Pink Truth and Mary Kay on ABC’s 20/20
Tune in to 20/20 on ABC on Friday October 2 for a story on the truth behind Mary Kay’s multi-level marketing “opportunity.” MLM is not a business opportunity, it’s a clever scam that has been made to look like a business. Host Rebecca Jarvis takes a look at long-time multi-level predator Mary Kay Cosmetics. Those on the side of MLM say you can make “unlimited” money on your own terms, while those who are on the opposite side have found that 99% of distributors actually lose money.
Four long-time Pink Truth members were interviewed at length for they story. They were all sales directors, and therefore part of the “top 2% of Mary Kay.” These women are part of the Mary Kay Cosmetics success story. Or are they? The truth is that the majority of the sales directors are barely making a minimum wage living, while some of them are actually losing money.
This story digs into the Mary Kay con that has been crafted and refined for over 50 years. Please take the time to watch this story. And if you have any friends or family involved in multi-level marketing, please encourage them to watch too.
Visit the
Fantastic. I will be traveling but I hope I can catch it online.
I am so excited for this!!!!
Well done, Tracy!!!! We know you were behind this!
Awesome!
Ah HAH!! No wonder things were so “quiet” for awhile…big things were in the works. Can’t wait.
Be sure to share this exciting news with all the kaybots! They’d better be wearing their big-girl panties.
yay!
Can’t wait
Whoohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ill be there, thanks for the heads:-p!
When are we going to see Kaybots commenting on this article. I am patiently waiting to hear what they have to say….
Just set the DVR! Can’t wait to see this!
I AM SO BEYOND EXCITED TO HEAR THIS!!!!!!!!!!!
It wasn’t just me. You will see 4 very brave Pink Truth members reveal their true identities in order to expose MK. That is so much more important. We don’t know exactly how the story is going to be told, but we are hoping for the best. WE are hoping that many more eyes will be opened to the true predatory scam that MK runs. I have dreamed about a story like this for a long time… something to give an even bigger voice to what we are doing here… and FINALLY!
In fact… my screen time will be very limited, and that’s the way I wanted it. The story is not about me. 🙂
No matter what. You are the only reason why many PT-ers are here
Truthfully everyone has no idea what your talking about! Just cause it don’t work for you, don’t mean it don’t work for everyone!!!!!
Actually, everyone DOES know what I’m talking about. That’s why this site has been around for more than 9 years and has had tens of millions of visitors! 🙂
Yeah but those visited are just groupies. No one really cares what you say about Mary Kay or MLM. Everyone has their own opinion but Noone will get into heaven after they die starting a world of controversy and dragging down companies. You use the excuse to help people become aware. Lier! It is only petsonal gain for you!! It is a shame you hate so much and spend all your time on this. Honestly you should be more worried about what happens after you take your last breath. Haters don’t get to Heaven. It is Hot Down in Hell!!!
No, Sue, they’re not groupies. And apparently people DO care, or the story wouldn’t have been on 20/20.
Thanks for your hateful comments. Revealing the truth about companies and their unethical practices is not “dragging down”… unless of course the truth is so bad.
There is not personal gain for me here. I have spent countless hours and thousands of dollars providing this site as a public service. And no, I don’t spend all my time on this. I have a thriving business that I run, and this is simply a hobby that I do in my spare time.
Thanks again for visiting! We’ll pray for you. I wonder what God thinks about you saying such hateful things and damning people to hell.
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much”. Poor Sue is really showing us the “love”.
Romans 12:9 “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good,”
Paul says hate what is evil. Sue says haters don’t go to heaven, yet her post sounded awfully hateful towards us. I guess it depends on your definition of “evil”.
Palm 31:6 “I hate those who cling to worthless idols; as for me, I trust in the Lord.”
Nuff said…
Awesome. I thought about contacting our local news station’s “call for action team,” but figured the reporters would interview current consultants and report the lies as truth. I hope 20/20 exposes the deception!
I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect that 20/20 will include “enriching women” comments from Corp and from Kaybots showing off “free” pink caddies and rags to riches “I stories.”
Yep. You can expect the “company line”. And why wouldn’t you? They have millions of dollars at stake. So they will show the happy prosperous nationals and the happy Directors, who can’t for one moment believe that ANYone would have fallen into debt—-unless, of course, they didn’t, “work their business”.
