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They aren't making money with forex trading, they are making money with their pyramid scheme. You sign up for their class, and pay $50 for a membership, and the
by GhostVII 6y ago
They aren't making money with forex trading, they are making money with their pyramid scheme. You sign up for their class, and pay $50 for a membership, and then each person with the membership turns around and sells it to more people. Pretty disgusting. IM academy is at least one version of this.
How does the article not call this out? It even says
Just how much of that is paid for by trading profits is unclear, and influencers usually make their money by selling private courses or learning materials or by offering premium access to trading tips for a fee. Others work on commission and are paid by brokers each time one of their followers opens an account. And in some places, the lure of forex trading is simply that it offers the possibility of a regular income.
Classic pyramid scheme. It works great in poor countries since people aren't as educated, and are more vulnerable to get rich quick schemes. Same reason MLM's in the US target immigrants.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago>Classic pyramid scheme. It works great in poor countries since people aren't as educated Bingo! Schemes like these were popular in Eastern Europe after the fall of the iron curtain where some people got rich and a lot were left holding the bags since most had no financial education but were poor and desperate enough to fall for get rich quick schemes as there were no laws against this sort of stuff during the transition phase to capitalism.
- f6v 6y agoI constantly get ads for these in vk. There's usually a guy wearing good suit, driving lambo in a company of stunning woman. "Wanna be in his place? Sign up for our exclusive course!"
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoBruh, I get the exact same type of ads in Austria on instagram from some German dude. These fake millionaire lifestyle gurus are everywhere.
- dgellow 6y agoIm in Germany, since the beginning of the pandemic more than half of my YouTube advertising is some sort of MLM or other very obvious scams! Everybody seems to be selling their fantastic courses and really want to share it with the rest of the world :)
- nannal 6y ago> these were popular in Eastern Europe Aside from Albania & the 1997 unrest, where else had these issues?
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoRomania
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoYes, the most infamous Romanian case was "Caritas" in 1992–94.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caritas_(Ponzi_scheme) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caritas_(Ponzi_scheme)
- ivanche 6y agoFormer Yugoslavia. Heck, we even had banks that offered monthly 10-15% interest on savings accounts in Deutsche Marks. Needless to say, the whole scheme collapsed after a year or so.
- rulambo 6y agoCan you explain how you view every trading or market isn't a "Pyramid Scheme"? I don't disagree, but if you buy Apple stock at price X, you hope that someone else buys it at price x + y. So in a sense, every investment you do is with the hope that someone else is buying it for a higher price in the future.
- jstanley 6y agoIt's not the trading that's a pyramid scheme, it's the multi-level selling of "training" on how to trade.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- _jal 6y agoThe stuff that makes this a pyramid scheme is all the stuff around the trading. > influencers usually make their money by selling private courses > are paid by brokers each time one of their followers opens an account It doesn't matter what the product is when operating a pyramid scheme, so long as the rubes buy the idea that it could make money. The scam has nothing to do with Forex trading.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bluecalm 6y agoApple makes money. It will pay you off the value of the investment in about 20-30 years depending on how well the business goes. If you get that money as dividend, stock buyback or someone else wanting the stock doesn't really matter much besides liquidity which is always a nice to have.
- neutronicus 6y agoIf you are stuck holding Apple stock, specifically, Apple is profitable and has a history of actually paying dividends. Pure price speculation on stocks, without at least some cursory net present value calculation on the expected lifetime dividend income and a rough estimation of the liquidation value of the company's assets kind of is a Pyramid Scheme in that the only value of the asset is a hypothetical Greater Fool
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoPyramid schemes, MLMs, and even Ponzi schemes are very popular in developing countries. Strangely, participants seem to pile in despite knowing up front that they’re joining a scam. I think people have recognized that MLMs, pyramid schemes, and Ponzi schemes are lucrative for early adopters and those at the top. Instead of avoiding the scheme altogether, they’re racing to cash in early before it collapses. It’s a gamble that they’ll be on the right side of the trade before it runs out of steam. The power of “but what if it works...” Some of the more blatant Ponzi schemes operate in the open for years in developing countries. There can even be public outrage when governments try to intervene because so much of the population is invested in these schemes in one way or another. A good example is MMM global: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_Global https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_Global
- neutronicus 6y agoI don't know why that's strange, it's basically the same as GME was over here
- nwah1 6y agoIs. GME is still going.
- penagwin 6y agoI don't think it's fair to call the GME short squeeze a scam, it was just a community taking advantage of the mathematics at the time. There wasn't any misleading information or false promises, just people FOMO'ing in with the bubble. EDIT: Also GME is at 240, it's not even a short squeeze anymore it's just bizarre
- throwaway8581 6y agoThe small kernel of truth at the heart of it makes that much better of a scam. A pump and dump works better if in the pump stage, you have a good sounding reason.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bradleykingz 6y agoWe must have been reading vastly different articles > Business has been good. “I make over $30,000 annually from forex trading now,” he revealed — a tempting figure in a country where public servants are paid some $177 a month. His earnings come mostly from his own trading, with student fees making up a small part. Speaking from experience (I'm from Kenya), I've seen people make big bucks from Forex trading. A friend of mine makes enough money to pay for his rent (~$200 PM), furnish the house with not-so-cheap furniture and maintain his excessive lifestyle. There may be a 'pyramid scheme' aspect to it, but it's not as rampant as you make it seem.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoThe people being interviewed are the ones selling their courses to others. Of course they’re going to claim it’s very lucrative. If someone was losing money from something they’re trying to sell, they wouldn’t go on record with a newspaper proclaiming their losses to the world.
- DFHippie 6y agoPerhaps, but at this point you're just assuming they're scoundrels. The article says he makes most of his income from trading. The first week of his course is free. It's $50/week after that. This is not a Bezos level of wealth.
- ivanche 6y agoActually, one time payment of $50 for a lifetime access. Still high for their salaries though, it'd be something like $2,000 in US.
- ivanche 6y agoYou are aware that trading is a zero-sum game and that for every winner there's a loser who took the other side of the bet?
- leetcrew 6y ago
- ratsmack 6y agoI wonder how Bitcoin compares to this.
- dgellow 6y agoExactly the same, with even less regulation? I read today that 20% of Bitcoin futures on binance are trading at 125x leverage!!! 60% at JUST 20x leverage. A huge part of the crypto world is just completely insane. They are normalizing a level of risk literally absurd. https://twitter.com/CryptoCobain/status/1369225313922736129?s=20 https://twitter.com/CryptoCobain/status/1369225313922736129?...
- megameter 6y agoBitcoin mining has also become the lifeline for the likes of Iran and Venezuela, where the power is priced cheaper in local money. Iran has been moving towards an official legal framework for Bitcoin.
- gruez 6y agospeculative bubble =/= pyramid/ponzi scheme https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26203396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26203396
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mattr47 6y agoMLM in America target predominantly stay at home moms.