0:00

Hey, dream listeners. If you like this podcast,

0:02

you're going to love the book. Yeah.

0:04

I wrote a book. It's called Selling the Dream

0:07

and it's coming out March twelfth, twenty twenty

0:09

four, on Atria. It's

0:11

about all of your favorite characters from

0:13

MLMs and some that you've never even

0:16

heard of. I hope check it

0:18

out. Portend.

0:20

I'm somebody that you've just met

0:22

and I see, Oh you mean, what's this pitch? What's this?

0:24

Give me the pitch? Oh? Well, give me the pun.

0:27

You know you can give me fifteen hundred dollars

0:29

and in a week you can walk away with twelve

0:31

thousand. You know, we have endless

0:33

resources. I've got a list of people that, even

0:36

if you don't know them, I know them, and you can call

0:38

them and all you have to do

0:40

is be positive and they will get it

0:42

from you. Come on, you can do this. I

0:45

know you you're a great salesperson.

0:48

I trust you, I believe in you, and

0:51

I'd like to share this opportunity

0:53

with you. You know this is don't

0:55

give me your last fifteen hundred dollars.

0:58

But if you've got fifteen hundred dollars ticking

1:00

around that you're thinking about what should I do with it,

1:02

do this, do

1:04

this? Yeah, I did it.

1:07

I'm in. Yeah,

1:10

you're in. I

1:12

know you're in. I'm

1:17

Jane Marie and this is the dream

1:20

episode one want to swim

1:22

in Cash.

1:34

When we first started making this show, we were

1:36

super pumped, jazzed, but

1:38

we have to keep the topic under wraps for as long

1:41

as possible. The subjects of our

1:43

investigation are highly litigious for one

1:45

thing, and we had to get close inside

1:47

how they work without them freaking out and

1:49

closing ranks. That was touchy

1:52

enough, But then there's this other

1:54

thing. Half of my family and

1:56

most of my friends from my hometown are

1:58

involved directly intimately,

2:02

and we're going to bring you into their world. It's

2:04

sketchy and crazy making and almost

2:06

unbelievable. Anyway,

2:08

it was frustrating this not being able to talk about

2:11

it thing. Like I said, I was super pumped

2:13

and I talk a lot. One

2:15

night, I let it slip to one of my best friends

2:17

that we'd gotten a new gig. The exchange

2:20

went like this. All I can say

2:23

is that it's kind of about pyramid

2:25

schemes. And he goes,

2:28

oh, you should talk to my mom. What

2:32

Yeah, my mom ran one of those when I was a kid

2:34

out of our house. A literal pyramid

2:36

scheme.

2:46

Picture this loft. There is a

2:49

sixteen foot high, twenty

2:51

two foot wide window

2:55

overlooking the World Trade

2:57

Center. Ladies and gentlemen.

2:59

My friend mom, Nan Dylan. So

3:02

it's got white pickled floors, a sixteen

3:04

foot ceiling, and thirty

3:07

five hundred square feet. It

3:10

is jammed. Hundreds

3:13

of people showed up. You can't

3:15

even walk there are so many people. In

3:18

order to not be suffocated

3:20

by the crowd, I climbed up

3:22

the spiral staircase going

3:25

to the second floor just to observe.

3:28

And I remember just kind of sitting on

3:30

that staircase overlooking

3:34

this crowd of people as

3:36

they moved around the room,

3:38

making alliances, you know, creating

3:41

future groups.

