₦airaland Forum

ShaqFu:
The Hard Way (The Only Way) I remember that movie. Lol.

Beside, traditional banking system is actually designed to make the poor, poor. If I leave my 5OK for one year in the bank, how much interest will the bank pay? But with Ponzi schemes... Lol.

Like I said, these schemes bank on the ignorance and gullibility of Nigerians, and it works like magic.

The ponzi scheme will not even survive one year for you to even see your 50k sef whether it will increase or reduce 😂

BlueRayDick:
The ponzi scheme will not even survive one year for you to even see your 50k sef whether it will increase or reduce 😂

That's the whole idea. After all, the greater the risk, the greater the reward. Lol.

ShaqFu:
That's the whole idea. After all, the greater the risk, the greater the reward. Lol.

The greater the tears, from Friday till now people's tears can form a lake

DissTroy:
The most reoccurring term is, every single time these ponzi scheme unravel, there is always a housewife who has invested her family's savings including her children's school fees in home of getting quick returns. Always.

It used to be prudent to leave monies with wives and sisters in the past but these days...

They never Learn

ShaqFu:
It's not greed, it's just ignorance and being very gullible, on the part of many Nigerians. And, it is exactly what many Nigerians are, very, gullible and ignorant.

Ignorance is something one has no knowledge about, they definitely know it’s an MMM lite but due to the greed and wanting to make more than what the traditional banks give as interest( just as blueray said), they invest in schemes like that

So it’s definitely greed and gullibility and not ingnorance

BlueRayDick:
I also found out about the CBEX thing only about 2 weeks ago when it was already having problems. I think they targeted yahoo boys and all those crypto boys. It was done majorly on telegram and WhatsApp groups.

It was only when they were having issues they started bringing it to Twitter to discuss about it possibly going the way of MMM. They really picked their victims out.

Rug pulling the rug pullers.

Ruggception.

A lot of Nigerians come about money but they lack basic financial education.

It is greed and avarice not ignorance per say that's driving Nigerians into ponzi schemes, I remember warning some of my colleagues who were better off financially than me about one scheme last year or so- one of them she know it will crash definitely but she wants to cash out before the crash. I told her to invest in me at least she's sure of seeing me if anything were to happen to her investment unlike the guys behind the scheme.

Roland17:
Our oga na cruise.

This website na money making hobby at this point and he is obviously bored with it. I don’t think this is a genuine request, particularly in terms of follow through.

The bulk of suggestions that will significantly improve this website without necessarily changing its identify have been discussed in the past and nothing changed.

Ibime echoed some of my sentiments on the front page. Nothing will come of this. Except when he is under serious pressure from influences beyond his control, our Oga no send.

There's an advantage though.
If you're building a B2C or scaling any public-facing service, the feedback on that thread is rich. You know what people are really clamouring for instead of guessing.

Any Growth Hacker would sieve through the comments and suggestions, bookmarking them. Se-un might joke with the feedbacks but I'm certain others are also seeing the hidden goldmine on that thread. Saves time and money with extensive idea/feature validation.

And it's a very diverse survey too most large companies wouldn't get - Nigerians and Africans from all works of life who are anonymous (seemingly) so being blunt about their opinions. Better than the echo chamber of Facebook and the indifference of X.

I'd give an arm to get such a diverse feedback.

BlueRayDick:
A lot of Nigerians come about money but they lack basic financial education.

It is not really about lack of financial education but about innate greed and predilection for flouting rules and regulations. Nigerians always believe they are too sharp and can exploit the system. That is why even those that know it is a Ponzi scheme and doomed to fail, will get involved hoping to pull profit from it and exit before the roof collapses.

[color=royalblue]SEC should also be proactive.

Once you get any hindsight of a Ponzi, clamp down on it. Make the country sane. No be just to issue warning as if running a fraudulent scheme is not against the law

If I launch CBEX for USA, before I go even scam one person, dem don lynch me.[/color]

afrodoc2:
It is not really about lack of financial education but about innate greed and predilection for flouting rules and regulations. Nigerians always believe they are too sharp and can exploit the system. That is why even those that know it is a Ponzi scheme and doomed to fail, will get involved hoping to pull profit from it and exit before the roof collapses.

You are not wrong when say greed is one of the major reasons a lot of people get sucked-in on ponzi schemes, but you also should know that greed is not the only factor.

