so my little brother, being the "enterprising" young man (read: lazy ass bitch) has found yet another scheme to become a part of. if anyone remembers his last round with making easy money, he took part in the well known Quixtar (amway) pyramid scheme. in doing this he found out the hard way that buying the silly tapes, buying a nice suit, and driving back and forth to their stupid meetings and convetions cost him a whole lot more money than he stood to make.

now he's a part of an Autosurf program called Phoenix Surf, based right here in good old Athens. being a bit of a skeptic of anything little bro is associated with, i immediately questioned the program (that he undoubtedly tried to get me to join) and started doing some research. after reading a few hours worth of various material both on the company's own website as well as many others, everything about it just screams SCAM! the cult-like mentality of the people using it, the annoying conversations with people trying to get you to join, the claims of quickly made money just by clicking around a few pages a day and earning a return on your invested money. anyone with half a brain would question- "where does the money come from?". when you ask anyone involved in these deals you get the usual cult member responses, completely programmed and robotic in nature. in a ponzi scam the money is just being shifted around for the most part, passed down the chain from newer members to older until it ultimately shuts down and lots of people lose their asses. i know the advertising isn't paying for it, the returns are just too great....

so my real question here is, is there any LEGITIMATE way that they could take your money and turn it around at a rate of 15% per day for 8 days in a row? the only half answer i've gotten so far is something about them taking the money and investing in IPO's (?) and turning it around, but the money being paid out still seems way more than that could ever generate.

here's a great blog entry i found during my random searching:
http://pofm.blogspot.com/2006/01/ponzi-autosurf.html