Can victims of Ponzi schemes get their money back and what should the authorities do?
As a country with the number 4 population in the world with a population of 270 million, Indonesia's middle class 40% or 108 million is a tempting marketing target for all products, including Ponzi schemes. Even with the assumption that only 10% are interested and become potential victims of the Ponzi scheme, the number is still very tempting at 10.8 million people.
Moreover, we have been hit by a pandemic for two years in a row with disrupted income. So, the offer of a Ponzi scheme that fakes itself as a Trading Robot investment with a lucrative profit sharing of 10% per month, will be very difficult to refuse for most people who still have idle funds.
Many potential victims who were initially unsure of this Ponzi scheme were finally tempted after seeing that their affiliates or uplines were proven to get the promised profit share, 10% per month for months. With the support of proof of fake transactions, Trading Robots that are engineered in such a way and shelter behind the complexity of forex transactions and Trading Robots, followed by uplines who don't hesitate to flex with various mottos such as 1% per day or 10% per month lying down, then the logical defense collapses. and finally got into this Ponzi scheme.
Actually, with simple logic, this Ponzi scheme can be identified and can be used as a benchmark in the future. If there is a Trading Robot or any method that gives a profit of 10% per month, then why do the makers still need to market this method or Trading Robot?
Just run it yourself and in just a few years he will be a mandraguna rich man. The answer is only one, this lucrative profit sharing uses a Ponzi scheme aka money from new members who enter is distributed as profit every month and existing members are lured again with large commissions if they succeed in attracting new members to enter.
This scheme will be designed in such a way that it can survive, as long as there are additional new members who enter, then this scheme will last for a period of years and continue to share the promised benefits. But the bad news is that the public's money being dragged into this Ponzi scheme will be even greater.
The author tries to calculate the cashflow of this Ponzi scheme and uses several assumptions to see how this scheme works, how much money is involved, how long this scheme can last if there are no new members added and when this scheme is stopped or banned, is there still funds that can be used? saved.
Note: This calculation is made based on the offers and conditions of fake Trading Robots that are widely circulated and offered to the public, the actual figures are only owned by the manager of this Trading Robot and this table only provides an overview of the cash flow of this Ponzi scheme, which is as follows:
Trading Robot Ponzi Scheme Photo: doc Alfons Tanujaya
An Excel program with a simple table is used to calculate the estimated cashflow of this Ponzi scheme with the following assumptions:
The price of 1 investment package is US$ 500 assuming the dollar exchange rate is Rp. 14,000.
The cost of converting rupiah to dollars is US$ 5% and vice versa when adding investment or receiving profit. This fee is charged by the manager of the Ponzi scheme.
Profit sharing 10% per month from the total investment in the previous month.
The addition of new investment every month is 50% per month from the previous month. So every month the total investment will be 1.5 X from the previous month.
Overheads and fees given to uplines are 50% of the new investment that comes in.
As a country with the number 4 population in the world, Indonesia's middle class is around 40% of the 270 million or around 108 million and is the target market for the Ponzi scheme. Assuming that those who are interested and become potential victims are 10% or about 10.8 million people. So it is assumed that Ponzi packages will reach saturation point at 10.8 million packages and start having difficulty adding members.
With assumptions like the above, where every month new members enter a constant 1.5 times and a saturation point of 10.8 million/package, then this Ponzi Scheme will have difficulty adding new members in the 41st month where the number of investment packages has reached 11 million packages.
Some conclusions that can be drawn from this Ponzi scheme are:
The addition of new members at the beginning of the program will be more than 50% per month and will decrease as the number of members increases until it reaches a saturation point of around 10.8 million members.
The longer this Ponzi scheme runs, the more victims there will be and the more people's money trapped in this Ponzi scheme will be.
Assuming an investment package of IDR 7,000,000 and a stable rate of addition of members, it only takes 12 months to reach a total investment of IDR 1 trillion and the following year it will double to tens of trillions!
The sooner this scheme is stopped by the authorities, the better, because there are fewer victims. The longer this Ponzi scheme is silenced, the more victims there will be because the packages marketed by MLM will spread very quickly using the MLM method.
If there is no addition of new members and the manager continues to distribute profits without withdrawing funds, then within 7 months all existing money will be distributed as profit.
With the assumption as stated above, whenever this Ponzi scheme is terminated, the manager will hold member funds in very large amounts of trillions of rupiah with a percentage of around 60-70% of the total incoming investment.
When this Ponzi scheme is stopped, it is certain that the manager will stop the profit sharing or withdrawal, because this will turn off this Ponzi scheme so that it will not be able to fulfill its obligation to provide the promised fantastic profit sharing.
So the role of law enforcement and related agencies to move quickly to immediately freeze the accounts of the Ponzi managers is very much needed. If this action is carried out too late, it is feared that the large amount of funds held by this manager will be diverted and the victims of this Ponzi scheme will not get their funds back.