The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Did he swindle me?

In September last year I went into an agreement with a Forex company in Commerce Park for the PAMM account offered by Hot Forex trading for a period of 6 months. Unfortunately in March 2019 they wrote me a letter purporting that the account has been hacked, which Hotforex trading desk denied. I have since lost over P36,000 of the P50,000 that I invested. I have followed him up on numerous occasions to pay me back but I have failed, even the P2,500 that was a security fee, he has refused to refund me.

Kindly assist because I suspect he has swindled a lot of us as there was a number of us who invested into the PAMM account and he has always refused to reveal the names of the other people. He has threatened that wherever I report, I will not be able to get my money back.

I think this is very suspicious. The Botswana-based forex company you met offer the services of the HotForex trading company which is based in St. Vincent & the Grenadines in the Caribbean. However, from the documents you sent me, it’s clear that you were dealing primarily with the local company. They were the ones who marketed the 60% profit they claimed you could make within six months.

There are various approaches we can use to apply pressure on the local company. Firstly, they made the claim that you could make 60% return on your investment. That claim is illegal, contrary to Section 9 of the 2018 Consumer Protection Act which outlaws what it calls “multiplication schemes” where a company “offers, promises or guarantees to a participant an effective annual interest rate that is above the market rate”.

Also, it sounds to me that they were offering investment services. The agreement you signed certainly refers to you as the “investor” many times. I think that means they might be in deep trouble with NBFIRA who regulate financial and investment advisors.

Finally, there’s the claim that the company in the Caribbean was “hacked”. I can find no news reports of that happening and it’s a big enough story to have been widely reported. I suspect he’s making up stories.

Let’s both contact NBFIRA and I’ll also contact the local guy who seems to be telling stories. Let’s see if he can be more helpful?

Is World Ventures a pyramid scheme?

I am writing to you in order to hear facts concerning World Ventures Company and what is being said that about it that it is a Pyramid scheme. Can you please help me understand why it is said to be a pyramid scheme so as to have a concrete idea concerning it.

World Ventures is most certainly a pyramid scheme and it’s not just me that says so. The authorities in Norway declared it a pyramid scheme in 2014 and despite World Ventures spending a lot of effort and money appealing that ruling, they failed over and over again. In 2015 the Malaysian authorities declared it an “illegal business”. Three years later, in 2018 the Rwandan authorities warned their consumers that it was a pyramid scheme. This year, the Taiwanese have laid charges against the organisers claiming that World Ventures is “a classic pyramid scheme”. I think there’s a pattern emerging, don’t you?

Like all other pyramid schemes, the truth is simple. The people at the top of the pyramid make money but only at the expense of the people they recruit them. Their latest income disclosure statement World Ventures published in the USA in 2016 showed firstly that 80% of the people who joined made nothing from World Ventures. NOTHING at all. Of the lucky ones who made any money, 77% of the money earned went to the top 5% of people. 74% of the people earning money shared just 10% of the income. And how much money did people actually make? If you include just those people who made money, the average earnings per year is a measly $355. If you include everyone in the scheme, it's a pitiful $30.

So please don't waste your time, money and effort joining pyramid schemes like this one. Remember that the new Consumer Protection Act makes promoting or even just joining a pyramid scheme illegal. Joining could result in a fine of up to P100,000 and five years in prison. Is it worth the risk?

World Ventures still won't make you any money

Despite claiming to offer "The Road to Fun, Freedom and Fulfilment", the truth is less positive.

The latest "Annual Income Disclosure Statement" from World Ventures makes very poor reading. "Very poor" is probably an appropriate phrase because that's what joining World Ventures is likely to make you.

The figures that refer to their US operation in 2016 show firstly that 79.95% of the people who've joined make nothing from World Ventures. NOTHING.

Of those that make something:

• 76.5% of all the money earned goes to the top 5.4%.
• 73.7% of the people earning money share just 10.2% of the income.

And average earnings? If you include just those people who make some money, the average earnings per year is a measly $355. If you include everyone in the scheme, it's a pitiful $30.

So, like all other pyramid and Multi-Level Marketing schemes, it's only the people at the top that make money and they only do so at the expense of the vast majority below them.

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Can she escape World Ventures?

I’m trying to help an elder who committed herself into some two ladies who said they are travel agents offering holiday packages. I was shocked to hear her side of the story that its almost a year now without hearing from them but they are taking a monthly direct debit order from her account of P300. She was traveling the other time so she tried to call and ask them if they can handle the flights and accommodation and travel expenses but they are nowhere to be found!!

The name of the travel agent website page is World Ventures.

We are kindly asking for help if we can stop the monthly transaction with the bank with this people?

This is very sad. Your elderly friend has fallen victim to a particularly heartless pyramid scheme.

World Ventures base their pyramid on supposed travel discounts but here’s a simple fact: discounts aren’t products. And anyway, there's no need to pay to join a discount when hotels give them away for free. You can get discounted hotel stays in South Africa but visiting booking.com, bid2stay.co.za or these days just use Airbnb where you can find some remarkably cheap places to stay anywhere in the world.

It’s also not a way to make any money, despite the promises of people desperately trying to recruit other members. The latest income figures that I’ve seen that they published for the USA showed that two thirds (actually 68.7%) of all the income went to the 3.7% at the top. The median annual income was a mere $33 (around P330). And that was income, not profit.

I suggest your friend contacts her bank immediately and tells them that the deductions are not authorised and that no further payments should be made.

The battery is dead!

I bought a second hand laptop from a second hand shop in Gaborone. I mentioned to the shop owner that I don’t have electricity yet at my house so I will be charging it at work and use it at home when I knock off. He said his laptops are new from UK and batteries are ok so I dont have to worry.

He showed me the Dell laptop which was in good condition, he plugged in the battery and within a minute the laptop went off and he said he forgot to charge it, but he had demonstrated most of what I needed in a laptop. I asked the seller how long the battery last and he said 1 hour at first, and that wasn’t bad. I then asked him are u sure and he was like maybe 30 minutes. So I handed him 1500 which was charged and I even told him I’m not satisfied about the 30 minutes but hey. I charged the laptop that evening, took it home and it went on for only 2 minutes, 2 minutes! Can u imagine.

I called him the next day to explain and he denied ever saying that it lasts for 30 minutes. And I asked him, why would I take a laptop without a battery when I do not have electricity, the guy denied and said I should read at the back their terms and conditions, which I had done. It stated that incase I return their product they will charge me 25% handling fee, which i did not understand.

I feel robbed.

I agree. You deserve to feel robbed. A laptop battery that lasts for 2 minutes is worthless.

It doesn’t really matter whether a laptop (or anything else) is new or second-hand, it must be as it was described to you. As the Consumer Protection Regulations put it, it must be “as advertised or represented”. It must also be “of merchantable quality” which means “fit for the purposes for which commodities of that kind are usually purchased, as it is reasonable to expect in light of the relevant circumstances”. That last bit is important. “in light of the relevant circumstances” means that you can’t expect a second-hand laptop to have the battery life of a brand new one. But it should be usable. It must function reasonably well considering its age. It must also be “fit for any particular purpose made known by the consumer”. You explained that you needed a laptop with decent battery life because you don’t have electricity at home. He knew that from the beginning so there’s no excuse. Send me his contact details and we’ll explain this to him, in terms simple enough that even he can understand it.

