A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered.  These schemes pop up all the time on the internet and they work for a few weeks or months but only for those who get in early.

The chances are big that you will never get any money back from your investment in a pyramid scheme specially if you don't have a trustable downline of people who are willing to take a risk.

Just a few days ago we could see a 15 year old boy who made over $70,000 in just a few weeks from one of these schemes that now go under the nickname the Oprah Pyramid. Of course a lot of people jump on the train when it just start rolling and I am sure some of them really good money, but does everyone?

I am strongly against taking risks like this but as I don't have to use my own money to play in this game but instead got $6 from my boss at UrOnlineBiz to test it I was willing to give it a shot.

How does the Oprah Pyramid work?

Here is a copy of the email used in this particular pyramid:

 

EARN EXTRA MONEY AS SEEN ON OPRAH AND 20/20 ______________________________________ ... Dear Friend, You probably have seen this before, but it really does work. Give it a try -- think of how you waste $6 in a day, week or month. It's a minor investment with great rewards. This might $6 investment could actually change your life! If you could start your own mail order list with an investment of $6.00, and make $800,000 over the next year would you do it? _____________________________________ ***Proven by various, highly-respected U.S. TV and Radio programs as being 100% legal, feasible and true.*** ***Oprah Winfrey and ABC's investigation team 20/20 also proved it can be done.*** IF A 15 YEAR OLD BOY COULD MAKE $71,000 IN JUST 5 WEEKS AND OTHERS $250,000 IN A FEW MORE WEEKS -- SO CAN YOU !!! Would you like to make $71,000 OR $250,000 in a few weeks? As seen on the Oprah Winfrey show and ABC's 20/20 REQUIREMENTS: You must have a confirmed PayPal account. If you do not have a PayPal account you can go to www.paypal.com and follow the instructions to set up a free account. PayPal is 100% secure and is used by millions of people world wide. [STEP 1] Send, through PayPal, $1.00 to each email on the below list. Here are the latest PayPal e-mails on the e-mail lists: 1) janez_74@hotmail.com 2) taz7@spray.se 3) seals_beastie@hotmail.com 4) phatazz7@hotmail.com 5) aua_janie@hotmail.com 6) support@uronlinebiz.com Subject of Payment: ***Email List*** Comments: ***PLEASE PUT ME ON YOUR EMAIL LIST*** [STEP 2] Now take the #1) email off the list that you see above, move the other addresses up one (6 becomes 5 & 5 becomes 4, etc) then put YOUR email address (the one used in your PayPal account) as #6 on the list. **MAKE SURE THE EMAIL YOU SUPPLY IS EXACTLY AS IT APPEARS IN YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT** [STEP 3] Change anything you need to, but try to keep this article as close to the original as possible. Now, post your amended article to at least 200 newsgroups, message boards, etc. (I think there are close to 32,000 groups) All you need is 200, but remember, the more you post, the more money you make - as well as everyone else on the list! You are getting paid for a service, the sender of the money asks you to "Please add me to your list?", Therefore it is legal. Remember to send a dollar to the above names or this is considered illegal.   Keep a copy of these steps for yourself and you can use it again and again. DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO POST TO NEWSGROUPS/MESSAGE BOARDS. [Step 1] You do not need to re-type this entire letter to do your own posting. Simply copy this entire article and paste it in a notepad and save it as a txt file, which includes your mail id in the sixth place Use Netscape or Internet Explorer and try searching for various newsgroups, on-line forums, message boards, bulletin boards, chat sites, discussions, discussion groups, online communities, etc. EXAMPLE: go to any search engine like yahoo.com, google.com, altavista.com, excite.com, then search with subjects like "millionaire message board" or "money making message board" or "opportunity message board" or "money making discussions" or "business bulletin board" or "money making forum" etc. Visit these message boards and post this article as a new message by highlighting the text of this letter and selecting 'Paste' from the 'Edit' menu. Fill in the Subject, this will be the header that everyone sees as they scroll thru the list of postings in a particular group, click the post message button. You're done with your first one! Congratulations! ****************************

OK when trying this I first had some problems sending money to one of the email adresses as it was closed down but I could send to the other 5.  Then I added our own email addy at the bottom and sent out an email to one of my mailing lists full of people who are willing to try crazy things every now and then. The first hour nothing happened and I got a few replies from people asking if I was stupid enough to believe this would actually work?LOL Well I had to explain I was experimenting for work to see how good or bad it really is. Maybe I should have told my mailing list this from the start because after that I got a few laughs and other said they would also try just for fun.

The first 6 hours gave $47 so at least I got the money back. After that it got a little better and now it has been 11 hours since I first sent out the email; the account show $119 and it doesn't seem to slow down yet. I bet in less than a month from now this pyramid will have gone down the drain but I will keep testing it and send it to some other mailing lists and some forums where I haven't seen this published. The people that join under me will be part of the experiment when I send out the email to our other mailing- and contact lists this week.
 

Generally I can say that a pyramid scheme is definitley not a serious business method. Don't make the mistake of thinking of this as a real income opportunity because it only works for a while. If you are going to try it see it as a test or lottery as you might loose your invested money. This scheme is still fairly new so it has some potential but when it drops it will drop fast. A week or two after this article is published I can probably consider myself lucky if I make a few dollars per day.

Easy come easy go, I suppose.

I will report back in a while to show how it went and also publish some screenshots of the earnings.