While I was away for summer school at the University of Leicester, a friend of mine had casually mentioned that she belonged to a travel club, that catered to individuals who had a love for travel. She offered to give them my number and I agreed. Last week, I received a call from the organisation (Reality Vacation Innovation), inviting me to a presentation at the Premier Hotel, Mokola, Ibadan on the 4th of September.
After church service, I found my way to the venue. The event was suppossed to commence by 3.30p.m but it eventually commenced around 4.30p.m. I was already frothing at the mouth, but I decided to watch things unravel. The presentation was conducted by a man (who I suspect is a South African national), who spent an hour expatiating on the wonderful benefits of becoming a member of this organization. Upon listening to the presentation, I came to the following conclusions:
- This is another ponzi scheme (if you don’t know what a ponzi scheme is, please google or Wikipedia it).
- This is another case of ‘baboon dey work, monkey dey chop’ thingy.
- We are a bunch of greedy people with short memories ( I like to think we are suffering from permanent amnesia).
From his explanation, a prospective member is expected to pay a membership fee of $7,500, to gain free hotel accomodation access for the next 25years, to any exotic travel destination of their choice. Why invest you might ask? According to him, for such a member to recoup his/her investment, such a person needs to recruit two more people. Once these people pay up their fees, the host gets a total of $350 ($175/person) and the recruitment cycle continues. He kept on reiterating how it was imperative to invest such an amount, to reap $56,000 in six months. Now you see where I am heading to. While the presentation was going on, I kept staring at the faces of the attendees (it was plain greed I saw).
I have always known that hard work has never killed. Where I began to get angry, was when he (the presenter) started saying that everyone can attain financial freedom and get to a situation, where you can virtually buy anything and still have great financial reserves (duh!!! you wish, in your dreams perhaps?). For heaven’s sake, even the richest celebrity knows that this is hogwash at its’ very best. Yeah, financial freedom my foot, if that is the world’s order, Michael Jackson wouldn’t have ended up with so much debts and I would be somewhere on the Tahiti island, in my one piece bikini, sipping on rum juice, running wild and free, emptying Manolo Blahnik’s shoe stores (why? because I believe some dumb fools are racking up wealth for me, by joining a travel club). How low can we get?
The saddening aspect of this was, when the presenter asked each of them, what they would do with this huge sum upon redemption. They promptly touted ” i’ll reinvest it in my business; i’ll reinvest it in this scheme”. Not one person with my exception, said anything about taking a trip with the money. I wonder why we are enslaving our lives to the money god if we cannot enjoy it. Around 5.50p.m, the presentation ended, and as I got up to leave, I observed that yours truly was the only person, who declined such an offer. I left that room, with people who had a glazed greedy expression, thinking of how much money they could amass within six months. Phew!!! the things we do for money.
Nan said
You know Jan, when I read about people who have lost thier home and life savings to these kinds of schemes screaming and rolling on the ground, my heart feels sorry for them but my head screams, what the hell where they thinking?
You’re right it’s plain unadulterated greed!! People want something for nothing, they want to sow 10kobo and reap 1,000 Naira, where is that ever possible? On which planet to such rules of economic apply? Only idiots keep getting ripped off by the same schemes wrapped in different packeges. If you’ve ever worked hard for a kobo in your life, you’ll know there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
January said
Maybe this scheme works on Planet Juno (if such exists). They brought such huge albums and while flipping through them, I saw this ex-presenter Mrs Teniade Aofiyebi, Mrs Doyin Abiola (i saw her backside, but I can recognise that woman anywhere because of her trademark black-silvery hair combed to the back always).
Mrs Aofiyebi was being presented a cheque, based on her ardent recruitment of fellow inclined travellers while Mrs Abiola was there to support and celebrate her friend.
I kept on shaking my head while lamenting at the various devious schemes, our so-called “prominent people” are involved in to maintain their profligate lifestyles.
Nan said
I’m not surprised, slavery was enabled by the compliancy of fellow Africans. If these rogues are coming to our shores to rip out people off, it’s because our people opened the doors to them.