Get-rich-quick

scheme

A get-rich-quick scheme is a plan to obtain high rates of return for a small investment. The term
"get rich quick" has been used to describe shady investments since at least the early 20th
century.[1][2]

Most schemes create an impression that participants can obtain this high rate of return with
little risk, and with little skill, effort, or time. Get-rich-quick schemes often assert that wealth can
be obtained by working at home. Legal and quasi-legal get-rich-quick schemes are frequently
advertised on infomercials and in magazines and newspapers. Illegal schemes or scams are
often advertised through spam or cold calling. Some forms of advertising for these schemes
market books or compact discs about getting rich quick rather than asking participants to invest
directly in a concrete scheme.

Online schemes

Get-rich-quick schemes that operate entirely on the Internet usually promote "secret formulas" to
affiliate marketing and affiliate advertising. The scheme will usually claim that it does not require
any special IT or marketing skills and will provide an unrealistic timeframe in which the individual
could make hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.
Recently, get-rich-quick schemes featuring Bitcoin have become quite common. Bitcoin's
perceived anonymity and rapid growth in popularity has become an attractive asset for
scammers who use the likeness and image of Bitcoin to promote their unrelated schemes.
Typically these schemes promise to turn a certain amount of Bitcoin into a larger amount of
money either by "investing" into what likely turns out to be a Ponzi Scheme or by "flipping" it.[3]

Lotto advice as get-rich-quick

Richard Lustig, a seven-time lottery winner from the US, wrote a 2013 booklet explaining the
methods to which he attributed his success which became a best-seller on Amazon.com.[4]
Finance journalist Felix Salmon characterized Lustig as "a get-rich-quick" hack.[5]

See also

Envelope stuffing

Ripoff

HYIP

There is no such thing as a free lunch

Land banking

The Secret

References
1. 'Get Rich Quick' Insurance from the Inside (https://books.google.com/books?id=rHAAAAAAYAAJ&pg=
PA14322&dq=%22get+rich+quick%22&hl=en&ei=ChfDTKaAPIOusAP--oWSDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&c
t=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=%22get%20rich%20quick%22&f=false) ",
The World's work, Volume 22, (1911)

2. S.A. Nelson "The Blockite and the Get-Rich-Quick Man (https://books.google.com/books?id=xklIAAAA

YAAJ&pg=PA111&dq=%22get+rich+quick%22&hl=en&ei=ChfDTKaAPIOusAP--oWSDA&sa=X&oi=book_
result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=%22get%20rich%20quick%22&f=
false) ", Everybody's Magazine, vol 10, 1904.

3. "Money flipping scams" (https://www.stopfraudcolorado.gov/fraud-center/digital-fraud/money-flippin

g-scams.html) . stopfraudcolorado.gov.

4. Little, Lineka (21 October 2010). "How One Man Became a Serial Lottery Winner" (https://abcnews.go.
com/Business/time-lottery-winner-offers-winning-method/story?id=11940379#.UU4xSUrD_IU) . ABC
 News. Retrieved 23 March 2013.

5. Salmon, Felix (14 March 2012). "The worst personal-finance video ever" (https://web.archive.org/web/
20120315101816/http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/03/14/the-worst-personal-finance-vide
o-ever/) . Reuters. Archived from the original (http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/03/14/the
-worst-personal-finance-video-ever/) on 15 March 2012. Retrieved 11 January 2016.

Bibliography

Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez, Math on trial. How numbers get used and abused in the
courtroom, Basic Books, 2013. ISBN 978-0-465-03292-1. (Eighth chapter: "Math error number
8: underestimation. The case of Charles Ponzi: American dream, American scheme").

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Last edited 18 days ago by Le Marteau