Is Bellame A Scam, Pyramid Scheme, or Legit?

In this review, I’m going to share with you if Bellame is a scam, pyramid scheme, or legit. 

I’ll share with you the characteristics of a pyramid scheme and then see if Bellame shares these characteristics.

Over the last few years, I’ve been busy creating reviews about all kinds of online products and opportunities.

Some turned out to be fake others were legit ways to make money online but in the process, I learned how to spot scams.

After reading this post, you can decide for yourself if Bellame is worth your energy, time, and money.

Is Bellamy A Scam or Legit?

What is Bellame?

Bellame’s headquarters is located at: 6387 Camp Bowie Blvd, Suite B #630
Fort Worth, TX 76116

Has Bellame had any lawsuits issued against it?

No. Bellame is not been in any lawsuits.

They did get a letter of notice from the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) in 2021 Concerning Deceptive or Unfair Conduct around
Endorsements and Testimonials. 

The FTC expresses that while being on the list of companies that received this letter that these companies have done nothing wrong. That being said, I do find it a strange action from the FTC side to announce that the companies on this list were chosen at random.

How does Bellame work?

Bellame is a company that distributes Beauty and skincare products. Instead of directly selling it to consumers they have chosen to use the MLM model which gives you the choice to earn money by:

• Selling the products for a commission
• Recruiting people to earn bonuses.

What is MLM?

MLM (a.k.a network marketing or direct selling) stands for multi-level marketing.

According to Wikipedia, multi-level marketing is a marketing strategy for selling products or services where the revenue is derived from a non-salaried workforce.

As a part of this workforce, you sell the products from the company, and/or recruit people to do the same thing. This group of people you recruit will work under you and is referred to as your downline.

The bigger your downline is the more money you can earn passively (technically speaking) because you’re getting paid a percentage based on the performance of your downline.

This also means the person that recruited you which is called your upline is making money based on your performance.

The act of recruiting turns an MLM company into a pyramid-shaped organization where the first people to join make the most and are on the top of the pyramid and those last to join are at the bottom.

Source: Wikipedia

MLMs have been around for a long time. There are Multi-level marketing companies active today that was founded in the 1950s. MLM has a lot in common with pyramid schemes, so scammers often use MLM to disguise their pyramid schemes.

Is it absolutely necessary to recruit people? No.

You can also stick to just selling products you can order at wholesale price (25% discount) and re-sell to make a profit. This is easier said than done for multiple reasons which is why most members try to recruit others so they can earn more money.

How to join Bellame

Most people get referred to Bellame but you can also sign-up through their website.

After that, you can become a Bellame distributor by following these 3 steps.

Step 1: Sign-up & pay a one-time fee of $99

Step 2: Purchase a starter kit & customize it

Step 3: Recieve website and training

Is Bellame a pyramid scheme?

To answer this question we need to know what a pyramid scheme is.

What is a pyramid scheme?

A pyramid scheme is a type of scam where people are promised money for joining the scheme and recruiting other people instead of selling products and services. 

No selling of a product or service is involved whatsoever.

So you might be wondering where the money comes from.

The people that join are expected to pay a one-time or a monthly fee and in exchange for that, they get a percentage of the fee of everyone they recruit after.

The remaining money goes to the creators at the top of the pyramid.

The problem with this model is from a mathematical standpoint it’s impossible for everyone to make money because you simply run out of people.

Take a look at this picture below showing how it’s impossible for everyone to earn money.

Source: Wikipedia

As you can see, in this pyramid model it’s required to recruit 6 people. You’ll notice from the 12th level and further, it’s not possible anymore for everyone to earn money.

The 2.2 Billion people on the 12th level need 13.1 billion recruits in total for them all to make money which is more people than there are currently on Earth.

At the point that people can’t be recruited anymore, the pyramid collapses because not enough money is coming in to pay members and sustain the pyramid.

Looking at the description of what a pyramid scheme is, Bellame can’t be classified as a pyramid scheme from a legal perspective. Bellame products have given people a method to make money without recruiting people.

That being said, there are pyramid schemes that disguise themselves as MLM companies because MLMs also use a pyramid structure but they sell products and services. 

These pyramid schemes offer products that are almost impossible to sell with the goal of pushing you to recruit people because you supposedly can get higher commissions.

From that point on it’s the same as a traditional pyramid scheme.

Who can benefit from Bellame?

Who could benefit from joining Bellame’s MLM program:

• Expert salesmen
• Expert recruiters
• People that already have an audience

That being said, even then I wouldn’t recommend it.

Who shouldn’t join Bellame’s MLM Program:

• People that hate sales jobs.
• People that hate recruiting
• People that don’t have the budget for it
• People that expect to earn passive income
• People that expect to earn a full-time income

Bellame Company products

What type of products does Bellame sell?

