<center>It’s easier to convince someone to opt out from a scam before they invested in it</center>

I had some fair share of Ponzi schemes along my financial journey. Even before I entered into social media groups dedicated to investment talks, I would occasionally get random offers on get rich quick schemes. The spike on these offers happened when I decided to opt in stock trading groups on Facebook. I have to thank my sound financial education to help me steer clear from losing my money or profiting from someone else’s hard earned money.

I could understand how people can easily be fooled to enlist their money to these scams. When you have no sound financial education to root on, you are easily swayed by false promises of riches. That’s what happens to victims of [Ponzi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme) scams, they would likely blame the system that scammed them more than acknowledge their own incompetence at protecting their own money.

<center>![](https://images.pexels.com/photos/5697256/pexels-photo-5697256.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=650&w=940)</center>

<center>[Image Source](https://www.pexels.com/photo/scam-alert-letting-text-on-black-background-5697256/)</center>

If you know someone that is about to invest their hard earned money on a scam, the best time to intervene is before they hand out their money. The moment their money goes from their hands to these scammers, getting it back will be a steep process. Note that it’s not only the scammers you have to convince to give the money back, you also need to drill the idea that your significant other got scammed and prepare some rebuttals. 

It’s part of the human psyche to wave off any thoughts that cause discomfort to maintain equilibrium. In this sense, nobody wants to live knowing they made the wrong choices. Ideas that suggest they may have made a mistake before real damage is realized are usually kept off of mind. 

***

I had a classmate that got hooked into one of these pyramid scams by “mining” crypto on a mobile app. People just needed to put in X amount of money for the mining contract they can start earning passive income for weeks. I checked the rewards scheme and one red flag was the fixed rewards they receive over time even if the price of the coin fluctuates. If that wasn’t enough of a red flag, the whole reward scheme involved recruiting more users to profit from the app. 

Now you may already know where this is going to go. The lesson here isn’t identifying the app is a scam. It’s the human reaction of knowing how the app is a scam from the victim’s point of view. I talked to the person privately asking the real questions after remaining silent about it for a week. The devil in me wanted to see how nature will run its course.

It came more of a surprise that this person knew the whole thing was a scam a few days after starting it. But the sense of urgency to get their money back wasn’t there at all. So I asked why stick to the scam and take your money out soon because the app might go offline anytime?
They just said they already earned backed their capital and are now raking in profits from their downline. Note that the downline they mentioned included some of my classmates. If knowing my classmates were also aware of this issue wasn’t enough of a surprise, the idea that they doubled down on their investment just made me question if I’m the one insane back then. The profits were real and fast.

***

So why did they continue doing this? Because they already gained their initial investment and everything was already profit from then on. The moral excuses to help them sleep at night were:

> They weren’t the devs for the app. 
> They are just going to feign victim to it all.
> It’s not their money lost anymore and only idiots that fall for the scam deserve the loss. 

So the real issue here was no longer being ignorant. The issue was being conscious about the lie. They were now part of the system that preys on the unsuspecting. 

The first stage was overcoming ideas that make them see they were wrong about this as an investment. They were not the progenitor of financial disaster but fail to acknowledge they acted as agents to perpetuate a chain. The second stage is accepting the fault but choosing to perpetuate the lie because it profits them compared to bailing out their money.

The program lasted around more than a month but from hearsay it was a total of 3 months. The same time frame any pyramid scam lives in the Philippines before being swatted by [Securities and Exchange Commission](https://www.sec.gov.ph/).

You can see how the switches are flipped when morals come into question in the face of profit. Rather than be agents to prevent the system from feeding off fools, the fools themselves promote it. It also takes a great amount of effort to convince someone that they are wrong about their investment when they are hoping to be right because money talks in mysterious ways.

These people are conscious about it and that makes them more dangerous to other people's money.

I’m not going to come clean out of this story. I admit to just being an observer while all this stuff unfolded. The only intervention I ever did was informing them of the nature of the scam. But nothing I could do to change their ways after they put money into the system. I secretly wished they learned from this. It is fortunate for them to have profited from the venture without any losses (I cursed under my breath as I listened to them brag about it).

They'll have their days. 

I had some experiences of similar kind on the blockchain where I just point out the red flag. But people are stupid especially when they don’t have good financial education to back them up.
The takeaway here is just telling people early that it’s a scam because once they put money into the scam you’ll have to convince the scammer and your friend. 

Currently dealing with some real issues about Ponzi claims in real life. I spent my extra time doing some lowkey information campaign against possible ponzi schemes at my area and now my info has been leaked and used for the ponzi without me knowing. 

This is what happens when you do the right thing. I'm not going into details how the legal battle will go or any updates on this matter (It's well taken cared of). At least they gave me some content to write about. 

Just prioritize keeping your money safe and not fall into promises that are too good to be true.

***

<center>This is a creative footer by @adamada
A Hobby Illustrator</center>



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