Britons lost £450m to pyramid and Ponzi schemes over last three years

12 comments

1. Britons have lost more than £450m to pyramid and Ponzi schemes over the last three years, **i** can reveal.

   Police have seen a 27 per cent rise in this type of [investment fraud](https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/saving-and-banking/saving-grace-invested-scam-can-life-savings-back-2310379?ico=in-line_link) in the past year, according to data revealed in a freedom of information (FOI) request.

   Another £375m was lost to fraudulent share sales or boiler room fraud, which targets people to invest in worthless or non-existent shares, according to the data from Action Fraud obtained by investigation agency Conflict International.

   [Ponzi schemes](https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/investing/celebrity-money-kevin-bacon-reveals-he-lost-most-of-his-millions-ponzi-scheme-1907252?ico=in-line_link), which are illegal, pay existing investors with funds collected from new investors.

   Pyramid schemes work in the same way but rely on investors being the ones who keep recruiting more participants.

   Mike LaCorte, chief executive of Conflict International, said the increase in reports over the past year, combined with a fall in the total financial losses, indicates fraudsters are targeting a wider range of people rather than just those who are wealthy.

   He said the data indicates criminals are taking advantage of the cost of living crisis by “going after those they know are feeling the pinch at the minute with too good to be true schemes”.

2. Sadly it feels like we (everyone, I guess) are being shaken down a lot at the moment. Whether it’s being forced to buy printer Ink on subscription, YouTube ads trying to get people into trading, Crypto Bros flogging worthless coin, useless warranties. Cars now having subscriptions for seat warmers. Then you have scammers threatening to review bomb honest businesses for ransom. I just feel like everybody is trying to get their hand on my wallet these days. 

3. Tbh losing money to pyramid and Ponzi schemes is ultimately caused by the greed of the victims. It sucks for them but ultimately it’s hard to come up with a solution for it

4. And that figure doesn’t include the State Pension Ponzi Scheme.

5. Pretty shit, but compared to what happened in the balkans, this is a nothingburger in comparison.

6. Cheap at the price. Look how much was spirited out of the public purse to the Caribbean. Nice holidays.

7. I wonder what happened in Oct ’21, June ’22 and Nov ’22. From what it looks like, about £290 comes from those three months alone and presumably that indicates a few very high-wealth individuals were targeted, rather than a flurry of targets suddenly?

   Looks like I’m going to keep wondering, though, ’cause unless I’m missing something there’s no way to actually read the report.

8. Don’t worry everyone. Considering the economy of the western worlds are all basically a Ponzi scheme we will top this record one day.

9. Oh well, I’m sure that £350m a week we used to send to Brussels could reimburse them…

10. Always makes me think of the old Doug Stanhope joke, an unusual example of a one liner from a comedian who is known for building 20-30 minute bits – “if old people are so wise, why do they keep falling for telemarketing fraud?”

11. This wave of crypto is going to be painful too. between August 2019 and June 2020 I turned £800 to £190k via crypto, fucking amazing. But there are so many projects now all saying the same thing I dunno what the F to go for.

12. Stupid people play stupid games. There’s a lot of stupid people in UK.