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Ladies and gentlemen, put down your TV remote tonight.. I'd like to provide you with Sunday Night's Entertainment!
Have you ever talked to somebody and afterward feel like you need to take a shower? Until this experience, I hadn't really.
It's Super Bowl Sunday
I get invited by a friend to the home of some of his friends, who happen to be about 10 kids who pay rent together in a duplex (already sounds sketchy, right?)
What's the worst that can happen?
I meet some new friends..
Watch a bunch of suckers lose money betting on a potentially rigged football game..
Little did I know, as soon as I stepped foot into this unfamiliar worn-out duplex in a (weirdly) affluent neighborhood, Admiral Ackbar's warning went in one ear and out the other..
It's a TRAP!
I was immediately greeted by a bunch of friendly people who seemed like they'd be cool friends to have..
"Wow", I thought "Maybe these guys will be some cool people to get to know!"
Little did I know, behind the friendliness was an agenda to suck me into a blackhole.
After some time picking at chicken wings and sandwiches along with some small talk, I decided to go sit down with my buddy whom I'd come with, and watch the game.
One of the kids living there suddenly comes and sits next to us and starts chatting.
It turned out he had some things in common to me: Did brazilian jiu jitsu, seemed ambitious, liked fitness.. A cool guy at eye's glance.
But some people seem cool until you start getting into a deeper conversation with them.
In the middle of our conversation, an overly enthusiastic dude who seemed to be blatantly demented walked in greeting everybody as if he had snorted something up his nose seconds ago (I'm not quite sure he hadn't...)
"WADDUP BRO.. WADDUP!!!"
At first, I didn't think much of it, but I didn't realize that my friend and I (and another kid) were the only people in there that didn't know anybody else there..
And keep in mind everyone else knew everybody else that was there. We were the "New Guys".
This whole overreaction was a show to be put on in front of my friend and I (you'll find out why in a second)
Anyways, I didn't think much of it.
Maybe he's just a really extroverted dude?
I kept talking to the kid I was talking to in the first place and since I myself am an entrepreneurial-minded fellow and naturally curious, I asked..
Me: "Hey man, what do you do? What do you study in school?"
Scammer: "Yea man I study business"
Scammer: "right now I'm in sales"
Uh oh.. SOUND THE LUNK ALARM!! THAT'S STRIKE 1.. He's in "Sales"
Me: What do you mean sales? What do you sell?
Scammer: I'm selling this product, and Steve's (the demented enthusiastic fellow) dad makes $200,000 a month selling it!
Me: Get out.. 200k a freaking month? WOW! I'm curious tell me about it!
Scammer: I feel like I'm on a rocket ship and the flight is just beginning. I'm gonna be set for life. I could show you it and even sell you it right now if you want..
Me (Skeptical): How about telling me what it is, first?
One of the girls (Steve's girlfriend) starts listening in closely, maybe because she intuitively knew things were about to get tense.
Scammer: It's an accelerator (another word for a man-made "supplement) that increases your life expectancy
Me (completely skeptical of anything that tries to compete with mother nature): Oh yea? What's in it?
Scammer: Uhh I think Milk thistle extract, bacopa, ashwaganda, green tea.. It's called PROTANDIM
kill me now
Me: Oh yea? so how do you sell it? What's the sales strategy?
Scammer: I've been waiting for you to ask. Basically how it works is this, and this is what Steve's dad (who's making $200k a month supposedly) does to make $200,000 a month too.. and we just need to do EXACTLY what he does!
Me (fully expecting what I'm about to hear): What does he do?
Scammer: Well here's how it works, this is what I'm doing and you can do it too.. Steve's dad gets a bunch of people under him that sell the Protandim, and everything the people under him sell, he gets a cut of it too, and he makes money for 5 generations of salespeople on top of that! (people that people under him recruit)
Me: So it's a.. Pyramid Scheme?
Silence.. Demented boy's girlfriend is staring at me blankly along with scammer
Scammer: What? Huh? HEHE, No.
Side note: as some of you know, pyramid schemers are trained for these situations. They are specifically told what to say if someone calls it a pyramid scheme..
Scammer: No, it's not a pyramid scheme. For it to be a pyramid scheme you'd have to PAY to get in and (blah, blah, blah)
Me: Oh yea? I have another question for you. Does it actually work? (i'm not being serious when I asked, it OBVIOUSLY does not, and anyone who believes it does should have a checkup)
Scammer (visibly offended): What bro? Yes it works what do you mean?
Me: Do YOU use your so-called "life-accelerator"?
Scammer: YES! I BELIEVE IN IT SO MUCH.. That I sell it to my own MOTHER!
Me: Oh wow! How long have you been using it?
Scammer: ....1 week
f**k you
Me: You've been using it for one week and you're selling it to your mother?
Scammer: Yes dude. I'm on a rocketship with this, it's gonna give me freedom and it can for you too if you do it. Besides, what are you doing with your life?
