Anonymous wrote:It preys on less educated SAHMs. DC is full of educated women with jobs.

Not the ones I knew....educated, all of them.

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why this is illegal. I mean of course it’s a scam but I don’t see where they lied to anyone except the refund policy for which they were rightfully sued. I feel bad for the women who signed up but I also don’t feel like they were victims of a crime. Especially the woman who ended up bankrupt - sounds like she profited but just spent it all?

I’m super liberal fwiw and I recoil at the ahole couple running it talking about “personal responsibility” but I also don’t feel like this should be illegal. As long as they’re transparent about the pyramid, which it sounds like they were, I don’t see how there can be a law against it. Seems on par with churches, gambling, and weight loss plans to me.

Remember what the MLM expert said about how many levels of a pyramid there can be until there just aren't enough people in the world anymore? (I think it was 12 but I could be wrong.) That's why it should be illegal - because they sell the idea that there's an endless amount of money to be made but that's not actually true if you over-saturate the market with consultants. Eventually there won't be anyone to sell it to anymore.

Supply and demand. In the beginning there were not a lot of consultants. And those leggings were hard to find! I remember someone telling me about them and then trying to buy some and being totally unable to figure it out. And then I searched on facebook and got into one of these groups and did a live party or whatever, and got swooped up in trying to get a good pattern. It was crazy and I remember thinking it was insane. I think I went to two of those, ordered some leggings, and then I was over it. My SIL hosted a party at her house in Fairfax around the same time for a bunch of different 'small business moms' some of whom had real crafts but there was a LLR person there and I got a shirt. Anyway, in the beginning everyone was talking about how soft the leggings were and they were impossible to find so when I had the opportunity I bought it up.

But fast forward a year and I had like 10 FB friends selling it, trying to get me to join their groups, everything was ugly. There was WAY too much supply, demand fell off a cliff. Especially for the ugly patterns because there was enough halfway decent stuff around that no one felt compelled (and I have to say the way they ran those parties you felt LITERALLY compelled to buy, like an auction or something) to buy the ugly stuff.

You're just the kind of person that they want to invite. I always say no to invites like that. I'm not compelled to buy anything.

I agree. Never support them. You aren't supporting your friend by participating. The home parties aren't so big anymore. Everyone realized hosting events on line was more effective.

Anonymous wrote:You know what the problem is with this documentary? They talk about all the SAHMs who were scammed and ruined, but what about the manufacturing side? How did the ramp up production like that? Who made those initial 20k maxi skirts for DeAnne? I imagine there is a whole different group of mistreated clothing manufacturers on the backend here.

Yep, it's a criminal enterprise no matter which way you look at it. This group, much like drumpf, live their lives like they are entitled to free services and don't pay anyone. They even sued the wife's sister when she started an mlm.

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Anonymous wrote:I am halfway through the series and so far it seems like they started off as a legitimate business but 1/ third or half way in they became extra greedy and their business morphed into a Ponzi scheme.

No, I don’t think that’s right. I think it was intended as an MLM the whole time.

Here’s where I’m confused, MLM‘s are legal, that’s what I mean by business, but it became unsustainable with an excess of sellers and no client base.

The problem is the federal govt doesn't go after any of these grifters. Most mlms are pyramid schemes. The money is made by the top 1% from the money the new sellers have to put down to sell the product. They don't make the bulk of their money from sales. The $$$ come from bringing in more victims who hand their money over to get a piece of the action.

I'd bet a lot of us know people in our lives who put down money to sell some product that they never actually sold.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why this is illegal. I mean of course it’s a scam but I don’t see where they lied to anyone except the refund policy for which they were rightfully sued. I feel bad for the women who signed up but I also don’t feel like they were victims of a crime. Especially the woman who ended up bankrupt - sounds like she profited but just spent it all?

