MMFHoH FAQ

The charter of the HoH is pretty obvious really; it's on the front page after all "Putting an end to online scammers or at least laughing at them mercilessly." The underlying assumptions behind this goal are:

• "Make Money Fast" schemes are pyramid schemes, which are illegal,
• On the Internet, pyramid schemes strongly imply the use of unsolicited commercial e-mail, which imposes the cost of receiving unwanted material on the receiver, vice the sender (and is therefore bad), and
• Even if the first two objections were overcome, sheer mathematical necessity makes the number of people who can actually make money from a MMF scheme very small (a fact which no MMF scheme discloses) making the guarantees of vast wealth that invariably accompany schemes lies deserving of exposure.

Every few weeks it seems there's a complaint about the HoH site. When the complaint is intelligible, it seems to fall into one of these categories:

My MMF is really legal - it's a Multi-Level-Marketing business

This complaint can seem plausible especially when expressed with the deep sincerity to so many seem able to express at will. However, although the distinction between a legal multilevel marketing scheme and an illegal pyramid scheme is somewhat subtle, and occasionally large businesses are prosecuted for making the transition from legal MLM to illegal pyramid schemes, there is a difference between the two. As I understand it, as long as there is a product that one can imagine selling to a customer who isn't a reseller, so that one can make money without recruiting, the system is not a pyramid scheme (there are some laws about "startup fees" that can apply, I believe). That's why pyramid schemes are sometimes referred to as "endless chains."

For some reason, people complaining about this site keep claiming that MMF is just the same as the publishing industry. Comparing the two reveals lots of differences, though - a publisher publishes lots of books, and sells most of them to distributors (although it sells some directly to customers). The distributors sell them to stores, and the stores sells them to customers. At each level there is a markup; in no case does (say) a distributor duplicate a book dozens of times and sell each copy, or require that a store pay both the distributor and the publisher for the right to sell photocopies of a book.

Note that there are a couple of legal things that are somewhat like a pyramid scheme - the stock market is one such case. A lot of people do buy stock just because they think that someone will soon buy that same stock for a higher price, that person also hoping for another customer down the line. But stock does have some real value - you get a vote in the company's affairs, and you get dividends. There are many people who buy stock for just the dividend income or the chance to influence the company's policies and it is relatively rare for a stock price to become completely disconnected from its real value. Historical cases when prices become disconnected from value are instructive examples for those considering starting or joining a MMF scheme: the real estate market in Japan in the 80s, the tulip market in 17th century Holland, and of course the US stock market in the 1920's. In each case, people were buying things without regard to their very limited value, in each case, the customers believed that wealth was guaranteed and in each case, almost everyone involved lost everything (and even those who were not involved were devastated by the economy-wide crash). None of those were quite as obviously doomed as MMF is however.

My MMF should be legal

Ok! If you really think that, how goes the campaign to change the laws? Seriously, there are two appropriate strategies if you think MMF schemes should be legal. The first is to make every effort to be caught so that you can challenge the law in court (this is what Scopes did - he deliberately violated the law against teaching evolution). If that's your strategy, then the MMF HoH does you no harm by reporting you to the authorities. In fact, we've done you a favor by giving you and your cause more publicity, and if you are able to convince the world that the law is unfair it will be we who have egg on our faces (but I don't think that's going to happen!). On the other hand, the alternative strategy is to make every effort to hide, in the hopes that the authorities never notice you and use their immoral anti-MMF laws against you. This is a difficult strategy to use for MMF schemes, since you need a constant influx of new people joining to make any money (any one of whom could betray you to the cops), but in any case, posting rambling attacks on the MMF HoH rant page is counterproductive - it just makes you more visible when your goal is to be invisible.

You're mean.

