You Can't Cheat an Honest Man - James Walsh [97]
The nature of the system pushes Yager to spread a different message among the Amway faithful. About once a week, at meetings all over North America, he offers motivational speeches to distributors. The talks often run two hours or longer—and have a spontaneous feeling, even if they’re well-practiced. He’s stoking the fires of his downline troops.
Like many Ponzi perps, Yager makes a big deal about having the courage to dream. He walks his audiences through dream homes; he tells them to dream about owning fancy cars, big boats and personal jets. “I help [downliners] dream,” he says. “Most people don’t dream enough.”
Dexter Yager presses the line of legitimacy that Amway has fought hard to establish. While critics question what they call his “lottery mentality,” Yager is not a Ponzi perp. He has the legally-tested Amway guidelines as a frame of reference.
Not all MLM promoters do.
CHAPTER 15
Chapter 15: Faith, Religion and New Age Gurus
Multi-level marketing programs and pyramid schemes use the rhetoric and psychology of religious evangelism to recruit and motivate distributors. They do this because many people confuse the faith they feel in religious contexts with trust of people or institutions.
Some Ponzi perps decide that the rhetoric and psychology isn’t enough. They use religion and spirituality explicitly to fleece investors.
Con men using religion as their pitch are nothing new. They trace back, through the novel Elmer Gantry, to the time of Christ (who was infuriated by money changers in the Temple)...and even beyond that. But the same social and technology issues that make the 1990s a high time for Ponzi schemes encourage religious Ponzi schemes.
The Ponzi Scheme Church of Hakeem
Few religious Ponzi perps can match Hakeem Abdul Rasheed for incorrigibility and sheer gall. Rasheed founded the Church of Hakeem in Oakland, California, as a non-profit religious corporation in March 1977. The Church obtained a tax-exempt status under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3).
In December 1977, Rasheed held a meeting with about 10 members of the Church and announced the creation of a program he called the “Blessing Plan Covenant.” Participation in the Plan was open to anyone who paid a one-time enrollment fee of $25. Upon becoming a member, a person could then make “donations” to the Church— and receive a 400 percent investment return as a “blessing” or dividend.
Rasheed said that the goal of the Plan was to create 10,000 millionaires. He was looking for people who had faith and wanted wealth. In January 1978, a month after his announcement, Rasheed renamed the Plan the “Dare-to-be-Rich Program.”
The principal method by which Rasheed promoted the Dare-to-beRich Program was a series of “Celebrations.” These were meetings conducted personally by Rasheed. At the Celebrations, Rasheed described the Program: become a member of the Church; invest in the Dare-to-be-Rich Program; receive a 400 percent return on investment within a prescribed time period; and become one of the Church’s10,000 millionaires. Rasheed said that the 400 percent return on investment was possible because the Church had “national and international” investments, which generated “tremendous profits” that the Church chose to make available to investing members.
As the membership grew, Rasheed relied increasingly on a small group of staff personnel to solicit the general public by restating the elements of the scheme. By July 1979, the Dare-to-be-Rich Program had grown so large that it required an organized staff which was formally instructed on how to promote the Program.
Rasheed was a big believer in direct mail. The Church printed and mailed recruitment brochures to a wide cross-section of the public. Internally, these brochures were known as “Calendars.