The scheme was named after a man named Charles Ponzi. He used the scheme after moving from Italy to the United States in 1903. (Ponzi didn't invent the scheme, though. In 1857, Charles Dickens wrote a book called "Little Dorrit" about a scheme like this. The scheme is a simple idea, and probably very old.) However, Ponzi's scheme was so big that it became the most popular. His original scheme was based on using countries' money-exchange rates to make money, based on international postage stamps. But money soon stopped being invested in coupons, and went to early investors, and a lot to Ponzi himself. 