I’m not afraid to admit that I’ve tried online dating, and have been amazed at the lies my dates would tell. I walked away from one situation saying to myself, “That was boyfriend fraud!” And guys… women can be just as shady, so you have to look out for girlfriend fraud.
Pursuit Magazine just published an article about the book InvestiDate: How to Investigate Your Date: The Liars, Cheaters, Con Artists and Convicts Won’t Stand a Chance!
Primerica Financial Services is a multi-level marketing company that sells life insurance and investments. I’ve written about Primerica in the past, questioning whether Primerica is a pyramid scheme, and whether PFS is a scam.
The bottom line is that Primerica sells legitimate products and services (life insurance and investments), but sells them at inflated prices to generally unsophisticated consumers. So consumers are overpaying, and likely buying the wrong products. Additionally, the MLM structure sucks for the Primerica representatives. Because there is recruiting with so many levels, the distributor who sells the products receives much less money than if he or she sold similar services through a traditional insurance agency or investment company.
A typical recruiting ploy in Primerica is the job interview. Representatives of PFS troll the internet for job seekers, harvesting resumes from job sites. They contact the job seekers with an offer of an interview for an opening. They give the job seekers very little information about the “job” (it’s not a job at all… rather it is a position in the MLM pyramid), con them into showing up for an interview, and telling them if they have the right skills, they may be invited to stay for an information session.
Serial charlatan Kevin Trudeau is up to his old tricks. Despite being caught by regulators violating consumer protection laws many times… despite being fined and sanctioned multiple times…. despite repeated violations of injunctions and orders….. Kevin Trudeau continuously invents new ways to avoid the long arm of the law.
Kevin Trudeau just filed for bankruptcy protection. And wouldn’t you know it, his lawyers say that the bankruptcy filing means the government can’t enforce an order that he pay a $37 million fine and that sanctions for non-payment cannot occur.
From a previous article about the Kevin Trudeau shenanigans:
I have always been a big Dave Ramsey fan, and believed that his financial advice for consumers is first rate. But today Dave Ramsey got it wrong in a big way. On his blog, he published an article about making money in multi-level marketing.
The article failed to acknowledge the fact that over and over again, it has been proven that 99% of people involved in MLMs lose money. Front and center in the article was this lie:
Truthfully, if you have a go-getter personality, and you can follow some basic business and personal etiquette, you can make a lot of money in an MLM. The trick is to avoid all the potential pitfalls along the way.
Truthfully? No, there is no truth in what was said.
All good multi-level marketing companies have one thing in common: They fail to disclose enough information to allow consumers and regulators to determine if they are in the business of recruiting or selling products. They disclose just enough facts and figures to make it appear that they are being transparent. But they hide enough information that no one could ever determine definitively if they are running pyramid schemes.
MLMs cleverly avoid the pyramid scheme issue by making it impossible to determine the level of retail sales of products to consumers. The companies effectively use the technique of plausible deniability: They purposely do not track retail sales, so when the business model is challenged with the assertion that few retail sales occur (and therefore they are recruiting schemes), executives can claim that they know no such thing!
Usana Watchdog has released a report on Usana Health Sciences, challenging the company’s failure to reveal meaningful facts and figures that would allow consumers and law enforcement to determine whether the company is running an illegal pyramid scheme.
Readers of the Fraud Files are familiar with the story of Jennifer McKinney – - mommy blogger who calls herself MckMama – - who is prone to lies and exaggerations. She and her husband Israel were accused of lying to and manipulating readers for financial gain. What began as a touching story of a family with a very sick child turned into a long-running gravy train, from which Jennifer and Israel McKinney profited handsomely.
But making hundreds of thousands of dollars from gullible sheeple reading a blog wasn’t enough for the McKinneys. No, they had to run up over $725,000 of debts and attempt to have them discharged in bankruptcy. Fortunately, bankruptcy trustee Gene Doeling caught on quickly, and accused them of attempting to defraud their creditors by failing to report tens of thousands of dollars of income per year.
Jennifer McKinney – - former mommy blogger nicknamed MckMama – - has good news for the many creditors that she owes hundreds of thousands of dollars…. SHE CAN PAY THEM! This month’s issue of Xyngular’s Momentum magazine featured Jennifer Howe Sauls McKinney on the cover.
Publications like this are purely recruiting tools. While 99% of people participating in multi-level marketing will lose money, there are a few at the top of the pyramid who will make big money (only because many below them are losing money). Companies like Xyngular parade around the big winners, hoping to continuously recruit new victims into their schemes.
Jon Taylor, PhD has written a thorough and excellent book about multi-level marekting: The Case (For and) Against Multi-Level Marketing: The Complete Guide to Understanding the Flaws – and Proving and Countering the Effects – of Endless Chain “Opportunity” Recruitment, or Product-Based Pyramid Schemes.
If you’re not familiar with MLM, you can see some interesting statistics here. Basically, the odds of a distributor losing money in multi-level marketing are greater than 99%. Despite the fact that participants are almost guaranteed to lose money in MLM, these scams are marketed as business opportunities with the potential for unlimited earnings.
Multi-level marketing companies are getting lots of attention lately thanks to the Bill Ackman smackdown of Herbalife in December. MLMs offering “nutrition products” are of special interest to consumers, and with good reason. Companies like Isagenix, MonaVie , Usana, Mannatech, and Shaklee all offer magic potions that claim to help you lose weight, absorb more vitamins and minerals, and cure all diseases.
Of course, many of these health claims are strictly prohibited. Nutrition MLMs generally have disclaimers stating that their health claims have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and that the products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. But that doesn’t stop the distributors for making such claims, and the company management turns a blind eye to it.
Defenders of multi-level marketing (MLM) are often heard saying that it’s a legitimate business method! Even government regulators say MLM is legitimate. And it is true that state and federal governments in the United States generally allow multi-level marketing companies to operate with little oversight. This is despite the fact that structurally and operationally, MLMs are nothing more than pyramid schemes.
Oh sure, the MLMs are careful to use lots of window dressing that makes it appear they don’t violate anti-pyramiding laws. There are even lawyers who whore themselves out to tell owners of MLMs how to “stay legal.” And of course, the massive lobbying on behalf of “direct sellers” and multi-level marketing companies ensures that current laws against pyramid schemes will not be enforced, and that no new laws impeding MLMs will be enacted.
Yesterday the Chicago Tribune ran a piece on multi-level marketing, specifically referring to Herbalife and Fortune Hi Tech Marketing. Typical positive MLM talking points were cited:
