Mmmm.... Ponzi...

Sounds like Kirby.

Huh? Is this like Amway (Quickstar)?

Does anyone remember the name of that dude who created a skyscraper cleaning service, went IPO with the business, and then it turned out to be an elaborate shell game?

I smell Ponzi. Or in today's "you-can't-proooove-it's-a-pyramid scheme" parlance, MLM: (OMFG MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING!!11!111!1 GO OUT AND HIRE ME AN ARMY!111!111oneone. Work just THREE HOURS AN EVENING!!!1

BTW, have the owners of Primerica been sent to pound-you-in-the-ass prison yet?

2006-01-07 06:19:51 AM Sid_6.7

16-year-olds earning $25 an hour without a HS diploma? Unless the economy is really inflated there...riiiiight.

The "new hires already working" could easily be co-conspirators.

Unless they are in the porn business, I don't buy it either.


Wait, that probably came out wrong. I don't buy 16 year old porn, by the way, I just meant that it sounds like a scam to me, also.

Can you say "pyramid Scheme"?

/Someone should post Ackbar...

mrmagnet

That was Barry Minkow of ZZZbest Carpet. His scam went waaaaaay beyond janitorial services. Do a search.

Mystery jobs?
Pay an application fee?
Recruit others?

Come on, folks. It's either a cult or a total SCAM.

/Scientology maybe?
//Oh wait, they just take your money and pay you nothing.

Any job that asks you for money is a scam. Even if they have a BS reason why you;re supposed to pay it.

I once went to some make money fast sceme meeting. They were selling cellphone service that you had to buy into and try to sell to other people. They kept going on about mumbo jumbo stuff. Saying how the company made more money than microsoft in one quarter. Everyone in the audience was in on it because they were all so excited and knew the answers to all the questions the host was asking.

Anyway, at the end of the presentation they asked anyone who is interested to pay $550 to receive some pamphlets and other papers and then do the same thing they did to other people.

It wasn't technically a pyramid scheme because they were selling crappy cellphone service.

Yeah.

If she's planning on scamming people, she'll be in jail very soon. I'd bet it's semi-legit. Probably very short term work, though.

I saw an ad in a paper once for a sales job or something, and when I went to the "interview" it turned out to be more of a seminar where some guy told you how you could make millions selling water purifiers and energy pills, and recruit others to do so. Needless to say, I didn't take the job.

2006-01-07 06:41:34 AM NobleHam

If she's planning on scamming people, she'll be in jail very soon. I'd bet it's semi-legit. Probably very short term work, though.

Quickstar (Amway) has been around for a long time now. It is a scam (pyramid).

Oh, wait, you said "semi" legit *kicks himself*. My bad.

I hope to see the follow-up. I can see the headline now "Woman gets people to pay $10 for the chance to sneak her and her dirty money out of the country"

"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hambuger today."

She wants to be a multibillionaire, so at $10 a head she needs to find 200 million idiots and she's there.

pjbreeze She wants to be a multibillionaire, so at $10 a head she needs to find 200 million idiots and she's there.

Not true. She just needs ~100,000 idiots. Save the money (~$1m), then buy up property when the housing bubble bursts...

And now someone that has actually taken economics will produce a better get-rich-quick scheme. Or they'll just tell me that I'm stupid and wrong without giving any reasons.

/"But the housing bubble isn't bursting..." in 3, 2...

God damn, people are so stupid.

Here's a clue. No legitimate job ever asks you to pay up front.

I have contacted her and sent my $10 she said I can work from home with just my PC. you guys should join up. its a lot of fun adn not har work at all and really easy too. i got paid $25 an hour to poast this so like .03 already ~~ !!! woohoo im rich

im probably going to make like a brazilian dollers and i want to be a multi cajillionaire, ms cleo told me this would happen one day and finally it is!!!

Isa_Lumitus:

I'm not going through the trouble to give you reasons, but you're stupid and wrong.

"Everyone is paid $25 an hour whether they work one hour or 40..."

So... basically, she'll have a pool of hundreds of 'employees' to draw from, if and when there's any actual work.

"No, still nothing for you to do... try again tomorrow. No, you can't have your ten bucks back."

