Scammer's portrait: Charles Ponzi - the Godfather

by Tony Clifton

All of you are hearing the world "ponzi" regarding new HYIPs on daily basis. Do you know where does it come from? This is the name of the famous Charles Ponzi, the Godfather of all ponzi scammers, the inventor of the financial pyramid scheme.

How everything started to work out? Lets see what people talked abotu Ponzi's business:
"You've got to hand it to his credit. He makes your money gain 50 per cent in 45 days, which is as much as the landlords do. He delivers the goods with postage stamps, which is more than Burleson does. The way Ponzi juggles the reds and the greens, he makes Post Office look like a child's game. He simply buys stamps in Europe while the rest of the boys are buying souvenir post cards. And a postage stamp is still worth two cents in spite of the service you get for it, and any yap knows that you cannot get stuck on postage stamps unless you sit on the gluey side up."
Sounds famliar, eh? If this remembers you to the explanations about how some HYIPs create income, this is simply because they are running ponzi schemes as well!

Lets see what kind of "HYIP" had Charles ran. Claiming that he is trading with postage marks, Ponzi had promissed to his "investors" "fifty per cent. profit in forty-five days" (damn it i see so many "investment programs" now with the same scheme!). At the end of his scam Charles had collected almost 10 millions of dollars from 10 thousands of suckers. Even the biggest scams today can envy him for this great success!

What was Charles' end? Fortunately he was arrested, unlike 99% of his modern internet followers. Let us hope more of these crimes will go to the jail. Until that try to remember Ponzi's lesson and don't believe the next nice site which gives you 50% for 45 days.

The incredible success of Ponzi's pyramid scheme comes to prove that people's greed and stupidity is unlimited. There is nothing new in the today's internet ponzis, just the same scheme relying on people weekness. Its all about you and your own judgement and common sense to keep away from the scams.

You can read more about Charles Ponzi here.

Published at Sep, 19 '05 ; read 671 times;

If you liked this article subscribe to the Free HYWD Newsletter