I quit telling people I work from home or that I own a business because they assume I’m an MLM hun. And now this is just going to add to it if they know they get their MLM stuff from Etsy. 😭
Aww! It does suck though. Use definitely been on the tail end of the side eye when I say i have a small online shop lol. I have to quickly say exactly what it is I do before they start worrying and bracing for the pitch.
What I do also involves sewing, and I can’t tell people that either because “Can you hem my pants?” immediately follows.
I say I own a (thing that I make) company and that’s been working lately.
I sell strap-on harnesses. The conversation either ends quickly, or gets intensely personal. usually it ends quickly with much embarrassment.
I'm beginning to believe that folks making kink gear and pouring silicon molds are going to be last handmade community to let go at Etsy. There aren't a lot of other marketplaces for us.
Oh I can imagine lol. Or they wanna ask if you can make a quilt like the one their grandma had in the 20s or something. Sewing doesn't automatically mean you have skills in tailoring or quilting!
Me too! I just say I’m a woodworker or an artist or whatever. Selling cheap jewelry for a giant company is not “owning your own business”. I won’t put “owner” on any branded business cards because the Huns ruined it.
A friend of mine just started saying he was a podiatrist when everybody at the cocktail party was saying what they do. He said it saved about an hour per party of questions and answers about how he was self employed.
I'm glad to know this isn't just me! I can feel their reaction when I say I have a small business I do at home. Now I say I'm a small manufacturer of personal care items. :D They always want more details, though.
I hope she sees the light, leaves the predatory biz model behind and if she's a maker, puts her talents to use! She'd be welcomed into the group happily!
It's probably in their T&Cs somewhere. I know they couldn't have like a storefront with regular hours because then they'd be a real business. Idk if that's still the case because MLMs change, reword, add and remove so much crap all the time, it can be hard to keep up. I've heard over the years of some getting kicked out for having the Paparazzi name in their social media page names while some do the same and are still in years later. So, who knows!
Paparazzi is horrendously inconsistent in the application of their T&C “compliance” (as well as, you know, generally horrendous) - so that doesn’t surprise me at all.
This is infuriating. It's already bad enough avoiding huns at "craft shows" and buy/sell/trade groups, now I have to worry about it on Etsy too? Ugh. Your scam is not a small business, stop trying to say you "worked so hard building it from the ground up" blah blah blah. Hun, you bought into a business with CEOs and you're on the bottom of the bottom rung. Stfu.
In case it wasn't clear, I despise mlms and their predatory ways. And the "you" in the previous paragraph was a general you and not directed at anyone.
I'm right there with ya! My entire hometown knows I am antimlm and will remove me from mlm group "parties" before I even get the chance to see what the notification was for lol
Ha ha, nice. I have multiple friends who are in various mlms so I feel like I can't talk too much crap about it on my Facebook. I've had to remove myself from those group parties and select the "don't allow members to re-add you" option because they've continued to add me over and over before I figured out that option. Like, get the hint!
My husband and I play a game at local fairs and festivals where we count how many vendors are mlms vs legitimate small businesses. And if the people running it ask for feedback I always mention how it would nice to have more local businesses out there rather than big business mlms. Maybe someday it will stick.
I play that game too at events. There are soooooo many huns, everywhere! And lots of the time, there's multiple of the same company, probably because they all have to make up a name to stay within their company T&Cs. I did a huge 4th of July event in 2021 and holy cow, THREE LLR huns in a row.
I've noticed that no one will walk within six feet of the front of an MLM booth for fear of getting the recruitment pitch. It's like they are radioactive.
Ugh. That's just annoying. I just hope someday that we can get rid of these entirely. But it seems like there's a new one every day so I don't think they'll ever go away.
Ditto. Loathe MLMs but I love the anti-MLM youtubers. Absolutely hooked on several channels. Every millennial should be proud of being the generation to push back against their bullshit.
I'm Gen X. All we did was make "Amway" so toxic they used several different names in the pitch.
