Is This Legal?

aghent

Being an eBay Business user I come into contact with a lot of people and have recently received several e-mails form people I've dealt with asking me to join a so called MLM scheme.

Basically you get an e-mail with a list of 5 people on it and you are supposed to send £3 to the one at the top, delete that name, add yours at the bottom and send the e-mail to as many people you can - preferably ones you know or have dealt with to get around spam rules. All this is done using PayPal as the money gathering tool. Apparantly after sevral months you are on your way to becoming the next Donald Trump.

I have resisted taking up the offers as, personally, I feel it's unethical not to mention I believe it breaks current MLM rules on two counts.

Firstly you are not allowed to pay a finders fee for introducing anyone into an MLM scheme. This particular scheme seems to do nothing but that in a round about way.

Secondly, any monies paid should provide an equivalent value in return of either goods or service. This provides niether which to me suggests a pyramid scheme which have been illegal in the UK since 1972.

Can anyone confirm this? I'd also be interested to hear from anyone who's actaully taken up the offer and been successful and can confirm the legality of the scheme.

soolin

I'm not sure whether or not they are technically illegal, but I can confirm that neither ebay or paypal support these schemes, regardless of what the spam you get suggests.

Also, it is worth remembering that you will be prevailing on your mates to take this up as well, and can you do that in all conscience? You can't spam newsgroups or other ebay/paypal users so the bit that suggests you send it to 'everyone' is at the very least stupid advice as you will just get banned from websites and may have problems with your ISP as a spammer.

It gets posted here several times a month and deleted and whenever I get one via email direct I report the sender to their ISP/ebay and paypal.

Pyramid schemes can only work if you personally know enough people willing to risk it and risk passing it on. Personally I'd rather keep my friends that annoy them with spam.

Best avoided regardless of the legality.

Soo

Road_Hog

This is not MLM (multi level marketing) it is Spam and a Pyramid Scheme.

Pyramid Scemes are illegal in the UK.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/Consumer/Scams/Pyramid+schemes.htm

So it's Spam,

It's illegal,

It would !!!!!! me off big time if I were sent this rubbish by a "former" mate.