Wise Words

President Chandrika Kumaratunga says pyramid style network marketing schemes have drained over US$ 50 mn from the country and warned tough action against government officials who promote them.







President Chandrika Kumaratunga says pyramid style network marketing schemes have drained over US$ 50 mn from the country and warned tough action against government officials who promote them. In June, the Central Bank said that 4,000 pyramid promoters had fraudulently helped send nearly US$ 7 mn out of the country in the in the first quarter of this year.

Lending the presidential tag to an intensive anti-pyramid campaign spearheaded by the Central Bank, Kumaratunga promised to introduce tough laws to ban such schemes.

Sri Lanka is in the throes of campaign against promoting multilevel and network marketing schemes, which resembles pyramid.

Pyramid schemes come in many forms and guises to avoid recognition, but their main characteristics are that they promise participants large returns based on the recruitment of other participants to the scheme.

"Some schemes involve a sale of a product and create an illusion to the public by offering unrealistic gains in the form of bonus payments or