Robert L. FitzPatrick, June 2026
Reflecting on my decades of work to expose multi-level marketing (MLM), there were several turning point realizations, as others have also noted in their own journeys of discovery. The first came quickly — that MLM is not at all “direct selling” but a carefully constructed pyramid scheme, designed to cause loss. This was soon followed by the realization that all MLMs are the same.
I documented those basic facts in my first book, FALSE PROFITS. Building on this insight led me to document in my later book, PONZINOMICS, how all MLM are clones of Amway, which is a clone of the first MLM, Nutrilite. I researched and documented the invention of MLM as a fraud disguised as a sales business and its early history, the spawning of today’s MLM anchor, Amway, its cancer-like spread and its duplication into multiple MLMs. I offered a fuller explanation of how all MLMs operate as pyramid schemes and economic cults, and how it is protected by corrupted government.
But the next level of realization continues to expand for me. I credit the work of activist and writer David Brear for this awakening. It is how MLM persists because it is allowed to wear a disguise and a false identity of “business” and “direct selling.” MLM’s false identity is akin to Scientology’s gaining the status of “religion.” It is what enabled Bernie Madoff to run a massive Ponzi in plain sight on Wall Street as a “hedge fund.” (The “Fund” made no stock trades and sent fabricated “statements” to the “clients”!!) It fuels the crypto scam as a “currency.” It’s why the TV mobster Tony Soprano carried a business card that read, “Waste Management Consultant.”
MLM’s fake status is not maintained with evidence or on any commercial basis, any more than Bernie Madoff’s or Tony Soprano’s were. Even a cursory investigation shows there is no profit to MLM participants, no retailing, no possibility of building a retail (direct selling) business, no customers, no demand for goods, uncompetitive pricing, no disclosure. Without disclosure there is no valid contract. There is no exchange of value. The tiny group of “winners” gets money by calculated deception, intentionally causing loss to all others. MLM cannot be defined as a “business”, not even a bad or high-risk business. Its “business” is as real as Tony’s “consultancy.”
No, what upholds MLM’s massive fraud, beyond bribing and lying, is rooted in the power of words. With no data to support its identity and with a well-documented record of loss to all recruits on a global scale, MLM is sustained primarily with thought-stopping concepts (only quitters lose), delusional beliefs (you will see it when you believe it), and utopian false claims (wealth beyond imagination) — all contained and forcefully delivered in a vocabulary of fraud. Immersion in this vocabulary of fraud can induce a closed and totalistic world-view, capable of enslaving the believer, leading to financial ruin. This vocabulary of fraud prevents understanding of MLM to anyone who uses it, believer or non-believer. It serves as a shield against law enforcement and provides cover for corrupted and derelict regulators and politicians.
For Those Who Already Know
It also provides a safe but ineffectual haven to those who oppose MLM while not offending the powerful forces that protect or permit the fraud. It is to this group that I address these thoughts — those who already understand that MLM is a “scam” and are not under its spell of coercive persuasion. They are not buying MLM products or trying to make an “income” or even get a “discount.” They are not recruiting for MLM. They view MLM as an insidious social harm.
This base of aware people has grown tremendously in recent years, likely achieving a tipping point of public opinion. Yet, MLM continues to openly commit pyramid scheme fraud just as it has since 1979 when most people were unaware and misinformed. MLM’s sinister worldwide claim to offer “unlimited income” based on “endless chain” recruiting is treated by authorities as a “business model.” Its recruiting entrapment operates unabated with deadly effect, as “marketing.”
How is it possible, to quote Leonard Cohen, “everybody knows” MLM is a scam, including the regulators and news media, yet MLM is still permitted and is fully able to defraud millions month after month? Why has the widespread public awareness of MLM fraud not led to its collapse, as occurred, for example, to the scam of NFTs? Remember the miraculous promises of “non-fungible tokens“? Why are MLM’s leaders not vilified like Bernie Madoff or the executives of Enron? With all the facts now available, why isn’t there a “Big Short” movie on MLM that forensically dissects and dramatizes the folly, the systemic fraud, and the comic-book characters running the scam?
Beyond Deception
The answer is not to be found in MLM deception. There is nothing new in its bag of tricks since its invention decades ago. The quickest explanation is that government and business leaders, and the mainstream media continue to protect and endorse MLM with enough institutional power and authority to uphold the Lie and suppress or overshadow the Truth.
Raw power that engages in fraud, ignores or overwhelms facts and disregards public opinion and the public interest is in various areas of public life, e.g., AI expansion, data center construction, oil drilling, wars of aggression, and suppression of Epstein disclosures. Such areas involve billions in profit, geo-politics, and control of global resources.
