TheBanyanTree: Zeek Rewards as a Business Model?

[Sachet]

It's good, great & wonderful to see you post, Jim!

Neekia - this makes for a happy ending to a possibly ugly scheme. I'm 
glad for you and Andrew!

On 8/25/2012 3:28 PM, Jim Miller wrote:
> 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
>>