Radio show notes - week beginning 14th May 2018

Source: Wikipedia

1. Events – can we ever do them right?

Exhibit A. Hamptons Festival

The original event was postponed, and tickets were offered to the rescheduled event. However, some people either couldn’t make the rescheduled date or just chose not to.

But for some of those people, refunds were very slow to arrive.

Exhibit B. Gaborone Motor Show.

Following the sale of many tickets, some of which included entry to a raffle, the Motor Show organisers posted the following message:

“NOTICE: Our raffle has been cancelled! All persons who bought our P100 Raffle Tickets should claim their refund at our entrance points at the 2018 Gaborone Motor Show… We would like to sincerely apologize to all affected customers for this cancellation we were unable to get registration in time!”

However, several people were disappointed. One commented:

“The prize car for the raffle was not a brand new vehicle; the raffle itself was cancelled; and some issues arose with the young ladies tasked with working at the event. As per the post, I tried to claim my full refund at the entrance of the event and they told me the rules had changed and that they no longer give full refunds. Even after showing them this very post, they refused to give a full refund and stated that those will only be possible after an audit was carried out.”

The law is simple. All competitions, including raffles, must be approved by the Gambling Authority and that takes a while, it's not something that can be done quickly. The Motor Show organisers had plenty of time.

The lesson is to read the small print on tickets. Always ask about cancellation terms before you buy the ticket.

2. Jamalife – is it legit?

Jamalife describe themselves as:

“an online cum offline network marketing organization and was born out of the need to build up people financially all across the globe to the point of experiencing high quality life in all areas of living”. 

That's meaningless gibberish. Describing their products they say they have offer “Human Capital Development”, “Food Security”, “Online mail”, “Flight and hotel booking”, “Assets and Property acquisition” and “Financial empowerment”.

More meaningless gibberish.

What Jamalife really offers is multiple layers of recruitment. They call them Builder, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald, Diamond, Crown Diamond, Ambassador and finally Crown Ambassador. Each of these layers include at least another two layers. Jamalife claim that once you reach the top of Crown Ambassador level, they promise that you can get R3,900,000 and a Range Rover worth R2,210,000.

But here's a question. To get to that level, how many people would you need in the pyramid beneath you?

16,777,214.

The difference between a Multi-Level Marketing scheme and a pyramid scheme is simple. A pyramid scheme is focussed primarily on the recruitment of people rather than the sale of products. Jamalife say this:

"any rewards or earnings that are offered from Jamalife Helpers Global through the Business Plan is the result of members referring or signing up other willing members."

Their own words...

3. Where’s my policy?

A customer started an education policy in 2015, paying P300/month. This was meant to mature this year but:

“I was told I have closed the account in 2015 and it stopped deducting. Now they say I have to pay all the instalments in order for me to resuscitate the policy yet they don’t have any proof that I instructed them to stop the policy. They closed it because they say i wrote a letter instructing them to close it but they can't provide the stated letter.”

The important thing is that it is a customer’s job to monitor the payments, not their employer or their bank. It's the Custoemr's job to check bank statements and payslips to check they are making the payments they must.

In this case, the solutions is to pay the missing instalments. She still has the money after all.

4. World Ventures (yet again)

“Is it legit?” The Norwegian authorities say not. They found that 95% of all money earned is from recruiting other people. It's another pyramid scheme.

World Ventures base their pyramid on supposed travel discounts but discounts aren’t products. And anyway, there's no need to pay to join a discount when hotels give them away for free. You can get discounted hotel stays in South Africa but visiting booking.com, bid2stay.co.za where they give away discounts for free. Or consider something like Airbnb.

Regarding World Ventures, the latest income figures they published for the USA showed that two thirds (actually 68.7%) of all the income went to the 3.7% at the top. The median annual income was a mere $33 (around P330). And that was income, not profit.

5. How to complain (in 2018)

A customer had a problem with a takeaway.

“I was contacted by one of their managers for the poor service I had received. When I got their I ordered the same food and asked to see the manager. The lady took her time and I went to buy a drink, I came back she still took her time and when she came she did apologies for the mistake they did but she was not interested in helping me and started interrogating asking silly questions about why I had to run to social media and wat not. I received no help concerning the poor service I had received. These people have no respect for us as consumers. Now I think it's time I took my case to consumer affairs.”

It’s 2018. How should we complain?

However the hell we want to!

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Where is my P800?

I paid P800 for my ACCA P3 classes last year in March at a tutoring place in the Main Mall. The tutor later told me that there were no P3 classes yet and I was the only student. Therefore I ended up not going at all and my employer took me to BAC instead. The tutor agreed that he will refund me but when I call he'll tell me he forgot or he lost my number or he doesn't have money yet. Kindly help me since it looks like this cycle will not stop.

I think this has gone on long enough. The receipt you showed me made it clear that he'd received your money for a class that he didn't deliver and he knew he had to refund you your money. What this supposed accountant seems to forget is that Section 15 (1) (e) of the Consumer Protection Regulations says that when a deal is cancelled, as yours so clearly has been, the service provider must refund any payments made "promptly". I don't think that "promptly" means "a year later". I don't even think it means "three months later". I think that "promptly" means "within a few days, perhaps a week at most".

I contacted the guy and asked him when he was planning to give you your money back but unfortunately he wasn't happy to hear from me. When I mentioned that he might feature in The Voice he SMSed me saying "Well do it in that way. I will personally apply for a court case against u.... U think i am a thief. Well."

I'll be looking forward to the case.

He later told me: "Do what u want am not a thief . I have an office y didnt not summon me or call me to consumer office . I dont run away. I want to talk to her is only peeson i can tell when i refund her . I dont know u".

Later still he told me that he'd lost your number and "I want to talk to her is only peeson i can tell when i refund her . I dont know u". However he then became a bit more reasonable, saying "By the way if u have number of that tell i give after 3 weeks. I went thru several losses by my farm".

Roughly translated into English he means that he'll pay you in three weeks but can we trust him? I think you should write him a letter saying that he has 14 days to refund you or you'll take legal action against him to recover your money. If he fails to do so then you should go straight to the Small Claims Court for an order against him. You might also want to check with the Botswana Institute of Chartered Accountants to see if he's really the Chartered Accountant he claims to be. I suspect he isn't!

Is World Ventures legit?

Mr Richard. I need your input, is World Ventures legit?

I get asked this question at least once a month and this is the answer I always give.

World Ventures is a pyramid scheme. The authorities in Norway announced a few years ago that they were certain that World Ventures is a pyramid scheme because 95% of all the money paid out to recruits was for the recruitment of other people, not from actually selling things. That's a pyramid scheme.

Like other schemes World Ventures are required by some countries to publish income statements that show what their distributors actually earn from their business. With World Ventures the latest figures from the USA show that three-quarters of all people who join make absolutely nothing from the business. Of the rest, almost all of the money was earned by the few people at the top of the pyramid. You want details? More than two thirds (actually 68.7%) of all the income went to the 3.7% at the top. And let's make it clear, the earnings made by the people at the tops came directly from those at the bottom of the pyramid. That's gross exploitation.

