Forever Living Review – Scam Or Legitimate MLM Business?

| April 7, 2011 | 28 Comments

Forever Living Review imageWelcome to my Forever Living Review!

With more than 9.5 Million Distributors spanning over 145 countries, Forever Living is no doubt an extremely popular Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) Company.

The question is, do they offer a legitimate and promising Home Business opportunity, or is this a scam?

In this Forever Living Review, I will be reviewing their company and products in relation to the MLM Business opportunity that they offer.  This is my unbiased Forever Living Review.

Company Details & History

Forever Living Logo imageForever Living began with the dream of Rex Maughan, and man who searched for years to find better health and financial freedom.  However, Rex wasn’t satisfied with anything that he found.  So, Rex Maughan aspired to create a company that offered consumable products that were proven to promote lasting wellness and health.

From this simple business idea, and a tremendous amount of hard work, Forever Living was founded in 1978.  This dream and a simple plan has grown into a Multi-Billion dollar enterprise.

Product Line

Forever Living offers a tremendous selection of Health and Wellness products, and each product is promoted and sold exclusively through Forever Living Distributors.  Instead of cramming department store shelves with products, Forever Living has chosen to compensate anyone who is willing to share their products with their family and friends.

Forever Living offers products related to:

  • Nutritional Beverages
  • Vitamins & Minerals
  • Weight Management
  • Bee Products
  • Personal Care
  • Skin Care – Body & Facial
  • Cosmetics

MLM Business – Getting started and how it works

Forever Living Products imageForever Living advertises that there is no membership fee or expensive investment required to become a Distributor and begin your business.

They do however offer several Business Paks that are priced from $372 to $379.  These Paks are designed to provide you with enough products to begin sharing with your friends and family members, along with the necessary business supplies and sales aids to assist you in getting started.

Questions that must be asked…

Whether or not you decide to purchase a Business Pak may affect your earning potential within their Compensation Plan.  I was not able to confirm this with Forever Living, but this is typically the case in MLM styled companies.

I would encourage you to get in contact with a Distributor directly to determine if a Business Pak purchase is required to earn the maximum commission and bonus payouts in their pay plan.

Compensation – Getting paid

As a Distributor, you will enjoy wholesale pricing on all of their products, and earn up to a 43% instant profit when you sell these products to your customers at the suggested retail price.

You will earn up to an additional 18% on the personal sales of your downline Distributors.  As your personally sponsored Distributors achieve higher ranks within the Forever Living Compensation Plan, you will enjoy up to 13% Group Volume Bonuses.

As you achieve qualifying milestones in your business, you will also earn profit-sharing bonuses, exotic vacations, and bonus cash to purchase a car, boat, new house, or anything of your choosing.  There are many ways to earn within the Forever Living Compensation Plan.

Forever Living Review Conclusion

In my opinion, Forever Living is a very legitimate business.  They have been offering high-quality nutritional products for more than 30 years, proving that they are not a scam.  Forever Living offers consumable products, giving their Distributors a tremendous opportunity to build a long-term residual income as they earn repeat business from a satisfied customer base.

Food for thought…

With Forever Living being a MLM company that trains and encourages traditional Network Marketing methods, this is a business that will encourage you to prospect among friends and family members to sell products, and to recruit new Distributors into your organization.

If you are willing to devote the time and effort that a business of this nature will require, I believe that Forever Living offers a solid business opportunity with high quality products to build a business around.

This concludes my Forever Living Review!  If you have found this Forever Living Review to be helpful, or if you have anything to add, please provide your feedback below!

Category: MLM Company Reviews

About the Author ()

Dave Fennell is the founder and editor of Marketing Methods Online and BloggerGo. Learn more about him here. You can also connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.
  1. Dave Fennell says:

    Dave Fennell wrote this Forever Living Review for those who are researching the Forever Living Business Opportunity. I would love your feedback. If you have any experiences with this company, whether good or bad, please share them here to assist others in their research efforts.

    I greatly appreciate your feedback and expertise, and others will too!

    To Your Success,

    Dave Fennell

    • Glenn Martin says:

      It smells just like Omnitrition and Nu Shin and all the other over products in the MLM game and almost all of them are belly up now in class action Law suits

  2. Joe Pilamp says:

    Dear Sir How does forever living work can you explain more to me in detail becauase I believe I can become a customer in this offer.

