TheBanyanTree: Zeek Rewards as a Business Model?

[Jim Miller]

Thanks Monique,

This is interesting news. I have an 80 year old friend who invested his
$10,000 with out asking me for an opinion, and then kept asking what I
thought about it. He couldn't run his own computer and friends kept posting
his daily ads.

I couldn't get enough information from their website to tell me anything,
but I know a Ponzi scheme when I smell one and just told him, if it worked,
I was happy for him. I continually received assurances that it was
legitimate, but it wasn't worth my time to go further in discovery. He got
back his first $1000 a few weeks ago, after five months with promises of
the same or more every month for life.

I'm not surprised to find that it was shut down and pleased that it was. I
only question the SEC taking this long to do the job. I'm sad for my friend
who couldn't afford to lose his money and who is too naive at this stage of
his life to question his friends who led him into the scheme.

It's always the old adage, if it sound too good to be true, it is. Because
I've been an aggressive entrepreneur my entire life, these opportunities
have come to me often. No one asks anymore, but people I know, who should
know better, get stung time and time again. What is it about greed that
seems to destroy logic and reason. Or maybe they never had it in the first
place. A subject for another time. I'm sure that it would offend many.

Jim

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Monique Colver
<monique.colver at gmail.com>wrote:

> Earlier this summer I was contacted by someone who was interested in my
> book and who wanted to meet me. Naturally I was flattered, it being my
> first book and me prone to flattery. So we set up a time to meet, and she
> asked me for two books to sell to her.
>
>
> We met, and we talked, and it was good. Such a nice woman, but I think that
> of everyone who shells out money for my book, so what do I know?
>
>
> Towards the end of our conversation she started talking about a business
> opportunity. I run from business opportunities because I’ve been so lucky
> to have been approached numerous times for business opportunities.
> Instantly my positive feelings about this woman were replaced with
> suspicion – did this woman really buy two books just so she could inveigle
> me into listening to her sales pitch?
>
>
> Since she had bought my book, two even, and expressed such interest in it,
> I felt I could at least hear her out, and she asked that my husband and I
> come to her condo to meet her partner and talk about it.
>
> And show up we did, though late. It was pouring rain, and when we got to
> the building it turned out to be one of the condo buildings we’d looked at
> once. On the river, with a great view, but with hallways that went on and
> on and on . . . and hers was at the very end, on a corner.
>
>
> After our twenty minute hike down hallways we arrived, and the presentation
> was in full force, and the room was filled with people, all eager to make
> some money or coerced into attendance. Or maybe a little of both.
>
>
> It was the same multi-level marketing scheme that I’d heard before. The
> business model was sort of like this (I say sort of, because the objective
> is to make it as confusing as possible): As an “affiliate” (read: victim),
> one “buys” bids for the Zeekler auction site and gives them away. This
> drives traffic to the Zeekler auction site, where people purchase things at
> pennies on the dollar.
>
> If you’re not familiar with penny auction sites, the reason you can get
> things for cheap is because 1) you’re not really paying in pennies, and 2)
> “people” bid on items. Bid vouchers are used, and they cost more than a
> penny, but we’d rather say penny because it makes it sound like you’re
> getting a good deal. And maybe you might, and maybe you might not, because
> by the time you win the bid, you’ve spent who knows what. And if you don’t
> win the bid, you’ve just spent all those bids that you paid for on nothing.
>
>
> Anyway, so the scheme works like this: Affiliates post links to the Zeekler
> site to drive traffic to it, and then buy bids to give away, to drive
> traffic to it.
>
>
> What they don’t tell you is that the Zeekler site has very few items to bid
> on, and it’s not a very active site. All those links that are being posted
> are being posted on sites that are set up to host spam like this. No one
> looks at them. No one clicks on the links.
>
>
> They say the money comes from all the people bidding on the products on the
> site – the profit is distributed to affiliates on a daily basis, or to
> their accounts, or something like that.
>
> That’s what they SAY, but the money is really coming from the affiliates
> who buy in to be a part of this great money making scheme. Of course, the
> more you invest to get started, the more money you’ll make, so go all in!
>
>
> Let’s say you give me five bucks because I told you it’s a good way for you
> to make some money. Then I have my five bucks, and then you say, “Where’s
> my money?” That’s when I tell you that in order to get your money, you have
> to get 5 or 10 people to give you 5 bucks. “Okay,” you say, “That makes
> sense.” So you do, because you’re charming and you can sell this product
> like nobody’s business.
>
> So you get your money, and by the way, I get a share of the money they gave
> you too, because, after all, it was my brilliant idea that started it.
>
> Then those people have to sign up people to get back the money they
> invested . . . and every time I get a share, and you get a share, and
> everyone along the line gets a share, which means we need more people at
> the bottom. This is why it’s called a pyramid scheme.
>
>
> Anyway, the presentation was confusing because they were trying to sell us
> on the idea that it wasn’t a Ponzi scheme, that it was a real product, but
> since it wasn’t, obfuscation was the order of the day. I didn’t like the
> sales tactics either, especially of the woman’s partner, but that’s normal
> for me. I’ve worked with high pressure sales people who sell air for big
> commissions, and I generally find them vapid and annoying.
>
>
> And not terribly bright, when it comes down to it.
>
>
> We left at the end, acting like we cared just so we could get out without
> being talked at some more.
>
>
> A day or so later the woman texted me, asking when we would be signing up.
> I responded with my own text, which went something like, “No, we’re not
> going to.”
>
>
> She responded with, “May I ask why?”
>
>
> And that was the end of it. What was the point of responding? So she could
> counter whatever I said with more talk of how this was too good of an
> opportunity to pass up?
>
>
> A few days ago the SEC shut Zeekler down. Because guess why! It’s a Ponzi
> scheme! That just really made my day. I know, I know, there are affiliates
> out there screaming, “but I was making money!” And the people who made
> money, who pulled theirs out before it was shut down, are saying, “hah! Got
> mine!”
>
>
> Look, I know we live in a culture where many people are struggling
> financially, and I know many people are just looking for a way to make some
> money. But how do people not understand that money isn’t free? How does it
> even make sense that people just handing money to other people and then
> getting other people to hand them is a valid business model?
>
>
> There is no product being produced. There are no services being rendered.
> There is no utility, which is an economics term and doesn’t mean the lights
> aren’t on.
>
>
> There’s nothing there. It’s just people giving other people money, and the
> people at the top get the most, and if you’re lucky you’re not one of the
> suckers at the bottom when the entire thing collapses in on itself, which
> it will, because eventually there will be a shortage of victims to draw
> upon.
>
>
> But people want to keep doing this, and they’re looking for other schemes
> to buy into even as they bemoan the loss of their money. There’s a whole
> class of people who truly believe that buying into something that produces
> nothing is a valid business model, and that as long as they get theirs, all
> is good.
>
>
> All I really wanted to say was: this is not a valid business model. You
> want to make some money? Go produce something, provide a service, do
> something useful. Live a little.
>
>
> Monique Colver
> An Uncommon Friendship: a memoir of love, mental illness, and friendship
> Now available at
> Amazon<
> http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Monique+Colver
> >
> and
> at www.AnUncommonFriendship.com <http://anuncommonfriendship.com/>
> www.ColverPress.com
> monique.colver at gmail.com
> (425) 772-6218
>