We all know the blame shift that is used to render us speechless. Of course no one is ever there to report on the “words of wisdom” that are told, in the wee hours, on the phone, from a director to a DIQ, who, heartbroken, can not justify yet ANOTHER order to…”make it happen”.
No one ever records, ” Find a way or make a way..”
It leaves the agonizing DIQ in that spot between failure and success…A leader…or… an “also ran”…a momentum initiator or, Debby Downer. And so what does she choose? And her SD delivers the iconic words…” The Speed of the Leader is the speed of the gang.”
I’m so excited about this!!! I spoke for quite some time today with the reporter doing the show and provided many pictures!!!
I have encouraged many of my ex-unit members to come here and see the truth aNd my hope is that by doing this NO ONE else will have to go through the degrading and awful truth of what an MLM is!!!!
Awesome job! I will try and catch it online. Keep up the good work!
all I can say is Woo Hoo! Good job ladies… may the truth be spoken and heard! 🙂
Yeah, congratulations to all got getting the word to a national platform on TV. I have my DVR set for both episodes. ?
So glad to see this happening!!
Tracy, thank you so much for starting PinkTruth! I shudder to think of how much worse things would be for me and countless others if you hadn’t taken the bold step towards shedding light on this predatory company! Everyone on PT, thank you, thank you, thank you for taking a stand! We are making a difference!
Wonderful!
And … if you have a Twitter or FaceBook account, SHARE it, TWEET it, and especially post links to all the pages and accounts of the victims.
I sent this to my Facebook page, having said that, I’m hoping 20/20 really exposes in great detail how horrible this company is and not descend into this “balance” reporting BS news shows are notorious for doing. They need to just tell the truth. What I’m hoping to see are hard facts, earnings vs. losses, reported bankruptcys, the fraud and ghost consultants that make up the “team” as well as the make believe lifestyle that is shown to the world, while living privately in quiet desperation and financial ruin. I hoping to see that they make a clear distinction between what MK refers to as the number one company in sales as opposed to the number 1 company that uses its consultants as their end users who ultimately have to resort to disposing their highly turned overed product on to craigslist, garage sales and ebay.
I spoke with one of the producers and gave her the “Million Dollar Message” number with access code. The messages sound great if you are wrapped up in Pink, but if you’re not they are down right scary and predatory.
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! I’d love to see a Canadian news show do a series on Mary Kay/other MLMs as well. Even though we have disclosure about what people make in MLMs, the companies still paint a wonderful picture. They’re still cultish. I’ll try to get the 20/20 show somehow, although I don’t have cable at my house and often American news shows don’t stream up here.
It will be available online at ABC News 20/20
Sweet! I set my DVR. : )
20/20’s web site is showing something different for tonight. Did they move us?
It’s complicated.
Can you let us know when the rescheduled date is? I can’t wait to see this.
The piece is airing tonight. It is shorter than we were led to believe, but I have my fingers crossed that it still gets out the right message!
Will there still be a Part 2 next week?
Nope, it was sliced down to a 15 minute segment, end of story.
Not sure whose side they came down on. Certainly glossed over the insidious aspects. Can’t believe top directors have no idea how much they make.
Girl from corporate used to be Head Counsel in the Legal Dept. An attorney. Who else would they have put up in an argument against the company? And her whole “People aren’t perfect…they make mistakes…” Spoken just like a lawyer!
I am really proud of the 4 women who came forward and told their stories. I really think the point to the story was made and showed the predatory practice of MK.
It breaks my heart that amazing, educated, successful women gave up their careers to get fleeced by other women. The MK reps pretend to know nothing about what is really happening to millions of women in their company today. They looked like airheads. There is no denying the garage full of inventory with a shrug of the shoulders and feigning disbelief.
I personally track the MK private jet ( the tail number is public information) on Flight Aware, and you would be horrified to watch that jet fly from Dallas, TX to Aspen, Colorado, to Cabo San Lucas, and back again for 2 or 3 day trips every weekend. It is disgusting to see such a blatant waste of money on the backs of these innocent women.
This company will fall one day. The truth has come out.
What’s the tail number?
