Complaint Review: Melaleuca - Idaho Falls Idaho

I understand that people get involved with companies sometimes under false pretenses presented by other people, however, that does not make the company guilty but rather the individuals who misrepresented the facts. I have been buying Melaleuca products for 18 years and absolutely love them. Overtime my organization has grown. When I first joined I worked with it for 3 years, then other things came up and I didn't give it much attention except to use the products. Having quality products delivered to my door all these years has been great. I don't have to go down the soap, personal care and vitamin sections at any store because I have my own store! My husband is highly allergic to most of those products and so we went green before being green was "cool". But I always knew I would get back to building Melaleuca because it was my retirement ace in the hole. With the economy suffering now, this type of business is the best way to counter inflation and loss of income. It is afterall, a home base BUSINESS not a get rich quick scheme. Even traditional businesses take years to become profitable and that is putting long hours daily and lots of money into building it. I never put lots of money or time in Melaleuca, though for 3 years I probably spent 10 -15 hours a week. And for that, I have received a check every month for 18 years, but now I'm ready to make that check even bigger. My downline has not gone away in all these years but it has grown. Most companies don't even survive themselves much less having downlines that survive 18 years. People who complain about this company just never bothered to find out for themselves what it is about. It's truly a great company. After having it sit for 15 years, I'm pulling it out to build it again, and it didn't go away. That is amazing. I put 7 people in last month and intend to do that every month from now on. When I reach retirement in 8 years. I will be able to retire at 10,000 per month which is what I always planned to do. Think about how many things can do that for you investing 10-15 hours a week and minimal amount of money.

*PLEASE READ* My comments have often been lost in all the comments and the issues have been confused. Hello My name is Ariana Reed. I have seen several posts with my name attached to Melaleuca. I since many posts have left that company and my LLC MomsWIN has been separated from them as well. Many complaints mention the following: I did not know I would get a monthly order I was mislead about costs None of these complaints are from people who actually spoke with me or personally worked with me. At the time I was affiliated with Melaleuca we held national calls that were live and often recorded. I set forth the guidelines and standards which were ethical and moral. MomsWIN was a service for a group of over 38,000 individuals whom I did not employ, govern, or hold a contract with. My own relationship was to service them with FREE tools to support their business. I for my own reasons left the company Melaleuca. I feel confident in my business and professional conduct. I would challenge anyone to call me or email me directly and make a judgment call. I am very open to answer any questions and handle any comments. Please separate MomsWIN from Melaleuca. Please do not assume because one member of Melaleuca who also used MomsWIN as a tool misrepresented the terms that everyone is bad. CHALLENGE FOR YOU Don't assume anything. See for yourself. Ask me yourself and put me to the test! Ariana Reed

Okay, I just have to say that I only order what I need... I don't have products around my house that I don't use. I do not buy leads. I don't know what your 'rep' told you but this is not necessary. I do not have a 'rep', I have my friend Erica that told me about the company and I gave it a try, thats it. I use Melaleuca products, I tell my friends and family about them, they use them. It is really that simple. Why would you make it complicated? It is not an MLM, If I decide to never tell anyone except you and then you turn around and tell everybody and their brother then you will make money, not me. I have no idea what kind of crazy bunch of people you know but I don't have anyone telling me to sell anything. I tell people about the company, they try it and that is it. Seems to me that you found some really bad people that were trying to make money off of you, not a company that wanted to scam you.

You wondered why people didn't want to tell the name of the company they were with. Well, on my team, we try not to mention the name of the company when getting the appointment to view a presentation but if asked, we say we are Melaleuca, the wellness company, have you heard of us? The reason I would rather not mention the name of the company is that most people will go directly to Melaleuca's website and start looking at products without knowing anything about them. They don't know what pc means and why there are 2 different products. They don't know that some of our products are concentrated and make 4 bottles for $5.24. They don't know that our dish detergent for the dishwasher equals 2 1/2 bottles of cascade or that you only use 1 oz of our Melapower. These are all things mentioned in the presentation. When people get a small amount of information on their own, they tend to make an uninformed decision to not be a customer. Most people's problems in getting new customers is that they say too much before giving the presentation. Anyone wanting to do this as a business should subscribe to the Best series training CDs so they will get the awesome training on how to do this right. As far as saying that Melaleuca pays like an MLM, that is just not right. MLMs pay down levels. That is where the comparison stops. MLMs pay different percentages on different levels. Melaleuca doesn't. They pay the same amount up to 7 levels. You also can't say that 650 customers equals $2,500. That isn't right because in Melaleuca, you get bonuses for your activity and the activity of those you enroll so there are many bonuses to be made, the company bonus pool shares for growth in your organization, matching bonuses, growth bonuses, etc. These are all indicative of a sales organization model. Also, in Melaleuca, the first 2 levels are only loyalty commission levels for people who haven't sponsored anyone even if they are above you. They never make money below that level. It isn't until you enroll 8 people and become director that you get your commissions doubled and full commissions down 7 generations. This is not like MLM. Melaleuca is also improving it's compensation plan in April to make it even easier to become a director and have all your products paid for and then some. The reason they don't want people to advertise themself as Melaleuca is because of legal reasons. They don't want people making false claims on the products or the pay plan or the company. In this way, they are protecting the future of their company. The last company I was with was damaged very much by someone who was a representative making false claims that cost the company much money and legal ramifications. I hope this answers some of your questions and the questions of those reading here.

