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How to Terminate a Young Living Essential Oils Membership
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This week I saw a new side to being a Young Living customer, and it led me to terminate my account.  The people of Young Living were amazing, patient, and as helpful as they could be in the situation. However, something that should have taken five minutes took hours, but at least it's done.

I'm no longer a member of Young Living.

Young Living and the FDA

This week, I received this email from Young Living…

“Dear Kimberly,

The Conduct Success Team is contacting you to notify you that your website currently contains incorrect product claims. Attached is a letter containing the specific sites and trends you must review.  Also attached is a great educational tool “Generic Topical and Aromatic Claims,” created by Young Living’s legal team, that will offer assistance as you review your product claims. We have also included our new Spring Cleaning Checklist to help you find all of the areas of your websites that need review.

Please be aware that this letter is in accordance with our Product Claims policy 5.3.1:

“You are prohibited from making inaccurate and impermissible claims about any of Young Living’s products. In particular, you must not make any claim that Young Living’s products are intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease. You must also avoid making any statements and claims that are false or misleading concerning Young Living’s products. You must comply with all laws, both state and federal, regarding any statements made. You also must not diagnose any disease or disease condition or prescribe any Young Living product unless you are a licensed medical professional authorized to do so. Anyone improperly diagnosing or prescribing Young Living’s products may jeopardize the future of Young Living and all of its members and may therefore have his/her sales organization terminated.” 

The Conduct Success Team wants to help you align your website with this important policy within the next 10 business days. If your site has not been brought into alignment at that time your account may be subject to further disciplinary action.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. We are here to help you understand the education provided. Thank you and have a wonderful day!”

How to Terminate a Young Living Essential Oils Membership
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To remain in compliance, Young Living does periodic audits of their members to make sure no one is making claims that are against policy.  Nowhere on my blog or on social media do I claim that essential oils treated, cured, or prevented disease, however, it's more complicated than that, which I learned this week.

I went through my blog and removed all mentions of Young Living.  Young Living also wanted me to review the past nine months (the length of my membership) of social media posts (Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Google Plus) to remove all mentions of Young Living from there as well.  I have no idea how even to begin doing that because I'm prolific on social media and post several times a day every day.

On top of that, Young Living needs to approve any link to a book or other websites referenced in any post that mentions their products.  Basically, if I write about Young Living's Abundance and link to a website that has a recipe using this oil or talks about the Law of Attraction; they need to approve those links.

I loved Young Living essential oils and didn't want to end my membership or risk disciplinary action so I attempted to track down social media posts.  Yeah, that's not easy.  I looked into hiring someone to help; that's not cheap. I tried to clean up blog posts and links, but I didn't want to delete good valid information.

I finally came to the conclusion that it was time to part ways with Young Living.

You would think that was the end, but it wasn't.  After canceling my membership, Young Living reported me for copyright infringement to social media platforms.  They claimed that I took their logo and images of their oils without permission to promote online.  This wasn't true and I had to fight that claim as well.  Young Living could have contacted me with a link to a specific social media post and asked me to take it down, but they tried to get me removed from Facebook, which would have seriously harmed my blog.

How to Terminate a Young Living Membership

It is not easy to terminate your Young Living membership, but it's supposed to be.  I decided to write this post for people who run into any trouble.  Someone in their corporate office told me what to do, and it worked. Call customer care, and they will be able to help you start the process of terminating your membership.  You might receive the following responses to your request; ignore them, hang up, and call to speak with someone else.

When I called customer care, I was told the following when I asked them to terminate my membership.  If you receive the following responses to your request; ignore them, hang up, and call to speak with someone else.

  • It's a three-month process to cancel a membership.
  • You can only cancel a membership via email. However, we don't have the email address.
  • We're customer care; we're only here to help people place orders.

As I stated, if someone tells you these things, hang up and call again.

Step One in Canceling a Young Living Membership

  • Contact customer care and ask them to terminate your Essential Rewards membership.
  • They will give you confirmation number of your termination; if they don't give you a number, ask for one.
  • Keep the confirmation number just in case.

Keep in mind that you're canceling your Essential Rewards membership, not your Young Living account.

Step Two in Canceling a Young Living Membership

  • Remove all payment options to avoid any accidental billings.
  • Don't buy anything else from Young Living.
  • Your account will go dormant in 12 months, and they'll automatically terminate it.

It's just that easy.

How to Terminate a Young Living Essential Oils Membership
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My Thoughts on Young Living Essential Oils

Despite my experience, I still believe that Young Living is an amazing company and I love their oils and will miss browsing their collection each month to fulfill my Essential Rewards order.  I've learned a lot from other Young Living members and will miss the community as well.

There are two things that Young Living has working against them – their inability to maneuver smoothly through an online marketing world and the FDA.

Young Living and Online Marketing

We live in an online world where everyone has a blog, and if they don't, they're considering starting one.  When I started my Young Living adventure, I should have paid more attention to the guidelines surrounding what I could and couldn't share in a blog post and on social media.

I can't share anything that suggests that essential oils are beneficial for health and wellness.  People who use essential oils know that they work, but the FDA is coming down hard on companies who make these claims.  I do understand the danger of someone incorrectly choosing essential oils instead of medical treatment, so I don't fault Young Living's guidelines.  In fact, this is exactly why I don't do raw feeding consultations, and I'm clear that I'm not a veterinarian or nutritionist.

Sadly, Young Living isn't prepared for the blogging world.  If you Google “essential oils recipes for dogs” you're going to find lots of blogs that are sharing treatments using Young Living oils.  Keep reading, and you'll find even more blogs making claims about the health and wellness benefits of essential oils that are against compliance.  These claims are valid and the author's personal experience, however, the claims can't be published on a blog that links to and/or mentions Young Living or their trademarked products.

Young Living has a lot of work cut out for them to get all of those site brought into compliance.  And they need to start by educating their employees on how to deal with bloggers and content creators and how to engage with customers (even past customers).

Young Living and the FDA

As I stated, I understand that Young Living has to be careful about the claims that are made about their oils.  Many distributors are making claims that aren't supported by the FDA.  Did you know that I'm not allowed to share a flea and tick repellent using their oils?  There are laws about what can be called a repellent and what cannot.  Basically, if it's filled with poisons, I can promote it.  If it's all natural and safe, I can't say a word.  Go figure.

That was the turning point for me.  I love my dogs, and I want to be able to raise them naturally, and I know my readers feel the same.  I'm okay with giving up a potential business opportunity (Young Living is an MLM business) in exchange for the freedom to share natural recipes with my readers.  So I'm no longer a Young Living distributor.

Where Do I Get My Essential Oils Now

As this was all unfolding, I was reminded by a friend that it's important to buy from a brand that makes pure (organic) oils.  Too many people jump into the biz and are pimping untested products.  To keep my dogs and myself safe, I did a lot of research and was introduced to two companies that sell high-quality essential oils.

I love them both because they're focused on providing quality essential oils, educating people on how to use essential oils, and everything I've received from these companies has received THIS IS THE BEST OIL EVER response from me.

I love my oils.

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