Melaleuca

I have read a lot of reviews about Melaleuca, both favorable and unfavorable, and I thought I'd put in the 2 cents of a couple who did not sign up and the reasons why not via our experience after being invited to a evening to discuss these products by a friend of ours. 1. First of all, the company was not identified in the invitation, just a description of the general types of products and how "life-changing" they were. If these products are so amazing, why not ID the company in the invitation? 2. My husband and I were absolutely not interested in starting a business, we were just potentially interested in a couple of the products. However,there appears to be no way to just buy the products themselves without membership. Website marketplace access does not really appear to be available to nonmembers. 3. The absolute requirement for purchase of 35 points worth of product EVERY MONTH, no exceptions, was not appropriate for us. We do not have any use for this much product, it would be a waste of money for us, and again, we couldn't find a way to just buy a product or two except on Ebay or Amazon. 4. AT NO POINT did the representative who was presenting bring up the "backup order" that was an integral part of membership. We didn't find out that we would be sent product regardless of whether we needed it or ordered it every month. This was the biggest red flags for us. If this is an absolute requirement, why was it not emphasized in the presentation? 5. From my research online, cancelling the membership seems to be somewhat difficult process and the company seems to take their time processing your cancellation while continuing to send you product and taking your money. We basically agreed we would not trust this company with out bank account or credit card information. Overall, the big "red flags" to us were the repetitive emphasis on the "wonderfulness" of the products or the membership without being crystal clear on the requirements. Yes, anyone signing up for something needs to read the contract, but my observation was that little time was being given to do that, nor that one could take the contract home to read it before signing up. It was a typical high pressure pitch. I realize Melaleuca may work well for some people, but the product purchase requirements, the emphasis on signing up new people and the "upline/downline" format still suggest a typical MLM scheme where you are only going to succeed if you put in hours and hours working to bring in new people or have a heck of a lot of product need in your home. And that doesn't work for a lot of people, including us.