3:48

Back in the eighties, Nan was working in

3:50

advertising and raising her three

3:52

kids in Manhattan. I

3:54

was only just you know, newly unmarried

3:57

and just kind of coming back into

3:59

the world. It was kind of

4:01

an exciting time for me that you

4:03

know, life is new, feeling

4:06

very empowered and

4:09

on a personal basis, filled with

4:11

an idea that I was smart

4:13

and adventurous and I could

4:15

do anything I wanted to do, and that life

4:18

was just an adventure. The

4:20

timing of NaN's rebirth, if you will,

4:22

couldn't have been better. See at that

4:24

exact moment, a cultural phenomenon

4:27

was taking hold in New ag circles

4:29

all over the country. It was called the

4:31

Human Potential movement. Think

4:33

of it as sort of a precursor to the Secret

4:36

you know, just visualize abundance

4:39

and happiness and voila, you're

4:41

rich and skinny or whatever. In

4:44

that time in New York City there was a lot of

4:47

Human Potential Movement groups

4:49

kind of it us all about

4:51

energy. You know, energy out is

4:53

energy in, and you get

4:56

what you give and all of that, you know, power

4:58

of positive whatever. In

5:00

the midst of this movement sits an untethered

5:03

Nan, riding this new wave

5:05

of endless opportunity. And

5:07

along comes this exciting concept

5:10

where if you if

5:12

you put a bunch of money in and you could talk other

5:14

people into joining you, that everybody could

5:16

make a lot of money and it was all cash, and it was all

5:19

fast, and it was all fun and very

5:21

optimistic and exciting. This

5:24

new thing was presented as a game called

5:26

the Airplane Game. As Nan

5:28

remembers it, anyone who was even

5:30

tangentially related to the whole human

5:32

potential movement was a buzz

5:35

about the airplane game. Parties

5:37

introducing it to newcomers were being held

5:39

all over Lower Manhattan. The

5:42

way she describes it, they looked

5:44

kind of like literary salons, with

5:46

people giving inspiring lectures at their

5:48

bohemian flats in the East Village

5:51

and a bunch of aging hippies sitting

5:53

around cross legged, wrapped with attention.

5:56

There were stories about these people

5:58

who had come from cal who

6:01

took up residence in some lecture

6:04

hall in the East Village, and

6:06

these people were giving lectures

6:09

on the new way of, you

6:11

know, making money while stepping aside

6:13

from the establishment.

6:17

It took a minute, but being in that world,

6:19

eventually Nan agreed to attend one

6:21

of these meetups and to learn more about

6:23

this exciting opportunity.

6:28

The first time, I remember asking somebody, well,

6:30

wait a second, how does this thing work? I was trying

6:32

to understand it. I said, well, there's

6:35

a pilot, and there's two co pilots,

6:37

and there are passengers,

6:40

and you pay to fly. These

6:44

were obviously not literal airplanes.

6:47

Picture this. People would set up chairs

6:49

in the shape of a triangle or pyramid,

6:52

with one chair at the front. That's

6:55

the pilot seat behind that person.

6:57

There were two chairs for co pilots, four

7:00

behind them, and eight passengers in

7:02

the last row. Those eight passengers

7:04

were the new recruits who put in fifteen

7:06

hundred dollars a piece. As

7:08

they recruited more people, they moved up

7:10

the ranks until eventually they became

7:13

a pilot themselves and took the

7:15

pot. Then they moved on to

7:17

another airplane. The chairs

7:19

weren't absolutely necessary. Sometimes

7:22

these planes were just represented by charts,

7:24

but the principal was the same. So

7:27

it's this revolving thing of

7:30

you pay and then you

7:33

wait, and then everything

7:35

moves very quickly and

7:38

you are before you know it. Like we're

7:40

talking about four days, you are

7:42

you are a pilot and people are paying

7:44

you. I can't remember

7:46

some of the timing of this, but I did say

7:49

yes to having a recruitment party

7:53

at my loft in Tribeca.

7:57

Somebody planned it, called me and

7:59

said, okay, if we come to your place, And

8:03

it was at that event that I started

8:05

thinking, ooh, this is like, this is getting

8:07

out of banned. It was extraordinary

8:10

and giddy making. I mean, it was really

8:13

intoxicating and fun until

8:16

somebody leaned up to me and said, I

8:18

think there were some FBI men in

8:20

the room. I

8:22

went, oh, far out?

8:25

Is it really? This

8:30

interview with Nan was, to use

8:33

her words, giddy making. Naturally,

8:36

I come out of the studio and start telling

8:38

all the other producers on our team about this airplane

8:40

game. And that's when one of them says

8:43

that the airplane game had come up in their reporting

8:46

too. It turns out one of our

8:48

experts, a guy named Robert Fitzpatrick.

8:51

You'll hear a lot from him this season. He

8:53

got his start in studying this sort of thing

8:56

because he had played the airplane

8:58

game too. Think it

9:00

was a telephone call, yes, and it was an invitation

9:02

to come to a meeting that was

9:05

going to be held in someone's house. It

9:07

was presented as just something

9:10

new, a movement, an event was

9:13

quite vague as to what it was, and

9:17

like thousands of others, I was

9:20

invited to participate. When

9:22

the Airplane Game reached Robert Fitzpatrick

9:25

in Broward County, Florida, he was

9:27

a perfect fit. Robert was a

9:29

self starter, founded his own trade

9:31

magazine and worked as a community organizer.

9:34

He got invited to play and the party he went

9:36

to was just as exhilarating as NaN's,

9:39

but there was something more to it, something

9:41

sweet, neighborly, wholesome.

9:44

Even when you went in, there

9:46

was an immediate sentiment

9:48

of feeling an air of

9:50

happiness, euphoria, welcoming,

9:54

There was excitement, There was a speaker.

