DSSRC Administrative Closure #235

The Direct Selling Self-Regulatory Council (“DSSRC”) contacted a direct selling company (“Company”) regarding seven social media posts disseminated on Facebook and one Linked-In post that were identified pursuant to DSSRC’s monitoring of product and earnings claims communicated in the direct selling industry. The eight posts included claims that salesforce members can earn generally expect to earn significant income from the Company’s business opportunity, including, but not limited to, claims stating that Company salesforce members can generally expect to earn “unlimited income,” “full-time income,” “… more money than I ever imagined/” and achieve “financial freedom.”

In response to DSSRC’s inquiry, the Company immediately removed six of the eight social media posts. The Company tried unsuccessfully to have the two remaining Facebook posts removed. More specifically, the Company attempted to contact the two salesforce members responsible for the remaining posts on three separate occasions via email, telephone and Facebook Messenger. The Company also attempted to contact former sponsors and uplines but still did not receive a response from the salesforce members responsible for the two remaining posts. The Company terminated both of the salesforce members accounts and reported the matter to Facebook (one post that disseminated as part of a Facebook Group was reported to the Group Administrator as well).

DSSRC agreed that the actions taken by the Company were necessary and appropriate. Section 5(A) of the DSSRC Guidance on Earnings Claims for the Direct Selling Industry (“the DSSRC Earnings Claims Guidance”) prohibits statements such as “quit your job,” “be set for life,” “make more money than you ever have imagined or thought possible,” “realize unlimited income,” or any substantially similar statements. Moreover, section 6 of the DSSRC Earnings Claims Guidance states that “…some words and phrases commonly used in earnings claims can carry a particularly high risk of being misleading to consumers. Such words and phrases include claims such as “financial freedom…”.

It was further determined that the Company used its best efforts to address DSSRC’s concerns in this inquiry and based upon these actions, DSSRC administratively closed the inquiry.

(Administrative Closure #235, closed on April 7, 2022)
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