Hi All, Havn't posted in a while, been very busy with a number of things. But I thought I'd like to share what I feel is a scam with fellow stackers. Hopefully you guys can decypher it more and give me some views on whether we I was being too hash on my friend and that his literally court up in the scam. I will try to relate it with some of the knowledge that we possess on these forums. Story: Few months ago, my old colleague called me up advising me there is a business opporunity. I said I was busy and going to Europe for a holiday. Anyway when I come back, last week he called me out again and wanted to catch up. I said sure lets have a bite and see. He said after the dinner we can goto what is like a small party where some people will present an business opportunity. Asked if I wanted to come along. Personally I thought why not, you probably want a second opinion on the business venture. I was not interested in starting or doing anything (knowing about the end game 2-5-10 years things will play out with currency crisis). So we have dinner and I end up at this guys place with another bunch of people in there. There were friends of friends and other people seeking business opportunity. So this guy starts by introducing himself. He says his a dentist, income use to be good. But even now his business is struggling people spending less and just doing the minimum required for health (Slams thoughts: Hey whats news, welcome to the deflating economy). He then proceeds to show a video that talks about some super fruit (called acai berry, a-sigh-ee is how to pronouce it) from the amazon forest, how its rare contains all the nuetrients of alot of fruits. Has the ability to reduce bone pains and reduce cholestrol, has protein in it. So you can just live eating of that (Slams thoughts: yeah BS, if its that good why havn't I heard of it already from trusted sources. I was literally about to leave in front of everyone after 5 minutes. But to give respect to my friend I held it in and stayed). He then proceeds to show another video selling some dream where one guy at the top of the scheme is making 20million a year. Other members making 500k, 200k, 100k passive income. They don't mention any scheme yet. He asks the crowd who wants to make more money, who wants to be healthy. Everyone puts their hands up besides myself (I looked around the room and thought, do they even know where our currency comes from). Next he proceeds to open a couple of these red wine looking bottle things. Its filled with that 19 blends of fruit. Literally it has no ingredient break down to it. I wasn't comfortable drinking this crap without knowing what it is. I was skeptical, maybe its got addictive crap in it making you want more of it. At the end of it I took 1 small zip with 95% infact. When they collected the glasses the woman looked at me strangly wondering why I didn't drink it all. Everyone else did, she probably thought it was some hot s**t. I didn't =D. So it continues for another 20 mins with a few more videos of nonsense and no real substance backing the product. Information sources possibly produced by its own company. It is a 1billion dollar turnover multi level marketing company. I didn't think much of it, 1 billion isn't alot of money these days (knowing the derivatives market) and the amount of fiat out there). They kept sprouting out more figures from certain sources that cannot be audited or verified. So the one thing was 858% growth year by year or something, or over 5 years. At the end, they didn't describe the compenstation plan or scheme. Unless you were interested, you had 1 on 1s with other leaders in the binary pyramid scheme. I didn't want to say too much and felt disgusted my friend took me into one of these without telling me. He is already in it and been doing it for 4 months. They had 1 person who quit their day job, and is on 200k a year passive income (yeah how many suckers you signed up). Another on 100k. I spoke to him and I say, good luck your going to lose alot of friends in the future. I have no interest in this product. He takes me aside and we discuss. I told him I'm not interested, sources can be verified and that you have to be a member to buy stuff. You need to spend $160 per month on this crap to be a member to be compensated in the binary stream. Basically $40 a bottle, drink for a week. Day and night 1 x 60ml shot. They sprout out all these reports about lowering cholestrol and people losing weight that they know. Pains disappearing after 3 months. I said to me friend, I wish to head off. I'm happy to catch the bus home if you have other things to do here (he drove). We head out on they way he kept selling it to me and sent me more information. I reviewed and DDMYD (my own due dilegence) found a juice scam site that breaks it all down. I paid more attention to facts and how this site broke apart every single arguement that, that the juice company sells. The comments were the most insightful and I have decided to not be involved. Its a waste of time and a ponzi scheme IMO. The fact you have to be a member to sell and the fact that both your binary legs need to do well for you to earn commision is the reason to stay away. In addition there is no nuetritional value on the product. I politely reply back to my friend said I'm not interested. He pushed me more to say ask what I found and why. I sent him the scam info site. He debunked the whole lot saying it was pushing