Pyramid Scheme Ads

[Rain Man]

I passed a pickup on my way home from work tonight, and it had a big sticker on the back that said,

"Make $30k a month or more with Qivana" (and then a phone number).

I want to know how the conversation went that resulted in "or more" being added.

So I'm envisioning that these people are sitting around the room and they're all making about $75 a month selling fruit juice or something to their grandparents. They need to recruit people below them in the pyramid, so they come up with the idea to put an ad on their truck.

"How about 'earn $75 a month with Qivana'?"

"That's not enough. No one would be stupid enough to do that."

"How about $100? That's a lot."

"Still not enough. How about $1,000?"

"$1,000? I've never seen that much money. But is it lifechanging? Can we get, like doctors and stuff to sell Qivana? I want everyone to sell it."

"Oh! Oh! How about $10,000? TEN THOUSAND! You could buy a house with that much money! Every month!"

"Too many zeroes. People will get confused. Let's just go with $30,000."

"$30,000 it is. Make up to $30,000 a month."

"But ... wait. We want to get everyone. What if $30,000 isn't enough? The really good salespeople may want to make more."

"That's why you're a genius. Let's make it $30,000 or more. That way we'll get everyone to call. No one can resist that."

[Rain Man]

I'm guessing that a good rule of thumb is that any job offers on a truck sign or a telephone pole are probably not good career options.

There's a Democratic street soliciting group that keeps putting up illegal postings on light poles in our neighborhood. They go by different names, which is also a big red warning, and post under names like "Work For Progress", Fairshare, and most recently, Grassroots Campaigns. They supposedly hire people to "raise awareness" of issues, but in reality it's just a big scam to make money for some political machine. This is the Facebook site of one of their stupid front firms: https://www.facebook.com/cofairshare and here's another one: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Work-...&tab=page_info

If you look up the reviews on glassdoor.com, their business model is something like this:

1. "Hire" anyone who is dumb enough or desperate enough to call. They prey on the unemployed and on young college kids.
2. Give them a clipboard and a sales speech.
3. Send them out to knock on doors, with a requirement that they get some amount of money by the end of the day. That money then funds a sub-minimum wage paycheck for them and makes someone rich.

What's unbelievable to me is that the people posting the reviews on glassdoor.com seem to believe that they're offering real (if terrible) jobs. It's a scam, people. It's not a job. It's a scam.

[RobBlake]

Originally Posted by Dayze

Years ago, a friend of my wife’s was all about some new ‘business’. Was constantly trying to get us to buy into it. His sales pitch was like “imagine… a place where you could go, and buy anything you needed. Shoes. Home décor. Automotive etc. what would you say to an idea like that”.

I said “so…like, the internet”?


…silence. Lol. Dumbass. He was basically pitching what is effectively Amazon; a one stop shop (for the most part).
He literally wasted away about $20k / his entire savings up to that point. Haven’t heard from him in years, but he’s definitely not a millionaire as he claimed he would be.

how could anyone be THAT naive? wtf

[Jimmya]

Millions are made off of naive people every day.

[Three7s]

It's not impossible to make money online obviously, but it's through pyramid schemes. Freelancing is probably the easiest way to go, depending on your skillset.

[Pitt Gorilla]

Some dude tried to get me to buy into a riverboat. Seriously.

[Sully]

My mom has spent her entire life getting into these. From when I was very young, and Amway, solidly until now.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by Sully

My mom has spent her entire life getting into these. From when I was very young, and Amway, solidly until now.

She must be extremely wealthy.

[Sully]

Originally Posted by Saul Good

She must be extremely wealthy.

She is Nigerian royalty... so there's that...



Actually, true story...

I've shared a little about my nutjob mom, on here.
She married a man from Jordan when I was 12 or 13, so that he could stay in the country. he then brought two of his brothers and his father to live with us, in our small house. It was awesome (I think she had a thing for him, but he was using her, yadda yadda yadda). I remember asking her once why she was doing this, and she said, "He comes from an oil rich family in the middle east. it never hurts to have that in your back pocket."

Yeah... he took off a few years later.


Apparently, though, he does come from a very well known oil family in the middle east. When I meet people from the middle east, I sometimes ask about the anem, and their eyes always go big. That said, if he were that wealthy, he wouldn't be slumming it with my mom living on Blue Ridge Blvd.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by Three7s

It's not impossible to make money online obviously, but it's through pyramid schemes. Freelancing is probably the easiest way to go, depending on your skillset.

I'm sure it's possible to make money through MLM schemes, but you'd have to spend a ton of time on it and be an excellent recruiter. I don't think anybody makes money by moving product in those things.

