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Cash gifting

geni

Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
geni
Joined
Oct 14, 2003
Messages
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Cash gifting appears to be one of the more recent names for a pyramid scheme. Best I can tell it's a version of the "8-ball" model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_gifting#.228-ball.22_model


Certianly the language used is very simular to the old women empowering women scheme. I first ran across the name a few months back when I was creating redirects the various names for pyramid schemes to wikipedia's pyramid schemes article. But today I threw it at google trends. The result is worrying:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=Cash+gifting,+women+empowering+women&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0


Searching for cash gifting on youtube isn't good.
 
Theophage said:
Whiat I think is pretty funny, (though also sad, in a scammer sort of way) is that there are videos on YouTube about cash gifting that say "Don't do it, it is scam and illegal! Unless you take our course and learn to do it the right way..."

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=p8RuCZa_0xE
Click to expand...


Ja a lot of them. you get much the same result with Reverse Funnel System although that term appears to be loseing popularity:


http://www.google.com/trends?q=Reverse+Funnel+System
 
Of all the ideas I see discussed on this board, this one baffles me the most.

How can the participants not see that the whole thing must come crashing down at the end?
 
Ladewig said:
Of all the ideas I see discussed on this board, this one baffles me the most.

How can the participants not see that the whole thing must come crashing down at the end?
Click to expand...

Multiple tricks. One is to hide what is really going on behind jargon and emotionaly appealing words ("NASCAR" for men, "women empowering women" for women). Another is to make things more complex. So for example people getting some payout before they got to the top or the person at the top leaveing from time to time.

Another is miss-dirrection focusing on elements that can be fudged such as is it illegal (answer yes but there are a lot of ways to pretend that is isn't). Cash gifting expliots both these elements by being a family of slightly different schemes so pinning down the bit where the pyramid is in each one is tricky and time consumeing. We both know that there must be one in there but deconstructing even a single scheme to find it is time consumeing. Doing it for all of them is pretty much imposible. So if the people involved in the pyramid can get new recruites past the first "pyramid schemes=bad" hurdle they are unlikely to catch on later.

Then there is the element of emotional connection/peer pressure. In meatspace these pyramids are built through family and friend connections. Do you want to let your friends down by not investing? Online people use youtube vids and the like to try and build a personal connection.

Then there is the issue that some people do get a payout. Many people are of the view that they can't see their way forward from their current situation and are thus are prepared to addopt high risk stratergies that appear to have a better potential to pay out than their other options (this is how crack gangs get away with paying their average memeber selling the stuff less the minium wage).
 
A woman at work was heavily into the "Woman Empowering Woman" scam despite a number of us..including her (female) supervisor...trying to talk her out of it. She ended up losing a few thousand dollars when she got no further then "Soup and Salad" before the whole thing collapased.
It amazes me that people are unable to understand the basic arthimatic involved: Your chances of making it to the top of the pyramid are miniscule to the point of being practically non existent.
Which is why it is often clothed by the scam artists who start the pyramids in fancy, idealistic clothing.
 
Yeah, what Geni said is true. There's also the simpler fact that when there's money in the offing, people just seem to lose their common sense. You'd have thought that receiving an email out of the blue telling you you've won a lottery you didn't even enter, or millions for helping someone shift money would be such an obvious scam nobody would fall for it. Yet these scams turn millions.

I saw a WEW meeting a few years back; it took place in a bar a friend worked in. I tried to keep out of it, but eventually I had to point out to the woman giving the talk that this model was totally unsustainable, and some people would have to lose out. "Ah," she responded, "but what we do is put aside a percentage of the proceeds to cover the people at the bottom". Instantly the audience were mollified; I tried to point out that that just didn't make sense - but they'd lost interest totally. They wanted to believe this was the answer to their financial problems, and they just didn't want to even hear the alternate POV.
 
Ladewig said:
How can the participants not see that the whole thing must come crashing down at the end?
Click to expand...

The small sample of participants I have been able to talk with about this do understand that the pyramid scheme will implode at some point.

Their hope appears to be that the network will fall apart after they have recovered their investment and made a profit.

Ideally, be the originator - you don't have to give money to anybody above you. Every sucker you recruit is 100% profit.
 
I also the think the constanly changing language is an attempt to evade the laws that are just about universal against such frauds. Although these dodges inevitably fail .
 
dudalb said:
I also the think the constanly changing language is an attempt to evade the laws that are just about universal against such frauds. Although these dodges inevitably fail .
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I don't think the language is intended to make them legal so much as appear legal to the marks. Typical scenario:

Scammer: "So, you recruit people to give you money, and they recruit people, and so on."

Mark: "Isn't that a pyramid scheme?"

Scammer: "No, pyramid schemes are illegal. We run a gifting program, which is legal."

Mark: "That's a relief. For some reason, I trust you're not lying about this. Here's some money."

Scammer: "Thanks." (uses it to buy ticket to country with no extradition treaty) "Good luck with that women overpowering women project."

Mark: "Women empowering women..."

Scammer: "Whatever."
 
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dudalb said:
I also the think the constanly changing language is an attempt to evade the laws that are just about universal against such frauds. Although these dodges inevitably fail .
Click to expand...


Generaly the law is smart enough to deal with that but most people are not going to take the issue to the police. So the only issue with regards to the law are convinceing the "marks" that the activity is legal.
 
geni said:
Generaly the law is smart enough to deal with that but most people are not going to take the issue to the police. So the only issue with regards to the law are convinceing the "marks" that the activity is legal.
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I think people won't take it to the police because they feel embarassed/stupid when they discover they've been scammed. Some will become outraged and will take it to the authorities - I only wish that more of them would follow this course. :(
 
supercorgi said:
I think people won't take it to the police because they feel embarassed/stupid when they discover they've been scammed. Some will become outraged and will take it to the authorities - I only wish that more of them would follow this course. :(
Click to expand...

Partly but there is also the factor that in things like women empowering women and other "8 ball" models the person at the top of your particular group may not actualy realise the problem with what they are doing.
 
supercorgi said:
I think people won't take it to the police because they feel embarassed/stupid when they discover they've been scammed. Some will become outraged and will take it to the authorities - I only wish that more of them would follow this course. :(
Click to expand...

I've seen interviews on the news where victims are angry at the police or district attorney for shutting down the operation.
 
Ladewig said:
I've seen interviews on the news where victims are angry at the police or district attorney for shutting down the operation.
Click to expand...


I remember that happening when the "Woman Empowering Woman" scam was closed down.
SOme of the partcipants went bonkers on camera. It was all a plot by Men to keep woman from empowering each other.
 
hmm depressing 123 matches for "cash gifting" posted on youtube today.
 
Google trends suggests that cash gifting is starting to drop in the searches although that may just mean that people are being recruited from other areas. On the other hand "abundant living system" is on the rise.
 
hmm google trends still says it is on the way down. If they've switched to a new keyword I can't find what it is.
 
:dl:

The entire world's monetary system is crashing, all because of a worldwide property pyramid game failure.

What a great time to start a pyramid game!

Classic. God, I love people.

Ladewig said:
Of all the ideas I see discussed on this board, this one baffles me the most.

How can the participants not see that the whole thing must come crashing down at the end?
Click to expand...

People are STOOOOOPID.

Didn't a nationwide one of these destroy Albania's economy - such as it was - a few years ago?
 
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