Pyramid Schemes exist online as well as offline. They come in various and creative forms and vary from loans, pharmacy and cosmetic products to insurance policies. Actually the variations are endless, but the general idea is to make you invest and then pursue other investors. This is in your interest, since for everyone you recruited you get a percentage of his investment and for everyone your new recruiter referred you also (can) get percentage. That means the higher in the scheme you are and the more investors you referrer, more money you make, but the higher amounts are cashed in only by those few on the top, while you and the other investors do all the work. Not a question of if, but when, the scheme collapses because it has run out of new investors. Or the fraudster closed his “shop”. Almost all participants never earn a profit, while many suffer huge financial loss. Only the top of the scheme makes money, that is, in the loss of all the others.
The image below is representing pyramid scheme owner as the all seeing eye in the top and sheeps as investors.
Pyramid schemes are deceptive practices which promote themselves as legitimate businesses. Taking money from thousands or even millions, they only enrich a small group of people who started the scam. Often also denying the fact they operate as a pyramid scheme with a masquerade, fraudsters claim to create new opportunities and uplift people. Results can be devastating with huge financial losses taken from people who fell prey to the scam with trickery, psychological manipulation or law loopholes. Always check the company background if investing huge amounts of money, don’t thrust the nice sales person nor be excited on large potential return on investment. Usually, it only exists in your imagination, not in your wallet.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 am
I love the graphic, depicting the people as sheep.
Too many sheeple have that herd mentality and believe the mlm hype, hoping to get rich quick, when they are more likely to end up as losers.
January 26th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Yeah like any of the following….
Amway, Quickstar, and any number of Telco LD Re-Sellers. Watched a friend of mine lose everything trying to get to the next level, where he was sure that the real easy street profits were waiting for him.
February 11th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Great article. This will add to
your expose’
THIS IS A MUST
LISTEN
http://www.clickcaster.com/items/12-29-2007—interview-with-dr–jon-taylor-on-multilevel-marketing–mlm
October 27th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
The problem is too many people want to work for someone else and not themselves. People must branch out themselves and find areas to make money in that other people don’t think about. Creativity is the source of evolution of man. And when they make a lot of it they better do something fucking useful with it instead of buying a bunch of shit they don’t need!
November 30th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Watch out for travel scams. World Ventures in particular claims not to be a pyramid, they offer a ‘binary compensation’ plan. Their so called ‘travel agents’ are focused more on recruiting more agents while using their website as a mask to not make this organization appear to be a pyramid scheme. The compensation will most likely not make up for the time, money and effort spent on attempting to make any profit.
May 17th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Yeah, I attended a World Ventures convention, just to speculate what they were about. I still can’t say whether they’re a legitimate multi-level-market or a well disguised pyramid scheme. They have however evaded the law for 4 years assuming of course they are corrupt, not to mention how they do sell vacations, so they do invest from clients and not just recruits… I don’t know, it’s all suspicious but I really can’t say if they are or not.
- “Nice usage of the all seeing eye of Osiris/Horus since the Illuminati are said to be one of the biggest world monopolisers in the corporate gang industry.”