9:57

People were reminded of their own goals

9:59

and their home hopes for a better life, and

10:02

it was presented as a

10:04

kind of system that enabled

10:07

people to achieve their life's purpose.

10:10

Like Nan, Robert and his friends were

10:13

heavily influenced by the Human Potential

10:15

movement and the airplane game. To them,

10:17

it just seemed like a logical extension of

10:19

that way of thinking. I myself

10:22

at that time, had

10:25

been interested in personal

10:27

development, transformational types

10:30

of programs. This was

10:32

the eighties, this was in the air. There's

10:35

a certain type of person who was already

10:37

fantasizing about their airplane game

10:39

strategy, like with spreadsheets

10:42

and charts and party plans

10:44

and a vision board. Nan was

10:46

one of those people. So

10:49

I take two weeks off of work and

10:51

put what I called my flight

10:54

plans up on the wall and

10:56

go to work. It's

11:03

fifteen hundred dollars to join,

11:05

but it's not a fee. It's

11:08

a kind of a contribution. It's what

11:10

you'd put into it. And it's all based

11:12

on giving and receiving. It's sharing.

11:15

It's non competitive. You

11:17

pay and then you

11:19

wait, and then everything

11:22

moves very quickly, and

11:25

you are before you know it. Like we're

11:27

talking about four days, you are.

11:29

You are a pilot and people are paying

11:31

you. If you're wondering,

11:34

fifteen hundred bucks back then would be like thirty

11:36

five hundred today. So imagine

11:38

a stream of people walking up and handing you

11:40

three or four grand. That adds up

11:42

fast. And Nan was told everyone

11:45

who enters the game could walk away with twelve

11:47

thousand dollars. Again, that'd

11:49

be like getting almost thirty grand for

11:51

going to a party. That number

11:55

absolutely sent a current of electricity

11:57

through the room. Idea

12:00

that someone whom you knew and trusted

12:03

had received twelve thousand

12:05

dollars in a matter of days.

12:07

It somehow clicked that

12:10

this was correct, This is the

12:13

way it ought to work. That

12:15

thinking correctly in America

12:19

is supposed to lead to

12:21

prosperity.

12:27

And there is a whole current of thinking

12:29

like this which I had been subjected

12:31

to, and virtually everybody had been subjected

12:34

to, but particularly people who

12:36

had studied this kind of new

12:38

thought philosophy

12:41

that positive attitude,

12:44

confidence and right

12:46

thinking attracted

12:48

to you good things.

12:52

There's enough for everybody. Scarcity

12:55

is an illusion, and that

12:57

is that kind of competitive scarcity

13:00

based thinking that has held everyone

13:03

back and that this system

13:05

breaks through that, I

13:07

mean, sales is what I did. So

13:10

I was able to attract a lot of people, and

13:12

I had been in seminars with people. I

13:15

had been in all of these different groups with people, So

13:17

I had a huge roster

13:19

of people that I knew

13:21

that I could call upon, and people who had who

13:24

had enough exposure to

13:26

me to be able to trust

13:28

me. Initially, the people

13:30

that were joining were those

13:33

who really were oriented to

13:36

that kind of thinking.

13:38

I considered myself kind of wiy

13:42

you know, like one of the first

13:44

in Tribeca, you know, managed

13:47

to wheedle my way into a thirty

13:49

five hundred square foot loft that I

13:51

paid seven hundred dollars a month for.

13:55

If you're the type of person who moved into a

13:57

thirty five hundred square foot loft in

13:59

Tribeca nineteen eighty seven, then

14:02

you're probably also the type of person who'd

14:04

have no problem figuring out how to get the

14:06

most out of this game. You like

14:08

Nan would be raking it in. Some

14:11

others got up and said, not only had

14:13

they received that, they had re entered

14:16

it as a passenger and gone

14:18

through the process again and received

14:21

another twelve thousand. So

14:23

these were testimonials

14:26

that now the mechanism,

14:29

the math of this, the structure

14:32

sort of went into the background. Every

14:35

time I made money, I would buy into another

14:37

plane. I mean, what

14:39

the heck you pay fifteen hundred dollars and make

14:41

twelve thousand, I can be in five

14:44

or six planes all at the same time, which

14:46

is what I did. I

14:51

was able to attract a lot of people, and the

14:54

money started to flow immediately. The

14:56

kids used to gather around the bed as I would just

14:59

you know, laugh and invite

15:01

them to jump into the cash that was

15:03

all over the bed. You know, it was just hilariously

15:06

fun. I mean, at

15:08

that point there had to be thirty or forty,

15:11

maybe fifty thousand dollars

15:13

likened, you know, one hundred dollars bills or something.

