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• Invest 10k and get credited with 45k in 5hours, ponzi!!!
• For each referral that invests you will receive double, ponzi!!!

It's very common in this age where there are many online jobs and investments, it is up to you to know which ones to do. Will you go into the legit ones or the fake ones?.

Someone asked me what are ponzi schemes, the don't even have an idea about it they just rushed into any investment that claims to pay, and finally their money is gone and they cover it up with an expensive excuse.

Ponzi schemes are mainly online investments which promises the investor a huge interest after investing and promises to give more interest with more investments, which after gaining trusts from investors run away with their investments. Some of these schemes looks so good to me true, they promise a lot without stress, how can you just sit and see double of your money without working for it.

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Have you ever heard about ponzi schemes?

	Received this in my messages

Yes and yes, everyday I receive messages on my social media platforms asking me to invest certain amount of money and gain back interest over a certain period of time. I received this message some days ago, after reading the first line when it appeared at my notification bar I just swiped it off, I knew it was a ponzi scheme.

My friends and siblings made me knew about ponzi schemes, which I browsed and it dated back to the 80's a man called Charles ponzi made people invest in his coupon business which he promises to return 50% of the profit in some days or return 100% in an extended date. The old investors will be paid by money gotten from the new ones, it rotates till the trust is gained and he zooms. Though he wasn't the first one on this scheme but it really became popular with him that's why it is known as ponzi scheme.

Having a good knowledge of how they work is really a good move to escape falling a victim in this treacherous act.

Have you been offered to invest in any of these schemes?

	Screenshot from my Twitter message

You can't escape their messages, I wonder how they get my contacts and also my username. I have received many convincing offers to invest in but I'll just give a deaf ear to it and later realize that it crashed. It is a very common thing on Facebook where friends can chat directly and also interact with strangers.

People hack into accounts of people and convince people to take part in this investment, the worst in this kind is that you will not even get your first profit an you're blocked. You need a good awarenesses because an hacker can hack your close friends account whom you have a full trust for ad convince you to invest in the scheme promising huge profits, you will believe cos you think it's your friend, you will then realize it was an hacker.

Receiving lots of these messages has given us a very huge awareness on what to believe an what not to believe. Everyone has an experience on this.

Do you know how to detect Ponzi schemes?

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Personally, I just know that any kind of online investments are ponzi schemes and I hardly convinced from that. They mostly use the same pattern

• "Invest 10k and get credited with 45k in 5hours"
• "For each referral that invests you will receive double"

It is very easy to detect them, in social media you will notice a stranger that hasn't chatted you up before come up with a message telling you to invest with the promise of gaining much profits, you might get the profit if you're early but you'll be tempted to try then second time then run off completely but they will run you off first.

A random guy in school was telling someone on how it's operated, he is a website designer so he designed a website for his client and it's a ponzi scheme, he said investments will be collected and profits will be returned, when people see how true it is they will invest again, this time they will be rewarded for every referral.

After gaining trust and accumulating more investments from them, they zoom off with their investments. Many people even left their profits there without withdrawing with the hope of accumulating more interest.

No matter how real it looks, they will zoom off, if not today maybe tomorrow, be very observant on what you invest in.

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Do you think Steemit is a ponzi scheme?

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With my ponzi scheme detecting method I haven't seen anywhere in steemit that says invest and gain back in 3 hours, it doesn't deal on investments. There are many things that differentiates steemit from ponzi schemes

Steemit	Ponzi
Steemit is totally free	ponzi schemes are not free
Steemit doesn't require investments	ponzi works with investments
Steemit looks straight forward and promising	ponzi looks treacherous and bent
Steemit gives you a clear path to follow	Ponzi schemes gives fake promises

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Thanks to @eliany for inviting me to the engagement challenge

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I would love to invite my friends to join, @dasudi, @johnmitchel, @kouba01 and @pea07 to join in this week's challenge.