Showing posts with label USANA scam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USANA scam. Show all posts

Monday, August 14, 2017

China crackdown on MLM pyramid schemes may have a serious impact on USANA's bottom line

China released the following statement today, which sent MLM stocks tumbling. Let me also remind you that mainland China accounted for 47% of USANA's net sales last quarter: http://www.saic.gov.cn/zw/wjfb/lhfw/201708/t20170814_268363.html

Below is a Google Translation of the statement:

General Administration of Industry and Commerce Ministry of Education Ministry of Public Security Human Resources and Social Security Department
On the "recruitment, introduction of work" in the name of pyramid selling activities in the special rectification work notice
Business Competition [ 2017 ] No. 139
(Administration), Public Security Bureau, Human Resources and Social Security Bureau: the Ministry of Education, the People's Republic of China, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Education,
Recently, MLM activities are rampant, the use of various channels and means to lure the people involved in the case of misplaced pyramid schemes, serious damage to the people's lives and property, causing widespread concern in the community. In order to standardize the order of the market economy, maintain social harmony and stability, and further crack down on pyramid selling activities, the four departments decided to carry out a special three months (August 15 - November 15) pyramid schemes special rectification action. The relevant matters are hereby notified as follows:
First, the guiding ideology
Pyramid schemes directly endanger the market economic order and social harmony and stability, to fully understand the importance of combating MLM work in accordance with the law, especially against the "recruitment, introduction work" in the name of pyramid selling illegal acts related to the vital interests of the people, Social harmony and stability of the overall situation, the peaceful construction of China and a comprehensive well-off society, to ensure that people live and work in peace, social stability and orderly, national long-term stability is of great significance.
Second, focus on work
(A) crack down, according to the law to prevent pyramid schemes. We will strengthen the investigation and clean-up of the key areas of the pyramid selling area, and make clear the prevention and control of the aggregation-type pyramid schemes, and make comprehensive and repeated inventory and improve the prevention and control measures. We will resolutely investigate and deal with a number of MLM organizations and trade leads. On the name of "business, employment," under the guise of "recruitment" "to introduce the work" in the name of lure job seekers to participate in various types of pyramid schemes, and resolutely eradicated.
(B) to strengthen the focus on the recruitment platform for the investigation, compaction platform enterprises responsibility. Seriously deal with businesses, organizations and individuals that disseminate information.
(C) to strengthen the publicity and education of the people. Focus on doing a good job of college students and job groups to guide the work of education, to enhance the sense of prevention of pyramid schemes.
Third, the schedule
The first stage (August 15 - August 31), the departments should be based on the duties of the recruitment process in the alleged pyramid schemes for Mo Pai, supervise the self-examination and self-examination.
The second stage (September 1 - October 31), to carry out centralized remediation activities. To a comprehensive analysis of the field of personnel in the area gathered in the area of ​​pyramid schemes activities, crack down on the name of "business, employment," under the guise of "recruitment" "introduction work" in the name of fraud in school students to participate in pyramid schemes, Organization; focus on investigating and investigating students to participate in MLM major cases, the case, severely punish the organizers and key elements, destroy the MLM network; investigate and deal with direct marketing enterprises in violation of the recruitment of students behavior; strict norms online and offline employment information business, Seriously deal with the spread of information on the site, severely punish false advertising; strengthen the rental housing management.
The third stage (November 1 - November 15), in a timely manner to carry out special work on the promotion of marketing activities to sum up, and establish a sound long-term mechanism.
Fourth, safeguard measures
(A) to strengthen leadership. Under the unified leadership of all levels of party committees and governments, we will establish and improve the consultation system of inter-departmental pyramid selling information exchange, and all departments should work together to form a crackdown on pyramid schemes.
(2) duty-free. Industry and commerce and market supervision departments should strictly investigate and deal with cases of pyramid schemes, strengthen the prevention of pyramid selling propaganda, including college students, including job seekers away from MLM, refused to MLM capacity. Social and social departments to strictly regulate the recruitment of business operations, investigate and deal with the relevant violations; to enhance the students and other special job seekers in the job search process of the ability to identify and prevent awareness. Education departments should increase the employment guidance of students in school education, prevention of pyramid schemes, to assist industry and commerce and market supervision departments, the public security departments to do the students to persuade and persuade. The public security departments to increase the use of recruitment activities for pyramid selling criminal acts of crackdown, quick detection break fast key cases.
(C) strengthen publicity. All localities should firmly grasp the guidance of public opinion, make full use of news media and other promotional resources, issued warning tips, anti-MLM public service advertising, published typical cases, exposing the nature of criminal activities, the usual means and serious harm; coordination platform and network media, Timely propaganda work to get rich, educate people to establish a correct concept of enrichment; propaganda to combat the results, to improve the legal concept of the masses and to prevent the masses of the people, awareness.
State Administration for Industry and Commerce
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Public Security
Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security
August 10, 2017

