SEC-S17W3- "Let's talk about Ponzi scheme".

Ponzi !!!

Ponzi !!!

The mighty men of valor has fallen because of Ponzi schemes!

Ponzi schemes has made me realize that the “rich also cry”

Ponzi can rewrite your destiny and title it from “grace to grass”.

I wish I could write a poem regarding what Ponzi schemes had done to me in my life… i would have won a Nobel laureate award.

I know you will be eager to hear d whole story.. just sit down relax and some chill drink and popcorn, while I invite those grown up Nigerian steemians that I know are likely to have participated in the schemes during the Ponzi era of MMM. @goodybest, @lovelystar, @ngoenyi, @ruthjoe and @ubongudofot

I started hearing of Ponzi schemes in 2016 when things was really difficult in the country. The mother of all Ponzi schemes in Nigeria back then was Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox ( MMM). A lot of Nigerians couldn’t remember the name easily, so we gave it our own name Money Making Machine.

MMM came like a mighty wind back then in Nigeria to give hope to the people from there sufferings. The campaign for MMM in Nigeria was crazy. Back then it was looking like if you are not part of MMM, you want to remain poor in life because a lot of people were already cashing out a lot of money from the scheme.

Despite the history of the owner of MMM in Russia on how he was arrested for defrauding people and the warnings from our Nigeria government, we refuse to pay attention. The truth is that, it’s hard for any average Nigerian to believe the government because there’s this notion that they always want to keep us under abject poverty, so that they will use them as instruments for their evil political agenda.

A lot of people quit their jobs thinking it was a wise thing to do because of their investment in Ponzi schemes. On the other hand, the banks was ceasing accounts of people using MMM in their tag for payment, government was also fighting tooth and nail to kill the scheme. But there was no stopping us instead we were enjoying the benefits of our investment.

Until one day, we woke up one night around December and heard that MMM is gone in Nigeria with billions of Nigerians citizens money. That was when all hell broke loose. The fights, the arrests going on here and there, the suicides, businesses closing down and a whole lot more.

Millions of Ponzi schemes came up after the crash but none of them ever lasted like MMM. The only good thing I will say Ponzi scheme did for me was that it led me to steemit.

I’ve been offered to invest a lot in so many Ponzi schemes. In fact, a time came when i and some team of members came up with the idea of creating a sustainable Ponzi platform. The plan was almost about kicking off before our boss @eurogee decided to terminate the project and said no matter how we do it, some people will always loose. That was the week he introduced us to steemit.

With all my years of experience in various Ponzi schemes, of which I’ve written some posts about it, I thought I was never falling again for any shady schemes. I thought I knew all the tricks in the books of Ponzi until I fell for the recent one MBA Forex. I’ve never shared this story before. I’ll just give a little story on it because my post is already getting too long.

This happened in 2020 during the Covid 19 pandemic. The owner Maxwell Odum, came with a different style of Ponzi. He claimed to have registered his company under the corporate affairs commission (CAC) in Nigeria, built offices around the major cities in the country. Rivers state, alone have like 6 branches because the crowd was too much. He even built a school were he teaches Forex trading to students, went as far as using popular influencers, actors, tv shows to promote his business.

As usual, they will always pay for awhile and during the covid pandemic, he used his customers to play the biggest chess game of all time. When offices were closing, businesses were falling as a result of the Covid, he knew his business was in crisis but took the risk of clearing all his debts with his customers in the midst of lockdown even when no one was expecting the money.

Nigerians was impressed and that was when unprecedented crowds came in to register for themselves and loved ones. He later moved the headquarters to from Rivers state to Abuja. No one knew his plans. The complaints of unpaid customers started increasing, before we could say “Jack Robinson”, this man has disappeared into thin air. No one knew his whereabouts again in the country. It was during the crisis, government came up with their talks that his company is not registered under CAC and waited for a very long while when he has fled the country before they were now declaring him wanted.

Well, with my little experience in Ponzi these are the few one I can point my hands to. Incase you know more, you can write it down in the comment section.

• unrealistic profit margin
• No realistic asset as back up incase anything happens to the company just vague talks.
• No transparency
• It depends on referrals payout to pay others in the pyramid scheme.
• They must ask you to bring 3-4 referrals under you before you get paid.
• Always using different tactics to pressure customers to invest
• It is never sustainable, therefore it will never last. Give it 2-3 years, it come crashing like deck of cards..
• Not controlled or recognize by any regulatory authority.
• Making your research on the business model will give you insight into the business model you are investing on.
• Always trying to play on intelligence in a subtle way to gain your trust. Like a guy wooing a lady to be his girlfriend and then dump her… lol

source

I don’t think Steemit can be classified as a Ponzi schemes. Steemit is a social media platform that is built on blockchain technology and users are rewarded with steem for creating content. There’s no time, steemit has ever cajoled people into investing in them. It’s base on users choice. I can choose to buy some steem, so that I could be a whale and sell at anytime. Is my choice.

Because of the genuine users in the decentralized social media platform, it has been sustainable for many years. Since 2016 till date. We’ve never had any issues apart from change of ownership from Ned to Justin sun. If it was a Ponzi scheme, it would have been long gone. The value of STEEM tokens relies on user participation and overall platform usage.

In conclusion, Ponzi scheme is not something anyone will want to invest their money. This schemes capitalize on our greed and we fall for it with their lofty promises. So, if we can control our greed and invest in real business , we’ll turn out to be free from fraudulent activity

All other images were generated from “bing AI images”