Herbalife Scam Revisited: How to Avoid Getting Ripped Off
For those of you who aren't familiar with my story, my first foray, long ago, into network marketing was with Herbalife.
Now Herbalife itself is a perfectly-reputable company, that has been around like 27 years and is publically-traded.
But it's the uplines and alleged 'coaches' that are the scam artists. Here is what they do:
The Herbalife Scam, How to Recognize it, And How to Avoid It
1) Sell you a $40 package that is going to 'teach you to work from home'...the package, of course, contains nothing but a bunch of hype and income claims from the top of the pyramid.
2) NOW they tell you that the company you are looking at is Herbalife...after you've shelled out 40 bux.
Next they sell you the business opportunity , claiming that if you are 'serious' you'll spend almost $400, so they can make some commissions selling you products at full price. The ACTUAL cost to become an Herbalife distributor is only $55, and any sponsor who says otherwise is full of BS. But if you knew that, you wouldn't buy the $400 of products full price...you'd just spend $55 to become a distributor, and then buy the Herbalife products YOU want at your 25% lifetime discount.
3) Tell you that if you 'are serious' you'll next buy $4000 worth of products!! This will make you a 'Supervisor', and you'll earn 50% on all sales and have a 50% discount...but what a RIPOFF this is! They ask you to shell out 3 grand when you haven't even made a DIME yet with Herbalife. Why? You might think it's so your sponsor can make a commission on it...which they do...but in reality, the ones making the money here are the folks higher up the pyramid. You know, the ones who talk at the hotel meetings, wearing the cheesy suits and pinky rings? Yep. They are getting a nice chunk of change on every one of those $4000 orders. So the more people in their organization who are being duped into shelling out that money, the fatter their monthly checks are going to be. The fact that some poor shmo now has a garage full of products they don't know how to sell and a big whopper of a credit card debt doesn't matter to them in the slightest.
4) If THAT wasn't bad enough, they THEN tell you that if you ever want to sell all those products you just filled up your garage with, you need to spend $1500 per month advertising on their 'Wheel Slots', to sign up new distributors who you will then inflict the same scam routine that you just suffered through! Yep, you'll need to dial up these people and try to sell them the distributorship along with the Herbalife products cluttering your garage.
And you know what the worst part is? It's not like you get told in the beginning, 'Ok, you are looking at an investment of $4400, with advertising expenses of about $1500 per month'
Because if you WERE told that, you could take it for what it is and evaluate it rationally. But no...in the beginning, you only know that it costs $40 for that package. You don't find out about the next expense until you've already forked over the money for the previous step.
Ok, so that's how the Herbalife Scam works...but before we turn our backs on Herbalife entirely, let's keep something in mind...
The Herbalife PRODUCTS themselves are AWESOME!
These are products that virtually everyone you know would benefit from...as well as you personally.
So how do we take advantage of that, but avoid all the crap and asshattery I just told you about above?
It doesn't cost $4000, I can tell you that! It doesn't even cost $400...no, in reality, the way to go about making some extra money with Herbalife is
With 10 customers, you'll be making about $250 per month. With 20, $500. By then, you'll have reached the Supervisor level without having spent the $4000...instead, you did $4000 in legitimate sales! So now you double your profits from $500 a month to $1000 a month, and can start recruiting distributors, to do exactly what you did...
Doesn't that sound a HELL of a lot better?

I just finished up a new website that shows exactly how to do it.
The Scam-Free Herbalife Opportunity
Just don't look at this as a full-time income opportunity. If you are looking for a legitimate home business that you CAN make a full-time income with, then I highly recommend you take a look at the123 Power System.
I'm not going to get into the details of the 123 Power System here on this Squidoo lens, but if you go to the website above, you will get the entire story on the startup cost, marketing system, compensation, products and training.
Rob Hunter
The Harsh, Scam-Busting Truth About Home Business
You may not like it...
Hit play and see which category you fall under--either way, you win.
The Weasel Awards!
Was this lens helpful to you in avoiding/evaluating the Herbalife Scam?
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- ladygodiva ladygodiva Nov 6, 2009 @ 4:48 am | in reply to Ellen-Cathryn
- Hello Ellen
i have some herbalife products that i would like to get rid off. Can you tell me about safelist advertising pls. I gave up on Herbalife as i stopped at supervisor level. Also if someone is selling on ebay can you pls help with listing the product correctly without eBay removing your listing.
