You’re Going to Cause Me To File Bankruptcy
Mary Kay really works, but a recruiter is blaming her recruits for causing her to file bankruptcy. Does Mary Kay really work?
I find it ironic that the critics of Pink Truth say we shouldn’t blame any of our Mary Kay experiences on anyone else. That we were completely in control of everything, and if we believed all the lies we were told, too bad!
This email exchange shows a fully brainwashed Kaybot doing exactly that… blaming someone else for her problems.
Now, I don’t really care who this woman does or doesn’t blame for her problems in general. But I do have a problem with the guilt trip she is trying to lay on consultants to stop them from returning their products from Mary Kay. They’re “costing” her too much money! But I bet she didn’t mind when those commission checks were on their way in the door!
Witness this email exchange…
The consultant, writing to Pink Truth:
This is probably not the type of email you were expecting (it’s not hilarous training emails from my director) But it’s the sad few emails we wrote to each other. She actually stepped down from being a director a few months ago. From advice from PT friends I have cut off all contact with her. I understand that she is hurt and I pray that maybe she will find the truth. She already knows about PT so that is why I didn’t write her about it. Thanks for reading! If you have time that is! I am still healing, I had no idea she would be so agressive and it still hurts a lot, since she was my best friend here (it’s my husband’s hometown) I have no ther friends. but I know I will find a few! Thanks!
The email from consultant to recruiter (who lost directorship a couple of months before this email):
I know that you were saying that you guys were struggling financially, well, so are we. So after much turmoil and heartache, since I feel terrible that you will get chargebacks, I decided I would send last year’s product back, I wasn’t sure how much of it I had left, but it’s so significant it will help us out hugely. We had very little to our name the day I called the company to see how much we could send, and it worried me that we had so little in the bank. I had not paid back the company the couple hundred I still owed them from [my recruit’s] chargebacks. I was so relieved that we will now be okay! So I thought I’d let you know once I made my definit decision of what I would do. Thanks for being such a wonderful friend and for understanding our situation.
Recruiter’s email back:
I thought you couldn’t send product back once you had been in Mary Kay a full year??? Honestly [consultant], you are the third consultant to tell me this, this week alone. I can not afford all the chargebacks you guys are costing me, we are trying desparately to sell our house, but if we can’t, we may have to claim bankruptcy.
With your product sent back , it will add to owing in the thousands, can you not run a sale, hold some classes, and maybe think about a part time job? I definitely understand what it is like to be in a hard place financially, but this will devatate us, and I just want you to know the truth,
Consultant’s response to recruiter:
My husband and I prayed about it, and we realized that taking advantage of the 90% buyback guarantee from Mary Kay was in our family’s best interest. If it is so devastating it might be a good idea to possibly send your product back to the company too, that way you won’t have to pay for the chargebacks and you’ll get some money back. Also, I researched and found out that you won’t actually get chargebacks till april. You could probably recruit someone before then and if she gets inventory then the problem is solved!
Recruiter’s response:
Go for it, I would never send back my product. I love the discount I get personally, plus all I have to do is go hold a skin care class or run a sale.. l will owe thousands once you return product, so I guess I am going to have to hold lots of skin care classes just to pay the bills off. You are the third consultant telling me this week, and I can’t expect you to understand what it feels like really. [Husband] and I are finished crying over this though! I feel betrayed, honestly, and I would never ever ever do this to [upline] or [upline].
I will never recruit again, this has hurt me too badly, and I don’t ever want to deal with it again. I am continuing to sell because I enjoy making 50% for not putting much effort in. April huh? Only two months before the baby is born, what a great gift,
I hope life deals you many blessings.
Wow! Even a sarcastic wish about life “dealing” her “blessings.” Mary Kay is such a con game, full of manipulation like I have never, ever seen before. Things like this just take the cake.
Visit the
Her attempt to manipulate her recruit into not sending back product is insane. She is trying to guilt trip her into not quitting. The same thing was done to me when I left.
“Don’t send back your product and hurt me (just hurt your family by not sending it back)”
The saying is Family second, MK third, right?
She contradicts herself all over the place! If MK is such a great opportunity, a chargeback wouldn’t be such a big deal. The problem is that she won’t admit the 3 other chargebacks are a sign that something is WRONG. Then, she has the audacity to guilt someone who is in a bad financial situation to not cause greater insult to hers. Unbelievable!
When I witnessed one of my offspring having numerous chargebacks, I knew the clock was ticking for her, yet she wouldn’t admit it. I could see her numbers on my screen, yet she claimed everything was hunky dory. She, too, had so many that she OWED the company money and wasn’t paying it off. So, they just kept subtracting from her commission checks until it was paid off. Why didn’t they stop her right there and terminate her Director’s agreement?!
