Eurexcel pyramid scheme.

DaithiSurfer

I got roped into going to a presentation about cheaper phone calls from Eurexcel Vartec.
The this is that it turned out to be a recruitment meeting for pyramid sales.
They tried to rope people into becoming sales reps by paying €325.
When the presentation was finished one guy started asking some questions and then said 'Thats fantastic sign me up' and took out his credit card and signed up.
Now this was in a friends house so i knew everyone except this guy.
I asked if anyone else knew him and no-one did.
My friends told me he was invited along by the rep. PLANT???
Has anyone else ever been at this bull****?
More to the point has anyone else ever signed up and discovered that it is a con? My friends are completely taken in by this con man.

I wont bore you with the pitch he had, but it sounded good at first but when i was thinking about it it was seriously flawed. Nobody else seemed to notice this though.

ToxicPaddy

There's not a lot you can do apart from warn your mates about this sort of thing. Im sure there s enough stuff on the web, articles and the like that might open their eyes a bit.

If they are foolish enough to sign up for it and waste hard earned cash, well all you can do is wait around until they realise they've been conned and console them as well as telling them "I told you so" :rolleyes:

Stark

I remember having an argument with a woman who got conned like that before - "But they said it wasn't spam, it was bulk e-mail". "Eh yeah, so why do you keep having to sign up for new hotmail a/ccs while they close down your old ones if there's nothing wrong with it?".

Sleipnir

ah I'd mention it to the gardai anyway. Just so they know there's a conman at work. Pyramid schemes are illegal afaik.

DaithiSurfer

Problem is i've seen this kind of thing happen before.
The idea is to recruit your friends and family to make money.
When people do this they inevitibly fall out with people close to them. not good.
Now i don't hold a grudge if i dont see malice in their actions. but most people would and that is going to lead to strained relations between people.

Apparently they are not illegal.
Something about the money being for training solves that for them.

Sleipnir

they appear to have a website.

http://www.eurexcel.ie/

Mad Mike

We use Vartec (now owned by Eurexcel) for international calls and have found them to be very good so I am surprised that they appear to be resorting to dodgy sales techniques.

Has this only happened since the Eurexcel takeover I wonder?

Should I now be worried that this company has my credit card details?

DaithiSurfer

Is it true that vartec also have a minimum monthly charge of €5
adnd a minimum call charge of 15cent. e.g even if you're on the phone for 1 second at 2am you get charged 15cent.
Well the guy neglected to mention either of those points and yet wanted all there to work for him and sell this service.
Not very good training is it?

netman

jesus, they're even more expensive than ringing international from your mobile.. why would anybody want to use them??!

sorry, back to the original question.. is it the sort of pyramid scheme where everybody pays up this much to be a seller, then gets a bit of commission, and you get a commission from everybody that joins and is referred by you?

the last one of those i've seen was a couple of years ago and they even had people there giving testimonials how it's changed their life and how they're now earning tens of thousands of euro per month with very little effort.

wouldn't even thinking of joining something like that, there's no such thing as free lunch

DaithiSurfer

Yep, thats the one.
Another funny thing.
The guy doing the presentation said he was now a millionaire from it.
He had expensive clothes etc, but he was driving a 91 Fiesta.

WhiteWashMan

if its a pyramid based selling mechanism, it will have some people that get money from lots of other people.
thats the way it works.
other people get the commission for your work.

amways works like this, but as far as im aware, they arent illegal. i had a good mate who worked for them. i even went to one of their evenings but i wasnt interested. sounded too much like hard work

at the end of the day, the real sales is in getting people to work for you, not by going door to door and selling cheap bits and bobs.
i hate pyramid schemes. i always felt that a person should be measured on the quality of their work, and if someone deserves to be paid well, they should be. not just because some bloke got 50 of his mates to sell something and then cleaned up on their profits. just doesnt strick me as fair.
mind you, when is business fair?
and im in sales for god sake!

Mad Mike

Originally posted by DaithiSurfer
Is it true that vartec also have a minimum monthly charge of €5
adnd a minimum call charge of 15cent. e.g even if you're on the phone for 1 second at 2am you get charged 15cent.
Well the guy neglected to mention either of those points and yet wanted all there to work for him and sell this service.
Not very good training is it?

