Pyramid Schemes always seem to find me!

Working at a mattress store is a lot of hard work, it isn't as easy to stay awake while laying on a 5,000 dollar bed as it seems. I have to find ways to keep myself entertained, and recently it has been by humoring people involved in pyramid schemes.

I was offered 3 different jobs in the mall recently. First I was offered a manager position at Sonic, because I looked like a responsible young man looking for business opportunities. Second, as the manager of Lemstone Books (which has since gone out of business), because I looked like I had integrity and as a marketing consultant in the local company . . . Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing.

FORTUNE HI-TECH MARKETING
A prominent collegiate basketball coach’s wife offered me this job. She said that it was a great way to make extra residual income, and all I had to do was give her $250 bucks, find 3 more people to give me $250, and those 3 people had to find 3 people go give $250 . . . etc. Then it was my job to sucker people into signing up for Cingular and Dish Network through my website, which is the same as every other person in the companies website. She showed me the business plan, and it didn't even try to hide the fact that it was a pyramid, there was one drawn on the front of the packet. She said that if I was successful I could make $84,000 a month, and with only 1% success I could make $840 per month. It sounds too good to be true, which means it is. She said it wasn't a get rich quick scheme, that I wouldn't make that kind of money for at least 3 to 4 years. If I go from making nothing to $84,000 per month in 3 to 4 years I would call that getting rich quick.

TEAM

Jacob, who has just moved down from Wisconsin with his beautiful wife, offered me this job. Jacob said he was starting an Internet business in Lexington and thought I would be a good match for it. Amazingly, he could tell I was perfect for his company and we had only been talking for 2 minutes. I asked him what his business did and he told me, "Well, it is hard to explain right now, but it is booming in other regions of the country and there is huge room for growth in Kentucky." So I decided to set up a meeting with Jacob, because if you can't tell me what the business does when I ask it must means it involves a pyramid, I had to hear more about this opportunity. Think about it, if you are a brain surgeon, or a nuclear physicist your job involves things that is over most people’s heads, but if someone asks your profession you can still tell them what you do. Jacob could have told me he was in Internet sales, but then I would have known the truth and canceled the meeting. Two weeks later he knocks on my front door.
I open the door in a T-shirt that reads "I don't dial 911" with a bloody hand holding a gun. Jacob is in a full suit, tie, sport coat, matching pants, the whole 9 yards. He said the 'meeting' would take about 2 hours; one hour to get to know me, and one hour to talk about the business. Jacob asked me about my DVD collection and said we should get together and watch movies; he then saw a guitar and told me he played. As Jacob talked he stared deeply in my eyes, obviously trying to hypnotize me. I felt like he was peering into my soul, trying to influence me, or maybe trying to seduce me. My penis began retracting slowly into my body and my butthole tightened as a reflex in case Jacob may try to rape me at some point during our meeting.
Oh, did I mention, Jacob is 19, and has pork-chop sideburns that grow in all patchy like Joe Dirt’s.



He told me about painting his fingernails in an alternating pink/black fashion and wearing all black to concerts. Jacob is shorter, skinnier, and a tad dorkier than I am, if that is possible. Without asking, he picked up my guitar and began to strum a few chords, I asked him what he was playing and he said, “Oh, you play guitar and you don’t recognize Stairway to Heaven?” I just smirked. I do know Stairway, and he wasn’t playing it. I’m pretty sure what he was playing was a song my cat wrote when her tail brushed against the fret board last week.

So, now that we 'know' each other, it is time for me to learn about the business. He starts to draw some diagrams on a piece of yellow legal pad and precedes to tell me all about Ray Croc, and Sam Walton, and how this business is a combination of their business plans with a twist, it uses the internet. I asked Jacob if the Internet adds so much to the business plans of Ray Croc and Sam Walton why they didn’t use the Internet in their original plan. Jacob stares blankly at me wondering if I am serious and then continues with his scripted sales pitch. Unlike pyramid schemes the TEAM network is stable and guarantees 100% success after 3 to 4 years of involvement. It only requires 10 to 20 hours of work per week, (on top of my 45 hours of laying on mattresses that is a lot of time). The more people in team the better everyone does.

This is how team works: Jacob is the leader, he finds 20 people to give him $250 dollars, now each of these people gets a login/password to the TEAM website and QUIXTAR distribution network (the same used by pyramid schemes according to Jacob, but reassures me that TEAM is not a pyramid.) The network is hooked to 1,000's of websites like Ace Hardware, Circuit City, Office Max and the likes. You buy products from the site and get a discount, the more people in the chain the larger discount you get. Here is the analogy Jacob gave me; if you are buying a car that is 20k and ask the guy to knock the price down to 15k he would laugh in your face, but if you told him that you have 20 other people who will also buy a car today he would probably give you the discount happily. The same principle applies, the more people that are buying from the site, the bigger the discount. You can earn up to 25% off of products.

