Girls just want to have funds

The government would like to outlaw pyramid selling. Why? Rachel Royce has joined Hearts, the girls-only investment scheme, and finds it good, clean – and profitable – fun

I have a confession to make – but please don’t tell my boyfriend. I’ve made a somewhat high-risk investment. It will cost me £375, but for that I can expect a return of £6,000 – maybe. It’s a gamble – I know it’s a gamble – but I thought that amount of money could be laundered from the housekeeping, lost somewhere among the cornflakes and the chardonnay and bailiff demands for forgotten Blockbuster videos.

The scheme I’ve invested in is known as Hearts, and it’s for women only. It calls itself a ‘gifting scheme that benefits all women’. Men aren’t allowed in because they’d ruin it with their incessant cynicism and greed. They aren’t even supposed to know about it. That, in a way, is the point.

It works like this: you buy a ‘heart’ for £3,000 and then recruit some friends to do the same. If you are like me and pathetically poor, then you can opt to buy a smaller share – in my case, an eighth of a heart.

When a sufficient number of new people have been recruited, you’re in line for a lovely pay-out. You throw a party. Your friends come to your house with stacks of cash. You serve up the champagne and say thank you very much as you count your winnings: eight times your money. That’s not a bad return, now, is it?

Hearts is heartily disapproved of by boyfriends, partners, husbands, and by the government, which wants to ban it. Ministers say that it doesn’t work and women are being conned. They say it’s a form of pyramid selling where those at the top do very well and those at the bottom lose their entire investment.