Bhubaneswar: Journalist-cum-author Aruna Ravikumar recently launched her book on the issue of multi-level marketing scams in the state capital. During his interaction with the media she warned the citizens to avoid falling prey to networking marketing gimmicks.
In her latest book titled ‘Marauders of Hope’, the Telangana-based veteran journalist talked about the perils of networking markets and talked in details how the concept of multi-level-marketing— also known as networking marketing— has added thousands of victims in the country in the last two decades.
“In the last two decades many foreign as well as domestic firms started these multi-level marketing schemes. Many gullible people were taken for a ride with dreams of higher gains. However many of those who invested anticipating higher returns faced losses,” she said.
She cited many such examples from across the country and said that many such case studies, legal remedies and the way forward have been scripted in her book which, she claims, is a product of years of painstaking research and personal meetings with the victims of the alleged network marketing scams.
“There were couples who got divorced, and youngsters took the elders’ pensions to invest in such network marketing schemes. Many of them were fraudulent in nature and were also against the existing law but non-implementation of the laws allowed the firms to flourish and add more victims,” she said.
The author said the people who got involved in this not only lost money but they also had to compromise on their dignity, personal relations. There were also cases of murders and suicides.
The author said, “The heart-rending stories of victims and the saga of misery unleashed by a few marauders who manipulated individuals, families, societies and nations and used them as sacrificial lambs at the altar of greed, moved the journalist in me. It led to months of painstaking research and interviews that unveiled the mask of the ‘Merchants of Deception’. If it inspires readers to think, the effort may have been well worth it.”