There are different categories of people who fall for ponzi scheme. There is a particular set of people who really don't know much about anything finance and investing. For example there are Alaba boys, Idumota boys, etc that the only way of investing they know is stocking their shop with goods and selling at cost price + profit margin.

These categories of people don't know about any other form of finance and always rely on word of mouth convincing and showing them evidence of what you made from any other "investment" for them to keep some of their funds there. If they are unfortunate to have an in-law or relative that has gone to school and comes around preaching any of these ponzi schemes, they will fall and lose money when the whole thing crash.

If someone like that has little financial education, he won't fall for such.

As for those who lose their money due to greed knowing it is a ponzi scheme, those ones deserve everything they are getting

izzou:
[color=royalblue]SEC should also be proactive.

Once you get any hindsight of a Ponzi, clamp down on it. Make the country sane. No be just to issue warning as if running a fraudulent scheme is not against the law

If I launch CBEX for USA, before I go even scam one person, dem don lynch me.[/color]

How will SEC clamp down on CBEX for example.

From the little I've read about the ponzi scheme, they have an app which people voluntarily register on and put their money on it. Shey SEC will pay hacker to hack the app ni or what ? What is the budget of SEC that they will spend substantial part of it doing radio jingle and TV adverts warning people every eke market day that a new ponzi scheme springs up?

As of this morning I don dey see people talking about another one that is still paying called PCEX or something like that.

SEC has always warned people about wonder banks and ponzi schemes. I won't blame SEC on this at all.

izzou:
[color=royalblue]SEC should also be proactive.

Once you get any hindsight of a Ponzi, clamp down on it. Make the country sane. No be just to issue warning as if running a fraudulent scheme is not against the law

If I launch CBEX for USA, before I go even scam one person, dem don lynch me.[/color]

Gbam

BlueRayDick:
How will SEC clamp down on CBEX for example.

From the little I've read about the ponzi scheme, they have an app which people voluntarily register on and put their money on it. Shey SEC will pay hacker to hack the app ni or what ? What is the budget of SEC that they will spend substantial part of it doing radio jingle and TV adverts warning people every eke market day that a new ponzi scheme springs up?

As of this morning I don dey see people talking about another one that is still paying called PCEX or something like that.

SEC has always warned people about wonder banks and ponzi schemes. I won't blame SEC on this at all.

Ponzi i just like drug addiction, the way govt are very active to clamp it down they should be able to do so in ponzi

iamoyindamola:
Ponzi i just like drug addiction, the way govt aree very active to clamp it down they should be able to do so in ponzi

In response to izzou's point about it happening in the USA and their authorities acting swiftly , I came across a CNN post about the biggest ponzi schemes in America. The link is provided below:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/24/business/famous-ponzi-schemes-generation-hustle/index.html

A particular one caught my interest and buttress my point that there's not much regulators like SEC in Nigeria can do. R. Allen Satnford masterminded a 20 year old ponzi scheme that duped over 30,000 investors before he was nabbed and sentenced to 110 years in prison.The guy made a whopping $7 billion while it lasted

If almighty America no fit do much within that 20 years his scheme lasted, wetin Nigeria's SEC wan come do?

Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford masterminded a 20-year scheme via his offshore bank in Antigua, cheating almost 30,000 investors from more than 100 countries out of billions. The scam involved fake certificates of deposit, and prosecutors accused Stanford of funneling funds into his personal interests, including real estate and cricket tournaments. In 2012, Stanford was sentenced to 110 years in federal lockup.

BlueRayDick:
In response to izzou's point about it happening in the USA and their authorities acting swiftly , I came across a CNN post about the biggest ponzi schemes in America. The link is provided below:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/24/business/famous-ponzi-schemes-generation-hustle/index.html

A particular one caught my interest and buttress my point that there's not much regulators like SEC in Nigeria can do. R. Allen Satnford masterminded a 20 year old ponzi scheme that duped over 30,000 investors before he was nabbed and sentenced to 110 years in prison.The guy made a whopping $7 billion while it lasted

If almighty America no fit do much within that 20 years his scheme lasted, wetin Nigeria's SEC wan come do?

How many of these guys have been procecuted in nigeria

iamoyindamola:
How many of these guys have been procecuted in nigeria

Several o, I dey always see EFCC dey post about some of them being prosecuted. It's just that most of them are not the popular and well known ones.

