Greed can make people do silly things, like believe they can cheat odds or gain incredible return on investments even when the whole world is in a financial crisis. We tend to forget that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. America has been home to the some of the most large-scale Ponzi schemes in history, orchestrated by crafty con artists who continue to bring down gullible investors with outlandish promises.

5. Charles Ponzi

Ponzi schemes acquired their name from the notorious Carlo (Charles) Ponzi, who was one of the first’s to scam people by making promises of extraordinary returns on investment. Ponzi promised clients 50 percent profit within 45 days or 100 percent profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons (IPRCs) in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the United States as a form of arbitrage (taking advantage of a price differential between two or more markets and capitalizing on the imbalance).

Ponzi emigrated from Italy to the US in 1903, with $2.50 in cash after having gambled away the rest of his life savings. He worked various odd jobs for fourteen years, until in 1917, he discovered a way to make himself and investors rich. In 1919, Ponzi established a firm called The Security Exchange Company. Ponzi contended that he could pay a small amount for IPRCs in weak-currency countries and then redeem them at a substantial profit in the United States. He promoted this idea through his company. Bank interest rates at the time were only 5 percent.

Investors loaned Ponzi their money and within a short time he increased the promised return on 45 day notes to 50 percent. By July 1920 he was taking in $1 million a week. People were mortgaging their homes and investing their life savings. But the glory days soon ended when a financial writer from the Boston Post started a series of articles questioning Ponzi’s money-making operation. To cover the investments made with the Securities Exchange Company, 160 million postal reply coupons would have to be in circulation. However, only 27,000 actually were. He was eventually charged with 86 counts of mail fraud and sentenced to five years in federal prison. Though he was released after three and a half years, he was immediately indicted on 22 Massachusetts state charges of larceny. He was sentenced to an additional seven to nine years in prison and ended up serving seven.

4. Lou Pearlman

He was manager of popular boy-bands such as Backstreet Boys, O-Town, Take5 and NSYNC in the 1990’s, but on May 21 2008, Lou Pearlman was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for running a Ponzi scheme that lasted over twenty years. Cheating banks and investors of over $300 million, many of his victims were elderly people. The investors were enticed into investing in Trans Continental Airlines Travel Services Inc. and Trans Continental Airlines Inc., both which existed only on paper. These companies were part of a pyramid scheme that had been running for years. Pearlman had fabricated financial statements from a phony accounting firm Cohen and Siegel, to secure bank loans. U.S. District Judge G. Kendall Sharp gave Pearlman the chance to cut his prison time, by offering to reduce the sentence by one month for every million dollars he helps a bankruptcy trustee recover.

3. Nicholas Cosmo

The CEO of investment firm Agape World Inc. was recently arrested on mail fraud charges. Over 1,500 investors are believed to have lost more than $370 million through Agape World. Using superior methods of persuasion, Nicholas Cosmo promised returns of 48 percent to 80 percent a year, and investors paid a minimum of $20,000 for high-yield “private bridge” loans. (A bridge loan provides an immediate cash flow. The loans are usually short term with a relatively high interest rate, backed up by some form of collateral such as real estate or inventory.)

Cosmo paid investors partial returns, represented to be profits from interest-generating loans. He persuaded the investors to invest additional funds in Agape and AMA (Agape Merchant Advance LLC). For an investment of as little as $1,000, investors were told they were buying packages of mortgages of 10 to 20 percent annual returns. Cosmo actually used over $200, 000 of the investor’s money to pay off a court order from a prior conviction. (Just a small discrepancy investors chose to turn a blind eye to.)

The Agape investors were mostly middle-class people who worked hard for their money, who got a little greedy and jumped on a tempting opportunity that came back to bite them right in the butt.

2. Reed Eliot Slatkin

Co-founder of EarthLink, an Internet service provider (ISP) company, Reed Elliott Slatkin cheated investors of over $600 million. Slatkin was an ordained Scientology minister and many of his victims were members of the Church of Scientology, including many Hollywood celebrities. American greed at its finest, Slatkin had raised approximately $593 million since 1986, from over 500 wealthy investors. He manufactured fake statements to show his investments were overseas in the fictitious NAA Financial brokerage firm. Creditor claims were approximately $255 million. He funneled most of the money to the Church of Scientology and their related entities. On September 2, 2003 he pleaded guilty to mail fraud money laundering, and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to fourteen years in federal prison.

1. Bernard Madoff

Photo: AP
Responsible for possibly the biggest fraud in Wall Street history at his June 29, 2009 Bernard Madoff will face a possible life sentence in prison, and up to $170 billion in restitution. Madoff had begun his Ponzi scheme sometime in the early 1990s. From the beginning of the scheme, he admits to have never invested any of his clients’ money Instead- he deposited the money into his business account at Chase Manhattan Bank. He admitted to false trading activities masked by foreign transfers and false SEC filings. He was paying clients through the Chase business account, claiming the “profits” were the result of his own unique “split-strike conversion strategy”.

