Herbalife, Unicity... who knows what else...
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 6:52 pm
Can we take a moment to discuss these scam companies coming to leach the money out of a now developing middle class? And yes, to the organizers of these organizations, I just called you a scam. Please try to sue me... it would be comical. There are endless mathematical formulas that show why yours is a doomed system for any but the elite that are on top of the pyramid. And selling a product doesn't make it not a pyramid... despite what US law says.
On to the discussion... I have heard countless reports of Khmer people getting suckered by these companies. And not the nouveau riche Khmers, who can absorb such a thing and move on, but the subsistence farming families/etc... apparently a common scheme is to approach university students before or as they graduate (the one member of the family that the whole family chipped in to send to school so they could have a brighter future) and offer them these amazing "jobs". They glamour them with fancy cars, nice suits, sharp haircuts, lots of expensive jewelry... and tell them all of this could be theirs as well, if they make the investment. The students eat it up, as that's what supposed to happen after university right? A nice new job earning good money? They go home and tell the family about this great new job, who then sell off the buffalo and their motorbike to make it happen, and the jackass that approached them walks away laughing (with their money in his pocket) as they fail to sell products nobody wants and everyone else they know is trying to sell as well.
While the ideal solution to this would be a government intervention, I find it highly unlikely. For one too many first world countries have failed to step in via one loophole or another (like the product loophole), and even if that were not the case these guys DO have money (that they leached off of Khmers, or the poor/middle class in some other country before setting their sights on this one) and can pay the needed bribes to not be bothered.
The second most ideal solution, to my mind, is education. Spreading the word to the Khmer that it's a scam and how it fails to work/etc. But honestly I don't see that working well either. People in western countries fall for this shit all of the time... and they SHOULD know better. These salesmen are slick though.
The next solution isn't really ideal at all... but could potentially work. Scare them. As in expats who give a shit about the country and its people give these guys a nice spook at one of their "rallies". Join it and really lay into them while they're on stage/etc making them look like the degenerate scum they are. Continue it any time they have one, rotating people so they can't ban it. Maybe even figure out where they drink and have some more colorful words with them in private expressing how we feel about what they're doing to the people here. I don't know... I just think these guys need to get their tree shaken a little bit.
Open for other suggestions/input. Will be interesting to see what HotRecruiter has to say on it, as at one point at least his job was about selling hopeless dreams to people as well. Seems like he's moved onto other products now though... presumably legit ones from the sound of it.
On to the discussion... I have heard countless reports of Khmer people getting suckered by these companies. And not the nouveau riche Khmers, who can absorb such a thing and move on, but the subsistence farming families/etc... apparently a common scheme is to approach university students before or as they graduate (the one member of the family that the whole family chipped in to send to school so they could have a brighter future) and offer them these amazing "jobs". They glamour them with fancy cars, nice suits, sharp haircuts, lots of expensive jewelry... and tell them all of this could be theirs as well, if they make the investment. The students eat it up, as that's what supposed to happen after university right? A nice new job earning good money? They go home and tell the family about this great new job, who then sell off the buffalo and their motorbike to make it happen, and the jackass that approached them walks away laughing (with their money in his pocket) as they fail to sell products nobody wants and everyone else they know is trying to sell as well.
While the ideal solution to this would be a government intervention, I find it highly unlikely. For one too many first world countries have failed to step in via one loophole or another (like the product loophole), and even if that were not the case these guys DO have money (that they leached off of Khmers, or the poor/middle class in some other country before setting their sights on this one) and can pay the needed bribes to not be bothered.
The second most ideal solution, to my mind, is education. Spreading the word to the Khmer that it's a scam and how it fails to work/etc. But honestly I don't see that working well either. People in western countries fall for this shit all of the time... and they SHOULD know better. These salesmen are slick though.
The next solution isn't really ideal at all... but could potentially work. Scare them. As in expats who give a shit about the country and its people give these guys a nice spook at one of their "rallies". Join it and really lay into them while they're on stage/etc making them look like the degenerate scum they are. Continue it any time they have one, rotating people so they can't ban it. Maybe even figure out where they drink and have some more colorful words with them in private expressing how we feel about what they're doing to the people here. I don't know... I just think these guys need to get their tree shaken a little bit.
Open for other suggestions/input. Will be interesting to see what HotRecruiter has to say on it, as at one point at least his job was about selling hopeless dreams to people as well. Seems like he's moved onto other products now though... presumably legit ones from the sound of it.