Skepticism about MLM

[polomint38]

The video was not posted by me but by another unscrupulous person.

This seems like an admission of being unscrupulous, if my knowledge of the English language is correct.

[Tim the Mage]

...aaaah. The essence of MLM!

[bindeweede]

...aaaah. The essence of MLM!

This suggests it is not just the small man who falls for scams.

Some of the world's wealthiest private and corporate investors are reported to be victims of an alleged $50bn fraud by Wall Street broker Bernard Madoff.

Under a Ponzi scheme, also known as a pyramid scheme, investors are promised very high returns on their investment, while in reality early investors are paid with money collected from later investors.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7781086.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

[Blackhead]

Are all MLM or Network Marketing companies scams?

[Legaleagle]

Are all MLM or Network Marketing companies scams?

I think this would depend upon how the scheme were sold to the individual. If you are told from the outset that you will be working a commission based door to door sales job at a very low rate of pay without any substantive support from the organisation employing you then that would not be a scam.

However, you will find most MLM's don't operate in that way. Instead, you will be promised vast wealth for developing something called a "downline", which has been proved time and again to be a pipe dream, whilst at the same time charging you cash for motivational CD's, books and meetings and for ever more unsaleable stock in pursuit of this elusive "downline". In the end you will either leave the MLM having lost money, or turn into a monomaniacal bore in the pursuit of the chimera of the "downline".

Either way, steer clear.