Multi-Level Marketing Defense/How to Keep Your Money Safe

This one is a real barn-burning humdinger of an episode!!! We talk about all things Lularich and Lulacrazy.  We discuss wealth, capitalism, the 1%, private jets, inappropriate fabric designs, dead fart leggings. scams, cults, victim blaming, book of mormon, mass delusions, lawsuits, debt, pyramid schemes, dogs and cats living together, it’s mass hysteria!

Tangents include donkeys (so cute!), Tammy Faye Baker and fake Italian cursing.

As promised, Roberta Blevins' podcast is called Life After MLM. Check out The Dream Podcast as well if you want to be as much of a nerd as I. 

Enjoy!

Transcript

0:06

Hey everyone, welcome to True Crime Defense, the podcast that nerds out on true crime cases, gives you tips on how to stay safe, and never blames the target of any crime. Hope you enjoy the show! so happy to see you. Thank you so much. Oh my God. Thank you. I made you watch this one again. It was just as unbelievable the second time around okay, good. Now the first recording was lost to the cyberverse. So who knows? Yeah. So you've heard all my jokes already, but I just, I expect the same amount of enthusiasm. If you want to connect with us, we have an account on TC defense at yahoo. com our email on YouTube. We have self defense videos at TC underscore D Instagram is TC underscore defense. Tell us what you want to hear. All right, Vatica, are you comfortable with me telling you a tale about stay at home mom financial misadventures and the dangers of MLMs? Yes, I am. Okay, great. Hey, everybody. I just wanted to add a little note. We got a little confused. We covered Lula Rich, which is on Amazon. Radhika and I have covered so many things. She says Netflix at one point, but we're just going to forgive her for that. So it's Lula Rich on Amazon. I love this documentary. I've watched it like four times. These producers need critical acclaim because I don't know how they got these hated owners of this business to open up and say the crazy things. That they say it is pure joy. Chefs. I do feel like I lost something, maybe a percentage of my humanity by watching this outrageous human behavior. I mean, that is why people show up for true crime genre, just to see the crazy things someone will do next, just to give you a preview. Yeah. If you haven't watched the series, the titles of the four episodes are startup show up, blow up and toe up. As I'm watching this, I wondered how I hadn't heard of LuLaRoe, and that's when I saw Deanne, one of the owners. I realized I'm not their target demographic. She's wearing heavy lip liner, bright red lipstick, Tammy Faye mascara, big bleached blonde hair, and long red nails. It's just a lot of upkeep that I just, I don't have the attention span for. We get a dizzying amalgam of clips, the largesse of the family, private jets, going from food stamps to buying a house, inappropriate fabric designs, dead fart leggings, scam, cult, victim blaming, book of Mormon, delusions, lawsuits, debt, pyramid scheme, not a pyramid scheme, dogs and cats living together, it's mass hysteria. How does this not make you want to, not watch it? You have to watch it after hearing that summary? It's amazing. But also Radhika, no one is killed or injured. No! heads up, warning, we do have for pregnancy loss, body size shaming, and racism. Anything else? I think you got it. Okay. Also, I'm going to discuss my brush with being lured into an MLM near the end, so stay tuned for that. And also MLMs are alive and well among nurses, and we've had a few paparazzi members in our midst, so. Look out for that. Thanks for the warning. Mark Stidham, owner of the predatory business, starts with a nonsense quote from an ancient philosopher and then tells us exactly what's going to happen in the documentary because he says, quote, we are storytellers. That's how the business grew. Unquote. I take that to mean they're about to lie right to our faces. Dianne, Mark's wife, tells us she was a single mother of seven. She splits one hamburger and a handful of fries to feed everyone. But then she's on a flight, and she sits next to Mark on the plane, and that's their beginning. Okay. And I can't with this family tree. I'm 10 minutes in, and I'm just exhausted by them. They eventually have 14 children together, including his kids, and two of them end up married, but they are not blood relatives, and they weren't raised together. Okay, fine. My eyes hurt from all the eye rolling. No, thank you. No, that's just, it's so weird. It's too many people, it's too many people to keep track of. Ugh. They are Mormons and they believe the universe is fair. Deanne's startup was her maiden name. I mean, you can't write this stuff. Mark gives us his disdain for working for a boss and tells us how his dad was struggling financially. And when the neighbor suggests getting a job at the carpentry shop, his dad says, quote, there's only one thing worse than being flat broke. And that's knowing I'm going to make 412 a week for the rest of my life. Unquote. And then Mark cries. I'm so annoyed by someone not even considering short term employment to support their family. I can't. Here's another story. Her mom gets paid 3, 000 for a catering job and she gets the money from the bank in fives and tells the kids to grab whatever cash they could as she throws the loot over the balcony to them. DM says it was a lesson about working hard and you'll see the benefit. But having spent plenty of time with young children, my guess is it's more like a Lord of the Flies scenario where the kids are like stuffing their pockets and pushing little kids out of the way, which is far more in line with what their company actually is. I see no lessons learned from trying to catch money. Being thrown at you here's some free money. What? Yeah. Yeah. All right. In 1988, Deanne marries her first husband and wants her kids to look good, but she doesn't have a lot of money. She goes to buy dresses at the swap meet and the dress is worth 100 or only 10. She hosts a party and sells 300 dresses. And this guy from the swap meet says, if you can book dress parties, I'm going to give you the profit and let you start your own business. There's just a lot of missing details and that's not really how businesses work. The