Pyramid Scheme Pariahs

[ANDTHEBEAR]

this is the kind of guy that sends marriage proposals to strangers in Facebook messages

I can just feel it. also what's up with this alkaline scam? dude take a rolaids.

From what I can tell, these people are selling these Kangen machines for $2000 or $55 a month plans. The sheer mental gymnastics these fuckers go through to make sure they are on the right side is sleazy. They really think they can become rich and successful with this mixed in with a little bit of Forex trading.

 

[CWCissey]

I almost got roped into one of these. When I was looking for a job after uni I signed up to a few sites, and out of the blue I got a call from some company. They did the usual spiel about earning money rah rah rah, and when I got in I googled them.

I was greeted from a site straight from 2006 and a lot of people discussing how they were scam scum. Come the day of the interview, they called and asked if I was coming. They got BTFO'd. Never heard anything from any such thing ever again.

They were affiliated with these fuckers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cobra_Group

 

[AnOminous]

Back in the early '90s my then boss got a 419 Nigerian scam letter in the actual postal mail. We passed it around and laughed at it. It was almost in the modern form. That shit was apparently around long before the people doing it had Internet access.

 

[MysticMisty]

Back in the early '90s my then boss got a 419 Nigerian scam letter in the actual postal mail. We passed it around and laughed at it. It was almost in the modern form. That shit was apparently around long before the people doing it had Internet access.

My dad got one of those in the mid 90's. I remember in particular my mom made him open it in the kitchen away from everybody else because it was taped up weirdly (she was concerned because of the Unabomber). It's one of the only physical scams my family has ever had to deal with.

 

[melty]

Yo these people keep shitting up the local farmer's markets with their leggings and candles and bags and lord knows what else. I don't mind the people who sell the things they knitted/sewed themselves, though. Anyone else have the same thing happening?

Depends on the market kinda, state fairs and the like are pretty rife with these, most of the farmers markets I go to are hard enough to get into so its legitimate local products.
The ones I see a lot of are the rocks with wicks in them and salt lamps.
I'm not sure how the rock candles are a scam but I see the exact same ones at all sorts of markets/fairs and the like so I feel like something's up and it's not just people all making the same craft. I could be wrong though.
The salt lamps I'm pretty sure are a scam, but I kind of want one because they're pretty.

 

[neverendingmidi]

Depends on the market kinda, state fairs and the like are pretty rife with these, most of the farmers markets I go to are hard enough to get into so its legitimate local products.
The ones I see a lot of are the rocks with wicks in them and salt lamps.
I'm not sure how the rock candles are a scam but I see the exact same ones at all sorts of markets/fairs and the like so I feel like something's up and it's not just people all making the same craft. I could be wrong though.
The salt lamps I'm pretty sure are a scam, but I kind of want one because they're pretty.

I have one of those rock oil lamps because I thought it was pretty at an arts and crafts fair. I wouldn't call that a scam, one person came up with it and caused a fuckton of copycats. It's no more a scam than the multitude of people selling American Girl sized clothes, or the cement goose decorations in the 90's. Crafty shit goes in cycles.

Now the salt lamps are kind of a scam, the whole ionizes by glowing shit, plus I've seen them advertised as balancing chakras and shit. The "medical" part of them is the scam, but if you just like the color of it, I can't really call it a scam.

 

[MasterDisaster]

And you could say the same for sex toys, since apparently that's a thing, but I really don't know how the "try before you buy" aspect works for those.

Those type of gathering are nearly, like 99%, exclusively for women. Since you can pretty much sell anything phallic shaped and vibrates you really don't have to worry about 'try before you buy'. It's more about using terms to catch their attention and playing it up. Convince 'em it'll give them mind-blowing orgasms and they'll buy buy buy.

Now the salt lamps are kind of a scam, the whole ionizes by glowing shit, plus I've seen them advertised as balancing chakras and shit. The "medical" part of them is the scam, but if you just like the color of it, I can't really call it a scam.

It's one thing to sell it as a unique item. I actually have one of those salt lamps and I love using it to read. But trying to say it's got health benefits is just bullshit. It's like when people tired selling copper bracelets or magnets had magical healing powers.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

My only experience with a scam like this was as a child when my grandmother got a scam letter offering her husband a new job while we were staying with her in Spain. Initially she believed it, and we had to talk her out of it.

These days it would all be computerised, but I don't think the Internet has made scams any more common.

 

[MysticMisty]

Yesterday I went to the county fair for the first time in a few years. Normally I avoid going in the sales hall because I find it boring (and scammy) and hated getting dragged in there as a kid with my mom, but this year I willingly went in to see if there was a Cutco stall as mentioned by others in this thread. Well in a 50 foot radius not only did I see Cutco but Mary Kay and LuLaRoe as well. Surprisingly none of them made an effort to try to get me to look at their junk (and get me to sign up as well) even though I was prepared to look them in the eye and say that I don't support pyramid schemes.