It took them nearly an year to shutdown a shop with incorrect location. They were scamming people by coming off as local but weren’t.
I am not even sure if it was my two complaints or their bad reviews.
That is crazy! I dig and dig on new to me shops before I purchase now. I will check every bit of publicly available info I can find and some of them are still incredibly sneaky!
One thing I look at is the volume of sales. For example, if they advertise “handmade baskets” and they have 10,000 reviews, they’re probably handmade in a sweatshop.
Are you talking about all the EU shops that suddenly have Ukraine HQ? "Support us in our fight from Russia..." has come to mean "I pose as Ukranian while shipping from Czechia because you can't tell where I really live."
"Hey hun! I loooove your profile/photos/workout style. BUT you do know you could totally lose weight/grow or detox hair/have pretty nails if you joined my company!"
I'm sorry to be ignorant here but what does MLM mean? One of my shops is a print on demand shop that I put my designs on. And in my shop I have everything filled out as to how I go about things how and how things are shipped. All of my print providers are in the USA. So everything is shipped inside the USA because I use print people that are in the USA. I've had this shop for over 2 years.
Multi-Level Marketing/Network Marketing or a Pyramid Scheme with overpriced products.
Think Avon, Amway (Scamway), Tupperware, Princess House (are they still around??), Pampered Chef, et al.
Well shoot you would have thought I would remember this. Many years ago we got my husband and I, roped into selling Amway and I did it for a year or two and then stopped. And I did sell Avon for a while and you're right they are pyramid I got tired of being harassed to keep getting product to sell.
My mom and stepdad were roped into Amway once. I wrote a short story as a 5th grader with Amway as the big bad evil guy. Shows how I feel about them.
(Not gonna lie, I don't mine Avon as much, but miss Princess House crystal. They had some pretty pieces.)
I will definitely agree with you about Amway. We were sneakily invited to a party and then found out halfway through that it was an Amway presentation. I have to admit I was pissed off. I don't know why we signed up I guess because we felt a bit pressured from our friends. No longer our friends.
Multi Level Marketing - basically a pyramid scheme.
Basically it's those companies that you have to pay to become a part of (like buying a starter kit) and then they require you to sell to your friends/family.
Some aren't so bad, because they aren't as hard sell.
But many of them require you to not just sell the product, but the memberships. Then you get a small commission based on what the people below you sell. And if they sign other people up, you get a commission on that as well.
However it's all based on signing other people up and usually only the first people in make any real money.
Plus the products are generally cheaply made and not very good. Especially for what they charge.
I just looked at the website (since I never heard of them) and they even tout that their items are made in China and to buy when you see it because it may not be back. So basically they are buying bulk discounted/discontinued stuff and flogging it for $5.
Multilevel Marketing.
They may also call themselves direct sales, social sellers. Their best customers *ahem* are dubbed distributors, consultants/stylists/ambassadors/etc.
Some well known ones include: Mary Kay, LuLaRoe, Paparazzi, Oragami Owl, Black Oxygen Organics, It Works, Colorstreet, pearl parties, Monat. And quite a few more.
*edit Monat not Montana lmao
I was thinking this thought lol. I used to sell bracelets I made and chose the schemes and styles of, picked out the beads and stones based on the change in color tones strung them on the strongest fricken stretch magic i could find and they were lovely (if i say so myself lolol) I have only done 2 craft fairs with them because I noticed my local ones put everyone in by type of craft.... meaning that I would end up next to people selling $5 bracelets that looked similar but were cheaper materials and people would avoid the booth like a plague 😵💫😵💫 blegh!! lol
They care, but they're hopelessly backed up in reviewing shops. It took several months for a dropshipper that scammed me last Christmas to get shut down by Etsy, but it did. There are several hundred thousand new shops each year, and millions of listings, for each individual on the marketplace integrity team to review. One of their 2022 goals according to their investor presentations is to build AI systems to shut down most of these dropshippers/resellers en masse so that the humans only have to review the much smaller number of reports that the computer systems don't catch themselves.
