The securities trading company recognizes that the total value of the promissory note is $65,438+0,000, and agrees to pay $65,438+0,500 in our office (Room 27, School Road) or any bank on the 90th day after receiving the promissory note.
Securities trading company
(Signed) Charles Ponzi
It's incredible to promise a 50% return in just 90 days in the securities industry. Note that it is not possible, but a promise of 50% return. What is his ability to promise such a high return? The answer is simple. He found a huge profit opportunity. He found that postal reply coupons from some European countries 1 cent (a postage prepaid stamp used in other countries, which should be familiar to students applying to go abroad) can be exchanged for 6 cents stamps in the United States. If you sell these stamps, you can get 500% profit. Therefore, he urgently needs to issue promissory notes to raise funds. He claimed that he had asked people to buy postal gift certificates in Europe, and he also hired employees in the United States to handle other things. Soon the money quickly flowed to his securities trading company, and by July of 1920, he received1000000 dollars within a week.
But the actual situation is not what Ponzi claimed, because not all people can buy enough postal reply coupons, convert them into stamps, and complete the money-making plan after selling stamps. Every year, all the reply coupons are distributed at an average of $75,000, and even as low as $58,560 in 2009, which can hardly pay the interest on his millions of dollars of investment every month. As a matter of fact, he didn't want to finish his old plan of making money. Instead of buying stamps with new investors' money, he used it to pay interest on new investments here. This is pyramid selling.
Later, after half a year's investigation and study, a reporter from Boston Global Times published an article on July 17, asking some questions about the feasibility of the plan. This article brought the first wave of siege to Ponzi's office, and finally the police had to be used to disperse the crowd. But no one can sue him, because so far he has faithfully paid all the interest on time according to the agreement on the promissory note, even shorter than the time on the promissory note-only 45 days. Later, the in-depth investigation by Boston Global Times and the verification by the court confirmed that Ponzi financing was enough to buy 65.438+0.8 billion postal gift certificates. The court also found that Ponzi's only business activity was a $45 tax bill. After the truth was found out, Ponzi was sentenced to five years in federal prison, and was convicted by the local state government three and a half years later, and imprisoned for seven to nine years.