Imperative to crack down on pyramid scams

THE STATE ADMINISTRATION FOR MARKET REGULATION recently announced that it had drawn up a list of 11 key cities that should take action against pyramid selling, and it will monitor their performance in this regard in 2018. Thepaper.cn comments:

Pyramid scams do great harm. In a pyramid scheme the participants can only make money by recruiting more members. It is an illegal activity that can cause huge losses to those that are duped into taking part.

Moreover, pyramid selling poses a threat to social order and morality because the majority of participants cheat their friends and family members. Worse, over the past years, increasingly more pyramid selling organizations have been reportedly using “persuasion”, and there were several deaths as well as suicides related to pyramid selling in 2016 and 2017.

That’s why the move of the State Administration for Market Regulation is welcome.

The central government should coordinate nationwide resources in striking at the ringleaders behind the scams. The administration said it will talk with the Party chiefs and mayors of any of the 11 listed cities that fails to improve the situation in 2018. It also said the list will be updated annually.

Some local Party chiefs and mayors might feel shame about this. If so, they should work hard to strike at pyramid selling so that their cities are not included on the updated list next year.

Beihai, Nanning, and Guilin, three cities in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, have appeared on the State Administration for Market Regulation’s list, despite appearing on a list of “cities without pyramid selling” released by the local government of the autonomous region in 2017.

That the cities are included among the 11 cities to be monitored by the State Administration for Market Regulation should be a reminder to local officials to be stricter in carrying out their duties.