The Superintendent of Banks, Alejandro Fernández, expressed on his social networks that the institution he heads intends to develop a project that typifies and penalizes pyramid scams and allows preventive action to be taken without having to wait for the event to occur, since At the moment there is a legal vacuum in our country and the authorities can only issue warnings to the population.
“Ponzi Scheme” is the name used for this type of activity and is so called because it was given to a system used in the twenties by the Italian Carlo Ponzi consisting of obtaining profits for an initial group of investors from the money contributed. by the new ones, generating more and more profits if the number of people who are recruited to be part of it grows and offering returns on the investments of some with the investments of others, until eventually a collapse occurs in which many are cheated .
Aimed at a public with little knowledge of finance, this operation promises high profitability in a short time and without documentation, and as it is usually linked to some unregistered company or business with little or no regulation, the risks for those involved are many. .
Marketing is always direct, precisely because of this lack of regulation. We never see businesses of this type advertised in newspapers, radio or television, but the promotions are made in private places (such as meetings in houses), where in a mechanism “you to you” a hook is thrown to the guests promising spectacular profits with a first investment. For this to work (always temporarily), you need the credulity and ingenuity of people whose reasoning is almost always overshadowed by the desire for quick money.
And it is true that many win. That is why pyramids continue to emerge and that is why so many testimonies from happy and excited people, but the moral and ethical price to pay for those privileged is very high: the scam of many others who have been, as a result of the promises of this business, in bankruptcy.
Although this is not yet the case in the Dominican Republic, in many countries around the world this practice, also known as a “pyramid scheme,” is prohibited and punishable by law.
The ideal, to avoid future regrets, is to get well informed before becoming part of any type of business, go to good financial advisers and, above all, avoid everything that promises easy money and with little effort.
