There is a service to send out greeting cards called XYZ (real name withheld to avoid spam). Up front it really looks like a great idea. In fact if I just wanted a service to send cards for me and remind me of birthdays etc it might be a good deal.
On closer inspection it is about as near to a pyramid type business as can be without crossing the line of being illegal. An internet search will bring up many sites with folks crying out that it is a pyramid scheme versus a muli-level marketing organization followed with just as many sites claiming how great a money making deal it is.
An MLM can be a money making deal if you get in on the ground floor. What I have against this one is both personal and in my opinion applied common sense.
On the later here is short version of how it works. A person becomes a distributor and then recruits more distributors, you get points and then get paid a percent from them. They recruit and get points and the first person gets higher points earnings based on what those lower down (those with less time) the chain earn. Just like an upside down pyramid.
So how does this affect me? Well someone close to us took the lure and got hooked. He offered to purchase ($389.00) package to get KRP started on her road to riches. She said she would look into it and let him know. Well she thanked him for the offer and said no thank you. He persisted. She explained that she had no time to do it, hated computers, and between her carpal tunnel in both hands and her dead nerve in her leg she could not manage it. It was all she could manage to work full time and hold down the fort here.
He persisted. Then all of a sudden she could do nothing right when it came to their communications. Key phrases straight from some of the card companies literature about successful people versus negative people started cropping up in conversations and emails.
It culminated in an email where the gist of what he said was – if she chose to be negative and unwilling to work to be successful she was a failure. “If you want life to over whelm you then dont allow me to stand in your way.”
I was unaware of most of this until she left a note on the desk asking me to read her emails to and from him.
The email conversations boiled down to her telling him (as she has over the phone) that we could not afford the postage on a package to be sent overseas (~225.00). Him saying he sent 75 dollars that we have never seen. Him implying that she was unsuccessful and miserable because she was unwilling to put any effort in and do the greeting card thing.
It went from bad to worse and I felt the anger rising as I read and listened to some of his phone messages to her. He is convinced that her not wanting to do the card thing is a sign of her lazy, miserable existence. Oh and he kept referring to me as Jane not Jan after all these years. Any one that is not selling cards is negative and to be avoided. He bought the package hook, line, and sinker.
He reads and regurgitates all sorts of motivational snippets. It is rather scary really.
A quote off one of his social sites “2 of the top words that mean so much WEALTH AND HEALTH”.
Really? So if you lose your health and can not make the wealth?
wow. i have a hard time with people that are so “motivational”… more like pushy. and to be throwing such insults out there …. bad. i think i would have design a greeting card to send to him that would express my sentiments in no uncertain terms about what an a$$ he is… and something really clever that i can’t think of right now since the morning fog hasn’t quite lifted from my brain yet 😉
Yeah I dislike it when people imply that my problems are because I am not motivated! I sometimes wish they would have to motivate themselves for one day dealing with all this MS stuff.
Easy to judge others I guess.
Clever ideas always excepted.
I find anyone involved in pyramid schemes go a bit crazy. I lost a few friends through a hosehold cleaner pyramid scheme years ago. I met one a while ago, and she’s not rich…why am I not surprised!
No surprise there for sure.
This company is crazy.
The breakdown of their income disclosure (required by law to be published) states that 90.22% of the representatives make a high or $2,829.36 Low of $20.00 and average of $89.23 per YEAR LOL! 5% the managers make $13,866.21 High $20.00 low $609.02 Avg
they do have to top tier folks though as of 2010 and they make somewhere around a million or more.
I do not understand why people ignore the statistics?
I almost got involved in one of these (it was a health food company) when I was a principal. A new parent told me how our school could earn a lot if we joined. Fortunately, a very competent associate steered me away from it, explaining the why’s and wherefore’s of pyramid schemes. Can you imagine if I had been stupid enough to do it?? Funny, this parent became just as belligerent, and feeling sorry for her, I blamed her nastiness on her health. Anyone want to sell me a bridge in a NY borough?
Peace,
Muff
Good that your associate headed you away from it. Some of them really do look good on first looks. This one – if he had even done a google search he should have figured it out fast.
But then many got way to far into EST spending too much on seminars etc. and the cults in the 70’s sure attracted many high school and college students.
No bridges for sale – gosh we already own the London Bridge so how about I sell you the Golden Bear?
As the saying goes, with friends like this you don’t need enemies. Gads.
Oh, I have so many comments on this sort of thinking, but not enough energy to go there now. Manifesting and blame. Sounds a bit like an Ayurvedic Practitioner I for a while in 2008.
So, uh, why haven’t you two kicked this guys to the curb yet?
Who? LOL