In answer to questions about Vartec - as far as I can tell from our bills yes on the minimum call charge of 15c but no on the €5 minimum monthly charge (Don't know about the carrier pre-select option we use 13636 before international calls to selsect Vartec). Vartec are very bad value for local and probably even for national calls but are very good value for international calls. Much cheaper than Eircom, UTV, ESAT etc. some of the prepaid cards are cheaper but only slightly. The min call charge isn't an issue for intl cals because - when was the last time you made an international call for less than 15c? I'm still worried though about the dodgy sales practises. A company that is that unscrupulous in its selling practises may well be unscrupulous in other areas.

boo-boo

Originally posted by DaithiSurfer

The guy doing the presentation said he was now a millionaire from it.
He had expensive clothes etc, but he was driving a 91 Fiesta.

cool clobber & a classic car - where do I sign up ???

sceptre

Originally posted by DaithiSurfer
PLANT???

Oh, very much so I suspect.

The only one you don't know, invited there by the rep, instantly whips out credit card after presentation?

Plant

I've heard that Vartec are very much into getting people to sign up their friends and family. Which is all very well I suppose (some reputable companies like UTV and Esat have (or had) little bonus schemes for getting people to sign up (clubcard points in the case of Esat, I think UTV's is still running)) but there's a big difference between little bonus schemes and actively trying to get customers to spread the word. And a big difference between that and what you've described. There's rather a large difference between, say, Sky's current sign up a friend scheme and trying to turn people into salespeople and getting them to pay up front for the privilege.

It's up to your friends if they want to get conned, I suppose. They /are/ getting conned though.

Yavvy

I worked in telecoms for a while and I know that other telcos like
Spirit and Smart employ indendant consultants, They have the job of signing people up for cheaper calls but the real money is in recruiting people to sell cheaper calls for you and recruiting more people.

the problem these slaes people have no code of ethics ( like any telco in ireland does) and are fairly ruthless. Also its usual for these companies to have appauling customer service ( sales and billing work fine) Also these companies use cheap call routing and if you call to a country outside the EU or US your chances of being connected become slimmer.

Also if you develop problems with your phone line you call them and they say " its eircoms fault" you call eircom and they say " sign back up to eircom or **** off ( thats an exact quote btw) "

Its legal, its not a scam but its not a product I would have faith in.
Also I think people like esat ans smart run a similar deal without an initial charge.

Woden

My cousin works for them, he signed up and has been to america and back with them. he is only changing people over to calls at the moment which are cheaper then eircom esat for example. Apparently they are getting rid of the minimum £5 charge over here within forthcoming months.

I think the main thing for him is to try and get business lines not residential. For large business with large phone bills he gets more money. He seems to think he has got in on the ground floor though (in ireland anyway) oh and they don't go door to door, only through word of mouth

It probably is a load of crap i was taking the piss like he was going off to a cult when he went to america. However i do take some of it at face value as he is very shrewd with money and he must feel there is something in it or he won't do it.

supra-man

Definition of pyramid sheme (in my bad English... Sorry for that) :

You pay a LOT of money to become part of a "group".
Then, to earn that money back, you have to find a certain amount of people who are willing to pay that same amount of money to become part of the group.
If you haven't found enough people in a certain delay of time, you have to pay the money again. And again and again, untill you found the necessary amount of people. And from that moment on, you can start earning money.
It's clear that it's almost impossible to become successful in such a sheme.

Ok, this is not the defenition, but it's a good example. Actually, it's a system where you play with money. There is no product to represent, except money. You pay money, you find people who pay money, you get payed.

THAT'S A PYRAMID SHEME !!!

Now... If you know about the business I'm talking about, why don't you tell me the similarities of Eurexcel with a pyramid sheme. I'm curious.

Greetz,

Marc

DaithiSurfer

You are not correct there supra man.
Pyramid schemes require you to pay money one or more times. They don't neccearily make you pay over and over.
They do have products now because it is illegal not to have one.

Let me see.
Eurexcel:
The hook is cheaper phone calls. This gets you to go to a sales meeting by your 'friend'. The calls are 15cent min and €5 a month. they dont mention this. Utv is cheaper. Web phones are way cheaper to call internationaly.
They tell you they will be doing x and y in a few months (too late for you to back out if they dont).

pay €325 to become AN AGENT.
got to your friends and family and get them to pay you €325.
when you get enough victims you start earning.
These victims (your family and friends ... right) then have to get more victims so they can make money.