    Joe Pilamp

    • Dave Fennell says:

      Hi Joe,

      Essentially, you would purchase a Business Pack for $372 to $379 to become a Distributor. You would then begin promoting their products to others, and earn compensation as you achieve sales. You will earn additional commissions and bonuses as you begin your recruiting efforts to enroll new Distributors into your organization. Build and train an organization of Distributors, and Forever Living will reward you accordingly.

      Hope this helps!

      Dave Fennell

    • honest review of FLP says:

      See my review below before you make up your mind to join.

  3. Mushtaq Sharief says:

    Forever living products are excellent. I have tried it and i have joined with lots of friends. No doubt, anyone can join and start selling the products immediately. 18% profit on selling the products and commission.
    The best opportunity.

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  5. Graphics says:

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  6. honest review of FLP says:

    On the face of it Forever living appears like a legitimate business but it would be great if sponsors tell people the whole truth about their compensation plan before they join as well as the need to be a master recruiter in order to succeed. I am actually surprised you did not mention the need to build a really large downline in order to break even, let alone succeed with FLP. The company’s products are good quality consumables but in my opinion overpriced which makes it difficult for distributors to sell the products on a regular basis, thereby distributors are forced to constantly recruit to meet their monthly minimum of 4cc (cc = case credits)in order to qualify for commissions on their downline. Obviously, if you are only looking to retail, the 4cc minimum does not apply but you may find that retail sales alone will not adequately reward your efforts. For tose that are looking to build a residual income (which most people join mlm companies for), what no one will tell you before you sign up is that the the personal 4cc minimum is a tall order to acheive through retail sales alone as 1cc is equivalent to £137 or $ 226.6. Multiply that by 4 and you suddenly realise how difficult it is to achieve the £548 or $907 (as per sterling to dollar conversion rates today – I live in the UK so I don’t know the exact monthly requirement in $ but I assume it won’t be far off) without recuitment. Many distributors join as they love the aloe products and are also tempted by the promise of residual income, profit share, etc but they then discover that it is near impossible to get off the ground. I dare say that very few Forever distributors achieve the 4cc by retail sales alone and most will tell you that they spend 80% of their time recruiting, which means that new distributors are actually the primary customers of Forever products. If anybody want to challenge this assertion, I would love to know the exact % of forever living sales that are attributed to end customers (non- distributors)…I am sure it is probaly less than 20%. My intention is not to tarnish the company but to warn any potential distributors that unless they are prepared to be part of an unending recruitment cycle, they should steer clear of Foreverliving. I would also add that even if you were to recruit 1 or 2 people a month, you may still not break even once you deduct your expenses, at least initially until you build a very large active downline, so be warned!!! I know so many distributors who joined enthusiatically only to quit after a while so I bet only a fraction of the so called 9.5m distributors are active today. I am happy to provide more details to anyone who asks.

    • Dave Fennell says:

      Hi there again,

      This is very good information! Thank you for taking the time to share this with those who are researching the Forever Living Business Opportunity!

      While I believe that Forever Living offers many great products, I will agree with you that success while building this business will require a very substantial downline of customers and Distributors. This cannot be achieved without the constant need to recruit, a trait that will be true of most MLM companies that you review!

      No matter what sort of MLM business you are building, if you are not selling products and recruiting Distributors to do the same, you are not making money. Welcome to Multi-Level Marketing!

      Again, thank you for commenting on my Forever Living Review, and I hope to hear from you again soon,

      Dave F.

    • BT24 says:

      I just joined this company today for free! and i knew there was a catch that my sponsors never told me! i kept asking them about this and all they answered was different! And this was the answer that ive been looking for! i knew there was a catch. Thank you for sharing this!

      I’ve been in the same networking system as this one and i knew everything are the same they just put a lil twist in it..

      But for just d members who wants to buy these products, it does really sound good i might try one myself. But for the networking part i’m not sure it sounds like you will end up putting alot of money rather than getting some which is what we call a scam.. sorry!

  7. John Cornock says:

    Hi.
    I’ve been reading about Forever Living with interest for 2 reasons:

    1. I was an Amway UK dirstibutor for 4 years back in the late 90’s. To coin a phrase – I sold soap to my friends.

    2. My boss and his wife have recently joined Forever Living in the UK.

    From my personal experience I have a deep rooted dislike of any MLM schemes because when you take away the products (whether they’re good, bad or indifferent) you are left with a sales and marketing system which tells people in no uncertain terms they could become financially independent and fabulously weathly in a reletively short time period of time.

