Emotion x Ability: Styles make you a bada**, but substance benefits you for the rest of your life.

" If Barbie has a Buzzcut, would all her bells and whistles eventually sizzles and fizzles? "

An edited quote of Ellen Degeneres

In light of a recent trial case of two brothers who are conspirators of multiple scams in Singapore, I want to use this article for a threefold purpose.

• As a warning on how ideas could be twisted and if you had unknowingly entrapped yourself in such predicament, how you could see the silver lining to actually turn it into an advantage.
• My usual intention of educating and highlighting issues that while past generations regard as just a trivial matter, the younger generations would seem to encounter enormous challenges in overcoming, or worse, rebelling due to not wanting to accept the status quo.
• A small tribute to Dr Richard Teo Keng Siang, an individual whose memorial of his last days ingrained in me the importance of seeking a sense of fulfilment and purpose instead of sole monetary focus on occurrences in my life was the key to self-fulfilment.

The case on the bottom left is actually the one I wished to highlight, and I was made aware of it by Mr Douglas Chow, an advocate against business scamming who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Empower Advisory, a company which provided stock and property investment coaching and business advisory.

For those who are not Chinese speakers, I would highlight the key aspects of this case, courtesy of Mr Chow's translation. In late April 2019, a set of brothers famously known as Fan brothers were hauled to court for a Ponzi Scheme which had conned over 550 people of approximately $58 million.

For the benefit of all readers, a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing scam which promised a high rate of return with minimal to zero downsides to investors. and could sometimes be blurred or linked with Multi-Level Marketing or network marketing or referral marketing  , a marketing strategy for the sale of products or services where the revenue of the MLM company was derived from non-salaried employees selling the company's products/services, while the earnings of the participants are derived from a pyramid-shaped or binary compensation commission system whereby the initial schemer must recruit other "investors" who will keep recruiting other investors, and those investors will then continue to recruit and so on. Sometimes there will be an incentive that is presented as an investment opportunity, such as the right to sell a product. Each investor pays the person who recruited them for the chance to sell this item. The recipient must share the proceeds with those at the higher levels of the pyramid structure.

In this case, the companies are known as Excelsior Capital Finance Limited and IOC Group Limited which served as a "shell"(companies which are set-up in name only to provide a sense of legitimacy) companies involved and they promised a return of 20% for each new members recruited along with purchase of insurance to cover more than half of the assets which was invested, with their internal insurance firm, that was reportedly a faux.

I took a personal interest in this case as, shame to say, several years ago when I was in my early 20's, I was part of a platform which these very people created, the scheme seems to be a hybrid of Ponzi scheme and MLM, though closely resembled the former more as they introduced the binary payment scheme with minimal commission while inviting you to their events and introducing products not commonly sold in the market and yet you are unable to sell it until you reached a certain level of affiliate.

I personally didn't lose much money due to them being a new/ relaunched scheme, with regards to my monetary situations than, and I actually was able to recuperate most of the costs, however just as all who had involved themselves in this predicament, I burnt a bridge or two and back then, and worse, I felt the people who rejected me were the bigot and small-minded for not seeing of the benefit I am giving them.

That episode in my life served as a life-long lesson, and I came out easy. There were however those who suffered worse than me and this is the key theme for this article, the need to have a content that;

1. Served an actual purpose and value
2. How you need to be more alert and identify something which is all bells and whistles ( just look nice in appearance, but is worthless and even could be damaging to our lives)

Before I continue, do watch this video first.

The clip above was taken from the final scene of season two, episode three of the YouTube premium show Cobra Kai, the sequel of 1984 classic, Karate Kid. When you compared the two performances, which would you prefer? While the former which was finesse and aesthetic seems to be too slow-paced and rather...boring. Whereas the latter which was fast-paced was extremely flashy, action-packed and edgy. As the performances above were meant to be a marketing stunt to recruit new members, the latter performances would be the obvious choice.

For over a decade...or even a century, psychologists, anthropologists and researchers had studied the connections between the mind and the heart. Through it all, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one conclusion was never disputed, humans are obsessed with appearance and could be extremely shallow with it. People are willing to spend, millions, billions or even trillions if necessary, to change how they look and those more drastic, even their voice, which I would discuss later.

