MLM Scams

Grapes are sour indeed I get it but then I am not writing this post just because I got conned but as a cautionary post for all those people who are planning to join these sorts of marketing companies. A long post with couple of videos and i hope it does help to people out there.

A friend of mine was minting tons of money working for a network marketing company but then I was totally in dark to the nature of the business. I was in between jobs and I questioned him about his business for which he was evasive in his answers and he stated it would be better if I get to know it in person. He arranged for a meet with one of his seniors in the business and during the meet I was told that the business is an ecommerce business and with minimal efforts I would be able to get high returns however I would have to invest Rs 3 lacs to join the business as an independent representative. I diplomatically withdrew from joining the business as I did not know the product that needs to be marketed. Fast forward couple of years later I get a call from my friend stating that he has put up the initial amount required to be paid to join the business and the same can be returned once the business grows. So unwittingly I got lured into a MLM business and on attending the initiation program all the new entrants were briefed of the business and the name of the company is QNET. It was drummed into each one of us to enrol new members and thereby increase ones earning potential as more the number of people you are able to enrol and in turn those persons further enrol persons thereby forming a pyramid with you on a mini peak. Also we were told that we need to attend to weekly meetings that is known as a system wherein various persons in this business gave speeches of their glorious success in the business and what they have achieved so far materialistically..be it house or a car or lavish vacations and so forth. The scheme is to get a minimum of two direct referrals that would be placed on the left and right side under me and so forth.

Just to make you understand the scheme think that you are able to recruit two persons under you and they both recruit two each under them and those four recruit two persons each under them and so forth and then you will be surprised to see the number of persons under you directly.   Commissions are paid for bringing direct referrals and also from the sale of products by you or any person under you and if all the persons under you perform then the amount of money you make as commissions is mind boggling indeed. 

Though an iota of doubt kept lingering in my mind but the greed factor in me made me take the plunge into the scheme and as said I added my wife as my first direct referral by paying a sum of Rs 3 lacs ... greed of getting back in multiple lacs. Well my commission for the first direct referral was Rs 30,000.00 and some commissions due to product buying by persons in the chain on one side to the tune of Rs 40,000.00. Now to increase the commissions I need to bring in new people and it is generally from the circle of friends and relatives I have but then most of my friends are common friend of person who inducted me so I could not find anyone willing to put up the money and also none of my relatives were interested in the scheme so i finally ended with just one person on my left... my wife and none below my wife for i needed to market for her also. I realised this business is not for me within 4 months of joining QNET

Now that realization I started sending out messages to my friend to sell my stake and my wife’s stake for which my friend said he would do so but after a year of me joining the scheme. Well it has been almost two years now and there is no talk of selling my stake... response to email does not come or vague whatsapp messages with no relevance to my request. I have now reconciled that i have lost part of the money I had invested on behalf of my wife since I withdrew the commissions in the account.

For persons not aware of these types of companies here is a brief explanation - Multi level marketing aka MLM is a marketing strategy to promote companies products through independent distributors and give multi level compensations, MLM companies are legal operation as there are products that is being sold. Some of the quite famous and well known MLM companies in India are Tupperware, Oriflame, Avon, Amway, Herbal life. In these companies people are recruited as distributors by persons who are already a distributor and a person having more number of distributors under them earns more compensation by way of commissions. As a distributor one need to have sufficient stock of products for which they would have to pay upfront and the commissions are paid in multi levels in varying percentages right up till the top of the chain

But then many pyramid schemes disguise themselves a MLM companies and the whole operation works on basis of bringing in new investors who in turn are the source of commissions to the persons in the higher levels of the pyramid. QNET is one such company that operates as a direct selling company utilising the loopholes in the guidelines set by the government but the fact remains the company is operating a pyramid scheme. The products mentioned in the company portal is to be bought by the members regularly to maintain their status so as to receive commissions and is not sold to general public. I am sure that these products will not sell in open market for they are so much overpriced and useless. Their main source of income is to con and get new members to join the scheme

Authorities are waking up to various complaints against QNET and early this year Hyderabad police arrested 58 persons from 4 states ..see the news report in this regard News Report of arrests of QNET independent representatives.

