I was targeted by a Monat Rep for hair thinning, here’s what happened, how to file a complaint with the FTC, my weekend outfit & a Linkup

IT’S BEEN A HOT MINUTE

I never thought I’d have this happen to me, but recently, I was targeted by a Monat rep because of my hair thinning.  I found this marketing tactic quite gross to say the least, so I decided to reach out to Monat.  After Monat responded I filed a complaint with the FTC and Florida Attorney General.  In this post, I’ll be talking about what happened, and how to file complaints.  I haven’t uploaded an anti MLM post in a while, let alone a blog post, but I wanted to talk about this.  In case you’re new here, I have an entire Youtube Channel dedicated to talking about the harms of MLM companies, sprinkling in some other scams, and adding some true crime to the mix.

In this post, I won’t be going over what MLMs are. If you click here I have a few posts where I break these down even more and provide more educational information about them.  Before we get into the anti MLM portion, let me show off my newest dress and shoes from my most recent shopping spree that I’m absolutely in love with, and did help me feel a little bit better over the weekend.  In addition, this is the first time I’ve dressed up in a while, so of course it needed to be documented.

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Dress:  Boohoo // Shoes:  Boohoo // Headband: Etsy // Necklace: Amazon

BUT FIRST, THE OUTFIT THAT SAVED MY MOOD

I did a little online shopping recently, and this dress and shoes were part of that shopping spree.  At first, I was nervous because I have never ordered from Boohoo before, but there were a lot of cute things for decent prices and I figured I could just return anything I didn’t like.  Of course, you get what you pay for, so I wasn’t expecting the quality to be top notch or anything, but I was pleasantly surprised.  There were a few things (that I’ll be sharing over the next few weeks) that were a little meh, but most of the pieces were pretty ok.

This dress isn’t 100% see through, but it is a bit thinner.  You don’t have to wear a slip with it which I love because I live in Florida.  I’m not about to be wearing slips underneath dresses because it’s too hot.  The shoes are super cute, but I wasn’t expecting the gold part of the shoe to be a snap on piece, but that means you can wear it without the gold chain, as long as you’re ok with the snaps showing.  I was loving these chunky sandals that I was seeing all over my Instagram, so I just needed to buy myself a pair.  They kind of reminded me of the 90’s, and we all know fashion repeats itself.  However, this outfit, and the shopping spree in general saved my mood a little bit, especially after I got a message targeting me because of my hair thinning.

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FOR CONTEXT, HERE’S THE HAIR THINNING POST

Before I go over the message from a Monat rep, I wanted to give context as to what she is referring to.  Below I’m going to show my original post that even attracted this rep to my Instagram.  My hair thinning is not permanent, but that makes me one of the lucky ones.  No, it has nothing to do with the color in my hair.  A few people have commented about that, and my hair has not been touched with color or heat since October of 2020.  Once in a while I’ll use a pink shampoo to keep the pink a bit vibrant.  I’ll eventually talk about the medical things I’ve been going on behind the scenes and why my hair started thinning, but for now, let’s focus on the topic at hand.

These photos were uploaded onto Instagram back in March.  Being vulnerable in this post is an absolute understatement.  I did go into more detail about my hair loss in this post back in April.  Since I posted that, there was another instance where a rep contacted me, but that one didn’t bother me as much.  I just let it go.  However, this time around it was different.  This time around, I couldn’t believe what I was reading when I opened the message on Friday.  This message brought tears to my eyes, and angered me all at the same time since my hair thinning is still something that upsets me.

A MONAT REP SENT ME THIS DISGUSTING MESSAGE

Some may read this message and think, “Monica, what’s wrong with this message?  This rep is just concerned and trying to be supportive.”  While it may seem that way, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.  MLM reps are taught to target certain groups of people.  There are so many reaction videos on Youtube alone showing that uplines tell their recruits to go into support groups of chronic illnesses and try to get some sales or recruits from them.  In my opinion, this is predatory behavior and predatory marketing.

The Monat rep in this message openly admitted to looking through the hair loss community.  Judging by her profile and her message, the only conclusion I can come to as to why she’s doing this is to find customers and potential recruits.  She herself, does not suffer from hair loss.  When you receive messages like these from MLM reps in particular, the majority of the time, it’s only because they see you as a dollar sign.  I would like to believe there are some reps out there who truly believe they are helping people, but the majority just see you as an opportunity to rake in some cash.

My original response was going to simply be (don’t mind my potty mouth) “fuck you.”  I made the decision to take a step back and sleep on it before I responded because I was definitely going to respond to this rep.  If I would’ve responded with “fuck you” that’s exactly what MLMers expect anti MLMers to do, and I didn’t want my poor judgement and emotions to reflect badly on the entire movement.  Taking my time responding, and trying to maybe (hopefully) get through to this rep was the right decision for me.  I always talk about being kind to reps and understanding that they are indoctrinated into the MLM.  Responding so aggressively would completely contradict everything I stand for.

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MY RESPONSE TO THIS FOOLERY 

As y’all can see, I definitely changed my tune as to how I responded.  If you’re curious as to what I was talking about when I mentioned the Florida Attorney General/Monat situation, here is the court document and here is an article that gives a breakdown so you don’t have to read through the court document if you currently don’t have time.  I do always encourage everyone to always do their own research as well.  Y’all can let me know what you think, but I think sleeping on it was definitely the best route to go with responding to this rep.

