pyramid selling

British  

noun

1. a practice adopted by some manufacturers of advertising for distributors and selling them batches of goods. The first distributors then advertise for more distributors who are sold subdivisions of the original batches at an increased price. This process continues until the final distributors are left with a stock that is unsaleable except at a loss

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Example Sentences

The most surprising thing right away was that, once you really look at the primary source material on multi-level marketing, which at the time was called pyramid selling, they really didn't hide how it worked.

From Salon

She was invited to join a direct sales company, sometimes called multilevel marketing, pyramid selling, a home-based business or network marketing.

From Washington Post

“They have accused the company of pyramid selling, but they did nothing wrong. They only wanted to help poor people,” one demonstrator-investor told the Reuters news agency.

From Economist

The blood feud involving Niko's family began shortly after the deep economic crisis in Albania caused by the collapse of so-called pyramid selling schemes.

From BBC

China is carrying out three months of co-ordinated action to investigate and clean-up the practice of pyramid selling.

From BBC