whole vibe is Deanne just sort of having a business dropped into her lap. It's just, it's very weird. So she says four parties a day, 15 parties a week in three different States, 40, 000 profit in three weeks. That's what I got. Did you get that? It's ludicrous, Shelly! How can seven children speak that much? I don't understand. So now, at some point, she's making maxi skirts. So, 20, 000 skirts in five months. I did some math, I'm sure you'll correct me. Five months is 3, 600 hours. I just, I have a lot of questions. Even if it only takes 20 minutes to make a skirt, it's over 6, 000 hours. Thousand hours to make that many skirts. is one person making the skirts? Who's making these skirts? Are they staying up five months without sleeping? Are her kids sewing skirts? I don't math doesn't math. Yeah. Then Deanna's selling them from her trunk, or, and is she driving from state to state? To, who's watching the kiss? Like, where are the children, as Nancy Grace would say? Just, I don't get it. Now we're getting a troubling consent issue where Mark says he was invited in to help with the business and then he stops and he says, quote, I'm not really sure if I was invited or if I just pushed my way in, unquote. Yeah, that's hilarious, Boomer Mark. Gross. Then she says they fight and a lot of times she hates him, but it's great because there's passion. I'm 16 minutes in and I have two pages of notes and I hate. Everything. 2012, Deanne meets Brittany Hunter, who is a quote unquote, girl with 10 friends who want skirts. Now Deanne lets Brittany buy skirts for wholesale and sell them for retail. Jill Filipovic is a journalist who pops in throughout and she talks to us about racism and feminism and is interestingly wearing what looks like prairie garb, like that Mormon fundalist women wear. I really struggled with her style. I don't think it really matters, but it just sends this weird message, this high neck dress with the ruffles, and it goes all the way down to her ankles and her wrists. It's weird. And I don't know who's side she's on. She tells us about multi level marketing and graphics show that it is in fact, a pyramid Robert Fitzpatrick is an author and MLM expert who concurs with Jill, we attend a Tupperware party with the girls and please don't call business people. Girls. Yeah. Or really anyone over the age of 18 shouldn't be called a girl. he says MLMs are about selling a product, but also about recruiting others to sell below you and get a commission off of the others selling. And we see the words upline and downline. Amway is the mother of all MLMs. It turned the salesperson into the customer because you have to pay into the company. We see Deanne and Mark clearly being filmed at a deposition and this is where the editors have a field day. It is so fun to say that I'm seeing like wildly opposing things. That looks like a lot of fun. But also, how did Dan and Mark not, not feel like they're joining this huge Netflix production and being interviewed, and they didn't think Netflix was going to do its homework and fact checked everything they said? They were like Oh, we, we actually never go partying at night. This is not what happened, but if they were like, we never go partying at night, literally the next clip is them like while in and out of the club or something like that. It's like, did you not think they were going to catch you on your lies? I loved the editing. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was really something. now we have Ashley Lautaha, former LuLaRoe retailer. She started in 2013 as the third retailer to join the company. She says LuLaRoe fell into my lap. Such a weird concept. She calls Deanne just to buy a maxi skirt and Deanne allegedly, in my opinion, wants to get away from Mark and so she flies out to help her get her business started. Okay, so just a side note that lower thirds explaining who people are in this documentary are really small. They stay on the screen for one second, just like every other documentary. So I think it's Lauren Covey, Carson and Stella and Roberta are also former retailers talking about these amazing, soft, comfortable leggings, and they want to buy them and end up selling them. LuLaRoe has different products versus other MLMs that sell all the same things. I guess the retailers could trade fabrics and clothes. Now Deanne has her face pressed up against the camera to the point where we see her eyes and nose as she screeches about the business opportunities. The pitch is to stay home with your kids and make money. Courtney Harwood, former retailer, starts in 2015 with LuLaRoe and within a year she reaches the highest status in the company. She says she's high up on the food chain. She has three kids and goes to a LuLaRoe party. She's really busy at work and she misses her kids and she signs on with the hope of part time work and full time pay. She says she sees it as one big family, but Courtney, it's also a food chain, right? It's a different kind of family. the startup cost is about 5, 000. She and her husband are in debt. So she gets a personal loan from a credit union and signs up. Kenny, Brady, and Amelia, who are Mark and Deanne's kids, go to a meeting where they have a list of jobs to keep the business going, and Kenny's cocaine level drops during this interview, and he bursts into tears when he talks about his parents asking them to be a part of the business. These are like the most unqualified people doing the most important jobs in this business. Yes, and I will, I have to say, allegedly, about the cocaine use, he's probably not using drugs, but it was just maybe he's an emotional guy, it was just such a weird reaction. He says his parents wanted it to be a legacy and not just success for themselves. Sam Schultz, who is Deanne's nephew, this guy, he shows up in full force and advertises that he has a hole in his pants right out of the gate and he's just man spreading for everyone. Yeah, you know he's gonna spill some tea, and he does. He's the events director because he performed in high school. Yeah, qualified. Alright. He's the same age as the women who are retailers, so he plays music from the 80s and hires Mario Lopez to stand at some hype event and take photos with the women. And then after it's posted on social media, everyone LuLaRoe and meet AC Slater. Did you ever watch that show, Saved by the Bell? No, I didn't. It's my era. Yeah, although A. C. Slade are gross. 