Shyam
I have received several enquiries about my use of the term, 'advanced fee fraud,' to describe the so-called 'Amway tool scam.'
Wikipedia has a comprehensive explanation, and history, of Advanced Fee Fraud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_fraud.
However, what the Wikipedia article does not begin to explain is that the understanding of advanced fee fraud is fundamental to the understanding of criminogenic cults or perverted ritual belief systems, in that it is a means of dissociating vulnerable indviduals from external reality, and parting them from their time and money, by identifying their deepest hopes and desires (prosperity, health, happiness, freedom, redemption, etc.), and then peddling them an exclusive place in a fictitious, future Utopian existence where their deepest hopes and desires will become fulfilled.
Self-evidently, this is an irrefutable description of so-called 'MLM' fraud.
Probably the most-notorious advanced fee fraud in recent years has been the 'Nigerian Bank Scam.' Interestingly, since 1995, the US law enforcement agency which has been tasked with dealing this particular problem has been the Secret Service (but only in the case of American victims who have lost in excess of $50000).
It makes one wonder how it was possible that, given their agents' undoubted expertise in the investigation of global advanced fee frauds, the entire panoply of US enforcement agencies have completely failed to spot 'Amway' and 'Scientology' - just two of their country's home-grown versions of the Nigerian Bank Scam, and which have been exported all over the globe?
David Brear
I have received several enquiries about my use of the term, 'advanced fee fraud,' to describe the so-called 'Amway tool scam.'
Wikipedia has a comprehensive explanation, and history, of Advanced Fee Fraud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_fraud.
However, what the Wikipedia article does not begin to explain is that the understanding of advanced fee fraud is fundamental to the understanding of criminogenic cults or perverted ritual belief systems, in that it is a means of dissociating vulnerable indviduals from external reality, and parting them from their time and money, by identifying their deepest hopes and desires (prosperity, health, happiness, freedom, redemption, etc.), and then peddling them an exclusive place in a fictitious, future Utopian existence where their deepest hopes and desires will become fulfilled.
Self-evidently, this is an irrefutable description of so-called 'MLM' fraud.
Probably the most-notorious advanced fee fraud in recent years has been the 'Nigerian Bank Scam.' Interestingly, since 1995, the US law enforcement agency which has been tasked with dealing this particular problem has been the Secret Service (but only in the case of American victims who have lost in excess of $50000).
It makes one wonder how it was possible that, given their agents' undoubted expertise in the investigation of global advanced fee frauds, the entire panoply of US enforcement agencies have completely failed to spot 'Amway' and 'Scientology' - just two of their country's home-grown versions of the Nigerian Bank Scam, and which have been exported all over the globe?
David Brear
1 comment:
Brear,
Not every scam is an "advanced fee fraud." LOL
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