Umm, she wants to be a multibillionaire, but shes only just planning on setting up a website? Even scam businesses can setup a website in a day.

scuffer

Good point. What if she's just really stupid? You know, like she's mildly retarded and her parents left her a large sum of money. "I'm gonna start a bizness!!1!"

The suspense is killing me. I really want see what happens with this.

She has the kids collecting for her, gee, I smeel ponzi a mile away. They get paid 25 bucks to get people to sign up other people, I've seen this one before.

Some of the comments..."cleaning limos"...."catering". She needs 1000 people to clean limos or cater? Muahahaha. RIGHT.

THIS IS IOWA!

2006-01-07 07:08:15 AM eddyatwork [TotalFark]

Here's a clue. No legitimate job ever asks you to pay up front.


I don't know, I had to buy my own uniform when I worked for Ronald McDonald. Oh, wait.. you are right.. nevermind.

I can't wait to read the follow up story!

OK, here's my guess. I think she knows her business idea is risky, so she's shifting the risk onto others. The employees are basically buying "shares" (without any of the usual benefits of shareholding) in a startup. If the business succeeds, this woman gets rich. If it fails, she's lost nothing:

1. Get thousands of people to pony up $10 for the chance to work

2. Use money from # 1 to start business, lease a limo, whatever.

3. Pray that your business is a big hit so you can make more money and hire more and more poeple from that huge pool of workers.

4. (optional, but likely) When your business isn't a hit, drop the wage to $6.50 and point out that 1000s of people are lining up waiting to take to jobs of any whiners. Oh, and say goodbye to the "health plan" -- which is likely to be "buy your own insurance, here's a $5-off coupon."

5. When your business collapses under the wieght of poor morale and bad publicity, blame the press for being against free enterprise and walk away having risked NONE of your own money on the enterprise.

6. If by some miracle you succeed, get naked and roll around in piles of $100 bills like a pig in slop.

Barry Minkow now writes books and talks about scams to benefit others supposedly. He had a great scam going in he day. People want to believe and 25/hour is nice pay. Any company that hires people on the spot like that should be suspect..although many years ago I worked in catering in NY. At that time almost anyone breathing who went to the union and signed up and paid dues wuld get immediate work with decent pay.

rob

This sounds worse than a Ponzi scheme. She's only collecting $10 from each person, which will make it difficult, if not impossible, for people to file against her to get their money back. "But your honor, she stole my $10!"

Methinks that any work at $25 an hour will never appear, and if it does, payday will never roll around. She's probably wondering what the hell she's going to do now that she's gotten big press on it.

She's in a town of roughly 26,000 and needs 2000 people to work? OK, the number crunching isn't working. I just can't imagine any small town that isn't close to a major city needing a service that requires 2000 people to do it, especially limos. Once a year, prom rolls around, and I guarantee they don't have 4000 graduates every year. What else would limos be used for in Smallville?

A follow up on this story should be reported to an AG's office.

Sorry, this gets me riled up. I worked for a telemarketing scam artist in another life long ago, and know that the promise of $$ only lasts a short time.

Get real, people, the only way you can make $25 an hour is to have a good education or sell crack. Everything else is a scam.

BTW, have the owners of Primerica been sent to pound-you-in-the-ass prison yet?

One can only dream...

I went to the SHADIEST interview ever just a few days ago. The company was called The Edge Marketing Inc, In Cincinnati, OH. I had never heard of them and couldn't find any info, but I showed up anyway. It was a 3 room office in a business center. 5 Applicants were sitting there waiting when I arrived. They took applicants in 2 at a time for an interview. The place was empty.

Anyway, I asked the interviewer, a guy about 27 yrs old or so, if he could tell me more about the company and what it did. He responded by asking me if I was tense, and that I looked tense to him. I said no, but could you please answer the question. "We'll get to that" he said.

A moment later I asked another question about the company, to which he snapped back "Okay that's the second time you've cut me off, I told you I'm going to get to that, do you want to listen or not???"

He talked and talked but said nothing. I still don't know what the hell they do. They say the job pays $40,000. I don't think this was even a real company. They are all over Careerbuilder.com too.

If you're looking for a job in Cincinnati, do not waste your time with "The Edge Marketing Inc". I think it's some kind of scam.

