Great frauds in history: OPM Leasing Services

Childhood friends Mordecai Weissman and Myron Goodman siphoned off huge amounts of money from their company to spend on mansions, a private jet and a chauffeured limousine.

Childhood friends Mordecai Weissman and Myron Goodman founded O.P.M. Leasing Services in 1970 above a sweet shop in New York. O.P.M – whose initials officially stood for Other People’s Machines, but seems to have been a cynical play on Other People’s Money – borrowed to buy mainframe computers from IBM, which it leased to large companies. By offering substantially lower rates than its competitors and by allowing companies to return the equipment if it became obsolete, O.P.M. quickly took a large share of the market. By 1978 it was one of the five largest leasing companies in the United States, employing 250 people over 11 offices.

What was the 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.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri