Pyramid Schemes

Angels

Mods please feel free to move.

Can anyone give me the low down on these pyramid schemes??

It seems to be the 'new' thing in Cork to join one. There are alot of storys going around saying this man put in €10,000 & got back €40,000.

Is it legit??

Santa Claus

Pyramid schemes are best avoided for a good reason....The only people who make money out of it are the organisers.

Sure the first 2 or 3 people who they persuade to join might make some money, but that's just to draw in the hundreds of others who won't get anything.

If it looks to good to be true......

Here's 2 newspaper articles on the current scheme in Cork/Kerry :
http://www.the-kingdom.ie/news/story.asp?j=19599
http://www.irishexaminer.com/pport/web/Full_Story/did-sgpxaJTyO4Mxwsg7IQHSmeYhNE.asp

oh jesus

your messing!!!

YeatsCounty

They didn't work for Albania and they won't work for you.

Femelade

from cork myself and loads of people seems to be getting money from it, but i have yet to meet someone in person who has, its always a friends of a friend's friend.

basically you put in a certain amount of money, i 've heard of a group who had to go to germany with their money, i've heard of a different group who had to just put it into a bank account.

you have to get people to back you, (put money in after you did) to push yourself along the line,(and they have to get people to back them) if you dont then you get stuck at the end and never gain any money from it.

i dont trust it anyway, something has to give and someone will lose out eventually, if i did it, it would prob be me!

there

Hagar

There will always be somebody willing to take advantage of the simple-minded.
I suppose Cork was as good a place to start as anywhere.;)

Femelade

Hagar wrote:

There will always be somebody willing to take advantage of the simple-minded.
I suppose Cork was as good a place to start as anywhere.;)

oi! thats not nice

connundrum

You should definitely join my pyramid scheme. Basically what happens is you give me €10, I got off buy sweets for €9 and sell them for €12. You get your tenner back (maybe) and get to be part of 'One of Ireland's fastest growing Industries'.. I see no problem here

Hagar

Only joking, no offence intended.

Sam Vimes

A pyramid scheme is a system of selling goods where commissions are paid to recruit new sellers. The commissions are based on the number of sellers recruited.


so if you get paid to recruit people, and they in turn get paid to recruit more, then in a few months the entire planet will be involved

petes

Scam tbh!

Siogfinsceal

angels please dont go there. The only people who make money are those at the top. Those lower down dont this is basically because you need to convince say 10 other people to join in order to make your money and in any one society there is only a limited amount of people who would be willing to join. My mates dad lost money through one

rymus

got a call yesterday from a guy I used to share a house with years ago and hadn't heard from since. He was basically trying to recruit me into this scheme but did an awfully half assed job about it. I've heard it's worked for alot of people (including a couple I used to work with) but I'd rather not chance it. I've even heard of one local guy (most likely bullshít) who went into it 4 times and got the max amount of money each time.

rubadub

I suggest you study some mathematics, a good starting point would be barney the dinosaur,
2 plus 2 is 4, 2 plus 2 is 4!

Thats pretty much the only level of maths you need to realise it is a scam.

Where do people think this money is coming from? if you get money from these then some body else has lost out, you may as well go out and rob a house if you think that is morally ok.

RE*AC*TOR

complete scam - how anyone can fall for this in this day and age is beyond me. Grow a brain!

Wanted Man

I'm not sure if there isn't a law against pyramid schemes but if there isn't there should be...Basically talk to the gardai about pyramid schemes and they'll tell you not to get involved....It practically destroyed Albania and destroyed the lives of thousands of people out there....

A few years ago there was one in Dublin and a load of recruits put their money in a bowel in the middle of a table...Next thing a man in a baliclava enters, takes the money and skips it...people lost thousands because of it...

I think these schemes are almost always set up by scam artists who move from place to place or town to town as soon as they have got their money leaving a trail of devastation behind them...

In short don't get involved!

RE*AC*TOR

There is a law against them - they are illegal.