2016, LuLaRoe made 70 million dollars. Mark says catastrophic growth. Sam says it was like flying a plane while you're still building the plane and it was a corporate tornado. Gosh. Their motto is helping families, blessing lives. Yeah, we'll see. You hear that. Roberta Blevins is now a LuLaRoe opponent and she says it was too good to be true and that concludes Startup. And so now, show up. Roberta wants a couple extra hundred bucks for activities and to own her own business. the buy in is anywhere from 000, and Mark and Deanne claim they don't want people to go into debt, but others say otherwise. Deanne talks about people making cookies, and I have the same maxi skirt questions. Let's say you even charge two bucks for a cookie. That's 2, 500 cookies. What? How? I don't understand the economy she lives within. This goes right along with people thinking that we all have the same opportunities. A trip to the grocery store just to buy supplies for that endeavor would be way too much for a lot of people. I honestly feel like the supplies to make cookies cost way more than the cookies itself. Yeah. I, yeah. This assumption that we all have equal, beginning. Opportunities. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Now for some reason they make a big deal about selling breast milk. It's a needed resource and you can charge a lot for it. If you have a bunch, why not? I know everything I need to know about Mark Stidham, which is what Amazon is feeding me from this one exchange. When the producer asks him about telling women to sell their breast milk, he says, quote, utterly ridiculous. So gross. And she, laughs. He's just so disgusting. And she's, chuckles. Stop it. Barf. Everyone is a hashtag boss babe. And I'm gagging. Now we get Lachey. Lachey's here. I like her. Yeah, she's refreshing. She was headhunted from Macy's. Deanne calls out gorgeous Lachey, who's wearing a Chanel suit at the office and makes her put on LuLaRoe instead. Liliano, one of their designers, gets promoted. And then reminded that she hasn't worn any LuLaRoe in a few days. Just the monitoring there is very distressing. These two are the cool kids at this high school and they're just rolling their eyes. Daryl Trujillo is the true star of this documentary and thankfully he left his refereeing at high school volleyball at a very high level to work in the email department at LuLaRoe. What a character. He was so wholesome everything he said. I was like Yeah. Yeah. You tell him. How would you describe him? he's wholesome. He's just adorable. The most awkward, wholesome, you just want to protect him so he can say everything he needs to say kind of person. Oh, he's just lovely. He's so sweet. the employees say Mark and Deanne aren't at the office that much and Mark and Deanne claim they come in every day. Daryl talks about the company being run by their kids, and they don't know how to run a company, so they just use Google Doc to run their departments. Someone talks about Excel Sheets and Austin, who is 23, running the compensation plan because he's good at Excel. I also thought it was hilarious that he was like, you can't even get in half the time because so many people are just trying to type random words into the spreadsheet. So the real people who have the knowledge to make the job run aren't able to get in. And I was like, it sounds about right. Yeah, it sounds if I ran a podcast. Not at all Shelly! Mark and Deanne want staff onboarding people nonstop. Lachey says they were bringing in a million dollars a day. I guess from new retailers spending five to ten thousand dollars for their startup packages. Jill Filipovic, at this point I can't remember her lower third title, I think she's a professional mouthy feminist. In the best, most respectful way. She's still in her weird prairie garb dress and tells us that What makes LuLaRoe successful when it starts? The rise of social media. Lots of American families were struggling. Women were better educated than any group of women in the history of America. And there's lots of stay at home moms. She mentions how the vision of stay at home moms is a white vision and points out how not diverse LuLaRoe is. Roberta is back. She spends nine thousand dollars, has an extra room in her house, buys shelves and hangers, a printer, a desk, etc. And again, the assumption that some people have these resources, not everyone can do that. No. Tiffany and Paul are here from Extreme Couponing Fame. They were in the top 10 of LuLaRoe sales. They have seven kids. They sign up on May 6th, 2016, and these two love being on any camera. So of course, they're going to succeed at this. Mark says they make 3, 000 items or less with a certain pattern, which creates exclusivity. The retailers don't get to pick the pattern that comes to them to sell. Roberta says, you don't know if you're going to get a great print or a box of donkeys. I'll take the box of donkeys over the box of ugly leggings, Radhika. Donkeys are so cute. I immediately imagined a box of real donkeys at my house. And I mean, I know some people, maybe even you are going to give me a hard time about loving donkeys. I'm sure some donkeys are jerks, but the donkeys I know are named Rico and Suave, and they're so sweet and adorable. Girl, where do you know these donkeys from? My friend's farm. Oh! They're so cute. Like their little forelock looks like bangs. He's so cute. Lachey sees how much money retailers are making, 10, 000 a day, so she becomes a retailer. She's smart. Sam Schultz, the Goofball with a hole in his pants, talks about Facebook live selling sessions, FOMO, and it's more fun than just going to a store, I guess. Not even. Yeah, I mean, I can definitely see the appeal if you have little kids, I hung out with so many people I would never hang out with now because I was so desperate for connection with other moms, but yeah, it's just not for me. Now, retailers start talking about the pyramid scheme. A part of this each retailer above retailers in the downline gets a commission on how much inventory the lower retailers order. And there's a required minimum. Each retailer has to buy