    I was 100% convinced that Amway was my key to success. I gave every spare minute in to promoting the products, driving hundreds of miles all over the country to ‘show the business plan’, attended every business presentation and seminar (Amway UK distributors used to fill the NEC, Wembley conference centre and NIA 3 times a year) and followed everything my upline told me to do. After 3 years my sponsor quit without any notice. They went from calling me 3 times a day to never hearing from them again! I was very upset and confused by this so I then questioned everything. I worked out how much money I had made building my group of 33 people – guess what? I LOST over £2000! I had also put 100,000 miles on my car. I then started to do some sums. Back then there were 50,000 distributors in the UK. If each one bought 1 motivational tape per week and 1 PMA book per month that worked out to £1.2M PER MONTH for the top diamond distributors. Add to that the constant stream of recruitment business packs at £150 and ‘Adpacks’ at £5 which are bought to ‘ensure your success’, I figured that the top UK upline were making massive amounts of money every month without ever selling a product. This is why I once heard a ‘direct’ distributor say to another direct – ‘I’m glad I found out how to make the real money from this otherwise I would have quit or gone mad just trying to sell the products’. So for Amway at least, this is how the money is made:
    1. Sign someone up @ £150. (Nearly all of which goes to your upline).
    2. Tell them the only way they can be a millionaire is to ‘believe in the business’ and listen to their upline. Get them to ‘buy the tape of the week’ and ‘book of the month’ @ £25 per month.
    3. Tell them they have to have all of the ‘success tools’. These are ‘Adpacks’ to be given to prospective ‘team members’. 10 @ £5 each.
    4. Buy the products for yourself.
    5. Sell some to your friends and family.
    6. Go to monthly meetings @ £25 per ticket and quarterly conventions @ £100 per ticket.

    Amway products were expensive. The reason? Where do you think all the money comes from to pay for the performance bonuses and free holidays?

    Why do people buy Amway or Forever products? One word – guilt. My mum and dad never had a lot of money but they bought stock from me that they never used. Bottles and bottles of cleaners at £10 each. Why? because they wanted to help me with my new business and didn’t have the heart to say no. 90% of people who buy MLM products do so because they feel obliged to. Why would anyone pay £20 per a bottle of multi purpose cleaning fluid? No matter what the ingredients are you cannot justify this.

    This brings me on to the last and most insideous part – the hype. The founders of MLM schemes know that they have to build a lot of margin in their products to make sure there’s enough to pay the top performers. The only way you or I would go out night after night trying to ‘sell soap to our friends’ is because of the promise of financial freedom which is drummed in to us at every opportunity. The meetings and conventions are akin to evangelical rallies. People hugging eachother and openly weeping with joy at the prospect of ‘unlimited earnings’. When you come away from these gatherings you feel like you can take on the world, but that’s exactly what’s required to sell these products.

    It’s well known that Aloe has good medicinal qualities (upto a point) but to me that doesn’t mean that Forever Aloe products are worth 4 times more than a competitors equivelant.

    Ok I’ve ranted on and I know there are loads of people who will try to shoot me down but I’m more than happy to debate this. I personally know far too many people (some were close friends) who have invested a lot of presious time and money in MLM schemes to have it come to nothing or worse. I’ve seen couples split up and get divorced because of it, so I’m far too sceptical to just accept another MLM business on face value. Remember – only 4.5% of signed up distributors stick with it and make some money. The rest become disillusioned and quit – but hey, at least Amway and Forever have sold them a starter business pack and a ton of products in the meantime. Keep ’em coming!

    • Dave Fennell says:

      Hi John,

      Thank you for sharing your story. I appreciate the time that you spent in doing this.

      Thank you,

      Dave F.

    • Aadi says:

      Hey man i am a.s @ forever, You have wasted your 4 years to gain nothing for your kind info my seniors are earning massive amoumt per month

  8. John says:

    Hi Dave

    I hope I can shed some light on the subject – though I don’t doubt that I will be officially branded a ‘dream stealer’.

    Thanks, John.

