Talk:Charles Ponzi

message: Guys, I am removing the first paragraph of the subsection Suspicion, "Confederate War Veteran, Elmira Prison escapee, local hero and Augusta Georgia Accountant Berry Benson". It appeared out of anywhere, starting abruptly with a story that has nothing to do with the main theme of the article and only mentions Charles Ponzi briefly and that does not meet the Wikipedia's standards.--187.21.144.89 (talk) 00:58, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Suspicion

message: "He eventually got a job in Brazil as an agent for Ala Littoria, the Italian state airline.[2] During World War II, however, Brazil sided with the Allies, and the airline's operation in the country was shut down."   Why would an airline close because the government sided with the Allies in WWII?
Do I still need to put in all those tildes?  Oh, here they are anyway; 04:03, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I just read over the article and it seems to contain a significant amount of biased and uncited statements. Statements such as "This was a fortunate choice.." , and questions such as "why didn't Ponzi take advantage of it himself?", etc don't belong in an encyclopedia. In addition, nothing at all is cited. I'm going to put up the cleanup tag to hopefully get it improved a bit. --Dr. WTF 02:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: This page seems to have some subtle vandalism. Could someone pls check? My monitor is broken and won't display reds, so I can't see what has been altered
Seems to have? Can you be a bit more specific please? Also note the page has not changed for months ... would it really have been left for so long I wonder? Any hints would be v helpful though.
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Such as "If the cashflow faltered, the pyramid would collapse and take him to Hell with it.
Whatever."
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It's somewhat more colloquial in style than the average article, but I'd hardly call it vandalism.
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The page seems to have been vandalized by someone- the Security Exchange Company? Or is that just a coincidence....
:I don't know, but I do know you're answering a 3 year old comment :) --kingboyk 13:39, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Some comments from 2003

message: This page seems severely undercited.  156.56.41.63
:The citation style I used is pretty legit, I used it on Matsuo Basho's page too. Shii (tock) formerly Ashibaka 21:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations? 

message: This article seems a lot more like some story meant to entertain rather than a serious means of communicating information. The amount of detail is applauded, but sometimes it seems like there is too much of it; "He slept on the floor of the restaurant as he had no other place to live, but managed to work his way up to the position of waiter," and other such lines. Details like this are 1. extremely specific and therefore susceptible to being incorrect and 2. sounds like the tragic tale of some tramp living a destitute life in the big city, which most of us have probably heard in some version or another. Comments like "Ponzi was unfazed" are grammatically simple and detract from the sense of reading an encyclopedia, and may be better if it was merged with the following sentence; i.e. "Unfazed, Ponzi..."
So, in essence, lines that make the article seem like a story, whether through use of language more suitable in a story (like "There he met an Italian girl, Rose Gnecco, who was swept off her feet by Ponzi's charm." and "Gnecco's love for Ponzi remained unswayed.") or through overly specific detail (like "Charles Morse convinced doctors he was dying by eating soap shavings, and was released early," which has little or no bearing on the rest of the article) should either be removed or merged with other sentences to remove the sense of bias.
>>In the time it took you to write that, you could have edited half the article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.151.53.222 (talk) 04:34, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article seems more like story 

message: The article says this: "On July 26 the [Boston] Post started a series of articles that asked hard questions about the operation of Ponzi's money machine. The Post contacted Clarence Barron, the financial analyst who published the Barron's financial paper, to examine Ponzi's scheme. Barron observed that though Ponzi was offering fantastic returns on investments, Ponzi himself wasn't investing with his own company. Barron then noted that to cover the investments made with the Securities Exchange Company, 160,000,000 postal reply coupons would have to be in circulation. However, only about 27,000 coupons were actually circulating."
The does not seem completely correct if I read this scan of a NY Times article of July 27, 1920. 81.242.188.159 (talk) 10:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting source 

message: There is some confusion in here about Ponzi schemes vs. Pyramid schemes.  There are differences between them.  Basically, a Ponzi scheme pays early investors returns from the investments of later investors.  This can work for a time with only moderate growth.  A pyramid scheme rewards investors for getting new ones, and for the new ones getting new ones, etc.  It needs exponential growth to sustain itself, which is why they collapse so spectacularly.
I've often wondered, where did Charlie Ponzi's money go?  They never recovered more than a fraction of it.  He never said.  Judging from how he lived the rest of his life, HE didn't seem to have it, or to access it at least.  Hmm.  Good material for a novel or two.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigmac31 (talk • contribs) 19:14, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not Pyramid Scheme 

message: How to you pronounce Ponzi?  Does it rhyme with Fonzy? (like of Happy Days?)
68.92.197.157 (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, that's exactly how it sounds, rhymes with Fonzy. --Chasingsol(talk) 21:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation 

message: Can someone clear this up: "Charles W. Morse convinced doctors Ponzi was dying by eating soap shavings, and was released early." This makes it seem like Morse at the soap shavings and was released, when it probably intends Ponzi. Not clear what role Morse plays in this. 192.234.99.1 (talk) 17:22, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Huh?

