They all sound the same to me!
In: Other
Ponzi: I get ten people to invest $100 each. A week later, I tell them that their investment is now worth $150, and that it will be worth even more if they leave it in their account. I also tell them that they can invest up to another $200. Maybe one wants out, and I pay him $150 out of the new $200 investments. Repeat as long as I can get away with it, paying anyone who wants out with money from new investors, and living like a rich person to show how successful the “investment” scheme is.
Pyramid: I get ten people to each pay me $10 to join my organization. They are told to each recruit ten people, charge them $10, and send me $5 of it. Each of those people is told to recruit another ten, charge them $10, and send $5 to the guy who recruited them, while that person sends $2.50 to me. Repeat until nobody falls for it any more, then leave town. (They’ll stop falling for it pretty fast, because the third level needs to have 1000 people in it, and the one after that needs 10,000. Usually shortly after level 2 somebody notices that everybody they know is already in the pyramid.)
MLM: Sort of like the pyramid, but your $10 buys you a set of products that you can sell for a small profit, and you can keep buying and selling more products. You *can* make money by selling products, so that makes it legal, but it’s more profitable (and strongly encouraged) to recruit others to sell products, because part of their profits go to you, which makes it shady, but still legal.
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