Mary Kay Jet Tail Number is N913MK . The Dallas Mavericks rented the plane from the Mary Kay corporation 4 years ago. That was the last year The Mavs rented the plane from the Mary Kay corp. My husband and I, and another couple along with about 10 other people flew down to Houston, Texas to watch the Mavs play the Rockets. We won a contest. It was a beautiful plane. It was really plush, nice flight crew, really impressive. It sits out at Addison Airport. I remember about 2 years ago or so, I stopped watching the flight path because it flew into Teterboro, NJ airport and was there for a couple of months. I wasn’t sure if it had been sold, or maybe was in for maintenance or flew over to Europe. Private jets can fly into East Coast airports and then they will disappear off of the tracking radar because they do not have to submit plans when they fly into Europe. Yes, this plane is that big that it can fly overseas. It takes a lot of money to fund a plane of that size.
I typed in the tail number before I posted it here and it has now been listed as “private” and untraceable. Now, I am really mad I never screen shot the routes. I literally used to check in every week and just watch that plane fly from Addison ( Dallas) , to Aspen, Colorado spend maybe 1 to 2 hours sometimes a day, then fly to Cabo, Mexico, for 1 night maybe 2, then back to Aspen, spend 45 minutes, and then back to Dallas. One time it made 3 or 4 trips in one day, back and forth to Aspen, Co. around the holidays. It was like they would just be dropping people off or picking a person up, then back again. The fuel bill alone on a plane like that is about $35,000 to fill it up and you might get 6,000 or 7,000 miles out of it.
I just read the “Not So Pretty in Pink” from D Magazine and it outlines Richard R. Rogers love of flying between his homes in Dallas, Aspen and Cabo on a regular basis when he was semi-retired back in 1991. It seems he went right back to his old ways after he took back the company, and regained control.
You know, really, that is where the story needs to go. Start delving into the fact that any one of the corporate executives have never even sold a lipstick to another woman in their own home.
No one is promoted from within.
They only take.
Plane owned by an LLC, but they didn’t file the serial numbers off.
http://www.corporationwiki.com/Texas/Addison/gr-aircraft-acquisition-llc/39001620.aspx
I’m seeing a pattern here: Make an LLC for many of the subsidiary services, then hire them (at higher than market rate) to do things for you and what you pay goes right into the pockets of the shareholders of the LLC.
When you have top-performing ladies (Cadillac Directors) avoiding and/or unable to answer basic business questions, it’s the only thing people need to know to be sure they don’t want to be a part of it. I personally tracked my net income every year. Some years were good when we were doing $25,000+ production a month, but some, while still in a Cadillac, were awful at $9,000 for the year. In all my years as a Director, I only ever heard 1 National teach proper business management. All the others avoided it, too.
It’s also pathetic that corporate parades their car program around, but they don’t think it’s bad ethics to not prorate the co-pay plan. If a Cadillac Director does half her quarterly production, she has to pay more than half of the payment. In fact, she has to pay the whole amount of $900 a month even though she brought them more than half the value of that payment.
The end is near, Consultants and Directors reading this. I’ve not regretted a day since I resigned. It honestly brings me joy to see those blanks stares of those 3 Cadillac drivers and the awful quality of the events they’re still hosting to try to get new Consultants. BestDecision I made!
That was pathetic!! My husband looked at me and laughed….way to dance around the questions! And she’s more interested in “planning her day” and “people”….no no. You’re not making any money…and you’re extremely ditzy. Exposed. It’s embarrassing…glad I wised up!
Last night, between 11:00 and 11:30 pm, right after 20/20 ended, I tried to look at the Pink Truth website. I tried. But I couldn’t!
I had absolutely no trouble looking at any other website, so I know my internet connection wasn’t to blame.
The only reason I can imagine is that Pink Truth was being overloaded by women wanting to check us out. So it seems you brave ladies DID have an impact, perhaps bigger than you realize.
I’m sure glad that Tracy upgraded the website recently. And I hope everyone who couldn’t get into Pink Truth last night comes back over the next few days.
It crashed with the traffic! Great problem! (probably not so great for Tracy but golly whiz)
Don’t know if this is right forum for My Story “An Oldie but a Goodie”; but things were just about the same in yesteryear!
