Archive for January 2015

UPDATE: ‘Bacon’ Program Pushed By ‘Achieve Community’ Hucksters Reportedly Put On Hold By ‘Admin’; Second Program May Be DOA After Purported Payza Freeze

UPDATE: 'Bacon' Program Pushed By 'Achieve Community' Hucksters Reportedly Put On Hold By 'Admin'; Second Program May Be DOA After Purported Payza Freeze

UPDATED 6:20 A.M. ET U.S.A. “BRING THE BACON HOME,” a bizarre Ponzi-board “program” purportedly operated by “Sherilyn” from “Singapore” and pushed on YouTube by Achieve Community hucksters Rodney Blackburn and Mike Chitty, reportedly collapsed during a so-called Beta launch this week and has been put on hold. The “program” purportedly turns $40 into $1,800. Achieve […]

Police Officers Attacked By Gunman After Swearing-In Ceremony In New Hope, Minn.

Jan. 29 Editor’s Note: Updates appear at the bottom of this story . . . This is the early statement of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office on a shooting last night that occurred at City Hall in New Hope, Minn. New Hope has a population of about 20,000, according to its Wikipedia entry. It is […]

BULLETIN: Quebec’s AMF And Other Agencies Issue Warnings On ‘GetEasy’ And ‘iGetMania’ Program

BULLETIN: Quebec's AMF And Other Agencies Issue Warnings On 'GetEasy' And 'iGetMania' Program

BULLETIN: Canada’s province of Quebec has issued a warning on an increasingly bizarre and evolving scheme once known as “GetEasy” and now known as “iGetMania,” calling it an “investment program” that has “not filed a prospectus” and is “not registered with the [Autorité des marchés financiers] in any capacity.” AMF is Quebec’s securities regulator. The […]

DEVELOPING STORY: Post On EgoPay Blog Claims Hack, ‘Gap In The Cash Reserves,’ Embezzlement And Staff Suspensions; Some ‘Achieve Community’ Promoters Are Pushing Other Ponzi-Board Schemes That Claim EgoPay Tie

DEVELOPING STORY: Post On EgoPay Blog Claims Hack, 'Gap In The Cash Reserves,' Embezzlement And Staff Suspensions; Some 'Achieve Community' Promoters Are Pushing Other Ponzi-Board Schemes That Claim EgoPay Tie

UPDATED 1:09 P.M. ET U.S.A. The Blog on the website of the EgoPay payment processor claims in a Jan. 22 post that the company was hacked on Dec. 28. The claims, which the PP Blog cannot confirm, read like a spy novel that marries insidious financial fraud and escalating computer fraud to uber-bizarre palace intrigue. […]

Costly Sanctions Imposed Against Profitable Sunrise HYIP Figures In Ohio, Settlement Documents Show; Fallout Could Last Years

Costly Sanctions Imposed Against Profitable Sunrise HYIP Figures In Ohio, Settlement Documents Show; Fallout Could Last Years

EDITOR’S NOTE: A PP Blog story dated yesterday includes other details. ** _________________________** Still pitching HYIP schemes and Ponzi-board “programs?” Positioning them as a means of helping a charity and/or ministry raise funds? Becoming a promoter of Profitable Sunrise — an absurd  Ponzi-board HYIP scheme with a purported payout of up to 2.7 percent a […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Colorado Division of Securities Confirms ‘Achieve Community’ Investigation

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Colorado Division of Securities Confirms 'Achieve Community' Investigation

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (5th Update 5:35 p.m. ET U.S.A.) The “Achieve Community” money-cycling scheme is under investigation in Colorado. “We do have an open investigation,” said Lillian Alves, Colorado’s Deputy Securities Commissioner. It is the first official public confirmation that Achieve Community, a Ponzi-board program that claims to turn $50 into $400, is […]

BULLETIN: Profitable Sunrise Figures Nancy Jo Frazer And Albert Rosebrock Admitted They Sold Securities; Injunction Imposed; Charity Is Dissolved

BULLETIN: Profitable Sunrise Figures Nancy Jo Frazer And Albert Rosebrock Admitted They Sold Securities; Injunction Imposed; Charity Is Dissolved

BULLETIN: (3rd Update 4:16 p.m. ET U.S.) Profitable Sunrise HYIP figures Nancy Jo Frazer and Albert Rosebrock have admitted they sold securities, the state of Ohio said. As part of a settlement agreement with prosecutors, a charitable enterprise known as Defining Vision Ministries Inc. (formerly known as Focus Up Ministries Inc.) will be dissolved, with […]

ACKMAN: ‘We Can Fight Pyramids With Our Own Pyramid’

ACKMAN: 'We Can Fight Pyramids With Our Own Pyramid'

2ND UPDATE 3:23 P.M. ET U.S.A. In another swipe at Herbalife and perhaps MLM recruiting schemes in general, activist investor Bill Ackman says he’s out to combat pyramid schemes by creating one himself. Ackman’s apparent tongue-in-cheek approach adopts a typical “tell five” MLM marketing technique as part of a bid to create Internet virality for […]

TelexFree/iFreeX Figure Sann Rodrigues Appears In Car With Emerson Fittipaldi; Is Brazilian Racing Legend Being Duped By MLM Huckster?

TelexFree/iFreeX Figure Sann Rodrigues Appears In Car With Emerson Fittipaldi; Is Brazilian Racing Legend Being Duped By MLM Huckster?

UPDATED 2:14 P.M. ET U.S.A. It is not unusual for financial fraudsters to seek to rub elbows with famous people or to imply ties to them as a means of sanitizing purported “opportunities” or accenting their own bona fides. Recent examples of this include Florida-based Ponzi-schemer/racketeer Scott Rothstein, who mixed with the elite as his […]

DEVELOPING STORY: Kidnapping, Murder Linked To WCM777/Kingdom777 Scam, Newspaper Reports

DEVELOPING STORY: Kidnapping, Murder Linked To WCM777/Kingdom777 Scam, Newspaper Reports

DEVELOPING STORY: (Updated 8:43 p.m. ET U.S.A.) The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, Calif., is reporting that detectives in Napa County have linked the kidnapping and murder of 44-year-old Reynaldo Pacheco to the WCM777/Kingdom777 MLM scam and as many as four suspects. From the Press Democrat in a story dated Jan. 15 about the arrest […]

CHARLOTTE OBSERVER: Jonathan Davey, Figure In ‘Black Diamond’ Ponzi Caper, Sentenced To 21 Years In Federal Prison

CHARLOTTE OBSERVER: Jonathan Davey, Figure In 'Black Diamond' Ponzi Caper, Sentenced To 21 Years In Federal Prison

EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks to a PP Blog reader for pointing us to the Charlotte Observer’s story on the sentencing of Jonathan Davey. One of the key figures in the bizarre “Black Diamond” Ponzi caper in North Carolina has been sentenced to 21 years in federal prison. Here is the URL from the Charlotte Observer on […]