as above.

awaits heavy handed tasering tactics from mods

No, but when I was about 18, my flatmates persuaded me to go to a 'BUSINESS MEETING' at some loser's house, in a nasty Barrat estate. They had been impressed with his mobile phone (this was many years ago!).

Even at that tender age, it was blindingly obvious from the outset that the whole setup stunk. The guy was incapable of answering any questions – just blethered on about all the money we'd make, for only a tiny investment.

He and his reject Stepford Wife kept this humbug up for nearly two hours, drawing meaningless diagrams onto a flipchart. I think we were supposed to be overwhelmed – so many big words – such an onslaught of bullsh1t.

All that happened was that we became 'un-stoned' and had to leave to rectify the situation.

I used to work in a bank branch, and part of my job was handling the fraud claims… We used to get an amazing number of these, and not always from people who you'd consider stupid, it's amazing what people can convince themselves of when they set their minds to it. And of course, they can look very legitimate, just look at Bernie Madoff.

yeah, we had some friends come round with some cowboys offering business opportunities. They talked bollocks for about 30 minutes and then I asked what they actually did, 20 minutes later I finally got it out of them that they wanted us to sell some crap house cleaning products. Foot – arse – gone. Friends, well they clearly weren't.

edit: thinking about it, I was so frustrated at the end that I said " look, just tell me what the **** hell you're selling", which got a look of annoyance from my wife at the time but a proper grownup hug later on for being a man.

There was one going round the pub i used to frequent about 10 years ago, purple heart or something, a heart cost £100 and then your supposed to sell so many more on to your friends, who then have to sell to there mates until your purple heart got to the top of the pyramid when you got paid out! A few folk i knew got a few grand out of it, and a few lost there money!

The mortgage on my first house was an endowment, does that count?

kaskazi appears to have.

I guess there is always winners and loosers in these 'schemes' looks like a lot of hard work to me!

Many years ago we lived in Milton Keynes, where Amway had it's main distribution centre, a mate at work invited me and Mrsjova to a 'life-changing' event. Being newly married with a mortgage, young baby and just out of the Army we were up for anything that promised extra money for little effort.

It was an Amway presentation and we lasted about an hour, mainly out of loyalty to a mate, but it had taken about 10 minutes to realise you were working for other people's benefit without any guarantee of payback.

He was so convinced that he was going to make a fortune from it that he quit his well paid job and decided to live off the Amway income.

Next thing I heard, about 18 months later, was a copy of his CV landed on my desk when we were recruiting engineers. The intervening period was shown as 'Travelling the world'. I invited him for interview as he had skills we could use but I never heard back from him.

Last night's scammer baiting was good sport!

Did you get the idea that he didn't actually think he was a scammer?

The trouble is that they get an evangelical belief in what they are doing. Personally as soon as I start hearing words like life changing I get up and leave.

General Advice if something looks, smells, and tastes like a fish its probably a fish. If it merely smells like a fish it is probably either a personal area, a fish or a scam. Although the deliverer of a scam can often been mistaken for a personal area, there are usually clues, like personal areas don't normally talk, and fish don't normally change your life.

My wife did some 'pyramid-ish' stuff called mini-IQ – Educational books and toys for kids. Its in the same vein as virgin vie and pampered chef.

She went into it eyes open and as a new mum it kept her brain active, earned her some pin money and got our kids loads of very cheap books for two or three years. She also got a good network of new mum friends out of it.

We never expected it to make us rich – that would just be stupid.

I am a right old cynical bastard, and am constantly reminded of that fact by my Wife. However, after years of careful training she is coming around to my way of thinking. As G says, if its too good to be true, it is BS. Fact!

G: that's a fantastic analogy! 🙂

Why thank you. 😀

I was asked to join an Aloe Vera scheme. Basically you made your money by persuading gullible types to buy a starter pack so they could host parties and sell more starter packs to other hard-of-thinking fools.