The hypocrisy of these people made my life hell. I doubted myself, constantly changed how I did things, all to no leap in my career. And then I see Directors still doing the same today as when I left!
The only reason you think you lose money on chargebacks is because you spent the commission money as fast as you received it. The truth is that you lose cash flow, but you don’t lose any money, because you pay no penalty. MK only takes back the commissions you no longer qualify for.
The problem is that MK eats you alive with expenses. Whatever you get from commissions or product sales, MK wants all of it. So you have production quotas, car co-pays, conferences, Seminar… all of it designed to keep your cash flow as low as possible, and put your earnings into their pocets.
In a real business you would have estimated the amount of product returns likely, then set aside money to cover the cost. But this Director never read the fine print; she actualy believed that once her recruits had been around for a year she could push them to buy inventory and not have to worry about chargebacks. Now how was it that this very common misundertanding was NOT covered during new Director training? How was it that this wasn’t covered in all those Director-only meetings at Leadership conference, at Seminar, at all the other events?
I’ll tell you one reason why it isn’t mentioned. It’s because MK doesn’t want its sales force to bank their cash when they could be spending it to “put in production” or attend more MK events (where they once again won’t mention this). MK actually WANTS the Directors to be desperate, because they’ll do whatever is necessary to make up the difference. And the fastest way to make up that difference is to recruit another victim and strong-arm her into making a big inventory purchase.
And so the company perpetuates itself. The sales force is expendable.
The ex-director part of me does have a little bit of sympathy for the SD. Ninety-nine percent of sales directors make next to nothing in Mary Kay, but it’s professional suicide to let anyone know about that. On the one hand, you have to put up a sparkly facade of success: “It’s so easy to make money in Mary Kay to make up for chargebacks! I’ll just have a few more classes!”
But in reality, chargebacks from three separate consultants could easily have the sales director actually owing money to Mary Kay for the next couple of months.
I had desperate months like that, but at least I recognized that a consultant had a right to send back product, and I really had no right to object. I tried to give those consultants ideas on how to move product instead of sending it back, but that’s about all I was able to do.
If you think being a Mary Kay consultant sucks, try being a Mary Kay director. It’s ten times worse.
Yes, being a Director is 10 times worse! Amen!!
Agreed. Ten Times worse and buried in denial that flips over to guilt.
“Sparkly facade” is about the best description of Mary Kay I’ve ever read.
The definitely teach the only first year thing. I asked my wife one time, and she said 90% buy back was only the first year. Later, after I mistakenly started down the “time to leave MK” road, she told me it was any product purchased in the last year. She had gone and checked so I couldn’t come back with the fact that she didn’t know her own rules, much less her SD training her with lies, or not knowing the rules, after 25 years in MKult. Her director is vile.
It’s hard to get rid of all the stuff that your SD stuck you with in that initial purchase and it’s past the one year buy-back (so many eye shadows, cheek color, makeup one ever wants even at huge discounts!)
can you not run a sale, hold some classes, You know .. if it worked, she’d have done it.
I love how this woman tries to get her recruit to take the loss so she doesn’t have to.
My SSD tried to guilt me into not sending product back by asking me if I thought about how it would effect my recruiter. I was the only person she ever recruited so she will only owe 4% of what I send back. Its pennies compared to what I have lost to this company. Then she tried to pull the “you’ll save so much money over time by getting 50% off your own cosmetics.” No, no I won’t. I will spend hundreds/thousands more than I need in the name of a discount. It turns out I actually don’t need 15 moisturizers and serums on my face at one time. You can find me in cosmetics aisle at Target where you’ll be looking for your next pink victim.
You can also get MK products at deep discounts on EBay if you want them.
::GASP:: the HORROR!
I see one of the “new” products MK just came out with is…wait for it…an eyelash curler! $12.00 retail.
I just went to eBay and found it for $5.00.
I still can’t get over their $24/month vitamin c squares. The mode of its use might be a trademark invention, but not the percentage of vitamin C or its pricing. Guess they think charging what they are will move them up to a higher end, more prstigious brand of cosmetics.
MK, you will never, ever be among the best brands. My skin finally calmed down and got normalized after I quit MK using TimeWise cold turkey. I never got compliments on my skin, but I get them all the time now.
I saw my few MK friends gush about this on Facebook when it came out. My jaw dropped – I can get the same thing at Big Lots in a pack of 30 for $1. Vitamin C, Collagen, Green Tea, etc.