Saudi government during September last year termed QNET pyramid scheme as haram and has banned its operation. Immediately afterwards QNET which has planned a Vcon at Dubai was cancelled for fear of arrests. See a video by one Loy Machedo which does give in depth explaination of MLM scams in UAE  Video link of MLM scams

Beware folks do not join the scheme however rosy picture is painted to you by your close friend or relative for if you do you would lose out your investment as you are in the bottom of the pyramid at this point of time. For you to reach the higher levels of the pyramid you would need to induct your close friends or relative and I am sure you would lose out on their relationship.

Be cautious and be safe.

Your comments and experiences can be shared in the comment column.

Toxic Relationships

With all the time in the world to write regularly I still am unable to pen down a decent passage for over a year and half. So I decided that I would write down write down tit bits of  instances happening around me however silly it may seem so that I get into the stride of writing regularly just to thwart the sense of uselessness that keeps invading my thoughts. Circumstance makes me write about relationships....there is always an element of give and take in a relationship to be fruitful but when it is one sided it leads to quite a bitter, painful and a toxic one

Image Courtesy Google Images

Having said that yesterday afternoon I woke up to a loud noise of my elder daughter crying uncontrollably over the phone with her boy friend. She was begging him for his affection and love. This went on for over a hour and finally she threw down the phone with a bang , still crying out loudly. Me as a father could not bear seeing her crying and both me and my wife tried consoling and reasoning with our daughter that it is not right for her to beg for love and affection and the relationship which has such instances cannot be good for her and she is giving chances of being exploited and abused. Well this is not the first time it has happened and such incidents are quite frequent and it does take a toll on my daughter’s mental health. I have advised my daughter to put end to this relationship as it seems to bring only misery to her but then she is not willing to let go of the same. In the present age of women empowerment I find it odd for a woman to beg for affection and love and the boy totally not interested and wants to end the relationship. Both I and my wife explained to our daughter that her actions would only lead to her exploitation and possibly domestic violence if the relationship turns to marrying him and hence it would be better for her curtail this relationship. We even suggested that she stop talking to him for some time and wait for him to realise her importance and he initiate the contact. If not forget about this person for he is not worth crying over. Well she has promised to do follow our suggestions and i sincerely hope that she overcomes her affection of the worthless person.

Being a parent of girl children is quite terrifying indeed since the mind is laced with worries of the children’s future. We have never imposed our thoughts or wants on both our daughters but have explained that the choices they make in life should be able to give them a good life and family. We have supported both our daughters in their choice of education and have not imposed any restrictions on their choice of their life partners in the event of a marriage. 

Now I can just wait, for only time can tell if my daughter will be able to follow the advice given by us and be free of the toxic relationship thereby be happy in her life!!!

Mongoose in a puddle

During one of my regular trips to Bandipur forest we came across a striped neck mongoose in a puddle of water left in the waterhole and it was going round and round in the puddle and stopping a bit at scratching the silt and this behavior was witnessed by me for the first time in all these years i have been going to the forest. So i asked the naturalist who was accompanying us on the safari the reason for such behavior and was informed that by doing this the tadpoles are being dislodged from the silt and mongoose gets it tidbits 😀😀

Hope you guys enjoyed the video as much as i enjoyed seeing this incident live during September 2018

Experiences when trying to sell Old Coin

Recently while clearing my cupboard I came across collection of coins from various parts of the world including few British India Coins. With my current situation of being retired, no pensions and drying up of savings I thought it was a boon that I came across the coins. So I browsed the net visiting so many portals, and blogs so that I can ascertain the value of the coins in my possession. After many hours of reading about the coins in my possession I was still unsure of the value of the coins since  one portal would say the value is xxx whereas another portal would show that the coin is worth 100 time more. A popular portal Numista.com that caters to millions of coin collectors does not give the current value of the coins. 

