 Throughout my time on YouTube and on my channel, I've talked a lot about MLM companies and the dangers of various MLM companies, but the one thing that I've never discussed that I've been holding on to in my noggin is the time that I was scammed by an MLM rep. I was holding on to this story, planning on making a video about it, but not really sure because I don't have a ton of receipts since it happened years ago, but then the craziest thing happened. The Instagram gods gifted me something I never expected. About a few weeks ago when I was scrolling on my Instagram feed just out of pure boredom, I happened to stumble upon a sponsored post from the very MLM rep that scammed me, who I never followed on Instagram, so that whole thing is just creepy in itself. So this rep is still out there doing exactly what they did to me and now making Instagram advertisements to recruit more people, I guess, but the way that this rep targeted me and targets other people is just a whole new level of weird and predatory and really not at all what you'd expect. So I thought today in this video, I would talk about it and spread awareness about this particular way that you can get scammed by an MLM rep. Before we get into it though, make sure you're subscribed with a little bell thing, I guess. Interact with this video to boost it into the YouTube algorithm if you want to. And thank you so much to Function of Beauty for sponsoring this video. I've personally struggled with my skin a lot throughout the year. I have very finicky and sensitive skin and whenever my skin is clear, people always ask me what did you do to clear your skin or get rid of your acne? And my answer is always the same. 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So let's talk about the MLM rep that scammed me like four years ago, though it might not be in the way that you think. I want to say that this was back in 2017 and to set the stage at the time I was working as a personal trainer and just really unhappy with my job situation. I had an extremely toxic boss who just yelled at employees relentlessly, yelled at employees. I loved the clients at this gym and loved training, but the business itself was super shady and there was a lot of unethical things going on that I didn't agree with like breaking the law and continuing to charge clients after they already left the gym. Things like that that made me really uncomfortable. And I was like, I don't want to work here anymore. So I went on to a ton of different job searching websites to try and find another gym and other personal training job that was open. And there were very few at the time and just a lot of job competition. So it was really hard to find another personal training job. I ended up coming across a job listing for a small gym located in a warehouse that was in need of personal trainers. I really liked working at small gyms because I just liked that atmosphere. It felt more personal, not as intimidating for a lot of clients. And so I liked that the ad itself looked super legit too. There was a ton of high quality photos of the gym. They had photos of the staff members. So you know, it looked like a well run gym and there was a well written job description. So overall everything about the job looked legit. And I felt like I had no reason at the time to question it. There were no red flags, alarm bells, none of that. So I applied. No, the gym owner replied really quickly to my job application, which at the time I should have seen as a red flag because I had already known that there was just so much competition out there. So many personal trainers applying to a ton of different jobs. So the fact that this dude was able to respond almost immediately to my job application should have been concerning to me. But anyways, the gym owner asks if I want to, I think like the very next day, join a workout class that they had in the gym and then do an interview right after the workout class. And I was like, yeah, sounds normal. Sure. And didn't really think much of it, except for holy crap, I can't wait to get another job outside of the job I already have with this really toxic boss that was like all I was thinking at the time I wasn't thinking is this a scam. So the next day rolls around. I get there super early as I almost always do with my interviews. And when I arrived as I was waiting for the class to start, they had me fill out like my name, my email, my phone number. And it wasn't just like one of those when you do a workout class at a gym and they have you like sign a disclosure. It was like they asked for all this information and they asked for who referred me to this gym, which was weird to me because I was like, don't you already have my phone number and my email and all that info? And no one referred me. I'm just responding to a job application. So that was a little weird to me. Then the gym owner comes out and I meet him for the first time. He's this typical Southern California looking dude, kind of surfer looking dude with an Australian accent and just over the top nice and smiling. You know, my gosh, I'm so glad you're here, which was weird to me because usually when you go into a gym to do an interview, it's just kind of professional like, Hey, how's it going? Tell me about your work experience. So that was like kind of odd. But I was like, Oh, this is nice. This could be a good environment. And then the gym owner says before we do the workout, we need to have one of the fizzy sticks that this gym sells. And he gave me a fizzy stick. So you already know where this is going. And if you don't know what a fizzy stick is, it's like one of those supplements that you tear off and pour in water and it's supposed to this one's supposed to be like a pre workout energy type of thing. But at the time, I was still 18. Super young didn't know much about MLMs. Someone tried to recruit me into an MLM before. So I knew MLMs were bad that I didn't want to be a part of an MLM. But I didn't know about all the