*edit*
its called:

Pyramid Selling Act of 1980

AnTaoiseach

I always thought it was a kind of reverse chain mail thing, where everyone gets 10 people to give 10 euro and then those ten get another ten and so on........?
My sister did a knicker chain mail thing where whe sends off a pair of knickers (new and un used of course) and then gets ten people to do the same and ended up with loads of knickers coming in the post

Samhildanach

Don't be fooled, pyramid schemes are illegal. Read the following link for more information:

http://www.oireachtas-debates.gov.ie/S/0094/S.0094.198006250010.html

The_Minister

Whats this about Albania?

rubadub

AnTaoiseach wrote:

My sister did a knicker chain mail thing where whe sends off a pair of knickers (new and un used of course) and then gets ten people to do the same and ended up with loads of knickers coming in the post

Yeah :rolleyes: your sister
Yeah :rolleyes: unused

now thats a scam I would be interested in!

RE*AC*TOR

From Wikipedia:

The collapse of financial pyramid schemes in early 1997 - which had attracted deposits from a substantial portion of Albania's population - triggered severe social unrest which led to more than 1,500 deaths, widespread destruction of property, and an 8% drop in GDP. The lek initially lost up to half of its value during the 1997 crisis, before rebounding to its January 1998 level of 143 to the dollar. The new government, installed in July 1997, has taken strong measures to restore public order and to revive economic activity and trade.

Angels

Im not planning to join one at all. People i know have been on & on about it for the last week. I just wanted to know was it legit & legal?

Clearly its not i see now.

Why is it so that people are mad crazy to get into one?

i would never spend money like that stupidly, it's kinda like doing the lotto but you pay more for a smaller amount.

RE*AC*TOR

Angels wrote:

Why is it so that people are mad crazy to get into one?

Greed.

WhiteWashMan

pyramid schemes are illegal.

there are a number of companies that do have pyramid type schemes that are legal, such as amways.
but to make any money you need to be in a t the top.

its a lot of hard work, you need to recruit a lot of people, and the goods that you sell are mid range. there is no differentiating factors. they are not even cheaper.

i would avoid at all costs. basically its all about getting someone else to do your work, and taking their pay.
thats what people are doing to you when you join...

Angels

WhiteWashMan wrote:

pyramid schemes are illegal.

there are a number of companies that do have pyramid type schemes that are legal, such as amways.
but to make any money you need to be in a t the top.

its a lot of hard work, you need to recruit a lot of people, and the goods that you sell are mid range. there is no differentiating factors. they are not even cheaper.

i would avoid at all costs. basically its all about getting someone else to do your work, and taking their pay.
thats what people are doing to you when you join...

I have to agree with you there i shall be telling my friends & family to avoid at all costs.

It doesn't seem fair people can set up these pyramids detroy peoples lives & get away with, but i guess life isn't fair after all.

Gandhi

My next door neighbour got involved in one years back, selling water filters, IIRC. He actually did make money on it, but he made money from the sellers below him in the pyramid, who ended up stuck with a garage full of unsold water filters that they had paid for out of their own pocket.

My wife got stuck in one of those chain letter things, but it was tea towels, not knickers that were flying around. I can't imagine the look on someone's face if they got a letter asking them to "please send me some knickers?".

astrofool

Any chance of changing the thread title stating that anyone who joins a Pyramid scheme is an idiot?

A few of the more advanced ones have people going around telling potential recruits that they spend their life playing golf and enjoying the good life (then what are they doing trying to recruit you?).

Anyway

Only idiot's join a Pyramid (or trapezoid) scheme.

rubadub

astrofool wrote:

Only idiot's join a Pyramid (or trapezoid) scheme.

LOL. I remember some comedy sketch like that. The guy was saying something like

"now we all know pyramid schemes are a scam and dont work, this is a tetrahedon scheme! it CANNOT FAIL!"

Calibos

Ever see little posters in shop windows saying ''Want to Earn €400 a day/week? Mail envelopes and earn up to 400!!!" etc etc

Same thing. Nothing but pyramid schemes. Never used to pay much attention to them in our shop window. Actually read one one day and copped that it was basically a pyramid scheme. Noticed that loads of people would tear off the tabs with the phone numbers. These people invariably were the more vunerable members of society. People that I knew had drink problems or were daily visitors to the slot machine arcade up the road ie gambling addicts. People that had mental problems. People that I knew were....well how can I say it.....a bit thick.

