At around ten o'clock in the evening, Ding Mei pushed the door open and saw Wen Liang sitting in the living room watching TV. She asked in surprise, "When did you come back?"
"I came back in the morning. I went to the store to look for you but you were not there." Wen Liang stood up with a smile, took the paper bag from Ding Mei's hand, opened it and took a look inside. He saw a stack of things that were either magazines or documents.
Ding Mei bent down to put on her slippers, her tone a little evasive, and said, "During the day, I went shopping with a friend... Don't look through it, I borrowed it from a friend, and I have to return it to him tomorrow."
Wen Liang put the paper bag on the shoe cabinet and asked, "Have you eaten?"
“Ate with friends...”
Wen Liang smiled and said, "What friend? I've heard you mention it three times in a short while. Mom, even though my dad is often not at home, you have to stand firm."
Ding Mei was stunned for a moment before she reacted. She twisted Wen Liang's ear and said angrily, "What nonsense are you talking about? I haven't dealt with you for a while. Are you itching for a while?"
"Stop, stop, it hurts, it hurts!" Wen Liang screamed, "I was wrong, Mom, please let go first."
"Hmph!" Ding Mei twisted her hand again before releasing it, saying, "You're acting like a monkey all day long, so disrespectful."
After saying that, he went to the bedroom, changed into home clothes after a while and came to the living room. He had a calculator in his hand, sat on the sofa and started calculating. Suddenly, he smiled and was so happy that he almost forgot where he was.
Wen Liang came over and said, "What's the big deal? Why are you so happy?"
"Go away, go away, what do you know, kid?" Ding Mei pushed Wen Liang away, his eyes still on the numbers on the calculator, counting the zeros again from the ones place.
"Thirty-eight million... What is this?"
"Nothing... nothing." Ding Mei happily put away the calculator, turned around to look at Wen Liang, and said lovingly: "Son, don't work so hard outside in the future. I will earn the money for you to marry a wife tomorrow!"
Wen Liang touched his nose and said, "There's no rush for this... Mom, come, sit here, let's chat."
Ding Mei looked at her son strangely, then moved closer and asked, "What's wrong? You seem weird today. Do you have a fever?"
As he spoke, he reached out to touch Wen Liang's forehead. Wen Liang didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and said, "I'm fine. It's just that I'm running around outside every day, and my dad is busy too. Aren't you tired of taking care of Bi Ya Si by yourself?"
"Oh, I know you feel sorry for your mother. Where did the sun come out from today?" Ding Mei smiled and pinched Wen Liang's face, saying, "Biyasi is managed by your third aunt. Recently..."
She let the cat out of the bag for a moment, and her expression was a little unnatural. Wen Liang saw that the time was almost right, so he said, "You can't let my third aunt worry about it all. It's not easy to do business now. You can get cheated if you're not careful. A few days ago, I heard from outside that someone in Suhai Province was engaged in illegal pyramid selling, cheated tens of millions and ran away. Many people's life savings went down the drain, and some people couldn't stand it and jumped off the building to commit suicide..."
Ding Mei was startled and asked, "Really?"
Illegal pyramid schemes are not a new thing. They have been quietly popular since the early 1990s. The country has vigorously cracked down on them many times and carried out extensive reporting and publicity. So although it is not known to everyone, it is not a new term either.
"How could it be false?" Wen Liang emphasized, "One of them was only in his forties, with elderly parents and young children. The old and the young were crying their hearts out. It was really tragic."
"The government should arrest and execute all these people with bad consciences!" Ding Mei was so angry that he was shaking all over. It took him a while to calm down. He asked in confusion, "Xiao Liang, what exactly is this illegal pyramid scheme? Why did so many people fall for it?"
The essence of pyramid schemes is actually direct selling. The World Direct Selling Association has a clear definition of direct selling. It is the marketing of consumer goods by independent marketers who introduce products and services directly to consumers through face-to-face explanations and demonstrations outside fixed retail stores (such as personal residences, workplaces or other locations).
In fact, to put it bluntly, direct selling is the manufacturer selling goods directly to consumers, eliminating the two links of agents and retailers. Many great salesmen in the world have done this kind of work. But when direct selling entered China, some people used their intelligence to make clever changes, and it became a chilling business model - pyramid selling.
"Illegal pyramid schemes are when they introduce you to a product that has no value or whose value is far lower than its price, such as cosmetics, stationery, clothing, etc., and ask you to develop downlines by selling this product, rather than selling it to consumers who need it..." Wen Liang patiently introduced the various characteristics of pyramid schemes to Ding Mei in detail, while paying attention to her expression.
As expected, Ding Mei was struck by lightning, but still held on to hope, and said to herself: "No, Lin Yu... She said this is capital operation, which is different from buying and selling things. It is the safest, different..."
"Capital operation?" Wen Liang said in a deep voice, "The most hateful thing is the so-called capital operation. They don't even need to produce a real product. They just make up a plan on the spur of the moment, build a building in the air, and promise hundreds or thousands of times the rate of return. It's simply a scam!"
"Ah?" Ding Mei's face turned pale in an instant, staring at the calculator in his hand with lifeless eyes. He felt as if a rope was tied around his neck and was slowly tightening. His lips moved for a long time before he said to Wen Liang: "I... I might have been fooled..."
Wen Liang said so much earnestly, just to make Ding Mei realize that she had been scammed, and then find a solution, but she didn't mean to scare her. She hurriedly said, "What happened, Mom, tell me slowly, it doesn't matter if you were scammed. Now my son has nothing but money, so losing a few hundred thousand is just a waste of money, it doesn't matter."
Seeing his son's aristocratic temperament, Ding Mei was slightly relieved and said, "It's like this. I met a woman in the car before. She wants to invest in a national project..."
