Also:
When Groppler Zorn threatened to give access to Farpoint Station to the Ferengi Alliance, Picard remarked that he hopes the Ferengi find Zorn as tasty as they did their past associates. The novel The Buried Age establishes that the Ferengi’s early reputation as a dangerous race was merely propaganda established by Zek because the Ferengi, after hearing early reports about the Federation and their moneyless economy, decided that the Federation might well be insane if they truly did not seek profit. Zek also threw funding into a large military buildup in order to preserve their appearance as a dangerous race and in order to defend themselves against the Federation, should it prove necessary.