Almost two years ago, I was visiting my cousin in Montreal. I met his friends and they were all very nice. I happened to meet them at a very interesting point in some of their lives. A few of them — and one especially — were all the rage about this company, ACN.
ACN is the American Communications Network. It offers ‘quality’ communications service that can make you rich. In order to join their sales team, it costs $500.
Now any company that makes you pay to join them (as opposed to paying you) should raise a red, blue, yellow, green and every other coloured flag. Moreover, once joining ACN, as I learned with this unfortunately blinded fellows, you are pushed to recruit. Recruit, recruit, recruit! And why not, there’s a money incentive for it.
In fact, so much time is spent recruiting, that hardly any telecommunications goods and services get sold. Every recruitment is another $500 for ACN, minus off the top some money to the person who recruited the newbie, and the person who recruited the recruiter, and the one who recruited the person who recruited the recruiter.
And that’s how pyramid schemes (more professionally known as ‘multi-level marketing’) are born. Sadly, these nice men would hear none of it and continued on. I often wonder if they ever got out of the trap, or if they have become one of the success stories, hoarding in thousands of dollars each month at the expense of the people who trusted them.
And now, for some videos about ACN.
