Cambridge Who's Who, Quixtar, and others who want my money

I've been approached recently by several companies, all of which want my money. I understand that, and you know what, I find I want to give them my money because that's what you're supposed to do with it, give it to other people and companies. It doesn't matter what you buy with it, only that you feel good about buying it. If that feel good comes from a meal and a house over your head great. If that feel good comes from hitting level 260 in your MMO, fantastic. If that feel good comes from shooting heroine straight into your urethra, hey, whatever works for you.

Several organizations have wanted my money recently and I'd be more than happy to give it to them, if they made me feel better about where the money was going.

Quixtar is an organization designed around buying from yourself and getting your friends and family to buy from you because nobody else in the world will pay that kind of prices for everyday items. Also, when you do, people higher up the chain get money from your sales. People making money with this quickly realize that their family isn't profitable and instead find people, like me, to sell to their friends and family instead. The process is confusing and complicated but it all starts with a pitch. That pitch is this: 90% of all the money out there is held by 10% of the people. Those people are business owners and investors. We can make you a business owner. It sounds fine and dandy until you paid your business startup fee and then you're set out there on your own with your only encouragement coming from the guy who sold you the thing in the first place, because the longer you eat this crap sandwich, the better his crap sandwich starts to taste. Misery loves company I guess. Point is I almost felt good enough to give them my money. What stopped it? When he finally told me what his company was and I googled it and the word "complaint" (aside: why isn't google in the spellchecker for Firefox yet? Firefox is in its own dictionary, google should be too.)

A quick note about Quixtar: I know people who have been involved and not made any money with this legal pyramid, but for good or for ill, it exists and some people have made money off of it, but due to the nature of the beast, only a few people can.


The next group of people who want my money, aside from bill collectors, restaurants, friends, insurance companies, and my landlord (read: mother) is Cambridge Who's Who. They got me good. I thought they'd been around forever. With a name like that, you'd think they've been around since the colonial days. Their first issue had John Adams and his patriot buddies on one cover and Sam Adams and his beer buddies on the other. They told me that the sun shined out my ass, but not really. They just asked me questions and I got to tell them that the sun shined out my ass. I felt great and I was ready to give them whatever money they wanted for their little portfolio and white-collar myspace. (damnit, myspace and facebook aren't spell-check proof yet either.) Then he asked me for upwards of a thousand dollars. I almost laughed. I'm broke as fuck (can I say fuck on the internet? Maybe I should use intercourse instead.) I'm broke as intercourse and have no available credit at this time. Too bad. I would have given them whatever they asked for, but I don't have anything to give. Seriously though, be careful about these guys, on of their selling points is they'll help your name come up higher on google searches (damn red underlines). While that may be true, because now your name has another page to associate itself with on google searches, WHO THE INTERCOURSE IS GOOGLING YOUR NAME IF THEY DON'T KNOW YOU?????

Everyone out there wants your money, and the smart ones will make you feel good about taking it from you. Do some research and don't be a tool and you should be all set.

Here are a couple of links about cambridge and quixtar
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2007/04/victoria-strauss-beware-whos-who.html
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=1651
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/amway.htm

I'll leave the fair and balanced part of this to Fox News.