Part 2: False Starts
Ponzi begins his life in America broke and starving.
He is too embarrassed to write home and ask for extra money, so he rolls up his sleeves to make ends meet. He works in various manual jobs, including factory hand, dishwasher, and waiter, but since he lacks the discipline to stick with any of them for long, he is either fired or becomes bored and quits.
He learns that life in America is not as rosy as he had hoped when he left Italy. There are many Italians on the East Coast, but most of them are extremely poor and have to work hard for their hand-to-mouth existence.
In 1907, Ponzi thinks the United States is a tough place to live, so he relocates to Montreal, Canada, where he finds a job as a clerk in an Italian bank and is soon promoted to manager. However, the bank collapses after its owner steals customer deposits and flees to Mexico, leaving Ponzi jobless again. Shortly thereafter, in 1908, Ponzi is arrested and jailed for two years for forgery.
In August 1910, a few days after his release from prison in Montreal, Ponzi is returning to the U.S. accompanied by five newly arrived Italians, but border police arrest him and charge him with trafficking illegal aliens. He pleads guilty and is jailed for a further two and a half years at a federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia.
After his release, he travels to various locations in the United States, doing different kinds of jobs. In 1917, he returns to Boston, meets and married Rose Gnneco. After a brief stint working as a stenographer at the JR Poole Company and for Rose's father, he decides to try his hand in business.
At first, he becomes a commodities broker but tries to do it with stolen goods. On 10 May 1919, police arrest him for stealing 5,387 pounds of cheese, but he gets away with it only because a court clerk misspells his name. If it's not for this mistake, the judge would almost certainly send him back to prison.
After narrowly avoiding jail, Ponzi does not want to deal again with something that can land him in trouble. He moves his office to the Nile Building and posts a sign in front of it that reads "Charles Ponzi Export and Import." He intends to operate as an import and export agent on commission.
It's a fantastic idea, but he lacks the necessary contacts to get started. He wants to advertise his company abroad to attract customers, but the cost of doing so in overseas trade magazines is very high.
This predicament triggers another business idea: he could start a foreign trading magazine and sell advertising space at reasonable rates. The next day, he changes the sign outside his office to "The Bostonian Advertising and Publishing Company," the name of the company he will use to market the magazine, which he has decided to call "The Traders' Guide."
To reach a wider audience, he plans to publish the magazine in multiple languages, including English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Portuguese, and distribute 100,000 free copies to businesses in the US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce database.
He is confident in the success of his plan, so he rents more office space and hires a messenger and two stenographers to help him run his firm more efficiently. Given he has no clients and is looking for employees hoping his invention will be profitable, this is very optimistic.
Ponzi then tries to attract clients by writing to random acquaintances in other countries, but his bank accounts run dry as his overseas trade journal fails.
Finally, when he fails to obtain a loan from a bank, he fires his employees and declares the company bankrupt.
Not being the type to give up, he declares, "Another house of cards has collapsed. I am accustomed to chasing rainbows. As one fades away, I pursue another."
His next venture will succeed beyond his wildest dreams.
