The Truth About Herbalife.
Rich provides his commentary, personal views, gripes and 'at-a-boys.
"Should I encounter a moment of clarity, I hope to have it recorded in these journals."
31May2003 Our Herbalife experience ends with the sale of the domain www.katsherbs.com to someone interested in selling web traffic to would-be Herbalife distributors. Seems the work we did getting traffic to the site produced a Google Page Ranking of 6 for the www.katsherbs.com/herbalife section - good for us.
So we are moving our current content of Vitamin Power and Shopping over to our other domain www.katsvitaminherbs.com and hope to do at least 1/2 as well getting traffic to our new sites www./katsvitaminherbs.com/index.php and www.birrs.net/shopping/index.htm
Must reading for anyone considering getting involved with Herbalife!
Rob Cockerham's Investigative Report tells the whole story!
We certainly wish we had read Rob's report before becoming a distributor and spending both our time and money. His report is a great piece of journalism - in depth look at how Herbalife plans to pick your pocket and why the odds of your success as a distributor are stacked against you!
23March2003 Did some maintenance on this page to remove 'dead' links. We continue to get residual traffic to our former Herbalife web pages (www.katsherbs.com/herbalife/index.htm) and interesting comments.
27 October 2002 We have discontinued selling Herbalife from our web site. After receiving Herbalife's objections to our using their NAME and/or product names (e.g. Formula 1, Protein Bar) in the page name, we decided this was the last straw. Our sales have always been pathetic and we are sick of Herbalife's inadequate return policy (if we order it - we are STUCK with it). The changes Herbalife insists on (via telephone) will ruin our search engine placement and change the 'look and feel' of our marketing effort.
We think it is ironic that they insist on substituting the word 'Herbalife' in our url with 'HerbalifeIndendentDistributor'. Seems to us that this is DIRECT supervision and would establish and employee/employer relationship! So much for 'independent'. It it not clear that even this change would satisfy Herbalife, since their telephone contact will not go into specific changes - just general requirements. They only gave us 3 days to respond to their demands (14 October 2002) in writing but our written reply still goes unanswered.
ENOUGH!
Now there is a public message board in place of the product pages. So far, some Herbalife distributors have posted messages saying how much they love Herbalife.
10 March 2002. Well . . . good news. After some serious letter writing and phone call, Herbalife made good on its 'support' and replaced the products from the return IBP we talked about below.
20 February 2002. Herbalife
sales just plod along! I've got 10,000 visitors per month and lucky to
sell 2 or 3 items. So much for the $32,000/month profits they convinced
Kathy she would be making for wearing their stupid button and using the
products.
Distributors BEWARE! Herbalife International will take every opportunity to weasel out of standing behind their products. If you ever have a customer return merchandise for a refund (and this happens more often than you might think) be aware that YOU will be the one stuck in the middle. First, they stick YOU with stocking inventory. YOU are required to give the customer their money back. But Herbalife won't give YOU a refund. Best Herbalife will do is ship you replacement products. But make sure you have every 't' crossed and every 'i' dotted because you can't just send them a copy of the order you placed with them or reference their order number.
Gee, I wonder how many distributors let this shit flow downhill to the end customer.
Here's an excerpt of the form letter from Herbalife's Returns Department:
We have not received the Customer Request for Refund Form, or the information contained on it is incomplete.
We have not received a copy of the original Herbalife Retail Order Form. (ITEM #5001). [RCB this is the one that rejected us since we don't use this inadequate form for phone orders]
We have not received the product container(s). Please note that the individual unit wrappers are not acceptable. We require the box that the individual units are packaged in.
Your replacement product request exceeds the thirty (30) day time frame allowed to obtain a replacement.
01 December 2001. If you are thinking about buying into a MLM scheme, mlmvictim@juno.com sends along these links for you to check out.
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/mlmsurvivorsclub
http://www.rickross.com/groups/herbalife.html (3/22/03 revised link)
http://www.rickross.com/groups/newest_way.html (3/22/03 revised)
mlmvictim@juno.com says "I know there are quite a few people out there who have had the same experience and I am trying to find some of those people to communicate with." Why not send your comments?
27Sep01 It's taken this long to actually find and upload my ramblings and already have a P.S. - I've now lost 23 pounds.
21Aug01 Opening Entry. I'm updating the site today so guess I can't procrastinate any longer. Here is my previously written blurb - assuming I can still find it.
This is a difficult review to begin. Kat and I have an active WEB site from which we are trying to market these products. And the basic idea of a MLM (Multi Level Marketing) scheme is to sell distributorships and supervisorships to others, thus creating your 'downline'.
The promise we are told to make to these folks (and the promise that was made to Kat) is 'these products sell themselves . . . we'll stand behind you ever step of the way with the training and support you need'.
I'm grateful that Kat didn't buy into the 'supervisor' program up front - for only $2900 you get a bundle of distributor packages to sell and, if I read the latest email correctly, some names (leads) of folks interested in starting their own biz. Then we can 'train' them on starting their own downline.
Well, just exactly can I train them on? Obviously, I haven't learned how to market any of the product! Just what is the product anyway? Wait! What do you mean, "what's the product", Rich? Any one can see the nice catalog, glossy pictures of weight loss programs, herbal dietary supplement and cosmetic products!
When Kat first started out, since I would not agree to loading up the credit cards for a 'supervisor' package, she was 'trained' in a marketing program. The idea was to follow a formula of making 'contacts' through distributing a certain number of flyers, advertising and putting up signs claiming "I lost 40 pounds in 40 days! Ask me how!". Then there is a telephone service to sign up for to get all your incoming calls - from your marketing efforts - and more 'training'. Mr. Anthony Powell will teach you his 'Newest Way to Wealth!'.
Before I go any further, I need to say something about the . . . (what shall I call them?) . . . the SECONDARY products? PSEUDO products? - the stuff in the catalog, the protein powder, herbal supplements, etc. Actually, they are pretty good - high quality, well formulated and yes, they actually work.. But this isn't the REAL product! This is not how to make money and is not the Newest Way to Wealth! In fact, we are now told, from Kat's 'upline', we are wasting our time trying to market the 'products'.
Ever heard the expression 'sell the sizzle'? I think this is at the center of the MLM business plan. The real product IS the sizzle! It's the Newest Way to Wealth, the work at home, be your own boss, rollin' in dough American dream! And if you buy into the program, naturally you have to take to products in order to be able to SELL the products. So . . . "we will do our retailing through our marketing". And our distributors and supervisors will buy enough 'product' to keep us legal - HEY! - we are not just a chain letter here, we have stuff we actually ship out of our warehouse!
Well, I've rambled long enough for my 'opening entry' and think there is enough here to digest in one sitting. If you are looking into Herbalife or another MLM, do yourself a favor . . . keep your money safe in your wallet!
If you want to lose some weight - great, try the 'products', they are pretty good and available at www.katsherbs.com. If you like them, for a few bucks you can buy a permanent discount by becoming a 'distributor'.
As to Herbalife the COMPANY, it's marketing and business
practices, I give my AW, SHIT! Award.
Look for more info on TouchPhone, Volume Points, Anthony Powell's Newest Way to Wealth and other scams in the next issue.
In the mean time, Kat & I will keep www.katsherbs.com - maybe we can learn on our own to market the stuff in the catalog. We are continuing to learn about doing business on the WEB and that in itself is incentive to continue. Our plan is to expand into additional product lines as time allows.