message: I don't see the reference actually giving Ponzi a pass on this (Charles_Ponzi#Prison_and_later_life) Yet I find this an interesting thought. It is possible that it was not against the law to do what he did, at the time he did it, except in a broad interpretation of the concept of fraud. In other words, you can postpone executing a business plan, especially when "happily" giving people their money back in the mean time. Failure to generate a return on investment, and taking any amount of money out of a business as salary... these things are not automatically illegal.Carlw4514 (talk) 19:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: It was an ironic charge

message: Where was Ponzi born? Lugo Italy, or Palma Italy?
Wm (talk) 18:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Birthplace?

message: See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9806E6D91E31E433A25756C1A96E9C946195D6CF for the possible origin of the error in the company name that appears in the Wikipedia article. The typesetter apparently capped a generic term ("securities exchange company") at the end of the third paragraph in that article, and someone ran with that error. I've changed to the name used once in the article and used in the NY Times article. Bgranat (talk) 04:41, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Find additional references, both of you, before changing anything. Anonymous editor, you have already been edit-warring by making and re-making unreferenced changes. This is against Wikipedia's rules. Per the WP:V policy, both of you are going to have to dig up additional clear references for your positions. Until that time, the article stays as-is (an unclear reference is better than no reference). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 18:56, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name of Ponzi's Company 

message: Am I confusing something?  
In Prison and Later Life it reads At the urging of his wife, on November 1, 1920, Ponzi pleaded guilty to a single count before Judge Clarence Hale.  Then it says He was sentenced to five years in federal prison.
The next paragraph begins with He was released after three and a half years and was almost immediately indicted on 22 Massachusetts state charges of larceny.  That would be May 1924, if I'm reading and computing correctly.  
But the paragraph goes on to state The case, Ponzi v. Fessenden, made it all the way to the Supreme Court. On the 27th of March, 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that plea bargains on federal charges have no standing regarding state charges.
Which sounds as if his suit and the Supreme Court ruling occurred well before he was released early from his five year sentence.
DrYattz (talk) 04:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates of incarceration and litigation are confusing. 

message: What is the point of the "Supported by .." stuff?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.183.92.186 (talk) 18:28, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death 

message: I remember reading in a well-sourced book on Ponzi that he never legally changed his name from Carlo, for fear of having to reveal his Montreal check-forging and his later immigrant-smuggling convictions.  Unfortunately I cannot recall the book or its author.
If anyone can verify a reference, the name of this article should be changed to "Carlo Ponzi".  BMJ-pdx (talk) 04:01, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Carlo, not Charles 

message: It says that Ponzi sued an individual who is not specifically named for libel and won $500,000. There is no source for this. I can’t find any source for this and I’m starting to doubt it’s true. There are articles online that mention the judgment, but their source seems to be this Wikipedia article. I searched on Westlaw for any legal articles that mentioned a libel (or defamation) lawsuit Ponzi won and found nothing indicating Ponzi ever filed a libel lawsuit and won. If anyone has more specifics I would love to know. And I think the Wikipedia article either should provide more information and a source or be corrected. 2603:8000:8F00:3EAE:1CCC:2C22:510A:1C2D (talk) 02:07, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ponzi Really Win a Libel Lawsuit? 

message: I've removed this unsourced claim added 7 years ago, even though it makes a great factoid and has spread around the internet.
"Remarkably, during his various prison terms, Ponzi continued to receive Christmas cards from some of his more gullible investors, as well as requests from others to invest their money—from his prison cell."
If it is true hopefully it can be sourced and added back, but a cursory search didn't turn anything up. Nukeychess (talk) 20:29, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Added by an IP in this edit with no explanation. Elli (talk | contribs) 20:46, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced claim about requests to invest money received while in prison