Have you ever been to a "get rich quick" (Pyramid scheme!) meeting? Its pretty scary

Have you ever been to a "get rich quick" (Pyramid scheme!) meeting? Its pretty scary

Why?

Because it's so fucking cult-like. I remember the summer of 2001, I had just graduated out of high school, and was a little worried about my future. One of my buddies call me up and trys to recruit to me to this group known as "ACN" -- basically your standard get rich quick gimmick club.

The leader was a well spoken and well dressed man in his 20s, and had an amazing ability to convince you this was legit.

Catch was -- 500 dollar entrance fee. Some other get rich quick gimmicks require up to 5,000!

I went to 4 meetings (I admit after 1 I was hooked on the idea) and every meeting, I saw more and more of my fellow high school graduates. Seeing them kinda comforted me a little, but I look back and recall how cult-like it was. One of my buddies was one of the first members to join, and he COMPLETELY CHANGED. He started going around trying to recruit everyone like mad.

(the more people you recruit the more money you make, you can make more than 40,000 they claim)

In the end, I never plunked down the 500 bucks. Something in the end just told me to stay away.
And whenever I ask my friend about ACN today, he avoids the question... I guess he really did get screwed.

I mention all this because last night on the news they were doing an investigation on these kind of recruiting schemes, and they're illegal. I mean, pyramid schemes are illegal.

Once the pyramid collapses, you're screwed.

Oh yah, I have had neighbors (they are school teachers) who tried so hard to recruit me... Trying to be gold or diamond member or something.

I told them to go to hell.

You were wise to stear clear of these things....

ive started a few similar things.....when i was a bit younger i was really weak to buisinessmen and recruitment jargon....

But the rose tinted glassess soon came off and i never went through with any of them.

One involved "selling" charity, another was a chain thing like you said, where i was meant to get 2000 people to sign up to something so that everyone would get a "free" top spec PC.....

load o bullshit

Those meetings are hilarious!

I had a friend who was "recruited" (more like assimilated) and told a bunch of us we should go to the next meeting. So, deciding it would be funny, I went.

Wow. The head guy there was insane. We met in his basement, and he handed out pamphlets and flyers with the provision that, when we were done with them, we had to give them back to save printing costs! You had to pay 250 bucks to get this IBO thing, and then you had to pay fees for the meetings and fees for this and that. The whole time I was just laughing in his face until he told me to leave. All of my friends promptly got up and left with me.

Good times, good times.

<small>[ February 19, 2003, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: Zeekade Zarathos ]</small>

Ugh, yeah. I went to one with this guy who was trying very hard to recruit me. At the meeting, the people did a weird chant/cheer when the speaker came. For an hour, the guy talked about some bullshit lies about being rich, happy, and a scamming asshole. I told the recruiter to fuck off and scam someone else.

A friend and co-worker of mine is into one of those businesses. I'm still wondering on how to tell him that his entire business is a total scam.

His has to do with the internet business and he kept trying to recruit me and my other co-workers, but most of us knew to steer clear of those kinds of get-rich-quick schemes.

The one I got into personally was back in 1995. It was some seminar for low-cost long distance. My mom and I attended for a nominal amount, but after that we really didn't get too far into the scheme of things. When I look back on it I'm glad I didn't.

One of my work's high rollers was indicted for perpetuating a pyramid scam.. yet he still has money... oh_no

BTW, I found an old ACN card in my closet earlier and here's their website if anyone is interested...

<a href="http://www.acninc.com" target="_blank">www.acninc.com</a>

The leader who I met in my area looked a hell of a lot like wrestler "Sean O'Haire."

It's interesting how all these get rich quick guys use a bunch of spoofed up phrases to oversimplify things.

Like, "independent representative." lol

My mom is into several of these things on the internet. She is always trying to get my wife and I to sign up under her oh_no

I went to one of these thinking it was a legit business looking for employees to do e-commerce stuff. After I figured I wanted nothing to do with it and told them I was leaving, they got really nasty with me and the bitch team leader says "good luck finding a job, kid." And then had me escorted out of the building.

Fuck that shit.