The late Dr Richard Teo Keng Siang a noted aesthetic surgeon in Singapore had stated during his early days as a locum physician, he overheard a patient saying "Wah! This lo kun(it is translated to doctor, though you would have realized the pun) jing qwee(is extremely expensive)" when she ought to settle her medical fee of $30 and yet the very same lady would have no qualms paying $10,000 for a liposuction and $15,000 for a breast augmentation.

Darlene Price President of Well Said, Inc., and author of "Well Said! Presentations and Conversations That Get Results." theorized that human would always be more attuned to those who look better tend to make people want to speak to you. Price indicated that per se on clothing, whether we like it or not, our clothing communicates — and it could be a crucial factor in our ability to achieve success.

As quoted by Price(2012), " In the temporal realm of mere mortals, fair or not, people judge us by the way we look and that includes the way we dress, especially in the workplace, clothing significantly influenced how others perceived you and how they respond towards you!".

Within the same source, it was common to presume the first impression of something is reality. What you wear and how you appear not only translated to who you are in the minds of others but also influences your level of career advancement, financial success, authority, trustworthiness, intelligence, and suitability for hire or promotion.

If the vendor or seller knew how to have the perfect appearances, they would have won at least a quarter or more of the battle. In 2019, NYU sociologist Dalton Conley and NYU graduate student Rebecca Glauber discovered that women’s increase in weight resulted in a decrease in both income level and job prestige, in comparison, their male counterpart experienced no such negative effects.

A second finding of the above conclusion was further explored by researchers at Harvard University, Boston University, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who discovered a second conclusion that women wearing more makeup were judged to have a higher level of competence than those wearing less or no makeup. Makeup was found to increase people’s perceptions of a woman’s likeability and trustworthiness as well. (Etcoff,2011)

Aside from good appearances acting to heighten social magnet, it also depicted as a money magnet. During a speech recorded on his last days, Dr Teo explained the driving for of his life, which was influenced by the daily source of information and his surroundings that happiness equated to success

" From young, I've always been under the influence and impression that to be happy is to be successful. And to be successful is to be wealthy. So I led my life according to this motto."

In respect to Dr Teo's profession, the data does prove it. According to Greenwood (2013) as of 2013, the New York University School of Medicine paid $59,488 for the first year of residency, or $1,144 per week based on 52 weeks. Weekly earnings increase to $1,321 by the fourth year. Bellevue Hospital would pay $1,129 weekly for the freshman year of residency and $1,305 for the fourth year. Duke University Hospital would pay $961 weekly in the first year and subsequently increased to $1,081 in year four. whereas the average resident salary in 2017 was $57,200, compared with the average pay of $247,319 for licensed medical doctors, with a speciality in internal medicine (Ruben,2018) 

A more crucial area of concern would be the abuse of this admiration. Research had also found that when you combine your appearance with communication skills, not only is others' perception of you affected, but their behaviour toward you is also influenced. In 2014, Jacquelyn Smith the Career Editor of Business Insider indicated the following;

"Clothing plus communication skills determine whether or not others will comply with your request, trust you with information, give you access to decision makers, pay you a certain salary or fee for contracted business, hire you, or purchase your products and services,"

In 2017, Asia Nikkei reported that Yeson Voice Center ran by surgeon Kim Hyung-Tae pioneered a technique and technology for changing a patient's voice. This procedure modified the folds in male vocal cords to resemble those of female vocal cords. Using the latest surgical techniques would allow doctors to remove a third of a patient's vocal-fold membrane and internal tissue without making an incision in the skin. This procedure is named as vocal-fold shortening and retrodisplacement of the anterior commissure or in short VFSRAC, This coincided with an article by Griggs(2011) in CNN that people generally find women's voices more pleasing than men's and would be more inclined to heed whatever instruction which produced the female voice.

Conclusion

This article has one of the trickiest conclusion amongst my work thus far, for you see, two of the things to be cautious about these sorts of schemes are;

• First, there is no definite way to pinpoint a guilty party. If you watch the clip below, you would understand that the people who joined did it out of their own free will, not done under duress, hence the organizer could not be considered liable of a criminal act.
• Second, is how thin the grey line is, which could be abused by the organizer of these schemes to confuse it with a legitimate business.

The main intention of this article would be to promote due diligence when or if you ever encounter such an organization that offered you a scheme that seems too good to be true to make money. Just to be honest, I felt neither positive nor negative about a pyramid scheme and as I matured, I am able to sniff a Ponzi scheme from a mile away hence able to avoid it. Since I was really young when I encountered such things, one positive lesson I learned was to accept having dreams and greater goals which conservative society seems to deem as taboo.

