PEOPLE in Watford are being warned to beware a get-rich-quick scheme that particularly targets women.

The scheme, Women Empowering Women (WEW), is similar to discredited pyramid selling schemes, but sidesteps the law by dressing up the handing over of thousands of pounds as a "gift" to other members.

Literature promoting WEW promises those taking part £24,000 in return for an "investment" of £3,000, as long as they can recruit eight more members of either sex.

The scheme claims to be a "support group" that “empowers women" and offers "emotional support".

It sounds attractive but, like pyramid selling, it is flawed there are not enough people on the planet to sustain it for long, even though its promoters describe it as "the eternal circle of gifting money".

Experts say people setting these schemes up, and others joining early, can do very well, but no new wealth is created. Early "investors" are paid with cash from new recruits but the supply soon dries up and the schemes collapse.

Those joining later find it harder and harder to sign up new members to keep the cash flowing and stand to lose every penny of their "investment".

Despite this, WEW claims: "Nobody holds any position that will reap more rewards than anyone else."

A Trading Standards spokesman said someone would have to be "barking mad" to throw their money away by "investing" in WEW.

He warned: "You should not part with any money unless you can afford to lose it, and you will lose it. The way the scheme works is such that the founder and his mates will make a profit, but anyone below the top or second levels of the pyramid will not."

Trading Standards say the WEW scheme is very carefully conceived to be "just this side of legal". But legal or otherwise, it was a scam, they said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Trade and Industry said some trading standards officers believed the scheme may be technically a lottery and therefore illegal under the gaming laws, but it would take a test case to prove it.

She said the DTI was investigating WEW and, pending the outcome, warned the public: "Get rich schemes that appear to be too good to be true usually are too good to be true."

"The potential for losing money in WEW is high. The scheme might sound like a good way to make money, but there will probably be a nasty sting in the tail, especially for later joiners. Inevitably, every such network eventually breaks down."