the GMI scam
 

I almost fell for it today and I am worried it might start catching on in Lebanon, so I decided to make this thread about so you would be warned (the title will probably also appear in the google search results :p )

what happened is that a friend of mine came to me saying that he and his friend are in a business together and he wants to tell me about it and maybe get me in on it, so I went along. long story short, you pay 70$ and you get a membership in this company,(called GMI, gold mine international) if you recruit 2 other people(meaning get them to pay 70$ and sign up) you get 30$, and from there on, for every 2 people they recruit you get 10$, and the tree descends downwards and you make money for people joining(and it is a binary tree so it descends fast and the idea is that you would make a lot of money)
for those who do not know what a binary tree is, it looks like this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikibook...inary_tree.png

this is a full binary tree, meaning it goes down 2 by 2 until it ends

now, why is this a scam? yes you can make a lot of money from it, if you are at the top of it, but, the catch is that the number of potential people you may recruit is finite, meaning eventually, there will be no more people who will want to join, the tree will reach the inevitable end(no matter how long it takes, even if after a million people join, inevitably it will end) the ending of the tree is the biggest part of the tree, and those are the people who paid to get in and have no way of getting their money back, the level just behind that level are the people who paid to get in, and only managed to recruit 2 people(getting half their money back) w bikouno sawwado wejjon with the people they got in, and the level before that are the people who just barely managed to get their money back, and everyone that listened to them and got in lost their money. these last 3 levels of the tree are the majority of the tree(70% or so) the majority lost, the minority above gained a lot, but the gained money is coming from the loss and exploitation of the bottom. if anyone at your uni or something tells you about it, don't get in on it, and if you do, just know that you will either be robbed or the alternative is that you will cause other people to lose their money

also because of the binary nature of it, it will probably spread fast

I'm a member at this tree and i have 2 down-liner. ya3neh i have now 40$ (30$ + 10$ because i entered in ramadan) and maybe more because maybe my down-liners brought people.
but i don't advise anyone to enter this chain not even to go to the first meeting because they will tell you that after 2 years you will become a millionaire, IT IS A LIE.
don't say 77$ is nothing i can try. because you will lose:
- 77$ to have a CHEAP Watch
- time, to go every week with you r friends to the meetings+as a member of GMI you will have 2 meetings every week to tell you how you can lie to your friends and bring them to the first meeting.
-more money by calling friends and going with them to meetings ra7 tokbar fetouret l mobile wel benzin.

so guys just don't try it because you are paying just 77$. because your losing more money and time.

I never said you cannot be making money, I did say the top of the chain will make a lot of money(and by top I mean all the levels of the top except the last 4 levels), bas where is the money coming from? the money is coming from the bottom of the tree that is filled with people who will be losing their money, and the last 3 to 4 levels of the tree are the majority of people

lol i attended their first meeting once and i was convinced about it lol but i didn't join cause i made this small research about it, and i guess they are targeting Afghanistan and Pakistan, go check it on alexa lol

But i used their strategy "free marketing" on other people lool

Seriously wtf? ?

so in simple they are a company that targets ignorant/stupid people ?

5 months ago,some people tried to convice my gf about this , but i told her what mr_j just talked about now.such companies shouldn't be existing in lebanon and should be banned.

no man not necessary, i have a friend who's an active client in GMI since 1.5 year. he get about 800$ every month.
but it is not as they keep telling you, "make money the easy way without working hard!".
to get just 800$ after 2 years, you should work hard from the beginning w tsawed wejjak with all your friends and family

I got a donut and a free game out of all this :p

the guy was probably repeating to you what he was told, and what he was convinced by

the person that was talking to me(the person my friend got me to meet) was a very charismatic and intelligent guy, he is very persuasive and clearly he had been doing it for a long time, and I actually think he knows what he is doing, which is even more scary