I’m super liberal fwiw and I recoil at the ahole couple running it talking about “personal responsibility” but I also don’t feel like this should be illegal. As long as they’re transparent about the pyramid, which it sounds like they were, I don’t see how there can be a law against it. Seems on par with churches, gambling, and weight loss plans to me.

Where were they ever transparent. They aren't no one would participate if they were.

They are never transparent. What you saw in the documentary was a mistake. The son who mentioned it being a pyramid and how they had to change not to be a pyramid made a big mistake and his parents spent a lot of time trying to say he had no idea what he was saying. None of them admit they are a pyramid or explain to the dupes they are brining in that it is. Most of the people who buy in do not understand how it really works. The folks at the top know the vast majority of people in the pyramid will not make money and will likely lose money on product they will never sell.

The only way they make money in any of these mlms is by bringing in more dupes to sell the product beneath you. The people at the top make most of their money off of the amount of money the sellers have invested to start up. They make much less money off of sales of the product.

The dupes have to invest lots of money before they even start to sell the product. They never tell the new folks coming in that they probably are going to lose money and, at best, they might break even. The seller had to invest lots up front to get the product. Often the mlm company charges them a ridiculous amount for a cheap product. They also have to keep buying more product from the main office or you no longer considered active. The seller will be punished for not buying more product. They end up with huge amounts of inventory.

Do you think that those people who walk up to people in parking lots and tell them they found a large amount of money and don't know what to do with it and they convince the dupe to put down cash as a deposit and then walk away with the dupe's money are committing a crime? It isn't any differnent.

In a pyramid scheme, you make money not by selling a product but by bringing more people in to participate in the scam. That's what is illegal. Only the top few people make any money. Most people who get involved after the originators set it up don't know what they are getting in to. Pyramid schemes cause large numbers of people to lose significant amounts of money.

I’m in Episode 2 and the creepy clown music is killing me!

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Anonymous wrote: I found it very tiger king-esque in that there were so many random turns - Kelly Clarkson, Mario Lopez, Extreme Couponing, Star Trek, weight loss surgery in Tijuana. Also the step siblings who married each other,wtf

+1. I already knew the basic story of LuLaRoe and listened to the Dream podcast about it, but watching the documentary really brought it to life and added so many of the crazy details. Don't forget Katy Perry, the pot farm, and selling breast milk. Also, hearing from DeAnne and Mark themselves was priceless.

I can’t believe the sheer balls on Mark and Deanne sitting down for the interview thinking they could brazen their way through it. You could tell their little schtick has always worked when people have challenged them but in the context of the documentary their performative bullshit came off completely psychotic. I can’t believe that company is still in business.

But that ego came back to bite them. I would bet they had no idea that circus clown music would be played so often when they spoke.

Agree! Circus clown music was perfect

Married step siblings...That part was wild and I laughed hearing them talking about the invitations.. “please join us for the marriage of our son to our daughter “ bizarre

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I found it very tiger king-esque in that there were so many random turns - Kelly Clarkson, Mario Lopez, Extreme Couponing, Star Trek, weight loss surgery in Tijuana. Also the step siblings who married each other,wtf

+1. I already knew the basic story of LuLaRoe and listened to the Dream podcast about it, but watching the documentary really brought it to life and added so many of the crazy details. Don't forget Katy Perry, the pot farm, and selling breast milk. Also, hearing from DeAnne and Mark themselves was priceless.

I can’t believe the sheer balls on Mark and Deanne sitting down for the interview thinking they could brazen their way through it. You could tell their little schtick has always worked when people have challenged them but in the context of the documentary their performative bullshit came off completely psychotic. I can’t believe that company is still in business.

But that ego came back to bite them. I would bet they had no idea that circus clown music would be played so often when they spoke.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I found it very tiger king-esque in that there were so many random turns - Kelly Clarkson, Mario Lopez, Extreme Couponing, Star Trek, weight loss surgery in Tijuana. Also the step siblings who married each other,wtf

+1. I already knew the basic story of LuLaRoe and listened to the Dream podcast about it, but watching the documentary really brought it to life and added so many of the crazy details. Don't forget Katy Perry, the pot farm, and selling breast milk. Also, hearing from DeAnne and Mark themselves was priceless.

