Resource: MLM schemes
Steven Saus
potential business opportunity in the health and wellness industry. They would
not tell me much about it over the phone, preferring that I instead come in to
their office and talk to them. Ohio Premier is located at 195 Byers Road in
Miamisburg, Ohio. It is a suburb of Dayton. (If you’ve ever thought about
doing a work-at-home plan about selling “health and wellness” things, you
should read on anyway.)
I could find nothing about Ohio Premier on the Internet, which was a warning
sign in and of itself. (That is part of the reason for this write-up.) A
co-worker's husband (who also attends the university I do - that's why I'm also
posting this at Facebook) had been contacted by Ohio Premier, but he had not
followed up.
So I went.
Ohio Premier is a front for Symmetry ( http://www.symmetryinternational.com/ )
a direct marketing company that has a multi-level marketing component. (You
sell to a few people, then you get a cut of the people they refer, and so on.)
They sell herbal supplements, including "Genesis", laughably labeled "the
infused Bible juice". As the CAI points out (link at the bottom), 99.96% of
the people who get involved with Symmetry LOSE MONEY. Only 0.04% makes money.
When you first walk into 195 Byers Road, there is no sign for Ohio Premier,
just "Suite 101". You see a receptionist's desk, a few other office desks in
the back, and several well-dressed professional types in the "U" shaped open
office space. There are no - repeat, NO - hints of Symmetry or what you will
be doing when you first walk in. It is not until the entire group is ushered
around and sat down (about 16-20 people) that you see the supplements. The
professionally dressed people made sure that they sat down with the newbies.
What followed was a very slick hour-long sales pitch. The planted workers
responded to everything the presenter said, so you got the opinion that others
agreed with him. The video presentation was hypnotically fast - but full of
things about past trends that other people got rich from. "Wouldn't you get in
on those trends if you knew about them?” "Facts" were tossed out so fast that
it was hard to catch what was said - and often times, the facts were not
relevant. For example: "One report from an Ivy League University was printed
in 509 newspapers!" Except, of course, that it was only one report.
Apparently, they had never heard of AP or Reuters. Many of their facts were
correlations at best, non-sequiturs at worst. Yeah, buying stock options in
Microsoft in 1985 would have been a good deal - but that is not the same thing
as the (saturated) supplement market today. But the plants in the crowd were
quick to support every thing the presenter said.
There were MANY rhetorical questions, especially at the beginning, that were
designed to get you to agree with the presenter. "Do you like making money?"
"Wouldn't you like to work less and make more?" And so on. Getting into a
pattern of agreement like that is a well-known brainwashing (my term, not
theirs) technique. One woman left, and was made fun of throughout the rest of
the presentation. Another asked very pointed questions - and she was made fun
of to her face. Especially when she tried to ask questions about marketing and
the cost of the supplements. Not surprisingly, her questions were dead-on.
(The basic pack is $160 dollars, up front.)
The sneakiest (and most bastardly) technique was this: "This opportunity isn't
for everyone. I am not trying to convince you. Some people just can't get it.
Not everyone is able to see the chances in front of them, or is wise enough to
..." You get the idea. High SOCIAL pressure techniques in a group setting...
even as they said, "I'm not out to convince you."
Of course, there "just happened" to be ANOTHER hour of training right
afterwards for those who were motivated - and a special trip to Chicago that
leaves... TOMORROW. (That costs $300. Only two seats left!) Enticement
both by scarcity, a "money back guarantee" (not in writing), and more social
pressure ("if you're serious about making money and not having to work so
hard...") So you would be quickly uprooted and put into a hotel FULL of other
people like this? Starting to sound like a cult, anyone?
Look, these techniques - and using so many of them so brutally - could not have
been happenstance. Ohio Premier is a multi-level marketing scheme front for
Symmetry Direct. Their "interviews" are hour-long brainwashing sessions. It
was *hard* to resist them for the whole time. Knowing the techniques they were
using (and identifying them as they used them) helped a lot; not actually
needing the money or job helped more. Even still.... That feeling you get
when watching infomercials, where you start to wonder if maybe it actually IS
worth buying? It was like that - only much, much more intense.
I do NOT repeat do NOT recommend anyone else even bother going to an
"interview" with them. The sales pitches are slicker than you think they are -
and they want you to commit right away, before you have a chance to go and
check them out.
Ohio Premier (and yes, I'm repeating the name and address on purpose so that
others who Google it can find this report) at 195 Byers Road in Miamisburg Ohio
is a front for Symmetry Direct.
They do not call themselves a Multi Level Marketing scheme or MLM scheme,
preferring the term direct sellers. But, as the CAI points out: "Avoid
falling for the semantic trap of chain-selling promoters who say they are not
MLM, or multi-level marketing. If the program pays on more than one level of
participants, it is multi-level or MLM. If you get paid only for selling
directly to customers and get no override commissions (other than a small
referral fee) for recruiting more than one level of participants, it is single
level compensation and could be considered true direct selling."
Cockeyed.Com's 27 unsuccessful Herbalife (a similar company) stories:
http://www.cockeyed.com/workfromhome/epilogue/unsuccessful/unsuccessful2005.html
His basic primer on pyramid schemes is here:
http://www.cockeyed.com/ebay/scam/laptop_pyramids.html
MLM Watch is here:
"Accurate information about multilevel marketing is not easy to get. Few
publishers, editors, and broadcasters are willing to examine this topic in
depth. Most reports reaching the public express what the companies and
individual distributors would like people to believe. Nearly all MLM companies
selling health-related products exaggerate their value, and the vast majority
of people who become distributors do not make significant income."
Consumer Awareness Institutes 5-step DIY evaluation of MLMs is here:
http://www.mlm-thetruth.com/Symmetry.htm
CAI's profitability report is here:
http://www.mlm-thetruth.com/COMPARE12MLMs-vsSellingvsNPSvsVegas-2p-6-06.pdf
And apparently, Ohio is not the only place where Symmetry has a front
organization:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/173/RipOff0173038.htm
Ohio Premier does have a BBB listing that lists Symmetry as their website.
http://dayton.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=51&bbb=0322&firm=699
And here's a site I reviewed back in June 2006 for my homeschool resource list:
http://www.skinnyshoestring.com/reviews/
"You want to make money in an at-home job. That makes you a sitting duck for
scam perpetrators who just want your money. Plenty of people online are
willing to take your payment, while promising you big returns that they
cannot deliver. And you just can not know what works and what does not unless
you try, right? Wrong."
--
http://homeschool.resource.ods.org
http://surge.ods.org
http://homeschoolresource.blogspot.com/