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

USANA Second Quarter 2014 Earnings - Questions USANA Should Answer To Investors and Their Associates

USANA Health Sciences released their 2014 second quarter financial results. I would like to point out a few observations.

- USANA claims to now restrict associates purchases to within the country they reside. I believe this is in light of the fact they have had thousands possibly hundreds of thousands of USANA associates counted in their Hong Kong market that actually live in mainland China. This circumvents China's ban on multilevel marketing. USANA allowed all of these members to sign up in USANA's MLM using the SAME Hong Kong address (even though they actually lived in the mainland). Since USANA instructed these members to use a phoney address from Hong Kong, USANA knew this was wrong and violated foreign laws. Only a rat would construct such a circumvention.

I would love for a stock analyst to ask during the conference call "How many USANA associates switched to become Babycare associates?"


- USANA's Greater China sales declined year over year by $3.3 million. However, their active associates increased by 22,000 (102,000 to 125,000). This does not jive with historical patterns since there is a very direct correlation between the sales figure and the number of associates. So how is it that there is a 21% increase in the number of active associates yet a 4% decline in sales in the Greater China region? I have two theories!

Theory 1) 
Hong Kong USANA associates have decreased while mainland China Babycare associates have increased and I believe a USANA associate spends a lot more money upfront to activate their business center(s). USANA associates participating in the MLM pyramid scheme have incentives to purchase excess product (Professional Starter Kit costs $1250) in order to partake in many gimmicks that they are led to believe will help their chances of succeeding (Platinum Pace Setter, Matching Bonus, Contests, etc...). This is all based on the fact that upline associates will get commissions from their downline's spending spree.

Babycare associates do not have downlines and do not collect any commission from the personal product purchases made by fellow Babycare associates. So there is no incentive to spend a lot of product that they aren't going to sell anyway.

Theory 2)
Assuming USANA is making all Hong Kong associates who actually live in mainland China switch over to Babycare, USANA may have actually counted the same individual twice! Once for Hong Kong and once for Babycare.

I would love for a stock analyst to ask during the conference call "Did you switch Hong Kong associates over to Babycare associates and did you 'accidentally' count the same person twice? I ask this because it doesn't make sense that you have a 21% increase in active associates yet experience a 4% decline in sales."

And for the sake of the world, disclose the number of Babycare associates! The sales from that market represents more than 10% of overall sales. Therefore you should be required to disclose the number of associates you have in that market.

Lastly, I would like USANA to disclose a couple very simple numbers:
1. Number of active Babycare associates
2. Amount of commission paid to Babycare associates
3. Percentage of product purchased by Babycare associates that was retailed to the general public


Friday, June 13, 2014

USANA's 2 Star Diamond Director Aaron Dinh Quits USANA and Joins Nerium International

USANA Million Dollar Club Member
USANA's 2-star diamond director Aaron Dinh quits and joins Nerium International instead, another multilevel marketing pyramid scheme. Aaron was also a member of USANA's prestigious million dollar club. Why would someone at the top of the distributor hierarchy need to quit and start over with a similar scheme? I've sent Aaron a message asking for his comment and have not received any reply.

Thought this was note worthy since USANA would like people to believe in residual income. Well, when your downline drops out, you have no more income.

October 22, 2012: Aaron Dinh's Lamborghini

Sunday, May 25, 2014

USANA Training Material Teaches Its Distributors Not To Defend Their Position Against Negative Information

USANA provides their distributors with the following training material explaining how to deal with negative information about USANA. Here is a quick USANA review of an important piece of training material.

