Pigeons, Soap, Vitamins and Weight Loss Pills

Consumers Need to Understand How Fraudulent Ponzi's and Pyramid Schemes are Disguised.
--A Consumer Bulletin

Resources

Analytical Tools Articles Books Humor Links Pamphlets Research Other

Analytical Tools/Research and Analysis

The Myth of MLM Income Opportunity
The most comprehensive report available on the MLM business, a consumer report that reveals the actual losses of 99% of all recruits in major MLMs. Data is presented from eleven MLM schemes and analyzes it a way that is understandable. The report also details the tricks used by the schemes to lure people. Shocking losses and extraordinary deception are exposed. Read before you invest. Read if a family member is in an MLM.

University-level Analysis of MLM in German Language
While MLM remains largely unstudied and undocumented by academia in the United States, one new website in the German language offers excellent materials for German readers/speakers. The site with the research is published by Dr. Claudia Groß, Nijmegen School of Management.

Do-It-Yourself Evaluation of Multi-Level Marketing* Programs and Suspected Pyramid Schemes
A Proactive Guide for Consumers, Regulators, and Consumer Advocates

Twelve Tests for Evaluating a Network Marketing "Opportunity"

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Articles

Notes taken during an undercover investigation by Robert FitzPatrick on the "Business in Motion" (BIM) Scam that is sweeping through Canada (2007-9). Working with producers of the award-winning Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show, Marketplace, FitzPatrick attended a BIM meeting with hidden cameras and microphones. The Marketplace show that exposed the scheme aired on Feb. 6, 2009. The notes are published to answer further questions about how pyramids and Ponzis work and why FitzPatrick concluded that BIM is a harmful pyramid scheme.

The Amway Myth, with an Analogy to the Days when Smoking was "Harmless." England wants to kick it out of the country; China banned its pay plan; its offices in India were raided; Top Gun insiders sue it as a massive pyramid scheme; a class action case brought by distributors claim it is an illegal fraud under American law; books and websites detail victim losses.
Yet, Amway maintains the myth of being a "direct sales" company (though it has no retail customers) and a "unique income opportunity" (though indisputable data show that 99% of all Amway distributors lose money.)
Amway maintain the "Big Lie" much like Big Tobacco has us believing smoking was good for us.

The "Non-Retail" Direct Selling Company. As market-based economies become the prevailing global model, millions of people are being exposed to sales promotions, income opportunity solicitations, and investment schemes with which they have no experience or knowledge. Vulnerability to deception and the need for consumer education correspondingly reach global heights.

The Ten Big Lies of Multilevel Marketing

MLM, a Consumer Fraud - Understand how MLMs defraud consumers through a calculated program of deception and a business model in which 99% of all new recruits will and must lose.

When Should An MLM or Network Marketing
Program Be Considered an Illegal Pyramid Scheme?
Summary
Full Article

Where's The Harm? How do North America's three largest MLMs stack up against gambling in Las Vegas?

The American Scam
Just as thousands of Americans have been tricked by the "Nigerian Scam", millions of people in other countries around the world are losing money in the "American" Scam called multi-level marketing.

Amway's Fleecing of India

Amway/Quixtar Negative Sum Game

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Books

Merchants of Deception by Eric Scheibeler

Amway Motivational Organizations: Behind the Smoke and Mirrors, by Ruth Carter

False Profits: Seeking Financial and Spiritual Deliverance in Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Schemes, by Robert FitzPatrick and Joyce Reynolds

The Network Marketing Game, by Jon M. Taylor, PhD

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Humor

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Links

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Pamphlets

The Case for Reopening the Amway Pyramid Scheme Case: An Inquiry into the Legality of Multi-Level Marketing, by Robert FitzPatrick

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Other

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