alternative products. I didn't think that was the case as I never saw any other products being mentioned. I ignored any adds with all my internet browsing and pay more weight to comments. He debunked it by saying the whole thing is anonymous blog. Things I found: - Shelf life of product 1 year, its natural and non pastuerised (I doubt this is the case, there was a guy thats a food producer and knows for juice, you either need to add perservatives or pastuerise it to have that kind of shelf life). If its pastuerised most of the neutrients will have been destroyed. Making it poor value processed food. - MLM scheme VP came from another companies MLM scheme that sells health tablets and crap. - The person is anonymous because his received threats on his other blog site. The company has threaten him already. Why would you not stay anonymous. - Google search on the company shows legit links all on first page. I wonder if the company has paid out google to keep them up the top. Or if the company has paid other services companies to generate the hits to stay up the top. In short, I really feel for my friend (or is he really one). I told him he will be losing friends when the whole thing collapses or truth is exposed later on. He says the company has been around for 5 years (Amway has been around for 60 years blah blah). Anyway I have politely declined and distanced myself from this group. I have wasted 3 hours of my life attending this nonsenese that I won't get back. Please provide me with some thoughts on what you think about this whole thing. I'm here to warn fellow stackers that you may come across something like this in the future. If they are starting to get a leg into the Australian market. Hope you had a nice read. Welcome comments and PMs for more information about the actual company behind all this. Cheers, Slam
yep you did waste your time. I have heard of that berry but like most new fads assume it is just that and haven't tasted it. I also haven't looked into it as you have done. I think the pyramid scheme that requires a constant stream of excitable minions to do your work for you is doomed to failure through burn out. You don't get something for nothing as they say. You also don't hear many favourable long term comments about such schemes eg amway, new directions products etc. Glad that you made your feelings known to your mate and not just politely declined. Pushy and passive aggressive people deserve to be told bluntly.
If you can negatively gear the product and offset your income with it, about 1.7 million Australians would be interested I think. Replace 'fruit juice' with 'property' in the story above and you pretty much have the Australian property market covered.
Can I have your mate's phone number? I am selling Amway and I feel he is just the sort of person who would do well in the organisation.
Funnily enough, our real estate agent told us that if we were serious about investing then once the sale of the NRAS property (positively geared but no less unethical) was underway he would come around and tell us about another opportunity that he was heavily involved in. He had a flip book and after about half an hour my wife asked if he was selling Amway. He hadn't mentioned the company at all. He was and my wife wanted to cancel the house purchase after she kicked him out. We have a shop and I was quite sure I could flog the various energy drinks that were better-than-every-other-energy-drink-on-the-market-but-I-had-never-heard-of-them in the shop but they told me I wasn't allowed to sell the product in my shop. Anyone remember goji berries? are they still around? Incidently what did the drink taste like? Did they go for the crowd-pleasing sugar drink or the medicinaly flavoured disgusting-but-doing-you-good route?
The acai fruit stuff is not new in Asia (where these scams run rampant). Before that was the goji fruit and all sorts of super fruit and stuff. Anyway, mlm is good for the seller and the early sellers, but it sucks big time for the end players.
It also waste my time to listen and read to his story Mate! Take him off from your friend list if he keep pushing you!
No! Don't lose him as a friend. He seems malleable and eager to invest money. Substitue magic [del]beans[/del] berries for silver and you have a winner.
Sounds like your friend has joined a cult. It's hooked into his hopes and dreams and he won't stand outside and look at it unless deprogrammed.
Alarm bells should of rang for him as soon as he seen a room full of "potential investors" - if the product is so great then why do they need people to invest in the business, why not just sell the stuff to supermarkets or health food shops and keep all the profits to themselves? Oh well, his money i guess.
Amway structure...the jokers at the top earn the good coin...the sh*t kickers down the bottom earn pennies.
Thanks guys, hopefully my friend should get the hint now. I didn't think to verify any of the info he sends me. I don't want to waste any more time looking into it. Can't believe how brain washed some people can be. Seems like the sheep mentality, no wonder we have so many dumb people out there. Slam
I don't believe you!!! But that's only because most people don't say they're involved in scamway, they now usually call it quixstar. There was a free e- book called "Merchants of deception". It was written by a ex high level scamway person. Apparently shows quite a lot of their underhanded tricks etc.