15:15

It was just crazy, you know,

15:17

it wasn't there. It was so much money, but it was all

15:20

cash, and it was like mountains

15:23

of cash, and that was that was the

15:25

scene that arrived with me. Hey,

15:28

kids, you want to swim in cash,

15:30

you know, come on into mommy's room and

15:32

let's all. Let's all swim in cash.

15:45

These piles of cash, they were

15:47

coming from somewhere. And while NaN's

15:50

passengers were more or less acquaintances

15:52

with money to play with, Robert's community

15:54

in South Florida was made up of friends

15:56

and family. At some level,

15:59

we knew that if we said

16:01

this to someone we didn't know, if we

16:03

couldn't leverage the trust and relationship

16:06

we already had, it would

16:08

probably sound bizarre.

16:11

It would sound commercial,

16:15

it would sound crass.

16:17

But if I know you, it can suddenly

16:19

transform into a

16:22

something in which I am giving. It's

16:25

something that you would share intimately,

16:28

almost And that

16:30

took the commercial edge off

16:33

of it. Even though what was

16:35

it all about? Fifteen hundred dollars

16:37

turning into twelve thousand dollars eight

16:40

hundred percent return? You

16:42

know, it didn't take much to know that that

16:44

was ridiculous, But

16:47

yeah, I knew it was a it

16:49

was it was trappings for a Ponzi

16:52

scheme. I just didn't care. Eventually

16:56

there will be a peasant in Bangladesh

16:58

who can can't come up

17:00

with the money, and the game

17:03

will die. I knew that. Okay,

17:24

where were we While Nan

17:26

was swimming in cash Scrooge McDuck

17:28

style with her kids. Roberts

17:30

back in Florida watching his neighbors

17:32

and friends get hooked on this new game. I

17:35

lived in South Florida around nineteen

17:37

eighty six, and the airplane

17:40

game arrived and it

17:42

exploded. It just became a sort

17:44

of mania. People were

17:46

smiling. There were a lot of familiar faces

17:49

there, people that I knew.

17:52

They looked like me, they were dressed

17:54

like me, many professionals.

17:57

So looked very familiar, very

18:00

safe, very comfortable. And remember

18:02

there was no product. This was

18:04

not a business. It was not a church.

18:07

It was part of a philosophy.

18:10

It was a story. You used

18:12

an assumed philosophical

18:15

name, courage, commitment,

18:19

fanciful names like this. I

18:21

was invited by someone I knew and trusted.

18:24

I was in a home of someone that

18:26

was a mutual friend. There were plenty of

18:28

people there. I knew. There

18:31

was a feeling of

18:33

excitement. There was nothing

18:35

about it that initially

18:37

made me think of it as in any

18:39

way illegal, fraudulent,

18:43

unethical. The people

18:45

that I knew and the people that I could call

18:47

on were these kind of superficial

18:50

liaisons that I had created

18:53

by participating in these human potential

18:56

movement groups. You may know their

18:58

deepest, darkest secrets, but strangely

19:01

enough, they

19:04

didn't make them your friend. You

19:06

could walk away from any one of them and never miss anybody.

19:10

For Robert, this whole thing was way

19:12

more complicated. It hit a lot

19:14

closer to home. Leveraging

19:17

trust was a key element.

19:19

One of the people that I

19:22

approached was the person

19:24

I later married, so

19:27

that's how close it got. The money

19:29

started to flow immediately. I

19:31

did not think about the people

19:33

who would be losing. I figured lots

19:36

of people to go through if

19:38

they can keep the faith and

19:40

keep the energy high. Yes,

19:42

of course people will lose. I knew that, but

19:45

it seemed very very far away to me.

19:48

And of course, at that point in time,

19:50

everybody was not telling

19:52

themselves that this was illegal. They were telling

19:54

themselves that the Feds don't like it because

19:57

there's no tax being paid and they want

19:59

it. And that was the attitude. It

20:02

wasn't you know, we're doing criminal

20:04

activity. It was like, you know, screw

20:08

them. You know, we're doing this on the side,

20:11

and we are making up our own rules

20:14

and everybody is a

20:16

willing partner here. What's

20:18

the problem.

20:26

What we did decide early

20:28

on was that the

20:31

reason that anything could

20:33

be problematic was

20:35

if there was money paid

20:38

but no service is rendered or

20:41

no product sold. So

20:43

we decided that what you needed to do

20:46

was give something for the money. So

20:49

what we did was we

20:52

would present roses.

