Saturday, December 3, 2011

Melaleuca - Is it a scam?

I've signed up as a preferred customer with Melaleuca. Initially I was just interested in trying out a couple of their products. A "friend" of mine has used their products for years and recently mentioned on Facebook that for only $1 you could take advantage of their products. I didn't know what any of it meant, and rather than just explain it to me she insisted that I go online with her in the morning and she'd explain everything. She told me that it would take 45 minutes. I wasn't interested in spending that much time, I just wanted to try some products that's it. She insisted the time would fly and so somehow I agreed. Next morning I got a phone call at 9:50 a.m. Apparently I needed to be online at 10 a.m for the presentation. There would be another woman who would do the presentation with her. Well, to make a long story short, the presentation lasted over an hour. I was still on the phone at 12 p.m and then they were calling Melaleuca so that I could place an order. As I was on the phone with the verification person I was told that I was knowingly agreeing to spend a minimum of 35 points per month as a preferred customer. I was like, what?!!! But dumb ass me didn't bother to ask questions I just said yes yes yes to everything and then questioned everything later.

So now later is here. I can't believe how I got sucked in to that!!! I'm so annoyed that I spent 3 hours with my friend and her co-worker on the phone and they never actually explained the fine print to me! It really wasn't at all clear what I was signing up for! 35 points per month actually works out to about $100 a month after tax and shipping!

How many personal care and cleaning products does a person need in a month? Worse even, I'm not sure that these products are worth so much money. They are crazy expensive. I did a lot of research into the company and now know the details. How it works is that it's like a pyramid scheme. They like to call it direct marketing, but it's more like multi level marketing. The prices are high so that you are forced to recruit people to join, then if people join they are roped into spending $100 a month where by you make about 5 bucks commission. So you'd need to have about 20 people recruited to get your products for free. It costs $4 for a bar of soap! Everything is supposed to be environmentally friendly and non toxic. However, after my research I fear that it's all just a big scam! That in fact, there are some natural ingredients in the products but that in fact the products are far from non toxic and are often almost as bad as what you get in the grocery store only 10 times more expensive!

So now I feel like a giant sucker. I have two orders that are on their way to my house, which will add $328 to the credit card. All for some body wash, cleaning products and cream for exzema. I already regret it and I haven't even received the packages! I am wondering if I should just cancel the whole thing and just return the package unopened. I just feel like what's the point? I'm really fussy about what kind of products I use for cleaning. I pay $5 a bottle for multi purpose cleaner, but it lists what ingredients are and it clearly says that it is non toxic on the bottle. Melaleuca products do not! They half hazardly list their ingredients but seem to be quite vague. They don't list everything in it, they don't have to by law. It's all just a big gimmick to make money off of suckers like me who think they are getting something natural, but due to crazy laws anybody can put "natural" on a product. It doesn't actually mean anything!

Anyway, I shall try the products and see how I like them and take it from there.

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