different companies that were MLMs and all of that. So when I saw the Herbalife logo on the fizzy stick, I didn't know to run. I didn't know that the gym I was interviewing for was actually an Herbalife health club. So then we go into the workout and the workout itself like was meh. It was like this CrossFit circuit, which some people love. Some people don't love. It just depends on what you like. And there is a mix of people there. I think there was actually like 15 people that were at the class and some had come because they were interested in the gym and they wanted to work out. And then others came because they were personal trainers or interviewing to be a personal trainer, which also should have been a red flag. Like why do you have six different people here who are all interviewing to be a personal trainer at this gym? It's literally a gym in a warehouse. Do you need that many new people and why? Like that should have been something I was asking. But once again, so desperate to have a job so badly wanting to leave my toxic job. I was just like ignoring all the red flags that were hitting me in the face. So after the workout, we come back into the gym because we were like running around the warehouse doing laps and all that kind of stuff. And suddenly a TV is set up and turned on with like an opening of a slideshow. And one of the trainers is off to the side making smoothies. So everyone is handed a smoothie and told to find a chair to sit down for the presentation. Not an interview, not an interview, but we were all going to sit down for a presentation. And the people that were sitting down for the presentation was everyone who was in the class. It wasn't just people who were interviewing to be a personal trainer, but also people who had come to the gym because they wanted to work out and get healthier. So all of us were directed to sit down. And that's when in my gut, I was like, yeah, this is not an interview. If people who wanted to just join the gym are being sat down for a presentation. Yeah, this is not not an interview. So the gym owner comes in and starts his pitch by talking about how his girlfriend recruited him 10 years ago and how she's a millionaire and retired and lives in a beach house and living her best life. Isn't it funny how it's always someone that this person knows it's always someone that MLM rep knows who's a millionaire. It's never them. It's always like the person that recruited them or someone they know closely. So it's believable, but not easily disproved. He also goes on to talk about how he's run a ton of different urban life clubs like this one through creating a fake gym, a fake job opportunity and recruiting people who are desperately looking for a job or who are looking for a legit gym to help them on their fitness journey. All of the already existing trainers of this gym are just sitting in the back wall watching the presentation to hovering over us, which was also weird. If you have a legit job, you would be busy doing your job. But one of these trainers who I now know is actually one of the urban life reps in the gym apparently has a real estate job and is doing this on this side, but he made it sound like, oh, but he's almost successful enough at this to where he can start doing this instead of his real estate job, which I remember at the time, just in my head, I was like, no, he's not. Like I just knew like he is not making enough money to leave his real estate job and felt really bad for him because I was like, what are you doing here, dude? Like what are you doing? This is all just embarrassing. The owner then went into the urban life products and how great all the products are and the ingredients are just magical ingredients. You know, the typical health MLM stuff that we always hear. And of course, these products can help someone in the audience who's dealing with some sort of chronic condition, that whole spiel. And this went on for an hour and a half, an hour and a half long presentation. And at that point, I was just so pissed. I was so ready to be done. I was so mad that my time had been wasted. So after that hour and a half long pitch, all of the reps who were standing on the sidelines came around asking each and every person whether or not they wanted to be an urban life rep and to sign up immediately to be this rep. Whether you were going into this whole situation, thinking that you were having a job interview to be a personal trainer, imagine walking in there thinking you have a job interview to be a personal trainer and then having someone try and recruit you into urban life to be a distributor or imagine walking in there thinking that you're going to join a new gym, turn your life around, focus on your health, get help from personal trainers in a legit gym. And then all of a sudden someone's trying to sell you urban life and get you to be an urban life rep. It's so gross and predatory and just, it angers me to this day because it's really preying on people who want legitimate help or who want a legitimate opportunity. And they had it worked out like a systematic scheme all disguised as something legitimate when it's completely not. So when one of the reps came around to me asking me if I wanted to sign up, I had some sort of excuse like I had to think about it and I have another job and I don't know, I'll think about it. But at this point, I knew it was an MLM and I knew that I did not want to be involved in an MLM and I was just pissed. After that day, I just remember the owner, the surfer guy contacting me relentlessly, like 10 text messages a day relentlessly, which to me was like, okay, you must be desperate. If you're texting me that much, if you're spending that much time on me when I'm clearly not interested in this job, no, it doesn't even qualify as that. Like you're clearly desperate and in need. So this is clearly not working. So I was just honest at one point and I was just like, honestly, I think this is a scam. I feel like my time is wasted. I'm