Should I Try to Stop “Bad” Sales Pitches?

I got an email from my graduate school alumni group on LinkedIn. The email was as follows:

Hi Ely,

We haven’t met, but I’d like to change that. I honestly believe that I have the opportunity of a lifetime for you or someone you know. The millionaires in our company just keep getting younger…that latest millionaire is just 29 years old.

I believe that Baruch Alumni were groomed to be millionaires and not just six-figure earners. If you also believe that, we should meet for about 20 minutes to see if there’s a mutual interest.

If it’s not for you, no worries. You’d have made a new friend, and maybe you could refer me to someone who may be interested. With that being said, would you be interested in meeting with me?

My first impression was that this was a scam. The company he works for (part-time) is called Primerica and it seems like it’s a life insurance and financial planning company. From what I’ve read, you have to keep on recruiting others to sell insurance and services to make real money. I replied to his email giving the sender my impressions and asking him to not use this group as a place to recruit members for his “initiative”. This was his response:

You have insulted me I do not accept your apology. You do not kick a person down and then try to help them up. That is what you have done with your response to me. You have disrepected my years of sales training, my recognition for sales excellence and the mentors who have spent years mentoring me and countless others.

Did you even read my background? I suggest next time you do your due diligence before you compose an accusatory email such as this. I’m sorry if you were among the unfortunate to be taken advantage of by Amway. That was before my time, and I’ve only heard horror stories about them. Just because my email acted as a negative trigger about your past experiences, did not give you the right to attack me.

Your response only needed to be one question…”What is this about?” I’ve recieved nothing but professional responses to my message except for yours, and your “honesty” was unappreciated here. Your “honesty” will be appreciated by someone else, when you have done your due diligence.

I would never digrace my Alma Mater, or my family with such a stunt. You definitely did not look at my page. At my office I’m known as the “dude of integrity”, you really barked up the wrong tree buddy! Please, do not ever do this to another one of our Baruch Alum. I wouldn’t want anyone else to lose respect for you.

So you tell me. Was I wrong for writing an email with my impressions that his sales pitch sounded like a scam? Is this type of selling ok? I think it’s very pyramid-scheme like and I wish that the people who are on the bottom of this food chain can see what they’re doing. But maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I should let him continue his “selling” ways. What do you think?

UPDATE: People have asked me to post my reply to this guy that he responded to. Here it is. You can let me know if I was too harsh in my criticism.

Christopher,

I’ll be honest. Your pitch sounds very much like a scam. And if it is, in any shape or form a scam or a pyramid scheme (or a non-pyramid scheme ala Amway), please do not use the Baruch list or name in your correspondence with people. If not, I apologize, but I thought I’d tell you how your sounding. I will be notifying the person who manages this alumni group on LInkedIn to hear their thoughts as well. If you have any objections or believe I am mistaken, please contact me.

Thanks,
Ely Rosenstock

We had gone back and forth a few more times and once I mentioned the term multi-level marketing, he stopped communicating. It seems I scared him off. It was fun while it lasted.