Desi Rant #8 Ponzi-Love

It is said that a sucker is born every minute. Based on recent evidence, it seems like 90% of those suckers are born in India, and then come to the US on F1/H1/L1 visas. Because, for some reason, desi immigrants in the US seem to be disproportionately drawn towards Ponzi schemes of any kind.

The desi love for Amway-Quixtar is well-known and has even been documented in detail in the blogosphere - 1, 2, 3, to link a few. The desi Amway zombies, or desambies if you will, have terrorized non-stupid desi people to such an extent that many of us now avoid even entering an aisle in a departmental store if we spot another desi there. Parents have started scaring their kids - stay in school or you will become a desambie. Young second-generation desi girls being sent off to college are now told by their mothers - date a black or Hispanic guy if you want, go to drunken frat parties, do drugs, experiment with lesbianism, but please please please, stay away from the desi guy who asks you if you would like to make some extra income and retire before you are of legal drinking age.

We have noticed though that this Ponzi-love is not restricted to Amway-Quixtar along. Of course, it takes a special kind of stupid to buy into that bullshit and ruin your life for some pie in the sky. But even desis who are wise enough to run from Amway, are known to give in to mini-Ponzi schemes or other kind of stupid referral schemes all the time.

The most annoying one has to do with cheap phone calls to India. It is not a Ponzi scheme per se, but relies on the famed desi hunger for a discount. Every other week, some guy I have never heard of will spam some desi listserv saying - "Hey guys, this thing offers really low calling rates to India. Click on the link below. Click only on this link. Yes, this link only!" The insistence on that link is tied to the fact that the URL has his referral code. So he figures that even if a handful of people are pliant enough, it will give him 30 extra minutes to talk to his mommy, which he will probably use up by "tiffin" time.

Then there are those free ipod, free t-shirt, free underwear emails too. Please click on this link, the email informs me, forward it to 10 people you know, and win a made-in-india-for-18-rupees t-shirt with some questionable lettering on it. All this song and dance for a friggin t-shirt? I know desis like to pinch pennies, but really!

And of course, there is the fact that 10 years after everyone and their retarded cousin figured out that the "Microsoft/Yahoo will give you a dollar for every person you forward this mail to" is nothing but a hoax, desis I barely know keep spamming me with those ancient scams. That trick was labelled too stupid back in 1999. How these supposedly IT-savvy desis keep falling for the same trick, is beyond me.

Which brings us to another scam - the 419ers from Nigeria. No, desis don't fall for it. In fact I have never heard of a single desi ever buying into those bullshit schemes. Which made me wonder....why not? It seems like a match made in heaven. If Amway has made so many desis in America swallow the bait, why not Nigerians?

And the partner, who is an immigrant desi, had the right answer. 419 schemes are run by Nigerians, who are, of course, black. The desi phobia of blacks is far far greater than the desi mania of get-rich-quick scams. In fact the black-phobia of desis is so deep, it has pervaded all six of their senses. So as soon as such an email lands in their inbox, their black-radar goes off, and the desis delete the email, wrap their jackets around them tighter, lock their door, make sure the windows are closed, and "beep-beep" make sure the car is locked.