According to the Voice of CCNU. “I have never thought the pyramid sale is so close to us.” During the winter vacation in 2019,Wang Hua( his pseudonym) noticed that in his home piled a quite number of health care products named “Hai Gouwan”,which was recommended by a net “teacher” of his mom and bought from a website. Wang Hua didn’t recognize that his mother stuck in “online pyramid sale” until Wang Hua looked through the chatting records of his mom and that “teacher”.
The fantasy of making a fortune is mouthwatering,but the truth behind the scenes is dreadful.
Wang Hua recalled that before the college entrance examination,his mother kept frequent contact with a so-called teacher and bought some health care products, which is from a company in Ning Bo,through the teacher’s introduction. What the chatting records revealed was that this “teacher”invited his mother to join her sales team and showed various so-called “successful cases” to his mother. Furthermore,this kind of “successful cases”is about high profits,such as “a sale manager wins his luxury car” or “a sale agent makes a fortune”. This sort of messages would be attached with pictures in which a middle-aged couple stood by an executive car,and there were even some stories about high school students dropping out of school to pursue high profits.Wang Hua didn’t pay a high attention to it because he thought that his mother was an eye-opened woman at that time and he believed she could distinguish among these false pictures and advertisements. Additionally,he was buried on exam preparation in the meanwhile. So it was beyond his expectation that she tripped over by that alleged “teacher”,becoming a fish on the net.
He didn’t concern about it until he came back home on New year’s Day,glancing her chatting records with that teacher coincidentally in which his mom had transferred 39800RMB to the teacher. Then he asked for reason quickly and there was no response except for a sentence:Don’t take my business. According to the chatting records, she registered a VIP in this De Dao company. Wang Hua introduced that the system is simply to find “pick-up men”. Everyone can be a regular VIP who can recommend other people to be a VIP if he or she pay membership dues,about 1700RMB. When these “pick-up men”have payed 17700RMB,the former VIP can get 500RMB each as salary. Then the teacher will preach members to pay 38900RMB to join the superior VIP with a mind-stormed fancy of becoming a millionaire. But after his mom was promoted to a superior VIP,not only did she fail to become a millionaire but also she wasted a quite number of money. Instead of zero risk,low costs and high profits in the commitment,she was informed to buy a lot of health care products to keep a low profits. That why Wang Hua has noticed in his home piled lots of well-wrapped and expensive health care products.
Be cautious about acquaintances’ promotion,be skeptical about consumption bringing fortune
After the close of the health care product empire named Chu Quan in 2019,the De Dao online platform,which Wang Hua’s mother had joined in,closed for a week. The teacher in the WeChat group hurried to delete all of promotion pictures and sale records in their Circle of Friends and forbade members from spreading out. This kind of unusual behaviors was explained to a normal change:We are upgrading our sale manage in order to meet the national standards. Wang Hua thought that is deleting pyramid sale’s evidences for escaping the supervision departments.
Some companies which get the licenses of direct selling may do pyramid sale in the dark. According to Wang Hua, although this health care product company in Ning Bo acquires a direct-selling license,but the routine of advertising “consumption makes profits”,finding “pick-up men” and carving up membership dues from their “pick-up men”is similar with the Chu Quan health care product company. But in this company, the legal and business department talked about it vaguely and passed the buck on the excuse of customers’ personal deeds,letting those companies slip under the lack of oversight again and again.
After Wang Hua went back to school,he payed more attention to this new-type online pyramid sale and found similar cases took place all over the country. He said ,” I have joined in a couple of QQ groups, gathered for anti-pyramid sale, in which there were usually family members of victims. Generally,the sufferers stuck in the wetland of pyramid sale because they didn’t believe they had joined in the pyramid sale systemand they even didn’t know what pyramid sale is.”
Wang Hua introduced some methods for distinguishing between pyramid sale and direct selling to reporters: First, is there any initial fee? According to Direct Selling Regulation in China,any direct selling companies shouldn’t require initial fee. Second,from the profit model,the income of direct companies is mainly from selling and promotion,instead, for pyramid sale,the income is from either simply membership dues from “pick-up men” or developing “pick-up men” by means of selling products. Third, will you get profit until several layers of “pick-up men”? Nowadays,with the development of Internet,the location of pyramid sale transforms from a settled place into various Internet platforms,so the new-type pyramid sale companies appeal customers to buy some related products with a high price, become members and then sell products to the next layer with the name of online direct selling or e-commerce. But truth be told,these companies doesn’t deliver products after members bought products,cause the truth is finding “pick-up men” and developing pyramid sale network.
Keep an eagle-eyed on campus and family consumption
After he came back to campus,Wang Hua worried about that his mom would be brainwashed by pyramid sale,so he kept a watchful eye on her consumption and reprinted some articles about it in his family WeChat group to remind relatives not to obey pyramid sale promotion blindly. He said ,”Elder family members usually believe they are right,so they look down upon suggestions from the younger generation,and even view us as busybodies. If they have looked through some news reports in earnest,they will conclude some similarities between those reports and what they are experiencing.”
This kind of pyramid sale has hidden in a variety of on-campus jobs. “In a WeChat group,I observed a university student who was doing on-campus work. She was told to persuade more friends to join this on-campus job after she had payed 100RMB to become an agent. In this process,she could earn 70RMB if she found a ‘pick-up friend’. she makes money not for a certain part time job but for the number of ‘pick-up men’.”Wang Hua said. Besides,there are lots of advertisements related to pyramid sale such as”Pay 300RMB to get qualification of a part time job”,which reflects the new-type pyramid sale.
Wang Hua made a micro film about anti-pyramid sale using his personal experiences in his ideological and moral cultivation and basic law education class in order to remind students what pyramid sale is,what harm will it cause and how to cope with it when we come across it in person. “If we can attach more importance to it around the whole country,brightening our eyes and rejecting any type of temptation,the breeding ground of pyramid sale will disappear.” Wang Hua said.
Time:2019-04-09 14:54
Translator:Zhang Siyi
