Business plan

Many of the "opportunities" on the Internet are pyramid schemes, often disguised as a real business. Sometimes they will come with guarantees that you will make money, but there are always certain unreachable requirements you need to satisfy before you will get a refund. People who run pyramid schemes are very clever at putting together an appealing proposal. Their sales pages make it seem that there is no risk at all and if you work say "only 4 hours a week" you will make money. They will even try and make you feel bad if you don't have the money to put in.
Of course once you have signed up for the scheme, the realisation soon hits that it is much harder to make money than you originally thought and that the market is often over-saturated anyway.

So have I been scammed by a pyramid scheme? You bet I have! In fact that is how I have lost most of my money. Please learn from my many mistakes.

I was depressed at work and desperate for relief from a very stressful financial situation when I was surfing the net that day. I was truly desperate for a way out, something, anything to help me change my life for the better.

That was when I happened upon a website called PAS. The name alone should have given it away as a scam. It stands for Personal Automated System. Surely I could have known that no true home business can be "automated". It just doesn't work like that! I suppose it was due to my circumstances that I chose not to pay attention to that detail.

I entered my name, email address and phone number into the squeeze page (a page especially designed to get your details so that they can pester you). This allowed me into the main sales website. I was impressed with how professional it looked. There were video presentations, live, online seminars I could attend and many testimonials with photos of happy, smiling people from all walks of life. Many said that they had come from a situation just like mine. There were no instructions as to how to sign up, but I was already pretty sure I wanted to.

That night I received a call from a man in England (I live in Australia). He was very nice and polite and did his best to answer my many questions. Of course deep down I knew this wasn't right and I asked many questions to prove to myself I was doing my research. Looking back his answers were pathetic, but I believed what I wanted to believe. The man used to be in the same situation as me, until he had paid the fee and set up his "personal automated system".

"It does take work" he told me, "but it's worth it" That was reassuring to me. I knew I needed to do some work in a real business.

"Have you quit your day job?" I asked him. He faltered and said,

"I am going to soon" and then I should have realised this salesperson was not even making a living doing this.

A few phone calls later I was convinced that this would work for me. The fee was high at $3000, but it would be worth it and that fee was to cover the "automated" part of the system, because they would follow up on the leads for you. Plus to gets rid of the "tire kickers".

I didn't have that kind of money. Without telling my husband I applied for 2 credit cards and got them. I transferred $3400 to my sponsor (the person above me in the pyramid). I felt like a risk taker, but in a good way. I knew my husband wouldn't complain when the money started coming in.

Now to get to work and get some leads. That was harder than I expected. I tried everything they suggested, but nothing worked. My sponsor didn't seem so supportive now they had the money. PAS was affiliated with a leads company where you could buy leads and PAS would follow up on them for you. What could go wrong?

I bought the leads for $700 (the rest of the money on my credit cards). They were guaranteed to be delivered in 3 weeks. It felt good to know things would work out.

3 weeks later the leads hadn't arrived. I sent an email to the support section of the website. A week later I received a rude email back saying that PAS were having some problems. I began to get worried.

A tele conference was held full of fake excitement and false hope from the PAS leaders and it settled me for a week or so. However what I was reading on the Internet was bad and I still hadn't made any money.

A few weeks later the website was down and PAS sent out an email saying that they were being taken to court by the SEC.

They were shut down. I lost all my money including the money from the affiliated company. No refund could be obtained.

I felt awful. I couldn't believe it had happened. It was almost my wedding day and I was desperate to get out of debt, so I got another loan. By the time we came back from our honeymoon we were homeless. We spent a week on the streets and a week in emergency accommodation, before we could sort anything out.

Please do not get involved with pyramid schemes. No good will come of it. If you need examples of pyramid schemes gone wrong, or masquerading as a real business then just read my blog.

http://www.MissGullible.com Learn how to avoid scams here. Learn from Miss Gullible's mistakes and keep hold of your money. Learn some real ways to make money from home.

http://www.MissGullible.com

Catherine Smith 2008