MLM does not come close to anything like this. If it disappeared tomorrow, the stock market would barely notice. Few would care if every MLM CEO in the world was hauled off to jail. Based on MLM’s marginal economic status, the obviousness of its fraudulence, and the harm it cruelly inflicts on vulnerable populations (working women, poor, immigrants, and financially struggling families), negative public opinion and continued exposés should have led to MLM’s demise by now.
Tipping Point Came…
Within the last 10 years, capping three decades of courageous and lonely work of individuals, it did appear this might happen. At the end of 2016, the John Oliver Show on HBO aired a breakthrough exposé, the first serious treatment of the overall MLM phenomenon in the mainstream media. I contributed to this show, appeared in it, and attended the live production in New York City. It is a devastating (and very funny) excoriation and revelation. The show was seen by over 4 million HBO subscribers. The YouTube of that segment has since generated over 37 million more views.
Several key events led to that John Oliver show. Three years before, 2013, business journalist, Herb Greenberg, produced a very credible investigation of MLM, entitled, “Selling the American Dream.” Produced for CNBC, this show was aimed mostly at stock investors. I was featured in the documentary. Greenberg came to my home for filming and extensive consultation. The stock values of all but one MLM have since crashed. Wall Street got the message. MLM’s “value” has no basis.
Earlier in 2016, the award-winning Netflix film, Betting on Zero was released that revealed how the MLM, Herbalife, cruelly defrauded hope-filled immigrants, and it put a bright light on the “pyramid scheme” reality at the center of a Wall Street battle of competing hedge funds. I was in the film. The director came to my home for filming and consultation. John Oliver included clips from the film. Betting on Zero premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. I attended the first showing. Strangely, half the seats were empty. It turned out that a lobbying firm for Herbalife had pre-purchased them to keep the public from seeing the film. Workers paid by Herbalife were also at the entrance passing out leaflets that claimed all the people in the film—I was among them—were paid actors!
In 2019 Showtime produced a very popular series with MLM at the center of the story-line, the first such drama. Entitled “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” it unflinchingly revealed the pathos, delusions and lies of MLM and the damage it inflicts on finances and relationships. It starred Kirsten Dunst who received award nominations for her role.
My book, PONZINOMICS was published (independently) in 2020, the first-ever comprehensive book that dissects the MLM phenomenon as a global pyramid scheme and cult, protected by corrupt government. The title is now used more widely to refer to any financial organization or system that claims robbing future investors to reward earlier ones is a valid and sustainable “economic model.”
Just before PONZINOMICS was released I provided a full outline of the book’s research and conclusions in a series of taped interviews for season-one of the podcast, The Dream. It generated 10 million downloads. As the book was released, I was interviewed on the podcast, Coffeezilla that’s been viewed nearly 800,000 times. And, the next year, 2021, I provided consultation and appeared in the Amazon Prime documentary mini-series, LuLaRich, that dramatized the rise and fall of the MLM, LuLaRoe, showing its cultism and absurdity as “direct selling.”
During this period and beyond, new podcasts were launched, fully dedicated to exposing the harm of MLM and giving voice to victims. The podcasts are reaching millions of listeners. All of this occurred after decades of media silence or dis-information about MLM, with a rare few whistle-blower websites, some of which were shut down after getting sued by MLM scams. This site, PyramidSchemeAlert.org, is one of few remaining from that era. It launched in 2000.
… And Went
To understand why that tide of exposés that crested from 2016 to 2021 or so, and which led to a sea change in news perspective and a network of anti-MLM podcasts, had only fractional effect, requires self-examination of “those who know.”
Activism usually follows an era of muckraking of this scale. Anti-MLM activism never happened. No coalition developed among “those who know.” Established consumer protection organizations never joined the anti-MLM battle. No demand for enforcement of anti-fraud laws was mobilized. No pressure was directed at any part of government, MLM’s main protector and endorser for four decades. An MLM “caucus” (formerly called the “Amway Caucus”) of members of Congress who receive MLM money maintains MLM immunity. Yet, not a single member of Congress was targeted by anti-MLM for taking MLM money. The FTC, the authority that had declared and continues to assert that MLM is “legitimate direct selling”, was left undisturbed, un-indicted for its role. Many of its former officials are now comfortably employed within the MLM underworld as consultants, attorneys, or advisors.
New Type of Denial
MLM’s earlier decades of expansion, the 80s and 90s, were characterized by failure and refusal to say out loud what MLM is not: It is not direct selling and and it is not an income opportunity. This was a catastrophic failure of law enforcement, a dereliction by government. It accounted for tens of millions of hope-filled people falling victim to MLM’s cold-blooded promises of wealth, security and independence — the American Dream. It enabled MLM to grow to a gargantuan scale under government protection and endorsement.
Today, a new form of denial or failure is occurring, which accounts for the millions still falling victim and for keeping MLM in place, regardless of wide exposure of indicting facts. The role of derelict law enforcement and corrupted government continues, but this new type denial is a failure and refusal within civil society, academia and the media. It is a failure to say out loud what MLM is.