Financial analyst-whistleblower Harry Markopolos claimed that it was mathematically impossible to deliver what Madoff was promising his investors. Not to mention the fact that his three-person accounting firm with one active accountant was handling such a high volume of accounts. It took Markopolos about five minutes to make an initial assessment of the fraudulent nature of Madoff’s high investment returns. In four hours, he was able to work out the detailed math calculations, which revealed nearly twenty years of foul play; one of the biggest Ponzi schemes to hit Wall Street.

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Earning real money playing online games? Confusing to say the least, but don’t be surprised if you start seeing Second Life Linden dollars and World of Warcraft Azerothian gold being traded on the stock market in a few years. Business savvy gamers have turned a handsome profit spending hours in front of their computer screens, defeating three-headed monsters and selling virtual real estate.

How?

eBay and PayPal are the main “banking” sources gamers use in order to trade their virtual loot for cash. Games can get rather long and tedious and sometimes people would rather pay to acquire a certain object so they can move forward in the game. Large-scale corporations have also infiltrated games like Second Life and see the huge business potential. Michelin, IBM and Xerox are already well established in the Second Life community, holding meetings, conducting trainings, building product prototypes, as well as executing customer research and recruiting.

More than just a passing virtual trend, here is a look at some of the world’s most successful gamers and how they made a real fortune playing games.

Ailin Graef

Better known by her avatar name, Second Life’s “real estate baroness” became the first Second Life millionaire in 2006, buying and developing virtual real-estate in a make-believe world. Second Life has a fully integrated economy based on the residents’ ability to buy and sell their virtual creations. The economy is based on the Linden™ dollar (L$), Second Life’s virtual micro-currency. Linden™ dollars are convertible to US dollars. Linden dollars are trading at approximately L$300.00 to the US$1.00.

Role-playing in virtual worlds for years before making her initial investment in Second Life ($9.95 for a Second Life account) she quickly realized that people looking for land didn’t have the programming skills to develop it. In just two and a half years, she has “cash” holdings of several million Linden™ dollars, several virtual shopping malls, virtual store chains, and established virtual brands in Second Life. Using her 3D computer modeling skills her operations have grown to large-scale real world corporations and have led to a real life “spin off” corporation called Anshe Chung Studios, which develops 3D environments for applications ranging from education to business conferencing and product prototyping.

Anshe’s Second Life portfolio includes virtual property assets equivalent to 36 square km in size. Anshe Chung’s real name is Ailin Graef. A former school teacher in Frankfurt, Graef was born and raised in Hubei, China, but currently is a citizen of Germany.

Jonathan Yantis

A controversial figure in the gaming world, Jonathan Yantis started his RMT (real-money trading) business in the early days of EverQuest, working out of his house in Rosarito, Mexico. Yantis pioneered corporate-style game currency selling through his site MySuperSales. Netting roughly $2,500 a day (about $1 million in annual profit) he had a dozen in-game delivery agents (the virtual-world equivalent of couriers) in places like Romania, working for the equivalent of $3.50 per delivery, walking their avatars right up to the purchaser’s avatar to hand over the in-game goods.

In 2004, IGE bought out MySuperSales and the merger created a monopoly in the market. Jonathan Yantis was the biggest shareholder in IGE and was made Chief Operating Officer and member of the company’s Board of Managers.

Brock Pierce

Leaving a moderately successful acting career (his biggest role starring alongside Sinbad in Disney’s First Kid) at the age of 16, Brock Pierce became a dot.com entrepreneur, when he teamed up with Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley to found Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), an online video content site. Two years later, he was making $250,000 a year and held one million in DEN stock shares.

But the company soon took a turn for the worse when in the fall of 1999, Collins-Rector settled a suit in New Jersey, brought by a boy who claimed the DEN founders had sexually molested him over three years, starting in 1993 when he was 13. Other DEN employees also began making harassment claims. On October 25, DEN’s three founders resigned and fled to Spain; Pierce always maintaining his innocence.

During their time on seaside resort town of Marbella, Pierce recoiled into a fantasy world of gaming, spending most of his time glued to his computer screen playing EverQuest. In the magical universe of Norrath, Pierce was the dark-elf wizard Athrex, playing on EverQuest’s Vallon Zek server. He eventually started playing on six different computers, hopping from one to the other, mastering the art of “six-boxing”.

After two years of playing eight hours a day, it was time to start making money. By May 2001, Pierce founded IGE (Internet Gaming Entertainment) alongside Alan Debonneville, which was to become the world’s largest retailer of virtual products such as swords, armor, gold coins and other virtual currencies. He set up corporate headquarters in a 700 sq ft office in downtown Marbella and hired some locals to do the farming (i.e. rack up items he could sell for cash). IGE made millions outsourcing the boring aspects of the game for cheap. The company later established offices in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Shanghai and London. In January 2004, IGE acquired it major competitor Yantis Enterprises and they dominated the RMT world.

In 2007, Antonio Hernandezm a WoW gamer filed a lawsuit against IGE for impairing the players’ enjoyment of the game. IGE has been legally banned from selling virtual gold, called Azerothian gold until 2013.

Julian Dibbell author of Play Money: or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot has long been following the life and times of Brock Pierce and you can read more about Pierce here.

