1. As stated in the article, Scentsy is a multil-level marketing company (MLM), also called pyramid selling. Over 97% of participants in MLMs lose money. Participants must purchase some minimum amount each month to remain active or “rank up,” and typically are induced to purchase large amounts of inventory in order to remain active, sustain rank, or “rank up,” where there is no genuine customer demand for such product quantity and such quantity is beyond what the participant can feasibly personally use. Participants, as independent contractors, are not compensated hourly or for expenses. They expend great amounts of time and lose money, commonly pestering friends and family to make purchases (or join as sellers themselves), to “help out,” where there is no genuine desire or need to make such purchases, damaging personal relationships as a result. Many countries ban MLMs outright; many in the U.S. have been shut down as illegal pyramid schemes. Prospective participants are presented with the promise of easy, recurring income, but in reality at least 97% to 99% of participants make nothing or lose money, while the extreme few at the top of the pyramid profit enormously. This loss ratio is mathematically inherent in the business model. Also, in order to “rank up” and qualify for bonuses, participants must recruit new participants into their downline, expanding the pyramid. The FTC explicitly warns people against joining MLMs but, currently, lacks the authority to order a blanket shutdown of all MLMs. That Disney is partnering with, endorsing, and licensing its intellectual property to an MLM (i.e. pyramid scheme) is disturbing. If Scentsy were to fully abandon the MLM pyramid structure and convert to a traditional and legitimate retail structure (no requirement to recruit, hiring workers as employees, and paying hourly or salary), it might be a different story, but there is no indication Scentsy has plans to do so.

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