My online hustle for money began in the Ponzi world, and I had a lot of experiences, both positive and negative, and just as it's always been, the negative (scams and losses) were more than the positive (gains).
Let me share one of the cases I was scammed
It was the year 2021 when a virtual friend on my WhatsApp group chat, chatted me for us to team up to bring up a Ponzi site where people will Invest and get both 50% ROI and the capital in 21 days.
Yes, it's a ponzi system, but I told this guy that we're not going to scam anyone...we'll use the money invested by the people to trade in forex, make a profit, and use that to pay our investors.
Although it's more like rob Peter to pay Paul, but we planned it well enough that the system will run for some months before things get out of hand (of course, it'll surely go down one day). This guy agreed, and we drafted all the plans and the amount we were to pay each for the development of the site.
I was not having any cash with me then, so I went to patronize a loan app and borrowed $20 because I was sure of paying it back within the first week of launching the site. This was actually my first time of borrowing money on line
As we commenced building the site, we began to do publicity, canvassing everywhere and telling people to be ready to invest with full assurance of getting paid when their investment is due. We were using our real identities to advertise, unlike the normal way of using a fake identity to advertise a Ponzi site.
I made sure I convinced all my WhatsApp group members to join because I'd make sure they'd get paid, and all of them agreed to follow my lead.
After a month of publicity, the site got ready and we kicked off the journey. The first day, we saw a massive turnout; a lot of people invested hugely, and we were marveled.
Just as we agreed earlier, we (my friend majorly) took the money and invested it in the forex market to be released in a few weeks' time.
After three weeks, the investment of the people got matured, and we used the available money at hand (not the one we invested in forex) to pay out. This good news spread, and a lot of people were attracted to invest more.
We paid again the second day from the money newly deposited by the people.
The third day, the withdrawal request got doubled, and that's when we needed to get the money we invested in forex to settle the withdrawal request.
I told my friend to release the money from forex, but he gave me lines of stories like, "It hasn't matured; let's give it more time." and I sluggishly concurred.
When I woke up the next day, my friend had blocked me and ran away with the money. He deleted all of his details online, so no one could reach him.
I was left alone on the scene; all the accusations landed on me. I got dragged, especially by my WhatsApp group chat members; none of them believed that I didn't scam them.
The worst of it was that I got scammed too because I invested, and the $20 I borrowed from the loan app didn't come out either.
None of my friends believed that I was scammed by 'my friend' too—they all believed that we teamed up together to scam them.
It was at this point that I quit doing anything PONZI-related or investing money on a site. And my life has been well.
Thanks for reading.
This is my enter to this Contest in India United Community