I Don't Know About That - Pyramid Schemes

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

In this episode, the team discusses pyramid schemes with author of "Ponzinomics: The Untold Story of Multi-Level Marketing", Robert FitzPatrick.***Robert FitzPatrick's new book "Ponzinomics: The Untold Story of Multi-Level Marketing" is now available for pre-order on Amazon!***See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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No But you may find that out And I don't know about that With Jim Jefferies Wow I timed it beautifully You've never given the actual answer You were like Don't need to tune in for that episode.

No, no, no, they're not the same thing. You can turn this off now because no. They're three different things. One of them's a real person who's dead. One of them's a fictional character. And another one's a web page that helps you find things that no one really uses. I didn't know that was Chandler's last name. Chandler Bing.

Yeah, of course. I wasn't a huge Friends person. I wasn't either. Don't of course that. But everybody knows that. No, they don't. I'm somebody. Chandler Bing. Yeah, of course. I wasn't a huge Friends person. I wasn't either. Don't of course that. Everybody knows that. No, they don't. I'm somebody. Everyone knows that.

Hey, we got gigs. We're back, people. We're doing comedy. Me and Forrest are going to be doing some comedy for you if you live in Arizona. Phoenix. Ah, Phoenix, Arizona, yeah. Yeah, well, you got to be specific.

It's a big state. No, you can drive to it. We're driving there. You're not even in the same state. I'm not ready to get back on a plane. If you live in New Mexico, you could go to it too then, I guess, if you want to drive. New York?

Why not? We're at Stand Up Live in Phoenix from the 17th to the 19th of December. So have you got Christmas plans, you want to come and watch some comedy. I haven't done comedy really since February. Yeah, you're selling it. So I'm going to give it all my stuff. I'm going to write some jokes for you.

I'm going to work really hard. I'm going to put my best effort in. So come and see that. Stand up live is the name of the club. Stand up live. And I don't think it's going to be too expensive or anything like that. I mean, for us, we'll play some golf. We'll go out there, tell some jokes, have a drive.

I wonder how many arguments we'll have in the car trip. You and me? Yeah. I don't think we argue that much. Not in car trips, no. No. Are there specific places that you guys argue? Oh, yeah.

In my house, we have arguments every now and again. On the podcast. I think most of our arguments are on the podcast. In real life. In real life, we don't argue too much. So the election, right now we're recording it. The election hasn't been decided. It's the day after the election.

It's the day after the election. This is what we do on this podcast. By the time this comes out, everything will have gone. Pence will be president. Edit this podcast. By the time this comes out, everything will have gone. So edit this properly. Well done, Joe Biden. I voted for you. Well done, Donald Trump. I voted for you.

One of them will go in. One of them will go in. People will be happy with me on whatever base. Typical California. Vote for both of them. Yeah, well, it's a good system we had the electoral college thing and that's all i thought about watching the election it's just like just popular vote again this will be dated the electoral college is the dumbest fucking i got like family

members calling me up going i don't get what's going on because now the world's sort of invested in this election so the world's sort of and we this election. So the world's sort of – and we're always invested, but at the end of the night we go, oh, he won. Never she won. That's never happened. I was about to go, we go, he won, she won. No, we've never done that one. But now people are going, what's going on?

You get 16 for over there and 10 and 5 and all that type of stuff. That's family members of mine who don't listen to my podcast. Yeah, we explained it. I guarantee you didn't send them the link to it either. No, no. It's a lot of work. I don't like being on the internet. He doesn't know where to find it.

Yeah, I don't know where to find it. You wouldn't know how to send a link to the podcast. I know how to copy and paste. You hold your finger down on your phone. I open my laptop about uh three times a year and it's always when i have to do a money transfer because the bank won't let you do it through the app and it's normally normally jack and i'm like jack where's the power cord that plugs into this thing i'm fucking an old man man yeah but i i'm very familiar with you sending links and most of

the time it's a screenshot i'm like like, hey, what are you talking about? And you just screenshot it. You go, find that. There's no links. I'm like, it's so easy. I'm an old man. Here's the story I'm talking about. Okay.

My school had one computer. Give me a fucking break. We had one. We all had to use it, like learn on it individually. How to type and all that stuff oh yeah yeah yeah all that all that

comment world Jack do you want to do comment world that was made by some guy named Dave Dave's angry Dave's wife's upset all the time.

What are you doing in the basement, Dave? Just bashing pans together. Common World. What is that? It's from Wayne's World. It's a Wayne's World type of song. I know. First comment.

Starting strong. I don't understand this one. I'll show it to you guys for the extra value. Send me a link. Just says Borf. Borf? Borf period. And did you google what borf means nope bored of something fuck it'll be something like that borf why didn't you google what borf meant i don't think it means anything it was like the first comment i wanted the podcast what does borf stand for now i'm going to google but

it wasn't all caps yeah urban dictionary borf Yeah, Urban Dictionary, BORF. Here we are. BORF, here we go. That's another game we play on Unsolicited. BORF was a graffiti campaign seen in and around Washington, D.C. during 2004 and 2005, carried out by John Tzombisko or something, while studying at the Coronado College of Art and Design. Yeah, it also says at WebsterDictionary.org to unceremoniously disconnect someone from a system without prior warning.

Fucking Borf. I got Borfed last week. Yeah, 10 years after the Borf campaign. It's been 10 years. Campaign. That was in 2015. It had been 10 years. It's been 15 years since the Borf campaign.

Borf's back, baby. I think it was a character on Star Trek, too. Wasn't there a guy named Borf? I have no idea. There was Alf, but that was a puppet. From what I can tell, Borf is your poor man's Banksy. He does the stencils. And you go, yeah, Borf is the Pepsi.

I understand that reference. You go, yeah, Borf is the Pepsi. Oh, wow. I understand that reference. Yeah, so it's like you go, I've got an original Borf in my house. Wait, there was a guy named Worf on Star Trek. Yeah, Worf. Yeah, Worf. Worf. Yeah.

Worf. Oh, Torf. Yeah, no, there was Worf on Star Trek. I have a feeling this comment has nothing to do with any of these things. I think someone's an idiot and posted Borf. Yeah. It sounds like a noise you would make. Mm-hmm.

What's that? We talked about onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia. Yeah. Borf. Yeah. I don't want someone

to fall over. It's like a vomit sound. Borf. Borf. Yeah. Borf is when you vomit into your mouth and swallow it again.

There we go. It doesn't come up. And that's how this guy feels when he watches this podcast, apparently. This comment says, Forrest sounds, looks, and sounds like if you poked him, he would growl at you. Yeah.

I mean, if you poked anyone, they'd growl at you, wouldn't you? Who wouldn't growl if they got poked? It just gets poked. If you made like a forest doll that had one of those strings that you have to pull and then it goes back in, do they make those toys? Yeah, probably. It feels like an old school.

No, there's a button on them now. There's just a button. But I used to like the one where you pulled the cord and the cord went back in and you'd pull one from Forrest and you'd be like, I don't know. That's just the winding motor inside of it. People would be like, my Forrest doll's broken. They'd go, no, no, it's working perfectly.

A lot of kids got strangled on that string. Someone named Hung Lo says... Yeah, I don't think his name's hung low i don't think his name's hung low there's no asian fella called hung low and that's not an asian penis thing shut up i'm just saying that no one's called no one said anything you're the one yeah well it wasn't so they hung low said i can tell jack isn't getting any action from his voice because it's Well, it wasn't. So Hung Lo said, I can tell Jack isn't getting any action from his voice because it's also my voice. And is your screen name Hung Lo?

It is. I'm just talking to myself. I think your voice is quite delightful. Really? Yeah. If I was a girl, I'd fuck that voice. All right. Morph.

What I'm saying is this new headband thing you're going through where you're just wearing headbands it's anytime he has long hair it's the hippie it's the hippie

rainbow dead headband too on top of it it's true so for the Andrew Yang podcast a lot of the Yang gang came out a lot of the Yang gang came out a lot of people they said

I'm one of the Yang gang I'm happy that following Andrew has led me to Jim Jefferies I'm now a subscriber alright Yang gang does it again we give universal podcast math more people universal basic podcast

we give universal podcast. Math. More people. Universal basic podcast. We give basic podcast. We really do. You don't get more basic than this. Borf. You learn a little bit. You laugh a little bit. You borf.

Yeah. You borf a lot. I laughed. I cried. I borf. Do we have to make t-shirts now that say borf? I think so. Thank you, commenter.

I'll give him credit in a second uh someone said jim should be andrew yang's anger translator when he's president anger oh like out of the team bill yeah i look i need a that means that i i would be angry for him yeah yeah all right yeah i could do that okay look. Look, it's free fucking money, you cunts. Just take it. It doesn't mean you're a communist. Just fuck off. I think you got the job. All he's got to do is become president, and that's so easy.

