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Is there a list of current pyramid schemes out there?

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Isnt it dangerous to a certain extent? I remember a german journalist wanted to attend a Scientology meeting to write about how they try to persuade you and in the end he wrote that he almost fell for their psychological tricks.

I can think it can be equally dangerous for some people to fall for pyramid schemes.

Oh it is, but that's precisely why the experience is valuable. I attended a MLM meeting once and its scary how well they can sell the dream to you. But its because of that experience that I'm also much more aware of such types of verbal misdirection and better equipped to identify and counter them.

Edit: Upon further consideration, I think I need to amend my original statement. Going to a MLM meeting is only safe when you don't need the dream they're selling you. If you have a well paying job that you're satisfied with, MLMs have little to offer you. But if you're unhappy at work or desperate for money, you can be very vulnerable to persuasion.
 
I lost a couple of friends from these bullshit pyramid scheme. Basically they tried to get me to join them, i refused and now we pretty much haven't spoken in the last 6 years lol. From what I heard they stopped doing it as well and probably lost a lot of money on it. Karma's a bitch!
 
Oh it is, but that's precisely why the experience is valuable. I attended a MLM meeting once and its scary how well they can sell the dream to you. But its because of that experience that I'm also much more aware of such types of verbal misdirection and better equipped to identify and counter them.

Edit: Upon further consideration, I think I need to amend my original statement. Going to a MLM meeting is only safe when you don't need the dream they're selling you. If you have a well paying job that you're satisfied with, MLMs have little to offer you. But if you're unhappy at work or desperate for money, you can be very vulnerable to persuasion.

Yeah, back when I worked at Gamestop, one of the low level guys got sucked into one of these, and of course he turned around and tried to pull all of us into it. Given that most of us were young, dumb, and underpaid/worked, it was a compelling offer. Lucky for me at least, it also seemed obviously sketchy and I skipped out on the "presentation" he was giving us pretty early. I know at least one of those guys got caught up in it, and I never did find out how it worked out for him.

I stay as far as possible from that shit, and steadfastly refuse to let people have their fucking "parties" to sell shit in the predominantly-female versions of this MLM shit that occasionally come flying in my wife's direction from random bored friends of hers that've taken up something. At one point, it was sex toys. Then it was some fucking Amazonian juice bullshit. Now it's goddamn Jamberry.
 
Go walk up to the whiteboard and draw this.

PEmJpEX.jpg

Argh, beaten
Well here's the animated one anyway :P

DIBGu82.gif
 
Argh, beaten
Well here's the animated one anyway :P

DIBGu82.gif

I miss The Office (well, only the Michael years).

One of the many reasons I left facebook was a "long lost friend" got in touch with me and wanted to talk to me about a "business opportunity". I never responded and unfriended.
 
I'm of the opinion that if you know what they are, it doesn't hurt to check it out, it's kind of like getting an immunization shot, you'll see how it works and gain some resistance to it in the future.

However if you're a thin skinned person who has problem telling people no and have a history of succumbing to pressure sales tactics, then it's best to avoid it.
 
Just remembered the other week I ended up at some chicks apartment with some friends and she just started giving us a presentation on sex toys and shit like that. We were invited to hangout and she gave us free drinks but once she started reading out of the pamphlet I thought ooh boy. I ended up blacking out, but not before being sprayed with several pheromones and slapping my friend in the face with a 10 inch dildo.


I guess the take away is does anyone know the name of this sex toy pyramid scheme?
 
I lost a couple of friends from these bullshit pyramid scheme. Basically they tried to get me to join them, i refused and now we pretty much haven't spoken in the last 6 years lol. From what I heard they stopped doing it as well and probably lost a lot of money on it. Karma's a bitch!

Yeh same here. Back in my uni days a friend tricked a bunch of us into going to a recruitment meeting. Told us two hours before it started that he had a 'friend' who was doing a presentation and he was worried no one was going to turn up and could we go with him to support them. Some of my friends agreed so I just tagged along. Expected some youngish uni students in a small lecture theatre but ended up being two middle aged guys (obviously not uni students) in a library study room trying to sell us this shit. After the talk the lying bastard tried to guilt trip us into joining! Saying oh, if you guys join up it'll help me so much, it would be so nice to get a bit of extra cash so I can hire a cleaner to help my mum since she spends so much time looking after my disabled sister.

Cut off all ties with him after that. He wouldn't talk about anything else. Deleted his number from my phone. All the others who were tricked into attending the meeting fell out of contact with him too. Funny thing is like 6 years later he calls me to catch up since he was back in the country (didn't' even know he left) and since I deleted his number I didn't know who it was. Picked up the phone, he was all like 'it's me [name]' and all that's running through my head is 'it's pyramid scheme guy!'. Contacted some of my uni friends to see if they remembered him/he'd gotten in contact with them and they were all like 'oh you mean pyramid scheme guy?'. He'll never live it down, even if he bailed. Which I don't know if he did. He has a real job now though so probably did.
 
So I met a customer this past Friday after I got fired a few months ago. We talked and exchanged numbers, he said he has a way for me to earn some extra income. So I'm supposed to meet with him tomorrow, and he says we're gonna meet somewhere and talk about some things,(show me a brochure with some graphs and statistics) before heading to a Holiday inn to meet some people and get the details.

I don't like how ambiguous he sounded describing the work he said to me, and a few minutes ago I asked him straight up if it was a pyramid scheme. I haven't gotten an answer back yet, but is there a list of the current ones out there right now in case he still tries this out on me?

If chris pratt can get money from a pyramid scam so can you!
 
The high pressure sales tactics, psychological tricks, and peer pressure applied by pyramid-scheme enterprises must be very powerful.

I had a good friend I pegged as street-smart get sucked into one. When he asked me about joining, I told him as I saw it (about what he was doing). He immediately got onto the defensive and felt insulted.

That shocked me.
 
You know, I think it'd be fun to go to one of the sale pitches just to take advantage of the buffet or whatever and then laugh in their faces as you leave.
Nobody ever tries to scam me :(
 
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