Gareth Lancaster

He is the man behind avatar Moopf Murray, and through Second Life he found a way of making a second income. Racking in an extra $20,000 and $30,000 a year, Gareth Lancaster used his business savvy and designed the Skoopf roller skates selling at $60 a pop. A Second Life best-seller, over 60,000 pairs were sold over two years.

Jon Jacobs

He sold just about everything he owned (in real life) to buy a space station in the Entropia Universe, deemed the first virtual universe with a real cash economy. The space station inside the multiplayer game was sold for $100,000 in late 2005 to gamer Jon “NEVERDIE” Jacobs who turned it into a virtual nightclub, Club NEVERDIE. Entropia dollars can be exchanged for real dollars at a fixed exchange rate of ten to one, which is guaranteed by MindArk, Entropia’s virtual world developers. The way to progress in Entropia is you gain skills by hunting, gathering, or selling virtual goods. Club NEVERDIE has multiple dance floors, a live amphitheater and lounges, 1,000 apartment complexes, 20 hunting biodomes, commercial space ship dock, themed shopping malls, and a mega stadium for championship sporting events. The net worth in 2006 was estimated at $1.5 million.

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1) The Lindbergh Kidnapping- “The Biggest Story Since The Resurrection”

The kidnapping and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., son of aviator Charles Lindbergh occurred in 1932 and was one of the most horrific crimes of its time, prompting the “Lindbergh Law”, which made kidnapping a federal crime. (Prior to, it was classified as a local crime.)




The Investigation
20 month old Charles Lindbergh Jr. went missing from his crib on March 1, 1932. The police were contacted and the investigation led to finding a ladder, fingerprints, and a ransom note. The ladder had 400 partial fingerprints however “were of no value to the investigation due to the surge of media and police that were present within the first 30 minutes to hour after the first call for help”. The note called for $50,000.

One very suspicious detail during the fingerprint process was that not even one fingerprint, not from Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh, the baby, or the nurse-maid was found. The day after the kidnapping, The Bureau of investigation (not yet the FBI) was authorized to investigate the case. Word of the kidnapping spread, even several organized crime groups were offering assistance for legal favors and money. Al Capone offered his help from jail, saying that if he were released from prison his assistance could be more effective. The proposition was quickly dismissed by police.

New Jersey officials announced a $25,000 reward for the safe return of “Little Lindy” and the Lindbergh family offered an additional $50,000 reward of their own. According to the U.S. Consumer Price Index, the $75,000 total in U.S. currency in 1932 was equivalent to nearly $1.2 million in 2008 when adjusted for inflation.

A second ransom note was sent to the Lindbergh home by mail, but once the kidnappers realized that the police were now involved in the case, the ransom had been doubled to $100,000. John F. Condon, a 72-year-old school teacher in the Bronx, wrote a letter to the Home News proclaiming his willingness to help the Lindbergh case in any way he could. John (Jafsie) Condon placed ads in a Bronx newspaper seeking contact with the kidnappers.

Condon met a man claiming to be one of the kidnappers (a Scandinavian sailor part of a gang of three men and two women) at Woodlawn Cemetery. According to Condon, the man said the Lindbergh child was unharmed and being held on a boat, however they were not ready to hand him over or receive payment yet. Condon expressed his doubt about the man having the baby but the mysterious man told him he would provide proof, delivering the baby’s sleeping suit.

A few days later, Condon received the toddler’s suit in the mail. Lindbergh asserted it was his son’s. Condon put out another ad that said: “Money is ready. No cops. No secret service. I come alone, like last time.”

On April 1, 1932, the kidnappers sent another note saying they were ready to accept payment. Condon met the man at St. Raymond’s Cemetery with $50,000 in gold certificates. The man accepted the money and gave Condon a note saying Charles, Jr., was on a boat along the Massachusetts coast. Although Lindbergh flew over the region for days, he never located the boat in question.

On May12, 1932, a truck driver discovered the remains of the Lindbergh baby in the woods along a road near the Lindbergh home. The body was decomposed, the skull fractured, and it appeared that someone had tried to bury the body.

Bruno Hauptmann


In 1934, a gas station attendant in the Bronx, N.Y., got suspicious when a motorist paid for gasoline with a gold certificate. He took down the man’s license plate number and notified police. The car belonged to an illegal German immigrant named Bruno Richard Hauptmann. Police found $14,000 of gold certificates in a shoe box in Hauptmann’s house, and arrested him.

Hauptmann had served a three-year prison sentence in Germany for burglary. Hauptmann had fled to the U.S. to avoid another trial on charges of possessing stolen tools. He had recently quit his job as a carpenter, yet was living well, investing in the stock market.
Hauptmann maintained his innocence until the end, even though he was offered life in prison in exchange for a confession. But Hauptmann denied any connection to the crime and said that the money had been left with him by an old business partner Isidor Fisch who had returned to Germany in 1933 and died of tuberculosis.
Some theorists claim the kidnapping must have been an “inside job” involving either a member of the family or a servant. However, a notebook with Mr. Condon’s number and address was found in the shoe box as well as a piece of wood discovered in the attic, determined to be an exact match to the wood used in the construction of the ladder found at the scene of the crime.