 

[Billy_Sama]

I remember in high school when I heard of Vector Marketing from a friend who needed money. As soon as he talk about the steak knives, I remember that King of the Hill episode of Hank walking out of a job fair when he found out it was selling steak knives and knew it was a Pyramid Scheme. Sad thing is with my area and even when I was in college, signs for Vector Marketing were common place proudly showing off their upside down pyramid scheme logo.

 

[XYZpdq]

Depends on the market kinda, state fairs and the like are pretty rife with these, most of the farmers markets I go to are hard enough to get into so its legitimate local products.
The ones I see a lot of are the rocks with wicks in them and salt lamps.
I'm not sure how the rock candles are a scam but I see the exact same ones at all sorts of markets/fairs and the like so I feel like something's up and it's not just people all making the same craft. I could be wrong though.
The salt lamps I'm pretty sure are a scam, but I kind of want one because they're pretty.

Yeah they don't harmonize your thetans but they're nice mood lighting.
Be careful about leaving them in one spot for a long time, from my experience they shed some. I left one in one spot on a shelf for a long time and when I moved it the surface was warped.

 

[MerriedxReldnahc]

One of my high school friends just added me on Instagram and lo and behold, she's advertising for ItWorks. I hadn't heard of it so I was trying to figure out why she had plastic wrap on her stomach and who the hell thought "ItWorks" wasn't a sketchy name. Also her before and after pictures clearly show that it doesn't exactly melt away the pounds.

Several years ago one of my other friends was taking a weight loss powder called Plexus, and even became a "Plexus Ambassador" even though she'd only been taking it for a few weeks. Has anyone heard of that one?

 

[AnimuGinger]

Several years ago one of my other friends was taking a weight loss powder called Plexus, and even became a "Plexus Ambassador" even though she'd only been taking it for a few weeks. Has anyone heard of that one?

A friend did that one. She described it as "shitting everything out all the time." Started making posts about it on Facebook constantly.

She did lose weight, but I'm not sure if that's because she started watching what she ate, or she just shit out more than she took in.

 

[sparklemilhouse]

I'm working a craft show right now (and I'm making no $) and most of the people here are mlm scammers. I have thirty one next to me and all the bags look like dollar general stuff.

 

[D.Va]

A friend did that one. She described it as "shitting everything out all the time." Started making posts about it on Facebook constantly.

She did lose weight, but I'm not sure if that's because she started watching what she ate, or she just shit out more than she took in.

Probably not because that's not how digestion works. She was basically describing a laxative.

 

[TowinKarz]

Dysentery is a weight loss product too, by MLM standards.... that's about all you'll do for the 72 hours it will take for you to expire untreated.

 

[Henry Bemis]

I've been looking at changing jobs and, lo and behold, one day, I get a call from a company called [Devilcorp] asking for an interview. I hadn't expressly applied to said company; Google searches barely pull up anything other than their own job listings; their social media presence is lacking. Red flags, all, but I had a couple other interviews lined up for things I did apply for on the same day, so I figured it would at least be a good warm-up.

It would've if it was actually an interview, rather than getting relentlessly talked at for ten minutes about everything that didn't involve salaried positions or deliberate and measured hiring processes. Strike one. The sparsely decorated office over an auto shop (that they "just moved into") was strike two. After the fact, finding the company name on a list of suspected fradulent companies on a blog called Devilcorp? Strike nope.

 

[mdrop22]

Several years ago one of my other friends was taking a weight loss powder called Plexus, and even became a "Plexus Ambassador" even though she'd only been taking it for a few weeks. Has anyone heard of that one?

Plexus is some bullshit too. I had a manager at a shitty job tell me how she sold them "all the time" then proceeded to explain how her aunt took the weight loss pills with the "accelerator" and had side effect symptoms for months after stopping. No idea what the symptoms were but the funniest thing was that she claimed to take them and she wasn't even skinny. She was actually pretty chunky.

 

[DrJonesHat]

I've had two brushes with people involved in these groups. The first was a friend who got sucked into Amway, and tried to get us all to join, and the second was one of those fake "job interviews" that others have mentioned. I quickly figured out that Amway wasn't worth the time or money from talking to people (this was back in 1996 before blogs were really a thing), and the second was for CutCo, fortunately, my mom and dad had given me the sage advice of "if someone wants you to pay money for a job it's a scam" so I as soon as I realized what it was, I left along with several other people who were angry their time had been wasted.

EDIT: I just remembered another one. This one occurred in January of this year. It was for some coffee thing. I looked it up, and you have to maintain an inventory, at your expense. That's a big glass of "fuck no".

 

[AnOminous]

I once got suckered into a CutCo presentation but it was pretty obvious what it was shortly into it and I went to the bathroom and didn't come back.

The last time someone tried to pimp Amway to me, they were literally living in their car and when they started the Amway spiel, I was like "Dude, you're literally living in your car."