Federal Trade Commission Information on Multi-Level Marketing

The FTC has some good resources and information about Multi-Level Marketing. Read its tips and don’t get scammed!

• The Bottom Line About Multi-Level Marketing Plans
• Operation Empty Promises

Here’s a comment from a reader about filing a complaint with the FTC:

I have read several comments where the FTC was mentioned and this business opportunity being reported to them. By just doing a quick search and digging through the FTC website, I found a site to submit complaints. If you read a bit about submitting a complaint, you will see that you have the option of including as much identifying information as you wish (you aren’t required to include a name or anything on the first page, but the FTC would then not be able to contact you for further information or for follow-up). Just a note, on the third page in, you need to select the type of complaint – choose other. The next page will allow you to enter “Business Opportunities”, then MLM/Pyramid Scheme.

Again, if you feel strongly about this and want to report your experiences, I would highly encourage everyone to do that (rather than suggesting others do it for you).

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

The Attorney General for the State of Michigan has a page about MLMs and Pyramid Schemes. The page has a good list of tips to consider when seeing these “business opportunities.”

• Multi-Level Marketing or Illegal Pyramid Scheme?