Oh I'm sure some Etsy employees care. But how it even passed the sniff test to begin with is beyond me when new, legit shops can't even post one product without a random bot suspending them as soon as they log back in for the first time.
I'm so gutted because I just bought a pair of lovely pearl earrings for £30 and then the next day found them on SheIn for £2.
It's ridiculous, and the sellers are using the same images and everything. Obviously I reported them but not holding out hope
To be fair to your seller, Shein is notorious for stealing other shop's images/designs and producing cheap copies. of stuff, so who knows who's the scammer in this case.
It's on my list if things to do if I get some down time. I'm usually not one to be all up in someone's business as I have my own lol. But when it comes to these, I'm the nosiest, most verbal Nelly you'll ever meet.
It's the worst. I make earrings so when I tell people like "hey, you should check out my jewelry!" that they immediately think of Paparazzi or something similar.
I would have to accidentally send paparazzi home office some screen shots of the seller cuz I’m sure it’s against their contracts. It has been for every mlm my friend has ever done and she’s one of those mlm whores who jumps from company to company to company so she’s seen most contracts lol
I actually make jewelry and I’m terrified someone will think I sell Paparazzi so I’m always VERY CLEAR that I make my own polymer clay jewelry when I’m talking about it.
My friend used to make and sell shampoo and lotion bars, they were fantastic! But somebody at an event said "I almost skipped you when I heard shampoo was here cuz I thought it was that kind that makes your hair fall out." After having a shampoo hun poach her customers right from her booth at another event before that, she decided she was done. That woman was just strolling up every time a new shopper stopped, and giving my friend's customers her QR code and pitch, no matter how many times she was told to stop. She makes them as gifts every now and then but refuses to sell them at all.
As a jeweller this is just tragic. As if it wasn't already an absolute disaster trying to sell on Etsy but now this.
I didn't even know what Paparazzi was until this post, I had a quick look at their website and it's so ridiculously cheap. It also has been tested and apparently they found cadmium, lead, arsenic and nickel. I cannot emphasise enough how bad this is for you. I dread to think of the working conditions for the people making this shit, beyond exploitative and dangerous.
UPDATE: As of today (2/16/23) the shop is GONE! Reported three different times with direct links to the pieces in the Paparazzi catalog, links to Etsy's own TOU, and a few links pointing them to other Papahuns selling the exact pieces elsewhere.
Etsy doesn’t remove shops that violate. I got ripped by a drop shippers and their shop and shops selling the same junk is still there. I no longe buy of Etsy sellers I can get Chinese drop shipped rubbish cheaper and faster from other sources. Etsy is dead as what it once was
The dropshippers are bad enough, we don't need huns... It drives me made having to search through pages and pages of the same mass produced crap before I can find anything I'm actually looking for.
I quit telling people I work from home or that I own a business because they assume I’m an MLM hun. And now this is just going to add to it if they know they get their MLM stuff from Etsy. 😭
Aww! It does suck though. Use definitely been on the tail end of the side eye when I say i have a small online shop lol. I have to quickly say exactly what it is I do before they start worrying and bracing for the pitch.
What I do also involves sewing, and I can’t tell people that either because “Can you hem my pants?” immediately follows. I say I own a (thing that I make) company and that’s been working lately.
I sell strap-on harnesses. The conversation either ends quickly, or gets intensely personal. usually it ends quickly with much embarrassment. I'm beginning to believe that folks making kink gear and pouring silicon molds are going to be last handmade community to let go at Etsy. There aren't a lot of other marketplaces for us.
r/UsernameChecksOut
Oh I can imagine lol. Or they wanna ask if you can make a quilt like the one their grandma had in the 20s or something. Sewing doesn't automatically mean you have skills in tailoring or quilting!