to stay active. If you have a certain number of people in your downline, you are a trainer and you also got a trainer bonus and an ugly watch. I guess it's just not my style. Coaches have three trainers below them. Mentor have three coaches under them. Ashley says she was a mentor and had about 5, 000 people for her. That's a lot. Recruitment and buying are the things that get you money, not selling products. And that's the pyramid scheme. Roberta says she spent 78, 000 on clothes and sold 84, 000 worth during her tenure at LuLaRoe, but she made 65, 000 in bonuses for recruitment. Wow. Mark starts to talk about the bonuses and Deanne touches his leg and is like, whoa, whoa, Because she knows he's going to say something incriminating. We get clips from the deposition and neither of them have ever heard of a compensation plan or bonuses. They don't even know a thing about it. They don't know anything about anything. Nothing. Courtney becomes a mentor and buys a house and two vehicles, as she calls them. They are encouraged to share their flashy spending and put hashtag because of LuLaRoe. Deanne in her deposition says she's never heard of the hashtag. We see footage of LuLaRoe gatherings and this looks like my worst nightmare. This is hell. Packed events, loud music, wild colors, please no. Then Deanne wants it to be like an event inside a prison and decides to go on a cruise. You have to cruise qualify by selling and recruiting a certain number of people. And you also have to pay for all of it. Work from home, Radhika. Yeah. How is that appealing to anybody? Do hella work before and pay for your own vacation. There's no payoff. There's no reward. This sucks. And now Lachey, something exhausting and sad, and that she qualifies, but she doesn't want to be trapped on a boat with all those white people. I, I mean, I laughed, but I also was like, she must be exhausted by the thing. Can you imagine what Deanne and Mark said to her? the jokes, and the things they Yeah, for her to feel, for her to feel so against being surrounded by people who are supposed to be her co workers and supposed to be having a good time. But she's like, I'd rather chop off my right arm. Yeah, it's sad., Sam, Dan's nephew runs all the conventions and said, Mark told him he has no budget by 2016. Dan says they hired Katie's Perry's. These two are dumb, like a Fox, Perries. We get online texts that says by December, 2016, Lula Rowe had 60, 000 consultants or retailers and generated 1. 3 billion with a, but, but, but, but the B and wholesale orders. Mark wants the email department doing 150 emails a day. The designers are expected to make 100 designs every day and Mark just wants numbers. Quality does not seem to be a concern. Sam says the convention and events were to distract people from the issues in the company and says it was a pyramid scheme. Multi level marketing is legal and pyramid schemes are not. And what differentiates them is that MLMs sell a product. Regardless, most of the money goes to the top 1 percent and dooms the lower 99%. Erotica is not just capitalism. Yep, isn't it? Here we are. Now Courtney gives us a summary of the spending and maxed out credit cards and she dug her own grave by spending all the money that she made and that's on her. She says, joining LuLaRoe ruined my life. And look, I really have to agree. I hate to agree with Mark on anything, but personal responsibility does play a role in personal finance. And I don't know her story. It just seems like she had a spending problem before LuLaRoe even entered the picture. You got to get that taken care of. All right. You ready for episode three? Blow up? Yeah. Okay. We start with Deanne shouting in our faces and then she shows us her boobs. Practically. She stands up to press her boobs up to the screen to show the fabric. Courtney says if Deanne told her to jump off the cliff, she probably would. They talk about the magnetism, and I have 30 question marks in my notes, of Mark and Deanne, and then Roberta mentions the checks, and everyone else mentions the, what I would call the attitude adjustment meetings every Tuesday that kept you in line. Don't like that, Radhika. No. Mark talks about the Book of Mormon at a convention. I'm making a lot of assumptions, especially about Mark, so you be the judge. I'm not a literary scholar or a policy major. I'm just going to give you the quote direct from Mark's mouthful quote. This is a meritocracy. How do you think we became the masters of the globe? Unquote. Mmm, I don't know what that is from, but it sounds like the language of colonialism and white supremacy, sort of a cult. No wonder Lachey didn't want to go anywhere with these people. No. Yeah. Roberta sees everyone, looks and dresses alike, and she thinks, oh my god, I'm in a cult. Now we get to one of my favorite people in this, Becca Peter. I'm dying to know if the producers set this up. Did you notice her background her decor? Oh, yes, yes, I did. It's so funny. Throughout the rest of this, Becca is wearing tan clothes, her house is tan, her floor, the walls, ceilings, all very neutral colors. She's got glasses on, no makeup, and she's straight out of the shower. It's just such a foil to the outrageous looks of the rest of these people. She sells washi tape online, which is strangely brightly colored. And Becca's entertainment is watching LulaRoe. Same, Becca. She sees the way they charge sales tax as strange. And it bothered her that someone was wrong on the internet. And she says her husband jokes with her that she's that person. Can't let it go. Yep. Lachey talks about the goal of the business is helping families, blessing lives. Becca says that they take advantage of people wanting to be good moms and give to the family and society. Becca says it's similar to empowering women, but it's actually the opposite. We have the second thing that sums up what you need to know about Mark Stidham when they are asked, what inspired the empowerment of women for you? And he interrupts Deanne to answer the question because he's terrible and has no clue. It says it comes from being married to a powerful wife. Who knows her place, Mark? Now we get these ways to deal with your husband and make sure the wife doesn't challenge his authority. Diane's mom fought for equal