Scam Nation...

"Welcome to Trinidad & Tobago; the land of scams, charlatans and con artists" should be emblazoned in big, bright, bold letters over every port of entry into T&T, and "Here every manner of banditry is encouraged and allowed to prosper" should be our national slogan. Why do I say this? Because despite living in a world where men like Madoff and Stanford could be publicly prosecuted and made to pay for their crimes against the people, our locally grown snake oil specialists are allowed to thumb their noses at responsibility, and legends like Ish & Steve, Kuei Tung and Huggins, Monteil & Duprey, Harnarine and Hart all escape having to answer and instead go on to demonstrate that, for those who lack integrity, there is no such thing as too low.

As an example and as is the case with every new 'sure thing' to come down the pipe, I am usually one of the first people my friends call, usually with the opening "you HAVE to hear this....". This week I got one of those calls, again, trying to sell me on the latest of what I believe to be soon a collapsed scam, based on coffee, magic coffee if you believe the hype, and sorry, I don't.

What I see coming at some point is a lot of people stuck with a lifetime supply of magic coffee and no new prospects to off load it on because, there are only so many suckers. Cynical? Maybe, but these network marketing and pyramid schemes all start the same way and all offer the same promise, a shortcut to fabulous wealth as is demonstrated by 'this one' or 'that one' that got in early on and, despite starting off in a one bedroom apartment overrun with rats and roaches and all manner of vermin, is now living on a golf course in Hawaii.  What they withhold to tell you is that the fortunate few in the beginning are ALWAYS the ones to prosper as they are the only ones that the pyramid works for; it is the foolish few at the end who are left stuck literally holding the bag or worse, feeling sorry for sticking twenty or forty of their loved ones with nothing but the promise of what could have been.

Where are the organizations and systems of State to protect the people from the devious and those who would conspire to defraud and advantage? Trinidadians behave like children where things like these are concerned and walk around laboring under the illusion that if someone is allowed to do something then someone else had to approve it so it has to be safe. Many of the depositors who moved their money from the relative safety of the established banks to the wildness that was the 'free for all' 'snatch and grab' kleptocracy that Clico became at the end are victims of this mindset, and while caveat emptor (buyer beware) is at the heart of every monetary exchange, this still needs to be addressed if the people are not to be left easy prey to the devious, the brave and the heartless alike.

Everyday unlicensed 'specialists' are setting up shop to fleece or advantage the people with promises of cures for all manner of ailments, peeks into their futures or to 'cleanse' them of, well, not much more than their hard earned money. Do we have any regulatory agencies with the authority to regulate these businesses and their claims or is this really the wild, wild west as others now assert? Surely the unwritten social contract begs at least SOME protection for the people against those who are free to take established precedence and bend it to their will, and if the state is loathe to adopt the role of protector in these instances, it should, at the very least provide oversight through an effective Better Business Bureau or some such construct.

Consider this a head's up; if something inside you says this does not make sense or it is just too good to be true, it probably is. Sir Boyle Roche said 'Disappointment is the nurse of wisdom' and while this may well be true, in situations like these, a promise remains nothing more than a comfort to a fool.