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My girlfriend and I went out to eat with an acquaintance of hers and his wife. They were really nice people, but at the end of the dinner date, they brought up a known pyramid scheme that they're a part of. They asked if we had ever heard of X corp, to which I replied "yes". When they asked me about what I knew about them I lied and said "not much". However, I actually know a lot about them and how they scam people shamelessly.

Then dinner eventually ended with us saying we'd think about it and get back to them. What's the nicest way to turn them down? I'm not opposed to calling out the scam, but I know from experience that people get very defensive since they've invested a lot of money into the scam.

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    Why do you think a simple "No." with no further explanation wont do?
    – XtremeBaumer
    Commented May 7, 2019 at 14:09
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    How often do you interact with them - like, do you expect them to actively follow up with you for an answer, or do you want to proactively contact them / bring it up to say "no thanks"? If the former, this question might be helpful, if not a duplicate.
    – Em C
    Commented May 7, 2019 at 14:45

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People trying to get others to join MLMs can be very pushy and often use personal connections to try to get you to join, so you want offer a firm and final rejection:

We are not interested in joining this company to sell or to purchase products and we will not join.

Please note that you are not obligated to explain why, and it would be perfectly appropriate to say decline to have a discussion about why you don't want to do it. Salespeople usually ask why as the beginning of trying to convince you to change your mind, so you could even say:

I don't want to go into the reasons because I'm not willing to change my mind on this.

Firmly saying no is my go-to technique for turning down sales offers. My experience is that if you leave any wiggle room, most salespeople will attempt to use that to pursue the sale, and that clearly communicating that your rejection is final is the best way to get a salesperson to give up.

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    Hi dbeer! Can you take a look at our citation guidelines please? In order to make this site a succes, we're going to have to be strict on answer quality, and require answers to provide either some sources/references, or for people to explain when they used their suggested techniques and describe the outcomes of doing so. Otherwise, we'd be turning into a site where everyone can drop their opinion on how they'd handle a situation. Can you please edit your answer and provide the necessary citations?
    – Tinkeringbell ♦
    Commented May 7, 2019 at 18:23

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