Mrs. Stupidman Wants A Laptop

I was watching a little football the other day when Mrs.
Stupidman informed me she wanted a laptop for Christmas. I
asked her if she had any credit card capacity left and she,
rather sharply I thought, advised me that she wanted me to
give it to her as a gift and no, her purchase and my
wrapping did not constitute a gift.

She further informed me she would not write it on a little
piece of paper and cram it into the large, overflowing
pickle jar sitting atop the refrigerator labeled
"honey dew". (That was a pretty good idea three years ago
but I think the concept has run its course.)

I told her I didn't have that kind of money and I thought
we would just exchange cards like we did last year.

Then she hit me with www.yourfreelaptop.con (oops, a
Freudian slip). This is a vertical referral program with
77 "levels" (they call it a ladder). A person
joins for $29 and after 77 more people join, the original
person rejoins for another $29 and gets a laptop computer.

I told her it was a scam and most of the entrants would
never see a laptop. (Greased Lightning and I had reviewed
the program almost a month ago when a friend, now former
friend, recommended it.) We argued for a while over the
value of the reentry and it became very clear this was the
"hook" that was convincing some trustworthy netpreneurs to
promote it.

Let's say I started it and 77 people joined after me.
Those 77 people each need 77 more people minus me (as I
rejoined and received a computer) or a total of 5,928.
Those 5,928 members each need 77 minus my 77 recruits (who
reentered and received their computers) for a new total of
456,379. Finally, the 456,379 each need 77 members minus
the 5,928 happy laptop recipients for a data base busting
total of 35,135,255 members.

You can take this example one more step and approach the
population of the world but I'm already impressed.
Thirtyfive million members, that's like one eighth of the
total population of the United States. That's like
administering the Social Security program. At $29 a pop
it's more than a billion dollars and enables 6006 people
(1 + 77 + 5,928) to purchase laptops for $58 each. Heck
of a deal.

This "ladder" won't last long but it won't need to. The
people who thought this up will be rich and I'll lose a few
more "friends" for publicizing this. Worse yet, Mrs.
Stupidman still wants a laptop but the only way she'll get
it is if I sell more books. (I thought about putting the
link in here but it detracts from the message.)

For the record, the people I've seen promoting it are
honest, decent folk and truly believe they are providing a
wonderful benefit for their subscribers.

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The Internet Adventures Of Stupidman
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Copyright 2002 Stupidman LLC
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