CCTV News (Focus Interview): Pyramid schemes are not shallow in harming people, disrupting normal economic order, and the mainland explicitly prohibits them. The so-called pyramid scheme is the act of obtaining benefits by paying membership fees, pulling people's heads to develop downline, and collecting commissions at every level. With the popularity of the Internet, MLM has gradually spread on the Internet, some of them are packaged into financial investment, some are packaged as e-commerce platforms, many people, especially middle-aged and elderly people, are confused by layers of gimmicks, in order to pursue high returns fell into the trap of pyramid schemes, and some even constitute crimes. Today, we look at how MLM can package itself, attract others, and make people commit crimes through specific cases.
Ms. Zhou is a participant in an online pyramid scheme platform named Netlink Jia, and if the police had not taken down this platform in time, Ms. Zhou would not have felt that she had participated in the pyramid scheme, and she would have almost constituted a crime. In the perception of Ms. Zhou and many others, pyramid schemes are based on selling goods to profit by pulling people's heads, and some also restrict personal freedom. But the online platform she participated in is about financial investment, which feels completely unrelated to traditional pyramid schemes.
At that time, Ms. Zhou, who had just retired, was introduced by a friend to an investment seminar in a high-end office building called Netlink Jia Company. The company looks very formal, with business licenses and many qualification certificates on the wall, various authoritative-looking association names and seals printed on the certificates, and many well-known companies are also listed as partners. At the lecture, a person who called himself the dean introduced that the legal representative of the company was his own daughter.
Ms. Zhou: "I don't think he can gamble his daughter's future, and there are business licenses and many certificates on the wall, which must be compliant and legal." ”
That makes sense, but what Ms. Zhou didn't know was that the company was using it to convince people of what they were doing.
Huang Liang, deputy head of the Economic Investigation Detachment of the Yangpu Branch of the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau: "All of them are fiction, first, the company has no actual business projects, and second, it does not have any payment licenses, including the bank written here, and no bank has a cooperation agreement with it." ”
In addition to disguising qualifications, some tall words are also quite bluffing. Words such as "metaverse", "Zhongzitou Research Institute" and "data assets" made Ms. Zhou feel that this company is not simple.
The so-called dean introduced that the company not only does credit card cash business, but also can manage financial investment. Among them, wealth management investment is to help the company promote after paying different levels of membership fees, so as to obtain rebates. The more the membership fee, the higher the tier, and the higher the percentage of rebates you get when you recommend the next home, up to 75%. The membership fee and credit card cash-out service fee are the source of the rebate. It seems that it is really possible to earn money while lying at home.
This kind of good thing of low investment and high return makes Ms. Zhou alert, could this company be a scammer? Will the money not be withdrawn after it is invested? At the instigation of a friend, Ms. Zhou suspiciously decided to cash out 100 yuan to see if the money could be received. She scanned her friend's QR code, downloaded the App, went through real-name authentication and other operations, and after a while, the money cashed out from her credit card really arrived on her bank card.
Ms. Zhou: "I feel that it is still credible, there must be a contract with the bank, and there is no contract with the bank, how can I come over?" ”
Ms. Zhou's doubts were dispelled, and she immediately deposited nearly 1,000 yuan and became a so-called diamond member.
Ms. Zhou: "For diamond members, if the flat push member can get the bonus, the next recharge fee ratio is 60%. ”
In Ms. Zhou's view, there is no difference between Netlink Jia and some ordinary app promotion rebates, but the commission is higher, which is a good channel to earn money lying down. But in fact, this network alliance Kalian has hidden secrets. In Netlink Ka's office, the police saw a hierarchical rebate map they had drawn themselves.
Huang Liang: "The first layer is the company's team, the second layer is Zou, he is equivalent to a municipal agent, the corresponding recharge is 250,000 yuan, the following is a recharge of 150,000 yuan, and then down is 998 yuan of Jiang, 688 yuan of Wang, Tang is 198 yuan, such a level, a total of six layers, the lower line of the next five layers as long as there is a recharge, he has a rebate." ”
Rebates not only come from direct downline, but also from indirect downline, which is the essential difference between Netlink Jia and ordinary App promotion rebates, and it is also a typical feature of MLM. Ms. Zhou received rebates not only from her friends, but also from many people she didn't know, and she didn't even know how many people were her next home.
Jin Li, a police officer of the Economic Investigation Detachment of the Yangpu Branch of the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau: "You don't need acquaintances, you only need to go to various types of WeChat groups, send the download code and promotional video, you can spread the App down, completely relying on the Internet, it is not clear who the offline is, but the scale and number of offline is beyond imagination." ”
The police found that in order to allow more people to participate, Netlink Jia set the entry threshold very low, only 198 yuan, but specially designed a competition mechanism to encourage participants to continuously recharge or develop offline to improve the level, and the highest number of people charged was 250,000 yuan. The more subordinate members, the more the superiors profit. MLM is such a way for participants to indulge in high returns and fall into it.
