Robert Fitzpatrick

In Utah, chain-selling schemes have become a leading export. With a new bill amending Utah’s Pyramid Scheme Act, these schemes will have state protection in Utah, similar to the de facto protection that the government of Nigeria provides to the notorious Nigerian scams. On February 17, 2005, the President of the Utah State Senate signed a bill (SB 182—“Direct Sales Amendments”) that effectively nullifies Utah’s Pyramid Scheme Act, at least as it applies to the most damaging of all the classes of pyramid schemes—product-based programs that have proven to cause financial loses to over 99% of participants. This extraordinary loss rate has been documented in at least four separate independent investigations. The financial harm is mathematically predetermined by the scheme’s multilevel and recruitment based structure …