Bellame is in the business of selling Beauty, skincare, and wellness products
Here are some of the product categories:

• Brushes
•  Lipsticks
• Face and eyes
•  Skincare
•  Body and lip care

Are Bellame products aligned with the market?

Bellame sells a lot of products so I’m not going over them one by one. I think it’d be more productive to show you 1 product since most of the products follow this trend regarding price.

For my example, I’m using Bellam’s Hydrating Moisturizer.

As you can see in the image, the Bellame Hydrating Moisturizer costs $78 which is very expensive.

You can get alternative products online for a cheaper price, especially with companies that don’t have MLM programs. 

I can imagine it is hard to sell these products because of this reason.  

Are the products FDA-approved and safe to use?

Bellame doesn’t fall under the category of products that the FDA evaluates but all the products are natural-based. 

Bellame ingredients

None of the ingredients used in Bellame products are derived from animals.

They do have a milk peptide and a whey protein in their moisturizer both of which are derived from a synthetic milk peptide meaning that its structure is modeled after the protein found in milk. 

This is why I’d advise people that allergic to milk products to consult a doctor before using these products.

Pros and Cons

Pros

1. Relatively new MLM
2. The ability to earn without recruiting

Cons

1. Products lack a unique selling proposition
2. The products are overpriced
3. The compensation plan has been proven to give a low chance of succeeding
4. No external evaluation has been done of the products

Bellame Compensation Plan

Bellame is very similar to a traditional MLM when looking at its compensation plan.  How much money you’ll earn is heavily based on your title which you receive by purchasing/selling products and recruiting others to do the same. 

Here’s a list of all available titles you can reach in Bellame:

Brand Partner
Senior Brand Partner
Executive Brand Partner
Diamond Brand Partner
Director
Senior Director 
Executive Director
Diamond Director
Senior Diamond Director
Executive Diamond Director
Platinum Diamond director
Presidential director

Check out this image with the requirements needed to reach each title named.

You can make money in multiple ways such as:

•  Retail sales
• Commission through recruiting
• Residual income

Retail sales 

This is a method that allows you to earn a commission based on how much BV you sell. It’s a simple and straightforward method of earning money.

Earn up to 40% profit on Retail Customer Sales and up to 35% profit on your
Beauty Passport Customer Sales.

Commission through recruiting

A referral bonus is earned by recruiting others. Dependent on your rank the percentage you’ll get as a commission will differ.

Residual income through managing your team

This is income you can earn by managing your team and their performance. You’ll earn an additional commission based on the team’s sales and capability to recruit others. 

Here are a few examples of bonuses you can earn through Bellame:

Unilevel bonuses 
A bonus based on the residual income on 4 levels of your team. You can earn 2-10% of what levels 1-4 is earning. 

Generation bonuses
A bonus that is based on mentoring your recruits and making sure they progress and promote to higher titles.

You’re eligible for this bonus after reaching the title of executive director. The bonus consists of an additional 2-4% commission based on the progress of your recruits at the first 4 levels.

Title bonuses
Whenever you’re promoted to a new title and maintain it for 3 months ( which is based on how many products you and your team purchase) you’ll receive a bonus ($500-$1500). Below you can see a picture with the requirements of every rank. 

Leadership Bonuses
The leadership bonus is awarded to people each quarter of the year if they maintain the rank of senior director or above. This is a bonus that reaches from $500 to $6000 based on your title.

Enroller Pool 
You can earn Introduction Bonuses when you personally sponsor Brand Partners with a Product Pack. Once you gain the title of executive director you’re also able to earn money when you downline recruits and earn the Enroller Pool bonus.

Source: Compensation explanation

How much can you earn with Bellame?

In theory, the sky is the limit but in reality, we know because of factors such as your ability to recruit, your competition, and the performance of your downlines there’s is often a limit and people tend not to earn a lot of money.

Why aren’t people earning decent money with MLM companies like Bellame?

I have summed up the reasons why it’s hard to make money with Bellame and MLM companies in general into 3 points. As a Bellame partner, you’ll have to deal with the points mentioned below.

1. MLM companies are often associated with pyramid schemes
MLMs have a pyramid recruiting structure that you often have to join to be able to make decent money or at the very least not lose money. The problem is a lot of pyramid schemes disguise themselves as MLM programs making it difficult to differentiate the two.

This is the biggest problem why most distributors have a difficult time recruiting people. The moment people hear about how you can make money by recruiting people red flags appear in most people’s minds.

This isn’t good for your sales.