Taking every American recruit into account, the median earnings were a meagre $33, just P330 per year and those figures were income, not profit. They excluded all the costs associated with running the "business" like transport, phone and internet bills. With the exception of those few people at the top, everyone else loses money with World Ventures.

Do you want someone building a pyramid for an exploitative leader? There's a word for that role.

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

What price should I pay?

I want to bring up the subject of irregular pricing, where prices at the shelves are found to be different from prices at the till. I was in a supermarket and picked Extra Virgin Olive oil priced at P76.65. Upon paying at the counter, the price turned out to be P81.80.

When I discussed the issue with the store managers, they explained that the issue arises from price increases made in South Africa, and the manual labeling found at some of their shops isn’t updated. They explained that when this happens, price controllers are able to pick new price changes upon queries from customers, apart from price checks done twice a week.

Are shops in Botswana taking advantage of the loophole by delaying price adjustments at shelves to influence clients to buy? Would their Head Office still be unaware of this irregularity by this time, affecting shops with manually printed prices after so many complaints raised? What should clients do when they encounter these issues, apart from demanding to pay the price they see at the shelves?

Obviously noting price irregularities by clients is not entirely effective because we miss some of them; the store must solve the problem. With my case, I made the management give me the olive oil at the shelve price but this is not adequate.

You’re my Christmas hero! Well done to you for standing up for your rights and for refusing to allow a store to abuse you.

Section 13 (1) (e) of the Consumer Protection Regulations requires a store like this one to sell goods as they are “advertised or represented”. If it says P76.65 on the shelf or in the advertisement then that’s the price you are entitled to pay. No arguments, no silly excuses about labels being printed in South Africa, nothing like that, just the price that was advertised or represented please. Like you I find it hard to believe that, in 2017, the expensive computer systems at their Head Office don’t notice that when an item is sold the price in the pricing system is not the same as the price that was printed. Either they’re ignoring the difference and keeping the extra money or they need to employ some better system architects.

What should we do about it? We should do exactly what you did. Stand firm, accept no excuses and demand to have our rights respected instead of ignored and abused. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Is it a pyramid scheme?

My girlfriend yesterday was called by a number and she was invited to a business seminar of some kind, so today I called the number just to find out what it's all about and had a chat with the chap but still didn't understand what their business is. It sounds to me like a pyramid scheme because you have to invite people to join in order to get paid. First he talked about travelling and when I asked what they will be selling or doing during the travel he changed the story and started talking about recruiting members. I'm not saying they are not legit, I'm just taking precautions. Apparently they are running business seminars.

I later found out that the company is named World Ventures and is said to be an international company. Do you know about it?

You’re right, it’s a pyramid scheme. The authorities in Norway announced a few years ago that they were certain that World Ventures is a pyramid scheme because 95% of all the money paid out to recruits was for the recruitment of other people, not from actually selling things. That’s a pyramid scheme.

Like other schemes World Ventures are required by some countries to publish income statements that show what their distributors actually earn from their business. With World Ventures the latest figures show that three-quarters of all people who join make nothing from the business. Of the rest, almost all of the money was earned by the few people at the top of the pyramid. Everyone else had to share the minimal leftovers. And those figures were income, not profit. They exclude all the costs associated with running the business like transport, phone and internet bills. With the exception of those few people at the top, everyone else loses money.

So please warn your girlfriend not to waste her time on this pyramid scheme! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Will World Ventures make me rich?

I’ve been asked many times by many people for my opinions about World Ventures and my answer is always the same. I believe it’s a pyramid scheme.

Let’s start at the beginning. Wikipedia provides a useful definition of a pyramid scheme. It’s

"an unsustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public.”

So, for instance, Amway and Herbalife aren’t pyramid schemes because they have products. They’re Multi-Level Marketing schemes that just have a pyramid structure. With these two schemes you’re certainly actively encouraged to build multiple layers of people beneath you in the structure but there are actual products being shipped. The figures that Amway and Herbalife produce show that hardly anyone makes any profit from the schemes but they’re not pyramid schemes. Not quite.

But World Ventures is a pyramid scheme. So say the authorities in Norway who investigated them and discovered that most of the money people were making from World Ventures came from the recruitment of other people in the pyramid, not the sale of any product. Similar investigations around the world have also suggested the same conclusion. So it’s not just me.

But let’s, for a moment, assume that World Ventures is a legitimate business. Let’s assume it’s not a scam. Will you make money from joining?

Almost certainly not. And who can I thank for teaching me this? World Ventures themselves.

In the USA, World Ventures publish an "Income Disclosure Statement" every year and it makes interesting reading. Like all such schemes the majority of the money is earned by a very small proportion of the people, the ones at the top of the pyramid.

The 2015 statement declared very proudly that World Ventures has 238,684 Independent Sales Representatives (“IRs”) in the United States. However, they reported that only "22.24% of all IRs earned a commission or override, while 77.76% did not". In simpler terms, three quarters of all their American recruits made nothing from the scheme. Nothing at all. Zero.

Of the quarter of recruits who earned something, the news was very good but only if you were at the top of the pyramid. In fact, 84% of all the money generated was earned by the top 19%. Or, if you prefer it the other way round, 81% of the recruits who earn something have to share just 16% of the money.

It gets worse. Two thirds (actually 68.7%) of all the income earned in 2015 went to the 3.7% lucky enough to find themselves at the very top of the pyramid. In fact, the people at the very top of the pyramid are doing very well for themselves. The 1 in 20,000 people described as "National Marketing Director" level had an annual income of $238,645. The 1 in 14,000 at "International Marketing Director" level earned an average of $409,280.

Overall, if you include everyone who made some money from the scheme, the average income was $1,348 but that's not a good indication of what the average recruit will earn because the figures are distorted by those fat cats earning a fortune at the top of the pyramid. The median income level is a much better illustration of what you can expect to earn. That's a meagre $150 per year, about P1,500.

But don't forget two important things. Firstly, like I mentioned above, less than a quarter of all the people who join earn anything. These figures just refer to the quarter of victims who earned anything at all. If you include the three quarters who don’t earn anything, the average annual earnings are a meagre $300. The median earnings, the more realistic figure, drops to a pathetic $33. Just P330 per year.

Even more importantly, all these numbers refer to income, not profits. These figures are before you take account of all the money the victims had to spend on travel, accommodation, electricity, internet access and trying to recruit potential victims. If the evidence from legitimate schemes like Amway and Herbalife can be trusted then it’s probably fair to assume that the vast majority of people who join World Ventures either make nothing or actually lose money.

In fact, all they’re doing is earning lots money for the tiny number at the top of the pyramid.

It’s the same for all the other pyramid schemes, and their cousins, the Ponzi schemes that abound. Only the people at the top ever make money and that’s always at the expense of the poor suckers at the bottom, the ones doing all the work, not even earning a salary for their efforts. Whether it’s the silly AIM Global scheme selling their illegal magical health products, Total Life Changes with their apparently disease-curing tea, Tupperware with their kitchenware, BitClub Network with their claim that people can become Bitcoin miners, Questra or alternatively Atlantic Global Asset Management with their Get Rich Quick claims, the claims are always exactly the same. With minimal effort, you’ll make lots of money.

