Scourge of Multi-Layered Marketing (MLM)
I was shocked to see faces of some of the most famous personalities of Bangladesh in the sales literature of a very large MLM company in Bangladesh. Until now, I thought that this type of scheme, designed to fool the uneducated, would soon come under the radar screen of the regulators and would then get stopped by law.
It is a well-known fact that MLMs are doomed by design. Initially they look hugely attractive but eventually when they recruit too many salespeople, who in turn then attempt to recruit even more salespeople, ad infinitum, the system collapses. The relatively small numbers of people (mainly the original organizers and the first layers of recruits) who start the scheme make a lot of money until the point of collapse. However, the unfortunate “distributors” at the bottom of the pyramid are the losers.
There are many examples of MLM collapses in North America and elsewhere, which can be verified by simple browsing of the Internet. This type of scheme should not have been allowed in Bangladesh in the first place and the government cannot avoid blame as it has a duty of regulatory oversight.
I, therefore, urge the authorities and regulators to look into this matter immediately so that money being made via a sophisticated con scheme is stopped immediately before further damage are inflicted on poor people or people who might be ignorant about the eventual collapse. I believe that it is also the responsibility of major newspapers to investigate the matter in greater detail and expose the fraud.
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