I was called by a woman named Betsy asking if I was still looking for work. I am looking for work so I assumed she got my name off of Monster or MN Job Bank. She told me that they are looking for people to work for them while their business expands. She said that they work with the public to help people take control of their health and well-being.
I asked her what exactly I would be doing. She said something vague like I'd be helping grow a business and help people with their health issues, she even said something about working with kids with ADHD. She said I should come to an information session so that they can see where I could fit in with the company. So I asked her if there were a variety of positions available, she kind of skipped around that question with a "yeah, kind of." I was getting annoyed at this point but I decided to go to the information session.
I arrived and she took me to this room where there were about 20-25 people all standing around. She noticed my ring and asked, "is it an opal." I said yes. She said, "do you like jewelry and diamonds and stuff like that?" I thought that question was really odd. I told her that I have a few pieces I like to wear everyday but I don't have a lot of jewelry. Then she asked me what I did in my spare time. I'm a recent college grad so I don't have a lot of money to spend on "free time", so I just said that I just started knitting. She introduced me to her "associate" who also was interested in my free time.
She then showed me to a seat in a row of chairs. There were several rows of chairs all facing a white board and a big TV. Over to the side there was a table that had various Symmetry International products sitting on it. One was a bottle called Genesis that said it was "healing methods from the bible" or something like that.
A man stood in front of us and talked about how the health and wellness business is going to boom into a trillion-dollar industry very soon because all the baby boomers are getting old. They clearly had people staged in the audience who nodded and said "mmm hmm" and "yes" when he asked dumb questions like, "who wouldn't want more vacation time?" And "who knows someone who had to work their whole life?" They were obviously fake, forced remarks. He showed us a couple videos where people told their stories about how they got rich and now they have money to do everything they want and can secure their children's lives. Pictures on tropical islands were common.
He literally drew a pyramid on the board. The concept is to buy a "basic package" for $150 of apparently $300 worth of these longevity herbal and vitamin supplements from Symmetry and then try to get other people to join and buy "packages." They say you get 10% of the first 4 layers of the pyramid and 8% of the next 3 or 4. So over 250 people to get the full benefit only if everyone recruits two people. It appears that your customers are the sales people (or "business owners" as they tried to convey to us) you recruit to buy these "packages."
This is a pyramid scheme. The business model was drawn as a pyramid! Pyramid schemes are unsustainable, but the guy doing the presentation tried to convince us it was by saying that people would continue to buy the products because their supplements were only for a 30 day supply and so OF COURSE people will buy a new "package" every month. The products are overpriced and probably aren't proven to work.
More on pyramid schemes. There are some good charts showing how a pyramid only gets money to the few at the top no matter how big the pyramid gets.
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