Yeah, yeah. Next. I heard the comment about Kelly's blonde hair and had to come and look. I was sure she was black. Lol. Oh, really? I don't know if your voice sounds wild or backer. There were some comments that said I sounded like Bill Burr's wife.

Right. Okay. But, okay. Well, I'm not black. People have said that about me, too. Really? Not on this podcast, but people that have never met me that I've initially met over the phone,

like a lot of comics, I had talked to them when they were like coming to Florida to do gigs that I'd never met. And then I'd meet them and then I'd help them get gigs. And then I'd meet them and they're like,

oh, you're black. I was like, okay. No one's ever mistaken me for black. I look exactly like I sound. We got some location updates. People saying where they're listening from. Someone says they're listening from Wales, not the animal. They wanted to specify.

Wales is just part of Great Britain. And then they'll go, no, it's not. We're lovely. We have our own flag. We have our own flag with a dragon. Is that how they sound? Yeah. I do the Welsh voice and then I start sounding Indian.

It's very difficult. It slips in and out. I was thinking it was like Danish or something. They have their own language. If you ever, like, okay, there's like a train station that has, I don't know, it's the longest word in the world. It has like 28 or 30 something letters. Oh, I've seen that picture, yeah.

And they do like, they triple down on L's. They go like L-L-L-L-Y-J-L-L-L-H-Y-F-L-I-N-G-U-I. I've seen that. A Flinger to Flanger Flinger Wee Station. And they have their own accent. I once got a speeding ticket in wales and they give you the like it's a dying language there's like a thousand people who speak it no no i know someone else is going to write in and they're going to go no we all speak it yeah well you're understanding me

right now so shut the fuck up right so but anyway so they sent me the speeding fine and then they had the option of fucking you could you could write it in wale welsh or you could write it in whale welsh or you could write it in english and i had a welsh friend and i got them to fill in the ticket in welsh all the information right and then they sent it back to me going can you just do it in english uh someone else is from the netherlands oh that's holland see the netherlands that's one of those places right you got your holland the netherlands and then your dutch right yeah pick pick one of them will you it's also it's also it's like oh we call it the netherlands you call it holland it's like it's like how germany calls it deutschland yeah if you want to call it deutschland i'll call it deutschland i don't have to have my special

word you name it what you like and i'll fall in line it's like gender pronouns yeah whatever you want to be called whatever you want to be called deutschland the netherlands sounds like something like out of jk rowling's book or something yeah it doesn't even sound like a real place the netherlands sounds inappropriate it sounds bad like you don't go to the netherlands you'll die but then they're called the d. Well, they are Dutch. Yeah, but... The place isn't called Dutch. No, but I'm Australian.

I come from Australia. You're American. You come from America, right? I prefer to be called United Statesian. That's what I like to be called. So they should be called like... Dutchlands. Hollylanders.

I like that one. Hollylanders is good. Hellesians. Hellesian? That sounds like a one. Halleasians. Halleasians. Halleasians? That sounds like a medical problem, actually. Yeah. My skin just fell off because of all the Halleasians. Yeah.

Netherlandians. There you go. Hollish. I'll give you... What do you call someone from LA? Angelina. Angelina. Okay.

What do you call someone from Sydney? Sydneyer. Sydney Cider. Oh,er. Sydney Cider. Oh, yeah. Sydney Cider is what we call it. And this is the weirdest one. What do you call someone from Western Australia? Illiterate.

A sand groper. A sand groper? That sounds bad. Tell me I'm wrong. Even from Perth? Yep, sand groper. A sand groper? That sounds bad. Tell me I'm wrong. Even from Perth? Yep. Sand gropers. Sand groper might come with some weird options, Kelly.

I know. I'm just kidding. A sand groper. Look it up on the right website. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. You're going to seem racist now. If you're setting me up.

Yeah, if you went, ah, these bloody sand gropers. Oh, it's one word. Yeah, sand groper, one word. Well, first of all, they are an insect, but then it does say a Western Australian. A Western Australian is called a sand groper. Do they want to be called sand gropers? I think they like it. I mean, they're-

I think they enjoy it. I think they think it's a fun thing to say at parties. This is what a sand groper bug is. I'm a sand groper. Oh, it's a disgusting insect. It's horrible. I don't think this is a good name to have.

Is that like magnified? I don't know. It's a wholly subterranean larva form insect that may grow up to seven centimeters. Yeah, that's pretty big. No thanks.

I'm a Sydney cider. Sydney cider? Sydney cider. This last person says they're listening from Tehran, Iran. Oh, I didn't know they still let the podcast into there. That's good.

I don't know. Maybe the internet. They're allowed all stuff. Tehran? Yeah. Yeah, they have the internet. Yeah, but like, you know how, like, are we, is this thing broadcasted in China? Yes.

Are we broadcasted in North Korea? Don't know. Yeah, don't know. If you're listening in North Korea... I feel like Kim Jong-un probably listens. Yeah, he listens. How you doing, Kim? I'm going to wear my Kim Jong-un shirt next time.

How you doing, Kimmy? I really do have one. This is a compliment we got. I'm going to read it verbatim. The way that Jack just said it, it's like, it's one of those rare things you find out in the wild. Very rarely seen. It's actually from eight weeks ago.

He just found it. It's actually from my mom. It's not. It's from a YouTube comment. It says, the best show on YouTube. I can sit down and listen for hours to jim talk about anything by the way we an episode on porn ah good good did i tell this story about my mother's instagram account no i don't think so this is this is funny right so my mother passed away that's not the funny bit

but you might have told this but you can tell my mother passed away and uh she had an instagram account that she used to just like you know i've told the bit where she liked mean things about me this is not that right so my mother would she followed me she followed my brothers she followed all of her grandchildren she would like and comment on all their photos and all that type of stuff every time one of my my nieces put up a picture my mom mum would put a comment underneath. Anyway, that account lay dormant. You know, my mother died and then all of a sudden, just about a month ago, it came back to life out of nowhere. Yeah, started liking Instagram sluts and models and stuff like this

and I'm like, what the fuck's going on with mum's account? Now it's following all these porn stars and stuff like that my father inherited uh my mother's phone he doesn't know how to sign up a new instagram account but he's just pressed on the app and he started following some pretty shady women i just love it i love the thought that somewhere on instagram there's like a girl the girl and it says, nice tits, sweetie. The photo is still like a picture of my mother reading a book to my son when he was like two. It's like this little old grandma and she posted a couple of pictures of dogs and now she follows someone called Sheila Baines. I'd lick your asshole that reminds me that

there's that story we were gonna I've never gotten around to tell someone's a comment they said and god the blue balls they're giving us with this story they keep seemingly pushing geez real damn teases I gotta sell some products come and see us in Arizona we're gonna read ads right

now and then we'll do that story. Oh, great. All right. Nice. All right. This Black Friday, if you're on the hunt for men essentials, which I always am on Black Friday. Black Friday is when I'm always hunting for me men's essentials.

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oven what have you got to be thankful I'll tell you what you got to be thankful for ship station right and holiday shoppers are buying more stuff online than ever before if you're an online seller and you're struggling to keep up get your ship online than ever before if you're an online seller and you're struggling to keep up get your ship together with ship station when you're selling online getting a massive amount of orders out quickly quickly can be tough which shipping carrier should you use are you getting the best rates will it be delivered on time that's why my choice is shipstation.com it's the the fastest, easiest, and most affordable way to manage and ship your orders in just a few clickety clicks. You're managing orders, printing

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Make ship happen. You didn't ask me about my Etsy store, my Etsy Rockstar. Have you got an Etsy Rockstar? I had a Rockstore, but now it's a knick-knack store. Oh. Yeah, so it's going well. I use Shipstation. We'll just leave that at the end. Yeah, leave that at the end. That was a good read. Jim Code. Yeah. code yeah Jim Jimmy cold you get two months free what do you want hey Forrest hey hey how you doing man I'm very good it's funny to see you here do you ever use incognito mode when you're looking for something on the online yeah yeah yeah I uh when I'm getting plane tickets I go there because I'll keep your information and this charge you more for the tickets. No, that doesn't work.

Let me tell you something. In Conito mode, it does not hide all your activity. It doesn't matter what mode you use or how many times you clear your browsing history, the internet service provider can still see every single website you have ever visited.

It's not good for you too. That's why, that's why even when I'm at home, I never go online without using ExpressVPN. And what's that? Good, good question.

It doesn't matter where you get your internet from. Internet service providers in the US can legally sell your information to ad companies. Sometimes I feel like

I'm just talking and then the internet is advertising products to me. You know what I mean? I've been thinking about stuff. No, that happens. They've proven that that happens. Express VPN is an app that reroutes your internet connection through their secure services so your internet service provider can't see the sites you visited.

