‘I was told to target people who had lost their jobs’

‘Many of these people are struggling financially and then they receive abuse for leaving’

“Would you like to start earning money from your phone?” A fresh source of income earned at home, with no interview process, where you choose the hours you work and how much you make. It sounds too good to be true, and for many it has been.

The pandemic has provided “multilevel marketing” firms with a golden opportunity to drive up recruitment among the newly unemployed.

Those who join an MLM business sell goods independently on behalf of a company and earn commission on sales made by their recruits. The companies themselves have no responsibility for their agents’ success, failure or conduct.

Charlotte Cairn, 28, whose name has been changed, said she had lost nearly £3,500 since joining one of these companies last year. Ms Cairn, who also works at the local council, joined FM World, an MLM firm, last February.

She said: “I had heard good experiences of people joining direct selling companies and earning £10,000-plus a month, so I joined after I was approached on social media.”

But Ms Cairn said she never made any profit and lost on average £200 a month. “I lost a lot of money because I didn’t want to seem like a failure and so I spent a couple of hundred a month to hit promotions and earn extra commission, which never covered the money I spent,” she said.

FM World is best known for its perfumes and beauty products, but also sells other items, such as oven cleaning products and weight loss programmes.

Its members earn money in two ways. They can make a profit on what they sell by buying the FM World products at a discount, offloading them at higher prices and pocketing the difference.

They can also recruit other sellers and earn commission on the purchases made by the people they have brought on board. The business model relies on sales to personal networks, including friends, family and neighbours.

Ms Cairn said she was advised by the person who recruited her to seek out new joiners among people who had lost their jobs during the pandemic, and parent and baby groups on social media. By the time she left, she said she had 100 recruits, known as her “downline”.

The independence of the agents in the MLM model means there is little the company can do to regulate their behaviour. Ms Cairn said she was bullied by those who had recruited her. She cut her losses and left in August.

She said: “They told everyone to stop being friends with me, they spread my name and photo across Facebook and called me every name under the sun. I have never in my life been bullied so badly by people who I was made to trust and thought were friends.”

There are those, however, who have been able to make a living off the business model. Lauren Marie, 25, a carer from Bournemouth, joined FM World in December 2019 after being approached by a stranger on Facebook. She said it changed her life and she was making more than £1,500 a month.

Miss Marie recruited more than 400 people in just a year. She said the easiest to bring on board had been those who lost their jobs during the pandemic, and single mothers at home.

A campaigner against MLM firms who goes by the pseudonym Ms Sponlie said many former FM World sales people had come forward about the cyber abuse they faced. “Many of these people are struggling financially and then they receive abuse for leaving,” she said. “In one sad case, they found her husband’s business page and left messages accusing him of being a paedophile.”

The MLM companies themselves are not liable for this behaviour as their representatives are entirely independent.

FM World did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Multi-level marketing has come a long way since the Tupperware parties of the 1970s