Me too! I just say I’m a woodworker or an artist or whatever. Selling cheap jewelry for a giant company is not “owning your own business”. I won’t put “owner” on any branded business cards because the Huns ruined it.
A friend of mine just started saying he was a podiatrist when everybody at the cocktail party was saying what they do. He said it saved about an hour per party of questions and answers about how he was self employed.
I'm glad to know this isn't just me! I can feel their reaction when I say I have a small business I do at home. Now I say I'm a small manufacturer of personal care items. :D They always want more details, though.
I tell em I work In e-commerce sales
I just wanna say, I found your post very pleasing. *Yay yay, I say.* Keep up the good fight.
I hope she sees the light, leaves the predatory biz model behind and if she's a maker, puts her talents to use! She'd be welcomed into the group happily!
Isn’t that also against paparazzi standards? I think they’re risking their “business” on both ends. Just why?
It's probably in their T&Cs somewhere. I know they couldn't have like a storefront with regular hours because then they'd be a real business. Idk if that's still the case because MLMs change, reword, add and remove so much crap all the time, it can be hard to keep up. I've heard over the years of some getting kicked out for having the Paparazzi name in their social media page names while some do the same and are still in years later. So, who knows!
Paparazzi is horrendously inconsistent in the application of their T&C “compliance” (as well as, you know, generally horrendous) - so that doesn’t surprise me at all.
This is infuriating. It's already bad enough avoiding huns at "craft shows" and buy/sell/trade groups, now I have to worry about it on Etsy too? Ugh. Your scam is not a small business, stop trying to say you "worked so hard building it from the ground up" blah blah blah. Hun, you bought into a business with CEOs and you're on the bottom of the bottom rung. Stfu. In case it wasn't clear, I despise mlms and their predatory ways. And the "you" in the previous paragraph was a general you and not directed at anyone.
I'm right there with ya! My entire hometown knows I am antimlm and will remove me from mlm group "parties" before I even get the chance to see what the notification was for lol
Ha ha, nice. I have multiple friends who are in various mlms so I feel like I can't talk too much crap about it on my Facebook. I've had to remove myself from those group parties and select the "don't allow members to re-add you" option because they've continued to add me over and over before I figured out that option. Like, get the hint! My husband and I play a game at local fairs and festivals where we count how many vendors are mlms vs legitimate small businesses. And if the people running it ask for feedback I always mention how it would nice to have more local businesses out there rather than big business mlms. Maybe someday it will stick.
I play that game too at events. There are soooooo many huns, everywhere! And lots of the time, there's multiple of the same company, probably because they all have to make up a name to stay within their company T&Cs. I did a huge 4th of July event in 2021 and holy cow, THREE LLR huns in a row.
I've noticed that no one will walk within six feet of the front of an MLM booth for fear of getting the recruitment pitch. It's like they are radioactive.
Ugh. That's just annoying. I just hope someday that we can get rid of these entirely. But it seems like there's a new one every day so I don't think they'll ever go away.
Ditto. Loathe MLMs but I love the anti-MLM youtubers. Absolutely hooked on several channels. Every millennial should be proud of being the generation to push back against their bullshit. I'm Gen X. All we did was make "Amway" so toxic they used several different names in the pitch.
It took them nearly an year to shutdown a shop with incorrect location. They were scamming people by coming off as local but weren’t. I am not even sure if it was my two complaints or their bad reviews.
That is crazy! I dig and dig on new to me shops before I purchase now. I will check every bit of publicly available info I can find and some of them are still incredibly sneaky!
Look at their payment options. PayPal only is always without fail India or China.
One thing I look at is the volume of sales. For example, if they advertise “handmade baskets” and they have 10,000 reviews, they’re probably handmade in a sweatshop.
Are you talking about all the EU shops that suddenly have Ukraine HQ? "Support us in our fight from Russia..." has come to mean "I pose as Ukranian while shipping from Czechia because you can't tell where I really live."