I met a similar thing with a some knife thing. The bastards advertised in the corners of the black/white boards at my college, so I thought it was affiliated with the school or something. I end up at this hour long 'interview' where we are pitched a Ginsu-like knife set--"Watch me cut this hammer! Now a tomatoe! Finally! A knife that can cut both!"--By a guy trying to look very professional in a fairly vacant office. You could still tell where a secretary's had been removed. I should have just bailed, but I had planned for it so I figured I'd just play along. They were asking $400 for the knife set you use as a 'display'. This was only a deposit and you could get it back at any time by turning in your knife set, provided there was no damage. Oh, and less a small handling fee of $183. In the pitch they even covered good sources to borrow the money from if you didn't have it on you.

The suprising thing was they actually sent a couple people away. Though they were people clearly not interested anyway. It was a good tactic though, gave the whole thing a sheen of legitimacy. I stuck it out, even answering questions during Q&A so I would get to the one-on-one interview held afterwards.

When it was my shot for the interview I went in and took up as much time as I could with questions. When he finally asked if I wanted the job I told him I didn't, that I was only attempting to waste as much of his time as he wasted of mine.

On the way out I said "You know this is a scam, right?" to the others, loudly. It probably had no impact, but I walked out of there like I had brought the whole thing down.

Info on Edge Marketing..
http://www.edgemarketinginc.com/
Sounds to me like bs..

I'll bet $100.00 that the knife thing was Vector Marketing, selling Cutco Knives.

Everyone on a college campus has had to have seen these people by now. Not really a scam per say, but there is a lot of money that needs to be put up (demo kit). A big problem is once you buy knives, you don't really need anymore...so you have a cousin or friend whose done it, and all of the sudden you're potential customer list is slashed in pieces, pun intended.

You get $25.00 per appointment, and if your sales % is over $25.00, you get the higher amount. My friend just set up fake appointments with friends that we never attended and made some money, but it wasn't worth all the meetings they want you to attend.

Stay away, almost any job is better than these ass-clowns.

This week I went to a chinese buffet place close to work to have lunch. There were only 3 other people in this place besides me since it was past lunch rush.

In walks this kid that's probably 20, if that, dressed in a damn good suit and well-manicured/groomed. He was carrying a large cardboard box with other boxes in them. The top of the carboard box had been torn away. This whole picture was just completely out of place. For a full minute I thought maybe he was delivering a product to the restaurent that they'd ordered and he was just waiting for a worker to come up to him. But it was unsettling how he was looking at those of us there.

Then he started walking into the restaurent and it dawns on me that this dumbass is going to try and sell things to us patrons as we are eating. Before he gets close enough, one of the owners comes out to ask, "what can I do for you," and he starts his sales speech. She raised her voice, shut him down, and sent him packing.

Now, there were three other people in there besides me - total strangers - and we all started talking to each other because of this one thing - what is a young man, dressed and groomed as well as he was, doing selling candy door to door? Furthermore, how creepy and just "wrong" is it that this young man tries to do this to restaurents and shops?

Anyone else experience this?

Chance to win an H3 Hummer if you recruit other suckers

You mean this one?


Too bad he's out of the rally, that machine looks sick.

Chiad-

Cutco knives, I've been through that pitch along with primerica, quickstart, rainsoft and plenty other scams. It is amazing how many people fall for these though. In those pitches I seemed like the only cynic during these. Either there were shills working the crowd or there were a lot of people really hard up for a job. I think probably both.

CaesarSneezy, hey, sorry about the snark in my comment, anyway. I shouldn't be allowed near Fark without my caffeine.

2006-01-07 08:48:38 AM Pilfer3r

Chiad-

Cutco knives, I've been through that pitch along with primerica, quickstart, rainsoft and plenty other scams. It is amazing how many people fall for these though. In those pitches I seemed like the only cynic during these. Either there were shills working the crowd or there were a lot of people really hard up for a job. I think probably both.

I had a girlfriend once (believe it or not) that forced me to go to one of those things. It was held in a hotel lobby. I was laughing the entire time, it was quite entertaining.

PopDog2

That's why they have the youngsters do it... because they don't get hurt too much when they land on concrete.