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Level 3 · ages 13–15OECD FLSafety

Pyramid schemes and fake investing

🎯 Goal: Understand Ponzi/disguised pyramid schemes and fake investing.
You understand Ponzi/disguised pyramid schemes pay earlier people with later people’s money, create no real value, and collapse; red flags are fixed very high returns and pressure to recruit.

Let’s explore

🏗️
A Ponzi/disguised pyramid scheme pays earlier people with later people’s money, creates no real value — and collapses sooner or later.
🪙
“Fake investing”, “strange crypto with huge guaranteed returns” are usually scams that lure deposits then vanish.
🚩
Red flags: fixed high returns, pressure to recruit more people, no transparency on how it earns.

Practice activity

🚩 Name 2 “red flags” that a project may be a pyramid scam.
Worked example: A project invites you to invest with 2 red flags: (1) a fixed 20%/month return, (2) big bonuses for recruiting more people. These are Ponzi/pyramid signs — stay away.

Quick quiz

1. A Ponzi scheme pays?
→ Later people’s money to earlier people
2. A project with “fixed very high return + recruit pressure”?
→ A scam red flag
3. A common trait of these schemes?
→ No real value, will collapse
4. Paying earlier people with later people’s money is which model?
→ Ponzi
5. A red flag of pyramid scams?
→ Fixed high return + recruit pressure

🎯 Real-life mission

Find two signs of a pyramid / fake-investment scheme and warn a friend.

Related lessons

👨‍👩‍👧 For parents: teaching kids money by age

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