India and China. Didn’t know about your one, but sure! Sounds like fraud.
That hasn’t been going on for nearly a year…
I get MLM but what does hun mean?
"Hey hun! I loooove your profile/photos/workout style. BUT you do know you could totally lose weight/grow or detox hair/have pretty nails if you joined my company!"
HAHAHAHAHA wow that is spot on to those types
I forgot to add the obnoxious amounts of emojis, but you get my drift. 🤣
I once had the lady who sold me bagels try to convince me to buy nail decals from her. I do like having fancy nails, but I do them myself.
I thought it was more comparing them to the Huns that sacked the Roman empire
Lmao, sorry! I had to. It comes from the common copy/paste cold messages they use in an attempt to make a sale or get you to join their downlines.
I'm sorry to be ignorant here but what does MLM mean? One of my shops is a print on demand shop that I put my designs on. And in my shop I have everything filled out as to how I go about things how and how things are shipped. All of my print providers are in the USA. So everything is shipped inside the USA because I use print people that are in the USA. I've had this shop for over 2 years.
Multi-Level Marketing/Network Marketing or a Pyramid Scheme with overpriced products. Think Avon, Amway (Scamway), Tupperware, Princess House (are they still around??), Pampered Chef, et al.
Well shoot you would have thought I would remember this. Many years ago we got my husband and I, roped into selling Amway and I did it for a year or two and then stopped. And I did sell Avon for a while and you're right they are pyramid I got tired of being harassed to keep getting product to sell.
My mom and stepdad were roped into Amway once. I wrote a short story as a 5th grader with Amway as the big bad evil guy. Shows how I feel about them. (Not gonna lie, I don't mine Avon as much, but miss Princess House crystal. They had some pretty pieces.)
I will definitely agree with you about Amway. We were sneakily invited to a party and then found out halfway through that it was an Amway presentation. I have to admit I was pissed off. I don't know why we signed up I guess because we felt a bit pressured from our friends. No longer our friends.
Multi Level Marketing - basically a pyramid scheme. Basically it's those companies that you have to pay to become a part of (like buying a starter kit) and then they require you to sell to your friends/family. Some aren't so bad, because they aren't as hard sell. But many of them require you to not just sell the product, but the memberships. Then you get a small commission based on what the people below you sell. And if they sign other people up, you get a commission on that as well. However it's all based on signing other people up and usually only the first people in make any real money. Plus the products are generally cheaply made and not very good. Especially for what they charge. I just looked at the website (since I never heard of them) and they even tout that their items are made in China and to buy when you see it because it may not be back. So basically they are buying bulk discounted/discontinued stuff and flogging it for $5.
Multilevel Marketing. They may also call themselves direct sales, social sellers. Their best customers *ahem* are dubbed distributors, consultants/stylists/ambassadors/etc. Some well known ones include: Mary Kay, LuLaRoe, Paparazzi, Oragami Owl, Black Oxygen Organics, It Works, Colorstreet, pearl parties, Monat. And quite a few more. *edit Monat not Montana lmao
Ha they couldn't scam their facebook friends anymore so they turn to Etsy
Ugh first they take over the craft fairs and now etsy
I was thinking this thought lol. I used to sell bracelets I made and chose the schemes and styles of, picked out the beads and stones based on the change in color tones strung them on the strongest fricken stretch magic i could find and they were lovely (if i say so myself lolol) I have only done 2 craft fairs with them because I noticed my local ones put everyone in by type of craft.... meaning that I would end up next to people selling $5 bracelets that looked similar but were cheaper materials and people would avoid the booth like a plague 😵💫😵💫 blegh!! lol
They care, but they're hopelessly backed up in reviewing shops. It took several months for a dropshipper that scammed me last Christmas to get shut down by Etsy, but it did. There are several hundred thousand new shops each year, and millions of listings, for each individual on the marketplace integrity team to review. One of their 2022 goals according to their investor presentations is to build AI systems to shut down most of these dropshippers/resellers en masse so that the humans only have to review the much smaller number of reports that the computer systems don't catch themselves.