rights for women to have women's rights. She wrote a book in the 70s called The Secret Power of Femininity, and the quote we get is basically manipulate him into thinking he has all the power to get what you want. You know there's a chapter in there about how to fake A pregnancy to keep a man allegedly. I've never read this. Never will, but I believe it. Yeah. You know how there's toxic masculinity. I'm pretty sure this is toxic femininity. Ashley says when her husband started having issues with her bringing in more money than him and she focused on the business, Dan encouraged her to be more submissive. And then I love that. She says, I guess that wasn't really in my wheelhouse to do that. It's like you create these empowered women, what do you think is gonna happen? Yeah! Ruh roh. It is interesting the discussion is about only married people do this, and he needs to be a part of it. Courtney says when she became a mentor, she had to fly out to see Mark and Deanne, and they encouraged her husband to quit his job, and she knows it's to keep them from being able to walk away. Mm hmm. Roberta says her husband isn't supportive, and when she says that to Deanne, Deanne says, Well, you should get a new husband. Hashtag blessing family. Our expert says the people who make money in MLMs are almost exclusively people who got in early because the later people look around and there's no one left in their social group who isn't already in a downline for someone else. He's also in tan and his office is a little bit of color in it. It just was. stark difference between what the whole thing is about. Yep. Dan encourages consultants to order inventory every week, which Stella confirms. The constant ordering, benefits Deanna and Mark and the leaders in their upline. The retailers say they wanted business training, but I've got hype and cult manipulation. Jill Dremmer was on income assistance and is now a homeowner hashtag because of Lula Rowe and wants to be in Lula Rowe forever. Okay, great. now we get into the body shaming and oh god, I hate this so much. basically Deanne gets the gastric sleeve in Tijuana, Mexico, which is so weird because she could have afforded treatment in the U. S. Totally. I didn't look into it, but I do wonder if she wasn't at a weight where she would qualify for surgery in the U. S. Yeah, if insurance wouldn't cover it or if nobody would do it. But like 3 billion dollar industry, I, I just, I don't get it. Anyway, they have a text group called the Tijuana Skinnies. Can you imagine the nightmare? Oh, you can't get off those text chains. Courtney says she refuses to get the surgery in Tijuana, and after that, Deanne ghosted her. After she didn't have Deanne motivating her and BFFing her, she says she sees the lies. Courtney realizes the people under her are spending money and not making any. The expert says all the people you recruited are your direct competitors and on top of that, other people are recruiting people in your town and competing with you as well. But Mark and Dianne blame all those not making money for not working hard enough. And now we get to dead Fart Leggings. Gross! And also yay! I don't know why I enjoyed this so much. I wish we had talked to the workers packing the boxes because you know they were always complaining. Gosh! We see leggings in the parking lot out in the open. Clothes were wet, moldy, and smelled terrible. The office said they kept getting complaints about the holes, quality, etc. So not only is it destined to fail MLM, but they're also sending out poor quality items for people to try to sell and then blaming the salespeople for failing. We see a montage of embarrassing placement of designs in the crotch of the leggings. Mark and Deanne say it's an equal opportunity and there wasn't a huge problem with quality, it was just a social media problem. He says it was a fun and exciting time of growth, meanwhile the sellers are eating the money because they can't sell wet, smelly leggings. That's awful. Yeah, just the victim blaming is really sad. Now Mark and Deanne are firing people who complain about the business. Hello the Road Defective is a place where people can go to complain on Facebook. Stella posts on Facebook, quote, does anyone know a class action attorney, unquote. Fightin words, Stella, yes. Episode 4, Toe Up. We see a video of a top LuLaRoe retailer and Mark and Deanne's son talking about why they are not a pyramid scheme. In 2017, now the bonus checks are changing. They are now based on actual sales and not just on how much people order. The checks dropped in about half. Brady, I think his name's Brady. We need to get away from being a pyramid scheme. Mmkay? Oops. Brady said it on a recorded video. April 25th, 2017, they offer a 100 percent buyback or return policy. Daryl tells us it is never going away, and that is in writing. Lots of people joined because of the policy, and there's also a mass exodus. Roberta thinks they paid out 100 million in returns. Wow. A lot, but 1. 3 billion, it's nothing, not that much. September 13th, 2017, LuLaRoe rescinds the buyback guarantee that they had said was permanent. Daryl is really impacted by a woman calling in and crying and she can't get her money back and he goes to the bathroom and cries. Oh, Daryl roberta hears people saying they might go into foreclosure on their home. She realizes she had been predatory and she posts that she's going out of business on Facebook. Deanne says something went viral and that she didn't understand it. Sounds about right. she wishes there wasn't the negativity. Ugh, Deanne. Yeah, okay. Deanne. Now we get Kelly Porcaro. She's at her desk and obviously very busy and needs to get back to work. She meets Stella, who asked about the class action lawyer. Stella has 20, 000 worth of inventory that she can't return once the policy is changed. Here's a pregnancy loss warning right here. She loses her baby at five months, which is just brutal. And then it gets worse. She says she feels ashamed and that there's something wrong with my body, that I would lose the baby. And there's something wrong with me as a salesperson and an entrepreneur that I couldn't make it work. No, Stella. I know. Oh, so sad, ever think those things or say them to yourself or anyone else like that