[Imon Yourside]

Friends don't let friends do this crap...i've had a couple of friends get into this stuff. I tell them if u ask me to join that shit, we are NOT friends anymore..comprende?

[kcfanXIII]

Has anybody heard about the "It Works Wrap"? Its a weight loss thing. Anyways, I have a really good friend who has been selling them, and a cousin that has been selling them. My friend has made an insane amount of money off it, but I've had to block her on facebook because she was constantly using it to advertise. I had a talk with her because several of us in the circle were getting annoyed with it. She then opened a second facebook account to use to sell her product. This plan back fired, because instead of just posting her work stuff to the business account, she would share the statuses on her personal account. I ended up just blocking her. This is one of my really good friends, and I hate that she is hidden from my time line, but I couldn't take it anymore.
My cousin, who I don't really talk to a whole lot, got all pissy with me when I went on a rant about constantly seeing "chunky chicks who used the wrap and became slightly less chunky" on my timeline. seriously, it was constant. She got placed on the block list immediately.
But yeah, not only is it USUALLY a losing proposition to get involved with these stupid schemes, your friends will get fed up with your constant sales tactics. My cousin wears "It Works" tshirts to every family gathering too. Her and her husband.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by kcfanXIII

Has anybody heard about the "It Works Wrap"? Its a weight loss thing. Anyways, I have a really good friend who has been selling them, and a cousin that has been selling them. My friend has made an insane amount of money off it, but I've had to block her on facebook because she was constantly using it to advertise. I had a talk with her because several of us in the circle were getting annoyed with it. She then opened a second facebook account to use to sell her product. This plan back fired, because instead of just posting her work stuff to the business account, she would share the statuses on her personal account. I ended up just blocking her. This is one of my really good friends, and I hate that she is hidden from my time line, but I couldn't take it anymore.
My cousin, who I don't really talk to a whole lot, got all pissy with me when I went on a rant about constantly seeing "chunky chicks who used the wrap and became slightly less chunky" on my timeline. seriously, it was constant. She got placed on the block list immediately.
But yeah, not only is it USUALLY a losing proposition to get involved with these stupid schemes, your friends will get fed up with your constant sales tactics. My cousin wears "It Works" tshirts to every family gathering too. Her and her husband.

What is it with those wrap things? Those people are complete nazis about it, posting every day etc etc. Obviously, common sense tells you that if it's doing anything it's just an illusion, it's not enhancing your workouts or whatever. It's just causing you to sweat off the water weight in that area, so it'll come back when you rehydrate.

There is someone who posts that nonsense on my timeline too, and the ironic thing is that you probably couldn't get any kind of a wrap around her...

Why can't you just saran wrap yourself for the same effect, anyway? Is this like that foot soak that uses a chemical reaction to make you think "toxins" are being drawn out of your foot?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Pitt Gorilla

Some dude tried to get me to buy into a riverboat. Seriously.

I'm going to need your check soon. This riverboat thing is really going to take off, and I'd hate to see you get left behind.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by kcfanXIII

Has anybody heard about the "It Works Wrap"? Its a weight loss thing. Anyways, I have a really good friend who has been selling them, and a cousin that has been selling them. My friend has made an insane amount of money off it, but I've had to block her on facebook because she was constantly using it to advertise. I had a talk with her because several of us in the circle were getting annoyed with it. She then opened a second facebook account to use to sell her product. This plan back fired, because instead of just posting her work stuff to the business account, she would share the statuses on her personal account. I ended up just blocking her. This is one of my really good friends, and I hate that she is hidden from my time line, but I couldn't take it anymore.
My cousin, who I don't really talk to a whole lot, got all pissy with me when I went on a rant about constantly seeing "chunky chicks who used the wrap and became slightly less chunky" on my timeline. seriously, it was constant. She got placed on the block list immediately.
But yeah, not only is it USUALLY a losing proposition to get involved with these stupid schemes, your friends will get fed up with your constant sales tactics. My cousin wears "It Works" tshirts to every family gathering too. Her and her husband.

If she's wearing those t-shirts, at least it means she's not fat, right? I presume that she's a hardbody?

I had shirttail cousin who started doing a similar thing for some diet drink. For about a month she was posting highly contrived stories every day about "My friend Kayla lost 12 inches in three days drinking (insert chemical-laden drink here). She met a man on Tuesday and got engaged on Wednesday, and he loves her new figure!" There were seriously terrible. Since my extended family is all very close except for me, I didn't think it was a good idea to call her out on it, but she mercifully gave up in about a month. I was about a week from de-friending her.

[eDave]

I fell for this a couple of times when I was very young. Cutco knives and a water purifier of some such. Rainbow too.

I was really dumb. Still have my Cutco starter kit though. Awesome knives.