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Dang. That's expressvpn r e s s v p n.com slash I don't know express vpn.com slash I don't know to learn more. Okay. So let's introduce our guest now. Please welcome to the show Robert Fitzpatrick. Robert Fitzpatrick. Yeah. All right. Thank you. How are you doing, Robert? I'm good. Thank you. Nice to be here with you. Yes.

All right. This is a part of the show. Oh, I keep forgetting we have music for us now. This is Judging a Book by Its Cover. We have some music. Yes, though. Yes, though. Yes, though.

Judging a book by its cover. It's more effective if I stop saying that we have a song. Every week I'm like, we have a song. And then we play the song. It's very good. Imagine if they did that on Wheel of Fortune every time. All right, we have some sound effects. Before we release the sentence, we have a song.

Yeah, before the show starts, the theme song. Like for any show. They used to do it on the Gary Shandling show. Now's the show starts the theme song like for any show now it's time for they used to do it on the gary shanling so now's the time for the theme song i think um okay uh robert what we're gonna do is jim's gonna try and guess what you're here to talk about we're an expert in by asking some yes or no questions he's certainly going to look behind you i don't know if that's going to help him but uh i don't think i don't think robert's house is very telling of what his expertise is he has a table behind him with one chair. I can't see the other side of the table.

There might be another chair. I think there is. And I did see his wife walk around in the background, so I don't think his specialty is living alone. He has a headset on him that makes him look like a gamer, but I don't know if he's – I'm going to say video games because he's expertise. We should do that one, though.

That's a good one. Ask him some questions. Okay. Have you ever done a TED Talk, Robert? No, I've never done a TED Talk, no. Do you lecture people, like professionally, not just like, you kids should pull your pants up? I do a little bit of public speaking, but not very much.

That's not my thing to do public speaking, but I have on occasion. Have you written any works of fiction? No. Everything I've written is nonfiction. Nonfiction. So you've written books. I've written books, yes. You've written books.

Nonfiction. So you've written books. I've written books, yes. Written books. Are these books, things, books that are, are they textbooks? No, not quite textbooks. They are instructive. They're educational, but you would not call them a textbook. Are they historical? Are they historical? They include history, for sure. There is a history element to the books, very important, but they would not be called history books.

In fact, the books have a difficult time being placed. That's part of the issue is how to categorize it. How to categorize it. You want a hint? Yes. As always, I'm going to give you a hint that won't probably help you. Okay. Think of, this is going to be throwing you off track, but he's an expert in the thing that has two words in it, and one of the words, Egypt.

Think about Egypt. Wow. Ancient Egypt. No, I wouldn't have given you the word Egypt. Yeah, think about Egypt. The word is not Egypt. It's related to Egypt. Yeah, there's two words.

He's an expert in blank, blank, and Egypt is your clue for the first one. Py word is not Egypt. It's related to Egypt. Yeah, there's two words. He's an expert in blank, blank. And Egypt is your clue for the first word. Pyramids. Yeah, that's the first word. Okay, pyramids. You have the first word. He's an expert in pyramid.

Schemes. That's it. Yeah, pyramids. You judged that book by its cover. Yeah. Not really. Pyramids.

With some hints. Yes. Like, German schemes. With some hints. Yes. Like Amway. Well, we're going to talk about it. I had a lot of people try to sell me Amway during the day. You get those old friends from school who ring you up. Yes. And they're just like this, hey, we haven't talked for a while.

How about we have coffee? And you're like, ah, this guy, he was all right. He was such a prick in high school, but I'll have a coffee with him. And then he's like, Amway. And you're like, ah, this guy, he was all right. He was such a prick in high school, but I'll have a coffee with him. And then he's like, am I? And you're like, oh, man. Let me properly introduce Robert. Robert Fitzpatrick is the author of Ponzionomics. I think I said that right, Ponzionomics.

Ponzionomics. Ponzi schemes. So what you do is you buy one of his books and then you tell some other friends and then they buy the books and then what happens is they get other people and we all get rich yeah i'm gonna start out because i messed up robert fitzpatrick is the author of ponzi nomics the untold story of multi-level marketing he is regarded as the foremost national expert on pyramid schemes disguised as sales companies he has served as an expert witness in 33 court cases including state

and federal prosecutions against multi-level marketing pyramids. And he has provided consultation to many Wall Street investment firms for research into disguised pyramid schemes. And there's some other stuff we'll include in there, too. But for more information, you can go to his Facebook page, at Ponzinomics, the book. And we'll put the book up there, too. So if you are interested in buying it and learning more about Pyramids games, we'll put a picture up there of Ponzinomics and a link of where to get it. I'm pretty sure they can get it on Amazon and anywhere. I know it's coming out, but I think by the time this podcast comes out,

it's going to be pretty close to coming out. So it'll be a brand new book. And yeah, welcome to the show. Please tell us how you got into this because as we were talking yesterday, it's not something you can get a degree in, right? Can't get a degree, no. And it's not something anybody would intend to the show. Please tell us how you got into this, because as we were talking yesterday, it's not something you can get a degree in, right? You can't get a degree, no, and it's not something anybody would intend to get involved in. So totally happenstance, fate. I have a background in business, which involves sales companies, distribution companies.

I worked as a consultant in channel management and that sort of thing. So I had some, let's say, preparation in the real business world. But about 25 years ago, mid-80s or so, yeah, more than that, longer than that, 35 years ago, I was invited by friends to join a pyramid scheme. I didn't know it was a pyramid scheme. It wasn't called a pyramid scheme. They are since categorized as gifting schemes. This one was called the airplane game. And essentially, it's a pyramid scheme, a recruiting scheme. You put in $1,500. And when eight new people come in, you get their $1,500 each. So you get $12,000 for the $1,500 you put in. And then of course they need each eight more people themselves.

So and then the 64 that they recruit, they need each eight more people. That's the way it works. And this type of scheme I was invited by friends. I got involved in it briefly. And I tasted, I tasted that ecstasy that euphoria, And I tasted that ecstasy, that euphoria, that transformation of hope that people do experience when they have a glimpse of their life becoming completely changed due to money flowing into them. When it collapsed and was prosecuted by the police, I sort of woke up. I had that taste of prison. And I woke up and I was, you know, I was just an ant and I wasn't a leader or an instigator. But I woke up and said, how could this, how could I not have seen this?

And what was that power that came over us? And it spread like a wildfire across South Florida, where I lived at the time. But it was in many other states as well. And this fascinated me. I just had to understand it. When I went to research it, I discovered there's almost nothing written about pyramid schemes. And that eventually led to my writing a book. It took a number of years and it took off from there. I was contacted by the media and then law firms and so on. And there's, just so everybody knows, I didn't mention this, there's a website,

Pyramid Scheme Alert. Put that in Google. Yeah,.org. .org, and there's a lot of resources on there. It sounds very close to religion. Yeah. Like you meet one person and you preach to those people and they preach to other people and then we're all going to go, more like a cult maybe, which is an early religion.

Yeah. Cults are religions that haven't quite taken off. They don't have a lot of good buildings. Okay, so, Robert, what we're going to do is we're going to see what Jim knows or thinks he knows about pyramid schemes. I'm going to prod him along with some questions. Sounds like he knows quite a lot already. We'll see how he does.

And at the end of that, you're going to grade him on 0 through 10 on accuracy. Kelly's going to grade him on confidence. I'm going to grade him on et cetera. If you score 21 through 30, I'll give you $10. If you get 11 through 20, Jack has to give me $10. Then 0 through 10,

Jack and you both have to give me $10. Then we all get rich. I don't know if that's a pyramid scheme. Where do I get money in this way? You have to give me $10. All right. And then we all get rich. I don't know if that's a pyramid scheme, but it just sounds like it. Where do I get money in this way? No, no. You have to get three friends to get the $10. I hate this podcast. You have to get Luis to join.

You're the honey trap. You give us some legitimacy. Okay. All right, Jim, let's start. What is a pyramid scheme? Pyramid scheme is where one person tells you that you sell a product or an idea or buy something in something and then if you get other people to do it and it might be something like a weight loss thing where we all do this or or a makeup product or something like that

and then you sell the products under them and each person that you recruit you get more money going along and so there's the theory that you, people get caught out to this day by them, even though we know they're bad because they're going, well, someone's getting rich. It's just these other lazy people who didn't push the product hard enough. And that's why they didn't really, really do it. I'm not quite sure why it's illegal or if it is illegal. But he said the police police came so there must be some uh illegalities uh involved okay you said it's bad why is it bad um because it rips off

people and it's uh it's it's it's give it taking from peter to give to paul you know so the money just keeps circling around and no one ever really gets it you never understood that saying i don't know the bible so so Peter to Paul. Oh, I thought that was the guy that kicked out of the Beatles. Take away Pete Best and give it to Paul McCartney. That's where the saying comes from, right? Okay. Thanks, Jack.

