If you weren’t familiar with the name “Ponzi” last year, you sure learned it quickly this year, along with the names “Madoff,” “Dreier,” “Petters,” and all the others who followed in the footsteps of the notorious fraudster Charles Ponzi.

That's because, as the Associated Press reports, the number of Ponzi schemes that came to light in the U.S. has nearly quadrupled in the last year. The schemes, in which perpetrators lure investors with promises of high returns and use new investors' cash to pay the old ones (and, of course, grab cash for themselves), topped 150 this year, compared to about 40 last year.