So, I meet my birth mother (LDS social services adoption) and find out she is at the top of the Doterra pyramid.

I am shocked at how this pyramid scheme is ran through the church. They use the same tactics as the missionaries to sign people up. I get it, they offer a high quality product at a ridiculous price... just like the church.

Also Cutco, and other schemes I don't know about (candles in the 1990's?).

Please share your experience and opinion of these pyramid schemes set up so that non-tith payers can still contribute to the top 15.

Peace and Love

I think the strict hierarchical nature of the mormon church, as well as the fact that "leaders" move up through the ranks from (supposedly) the "regular members" (though in reality most have family or business connections in the right places) fosters mormon affinity for pyramid scams. That and the church's continuous praise of blind faith, and tendency to blindly "trust" other members.

But yeah, they're all scams. Every single one. Those who start 'em (your birth mom?) can make some big bucks. 99% of the rest get screwed, and their false hopes of "making it big" get dashed, only to be renewed when the next MLM comes around...

The companies you mentioned are all multi-level marketing companies (MLMs). MLMs are more prevalent in Utah than anywhere else in the world. None of them were created to generate profit for TSCC, and none are owned by the church or its corporations (although some MLMs were founded and run by individual Mormons).

I've been lured into several, and here's my opinion:
They use many of the same tactics as the church does when recruiting potential members, which may be why Mormons are especially susceptible to them. Without solid critical thinking and research skills, plus lots of financial pressures and a lifetime of gullibility training, Mormons are especially vulnerable to MLMs.

Wikipedia explains MLMs very well; you'll notice many scary resemblances to TSCC in their article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing

From that wiki page:

"Studies by independent consumer watchdog agencies have shown that between 990 and 999 of every 1000 participants (i.e. between 99.0% and 99.9% of all participants) in MLMs in fact lose money."

I'll give 'em one thing -- that percentage is better than the mormon church's, where 100% of all participants get none of the "promised blessings" the church proffers (CK, your own planet, eternal family, etc.).

:)

Cutco is non-Mormon and has been around since time imemorial. A lot of BYU students do sell it, though. I remember when girls used to buy a set for their "hope chests." (Does anyone have a hope chest anymore?)

Yeah. I have a giant chest that is full of blankets to keep me warm. It is my hope to NEVER get married. My sister's husband gambled away the house our parents gave her. Now they are divorced and she is bankrupt. He also took the lead crystal that was in her hope chest and the bed they slept in. She's living in a Section 8 housing project and he retired to Arizona, remarried, and is living in a posh retirement village and golfs all day.

My boyfriend was married twice. First wife became an alcoholic so he raised the three sons alone. Second wife repeatedly drained their bank accounts so he was forced to divorce her. We are happily UNMARRIED.

When someone asked me what God thinks about unmarried couples, I replied, "When I hear that God stepped up and paid the alimony and child support after a divorce from a deadbeat spouse, I'll risk getting married for God".

Bettervibes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, I meet my birth mother (LDS social services
> adoption) and find out she is at the top of the
> Doterra pyramid.
>
> I am shocked at how this pyramid scheme is ran
> through the church. They use the same tactics as
> the missionaries to sign people up. I get it,
> they offer a high quality product at a ridiculous
> price... just like the church.
>
> Also Cutco, and other schemes I don't know about
> (candles in the 1990's?).
>
> Please share your experience and opinion of these
> pyramid schemes set up so that non-tith payers can
> still contribute to the top 15.
>
> Peace and Love

My mom told me that health supplement MLMs were huge in the church in the 1970s and 1980s. Shaklee, Amway, and Neolife were the companies my relatives thought would make them millionaires.

On another Mormon board a poster said that his wife got a text from someone, and when he went to look at her phone she moved away from him, saying that if he saw the text, he "would be mad". Then she got a phone call and went into the other room to answer it.

He went on to say, "Please let her be having an affair and not signing up for a MLM".

granted, those things are sharp!

The thing is, he sold them one summer while he was in college; the only people who bought them were family; my family is a bunch of lunatic fringe holy rollers.

If only they knew their Jersey tomatoes are stained by Satan's sword.

The knives do a good job on 'maters, though. They really do.

R*** Cutlery?
I work in food. They are fantastic and cheap as dirt. If you know otherwise let me know

tomatoes. The serrated one slices the squishy ripe ones nicely.

I'm no chef, but I had a decent set of Henckels, but they didn't cut those tomatoes as well as those fug cutcos. (Jersey tomatoes is like a religion or something.)

On the serious side, what brand do you recommend? I just need a good chef's knife and a paring knife. I liked my Santuko, but I couldn't rock it with two hands. I think I just liked it because it looked sexy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2017 12:23AM by Beth.