Of course, not everyone is as lucky as me, therefore I am obligated to actually share my experience for others to develop their own judgements if such occurrences happened. First off, please the clip below, it's from the hit television show two and a half men.

As earlier mentioned, the Ponzi scheme is a shell company, while in pyramids scheme, the recipient must share the proceeds with those at the higher levels of the pyramid structure. The former would give a percentage of return as initially promised for a couple of months with interest before ghosting off as the money was actually earned through the rotation with others who invested.

Whereas the latter would entitle you to a commission with the profit being shared with the higher-ups within the platform, right from the person who recruited you right up to his superior.

Upon the first meeting, either yourself or the main presenter would come to the initiative to make the platform a secondary source of income to, a typical trend however, only those who were the earliest to join would benefit as he or she would have secured the largest chunk of the commission whereas down the line up to you, would receive lower which initiate you to recruit in order to earn more, of which I referred to the second area to be cautious of these schemes, as technically your recruiter or superior did not lie that you can make money.

Since I primarily cover Singapore, just for knowledge typically unknown to the public. MLM is legal and even have their own trade association, the Direct Selling Association of Singapore (DSAS), an Institutional Member of the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE). And this it the website: https://dsas.org.sg/ and if you are ever invited to such external business opportunities, on the spot perform your due diligence and if they are not a member in this site, the best advice I can give when you encountered such propositions, immediately give them a direct firm rejection and cut off all contacts with them if they are somebody new for they will keep on following up with you.

While it would be trickier for friends and family members, what I would suggest is to

1. Put them on the spot, such as asking multiple questions that related to their standard operating procedure
2. Checking them on Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority(ACRA) directly,
3. Name of the board of directors
4. A method I tried before, would be to a search their name on the spot on DSAS website and if multiple negative feedbacks or in the alert list of Monetary Authority Singapore (MAS) Investor Alert List then it's time to run like a bat out of hell

For easier identification of these schemes, typically the flow of the presentation would be as following, earlier I mentioned the age groups who are their primary targets. Within these ages, there would be those handling transitions in life, being unsure, uncertain of their path in life and those who see nothing in their future but a dead-end job, rising costs, and stagnating wages. All these factors made the prospects ripe for their picking.

When you met a representative this will be elements that will be a part of their pitch. From the above, we would first know that money and popularity, were the two factors that always attracted people, regardless of which stages of life we are at. Earlier I mentioned they would encourage their scheme as a second source of income, these will be continued with the line once this platform made enough money, you can leave your primary jobs and do this full-time as an 'entrepreneur'. As I mentioned the two methods, the chances of you method their initial promise being kept is slim to none.

Popularity wise, while it could be shown in multiple variations such as the office being filled to the maximum capacity, brought in directly by close friends or even with social media posts, they would utilize the cheerleader effect (Walker & Vul (2013) and van Osch et al. (2015) they will use the effect on you by crowding existing members with recent signee and would give good feedback of the schemes one after another with the intention for you to think "wow, so many of these guys and doing so well, I should join in to know what they are up to". Along with surrounding the office with beautiful women which might not be a part of the scheme but are legally hired for both administration and attracting you to join.

Material factors aside, the elevator pitch that these groups would target is the psychological aspects. The promised land of financial freedom, typically using the line from Robert Kiyosaki "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", whereby if you don't make money while you are sleeping, then you will always be poor. This is sometimes followed by emotionally blackmailing you, via guilt-tripping you as you had not yet made it in life for your parents to retire comfortably and still out to slaving their life working. This popular ammo would typically be used on older millennial who had been in a certain career line for several years and feeling stagnant and underappreciated.

A final red light would be when they requested some form of payment in the label of investment. Let me just put a halt on that for a second. Some companies from industries such as Headhunting or Recruitment firm, Financial, Property Agency and Banking would on occasion asked you to cover your own training costs or would cover it partially.

The difference is the number is usually within a reasonable amount and they would compensate you, they required you to undergo these training as aside from industry knowledge and getting an accredited certification from the governing body, they wanted to see your commitment to them. These schemes, on the other hand, will promise you that you will earn back your investments within a short period of time, though being a shell company, you are never going to earn back all that you invested.

This is actually another part of the second factor to fear. Per say you were approached by the members, I need you, the readers to actually watch out for the term 'affiliate' or 'ambassador' as they mostly always address themselves to their prospect, the reason being these terms could be conveniently switched around with the term customers and employee, due to the joining fee or investment entitled you to receive some merchandises.

