Mission Statement
In recent decades, pyramid schemes have become an insidious, pervasive and corrupting influence in the marketplace and community, causing financial and social harm on a global scale.
Since 1980 a new form of sales and marketing, called multi-level marketing or network marketing, has spread worldwide and spawned an explosion of pyramid sales schemes involving tens of millions of consumers. The line between legal forms of network marketing and fraudulent pyramid programs is a point of Read More…
Enough Is Enough. It’s Time for Action!
No more denial, shame or embarrassment. No more confusion. No more blaming the victim. No more resignation. And absolutely no more fear.
Pyramid Scheme Alert is the first consumer organization to confront the abuses and trickery of pyramid scheme perpetrators.
Pyramid Scheme Alert is a non-profit, privately supported (by memberships and donations), all-volunteer,
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Resources
Despite the volume of lies and hype flowing from multi-level marketing schemers there is more valid, research-based and whistle-blower information available today than ever before. The truth is emerging.
As in the cases of Enron, the lethal cigarette industry, bank and mortgage frauds and the Madoff ponzi scheme, the truth about multi-level marketing is taking time to emerge but the truth inevitably prevails. As the Links offered here show, the number of activists is growing. Major Read More…
Consumer Report Now Available:
What is this Thing called Multi-Level Marketing?
This new article by Robert L. FitzPatrick is an economic “portrait” of multi-level marketing (MLM) in the USA. The report has compiled and analyzed the data on three of the oldest and largest MLM companies, Amway, Herbalife and Nu Skin in a readable and understandable way to paint a recognizable picture. Together, these three constitute 10% of the entire MLM operations in America and serve as representatives of all others. About 1.5 million Americans are signed up in them each year. Most quit within a year. The report shows shocking loss rates among participants and an extreme transfer of money to the 1% at the top. The study also examines the potential for “retail” sales by distributors, which turn out to be non-existent. Finally, the report examines the financial chances of success of a new recruit joining any of the three today.
If you have an interest in seeing this report, contact us.
Recent Articles
The Fraudulence of “Fake It Till You Make It”
by Robert L. FitzPatrick I was quoted and a link to my book, False Profits, was included in a recent article in the Washington Post that probed the aphorism, “Fake It Till You Make It”, which now pervades our culture as a recommended strategy for...
What’s Driving and Pulling Millions into MLM, despite the Known Facts?
by Robert L. FitzPatrick For many years, I addressed questions about why so many people, especially younger people, fall into MLM with a simple answer: deception. MLM is a utopian, almost irresistible proposition, a fraud, deviously disguised as a legitimate...
Upcoming New Book Addresses Most Basic Question of All: Is MLM Direct Selling?
Each year, more than 20 million Americans get recruited into multi-level marketing (MLM) to be “direct sellers” of soaps and supplements, leggings and lotions, cosmetics and crypto, among other things. Few ask the first question: “Is MLM really direct selling?” If...
Extinction Alert: The Plight of Avon and Tupperware
MLM is not and never was "direct selling" (door-to-door retailing). Mass merchandising, big box stores, mail-order and then the internet, among other societal changes killed off the old "direct selling" model generations ago. MLM promoters stole the revered old...
MLM and Crypto, Unsurprisingly Similar
I call to your attention a very informative podcast, not about MLM directly, but one that goes to the heart of all “anti-MLM” discussions: What Is MLM? The featured podcast is the Intercept, hosted by Ryan Grim, interviewing actor and activist, Ben McKenzie. The...
India’s Money Laundering Case against Amway Breaks New Ground in Enforcement and Revealing MLM
Financial regulators in India have charged the Amway Corporation with a financial crime: running a $7 billion “money laundering” scam. Amway’s “multi-level marketing” enterprise is described as "pyramid fraud in the guise of direct selling.” This charge...