Great frauds in history: Sarah Howe

Sarah Howe defrauded thousands of women through her "Ladies’ Deposit Company" in the late 19th century.

Sarah Howe was born around 1826 in Providence, Rhode Island, in the US, and worked most of her early life as a fortune-teller in Boston. In 1875 she was arrested several times for fraud, usually for taking out multiple loans secured by the same asset, and then refusing to repay them. In 1879 she opened the Ladies' Deposit Company. "Run by women for women," it accepted deposits from unmarried women, and quickly won a following in Boston, attracting $500,000 (around $13m in today's money) in deposits from 1,200 savers, who were attracted by the promise of getting 8% in interest each month.

What was Sarah Howe's scam?

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

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