She clearly saw my message.  This correspondence was shared on Twitter, my anti MLM Facebook group, and for my Channel Members/Patrons.  I had quite a number of responses, and when I told people I was left on read, a few said maybe the rep was waiting for her upline to get back to her on what to say.  She didn’t unfollow me yet, and I forgot to mention this before, but she even liked some of my anti MLM posts on my Instagram so I wasn’t sure if she was just trolling and trying to get a rise out of me.  The following day after I responded (Sunday) I was planning on filming a video about this situation.

My video was going to use this situation as a way to educate consumers to truly research before they hop on something just because they think someone cares about their situation.  In addition, I wanted to show my audience how to file a complaint with the FTC ad FL Attorney General.  Before I filmed my video, I checked to see if this rep had responded, or if she had blocked me by that point.  As you can see in the screenshot below, the rep had gone in and dirty deleted her original message to me and unfollowed me.  There was no apology, no discussion, just a dirty delete.  I think that says enough without saying anything at all.

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I WANTED TO GIVE MONAT THE OPPORTUNITY TO RESPOND FIRST

I made the decision to contact Monat first about this issue.  Maybe, just maybe, their compliance department would like to investigate this issue, and I don’t know, take it seriously?  If I were in charge of the company, I would prefer for my work force to conduct themselves with integrity and not prey on vulnerable people.  Something like this, in my opinion, reflects badly on the company as a whole.  If Monat’s products were as great as they all claim, they wouldn’t have to use these disgusting tactics to sell to people.  Not to mention, they wouldn’t need an MLM structure.  Before I ramble (because I could talk about this for hours on end), let’s take a look at the message I sent to Monat.

You can’t see it in the screenshots, but the images I sent do open on my desktop.  I’m not sure why they showed up with errors on mobile.  That’s besides the point though.  If you received an email like this while working in customer service, what would you do?  As someone who has a lot of experience with customer service, the first thing I would do is contact compliance to see if the rep violated anything.  Whether they did or didn’t, I would let the customer know that this will be investigated and that the rep will be contacted regarding this situation if she did violate any company policies or code of conduct.  The last thing I would be thinking about would be the scientific research I had mentioned because it’s clear as day that I’m more distraught over the marketing of the product than anything else.

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MONAT’S SORRY EXCUSE OF A RESPONSE TO THE SITUATION

Now that you’ve read my email, let’s read through Monat’s actual response.

As you can see, Monat was of no help.  This is a very generic customer service reply, and it makes me wonder if they get a lot of emails like mine so they just know exactly what to say back to people like me.  One part of the email that just sent me over the edge, was the “Thank you for being part of the Monat family.”  I am not part of your “family” and never will be.  Since I did give Monat the opportunity to respond, it was time to move on to filing with the FL AG and the FTC.

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FILING WITH THE FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL AND THE FTC

I’m going to show how to file with the FL AG first, and then we will move on to the FTC.  The reason why I wanted to file complaints is because of the claims the rep made.  She claimed that it could help with my hair thinning issue, and while she worded it fairly vaguely she most likely wouldn’t get in trouble, I still decided filing a complaint was worth it.  The reason being is because while the rep may not have actually broken any kind of rule, there’s a record of it for when these government entities eventually get more complaints like these.  The only way the government will intervene with these MLM companies is if we just keep reporting.  I chose to also file with the FL AG because of Monat’s past history with them.  Maybe this would help the FL AG in some kind of way.  Filing with both of these entities is pretty self explanatory, but let me show you where to even start.

FLORIDA AG

To file with the FL AG, you’ll need to use this link.

Step 1

Click on the link I provided above, and it’ll take you to the below page.  Then, just click on general inquires or complaints.

Step 2

Once you click on general inquiries or complaints, it’ll bring you to the below page.  On this page you’ll fill all out of the required information, and for date of transaction I put the day I was contacted and amount paid I just put $0.00 because I didn’t pay for anything, I was just contacted.  Those two fields aren’t showing that they are required, but it wouldn’t allow me to submit the complaint without the amount.  After you’re done filling out whatever you can, read through whatever terms they have in place, and then click submit.  You’ll receive an email confirmation, and then you can go ahead and move on with your day.

THE FTC

To file with the FTC, you’ll need to use this link.

Step 1

Click on the link above, and once it brings you to the landing page, click on Report Now.  Once you get to the below page, you choose which issue you want to report, but I decided to use the option something else.

Step 2

Once you decide which option you want to use, you’ll go through the below prompts and answer it the best that you can on this page.  Once you click continue, it’ll bring you to the page where it confirms the complaint has been submitted and it’ll give you a report number.  You’ll also receive an email confirmation.  Keep in mind, that you can report any kind of fraud to the FTC and you should, because that’s the only way anything will be done and

IN CONCLUSION

I think I covered pretty much everything that happened, and tried to make this as educational as possible, while also letting out some frustrations and venting.  If you are more of a video person, below is the video I made regarding this situation.  Some of you prefer reading, while others prefer video format, so I decided to do both.  Thank you for hearing me out today, because I really wanted to let all of this out and inform people of what can possibly happen to you.  Now that I’ve rambled and ranted, let’s move on to the linkup!