Aug 07 2007
Pyramids, Ponzis and Cults….oh my.
Back in ’98 I was asked to attend a meeting with some people that had a “business opportunity” for me. Normally I’d give a sarcastic comment or two and skip the entire event, but on this occasion I was being asked by my mother. For the record, my mother is not a stupid woman, and she has consistently gone above and beyond helping me out time and again. I honestly felt I couldn’t refuse such a simple request. And so I went.
You guessed it. It was Amway / Quixtar.
Now, I had made up my mind to give this “session” a fair shake, and I scheduled it around my work (as a private investigator at the time) schedule. On arrival I found the previous session clearing out, and found that I was the only person due for the pitch this time through. I settled in, accepted the offer of some refreshments and let the nice lady tell me about this business opportunity.
What struck me right off was the announcement, at the beginning, that “This is not a pyramid scheme“. It struck me so much I commented on it. I pointed out that most legitimate businesses are unlikely to use this phrase in their pitch, that it was mentioned at all seemed odd.
Suffice to say the meeting went poorly from that point, as I had been knocked out of the pseduo-stupor that meetings automatically force me into. I asked a series of questions, sought clarification when provided with ambiguous answers, and generally was unsatisfied come the end of the session. Being polite I took a few motivational tapes (which I never listened to) and some written material (which I never read) and mentally filed the entire incident under “closed”, with the addendum “scam”.
It was brought back to mind recently when I read an book online called Merchants of Deception which documents the rise and fall of a high level distributor for Amway, his discovery that the “tools” (those motivational tapes I mentioned earlier) were providing the lions share of the income stream for those above him, and finally his drawn out battle with both Amway and the brainwashing/programming he had subjected himself to.
It is an absolutely fascinating read (and free) and I’d highly recommend giving it a glance or two.