✨“hey babe, we love your profile and think you’d be a PERFECT ambassador for our brand! All you need to do is…” ✨
Every girl has had this in their insta inbox at least once. And 9 times out of 10 I’d be willing to bet it was from a pyramid scheme. But what are they, how can they be identified and why do they target women so much more than men?
First things first and to preface why we should be avoiding pyramid schemes (if not for the fact they’re likely to lose you a lot of money) is that they are ILLEGAL.
Essentially they are schemes that involve the ‘recruitment’ of people in a ‘tier’ like system. Top level members then recruit new members in return for the same fee, in the hope that these new ‘recruits’ will then recruit more people. A portion of this ‘small joining fee’ then gets funneled back to the top of the ‘pyramid’. This all means that people at the lower end of the pyramid, or the more recently recruited individuals end up with less, as they are putting the same initial amount of money in a lot of the time, but receiving less in return. This is because you earn more the more people you recruit into joining the scheme.
You usually have to keep pumping money into the system whether to buy ‘products’ to then sell on to stay on the scheme, however if you can’t sell these on and they wont shift, you end up at a bit of a loss.
This is shown as according to research conducted by Jon M. Taylor, Ph.D., in the first year of operation, a minimum of 50 percent of representatives will drop out. After five years of operation, a minimum of 90 percent of representatives have dropped out. With 99% of those taking part said to have been losing money from being involved.
The main difference between a Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid scheme is the exchange of a product. A pyramid scheme has no exchange of a product, however can sometimes be disguised to have some form of ‘physical exchange’. This can range from anything to “advice” or “information”. A MLM however is the selling and buying of a product through word of mouth and therefore is a direct transaction of money for a good.
Now I’m no business expert, and so for the complete workings of pyramid schemes I suggest watching this great YouTube video on it.
But what I am most interested in with this topic is the fact that I’ve noticed they always seem to target women, especially on social media.
Targeting women
In recent times, pyramid schemes have particularly wised up on the best ways to sell their wares and business riches to women and girls.
They’ve begun to use a large amount of ‘entrepreneurship’ language, insinuating that women can be their own ‘girl boss’ or that starting to, make money would ✨ 'empower women' ✨.
They are generalising the notion that women having a career is a “side-hustle” or necessary to “support your family” and insinuates that women can’t follow a traditional career path that is considered the norm for men.
These schemes like to base their USPs around the fact it can be tailored to the individual, using the example of a woman fitting it around her mum duties, or usual job that just clearly in their eyes doesn’t pay enough.
If you talk to your male friends I bet it is rare that they have had one of the DMs that are oh so frequent in your own. Perhaps these employers feel women are more gullible, or less business-minded, or maybe it’s just coincidence that the easiest products to flog are in the “beauty” industry and therefore more geared to women in society's eyes anyway.
However you look at it, they are a damaging rabbit hole to fall down, especially when young, impressionable girls are on the social sites recruiters use, and may not be able to spot a fake opportunity, from an ever so rare, real one.
So, why are they so popular?
A lot of people don’t know how to distinguish them from other genuine offers, which does pay a large part in their popularity, accidental or not.
It also seems like a quick and easy way to make cash, another reason why they are so aimed at pregnant or unemployed women they find on Instagram or Facebook.
There's also the case that your initial investment is a ‘sunk cost’, meaning it is an amount already spent and that cannot be recovered, therefore that £500 sounds far less risky than a £2000 investment into your own start up business (at first glance).
Everyone, especially in these times is so keen to pave their own way in life. Whether that's because they’ve been let off from their full-time job or if the recession were amidst has just gotten too much for someone. The idea of making money on your own schedule and fitting around other things is enticing for sure. To a lot of people, it also sounds like a good way to say “up yours” to jobs and employers of the past by riding your own wave for a bit.
These companies capitalise on this feeling and in the end, leave the struggling uni graduate or full time mum worse off than when they started this ‘journey’.
All together I’m no business expert, but do find it extremely interesting to see how these schemes have tailored themselves to target women.
Please let me know your thoughts on them, and particularly any experiences/ run-ins you may have had with schemes like these.