Were you victimized by Beautycounter? Tell us about your experience.
Are you facing an issue with this company, and now you’re starting to think they might be a pyramid scheme? If so, you’re not the only one. You might be having a problem with getting a refund issued, merchandising issues, automatic billing, or something else.
Beautycounter is an MLM that sells cosmetic products and skin care products. They have over 40,000 Consultants who sell a range of 150 products. The products allegedly have no harsh chemicals and meticulously screen ingredients designed for all skin types.
There are a lot of issues with the quality of the products that are sold especially the ingredients that are used. The company alleges that they don’t use harsh chemicals and they only have natural products and everything they sell. on their website you might see that they talk about health protective company standards and removing heavy metals from their cosmetics.
However, according to Consumer Affairs, complaints have been lodged against the company because of product quality. A great deal of the issues lodged against the company quality has to do with lipsticks that dry out your lips, sunscreens that have no efficacy, and headache inducing fragrances for many of their purportedly natural products. Users have complained that using the sunscreen lotion and spray has resulted in very bad sunburns even with hourly applications.
Some consumers have tried to cancel their order and we’re told to simply wait to receive the products and then ship them back but during that time the card is charged and customer service won’t cancel the order and instead customers have to pay to have it shipped back and then hope that the refund will be initiated. Consumers claim that whenever there was a dispute for a refund, email communication took the form of boilerplate responses and calling the agency resulted in recorded messages with no refund insight.
If you look at the income disclosure statements from the company they say that the consultants can earn up to 35% commission from all personal sales with multiple examples of what the average income would be. If a consultant made $500 in weekly sales, every week amounting to a monthly total of $2,000, their average monthly income could be around $700. In addition to the retail commissions the company also emphasizes building a downline team to increase earning potential. Working with just one person underneath you could purportedly give you an average monthly income of $550 working just two to four hours per week but working with five people underneath you could potentially give you an average of $19,500 in income working just 20 to 25 hours per week. This information does make it clear that you have to sell a regular amount of products every week and that anyone you have underneath you has to sell that same amount every week with no lag in between in order to reach this level of income.
According to the Federal Trade Commission requirements for a pyramid scheme, beautycounter does not necessarily fall under the umbrella of a pyramid scheme however, they do put a pretty high emphasis on recruitment alleging in the income statements that your potential average earnings are significantly higher if you recruit people. Many complaints are that the products are overpriced but, when you sell the products you do earn a higher commission on them compared to other beauty products. There is no monthly requirement for purchasing products that results in you stockpiling your home, nor are there extra hidden fees for things like training and required conferences which put the company in the MLM category more than the pyramid scheme category.
While the potential average earnings are enticing, the company does put in the fine print that these are only reachable if you are working full-time to sell a minimum of $500 a week worth of products every week so they don’t necessarily make outlandish claims about the earnings potential but they don’t give you realistic examples of a situation where you might only sell $100 worth of products every week either.
However, that doesn’t mean the companies without issue. There are a lot of complaints against the company especially with canceled orders and poor quality products. If you have an issue with the company that they haven’t resolved, you still have options including consumer arbitration. We can help.
The Ultimate Guide to Consumer Complaints
Learn More
