MUST I PAY HIM?

Can you advise me here.

I hope you know a motshelo called GDN, whereby you join with P450, then bring 2 people. I joined that motshelo, and my upliner recruited someone, and that person joined under me. He sends me the joining fee on my orange money account, and immediately after that man joined, it was stopped here in Botswana. So, out of the blue he called me saying that I owe him and he wants his money which he invested in GDN. I told him that thing was stopped last year and all of us didn’t benefit from it and as we are speaking I don’t have money; I am not working. Now he is threatening me every day. I don’t know what to do. I even asked him to talk to the one who recruited him but he is refusing saying he gave me the money and not the person who recruited me so he wants his money from me.

He also said he wants his money with interest which I don’t know how much because with this GDN, as you join, the system will automatically tell you who you should give the money to then that person will give to the next one until you reach the last person up.

So, sir, in this issue, what advice can you give me? Thank you in advance.

Unfortunately, this is a difficult situation. For those who don’t remember, GDN was a classic pyramid scheme that operated for a few months in 2019. The people promoting it were very clear that there were no products being bought or sold, it was just about making money from recruiting other people. As readers of The Voice will know by now, Section 9 of the Consumer Protection Act says that a business is a pyramid scheme if money is made ‘primarily’ from the recruitment of other people rather than buying and selling things. GDN was a perfect example of that.

Your difficulty is that even though you didn’t personally recruit this guy into GDN, you took his money. The only record of him paying to join GDN is money going to YOUR account, not to the person who was the one who recruited him. I can see why he wants the money back from you. However, I think you were as much of a victim as he was. You both joined a scheme you felt would make you some money, obviously mistakenly.

The other news for you is that not only were you both victims, you were also perpetrators. You both joined an obvious pyramid scheme, something that is illegal in Botswana. The same section of the Consumer Protection Act which defines a pyramid scheme also make it illegal just to join such a scheme, not just to promote it. I think you should remind him of this. Maybe he’ll learn that like everyone who joins a scam like GDN, everyone loses.

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