Fort Ad Pays Ponzi collapses, 40,000 investors lose money

Investing in a Ponzi scheme built on another Ponzi scheme was never a good idea, but that’s exactly what Fort Ad Pays offered.

Amazingly over 40,000 people thought this was a good idea. Unfortunately now that Fort Ad Pays has collapsed, they’ve now collectively lost millions of dollars.

For those unfamiliar with the scheme, Fort Ad Pays was a cookie-cutter ad-credit Ponzi scheme run by Pedro Fort (right).

Affiliates invested between $1 and $300 on the promise of ROIs of up to 300%. Bundled with investments were ad-credits, which could be used to display advertising on the Fort Ad Pays website.

According to a report from El Pais, Fort Ad Pays is “unable to meet payments” and has collapsed.

Prior to the collapse Fort Ad Pays began offering $350 positions in the scheme, with investors reporting they’ve been unable to withdraw for weeks.

Along with the exact figure Fort Ad Pays affiliates have lost,

the exact number of people affected is difficult to know.

The Fort Group says on its website it has more than 250,000 members, but its leaders admit that “the real figure is much lower because there are duplicate customers and others who have signed up but then have no activity,” says Josep Àngel Colomes.

The estimate is at between “40,000 and 50,000 active members.”

The head of a complaint portal has calculated, based Fort Ad Pays website traffic data, that “the number of people affected should be between 30,000 and 60,000.”

El Pais estimate that collectively Fort Ad Pays affiliates have likely lost “several million” dollars.

Rather than admit he has run out of newly invested funds to pay off existing investors with, in a video dated May 20th, Pedro Fort attributed the collapse to

new international standards (that have) increased (regulatory) control in fighting money laundering and terrorism.

Ponzi schemes routinely trigger money laundering filters across the financial institutions they bank with, so no surprises there.