21:00

I guess in our minds we thought, well,

21:02

that's that we have the FEDS fooled.

21:06

So when people came in and delivered

21:08

money in big, fat envelopes, I

21:10

would present them with a rose. So

21:13

they were buying my flower.

21:17

It was a fifteen hundred dollars rose. Yes,

21:19

a very very special rose. I

21:22

have this image of, you know, being in the

21:24

middle of my busy day in the

21:26

advertising agency where I was working and

21:29

having the receptionists call back to say that

21:31

Vladimir, you

21:34

know, was in the waiting room and did

21:36

I want to see him. They didn't have any idea who

21:38

he was, and I was saying absolutely, I

21:40

was just reaching for one of my roses

21:42

out of the bouquet that I would

21:44

buy every day to bring to work and

21:47

go out to the receptionist and present

21:49

this guy with a rose, that a very

21:52

expensive rose. You

21:54

know, I'm a grown up. I know what a Ponzi scheme is.

21:56

When I hear one, I said, oh far out,

21:59

so I know what that is. But

22:01

yeah, I didn't care. There

22:03

were some other kind of hard to

22:05

convince people. And I found myself

22:08

suddenly with this sale not being quite as

22:11

easy as it was in the beginning.

22:14

We had our attention on winning, we didn't have any

22:16

attention on losing, and

22:18

then the problem happened. There's

22:23

this concept in pyramid schemes

22:26

or Ponzi schemes. It's called the endless

22:28

chain. It posits that the supply

22:30

of people coming in on the bottom tier

22:33

is infinite. You'll never run out

22:35

of new recruits. It's a foundational

22:37

idea, and without it, the whole thing collapses.

22:41

And of course, unless you eventually start

22:43

recruiting babies or something, it's a completely

22:45

false premise, Especially with

22:47

a scheme that moves as quickly as the airplane game.

22:50

It doesn't take long to run out of people who

22:52

have an extra fifteen hundred bucks lying around.

