Comparison of Charles Ponzi and the Kim Inman YMMSS STA Scam

1) Double your money in 90 days. Not sure why this magic number, but maybe 3 months sounds like a short amount of time in someone’s mind.

2) Even after all the bad publicity, leaving so many people financially hurt, put into prison twice by the government, and eventually being deported, Charles Ponzi their were still supporters there to give him a grand send off. Kim still has YM cheerleaders.

3) Ponzi took in about $140 million dollars. Though we will never know what Kim has taken in we can estimate by the amount he has paid out (according to YM anyway) which is $100 million.

4) After entering jail Ponzi was receiving death threats. I am hearing rumors that Kim Inman has also been receiving death threats from people living locally down in Belize. I guess when you run a global scam there is nowhere to hide.

5) After he was exposed Ponzi admitted to having a criminal record and serving prison time in Canada. There are rumors floating around that Kim Inman was involved in some kind of shady insurance deal with Prudential, but the company buried it.

6) Ponzi's "investment" was supposedly related to taking advantage of the differences in exchange rates for postage coupons or stamps. During the initial phase of the Ponzi a postal inspector questioned whether this was legal and Ponzi responded it was all done overseas out of reach of U.S. authorities. Though Ponzi never actually dealt in the coupons this is reminiscent of Kim running the business from Belize.

7) The transfer of massive amounts of funds from later to earlier investors is an administrative nightmare and Ponzi was lucky at the time to find a bank with which to do business through that had the same ethical standards as he. This bank was caught up in the ponzi and eventually failed. Can you say stormpay or intgold?

8) When things were going against him Ponzi claimed to be the victim of hostile interests and exhibited other paranoid behavior during his downfall.

posted by steve_o @ 3/27/2006 09:03:00 AM