This is one of them :

https://www.efcc.gov.ng/efcc/news-and-information/news-release/10778-efcc-arrests-28-suspected-ponzi-scheme-operators-in-minna

You may need this video if you put your money in Cbex, These are the real promoters pic.twitter.com/ZqBsDksscu

— Sela (@S3L4DEEN) April 15, 2025

So they actually advertised the CBEX ponzi scheme on a government owned radio station in Osun state? 😲

BlueRayDick:
You are not wrong when say greed is one of the major reasons a lot of people get sucked-in on ponzi schemes, but you also should know that greed is not the only factor.

There are different categories of people who fall for ponzi scheme. There is a particular set of people who really don't know much about anything finance and investing. For example there are Alaba boys, Idumota boys, etc that the only way of investing they know is stocking their shop with goods and selling at cost price + profit margin.

These categories of people don't know about any other form of finance and always rely on word of mouth convincing and showing them evidence of what you made from any other "investment" for them to keep some of their funds there. If they are unfortunate to have an in-law or relative that has gone to school and comes around preaching any of these ponzi schemes, they will fall and lose money when the whole thing crash.

If someone like that has little financial education, he won't fall for such.

As for those who lose their money due to greed knowing it is a ponzi scheme, those ones deserve everything they are getting

Yes, you are right that ignorance might be a factor in some cases, but in most cases, greed is the major reason. A small subset of people might be ignorant, but most people can't hide under that excuse.

How man Nigerians can still claim not knowing what Ponzi schemes look like after witnessing Umana Umana, Nospetco, MMM etc. Even an ignorant person who is not greedy would not fall victim cos it will sound too good to be true.

Greed is the essential ingredient needed to fall victim.

afrodoc2:
Yes, you are right that ignorance might be a factor in some cases, but in most cases, greed is the major reason. A small subset of people might be ignorant, but most people can't hide under that excuse.

How man Nigerians can still claim not knowing what Ponzi schemes look like after witnessing Umana Umana, Nospetco, MMM etc. Even an ignorant person who is not greedy would not fall victim cos it will sound too good to be true.

Greed is the essential ingredient needed to fall victim.

Yes greed takes the larger blame , only few victims are truly ignorant.

Like the ones that would listen to the OSBC program is posted the link up there and swallowed the CBEX lamba sold to them in Yoruba language on a radio program they have come to trust as always giving them authentic gist .

BlueRayDick:
How will SEC clamp down on CBEX for example.

From the little I've read about the ponzi scheme, they have an app which people voluntarily register on and put their money on it. Shey SEC will pay hacker to hack the app ni or what ? What is the budget of SEC that they will spend substantial part of it doing radio jingle and TV adverts warning people every eke market day that a new ponzi scheme springs up?

As of this morning I don dey see people talking about another one that is still paying called PCEX or something like that.

SEC has always warned people about wonder banks and ponzi schemes. I won't blame SEC on this at all.

[color=royalblue]CBEX had offices. It's not like this scheme appeared overnight. It had been existing since last year. What stops the SEC from closing their offices and declaring Fatwa on them?

I am not blaming SEC. I am simply saying we should be proactive

CBN blacklisted some loan apps one time like that. They didn't have to wait till millions of Nigerians get caught in that web. They simply blacklisted them and made the place sane.

We need to make the country sane. If any Investment platform suffices, the SEC should do well to warn, and fish out those who are responsible for it.[/color]

BlueRayDick:
In response to izzou's point about it happening in the USA and their authorities acting swiftly , I came across a CNN post about the biggest ponzi schemes in America. The link is provided below:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/24/business/famous-ponzi-schemes-generation-hustle/index.html

A particular one caught my interest and buttress my point that there's not much regulators like SEC in Nigeria can do. R. Allen Satnford masterminded a 20 year old ponzi scheme that duped over 30,000 investors before he was nabbed and sentenced to 110 years in prison.The guy made a whopping $7 billion while it lasted

If almighty America no fit do much within that 20 years his scheme lasted, wetin Nigeria's SEC wan come do?

[color=royalblue]I am very happy your example is from 2013.

Are there recent cases of these happening? Most likely no, because they have learnt as they moved on.

But year in year out, we keep seeing these things play out. Anybody can just wake up and do anything, because the government will not come after you at all.

SEC needs to do more than warning people. There should be serious consequences if you try to create all these ridiculous platforms as investments.[/color]

izzou:
[color=royalblue]CBEX had offices. It's not like this scheme appeared overnight. It had been existing since last year. What stops the SEC from closing their offices and declaring Fatwa on them?