HOW TO DEAL WITH NEGATIVE MATERIAL ONLINE

Here's a few quotes from USANA:
- If it is negative, you need to ignore it
- Do not defend your position
- Do not view it again
- Do not leave a comment
- Do not rate positive OR negative
- Do not link to it
- DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT
- USANA is working to fix the problem
- Ignore negative information
- If approached, encourage others not to talk about it
- Report negative or false information to your market office
- DO NOT VIEW NEGATIVE MATERIAL AGAIN
- DO NOT COMMENT, RATE, VOTE OR LEAVE MESSAGES ON NEGATIVE POST
- DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT UNLESS IT IS BROUGHT UP TO YOU
Do not defend your position? This is because USANA cannot defend their position. I think this is important for people who are considering joining the distributorship to see USANA's training material before they waste thousands of dollars on a pyramid scheme that can't defend their position.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Former Herbalife Distributor Testimonials Represent The Bottom 99% of Distributors in All MLM Opportunities Including USANA

I strongly urge anyone considering to join USANA or any other multi-level marketing (MLM) company with intentions of making money watch the very compelling testimonials from Herbalife distributors who have lost thousands of dollars trying to achieve their dream. All MLM companies operate on the same principles and all have failure rates close to 99% of participants. The stories you will hear about in this video have been issues I have covered on this blog for many years.

http://www.factsaboutherbalife.com/former-herbalife-distributors-in-their-own-words/


I welcome your stories on this blog as well. If you feel you have been swindled, please explain why and how much money you have lost in the endeavor. Explain whether you returned product for a refund and if not, why. If you disagree with this testimonial or the notion that MLMs like USANA are pyramid schemes, explain why.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

USANA 2013 third quarter earnings prediction by the USANAWatchDog

October 22, 2013: USANA Health Sciences, Inc (USNA) will be releasing their 2013 third quarter earnings statement after the market closes.

Here's the USANAWatchDog prediction:
- Record net sales

- United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea,  active associates flat.

- Lite associate participation in the newest market Columbia and nothing to brag about.

- Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia associate participation slightly up.

- Double digit percentage growth in the Philippines, possibly around 40% year over year.

- Mainland China growth for Babycare up substantially and possibly accounting for a third of their total net sales.
 - Preferred Customer growth FLAT or decline.


There may be some discussion about new product ideas or even services such as DNA or Genetic testing (possibly as a way to insinuate that their products can help with certain diseases if you can show that there are signs of it from a DNA scan). During their 2013 annual convention several months ago, several hundred associates were surveyed with questions asking about genetic testing. These associates were given special bracelets as a result, which quickly became a rush by associates to find and take this "random" survey...

I don't think they will have any additional information regarding the SEC investigation regarding the insider trading. May probably won't even acknowledge the various investigations that several firms have initiated as a result of the SEC investigation.

There will be no doubt the usual - we are working with US associate leaders to find ways to recruit more associates, as if monthly recruiting contests aren't enough... Same old same old.


Things USANA won't have disclosed in this earnings statement or conference call that follows are the following:
- 99% of USANA associates make no profit
 
- The majority of USANA associates are restricted from retailing any product to the general public even though they are required to purchase over $100 worth of product every 4 weeks. This is forced inventory loading and a major red flag for being a pyramid scheme.

- These same associates that are restricted from retailing product are only allowed to enroll preferred customers into their downline. They must have at least 5 of these preferred customers to be allowed to collect commission as part of the lip service USANA provides to regulators. However, this rule is unchecked and unenforced.

- Around 80% of new associates quit within the first year.

- USANA has recruited over 1.5 million associates since 1992.

- The number of USANA associates that share the same home address. There are several associate Genealogy Reports that show the same home address in Hong Kong was used by thousands of mainland Chinese Nationals, which breaks the laws in China. Since USANA allows an infinite number of associates to share the same home address when they enroll, it becomes very easy to manipulate the associate growth for any given market of USANA's. You want US growth up - have 10,000 Chinese Nationals sign up using addresses from the United States.

- Active Associate numbers for the individual markets of United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Columbia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, MAINLAND CHINA, Philippines, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand. Since USANA groups their markets into regions, there is no way to compare historical financial data to today's.

- Percentage or amount of distributor incentives paid out to each leadership ranking.

 I believe USANA is conducting a product-based pyramid scheme that has financially harmed over 1 million people worldwide who have signed up with the intent to make money after being prospected using deceptive and misleading information.