Launched in May 2008, Give and Take saw UK-based investors invest £3000 GBP ($4873 USD) on the implied guarantee of a £21,000 GBP ($34,115 USD) ROI.

Like many schemes before it, Give and Take used a 2×3 matrix, with new investors funneled into the bottom.

Once all eight positions along the bottom were filled, the investor at the top was paid out. Every position below them then moved up a level, leaving two matrices with eight new blank positions to fill up again with new investors.

Give and Take ran for about a year, before authorities shut it down in April 2009.

Targeting local women,  Laura Fox and Carol Chalmers convinced 10,000 investors to pump £21 mllion GBP ($34.1 million USD) into the scheme.

Following a complaint to trading standards, investigators raided her house and discovered a cache of documents linking her to the scam.

What’s really amazing is the pair (who are in their late 60s) managed to pull the scam off 
without
the aid of the internet. These ladies
ran their scheme oldschool
.

The scam was simple. All that investors who signed up to Fox and Chalmers’s Give & Take scheme had to do was hand over £3,000, sign up eight new members and then wait a few days before receiving £23,000 back in cash. (One victim signed up to six schemes, only to lose £18,000.)

The money was given to recipients in cash at champagne-soaked celebrations at a country hotel then owned by Chalmers or at Fox’s £600,000 home.

Some investors, including, of course, the two pensioners themselves, earned huge sums. But most lost everything when the pyramid inevitably collapsed.

Despite the “local” nature of the scheme though, the operation of the Give and Take scheme mirrors that we usually see in the online world:

Undoubtedly, the seeming trustworthiness of Fox and Chalmers played a major part in duping investors. But the scheme also caught on because Fox ran her side of the fraud with a housewife’s efficiency.

She established a committee to control G&T, and enlisted a number of friends into key positions. Fox was G&T’s chairman and Chalmers its venue organiser.

Another chum, Jennifer Smith-Hayes, 68, a widow, was treasurer. This was a criminal gang run as if by a Women’s Institute.

Fox organised promotional parties at the Battleborough Grange Hotel in Burnham-on-Sea, owned by 68-year-old Carol Chalmers, where up to 300 women paid £2 entry for drinks and games with cash prizes.

Mobile phone footage recorded at one of the parties showed Laura Fox shouting: “
We are gambling in our own homes and that’s what makes it legal.
”

Lavish galas, friends given top positions, bullshit compliance excuses – these are all-too-familiar hallmarks of the online Ponzi/pyramid scheme industry.

And if you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of Give and Take, here’s why:

The scheme relied on word of mouth to recruit new members and banned them from communicating with each other in writing so as to keep it secret from the authorities.

Victims were seduced with glit

🤖 Quick Answer

What was the Give and Take pyramid scheme?
Give and Take was a UK-based pyramid scheme launched in May 2008 using a 2×3 matrix structure. Investors paid £3,000 with promises of £21,000 returns. Operators Laura Fox and Carol Chalmers recruited 10,000 investors, generating £21 million before authorities shut down the operation in April 2009.

How did the Give and Take matrix structure operate?
The scheme employed a 2×3 matrix with new investors placed at the bottom eight positions. When all positions filled, the top investor received payment. Positions then advanced one level, creating two new matrices requiring fresh investors to continue the cycle indefinitely.

Who were the main perpetrators of Give and Take?
Laura Fox and Carol Chalmers orchestrated the Give and Take scheme, specifically targeting local women. Together they persuaded approximately

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