I am not blaming SEC. I am simply saying we should be proactive

CBN blacklisted some loan apps one time like that. They didn't have to wait till millions of Nigerians get caught in that web. They simply blacklisted them and made the place sane.

We need to make the country sane. If any Investment platform suffices, the SEC should do well to warn, and fish out those who are responsible for it.[/color]

There are several ponzi schemes springing up on a daily basis, we only know of CBEX because the promoters made a big bag.

People too should shun these ponzi schemes abeg. EFCC who have the job are actually going hard on these guys but Nigeria is a big country there's not much they can do to clamp down on them.

izzou:
[color=royalblue]I am very happy your example is from 2013.

Are there recent cases of these happening? Most likely no, because they have learnt as they moved on.

But year in year out, we keep seeing these things play out. Anybody can just wake up and do anything, because the government will not come after you at all.

SEC needs to do more than warning people. There should be serious consequences if you try to create all these ridiculous platforms as investments.[/color]

I posted evidence of EFCC arresting Ponzi scheme operators as recent as March 2025. But for real what is the entire workforce of EFCC that they will be able to clapmdown on all ponzi schemes?



SEC can only come out to tell u whether an investment platform is duly registered with them or not.

Afrodoc this is one of the ignorant people I was talking about. If this person had financial literacy she won't "invest" the little savings she had remaining from her hustle in Libya.

A woman who invested her life savings in the CBEX scheme waited at the gate of the office, distraught over losing all her earnings from Libya to the scam. pic.twitter.com/A2f5nlQ9PS

— TVC News (@tvcnewsng) April 15, 2025

[quote author=BlueRayDick post=134994656]Afrodoc this is one of the ignorant people I was talking about. If this person had financial literacy she won't "invest" the little savings she had remaining from her hustle in Libya.

A woman who invested her life savings in the CBEX scheme waited at the gate of the office, distraught over losing all her earnings from Libya to the scam. pic.twitter.com/A2f5nlQ9PS

— TVC News (@tvcnewsng) April 15, 2025

one you showed me is greed o. Talking about x 2 her money and things like that. Someone as financially illiterate as her who has no urge to magically double her money overnight would not do it. Was this woman not on earth during the recent MMM era. If you investigate deeply, the same way her neighbor advised her to do it, that is the same way some people around her would have advised her not to do it, but her greed won the day.

What us to serve a nation that keeps calling us "5%" ,una go get 5% alright,500 youths.

afrodoc2:
This one you showed me is greed o. Talking about x 2 her money and things like that. Someone as financially illiterate as her who has no urge to magically double her money overnight would not do it. Was this woman not on earth during the recent MMM era. If you investigate deeply, the same way her neighbor advised her to do it, that is the same way some people around her would have advised her not to do it, but her greed won the day.

If she was financially literate, she will know there's no legit investment that can ever offer 100% ROI(At least not in an economy like Nigeria's). It's just that simple bro.

BlueRayDick:
If she was financially literate, she will know there's no legit investment that can ever offer 100% ROI. It's just that simple bro.

People that witnessed MMM and learnt that lesson from others mistakes fell for this one.

There are people that fell for both.

We have been witnessing these things over and over again. Some of the people who are sympathising with her in that video will fall for the next one.

There are bankers, auditors, stockbrokers who fell for Umana Umana in its time and fell for MMM in its time.


Even on this forum I have seen people who are educated, exposed, and otherwise savvy saying they knew a Ponzi scheme would fail but they tried to cash in first before chaos ensued on the people coming after them.

The woman in that video was greedy. It is about greed.

Financial literacy can’t trump greed. It is that simple.

GloriousGbola:
There was this dude attached to me on a project. In 2014 to 2016. Site engineer. Guy bought into MMM. The way the guy believed in mmm ehn. He was so fervent. December 2015 (I think) when they did their rug pull the guy was telling me confidently and with conviction they will be back. When you see the faith of some of these marks you will almost start to think you are the one missing out.

Na wetin carry me enter Nospecto, wealth solutions, club freedom in 2006 to 2007. When I go reach office and intelligent people even smarter than me are talking about how they are cashing out

I was now wondering that shey na like this VI and Island people dey make money and become millionaires and flenjor while we Egbeda and Oyo people will still be saving money under pillow and cursing govt