Last week one of our outstanding customer service coaches brought a situation to my attention regarding a client who she feared was being victimized by a fast one. I asked her to arrange a time when I could speak to this client myself, which was scheduled for the following day. In the mean time, I did a little homework on the details that our customer service coach provided me on something called the Global Pension Plan. (I would provide a link to their official website, but the site is down… hint, hint.)
I’ve seen this sort of thing before. Several years ago we learned of a group of clients that was involved in a Forex trading hustle. I tried to warn them so they could protect themselves, but they were zealots who believed so fervently in the hustle that they couldn’t be convinced - even though I presented them with a spreadsheet that showed how completely unbelievable the purported rate of return was (turning a $100,000 investment into a number exceeding the GNP within 5 years, for example). They all lost their money, and the organizers went to jail.
Then, a few years ago we had a number of clients who got involved in something called “PIPs”, which I immediately identified as a shakedown, much to the chagrin of a couple of employees who had invested in it on the advice of our clients. That deal ran for more than a year after I branded it as a hustle before the whole thing fell apart and the con artists was arrested in Malaysia. That Ponzi scheme cost a lot of people a lot of money.
Which leads me back to the conversation I had with a very nice man who is a client of ours involved with the Global Pension Plan. He is an unassuming person from the midwest, who has been involved in farming for most of his life. He’s got a few thousand dollars invested in this hustle, believing that for every $40 he has put into it, he is going to be receiving $55,000 in the coming years.
And, once again, I couldn’t convince him that he was being tricked. He wanted to “believe”. The sad fact is that money and investments don’t work that way. But greed does. And the con artists know that, which is why there will never be an end to Ponzi schemes, stratagem and criminals like Bernie Madoff.
If you are interested, here are some links on the Global Pension Plan gimmick:
Global Pension Plan, Reverse Pension Plan Will Not Work
Global Pension Plan is, period!