Huang Liang: "Generally, MLM may have one or two products that you need to sell to others, it does not have this thing, some people think that it is investment, and people who invest in development should give me income." In fact, this is not the case, because it is essentially one to pay membership fees, and the second is to pull people's heads, both of which are in line with the criminal characteristics of pyramid schemes. ”
There are many middle-aged and elderly participants like Ms. Zhou, and the police found after investigation that this company specifically targets middle-aged and elderly groups, using various care activities, investment seminars or acquaintances to attract middle-aged and elderly people into the group, using high-return financial investment as a gimmick, using WeChat groups to spread QR codes to develop members, recharging members reached 350,000, of which, the proportion of middle-aged and elderly recharge payments exceeded 55%, and the amount involved reached 850 million yuan.
In addition to using the form of financial investment to cover people's eyes, there are many MLM organizations wearing the cloak of e-commerce, which seem to sell goods, but in fact, they rely on pulling people's heads to make profits like traditional MLM. Liu from Henan Province took the opportunity to participate in the opening event of an offline experience store in an online mall and was attracted by the profit model promoted by this online store.
An e-commerce company called Meitemei is positioned as a "disruptive and multi-integrated e-commerce platform that makes money first and then consumes". They advertise that as long as they invest at least 10,000 yuan to open an online store, buy branded wine in the mall, they can choose to deliver to their homes, or they can let the platform help sell them, and they can get 12%-15% of the contract revenue in 15 days, and the platform charges a 1% service fee as a medium. Such profits are considerable, the model is simple, as long as the mobile phone is operated on time and according to the regulations.
Liu invested 10,000 yuan in the first time to open an online store, entered a batch of so-called "hawthorn wine" for the platform to sell, and 15 days later, he received 11,350 yuan on the account. This convinced him that this e-commerce platform is very reliable. Next, Liu invested 60,000 yuan, but at this time the trading rules of the platform are not so simple, they require every 3 days to buy goods, the frequency of purchase is high, but the payment cycle has become longer, if you want to return the book as soon as possible, the platform also provides another way, that is, constantly recommend others to open stores, develop downline members, get referral rewards and rebates.
Liu: "There are members below, members have income every time they buy goods, he buys 10,000 yuan I earn 400 yuan, the more members are developed, and the income rewards are more." A dozen dollars a day, I feel that the income is quite optimistic, and I have income every day. ”
Liu continued to recruit relatives and friends into the partnership, accumulated 50 "branches", and upgraded to become a one-star partner. From beginning to end, he never sold a single bottle of hawthorn liquor or built a real online store.
Zhang Jintao, deputy captain of the Economic Investigation Brigade of the Huixian City Public Security Bureau in Henan Province: "Their goods are actually platform virtual numbers. According to the later crackdown, their capital flow reached 4.5 billion yuan, if according to this ratio, the sales volume of their goods should be 54 million bottles, but the actual investigation, their goods are only 86,000 bottles, the difference is huge. ”
Gao Qiang, a police officer from the Economic Investigation Brigade of the Huixian City Public Security Bureau in Henan Province: "They will open some physical stores offline and put up some goods, the main purpose is to have physical stores, so that everyone knows that it is not completely free of physical transactions." ”
There are entry fees, relying on pulling heads to develop downline, and making money by collecting commissions at every level, which are completely in line with the characteristics of pyramid schemes. According to the police investigation, the MLM platform involved as many as 22,000 people in 31 provinces. MLM platforms like this under the guise of commodity trading are rampant. A group buying platform called "Pinpinpin" has designed complex grouping rules, claiming to be able to earn money through grouping, but in essence, it is an MLM that uses the money of users who join later to "reward" the previous users.
Experts remind that the forms of MLM are diverse and extremely confusing. But the core is to promise high profits and high returns, and the source of profit is to pull people back money.
Song Lihong, a professor at Chinese Public Security University: "For ordinary people, first, don't believe that pies will fall from the sky, and don't have a greedy mentality for money; The second is identification, rebate or money, where does this money come from? Often based on the money paid by others, the basic upload sale is a departure from the basic buying and selling behavior. ”
In addition, ordinary people also need to be wary of downloading QR codes circulating in the community. Usually these MLM platform apps cannot be searched in the formal application software market, and can only be downloaded through QR codes. Once joined, it is easy to unknowingly become a participant in a pyramid scheme, which may constitute a crime.
The essence of pyramid schemes is to take advantage of the people's psychology of speculation and greed for quick gains, and advocate some impossible expected benefits. Once caught in a pyramid scheme, it is very likely to violate the crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme activities and bear criminal responsibility. Internet pyramid schemes are very confusing, the public should keep their eyes open, do not treat the trap as pie, fall into the myth of unearned gain. At the same time, it is also necessary to actively report clues to provide information channels for the police to crack down on pyramid schemes, so that pyramid schemes can not be hidden.
Source: CCTV