re: PC Discussion - Gaming, Performance and Enthusiasts

A sign I'm getting old -- I'm starting to question my parents' financial decisions.

My mom has apparently been working/helping out my sister-in-law for a few months with a multi-level marketing/pyramid scheme involving essential oils. I did the research on it and of course it's all your run-of-the-mill MLM scam. Buy starter kits and host classes to sell and recruit. The general BS of pyramid schemes aside, I especially hate that this one, like many others, focuses on alternative medicine. It's one thing to say essential oils smell good and can be used in skin products and whatnot, but their catalog as oils and oil "blends" for ADD, cancer, strep throat, high blood pressure, and other ailments that require real medicine.

She invited my wife to a "class" she was hosting (aka, a gathering of her equally gullible friends to recruit). I told my mom ahead of time that my wife will go to fill a seat, but she is not signing up for that shite, because 99% of an MLM company's income is from its own "sales team" via starter kits and inventory. My wife already tried and failed at Mary Kay several years ago because there's simply not enough hours in the day for someone with a real career to attempt to make money from this (It was a relatively inexpensive endeavor, so I warned her ahead of time and just let it run its course so she'd learn her lesson, and she did). The essential oils company doesn't even distill its own oils. It rebottles the same oil you can buy at apothecary supply stores and Amazon, mixes some together to call it "Cancer therapy" or some shite, and sells it in tiny vials for triple the price.

Well, the class was today, and it turns out my mom interpreted my "no, my wife is not selling this shite" as "No, we don't want to pay for the start-up kit," so my mom signed her up and paid for the supplies before she even got to the class.

I probably need to have a private conversation with my dad about this, just to confirm that he's aware of it and is throttling the outflow of money appropriately. He manages money better than anyone I've ever met, but he's got so many things going on that he may not be aware that X amount of money leaving his account is being used to fund absolute horseshite.

I just don't understand why so many people still fall for this nowadays. When my sister-in-law was describing the business model (essentially describing a textbook pyramid scheme), she said "It's like a triangle." A triangle.

End of rant...But also, why is it that anyone who's trying to get into a pyramid scheme always claims to know someone who's making an ungodly amount of money from it? I get that those people probably do exist, because the... triangle, has a top, which is the best place to be. But I suspect the triangle is not as tall as it is wide.