know really budget more than had it been smart I would have been doing that from the beginning but we were told to live a lavish lifestyle to drive nice cars it would attract more people you were encouraged to take your teams out to dinners I'm embracement ten thousand dollars on a dinner one time we were taught and encouraged to spend every month so we would be dependent on that next bonus check so he couldn't leave when my opinion which was a cult courtney has since filed a lawsuit against the company alleging breach of contract amongst other claims after leaving lulu road she invested in her own boutique which added to her mounting debt i could never pay myself for the goods bought back because i thought the money their money was going to come back to me and i was gonna be able to pay myself back my credit cards and i had to make the decision to let my house go hey Rosie your son for you Courtney alright thank home where to for working with me thank you I don't know where could it go so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] LaRose mission is to improve lives and strengthen families for Kourtney Roberta and Debra it was a chance to feel like somebody but beyond the colorful marketing materials and the promise of great success Laura didn't live up to the hype now numerous articles cite other dissatisfied sellers thousands have taken to Facebook groups to vent about their own experiences in 2017 there is a class-action lawsuit brought by former consultants against lularoe alleging the company lured them into a pyramid scheme the dispute is ongoing and currently in arbitration in 2018 Lulla rows clothing supplier filed a lawsuit for a breach of contract accusing them of going over 33 million dollars for unpaid merchandise the lawsuit is ongoing in 2019 the Washington state attorney general filed a lawsuit claiming Lou LaRose business model violated state's anti pyramid scheme law that lawsuit is also ongoing [Music] overall there have been more than 35 lawsuits against the company for various legal issues six years after lularoe began they're down to 35,000 consultants but continue to actively recruit people into the community I don't think women will speak out because they are afraid they're afraid of losing their friends they're afraid of losing their family they're afraid of being singled out by lularoe and I think the reason that I'm not afraid to speak up is lularoe already took everything from me what I need is real information at this point that's what I need not smoke and mirrors and unicorn and fairy dust I'm not going to sway someone from leaving but if someone asked if they should start lularoe I'll tell them I are absolutely crazy [Music] you [Music]

Channel: VICE

Views: 3,108,780

Rating: 4.8736014 out of 5

Keywords: Broadly, tentpole, LuLaRoe, leggings, MLM, multi-level marketing, pyramid schemes, vice, journalism, documentary, videos, culture, interview, film, movies, underground, vice videos, lifestyle, independent, vice guide, exclusive, vice mag, vice magazine, vice.com, documentaries, short films, docs, clothing, haul, boutique, try on, e-commerce, avon, nxivm, trial, cult, scam, work from home jobs, stay at home mom, side jobs, side hustle, retail, lularoe fail, lularoe review, lularoe lawsuit, deanne stidham

Id: L6eujSJ0-RU

Length: 29min 37sec (1777 seconds)

Published: Wed May 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/bigjamg]

Had friends reach out to me out of the blue after 10 years and wanted to do dinner. They were super nice and always reaching out until I told them I would never join an MLM at which time I never heard from them again. Cold. Calculated.

[u/AmericanKamikaze]

A friend of mine’s wife had over $15000 in merchandise sitting at home, unsold. He tried to sell everything off for $5 a piece. Don’t know how well he did. Whenever he would try to return the unsold merchandise to them they would pretend to play stupid at his bookkeeping.

[u/Sherlockhomey]

My ex lost her house cause she invested so much money in this shit.

[u/hoilst]

I fucking hate the term "side hustle".

[u/zanillamilla]

I'm confused by the whole gastric bypass digression. Was that something that LuLaRoe was endorsing or was that side business independently formed by her partners that the company wasn't involved with?

[u/monitorcable]

What can I do so my daughter doesn't need this much external validation when she is an adult?

[u/labyrinth-luminary]

I was recently wondering why the LuLaRoe social media craze has died down. Powerful information, thanks for posting. Pyramid schemes and cults are dangerously fascinating.

[u/angelarose210]

r/lulano if you want to see how terrible and ugly the products are.

[u/jock-o-homo]

I haven’t watched the video yet so I don’t if they mentioned it but I know that one of the brothers of the higher ups in lularoe leaked a lot of shitty stuff that they did. For one, they ran out of room in their warehouse so they just had the cloths outside under tarps, and what do you know, it rained and all those clothes got wet and started getting mildew on them. I know someone who got an item from lularoe and said it smelt like wet dirt, and it did and I know why now. They’re a shit company and too many people fall for these scams. It’s kinda sad to see people who are hopeful on getting rich who are probably down on their luck getting fucked harder. I hope they learn but most of the blame should be put on the people running the show no matter how ignorant these people might have been.

Edit: before anyone asks, I don’t have the link to the video but it was on a Facebook live thing.