22:55

The people that we were recruiting were no

22:57

longer on the high level

23:01

of the first people who had gotten in, So

23:04

they didn't have the energy, they didn't

23:06

have the optimism, and they didn't have the sales

23:09

ability to sell

23:12

their planes. And

23:14

now it started to look hard

23:17

to these people, and they

23:19

started to see, oh my god, maybe

23:21

I'll just lose my money. I

23:24

can't do this. As

23:27

it progressed, we began noticing

23:29

that some of the people coming in they

23:32

looked aggressive, they looked

23:35

well greedy, they

23:37

looked opportunistic, and they

23:39

didn't seem to reflect the language

23:41

anymore. They just saw it as a

23:44

chance to make money. There

23:46

were doubts that had begun

23:48

to enter the type of people coming

23:51

in that certain people

23:53

would warn you. The word

23:55

pyramid scheme was uttered

23:57

by some people. There was a sense

23:59

that it might not last forever. These

24:02

were doubts that were introduced, but

24:05

still these were banished put

24:07

aside, And then

24:09

an article appeared in the local

24:12

newspaper. Someone

24:15

at the local paper had caught wind of a potential

24:17

fraud going on around town. And

24:20

do you know who reads the paper. In the late

24:22

eighties, in Broward County, Florida, everyone

24:26

the county Sheriff's

24:28

department had gotten word of this and

24:31

considered it an illegal pyramid scheme

24:33

and warned people against it. And

24:36

this was followed by arrests. The

24:40

Sheriff's department raided some

24:42

of these house meetings

24:45

and arrested people, handcuffed

24:47

them and took them away. Remember,

24:51

this entire thing is a grassroots

24:54

phenomenon. There were people

24:56

that had started it. There were a few

24:58

people that had manipulate related

25:00

it at the beginning, who made tens

25:02

of thousands of dollars, but it had no

25:04

official structure. They

25:06

got worried about a house meeting, they went there

25:09

and they arrested whoever was at the front of

25:11

the room making the presentation, who

25:13

may have been a very low level person. Actually,

25:16

as the scheme had already gotten into

25:18

tens of thousands of people's lives

25:21

by that point. The newspaper

25:23

accounts the next day reported

25:25

these arrests, and now they were

25:27

saying things like, and these people use

25:29

assumed names, they pay

25:31

in cash, they expect an eight

25:34

hundred percent return. It's

25:36

done personally without using

25:38

the mail to avoid mail and wire

25:40

fraud charges. All of a sudden,

25:43

these elements of the program

25:45

that we considered innocent were

25:49

depicted as maneuvers to

25:51

evade the law, and the whole

25:53

thing looked, in the context

25:55

of the article as a crass,

25:58

ridiculous program

26:01

of dim witted people who didn't

26:03

even understand that they were being

26:05

duped into a fraud. When

26:08

we saw it in black and white. Of course,

26:11

the element of being arrested sent

26:14

terrible fear through everyone through

26:16

the communities, because now

26:19

your friendship suddenly

26:22

became a liability, and

26:24

people began now to avoid each

26:26

other, frightened that someone would

26:28

blow the whistle on you, you might

26:30

be reported. So

26:32

what had become this wonderful

26:35

bond bringing so many

26:37

people together, in which private,

26:40

intimate, personal, collegial

26:42

relationships had actually been commercialized,

26:45

but in the language of a philosophy that

26:48

almost denied the element of commercialism,

26:52

those same relationships now became threats.

26:56

Now also people who

26:58

had given money might want it back,

27:01

and so there was this element too of

27:04

now debt obligation. So

27:07

the whole thing became quite nightmarish

27:09

at that point, and that's

27:11

where things ended. For Robert

27:14

NaN's reasons for quitting the game weren't quite

27:16

as dire, but they do help explain

27:19

some fundamentally flawed aspects

27:21

of this quote business model.

27:24

I had a guy who I knew

27:26

I shouldn't have recruited. He

27:28

was just too much of a downer. He

27:31

was a guy who always thought that

27:33

the other guy was getting something that he

27:36

wasn't getting. He was not an empowered

27:39

person. I made a mistake. The

27:41

top people, the energetic people

27:43

that I knew, had jumped, and

27:46

now we were getting down to the mmm, the

27:49

people who against

27:51

your better judgment, you said yes

27:53

too. Yeah, greed takes

27:55

over and you try to You know, you don't always

27:57

follow your intuition. When somebody

28:00

waving money at you, you just say all I

28:03

knew that this guy was borderline, but I thought,

28:05

well, I'll help him and maybe he'll do okay,

28:07

and maybe this will be fun. Well, he didn't

28:09

do okay, and he started to complain,

28:12

this is too hard, I can't find anybody.

28:16

Don't you realize that this is a Ponzi scheme

28:18

and that somebody really has to lose. I

28:20

think I'm going to be one of the people that loses.

28:23

My lawyer is saying this is illegal, and

28:25

I'm going, oh my god, oh my god, listen to

28:27

this. I accepted a check from

28:29

him, and

28:33

I didn't even bother cashing the check.

28:35

This is how blase I was. I

28:37

mean, I was really guilty of hubris.

28:40

I had endorsed the check in the

28:42

back and written it over to

28:45

my kid's school

28:48

for payments for

28:50

payments tuition. I

28:53

thought I was just saving a step. So

28:55

now he had written proof that

28:58

he had given me this money for no reason

29:00

at all, and now his lawyer

29:03

was saying that he could

29:05

make big trouble for me. So

29:07

I said oops, And I suddenly

29:09

realized this might be the end

29:11

of this game. So

29:19

he called me up and started threatening

29:22

me with all of his stuff in his whining,

29:24

complaining loser

29:27

way. So I said, okay,

29:29

I get it. You know I can meet

29:31

you, you know, in half an hour, and I'll give you every

29:34

cent that you've given me. I'm going to give you back,

29:37

and in exchange, you'll just make this

29:39

go away. It didn't

29:41

cost me anything really to get

29:43

rid of him, and I knew

29:46

that he was so fragile

29:49

that if I didn't do this then I could have real

29:52

problems. So I did it. I mean, it

29:54

took me five minutes to tell him, you

29:56

got it. You know, you've got your money back. Don't

29:58

worry about it. So I

30:00

met this guy in the corner, gave him his money. He

30:03

ripped up whatever record he had of the check,

30:05

and gave me his word that it was over.

30:08

We shook hands and had a big hug, and

30:11

I went back and ripped

30:13

the plans off the wall and I said, you know

30:15

it's over. We're done.

30:18

Went back to work the next day. That

30:21

was that I

30:24

didn't know what a pyramid scheme was, and

30:27

if whatever I did think I

30:29

knew of it, I didn't think it was something

30:31

that would show up among my friends.

30:34

I thought it would be a group of

30:36

sleezy looking characters wearing a lot of gold.

30:39

Maybe, but it wouldn't be people

30:41

that had attended all these courses and we're

30:43

trying, and we're good, ethical, altruistic

30:45

people. If pyramid schemes

30:47

were only run by sleazy guys who would

30:49

also try to sell you a role ax out of their trench

30:52

coat, we wouldn't be talking about any of

30:54

this roping in Otherwise,

30:56

wonderful, lovable people who you trust

30:59

is crucial to making these sorts of things work.