I told Jacob I didn’t care about a discount. I want to make some money, cold hard cash, some mucho Robert DeNiro, dead prez, cheddar, swiss, american, hell, any kind of cheese will do. Here is the beauty, I am earning my 25% discount from these sites and instead of being in Jacob's chain, I start my own chain, and now instead of earning a discount I get kick backs from the company. The diagram he draws is a line on the page straight up and down, he then draws a second line to the side forming the top 2 sides of a triangle and explains the first line is his chain; the second line is my chain. I don’t see how this isn’t a pyramid scheme, he just drew a pyramid!
I tell him that I am not interested; he leaves me 4 CDs and a book, which according to him is a national best seller on building leaders. He then tells me that when I sign up for TEAM they give me a copy of the book, and he then tells me the company is growing exponentially (like a pyramid) and that there is currently 150,000 involved, and by year-end will be 300,000. All this tells me is that the 'best seller' book Jacob is talking about has at least 150k copies in print, and will have 300k by year-end, this doesn't mean it is a good book. Jacob then shoots his wad, the bazooka Joe big gun. "Did you know that TEAM has its own energy drink called XS which is second in sales only to Red Bull, and the only place you can buy it is off of the TEAM website, this just shows how many people are in on this, and how much potential there is to make money." Jacob leaves.



For the next week my phone rings non-stop, "hey Matt, it’s Jacob. Have you had a chance to read over the material I left with you? I want to meet with you again." The messages kept coming and all sound identical, just like the boss who kept calling Peter in Office Space. Jacob comes back, but I made sure my friends Jeremy and Janna were around to guard me. He tells Janna that his wife is 3 weeks late on her period, and that he needs to make some money. Taylor walks in; Jacob tells him that he pulls off the 'bad boy rocker' look really well. I tell Jacob that TEAM is in fact a pyramid scheme and I don't want to be involved, he has a rebuttal for everything that I say, and a very good one at that. If nothing else Jacob is a salesman, and if it is possible to make money with TEAM he will do it, but I am not going to be part of it. Jacob leaves but leaves more stuff for me to look over, which just ensures that we will have to meet again.

The next month I spend avoiding his calls. The messages are more urgent. "Hey Matt, my mentor Eric Bloomdale is in town from Wisconsin, he is a millionaire and one of the founders of TEAM, he wants to talk to you."

"Hey Matt, I have a bunch of people interested in joining TEAM, but I talked with you first so I am holding your place, the business is really starting to boom in KY."

Finally, "Hey Matt, I guess you aren't interested, can I have my stuff back."

6 weeks and it is over, I am not a member of TEAM and Jacob has his stuff back, I wish him luck, but damnit, this is a pyramid scheme!!! I avoid him by just leaving a bag around my front door with his material inside. I haven’t seen him since.




SG ENTERPRISES / I COMMERCE

I was in Charleston West Virginia this week working in the Town Centre Mall. I sell a bed to a guy named Mr. Foster who tells me he has an Internet business. He gives me a card and asks if I have time to talk the next afternoon about it because he thinks I would be a good candidate to work for him. I tell him I have all the time in the world, which is true; I am stuck 3 hours from home in a room with 4 mattresses and computer which can only navigate to www.bestbuy.com which I now know inside and out. I figure I will humor the guy and hear him out, and he can make the day go by faster for me. He leaves with his bed and I look up his information in the computer. There is are two notes from the first time Mr. Foster visited the store, “asked me to join his Internet business" "is an elementary school principal."

Hold on a minute, Why did he tell me that he had an internet business and never mentioned being the principal of a school? I answered my own question, because he can’t make money off of me by saying he is a principal. I must really look like a sucker.

Tomorrow roles around and in strolls Mr. Foster, he is in a hurry and only has a few minutes to talk about the business plan. He pulls out a brochure and starts to draw some diagrams, he asks me questions and I take words out of his mouth. I am telling him about the business before he can tell me.

"Matt, you are really bright, you must have learned a lot about business in school."
In my head I was thinking, "nope, this is just the 2nd time I have heard this sales pitch this month."

I asked Mr. Foster if he had ever heard of TEAM and he said no, but he was sure it was nothing like his Internet profit sharing company. He says that they have their own energy drink called XS that is 2nd in sales only to Red Bull. Unlike the energy drink of the same name which Jacob talked about Mr. Foster had one with him and gave it to me, "you can have this one, it will be a tax write off for me." Really, you are so anal you are going to write off one can of soda as a business expense? That will probably save you 20 cents on your taxes.

He said the drink had no carbs or sugar and was really good for focus and energy. I read the label, hmm, where does the energy come from? Mr. Foster said it was the large amount of B12 in the drink, but I have a stinking suspicion that it may actually be the large amount of caffeine in the drink. In fact there is so much caffeine that there is a warning on the can for people who react to large amounts of caffeine to avoid the drink. Mr. Foster leaves but says he will call me to give me more information.

Mr. Foster keeps his promises and leaves no less than 25 messages on my voicemail. Each message he sounds more and more desperate and by the last message he sounds like Old Gil from the Simpson’s trying to sell me on something that in his heart he knows is like chasing a carrot on a string.

I am going to call Jacob and tell him the SG ENTERPRISES / I COMMERCE has stolen his companies energy drink, and is also using the same QUIXTAR distribution channel and the same . . . well hell; it is the same damn company with a different name. I just want to see how he handles it. If nothing else Mr. Foster did help my last day in WV fly by.

So, to make a long story longer, I apparently look like a sucker for pyramid schemes. I have also been asked to join Mary Kay, another pyramid scheme. I am sure that Amway isn't far behind; but who knows, maybe I will make a fortune selling it to myself.