Years ago I got roped into going to a big sales meeting. I don't recall what it was for. All I could think of the entire time was that it sounded like a Fast and Testimony meeting. I couldn't wait to get out of there.

Cutco isnt really multi-level marketing or a get-rich scheme. It's actually based out of New York state and is more of an old-fashioned direct sales company. Sure, they exploit college-age kids (mostly) who then sell to family and friends of family for a little while and then, when they run out of leads, and then give up. Then the company recruits some new people and everyone moves on. And sure, Cutco people use the high-pressure tactics missionaries use, but those are really just normal sales tactics that work when selling anything--knives, cars, pest control, security systems, or dish network subscriptions. Those are all popular RM lines of work where I live.

Now, I'm not saying that Cutco is the best or most ethical company in the world. They see a market and take advantage. But it's not really in the same league as the MLMs, like Amway, Shaklee, Nature's Sunshine, Tupperware, Mary Kay, or, more recently, Doterra, Paparazzi Jewelry, lularue, etc. In MLMs, the only way to really make money is to get people in under you in the pyramid.

Cutco's really not the same. Just sayin'

Or do we?

2/3 of Mary Kay is a fantastic product but I was disgusted in finding out that MK has been animal testing and lying about it since 1998. Dallas sez that The China Market makes them do it.

Mary Kay Ash is spinning in her grave.

That and their sales meetings use the exact same techniques as MTC and the entire company's reputation has been soiled by unethical 'directors'.
Just like TSCC. Except its product is crap.

Aloysius Wrote:
Sure, they exploit college-age kids
> (mostly) who then sell to family and friends of
> family for a little while and then, when they run
> out of leads, and then give up.

The daughter of one of my residency supervisors sold Cutco knives about five summers ago. My former supervisor was important in hospital circles here. His wife, the girl's mother, was a high school orchestra director in addition to being chair of fine arts at the high school, which had a large theater department. She directed the high school's annual spring theater production. She also was important in local community theater, leading the group's junior company and directing at least one musical for community theater annually.

The girl sold scads of knives to people wanting to curry favor with one or the other of her parents, particularly the mother. So many people wanted good chair positions for their kids, good play parts for their kids, or good parts in plays for themselves that they bought what I would guess to be far more knives than many of them actually needed.

My supervisor and his wife concluded from this that their daughter must have been an amazing salesperson. They convinced her to change her major from chemistry to business so that she could go into sales. She graduated and briefly held a job in her alma mater's philanthropic fundraising department, but was eventually encouraged to resign because the poor girl apparently couldn't have successfully solicited a donation to the university if she had offered sex along with each donation. I'm hoping she finds a job in some aspect of business not heavily dependent upon salesmanship.

Her parents never saw the connection between the favors desired by all those who purchased Cutco knives from their kid and the amount of knife sales she made, and none of us had the nerve to suggest it to either of them because people can be very sensitive where their kids are concerned.

"I ended up at a cutco sales recruitment/interview thing. I asked them how they could assure my safety if I was walking into strangers houses with a briefcase full of weapons. They blustered an answer, so I asked them how they could assure my customers safety if I was walking into their house with a briefcase full of weapons. They never called back."

-RaisedByHeathens Orange Meanie-Pants


https://jezebel.com/5942048/shopping-oriented-pyramid-schemes-lure-in-ladies-then-steal-their-friends-cash-and-confidence

Pls don't knock Cutco; sharp blades, comfortable handles!

Some of us remember they told gal prospects that having them 'tended' to make them more attractive - desirable marriage candidates...

IDK if they focused on the 'sweet spirit' gals or not...

I've got some issues lately with my old man, the retired rocket scientist, who's definitely in his dotage. Hasn't been a believing Mormon for decades, but still thinks like one at times...

So I'll post this here instead of getting my dig in at him...

He spent more than a grand on a set my daughter sold him... I told him I'd sharpen his Henkel set and some old made-in-the-USA Chicago Cutlery stuff my sister and I gave him if he would put the money into her college fund, but as I said...

Stamped, not forged blades, BTW... The old CC knives have the same steel but are forged.

And yes, the new Chicago Cutlery knives--made in China--are POS stuff... I got mine in the early 90's at an outlet store, and you can still pick up the old knives online for reasonable prices... Henkel knives are also highly rated.

Learn how to sharpen a knife, seriously; I like a Lansky sharpening system; it's fairly inexpensive and rated reasonably high by Consumer Reports. And for cutting tomatoes, I like my Martin Yan Chinese knife... Of course Martin also has an old Chicago Cutlery cleaver he actually prefers off-camera... At least that's what I read on the Internet.

Daughter lasted two or three weeks with the company, BTW, and griped they were definitely exploiting her...

I used a 10 in. CC knife when I was cooking for a hotel restaurant back in the 80s. Almost all of the cooks and chefs that worked there used CC.

