There is a special way that the game is played in Mary Kay. You can’t get to directorship without signing up family and friends (and then buying products in their names) to round out your numbers. That’s the mild end of cheating, and some don’t think it’s cheating at all.

On the other end of the cheating spectrum we have people like my former sales director Kelly who sign up women without their knowledge. When I happened to see the name of someone I knew in one of Kelly’s unit reports, she BEGGED me not to say anything to the woman. She said the woman didn’t want anyone to know she was in MK because they might bug her to buy products. (Yeah, so many people bugging consultants to get products because it’s so hard to find someone willing to sell them.)

But in some situations it gets worse. Women with basements or garages full of products they’ve purchased to maintain their status in the Mary Kay cult. Multiple “recruits” who have no idea they’ve been signed up as consultants. Here are some facts about a Mary Kay sales director (terminated years ago) that were sent to me by someone close to her, and this one takes the cake.

• 50 unit members, most had one of her addresses and her phone numbers or false phone numbers
• All unit members were active (Does that ever happen?)
• She has a house in one state, a friend’s house in another state (with a storage facility in that state too), and her current residence in a third state. She mailed products to a director’s house in another state as well, giving us 5 different addresses she used for products. When she signed up consultants, she used one of those addresses too.
• Her unit included many family members, including her son and ex- brother in law (who gave her permission to sign them up, but the brother in law never gave her permission to keep ordering under his name) and she also signed up her ex-husband who she was NOT on good terms with. She kept these members active and most of them became star consultants and she collected their prizes as well as the credits to collect prizes as their directors.
• She placed large orders under her consultants’ names and shipped the orders to one of her addresses.
• When I was in DIQ and she sent me an email that said I should purchase products from her and tell my teammates to purchase products from her as well. This was sent to Corporate because it is in violation of her agreement (not to buy products from anywhere except Mary Kay). Her excuse was that my team members were placing orders that were under $225 and not getting their discounts, which was not true. She also told her director that my director (who reported her) was jealous of her success and making a huge deal out of nothing because she felt bad about herself.
• Her brother in law reported to legal that she was illegally ordering product under his name and using his SSN to keep him active as a consultant and increase her commissions. He wanted to terminate his account. He also updated his consultant account with his real information. The next time she placed an order under his name they called him to verify that he had not placed the order. Later she changed his contact information to the number 999-999-9999.
• She filed bankruptcy, claiming that she only made $300 a month in Mary Kay. We have her income advisory statements that prove she received more than that in commissions and purchased about $20,000 wholesale of products. This same year she was constantly the #1 unit in her “future National Area.”
• Before her divorce was finalized she opened a credit card in her ex-husbands name and maxed it out ordering products. Then never paid it or included it in the bankruptcy.
• Whenever she was asked to speak on a conference call, she evaded questions and gave generalities on how she was doing so well. When she earned her Cadillac (which she bought, after she earned it her unit production went from $15K to $8K) she gave a call saying that she earned it by putting on her business cards “$10 gift certificate and free facial to anyone who calls.”
• She was terminated for breaking the agreement section that says that you can’t sell products at swap meets or farmer’s markets. We are about 95% sure it was Ebay because one of her unit members (her boyfriend’s daughter) was also terminated at the same time for the same thing. She called her director pleaded her innocence and said that one of her consultants had been selling on Ebay (despite being a personal use consultant) and that they were also getting her in trouble for what her consultant did. Then she said that people were jealous of her because she was crowned queen and wanted to take her down. If this were true, anytime a queen was crowned there would be calls to legal claiming they were doing something “illegal”.
• I overheard people talking about how the things she said didn’t add up. She claimed to have 1,000 customers and talked about how she turned down the Cadillac because she already had one. She turned down the Cadillac because she knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep up production and have to keep making payments on it.
• After getting her termination letter, she ordered $7200 in product. She also tried to place orders under 2 consultants. One wouldn’t go through; the other was under her son. When her son’s order wouldn’t go through she called corporate trying to place the order. They wouldn’t let her.
• When MK legal was looking into all of this, she placed an order in her brother -in-law’s name. Legal called to verify who placed the order, and it obviously wasn’t him. Then she got ballsy and made her ex a consultant. He contacted Mary Kay, told them what had happened and asked to be terminated. They said to sign a letter asking to be terminated and he did but they didn’t terminate him. We assumed it was because they were investigating her. They mentioned that they could check the IP address on the orders that were being placed. However, they still let her continue ordering under people’s names and ordering under her own name.