2) The Kidnap and Murder of Bobby Greenlease

In September 1953, six-year-old, Bobby Greenlease, son of millionaire car dealer, Robert Cosgrove Greenlease Sr., was kidnapped from his elite Kansas City prep school, and murdered by Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Emily Brown Heady, two drug addicted alcoholics. The ransom amount was $600,000- which at that time was the largest amount in US history.

Only half of the money was recovered, allegedly, the remainder was stolen by two corrupt police officers in St. Louis, where Hall and Heady were captured fleeing authorities [source].

In the 1930’s, Hall had attended school with Bobby’s adopted older brother, Paul Robert Greenlease.
Hall had been plotting against the wealthy family since then.

3) The Kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr.

In 1963 Rat Packer Frank Sinatra’s only son was kidnapped from his Lake Tahoe hotel room. Considered one of the most ‘half-baked’ crimes and the second most famous kidnapping in American history- kidnappers Barry Keenan and Joe Amsler (23 year old classmates) knocked on Sinatra’s room door with a wine box filled with pine cones. “I’ve got a package for you” said Keenan, and then quickly he let go of the box, pulled out a revolver and shouted “don’t make any noise, and nobody gets hurt”.



They blindfolded Sinatra and put him in the back of their Impala, driving through a blizzard down the Sierra Nevada’s to a hideout they rented eight hours from Lake Tahoe. Not only was this plan absolutely ludicrous in that Frank Sinatra was one of the most famous entertainers of all time, not to mention his ties with both the government and the mafia- Keenan and Amsler were certainly taking a pretty stupid risk.


Sinatra Jr. was released, safely, two days after the $240,000 ransom was paid. The kidnappers were later prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to short prison terms.

4) Greek Tycoon Held for Ransom

In June of 2008, Greek tycoon Giorgos Mylonas (49), Chairman of the Federation of Industries of Northern Greece and head of Greece’s Alumil Aluminum Company was seized at gunpoint from his car outside his home in Thessaloniki, and kidnapped-for-ransom. Police suspect that five people were involved in the abduction- 3 gunmen, one driver and the mastermind behind the operation.



Mylonas was held captive for 13 days, but was not physically harmed. The AFP news agency quoted police saying the ransom sum was of 12 million Euros, though Mylonas claims that only he and his wife know the precise amount.

According to BBC’s Malcolm Brabant “abductions and extortion by criminal gangs occur more frequently than the Greek authorities admit because they are settled quietly and out of the public eye by the payment of a ransom”.

The case received a great deal of media attention spotlight and prompted the tycoon’s family to urge journalists to act with restraint, saying that intense coverage was putting the industrialist’s life at risk.

5) Miami Mother Kidnaps Her Own Son and Threatens With Blowtorch

When Miami mother, Alejandra Arriaza (39) found out that her ex-husband had recently sold his business for a large sum of money, she and her boyfriend, Angel Ponce (37) orchestrated her own kidnapping and that of her 17 year old son, with the help of Ponce’s nephew Joel Boza- as part of a kidnap-for-ransom scheme.

The Kidnap

In April of 2009, Arriaza took her son to a South Florida Wal-Mart to buy an iPhone- leaving one of the car doors unlocked, to allow a masked Ponce to hide in the back seat with a fake handgun. When Arriaza and her son returned to the car, Ponce covered the teenager’s eyes with thick tape and ordered Arriaza to drive Ponce’s trailer in the 1600 block of Southwest 127th Court in Miami, where the boy was tied to a chair with shrink wrap and tape.

Ponce called the father and threatened to burn the boy with a blowtorch if he did not dish out $50 000. Arriaza informed her ex-husband that they were burning their son’s feet and implored him to pay the ransom.

The father contacted the police and finally, investigators were able to track the location of the trailer and rescue the boy and, his mother. Not long after Ponce’s arrest, it was quickly discovered that Arriaza was in on the abduction the whole time.
Arriaza, Ponce and Boza face kidnapping charges in federal court in Miami, and a possible life sentence if convicted.

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The G-20 summit committed to $1.2 trillion in new funds, with the aim of boosting the world economy, cleaning up banks, and increasing trade, among many other things. The stimulus plan is worth more than $800 billion and the second half of the bank bailout package is at $350 billion, which make up the $1.2 trillion, but the very idea of a trillion dollars exceeds what most of our minds, let alone a standard calculator, have the capacity to understand. What does a trillion dollars look like and what else could a trillion dollars buy? Here, is an idea:

See the little man?  This is what it would look like to stand next to a trillion dollars.

A trillion dollars, is a million, million dollars. If you laid one dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from earth to the moon and back again 200 times before you ran out of dollar bills! One trillion dollars would stretch nearly from the earth to the sun.

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One trillion dollars in pennies would weigh as much as 2,755,778 Argentinosauruses

What can you do with a trillion dollars?

Well, according to globalissues.org, for only $40 billion you could achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries. Right now, every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment.

Basic education for all: $6 billion
There are 2.2 billion children in the world and 1 billion live in poverty. About 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not enrolled in school in 2005 and 57 percent of them were girls.

