First my former boss made very good money at her job with my company. She made significantly more than I did, and I was doing fine as the sole provider in my home where I had either 4 or 5 kids (depending upon which time frame we're referring to). Her husband made very good money with his own plumbing business, where he even had a few guys working for him. I don't know really how exactly how much he made, but plumbers usually do fairly well, and their combined incomes were pretty substantial.

The vacation home they co-owned was purchased while she still worked for my company. The huge home was built while she still worked for my company. She and her husband rented the office space after she left in order to do their business there.

I heard from several sources, not just the guy I mentioned, that they were making "crazy money" for their first few years. My new boss is one of them that told me that, after talking to her directly. That's when I went out and found their Youtube video I mentioned. And I had the thought then: "Huh, maybe this is the one time where an MLM will work out." At that time, my new boss and I discussed it, and he said, "Yeah, they're doing well, but would you really want to do what they're doing to get there?" We both said absolutely not. By "what they're doing", we meant put in the hours they were, hound all their friends and relatives to sign up, etc.

I had been Facebook friends with them previously, they unfriended me apparently, which I only realized when they sent me a new friend request recently. As I was curious about how they were doing, I started going through their postings and obviously some major stuff had changed, and they weren't doing quite so well. So, yes, I talked to the guy I mentioned in the first post and got the rest of the story. He confirmed what I could guess from their Facebook account, and despite all his financial interactions, he remains one of their best friends (quality guy).

It's apparent that the "crazy money" they were making was smoke and mirrors. I don't doubt that some money came in from the MLM, but it's pretty tough to go from where they were, with the income they were supposedly making, to where they are now, having lost most of their assets, bankrupt, and living in a tiny apartment in San Diego. BTW, I suspect they "went dark" on Facebook as things got really bad for them financially, but that is a guess.

The thing is, I don't doubt you did well in yours for awhile either. Some people do, but I have never seen it keep up for long. The MLM model, as I described in another post, does not hold up. It is a shell game, unless you're one of the MLMs that actually primarily sell products instead of selling a lifestyle. You made a very interesting comment in your post:

Then it began to all fall apart in 2010 and was gone by 2012, due entirely to corporate mismanagement specific to this company, and nothing whatsoever to do with MLM.

Sorry if I don't believe your reasoning. I have heard that same excuse way too many times before. Actually, with every MLM I've ever seen. It was always "corporate mismanagement" that was the downfall. It was never that the model itself is unsustaining, inherently dishonest, and requires you to irritate the crap out of people to get ahead.

Yes, it's absolutely fair to use my former boss's case as an example--because it is what happens almost every time. Actually that's not even quite accurate--they did better than most people who get suckered into these things, but they also lost a lot more than most people. It's the same story arc, just with greater extremes. I'm not trying to "scare people" away from "opportunities", I'm trying to warn them about a horrible sham--a Potemkin Village, if I may--that has been played out over and over and over again.

It's happened to many people I know personally. It will continue to happen. But maybe some people will listen.