What is the difference between a pyramid scheme and a Ponzi scheme? I don't believe there is a difference. I believe that they're the same thing and they're just different names. And I don't know where the word Ponzi comes from or what Ponzi means. Hey, give me your money. It's when it's really cool, the scheme. Like, hey, it's Ponzi. Ponzi, Ponzi.

Oh, yeah, like Ponzi. Kick the jukebox. A Ponzi scheme. Like, what's going to happen is, come into my office. It's a bathroom. We'll talk about this. You guys are 15. I'm an adult.

Yeah, I'm an adult who hangs out in a milk shop bar, and I live in a studio apartment in Milwaukee. Listen to me. I've got ideas. Do you know what MLM is or what it stands for? Martin Luther Mark. I mean, probably somebody has that monogram. Is it MLN?

MLM. Mike is the last name? It is now. Martin Luther Mark. No, it's a three-pronged first name. MLK means Martin Luther King. Yeah, we know that. Well, I did mention it in Robert's bio.

I mentioned this phrasing of words, MLM. No? Okay. We'll move on. MLN. Is it the name of a company? An MLN? MLM.

I have to tell you what it is to ask you the rest of the questions. MLN? MLM. MLM. Yeah. I have to tell you what it is to ask you the rest of the questions. It's multi-level marketing. Multi-level marketing.

Okay. So it's basically the backbone of all this stuff martin luther mike okay how many people do you think are involved in mlms and like in like what countries do you think it's most prevalent um i think it's probably most prevalent in capitalist societies so i don't think you would you would get this happening in a communist country um i think it feels like it's a white person activity that might be racist of me to say but it feels like it's it's it's one of our things you're white you can you can say it about white people yeah i think it's a white we have enough time to figure it out you know i don't think asians get involved in them and i don't think Asians get involved in them, and I don't think it's happening in Nigeria.

What? That's Nigeria. There's no scams in Nigeria. I know, but that's scams. I know. Yeah, but those scams, they're like, he's a prince, and he needs the money to free his kingdom and all that type of stuff. White people do have a propensity for cults, I feel like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

White people like the cults. We're also number one in serial killers. You can say what you want about white people, but geez, we're good serial killers. How long has it been around? And when was it invented or where? Do you know anything? What do you think the first one was?

I think the first one would have been, first pyramid scheme. I reckon this would have been way back when someone was selling snake oil and there was something that you sell this elixir. So I'm going to say the turn of the 20th century would have been when the Ponzi scheme came into. I like when you're very vague. Turn of the 20th century. Okay.

All right. 1904. No, it's fine. Turn of the 20th century is fine. You're good. I just looked. And here in America, you think it was? Or where do you think?

No, I think the original one was in New Zealand. And it was one bloke trying to sell off some sheep and saying, you get this one sheep and they'll fuck and you'll get some more sheep. And none of them were rams and they couldn't reproduce and everyone got screwed. That's the answer to say that I don't know where it originated. Maybe America. It feels like maybe something that happened in America in the 80s and 1904.

Yeah. And 1904. So when I say multi-level marketing, this next – see, I should ask this question first. Why are multi-level marketings associated with pyramid schemes? Like do you know what a multi-level marketing is? Because it looks like a pyramid. so there's one person at the top and then there's two people and then those two people split off into thing and then they split off and they split off and if you draw it would be a pyramid all right so it's it's getting down

to the bottom it's it's basically like trickle down economics but in a weird way all right can you name any notable pyramid schemes um at the risk of being sued by these companies, but I believe... I think you can say whether you think it's multi-level marketing. I believe Amway. I believe Avon. I believe probably there was a whole lot of things that they did with international phone cards. There was a whole lot of things that they did with international phone cards. They do them with weight loss products and stuff like that.

I'm sure I'm talking about this. And I'm sure there's a bigger thing that you can do. But I've had Amway. That's the one that people would try to sell to me. There's been one in the news lately because there's a person that's been in the news lately that has been associated with one. No, I don't know. Okay, we'll talk about it. I don't know. The show is called I Don't Know About That.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll ask a couple more questions and we'll get into it because Robert has a lot of information. All I know is this is what I do know. This is what I do know. If anyone comes to you with a big opportunity, it's probably not real. Just in general like i found anything good that i've done in business in my life i've had to search out and research and do myself no one has never landed in my lap so if anything seems too good to be true it normally is yeah no one sees a pyramid scheme damn it they do it the original pyramid scheme i'm gonna take

it back four thousand years yeah yeah it was it was Jewish slaves and they were making pyramids. They were like, you get to live in these afterwards. You do. Yeah, you do, man. Yeah, you build our pyramid, then you get somebody else to build your pyramid. And that's why things, we get the word fair, something being not fair from the pharaohs. Is that true?

You just make that? That's pretty good. That's's confident he's getting a 15 confidence um uh i asked you who bernie madoff was oh yeah bernie madoff well he he i don't know if what he did was a ponzi scheme but he was telling he was fiddling the books and he was saying that oh this is how much money much money that your investments are doing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he was paying off some investors by getting other people to invest into his company. You give me a quarter million dollars, you give me $2 million. And he paid off all those other people, the 100,000 each and all that type of stuff. And then he said, oh, the stock keeps rising.

And what really caught him out was, was when there was the crash, Bernie was the only person who was still standing. And people were like, well, this seems a bit fucking weird. And there was people who lost money in the Bernie, what's his name, Bernie Madoff. Kevin Bacon had all of his money in there. Really? Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's the Bacon. Yeah, I like that. Kevin Bacon, he had to keep acting and doing bit part roles and stuff like that. And go, fucking Bernie Madoff, the prick. So somebody makes money, Adam, right? Is anybody making money? Well, the guy, the person who's running the scam,

the person who runs the Ponzi scheme. But other than that? I think that other mid-level people, high up people can make money. And then as it trickles down lower and lower and lower, people make less and less and less until there's people who are just being completely used for these fat cats at the top.

Okay. What is the eight ball model um it's it's where you go oh is this a good investment you shake it up and you look at it and you go oh not at this time i wasn't expecting that i really thought you were going to do a cocaine reference. Wow. You always surprise me. Yeah, it's three and a half grams or something. New leaf here. Let's see here. A couple more. Has there been an increase or a decrease in pyramid schemes right now? I'm going to say there's been a decrease because people know more about them.

When people didn't know about them. And maybe the internet has made it easier to do, but it's also probably made it easier to uncover okay so I'm gonna say I'm gonna say oh no the internet I'm gonna say an increase because of the bloody internet in it fucks everything okay increase and then one last question what are the legal repercussions for those running a pyramid scheme? Prison. White-collar crimes. So white-collar prison.

For all of them? I mean, if you're saying that. Well, see, this is what I don't know. Some of them must be legal pyramid schemes and some of them must be illegal pyramid schemes. Like maybe a Ponzi scheme is illegal and a pyramid scheme is legal. Okay. Like, I don't know. I just feel like anything

where you get into a room and you all punch the sky and you all go yeah and you go and we're all gonna do this and someone gives a big speech and everyone's dancing around going we're all gonna get rich together getting rich is really hard yeah it's really hard and you have to do it by yourself there's no one's gonna hand it to you you have to figure out a way to do it all right um all right i think we're done for now we'll talk to robert and uh i don't know how to increase my money i don't know how to make it go up like a little bit like three percent or something well you gotta sell some skincare apart from that i don't know how to double it and shit like that i know how to put it on red or black that's really the option um i'm talking about gambling here okay uh robert fitzpatrick how did jim do on his knowledge of

pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing on a scale of zero to ten pretty good huh ten's the best uh ten's the best um i would have to give him a jim about five in fact i'd be a little afraid if somebody presented a pyramid scheme dressed the way they usually are you might not recognize it and um could could be victimized that's why i don't enter into any business things and i got a money guy who i just i call him bernie madoff sometimes i'm like you fucking me man like i ring him up and he goes no this is good i'm like oh i don't know um the thing is about pyramid schemes uh you know i don't know about that isn't quite the right term for pyramid schemes because it's this Mark Twain, I think Mark Twain's attributed to saying this, it's not the things

we don't know that get us trouble. It's the things we do know that aren't true. So, and the case of pyramid schemes, it's, uh, there's so much disinformation and fantasy and, and so on out there, uh, fabricated stories about them. Most people have some concepts of what they are, but there's turned out to be not true. So when the thing comes to them, they don't know, they don't recognize it, you know, because they think, they think they do know. So there's a few things about it. So Jim better be careful is what you're saying. Yes. Yeah. And here's the biggest distinction. Jim referred to legal and illegal pyramid schemes.

And so that would imply that a pyramid scheme might actually be workable or it depends. Either it means they're frauds that aren't prosecuted, and then you would call it legal. And that's true. Or they're frauds that are legal, but how could a fraud be legal? And that's kind of what we've all been conditioned to think, that possibly this thing that doesn't really look like it could work, but because nobody's prosecuting it, must be legal. If it's legal, it must be viable, which means maybe it's a good deal. And it's not a good deal, for sure.

