I am a judgment broker who writes often. In my work, I talk with lots of judgment owners all over the country. I see lots of judgments against MLMs who got sued, by the people they conned.
Many judgments I have been sent against a MLM will not ever get collected. Many were served by publication (the weakest way to serve a lawsuit) as the MLMs hid their actual location. Also, most MLMs were sued only by their company name, which folded or disappeared soon after they got sued.
In my article, I offer ten simple checks one can do, to research MLMs, before you pay them anything. While not perfect, these 10 checks are easy, and might help test if MLMs a MLM might be scams:
1) Let me start by asserting that, many MLMs end up being a scam in some way or another. The best MLMs scam you by helping you think it will probably be easy money selling or working a MLM’s service or product. The rotten MLMs steal from you. It does not matter how great a MLM is, everything really relies on your ability to sell and you yourself.
2) Is the MLM’s product or service in any way unique, real, needed, a bargain, or what a customer wants? Not many MLMs will pass this test. Some people can succeed even if a MLM fails this test, however many people will have minimal or no success, unless MLMs passes this test.
3) Can one earn money without recruiting others to sell on your behalf? If the MLM pays only for recruiting other people, that is a warning sign they do not have real products.
4) Does the MLM charge people a lot to sign up? When the sign up fee doesn’t include anything with value, be careful.
5) Another warning indicator is, do they promise that you will become rich quickly? 6) Does the MLM tell you what product they have? If a MLM’s sole products are brochures and web sites, be careful.
7) Does the MLM tell you anyone can succeed? The reality is, a combination of luck, funding, skill, and hard work, is most often required.
Does a web search for the MLM list only good reviews? If so, be careful of false reviews by shills. If there are negative reviews, read them, and remember that there are 2 sides to most stories.
9) Do they have a physical location, a telephone number to call, and do they answer e-mails? There are many good companies which do not do, or have all 3. It is a good sign when they have at least two out of three.
10) How private are they? Is the ownership of their domain (whois: somedomain.com) private, or by a proxy service? Are they located in Florida? Do they use any mailing address at all? The more secretive a MLM or any company is, the more careful you should be when dealing with them.