I appreciate all help
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- Steve Steve Aug 1, 2009 @ 8:36 pm
- I am happy that others have found a way to get around the Herbalife price tag, but unfortunately I fell pray and spent the $2900.00 to move up to a supervisor. Stupid,I know!! Since there seems to be people out there that enjoy the products, contact me and I will sell you mine at a discounted price just to get rid of them!!! If interested, contact me at splanavsky@ctvea.net.
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- Elly Elly Feb 16, 2009 @ 3:31 pm
- I just started using the Herbalife products. However, my 'sponsor' only told me that I would benefit mostly from buying the distributorship and buying my products online. No scam. He didnt even ask me to sell anything. I am sure he makes a small commission by being the one to sell me the distributorship, but I still get my 25% off and I dont technically ever have to see him again. I just order online.
And I loooove these products. I have a lot of energy, my appetite is vitrually gone, I feel awesome. These are really great products. And I'm already down 4lbs in the last week. No other 'diet' program has been able to say that in my experience.
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- sbenjamin12000 sbenjamin12000 Dec 4, 2008 @ 2:49 am
- This is very helpful. Thank you for sharing this information with anyone that needs it. Unfortunately, I signed up with Herbalife but never got I package in the mail that my mentor keeps insisting will arrive NEXT DAY FED-EX? That was three weeks ago and $300 dollars later. I dont know about every body else but I intend on getting ALL my money back. Three weeks....Herbalife is not for me!
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- Wealth_Mentor Wealth_Mentor Nov 17, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
- Great comments, everyone :-) I would imagine that Ellen uses one of the payment processing services that do not involve upfront fees, such as Paypal, rather than the merchant account that was recommended to her by her upline so they could make yet another affiliate commission from it.
This isn't to say that merchant accounts are bad, not by a long shot--I use a merchant account for My Internet Business, but that's because I'm processing sufficient monthly volume that the difference in processing fees makes it worth it. When you are just starting out, especially with a low-dollar amount product and no customer base, it makes more sense to use a payment processor that only charges you a % of sales.
Keep the comments coming, and thanks for reading!
Rob Hunter
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- Lacy Lacy Nov 15, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
- How do you take orders if you don't have a merchant account?
[in reply to Ellen-Cathryn]
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- Ellen-Cathryn Ellen-Cathryn Oct 11, 2008 @ 11:04 pm
- I got dragged into this by a newbie at the Online Business Systems. I paid my way in to get to the supervisor level. I decided, after NOT carrying inventory, NOT spending hundreds of dollars on stale leads, NOT spending 50 bucks a month on the web site, and ditching the merchant account, that I could retail Herbalife and do so saving thousands of dollars by passing my 50% discount on to my customers.
I get my leads through free safelist advertising, and I also have an Aweber autoresponder. The products are excellent, and I take them every day. I have Multiple Sclerosis and I am basically a vegan so the Herbalife products are great for my diet. I don't need to lose weight, but the products are all excellent.
Don't even spend the money for the Distributor deal; you only get a 20% discount for that, but the products directly from a Supervisor who is able to sell to you at the 50% discount.
Excellent lens. I feel your pain!!!! OBS sucks.
Elle
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- inese_millere inese_millere Sep 14, 2008 @ 5:18 am
- I did not succeed as Herbalife Ds, but I use Herbalife skin care products for alreday 2 years, and have received soooo many compliments about the glow of my skin; I use supplements as well. And shakes time to time. I suggest everybody just to sign up for the great products.
Inese
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- Olivia Olivia Sep 9, 2008 @ 12:05 am
- I'm not sure what a wheel slot is, but my upline is teaching me step by step how to run the business, and I haven't shelled out any money I didn't spend on something I really needed for the business. I'm glad someone is helping those who really want to get into Herbalife to find a way to do it the same way I'm doing it--by retailing my way to supervisor. The best of luck to you sir, and all who sign up to work with you! :)
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- nero851 nero851 Aug 15, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
- Lost about at least $6000
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- WendyKrick WendyKrick Jul 15, 2008 @ 8:38 am
- I can relate to alot of this. With me, it was an upline convincing us to invest between $500 and $2000 monthly in wheel slots. There are so many people out there getting hurt and it's not just Herbalife either. You can read more about my experience here http://www.squidoo.com/mlmleadscam
Thanks for this lens. ~Wendy
Ebay is a 'Graveyard of Herbalife Distributors'
You can see on Ebay tons of folks trying to sell the $4000 of products they were duped into buying. Help them clear out their garages and enjoy the Herbalife products--which ARE actually very good--at clearance prices.
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