no, i'm not so desperate to make money, but what seperates the illegals from the likes of Amway, Forever Living Products, etc.? i have a business idea i want to try out.

 

I am not a corporate lawer (nor do I play one on TV), but I think it has something to do with actually having a product available , and tying the income to the sale of those products...

 

I bet people were either getting ripped off or the IRS found it difficult to tax.

 

Pyramid schemes are based on selling memberships with upline kickbacks. In every case they rely on having a bunch of losers at the end.

They are inherently based on false promises, hence the crime.

 

SloPoke has a valid point. Illegal pyramid schemes have no real product. The few people at the "top" get rich and the multitude of people at the "bottom" get hooped. Amway and the like have and can still get into big doodoo with the taxman but they do have real merchandise. Although the few at the higher levels can make very good money, the vast numbers of those below these at least can still get "product" for the money they've shelled out. We did this for a while for the sole purpose of getting merchandise at a reasonable price. To really "get up there" we would have had to recruit heavily to built our own little "distributorship". We simply were not into the hard sell thing. We got what we wanted out of it and quit when it no longer served our needs. (Most) anyone who was in this had to have a business licence. Illegal ones don't insist on this. You just send money to those above you and hope there will enough below you to send you money. Like a chain letter, sooner or later, the chain breaks.

 

A man named Ponzi was the original perpetrator of the pyramid scheme. He became extremely wealthy at the expense of others, many others. check it out at: http://www.impulse.net/~thebob/Pyramid.html

 

Sigh... FYI, say NO to 2by2.net

 

I have a real good one at making money. Just can't find ppl to play.