I’m so glad watched 20/20, and found Pink Truth. Why I stayed up half the night reading so many posts my eyes went blurry; it took me back to my days being in MK; —- my story of my “pink hobby”‘. Ya’ see back iin the day of late 1970’s-thru Fall of 1983 I was in MK AND excited to be under the adopted unit of that golden NSD Pat Fortenberry. Also, I loved the product. ———————– At my first MK show that consultant slapped some of that thar’ DayRadiance on my face,; — it was totally the wrong color for my skin but I looked better than I’d ever looked before! So I booked a show. — At the end of the two weeks when date soon approached to be holding my show, my recruiter Ann recruited me into MK with a StarConsultant order of $1800.00! I was excited!. After all, this was going to be much easier than my current job of selling real estate, which I stunk at. Ann had also left behind her job at the realty company; so if it was good for her, it must be good for me?! And besides I was going to get free training. ——— I booked five show with my “friends,”? and I was surprised when every single show cancelled! — there I was– staring $1800.00 worth of inventory in the face! Of which I’d told my very supportive husband It’d be easy for me to sell; ————————————- Thus, began my process of booking by “warm chatter, i.e. cold turkey!”
Over the years I found out that making 50% really was incorrect, as I had to pay, outofpocket, for all the supplies for my facials & shows. It was expensive to be in MK; but back then hubby and I could “afford” my “pink hobby.;” and after all, I was having fun, fun, fun, even tho’ spinning my wheels. Naturally, we attended my first seminar where we sat in the back top row and gushed at all the hoopla, cheering, and MK’s entrance, getting caught up in it all!
The years passed; Pat F. assured me that the only difference between me and her & my earning those big $$ checks was ” time;” — “Gee, this is going to be easy,” I thought; ” all I have to do is wait for time to pass and I’ll be making big money! ” I didn’t realize you have to work, work, WORK, be persistent, and self-disciplined !, Never knew that only 1% of gals made the big bucks!——–I so bought into the MK dream; I’d get so hyped-up at those MK Mon. night rah, rah meetings, I couldn’t sleep at night! —– Soon I was “faking it until I making it,” and became a TeamLeader and eventually a FutureDirector; – I was better at recruiting than selling; but made little $$. I wasn’t the best saleslady, although I attended COUNTLESS meetings, debuts, two seminars plus buying every motivational MK tape & listening all the time! –
When my recruiter debuted as director , I was surprised to be her Unit’s Queen & received all 4 awards; I done’ figured: “If I’m her Queen , her unit is in trouble, big time! ” Once when we dragged one husband to a debut, – at the end he pronounced us ” a mutual admiration society!” Oh we tisked, tisked him, cause, after all, we were” special” women sporting all our ribbons and bumblebees, Ladder of success, etc., on our red jackets & suits!
Pretty soon, I slid fr. a Future Director back to a Team Leader, and my enthusiasm started to wane. — In Fall 1983 my husband’s job was transferred to a small town out of state, and our move ended my MK career, . . . .. . .career? what career?. – It wasn’t for me, and I felt somehow I’d failed. – Just didn’t have the enthusiasm to go out and shake the bushes anymore to sell or recruit.
I will admit that MK helped my self-esteem, and my being able to speak in front of 6 women; although I certainly WAS NOT and never was a TRAINED skin care specialist. – what training? — It was embarrassing when I didn’t have even one show for my new recruits to observe. – Well, I am too old now and would never be able to afford my ” pink hobby” now; —- several yrs. back when my brother mentioned I should go back into MK, I looked at them like are you crazy?!
some advice: Don’t ever put your MK career before your family. I regrettably sacrificed going to watch my father get a lifetime achievement award in his profession just so I could attend the future Team Leader’s class which Pat F. told me I couldn’t miss even one day! Well, my beloved father dropped dead about 3 weeks later. — Also I had some unkind thoughts & words with my sister, whom I recruited into MK, when she decided to return her $500.00 inventory. Just about ruined our relationship; – I was so caught-up in MK, couldn’t understand why she’d do that! —
many years back there wasn’t an eBay or an internet; — ——-now I see MK is on Project Runway Show ! In those old years, we consultants didn’t have that kind of exposure. ———- And imagine, us trying to put brush onto a person’s eyelid plus SELL that old eyeshadow you had to mix with water!
Wish we’d had a website like PinkTruth back then.
TO summarize : . . . “oh once there was a spot, . . . . for one brief shiny moment, . . .for happily-ever-aftering that was known as Cam-e-lot!” — or was there?! ( I’m a writer now) –
I was away and missed this 20/20 interview. Is there a web site where I can watch it?