Have any of you ever heard of....

quote:

experience of her friend of hers who joined who has, it was claimed, just ordered a new BMW after being a member for just six weeks!

there's always a mystery friend who's made millions attached to every scam...

To frame my reply, I confess I am an ultra cynic.

My thoughts are is if looks like a scam, makes you think it is a scam, it is probably a scam.

If they charge you money to tell you a life enhancing secret - ask WHY?

Like most timeshare resellers swear blind it is not timeshare, multilevel marketing or pyramid selling starts off by telling you it isn't multilevel marketing or pyramid selling.

If they keep you in a room for 5 hours without letting you go to the toilet, then it is one of those EST thing scams.

Still you could go along, leaving all your credit cards, cheque book and cash at home, so you can't be duped on the day.

Good luck!

DS

They had this very type thing on King if Queens the other day.

You wouldn't be that stupid would you Jon?

I'd like to think not!

Besides it just sounded to me like all manner of get-rich-quick schemes I've heard about before, where there's always more to it than you first think. What worries me is that my friend insisted that it wasn't a pyramid-style scheme or anything like that, but was very reluctant to explain what it was, insisting I should go to the meeting instead to get my questions answered.

I am surprised about how quickly she's been taken in to the extent that she is trying to persuade others to attend, even though she has no results of her own as yet.

From what I could gather from reading the other forum, you have to lay out a lot of money up front if you want to go ahead!

quote:

I am surprised about how quickly she's been taken in to the extent that she is trying to persuade others to attend, even though she has no results of her own as yet.

but if it's a pyramid scheme that's how she gets her results.

Jon,

There's a load of reveiws here:

http://uknation.co.uk/cgi-uknation/turbo/review_it.cgi?id=2031&ct=Holidays

Looks a complete and utter con, you were right to trust your senses.

Justyn.

Scam scam scam

Con con con

Don't go.

The sad fact Jon is this is sometimes how one loses friends.

Jon,

most things in life that are too good to be true normally are.


Keep well away!

Regards

PB

Thanks guys for all your comments, and to Justyn for the link.

It seems you are pretty unanimous to the effect that I shouldn't touch it with a barge pole - not entirely unexpected but it's nice to have confirmation from others!

It's interesting to read the comments in Justyn's link - for all the negative comments there are a few positive ones too, but it seems to me that it is the nature of schemes like this that not everybody wins, so it must be a real choker for the losers out there who have shelled out such a large amount of money in the hope that they too will gain.

I rang my friend this morning to check she got my message yesterday and it turned out she hadn't! I told her that I had re-considered and that after doing some checking I had decided not to attend and she was ok about it. From my limited understanding of the scheme so far, however, it does seem incumbent on "affiliates" like my friend to invite the people in their life to come to these events, as John Sheridan pointed out earlier in the thread. When my friend initially proposed this to me she asked me what it would be like to live life "on the edge". Well, maybe I'm just exceptionally boring and old-fashioned but that kind of thing is just not for me.

Cheers,

Jon

Good call Jon.

Did you notice that a lot of positive comments in Justyn's link exhibited the same type of obvious spelling mistakes and grammatical errors?

The obvious explanation is that all the participants co-incidentally made the same type of typos. Or NOT

DS

I was once involved with Amway for about 18 months or so and the sort of approach you've described is typical because it's very difficult to get people along to presentations, etc. The reason for this is that these businesses suffer from a dreadful reputation and so the only hope of getting "contacts" into a room is to tell them as little about it as possible.
There is no doubt that some of these business ventures are successful and can be viewed as viable business opportunities.
However, the thread that unites them all is that they are self-employment opportunities.
My best advice with all of these things is to keep an open mind but ask "what in percentage terms is the average rate of success for someone taking this business on?" In other words, view it as any other business you might consider opening. With MLM schemes, the chances of success are generally about 5%,(or used to be). Now honestly, if I came to you with an opportunity to run your own business with a 95% failure rate, what would you say?
There is a new tactic now which is to approach jobseekers. I posted my c.v on website a while back and received an EMail from an individual inviting me to a company opening evening where I was assured a number of management posts would be available.
I was asked to complete a form for registration and as I did so, I was struck by the peculiarity of some of the questions.
I did a bit of digging and found that the company concerned,(Forever Living Products), sold their products via MLM.
Fearing a dupe, I EMailed the individual who'd invited me to this event to confirm whether the posts were for the company itself or for Forever Living Products "distributors".
I received no response strangely enough....

quote:

The sad fact Jon is this is sometimes how one loses friends.

So true, Gary - I lost a friend who had been trying to introduce me to the NSA scheme (water filters, that sort of thing) and I wasn't interested. Not good. Filters were quite decent I seem to recall, but the business behind it a bit dodgy IMHO.

John

quote:

Originally posted by Top Cat:

quote:

The sad fact Jon is this is sometimes how one loses friends.

So true, Gary - I lost a friend who had been trying to introduce me to the NSA scheme

Sorry to sound like a dork, but if your "friend" couldn't take "no" for an answer and remain friends as a result of one of these things, then they probably weren't much of a real friend anyway.

"if your "friend" couldn't take "no" for an answer and remain friends as a result of one of these things, then they probably weren't much of a real friend anyway."

A sad fact of these schemes is that the only people you can contact into them are friends and family and going into business with personal and blood ties is never a great idea.

What the schemes then say is to ask the friends and family to be customers if they're not interested in being "business partners".

Top cat,

I suspect your now ex-friend was obliged to undertake some considerable financial outlay to get on to the scheme, and I think that once this is done they simply have to be believe that they are going to be successful, and in order to keep this positivity going they won't hear a word to the contrary.

Even my friend sounded to me like she's in denial to some extent. When I mentioned to her I was put off by the large sum of money involved she seemed surprised by this.

Just explain to her that she is in effect starting her own business, with all the associated risks and at this time you are not interested in becoming a business partner.

If she is a friend tell her you will be there at the other end, if she requires it.

We're fine. She's a very powerful person and quite headstrong, and once she decides to go for something there's no stopping her. In fact I don't think it's possible to succeed with this sort ot venture without precisely this kind of attitude, it's just not an attribute I share.

I am visiting her tomorrow night anyway so will provide the necessary reassurances if needs be!

Cheers,

Jon