Examples include "products" such as brochures, cassette tapes or systems which merely explain to the purchaser how to enroll new members, or the purchasing of name and address lists of future prospects. The costs for these "products" can range up into the hundreds or thousands of dollars. A common Internet version involves the sale of documents entitled "How to make $1 Million on the Internet" and the like. Another example is a product sold at higher than ordinary retail price for the same or similar products elsewhere. The result is that only a person enrolled in the scheme would buy it and the only way to make money is to recruit more and more people below that person also paying more than they should. This extra amount paid for the product is then used to fund the pyramid scheme. In effect, the scheme ends up paying for new recruits through their overpriced purchases rather than an initial "signup" fee.

The key identifiers of a pyramid scheme are:

• A highly excited sales pitch
• Little to no information offered about the company unless an investor purchases the products and becomes a participant
• Vaguely phrased promises of limitless income potential
• No product, or a product being sold at a price ridiculously in excess of its real market value.
• An income stream that chiefly depends on the commissions earned by enrolling new members or the purchase by members of products for their own use rather than sales to customers who are not participants in the scheme.
• A tendency for only the early investors/joiners to make any real income.
• Assurances that it is perfectly legal to participate.

The key distinction between these schemes and legitimate MLM businesses is that in the latter cases a meaningful income can be earned solely from the sales of the associated product or service to customers who are not themselves enrolled in the scheme. While some of these MLM businesses also offer commissions from recruiting new members, this is not essential to successful operation of the business by any individual member. Nor does the absence of payment for recruiting mean that an MLM is not a cover for a pyramid scheme. The distinguishing characteristic is whether the money in the scheme comes primarily from the participants themselves (pyramid scheme) or from sales of products or services to customers who aren't participants in the scheme (legitimate MLM).