I have a couple friends that were in these pyramid scheme things.
One of them was selling knives and eventually quit because of how much of a joke the business structure is
I have another friend that is currently selling healthy energy drinks. I had one and it's not bad, but the pyramid scheme is the bad part. She tried to get me to go to a meeting for the thing, and pressured me a little bit until i finally (nicely) told her that I already have two jobs (truth) and i'm using my degree. That and i'm not interesting in a career in business (i'm an IT guy).
She then told me good luck and all but did mention that she's gonna be rich. Thank god it was over text messaging because i'm not sure I could hold a straight face. But I definitely wasn't going to crush my friend's dreams, she can learn for herself. You usually can't convince people participating in pyramid schemes that they are getting screwed. It's like they are in denial because it's blatantly obvious when you are paying someone above you a cut of your profits, when the person above you didn't really earn a dime of your money.