Bought a full set of Cutco from a student of mine who needed the money badly to stay in school. She never made much money and had to drop out of school. Have no idea what became of her. But my knives are just like new and work great. I can speak to the product quality but not to the way they pay their sales force.

I had an old bishop recently hit me up about one, the pitch line was something about making me more well off financially, physically and spiritually:D

DoTerra is in SLC this week, taking up lots of hotel room and parking lots (and in my case, bitching about the price of parking). There are lots of people from out of the US and 2 guys tonight wanted to find somewhere to eat close to the hotel.

I showed them a couple of places on Google Maps but never saw them again..they were trying to find a place that they could walk to.

Lots of BYU-type people, both men and women. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Last year, there was a woman who was very friendly and of course wanted me to join up, but didn't get very far. She did give me a sample of oil. I don't remember what it was for, but it didn't taste very good.

And, in the hotel lobby, there's lots of big poster board signs, including one for oil for your dog..lists all of the things that it will help with, including anxiety....

Our neighbor is into Doterra oils. She came over one time when our daughter was visiting. My daughter mentioned having some stomach issues so the neighbor went back to her home to bring over some lavender oil. She said it would help. I watched her pour the oil into 2 small gel caps and said we should take these. Being good sports my daughter and I each took one capsule. We went for a walk afterwards and laughed as we were burping lavender the entire time. I do not suggest ingesting these oils.

I have never heard of cutco until this thread. I am obviously living right!

Old Chicago Cutlery and Lansky, as per Cabbie

My wife is still in contact with a number of missionaries she met since converting almost 40 yrs ago. She tells me that she's been roped into a number of "sales opportunities" at the "ground floor" by a handful of these former missionaries. In just the five years that we've been married, she's been approached by three different RMs about five different "opportunities".

On what may or may not be a related subject; does anybody know anything about Strengths Strategy?

GregS Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> On what may or may not be a related subject; does
> anybody know anything about Strengths Strategy?

Yet another scam...

https://hbr.org/2016/01/strengths-based-coaching-can-actually-weaken-you

So many people looking for some kind of "magic" program or pill or oil to fix everything. And who waste billions on people who claim to have one.

Thanks, Hie. I found that link, as well, and both it and you reaffirm my take on strengths coaching; or even life coaching, in general.

The reason I asked about Strengths Strategy is that I know the CEO/President; she is a friend of my wife. I like the woman well enough, and I believe that she is honest and sincere about helping people, but she seems to be a little too earnest, for lack of a better descriptor. So, I've been trying some quiet polling and internet research to pin down just what it is that's setting off so many alarms in my head about SS.

Aside from a seminar I took with my wife, who was (is?) vacillating about diving into strengths coaching/consulting, I am keeping at arm's length. SS builds on StrengthsFinder, which I think is an interesting way of classifying personality by way of strengths; but I don't see it as a strong or unique basis for coaching/counseling individuals or corporations.

My wife took an initial step towards being a consultant or coach, but her severe lack of tech savvy was too much of an impediment to setting up and maintaining a digital storefront (LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc.) from where she could direct prospective clients, corporations, and future coaches to SS HQ. I was never quite sure what the product was aside from referrals. It just feels too much like Amway meetings I was dragged to by a college roommate.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2017 02:26PM by GregS.

Even decent products are ruined by MLM marketing scams.
Though most MLM marketing scams *don't* have good products...which is why they're promoted with MLMs, because they don't have any real hope of winning on the product merits alone.

As the article points out, there's nothing inherently wrong with the *idea* of maximizing your strengths. Or identifying what they are. It goes wrong when the idea becomes a "religion." When "maximizing your strengths" is believed to be (and touted as) the magic formula for success, usually to the exclusion of any other training, education, workplace ideas, etc. And that's what has gone on with the "Strengths Strategy" organization and others like it. It's become a magic pill with religious devotion attached to it, and with a cessation of reason and a dismissal of facts.

Because, as I mentioned above, that idea alone won't make founders of a pyramid scheme a bunch of money. But making it a magic pill and a "religion" just might.

Whether the founders believe what they're touting or not is irrelevant. Whether they're sincere, good people or not is irrelevant. What matters is that their magic pill is, at best, a placebo. At worst, it can ruin peoples' lives and careers, long after the MLM's founders have taken their cash and closed up shop. Because they'll leave a bunch of "believers" behind who will continue to insist on the methods long after the pyramid collapses...never bothering to look at facts and see how effective it is.

Cults. I can't stand 'em. :)

I bought my Cutco knives in 1963 and still have them. Except for the one I took to a ward dinner which was somehow "misappropriated". Another first clue that Mormons aren't more honest than your average crowd.


Someone on this board once described M.L.M. as meaning Mormons Losing Money. How true.