...our business model is the trapezoid!

Thailand is a country full of poor people who lack quality education. Those who went to school are the product of a top-down system that in general discourages the question “why?” and prefers that people accept what they are told. In the general public there is limited exposure to or interest in the wider world. The country features high levels of corruption, particularly in police and regulatory agencies. This is therefore the perfect recipe for... pyramid schemes!

Amway, Nutrilife, Zulian and now some other company whose name I forget are all working hard in Thailand and thousands of people are huge amounts of money... or so they'd have you believe.

As I write this, a woman, Pyramid Lady, is sitting down with a small crowd of interested listeners, telling them how for just a small initial investment, they'll be able to earn really rather fantastic amounts of money each month – some 20-40k baht at a minimum (someone working full time in 7/11 will earn around 7,500).

I have the general disadvantage here that I'm just a foreigner so despite my (perceived) enormous bank account, I don't really know anything. Luckily, a lady from the village who has moved away and opened various businesses in Thailand and has been invited to work in a 5-star hotel in Korea has come to visit for the new year, and she shares my scepticism so can back me up. Her disadvantage is that she's just a woman.

It's a little bit insidious for these companies to target the poor and uneducated so I'll do my best to convince the victims not to part with their money once Pyramid Lady has left. The problem is that the very things that make them good targets for these schemes make it difficult to explain the truth to them. None of them have asked “If one can earn 40k+ baht every month doing nothing then a) why is Pyramid Lady spending 2 hours in a village up a mountain trying to get people to join and b) if she's on an amazing enough salary to justify doing a), why has she turned up in a cheap old pick-up truck?”

“There are some things like toothpaste and soap that people need to use every day”

Correct, and surprisingly, people have realised this already and created companies and products like Colgate, Darley, Lux and and Sunsilk, then spent millions on building up that brand. The listeners don't seem to be asking themselves “why would many people help make me rich by buying some unknown brand of expensive toothpaste when Darley costs 10 baht in every shop in the country?” I've heard her saying several times “If you don't like selling things, you don't have to!”

They're also being wowed with maths featuring big numbers and no one seems fussed about the the fact that 50,000 x 100% = 5,000

Sadly, the few who have ended up squandering what little money they have despite my attempts to persuade them otherwise didn't ask “How is is possible that I could earn more than people who've been to university and got a job with a big company, without doing any real work?”

Don't think this is an indictment of the people of Thailand. There are plenty of people in the UK and other first-world countries, coming out of first-world education systems and falling for exactly the same too-good-to-be-true-but-go-for-it-anyway schemes. They don't have any excuse. If you've ever helped or seriously considered helping out a Nigerian millionaire and have yet to reproduce, think carefully about the over-population of the world and what your contribution to the gene pool would be.

I won't be updating this blog any more - go to The Penang Blog to see my new and exciting Malaysia blog!