While on YouTube I started noticed an alarming number of videos promoting cash gifting programs. But what’s even more baffling is that the various people are trying to get other people to join their specific team in the program.

What? Even if cash gifting were somehow borderline legal the whole idea of a “team” kind of throws the whole idea of non-incentivized gifting out the window doesn’t it?

Cash Gifters – Parody cash gifting video and song

Of course I’m sure “This one is different. THIS time we’re not all going to jail like in those other ones (well, not everyone goes to jail, but it IS a possibility and DOES happen)”.

But it’s a “gift” -  how can it be illegal to give away money?

Many people are misled into thinking a cash gifting clubs and opportunies are legal because the ads say that members consider their payments a gift and expect nothing in return. As the FTC points out, this is merely an attempt to make an illegal transaction look legal.

In fact, to show how deeply participants will go to protect their investment – er, “gift” – in these gifting circles, many find it hard to believe the clubs are illegal despite threats of criminal charges and after reading consumer alerts issued by the Federal Trade Commission.

Some of my favorite lines from the current cash gifting videos are the following:

“Even though the business is legitimate…” (There, that settles that!)

“You Know Cash Gifting Is Real! So Whatcha Gonna Do About It?” (Oh, right. I forgot).

“I checked IRS rules about cash gifting…the more I tried to find something negative or unethical about it…for everything I found that was negative I found ten or more posts that were positive.” (Good analysis there, Sherlock).

OK. Maybe somehow THIS one IS different. All I’m saying is you might want to check what’s being told to you against resources like the following (or better yet, how about talking to your attorney? How about talking to the company’s attorney and check out his or her background?). Anyhow, here’s some pleasant reading to do in your copious spare time you gain from your cash gifting activities:

FTC warning on cash gifting

329 Jailed in 2006 by law for Gifiting!

Here’s a fun one that MLMWatchDog mentions:

Here’s the starting version of the Cash2Infinity site from Archive.org:

June 30, 2002 version of Cash2Infinity (first historically available appearance of the site)

The fun part of this program was this statement:

“Moving on to view this site is your contract with Cash2Infinity that you will not share anything learned or obtained from Cash2Infinity with any agency or office of government or otherwise.”

Here’s the last version of Cash2Inifinity on October 28, 2003

After that it became a parked domain which you can see here.

So the good news is they were able to keep the thing going for at least over a year. That’s gotta make ya’ll happy right?

Here’s another helpful page from Rod Cook’s MLMWatchDog which is “dedicated to Stopping Pyramid Scams, Gifting Clubs, Gifting Scams, demonstrating that Gifting programs can put people in jail“…here it is:

Gifting Resources – Links to research Gifting Programs

Here’s a nice June 13th, 2008 post on Cash Gifting:

“People need to know HOW ILLEGAL THIS IS! My cousin was busted a week ago for gifting. One of the contacts she called from the list was an FBI agent. It was a sting…Read More…”

Another fine headline from MLMWatchDog:

“AN ADVISORY PUT OUT TO “GIFTERS” FROM A LAWYER,  NOW IN JAIL!” Click here to read more about this cash gifting story.