First of all, my s/o knows the whole thing is a scam and has made it 100% clear that he will never sell her overpriced vitamins under any circumstance.

My in-laws are 'distributors' for an MLM called Q-Sciences which I think is relatively obscure. They sell very basic vitamins, skincare and topicals that you can get anywhere.

They were attending a seminar/convention this past week and at the end of it my MIL called my partner and asked if he would sign up as a distributor underneath her. Not to actually make sales himself, but so she could 'move up in the company'. He agreed, and the next day they did a 3-way call with someone at their corporate office so that he could sign up for a starter package. The total cost of this package was something like $750. My s/o lied about his address (he gave his parent's address instead) and my MIL put it on her credit card.

My question is... what is the point of doing this? Since this happened after the convention I imagine she was 'encouraged' by the company in some way. Does anyone have insight about how this obvious scam is supposed to benefit the distributor? Obviously the company is just looking for easy money, but how do they explain this as a benefit to the 'distributors'?