Me: I'm in real estate and I run a startup
Scammer: how's that going for you? (the typical anger-inducing question where they try to get you to stumble over your words to make you feel like an innate failure because your thing isn't working out, therefore you'll join them)
Me: It's actually going very well my friend, and I won't be joining your scheme here. But thanks for the offer.
Scammer: How about this, no strings attached, every morning at 5:30 AM, we (him, demented guy, the other guys living in the house, and a bunch of suckers they're trying to recruit) do a discipline run for 2 hours straight where we do situps, run, do pushups, and stand in a circle and pray with each other
(proceeds to show me videos of 20 of them running on the beach)
I actually thought this was pretty cool! Until I asked the following question
It seemed like he was VERY eager to get me to go and even tried to make me commit to it by shaking his hand, and he got my phone number
Me: Out of curiosity, you're not going to try to sell me on anything when I go there, right?
Scammer: No of course not!!
Me: Are all of the other people that go on the run also selling Protandim?
Scammer: Well, most of them.. Not all
Me: And the "Not all" are the people that you are trying to recruit.. got it
By now I was done, my friend and I got up to leave and started saying goodbye to everyone.
But we noticed something incredibly weird..
Keep in mind when I was talking to Mr. Scammer, no one else was really around except Steve's girlfriend, my friend, and scammer himself.
"Hey bro I'll see you tomorrow morning right?"
Wait.. HOW DID HE KNOW that dude was just talking to me about that??
Then AGAIN, and AGAIN!
ALL of them asked me if I'd be there tomorrow!
So that means there must have been a secret text conversation going around that they were going to try and recruit me and my friend for their freaking pyramid scheme!
On the way out, my friend and I ran into the big boss himself, demented guy.
He asked us too, and I said to him..
You seem like a great sales guy!
He smirked and we left.
Newsflash: They never texted me because they knew I was aware of their little scheme and would call them out.
And by the way, these guys went as far as to get one of the kids that was there to move out of his parents house from Connecticut to this duplex in order to pursue the dream of selling Protandim (snake oil)
Off topic note - A MASTER tip for avoiding pyramid scheme recruiters:
Do NOT be a 20-25 year old ambitious young man reading a business book at barnes and noble. A seemingly cool guy who is also "in business" who is really part of a "rev-share" scheme will come up to you, question you about your life, get your phone number, then later try and call you to recruit you. (this has happened to me 4 times in the past 3 months)
The end.
Have you ever talked to somebody and afterward feel like you need to take a shower? Until this experience, I hadn't really.
It's Super Bowl Sunday
I get invited by a friend to the home of some of his friends, who happen to be about 10 kids who pay rent together in a duplex (already sounds sketchy, right?)
What's the worst that can happen?
I meet some new friends..
Watch a bunch of suckers lose money betting on a potentially rigged football game..
Little did I know, as soon as I stepped foot into this unfamiliar worn-out duplex in a (weirdly) affluent neighborhood, Admiral Ackbar's warning went in one ear and out the other..
It's a TRAP!
I was immediately greeted by a bunch of friendly people who seemed like they'd be cool friends to have..
"Wow", I thought "Maybe these guys will be some cool people to get to know!"
Little did I know, behind the friendliness was an agenda to suck me into a blackhole.
After some time picking at chicken wings and sandwiches along with some small talk, I decided to go sit down with my buddy whom I'd come with, and watch the game.
One of the kids living there suddenly comes and sits next to us and starts chatting.
It turned out he had some things in common to me: Did brazilian jiu jitsu, seemed ambitious, liked fitness.. A cool guy at eye's glance.
But some people seem cool until you start getting into a deeper conversation with them.
In the middle of our conversation, an overly enthusiastic dude who seemed to be blatantly demented walked in greeting everybody as if he had snorted something up his nose seconds ago (I'm not quite sure he hadn't...)
"WADDUP BRO.. WADDUP!!!"
At first, I didn't think much of it, but I didn't realize that my friend and I (and another kid) were the only people in there that didn't know anybody else there..
And keep in mind everyone else knew everybody else that was there. We were the "New Guys".
This whole overreaction was a show to be put on in front of my friend and I (you'll find out why in a second)
Anyways, I didn't think much of it.
Maybe he's just a really extroverted dude?
I kept talking to the kid I was talking to in the first place and since I myself am an entrepreneurial-minded fellow and naturally curious, I asked..
Me: "Hey man, what do you do? What do you study in school?"
Scammer: "Yea man I study business"
Scammer: "right now I'm in sales"
Uh oh.. SOUND THE LUNK ALARM!! THAT'S STRIKE 1.. He's in "Sales"
Me: What do you mean sales? What do you sell?
Scammer: I'm selling this product, and Steve's (the demented enthusiastic fellow) dad makes $200,000 a month selling it!
