On Heels Of AG Examination, Zeek Blog Says Red Carpet Event For Aug. 22 Is Canceled

With a headline of “Red Carpet Wednesday – URGENT,” the Zeek Blog is reporting that a Red Carpet event scheduled Aug. 22 has been canceled.

Zeek, the operator of the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” and the Zeekler penny auction, provided no explanation for calling off the event. Zeek is a purported arm of Rex Venture Group LLC.

The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said last week that it had opened an “examination” into Zeek’s business practices.

Zeek has been dogged in recent weeks by PR disasters, including the reported firing of purported MLM expert Keith Laggos as a “consultant.”

Earlier this week, some members of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme announced a plan to “flood” a federal judge with letters of support for former ASD President Andy Bowdoin, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud in May in the ASD Ponzi case. An email circulating among ASD members that called for the judge to be flooded included two ads for Zeek.

Some Zeek promoters also are known to have promoted ASD, a 1-percent-a-day Ponzi scheme. Two Zeek promoters — Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer — sued the United States in November 2011. As part of the lawsuit, Disner and Schweitzer presented a federal judge an opinion from Laggos that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme.

Like ASD, Zeek plants the seed that a return of 1 percent or more per day is possible. And like ASD, Zeek denies it is offering an investment program.

The Dispatch newspaper of Lexington, N.C., published a story today that included a July 31 photograph of Zeek prospects waiting in line, apparently to get a chance to turn over money to the company.

At least one apparent Zeek supporter left a comment that the newspaper’s website that asserted that The Dispatch had printed untrue things about the company and that the reporter who wrote the story had not gone through Zeek “compliance training.”

Some Zeek supporters appear to hold the curious belief that reporters are required not to use the word “investment” when describing the Zeek “program.”

Zeek advises its members not to use the language of investments when describing the “program.” ASD did the same thing.

The U.S. Secret Service raided ASD in 2008, alleging that ASD has a massive Ponzi scheme that sought to avoid the use of the language of investments to keep its 1-percent-a-day program under the government radar.

Bowdoin later was indicted on charges of securities fraud, selling unregistered securities as investment contracts and wire fraud. The 77-year-old ASD patriarch pleaded guilty to wire fraud and faces up to 78 months in federal prison.

Federal prosecutors have asked that Bowdoin be sentenced to the maximum term despite his age, alleging he started a new 1-percent-a-day fraud just two months after the August 2008 Secret Service raid.

This is the entirety of the Zeek Blog post today (italics added):

Fine People,

We regret to inform you that Red Carpet Wednesday, scheduled for Wednesday, August 22, 2012 has been cancelled. Please continue to monitor our websites for more information to be forthcoming.

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20 Responses to “On Heels Of AG Examination, Zeek Blog Says Red Carpet Event For Aug. 22 Is Canceled”

  1. Add to this the leadership and training calls for this week have been canceled as well. I have a free affiliate account which lets me read Zeeks private support forum and the affiliates who aren’t complaining about not being paid, not have bid purchases credited to their accounts or any number of other system errors, are starting to get anxious. They are wondering why no one in Zeek leadership is telling them what’s going on.

  2. The Lexington Dispatch is reporting Zeek’s offices were closed today and will remain closed “for the rest of the week.”

    http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20120816/News/308169976/1005/news?p=1&tc=pg

  3. GlimDropper: The Lexington Dispatch is reporting Zeek’s offices were closed today and will remain closed “for the rest of the week.”

    http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20120816/News/308169976/1005/news?p=1&tc=pg

    Thanks for that, Glim.

    Patrick

  4. Zeek’s sites are currently pulled now and displaying the following message.

    “Zeek Rewards is currently unavailable. More information will be available shortly on this website.”

  5. Just like ASD all over again. Anyone want to take bets on if it comes back?

  6. This is the infuriating thing about this company, they’ve always been so completely incompetent that it’s hard to decide if they’ve really bit the big one or if no one over there realizes that this might be a good time to tell the affiliates what’s happening.

    Red Carpet canceled, office closed, websites offline, you’d think a polite and somewhat informative update would go a very long way in soothing the anxiety in the field force. Even if they needed to lie, it would make people feel better.

    The big day to watch will be Monday. If they don’t talk to the affiliates and if they don’t make a pay run, I don’t think we’ll see anything like “Andy’s Army” rising up to try to save Paul, there might be a lynch mob instead.

  7. Quick note: Check out the comments thread at The Dispatch. As of now, three or so Stepfordian vultures are trying to cherry-pick Zeekers for their “programs.”

    http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20120816/News/308169976/1005/news?p=1&tc=pg

    Patrick

  8. GlimDropper: it’s hard to decide if they’ve really bit the big one or if no one over there realizes that this might be a good time to tell the affiliates what’s happening.

