PYRAMID SCHEME

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A fraudulent scheme in which people are recruited to make payments to the person who recruited them while expecting to receive payments from the persons they recruit; when the number of new recruits fails to sustain the hierarchical payment structure the scheme collapses with most of the participants losing the money they put in

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("pyramid scheme" is a kind of...):

scheme; strategy (an elaborate and systematic plan of action)

Credits