Water and sanitation for all: $9 billion
1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Only 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.

Reproductive health for all women: $12 billion
90 percent of the 585,000 women who die annually in the world from pregnancy related complications are in developing countries. For every 1000 women of childbearing age (15-49 years) as many as 20 to 30 have an unsafe abortion; and most of these are in developing countries. Read More)
Basic health and nutrition for all: $13 billion
2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized. Every year, more than 20 million low birth weight (LBW) babies are born in the developing world. In some countries, including India and Bangladesh, more than 30 percent of all children are born underweight. Read More

According to the New York Times, with $1.2 trillion you could:
• Double cancer research funding, provide treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is going unmanaged and create a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives, still having more than enough money to sustain these programs for at least a decade.

• You could also drastically increase the city of New Orleans’ reconstruction funds. In December 2008, the average price for a home in the US was $175, 400 - with $ 1 trillion you could buy 5.7 million homes.

• With a trillion dollars a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur

These are all worthy causes, which could greatly benefit from a trillion-dollar-injection.   But let’s pretend the whole “helping others” thing just isn’t your style.  Here’s a list of some of the fun things you could do with a trillion-dollar bankroll.

• With a trillion dollars you could buy your own army of 1 million Asimo Robots.

• With a trillion dollars you could buy out America’s supply of bacon for the next 500 years.

• With a trillion dollars you could buy a few less Asimo robots, and you could coat each one with bacon.  Imagine the pandemonium when you unleash your delicious army of Bacon-Bots into the city.

• With a trillion dollars you could own and operate your own space program with an annual budget of $20 billion for the next 50 years.  That’s $2 billion more than NASA spends each year.

• With a trillion dollars you could afford to indecently propose à la Robert Redford to a million different women.

• With a trillion dollars you could buy every sports team on the planet.

To conclude, you could do a whole lot with a trillion dollars, but if you were to divvy it up among every man, woman and child in America they would only receive $3, 300 each.

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1. Oprah Winfrey

When it comes to stories of rags to riches, Oprah Winfrey has certainly lived one of the most remarkable and inspiring tales, that goes to shows that no matter how bad life might be, with hard-work, determination and a bit of hope, things can always get better. And for Oprah Winfrey things really couldn’t have turned out better.

Facing unbelievable and often gut-wrenching obstacles, Winfrey was born of unwed, teenage parents in rural Mississippi, and spent the first six years of her life raised by her grandmother, who was incredibly poor, at times abusive, but who also taught her how to read by the age of three. When she was six, Winfrey relocated to Milwaukee to live with her mother, still in poverty, however greatly excelling in school.
Despite a horrifically dysfunctional family life; raped by her cousin, a family friend as well her uncle by the age of nine, Winfrey skipped two grades and got a scholarship to Nicolet High School in the Milwaukee suburbs. But after years of abuse, 13 year old Winfrey ran away from home and by 14 she gave birth to a son who died in infancy. Eventually, her mother sent her to live with her biological father, a barber in Nashville, Tennessee.

Winfrey’s father was very adamant education be an utmost priority. She was an honors student, won an oratory contest, placed second in the nation in dramatic interpretation and was even voted Most Popular Girl in her Tennessee high school. She received a full scholarship to the Tennessee State University, and by the age of 19 she was co-anchoring on a local Black radio station and working in television broadcasting. She was the first black female news anchor at Nashville’s WLAC-TV.
Winfrey moved to Baltimore where she hosted her own TV chat show “People Are Talking” in 1976, and after eight years was hosting her own morning show “A.M. Chicago”. Becoming a huge success and prominent figure in the media, she landed a role in Steven Spielberg’s “The Colour Purple”, where she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. By 1986, she launched “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, a nationally syndicated program, which grossed $125 million by the end of its first year.
According to Forbes magazine, “Winfrey was considered the richest woman in entertainment by the early 1990’s and has remained the only Black person wealthy enough to rank among America’s 400 people nearly every year since 1995”.
2. Frank O’Dea

Most people probably wouldn’t assume, that before becoming the co-founder of Canada’s popular chain of Second Cup coffee houses, Frank O’Dea, was actually collecting money in a coffee cup, while he lived as a homeless panhandler on the streets of Toronto.

Sexually abused as a child, he eventually turned to alcohol and began begging for money, while sleeping in 50-cent flophouse beds. But by the age of 23, he made what was to be the biggest shift in his life. As he says in his autobiography When All You Have Is Hope his main motto for life became “hope, vision, action.” Overcoming daunting obstacles, O’Dea went from destitute and homeless, back into society. Within a few years, he was the successful co-founder of Second Cup.
He has gone on to lead other successful businesses and is an active philanthropist. He is currently the Chair of PureRay Corporation, President of ARXX Building Products, and Chair of Royal Roads University Foundation. O’Dea’s charity work includes AIDS fundraising, child literacy in the Third World and landmine removal. O’Dea is also the founding President of Renascent Treatment Foundation and founder of Street Kids International.
3. Ingvar Kamprad

