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Show Chain letter fad still haunts Utahns By DENNIS HTNKAMP Consumer Information Writer Utah State University I thought chain letters went out with lava lamps, but I guess not. I saw a new lava lamp in a store the other day. I've also received two chain letters this year. You know the ones that promise you incredible incredi-ble wealth if you pass them on to six friends or impending doom if you don't. Although chain letters are still fairly rare, pyramid, or multi-level sales practices are not. The same principles of multiplication hold true. According to Dr. Noleen Acker-man, Acker-man, Extension consumer educator educa-tor in the Utah State University College of Family Life, if each new entrant into such a plan is supposed to recruit six new members to get a discount on the products, it only takes eight rotations to cover every living human in Utah. So, once everyone becomes a distributor, who is going to be left to buy the product? She says if you have a pocket calculator try it for yourself; 6x6x6. . .eight times equals 1,679,616 which is approximately the population of Utah. Some of the recent multi-level operations that keep showing up in Utah have been for baby photography, photogra-phy, diet programs, food storage and herbal remedies. Ackerman says the idea behind ' recruiting new distributors is that all of them are supposed to give you a cut of their profits. In other cases the original sellers keep getting get-ting their supply of the product at a lower price depending on how many people they recruit. Of course none of these so-called friends are actually going to tell you that they want you to invest in pyramid sales because 1) pyramid sales practices are illegal and 2) they might not know it themselves, Ackerman says. She says one of the warning signals sig-nals of pyramid sales is the promise of high earnings from a product "that sells itself." Emphasis is also placed on recruiting more salespersons salesper-sons or distributors rather than the quality of the product. . ' Similar to other areas of consumer consum-er fraud, you are protected by the law. Pyramid sales are illegal in Utah. However, this does not necessarily mean you will get your money back. In many cases, the fraudulent company has spent all the money, leaving little to be paid back to defrauded consumers. |