What does pyramid scheme mean?
• PYRAMID SCHEME (noun) The noun PYRAMID SCHEME has 1 sense: 1. a fraudulent scheme in which people are recruited to make payments to the person who recruited them while expecting to receive payments from the persons they recruit; when the number of new recruits fails to sustain the hierarchical payment structure the scheme collapses with most of the participants losing the money they put in Familiarity information: PYRAMID SCHEME used as a noun is very rare.