not interested at all. And he just went off on me via text and once again continued to text me about how much of a great opportunity this is and how I'm missing out and his girlfriend's a multimillionaire and I could be like that too. And so I just blocked him and I was done and just took the wasted time as it is and moved on. And this entire incident has escaped my mind for the most part. I was planning on talking about it at some point. I was thinking of maybe adding it into a dedicated video on Herbalife, but something happened that changed that the thing that happened recently is one of those things where it's like, what are the odds? It's been like four years since all of that went down. And I was just randomly scrolling through Instagram one day on my Insta feed and out of nowhere I get this fitness ad and I see someone holding an Herbalife shake. And at first I'm interested because I'm like someone holding an Herbalife shake and sponsoring a post on Instagram about Herbalife. That's interesting. I haven't seen that in a while. Took a screenshot thinking I would save it for like a dedicated video on Herbalife. Then I realized the person holding the shake looks kind of like a Southern California surfer dude. And then I look closer and I realize it's the exact rep that scammed me four years ago. He's still doing it and now he's using Instagram to peddle his products and his whole scheme. And he's still doing it in an extremely shady way. So let's take a look at the Instagram of the rep that scammed me. His profile says entrepreneur, interesting. And it says health and lifestyle coach, which I know for a fact he has no certifications in, at least at the time he did not. Then it says look and feel phenomenal workout and stretching videos free wellness profile. Click the link then start my profile. So when you read wellness profile, you think, okay, this is a health and lifestyle coach. I can create a wellness profile. This could help me, but it's legit the exact same thing as when he had the ads about being a personal trainer or joining a gym. It's the same thing. Except for now he's promoting it through Instagram as this wellness coach, just so that he can get people roped in and try and recruit them into herbal life. The website is not the best put together, but you'll see immediately right at the top it asks have wellness goals, take the wellness profile survey to get wellness recommendations tailored for you. It's quick and easy. What are the wellness recommendations? What do you think the wellness recommendations are? Hmm, let's call just right down below his herbal life products, the F one combo product combos, best sellers, the protein drink mix, featured products, herbal life, rebuild strength, vanilla ice cream. So once again, he's praying on people who are looking for wellness help and a wellness coach or a health and lifestyle coach, which are such ambiguous words that you don't have to say, like if you say fitness coach or fitness trainer, you could get in trouble because you're not a certified personal trainer, but just saying wellness coach can mean anything for the most part to my knowledge. So on the site, it also has a section called business opportunity, but you have to create an herbal life account first under learn. It doesn't have any information on this guy and whether he's certified, what he's certified in any of that. It just tells you how to make a shake using boosts, meal plans and recipes. If you want to contact someone at the bottom, it just says contact distributor. If you look at his page, it's very intentionally made to look like any other Southern California fitness influencer, personal trainer type of profile, except you'll see occasionally sprinkled in him holding an herbal life product, drinking an herbal life product, but the majority of the page is structured to look innocent. It's structured to look like a legit coach, like a legit trainer. And it concerns me how many people he's possibly roped in by making himself look legit, just to push out herbal life products to them. And the fact that four years later, this is still going on. This same dude is doing this is mind blowing to me. And I knew I needed to make a dedicated video about this because wow, it also makes me sad because I wonder how well all of this is even working for him. The fact that he's been doing this for 14 years and he's gone above and beyond the average rep instead of just messaging people, cold messages on Facebook, he's literally creating entire fake gyms and fake personalities of being up some sort of fitness coach to wrote people into herbal life. And it's still taking him 14 years to retire. And funny enough, at the initial meeting, he told me and all the other traders that he's only a year away from being able to retire and being a millionaire. It's really sad because it just goes to show how many scams are being hidden in plain sight and how many things are carefully crafted to look so legit when in reality they're not. If you've had a similar story to this, let me know. I am so curious of other people have had stories like this where MLM reps just create entire fake companies or entire fake personas to sell their product. Because yeah, that's an aspect I haven't heard too much about, but I'm sure there's a lot out there. But yeah, that's the end of this story. Is this a story time? That's cringy. If you guys don't know, I've been feeling fairly sick lately. I'm doing okay, everything's fine. But I haven't had a ton of energy to do a lot of research into stuff. So I wanted to mix it up and do a fun story time so I can still put out content for you guys. And yeah, I hope you liked it. Shout out to all my Patreon members up on the screen. Thank you guys so much for supporting the channel. If you want to support the channel, my Patreon link is in the description. We have three different tiers so that anyone can join. And my merch is also right below this video. And I'll catch you guys in the next one.