I’ve done a few posts in the past about scams and how it annoys me that there aren’t enough laws to protect consumers in Australia.

Well at the moment, I get to spend a few weeks stuck in front of the TV thanks to some more surgery, and over the last few days I’ve seen some ads telling me I can work at home and turn my computer into a money making machine.

Considering I’m not a f**king moron, I just ignored the ads. After all, short of hooking up to a printer and getting some clear polymer sheets from the Royal Australian Mint, I’m not quite sure how my computer could become a money making machine.

All the ad asks you to do is visit a website called incomeathome.com (income at home) for all the details. There’s some apparent testimonials on the ad from people who have started making money from this sca….. venture and not much else.

I’ve heard of scams similar to what I presumed this ad was about, and that is where people put up signs or ads in the paper, asking for you to send them $10 and they’ll give you the secret to making millions. It turns out, the secret is to put up the signs. There are enough people dumb enough to send the $10 that you can get rich.

But after being confronted with this bloody ad for the last few days, it got the better of me. MY problem is that I just need to know things. When people are obviously trying to hide things from me, I feel a need to discover their secret. So today, I did some research.

And here is their secret: INCOME AT HOME IS HERBALIFE. Have you heard of them? They sell vitamins and weight loss tablets to help people who couldn’t be f**ked exercising. By all accounts, it’s a great company with a great product, but the thing is, Herbalife are a Multi Level Marketing (MLM) company. And I thought they were illegal in Australia.

The most famous MLM is Amway. Again, a company with great products and services, but to make any real money from it, you have to sign up people to join Amway who come in under you. When THEY make profit, YOU get a percentage. So the more people you have under you, the more profit you get – for doing nothing. And if THOSE people sign up MORE people, you get a percentage of THEIR profit, too.

I’ll admit that I haven’t confirmed whether MLM’s are actually legal in Australia or not, so my whole rant is based on the fact that they are ILLEGAL. Which means: why aren’t the ACCC out there, either shutting them down?

And let’s entertain for a moment that MLM’s ARE legal, then why don’t they have to disclose their name and their business model on their ads? After all, the vast majority of people that sign up to MLM’s either lose money (it costs to join and there’s usually on-going fees), or go broke.

A very lucky few realise it’s all going nowhere because they don’t have the pushy a-hole attitude you need to force your friends to join up, and out of every few thousand that join, there’s maybe 1 guy that makes a real business out of it.

So why isn’t the government protecting innocent people from this kind of crap? One forum I found during my investigation revealed that at their website, if you want to know who they are and what they do, you have to give them your name, home address, e-mail adress and credit card number. JUST TO FIND OUT WHO THEY ARE?????? So much for duty of disclosure!

Have YOU been caught out by one of these companies? Asked to come along to a “FREE*” seminar and then pressured to sign up at the end? Tell me about it. I’d love to hear your story.