pyramid schemes:
 

Well I have an older sister who has a dentist that is trying to have come on a "new" company that sells vitamin drinks or something like that.

She stated MONABI. she spelled it out like that. I could not find anything online about it.

I told her not to get in on these things because before that some guy was trying to sell her something from a company ACN. a new "upcoming' company that deals with communications.

What are your pros and cons of this type of business style?

I am new to this, but in my own eyes, when reading the basic function of this on wikipedia, it didn't sit well with me. just the way it rubbed me felt wrong ethicially.

They told her it the new business would open up in Mexico, and she saw this as a good thing since she can tax write off her trips to mexico since we have family there, and we want to buy some retirement land there.

any thoughts?

pyramid schemes work if you're a really good, really motivated sales person who has no issues with annoying every single person they know to buy crap from them.

If she can sell it for a commission or on a salary basis without having to buy an entire inventory first, and get's an established client list to go with it, I would say give it a try.

Failing that I would say stay far away.

What makes you think this is a pyramid scheme and not just people looking for investors/employees? Is this multi-level marketing?

well i wikipedia'ed ACN, and it stated it was a multi-level marketing, but the pyramid scheme and this were almost hand in hand. just worded differently i guess. I was not too sure about it, that is why I was asking if anyone had any word on this since my search online failed to bring in any results.

The real money in a MLM business is not made selling product. It's made mostly by recruiting others to sell under you and if you're well established enough, by holding seminars and releasing motivational books and recordings.

I think it's a slimy business when there's a diconnect between the product and the revenue. An important question to ask then is: Would you buy the product yourself if you saw it in a store and not had it pushed on you by a desperate family member praying on your fealty?

Also, are the prices inline with a competing retail brand? If there are name brand versions out their that are priced better and the only difference the MLM offers is bundling or subscriptions, forget it.

There are a couple of MLM businesses out there such as Pampered Chef and Mary Kay that have decent products but again, you can find similar products at stores without attending high pressure sales "parties".

Derwood is correct in that to make one of these work, you have to be a truly driven salesperson who can push products on people who don't really *need* what you're selling.

Odds are that the market for whatever you'd be selling is flooded anyways. Just search ebay for Herbalife products and you'll see how many people are desperately trying to unload their inventory; the inventory they bought from the person who recruited them.

I once ran sound for an Amway rally. It was chilling.

I have an old high school friend on Facebook whos every status update revolves around a pitch for the vitamins/health racket that she's been sucked into.

I vote for STAY AWAY!

I vote stay away too.

Yeah, another "stay away" vote.

To quickly sidebar: I was once interviewed by a pyramid scheme group...they found my resume on Monster, asked me in for an interview, and made me sit through some presentation on their company. I got a bad vibe, and didn't take the job. A few months later, the local news tried to investigate, and the company's representative punched an investigative reporter in the face for asking questions. True story.

Yeah, my mother-in-law has some kind of business: many of her "programs" and associates will try to sell you products while making you sell them to your friends as well.
Right now, she's selling high-priced blenders, small trampolines, herbal products, enzymes, and more junk. I'd say that it sometimes seems like shady business.

We lost a friendship to ACN. Every single time she would try to sell us phone subscriptions and such. We just had to shut her out :(

Years ago my brother get sucked into selling Amway. He was all starry eyed about 'all the money he could make', but quickly came to realise that everyone he knew was avoiding him. On this alone I'd vote for stay away as well.

As the saying goes "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". These kind of things sound too good to be true, mostly because they are!