A detailed look into Melaleuca and the Melaleuca Company, their business practices, including a summary of how their business works, and the a detailed look into reports of a Melaleuca Scam. Read the rest of this entry »
Melaleuca, Inc. started in 1985. The CEO is a man by the name of Frank VanderSloot who, for all intents and purposes, has a good reputation, but appears to be a private individual, and therefore not much is known. One piece I did find was a news report about him here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXfBWePbQRg&feature=related
Frank VanderSloot was reportedly hired in 1985 as President of a Multi Level Marketing company called “Oil of Melaleuca”. VanderSloot is said to have quickly shut down the company because of it’s Multi Level Marketing business model, and his distaste for Multi Level Marketing. According to one website, under VanderSloot’s leadership “Melaleuca has been outspoken against the abuses inherent to multi-level marketing and the damage they can cause.” – www.wikipedia.org/melaleuca which appears to have caused some contention from the Multi Level Marketing companies, and – being fair to Melaleuca – it appears as though some of the scam reports on Melaleuca are actually from Multi Level Marketing companies or recruiters.
After closing down the “Oil of Melaleuca” company, VanderSloot started the new ”Melaleuca, Inc.” company. The new company was based on a direct to consumer model – where customers order directly from the company instead of an MLM distributer. There appears to be ongoing confusion on the internet today between the old “Oil of Melaleuca” MLM company and the new “Melaleuca, Inc.” NON-MLM company with people confusing the two businesses.
The company manufactures nutritional products and a line of cleaning products they call “bleach free” and without harsh chemicals. Melaleuca’s products tend to get praise throughout the internet by their customers. It’s hard to deny that their products seem to have an impressive reputation. The number one complaint on the products being they are more expensive than generic brands found locally, but the products appear to be fairly priced (and sometimes a bargain) in the mid to high end on the quality spectrum – which is where it appears the quality of their product puts them.
The company proudly displays their growth graph in prominent locations. It’s obvious they’re proud of it. Though it does appear they had a few years in there where they didn’t grow by much, it appears their claim of 35 years of consecutive growth since inception appears to be accurate.
Their business model appears to be based off of a referral program, similar to the old BMG cd club – where you would receive free CD’s for referring a friend. Except instead of free CD’s (or free products) Melaleuca is said to send cash based on a percentage of what the referral spends. (i.e. the more they like the products the bigger the referral check)
Melaleuca also has another part of their program called the Preferred Customer Program where customers can receive a 40% discount for committing to buy about $50+ per month from the company.
There appears to be one prominent lawsuit on file with Melaleuca where Melaleuca was a sales rep for Melaleuca committed suicide, and the family sued Melaleuca for an unknown amount of money. The record shows that the jury voted unanimously in favor of Melaleuca. (I cannot find any lawsuits online related to Melaleuca’s products. )
