Mission Statement
In recent decades, pyramid schemes have become an insidious, pervasive and corrupting influence in the marketplace and community, causing financial and social harm on a global scale.
Since 1980 a new form of sales and marketing, called multi-level marketing or network marketing, has spread worldwide and spawned an explosion of pyramid sales schemes involving tens of millions of consumers. The line between legal forms of network marketing and fraudulent pyramid programs is a point of Read More…
Enough Is Enough. It’s Time for Action!
No more denial, shame or embarrassment. No more confusion. No more blaming the victim. No more resignation. And absolutely no more fear.
Pyramid Scheme Alert is the first consumer organization to confront the abuses and trickery of pyramid scheme perpetrators.
Pyramid Scheme Alert is a non-profit, privately supported (by memberships and donations), all-volunteer,
Read More…
Resources
Despite the volume of lies and hype flowing from multi-level marketing schemers there is more valid, research-based and whistle-blower information available today than ever before. The truth is emerging.
As in the cases of Enron, the lethal cigarette industry, bank and mortgage frauds and the Madoff ponzi scheme, the truth about multi-level marketing is taking time to emerge but the truth inevitably prevails. As the Links offered here show, the number of activists is growing. Major Read More…
Consumer Report Now Available:
What is this Thing called Multi-Level Marketing?
This new article by Robert L. FitzPatrick is an economic “portrait” of multi-level marketing (MLM) in the USA. The report has compiled and analyzed the data on three of the oldest and largest MLM companies, Amway, Herbalife and Nu Skin in a readable and understandable way to paint a recognizable picture. Together, these three constitute 10% of the entire MLM operations in America and serve as representatives of all others. About 1.5 million Americans are signed up in them each year. Most quit within a year. The report shows shocking loss rates among participants and an extreme transfer of money to the 1% at the top. The study also examines the potential for “retail” sales by distributors, which turn out to be non-existent. Finally, the report examines the financial chances of success of a new recruit joining any of the three today.
If you have an interest in seeing this report, contact us.
Recent Articles
Fed Prosecution of Pyramid Money-Processor, Payza, Reveals Dilemma of Identifying “Legitimate” MLMs
by Robert L. FitzPatrick The U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ) recently obtained guilty pleas from two individuals involved in a global PayPal-like money-transfer company, called Payza. According to the DOJ, Payza served numerous merchants that were “Cyclers” and “MLMs”....
MLM Recruiting during Corona Shut-Down Reveals Sham Identity of “Direct Selling”
That revenue and enrollments of some multi-level marketing companies have increased during the government-ordered shut-down and quarantining is yet another proof that “MLM” is not “direct selling.” Under pandemic conditions there could be no “parties”, personal...
Economic “Pandemic”, a Review by Robert FitzPatrick of a Groundbreaking New Book in India
This is the story of how multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes, e.g., Amway, Herbalife, etc., got into India and the sad and tragic consequences to that country. It is from the remarkable new book, Marauders of Hope, by Aruna Ravikumar, a courageous Indian journalist, based in the city of Hyderabad in south central India.
Wounded Souls, the Inner-Life of MLM Victims
What everyone knows, yet few will say, is that the greatest injury suffered by MLM victims is not dollar losses. It is the blow to the soul, an injury that may be carried unhealed throughout life.
Yahoo Finance Podcast on MLM Is a Milestone in Business Media Coverage
Yahoo Finance’s podcast on multi-level marketing, is as a milestone in business media coverage of MLM.
NXIVM Victim Lawsuit Reveals Toxic Interplay of Pyramid Scheme and Cultism
Falsely wrapped in the imagery and rhetoric of legitimate commerce, politically protected by a captured Federal Trade Commission and financially supported by Wall Street speculators, the terrible realities of “multi-level marketing” can remain hidden even when in...