really got me. She said she couldn't pack up the things because of her depression. She would just cry when she tried to pack up her inventory and that she missed the window and that she didn't even know the window was closing. No. Now, Kelly and Becca are on the case. Kelly says she starts prepping a breach of contract case. They said they would pay back returns forever and then resend it. Kelly steps up at a LuLaRoe class action lawsuit website. Becca is tracking LuLaRoe lawsuits, apparently for entertainment, because I don't think she's involved in this. She's not, no, she's never a buyer, seller, anything. She just, randomly got passionate about it. It just, it speaks to All the beige wall, she's like, I have nothing, and when I catch something, I will obsess over it. Amazing. I really enjoy her being a nut and watching this with the popcorn out, yeah, she's adorable. There's copyright infringement for the patterns on the fabric. There's defective clothing. There's My Dyer as a company suing them for placing orders and knowing they didn't have the money to pay. Lulu Rose accused of hiding their money in LLCs. Courtney resigns by saying her values no longer align with theirs and she says she's owed a hundred thousand dollars. She says everyone from the company was told not to talk to her. Sam Schultz, with the crotch hole, Deanne's nephew, was fired, asks if she can invest in his marijuana farm. She actually seemed like she was going to do it, but then she sees the scam. And he fell for a weed pyramid scheme himself, Radhika. He did! Tiffany and Paul are asked if they are all in, and Deanne and Mark demand loyalty. Everyone gets an email in the company about a high level retailer being cut from the company. I love this. And later they get a private email saying it was actually them that were fired. I love, like, they were, gossiping with each other, Oh my god, who do you think it is? Who is it? And they're like, oh crap, it's us. It seems like they weren't a hundred, a thousand percent on board, and Mark and Deanne did not make that up. January 2019, Washington State sues LuLaRoe claiming it's a pyramid scheme. Kenny Brady can't recall anything in his deposition. Based on what he's wearing, Jordan Brady is on his way to a 1990s boy band audition and just happened to stop in to be deposed. It's hilarious. It's a suit jacket, black, but then the, floral sleeves. Yeah, he's wild. I'm surprised some of them just didn't say, I don't speak English. The things that they were being asked and the absolute blank look on their face where they're like I don't remember. I don't remember that happening and it's like you what you did it becca has a graphic on a piece of paper that she holds up for the camera that shows a large percentage of the retailers pay as bonuses and a small percentages from sales. Mark and his deposition claims the opposite. Deanne and Mark present a check for 1. 4 million to a top retailer and Deanne says, I don't think we did. And then you see a photo of it. When asked what percentage of it was a bonus check or a check from sales, Deanne tries to divert attention by being Deanne and Mark just says it was bonus check and they don't track the sales of their retailers. Deanne crosses her legs and arms and faces away from Mark. Did you catch that? Yeah, I did! Body language is everything. Deanne, you are both sinking this ship. It's not just him. He says, Checks aren't meant to mislead, they're meant to inspire. And if you're misled by it, then that's on you. That's on you. Kelly tells us MLMs are legal, and to do it legally, you have to have a buyback policy. 70 percent rule, which means people only buying more inventory after they've sold about 70 percent of their current inventory and the 10 customer rule, at least 10 customers that are not other distributors. Mark gives us his philosophy of litigation because he's been sued so many times. He says he settles most, so they're not public and Stella's case was settled in arbitration. I hope she got a lot. I was listening to this yesterday and I was just like, I hope she Got an amazing settlement, Ashley says she was separated from her husband and didn't accomplish her goal of balancing family and work. She got a lot of money, but the cost was a lot of time away from her kids, and she says she knows her accomplishments couldn't be replicated. When she resigns, Deanne suggests she takes her kids to church so they have a sense of stability. Jeez. This made me want to go. Like Ross from Friends, where you say, Pafanuli. Right? She's maddening. Courtney has to sell her vehicles, she gets divorced and files for bankruptcy for credit card debt, and I do feel bad for Courtney, and also when you choose to spend over what you make, you're just doomed. She made so much money, that's a lot of money to spend. But I also feel like it is hard when you're making that much to ever be like, okay, this is the cutoff. This is where I stop. This is where I scale back because you always are going to think that you're going to do more, make more, have more. And like you said, I, we don't know her, so we don't know what her life was like before, but if she can, if she can get that influence of the whole, because of LuLaRoe and just spending, spending, spending. unfortunately she was her own downfall it just sucks that she was at this height. That she could have just gotten out of and been happy. Yeah. Because, ashley. Still has a lot of money. She, she lost her husband, she. is clearly doing well. Most people, the people interviewed talk about how much time and work they had to put in. Roberta Blevins has become an anti MLM activist and sums them up for us. They target women, mostly stay at home moms, retired women, people on disability, people of color, people who are low income. She says there's so many legitimate work from home opportunities that don't require an upline or a downline. Finding jobs in general is not the easiest thing. And this was just something that was so easy for people to be like, I could do that. It doesn't require anything on my part. Yeah, except for the buy in,, people desperate things to put themselves in. Yeah, but that's what I mean. Other than signing. A paper to say, I'm going to pay this much. It wasn't a lot of