Stopped letting these people put up those posters. Once they realised that the money wasn't in posting the envelopes but in starting up there own similar scheme I was damned if I was going to let them use my shop to help them make their money back.

How has the old adage of "'Ïf its too good to be true...."' still not sunk in with people!

The very nature of these things is that no one will admit to being thick and taken in by these things and losing money, so they always tell friends that they made a few quid, and of course you have no hope of making your money back if you put off new members that you want to recruit by telling them you lost money.

rubadub

Calibos wrote:

Ever see little posters in shop windows saying ''Want to Earn €400 a day/week? Mail envelopes and earn up to 400!!!" etc etc

There are plenty of other scams. You should never have to pay to work and many of these ask you to. You may have to buy materials and then make things, then you are told they are not good enough so they only buy 1/4 of them back off you.

I remember when I was about 16 going to the local hotel and there was a conference with apparent jobs. Only me and 3 girls about 14 turned up. guy was full of crap saying we were selling these important things (it was advertised as merchandising and I figured I would be handing out samples at traffic lights). Turns out he wanted us to sell black sacks door to door! he wanted us to buy them from him and "DOUBLE OUR MONEY!!!" wow... thing was he was selling the bags at about 3 times the price they were in dunnes at the time!! I escaped quickly, I was only 16, if it was now I would have kicked up **** and really told him what he was. The girls stayed behind though, I was looking at them behind him making eye motions to get out, dunno what they did.

That stuff makes me sick, some poor old granny probably would fork out the money to help the poor young girls being exploited.

mukki

you never hear people complaining that they got stung by one because



they are still trying to recruit people!!!!!

they are hardly gonna make a sale if they tell people you'll get stung

instead they will make up storys about their friends making thousands out of them



that tetraheadon joke was from simpsons

Nightwish

Anyone stupid enough to believe that they'll actually make money from pyramid schemes deserved to be parted from their money.

okidoki987

I suppose Cork was as good a place to start as anywhere

Not nice but funny

0utshined

WhiteWashMan wrote:

there are a number of companies that do have pyramid type schemes that are legal, such as amways.
but to make any money you need to be in a t the top.

No, you don't understand. they're multi-level marketing oppurtunities, not ponzi schemes. It's completely different and a legitimate business opportunity.

I almost finished typing that with a straight face.

To the OP,
They are illegal and for a very good reason. They are called a Pyramid scheme because the operatation can be viewed as a pyramid, divided into levels. Taking for instance that you need to recruit 3 people to "move up" so to say, here's how it works.

At the first level you have the originator. He needs to bring in three people to fill the next level. This is the first problem, there is no check to stop him bringing in as many people as he likes. In fact the more lists he starts the better for him.

At the second level you have all the people brought into the scheme by the originator. Each of these people needs to bring in 3 people to move up the list and start getting money from it. Now there is a check to stop them bringing in more than three people as the originator will be the top the list. There is however two problems with this.

The first is that you're relying on the originator's honesty which I don't think you can. For him, the more people that get in on the earlier levels, the more money that will filter through to him so his honesty is really being tested and if he's started a scheme like this I don't think we can rely on him being a particularly honest individual.

The second problem that arises at the second level is that the more intelligent of those who are at this level will recognise that it will always pay better to be at the top of the chain\pyramid. Knowing this, why not start their own pyramid? Or as we saw at the first level, a number of them.

For every level after the second you can repeat as the second.

To put it bluntly, pyramid schemes work on two things. People's greed and their ignorance. Greed in itself isn't bad but if you look at how they work then joining a pyramid scheme is not a good investment for two reasons :

1. You never know what level of the pyramid you are on. The people above have no incentive to tell you.

2. You never know which pyramid you are on. Is it a first generation, second generation, seventh generation? Who knows?

It's a gamble and the odds aren't very good in my opinion. If you really want to bet the money go to a casino.

I hope that explains it a bit, if anything's unclear let me know and I'll try and elaborate.

GerryRyan

I was doing Transition Year last year and some lad came in to talk about investing nd all that. Pyramid schemes were brought up and he spend a good half hour lecturing us about the dangers without really explaining it.

Anywho ... here.

My contribution.

0utshined

I may have misread your post ThatGuy but I wasn't trying to lecture, just explain.