Easy money, as its name suggests, refers to funds which have been earned with very little effort, if any at all. Usually, money can only be made by working or by investing some form of effort or asset in the attempt to earn more. As such, earning money cannot usually be described as an easy task. The idea of getting money the easy way is therefore generally regarded as either a dream or a shady activity.
In some cases, investments may be regarded as a way of making easy money, mainly because no actual work needs to be done by the investor in order to make a profit. However, associating such an activity with easy money is debatable, because making an investment involves taking some risks. As such, and especially in the case of big investments, it is not as simple as it appear to be.
There are many entities, however, who capitalize on the dream of earning easy money and use this concept to attract individuals to their cause. There are some businesses, for instance, which claim to be channels for a quick and easy profit. These may be referred to as “get-rich-quick” schemes. They claim that with a minimal investment and very little effort, one can earn much more. An example of this is the infamous pyramid scheme. Under such a setup, an agent simply needs to recruit more downlines to make a profit. This becomes the main source of income rather than actual product sales. Such arrangements tend to be beneficial only to those on top of the pyramid, but collapse after a certain period of time. Therefore, such schemes are considered illegal.