Me: Get out.. 200k a freaking month? WOW! I'm curious tell me about it!
Scammer: I feel like I'm on a rocket ship and the flight is just beginning. I'm gonna be set for life. I could show you it and even sell you it right now if you want..
Me (Skeptical): How about telling me what it is, first?
One of the girls (Steve's girlfriend) starts listening in closely, maybe because she intuitively knew things were about to get tense.
Scammer: It's an accelerator (another word for a man-made "supplement) that increases your life expectancy
Me (completely skeptical of anything that tries to compete with mother nature): Oh yea? What's in it?
Scammer: Uhh I think Milk thistle extract, bacopa, ashwaganda, green tea.. It's called PROTANDIM
kill me now
Me: Oh yea? so how do you sell it? What's the sales strategy?
Scammer: I've been waiting for you to ask. Basically how it works is this, and this is what Steve's dad (who's making $200k a month supposedly) does to make $200,000 a month too.. and we just need to do EXACTLY what he does!
Me (fully expecting what I'm about to hear): What does he do?
Scammer: Well here's how it works, this is what I'm doing and you can do it too.. Steve's dad gets a bunch of people under him that sell the Protandim, and everything the people under him sell, he gets a cut of it too, and he makes money for 5 generations of salespeople on top of that! (people that people under him recruit)
Me: So it's a.. Pyramid Scheme?
Silence.. Demented boy's girlfriend is staring at me blankly along with scammer
Scammer: What? Huh? HEHE, No.
Side note: as some of you know, pyramid schemers are trained for these situations. They are specifically told what to say if someone calls it a pyramid scheme..
Scammer: No, it's not a pyramid scheme. For it to be a pyramid scheme you'd have to PAY to get in and (blah, blah, blah)
Me: Oh yea? I have another question for you. Does it actually work? (i'm not being serious when I asked, it OBVIOUSLY does not, and anyone who believes it does should have a checkup)
Scammer (visibly offended): What bro? Yes it works what do you mean?
Me: Do YOU use your so-called "life-accelerator"?
Scammer: YES! I BELIEVE IN IT SO MUCH.. That I sell it to my own MOTHER!
Me: Oh wow! How long have you been using it?
Scammer: ....1 week
f**k you
Me: You've been using it for one week and you're selling it to your mother?
Scammer: Yes dude. I'm on a rocketship with this, it's gonna give me freedom and it can for you too if you do it. Besides, what are you doing with your life?
Me: I'm in real estate and I run a startup
Scammer: how's that going for you? (the typical anger-inducing question where they try to get you to stumble over your words to make you feel like an innate failure because your thing isn't working out, therefore you'll join them)
Me: It's actually going very well my friend, and I won't be joining your scheme here. But thanks for the offer.
Scammer: How about this, no strings attached, every morning at 5:30 AM, we (him, demented guy, the other guys living in the house, and a bunch of suckers they're trying to recruit) do a discipline run for 2 hours straight where we do situps, run, do pushups, and stand in a circle and pray with each other
(proceeds to show me videos of 20 of them running on the beach)
I actually thought this was pretty cool! Until I asked the following question
It seemed like he was VERY eager to get me to go and even tried to make me commit to it by shaking his hand, and he got my phone number
Me: Out of curiosity, you're not going to try to sell me on anything when I go there, right?
Scammer: No of course not!!
Me: Are all of the other people that go on the run also selling Protandim?
Scammer: Well, most of them.. Not all
Me: And the "Not all" are the people that you are trying to recruit.. got it
By now I was done, my friend and I got up to leave and started saying goodbye to everyone.
But we noticed something incredibly weird..
Keep in mind when I was talking to Mr. Scammer, no one else was really around except Steve's girlfriend, my friend, and scammer himself.
"Hey bro I'll see you tomorrow morning right?"
Wait.. HOW DID HE KNOW that dude was just talking to me about that??
Then AGAIN, and AGAIN!
ALL of them asked me if I'd be there tomorrow!
So that means there must have been a secret text conversation going around that they were going to try and recruit me and my friend for their freaking pyramid scheme!
On the way out, my friend and I ran into the big boss himself, demented guy.
He asked us too, and I said to him..
You seem like a great sales guy!
He smirked and we left.
Newsflash: They never texted me because they knew I was aware of their little scheme and would call them out.
And by the way, these guys went as far as to get one of the kids that was there to move out of his parents house from Connecticut to this duplex in order to pursue the dream of selling Protandim (snake oil)
Off topic note - A MASTER tip for avoiding pyramid scheme recruiters:
Do NOT be a 20-25 year old ambitious young man reading a business book at barnes and noble. A seemingly cool guy who is also "in business" who is really part of a "rev-share" scheme will come up to you, question you about your life, get your phone number, then later try and call you to recruit you. (this has happened to me 4 times in the past 3 months)
The end.
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