Boing!Boing! pointed to this long article by a person in Sacramento that starts out being about ugly signs offering a work-at-home scam and ends up being about Herbalife.
After college, my first job was working for a hospital laundry. The laundry had very little handle on its inventory and bought a half-assed system to try to keep better track of it. The whole system was a disaster, and it was my job to get it to work.
I had to work regularly with the manager of the linen facility at a hospital, and this guy was one of those goofballs who it is extremely difficult to fathom how he ever rose to the management level. The guy was a schemer with lots of ideas and wacky business ideas and not a whole lot of brains or persistence to actually follow through.
One of the things he constantly pestered me about was Herbalife. He was constantly telling me about all the weight he was losing as well as trying to get me involved with the MLM scam/scheme. I thought it was inappropriate, but that pretty much summed my view of everything this guy did.
Finally, though, I just wanted to get him to shut up so I agreed to go to his little MLM meeting. If you’ve never been to one of these things, they are really fascinating (but if you’re going to go, do like I do and make sure you don’t bring any form of money with you — I had like five dollars in my pocket, and that was probably to much around these folks).
The entire evening was half revival meeting and half the most manipulative sales pitch you’ll likely experience. The whole idea is basically a scam — there is no way in hell the people like the laundry manager are ever going to get rich. On the other hand, though, the very tiny number of people who are able to convince their friends and complete strangers to throw their money into this are like the sharks of the sales world — there’s nobody better nor more vicious.
The leader of this event looked like a 45-year-old Tom Cruise who was doing too much Herbalife. He was thin to the point of bordering on gaunt. He looked a little bit like a world class long distance runner, except from his skin complexion it was obvious he was probably following a drastic diet to keep his weight low to impress the people he was pitching.
And the guy was slick. Too slick. Con man slick. Michael Douglas in Wall Street slick. He gave some very spirited talk about all the money he had made, the vacations he had taken, the cars he owned, etc., etc. Then, of course, when he’s done he announces some special offer just for newcomers like myself. For something approaching $1,000 we can get $1,500 worth of merchandise to sell, and they start with the nonsensical litany of uplines and downlines or whatever the terminology was.
The cool thing about not having any money with you is you can let the full effect of this hit you. It’s interesting just how easily some people can use your fears and hopes to manipulate you. I could see why people would find this sort of pitch attractive, even though you’d have to be insane to say yes and put up your money.
The sad thing was that while the laundry manager is pulling out all the stops trying to convince me (and, of course, I have to make my decision right now), it’s pretty clear that the big guy is manipulating him. The laundry manager wasn’t a bad salesman but he never was very convincing — and fell hook, line and sinker for the big guy’s pep talks about what a great salesman he was and how determination and drive could make him rich.
Finally, after listening to the pitch several times and refusing several times the meeting is over and I am out of there. Walking out feels like you’ve been trapped in a cave underground for a year and are finally being allowed to see the light of day.
And, of course, I drive straight to the library because now I’m very curious. Of course, this was the early 1990s and by then Herbalife had already had run-ins with various legal authorities over illegal and dangerous ingredients in its products, tax problems by its founder, and all sorts of other issues. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
The next day I have to drive out to the hospital, and while I’m there hand this guy a manila folder asking him if he’s aware of the previous investigations of Herbalife, not to mention all the crap that is in these supplements he’s popping because Herbalife tells him they’re all natural and they’re cleansing his body.
And the color completely leaves his face. For an instant he has this look that is just priceless. This guys’s spent thousands of dollars of his money, persuaded family and friends to get involved, and he hasn’t even done even a cursory investigation of Herbalife. He’s screwed.
But he recovers pretty quickly. He’s hooked. I could have just shown him pictures of his wife with the big guy and he’d still be convinced that Herbalife is going to make him rich. I explain to him that even if I wanted to take Herbalife — which I most certainly do not — I could not because the products were chock full of ephedrine (although, consistent with its business practices, Herbalife never listed ephedrine in the ingredients list).
At which point he turns to me, very sincerely — he’s not trying to insult me at all, he clearly feels sorry for me — and asks, “So you’re just going to have to stay fat?” Which is when it hits me that this guy is totally dominated by his own fears. Fear of being fat, fear of not having enough money, fear of not being as successful as other people, and he’s the perfect sucker for this scam.
I have no idea whatever happened to him. A couple months, later I couldn’t take that job anymore and quit. A couple years later I partially mastered my own weight problems and dropped 50 pounds (and I’ve kept it off) without having to throw hundreds of dollars after unhealthy supplements (it’s amazing what giving up fast food and exercising once in a while will do).
Mark Hughes, who started Herbalife in the early 1980s, was not so lucky. He was found dead in August 2000 in the $27 million mansion that he had bought by suckering people. The 44-year-old apparently had all the money he could ever want but couldn’t kick his alcoholism. He died after a four-day-long binge of drinking alcohol in combination with anti-depressants.