By Wendell Ganhinhin
THE world saw a growing need for internet dependencies in the COVID-19 era, spurting the introduction of a more modern vocabulary amongst its users. Words such as sheesh, uwu, and the like have become new additions to people’s word banks as the continuous isolation from a physically social world rage on during the pandemic. But as our ways to socialize grew beyond the barriers of physical and lingual connections, so did the evil that came as its caveat. Scheming and scamming have become part of the society and seemingly grows with it. As evident with the rise in vocabulary these schemers use, words such as payaman, power, ez money, and the like entered the new normal as well.
Easy money, as the term suggests, is money obtained for little work, often through dubious means. There were a lot of schemes involving easy money that escalated during the pandemic and which were offered on social media in the face of too-good-to-be-true returns. These mostly attract freelancers and people with little knowledge or who are considered inept when it comes to making sound investment decisions.
The Ponzi scheme, coined after a swindler named Charles Ponzi, is one of such “easy money” scams offered online. This scheme promises high returns with little to no risk and consistent returns in the future. Little do the investors know, the returns they are receiving are just from the funds contributed by the new investors. Ponzi scheme administrators attract…
