pyramid schemes
Unsustainable money chains
A pyramid scheme is a fraudulent business model where participants pay to join and profit mainly by recruiting new members rather than selling actual products or services.
Money flows upward to early participants while later recruits inevitably lose their investments when recruitment slows.
The company turned out to be a pyramid scheme.
The structure resembles a pyramid—few at the top, masses at the bottom.
Pyramid schemes are illegal in most jurisdictions, though they often disguise themselves as legitimate multi-level marketing operations.
- scamDishonest money-making scheme
- fraudIntentional criminal trickery
- multi-level marketingSales through recruited distributors
- recruitmentSeeking new personnel
- moneyCurrency for transactions
embezzlement · FTC · finance · deception · upline · hierarchies · losses · financial ruin · risk · collapse · Amway · direct sales · profits · whistleblowing · investment · unsustainable · saturation · house of cards
- crimesarson, burglary, robbery, kidnapping, vandalism
- wrongdoingmisconduct, crime, sabotage, crimes, misbehavior
- bad decisionsprocrastination, impulse buying, overspending, binge eating, cramming
- risksrisk, gamble, bet, wager, chance it
- shady dealingsscams, swindles, cons, grifts, fraud
- hoaxesalien autopsy, moon landing hoax, War of the Worlds, fake photos, forgeries
pyramid schemesproductive labor
Work that creates goods
manufacturing · wealth creation · earned income · wage labor · entrepreneurship
pyramid schemescooperative
Jointly operated enterprise
mutual fund · index fund · credit union · partnership · sole proprietorship
scheme, pyramid, scheming, schemes, pyramids, schemer, schematic, pyramidal, pyramid scheme