PYRAMID SCHEME FOUNDER VANISHES

MBABANE – The festive season is around the corner and people are eager to make a quick buck but it didn’t end well for 300 members of a pyramid scheme, whose founder has allegedly vanished into thin air.

Pocket Money pyramid scheme was founded by a teacher stationed at Lusoti Primary School in the Lubombo Region but hardly a month after it took off, members of the scheme are crying foul as they have not received payment as per the agreement.
The scheme was formed on September 24 according to one of the conned members who resides in Mbabane. It was made of four different accounts with differing subscriptions in each account.

The minimum subscription was E275 which earned members E425 after three days and the regulations required that they re-invest the same E275 after receiving payment. The four accounts were bronze, silver, gold and platinum with subscriptions of E275, E550, E825 and E1 100 respectively. The conned woman said she was subscribed to all four accounts.

Categories

It could not be easily ascertained how much the 300 members lost through the pyramid scheme as some had joined all three categories while others joined in one or two, depending on their financial muscle.
The victim said she joined the scheme about two weeks ago and she received payment from one of the accounts but that was the last she received as the founder of the scheme has since disappeared without a trace. It was alleged that she was not answering calls from worried members for about a week now and she was not even active on the WhatsApp group which she formed for communication with the members of the scheme.

“All we want is for her to address us and tell us where our money is but she is playing a hide and seek game. We have been trying to get hold of her but she has not been answering our calls and we are getting worried by the day,” said the woman.
Another member of the group said he joined three weeks ago because the marketing of the scheme was well articulated and temptation got the better of him as he wanted to make money on the side.

“It all looked perfect when they marketed it and I joined with the hope that I was going to make money through the scheme for the festive season but things have taken a nasty turn,” he said.
The scheme, just like any other pyramid scheme, worked such that the money was ‘rotated’ among the beneficiaries under the belief or disguise that they were making ‘more’ money.
This is because they were called to reinvest whatever they had been given.

When asked if they had informed the police about the matter, the members said they haven’t because they were giving the founder a benefit of the doubt but they would eventually involve the police if she did not come through.
It was asserted that some of the group members went to Lusoti Primary School where the founder of the scheme is working as a teacher but they didn’t find her. The school’s head teacher allegedly told them that she reported sick and she was not around.

Confirmed

The head teacher, who identified herself as Miss Shongwe, when called yesterday, confirmed that certain people came to the school looking for the woman in question but she was no longer with the school.
She stated that the founder of the scheme was not employed as a full time teacher but practicing voluntarily and she had left a while ago.
Efforts to get hold of the founder of the scheme proved futile as her phone rang unanswered.

However, a woman who was initially introduced to this reporter as a friend to the founder was called but she later claimed to be her colleague.
She said her colleague suffered a relapse after it transpired that there was no more money to pay the members of the scheme and she was hospitalised.

Conmen

Chief Police Information and Communication Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said during this time of the year, people should be on the lookout as many were taken advantage of by conmen. She said people were joining these pyramid schemes out of desperation because of varying reasons, from failing to pay loans at financial institutions to the zeal to make enough money for the festive season. She said it was a given that chances of success for a pyramid scheme were as rare as a flower in the dessert but people seemed not to get the message as they continually subscribed to such.

“We always warn people to look for genuine and registered financial instructions when they want to invest their money because pyramid schemes are never successful,” she said.

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