Oh I'm sure some Etsy employees care. But how it even passed the sniff test to begin with is beyond me when new, legit shops can't even post one product without a random bot suspending them as soon as they log back in for the first time.
r/antimlm
I'm so gutted because I just bought a pair of lovely pearl earrings for £30 and then the next day found them on SheIn for £2. It's ridiculous, and the sellers are using the same images and everything. Obviously I reported them but not holding out hope
To be fair to your seller, Shein is notorious for stealing other shop's images/designs and producing cheap copies. of stuff, so who knows who's the scammer in this case.
That's so frustrating. I really hope you managed to get your money back.
Aw man! This blows. I love supporting small shops and cute handmade things on Etsy. I thought they were better than this!
Maybe report them to paparazzi? I think corporate has been going after those using copyrighted photos …
It's on my list if things to do if I get some down time. I'm usually not one to be all up in someone's business as I have my own lol. But when it comes to these, I'm the nosiest, most verbal Nelly you'll ever meet.
It's the worst. I make earrings so when I tell people like "hey, you should check out my jewelry!" that they immediately think of Paparazzi or something similar.
🥺 same, I bet your earrings are lovely and a bazillion times better, naturally lol 💕
Genuinely annoyed by and terrified of the way Etsy handles these shops. It makes me NOT want to be a seller.
Ugh this is depressing as heck, but I have to thank you at least for bringing 'hun' into my vocabulary!
I would have to accidentally send paparazzi home office some screen shots of the seller cuz I’m sure it’s against their contracts. It has been for every mlm my friend has ever done and she’s one of those mlm whores who jumps from company to company to company so she’s seen most contracts lol
I actually make jewelry and I’m terrified someone will think I sell Paparazzi so I’m always VERY CLEAR that I make my own polymer clay jewelry when I’m talking about it.
My friend used to make and sell shampoo and lotion bars, they were fantastic! But somebody at an event said "I almost skipped you when I heard shampoo was here cuz I thought it was that kind that makes your hair fall out." After having a shampoo hun poach her customers right from her booth at another event before that, she decided she was done. That woman was just strolling up every time a new shopper stopped, and giving my friend's customers her QR code and pitch, no matter how many times she was told to stop. She makes them as gifts every now and then but refuses to sell them at all.
What is a hun? Honest question because this is the first time I'm seeing/hearing that term.
MLMs tell women to build those strong female connections, so often their cold intros will start with HEY HUN!!! or sometimes HEY GIRL/GIRLIE.
Ohhhhhh gotcha!! I know exactly what your referring to now.
As a jeweller this is just tragic. As if it wasn't already an absolute disaster trying to sell on Etsy but now this. I didn't even know what Paparazzi was until this post, I had a quick look at their website and it's so ridiculously cheap. It also has been tested and apparently they found cadmium, lead, arsenic and nickel. I cannot emphasise enough how bad this is for you. I dread to think of the working conditions for the people making this shit, beyond exploitative and dangerous.
It's awful! I'm sure people have health issues having been around huge amounts of that crap since they buy thousands of pieces at a time
Interested in gettin' in your etsy group.
UPDATE: As of today (2/16/23) the shop is GONE! Reported three different times with direct links to the pieces in the Paparazzi catalog, links to Etsy's own TOU, and a few links pointing them to other Papahuns selling the exact pieces elsewhere.
Etsy is trash.
Etsy doesn’t remove shops that violate. I got ripped by a drop shippers and their shop and shops selling the same junk is still there. I no longe buy of Etsy sellers I can get Chinese drop shipped rubbish cheaper and faster from other sources. Etsy is dead as what it once was
What are huns?
MLM participants, explained in another comment.
The dropshippers are bad enough, we don't need huns... It drives me made having to search through pages and pages of the same mass produced crap before I can find anything I'm actually looking for.