Sometimes they’re brazen about it. One of the recruiters for Questra, a well-known “Man of God”, posted on Facebook that with Questra, there were “No Joining fees, No monthly payments, You invest n see ur money making u money without lifting a finger.”

If only life was that simple. But it’s not. There are no quick ways to make money without effort unless you win the lottery. Even then it’s not the complete truth. A lottery can only afford to give the winner a million if the losers have lost more than a million in total. The losers pay the winner’s winnings.

Pyramid schemes like World Ventures are even worse than lotteries. Imagine a lottery where the person running the lottery fixed the results and was also the winner, every single week. That’s what a pyramid scheme is like, a conspiracy organised solely to take money from the people who lose every week and give it to the winners, who also are the people who created the scheme.

Do you want to be that loser?

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Must I pay to return the bricks?

Kindly offer advice on the following matter.

About a month ago I made an order for some bricks from a supplier. He delivered when I was not around and the bricks are poor quality to me but he claims the quality is good. I saw the bricks and they are not up to standard. I wanted to return the bricks because of the poor quality and he says I will have to pay 33% handling fee to him.

What I my rights in the situation? I have not made any payments. I don’t have any signed agreement with him and have never seen his company policy.

Clearly this guy isn’t the smartest of people. He delivered bricks to your place without a payment in advance and then he wants to start fooling around with you? Doesn’t he realise that you are the one in control of this situation?

I suggest you write him a letter saying that the bricks he delivered failed to meet the requirements of Section 13 (1) (a) of the Consumer Protection Regulations that require goods to be "of merchantable quality" which is defined as “fit for the purposes for which commodities of that kind are usually purchased”. You should also say that as a result of the sub-standard nature of the bricks, you are cancelling the deal completely and that he is welcome to collect his bricks from your property. Don’t even respond to his silly suggestion about the 33% fee for handling the bricks that still belong to him.

Should we join World Ventures?

Richard do u know anything about World Ventures? My wife wants us to join but the way she explained it to me I smell something wrong about it. She has to come with 4 people who will bring more people for her to earn points. Please advise.

World Ventures is a pyramid scheme. That’s my opinion but it’s an opinion shared by the authorities in Norway for instance, who declared it was a pyramid scheme after they discovered that 85% of the income its members made came from recruiting other people rather that selling products. That’s the definition of a pyramid scheme.

We’ve been warning people about World Ventures since 2009 when they took over an earlier pyramid scheme called Success University. World Ventures and their Dream Trips scheme promise fantastic holidays in exotic places but they’re rarely clear that none of these holidays are free. You have to pay to join the pyramid and then all you get are discounted holidays. You still have to buy the holidays, just at a slightly cheaper price. And here’s a thing. A discount isn’t a product, it’s a reduction in the price of a product. Like the Norwegian authorities discovered, World Ventures is really all about is paying to join a pyramid-structured scheme in which you do your best to recruit multiple layers of people beneath you, just like any other pyramid or Multi-Level Marketing scheme.

The interesting thing is that World Ventures publish an "Income Disclosure Statement" in the USA every year and it makes interesting reading. To begin with, more than three quarters of all their American recruits made nothing from the scheme. Nothing at all. Zero.

Of those that made any money, the vast majority of the money is earned by a very small proportion of the people, the ones at the top of the pyramid. Furthermore, more than two thirds of all the money is made by the 3.7% at the top of the pyramid. 84% is earned by the top 19%. To put it another way, 81% of the recruits who earn money have to share just 16% of the money.

And these amounts refer to income, not profits. They’re before the recruits took account of all the money they had to spend on travel, accommodation, electricity, internet access and all the other costs of trying to recruit other victims into the scheme. The evidence from other similar schemes is that most people earn less than they spend trying to make the money. They lose money.

I suggest you tell your wife there are many better ways of spending your money!

The current threats

What’s threatening the consumers of Botswana at the moment?

One calls itself Questra or alternatively Atlantic Global Asset Management, which they say is the company that represents Questra. One of their local representatives posted some photos of himself doing his best to recruit people into the scheme and a message which included the suggestion that you should “invest as little as P1300.00 to buy an annual package of €90 that will yield 4-7% interest every week, payable to ur account on Fridays for the whole year”.

There’s your first clue. “4-7% interest every week”? Those numbers might not seem terribly high to you. Aren’t they similar to the interest rates offered by banks? Well, that’s true, but with a bank you might get that sort of return after a year. This guy says you can earn it “every week”. Let’s assume for a moment that this is true. I’ve done the maths. If you give them the minimum of P1,300 that they suggest and you then get a €90 package (about P1,080) that will earn 4% per week, after a year your P1,080 will have grown to P7,222, a total return of 569% per year. If you were luckier and you get the 7% they suggest, your money will have grown to P36,423, an annual return of 3,273%.

That’s impossible and I hope everyone realises that. If you don’t, ask yourself this. If it was possible, don’t you think the Bank of Botswana will be investing? And all the commercial banks, pension funds and professional investors as well? I think it’s safe to assume that if they’re not doing so, then neither should we.

Another clue is something you often see with pyramid and Ponzi schemes. They very rarely give any clue about how you will earn the profits they promise. They don’t mention stocks and shares, derivatives, futures or any other mysterious financial terminology that sounds impressive.

A final clue came later in this guy’s claim. He said that there are “No Joining fees, No monthly payments, You invest n see ur money making u money without lifting a finger.”

So you can earn over 3,000% interest in a year without even lifting a finger? This is such an obvious scam, no other clues are needed.

But there are nevertheless several other clues. They’re the warnings that have been issued by the authorities in Belgium, Italy, Slovakia, Austria, Liechtenstein, Poland, Spain and the UK. The Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority said that Questra “clearly resembles that of a pyramid scheme or, at the very least, a Ponzi fraud."

There’s a final curiosity about Questra, or rather about the guy who was busily recruiting people. In 2010 the same person was trying to recruit people in to TVI Express, another pyramid scheme that collapsed leaving people poor. Then in 2015 he was again busy, this time recruiting people into the pyramid scheme selling Xtreme Fuel Treatment, a fake fuel efficiency enhancer. Clearly he’s a serial pyramid scheme recruiter.

Even busier than this guy are the hordes of Filipinos and their local recruits desperately trying to recruit people into AIM Global.

One of these recruiters posted that “We are looking for the next distributor that would like to start making P200 to P3,200 daily working just to share information about Aim Global business opportunity every day using your Mobile Phone?”, “JOIN US NOW and be the next Millionaire in your Country”.

Just like the evangelist selling Questra, at no point do the people desperately trying to seduce people into joining AIM Global say what the product that this scheme sells might be. They give no idea how you can earn that P3,200 every day. It must be magic.

In fact there is a product lurking behind AIM Global and it really does seem like a magical product. Their “C247” product can, so they claim, help with 100 different serious medical conditions including asthma, diabetes, cirrhosis, bone fracture, deafness, endometriosis, epilepsy, heart diseases, hypertension, low sperm count, “toxins in the body”, stroke, migraine and even cancer and “immunodeficiency”.

Any product that could do all these things truly would be magical. And just like all other magic tricks, it’s a deception, and an illegal one too. Sections 396-399 of the Penal Code specifically forbid anyone from advertising such claims. So it’s a criminal product that has not, despite what many of the people selling the scheme claim, been “approved” by either the Ministry or Health of the Botswana Bureau of Standards. A criminal product sold by liars running a pyramid scheme.