All right, let's see what Kelly gave Jim on confidence. Confidence was a 15. 15, wow. Yeah, easy. That's a 20. But I want some money. So mine is 15. So you're at a five.

You and Jack only $10. Damn. Yeah. That's how it works. Sorry. We are now enrolled in Forrest's pyramid scheme. Now get three friends. I sometimes wonder whether I'm running a pyramid scheme myself.

Yeah. Like I get jack to do something and then two of his friends come over and move furniture and yeah but you pay jack and i pay them and then they pay them and then jack it's all gonna come back to you yeah you promise him opportunities i'm gonna be president of the business one day you can't even see jack uh, because he's not on camera. That's the opportunities he's getting right now. It's a voice in the dark.

You are the second highest employee in Nugget Productions. That's pretty good. That's true. I am second highest. And I'm thinking of retiring. Okay. So, Jim, I asked him what appearance game he says one person what do you say you get you get some friends sell them sell some products get some more people

i think this is one of the reasons i don't have a lot of friends so i think that's the reason that i've never really gotten involved in one of these things like You've just got to get more people. I'm like, fuck, that's going to be hard. Jack. Two of Jack's friends. I've got a lot of friends. What's the textbook definition of a pyramid scheme? Actually, that's not a bad definition. It's what they call an endless chain.

You get money from recruiting three other people. You get their money. Why would they give you get money from recruiting three other people, you get their money. And you say, well, why would they give you their money? Well, because they can each recruit three and they get their money. But it's actually a linked chain. So not only do you get money from the three you recruit, you get money from the nine they recruited and the 27 they recruited and so on, the 81. So it's a linked and endless chain. The other thing that was good is you said it

involves a product. A lot of people are misled into these schemes because they hear about a product, skincare, cosmetic, anti-aging, weight loss powder, something like that. So they said, well, how could it be a pyramid scheme? They're selling a product, but they're really not selling a product, but they're recruiting everybody. They're recruiting people to join the chain. That's really where you make your money. That's the real promise. That's buying and selling. What happens when they sell the product? Don't they get income in from that? This is where I lose it. Because I understand the theory is that if you get more people and they give you money, then they get more people and they get money, it eventually has to end.

The people at the bottom have to have no money, right, for everyone else to have money. But where does the money go from the products that are sold? Well, in other words, let's just say the money is just – the products are just a vehicle for transferring the money. In other words, instead of saying, hey, give me $100, put it in an envelope, hand it to me, they say, here, you have to buy $100 worth of product every month. And built into that $100 is usually about $40, $50 that is transferred up the chain. So it's just a vehicle for laundering the money transfer that's occurring here. It's a prop. That's all it is.

And it's part of the disguise to make it look like it's a selling business. But think about this. You know, we spoke about, Kelly mentioned this about selling products. Could anybody today in the 21st century make a living selling some commodity product from their home on their own by themselves? I mean, how would you do it? And then for a company that is constantly adding more and more salespeople in your area and even urges you to go out and recruit other people who would become your competitors to do the same, right? So it's not real that part of it, of being a quote retail seller, a direct seller, that's just the disguise to cover up what is really going on, which is an endless recruiting chain. Yeah, we talked about this yesterday.

When I do lose weight, when I am losing weight, I like Herbalife. And I know that's in the realm of these multibusiness. But they sponsor the LA Galaxy. Yeah, but I mean, they're're a company but it's still like the thing i didn't read this part in your bio but i think you're on john oliver talking about herbal because he did a whole thing on herbal life john oliver did and i think that's what you're on there for robert that yeah well he he talked about multi-level marketing in general yeah yeah which uh and i should say that was uh one other thing that kind of dragged Jim's points down for me, is that about the spread.

Actually, it is an epidemic occurring worldwide on pyramid schemes through this type of pyramid selling. Over a thousand companies operating in the U.S. Asians are huge into these schemes. Asians are huge into these schemes. Yes. In fact, everybody is. There's really no, people ask me, who's the typical person to get in? Find me one who's not. But actually, I can find one who's not typical.

And it is, and you would fit this, Jim, it's people who are engaged in something that they love doing, that they're good at doing, right? And they're successful at doing. So anybody doing that is kind of not tempted and therefore very seldom gets solicited, you know? And if they do get solicited, it's kind of like a joke. Like, well, why would I do that? I'm doing something, you know, that's doing well for me. Why are you telling me about selling skincare lotion or

weight loss products? It seems absurd. But overall, it is spreading like wildfire and it does even better during bad times. So for example, it's actually booming right now during the pandemic because they're saying, hey, we have a business. You don't even have to leave your house. Well, the idea is that you take control of your own life you be your own boss and do all this stuff so in a time like this when people are like well shit my job's gone here we go i'm gonna go get rich selling herbal life i know exactly i know a girl though and she sells like the the weight loss things or whatever and she's she seems to be doing very well out of it lives in a big house and i talked to her and she goes yeah well most people don't make any money but some of us do is that correct that some people are

successful this and this is what brings people in like like same way gambling there are professional gamblers you wouldn't recommend anyone be a gambler but there are people who make money out of it or is it just no one makes money in the long term um About 1% per year makes some money, and a small percent of 1% make a lot of money. Over time though, remember the scheme is not running just one year, it runs year after year after year. The people at the bottom are churning over and over, quitting, new group joining, quitting, new group joining. So, if you added up, let's say,

five years, all the people that had joined Herbalife or any of these over a five year, how many of them made any money at all? It would be a tiny percent of a percent. So it isn't, I don't think it's a good description to say some make money, some don't. Virtually nobody makes money, but there are a few, a tiny few. The thing that's different about this, maybe a lot of people want to be NBA players. Not very many get to be NBA players. I still think I can. The ones that do are, of course, extremely skilled, talented people in that sport. But in multilevel marketing, it's not a competition because the money that the 1% got is the money the 99% lost.

Right. So they didn't outperform them. They just deceived them into joining a scheme that is designed so that only 1% can win. And how do they win? They have to have 99 others to lose. That's the way it's designed. So it's elaborately disguised. But at the end of the day, that's exactly what is going on. The chain is passing money up the chain and it's done in a formula so that only a tiny few and people are people just doing it over the internet

now because i remember maybe even 15 years ago people used to knock on my door all the time with these products and i i don't feel like that's happened a lot in the last at least the last five years yeah it's gone much more uh onto onto the internet and they don't really need so much for you to come to a house party. You don't have to come to a big rally as much anymore. They have very powerful tools on the internet. The internet, as you said, has at least provided information sources. When I first began investigating these, I was shocked to see there's no information out there. There are no books.

There's really no information. It's just like a dead zone. Now there's more online, but there's also massively more disinformation, recruiting solicitation, testimonials, and all that other stuff online. Was Tupperware one? Yes, Tupperware is a – and Tupperware, by the way, the majority of Tupperware sales today aren't Tupperware.

They're vitamins and other stuff too. But Tupperware was set up on the same thing. It's a party plan, they call it. But it's still you make money not really holding those parties because how many of those can you hold? But you get others to hold the party, same thing. They need others. So it is still a chain scheme.

I never got those parties. But Tupperware was arguably a very good product. Some of these products are quite good. At the time, Tupperware was arguably a very good product. Like some of these products quite good. At the time, Tupperware was revolutionary because we was making food stay longer and all that type of stuff. Don't leave food. Stay longer. I never got what the part, like what's going on at a Tupperware party? You put the food in here, you close it.

What else is going on at that party? A lot of suburban women being like, oh, my God. Okay, Kelly, as a woman, right, have you ever been to one of those sex toy parties? They're always like, because I always hear they always, and you all sit around and you talk about vibrators or something like that. Have you been to one of those? I've never been to one, but some of my friends have, yeah.

And those are multi-level marketing too. They are? Oh, I didn't even realize. Basically, any time you gather with your friends, you're getting schemed into something. Buffalo Wild Wings. Well, I don't even realize. Basically, any time you gather with your friends, you're getting schemed into something. Buffalo Wild Wings. I don't mind these schemes because it's the only time I get invited to a party.

I haven't even been invited to any of these things. I'm screwed. That's really sad. No one wants to scam me. I've been invited to a lot of parties where people have asked me to bring products, like alcohol and drugs, and then no one buys anything off me

and then I give it all away. Is this a similar type of thing? You're getting scammed, but I don't think you're doing it right. It was called bad friends. Something else you said too, Jim, that is insightful too about you said, I don't have very many friends. Well, actually, most people don't have a lot of friends at the level that you could go out and solicit money from them and get them to join. But let's say you do find five people in your life and you tell them to get involved. And they say, but how would I make money? Well, you just find five. Well, they might look around and say, yeah, but you're on my five.