Ding Mei told Wen Liang everything that had happened, with more details than Ding Lan had said. Since Lin Yufen was able to come to Jiangdong from Suhai to develop her downline, she had naturally mastered the brainwashing method of Shenyu Company. She first took Ding Mei to a high-end residential area in Guanshan City that accommodated more than 1,000 people. In a two-story, exquisitely decorated duplex house, she met 20 to 30 investors from various cities in Jiangdong who came to attend the entrepreneurship conference. These investors were all in their 30s and 40s, and the oldest was about 60 years old. There were teachers, white-collar workers, state-owned enterprise employees, and retired cadres. In summary, most of them belonged to the middle class, with some spare money in their hands, or they could squeeze out a lot of money if they tried hard.
Ding Mei was a little skeptical at first, whether this was the pyramid scheme often mentioned on TV, but after seeing so many people of status and the environment was not as dirty and messy as seen on TV, her suspicion gradually faded. Then they watched a large PPT lecture played by a man who was said to be Lin Yufen's deputy using a projector. It explained in detail the origin, method and expected return of the project operation in the Western Bay Economic Zone. The content was detailed, intuitive and vivid, which made people unforgettable and impressive. After the lecture, there was a group discussion, and a dozen beautiful women who were dressed in fashionable, smart and capable clothes conducted a one-on-one questionnaire survey, such as what questions do you have about the project, whether you have investment intentions, if you have financial pressure, etc.
After all these rounds of competition, although Ding Mei has not yet decided to invest, she at least feels that this company is large, powerful, and reliable. In the next month, Lin Yufen contacted Ding Mei more than a dozen times. Through her, Ding Mei learned that the Western Bay Economic Zone occupies an extremely important position in the country's western development strategy. This is a major opportunity that only comes once in decades. It is the third important moment to change the fate of individuals and classes since the reform and opening up. She also saw a group photo of the president of Shenyu Company and many government officials, including Wei Qiwen and Yu Peidong. Then Lin Yufen also promised that after they bought shares, she would take them to the Western Bay Economic Zone for a field trip every once in a while, and they would get a return within three years...
Wen Liang frowned. Listening to Ding Mei's description, it was clear that the Shenyu Company had gotten rid of the initial stage of a pyramid scheme where people slept in dormitories, ate pickled vegetables, and relied on discipline and detention to brainwash and deceive people. It had entered another high-end, classy and upscale stage. The targets of the fraud had also changed from the lower-class people to the middle class, and the threshold for investment had risen directly from tens or hundreds of yuan in ordinary pyramid schemes to tens of thousands of yuan. It was even possible that the money had been laundered and that it had a huge network of relationships in the local government. But precisely because of this, once a deeper investigation was conducted, it was obvious that this was a shocking case!
Wen Liang originally just wanted to teach Lin Yufen a lesson and recover the money Ding Mei invested, but at this moment, he changed his mind.
Speaking of which, it’s time for Liu Tianlai to move to another position. Xu Fuyan no longer trusts him, but there can be no great achievements without major cases. If he wants to move forward, he must have a chance to make meritorious contributions and receive awards!
"Mom, did the other party tell you why this investment has such a high rate of return?"
"Of course she did. We're not fools. We won't just believe her nonsense." Ding Mei took out a document from the paper bag she took when she entered the door, flipped through a few pages, pointed it to Wen Liang, and said, "Look, here, she said that capital operation means making money from money. If each person invests 38,000, using the principle of geometric multiplication and the five-level three-tier distribution system, they can get a thousand times the profit and earn 38 million..."
Every successful fraud case has scientific evidence as a backing, and must comply with basic logic principles, and then use psychology to deceive people. Wen Liang carefully read the geometric multiplication principle of Shenyu Company. For example, if you deposit one cent in the bank, it seems to be a small amount, but as long as it increases in multiples, it will become one cent in one day, and 4 cents in two days. In a month, it will be 568,000 yuan. This is the logical basis for why wealth can grow wildly.
The five levels refer to the investment shares, namely trainee salesperson (1-share), team leader (-9 shares), director (10-64 shares), manager (65-599 shares), and general manager (more than 600 shares). The shares under each person's name are cumulative. If you invest one share and find three people to invest three shares, you will have four shares, and so on.
The third stage is when you have accumulated more than 10 shares, you will be promoted from a trainee salesperson to a director, which is the first stage; the second stage is to be promoted from a director to a manager, you must have 65 shares under your name, and two of your subordinates must become directors before you can be promoted; the third stage is to be promoted from a manager to a general manager, in addition to having more than 600 shares, you must also have three subordinates become managers. There will be different bonuses and commissions in these three stages, the higher the level, the more commissions, and after becoming a general manager, the monthly salary will not be less than seven figures.
This is a business that will not lose money no matter how you look at it. The smarter people are, the more they like to think about it, and the more they will find that it is full of business opportunities, so some people who have spare money and want to get rich will fall into the trap and cannot extricate themselves. What makes Wen Liang laugh the most is that Shenyu Company also stipulates that as long as you reach the level of CEO, you must leave after earning the 38 million. The reason is that the country wants to use this project to create a large number of middle-class people and cannot let you make money unlimitedly.
That’s enough!
"Mom, don't worry. Leave this to me." Wen Liang called Liu Tianlai and asked him to meet outside later. Then he said to Ding Mei, "You continue to contact Lin Yufen and find out more about Shenyu Company. It would be best if you can visit the headquarters in Su Hai, but don't show your hand."
Ding Mei had no idea what Wen Liang was planning. She nodded in a daze, but secretly prayed that the money she invested would not go down the drain. That would be so heartbreaking! (To be continued)