And you're ugly! While some of us take positive pleasure in pointing out other's criminal stupidity, please note that we're mocking people who are defrauding others with false promises. And if you've read the Board for any length of time, you'll see that those who, when informed of their errors, apologize and make restitution are highly praised. In many cases, scammers are not reported to postal authorities (who have the power to put someone in jail) unless their misbehavior is repeated and egregious. Even reporting to an ISP that a customer is engaged in criminal behavior is usually a second step after sweet reason has failed. Hardly mean, compared with fraud. This objection is somewhat ambiguous, by the way. Do you think that we're basically right that MMF is a scam, but that written criticism of people who propagate it is unwarranted? Do you think that the people we criticize are more victimized by MMF than they are victimizers? Or do you think that MMF is completely legal. If the first, then we can debate; please provide examples of how you deal with scammers without being mean. If the second, please read the earlier section of this answer; we almost always reserve the heavy abuse for people who have ignored explanations that a) when they sent in their dollar, they were scammed, and b) if they attempt to recoup their losses by propagating the scam, they become scammers themselves. If the third, I have to say that I don't understand why you would say "You're mean" instead of "You are in error for this reason." If any action against MMF is unjustified, why criticize us for the type of action?

You violate other people's privacy

Someone who posts his or her name and address attached to a chain letter has given up a lot of privacy already, don't you think?

This MMF never promises that you'll make money.

I'll bet it promises that "You make $700,000!" and that "The amount you make depends on your efforts." After years of asking, we've never seen any evidence that anyone has ever made more than $100 scamming the less wary, and it is demonstratively false that a person's efforts have anything to do with how much money is made.

You're vigilantes. / You have no authority to do anything like this.

We have no authority to report apparent illegal behavior to the ISP that provides the suspect with a web site, or to the postal authorities? Yes we do and so do you.

Once you get rid of me you'll be going after Amazon and Borders.

This is one of my favorite objections. Even if it were our goal to destroy Borders, how is stopping a MMFer a first step on the way? Furthermore I rather suspect that bookstores both online and off, get more money from HoH members, then they do from average citizens. We like books. Books are good. Books tell how to make money honestly.

Don't you have anything better to do?

Why should we try to justify our hobby to you? Of course we have better things to do and we do them. Every once in a while we take some time though to enjoy ourselves by participating in the MMF HoH process, just like a stamp collector takes some time from his busy schedule to enjoy his hobby. But participating in the MMF HoH is more like being a member of "neighborhood watch" than like being a stamp collector. As a matter of civic responsibility we take time out of our lives to report illegal/unsafe activity that we see. Some of us report cars that are being driven in an unsafe manner to the proper authorities, some of us report MMF to the post office. Same thing.

I haven't been arrested yet, so I must be legal.

Not necessarily. Do I really need to explain that some people get away with fraud for years before being caught? Fraudsters are very difficult to find even when someone complains; without a complaint it's even harder (that's why fraudsters try to keep their victims in the dark about having been scammed, even after it's happened). But lack of complaints doesn't mean there's a lack of suffering on the part of victims. At any rate, before I got involved in a business, I'd want more evidence that it was legal than "I haven't woken up behind bars yet". The fact that you're reduced to this argument means that you're scraping the bottom of the barrel for justifications, doesn't it.

Aren't there more important things to do?

"Littering is bad, but murder is worse. If you can't or won't do anything about murder, why should you pick up litter?" seems to be the argument here. Of course there are more important things than stopping MMF. Some of us do them, too, and some of us can only afford the time for one cause, and have picked this one. This is less of an argument, than an attempt to distract from the fundamental issue. If you agree that MMF is bad but you don't have the time or interest to fight it, don't; we'll do it for you. If you think that MMF is good, then you shouldn't say "Do something more important," but rather "Do something that's not wrong".

You're just jealous!

Are you really suggesting that each of us knows that there is a simple method for becoming rich, that we could be part of simply by asking and that out of laziness or some other mental problem we are refusing to participate, but rather spending the effort we could use to become rich to discourage others from participate. The mind boggles at the dementia you ascribe to us - why not take us at face value and merely believe us to be sincerely convinced that what you're doing is illegal, ineffective and immoral, and either ignore us or attempt to find some convincing argument that we're wrong?