About to head to bed, I receive an email from these folk, Paid Weekly Guarateed. It's a MLM scam, of course, and their website is a "standard" MLM scam website: bright colours, handwriting fonts, a video or two, promises galore, bad clip art, and an absence of actual detail. The sites are getting shoddier in their grammar, though: EVERYONE That Participates "Get's Paid... PERIOD..." Did they think that up themselves, or was it provided to them?
I've had ads for multilevel marketing schemes in my letterbox, and I've seen flyers pinned on notice boards and taped on bus shelters. I once even got dragged along to an Amway party. (That was a bad deal: the hostess responsible invited people to a barbeque at her place, but didn't inform them that it was a recruitment session as well. I think a few friendships were broken in the process.) However, surprisingly enough, I believe I've never actually received a MLM scam by unsolicited mail. While my spam folder is full of 419s and their ilk, I've never got this sort of marketing email from a stranger.
So I thought I'd email them back.
Joe and Sue,
I'd like to start this email with a quote by Johnny Rotten (nee Lydon) of the Sex Pistols and PiL. "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
I hope you're getting this feeling at the moment with the TelexFree scam you emailed me. It hasn't costed me a single penny to reply to you, but ... well, how much has it cost YOU to get involved? $49? $299? I have no idea, but I hope it's preying on my minds.
Just letting you know that I've had a few MLM people contact me over the last couple of years. They set up websites and put out flyers for a couple of weeks, and then they disappear. Often their marriages disappear as well, and their money, and their mortgages. Do you really want that to happen to you?
This is the only reliable information that I can dig up on the company: TelexFree Review: Spam the internet for $20 a week. Selling ads for VOIP? Why would people pay money for that when you have Skype?
Walk away, guys. Just walk away.
Best regards,
Peter