A week back, I met an Indian guy in a mall at Newark, CA. He just introduced him to me, had some friendly talks and gave his business card to me saying that we will meet some time later. This weekend, he called me over phone and said that he is going for a business get-together with his fellow Indians and asked me if I could join him. He didn't let me know what the get-together is all about. I was just curious to find out about that. I went to the place and it was a presentation about Quixtar.

For those who don't know about Quixtar: They sell something (cosmetics, vitamins, energy drinks, blah, blah, blah...) through MLM model. The presentation was as usual as other MLM presentations with nice figures that make you earn $250,000 an year and attractive testimonials from successful (at least they call) people with nice home, expensive car, private jet and what not. I was always against MLMs. But the guy (dumb?) who presented the session said that it was not an MLM exactly. I was just curious to find out what this heck was all about. Well, I always turn to Google to find out most of the facts that I need. The information that Google gave about this made me clear that it is in fact an MLM (a.k.a. scam ;-)). Here comes one more interesting fact. It seems that Quixtar is run by the same people (most of them) who ran Amway.

On May 7 2004, MSNBC Dateline published an investigation report on Quixtar that talks about where all the money comes from and all the money goes. Below is the video version of the same report. Even though Quixtar has put a response website on this issue, the master man doesn't want to come on live to do the clarifications. (Doesn't it show how hard it is to deny such an obvious charge!)

I don't know what is the primary reason for people to fall for these traps! Is it the urge to earn fast money, whatever the way it comes? Such people when they refer their friends to such schemes, are they not cheating their friends? In my case, it was as good as spamming!

PS (for people who wanna sue me): I can't afford more than $157.40 at the time when I do this posting.