Every single aspect of it was the exact opposite of what I felt comfortable doing. I heard one potential punter at the presentation spouting "I'm a great salesman, I can sell anything, I could sell fridges to eskimos". So what the **** are you doing here then – loser?

Sharks can change your life. But only briefly, and for the worse.

kaskazi appears to have.

It would appear so. The baiting last night was understandable, but thinking about it, we should be pittying him rather than taking the pi$$.

He lost his job and has been taken in by the scammers. He's obviuosly swallowed the sales pitch hook line and sinker and is doing all he can to make it work for him.

Kaskazi if you read this, then seriously reconsider what you are doing. As others have said, if its too good to be true then it is. There are proper jobs out there, your time might be better spent pursuing one.

in fairness to kaskazi, it's a pretty humbling call to have to make. You've convinced those around you that this is a goer. Then you wake up and have to admit it's a pile of hollow promises and poo? Maybe its easier to just keep lying to yourself…and them.

i've done quite few events for the likes of Craftmatic (despicable), Bettaware, Telecom Plus (now utilities warehouse i think), Avon and Neways. Despite what they may try and tell you it is only the top of the pile that makes any real money. The efforts they go to to convince jo average that you can HAVE that speedboat are amazing. and it's not called pyramid selling, its Multi Level Marketing or MLM 😆

Neways is the best for comedy value, run by the Mauer family, a bunch of Mormons who all live on a mountain that they own in America, several of them have recently been indited for tax fraud and they were as dysfunctional as the Jackson family. The main man, Bob Mauer made some pretty ridiculous claims about what his products could do. Despite selling itself as a company dealing in natural alternatives to medicines and cosmetics they do a pretty good job in making it all about how much money you can make.

Craftmatic is one of the most despicable companies i have had the pleasure of working with. make absolutely no mistake about it, they TRAIN people to pressure sell to the elderly and vulnerable. at the end of their events i found myself wanting one of their beds, the american guy that runs it is so devious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-qzC0Wz-QI <-that's bob's number one son that is that is

geoffj – Member

kaskazi appears to have.

It would appear so. The baiting last night was understandable, but thinking about it, we should be pittying him rather than taking the pi$$.

Well he should have thought about what he was doing before lying and saying Matt had given him the OK. A claim which I very much doubt.

Well he should have thought about what he was doing before lying and saying Matt had given him the OK. A claim which I very much doubt.

Quite! But that is a separate issue.

I think it's a bit harsh to call Amway a pyramid scheme even if there is a pyramid in there…! At the end of the day it does rely on real sales to real people so does work for many – doesn't work for many more I'm sure! I did go to a presentation about it and found it interesting – not because I wanted to join in but because it's such a huge thing. Overall very much feels like some sort of a cult – e.g. if your friends don't support you they're not real friends.

Amway doesn't work for many does it….

Went to an Amway presentation once in Reading, they were all in suits, clutching these little books, and the speakers were all like preachers, it was actually pretty scary in a brain washed sort of way, they were all convinced they were on the fast track to millions.

a few years back i worked for a smallish american owned telephony company.

the americans squandered the uk business's profits on large texan hats and big shiny belt buckles, amongst other things, and eventually we got bought out.

the incoming company had a "multi level marketing arm".

Meaning that every employee had to go to this big presentation to decide wether you would work for the "multi level marketing" arm or the identical normally marketed arm.

This evangelical texan fool stood talking for two hours about the joys of repping, points, tiers and how family members were "potential tier building motivators".

After much wild applause, he opened up the room for questions.

Me – so your entire business model is based on pyramid selling then?

Dirk – No way, absolutely no way buddy, we are selling a decent product, everyone wins. Look at the chart!

He then slapped the flip chart diagram.

Me – Could you turn the chart upside down?

Dirk – no

Me – er ok, but for arguments sake if you did turn it upside down, what shape would it make?

Dirk – anybody else got any questions?