31:02

Just because I was stopping, I didn't think

31:04

that it meant that anybody else was

31:06

stopping. I never

31:09

gave them a thought.

31:12

I mean, that's probably you know me

31:14

as a terrible person, but I

31:17

did not experience that

31:19

I had left anybody hanging. Okay,

31:23

here's where you get to find out what this show

31:26

is really about. Remember at the

31:28

beginning, I said it's kind of about pyramid

31:30

schemes. It's actually about something

31:32

called multi level marketing or

31:34

direct sales or network marketing.

31:37

And there are a lot of companies that work this way,

31:40

where you recruit someone to work under

31:42

you, and then they hopefully recruit someone

31:44

to work under them, and so on and so

31:46

forth. And they are, legally

31:49

speaking, anyway, not pyramid

31:51

schemes. As much as one would

31:53

like to classify them this way, we're

31:56

not allowed to. Not yet.

31:59

Robert Patrick is

32:01

an expert in these sorts of

32:04

schemes. That's why we called them in the

32:06

first place, which is what made

32:08

it so shocking that he had been taken

32:10

in my one. Well,

32:15

let us just go forward to two thousand

32:17

and eight and have people offered loans

32:20

which they did not have to show their own income

32:23

that we're told the house will go up

32:25

in value forever. Don't

32:27

worry whatever the mortgage payment is, don't

32:30

worry about that payment where you get a

32:32

low interest for a year and then it

32:34

changes over. But don't worry

32:36

because you'll be able to refinance because

32:39

the house will have already gone up in value

32:41

by then. You nailed me. You nailed

32:43

me. I did it right.

32:46

Oh, there you go. So if you knew that, if

32:48

you experienced that, if you accepted

32:51

that without question, then

32:53

you know exactly what I'm talking

32:55

about. I loved the house. I wanted

32:57

it. There you go,

33:00

And didn't you deserve it?

33:02

Isn't this the way it's supposed to be? Haven't

33:04

you worked hard? Oh? Boy? I

33:06

mean, you're a good person, And

33:08

aren't good things supposed to happen to good

33:11

people? And isn't our economy

33:13

supposed to offer this kind of opportunity?

33:15

These opportunities don't seem to be showing up

33:18

in work, but they must be

33:20

out there. Well here, it shows up in

33:22

the real estate market or

33:24

the stock market, or I mean, there

33:27

are so many other places where this

33:29

kind of prosperity thinking.

33:32

And that is what we're talking about here.

33:34

It is native to America. It came

33:36

here from the Puritans. This is what I

33:38

spent five or six years tracing

33:41

down because I wanted to understand.

33:44

How in the hell did I not see

33:46

this? Oh,

33:51

they call it a business networking or

33:54

I mean, I just can't even imagine anybody

33:56

being hooked into any

33:58

one of these things anymore. I

34:00

mean, what disguised is business

34:02

networking or something. This

34:05

entire fraudulent structure based

34:07

on the endless chain, which is unsustainable,

34:10

mathematically impossible, was

34:12

obscured by simply a story

34:15

about giving and receiving in

34:17

multi level marketing, exactly the

34:19

same structure mathematically

34:22

impossible, unsustainable and

34:24

so on that will produce these

34:26

massive loss rates is covered

34:28

over by a different story. It's

34:30

a story that you were actually buying and

34:32

selling products that it's a business

34:35

called direct selling. You've

34:37

never been into a direct sale company. It's

34:40

kind of hard to understand. But there is no compliment

34:42

out there and can feed it. Our guys

34:45

are making triple and quadruple the

34:47

money. You know your best friend that you've

34:49

been best friends with since high school and she's

34:51

struggling a little bit, and you know her so well,

34:54

like call her up. We are

34:56

building so quickly here and you can make

34:58

some serious money. Anyone worth

35:00

recruiting will also see it as

35:03

a relationship let me see that again.

35:05

I want you to hear me again. Anyone

35:08

worth recruiting will

35:10

see joining you in this business

35:13

as a relationship. Okay,

35:17

don't get too informative. If they ask

35:19

you the informative questions, like, give

35:22

them that information, but do it in a

35:24

very fun, relaxed, uplifting

35:26

way. We're at a ground floor level

35:29

people. People are not realizing what

35:31

we have now and are not taking advantage

35:34

of it. I want you to take advantage of this opportunity

35:37

and be able to just fly

35:39

with it. If you recruit others,

35:42

you'll move up the chain. And indeed,

35:44

in multi level marketing, it's designed

35:46

to transfer money from ninety nine percent

35:48

to one percent. You want someone

35:51

who will give it their all and stick

35:53

around. Multi level

35:55

marketing has codified

35:58

into an actual business. The

36:02

deceptions, the delusions,

36:04

the manipulations that

36:06

the Airplane game introduced.