I can’t believe the sheer balls on Mark and Deanne sitting down for the interview thinking they could brazen their way through it. You could tell their little schtick has always worked when people have challenged them but in the context of the documentary their performative bullshit came off completely psychotic. I can’t believe that company is still in business.

The two people I know who got sucked into LLR in its heyday were middle class SAHMs who had quit working because they didn't make enough money to justify the cost of childcare (so no, not particularly educated or professional). Neither of them thought they'd get rich off LLR, they just saw it as a way to earn "fun money" for things like getting their nails done - things much of DCUM doesn't think twice about but can seem like little luxuries when you're a one-income household and DH is not a high earner. I think the high buy-in ($5k) legitimized it in some way and made it seem like more of a "real" business than the typical MLM where you could get started for a hundred bucks or so.

Anonymous wrote:Watched all the craziness. I own 4 LLR pieces I think, 2 leggings and 2 tops, which I bought from Jill D who is on the series. Yes she still sells LLR and is 100% all in. She also sells Mary Kay (has the pink Caddy). Clearly she's gifted in sales but yeah, full on MLM land.

I didn't know much of the back story, so it was very interesting to watch.

The whole point here is that she is not gifted in selling clothes or makeup. She is gifting in selling the chance for YOU to sell clothes or makeup on which she receives a commission. That’s the whole point.

As a non-religious person, the church tie-in seems totally natural. It sounds like it was 80% church anyway.

The events dude is the skeeziest man I have ever seen! What a choad. No way he left on his own, he would have stayed on the gravy/milf train (with good reason!).

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Anonymous wrote:Why aren't the college and universities where these women paid tuition and took out student loans also considered MLM? That's the ultimate marketing scam and pyramid scheme. LLR was successful because these college educated SAHM moms didn't have careers but had a lot of college debt. I hear stories like this all the time, where a college grad in debt will go further in debt to pay off the student loan debt.

I didn't hear any of the women talking about being in debt from student loans. I assume a lot of them went to BYU or state schools. It seemed like their husbands were supporting their families and this was for "extras."

Women who actually need money get real jobs.

So I can only give the example of the one woman I knew who did this, though from watching the documentary I think there may have been others in this position (I'm thinking of one who talked about how she worked in "corporate America," but found it difficult to balance once she had kids).

Anyway- the woman I know is college educated and was a paralegal at a law firm I used to work at. For reference, our paralegals usually made between 80k-100k. Her husband was a plumber. This was when I worked in NYC; they lived in a pretty far out suburb and she had a super long commute and young kids. I think in the beginning she brought in decent money and quit her paralegal job. I don't think she was fully replacing her salary, but they no longer had to pay for child care. Anyway, obviously the whole thing imploded; they sold their house and moved to a lower cost of living area, and she has since found a work from home job as a paralegal. I don't know if she lost money or how much. But it sounded to me from the documentary that they really appealed to this type of woman- educated and professional, but not high up enough to earn a ton of money or have much control over their schedule.

No, they generally were not educated and professional (maybe elementary teacher or floor nurse but not college professors or lawyers). They want women that don't want to "work outside the home" (even though they end up doing it to sell at vendor events), aren't educated enough to do research on the business model, and followers. Conservative religious , especially, Mormon wives end up trapped into MLM with the blessing of their church. Church benefits by keeping the women in line, by tying them to support from spouse, staying in church social circle since other wives are the customers, and too busy to get a real job to possibly have freedom.

Watched all the craziness. I own 4 LLR pieces I think, 2 leggings and 2 tops, which I bought from Jill D who is on the series. Yes she still sells LLR and is 100% all in. She also sells Mary Kay (has the pink Caddy). Clearly she's gifted in sales but yeah, full on MLM land.

I didn't know much of the back story, so it was very interesting to watch.