Failure to call MLM what it is—global fraud, pyramid scheme, pseudo-business, destructive cult—disempowers and diminishes MLM victims. It dilutes and discredits the devastating facts. It derails the possibility for accountability. It has rendered “anti-MLM” impotent in bringing about change.
The US Federal Trade Commission perfectly illustrates this current form of denial, which is mimicked in the media and by many who identify as “anti-MLM.” It provides cautionary information while affirming that MLM is legal and legitimate direct selling. It tells citizens that MLM truly is about “sales” but warns consumers of the general difficulties of selling. This strange—and grossly misleading—career advice is dispensed by a federal law enforcement agency! It is from people who likely have never sold anything on a commission basis in their entire lives.
Defining MLM as legitimate but inadvisable, rather than a dangerous fraud to be eliminated is the difference is between a dodgy business and racketeering, between a “deceptive trade practice” and a professional swindle. It is like describing Jeffrey Epstein as a charismatic socialite and rascal with offbeat proclivities (as defenders, deniers and accomplices do) rather than a child trafficker, rapist, spy, blackmailer, and money launderer (as his victims know him to be and the evidence shows).
The new denial is not characterized by silence as before but by a cacophony of complaint expressed in MLM’s own vocabulary of fraud. This language, even when used to object to MLM, upholds MLM’s delusional beliefs and its utopian income claims based on the “endless chain”. Most important, it allows MLM to operate in the costume of “business.” If MLM really were “legitimate” business and a valid form of direct selling, which anti-MLM does not dispute, then MLM’s electrifying income promises could reasonably be taken seriously, right? Little wonder that millions still buy the MLM pitch and suffer the sad consequences.
The vocabulary of fraud employed by anti-MLM is composed of MLM’s own specialized terms of disguise, e.g., “business”, “industry”, “direct selling”, “sales”, “independent business owner”, “self-employed”, “distributor”. These terms hide and deny the reality of cult, fraud, and pyramid scheme and the sinister intention to deceive and harm for profit.
It is virtually impossible to grasp the reality of MLM if MLM’s false-identity terms continue to be used. An MLM victim cannot be recognized as a victim of systemic fraud, if called a “distributor” or “business owner.” Those words indicate valid contract, informed choice, adequate disclosure, a viable system of sales and equity, none of which is present. Even when pervasive deception and massive losses are revealed, those false commercial terms carry built-in rationalizations, diversions and protections from the facts.
Truth-Telling Test
So, if false vocabulary protects harmful realities, what drives and protects that false vocabulary?
Ah, here is where truth-telling meets its real test. Big Lies—like calling MLM “direct selling”—do not stand alone and emerge out of nowhere. Big Lie promoters parasitically attach the Lie to established beliefs, ideals, and traditions, like patriotism, peace, commerce, new technology, or entrepreneurship. They insinuate and seek to attach the Lie to major institutions such as religions, actual industries and business organizations (like waste management), government agencies, political parties, foundations, or scientific institutes. They become entrenched when they gain backing or involvement by people with institutional power who see benefits from supporting or permitting the Big Lie.
MLM obtained and has increased the protection of institutional government, business, media, publishing and academia since 1979 when Amway was declared by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to be “legitimate direct selling” and allowed to continue. The delusion and fraud of an “endless chain” became a license to steal. Soon, high government officials, academics, religious leaders, celebrities, sports stars, elected representatives (including several Secretaries of State, State Attorneys General, and the nation’s president) and major universities (like Harvard) cashed in on the “legalized” (protected from law enforcement) and incredibly lucrative swindle. It caused devastating loss to millions but could make top promoters billionaires and deliver handsome profits to endorsers, motivation speakers, professors, pastors, “wellness” hucksters, attorneys, consultants, publishers, and politicians.
Cast into a Wilderness
In the face of such institutional power and money, saying the truth about MLM can carry significant consequences for individuals. To contradict the Big Lie, even to question it, places the truth-tellers outside the zone of approval of those in power. It casts them into a wilderness, separated from the beliefs and institutions the Big Lie has attached itself to. MLM’s Big Lie, for example, insinuated itself into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and associated the fraud with the ideal of “self-employment.” MLM truth-tellers are therefore attacked as “anti-business” or “socialistic” or “haters of success.” MLM captured and corrupted the US Federal Trade Commission. Truth-tellers of FTC complicity are therefore labelled “unwilling to work within the system”, or “refusing to accept the law” or “impugning the integrity of dedicated officials.”
Unequivocal or obvious facts about MLM, when said out loud, become “personal bias.” Verifiable and researched data, evidence, and conclusions become “criticisms.” Outrageously false claims and utopian promises of the scam, which the facts debunk, transform to expressions of “hope”, “potential”, “matters of faith”, or “inspirational.” To question them becomes “cynical”, “one-sided”, and “negative.” That the Lies have persisted for years, mostly unchallenged or due to dissent being crushed, becomes a mandate for unquestioned acceptance.
