Ugh, I just want to vent about someone I know who is purposely misleading people.
This woman is the wife of my hubby's former co-worker, so we have a pretty good idea of what he makes. The wife has worked at a very large, well established company for north of 20 years, and is in a mgmt role, so she likely makes close to what her husband makes. Between the two, well into 6 figure territory, and we live in a low-medium COL area. One adult child who hasn't lived in the home in years.
Earlier this year, she joins Paparazzi. This is the MLM that sells cheap jewelry for $5/piece. I suspect the wife is bored b/c hubby travels a lot, and is looking for something to fill her time. She's clearly reading the books and following the script - always posting fun questions as she goes about her day that have nothing to do w/the MLM, so she should be improving her chance of getting seen on feeds as a result. I know what she's doing, so I just watch and never post. She also goes live at least 2X/wk to sell her wares, and when I have scrolled past, she never has more that 10 people watching.
A few weeks ago, there was a post showing how their home had recently gotten an exterior paint job - not sure if there was a storm that caused damage, but the tone of it seemed to indicate that this was an unexpected expense, followed by the boasting that this paint job was expensive and completely paid for by the MLM income, tons of hashtags about it wasn't fake news, blah blah blah.
Yesterday, she shared a post from her upline, announcing to the team that she had been "promoted" to director level, and how amazing it was and how proud she was to work someplace where they value her efforts, etc. I'd say her real job values her, as she's moved several times so her husband could pursue better paying work, and they allow her to work remote, no problem. Plus, she actively manages a team of people in her real job, so this was all just so painfully fake. Along with every single comment coming from someone on the team, of course.
So, it piqued my interest enough to do a quick search. Director is the 3 lowest rank in the company; the first rank is placing one order, one time. Achieving director level means that she has suckered 3 others to join her team, and all four of them have sold 25 pieces in the past month. She now gets a 10% cut of what they sell, plus they all make $2.25 on each $5 sale. So, assuming that she sells 25 pieces, she makes $56.25. If each of her downline sells 25 pieces, she makes $12.50 on each of them, for a whopping $37.50. So not even $94/month in income makes you a Director. And of course, this isn't counting her time, all the boards she had to buy to display her wares, inventory carrying costs, number tags to identify which lot people are buying on her lives, etc. And it took her at least 6 months to get to this level! I'm sure that Paparazzi didn't even cover a quart of paint for that house paint job, much less all the materials and the labor to do the work.
I think the reason it annoys me so much is that she knows better. She's willfully lying to people to get them to join her team, knowing that they won't make crap doing this, but she's OK with stealing a little money from each of them, and I have no doubt that none of her recruits can afford to waste money on this scheme. We often talk about how much it sucks to have your friendship monetized, but to monetize and ruin people for a few dollars a month? Get a part time job in fast food, you'd make actual income and find people willing to socialize with you!