But Questra and AIM Global aren’t the only threats. World Ventures, a pyramid scheme selling holiday discounts, is still going strong despite authorities around the world warning people that it’s nothing more than a pyramid scheme. Whether they call themselves World Ventures, or their new name, Dream Trips, it doesn’t matter. Their own figures from the USA for 2015 show clearly that more than three-quarters of their American recruits made no money at all from the scheme. Not a single cent. Of the small proportion that did make any money, more than two thirds of all the income is earned by the 3.7% at the top of the pyramid.

In fact, the median income level, the best illustration of what the typical American World Ventures recruits earned in 2015, was a meagre P1,500 per year. And that’s just income. It takes no account of the money the recruits must spend on travel, their phone and internet bills and the alcohol they probably need to drink to drown their sorrows when they finally realise that all their hard work has done is to feed the people at the top of the pyramid.

There’s also the TLC scheme, “Total Life Changes”, that sell their miracle "Iaso Tea" that they claim can help you lose 2.5kg in weight in a week and can also “reduce stress, reduce the risk of cancer, prevent cardiovascular diseases”. It also “mitigates HIV”. “prevents high blood pressure” and protects against “poisoning”. The recruiters will also tell you that it’s possible to make money from TLC just by recruiting other people, just like any other pyramid scheme.

The lesson, as always, is simple. People desperate to recruit you into schemes like TLC, Questra, World Ventures or AIM Global are desperate to make money from you, not with you.

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Is World Ventures legitimate?

Please help us understand. World Ventures is now talk of the town and many people are lured to fall into it. Meetings are held almost everyday. Personally I was enticed to join and I did not have cash amounting to $411 or P4,500. I asked the lady who wanted me to join to use her money from her account to help me join since I was skeptic and indeed she gladly did so. I later in the day asked her to ask the administrators to cancel my transaction since my skepticism grew by the day.

I humble request that your organization makes more and loud noise about this movement. it is very pathetic to see even poor workers falling into the bottomless pit.

I’m glad that you didn’t waste your own money joining this scheme. It was very smart of you to get the person recruiting you to spend her money instead!

World Ventures is a pyramid scheme. The Gaming Board in Norway announced a few years ago that following a lengthy investigation they were certain that World Ventures is a pyramid scheme. Their main criteria for deciding this was simple. 95% of all the money paid out to recruits in Norway was for the recruitment of other people, not from actually selling things. That’s a pyramid scheme.

Like many other schemes that try to appear legitimate World Ventures have been forced by various countries to post income statements that illustrate what their distributors actually earn from their business. The latest figures showed that three-quarters of all people who join make nothing at all from the business. Of the quarter that had an income, almost all of the money was earned by the tiny proportion at the top of the pyramid. Everyone else had to share the small amount left over. But don’t forget that these statements only talk about income, they never mention profit. These figures exclude all the costs associated with running the business like transport, phone and internet bills. It’s likely that, with the exception of those very few people at the top, everyone else loses money.

So don’t waste your time on this scheme or any others like it. The rule is simple. Get Rich Quick schemes only make the crooks at the top rich, at the expense of you and me.

Where’s my insurance?

I insured my vehicle last year in May. This year in August I had an accident, and when I tried to lodge a claim the insurer told me that my policy had expired. This completely shocked me as I was NEVER informed by the insurer that my policy has expired even when I was in contact with them in throughout May for a claim that I was processing at the time. I appealed to the CEO, who informed me that they will only give me feedback on the appeal once they have assessed the vehicle (meaning that they needed to know the cost of the damage first before deciding on whether to cover or not). I have subsequently received a notification that the vehicle wont be covered.

They claim to have tried to call me once and failed, which I don't believe since I didn't get any missed calls from them; and I also feel that calling once was not enough! They could have sent email and or sms to actually inform that the policy had expired.

This I believe is very unfair business practice where the insurance company does not want to take responsibility for failure of the staff to inform a client that their policy has expired. 

Yes, I agree with you that the company should have made efforts to contact you to. Section 15 (1) (a) of the Consumer Protection Regulations requires a company that offers any service to do so “with reasonable care and skill”. I think that means they should have tried harder to let you know the policy had lapsed.

However, if the policy lapsed because your payments stopped for some reason, then there’s also an obligation on you, the consumer, to have noticed this. Yes, perhaps it was the bank’s fault but it’s still your job to ensure that the payments went through. You, after all, are the customer, not the bank.

Nevertheless, we’ll get in touch with the company and see if they can reconsider their decision.

Will these schemes make you rich?

Last week it was Herbalife, the week before it was Amway. They’re two of the largest Multi-Level Marketing schemes in the world and they make a tremendous amount of money. Well, the people at the top of the pyramid do but that’s all. Their own published earnings statements show that the overwhelming majority, at least 90% and many experts think more than 99%, either make nothing or even lose money from joining them.

Maybe you’ll stand a better chance with one of the smaller schemes instead of these MLM titans?

No, they don’t work either.

What about World Ventures, or as it now calls itself, Dream Trips?

We’ve been warning people about the World Ventures pyramid scheme since 2009 when they took over an earlier pyramid scheme called Success University. World Ventures and Dream Trips promise fantastic holidays in exotic places but they’re rarely clear that none of these holidays are free. You have to pay to join the pyramid and then all you get are discounted holidays. You still have to buy the holidays, just at a slightly cheaper price. And here’s a thing. A discount isn’t a product, it’s a reduction in the price of a product but maybe that’s just me being pedantic. What World Ventures is really all about is paying to join a pyramid-structured scheme in which you do your best to recruit multiple layers of people beneath you, just like any other pyramid or Multi-Level Marketing scheme.

The interesting thing is that, like Herbalife, World Ventures publish an "Income Disclosure Statement" (124kb pdf download) in the USA every year and just like Herbalife their 2015 statement makes interesting but disappointing reading. Yet again the vast majority of the money is earned by a very small proportion of the people, the ones at the top of the pyramid.

Referring to what they call their “Independent Sales Representatives” (“IRs”), they report that "22.24% of all IRs earned a commission or override, while 77.76% did not". In other words, more than three quarters of all their American recruits made nothing from the scheme. Nothing at all.

Furthermore, more than two thirds of all the money is made by the 3.7% at the top of the pyramid. 84% is earned by the top 19%. To put it another way, 81% of the recruits who earn money have to share just 16% of the money.

So like the other schemes, if you're at the top of the pyramid you're doing very well. The 1 in 14,000 people at "International Marketing Director" level earned an average of $409,280. The 1 in 20,000 described as "National Marketing Director" have an annual income of $238,645.

Of the small proportion who made any money, the average income was just over $1,300 a year (about P13,000) but that's not a good indication of what the average recruit will earn because the figures are distorted by the tiny proportion at the top who earn a fortune. The median income level is a much better illustration of what you can expect to earn. That's a meagre $150 per year.

And yet again, these amounts refer to income, not profits. These figures are before the recruits took account of all the money they had to spend on travel, accommodation, electricity, internet access and the coffee and drink they had to buy when they did their best to recruit other victims into this scheme. The evidence suggests that most people earn less than they spend trying to make the money. So they lose money.

