Okay, so this happened to me last year. I was approached by a college alumni (got my number from college alumni group) who told me he had a side business going on which was leading him to earn more money than his corporate job and that he was going to leave the corporate for his “business”.
I was initially not interested but he was insistent and also I was looking to explore some options (may be my naïveté) that I asked him more and so he setup a call with his senior to explain more about this “business”.
Now this senior gave all sorts of gyaan regarding how to reach financial independence and picking up on the general mindset of how to make more money. They asked to create a list of 10 things that I desired the most at the point of time which could be solved with more money. I complied thinking it was a good exercise (again, I was a big fool). Now I was connected with another senior who gave all sorts of gyaan regarding how I could make more money and lead to financial independence.
Please note, during all this time I was constantly asking what the business idea was and how it would be achieved but got no response on the details and only white washing regarding how I should be prepared to do anything to achieve my dreams.
Now, it was revealed that I would need to put in 5L as investment to get bigger returns. Since I did not have that money in handy, I was suggested to get a personal loan through their agents. Also not to inform this to parents because they won’t understand this stuff and get “worried”. Luckily I did went with their suggestion and informed my parent about it. Thinking it was a startup idea, I got the investment from my father through an OD in my name.
Now we get onto a call two days later, where they reveal the company QNet and makes me purchase 5L of stuff from their website and explained the business model which was to get other people from your knowing to buy products from this company and get commissions on the sale.
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Bruh... what even?! It's a well known scam. I don't understand how you were ready to put in 5L of your money without going for a simple google search.
All these IIT/NIT/IIM/AIIMS means they cracked a certain exam. It has nothing to do with guaranteed moral values or even basic common sense. Lesson learnt the hard way I guess.
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The reason I fell for this in the first place was because all these people were from IITs and were placed in well known companies and working on their regular jobs. That was the reason I listened to them in first place.
After all this shit, I realised how you cannot trust anyone in this world, least the people from your alma-meter.
You should name and shame them on public platforms.
Name and shame those IITians, that will be a great lesson to them. And don’t you know many of the top executives of QNet are under arrest? There are tens of cases against QNet guys by ED. One quick google search would have told you. This had come to me almost 7 yrs back and at that time only within a few minutes of talk I had realized it. Similar to this, there was other MLMs like EBiz, 10 yrs back. Google and a bit of common sense, helps a lot. I absolutely despise such guys who trap innocent folks. They must be named and shamed.
How y'all keep falling for MLM scams in 2023?
15 min in a convo and if the party doesn't share what the business is about then they either are a scam or naive to think idea is more important than execution. And In both of those cases you tell them to gtfo.
I've heard people making good money. Some of my close known people are doing this full time and are maxing out on commissions (6L per week). Sometimes I feel if it's a good idea to pursue this :/
My personal opinion that I realised after this. I would definitely not want to earn money by duping other people in any way that too my family members and friends. Better to be in a humble state than be ultra rich and scam other folks.
Yeah, defrauding people to make quick money appears good idea to many. So no wonder so many fraudsters have got into it. I just wish everyone’s name get printed and flashed prominently everywhere.
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Major target would be your friends and family. Now after this meeting is over, I have become skeptical. I am told about another meeting with the founder who is the mastermind behind all this stuff. In the meeting, I realise that this is all an elaborate scheme to prey on the gullible as the other audience member were people in need of money, retired Army officials and uncle aunties having free time and money. I quickly searched on the internet and found all kinds of shady stuff going on with the company.
After the founders meet, I again met with these people and told me reservations and could clearly see their attitude changing from polite to defensive. That’s when I realised I was screwed. I pondered on this shit all the night long and next day told them that I do not want to associate with them.
Luckily I was refunded for the products bought in India, but had to suffer in cancellations charges for foreign purchase and an event fee they took totalling 50-60k.
I told my father about this and he was supportive and I realised what kind of shit people are pulling up these days.
You got a part of money because they don't want to spoil their MLM business model tree for a leaf node. Loss you incurred is their fail case scenario, so the tree remains robust and keeps driven in recruiting new people as they know their time was not wasted.
Okay it was a relief to know that you got the money refunded and didn't actually lose 5L.
But these kinds of scams are very common. I don't know how you even agreed to put 5L into something even without knowing anything about the business.
But don't believe someone because of their alma mater or what you perceive to be true. Everyone has an ulterior motive.
And not every IITian is smart.
I guess everyone of us have been invited to these scam mlm scheme meetings...once pr more... For me in my first meeting with ebiz ...I was in first year and almost was into their trap...up until they said don't tell it to your parents...ask them for money by saying lies like ask for books.. training...and boy that moment I knew what it is ....for something that you need to hide from parents and tell lies to them...then it is not for you...for sure
Ditto same case with me.
This reminds of the time in 1st year of college, this guy from my school, who was objectively quite cute, reached out to me on Facebook and asked for my number
I was kinda flattered and gave it to him and then he called and started talking about god knows what business or something his college society was doing or something, I don't even remember the details, I shut him down so quickly, but was quite heart broken 😂😂
Oh my god.... I got the same kind of call from two different IIT alums and man were they trying to hit on my financial insecurities. Invest 6L now or you will never do it . They lectured about all the compounding of money stuff but never revealed what the actual business was. I had almost given a token amount but thank god I didn't join.
Also wanna ask aren't those people going to Singapore and multiple Dubai trips.?
Yes, they go to dubai and thailand trips with all the duping money and attend these scamster meetings
Exact same happened with me. The amount of self doubt it gave me, made me rethink my whole life. But then I thought if someone is going to lengths to make you feel bad and the prey on that feeling, you should stay the fuck away!
A similar incident happened with me few years back. A dude approached me on LinkedIn (IIT KGP grad I guess), asked me all sorts of Qs about my past academics, current role and future aspirations. I gave him enough answers to make him believe I was interested.
After the first call, he shared me a book to read and review it by the next call. All this while I had asked him a dozen Qs what that business did...he always went on saying it made him achieve financial independence, made him intelligent, stable blabla. He went on to say he had top level business leaders mentoring him, and he aspires to reach their level. He even denied to mention even a name of those leaders.
I tried to get more out of this dude, but he was adamant as a mule. Dude was trained well by whoever is running the show. We never reached that stage of investing 5L as I shut him down and asked him never to message me again.
I had also asked him in the end - Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to sell this to me? How much commission do you get out of this deal? If you really want to improve the world, let the people know about your "business" in open and if it's good, people will automatically approach you rather than other way around.
Not buying a land when I was in school
Was not born to rich parents 🙃
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Lets just say,