I recently heard about a skin care product called a "Galvanic Spa". I looked it up on the internet and found the company Nu Skin. The Galvanic Spa is a handheld unit that you use on your face or body to make skin care product penetrate into the skin more effectively. I am a Licensed Esthetician and I have a professional one that I use in my work. I thought a personal unit was an interesting concept. I sent an email to the company asking them if they sell these units wholesale to estheticians. The response I received (via phone call) was from a Nu Skin "distributor". Nu skin is an MLM company. He started telling me about how I could make a lot of money by marketing Nu Skin and since I am an esthetician, this piqued my interest. He explained to me that in order to get started, I should purchase the "business builder package" for $1400.00.
I was instructed that I would received 3 galvanic spa units and 2 ageLOC sets. The ageLOC set is the skin care product you are supposed to use with the galvanic spa. He also explained that if I worked the business for 30 days and was not satisfied, I could return the package for a 90% refund. I was also instructed to "call in" to a certain number every morning to attend a seminar coming up that Saturday and to be available on Tuesdays to call in to another phone number. Unfortunately, I purchased the business builder package before I examined this business carefully. I was also told to go to another website and purchase 2 manuals for $25.00 each, and was advised to purchase $200.00 worth of product from Nu Skin. I received my package 3 days later.
After I received my package, I had more questions about the sales of these units. As a licensed esthetician, any client of mine that is unsatisfied with a product gets a full refund from me and I in turn get a full refund from the company I purchased my product from. Estheticians deal in what are called "locked lines". Meaning, these skin care products are only sold to estheticians. The esthetician purchases the product wholesale from the company, then adds on a 50% mark up, which is retailed to the customer. My questions to my "up-line" were concerning the refund policy of these units. This woman could not thoroughly explain how a person who had purchased a unit from me could get their money back if they did not like it. She told me that she didn't carry "inventory". I asked her what that meant. She told me that the only time she "carried inventory" was when she purchased "her business builder package". I said to her that being in the business for a year, that she should by now understand the company's refund policy.
However, she could not explain it to me and told me to "just call the company". Major red flags here. The next day, I received a phone call from some man regarding this matter. He could not answer my questions either, but tried to belittle me with phrases like "you're just not meant to be a part of this business" and other demeaning things. "** skippy", I replied. I'm not meant to be part of any organization which uses manipulation as a way of getting people to spend a large sum of money. The charge to my credit card was $1,625.00. The original distributor who called me neglected to tell me about the taxes and surcharges. How convenient for them.
I am now returning this business builder package, unopened, but I will only receive 90% refund. That means that I've lost, without ever having tried this unit or the company's products $162.50. This company tries to get their distributors to market this BBP to people. The up-line says that $1,625.00 is a "low point of entry", meaning that it is cheap to get started in this business. I'm supposed to try to get my family and friends to purchase this same kit. I don't know about other people but with this economy, my friends and family don't have that kind of cash. I was told I needed to create a family (my down-line, the people I try to ripoff).
The original person I spoke with told me there are only 500 distributors, however, I found out there are thousands worldwide. These people are worse than Amway now "Quick Star" since so many people have such a negative reaction to the word Amway. At least, Amway only charged $150.00 to be a distributor. I will never be involved in this kind of thing again. Do people make money doing this? Yes, some do. The ones that are good at sales. These people do well in any area of sales. The people who are not good at sales don't make squat. Just spend, spend, spend, trying to be as good as their up-lines, until in frustration they finally give up. I would like to start a class action law suit against this company and the way they conduct business.
