Hi all,
First of all, I live in Australia and had zero knowledge about MLM's or even that they operated in this country.
Nothing new to this story - I met a couple while hiking in the wilderness and by chance ran into them in the city a few days later. They were running a business class to help mentor young professional that night and told us they would love to catch up for a coffee later in the week. They seemed nice so my partner and I agreed to catch up over a coffee.
At the meeting they spoke about "mentoring" a lot (including the elusive "mentor" Dave who took a chance on them and is super successful), asked what our "dreams/goals" are in life, would not explain what "the business" we need to invest in is even when I pressed pretty hard, how they're 2 years off being financially independent on $200k in passive income, yada yada yada... Essentially without specifics hinted that if we proved ourselves to them, got in on the business, we would be able to retire in 2-5 years.
As a fun fact, we are well and truly on the FIRE movement so the horizon to retirement for us is around 10 years. When I mentioned this, how I was into the investing in shares for passive income, lived a frugal life and had savings, etc they went on and on about how we didn't need to be frugal once we had set up our business.
I used to work as a financial advisor so most of the stuff they were saying to me was rather basic and whenever I questioned specifics they would dance around the topic and this led to them saying they had homework for us. Further, from the get go (although almost certain it was a type of scam) we were just so intrigued to know what it was their business classes were on, how the business worked, etc.
To cut to the chase, we were both given the Business of the 21st Century book to read. I am on holiday so stupidly gave the book a chance (due to previously reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad) without searching on Reddit, etc. It took almost the entire book before they even mentioned network marketing - having googled what that meant, MLMs and winding up on this thread I am seeking your advice.
We agreed to the classic second meeting after doing the homework. That is scheduled tomorrow night and I want to know two things:
- This is definitely a scam right?
- How do I extricate my partner and I from actually meeting them again? My partner thinks we need to return the books, but I feel like they are probably something they just give out at each first meeting.
Any a
... keep reading on reddit ➡
In countries where cats are not a native species they are predatory and often kills millions of native species. Also it's not unheard of for cats to become feral after being "let out" for long periods of time and will just simply not return home.
In Australia domestic cats alone (not feral cats they're classified differently and are a much bigger problem) kill an estimated 60 million bird alone per year. These statistics come from studies done and funded by the Australian government.
Feral and domestic cats threaten the survival of over 100 native species in Australia.
They have caused the extinction of some ground-dwelling birds and small to medium-sized mammals. They are a major cause of decline for many land-based endangered animals such as the bilby, bandicoot, bettong and numbat. Although this is mostly feral cats, domestic certainly are not without their impact.
I just hate the mentality oh its just little frank the cat he wouldn't hurt a fly, he deserves to roam free etc etc. These are all garbage excuses by people who are irresponsible and don't want to properly look after their pets. Also the risk of the cat being hurt when it's let out to roam free is much higher; fighting with other cats, running into traffic etc. People believing it's "cruel" to keep a cat indoors or outside while supervised is completely unfounded.
Legally there isn't any laws in NSW or any of the other states that I'm currently aware of that can even classify a cat as stray which I believe is utterly ridiculous given what is happening as well as the fact that dogs are instantly taken to a shelter and owner fined upon collection.
I've had many many issues with neighbours over this issue after trapping the neighbourhood strays and giving them to shelters (non kill only, I don't blame the cats). Just my 2 cents.
Stumbled upon this on Tumblr: The cat, named Ozzie, was found alone and starving but wearing a collar, which prompted the vets to look for a microchip. The chip revealed that Ozzie's real name was Tigger, he had been microchipped in Australia, and was around at least since 1989! He was also found as a stray in London in 2004.
You can read more here.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemcneal/cat-facial-marking-looks-like-a-penis
