Archive for October 2011

INCREDIBLE: Month After Will Smith Debacle, Club Asteria Turns To Mahatma Gandhi To Drive Traffic — And Misspells Name Of Assassinated Champion Of Freedom While Turning Him Into A Pitchman; House Organ Also Includes Photo Of Richard Branson

INCREDIBLE: Month After Will Smith Debacle, Club Asteria Turns To Mahatma Gandhi To Drive Traffic -- And Misspells Name Of Assassinated Champion Of Freedom While Turning Him Into A Pitchman; House Organ Also Includes Photo Of Richard Branson

Last month, it was famed actor Will Smith. This month, it is Mahatma Gandhi, the civil-rights champion and beacon of freedom in India who was assassinated at a prayer meeting in 1948. After placing a “JOIN NOW” button under an image of Smith in its September house organ and later removing both theĀ  image and […]

UPDATE: ‘JustBeenPaid’ Promos Trading On Name, Likeness Of Oprah Winfrey; ‘Click On The Oprah Banner Below,’ Ad Instructs

UPDATE: 'JustBeenPaid' Promos Trading On Name, Likeness Of Oprah Winfrey; 'Click On The Oprah Banner Below,' Ad Instructs

UPDATE: In addition to trading on the name of Warren Buffett, the JustBeenPaid “program” is trading on the name of entertainment icon and business titan Oprah Winfrey. Actor Charlie Sheen’s name also has been referenced in Ponzi forum chatter about JustBeenPaid, an “opportunity” whose braintrust once recruited members for Florida-based AdSurfDaily. ASD, according to the […]

UPDATE: Andy Bowdoin’s Fundraising Site Still Down

UPDATE: Andy Bowdoin's Fundraising Site Still Down

The continuing outage of a fundraising site for accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily now has exceeded 80 hours — more than three full days. The site first was reported to be offline Thursday at 11:09 p.m. EDT. What caused the outage and why the site remains offline are unclear. Bowdoin, 76, had […]

RECOMMENDED READING: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Quotes Lynn Edgington Of Eagle Research Associates In Piece On Steering Clear Of Fraud Schemes

RECOMMENDED READING: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Quotes Lynn Edgington Of Eagle Research Associates In Piece On Steering Clear Of Fraud Schemes

Lynn Edgington, the founder of Eagle Research Associates Inc. and a regular contributor to the PP Blog, is quoted in an article in tomorrow’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch. An online version of the article by reporter Stephen Deere is available here. Eagle, a nonprofit that battles online fraud schemes, is based in Mission Viejo, Calif. The […]

Andy Bowdoin’s Fundraising Website Offline; Reason Why Unclear

Andy Bowdoin's Fundraising Website Offline; Reason Why Unclear

A website through which accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily hoped to raise $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense has been offline for at least 11 hours. The reason why is unclear. The site — known as Andy’s Fundraising Army — launched on July 26 after weeks of prelaunch hype and after […]

EDITORIAL: ENOUGH! Payments For ‘JustBeenPaid’ Purportedly Routed Through Canada From BigBooster.com Email Address Linked To Frederick Mann At Domain That Uses Street Address In South Africa; Pitch Site Features Repurposed Video Of Warren Buffett And Prompt To Register With Gmail Address — Even As YouTube Removes Some Video Pitches; Alert Pay-Enabled Site Once Touted AdSurfDaily

EDITORIAL: ENOUGH! Payments For 'JustBeenPaid' Purportedly Routed Through Canada From BigBooster.com Email Address Linked To Frederick Mann At Domain That Uses Street Address In South Africa; Pitch Site Features Repurposed Video Of Warren Buffett And Prompt To Register With Gmail Address -- Even As YouTube Removes Some Video Pitches; Alert Pay-Enabled Site Once Touted AdSurfDaily

There are the deliberate shills for JustBeenPaid — serial Ponzi board hucksters such as “10BucksUp,” for example. And there are the unwitting shills whose celebrity is stolen without their knowledge to sanitize the over-the-top fraud that promotes absurd returns — people such as famed investor Warren Buffett. Buffett’s only tie to JustBeenPaid is that he […]