First problem I had was that no one would tell me what the company name was until I agreed to get on an online presentation, not that it would have mattered to me because I had never heard of the company, was rather green behind the ears at the time, but evidently it was supposed to be top secret. Second problem I had was cold calling leads. If I was asked if it was an MLM, I was supposed to say 'no, it is direct to the consumer'. This is a half truth. Buying as a customer is direct from the company, being a business builder - the pay plan is multi-level and there is no other term you can call it but MLM - multi-level marketing. I don't believe in half lies. There is nothing wrong with Multi-level marketing as long as everyone has a fair chance at making a reasonable income from their efforts. why these people feel like they have to tell half truths is still beyond my comprehension. Third problem I had with Melaleuca is that VanderSloot (whatever his name is) refuses to allow the reps to advertised on the internet. which is a bit ridiculous when people have to order on line. but 'no' you can't promote the company name online, so teams have to come up with names like M4NP and T2S, which seems very deceptive to me. After buying leads for 6 months, buying product, making cold calls, which I was not allowed to do on my own but had to wait until another team member was available to help and they always canceled out, with a script that sounded so ridiculous I would not have wanted to listen it. I made $4.90 after getting one person signed up as a business builder. As far as getting customers - every time I mentioned Melaleuca, people ran the other direction. It was only after I left the company that I discovered it would take 650 customers to make $2500 a month. now you can break that down further if you want. actually I think it calculated out to about $3.86 per customer buying over 75 bp per month. which is still better than that free - mypowermall, but still not enough to waste your time on in my opinion. not compared to other companies.

Wow! I have been reading the reports about the MOM Team, Stayin' Home and Lovin' it, Moms WIN, Four Points Moms. I, too, work with Melaleuca although not with any of those teams. I am appalled with the things that have been said but I do know that SOME of what these teams do is true. I know this is true because I have some great people on my personal team that came from a couple of these teams and left because of some of the alleged "hype" and such that you talk about. They say they received no help either and didn't like the "backstabbing and arguing". My team does not give any hype or pressure. We are not taught the underhanded, "any warm body" mentality talked about here. I am so glad to have found the team I did. They have always taken the high road and operate with the utmost in integrity. No backstabbing. No arguing. Nothing like that. I credit that to the person who got our team started. She has always maintained a high ethical standard and required it of the whole team - no exceptions. So, in my opinion, Melaleuca is a great company and everything I was ever told by people on my team over the past 2 1/2 years I found to be true. For example, I have enrolled people from day one as 75 point customer because we are up front about that increase at Director. I have had a customer recently who purchased a Career Pack the first month and a Value Pack the next and joined as a 75 point customer so she could get her 15% in Advantage Dollars. I never told her to do that. I just told her about the packs and that she had the next three months to decide if she wanted one or not. No pressure. We let our customers decide what is best for them. I have even helped people set up their Select Pack so if they receive it, they get what they want. They understand how that works before they enroll. I have never been charged anything wrongly nor has anyone on my team. I was not "shooting for the moon" when I got started because this team was very upfront about what hard work really was and the reality of free advertising. We never tell people that they can get to Director doing only free ads. In fact, we are told that if you want free ads to do anything at all you have to place at least 30 - 40 ads per day, every day. Those leads are icing on the cake, not a way to build your business. I have many people who work their warm market when they do not want to purchase leads and I help them do that. I had a 5 year plan to get to Senior Director because that was the amount of time I had to devote to my business. It will up to me to reach that, not Melaleuca or my team. Things seem to be going well ahead of schedule for me on that one which is amazing to me! I work on average about 25 hours a week for 3 solid weeks a month and about 10 hours the last week of the month. I have had customers quit over the last couple of years, but I am still moving forward and my check is growing -- ahead of schedule even. When my enroller had some serious financial problems to deal with and had to quit soon after my enrollment, all I had to do was go up above her and what I found were three leaders who couldn't wait to help me. I have even helped people who are not in my line in either direction who were orphaned. My team is very much into helping others. All you have to do is ask. Whenever I needed help with training new business builders (because I had so many I couldn't keep up), I asked another team leader if she could help and ever since she has been there every step of the way. And, some of the people I asked her to help me with are not in her 7 generations. She wasn't getting anything financially in return. If I have a new builder who needs help on a call at the last minute and I cannot do it, all we have to do is send out an email to the whole team and someone will step up and be there to do the talking for that new person. I have had to send out these emails from time to time and I have also helped other people with their builders. I also have done the research behind the products and still do. I have been impressed with what I have been finding. I will NEVER go back to the store brands and not because of what I've heard from within Melaleuca, but because of the research I have done outside the company! I have also seen the health benefits in my own family. My team is very much product focused and making sure the business is a good fit for those we talk to. We have literally told some people on appointment setting calls that it sounded like they were looking for a job, not a business and therefore, Melaleuca would not be for them. It is so unfortunate that everyone here seems to have gotten involved with people and teams who may be unethical, however, just because those teams may have unscrupulous people does not mean Melaleuca is "bad" or other teams are "bad". I did not see my team listed here with any bad reviews. Home based businesses are not for everyone. You really have to do your research before getting involved. Melaleuca is the best out there and that is coming from a person, me, who had tried Mary Kay and Quixtar in the past and hated them. Hated everything about them. I know the MLM structure very well, with all the pitfalls. I was even around when AL Williams was touting term life insurance as an investment vehicle. That was a pyramid and one I did not get involved with. Melaleuca is different. Very different. I am reaching my goals and I love the team I work with. With Melaleuca, finding the right team (and individual) to work with makes all the difference for success, once you find out if you are right for a home based business to begin with.