And the five that you chose, three of them are my five too. Right, right, right, right. It's like MySpace. It's a kind of an illusion that you know five could all get it would just spread geometrically out it's part of the part of the the delusion is the whole idea too it's not a good scam for an anti-social grumpy fella no i just was i i never really thought about those quote-unquote tupperware parties where women are buying sex toys as a as as a pyramid scheme until just now.

But that means there's just a lot of lonely, sad women with a house full of dildos. You have to buy a hundred dollars worth of dildos a month. I think maybe my mother sold Tupperware. Dildos? No, no, no.

Tupperware. Oh, actual Tupperware. Yeah. Like I think she, I think she did one of those parties or something. I have a vague memory of something that happened like six months in my childhood you know it stopped but it's it you know

look that's that's part of the epidemic i don't i don't have the chutzpah to fucking call people up to invite them 100 do you ring them up and say it's just a party and then surprise them with like because they're the lingerie ones and all that type of stuff. Like I can't imagine like Forrest doing it. Yeah. Forrest. You, you wouldn't be good at this. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy.

It's like anytime. You'd be like, come on now, stuff. Buy it, it's good. Buy it, it's good. Anytime I get a message on Facebook from somebody I haven't talked to in 10 years,

I know that they're inviting me to one of these things. And I feel like you have to have a lot of balls to reach out to somebody that you don't have a relationship with at all and be like, by the way, buy this thing. I could never do that.

We do ads on here. We don't solicit any money, though. Use code Jim. All right, I asked Jim, what's the difference between a Ponzi scheme and a pyramid scheme? I also asked him what MLM stands for. Martin Luther Mike will be correct on that.

That was where he got the five points. Can you just – Yeah, that'll award the score. Martin Luther Mike. I had a product. I have a product. I have a product. Where you'll all buy products.

I don't know the rest of the speech. That's all you know. Our topic won't be judged on its sealness on the yeah on the character of its content but actually the food that can go inside something like that um so uh is it different than a ponzi scheme and then and then also you sort of talked on about it but like where did where was the first one and where did it start? He said New Zealand and sheep. I know he was kidding. I think turn of the century.

Yeah, okay. Well, you see, this multi-level marketing is a real thing. I mean, it's a model. It's a scheme. It's got a plan. It's got a structure, policies, rules, and so on. It's like a magic act. You don't play around with the magic. You do it exactly the same every time. And multi-level marketing is like that. Whether it's called Avon or Herbalife or Amway,

they're all essentially the same. They operate exactly the same. Now, that model got invented in the United States in 1945. It never existed prior to that. One reason in the past there weren't so many of these things, you need cash and credit usually. And prior to World War II, most people lived in small towns, farmers. They didn't really live on a lot of cash. So the idea of somebody coming up with a scheme for you to sell something and recruiting friends, there really wasn't an infrastructure for that. But after the war, millions and millions of people were looking for work, and where all these, you know, marketing became much more important and selling became much more important than it ever was in the past. But that's when it got invented.

Amway was a spinoff of that first one. What was the first product? It was a vitamin pill. Yeah, Neutralite vitamin pills, which had alpha- Available in cigarettes. Yeah, so it was vitamin pills. And actually, supplements and vitamins are still the mainstay of that whole business schemes. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. And most of them sell these alternative medical or health products. Amway was a spinoff of that. The two guys that founded Amway worked for 10 years at the first one,

and they just defected, took a big chunk of the sales force, and started up a duplicate scheme. And Amway has proliferated like that. Amway is cleaning products? I don't know. Is it cleaning products? Its original product was laundry soap. And now it sells a catalog of products as big as a major phone book. That has to be legal. It's been around for a long time, right? So that's legal.

Well, the government tried to shut it down in 1975. It was declared illegal. The Federal Trade Commission considered a pyramid scheme, endless chain fraud, and four-year case. pyramid scheme, endless chain fraud, and four-year case, and at the end of which a judge said it wasn't the pyramid scheme. The FTC could have declined that judgment and continued, but they accepted it. But just at that time, while this was happening, Amway had very already strong political connections. Their congressperson from their home district was Jerry Ford, who just happened to have become president of the United States when Richard Nixon resigned. While they were being prosecuted, they were actually able to hold meetings with Gerald Ford to talk about their case. So I think the verdict you would say is, is it legal? Well, it's regarded and treated as legal by the government. Yes. There are a lot of people that would question that, whether that ruling was, and now they're in over 100 countries,

and they bring in almost $150 billion a year. And in the U.S., it's around $30 billion. And one in seven households in the U.S. are involved at any given time. One in seven? Yes. That's mental. And you're listening in the podcast right now, and you're sitting in your car and you're

going, no, no, no, no, no, no. This one's different. That's right. That's right. If you don't mind me asking, you said yours was, what was the product that you got gypped on? Yeah. So, so the, the scheme that I was involved in didn't have a product. It was, that's why I called it a gifting scheme. The idea, it had a story though. And you you actually said that. It has a product or a story. And that's very true. This one had a story that this could work. And it was presented as a kind of whimsical game that everybody was playing. of prosperity and sharing, a sharing economy, non-competitive. I mean, it's total BS, but it's a kind of new age BS, enough to divert people from just looking and getting a calculator out and saying one times eight times eight times eight. Wait a minute. I can't keep going. We'd run out of people. If you go one, get one, get five and the five get twenty five. You can only go 13 more levels and you would exceed the population of the earth.

What was the story they told you? Like what? The story, the story, of course, diverted you from looking from doing the calculator. So that's why I say when it ended, it was like you wake up and you go, why didn't I just do the math? You know, what could they have said to me that caused me to not think? Well, it was first dangling $12,000. Remember, this is a few years ago that you could get almost instantly. And then you could go back in and get another 12 and another 12.

And when you went to the meeting, there were people who said they had done exactly that and pointed to the BMW out in front of the house that they had just purchased. And then their girlfriend comes and sports a diamond ring that she just was given. And so suddenly you're thinking, and the people around you look like you. They don't look like sleazy types. You know some of them. They're people you trust. So now they've introduced this idea of quick and instant wealth without really having to work just through your network of friends. People you trust are telling you it could work. There's a kind of metaphysical narrative that kind of sounds good positive uplifting inspiring and so you do it but what you've done is you've how do you how do you get out you just cut your losses is there like

like getting out of a cult is there a way to get out do you just go no i'm not buying any more things you know what i always think about too is because i hear all these ads on the radio now is um timeshares and there's ads now are you stuck in a timeshare i used to be in a times why are you pointing at someone in a timeshare because louise you're in a timeshare louise i got i got out of it but it was a really bad one he got duped you would think you would think you get like attracted to the good hotels mine was the holiday inn desert resort yeah desert resort where's that i mean they have a lot of locations but i went to vegas oh you you had the so you

couldn't just buy a hotel room in vegas there was none that you could tell i mean so you had to go get like one where you could have it two weekends a year and then i would get access to all these holiday and locations and obviously it doesn't sound good. My timeshare has bed bugs. The way I saw it, it's like I give them my $200 in the beginning. I'm going to get out easily. I'll get my $200 back. That's what they say at the end of the presentation. Yeah, you got your money back.

That didn't happen. One in seven. There you go. There's only five of us in here. Did you ever enjoy your timeshare? Was there a moment where you're like, this is good. I like this. I mean, I guess I didn't officially have it, but I know my dad has a timeshare right now.

And we've for sure lost money. I mean, we do take advantage of it. There's that tone. You're like, it's pretty good. We need to get some things out of it. A holiday in time. It does have a continental breakfast. I got a Motel 6 timeshare.

I started with $10 and they gave it to me back. They felt sorry for me. They were like, you're the only person who's ever bought in. We can't morally do this. So in the case of a timeshare, you had to get out.

You want to sell it, right? You've got to sell it, which becomes not so easy. In the case of multi-level marketing, though, the hook is not that you're stuck financially necessarily. You're not spending a lot of money per month, and you could just walk away. The hook is more psychological, mental. And that's why, you know, the scheme I was in didn't even have a product. A product is, as I said, like the cheese on the mousetrap. It's part of the lure. But this scheme didn't even have that, but it had that narrative, that story. And that ultimately is what pyramid schemes are about, is to lure you into a make

believe world, a world in which all you have to do is get a few people who get a few people, and everybody on the chain can make money. That's the fallacy, fundamentally, of it. If they can lure you into that fantasy world you become almost psychologically addicted and i have people come to me all the time who whose spouse is can't get out they're stuck they're spending more and more they want to mortgage the house they want to run up the credit card and they believe they're going to make money. They can't ever quite let it go. Right. Because they, yes.

