I assume that you mean multi-
level marketing, and so moved your question to the appropriate forum.
gphw01 wrote:I have a friend who is involved with a multi- marketing project.She sent me the link and when I tried to read about what it was..........it never did, all it asked for was my name, address, phone#, etc. info.
Not at all unusual in this "industry", especially for those ripoffs that have no product, but just sell the "opportunity to get rich". You are certainly right to be suspicious of anyone who does this.
I told her I wasn't interested, she insists it is a " money maker".
She is probably becoming increasingly desperate to just get back the money she gave these scammers. She has found out that the only way to do this is to recruit new suckers, rather than actually sell anything. Again, all too common in this "industry".
I'm thinking.........." ya' right, I don't think so". They ask for $300.00 to join and become a member. Sounds real " fishy" to me. A member..........a member of what? I thought these things were frauds and illegal. Am I right ?
In a word, yes, you are. As to the legality of this stuff - there is an excellent chance that the folks your friend is trying to recruit you to join are in fact running a pyramid scheme. MLMs are not in theory pyramids, but virtually all are in practice. The FTC's acid test is whether more than 70% of "products" (those that have no products are by definition pyramids, since all they have to sell is the non-existent "opportunity") are sold to "end users" - people who are not themselves members of the organization. Perhaps one percent of MLMs pass this test. Try to get documentation that your friend's group sells 70% of its stuff to non-members - but don't try too hard, because you're not getting it.
But the FTC (especially under the current administration) doesn't have close to the necessary resources to police all of these internet scams - not to mention bowing to industry pressure, as it just did in the proposed "business opportunity" rulemaking. Until that changes, virtually all of these things will continue to be scams, at the least in the sense that virtually no one except the thieves who start them will make any money.
If you want to post the name of the specific ripoff, I'm sure you'll get further responses.