Ponzi did not invent the scheme ( Charles Dickens ' 1857 novel Little Dorrit described such a scheme decades before Ponzi was born , for example ) , but his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States . Ponzi did not invent the scheme ( for example Charles Dickens ' 1857 novel Little Dorrit described such a scheme decades before Ponzi was born ) , but his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States .