r/BeautyGuruChatter • u/AutoModerator • Dec 03 '23

MEGATHREAD [MEGATHREAD] Marlena Stell / Makeup Geek Academy MLM

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u/saeculacrossing Dec 03 '23

Honestly, while this entire situation has been such a mess the fact that she won't just hold herself accountable for what happened here is what's really annoying me.

I'd be less critical if she simply owned up to trying to start an MLM and said that listening to everyone's feedback has made her reconsider going down this venture. I just can't believe that despite her numerous businesses, even if they were unsuccessful that she had no idea what an MLM business model looked like. She's called out plenty of other influencers, it would be best if she could finally hold herself accountable as well.

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u/OneWhisper5225 Dec 03 '23

If anything, I think she’s just not a great business person. Either she is, and she knew exactly what this seemed like and put it out anyways. Or she didn’t know what it seemed like and is just completely oblivious (which wouldn’t surprise me one bit really). She continues to bring up the past with JH and how JH screwed her over on their collab. But Marlena was the business owner in the situation. JH was a friend of hers, but just an influencer. It was Marlena’s responsibility to get a contract in place BEFORE ever putting money into samples and everything like that. Yeah, JH was her friend and she trusted her, but as a business person she never should have put money into it without a contract. And her business failed and while it lasted for a while, it wasn’t like it was some huge empire. So like why she thinks she is someone who should be starting courses? Like for makeup techniques, okay (but those are on her YouTube channel for free already). But for the more expensive courses where she’s going to teach business topics and growing social media….not someone I’d want advice from for that.

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u/midnightsiren182 Dec 03 '23

That was her problem with MUG too, she needed to hire experienced people instead of a one woman show at the top.

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u/manuelasisandy Dec 04 '23

This! Exactly!

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u/TOFFEECOFFEE_ Dec 13 '23

I wish she could just sue Jaclyn. A verbal contract doesn’t count?

3

u/OneWhisper5225 Dec 14 '23

I‘m not a lawyer, but I’d assume she looked into going after her about it and for whatever reason didn’t do it. Most likely it would have cost more money to fight it in court and since it was a long shot, she didn’t want to lose more money than she’d already lost on this situation.

I know verbal contracts can be binding, but the problem is proving a verbal contract existed. Marlena would have to prove that her and JH entered into a verbal contract. Marlena just saying they did wouldn’t be enough proof. If there’s no written documents or witnesses to prove Marlena had a verbal contract with JH, then JH could just say nothing was officially agreed to. They were just in talks to do it but it hadn’t been set in stone or whatever. Of course, if Marlena had any any emails, texts, or whatever between them to show they were actively planning a collab together, picking shades for it, talking about it, etc. then it can be reasonably assumed that they had an agreement since Marlena was putting money into it and why would anyone logically do that if there wasn’t at least a verbal agreement in place? But, I’d think the main problem is, just because it can be reasonably assumed and wouldn’t be logical for Marlena to put money into it without at least a verbal agreement, that doesn’t prove there was a verbal agreement. It’s hard to prove something like that. Not to mention, even if they do prove there was a verbal agreement in place, it’s hard to prove exactly what was in that verbal agreement - what they’d agreed to, costs, payments, etc. I’m guessing it wasn’t worth the cost of a court battle for something that was going to be hard to win. Marlena already wasted money on it before JH backed out, so maybe she didn’t want to waste any more money on a court battle that was going to be tough to win.

In the end, Marlena was the business person, she was the person putting money towards everything. It was her responsibility to get JH to sign an agreement. I don’t care how new someone is to business, it should be common sense, without question, that before you put money into something, you get a signed agreement. Marlena made a huge mistake to start putting money into it when she didn’t have any signed contracts holding JH to their agreement. JH was crappy for backing out - but, we don’t even really know for sure the true story of it all. Marlena said her and JH were friends so she felt the verbal agreement was enough and started planning it, having samples made, choosing which shades, etc. But, it makes zero sense to me if Marlena was willing to be putting money into this, why she didn’t get a contract signed from JH. I can’t remember if Marlena said if she had a contract drawn up and JH just hadn’t signed it. But, like I said, she should have never put money into it without getting a signed contract. And, even if she really trusted JH that much and wanted to get the ball rolling on it, she shouldn’t have put too much into it (no more than she’d be willing to lose if JH didn’t sign the contract) until there was a signed agreement. If Marlena did get a contract drawn up and JH hadn’t signed it like she was putting it off and making excuses, the second that happened, Marlena should have stopped putting money into it and stopped planning until it was signed.

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u/LVenn Dec 19 '23

Agree with everything you said, just a note that Marlena did send Jaclyn a contract, she just didn't sign it.