Iranians turn to get-rich-quick schemes to ease financial woes

It was a cold rainy day. A woman in her late 30s waited on the platform for the next subway train. She held her three-year-old daughter, wrapped in a blanket, underneath her long black chador to protect her from the wind. The train arrived and she got in.

Maryam is a mother of two. Her husband is self-employed and she works as a caretaker in a kindergarten, taking her younger child everyday with her to work.

“With the money we earn, we must live day by day,” she told me on the train. “We can never buy a flat and stop renting. That’s why I’ve recently joined a multi-level marketing firm where I work in the evenings. I’m hopeful that in the coming two or three years, I’ll be able to buy a flat so that my kids can have a comfortable life.”

As the train approached her stop and as she prepared to leave, she slipped me her phone number. “If you want a lucrative job and to make your dreams come true, contact me. I can take you to our company and you can also become a marketer.”

In Iran, where many are struggling to make ends meet, multi-level marketing companies promise a better life. Regardless of the warnings from economists about these pledges being unrealistic, the dream of becoming rich quickly is alluring for many.

The business model of multi-level marketing - also known as network marketing – is simple. The marketer makes money by buying a product from a company, and selling it on to personal contacts. With most multi-level marketing businesses, a marketer is also encouraged to recruit other sales representatives and receives an additional commission on the sales of those he or she has recruited.

This model began to emerge in Iran around 2005 and became popular in a few years. Currently there are 14 active legal multi-level marketing companies in Iran with nearly 150 branches.

Shortly after I met Maryam, I went to Biz, a multi-level marketing company, for a presentation aimed at potential recruits. “Multi-level marketing is the third most profitable job in the world,” a young marketer told a room packed mainly with other young people.