FTC Restores Rigorous Enforcement of Law Banning Unfair Methods of Competition

Re:FTC Restores Rigorous Enforcement of Law Banning Unfair M... by pessimizer on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:41PM (#33555281)

Non-MLM franchises don't make their money from sublicensing at all. It isn't like one McDonald's franchise is being paid by other McDonald's stores. It's single-level marketing. So I don't know that the distinction is so fuzzy.

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Re:FTC Restores Rigorous Enforcement of Law Banning Unfair M... by bombcar on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:08PM (#33555579)

Some franchises are basically scams against the franchisee- subway and Quiznos were famous for not caring much at all and being willing to sell a franchise to anyone with some money (normally franchises are protected from similar franchises within a given area).

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Re:FTC Restores Rigorous Enforcement of Law Banning Unfair M... by specialist on Friday November 11, 2022 @02:41PM (#33565709)

This is also SOP for the value-added reseller (VAR) scam.

One notable exception are car dealers. They somehow secured themselves durable lucrative carve-outs before the VAR thing matured.

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Re:FTC Restores Rigorous Enforcement of Law Banning Unfair M... by Retric on Thursday November 10, 2022 @07:12PM (#33555614)

I was bringing up one of the more sketchy parts of many MLM companies, the out of pocket cost before someone can actually make money selling product.

The point was buy in can absolutely be used as part of a scam see many 90’s MLM “companies”, but it may also be part of a perfectly reasonable business model.

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