And don’t forget that less than a quarter of all the recruits earn anything. These figures just refer to the 22% of victims who earned anything at all.

So no, you won’t make any money from joining World Ventures or Dream Trips, you’ll just waste a lot of money, energy and time. Don’t take my word for it, their own figures say so.

Ok, what about Tupperware? They have real products, don’t they? Do people make money from them?

Again, no. The figures Tupperware revealed in their 2016 Income Disclosure Summary (39kb pdf download) in Canada were equally poor. To begin with, almost half of the 37,000 distributors were described as “Inactive, meaning that they were “participants that have earned some commissions from the sale of products, but have not achieved a minimum of $500 in personal retail sales”. Of the remainder, almost all of them, 94%, were in the lowest category of “Consultant”. They earned the equivalent of just P3,800 in a 10-month period. Again that was income, not profit, not taking into account the costs of selling all those plastic products.

Only 40 out of the 37,000 Tupperware distributors in the entirety of Canada earned more than the average annual wage. 97% of them made less than one-tenth of the average wage.

Tupperware, like Amway and Herbalife, is extremely top-heavy. 53% of all the money earned went to the top 6% of the people, leaving less than half of the money to be shared by the other 94%. You can see how uneven it all is.

Here’s the secret about Multi-Level Marketing schemes and their cousins, pyramid schemes. They’re all the same. They’re all based on a Get Rich Quick promise that’s actually a deception. While the people selling the scheme will promise holidays, exotic lifestyles and wealth this is all are lies. These promises are simply not true and many of the people doing the recruitment know this. They know they’re not making any money and that the only way they might do so is to recruit other people into their position, to suffer the way they do.

Over the years we’ve examined dozens of Multi-Level Marketing and pyramid schemes and they’ve all been the same. They’ve all, every single one of them, ended up with people poorer, more miserable and with a trail of alienated friends, relatives and colleagues who’ve been pestered into joining the scheme. Not once have we encountered a scheme that has made anyone money. Not once. So why would the next one be any different?

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

What is a pyramid scheme?

Can you kindly explain to me what is a Pyramid Scheme? Is Amway a pyramid? And also what is Network Marketing and or Direct Sales?

It’s an excellent question and it’s a very good time to discuss it. Maybe if more people understood, fewer would fall victim to the scams that are out there.

Let’s start with Amway. Amway is a Multi-Level Marketing scheme. They have a range of household products on offer but you can’t buy them from your local supermarket. Instead you buy them from people Amway have recruited, people operating small Amway businesses from their own homes. So far so good. If that’s how you want to buy things then good for you. It’s not a cheap or effective way to buy things but that’s your choice. The problem is that the Amway distributors are encouraged (some would say forced) to recruit distributors beneath them, having been promised a share of the business they bring in. If one distributor recruits five people and they each recruit another five you now have thirty-one people. If that continues another level you have 156 people in what look just like a pyramid. Add another few generations and you soon would have every adult in Botswana in your group earning money for you. You can see how this can’t work, can’t you? There simply aren’t enough people to be recruited. Amway’s own figures show that in the USA and UK their distributors are lucky if they make just a few hundred Pula per month and that’s before they pay all their business expenses. Most make nothing or even lose money. The same goes for all the other MLM, Network Marketing or Direct Sales companies. They’re all the same. Very few people make any money, no matter how hard they work. The only ones that make any money are the people who created the scheme, the ones at the top of the pyramid.

Then there are pyramid schemes. A pyramid scheme is the same as a Multi-Level Marketing scheme but without any actual products. It’s all about recruiting a pyramid of people who pay to join and whose money flows up the pyramid towards the top. World Ventures is a pyramid scheme, as is Bitclub Network and Helping Hands International. The focus with a pyramid scheme is all about recruitment, not about products. If someone tells you that you don’t have to buy or sell things to make money, rest assured they’re trying to scam you. Just show them the door.

Can I get a refund?

I recently sent my worker to buy me a charger at for P500. However when I arrived at the office I immediately contacted the store to tell them that I wanted to return the charger as it had no pin and was also expensive.

They told me that they could not refund me as they had already deposited the money. The following day I took the charger to their shop and they informed me that they don’t refund customers. I then left the charger at their shop.

I plead with you to assist me in this matter.

Thanks for sending me a complicated one!

Firstly, we need to establish why you want to return the item. Was it because it was missing something and it doesn’t work? If that’s the case then they’ve sold you something that isn’t “of merchantable quality” as required by Section 13 (1) (a) of the Consumer Protection Regulations and you have a right to one of the three Rs: a refund, repair or replacement. However, it’s important to understand that the store can decide which of those three Rs they choose. If there was a part missing they can simply give you that part. If the charger was working they can fix it.

However, if you want to return it just because it’s too expensive then I’m sorry, you’re out of luck. Despite what many people think, you don’t have a legal right to change your mind. In that case you need to ask yourself what the store did wrong. Did they lie to you? Did they deceive you in any way? Did they actually do anything wrong? They sold you something at a price that was openly displayed and you, a competent adult (or your worker on your behalf) consented to that deal.

Let me know which it was and I’ll happily get in touch with the store and see if they can be a bit more helpful. Either way their excuses about having deposited the money and “don’t refund customers” aren’t really good enough, are they?

World Ventures will still lose you money

World Ventures is a pyramid scheme that we've mentioned many times before.

Recently it updated its brand and started calling itself "Dream Trips" but it's still the same old thing.

World Ventures publish an "Income Disclosure Statement" every year and it makes interesting reading. Like all pyramid schemes the majority of the money is earned by a very small proportion of the people, the ones at the top of the pyramid.

The statement for the USA in 2015 can be seen here and you're welcome to analyse it for yourself. However, if you don't have a calculator to hand, here are some of the highlights.

• Referring to their Independent Sales Representatives (“IRs”), they report that "22.24% of all IRs earned a commission or override, while 77.76% did not". In simpler terms, three quarters of all their American recruits made nothing from the scheme. Nothing at all.
• Two thirds (actually 68.7%) of all the income is earned by the 3.7% at the top of the pyramid.
• 84% is earned by the top 19%. To put it another way, 81% of the recruits who earn money have to share just 16% of the money.
• If you're at the top of the pyramid you're doing well. The 1 in 14,000 people at "International Marketing Director" level earns an average of $409,280. The 1 in 20,000 described as "National Marketing Director" level have an annual income of $238,645.
• However, of the small proportion who made some money, the average income was $1,348.82 but that's not a good indication of what the average recruit will earn because the figures are distorted by the tiny proportion at the top who earn a fortune. The median income level is a much better illustration of what you can expect to earn. That's a meagre $150 per year.

But don't forget two important things. Firstly, like I mentioned above, only a quarter of all the recruits earn anything. These figures just refer to the quarter of victims who earned anything at all. 

More importantly, these amounts refer to income, not profits. These figures are before the recruits took account of all the money they had to spend on travel, accommodation, electricity, internet access and the coffee and drink they had to buy when they did their best to recruit other victims into this scam. I suspect that most people earn less than they spend trying to make the money. They lose money.

In short, please don't waste your time, effort and money with World Ventures or Dream Trips.

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Should she join World Ventures?

