ISSUE 24: A CULTY PYRAMID SCHEME TRIED TO RECRUIT ME

Here's the full story.

Y’all. There are some weeks where I have a premeditated topic I would like to discuss. I mull over it, do some research, and provide my thoughts on the subject.

There are other weeks, however (looking at you SQIRL incident), where something buckwild happens, and it would simply be illegal to write about anything else.

This is one of those weeks. Buckle up.

---

PANERA BREAD IS A RED FLAG

The other week, I went outside around 6pm to move my car before street cleaning the next morning. After that, I thought, “hey, it’s nice outside, I’m gonna stroll down the street.”

As I went on my random walk, a young-ish couple (probably late 30s/early 40s) approached me.

“Hey, that’s a fun shirt. What’s that from?” the woman said.

I was wearing merch from POOG, my favorite podcast, I explained.

I kind of tried to keep walking after the initial short exchange about it, but ended up getting pulled into a conversation.

The couple was pretty nice and cheery, said they moved up to LA from San Diego.

When I asked why they moved, the woman said that they’d met a couple who retired at age 30, and she thought “I have to be wherever these people are” so that she could also come close to that early retirement dream as well.

It’s LA, so—between all the people who got rich off of Bitcoin or sold an app so they can spend their days longboarding around Venice— I thought it was plausible.

Now, this turned into what felt like a normal conversation. It’s hard to meet people in real life, so it’s kind of refreshing when you organically start talking to someone and hit it off.

“Yeah we’ve pretty much met all our friends here just like this! You have a great vibe, so it would great to connect with you,” said the woman who, by the way, was pregnant.

Her husband didn’t really say much, which I chalked up to being the strong and silent type. Or the socially awkward type. IDK.

I thought “oh how nice! This woman from San Diego thinks I have good energy.” Cool.

Towards the end of conversation, which turned into me talking about how volatile it is to be a freelance creative right now, she asked if I’ve ever explored anything outside of the creative fields.”

“Ummm yeah, I mean my last jobs were pretty corporate.”

I remember answering this and thinking “what the heck is she talking about?”

And then she clarified “passive income streams, like e-commerce.”

Huh. “Ohhh….I see,” I said, “I’ve actually been thinking about something like that!”

I had been. Finding passive income is something a lot of creatives do these days; think: designers creating website templates that they sell online and anyone can buy indefinitely. I’d been mulling this idea over and how to translate the passive income model to my own work.

When I said I’d been considering that, her eyes lit up in a way that I thought meant she was just excited to have a new bestie. Little did I know, the glimmer in her eye was a bit more like this kind of energy:

So, I told this moisturized and pregnant woman with the quiet husband, “yeah totally, let’s get coffee!”

To be clear, we had a pretty long conversation where I thought “oh maybe these would be cool friends!” and this e-commerce bit randomly came up at the end. So surely, these were just nice people who weren’t afraid to talk to people IRL. Kind of refreshing! She told me they’d love to get together with me and my boyfriend.

We exchanged numbers, and as I walked away, I couldn’t help but think “Was this a serendipitous run-in…or did I just get targeted for something?”

I walked around the block, and then came home and wrote this in my journal:

“Ok that was so random, I just went for a walk and met this couple who stopped me (because my shirt!) and it came up they do e-commerce for passive income huh? Is this like an answer to what I have been trying to figure out? …Or a scam lol”

I am typically highhhhhhly skeptical of…pretty much everything. So I told myself that I needed to chill. Maybe these were just nice people. Stop being so cynical Leah! But my gut has pretty much never led me astray. I felt like I was a target or something…or maybe I was just being paranoid and needed to be more open. Well…

TEXTING WITH MY NEW “FRIEND”

So, off the bat, I told this woman that we couldn’t meet up for a while because between me and my boyfriend, we had travel, family visiting, and crazy work schedule stuff (which was all true)!

I had looked her up on LinkedIn, and found that she works in cybersecurity and is also a certified notary (which I love because I have a very underrated character who is a notary). Just a little aside there.

I feel like if someone works in cybersecurity and is a notary, you think “this person is probably safe—and also potentially boring.”

But she wasn’t boring enough to call me “Queen":

So, remember, I was already kind of having a gut feeling something was off, but when she suggested we get “coffee” and 8pm or 7pm I was like hmmmm… Idk.

But then—I stopped myself!

I reasoned that obviously they probably had work and this was the time they could meet. And maybe we would get drinks instead of coffee.

I pushed it off because of scheduling purposes, still never sharing my last name or anything too specific about what was going on in my life because…I don’t know this woman!

PANERA IS WHERE YOU LOST ME

Finally, this week, our schedules had calmed down and I thought “we literally need to meet with this woman because we just keep texting and it’s annoying.”

