A Khmer friend recently asked for a loan of $1000. This was out of character for her. In the years I’ve known her she’s never asked me for a penny. She said she wanted to start a business but when pressed about it, the details were murky. Something about selling medicine to the people back in the village. I advised her that anytime you go for a job and they ask you for money it’s going to be a scam. But she couldn’t be dissuaded. She had no literature, not even a business card to show me. I said no of course and urged her strongly to avoid the whole business.

The next day she showed me a fb page on her phone.
https://m.facebook.com/aiyaraplanet.kh/
It’s all in Khmer of course but it appears to be a Chinese MLM company called Aiyara holding promptional sales rallies in Phnom Penh. Has anyone heard of or had any experience with it?


Seems to me the uneducated Khmer populace make an easily victimized pool of marks to be exploited by unscrupulous predators camouflaged as “legit businesses.”

No matter how much I scolded and begged I could not get my friend to hold off. She finally borrowed the money from her sisters. $1000 is a hell of a lot of money for this family. The whole thing makes my blood boil but apparently the hook has been set and there’s nothing I can do to dislodge it.

Seems like yet another case of exploitation of the endlessly exploitable indigent Khmer.

clutchcargo wrote:Horse placenta serum?

Don't knock it till you try it.

Camel kidneys are what all the cool kids are eating these days.

I hear they're massive in Egypt

General Mackevili wrote: ↑Sun Feb 03, 2019 3:50 pm

clutchcargo wrote:Horse placenta serum?

Don't knock it till you try it.

Camel kidneys are what all the cool kids are eating these days.

Do you cook them like steaks? How would you eat those humungous things? You can get camel meat but it comes by the pallet so I haven't looked into it much further.

I don't eat that nasty looking shit, but I do eat a lot of Indian buffalos and camel meat out here in the desert.

Buffalo definitely seems a bit leaner and hard, but the camel meat seems about the same as the beef I get, depending on the cut, but generally just pretty lean but no taste difference. Got something called 'beef shin' last night, though haven't eaten it.

Most are about $6 a kilo, and my fav is probably lamb. Fish is hit or miss, but my fav is salmon, which can be around $11 a kilo, if you buy the whole thing. Bought some 'black' looking tuna for about $2 a kilo, but I don't know if I'll eat it, as it looks pretty nasty. I bought one of those Foreman grills and the only cooking I do is throwing a bunch of meat/vegetables on it and calling it a day.

Fuck, I've derailed this thread that should be about the Cambodian HerbaLife stuff, my bad, Stiliko.

General Mackevili wrote: ↑Sun Feb 03, 2019 7:52 pm Fish is hit or miss, but my fav is salmon, which can be around $11 a kilo, if you buy the whole thing. Bought some 'black' looking tuna for about $2 a kilo, but I don't know if I'll eat it, as it looks pretty nasty. I bought one of those Foreman grills and the only cooking I do is throwing a bunch of meat/vegetables on it and calling it a day.

Fuck, I've derailed this thread that should be about the Cambodian HerbaLife stuff, my bad, Stiliko.

I would give the fish a miss - especially that black tuna that even the locals won't eat and prob'ly got fished out of an oil-slick. If it looks evil, then it probably is. Stick to camels.

Otherwise, to the OP, after a couple of quick searches, I think the company is Thai, not Chinese. Doesn't make it better though. You gave your friend your opinion (that it's a scam), and that's all you can do sometimes.

hey general, sounds like you have a very absorbing life there in the desert, so much so you went off topic

@op, if its for a job its an advance fee scam. if its for product to resell, then its probably legit market forces in play.

I doubt you would have any grounds to report them, as they'd likely just say they're helping supply her to run her own business. Nothing illegal about that. What's the difference between them and those coffee shop wholesellers advertising "the whole package" (grinder, coffee machine etc for $1500-3000) for startups? Unless she's got to pay them or something, or find more "investors" then I don't see the big deal.

Met some girls a few years back who were quite excited about "Herbal-life". Got the impression- and that's all it was, nothing else to go on- that they were being sold the "Herballife way" in conjunction with South Korean pentecostal Christianity with it's "prosperity doctrine". If people get sucked into these schemes in developed countries poor uneducated Cambodians must really be an easy mark.