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

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Ponzi scheme is a rampant business all round the globe, unknowingly so many people falls victim and cry bitterly. Most of the victims develops high blood pressure, heart attack and some stroke due to the shock.

Presently, my neighbour is in a huge dept because of Ponzi schemes, her downline requested for thier money from him to the extent of involving police. As such he has no way to run to than to return people's money.

It's always frustrating if any individual mistakenly fall into thier trap. Ponzi schemes is a business that is very good at the beginning but worse at the end. It often spoil people relationship and dumps people into a huge dept.

My answer is capital yes. I heard of different Ponzi schemes. As i said earlier, it is a common business here in Nigeria. If one is not careful such individuals will fall a victim, because they often comes with delightful offers and luring words to entice newbies.

Top members behind with appealing and flashing outfits remain calm, behaving to be trustworthy, achieved the whole world and as if they are in financial freedom or financial experts, which make it so easy for people to believe them.

In some cases, this business is also very difficult to detect at early stage not until it is too late and as such, l always advice my friend to be very vigilant and acquire necessary informations about any business before investment.

The reason am saying so is that l have fallen a victim of this circumstance twice and no matter how any one present any business that has futures of Ponzi schemes to me, I will still need to make a thorough investigation and even assist the person that refers me to see that it is Ponzi schemes.

To be very honest yes and many times.

In 2015, my mum had a ill health and she was rushed to hospital. There, one nurse introduce her to a Ponzi scheme called EDMark, the company produces health supplements. Since I was a medical student then, who has passion for life saving, i decided to join the business. At a point I became their distributor and everything went well for sometimes.

When they realise that many people have joined and gain confidence, they told us that they company want to increase the drug prices and that old distributors like us should carry out back order.

Back order is a condition where distribution pay money for drug in advance without instance supplies. Then anytime you bring your back order receipt they will issue your supplements even though the price is higher than what we have paid.

Thousands of people loan money to do back order thinking to have a lot of money in return. Hear what! Suddenly, price of supplements increased but to our greatest surprise, story changes each day by day till a day like today.

Another one I fall victim that broken my heart was SAR resources. SAR resources was a pure Ponzi scheme but I didn't understand anything about Ponzi then. After school in 2018, I was desperately looking for a job, my girlfriend called me to bring my curriculum vitae for a job interview and I was super excited.

I went to the office direct, on arrival, they requested for my job application and test was given to me to write; everything was about medical so i was convinced that it is a health job. After the test, i and 8 other applicants came out with higher scores. They deceived us with a congratulatory message and informed us to pay money huge amount of money for preparation of our ID card and visa.

They gave one month to do that, during this month, they engage us in their office by giving us training and we were paid token as remuneration. They now gave us 2 months for our ID card and visa to be ready... imagine! After some month, their office was locked, telling everyone that they are going in Christmas vacation till today... They are not yet back.

In 2020, my eyes was opened after losing a lot of money in chymall. This one introduced by my uncle so I and family members where confident that it from the right source not knowing that lt was a huge Ponzi schemes. We did not sit back to evaluate the business, but after joining we realise that it was a clear Ponzi scheme. Chymall in particular swallow a lot of money from Nigerians and my family is one of.

This three scenarios, helps me decides to always evaluate business before investing my money, my greatest happiness was that I did not fall into any dept to join those businesses. Currently, l don't advice any body to join business any how, no matter how things are difficult.

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Most of the Ponzi scheme come with one format. lt is easy for me to detect thier scheme because I am used to their cunning but I don't know about others.

• Unusually high return: They often promise people to invest an gain a huge return with little or no risk, this is skeptical. This particular promise is to lure people into the business. I learnt that nothing good comes easy, but this one, little cabbage in with so much cabbage out_ can you imagine?

• Become wealthy through Referral: They believe that the more you refer, the more you earn. Any business that requires upline to bring two or three people to grow his or her business is a Ponzi scheme. You can never earn or grow your business with out referral and if your downline cannot do the same, you story remain unchanged in the business.

• Lack of transparency: In most of the Ponzi scheme businesses, they will not explain everything about the business to new investors, instead they like hammering on how you can be like the old investors who has acquired a lot of profits in the system. They often rely on secrecy to keep the victims in the dark.

• Pressure to invest quickly: When attaining their seminars, they will pressure people to join an achieve great bonuses right away. This is a sign of Ponzi scheme.

• Not affected by world economy: No matter how hardship affect other businesses, Ponzi scheme seems not always affected. They often pay their customers the said amount. All Ponzi scheme calls themselves future millionaires and they always come with slogans. Ponzi scheme are businesses that start and Iast at most 1 to 3 years.

From my little story about Ponzi, I was into the systems from 2015 to 2020. But when I was introduced into steemit platform at early 2021, with all this bad experience, it was not easy for me to join.

I made thorough research about steemit, I discovered that it is not a Ponzi scheme, no rubbing of Peter to pay Paul. When l join steemit, my mentor told me that steemit has been in existence for the pass five years before the 2021 that l joined.

Screenshot from my blog

In steemit platform, you are the boss of your business, you control your rewards and no compulsory referral. There is high rate of transparency and security. Users are only requested to become either investors or content creators who created quality content, that is free of plagiarism and get rewarded. Even getting this rewards is not a guarantee so as such we gain through hard work, consistency and patience.

Steemit is legit business and a place for every one. The platform is not boosting of people becoming rich after joining instead they informed us that steemit is not a get rich quick-making platform. From all talked about, steemit is far from Ponzi scheme.

I would like to invite @adylinah @nexcis @yancar @josepha and @pandora2010 to participate and share their opinion about this contest.