* Business: pyramid selling scheme

A chain letter may qualify as a fraudulent activity, as in the case of a pyramid scheme which asks recipients to funnel money up the chain while requesting the letter be distributed to multiple new recipients.

If pyramid scheme chain letters are sent through email it may constitute wire fraud.

* In an episode of NBC's series The Office, Michael Scott tries to sell his subordinates on what he does not realize to be a pyramid scheme.

* A pyramid scheme is a form of fraud similar in some ways to a Ponzi scheme, relying as it does on a mistaken belief in a nonexistent financial reality, including the hope of an extremely high rate of return.

** A Ponzi scheme claims to rely on some esoteric investment approach and often attracts well-to-do investors ; whereas pyramid schemes explicitly claim that new money will be the source of payout for the initial investments.

** A pyramid scheme typically collapses much faster because it requires exponential increases in participants to sustain it.

The unsustainable exponential progression of a classic pyramid scheme

A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public.

A successful pyramid scheme combines a fake yet seemingly credible business with a simple-to-understand yet sophisticated-sounding money-making formula which is used for profit.

The pyramid scheme in the picture in contrast is a geometric progression 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15.

Therefore, the participants in the bottom 3 tiers of the pyramid lose their money if the scheme collapses.

Although the ' Captain ' is the person at the top of the tree, having received the payment from the 8 paying passengers, once he or she leaves the scheme is able to re-enter the pyramid as a ' Passenger ' and hopefully recruit enough to reach captain again, thereby earning a second payout.

" and the fact while some people call MLMs in general " pyramid selling " others use the term to denote an illegal pyramid scheme masquerading as an MLM.

Franchise fraud ( or ' franchise churning ') is defined by the U. S. Federal Bureau of Investigation as a pyramid scheme.

The FTC alleged that the company's program was instead and in reality a pyramid scheme that did not disclose that most consumers ' money would be kept, and that it gave affiliates material that allowed them to scam others.

The Kyiv Post reported on 26 November 2008 that American citizen Robert Fletcher ( Robert T. Fletcher III ; aka " Rob ") was arrested by the SBU ( Ukraine State Police ) after being accused by Ukrainian investors of running a Ponzi scheme and associated pyramid scam netting US $ 20 million.

Throughout 2010 and 2011 a number of authorities around the world including the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Bank of Namibia and the Central Bank of Lesotho have declared TVI Express to be a pyramid scheme.

* Many Facebook games operate on a pyramid scheme system where you are greatly hindered in the game play unless you recruit your friends and family to play the game too.

It is a plan of baptising all the population of Ottoman Empire, beginning with the Turkish ambassador, and is a classical pyramid scheme.

* The feature film Children of Invention tells the story of a mother who gets entangled in a pyramid scheme.

The point of the pyramid is those few, great artists.

Individuals at the bottom of the pyramid ( those who subscribed to the plan, but were not able to recruit any followers themselves ) end up with a deficit.

Organisms which feed on autotrophs, the producers of the trophic pyramid, are known as herbivores or primary consumers ; those that feed on heterotrophs such as animals are known as secondary consumers.

Hofstede's criticism of Maslow's pyramid as ethnocentric may stem from the fact that Maslow ’ s hierarchy of needs neglects to illustrate and expand upon the difference between the social and intellectual needs of those raised in individualistic societies and those raised in collectivist societies.

Stairwells on pyramid bases often have glyphs similar to those found in central Mexico which may have a calendar function.

The League suffered a further blow to its prestige in 1995 when the Football Association limited the entry to the FA Trophy to the first three steps of the pyramid thereby disqualifying the Northern League's clubs and those in equivalent competitions from competing for the FA Trophy.

Walsby ’ s early version of the theory was clearly hierarchical ( with those understanding the theory being the smallest group of all, metaphorically positioned at the apex of a pyramid, just above the SPGB ) and it lent itself to criticism on the grounds that it was merely a particularly

The brick towers surrounding the central pyramid resemble those of the other temples at Hariharalaya, namely Preah Ko and Lolei.

Clubs that are successful in their league can rise higher in the pyramid, whilst those that finish at the bottom can find themselves sinking further down.

Named for the rusty reddish hue of its stones, it is also the third largest Egyptian pyramid, after those of Khufu and Khafra at Giza.

According to the composition pyramid of the population of the Region, those younger than fifteen years old are becoming greater in number than the adult population.

* It was also said that those that traveled from Thel to Earth used the pyramid and all seeing eye as a form of hidden message about the gateway to Thel.

South of the main pyramid field at Saqqara is a second collection of later, smaller pyramids, including those of Pepi I, Isesi, Merenre, Pepi II and Ibi.

For those higher up the feudal pyramid, there was also knight-service ( military service ) as a condition of land tenure.

On September 7, 2006, Archaeologists in Ukraine claimed an ancient structure, which the press reported as a pyramid antedating those in Egypt by at least 300 years, was discovered near Luhansk.

Here at least explains, from the Classical viewpoint, its approximate method with a large amount of traditional rationality for its oeuvre heavily reliant on tradition to make conclusions ' as final decisions ' towards conclusions. Foucault uses a rather unusual method involving oeuvre de la obscure meaning the ' obscure ' is seen as the building block for human rationality functioning as norms which become familiar to people, giving the uninformed their ' view ' and ' truth ' of the world. The uninformed means the uninformed who have no direct access to policy decision making therefore condemning those who work into a continuous comatose ignorance producing this network of power systems creating what Marx called ' labour power ' which recreate and recycle a functioning society ( comparable to a living breathing organism ) and the population of producers who have no monetary resources and ownership of capital wealth ; ownership of mines, banks, transportation equipment and machinery, such as aeroplanes car manufacturers and industry and therefore are confined to the bottom of the hiercharchical pyramid, producing the problematization of a society comparable to Ants or Bees which inform evolutionary biology, for example of human nature. While inaccurate and now known to be scientifically flawed, nevertheless it remains ' true ' from the classical perspective as opposed to the working population who are not uneducated or illiterate a wall which can be pieced.

The view that the sun temple and pyramid complex were nonetheless considered similar is supported by the Abusir Papyri which indicate that the cultic activities taking place in the sun temples were closely related to those of the royal mortuary complexes.

The best known Classic Veracruz pyramid, the Pyramid of Niches in El Tajín, is smaller than those of their neighbours and successors but more intricate.

Senusret's pyramid complex was built north-east of the Red Pyramid of Dashur and in grandeur far surpassed those from the early 12th dynasty in size and underlying religious conceptions.

Nyuserre's burial place is a pyramid at Abusir located between those of pharaohs Sahure and Neferirkare Kakai.

One such story is that Lord Kilmaine was anxious to find a way of relieving the extreme poverty of his tenants in the post famine years, so he eemployed several men to pick up the stones around the estate. He had those stones piled up and built into a pyramid.

In fact, the first group established by Rose was called Zen Study Group, in Pittsburgh, reflecting his embrace of Zen methods, and other groups were called Pyramid Zen Society, an admission that those interested in total commitment would be few ( the top of the pyramid ) as explained in various recorded talks.

Extensive tests showed that pyramid containers " are no more effective than those of other shapes in preserving and dehydrating organic material.