This is kind of crazy, I remember a time when I thought Arbonne was solid, and then 'swoosh' right down the toilet it went. Here is an email from Arbonne to a rep announcing that it was about to go on a long vacation.

{Important Information From Arbonne

01/31/2010 09:43 PM

legalnotice@ arbonne.com

January 29, 2010

Dear Arbonne Independent Consultant,

You are a valued member of the Arbonne family, and we want to make you aware of an important action we have taken to strengthen Arbonne financially and ensure that our company is well-positioned for the future.On January 27, 2010, Arbonne, along with our parent company, Natural Products Group, LLC, and related entities, filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to implement a "pre-packaged" debt restructuring plan. This plan will reduce our outstanding debt obligations by more than 80%, which will lower significantly the amount of cash we spend on principal and interest payments. We can use this cash to invest in building our business.}

I'm sorry if this is old news, but I just read about it, and so now I'm trying to figure something out that maybe someone can help me with. You see, no matter how hard I try, I can't get my mind wrapped around the freakin structure of your standard MLM company earnings. More specifically; when a company like Arbonne begins, and the money siphon brings in tons of reps and start up costs, and after 10 years or so it crashes; is there anyone that is left having made a ton of money? What I'm getting at is; after all the reps die off and get sucked into some other scam with a better sugar coating, did the whole scheme leave someone, anyone rich? If so, then does that mean that at the heart of each of these MLM companies is some money mastermind that devised a scheme that would make him or her rich by its very nature?

I'm left wondering if there is a way I can find out the financial status of the Arbonne founder and get a relatively good idea of how well off he is. I never really thought of an Arbonne scam, but the more of this I see the more I'm wondering if they really aren't designed to be so sophisticated that the founders make money no matter what the outcome, and if that's the case, why the hell is anyone feeding it? After all, MLM companies have bad enough a rep as it is, but evidently people must be doing something right because millions of people seem to get involved every year.

When it was announced later that Natural Products Group, the owner of Arbonne, filed for bankruptcy protection and jumped on to chapter 11, 90% of the lenders voted in favor of the restructuring despite being owed $530 million... I can't get that number out of my head. I'm thinking that no matter what happens, any little "insignificant" scraping off of $530 million dollars would leave you set for life no matter who peed in your soup...so I ask again, ultimately, are these companies designed to do this by a handful of people slick enough to design it? So far the only comfort for the little guys is that the company is going to be "restructured" which I have no idea what it means, but it sounds like a polite way of saying the horse will be allowed to fall asleep quietly. Maybe I'm being to cynical I don't know, but it seemed like an Arbonne scam to me.

Well, normally I would try my best to give a company the benefit of the doubt, but I guess what you're asking is pretty direct. You're wondering if this one in particular or many of them are more or less a "conspiracy" (for lack of a better word) to get one or a few people rich? I think of this two different ways, and since I know virtually nothing about business, I can only base my opinion on assumptions. I think there is a mechanism in 'most' us that will naturally try to sustain ourselves to the best of our ability when it comes to money, or situations in which we can make money or capitalize. Our goals are all different of course, some people will be perfectly happy to always be able to afford a beer and smokes, while other people can't seem to endure life without expensive things, and whose to judge either person?

If I were the CEO of Arbonne, I would naturally not do anything that would risk putting me in either the poor house or the slammer if I could help it. I certainly wouldn't steal from people, or manipulate them knowing they couldn't win, so to speak, but would I make sure that I would be ok no matter what happened to the company? Yes. What you're suggesting though, is that the people behind Arbonne designed it from the ground up to function a certain way, and while I'm not saying that's impossible, its unlikely. My main reason is that a business could go any number of ways, you can't possibly predict it perfectly, and most people would prefer a long lasting, sustained fortune than a mediocre one that could leave you with only a little of what you invested, or in debt if it really goes bad. Enormous amounts of money go into these things so I can certainly understand where you see opportunities to do a little scraping.

Truthfully though, this is out of my league because I don't really know how business works, the bank loans, the cost of paying thousands of people etc. What we have learned without a doubt though is that there is no shortage of con artists and people willing to swindle, that's for sure. The world is full of conspiracies, some of the tin foil variety, others hauntingly likely, but in the MLM world?

Maybe.