Thursday, April 10, 2008

GoldQuest returns

A wew years ago, a pyramid scam by the name of GoldQuest was taking Sri Lanka by storm. To my horror I watched Bankers, Engineers, Accountants, Architects and various top level executives in business, people who one would expect to be skeptical and prudent, rushing in with enthusiasm.

The new business model, they claimed, the new way of marketing. Even people calling themselves professional marketers joined the fray. Presumably these 'merketing people' were people who lacked any kind of experience with actual distribution and who presumably equated marketing with advertising.

When sections of the press blew the whistle, GoldQuest responded with full page newspaper advertisements, television commercials, sports sponsorships and a host of other tactics to try and disarm its critics.

The scheme eventually collapsed and was banned by the Central Bank.

I know Sri Lanka has suffered a brain drain (who else but a bunch of mutts would have put this government into power?) but I was at a loss to explain how the upper echelons of the corporate sector could have been fooled by a trick that was almost a century old. I know people in this country are insular and unread but this was ridiculous.

Nevertheless I thought we had finally seen the back of them, but no, they are back: different name, but same old scam. They now call themselves Lotus Marketing see the stories here and here.

They have collapsed in many other places and have also been reborn as Qatana or Questnet. Do a google search and read the details.

Ach du! Seems like you cant keep a good crook down eh?

4 comments:

pissu perera said...

you forgot the seagull fiasco from 2006 i think. a few of my friends lost a few grand but i heard people lost millions. i even met a man who invested his entire life savings in it. i guess it's the lure of easy money. when will sri lankans learn?

Anonymous said...

:'( this is sad news...

Anonymous said...

And don't forget the dubious connection between our illustrious Central Bank Governor and the Gold Quest folks, which was conveniently swept under the carpet!

Jack Point said...

Pissu: very true

anon: yes one ofthe many professionals who were caught up in it.