Multi-level-Marketing: Pyramid schemes are still alive and well.

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by ElectricFetus, Apr 13, 2004.

  1. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I was recently invited to a interview to work at a company call "Vector Marketing" just one look at their web site made my skin crawl, I was not sure why so I did a little searching around. Found this on the first goggle page:
    http://www.marketingcritic.info/
    I thought pyramid schemes died off in the 80’s and early 90’s, I remember as a child watching the get-rich-quick infomercials, haven’t seen any for years (maybe I should watch more TV at 3:00am again) Vector Marketing been around for 20+ years now selling Cutco knifes not to customers but to college students fooled into trying to sell the crap to friends and family. Check out some of the references and citations on that sight, scary stuff! What bothers me is how many of my class mates are going to fall for this crap? Anyone else have experience with pyramid schemes or MLM?
     
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  3. isn't Avon, MaryKay, etc MLM?
     
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  5. Persol I am the great and mighty Zo. Registered Senior Member

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    This isn't a pyramid scheme though... is it?
     
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  7. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Pyramid scheme and MLM is the same thing. and yes Vector is a one.
     
  8. zanket Human Valued Senior Member

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    Amway is the biggest pyramid scheme. They get away with it because they sell legitimate products, at least when the rep gives up trying to get you on her “downline.” I've had to end some friendships over Amway.
     
  9. chunkylover58 Make it a ... CHEEEESEburger Registered Senior Member

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    Many years ago I called a radio show to answer a trivia question and I won a prize. Over the air they asked me my name and I gave it. No big deal. I went to get my prize and all was cool. Until the next day. I got a call from some guy who said he'd heard me on the radio the day before and I sounded like someone who paid a lot of attention to detail (determined by the nature of the trivia question) and my articulateness. He looked up my number in the phone book and wanted to give me a call because he was recruiting people for his marketing concept and wanted to meet with me sometime because he could "use people like (me) on (his) staff." I asked him what he did. He wouldn't tell me. I'd find out everything when we met. All the info he would give was the name of his company. For the next few hours I did much research. Found that no such company existed in my town and this guy had no business license posted anywhere. I eventually contacted the "Call for Action" TV news station guy (consumer advocate type deal). That guy actually had had contact with the dude who called me. He said that immediately after he was let go from his previous radio job, he was contacted by the same fellow. He met with him because he needed work, so why not? He eventually found out that the guy was with Amway.

    Another situation involved a roommate of mine when I lived in Colorado. There was this cute guy she was somewhat interested in and he finally asked her out. They were going to a movie or dinner or something, but he wanted to "stop by one place really quick, before we officiallly go out." They ended up in some conference room where they were discussing "business and marketing" and "where you're going to be in 5 years and how you can be earning six figures by then." After about 45 minutes the speaker finally exposed the fact that they were at an Amway meeting. After she told him later on that she wasn't interested, he went on about, "Fine...but I'll be a millionaire in five years and you'll still be right where you are." He never asked her out again. She wasn't a potential girlfriend, but a potential Amway recruit.

    Oh yeah ... another. Same roommate and her friend jokingly submitted my name and info to a dating service. In a "what the hell" state of mind (new in town ... hadn't met too many people), I met with the lady there and discussed the service. Total bullshit. Something like $2500 to get set up on 6 dates. :bugeye: (If I'd had made enough money to have that much disposeable income to waste on a dating service, I could get a date on my own, thankyouverymuch.) Anyhoo, I told the lady that I really didn't have that kind of money, and I certainly didn't want to do the payment plan. (Imagine meeting someone, falling in love, and 6 months down the road breaking up and finding you're still paying for getting to meet her....but I digress.) About a week later, I get a call, after hours, at home, from the lady with whom I'd met. She said she understood not being in the best financial shape, but her husband may have some way of helping me out. She would like to send me some information about his company. I though, "sure." I got the info, which was an audio tape. After about 30 seconds I realized it was the exact same tape that a college roommate of mine made me listen too when he wanted to get me to, guess what, sell Amway.

    If this is such a good, legitimate way to make money, why are these people such sneaky, slimy bastards when it comes to recruiting you?
     
  10. because the only way you make the big bucks, is to have a so-called downline that feeds you thier %'s
     
  11. zanket Human Valued Senior Member

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    3,777
    A ex-coworker of mine who is heavily into Amway invited me to her wedding. A year later I got an email from her asking me to come over and see her wedding pictures. Yeah, right. I never replied back. I also don't chitchat with anyone at the bookstore now because 4 out of 4 times that I did the conversation steered to their business, which of course was Amway. As soon as they start their spiel I ask "does this business in any way whatsoever relate to Amway?" It wouldn't matter even if it wasn't Amway, I'd never get involved with someone who did business that way, but I do like to see them squirm. I remind them that their own brochures come with a legally-required warning which says to the effect "Active Amway representatives made an average of $76 revenue last year."
     
    Last edited: May 21, 2004
  12. chunkylover58 Make it a ... CHEEEESEburger Registered Senior Member

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    Oh, I totally understand how it works. It's amazing to me how people don't realize that the pyramid can only get so big before it crumbles. If it did what it's supposed to do, eventually, there would be a huge base of millions of people "feeding" the people above, all the while, the base is making nothing because the only other people left to sell their stuff to are other Amway salesmen.

    You'd be hard press to get one of those people to tell you outright, on the first request, exactly what they do. The last thing they want to tell you is "Amway."

    I knew of a friend of a friend who was told by a formerly close friend, "If you don't want to do this with me, then we simply can't be friends anymore." It's a total cult.
     
  13. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    A friend of my gf needed some extra cash, so called these 'Network Marketing' people. The advert sounded like it would be telemarketing from home, which she could fit around her day job, so she called the guy in.

    Two chaps turned up, in freshly pressed shirts, got out the flipcharts, and started the spiel. After about ten minutes, I said "It's Amway, isn't it?". They looked aghast. I said, "look guys, I know you believe you're going to make millions, just like the guy you mentioned, but that was one guy, at the top of the pyramid."

    I then took over the flipchart, and did the maths, exponentiated the chain (based on their recommended number of people in the downline), to meet the population size of our town, and realistic fraction who might become customers. Turned out this city could support just six layers realistically (seven would need more than the entire population to be agents, let alone customers!). These guys were already layer five, they eventually admitted. I laughed, and said that I hoped they hadn't bought the suits on credit, 'cos they were never going to pay them off from money they made from Amway.
     

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