From selling matches in his hometown of Agunnaryd, in the south of Sweden, to becoming the world’s richest retailer, Ingvar Kamprad, founder of the home furnishing IKEA chains, is yet another inspiring rags to riches story, of a determined kid who beat the odds and came out stronger than fathomable. In fact, according to Forbes magazine, he is the fifth richest person in the world.
Kamprad always had a knack for business and began his ventures as young boy, buying matches in bulk and selling them individually, at a low price, to people in his neighborhood. With his accumulated profits, he went on from his match selling business to selling fish, then Christmas tree decorations, seeds and later on, pencils and ball-point pens.
Proud of his academic achievements, Kamprad’s father gave him some money when he was 17, and with it he went on to establish IKEA, which stood for: Ingvar Kamprad (his initials) and Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd (the farm and village where he grew up). There, he sold a variety of goods, including wallets, watches, jewelry and stockings.
In 1947, he introduced furniture into the IKEA product line and was able to keep costs down by buying from local manufacturers. The furniture did so well that by 1951 Kamprad decided to discontinue other product lines and focus solely on furniture.
Interestingly, it was the pressure from IKEA’s competitors on their suppliers, (who actually boycotted IKEA) which forced them to become the innovative, do-it-yourself company they are today. With almost all their products designed to fit into flat packaging, IKEA’s shipping costs were reduced, transport damage was minimized and customers didn’t have to wait for delivery, able to take furniture home themselves. IKEA has always stayed ahead of the game, offering stylish and unique products, made by IKEA designers at affordable prices.
Kamprad is a visionary who is also reputed for his frugality. He is known to fly economy class, take the subway to work; he drives an old Volvo, frequents inexpensive restaurants and of course, furnishes his home with IKEA ware.

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Now, may not seem like the best time to be investing your money- but just because we are in a recession doesn’t mean the market has come to a complete standstill. There are different ways you can invest, which obviously vary depending on your current financial situation, but yes, there is an investment possibility for everyone, which can help put a little extra savings back in your pocket and even yield some future wealth down the road. Practicing a bit of patience and proper financial planning can go a long way in these times of economic turbulence.

Money-Market Accounts and Bank Certificates of Deposit (CD’s)

Two of the safest ways to invest your money are in money-market accounts and bank CD’s. These are like savings accounts, however, banks will pay a higher interest and your earnings will also be higher than in a regular savings account. In both cases, they are usually at the low-end of the risk/reward spectrum, but in these times you may be better off saving a little now, so you have a little bit to invest later. Plus, they are ideal if you need to take out the money fairly soon. Money-market accounts will allow approximately three to six withdrawals per month, and they are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) so that if a bank or credit union goes out of business your money is still protected. In fact, the FDIC was created in 1933 in response to the thousands of banks that crashed in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Since its creation, no one has lost any money in a bank that was insured by the FDIC.

Defensive Stocks

Defensive stocks are stocks that are not dependent on economic prosperity and will usually fare out stably during recessionary periods. Essentially, you can invest in these companies no matter how the economy is doing. For instance, the food industry is always a safe bet for the simple reason that people need to eat. Consumer manufacturing companies such as Proctor & Gamble also remain consistent- this particular stock yields 2.3 per cent but has doubled over the past five years. The tobacco and alcohol industry are also safe investments with guaranteed return (if you don’t mind the ethical issues surrounding them).

Under-Priced Stocks

An under-priced stock is when the offer price is lower than the price of the first trade. The idea behind buying under-priced stocks is to buy low to eventually sell high. Just because the shares in a particular company may be low now, doesn’t mean they won’t be on the rise in the future. Under-priced stocks do carry with them a higher risk factor than money-market accounts, bank CD’s or defensive stocks. The reason they become under-priced is the uncertainty within the stock market in their liquidity and overall potential for shareholders. Under-priced stocks will also require you have extra money that you don’t mind leaving untouched for a longer period of time. If you choose to invest in a (some) under-priced stock(s), do your research beforehand and thoroughly investigate which markets may be ahead of their time or which stand the greatest potential to bounce back once the recession is over. For instance, though the restaurant industry has been hit hard by the recession, there is no doubt that once people have money to spend, eating-out will be back in full swing.

Final Tip

Leaving your investments to grow over a 5-10 year period should allow you to turn in a quite a decent profit. Also, be sure to invest in established companies and keep up with market trends to see what companies could hold the best shareholder potential in the future.

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Find a way to turn your winnings into hard cash as quickly as possible. Get a wheelbarrow and wheel the money into your bedroom. Lift the mattress and pour the money under. It will be very heavy so you will need the help of someone you can trust. Once you have completed this first mission, wait. Okay, taking time is definitely important but the rest is highly unadvisable.

It is a sad but true story- many of the people who win the lottery, go from rags to riches, back to rags, because they have no idea how to handle such a large sum of money. And who can blame them, really? Winning the lottery is literally like a dream come true. People think with money, all their problems just disappear, but what they don’t realize is that without proper management and financial control, things can get out of hand all too quickly. They’ll quit their jobs; buy a new house; buy family members houses; get new cars; go on extravagant vacations…  Estranged family members, financial advisers and charities will come after them with their hands out- and all of a sudden the financial freedom they thought they’d finally attained, turns into an insurmountable and disastrous realm of chaos.

