Mrs. Stupidman Wants A Laptop

By Stupidman
Posted Friday, November 5, 2004

I was watching a little football the other day when Mrs. Stupidman informed me she wanted a laptop for Christmas. I asked her if she had any credit card capacity left and she, rather sharply I thought, advised me that she wanted me to give it to her as a gift and no, her purchase and my wrapping did not constitute a gift. She further informed me she would not write it on a little piece of paper and cram it into the large, overflowing pickle jar sitting atop the refrigerator labeled "honey dew". (That was a pretty good idea three years ago but I think the concept has run its course.) I told her I didn't have that kind of money and I thought we would just exchange cards like we did last year.

Then she hit me with (www.yourfreelaptop.con) (oops, a Freudian slip). This is a vertical referral program with 77 "levels" (they call it a ladder). A person joins for $29 and after 77 more people join, the original person rejoins for another $29 and gets a laptop computer. I told her it was a scam and most of the entrants would never see a laptop. (Greased Lightning and I had reviewed the program almost a month ago when a friend, now former friend, recommended it.) We argued for a while over the value of the reentry and it became very clear this was the "hook" that was convincing some trustworthy netpreneurs to promote it. Let's say I started it and 77 people joined after me. Those 77 people each need 77 more people minus me (as I rejoined and received a computer) or a total of 5,928. Those 5,928 members each need 77 minus my 77 recruits (who reentered and received their computers) for a new total of 456,379. Finally, the 456,379 each need 77 members minus the 5,928 happy laptop recipients for a data base busting total of 35,135,255 members.

You can take this example one more step and approach the population of the world but I'm already impressed. Thirtyfive million members, that's like one eighth of the total population of the United States. That's like administering the Social Security program. At $29 a pop it's more than a billion dollars and enables 6006 people (1 + 77 + 5,928) to purchase laptops for $58 each. Heck of a deal. This "ladder" won't last long but it won't need to. The people who thought this up will be rich and I'll lose a few more "friends" for publicizing this. Worse yet, Mrs. Stupidman still wants a laptop but the only way she'll get it is if I sell more books. (I thought about putting the link in here but it detracts from the message.)

For the record, the people I've seen promoting it are honest, decent folk and truly believe they are providing a wonderful benefit for their subscribers. The Internet Adventures Of Stupidman You can't angrily demand a refund if you don't buy it first. (http://www.stupidmanok.com/sales.htm) (no L) Stupidman's Occasional Newsletter I'll tell you secrets and try to keep you amused (http://www.stupidmanok.com/or.html)

Copyright 2002 Stupidman LLC If you want to copy,publish or post this article, go ahead (less work for me). Unless you find some egregious spelling errors don't rewrite this for me. If you republish let me know where and when as I still get a charge seeing my stuff printed by somebody else. mailto:stupidmansfz@yahoo.com

About the Author
Stupidman
Author of many serious articles that are generally misinterpretted as being funny plus the ebook The Internet Adventures Of Stupidman. (www.stupidmanok.com/sales.htm) (no L)