Why is it that we all sat in the audience hearing this stuff and didn’t question it? When TimeWise, Visibly Fit, Day/Night Solution, etc came out, why did we not do our own industry research to see what our competitors had and what truly made ours different?
The same reason I felt like a cheating spouse when I snuck to a counter and bought all new skin care even before I sent my inventory back. I almost wore a wig I was so scared of being caught. How stupid!
And the foundations? The worst I’ve ever tried, including drug store brands. I hated them.
To be fair, the timewise foundation is the first I tried that really matched my skin. When it runs out though, Ill be taking a more active hunt to find a different brand for both foundation and skin care.
Im pretty much 1/2 step from pure white. I would buy the lightest one in a line and it would still be too dark LOL
I’m a year free from the Bubble and still working through the inventory I kept ^_^*
To be fair, the timewise foundation is the first I tried that really matched my skin. When it runs out though, Ill be taking a more active hunt to find a different brand for both foundation and skin care.
Im pretty much 1/2 step from pure white. I would buy the lightest one in a line and it would still be too dark LOL
I’m a year free from the Bubble and still working through the inventory I kept ^_^*
“I would never ever ever do this to [upline] or [upline].”
Really? Well, then, you’re foolish. Your up-lines don’t give a crap about you. They’re worried about their own mortgages and potential bankruptcies.
They can’t have it both ways…When they recruit you, they tell you about the 90% buyback in case MK is not for you…Then they tell you they feel betrayed when you use the buyback option…
The guilt trip that this woman is trying to inflict on her “friend” is disgusting.
No director should ever complain about the buyback option, ESPECIALLY if they used it as a hook to recruit you. Period.
It sounds like that’s how they run the business by having it both ways. They tell potential recruits that the business is easy b/c products sell themselves, make 50% on all sales, you can return inventory, part time work for full time pay, you don’t have to buy inventory, etc. but when the woman is in the business, they change their tune. Lazy losers quit, other expenses that eat away your profit, guilt trips and pressure to make more sales or not to return inventory, how hard selling the stuff and recruiting actually is (especially if you are prone to not lying to people).
I’m thankful that my SD didn’t do anything to try to manipulate me into staying. I sent her a message about my reasoning and she took it very well. She even thanked me for letting her know personally as opposed to finding out through the company.
Off the subject, but I found this site of
Top Selling CEO’s for 2017. I think most of them are MLM’s.
No. 57, so far, is David Holl, Mary Kay Cosmetics, with 9 votes.
https://www.businessforhome.org/2017/09/the-top-direct-selling-ceo-in-the-world-poll-2017/
You read too quickly and made an easy mistake with that site. It’s a mistake they want you to make. They aren’t the top CEOs in sales at all. They’re (supposedly) the top in DIRECT sales. And in the USA, direct sales is essentially synonymous with MLM.
If you go to the Direct Sales Association website and scroll through their member list you’ll see what I mean.
The article you found is just a bit of fluff, probably a fake news public relations piece with fake facts artfully layered together by the DSA. If you could look behind the fake facts you’d see estimated sales, ignored expenses, and uncounted chargebacks. Plus you’d see that those commissions are from lots of downline dustributors with unsold merchandise spilling out of their closets.
If you look at the criteria for “Top CEO” you will see there is NONE. It’s just a popularity vote. That’s it. Vote for who you like. No other criteria. Basically, whoever can whip up the most downline victims will win the popularity contest.
Also gotta love the picture of Warren Buffet to add that air of legitimacy to the pyramid industry. Warren Buffet is not the CEO of any of Berkshire Hathaway’s pyramid company holdings.
Let’s set the record straight:
Berkshire Hathaway owns The Scott Fetzer Co., which in turn owns Kirby Vacuum and World Book, Robert McBride is the CEO of The Scott Fetzer Co. Robert McBride is also listed as the CEO of Kirby Vacuum. Donald Keller is the President of World Book Inc.
Berkshire Hathaway owns Pampered Chef. Tracy Britt Cool is the CEO of Pampered Chef.
So, you see that neither Warren Buffet nor Berkshire Hathaway have any CEO’s directly involved in the Berkshire Hathaway pyramid holdings.
Just another pyramid lie. Lies are the only way the pyramids survive
After paying closer attention, the popularity contest lists Doris Christopher as CEO of Pampered Chef. Wrong.
Tracy Britt Cool is the CEO of Pampered Chef. Doris Christopher is the Founder of Pampered Chef, has served in the past as Chairman of the Board of Directors, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the DSA.
The whole industry is littered with lies, incompetence, and incestuous business relationships.
UGH…that website was slimy. I feel like I need a hot shower after briefly looking at it. Ewwwwww.
thanks for the corrections., . . . . . . . . interesting.