Ponzi Scheme: A new one is brewing

There is a popular adage that says “lighting never strike twice”.  Though, in reality, meteorologists declare that lightning do strike twice in the same place, in ordinary conversation, it is interpreted as “the same misfortune will not happen again to the same person”.    Rightly so, as, supposedly, the individual has learned his lessons out of such crippling adversities.

Today, this phrase is more relevant as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released an advisory that it “has received reports that a group of persons, a company, or a firm operating in Cagayan, Ilocos Norte, Camiguin, and Cagayan de Oro City offers securities/investment opportunities to the public, particularly domestic helpers, promising hefty income or big returns, that is, a P100.00 investment is assured of earning P900.00 per month”.

 Clearly, this is quite an innovation for four reasons.  First, they are not undertaking it in places that were previously hit by a financial scam.  Secondly, they’ve set aside the wealthy and the well educated.  They are now trying to rip-off some hard-earned money from the not so well-informed citizens, the domestic helpers.  Thirdly, at a minimum investment of P100, they are now going for small amounts of investments to make it easier for would-be investors to decide.   Finally, at a mind-boggling monthly return of investment of 900%, they’ve made it more tempting and even more irresistibly appealing than what struck Pagadian City and other neighboring towns a few months ago.  

In a way, therefore, these current scammers created a, supposedly, new avenue for domestic helpers or household helps to earn more.  So that, if a domestic helper earns P1,000 a month, they will give her the opportunity to earn P10,000, in total, by investing it with them and consequently earn P9,000 (at 900%) out of it for the same period.  This potential revenue stream is indeed a head turner. 

To recall, not long ago, some of our “get-rich-quick” enthusiasts were grieving for the loss of their hard-earned money or are, until now, spending sleepless nights staring at the prospect of losing their homes which were used as collateral to obtain money for very high-yielding investments, the Ponzi Scheme. 

Ponzi Schemes, actually, are not difficult to understand.  Commonly, all these schemes have three basic steps.  First, they convince a few investors to trust them with their money for investment purposes with beyond normal but supposedly believable interest.  Secondly, after a specified time, return the invested amount plus the agreed interest or rate of return.  Lastly, emphasizing the historical success, convince paid early investors to tell their friends of the benefits and lure them to reinvest theirs. 

To recollect, in that scam (Pagadian City), in particular, they (scammers) promised 49% interest in 17 days.  Considering that 91-day T-bills earned just a little over 1% in a year at that time, such yield was suspiciously high but temptingly irresistible.  Secondly, they tried to tell prospective investors that their money shall in turn be used to purchase gold or invested in oil exploration related undertaking, thus, the higher yield. Thirdly, they showed good initial track record by paying on time the early investors.  Fourthly, they urged initial investors to tell their friends of these benefits and reinvest theirs to earn more.      

On top of these, they (Aman group) used people of great credentials in the area.  For instance, reportedly, the group’s chairman had a picture with the mayor of Pagadian City.  That’s great packaging.  Obviously, to the naïve-minded individuals, who are they to suspect them when the mayor and a few influential or credible people are investing and are getting their returns. 

This time, however, they may not go for such kind of packaging.  The potential victims (domestic helpers) might just be lured by the rate of return alone.  Hopefully though, they’ve learned some lessons from the Pagadianons’ misfortunes and have taken them as their own. 

For your comments and suggestions, please email to [email protected].