During my search on Google I found lots of portals such as OLX, Quikr, Ebay Amazon and other ecommerce companies showing old coins and their values. So I checked OLX and to my surprise I saw an immense variation in price of the similar coin similar to what I saw in various coin portals. It was now I decided I would also put an advertisement on OLX and cite the price that comes to my head and see the outcome of the advertisement. So I photographed both sides of a 1/12 Anna coin of 1835 issued by East India and upload the same in my advertisement and cited that i am looking for Rs12 lacs for the same. To my utter surprise I started getting messages on my mail and on whatsapp from over 10 persons wanting to buy the coin at the price cited by me. .All the parties that responded were either from USA or Nigeria. I was thrilled and excited that it’s possible that I would be able to get this kind of money to tide me over the current financial conditions. I then thought if i could get so much for a single coin why not attempt to dispose off the other four British India coins ranging from 1874 to 1939 and so I put forth the same to couple of persons who had responded to my advertisement and to my utter surprise one person offered me Rs 20 lacs and the other Rs 22 lacs..I kept the discussions going on with both the parties who were from USA as to how the deal would be completed and the mode as to how I would hand over the coins within India since I will not be able to sell any coins over 100 years old out of India. Both of them responded and I would explain each of them below.

First person wanted me to courier the coins to his friend at Bangalore and he would then transfer fund to me. I insisted advance payment or a bank confirmation of the payment being made for which he said he would be transferring the funds into my bank immediately and he wanted me to give me details of my account and email address. Not wanting to give my normal bank details i sent across the details of an account not in use but active and my alternate email id to him. Within 20 minutes i got a response from him that he has transferred the money to the account and asked me to check my mail. Sure enough there was a mail from Bank of America stating that a transfer of Rs 20 lacs with transaction reference number being made by him and it also stated that the money is on hold for want of shipment receipt. This person wanted me to courier the coins to his friend at Bangalore immediately and send the courier slip to him so that he would instruct the bank to release the amount. The speed of the entire transaction and his hurry for me to courier the coins raised my antenna of a possible scam so I reread the mail in detail and I found a discrepancy the mail had come from a mail server usa.com and not from the bank domain. I then checked the veracity of the mail and found that it is a fake id.

The second person also from USA said he is collecting the coins for a museum there and he asked me if I have Neteller account and if i do not have it to download the app and register there. Well i did that and sent across the linked email id to the person and similarly within 30 minutes I had a notification on my mail saying that Rs 22 lacs has been transferred to my neteller account but the fund is on hold until I activate the account by clicking a link and pay Rs 6000 for the activation of the account. The moment i read the mail I understood it is a scam and I told the person with whom I was corresponding that the coins are not available.

Lessons learnt from this entire episode were greed does bring about unwanted problems. It was fortunate that I was able to see that both the mails were phishing as the addresses was not from the bank’s domain or Neteller’s domain instead from usa.com & gmail.com. I keep wondering as how many people in India have fallen prey to these con artists. All the persons involved in this scams generally call or message on whatsapp from +234 & +1 country codes (Nigeria or USA). 

Guidelines for common people selling old coins

•  Never believe the person who is offering to pay up huge amount without checking the item being sold.
• Never courier or hand over the coins before the money is realised. The con artist will give you bank confirmation and so forth but unless the money is in your account it is never sure you will receive the money. 
• In case a face to face meet is arranged never go alone and also never meet at isolated places. It would be nice if you go with two or three persons and always meet in a crowded place where people are milling around always.
• Never believe the advertisement or a person that gives you an inflated value of coin. It would be better if you can evaluate the coin you hold by numismatic clubs or serious coin collectors. It is always better to take second and third opinions as persons may try to down price the value so that they can relieve you of the coin
• In the event you have a very rare coin then it is better to sell the same through auction houses though there may be additional charges such as their commissions and taxes
• Coins that are more than 100 years old cannot be sold out of India without the permission of Archaeological Society of India.
• In case you are not getting good value for your coins retain your collection for it would surely appreciate over a period of time. 

