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Alleged 'scam' industries
Digital marketing, digital products, and master reselling rights
Lots of people get confused because there is so much talk about these things. They're all separate, but can crossover.
Digital marketing is a specific type of marketing. Marketing is all the finer details of how you sell to your customers. Digital marketing, therefore, is the finer details of selling to customers digitally. It can include creating content on social media, directing traffic to your website, or running paid ads. Sometimes people on social media selling master reselling rights products incorrectly state their business as digital marketing. Even if the product they're selling is a digital marketing course, what they're doing is MLM because they're relying on sales generated by a network. They happen to be using social media as a channel for achieving this, but income still relies on the sale of the product, which they only have rights to and didn't create. Usually, these people bought into the product before becoming creators.
Verdict: Digital marketing is not a scam, but could be used as part of a scam.
Digital products are products bought online that only exist online (unless you print them off). The market is saturated with products like diaries, calendars, checklists, and other simple organisational tools, so you would need to put a lot of effort into digital marketing. You may need to develop other niches too, especially if you're starting from scratch. However, if you have specialised knowledge and know where to find your customers, selling could be easier. Lots of people have ethical concerns about using AI to create digital products. We would say that while AI is good for many things, it doesn't create as high-quality digital products as a human, and this is the strongest reason to create and market them yourself.
Verdict: It might feel scammy to customers if you use AI. But digital products are not a scam overall.
Master reselling rights combine digital marketing and digital products. There are lots of schemes, especially in the social media sphere, using this model. They claim to operate an MLM scheme, but for something to be considered an MLM rather than a pyramid scheme, there must be a tangible or useful product or service to sell. Some of the videos or social media scripts you see on master reselling rights do not state what the product is, which is a red flag for us. There is no official or reliable information as to whether the whole concept of master reselling rights is a scam or not. From our research, "master reselling rights" as a phrase or concept has no place in UK law, so while it sounds official, it isn't.
Questions we recommend asking yourself when confronted with this content are: Does this person seem natural delivering the content? Are they clear about what benefits they offer? Do they talk about the product they're selling publicly? Does it seem too good to be true? These are all closed questions, and you might prefer to think openly on the subject, but we consider our thoughts realistic, though.
Verdict: Potentially a scam in some cases. We think it is best to craft products or services from your own ideas and sell them.
Pyramid schemes vs MLMs
UK Government defines pyramid schemes as business models that:
- Depends on new members being recruited and paying in
- Relies on the network marketing of recent members
- Members receive no return on investment
We found a couple of high-profile pyramid scheme legal cases in the news. See: North Yorkshire 2024 case, Bristol 2015 case.
Despite the lack of high-profile cases, in ONS statistics, there were 3,956 convictions of pyramid scheme fraud in 2023.
Verdict: The biggest of big scams! Beware of get-rich-quick schemes, because most often, this is what they are!
A UK Government paper from 1996 referred to MLMs as a form of "direct selling". They classified pyramid schemes, MLMs, and network marketing as a single group, known as direct selling, at this time. Back then, the industry was worth £200m. The Advertising Standards Agency defines MLM business models as:
- Goods or services are being sold
- Income is also made by recruiting others to the business
Judging by definition only, the only difference between pyramids and MLMs is that there is no return on investment for pyramids, whereas MLMs are paid for selling products. It seems from ASA's guidance that it is common for MLM social media posts to break advertising law, so it's best to know them if you decide to represent an MLM. There are also strict laws around recruitment into MLMs.
Criticisms of MLMs include that there are often tightly specific requirements for making bonuses and recruitment targets. The first people in the business will always do best when taking into account the product life cycle, because their earnings keep growing as their downline recruits new people. This leads to people joining the business later doing a higher quantity of work than those who joined earlier. Supporters of these criticisms include the London School of Economics, Edge Hill University, and Scottish Youth Parliament.
The London School of Economics has a typology of victims on its page. Their view of people who join MLMs is rather pessimistic and loaded, describing one group as "uneducated and unsophisticated". Although they do support it with discussion that's more compassionate, about how MLMs are often presented to people at vulnerable times in their lives, like moving to a new place or being unemployed. Our research, which we don't want to link due to privacy, led us to believe that people who are happy in MLMs enjoy the sense of community they get.
Verdict: If you feel this model will add value to your life, then it isn't illegal, and your "up-line" always profits from your labour even in regular jobs. However, we feel most people should develop their own personalities, interests, hobbies, and business ideas.
Crypto and Forex
Crypto is digital currency. Real-life traditional currency is backed by gold that is stored in banking vaults. Crypto was launched in 2009. This was when Bitcoin was created by "Satoshi Nakamoto", an anonymous computer programmer. They felt that traditional currencies are too reliant on governments and banks. Its benefits are that it acts as a store of value, meaning you can exchange it for GBP or other currencies, and it will maintain its value, rather than depreciate. In 2025, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Cryptocurrencies, and Bitcoin is still the most popular. It is considered a volatile market by all sources we have read. Reasons for volatility include that the market is in its infancy, there is greater uncertainty in newer markets. Perceptions also play a huge part, crypto investors believe it is here to stay, but not everyone agrees. Many people criticise the mainstream use of digital currencies, insisting they're a disaster for privacy and will decrease financial inclusion. Despite these concerns, crypto products have existed on the London Stock Exchange since 2024. Most crypto products remain off the stock market and unregulated. This means there are lots of crypto scams. UK police state that some of the most common tactics used include being told you're buying "at the perfect time", that the offer is exclusive to you, seems unrealistic, and feeling pressured.
Verdict: If the product isn't on the stock exchange, it carries a huge amount of risk, higher than we would tolerate, and is more likely to be a scam. If it is on the stock exchange, there is less risk, and it is not a scam, but there is still market uncertainty.
Forex is a financial product that consumers use to buy and sell foreign currencies. It is the largest and most liquid market in the world, trading $7.5 trillion a day in 2022. In the UK, it is fully regulated by the FCA. They have a warning list of known unauthorised firms. Some scam firms initially pay-out returns, then ask for a larger investment, before stealing the money. Clone firms are also common, regulated firms would never reach out to customers without any previous relationship. 'Copy trading' is a form of Forex that automatically copies the moves of another trader. This is not a risk-free method, but it might be safer than learning alone. There are many unqualified people on social media claiming to be self-made Forex traders. It is worth noting that the industry is regulated because it requires formal learning to understand finance as a whole, rather than just one segment, like Forex. You can check if someone is registered using the FCA's register.
Verdict: Get regulated financial assistance before making any investment. While Forex is not a scam, some individuals could still use it as a scam.