Yeaaaargh!!!

That's the sound of the last person who was duped by a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scam. As a general rule, MLM is nothing more than a way for one person to get rich quick at the expense of others.

It works like this: A mastermind recruits ten or so people to sell a product. They each buy stocks of the product and each find ten other people who are willing to sell it on. They find ten other people who are willing to sell it on, and so on. At each level, a commission is passed back to the previous level.

If you work it out, most of the blurb for these schemes entails you - yes, you - becoming a millionaire within a year. But look closer. Normally the total figure that's quoted for 'overall sales at all levels' is larger than the GNP of the United States, or Indonesia's national debt. In reality, you will shell out a lot of money into someone else's pocket, and get nothing in return.

Like most 'get rich quick' schemes, Multi-Level Marketing is nothing but a con.