It's like gambling. It's similar. They're not going to leave the table, right? They're not going to leave the table until they've won their money back. And there are a few steps away from making the profit and all types of stuff. Is there, I hate to say this because this might encourage people to do it. Is there a model where you can go in give you 1200 bucks get your 20 grand and then leave that week or or is there is there no way

to do that in the scheme that i was in which was so many years ago which they're still all around they call it gifting schemes you could do that if you manage to get in early right but you're still screwing somebody over. You're still stealing the money from somebody and you're still deceiving them. Which, Kelly, to your point, the phone call or the Facebook invitation.

See, there's the first clue. There's a lie right at the beginning. Right. Hey, why are you calling me? Why are you? To have coffee, to catch up.

I haven't seen it. No. It's going to be a financial hit. hit. They want to hit on you financially. And so there's the clue. It begins with a lie and the lies only keep piling up after that. Well, and Jim mentioned cults earlier. So it's the same type of recruitment process for cults. It's this promise of, you know, we're do-gooders who want to make the planet a better place, blah, blah, blah.

You go in for this message and then all of a sudden you're recruiting people underneath you and now you have sex slaves. That's right. When I was 18, I worked as a bartender in this sort of club, like a private club type of thing. And I worked as a bartender and I used to have to do once a week i used to have to do this breakfast and i used to have to go there in the morning and just hand them their bloody bagels and all that type of stuff and coffees and all that type of stuff get there at 6 a.m and the shift was over at 9 a at 9 a.m right and this this breakfast was for a motivational speaking group where they all like joined together and they go i'm alive i'm well i'm happy i'm this and they do like a little dance at the beginning and it's very tony robbins the

whole thing and so i used to remember i used to have to wear a bow tie i was always hung over wearing me bow tie at 6 a.m and there was a there was a there was a woman there and i say woman she was probably 25 but i thought you 18. She could have been 100. I was 18. And she was quite attractive, and she was talking to me once afterwards. I was like, I think this girl likes me. She goes, I think you're a clever young man. I'm like, I am a clever young man.

She goes, I think that you – and then she goes, hey, how about we have lunch sometime i was like i would love that right so she was like i thought i was gonna do it and then she goes meet me down at the harbor or whatever like this this boat docking area i was like i'd rather be a fancy restaurant i didn't have much money i was thinking i hope she's paying she's a motivational business person right right? She takes me down. I can't even remember what the product was. And then I go in this guy's boat.

And now I'm like, all right, it's getting fucking weird now, right? I'm 18. It's me, this woman, and this old bloke with a boat. And he starts going, you like this boat? And I'm like, it's a nice boat, sir. Yes, it's a nice boat. Then he's like, one day you could have a boat like boat like this I go I very much would like a boat like this and then like I think I

signed on to something but it was just like I didn't give any money or anything and then I just kept on like I didn't have a mobile phone back then so no one could really reach me you know they were just ringing my mum all the time I feel like I as you're saying the story something was happening inside me where I'm like,

I think I did something, not that exact thing. She was a heavyset woman with an American accent and a wig. No, I just remember now somebody trying to get me to buy something or do something, and then I've kind of agreed, but I never did it, and it was like they kept bothering me, and then I just, they lost interest. I just avoided it.

Yeah, I just avoided it yeah I just avoided it I can't remember now I'm gonna have to like go to therapy and talk about this I feel like you have to be one of those personality types too that likes the enthusiasm and stuff like that like the idea of going to an adult pep rally to me is like a nightmare well I thought that I would I was gonna get sex out of

the whole thing and so I was just like okay and then the guy with the boat I was like Chris Hansen on the boat. Hey, how you doing? Yeah. And then when I rocked up and the guy was,

it wasn't, I've got to be honest, not a great boat. Like it was a boat, you know, no one I knew owned a boat. Yeah. But it had a table and chairs

and it was big enough for that type of boat. It was a big boat. It was a big boat. Yeah. It was a big boat. And it was, and was it his boat?

I don't know. I'm daring someone's boat. What if he's been a guy that hangs down at the docks? Some guy walks up, what boat. Was it his boat? I don't know. He was commandeering someone's boat. What if he's been a guy that hangs down at the docks? Some guy walks up, what are you doing on my boat? We got to go. We got to go. I can't remember what the product was. And I had another one with the Amway where a guy,

I was studying musical theater and stuff like that. And then there was a guy, I had a small job, I had a small job singing in the chorus of of the australian opera one summer right i did romeo and juliet i did that i did a version like that right no not many people know that about me i did it anyway so i was i was in this and then there was like this guy who was like a professional opera singer who was like a lead in the opera and i was like and he's like one of these fat guys who's saying and with the fucking horns on his head and all that shit he had the whole lot going on this pavarotti looking cunt right and he goes to me he goes to me oh i want to talk to you i see

something in you and i was like oh wow i'm gonna be pavarotti he tried to sell me hamway and then i had to work with the guy for another six weeks it was every day was so awkward he kept on asking are you in are you in and I'm like I'll go I'm thinking about it that's a classic story that's a classic MLM solicitation yeah just like that where they leverage their work relationship or sometimes family relationship. And then you're sort of pressured. I mean, how do you say no? Because you've still got to live with this person or work with this person.

So it insinuates itself right into the fabric of life, which normally businesses kind of put off to the side. Normally, we kind of keep space between life and commercial life. But this one moves right into right into where you live and work oh people do it to their family i just thought about that that sucks people do it to their family yeah that's why you have all that tupperware your mom sold it to you like i couldn't imagine calling up my cousins and going i got this idea i'm buying a comedy club and then people are going to show up. I don't know. $3,000. Actually, that's real business.

I asked Jim what some notable pyramid schemes were. He said Amway, Avon, International Phone Cards, Weight Loss Products is right there. I said there was one in the news now, the Nexium. It's pronounced Nexium, right? Yeah, Nexium Club. With, what's his name? Keith Raniere. Yeah, Keith Raniere.

You're familiar with that, Jim? Are you following that? Is Nugenics one? I'm not sure. The one with Frank Thomas? Yeah, I like that because it's like my real name, Nugent. I think that's the vitamin I should take. I think it's just a product you sell.

I don't know about if Nugenics is one. I feel like having a product named so closely to Eugenics is not a good idea. Yeah, that's a bad move. Eugenics. I'm going to take Eugenics.'s a there's a black guy on the commercial and every time he's saying that it's frank thomas okay but my brain goes why is he talking about eugenics and then i realize it's new genics and i'm like this the nobody thought this through

yeah that's very bad at the end of the product as he goes and she'll thank you in the bedroom so it's like we get it all right um so the nexium it's been in the news because the heir to the seagram fortune was a follower of the cult leader who branded some of the women followers yeah we're at sex slaves an example are you familiar with this story uh absolutely very familiar with it in fact this guy uh keith ronieri uh was notorious for suing anybody that questioned what he had done. And he went after one of these cult experts, a person that helped people get out of cults, sued him relentlessly. So I was very familiar with the scheme. It was

a multi-level marketing scheme also. And it's another example of how you don't really need a product. He claimed he had secrets to total enlightenment. So you sort of took his course, you paid money. But part of the way you made money from this enlightenment that you received is you brought in other people to do the same, who would do the same, and so on. So it is – which only goes to the heart of the question too, we talk about products and I said they're really just the cheese on the mousetrap. The mousetrap is a psychological trap at the end of the day. It is a make-believe world in which money can be gained through this fantasy of endless transfer of money.

You know, 5, 10, 25 give money to 5, 5 give money to 1, and so on, that that could go on forever. That's make-believe, can't work mathematically, not sustainable. So it's a fantasy. So the idea is to convince people that it could work, and you do that by very sophisticated techniques. But one of them is to convince them just that the rally you were at, Jim, is really the message is you can do anything if you believe it. You can do anything. There's a secret to success, and it's all in your head, and I can teach you this. And once you learn it,

you can be anything now. And the only reason you're a waiter is because you haven't learned this secret. Right. So whatever you are, it's never enough because you don't know the secret, but this course, this program will teach you that. And if you buy that, that reality can be just created by believing. It is very close to religion, right? Very close to how religions work. Because I did a Scientology personality test one time in Perth. I was a comedian at this time. I was about 22, 23. And I did it because I was just bored.

I was walking around the city and they were offering personality tests. And I'm an atheist. And I thought, let's see what this garbage is all about. Like, they didn't catch me. But they brought me in and I sat down there. And then they started asking me very simple questions like blue or red. And I was like, oh, blue. And then I answered another thing

and i answered this question i answered that question i answered this question answer that question then at the end the guy looked at the at the results of on the paper and he just counted something up and then he went this can't be right right he went this this can't be right and then he went i just just wait there I'm sitting there in the room like this, right? He brings in another person and goes, yeah, that is right. That's the score or whatever he said. The other bloke was shocked as well. And so the first person leaves now.

