103 years ago, in December 1919, Charles Ponzi promised that he could double the capital of those who would invest in his then-found company within 90 days. Indeed, he offered double returns, but only to those – a few – who invested from the very beginning in the investment scheme. The success of the Ponzi investment “machine” was such that every week it absorbed funds of about 1 million euros. However, in the summer of 1920, the investment pyramid of Charles Ponzi collapsed, and its Italian-American founder, after serving several years in prison, reappeared in the early 1930s with a new investment pyramid, the purpose of which was the purchase and sale of land.

From then until today, the history of get-rich-quick schemes has been repeated over and over again. This is evidenced by… the resurgence under other names of Wind Media, a platform that collapsed last May, resulting in hundreds of thousands of euros in financial losses for its more than 10,000 members in Greece. Wind Media promised very high profits in exchange for a few minutes of remote work and the purchase of one of their “packages”. In other words, it was a passive income platform that generated generous profits for those who simply loved the recommended videos and websites. Due to the size of the case, in May, after the K revelations, the impression was that these types of get-rich-quick schemes would not reappear anytime soon. However, this assumption, as the case of the Ponzi scheme has shown, is wrong.

After the collapse of Wind Media, as a result of which each of its thousands of subscribers lost from several hundred to several thousand euros, at least 10 new clones of it were created. These are passive income platforms, many of which have not been working for more than a month. However, they have one thing in common: after the Wind Media fiasco, platforms seeking to attract a significant number of people who believe that you can make a lot of money with little money share a common secret. This high return is guaranteed, for the most part, to new investors.

Thus, Wind Media’s successor list includes websites and online applications that operate like pyramid schemes but also sell subscriptions with the lure of immediate profit. In other words, by adopting a pyramid model, they pay their members for likes on websites and YouTube videos, and lure them in with even more income if they manage to recruit new people. At the same time, they sell packages worth from 100 to 10,000 euros, which promise a fixed monthly income from 14 to 1400 euros, respectively.

Another one of the high-performance “cars” launched in Greece on specialized online forums – after the unannounced closure of Wind Media – offered as a comparative advantage the consistency of payments for clicks on advertising content of financial sector companies. And while it remains unknown whether the platform in question actually compensates its users, the only thing that can be said for sure is that there is a residence at the address in Scotland provided by the company associated with it. “Earn up to 50 euros per day. Watch 15-second videos on your smartphone from anywhere in the world for up to five minutes a day. Payments are made Monday through Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.,” another website that took down the listings says. The condition, of course, is that the user not only watches and likes the video for about five minutes, but above all that he has purchased one of the subscription packages offered.

But besides like sites, there are others that are betting in nature and use the “virus” of quick profit, compensating those who incorrectly predict the results of sports matches. “It takes no more than eight minutes of practice a day, with a one in 16 chance of failure,” they note.

Rapidminerals was another short-lived Wind Media clone that went bankrupt just days after its sudden demise. Its narrative was based on the cryptocurrency frenzy, compensating its participants on the condition that they continue to rent one or more online cryptocurrency mining machines.

How the mechanism works

In pyramid schemes, only the first one wins. Let’s say the pyramid leader convinces just two people to buy a €300 membership in exchange for a daily income of €12 each. Within one day, he must pay compensation to the two members he recruited in the amount of 24 euros. This is a simple task because it is estimated that each participant manages to register several dozen people on the platform within 24 hours, each of which is estimated to buy at least the lowest cost package. This mechanism guarantees – only at the beginning of its existence – high liquidity. It also acts as an incentive to create new pyramids.