Sounds very very very much like a pyramid scheme to me.

The people below fund the people at the top.
Thats what a pyramid scheme is supra man.
and thats what eurexcel is

Barto

* If a surgeon decides to quit operating, the money stops.
* If a dishwasher decides not to wash dishes, the money stops.
* If an attorney decides to stop suing people, the money stops.
* If an IRS agent decides to stop auditing people, the money stops.

In almost every profession, when the person stops working, the
money stops. But not network marketing!

In the Excel business, it's different. In the beginning, you do a
lot of groundwork and foundation building, and you don't make
a lot of money. If you were being paid hourly, you could complain
that you were underpaid or getting less than minimum wage.

However, most Excel leaders look at this building
period as a learning period. It's like going to school. But, instead
of paying tuition, you can earn some money while you learn.

Once you complete the groundwork and foundation, the money
formula changes drastically. Now, you are getting paid bonuses
every month, even if you don't work hard or when you take a
vacation.

So, in the beginning you do a lot of work that you don't get paid
for, but in the end you get a lot of pay for when you don't work.

That's why professionals want to get into network marketing.
They like the residual income and the financial security it brings.

On a sad note, there are some individuals who get into Excel
and start to build a foundation. But because they didn't feel
they earned enough money during this learning and building stage
of their career, they quit. Yes, they quit just before they go into
the collecting stage of their careers. I guess the rewards go to
people with persistence and vision.

GuanYin

Wow Barto, you signed up just for this thread?

You're not a plant are you?

Sleipnir

Originally posted by Barto

Yes, they quit just before they go into
the collecting stage of their careers. I guess the rewards go to
people with persistence and vision.

And when they quit, we kept all the money they had put into it!
Even if they'd been doing it for 5 years, we just waited until they figured out that only the guys who thought the scheme up made any money!


That's right, you to can give us your money and in return, you'll get a shedload of bullsh*t!

network marketing = throw your money at us quickly.

malico

I somehow managed to be unfortunate enough to be at a EurExcel launce thing. Man its suck amaericana stuff. I think Barto MUST work for them. the guys I met were nice gus. then, so are some other ciminals i met

They take you into a room with freee drink and food and show you the form and try to sign you up. I got a friend to page me and said I had to run off on "an emergency".

They say that you have to buy your seller liscence... How many other companies CHARGE you to work for THEM!

Scam scam scam i say!

WhiteWashMan

Originally posted by Barto
* If a surgeon decides to quit operating, the money stops.
* If a dishwasher decides not to wash dishes, the money stops.
* If an attorney decides to stop suing people, the money stops.
* If an IRS agent decides to stop auditing people, the money stops.

In almost every profession, when the person stops working, the
money stops. But not network marketing!

In the Excel business, it's different. In the beginning, you do a
lot of groundwork and foundation building, and you don't make
a lot of money. If you were being paid hourly, you could complain
that you were underpaid or getting less than minimum wage.

However, most Excel leaders look at this building
period as a learning period. It's like going to school. But, instead
of paying tuition, you can earn some money while you learn.

Once you complete the groundwork and foundation, the money
formula changes drastically. Now, you are getting paid bonuses
every month, even if you don't work hard or when you take a
vacation.

So, in the beginning you do a lot of work that you don't get paid
for, but in the end you get a lot of pay for when you don't work.

That's why professionals want to get into network marketing.
They like the residual income and the financial security it brings.

On a sad note, there are some individuals who get into Excel
and start to build a foundation. But because they didn't feel
they earned enough money during this learning and building stage
of their career, they quit. Yes, they quit just before they go into
the collecting stage of their careers. I guess the rewards go to
people with persistence and vision.

did you copy and paste that?

Barto

No washman... But you just did !! ;-)

How do we call that ? :-p

By the way, what's a "plant" ? Except something with leaves that grows when given water. And except a kind of factory...

WhiteWashMan

Originally posted by Barto
No washman... But you just did !! ;-)

How do we call that ? :-p

By the way, what's a "plant" ? Except something with leaves that grows when given water. And except a kind of factory...

actually, i 'quoted'


pointless now at this stage.
i consider it a pyramid scheme, and no one is interested