The Psychology of Investing Scams

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Marketing Tactics

What I see here are the same tactics used today in most all types of Online Marketing"..How can we trust what anyone says? These and many other unethical ways of stealing money" from people is not acceptable. There has to be some type of regulations, restrictions or strict guidelines starting in Marketing..and moving forward. This type of Marketing is NOT acceptable! We cannot allow this to go on.Leaving it only to be a pressured judgement call for the Consumer.

Having Websites like this helps tremendously,unfortunately though we need more to help educate people on searches,research and even practicing some procrastination before jumping into a sinking ship.

Veronica Hatch of GA @ Mar 07, 2009 08:28:15 AM

Pyramid Schemes

Let me share with you, as president of the Direct Selling Association, three simple questions to ask yourself to tell the difference between a fraudulent pyramid scheme and a legitimate multilevel direct sales firm.

Question 1: Do I risk financial loss by becoming involved with the company? If yes, be very careful. This is a red flag as almost all legitimate MLM compensation direct sales companies do not entail risk of loss.

Question 2: Is the money you will make coming from the sales of products or services to the ultimate consumer of those products or services? If not and it comes from some other source (e.g., inventory purchases, headhunting fees, education/training fees, sales of sales and training aids, starter kits) it is a fraud!

Question 3: Would you buy the company's product or service if you were not a member of the sales organization? If not, why would you sell such a product?

Key phrases to put you on your guard:"Get in on the ground floor"; "No retailing involved"; "Make $10,000 per month (or any large amount) part-time"; "It's easy"; "Just consume a little bit and recruit others to do likewise and you'll earn six-figure incomes".

For more information, visit our blog at www.directselling411.com" or our website at www.dsa.org.

Neil H. Offen of DC @ Mar 06, 2009 13:34:40 PM

The Psychology of Investing Scams

Thank you, Katy, for your perspective. I appreciate the wealth of exegesis on the web, HDTV and radio these days. One sure benefit of mass-real time communication is that if nothing else it has surely taught us how many difference perspectives there can be on just one issue – no matter how trivial (TomKat) or significant (global economic meltdown.)

I have my soap box as well at www.de-liberatedmind.com.

What amazes me is that as old as humankind is - some say over a million years old - how many different intellectual, scholarly and clever ways we can describe greed, stealing and more greed, in this case greed equally the motive on the part of the scammer and the scammed.

Even as far back as biblical times other philosophers, much like you and I, took their stab at describing it as well, “Thou shall not steal” [Ex 20:15] and “Thou shall not covet”… bunch of things [Ex 20:17.]

From the look and sound of things these days, seems like mankind hasn’t really advanced that much, has it?

Linda Crockett of CA @ Mar 05, 2009 13:34:40 PM

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