pyramid fraud

[moderate]

I attended a seminar of a pyramid trade, what they sell is membership. fee is �1695. i was lured to pay deposit of �200 at the end of the meeting it was like "No! you must do it now, this is your only opportunity." Not a day to think of it there was no terms and condition , no disclaimer, atfer a week i couldnt raise the balance so i requested for my �200. hear him say "sorry buddy, it is not refundable, its already in the companies account. i told you that before"

Believe me he never told me before, i want my money back. what can i do. any legal representation please?. Please advice what can i do where can i go.

[WendyS]

You could contact the Trading Standards department of your local council but I'm not sure whether they will be able to do anything for you. These pyramid selling schemes are a well known scam. They may not be able to get your money back for you but it's worth trying. Your nearest Citizens Advice Bureau might also be able to give you some advice. (Find them in the Yellow Pages).

[joko]

any one who tries to bully you with the hard sell has an alterior motive - that is obvious!!

[Buenchico]

I'm not sure that there's a great deal you can do.

Pyramid selling schemes are not, per se, illegal. What is illegal is to induce anyone to sign up for a scheme on the basis that a main part of their income will be derived from recruiting others to the scheme (rather than, say, through selling the goods or services which the scheme supplies). If you could prove that the people at the meeting breached the terms of this legislation then you could get the Trading Standards department to launch a prosecution against them but this wouldn't necessarily lead to you getting your money back.

The maximum amount for which you be held liable within the first seven days of your contract is �200 (which suggests that the people running this scheme have read the regulations and chosen the amount of the deposit to match this).

Whenever you provide a deposit on anything, it's offered as a 'sign of good faith'. If you fail to honour that 'good faith' the person who received the deposit has every right to withhold it.

As I see it, you can only get your money back if you can prove that the company breached the Pyramid Selling Regulations during their presentation. Then you might be able to make a civil claim, through the Small Claims Court, on the grounds that you were enticed into making the deposit upon the basis of illegal representations. As I've said, however, it looks as if the company have read the regulations and they will have taken great care to stay on the correct side of the law.

A summary of the relevant regulations can be found here:
http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics1/guide/tradescheme.pdf

Chris