The other bloke sits down and he goes, I normally don't come in for these, but I have to talk to you. You are a genius of the highest level and i'm like i knew it like that right they go the problem with your genius is it's completely untapped yeah you gotta buy these books yeah it's completely untapped and you know blah blah blah and then you know so i walked away knowing it's a scam but also knowing that i'm a genius yeah exactly and and i'm trying to untap it in my own way oh yeah you didn't buy the books no no no just a bunch of people and they didn't actually they didn't

actually test you you know that's that's this that is the solicitation from scientology you bring you bring them in and then you go through the motions of claims as if they would know how to test somebody's personality. They don't. I think I spelled my name wrong. They're just on Facebook looking at stuff like, yeah, anyways, blue, red, okay. The whole production of bringing the other bloke in, it's like when you're trying to buy a car

and then the other car salesman comes in and goes wait we can't do it at this price all right the boss is gonna be mad get out of here yeah yeah it's exactly the same and it is also kelly this is the equivalent to hey kelly let's have coffee we haven't seen each other in 10 years right it's the same thing. It's the lure. But no, this one offers a personality test. Right, yeah. So come in and get a free personality test.

To everyone from high school, if I haven't talked to you since then, I don't want to now. If it also has a personality test, sometimes the test must have come back, asshole. It's a personality test. Yeah, well, your personality is not good not good you're hugely unlikable person um we can fix that we've answered we can fix that yes yeah we've answered

a lot of these like is there an increase or decrease and so oh the eight ball model i don't even know what that is i just asked the question what is the eight ball model it's not to shake it up is this a good investment the eight ball model is is actually exactly the scheme that I described that I had gotten into. And I said one is eight, but it actually works out this way. One at the top, two below, four below them and eight at the bottom. So that's just like in the cue balls. Right. So two or eight. So you recruit two and they recruit two each. And then when the last when they get their eight, that money from the eight goes to the

top person. And then it splits down the middle. And now on one side, you have one, two, four, and they have to go get eight. And the other side has to go get eight. So eight gets 16, gets 32 and so on. And that's the classic model. Some of the multi-level marketing schemes use exactly that model. And they just overlay a product instead of give me $1,500. They say, you know, buy $150

a month for 10 months or something like that. Did you remain friends with anyone in your eight ball model? Did you, after you left, did you remain friends with them or was it, you just had to cut all ties? In my case, I did. And I think I was a little anomalous this way. In fact, these schemes destroy friendships left and right. As you can imagine, if I got you to give me $1,500 and I went and spent my $1,500 that you gave me and you don't get any money, we'd probably not be friends after that. So it has a way of insinuating itself. It moves into and penetrates networks of friends and then ruins them by commercializing them. So it didn't happen to me actually, but I did know quite a few others who lost friends.

And what would you say, like just like in a succinct, like just a way that to tell people like, hey, if you see this, this or this, you're probably in a pyramid scheme or something like that. Like what should people watch out for? I know you've said a lot of stuff, but just kind of summarizing that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, there are a couple of clues right up the front

as soon as somebody tells you about an opportunity great opportunity is you know that's a little odd on his face think about it who goes around offering opportunities you know people you know it is something a little suspicious about second one is they immediately tell you you have to pay some money for this opportunity well normally that that isn't the way things work. First, they tell you all about it. Then maybe you decide whether you would pay. But they want you to pay straight up. The third is usually they don't explain it very well.

You don't get much information, but there's a lot of hype about it, that it's wonderful, it's great. The word exciting is always used. Almost right there, if you just did that, right from that. First, the invitation was bogus. There's the first clue. Second, they they haven't really gotten rich yet, but they will. And so all of those together on their face, when you say that just doesn't seem right, it doesn't seem right. Right. It really isn't. I know there's this thing about if it seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true. But also these other things, if it's a little odd, it is odd.

There's something off here. The big, you know, I have this question asked of me all the time. How do you get somebody out or how do you avoid them? And it always comes down to critical thinking. Thinking. You know, thinking. And if you just do a little you know get your calculator ask some questions ask some hard questions about it what they want to do is get you to not think they want you to

imagine to believe to envision visualize and they will often ask you what would you do if you had a million dollars you know do they now you're thinking about that do they teach you a flack of a better word do they teach you how to groom the people? Yes. There's a script. There's a script, just like a sales script. Like those guys at the Scientology office, they were all operating on a script. Right.

Some of them, like you said, they might say, you know, your personality is terrible, but we can turn that around to others. You're a genius, but you just haven't tapped into it yet. So it's not doing you any good. I've got to tell you, I'm not a hugely famous person, but I've been famous for about 10 years in one form or another. Well, one form. A couple of different forms. I've been on TV and all that type of stuff.

They've never approached me since I've become successful, so I haven't told you. They don't want me. They never approached me since I've become successful. Scientology, they don't want me. They didn't like your gun control, Ben. Every actor I know is going, oh, have you been approached yet? I'm like, not yet. I'm wandering around out the front of the center. They never even call me in. They don't want me, Scientology.

All right, so this is a part of the show called Dinner Party Facts where we ask our expert to give us like something that our listeners slash viewers can use if they're at like a party and the subject comes up or just something interesting. So what do you got for us? Well, this is a little bit of my interpretation of events, but I think it's little known fact. Donald Trump. Donald Trump was in multilevel marketing for 10 years. He was the most famous endorser and spokesman for multilevel marketing. He was associated with his own, one given his name to, called the Trump Network. Went bankrupt in 18 months.

And then he associated with another one called ACN, which is a big multilevel marketing scheme based in North Carolina. He was the endorser. He had them on his show, the Celebrity Apprentice or the Apprentice, as a sponsor. on his show, The Celebrity Apprentice, or The Apprentice, as a sponsor. And New York Times revealed that over a 10-year period, he had gained at least $10 million in payments for giving these endorsements. But I think even the more interesting fact is that if you look at his career, he was never really a guy that was out touching and handling people. He was a celebrity.

He was a wheeler dealer in real estate. He was a tabloid character. But in multilevel marketing, they put him on the stage and he learned there to be the Moses, the Messiah, the man of the people who will deliver the common man into financial prosperity. That's where he learned it. So to be fair, he did touch and handle people, just not in the way you're talking about. Yes, but not on a mass scale. So Donald Trump, if you look at his rallies, you'll see they look an awful lot like an Amway rally. I find it hard to believe that he'd be engaged in dishonest practices. Yeah.

Do we have any proof? Was he a university one? It feels like it. And the university was not multi-level, but it's also disappeared. The university was not multilevel, but it's also disappeared. And those three entities, the ACF, the Trump Network, and the university, are part of a lawsuit that victims have organized around. And they name all three of those as evidence of a pattern of deception. So, yeah, they are linked together. But there were two mult-level marketings and trump

university i've always i've always liked that that he he brought out a vodka and steaks yeah well he brought steaks but he eats steaks yeah he's never had a lick of alcohol in his life it tastes best well done trump steaks have it with ketchup trump steaks oh yeah that's why i get your point like he had the vodka he's like it's great vodka. He had vodka. He's never been a drinker, so he can't sell vodka. That's like me selling broccoli. Yeah. Right?

You've never had broccoli? I don't like broccoli. Bananas. Bananas. I've never eaten a banana. And if I had Jim Jefferies bananas, these are the best bananas. It would be weird if any celebrity had their own fruit or vegetable that they were selling. I'm actually into it.

Yeah. What you're really saying is I couldn't honestly endorse that. There you go. All right. Well, thank you for being here. Thank you, Robert. Yes, thank you. Robert Fitzpatrick.

Oh, my pleasure. This was a great time. If you have any – if something's happening in your life and you're worried about whether it's a pyramid scheme or a multi-level marketing scheme, go to the pyramidschemealert.org, correct? That's your website? Yes, or the Facebook page for the book. Facebook. Everything you need to know about it. Yeah, a lot of information on there.

And the book is Ponzinomics, the Untold Story of Multi-Level Marketing by Robert Fitzpatrick. The Untold Story of Multi-Level Marketing by Robert Fitzpatrick. I also want to say real quick, please follow us at idcatpodcast on Instagram, and then you tell three friends to follow us and then listen to the podcast. A podcast is an MLM. Share a clip in your stories and get three people to share. Yeah, you have to tell people to listen to the podcast,

and then you have to tell friends to listen to the podcast, and then we'll all enjoy the podcast together. Yeah, that's what the podcast is the pyramid podcast but it doesn't cost you anything yeah it doesn't cost you anything well time all right ladies and gentlemen if you're at a party and someone comes up to you and says hey i haven't seen you for a while let's go for a coffee go well i don't know about that see you next time. Hey, everybody. Jason Ellis here from the Jason Ellis Show podcast,

reminding you that my podcast, new episodes every Wednesday, downloadable where all podcasts are available. Come see my friends, Michael and Kevin, as we talk to you about what's awesome, what sucks, fitness, fighting, parenting, life, spin kicks, LGBTQ community, how to defend yourself against a shark if it attacks you out of nowhere, and much, much more. So come join us.