BULLETIN: Recidivist Huckster Jailed In Florida In ‘Body Scan’ Securities Swindle Masterminded Separate Ponzi Scheme In California That Netted $11 Million, SEC Says; Jerry Aubrey Charged Amid Allegations He And Brother Peeled Off Millions For Basketball Tickets And Lavish Home Featuring ‘Giant Fish Aquariums With Miniature Sharks’

BULLETIN: Recidivist Huckster Jailed In Florida In 'Body Scan' Securities Swindle Masterminded Separate Ponzi Scheme In California That Netted $11 Million, SEC Says; Jerry Aubrey Charged Amid Allegations He And Brother Peeled Off Millions For Basketball Tickets And Lavish Home Featuring 'Giant Fish Aquariums With Miniature Sharks'

Jerry L. Aubrey first came on the SEC’s radar screens in 1998, when he was hawking “securities in a fictitious cruise ship,” records show. By 2007, he’d been charged criminally in Florida with securities fraud for selling shares of a bogus “body scan imaging business” between December 2000 and October 2003. He was convicted of […]

SEC: New York Pitchman, 73, Hawked ‘Illegal Offering’ For Murdoch Security & Investigations Inc. By Spinning Tall Tale Of ‘Anti-Piracy’ And ‘Anti-Terror’ Success On The ‘High Seas’

SEC: New York Pitchman, 73, Hawked 'Illegal Offering' For Murdoch Security & Investigations Inc. By Spinning Tall Tale Of 'Anti-Piracy' And 'Anti-Terror' Success On The 'High Seas'

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the past 24 hours, the SEC has filed charges against two firms purportedly in the business of preventing terrorism. Read the PP Blog’s story about the first firm here. The cavalcade of senior citizens implicated in securities schemes continues — as does the story about the bizarre nature of recent fraud cases […]

BULLETIN: SEC Says InfrAegis — Purported ‘Homeland Security’ Firm With Product To Detect Weapons Of Mass Destruction — Was A $20 Million Fraud Based In Part On A ‘Trillion’-Dollar Lie; Company And CEO Gregory E. Webb Charged

BULLETIN: SEC Says InfrAegis -- Purported 'Homeland Security' Firm With Product To Detect Weapons Of Mass Destruction -- Was A $20 Million Fraud Based In Part On A 'Trillion'-Dollar Lie; Company And CEO Gregory E. Webb Charged

BULLETIN: The SEC has gone to federal court in Illinois to charge InfrAegis Inc. and CEO Gregory E. Webb with fraud amid allegations they fleeced investors in a $20 million scam that traded on post-9/11 fears and claims that government security contracts worth more than $1 trillion would make everybody rich. Webb, 64, resides in […]

UPDATE: YouTube Is Removing Videos For ‘JustBeenPaid,’ Program Hawked By Serial Hucksters; MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi Forum Poster Suggests His Hundreds Of YouTube Accounts Will Enable Him To Circumvent Video Removals

UPDATE: YouTube Is Removing Videos For 'JustBeenPaid,' Program Hawked By Serial Hucksters; MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi Forum Poster Suggests His Hundreds Of YouTube Accounts Will Enable Him To Circumvent Video Removals

YouTube is removing videos for JustBeenPaid, a “program’ linked to Frederick Mann and popularized by scammers on Ponzi boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. JustBeenPaid promos feature claims of remarkable returns. The removed videos carry messages such as “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams, and commercially deceptive […]

SPECIAL REPORT: SMOKING GUN? MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi Forum Post Made During Same Month Grand Jury That Indicted AdSurfDaily’s Andy Bowdoin Convened May Tie AdViewGlobal To International Penny-Stock Scheme And Collapsed Payment Processor In Arizona

SPECIAL REPORT: SMOKING GUN? MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi Forum Post Made During Same Month Grand Jury That Indicted AdSurfDaily's Andy Bowdoin Convened May Tie AdViewGlobal To International Penny-Stock Scheme And Collapsed Payment Processor In Arizona

EDITOR’S NOTE: Longtime readers of the PP Blog will recall that the purported AdSurfDaily (ASD) spinoff known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) and some of its members engaged in particularly bizarre behavior in May 2009. The absurdities included announcing (and then unannouncing) a puported deal with a new offshore wire facilitator, announcing (and then unannouncing) a new […]