Readers knowing some serious collectors please refer them to me as I have few coins to dispose. Please give your comments and suggestion

Heights of Glory

Last few days we have been hearing about traffic jams, deaths and crowding on the way to the summit of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world and according to veteran mountaineers /climbers this is being attributed to unusual number of permit being issued by the government of Nepal this year and hordes of inexperienced climbers. Mountain climbing is an adventure sport with lot of hard work, physical fitness and experience of climbs to various other peaks in various parts of the world even before deciding to take on Mount Everest which sure is a pinnacle in this sport.

This year 77 Indian are aspiring to climb the Everest this year 2019 out of nearly thousand persons, largest contingent from a single country and am not sure how many of them are hard core mountaineers with sufficient training and experience. As of today May 28^th total of 18 persons have died on the route to summit out of which 5 are Indians, due to exhaustion or Acute mountain sickness. Given the exposure to the social media these days it has become a fad to do something that others have not done and post pictures on the instagram / face book and other platforms...so an averagely fit person with sufficient funds but without sufficient skills attempt the climbing of Everest with the help of an adventure tour companies that will arrange all the logistics, have experienced Sherpas to fix ropes and ladders for climbing, carry your baggage & oxygen cylinders, pitch tents, cook food and also instruct when to climb or sleep... in other words hand hold you all the way up to the summit and back. 

It is true that an expeditions to Everest requires to have deep pockets since the total cost of the expedition is anywhere between US $ 65,000 and $ 80,000 which includes permit cost of US$ 11,000 to be paid to the government of Nepal when you go along with companies based in West who rely on local high altitude support climbers and Sherpa. Local expedition companies charges around US$ 40,000 +. The total price includes everything from the wages of the guides and Sherpas to food, climbing kit, tents, transfers and some training in use of communication & medical equipments, climbing techniques, glacier travel, rope fixing, ascending, descending and safety techniques. But then spending this amount of money does not ensure you that you would reach the summit for it involve immense physical fitness, endurance and acclimatising to high altitude and finally the climate itself on the mountains which change quite drastically and life threatening too. No wonder the success ratio of people reaching the summit is less than 50% of the people attempting the climb.

Image Courtesy CNN new on the net

Most climbers can only spend few minutes at the top of the Everest without oxygen supplies and given the size of the summit which is just about approximately 5 Sq meters there is always a long queue of mountaineers above 8000 meters height wanting to scale the summit or descend. This area where the queuing happens is known as the death zone .This year inclement weather conditions has reduced the number of days that an attempt can be made to reach the summit and hence has lead to overcrowding near the top. See the image showing the queuing at the top .... Thank god that the weather was clear and did not change for the worse otherwise there would have been a disaster as over 250-300 climbers were waiting in a single file. Climbers deaths due to overcrowding during the ascent or descent in the death zone are official listed as death due to exhaustion but usually is due to the long exposures to high altitude or running out of oxygen supplies. There has been a call to limit the number of permits to be issued by Nepal Government in view of the overcrowding on the Mount Everest thereby can avoid considerable deaths near the pinnacle.

More than 270 deaths have occurred on Mount Everest from the first recorded death in 1922 and many bodies have been lying there buried in ice and snow but this does not seem to stop inexperienced climbers from attempting to climb the Everest. Is it foolhardy or stupidity i am not sure but it seem that the social media is the catalyst to such attempts by these inexperienced climbers/ tourists.

I am sure most of you would have seen the movie “Everest” which is an adaptation of the book Into Thin Air written by a survivor named Jon Krakauer of a disastrous expedition in 1996 when 12 people died trying to reach the summit on the same day. He has said “Everest is not real climbing. It’s rich people climbing. It’s a trophy on the wall and they are done...when i say I wish i had never gone...I really mean that “