This is not due to the facts themselves—they are obvious, self-evident. Ultimately, it is because they contradict those in power and threaten their authority and cash-cow. The truth inherently cries out for correction, restitution, accountability. Exposing a Big Lie can change the world.
Words as Walls
In this environment, “anti-MLM” is allowed within boundaries marked off by key words that function like militarized border walls.
Prohibited terms in reference to MLM that are outside the wall include: crime, rob, steal, police, FBI, cult, fraud, brain-wash, enslave, illegal, prison terms, pseudo-business, Big Lie, corruption of regulators, political bribery, gangsterism, racketeering, betrayal of public trust.
Words and terms permitted within the wall include: scam, unproven medical claims, pyramid-like, cultish, cult-like, culty, deceptive trade practice, self-regulated, unfair, inadequate disclosure, gray area, shady, risky, exaggerated income claims, lack of transparency, FTC Rules, and “most recruits earn very little.” It is permissible to write or say that “some” MLM companies operate as illegal pyramid schemes.
These permitted terms and references must be accompanied with MLM’s official terminology: “direct selling”, “industry”, “distributor”, “sales”, “trade association”, “self employment”, “independent contractor”, “code of ethics”, “self-consumption”, “part-time”, “retail-oriented”, “networking”, “discount”, “regulation.” The boundary strictly requires that MLM be referenced as “legal” and “legitimate direct selling” that is “regulated” by the US Federal Trade Commission.
Lie Exposed, Yet Upheld — with Force
Returning to my own journey of exposing MLM that began three decades ago, and the current state of “anti-MLM”, the challenge in 2026 is no longer to reveal facts. That’s done. Or to give voice to victims. This is always valuable, especially to the victims, but testimonies from victims are everywhere now. Despite this foundation of accessible truth and widespread awareness, MLM flourishes. So, what happened?
In plain language, the movement to end MLM’s epidemic of fraud—which appeared for a time to be coalescing—capitulated to the institutional force that protects MLM. The powers behind MLM require that the definition and an accurate description of MLM—which is where the essential truth resides—must never be addressed. Say all you want about MLM; never look straight at it and ask, “What is it?”
To stay within the good graces of these powers, the words, “MLM is legal and legitimate direct selling” must be repeated. Or, as George Orwell put it, “war is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength.” This is vigilantly enforced by the Direct Selling Association, MLM attorneys, media editors, the FTC, and by some within “anti-MLM” desperate to maintain acceptable status within the authorities’ zone of approval.
The institutional force of suppression and censorship is very real and formidable. It includes destroying careers, bankrupting truth-tellers with legal fees (I was sued by an MLM for what I wrote; legal defense fees reached one-half million dollars over five years before the meritless suit was “settled”, i.e., dropped.) It involves character assassination, censoring news or publications, de-monetizing by social media platforms, withholding tenure from academics, professional and media shunning, and sometimes physical threats. Its power to silence, shape and control voices of dissent or even inquiry are all too evident:
- Silenced U — To this day, nothing has come from the nation’s universities, especially departments of business, marketing, and economics, to measure MLM using conventional business metrics that would unmistakably reveal fraud, e.g, absence of retail sales, net profit, or customers, uncompetitive pricing, retail volume per distributor, “distributor” inventory turnovers and virtual 100% loss rates among “distributors.”
- No News — No news media organization has yet investigated the MLM claim that it is a modern form of “direct selling” by documenting evidence of retail customers or retail profits after costs. No news organization has even questioned the preposterous MLM claim of the need for and viability of “person-to-person” sales of ordinary commodities in today’s marketplace, a claim akin to booming sales of buggy whips and typewriters.
- Absent Cops — No law enforcement organization has prosecuted an MLM for charging money to participants for a “business opportunity” in which they are promised “unlimited income” from revenue obtained from an “endless chain” of new participants, a classic fraudulent proposition of the type Bernie Madoff went to prison for.
- Censored books — After 40 years of silence, the publishing industry now releases a few “anti-MLM” books that cite the data about MLM harming 99%, lurid examples of MLM deception and accounts of individuals whose lives are derailed. They allow repeating the history of MLM, and books may even hint that MLM is darkly connected to bribing and spying in other countries. Yet the permitted books do not plainly acknowledge what the facts add up to — a classic fraud, a mass delusion, a pseudo-business, a global pyramid scheme sustained with coercion and mind-control, protected by “captured” law enforcement. The permitted books refer to MLM as “direct selling,” and an “industry” that is “regulated.” There is never a conclusion permitted—from the authors—that MLM perpetrators should go to jail for the incalculable harm they deliberately cause.
