Battleangel

Yes. Yours truly became the target of a devious plot in the spirit of such schemes yesterday evening. A friend of mine called me up and said he had found an interesting business opportunity. He of course wouldn’t tell what it was over the phone. I immediately suspected that is was in fact some sort of get-rich-quick scheme but I felt I had to give the man a chance. Hell, maybe he wanted to run weapons from eastern Europe, smuggle russian weapons grade plutonium or go into business as a hitman. Sadly, my hopes were greatly exaggerated.

It turns out he had invited three other people to listen to this proposal and when the smoke finally cleared, this guy and his two cronies were trying to trick us into joining into a network called ACN, presumably a company that deals in energy and telephone services. Their trick is that the entire ACN advertising campaign is based on individual recommendations. I.e. people who join in a pyramid-like game where they make money on getting their friends and family to join ACN as well. Yeah, I know, it’s slimy.
Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and had to leave. It made me physically sick. The person just kept on talking and never got to the bloody point. The scheme of course had as many pitfalls as it had opportunities. The only way it was going to work was if you pretty much had an address book the size of the national phone registry.
Still, from the standpoint of social psychology I found it moderately interesting. But nothing more. I can make a note of the following phenomena:

Reciprocity, social exchange theories = the entire concept is based on that you sell different services to friends. For one, I was there in the role of a friend. This falls under the concept of exchange. Especially in shallow relationships where it is often more important return a favor in the exact currency that it was given. Since people are whisked away with this “wonderful business proposal” they might feel they are in debt to the ACN representative.
Also, the ACN representatives were overly courteous just in order to create an atmosphere where you felt you would have to repay them in some way. Intead of just presenting the idea as it was in like 10 min. But people wouldn’t join then, of course. Just the bare facts of this deal is not enough win anyone over. And they know it of course.

The “Benjamin Franklin effect” = the fact that people like you not because of what you have done for them but because of what they have done for you. This applies to the actual customer relation. In asking someone a favor (note: he/she is not a friend by def.) you place him/her in a difficult situation, where they will feel more benign towards you. It’s like you really want to be friends with the entire world and you take every little opportunity .. even opening an account with ACN or doing a complete stranger or your worst adversary a favor.

Foot-in-the-door technique = I noted that they started out with very little information on the actual scheme. Instead they focused on the easy part of the deal - and not the part with the hefty membership fee for example. Gradually, they progressed towards the full scope of the arrangement. Start out with a small demand or such and finish with the actual deal. This works mainly because people become used to the idea and begin to think that they are doing the right thing. Or cognitive dissonance theory, people do whatever is necessary to relieve their dissonance. They want to be right essentially, and if you can only get them hooked, they are done for.

Nighttime energy deficiency, sensory dampening = exactly what is says. As I said the meeting took place in the evening (2030 to be exact). Much of our cognitive ability is handicapped at this hour because of sensory overload during the day. Simply too much stimuli and eventually you get worn out. And you are probably not able to process new information in the rate and quality that you are used to. Bad judgement comes at a late hour.

I could go on forever, but I shall not. Just make sure you think twice if your hear the name ACN again and before you ever get involved in similar schemes. They prey on the weakness in all of us.