Melaleuca: What the Online Company Won't Tell You, and How You Lose Money

Have you thought about a home-based business? Why wouldn't you if you're able to work from home and set your own hours? No commute, save on gas, and be home with the kids. That's why I wanted to join Melaleuca.

Melaleuca has been successful throughout the years. They have a reorder rate of 95 percent. It won a business award and is not considered an MLM (Multi-Level Marketing), at least by some people. Their products are safe for the homes and personal use and also are environmentally friendly. Safe products yeah we like that. But alike many companies out there, Melaleuca has its own hidden schemes. This they don't tell you when you enroll.

Melaleuca.com is a web site full of product info and photos. Find anything in which you're interested? So you click the item and add it to your cart, but when you're ready to checkout it asks for your member number. Yes, you have to be a member to purchase. You really want that item so bad for your spouse or significant other, so you decided to register. It didn't work, did it? It stills ask you for the member number. You sent an e-mail or call the 1-800 number, and they tell you to wait a few days to a week before hearing from someone whose working within your locality.

The person in that area calls you and begins asking what made you decide on Melaleuca: for pleasure or for profit? You may tell him/her you're interested in the business aspect of it. They'll say perfect the reorder rate is 95 percent, remember? Would you like to start off with a package? "How much?" you ask. $99 dollars for all the samples. Whoa! How about something half that? Certainly. Then you're asked for a $29 enrollment fee, which on this particular day you're getting for half the price. So now you're paying $14.50 plus $50. Do you have a credit card or bank account? Let's try the card.

Your order comes in within a week via USP ground. Everything you've ordered is there, thank goodness, but how much was the shipment cost anyway? Only $6! Now your total comes to $70.50.

This is great, you thought. I'd only need to order 35 points or $50 to $60 worth every month to maintain my membership. And at the same time if I order before the 16^th of the month I'll earn Advantage Dollars that I can use for future product purchase. However, the earlier the order the more percentage you'll earn, a range of 10% to 1 percent. After the 16^th there is no AD earning.

I get a catalog every order with info on current members and how they've become successful. From being in debt to debt free. How they started their career with a motivational amount of $2.69 commission payment from the CEO. Yes I did get that check, but will I get anymore? Gee that would be nice. But I have to spend $60 to earn that. So continues my adventure as a member.

I've been a member since September of 2007. It is to this day that I realize that Melaleuca is not what I'd pictured it to be. I've been warned by friends and MLM's opposition, but my curiosity got the better of me. It was earning Advantage Dollars that kept me going. Month after month I made my required points purchases. Pretty soon, I thought to myself I'd earn the redeemable amount ($20 minimum) to use for the next purchase.

It's February 6, 2008, and I place my order for 6 items, which total 35 points in the amount of $51.26. To use my AD I would need to order more products, thus an additional 6 points is added. My total now is 41 points with $57.52. Three of the 7 items are eligible for the use of AD. They total $16.54. But I want to be able to use all $20 of the AD towards my purchase, and thought adding more items to the cart would allow me to do so. So I added more and the total points are at 48 or $61.71. All of the items are now eligible for AD usage. I click on the most expensive item on the cart, but then the rest of the items became ineligible. So I used AD of $12 out of the $20 towards the purchase. I have about $9.00 left in my AD, which was why the other items were disqualified. If the balance of AD is below $20 I can no longer redeem it. So do you suppose I saved $12 off of this subtotal $49.32 or $1.94 because my original order of 35 points was $51.26 without the use of Advantage Dollars.

If you're not a fool, you can see from this example that Melaleuca does not offer any savings at all. After all, even though you've saved $1.94 you haven't calculated the shipping cost of $6 yet. Congratulations; your savings are now - $4.06. This is what they fail to tell you, so as always, buyers: beware. I never did receive any more commission checks. I guess I need to enroll some people and earn a higher commission check. Because after all, it's an MLM company.