Just say no to ponzi
Mar 18th, 2008 by lavonardo
It was easy to dismiss the rampant pyramid schemes of the newly democratized Albania as actions of unscrupulous criminals working on a nation that had no idea what capitalism meant.
Recent events in Finland have proven this hypothesis completely wrong.
Thousand of finns have fallen for the hollow promises of wincapita (or winclub as it was also known).
The schemes of the “investment club based in Panama” are the usual: reward early members with the profits of a cascading revenue, and disappear without trace once there’s no means to pay up the roster.
The vanishing act happened a couple of weeks ago, and by now it is clear to all members that the money is gone for good. The police seem to have no way of prosecuting the schemers.
The actions are well-documented on a couple of dedicated pages: appropriately named wc-info and verkostomarkkinointi-blog. The initial discussions of the failing company occurred in the Muropaketti community, where the original thread has bloated up to 10000+ entries.
Unlike Albania in 1997, no-one has been shot in Finland yet for “sponsoring” friends, colleagues and relatives with false promises, but a lot of relationships will be strained by the loss of millions of euros.