    If things are running true to form, they have no choice in the matter.

    The next announcement will come from whichever agency has control of everything.

    Changing the locks is as symbolic as it is practical.

    Zeek CAN’T inform the members.

  9. ZeekRewards News: Service Temporarily Unavailable

    Their Support Forum: 404’d

    I say give LRM a cigar.

    I just wish Troy’s blog was up, not to gloat but I’d love an update.

    What is it with ponzi schemes in southern states and the month of August?

  10. Wow, this is like real time coverage of the ponzi apocalypse.

    ZeekRewards News IS back up but with no updates, support forum still 404d but maybe they just banned me, posting links legitimate news stories ~might~ be viewed as negative rumor mongering but this just in, their FaceBook page was just nuked.

  11. GlimDropper: ZeekRewards News IS back up but with no updates,

    Nope, down again:

    Service Temporarily Unavailable

    The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
    Apache Server at zeekrewardsnews.com Port 80

  12. Quick note:

    The USHBB Inc. website — YouGetPaidToAdvertise.com — has stopped beaming the Zeek videos,

    Here is the message:

    _________________________________________

    The YouGetPaidToAdvertise.com system is currently unavailable pursuant to Zeekler.com and ZeekRewards.com’s website.

    Further information will be made available through http://www.zeekrewards.com or http://www.zeekler.com.

    _________________________________________

    Patrick

  13. Troy’s site hasn’t been available when I’ve looked for it but his YouTube Channel has an update:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2w841icVBg&list=UUTvdlGqFkQy2M2PB3NYG26A&index=1&feature=plcp

    I think I’m starting to understand him a little, if you always and only try to see things in their best possible light it’s easy to fall for people like Dawn and Paul tell you. They’re such nice people so why would they lie to get someone’s money? He does believe that the money is locked down, the affiliates wont be happy on Monday.

    Turn out the lights, the parties over.,..

  14. Zeeks FB is not Nuked just went to it

  15. GlimDropper: Troy’s site hasn’t been available when I’ve looked for it but his YouTube Channel has an update:

    I think I’m starting to understand him a little, if you always and only try to see things in their best possible light it’s easy to fall for people like Dawn and Paul tell you. They’re such nice people so why would they lie to get someone’s money? He does believe that the money is locked down, the affiliates wont be happy on Monday.Turn out the lights, the parties over.,..

    People like Troy should not be in this business. He knows a lot but can not connect the dots in simplest situation.

  16. I got real-time updates through comments at Behindmlm myself.

    I wouldn’t quite bet on them coming back, but I wouldn’t congratulate us quite yet.

    What we need is comments from Nehra, Laggos, and even… Kevin Grimes.

  17. All employees terminated. No chance of coming back. Any one who has paid anything by credit card in last 3 months to Zeek is disputing it now. Even if they were allow to restructure, they will have so many programming issues (on top of their current problems). They can barely account for points and eWallet callback transactions and cashiers checks credited to the right accounts when they were functioning with a full staff. How are they going to recover? If their servers are still running on the backend, everyone’s points are expiring with no growth. There will be so many loose ends between all the normal issues, the issues caused by CC disputes, and the issues caused as a function of time that they will have to shit can the whole thing.

  18. boris:
    People like Troy should not be in this business. He knows a lot but can not connect the dots in simplest situation.

    He’s not paid to.

  19. “Hello to my Zeek friends and affiliates,

    I am so saddened to hear about Zeek being closed yesterday. They are doing some investigations

    and until this is checked out they will not be up and running. However, they could be up by any day,

    but being that Zeek is worldwide and so huge it could be a while.

    I heard that people were calling the Attorney General of North Carolina and asking, “was Zeek a good

    investment?” This is the very reason that compliance was put into place, for people to know that it was

    not an investment, but that you were purchasing a subscription.

    I feel that we should support Zeek by calling the attorney general of North Carolina, and your congressmen,

    and letting them know how Zeek has benefited you and how it has changed peoples lives.

    This is truly one of the saddest things to me, as it was truly a part of my everyday. I know that all of

    you will miss zeek each day it is down, and certainly we will look forward to it coming back, bigger and better.

    Let’s pray about this, and hope that this is a short lived investigation, and again

    this does affect all of you, and again I am truly sorry.”

    I do think you will see a small ‘Pauls’ army stand up.. These people are just like the ASD’ers..they drank too much coolaide!

  20. Quick note: The BBB now is reporting it is aware of the reports that Zeek’s doors are closed:

    http://www.bbb.org/northwestern-north-carolina/business-reviews/multi-level-selling-companies/rex-venture-group-in-lexington-nc-12000422/

    Patrick