I created a website where I promise to double the income of participants by 30%.
The first participant joins with N20k. I need him to be convinced that my website pays So I use my own money to make up for the 30% and he goes home happy. I tell him he gets extra bonuses if he brings a friend and he does exactly that. Two of his friends sign up with N20k each and I return their investment with my own money and give my first client a special bonus for bringing them.
His friends are aware their colleague got a bonus for bringing them in. They get greedy, they bring more people. At this point, everyone wants bonuses as my system is verified and working.
More people join in, so I'm not using my money to pay them anymore, I'm using their money to pay them and waiting for more members to join so there'll always be money in the system. I see a huge investment of N1m from a greedy participant, I run the website with money and I've spent my own money to build the trust in the system so I pair the provider of N1m with myself. Then get about 30 people providing N50k to pay him back in 30 days, he has N1.3m. My system is working, he tells his colleagues in his social class and they're all excited.
My first members who started with N20k have gotten greedy, they've created multiply accounts to cash out but I don't care. The big fishes are in the game. The big monies are being paired with me, I'm no longer providing money but I'm getting money. Whenever I see a large amount to be donated, I immediately pair the account to mine. Effortlessly a millionaire.
The system continues to thrive because new members keep coming in. There is a wild recession in the country, my scheme is the escape route. People have paid rents, school fees, bought cars and funded their ceremonies with my scheme. I am suddenly an employer of labour.
But all good things must come to an end, I have successfully built a network of participants running into millions but there is a serious cash deficit. It is almost Christmas and almost everyone needs 30% of their investment back. Because I've been collecting millions as an admin without donating, and because there are not enough new members to match the financial demands of the existing members, my system has collapsed but I am not done getting my millions from gullible people.
I announce a freeze on the website for technical reasons. I've done a lot for them so they believe me that I'm just protecting the system from crash even when it was not the wise thing to believe.
I told them they couldn't receive money this period but they could still donate.
The one month freeze was an attempt to see if I could pay the existing members from the donations of new members. Sadly, some people had lost faith in the system, the new and existing members were afraid to make donations during the freeze because they were unsure of getting their 30% returns back. Plus there were a lot of evil people on social media spreading propaganda that my scheme was a Ponzi that had ended.
I needed that trust back, so I relaunched my website a day before the scheduled return. You needed to see the excitement. It was Christmas on January 13, I told existing people that had provided donations that they could now get help. I also added some attractive incentives for new members. I still faced the same problem that made me shut down temporarily, even worse.
The people that provided help during the shut down all requested help, plus there had already been a long list of people before then. So I decided to pair those that needed less than N30k first to check the rotation of money. Still there was not enough money to go round. The people that were paired to pay others refused to pay, the trust was gone. People had suddenly realised that it was not possible for 30% to be added to your money unless someone lost their own money.
Several other schemes took over my place when I was frozen. All will eventually meet their ends. Greed always comes to an end.
People still live in delusions of grandeur that I have not crashed. Perhaps they expect me to put a memo in my website that it is over. Lol. I really don't blame their naivety, I did do a lot for them to trust me.
I would advise that people make more intelligent financial decisions next time. People lost millions to me because of greed. Do I feel guilty? No. I did warn them to use their SPARE money.
My name is MMM and I am a Ponzi Scheme.