36:09

It's amazing and it's not too good

36:11

to be true. It's

36:14

still based on a prosperity, belief

36:17

that we are entitled to these good

36:19

things, that they can come to

36:21

you through belief, through confidence,

36:24

and through positive thinking. That

36:34

thinking is now introduced

36:37

and taught in multi level marketing

36:39

in a very sophisticated manner,

36:42

so much so that there's no police department.

36:44

There's no authority in the country right

36:47

now that will openly acknowledge

36:49

this for what it is, look at it in

36:51

depth, and just show you, in playing

36:54

black and white, that this thing is unsustainable

36:56

and that it is indeed a racket. No

37:00

one until now this

37:05

season on the Dream, we take you behind

37:07

the MLM curtain and follow the money

37:09

from the lowest level to the top, the

37:12

very top. Donald

37:16

Trump received over a million dollars in one

37:18

year for simple endorsing

37:20

multi level marketing. You

37:23

have a great opportunity before you at ACN

37:25

without any of the risks most entrepreneurs

37:28

have to take. You have the ability

37:30

to market breakthrough technology

37:33

before it hits the critical mass. The

37:35

beauty of ACN is that you're in business

37:37

for yourself, but not by yourself.

37:40

You have a great partner by your side with

37:42

you every step of the way. You're

37:44

entrepreneurs, yes, but being

37:47

an entrepreneur is even better when you have

37:49

to support a great company like ACN

37:59

coming up this in on the Dream.

38:08

It's so easy to

38:10

use excuses because it means

38:12

you don't have to be responsible for your results.

38:15

You get to blame someone or

38:17

something else for why you

38:19

don't have what you want, But is

38:22

that how you want to live? Is

38:24

that the conversations you want to have?

38:27

Wait? How much is this going to cost? Though? Actually

38:30

I think it's going to cost maybe

38:33

six or seven hundred dollars? Oh my

38:35

god, I mean I need to stay in a hotel.

38:37

I'm over one thousand dollars now. No, we're way over

38:39

one thousand dollars. Now, we're up to like fifteen hundred bucks.

38:42

If you look at the Federal Trade Commission, fraud

38:45

statistics, pyramid scheme and business

38:47

opportunity fraud are the least reported

38:50

fraud types that they monitor. Really,

38:52

so this is not something that

38:54

people like to tell people about.

38:57

I just don't think, you know, sort of the accurate

39:00

picture is just is out there. And

39:02

my point now, I want to make this point.

39:04

If the number was screwed up, or

39:07

if there was no basis for it, and

39:09

the administrative judge would have said

39:12

Brownman's numbers of phony,

39:14

I'm not here to tell you that I was right. What

39:18

I am telling you is that I was ignored. You

39:20

just PLoP it on your own personal credit card.

39:23

No one's gonna say boo. All

39:25

you have to do is order product in

39:27

your team members' names and

39:29

have it shipped to your address or another

39:31

address. The company does

39:34

not care if you sell the product. They just

39:36

care if you buy it. The

39:38

guys up on the stage they're talking about you just

39:40

get five and the five get twenty five. Look

39:42

at the potential here. I raise

39:45

my hand, so I've got my

39:47

calculator here. I'm just you know, it

39:49

doesn't make sense. First of all, you know,

39:52

you just keep going. You pass the population

39:54

of Canada and just a few levels.

39:56

He started laughing. He says, look at that guy

40:00

seculator in his hands. If you have to

40:02

go consult numbers in order

40:04

to believe in your own ability

40:06

to make this thing work, you'll

40:08

never succeed. And the crowd

40:11

is laughing. The

40:16

Dream is a production of Little Everywhere

40:18

and Stitcher, written and reported by Me

40:21

Jane Marie, Dan Galucci, Mackenzie

40:23

cassob Lyra Smith and Claire

40:25

Rowlinson, editing by

40:28

Peter Clowney. Our fact checker is Michelle

40:30

Harris. The Dream is executive produced

40:32

by Laura Mayer, Chris Bannon, Dan Galucci

40:34

and Me. Special thanks today to

40:37

Jenny Rattlet Nicole Cliff, Jamie

40:39

mollen, Nan Dylan, Robert Fitzpatrick,

40:42

and Matt Most. We appreciate

40:45

you subscribing, rating, and reviewing

40:47

the show wherever you listen.