How customers are being ripped off

The history of investment fraud is long - very few people were about in the snow-ball system at the expense of other very rich. Most are promised high returns and a bit of conspiracy theory is also often. the From Uwe Ritzer and Ulrike Sauer

The investigation ran from the beginning under a telling name: Car Dream. You had to bump a Sergeant of the Italian financial police. In a Café-Bar, Sebastiano D., a Flyer of the German company Dexcar had fallen into the hands of the advertising this event invited. Rental car for almost nothing? D. was a professional immediately suspicious, visited posing as a prospective customer, the event, saw his suspicion confirmed - and provided his colleagues the first hints of a possible fraud scheme.

The company Dexcar still claims that it was in your System, in fact, a particularly intelligent Form of the "Sharing Economy", in the case of the quasi-one where everyone helps each other and at the end of all. Consumer advocates warn, however, before the business model; for them, it is a perfidious snow ball system, and in the end a few people win, a lot but your money are going.

snow ball system or pyramid scheme, there are differences in Detail, but the principle is essentially the same. More and more new investors to pay up, more and more fresh money, in order for the customers to collect the promised, high Profit, and your requirements will be met. This is not good for a long time. At some point, the chain breaks, inevitably, because there's not enough fresh money to comply. Then

two-dollars is said to have begun Ponzi, in the end, he had over 15 million

is Often in such depend on the "Ponzi scheme", named after Charles Ponzi, who came in 1882, when Carlo Ponzi in the vicinity of Ravenna in Northern Italy to the world. In 1903, he emigrated to Boston. Although the Italian-American did not invent the Scam, but he made himself a master of this technique all over the world. Ponzi managed 40 000 investors to recruit. At the beginning, he defrauded other immigrants, soon to be followed by Americans. His start-up capital in the amount of two dollars will he have in this way on a $ 15 million increase.

in 1920, triggered revelations of the Boston Post a panic wave among its investors, and the construct collapsed in on itself. In November 1920 Ponzi was sentenced. When he left in 1934 the prison, he was expelled from the country and returned to Italy. There are several Attempts to revive failed.

A spectacular case of a Ponzi system is the European Kings Club (EKC) was in the 1990s. 100 000 mostly small investors, mainly from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, bought shares in the said club, in which case within one year of the 70 per cent interest was promised. In 1996, the balloon burst. Damara Anna Herta Bertges, founder and President of the EKC, landed for a number of years in prison; many millions of the driven-two billion D-Mark disappeared until today.

The phony conspiracy theories spread to the investors of the facts distract

still in jail in the US, Bernie Madoff sits, sentenced to 150 years in prison. In 2008, it showed his two sons. The former Star Investor, now 80 years old, operating a mutual Fund as a Ponzi scheme and deceived the millions of investors of 65 billion euros. It is probably the biggest damage caused by a snow ball system. In Germany, the cases caught most recently in connection with S&K real estate transactions, or block heat and power plants of the GFE-group attention.

The examples show: snow ball, pyramid or Ponzi business, there are many variants. But it is always promised the Individual for relatively little effort, very high yield, higher than any Bank could offer him. Not infrequently, the Trick worked, after the first round of the promised high interest actually paid to investors to pump even more money into the System.

sales promotional also crude conspiracy theories of the kind that the business model would have set already, would not prevent powerful corporations, politicians and the media. Often need to listen to law enforcement officers even allegations, if you dismantle such systems. Becoming more and more important for scammers, the Internet is. And it was only to fuel by malicious entries in Blogs or social networks in the illegal business.

but Why so many people fall for so long been so clueless on pyramid schemes? Greed undoubtedly plays a large role. The hope of Low - or normal-wage earners to come once the big money comes./p>