Speaker 1 Kevin is very quick to think negative things about people. Even when he talks about his best friend, he always tells you about his faults. And if somebody hasn’t got any faults, he invents them

Presenter

So when did investors get involved in the 

scheme?

Trudy

Ponzi decided to set up his own company, the 

Securities Exchange Company, to try and make

an even bigger profit. At first, he continued 

using the reply coupons, which was not actually

illegal. Then he ran into trouble because of the 

quantity of reply coupons he needed to deal 

with. With investors still queuing outside his 

door, Ponzi changed his strategy. He began 

accepting investments to pay off his earlier 

investors. This, of course, was completely 

illegal, but it made him very rich – it’s said he 

could make around $250,000 a day.