My daughter wants to join World Ventures. Are they a viable business?

World Ventures is a pyramid scheme. They’ve been marketing themselves in Botswana for a few years now but your daughter mustn’t waste her time and money on them.

We’ve been warning people about World Ventures since 2009 when they took over an earlier pyramid scheme called Success University. They ay they offer travel discounts but so far I haven’t seen any evidence of that. They certainly don’t have any discounts better than those hotel chains will offer you for free without having to pay to join a scheme and then recruit multiple levels of people beneath you the way WorldVentures does.

What pyramid schemes like WorldVentures really sell is the promise of income from recruiting multiple layers of people beneath you, each of whom pays to join and then starts a flow of money up the pyramid, some of which stays with you as it passes by. Of course this rarely happens because it’s almost impossible to recruit the number of people you need to achieve the targets the scheme sets you. The figures produced by WorldVentures prove this.

In 2012 WorldVentures published data on the income their US representatives earned from the scheme. It was sad. Firstly 77.5% of their representatives made no money at all. Nothing. Zero. Then 82% of the small proportion people who made any money had a median annual income of a mere P200. Remember that's income, not profits. It's not money they could spend on themselves. The 1% of the people at the top of the pyramid took 84% of all the money.

Please don’t let your daughter waste her money joining the WorldVentures scam. She’ll just be giving her money to that 1% at the top of the pyramid. They’re the only people who ever benefit from a pyramid scheme like WorldVentures.

Should I trade binary options?

Hi, I need your help. I was contacted by a certain lady by the name Emma Thompson. She says she works for OneTwoTrade company that helps people buy shares through Binary options. She says people get rich within 3 days tripling their money. She entices by offering to give you $200 for first time traders. But what surprises me is she wants to debit a certain amount out of my account. I want to know if they are legitimate or not. I did not give them my card number because she wanted it.

Looking forward to your response.

Binary Options are a very risky business. The idea behind binary options is actually very simple. You select two commodities such as foreign currencies and you bet whether one of them will increase or decrease compared to the other. For instance, you might select the exchange rate between Euro and the US dollar. There are only two possibilities of what can happen, they say. The rate can go up or it can go down. You gamble on which you think will happen and you can win and make a profit, or lose and get nothing. Two options, so they call it binary. So far, so simple.

But there are two important questions you should ask. Firstly, if it’s possible to make money from binary options why aren’t these people keeping this idea secret and making money for themselves? What do they gain from you joining their scheme?

Secondly, if such profits were really possible don’t you think banks would be doing it and earning this sort of money for themselves?

The answer is the same for both questions. These profits are NOT really possible. This company makes money from you joining their scheme. They are the ones making the huge profits, not you and not me.

I found an interesting quote about binary options. Gordon Pape, writing in Forbes magazine said: "If people want to gamble, that’s their choice. But let’s not confuse that with investing. Binary options are a crapshoot, pure and simple."

Please don’t waste your money.

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

How does hire purchase work?

If you buy goods on credit and pay for some time and default and they are repossessed is the contract terminated? Or as the consumer you continue paying? If you continue paying do they return the goods.

Unfortunately, if this happens you have very few rights to protect you.

Firstly, you should know one key fact about hire purchase. Until you pay the final instalment the goods you think you’ve bought in fact still belong to the store. That sofa, hi-fi or computer that you thought was your property wasn’t at all. That’s why it’s called “hire” purchase. You were just hiring it.

Then there’s the issue of what happens if you stop paying the instalments. It doesn’t matter why you did so, whether you lost your job, had unplanned expenses or spent the money on beer, whatever the reason might be, the store will want their money and if you fail to pay them they are entitled to come to your house and take their property back. They don’t need court order to do this because you said they could repossess the goods when you signed the hire purchase agreement.

Even then, when the goods have gone it’s almost certain that you still owe them money. The repossessed goods will probably have been sold but only for a fraction of the amount you planned to pay for them. The item is no second-hand, has probably suffered some normal “wear and tear” and can no longer be sold as new. It’s also because the stores often sell the property to their own staff as a perk. Yes, the amount they recover will be deducted from your outstanding balance but I guarantee it won’t cover the full amount. You’ll still be left owing a debt, a debt for something you don’t even have any longer. Once they add on the various penalties and debt collection fees you can end up owing more than the cash price of the thing you bought. Sometimes you can even owe more than the full hire purchase price.

And guess what? You have absolutely no protection against this. Firstly because you voluntarily signed a hire purchase agreement that allowed the store to do all this and secondly because the law that governs these purchases, the Hire Purchase Act, almost certainly doesn’t cover you. That’s because the Act only covers purchases below P4,000 and almost all are way more than that. This is a law that urgently needs to be updated!

What is World Ventures?

I am always intrigued by the way that you help us to think and pick on scam wanting to rob us our hard earned money systematically. Please share with us what you understand about Worldventures. Some people have been trying to interest me to join and enjoy discounted travel expenses but I still would have to recruit people to join. I am yet to understand what product I will be selling as a member.

WorldVentures is a pyramid scheme and a scam. We’ve been warning people about them since 2009 when they took over an earlier pyramid scheme called Success University. They tell a story about offering travel discounts but so far I haven’t seen any real discounts. They certainly don’t have any discounts better than those hotel chains will offer you for free without having to pay to join a scheme and then recruit multiple levels of people beneath you the way WorldVentures does.

What pyramid schemes like WorldVentures really sell is the promise of income from recruiting multiple layers of people beneath you, each of whom pays to join and then starts a flow of money up the pyramid, some of which stays with you as it passes by. Of course this rarely happens because it’s almost impossible to recruit the number of people you need to achieve the targets the scheme sets you and the figures produced by WorldVentures prove this.

In 2012 WorldVentures published data on the income their US representatives earned from the scheme. It was sad. Firstly 77.5% of their representatives made no money at all. Nothing. Zero. Then 82% of small proportion people who made any money had a median annual income of a mere P200. Remember that's income, not profits. It's not money you can spend on yourself. Meanwhile the 1% of the people at the top of the pyramid took 84% of all the money.

Please don’t waste your money joining the WorldVentures scam. You’ll just be giving your money to that 1% at the top of the pyramid. They’re the only people who ever benefit from a pyramid scheme like WorldVentures.

Things to avoid

The list of things consumers should avoid is a long one. Let’s begin with hire purchase.

Hire purchase is one of the worst ways to buy anything. The only thing I can think of that’s worse is borrowing money from a money-lender in order to buy things. But hire purchase comes a close second.

The biggest problem is not actually that buying something on HP typically doubles the price you pay. It’s not even that when you buy something on HP you don’t actually get to own it until you’ve made the very last payment. Until that point the sofa, fridge or laptop you thought you owned still actually belongs to the store and the moment they feel like it (if you’re a moment behind with your payments) they can come over to your house and take their products away again. The problem isn’t even that you’ll still owe them all the money.

The real problem is that if you sign a hire purchase agreement you are almost certainly unprotected by the law. The Hire Purchase Act, which was originally passed in 1961, says that the protections offered by the Act only apply to agreements where the total credit price is under P4,000. I recently looked at the advertisements from stores in the weekend newspapers and out of 67 items offered for sale on HP, only 4 of them were for items less than that limit. So the Act almost certainly doesn’t apply to you if you’re unwise enough to sign a hire purchase agreement.