2. You have to consistently invest your money to earn commissions
You’re only eligible for bonuses and commissions if you buy their products. The bigger the bonuses, the more product you have to buy. You do get discounts but if you can’t sell the products I can see you easily fall into a financial deficit (which happens to the majority of distributors of MLM companies).

3. The price of the product often isn’t aligned with the market

It’s hard for a multi-level marketer to sell products because most MLM products tend to be a lot more expensive than similar products sold by non-MLM companies. This means even if you’re really good at recruiting your downline still needs to sell those same expensive products for you to make decent money.

You can see that translated in these statistics I found about Multi-level Marketing.

• Nearly half (47%) of MLM participants reported that they lost money.
• One in four (27%) MLM participants reported that they broke even (made no money).
• MLM participants are 7% more likely to declare bankruptcy during their lifetime.
• Direct sales have risen 79% in the last decade, but MLM participants continue to lose money.
• 90 – 99% of distributors in multilevel marketing only receive a couple of hundred dollars in commission per year.
• Out of the 33,000 interviewed, 90 people made enough money to cover the costs of building their businesses.
• 50% of the people who start a network marketing enterprise abandoned it in the first year.

Sources:
FTC
AARP
Jobsinmarketing.io

My Personal Take

What I like about Bellame: 

1. Relatively new MLM
Bellame was officially launched in 2018 which makes it a lot younger than most MLM companies. It might not be ideal for estimating if it’s going to be successful in the long term but it also has a huge benefit. 

You have less competition from other Bellame distributors. You’ll also run into less product fatigue because most people haven’t come in contact with Bellame distributors.

2. The ability to earn without recruiting
A legit MLM should give you the opportunity to earn money without recruiting people. Bellame gives you the option to earn commission and bonuses by selling products. 

How saleable the Bellame products are is another story but at least you’ll get the chance to try earning money this way.

3. No minimum quota for brand partners
Aside from your 1-time fee for joining Bellame, there is no need to purchase a minimum amount of products to stay a brand partner. You might not be able to recruit people with this title but you still have the opportunity to sell products. 

A lot of MLm companies take people their money by requiring a minimum quota of purchases resulting in the members feeling pressured to buy products to stay a member.

What I don’t like about Bellame:

1. Products lack a unique selling proposition
Beauty and skincare products aren’t uncommon in the MLM industry. You could even argue that it is a saturated market. To truly succeed in saturated markets you need an edge. You need something that makes you stand out from other companies offering the same products. 

Unfortunately, Bellame doesn’t possess such a unique selling proposition. They try to present their natural ingredients as their selling proposition but nowadays every beauty MLM company uses that as their unique sales proposition.

2. The products are overpriced

The products that Bellame offer are a lot more expensive than similar products of non-MLM companies. I can imagine this makes it hard to sell these products. 

If I got offered products and I know that with a 5-minute Google search, I could find similar products for half the price I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about purchasing Bellame products.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot more people share my thought process.

3. The compensation plan has been proven to give a low chance of succeeding

The compensation plan used by Bellame is not a unique one. The majority of MLM companies use this same model to pay out their members and distribute their products. As a result, people have been able to gather a lot of information regarding how much people earn that use this model to earn money. 

Unfortunately, the results don’t bode well for people trying to get into multi-level marketing. More than 90% of people that get into MLm either lose money or make no money at all.

Verdict

Is Bellame A Scam, Pyramid scheme, or Legit?

Bellame isn’t a scam or pyramid scheme but it isn’t legit either in my opinion.

The business model has failed a lot of multi-level marketers. The only people I can realistically see succeeding with this model are expert salesmen, recruiters, and people with an audience such as influencers.

I’d place it under the category bad business opportunity because Bellame isn’t sharing any untruths. The degree of difficulty when it comes to succeeding is just exceptionally high for 99% of people.

Bellame Alternative

Unfortunately, Bellame isn’t for everyone. 

It comes with significant financial risk and it’s hard to scale because most of the marketing is done face-to-face and you can’t be at multiple places at once.

This is why I suggest to those that don’t want to deal with these 2 factors an alternative.

It is called affiliate marketing. 

It’s the method I use to earn most of the money I earn online.

How do you earn money with affiliate marketing?

You don’t have to sell products or services and you don’t have to recruit people.

The only thing you’ll be doing is referring people (that already are interested) to merchant websites such as Amazon, Walmart, and eBay. 

When people buy something based on your recommendation you’ll get a percentage of the purchase.

My #1 recommendation is an affiliate marketing training platform with more than 1.5 million members. 

Memberships are basically an all-in-1 package that comes with expert-level training, resources, and support from a community of people doing the same thing. 

Want to learn more? Take a look at my comprehensive review of the affiliate marketing platform.

Do you have any experience with MLM or Modere let me know in the comments!

That’s all for today. 

See you in my next post!

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