A Sucker Comes Online Every Minute
from the get-stupid-quick dept
Many years ago I had a friend who simply could not help getting involved in all sorts of scam programs that promised to make her get rich quick through very little work. No matter how obvious it seemed to everyone else that they were all pyramid schemes of some sort that required her to put an awful lot of money up front, she couldn't help it. Some people just keep going back for more. Here's an interesting LA Times article about people who get involved in online pyramid and ponzi schemes. It seems that many of them completely understand that these are scams, and yet they still go back for more - since they believe that if they can get in and out fast enough (and if they're early enough in the scam) they can make good money out of it (and, yes, I'm leaving all the possible dot com scam jokes out of this post). The guy they quote at the beginning is just scary. He talks about all the money he's lost, and yet he keeps on "gambling" in these scams. Of course, thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, these scams are bigger and spread farther and faster than ever before - and there's always a ton of willing suckers to participate. It has always seemed very clear to me that the only way to really make money off of these is to be the guy who starts them (and avoid getting thrown in jail). So, I don't understand why people actually get involved with any of these instead of just starting a completely new one themselves. I guess that takes work, and by definition, these people are lazy slobs who want stuff handed to them.
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