"An emotional and financial trap"

August 2002
By a former Herbalife distributor

I am an Herbalife distributor, but am currently sending back inventory and resigning from the company.

My husband and I spent over $8,000.00 in this business through inventory, promotions, "trainings," travel, and marketing. We blame ourselves for our ignorance, but feel that it was the obligation of Herbalife International and our upline support, to inform us of all the costs. That means the marketing costs, and before having us sign on the bottom line.

Herbalife's promotional materials are clever. The costs are in the decision packets behind all the wonderful testimonials, but the numbers were either played down about costs and/or over inflated for profits. It is our fault for not reading everything more carefully.

We don't even have the means to go up against Herbalife, even if we could prove false disclaimers. How clever is that?

When we first thought about backing out of the business, when hidden costs started to surface, we asked our upline. Big mistake. We asked if we could get our money back. But we were told, "No" or "I don't know." Uplines need your monthly HAP order commitment, to get the commissions to cover their own costs.

We then asked Herbalife Distributor Relations for our money back. They said, "No."

So we went forward and worked harder, thinking, "It will work, it will work." And that all we needed to do was improve ourselves. You see we felt it was our fault, when things didn't work out.

But I was not getting results and our marriage was falling apart.

We were having trouble selling and recruiting. We poured our hearts into personal development. I even started to have anxiety attacks over finances. Our monthly business meeting felt more like a confessional, than a business discussion. There was nothing professional about it. Just talk about hard times and personal stories. And everyone was high on "personal development tapes." I really felt emotionally trapped.

We are good people and we wanted to believe that there might be a better way to make a living. We wanted out of the "rat race."

We finally closed it all down. At last I got the correct information about product return, but our savings is gone and we are starting from scratch again. And it seems that we were no big loss. Our upline didn't even care. But they sure cared when we had the money!

So now we eat humble pie. We are definitely looking at EVERYTHING now before leaping.

My advice to anyone considering Herbalife is don't fall for the emotional testimonies. And don't allow your money to fly away the way we did. Be smart and research all the facts independently by yourself first.