I was still skeptical, but honestly I mostly was like “whatever let’s get drinks with them. So I picked one of her weird times that she said she was available and this is the place she recommended:

Panera Bread? at 7pm on a Wednesday?

This abbbbbbsoluately lost me. Here’s why:

1. Maybe this makes me a snob, but girl, we live in an area where we can go to about 20 different bars or restaurants a 3 minute drive from where we live. Why am I going to go to Panera Bread.

2. Second, if I’m to believe this woman lives near us—she said they lived in the neighborhood, I mean, I met her on a walk—there is a Panera like down the street. She suggested a Panera that’s up in the foothills of the mountains which is like 10 minutes away. It’s not that far… but like… why?

3. Woman! What are we supposed to get at Panera Bread on a Wednesday at 7pm for a casual like coffee-type meetup? Just no….

My boyfriend was like “that’s suss” and then I was like “yeah totally” and then he said … “well don’t judge them if they like Panera.” 😂

First of all, Child Leah used to love Panera. If you gave me a French Toast bagel and a Sierra Turkey sandwich I was absolutely in my 10-year-old Nirvana. Also, that was Suburban Ohio.

But now I am 10 years old times 3, and if you’re telling me to meet at Panera at 7pm when we live in the Greater Los Angeles area…I will have questions.

BREAKUPS REVEAL THE TRUE COLORS

I had listened to my favorite astrology podcast that morning (CosmicRx!) the astrologer, Madi Murphy (shoutout!) said that around this time (Scorpio full moon), if there were things that felt “off” to you—they probably were. Madi is normally pretty spot-on, so I heeded this advice. Plus, I’d had a weird feeling about this anyway.

I knew I had to cancel, so I sent this text and got this response.

“If you are serious about connecting to chat about potential passive income streams, let me know!”

“If you are serious about connecting to chat about potential passive income streams, let me know!”

GIRL! I thought you liked my vibe and wanted to be friends.

Alas, my cancellation uncovered the insidious side of this MLM recruiter who probably doesn’t actually live in my neighborhood and honestly? I’m not entirely sure if her baby bump was real either. That sounds harsh, but if you’ve watched any movie with scammers, you KNOW the woman is always “pregnant.”

So here I was, feeling triumphant about my intuition.

But I had to know what MLM this was, and this is how I found out. By Googling this of course:

Google search for “what scam makes you meet at Panera”

SCAMWAY

photo: Amway

Upon researching—and I did quite a bit—Amway is the granddaddy of MLMs. They are essentially the people who invented pyramid schemes, which they’ve been investigated for multiple times (yet have not been found legally guilty).

There is a LOT on Reddit—about how it’s basically a cult, how it ruins people’s lives (socially and financially), and how they target young people.

Not to brag, but my skincare must be doing wonders if I got targeted for Amway. Bless!

I also confirmed this woman was with Amway by the following things that normally happen when Amway people are trying to “drop the message.”

1. She told me they had friends/mentors who “retired at 30”

   1. This is what Amway people tell prospects as a way to hook you.

2. She complimented my shirt.

   1. It seems meaningless, but I watched a Youtube video where a girl got targeted by an Amway person who said she “liked her iPad.” What! They just say “Hey I like your ____” as a way to start talking to you.

3. FUCKING PANERA — at NIGHT!

   1. Multiple people confirmed they have you meet at Panera or Starbucks at like 7/8pm at night because it seems “professional.” This girl played her hand wrong because if she really wanted to bag us for the meeting she should’ve kept acting like she wanted to be friends and asked us to go to some cool restaurant for happy hour or something. I have notes, Amway!

4. She “dropped the message” about passive income streams.

   1. Again, I had separately been thinking about legitimate forms of this prior to meeting this woman, so when she mentioned it I wasn’t like “hmm that was random.” Honestly in the moment, I was like “wow that’s crazy I was just thinking about that, this is serendipitous!” But yeah, that’s how they frickin bait you.

I haven’t responded to her yet, and I’ve debated if I should either call her out on it or go along with it and embed myself on the inside for some wild investigative journalism adventure but… I’m busy, ok!

Honestly I should probably just text her “thanks for confirming why I never talk to anyone in public anymore. You are the reason civilization is dying from loneliness. Are you actually pregnant, Queen? Where the hell do you actually live?”

The disrespect of this woman to trot over to my neighborhood and hunt for recruits while I’m on a spontaneous sunset walk.

What do you all think? Should I text her back? Has this happened to you? LMK in the comments—I can’t stop laughing about this.

---

CHECK OUT THE ~OH, THAT’S GOOD~ CHAT!

I launched the “chat” function for this Substack the other week, and I’ll be posting there with some recent products I like and other things I’ve been up to. I thought it’d be a fun way to chat back and forth with everyone, so would love to see ya there!

Thanks again for reading. It’s a pleasure to have you.

LJ