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From: marks@yogi.DEC
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Pyramid Schemes
Message-ID: <1324@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Mon, 24-Feb-86 10:13:51 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1324
Posted: Mon Feb 24 10:13:51 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Feb-86 06:38:19 EST
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Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
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Recently, I attended a function sponsored by a local university, to 
which the public had been invited.  While I was there, the professor 
who was running the function mentioned a "get rich quick" scheme he 
and his wife were involved in.  On a table in the middle of one of the 
rooms where we were assembled, the professor had organized stacks of 
what I would call propaganda (most likely Xeroxed on the university's 
copying machines) about this scheme (this was totally separate from 
the function we were attending, which really rather surprised if not 
shocked me).  In his words, he said, "Suspend your disbelief and talk 
to me about how you can make all kinds of money..."

The corporation that seems to be the "granddaddy" of the scheme I was 
presented with is M.L.P. Corporation of Memphis, Tennessee.  The 
scheme is called "Trend Card," and the premise is that you (the peon) 
invest $49.50 in a "Trend Card," which allows you to buy food and 
household products at supposedly "discount" prices.  Included with the 
information/propaganda is a representative list of the discounts you 
can get, and frankly, scanning them quickly, they don't seem too much 
(if at all) less expensive than the prices at my local Stop & Shop.

The hook is that you are supposed to push the sale of these trend 
cards to absolutely everyone in the world.  (The propaganda suggests 
starting with everyone you know, e.g., the police and fire chief of 
your town, the mayor, people on your old job, people on your new job, 
neighbors, your lawyer, your doctor(s), your gardener, your milkman, 
the person who sold "your wife her fur coat," and basically everyone 
else on up to God.)  You get a "commission" for selling the cards and 
you get a cut of the money the cardholders spend on the food and 
household items.  You are also provided with an order form to order 
either an A, B, or C mailing list (each one progessively cheaper with 
progressively less useful -- older -- names).  

Included in the propaganda is also an "application" (really a 
contract) in which you obligate yourself to the M.L.P. Corporation in 
certain ways (you must sell a minimum of one Trend Card per month to 
remain eligible to sponsor new agents; you absolve MLP Corp. of any 
employer/employee obligations to you; you may not advertise using MLP 
Corp.'s name; the company can alter its "marketing plan" at any time; 
you are not remunerated for recruiting new sales persons; etc.).  Most 
of the articles in the agreement protect M.L.P. or absolve it from 
liability.

I guess my question is this:  does anyone have any personal experience 
with this corporation?  With this particular scheme?  Haven't there 
been recent laws enacted to counteract this type of pyramid scheme or 
to prohibit it?  I am in Massachusetts, but I am not entirely aware of 
the laws governing this type of thing.  Does anyone know of what the 
appropriate state agency is to find out about it or to let someone 
know it is going on?  I suppose the Attorney General's office might 
keep files on these things.  Is that the appropriate place to call?

Thanks in advance.