Episode #242 - What Was Ponzi's Scheme? (Part I)

Our Fake History

PodcastOne

History, Education, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2026

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The name Charles Ponzi has become synonymous with financial frauds. In 1920 the formerly obscure Italian immigrant suddenly became one of the most famous men in Boston when his Securities Exchange Company started offering investors remarkable returns. Ponzi claimed that he had discovered an ingenious method of using postal coupons to profit off international exchange rates. However, before the year was out his scheme had totally unraveled. What many Bostonians did not know was that Ponzi was a two-time ex-convict with a history as fraudster. Still, there may have been more to Ponzi than his dishonest reputation would lead you to believe. Ponzi claimed that he was a misunderstood genius. Should we believe him? Tune-in and find out how wasted undergrads, Canadian scammers, and the Hawk Tuah Girl all play a role in the story.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The other night I found myself having a pretty funny conversation with my wife.
0:13.1	I was spitballing ideas for the podcast, and I found myself musing about the blink and you missed it, rise and fall of the young lady we all know as the hawk to a girl.
0:28.9	Now the funny part was that my wife legitimately had missed it.
0:35.2	The viral moment of Tennessee native Haley Welch had come and gone without really
0:41.1	making a blip on my wife's pop culture radar. And honestly, why should it have? We're talking
0:48.7	about a busy mother of two working full time at a Canadian NGO. In 2024, she had bigger concerns than the
0:57.8	antics of a mildly provocative Southern 20-something. So I was halfway through a rant about the fortunes
1:07.3	of this viral celebrity turned crypto hustler when my wife stopped me and said,
1:13.7	wait, can you just start from the beginning? What was the whole Hawk to a thing anyway?
1:21.2	Now, my wife well knows the danger of asking me about the backstory of absolutely anything. So she must have been
1:31.3	legitimately curious. For now, I had an excuse to recount the ballad of young Miss Haley Welch.
1:41.1	In June of 2024, the 21-year-old Bedspring Factory worker rocketed to internet notoriety
1:49.9	after she and a friend noticed a couple of YouTubers doing man-on-the-street style interviews
1:55.4	with young clubgoers on a night out in Nashville, Tennessee.
2:00.5	As many of you know, this style of content has become ubiquitous, especially in the age of
2:08.0	one-minute reels and TikToks. Interviewers with tiny microphones ask spicy questions and
2:16.4	hope for answers that are funny, provocative, or just
2:21.0	weird enough to attract views. In this case, the YouTubers were Tim and D from Tim and D TV,
2:30.5	a fairly unremarkable channel that was about to be blessed with easily the most viral moment of 2024.
2:39.6	Haley and her friend approached the YouTubers.
2:42.9	Some questions were asked and internet history was made.
2:48.5	What's one move in bed that makes a man go crazy every time?
	...

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