Makes winning the lottery sound pretty scary, doesn’t it? Well, wealth is scary. That is, if you don’t understand how to cope with it wisely. If you or someone you know has recently won the lottery, here are some tips you should consider in order to get the most out of your money and ensure that when you become rich, you stay rich.

Change your phone number

1.   Everyone you know and don’t know will be calling you so make sure you get a new unlisted number

Get Advice Before Taking The Lump Sum

2.    If you are given the option to take the lump sum of money or the annual annuity payment, be aware that the lump sum will amount to less money after all the applicable taxes are removed. The lump sum is ideal if you have a particular investment in mind. If so, you should definitely speak with a financial adviser to see if this investment has a real potential for growth and revenue in the long term. In most cases though, the annual annuity payment is the most beneficial as it helps you control your spending, while still enabling you to live a more than comfortable lifestyle

Get The Taxes Out of The Way

3.    Get an accountant so you can settle any tax issues ahead of time and avoid fines in the future

Pay Your Debts

4.    If you have debts, make paying them off your first priority

Be Patient

5.    Be patient and sensible with your winnings. Financial experts recommend that upon winning, you should immediately put your money into an interest-bearing bank account, so you can consult with professionals on how to maximize the interest income

Don’t Quit Your Job

6.   Or at least, don’t quit your job right away. Think about you and your family’s security in the long term- retirement funds, trust funds, college funds, not to mention a sense of purpose. If you really don’t like your job, consider taking a leave of absence so you can allow yourself some time to really think about what you could do with your new-found wealth. Is there a passion of yours you can finally realize?

Don’t Gamble Your Money Away

7.    Don’t gamble. Just because you got lucky once, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again. The incredible two time lottery winner Evelyn Adams, made the foolish mistake of gambling away almost all her money at the Atlantic City Casino and now lives in trailer park.

Prepare Yourself For Change

8.    Be prepared for change. Winning the lottery is going to bring about big changes in dynamics with family, friends and career that you won’t see coming. It might be a good idea to seek some professional advice on how to cope with becoming rich and not letting it take over your life.

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Biggie had it right when he said “Mo’ money mo’ problems”. Finding yourself up to your eyeballs in cold hard cash may seem like the answer to all your prayers but if you don’t know how to handle all this money (and the reality is most people don’t), winning the lottery can become a living nightmare. Following, are some of the worst cases of lottery disasters; the sad and foolish stories of how people have gone from top to rock-bottom, losing everything from their friends, their family and sometimes, their life.

1) Andrew Jackson “Jack” Whittaker was already a millionaire when he won the multistate Powerball lottery in December 2002. At 55 years-old, he was president of a contracting firm in West Virginia; he had a beautiful family, a big house, and drove a Lincoln Navigator. On December 25, 2002, Whittaker became the biggest single lottery winner in US history, winning a $314.9 million jack pot. His initial expenditures consisted of building churches and beginning a foundation for the less fortunate. But things spiraled out of control, very quickly.

Whittaker was robbed numerous times, once of more than $500,000 at a strip club. He became a heavy drinker. He and his wife divorced. He was accused of bouncing checks at Atlantic City casinos. And then to make matters even worse, his granddaughter Brandi, whom Whittaker bought four cars for and was very close to, was found dead of a drug overdose. A drug problem that was easily funded with the $2,100 per week allowance he gave her.

2) What are the odds that the winner of a $500,000 statewide lottery to benefit a nonprofit organization that aids victims of sexual abuse, would himself be a convicted sex offender? Probably more likely than the odds of winning a lottery. Yet, Alec Ahsoak, 53, convicted of molesting two girls under the age of 13 back in 1993, and another in 2000, won the half million jackpot. The media was quick to announce that the lotto winner was a repeated sex offender and this proved to be highly detrimental to his safety.

Ahsoak was walking down the street one afternoon, when he was approached by a man and two women, who asked him if he was the man who had won the $500,000 jackpot. Moments later, the man struck Ahsoak over the head with a tire iron (or metal pipe, police were unsure) eight to ten times. The injuries were not fatal, and it isn’t clear whether or not the attack was related to the lottery winnings as no money was stolen.

According to the Anchorage Daily News, Ahsoak’s victims did not believe that Ahsoak should benefit from the lottery, claiming the money should go to them instead.

3) Once upon a time, he was the winner of $16.2 million. Now, William “Bud” Post lives on Social Security and food stamps. It seems the second you get your hands on a lot of money, all sorts of people pop out of the woodwork with “great ideas” for you to invest in; desperate circumstances only you can save them from; or even surprise lawsuits.

Post was successfully sued by his former girlfriend for a share of his winnings. One of his brothers was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him, so he could inherit a share of the winnings. His other siblings convinced him to invest in a car business as well as a restaurant, which were both unsuccessful. Post found himself $1 million in debt within one year, and was forced to declare bankruptcy.

4) Someone should have told Evelyn Adams not to push her luck after she won the New Jersey lottery for a second time- once in 1985 and again in 1986. A soft-spot for family and friends, as well as the Atlantic City casino, her inability to say no landed her in the trailer she lives in today.