knowledge, work, studying, that's associated with most other jobs. That is really difficult to get. So, I, I see the pull, Becca says the reason we were so successful in exposing Lula Robi is because the community exposed them. And, yeah, again, I'm like, she's just some lady who sells washi tape, right? Yeah. Roberta is working to help get women out. She has a really good podcast. I'll put it in the show notes. I can't remember the name of it, but she, interviews X numbers of MLMs. Daryl is a magical genius philosopher and sums up. This is what happens when you stop caring about ethics and morals and are completely consumed by greed, unquote. He says he has visions of the office staff and retailers that choose to join them drinking at Miguel's across the street from his office, watching repo men take everything out and Mark and Deanne on the floor crying with federal agents somewhere near them. I love that's his fantasy. Oh my gosh. Mark and Deanne settle with Washington for 4. 75 million, which feels like a drop in the bucket. It's nothing. Yeah., if it's the state, who gets the money? That's a good question. do they, send it out to retailers or, Yeah, and what percentage, how do they manage that? I don't know. And then I guess they also have to change to an updated refund policy. Our MLM expert says MLMs don't over stop, it just turns into another MLM and everyone moves on to the next one. LuLaRoe is still going, Deanne says we are creating something that gives a sense of courage and confidence and retailers get to take charge and be the boss. It's easy, you just gotta work it and put your heart and soul into it. Girls, stop. This was after the deposition too, how have you not learned your lesson? How are you still promoting this thing, thinking that you were not in the wrong? Oof. Daryl says, quote, LuLaRoe is a cautionary tale of a company that grew too fast for its own good. History will ultimately remember LuLaRoe as an unethical, immoral family, because history is written by the victors. In the words of General, I can't. Yeah, and the words are General Mortag from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and history will remember our side prevailing over them. I laughed so hard. He sounds like a commentator on a history channel or A documentary series. it's just so funny to listen to him, but he's so good. Yeah, he's a cool guy. That is actually a quote from Winston Churchill. But I'm going to give it to Daryl. He just quietly stares at the camera, just his mannerism. Like he just stares at the camera after. Yeah. It's like he's waiting for someone to say cut, but no one's going to say cut because you do you, Daryl. Also, you want him just to keep talking. He stole the show. That's the end of it. So I usually do go into a deep dive and how to stay safe. But I think this documentary is really educational just in itself. So just watch the documentary on Amazon. I did go to the LuLaRoe website, and now I'm constantly getting ads to join. Oh no! their buy in is about 500, and,,the women on the Facebook ad is African American, so I think they watch the LuLaRich episodes. They have their origin story with photos of them in straw hats holding hands like two non threatening derby derps. I watched the companion piece to this on Amazon, which is The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe, and I kind of got like, am I in the Matrix? Because isn't Amazon just a predatory shakedown, and it's workers, and I'm here supporting the man by using this nefarious company to watch more stuff, yeah. Oh well. We get other interviews and more background. Deanna is essentially Mormon royalty. And there's a sense of entitlement that she may have, which could explain her attitude. Mormons are already primed to go on missions and basically sell their religion and it fit nicely into recruiting other sales people. They tend to have large families and go to churches where there's a large pool to recruit from. one retailer says it was like buying a scratch off lottery ticket when you got a good box of product, and that's why we're here to some extent. It's dopamine from all the excitement. Yeah. similarities with cults, they have recruitment, gaslighting, similar way of dressing, and rejection after leaving. They really address, the homogeneity. one of their entertainers, Elijah, who is Black said he definitely had to put up with racism and then says something like hate is everywhere that you have to deal with. But he also was like, if they asked me to come back, I'd do it in a second. And that's what we live in. Yeah, that's the pull they have. Sam Schultz took 100, 000 from a widowed retailer in LuLaRoe to invest in the pot farm and he did not repay her from what I could tell, although he said he repaid everyone. I don't think so. There's a trend of burning your onboarding packages when you quit LuLaRoe and of course putting it on social media. That was very fun to watch., the author of cultish in the, the documentary says that as long as people are locked out of the dignified labor market and believe that the American dream is still available to them, the industry will continue to. I had never heard moms losing money. Mom's losing money. I haven't heard of that one. I also listened to the Dream podcast, which I would highly recommend. It shows the ability of certain people to take advantage of others and not feel a wit of guilt, and in fact actively look for desperate people to make money from. It talks about how the earliest MLM companies in the U. S. became part of government, and so they made sure that laws protected them. And it's hard because they are illegal. I think you have to do your research and figure out where you are in the pyramid. If you insist on joining the MLM. Yeah. So when I was approached to be a health consultant for a company, I later learned was an MLM, I did do a lot of research and ordered the beginner information pack and read through it. I knew 2 women who are selling like crazy. Both were able to fund a bunch of travel as business ships and had been able to leave their nursing jobs to do bigger, better things. I seriously wanted to sign up because I wanted to also, have that freedom and then ask people in the local social media group. There were 14 or 15 people already selling and my local area. And that was just in my group. Who knows how many other people were retailers already feel so saturated. Yeah, there's a huge glut on the market. And that's one of the issues for anyone seeking to join. You can't really see who's in competition with you. If you want to do it right and get the money from sales. One of the women was one of the earlier consultants. And so she is still doing well. And because she has a big downline, she doesn't even sell anymore. She just gets a percentage of everybody. the thousands of people who signed up with her, totally. The other could only make it work for a year and then wasn't able to sell enough and had to go back to work. I watched this series on Netflix. It's Ramit Sethi and the show is how to get rich. And he's talking to this woman who's in direct marketing, which is also. Multilevel marketing and the literature says something like only 0. 