Even if you are an avid video gamer, you might not have ever heard of the game Ciftlik Bank. It's a Turkish game, and in English the title is Farm Bank. From a cursory description, it sound like a lot like FarmVille, but it was so much more. Ciftlik Bank was set up to be a game, an investment in Turkey's struggling agriculture industry, and a money-making opportunity for players all at once. The whole complicated idea was appealing to a lot of people, but it actually turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. Ciftlik Bank was developed by Turkish rapper Mehmet Aydın, also known as Egoman. Aydın got rich off the game, and managed to enjoy his loot long after the players realized they were being fleeced, and long after Turkish authorities started looking for him. The whole story of Ciftlik Bank boils down to never trusting a person trying to sell you an idea that seems too good to be true. You can either ignore it, or ask questions of someone who isn't going to profit from your trust.
This video comes with a list of sources in case you want to read more on this story. There's an ad at 3:45, but it's only about 20 seconds long. -via Damn Interesting