5) Jeffrey Dampier was one of the few lottery winners trying to make a sound investment with his winnings. (If of course investing in a gourmet popcorn store sounds like a profitable and reasonable investment.) Sure, he bought the extravagant gifts for his family, took them on vacation. The terrible tragedy came when Dampier was found shot dead in the back of a van, seven years after his winning. Police arrested his sister-in-law, Victora Jackson and her boyfriend, Nathanial Jackson (last names are coincidental) after kidnapping and murdering Dampier for his money.

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Some people take out loans or apply to get grant money, others stumble upon money. Treasures can be found in the strangest of places, in the oddest of ways.  Here are some of the unlikely but true stories of discovered treasures:

1) From my cold, dead, and lucky hands

A retired man in Connecticut named Donald Peters (79) bought two lottery tickets at a 7-Eleven, just hours before dying of a heart attack. A few weeks after his death, his wife Charlotte (78) was going through his things, and came across the tickets. Charlotte brought them to the shop, only to find out that she just won $10 million! According to the Peters’ son, Brian, their father would certainly have appreciated the irony of the event. “He’d be very mad, he just passed away and she won a lot of money.”

2) Money down the crapper

In January of 2009, an Arizona plumber named Mike Roberts, found a 7-carat diamond, worth $70,000. It seems the ring had been flushed down the toilet at the “Black Bear Diner” in Phoenix.

3) Contract killer

Apparently, bathrooms can be pretty useful spots to hide your money, as contractor Bob Kitts from Cleveland, Ohio discovered. Kitts found $182,000 of Depression-era money hidden in a bathroom wall. He told the homeowner about the money; arguments broke out quickly on how to repartition the findings. This led to a legal battle between the homeowner and the contractor, and eventually between the found money’s family descendants who had been traced back from the return address on the envelope the money was found in. The contractor would have done well to keep his mouth shut.

4) A Hole: Lotta Gold

Jeff Bidelman, a Johnstown Rare Collectibles owner, was helping a family clean out the house their relative had abandoned over twenty years ago. As he was dragging a bag of old coins downstairs, he noticed a hole in an upstairs wall. When the first floor got torn down, a mounting pile of gold coins worth about $200,000 was found. Apparently, they had been thrown down the hole Bidelman had noticed earlier.

5) Old Money

Full-time plumber and part-time fossil hunter, Greg Riecke, was on one of his expeditions near the Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District in Perris, California, when he discovered a nearly intact Mastodon tusk (one of the rarest fossils on the planet), dating anywhere from 16,000 to 2 million years old!

6) Tired of poverty

Three Mount Comfort state highway workers found $100,000 in an abandoned tire as they were picking up litter. Unfortunately, drug-sniffing dogs found the scent of drugs on the bills. Their lucky find had to be turned in to the Indiana state police.

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Going to a casino can be a fun and enjoyable experience but it’s important to have realistic expectations. The following is a brief guideline on how to maximize your enjoyment of gambling and minimize the damage to your bank account. NOTE: These are not tips to make money!

Gambling is a form of entertainment; not a way to make money

Yes, you can win money while gambling but the odds are really stacked against you. It’s important to look at gambling as a way to have fun and not a way to line your pockets. If you’re not having fun then chances are you’ve been playing too much and should stop.

Educate yourself on how the game works and the odds before you play

If you educate yourself on the games you play in a casino then you’re in a better position to understand what you’re getting yourself into. Many people believe their chances of winning to be much higher than they actually are.

Set aside money for your night out

Decide how much money you intend on spending at the casino in advance and accept that, chances are, you will never see this money again. This may sound discouraging but it will actually increase your level of enjoyment if you do win.

Don’t bet money you can’t afford to lose

Gambling can become a serious problem for you if you start using money you can’t afford to lose. Money for essentials like rent, mortgage, groceries, etc. should never be put on the line in a casino.

Consider leaving your ATM cards at home if you’re unable to control your spending while gambling. And never take out a loan or get grant money to support your gambling habit.

Decide how long you intend to play before going out

If you set a time frame for your outing then you’re less likely to get out of control. It’s easy to get caught up in the game, whether you’re winning or losing. A timeline helps you stay focused and enjoy the time you have.

Take breaks

It’s good to take frequent breaks while in a casino. This will allows you more time to think and will minimize bad decision making.

Try not to gamble if you’re feeling depressed in any way

Everyone has their ups and downs but if you’re feeling particularly depressed it’s highly recommended you do not gamble. You’re far more likely to make bad decisions when you’re unhappy.

Don’t chase losses; accept them as the cost of entertainment

When you lose money while gambling, it can be tempting to continue betting in order to recuperate your losses. Continuing to bet doesn’t increase your chances of winning. In the long run, people will always lose more than they win because the odds are not in their favor.

Quick Facts

-    You are 58 times more likely to be struck by lightning than win the jackpot in the lottery
-    Gambling addicts are more likely to be male than female
-    Lower income workers gamble more frequently and gamble a larger percentage of their income than middle to upper income workers

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