1 percent of people make a real living at selling these products and he basically says to her, I think I want to play for the NFL, probably similar odds. Right. So I think if I just trained really hard next year, I think I can play for the NFL. It's like, um, that's crazy. And he's like, well, that's That's what you're saying with MLMs. are you the 0. 01 percent that's somehow going to make this work? That's a good only do that. If you're at the very beginning, I looked on the AARP American association of retired persons. They have really good guide for how to research an MLM, including a checklist of questions to ask. Three people who are part of the MLM and they recommend talking to people who are formally in the MLM. It's very antiquated because it's for the elders and it gives tips on things to type in like MLM plus class action it's very helpful. So you can kind of figure out Is this safe or not? Yeah. I wanted to end with Courtney overspending. She could have made a killing and had a lot of money at the end of this. Personal finance is a huge passion of mine and my kids have grown up with Dave Ramsey's CDs for kids. Because, we're old and we had CDs back then, I went through his financial peace program and although we struggle with the reality of California real estate market, I was able to get out of debt. I set up an emergency fund and I started investing and I do want to recommend him, but with a serious warning, because if not for the MLM ness of Mark, I think they would be best friends in the sense that I don't really believe it's more difficult for some people than others. So there's that. He is a. White to boomer blow hard. I would just hold your nose. He just has a lot of, easy ways to set up your finances if you're at the beginning of the journey. And I've recommended it to other people who have found ways to, get out of debt and set up savings. What else do you want to say to the people? It scares me how gullible I am when someone's like, Oh, this is really good. And it's if it's someone I know who tells me something, I trust them so much. and it's, it's hard because the social media aspect of this is both you feel like you're part of this really cool community, but at the same time you're alone because it's just you in your house. And so what you were mentioning about, oh, I'm going to get in and what they're thinking is early. They're 1 of 40, 000 people in their neighborhood. That's doing it. And who are you going to sell it to? Everybody's already in on it. It's never a good idea to ask the people who are already in it because they're just going to promote it because either they want people under them or, they at that time truly think it's the best thing in the world, One of the things that I wrote down was that someone said that the bonus check per month was 20 to 70 K. How on earth are you supposed to believe that that's legal good? thing that's not going to bite you later on 20 to 70 K. Are you serious? People work for a whole year and don't even make that much. And you made that much in a month. So, you know, too good to be true. It probably is. Or it's kind of like that thing in gambling. Once, once you win that, even 5 back. I'm, I'm out. I made it. I'm done. Even if I win, I put in a 20 and I get 20 back. I'm done. I'm done. I'm not risking it. I think it's also knowing when to stop, there's that dopamine. Yeah. And yeah. Why would you question if you have a check for 50, 000 in your hand, you're never going to be like, this is too good to be true. Only see the good parts of it. And you're like, and then you're always like, okay, next month, I'm going to do better and get more. Yeah, it's just the people that are in these groups at the bottom are really it's not like they, a lot of the moms that they interviewed, they're like, well, I lost the ability to pay for going to the zoo and having extra money for movie tickets and things like that. The people that are really in poverty. And that's what the dream, podcast talks about. These are people who are impoverished and have always been impoverished and they see this as a way to get out, but then when you talk to them, they're like, well, my mom and my grandma, they all tried to sell Tupperware. They all tried to sell, whatever the company is and they've seen it generationally fail. But there's always this like, but you could get out, and it's just, I can make it happen. And it's, yeah, it's. Those are also sometimes the people who like really don't see another option. If you don't have the education, I'm talking about people who were stay at home moms, had no education, had nothing else that they could rely on and were like, this sounds easy. Yeah Stay safe from MLMs. Talk to me if you want to do an MLM or direct marketing. We'll figure something out I think I can figure something else. I definitely think you could figure something out Oh, gosh, that's so sad and predatory. All right. Well, thank you so much. Have an amazing Wednesday. Thanks, Shelly. You too. All right. Okay. Bye everybody. Bye bye. Do you know who Tammy Faye Baker is? No. Do you have your phone? Can you look it up? Yeah. Tammy, with that? I, or Y let's see. It's T-A-M-M-Y-F-A-Y-E. And just images. You'll probably just the mascara, Lord. Yeah. It's like the, the whole bottle each time she applies it. Oh gosh. Yep. Nope. Not that, uh, demographic at all.