Re: Pyramid Schemes and Scams

My parents got 2 within a matter of weeks recently and they last had one over a decade ago. The names were gathered from the telephone directory. Standard 6 name list (send £10 each), then remove the one at the top, add yours to the bottom kind of thing. Use a search engine to find out more.

Daytona

Hehehe Oh that will cause a stir! I see the point your making though, your saying that everybody is going to pay into it, but eventually they will be the loosers as their aint gonna be enough money to give back what they have paid in?

I don't know what to say to that!! lol..

In article , Stephen GoldenGun writes

Only for the purposes of sensationalizing things for the benefit of journalists.

The main one going round the internet at the moment seems to be a feeble attempt to disguise a pyramid scam as a venture involving buying and selling "reports". They think they can get round the law by pretending to buy and sell a product rather than simply circulating money.

Another common pyramid scam is where a company uses a pyramid commission system to pay their sales agents. This works by the sales agents being encouraged to recruit more sales agents, in the hope that those agents will then recruit more agents and so on.

Then, instead of sales agents being paid the full commission on their sales, a proportion of the commission is paid to the agent who recruited them, and a proportion to the agent who recruited the agent who recruited them, etc. Effectively, it's just a selling job but with part of your salary ploughed into a classic pyramid scam.

The added advantage to the company of doing business in this way is they don't need to spend money on recruiting agents - they just get their existing agents to do the job. Also some companies actually charge these thick pillocks for attending training events on how to recruit more agents!

Companies (and their agents) doing this have to be very careful with their advertising - if they state people can become rich through recruiting more people to do what they're doing, then they'd probably be breaking the law. So they just imply it.

Cos they're thick. Or rather, they don't think about it carefully enough and get caught up in the hype and the thought of easy money.

So how do Herbalife get away with it then?

Posts on the subject on uk.local.isle-of-wight, if you haven't already found it

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Daytona

Yah I heard some guy called Mr. Big made loads of money, then set up some high fli property company,

Say! Tim, maybe you know him? lol

I wonder how much money was actually lost.

Oh noo, you see, that is the psychology, of commitment, once people have invested their money, they find it difficult to believe its a con, or its no good..."self denial" .

Andy Pandy wrote in message news:bf4evq$gd7$ snipped-for-privacy@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...

Andy, are all those chain letters and such like, are they all based on the same model?

"pyramid selling" also was linked to that, and I believe it was responsible for "MLM" to be getting a bad name, as on the surface of it, they do both appear to have similar characteristics.

So that is kind of the same principle...eg. I suppose it is a scam..or not , I don't know what you label it, at the end, people are going ot loose money.

Thats an interesting point, there is a difference between Multi Level Marketing which frankly was taught and is taught as a viable business model at "harvard business school" I can vouche for this.

Amway, is build up on Multi Level Marketing. So it is important to strictly differentiate between MLM and Pyramid,,like ventures....

Also there are probably numerous business "hybrid" models that slip in between the boundaries of what is strictly legal and what is not!

I bumped into an interesting person the other day Johnathon, a man who just has got a scheme with Remex, have you heard of them? You must have done, very american style estate agents, very brand conscious, it seemed to me to have a very multi level marketing feel to it..

The buzz words being...

Networking, asking your freinds, and your freinds friends etc.etc. sharing commision, working as a team, "business partnerships" etc.etc.

Did'nt strike me as the "in thing" for the future of estate agency in the UK> But I did'nt look at it long enough to make a really deep opinion, but just for my region I know it is not what people would like.

Exactly the same amount as was gained ! It just a transfer of wealth, a bit like the stupid tax.

No, according to what I saw, it was a bit more than "sensationalizing things"...there where people who where financial ruined, and families torn apart and businesses destroyed, I could'nt see how they "sensationalised " that, it seemed pretty real to me.

In article , Stephen GoldenGun writes

This was for a television prog, where they had to make it sentational to justify the program. Have you met any of these people who have suffered broken homes[1] and destroyed businesses[2], maybe the genuinely did find such cases for their purposes but as I'm sure you realise they had to market the thing successfully!

Yah maybe I'm too naive,,however, look at these facts>

do you think that every program made for t.v. is based on "sensationalisation"? What about all the panorama programs...

I am making the point it is all to easy to just paint every program with the same brush and say sure, its sensationalised for the T.V....but not all of them are at all.

There is so much interesting and factual things you can learn about documentaries, sure, I am not so naive to say some of them are not sexed up a bit, but look at all the ones that lead ot direct police action etc..and quite often the people are there being interviewed.

Some people just don't want to believe whats in front of their eyes..

It is the same as people who believe everything they read or see...

Don't you think their is a half way house, where some programs are genuine and honest and of course some are not.

Would you say panorama is fictional and sexed up for the cameras? Would you say that panorama is sensational journalism, if not then why would this be any more likely to be?

Not all, some chain letters have no money making intentions, and are just an attempt to get their letter/email to as many people as possible for no particular reason. Traditionally they'll use some crap like you'll have good luck if you forward it to 7 people and you'll have bad luck if you don't. Some people are stupid enough to believe it. Some email ones will use an emotive story like a baby is dying and needs money for an operation, and AOL/M$/whoever will pay an amount every time the email is forwarded (like they could really know).

There's nothing really wrong with the MLM concept itself, I can see it being an effective way to do some kinds of business. However MLM becomes a pyramid scam when people are conned into taking part with implied promises of great riches by virtue of a pyramid type commission system; rather than the reality which is likely to be a selling job which could make you a few bob with an opportunity to make a little more if you get some others to join.

What do they say?

According to the DTI site:

Andy Pandy wrote in message news:bfcetk$lcn$ snipped-for-privacy@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...

I don't like the concept of MLM, simple because it encourages, the development of "networking" of recruiting freinds, neighbours, family into being "underneath" you in these layered marketing programs. And the cost of sales is all the little bits of commission that are given to each user. To me, it means the end user cannot get the best deal. Because every penny the end client spends with that company or person a percentage of that is going right the way back up the chain. It is similar to how some of the telephone companies are trying to get themselves promoted.

Make £500 per week working at home - that sort of stuff.

You buy loads of herbal stuff from one of their recruiters, and you are supposed to make money by selling it on, either to end users, or by recruiting other distributors.

Most of these sort of fly posters etc you see around the place are put up by herbalife recruiters.