So you should avoid hire purchase agreements.

You should also avoid foreign exchange or currency trading. In fact Forex trading has the potential to ruin your finances. A reader contacted us recently asking about one particular web site that offers to multiply (“leverage” is the technical term) your investment by up to 200 times, effectively giving you millions of Pula to trade with. What they neglect to tell their customers is that it works both ways. Yes, if you can correctly predict the fluctuations in the exchange rates between currencies you might make some money. They conveniently forget to tell you that it also means you can lose your entire “investment” in moments if the exchange rates go the other way. Within minutes of searching online I found stories of people who had lost over half a million Pula in moments trading Forex.

Another reader also asked us about a web site calling itself “23Traders”. He said that “they phone me everyday to invest on them, there is a guy who normally phones me telling me to deposit up to 10 000 US dollars so that I can make good profit”. Anyone who is that keen has an agenda they’re not telling you about. It’s curious that this company, who claim to be registered in Anguilla (an island in the Caribbean with a population half that of Ramotswa) and who claim to have a subsidiary in London are calling this reader from a number in Manchester.

The simple truth about Forex trading is that it’s a business full of suspicious characters. It’s a business that should be left entirely to the experts and that means experts such as banks and professional investment companies, not mere mortals like you and me.

You should avoid Forex trading unless you own a bank.

You should also most certainly avoid anything shaped like a pyramid. At the moment there are at least three that I know of that are actively recruiting people in Botswana. WorldVentures has been doing the rounds for a few years, promising fantastic holidays in exotic places but they aren’t entirely honest about this. None of this is actually for free. You have to pay to join the pyramid and then all you get are discounted holidays. You still have to buy the holidays, just at a slightly cheaper price.

What pyramid schemes like WorldVentures really sell is the promise of income from recruiting multiple layers of people beneath you, each of whom pays to join and then starts a flow of money up the pyramid, some of which stays with you as it passes by. Of course this rarely happens because it’s almost impossible to recruit the number of people you need to achieve the targets the scheme sets you and the figures produced by WorldVentures prove this. More than three quarters of all recruits never make a single thebe. Of those who do make some money, more than 80% make less than P100 each month and that’s income, not profit.

Consider this. 84% of all the money flowing through WorldVentures is taken by the top 0.8%.

Then there’s EmGoldex, who claim to be selling small quantities of gold. However that is itself suspicious. Since 2012 the price of gold has been steadily dropping and shows no signs of increasing. This is NOT the time to be buying gold.

In fact what they really want is for you to recruit people beneath you and for them to recruit others beneath them.

Authorities around the world have already issued warnings about EmGoldex. In their home country, the Philippines, the powers-that-be the warned people to avoid the scheme and the claims that they could make profits of 500-1,000%. In Colombia EmGoldex was told to immediately cease operations. In October last year the Secretary of State in Massachusetts, USA filed fraud charges against the people operating EmGoldex.

Another reader contacted us saying that a scheme called Four Corners Alliance is “doing the rounds about making loads of money”. Yes, you guessed it, they’re another pyramid scheme offering riches by selling worthless books on financial literacy.

Do I really need to say you should avoid any pyramid-shaped business?

How to lose money

I’m certainly not an expert on how you can make money but I do know how you can lose it.

A few years ago we had a visitor to our office. A tearful woman, an intelligent professional in a large organization, had been abused. Could we help?

It turned out that she had been approached by some people who encouraged her to join TVI Express, a company that they said sold travel discount vouchers to their members. In fact the real business of TVI Express was recruiting other people into multiple layers of recruits. It was a pyramid scheme.

Fortunately for her (and unwisely for the people who recruited her) they offered her a written contract to sign. This contract, which she signed in January 2011 when she “invested” P30,500, offered her: “the promise to reap an amount of P84,000 on or before the 10th March 2011 and another P84,000 on the 31st April 2011.”

As you can imagine there was actually no “reaping” of anything and she got precisely nothing from her membership of this pyramid scheme. Are you surprised? What sort of scheme can take P30,500 and turn it into P164,000 in just three months?

You’re right, no scheme can do this.

TVI Express, which was subsequently banned in Namibia, Lesotho, Indonesia and the US State of Georgia, very quickly collapsed but only after it had taken a lot of money from a lot of people. Almost all of them got nothing in return. Our tearful visitor was one of the lucky ones, all because of that contract the foolish people offered her. She didn’t get the riches they had promised her but we were able to force them to give her the P30,500 back. Eventually.

But, you’ll say, we learned our lesson from that scheme, didn’t we? No, unfortunately we didn’t. TVI Express was very quickly followed by WorldVentures, an almost identical pyramid scheme that also claimed to trade in travel discounts. WorldVentures still exists today.

Pyramid schemes like these are very good ways to lose money.

Then there was the big one. The one that we should have learned from: Eurextrade. I suspect that more people lost money in the Eurextrade Ponzi scheme than any other scam Botswana has ever seen. Certainly some people lost a lot of money. We heard of one victim who sold two houses and a Range Rover so he could “invest” in the scheme, hoping to earn the 2.9% daily interest they promised. Needless to say he lost it all. While we were doing our best to alert people about the scam I received a very angry call from one investor who told me about how he was making a lot of money from it. He told me that so far, he’d received P3,000 in profits. So I asked him how much he had invested so far. P10,000, he said. We then had a lengthy argument where he tried to persuade me that he was up by 30% and I tried to persuade him that in fact so far he’d lost 70% of his investment. I never heard from him again.

Some of the other victims were less wealthy. A reader contacted us shortly after a public holiday when she had returned to her home village, telling us that “all the Grannies” in the village had given their entire life savings to a guy who recruited them into the scheme. They are the one I feel sorry for, not the guy with (but now without) the houses and the car.

Ponzi schemes like Eurextrade are also very efficient ways of losing large quantities of money.

While the stock market can be a very good place to invest your money, it’s surrounded by some dubious characters who are keen to help you part with your hard-earned money. Do you remember Stock Market Direct, the supposed stocks and shares training company whose founder ended up skipping the country with the millions he’d taken from the people he’d persuaded to let him invest for them?

Then there are all the little scams that come and go (often with your money).

Karatbars was a German scheme that involved buying minute quantities of gold and which promised riches as a result. In fact the price you paid to buy this gold was much higher than the real gold price and besides, the price of gold has been steadily dropping since 2012 so it’s hardly a great investment. What was more interesting was how they marketed their business in Botswana. One of their local representatives claimed that the German Embassy, the Department of Mines and BURS had all endorsed their scheme. This wasn’t true and I know this because I asked them and they all denied it. Then came an even bigger lie. They said that the “doubting thomases then went to consumer watch dog. They also gave us a thumbs up.”

That was a complete lie. Not only had we never given then “a thumbs up”, in fact we’ve been saying that they’re a pyramid scheme and that people shouldn’t ever, under any circumstances, join their ridiculous scheme.

Karatbars was just another way to lose money.

These are just a few examples of the ways unscrupulous people will help you lose money but there are many, many more out there. You and I really have to be increasingly skeptical of almost everything someone tells us, particularly if the person wants us to hand over our hard-earned cash and particularly if they claim they can make us rich.