The Madoff case is a little different because Madoff himself had a tremendous reputation. People weren't throwing their money at some shady anonymous figure, he was supposed to be incredibly successful.
Still unwise of course, but a little more understandable.
But he did not have that name before he started his scheme, right? Same with all the EVE bank scams... none of them were all that famous and started "from scratch" and at first just baited people with normal operations.
The difference is that Madoff never EVER had any real business to begin with and basically just distributed money around and made sure enough was coming in to cover it.
Still unwise of course, but a little more understandable.