My grandfather is retired Navy after serving 30 year active duty, my grandmother is retired from a civil service position after serving the federal government also for 30 years. After retiring my grandmother got a full time job at a credit union in the accounting department although she could not physically continue to work a full time job so she quit and my grandfather got a full time job as an auditing accountant for the federal government. Money was tight and he did not bring home enough money to continue to support them so they sold their beautiful home, the home I grew up in, and moved to a small town home about half the size.
Money still being tight but manageable, my grandmother came across one of those disgusting "work-from-home" signs. She was sold/scammed instantly by the person on the other end (who was scammed by the person before them) and they sold my grandmother the best they could so that they could re-coup some of their losses. I tried to tell her it was a scam but I didn't have any proof. And why should she take my opinion as fact if I couldn't even find one home page or web site "outing" herbalife for what it was? So yes, she invested thinking she was saved, thinking they could supplement their income so they could live the average pre-retirement life style they had been living.
She invested the most she could invest, she became not just a distributor but a distributor - recruiter. She invested over three thousand dollars in fees, products, etc. Not including the "office" equipment she was required to have to run this "business" from home.
Now... months later, thousands of ugly flyers later, hundreds of hideous signs later, she has sold one Herbalife diet kit. To whom did she sell it to? Me. I bought it from her the day she got the products delivered to the house. I wanted to give her a head start and she wanted me to do before and after pics ( I only needed to lose about 10-15 pounds).
Don't even get me started on the diet itself. It is practically anorexia but anorexia is free. You could do the exact same thing with slim fast and metabolife or just skipping meals. But, this is very expensive and complicated so it makes you think it is really going to work. Sure, you will lose weight, but you DON'T EAT. If I couldn't afford to eat or lived in a country that didn't have food I wouldn't be fat either. As soon as you go off of the diet you gain it all back immediately and in most cases (I know of seven people who have done the diet and gotten the same results) they gained more weight back!!!
Anyway, the point of the story is my grandmother was scammed, the same as someone else's, grandparents, parent, sister, brother, wife, husband or cousin. And who is making all of this money and profiting from taking advantage of people? Feeding off of other human beings? Who's pocket is this money falling into? It has got to stop.
I would love for my grandma to get her money back but I don't think it will happen. She can't even auction off her product on ebay as it is so saturated by the other "suckers" trying to get their money back. But I want to put a stop to it at least. I would like for them to have to compensate the people that they manipulated and used but hey, that would be a bonus. So... I will end this with I am on your side... what can I do? What can we do? This has to stop.
Thanks, C. M.