Earlier, I mentioned how running the business gave you the impression that you are entrepreneurs. In reality, the members are subordinates or underlings of supposed bosses that were claimed to be millionaires and had made it so high in life and that they constantly travel around the world due to their businesses which would lead to the next pitch that by joining this business, you too would be able to live like so. Asking whom the bosses are and insisting on their names would be another way to increase your caution as these could be said to give the impression that they run like a Multi-National Corporation for heightening your excitement.

While different organizations that ran such schemes may use different methods, this is the general flow and not likely to change any time soon, the reason being they used pitching and marketing strategy used by legitimate industries such as financial advisers, property agents and recruiters in order to justify their legitimacy and with social media, they would post images of grandeur and prestige, except once they got your money, every overpromises from their honeyed tongue could be described as this.

To conclude my article, I decided to put this image that I believe described how such schemes see themselves, they believe that they perform good deeds and value just for the front of the camera. Can you imagine in the image above once the photo was taken the fella could easily take the money back and his followers would compliment his displayed generosity?

While this article would tackle more on warning about Ponzi scheme, I decided to include MLM too in order to highlight the difference between them. MLM does have some benefits as the products they sold was not something common and they could be used as a secondary source of income, the downside, however, is the slow grind which could take years before becoming a sufficient income source.

Ms Sim Kang Kim, a Herbalife distributor, a renowned global MLM which was listed as a member of DSAS advocated the product as an additional supplement and nutrition coupled with her healthy diet and also her regular career, as a dance, fitness coaching and also Zumba instructor which further contributed to giving value not only to herself but her clients.

Coming back to the original discussion, such an investment scheme that seems too good to be true would use the elevator pitch used in a legitimate business endeavour. While many of the victims would blame their recruiters, I am sorry to say but if you had joined on the spot due to the pitch being appealing or your friends or relative bamboozled you and not be firm and decisive without doing your due diligence on checking the organization, they are not to be blamed as you were the one who joined of your own will.

While this is against everything that individuals in Forbes 30 under 30 or noted billionaire influencer that you will see online such as Grant Cardone before all the smokes and mirrors, the fancy office setting surrounded by beautiful women and the promised laid road to becoming rich if you do feel compelled to join, considered the price first and ask if they have a cheaper scheme. One of their favourite replies would be if right now you're offered two hours to sit with a billionaire you idolized or that if right now you are given the keys to fulfilling all of your dreams, how much are you willing to pay?

I assured the question from the last paragraph might make it seem as though they know more things than you and would lead you to success, they don't! All they care is your money and the more you involved yourself with them, the more money, time and even relationship which you would be wasting.

There are some individuals that I wished to give a shoutout too. Firstly Mr Rayson Choo, a friend of mine that I have a ton of respect and admiration for. He was formerly and such a scheme and after realizing the amount of time wasted under their training and not recuperating his initial investments. He remained positive and determined, aside from his job as a psychiatric nurse and occasional actor, he is most famous for Raygacy, a Facebook live show whereby he interviewed famous entrepreneurs such as Gary Vaynerchuk.

Another person I wish to mention was Mr Gabriel Davis Wong who was formerly in a scheme which was the predecessor of the one I was in and suffered a major setback financially due to trusting the wrong mentors within the platform and was able to bounce back as a lifestyle entrepreneur who helped his clients with online and digital marketing business with his wife.

I would end this article with quotes from a person I feel this article as a tribute to his memory, Dr Richard Teo. When I heard his story as a 16-year-old, all I care was about was to be an award and trophies collector as him and becoming successful financially. This greed-driven focus which I felt also fueled such scheme perpetrators to just focus on getting the money but delivering minimal or zero value and results would easily attract people with spreading their fortune and material happiness on social media, while there is nothing wrong with being financially well-off, they shouldn't be prioritized over our loved ones and shouldn't be earned through inflicting pain and misery to others.

"See the irony is that all these things that I have, the success, the trophies, my cars, my house and all. I thought that brought me happiness. But having all these thoughts of my possessions, they brought me no joy.

I can't hug my Ferrari to sleep... No, it is not going to happen.

What really brought me joy in the last 10 months was interaction with people, my loved ones, friends, people who genuinely care about me, they laugh and cry with me, and they are able to identify the pain and suffering I was going through. "