Is this a scam?

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Is this a scam?
Readers letters to the Homeworking Agony Aunt

Women Empowering Women

Hi - do not know if this should be put up as a scam but it does sound unbelievable to me.
A friend has just offered me a "fantastic" opportunity to make money. This scheme is run by women for women only, no men allowed. It is supposed to be for the empowerment of women. My friend got the "opportunity" herself from a care home worker who herself allegedly made money. My friend trusts this care worker as her mother is in the nursing home. This scheme consists of buying a "heart" which costs Ł3,000, but because they could not afford the whole amount they came up with Ł1500 to buy a piece of the "heart" in 5 weeks time they are promised they will have a return of Ł12,000!!
My friend hands over the money on Tuesday and as a potential interested party I have been invited along to invest, if I want this great "opportunity". There are a couple of single mums here desperate for money and are thinking of borrowing to get into this scheme and I am frightened for them. I have been told that half the police force in Luton have made money out of this (funny when it is women only so that means the police force here are mostly women) and solicitors. I have been told the bad press is because banks, mortgage companies and loan sharks are jealous because debts are being paid off!!!!
I am very sceptical, if it sounds too good 2 be true, it probably is, have u heard of this one. Any comments, however brief would be appreciated.
Regards JY

Hello JY
This is a scam - please don't get involved at all and try to persuade your friends not to.
This scam is doing the rounds - the banks on the Isle of Wight even had to take action to stop people withdrawing all these thousands of pounds and many people lost their money.
It is a pyramid scheme. Those at the very top do indeed make money.... out of someone else's loss. Eventually there are not enough people to take part and those just beyond the top levels all end up losing their money.
There is no way of knowing if one is at the top level or if the scheme has reached saturation point. Even if you are at the top level how would you feel that knowing that you have taken the money from a woman lower down the levels who could ill afford to lose it?
Please let me know what happens.
Kindest regards
Agony Aunt

Envelope Addressing

I recently applied for a home work opportunity,
I was asked firstly to send a SAE to an address in Wales, in return I received a letter asking me to send Ł35 to an address in Sheldon in order for them to provide me with my first work pack, I forwarded to them Ł35 postal order made payable to Leading edge. My work pack arrived, this consisted of 21 envelopes, 21 SA stickers and a letter instructing me to fold the inserts, place in the envelopes and put the stickers in the centre of the front of the envelopes. Also has to purchase 21 2nd class stamps. The job consisted of folding an insert(A4) size letter in an envelope and placing a self addressed sticker in the middle of the envelope. I did the sample of 21 letters for this company, putting a 2nd class stamp on each envelope and then place the 21 sealed letters in a large envelope and post back to this company at my own cost.
To my horror I received back a letter to say I had not place the SA stickers exactly in the middle(by this they meant actually doing some measuring to make sure the SA sticker was exactly in the middle),Was also told I did not fold the insert to they exact measurements. I was shocked at this as I have worked for large Finance company for 10 years where measuring the middle point of envelopes was not carried out as I would use my own judgement which was acceptable and now I work another large company and again my work is acceptable to them,
I was told in this letter I would not be getting paid for this and if I wanted my stamped back I had to send another SAE. No mention of my Ł35 back.
Please let me know if you want any more information, Would like to know if I could get my money back and if this is a scam. I do believe it was
Yours Faithfully DQ

Hello DQ
I am sorry to confirm that you have described a very typical scam. There are some things you should do, but it is most unlikely you will get any of your money back. You will never be able to do what is right in order to get paid and so you'll never move on to getting paid. They can still say they really have work for you but you're just not good enough or not up to their standards. As you know from experience, companies in the real world do not operate like that. Sure you must have good standards but what these people are asking for is intentionally impossible.
Please make a fuss about this. As you are UK based send a copy of the letter you sent me to your local Trading Standards. There might even be an email contact for your local one. Although there is a limit to what Trading Standards can do they can at least keep a record of it and somewhere along the line could help to nail the perpetrators.
You could also write to your local newspaper - they might publish your letter as it will help to warn others.
You can try contacting the company to tell them you are contacting Trading Standards and your local newspaper to persuade them to try to return your money. Sadly, many people who are scammed do not talk out about it so it would help if you could in order to warn others.
Good luck and please let me know how you get on.
Kindest Regards
Agony Aunt

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