Oh man, that sounds horrible. It sucks to see how our friends get fooled into shit like this. What's worse is that they're so fixated on it that you can't get them to quit. I haven't spoken to that friend of mine at all after that incident and I'm pretty sure he must have quit and lost some serious money by now.

No genuine business model, at least as far as I know, runs solely on the income received by getting more people in your system without actually offering something tangible and worthwhile in return. In a pyramid scheme, only the guys at the top are the ones who profit.

After the 4th or 5th division, it's pretty much guaranteed that you're gonna lose money if you enter. That's the reason why they target people who are much easier to manipulate and fool rather than people who are rational and know how to think for themselves.