  9. John says:

    Hi Dave

    Just a note regarding the Forever products. I suffer from very sensitive skin and spend quite a lot on aftershave lotions and creams because of my shavers rash. Through my boss I’m currently trying two of the Forever lotions and to be fair they seem to be working quite well. That said I can’t think of any other guys I know would spend £26 on face creams! Plus I’m not sure I would have bought them if it wasn’t for my boss.

    He’s also pushing a product called Argi+ which contains L-Arginine and a selection of grape and berry extracts. It’s £57 per tub which lasts 37 days. At Holland and Barrett you can buy 100 pure L-Arginine tablets for £10 and 120 Acai berry tablets for £7.90. You take one per day of both. That’s £17.90 for nearly 3 months worth. The difference being that Holland & Barrett don’t have a slick marketing video with a lab technician claiming L-Arginine to be the ‘miracle molecule’. Hmmmm.

  10. John says:

    Hi Dave

    I made an error with my maths. The Holland & Barrett tablets last over 3 months of course.

    Thanks.

    • Dave Fennell says:

      Hi John,

      I am glad to hear that you have found a product that helps. I will not deny that Forever Living has some very high quality products. I have even tried some of them myself! Mostly for sunburns though, but they gave me the relief that I needed. Thank you for sharing!

      Dave F.

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  15. Hi everybody , I just wanted share my experience with Forever Living Products.
    Yes I have joined FLP and so far it is a very positive experience. Most who have tried other MLM or Network/Direct Marketing companies in the past are bitter and rightfully so. Ten years ago I signed up for “Quixtar” (Amway Online, my recruiter collected his $99 and I received no plan, training or ANYTHING. Needless to say I gave up pretty quickly. I was EXTREMELY skeptical when I 1st heard about FLP. The main differences: 1) IT IS 100% FREE to join (in the USA) and you get 15% off of the retail FOR LIFE. 1.5) You can never be demoted or passed up 2) I have received TONS of guidance from my upline (I can only speak for MY team). 3) The products are SUPERIOR to anything you will find in any store – at a fair price. The driving force behind FLP is moving product, and duplicating your efforts in a recruited network of people YOU recruit. You don’t make a PENNY of of recruiting alone, you must train and manage your team to be successful, and ONLY then when your team members make money for themselves, do YOU or I PROFIT FROM THEM. Sorry for the blog, but I really believe in this company, our products and my AMAZING upline. Please feel free to email me with any questions, comments or thoughts. May 2012 be your best year ever!

    • Dave Fennell says:

      Hi Andy,

      Thank you so much for stopping by and taking the time to share your experiences with Forever Living. I wish you the best of luck in your FLP business!

      Dave F.

    • John says:

      Hi Andy
      I recently did a comparison between the FLP Aloe drink and a UK high street brand and found this:
      FLP Aloe drink = £2.40 per day based on 120ml dosage.
      Aloe Pura drink (100% pure, certified and stabilised Aloe gel) = £0.50p per day based on recommended 50ml dosage.

      I’ve looked at every FLP product and I can’t find any examples of the superior quality and reasonable pricing you speak of. Usually when a company owns every part of the manufacturing process as FLP do with Aloe Vera, it means better prices for the consumer because they can drive costs down at every stage. So why are FLP many times more expensive than their nearest competitor?

      • olu says:

        John says: I’’ve looked at every FLP product and I can’t find any examples of the superior quality and reasonable pricing you speak of. Usually when a company owns every part of the manufacturing process as FLP do with Aloe Vera, it means better prices for the consumer because they can drive costs down at every stage. So why are FLP many times more expensive than their nearest competitor?

        John you have hit the hammer on the nail. These were my exact thoughts. This is a red flag, that shows The business model is fundamentally flawed.

  16. Hi Dave,

    Great blog, enjoyed reading your review.
    Myself and my wife Karyn joined Forever in January 2010 after closing our business. (You can read a bit more on our story on our web page http://www.discoverforever.info) whilst it is correct that there are many people that do not succeed in a network marketing / MLM or direct selling company in our experience it is either they have not stuck to the plan and put in the required time and effort or unfortunately have been miss led into believing that high earnings were going to be easily achieved very quickly. The reality is that to build a stable business requires time, dedication and above all the motivation to put in the required time and effort. We are a little under four years in the business now and have been fortunate enough to attain the level of Senior Managers and develop a good income but we certainly put in the time and effort to achieve this. I would welcome any enquiries via email tony@discoverforever.info

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