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Tag: Speed of Wealth LLC

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Judge Declares Mantria Corp. A ‘Smoke And Mirrors’ Ponzi Scheme, Says Troy Wragg And Amanda Knorr-Led Firm Acted With ‘Sociopathic Greed’; Defendants ‘Shamelessly’ Raised $54.5 Million Through ‘Blatant Lies’

    Screen shot: Troy Wragg, whom the SEC said was a manager at a janitorial company before becoming CEO of Mantria Corp., next to President Clinton at the annual meeting on the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Sept. 25, 2009.

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Using direct, no-nonsense language, U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello has ruled Mantria Corp. a Ponzi scheme that operated with “sociopathic greed” to defraud investors of millions of dollars.

    Some investors were encouraged to drain equity in their homes to invest with Mantria, according to the ruling.

    The ruling was a straight-line win for the SEC, which charged the firm, its principals and chief pitchman in November 2009 amid allegations that Mantria had orchestrated a colossal fraud targeted at people interested in “green” energy and protecting the environment. Mantria executives Troy Wragg and Amanda Knorr were charged in the caper, as was pitchman Wayde McKelvy of an entity known as “Speed of Wealth LLC.”

    Arguello found that Mantria had scammed more than $54.5 million “by egregiously, recklessly, knowingly, and shamelessly perpetrating a fraudulent scheme” that used “misrepresentations, omissions, and blatant lies to induce unsuspecting and unwitting victim investors to liquidate the equity in their homes and take out bank loans to invest in Defendants’ scheme, which was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.”

    The judge’s ruling specifically points to internal Mantria emails uncovered by the SEC during the probe.

    One email from Wragg to McKelvy read, “Mantria Speed of Wealth = MSOW = Many Souls Owe Wayde.” Another from McKelvy to Wragg allegedly touting seminar registrations and a new crop of suckers read, “110 registered for tonight 75% names I don’t recognize. Let’s blow them away my brother!” An email attributed to Knorr read, “Let’s just make some f*****g money.”

    Mantria traded in part on the name of former President Bill Clinton, who once presented Wragg an award for commitment to the environment. Prospective investors were shown a video that included footage of Clinton and other famous politicians and business figures.

    Fraud schemes often spread virally by planting the seed that famous people endorse the “opportunities” when they do not. In fraud case case after fraud case, celebrity endorsements, which are used to disarm skeptics and create positive feelings, have been manufactured out of wholecloth.

    In the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, for instance, the U.S. Secret Service said promoters claimed that ASD President Andy Bowdoin had received an important award from then-President George W. Bush. The “award” actually was a memento for campaign donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to court filings.

    The Secret Service is known to have seized a significant volume of email during the ASD probe. Some of it has been described in court filings as incriminating to Bowdoin.

    Reporters who emailed McKelvy for comment after the SEC brought it charges against Mantria and Speed of Wealth received invitations to join the Trump Network multilevel-marketing opportunity.

    “YOU MUST START YOUR OWN BUSINESS Renee!” McKelvy advised a reporter in one email, according to the Denver Business Journal. “What You Have Been Taught About Building Wealth is DEAD WRONG!”

    Read the Mantria ruling on Leagle.com.

  • Better Business Bureau Revokes Accreditation Of Speed Of Wealth After SEC ‘Green’ Ponzi Action; Firm Experiences ASD-Like PR Disaster In Wake Of Allegations

    The accreditation of a Colorado company implicated in an alleged $30 million “green” Ponzi scheme by the SEC has been revoked by the Denver/Boulder branch of the Better Business Bureau.

    BBB now gives Speed of Wealth a rating of “F” — the worst possible score on a scale of “A+” to “F” — and says the accreditation was revoked because the company did not comply with BBB standards.

    Speed of Wealth’s BBB accreditation was revoked on Dec. 16, precisely one month after the SEC accused the firm of selling a Ponzi scheme for Philadelphia-based Mantria Corp. A rating for Mantria was not immediately available. The BBB of the Mid-Atlantic region, Metro Washington, D.C., and Eastern Pennsylvania says on its website that the organization is in the process of updating its report on Mantria.

    Under “Government Actions” in Speed of Wealth’s BBB listing, the organization summarizes the SEC allegations against Speed of Wealth and Mantria and provides links to the SEC’s charging document and news release in the case (emphasis added):

    On November 16, 2009 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission “SEC” filed a complaint with charges against Mantria Corporation, Troy B. Wragg, Amanda Knorr, Speed of Wealth LLC, Wayde M. McKelvy, and Donna M. McKelvy alleging that they are involved in perpetrating a $30 million Ponzi Scheme, which they persuaded more than 300 investors nationwide to participate in purported environmentally- friend[ly] investment opportunities.

    Click below view the entire press release and the complaint from the “SEC”:

    http://denver.bbb.org/Storage/33/Documents/9-16-09%20SEC_Complaint_Speed%20of%20Wealth.pdf

    http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2009/2009-247.htm

    PR Disasters Mark Speed Of Wealth, AdSurfDaily Cases

    Speed of Wealth’s website now throws a server error and appears to have been disabled. In a column in the Denver Business Journal last month, reporter Renee McGaw said she attempted to email Wayde McKelvy, a Speed of Wealth principal, to get his comments on the SEC action.

    McGaw reported that her email to McKelvy resulted in a steady stream of pitches to join wealth-building programs.

    “YOU MUST START YOUR OWN BUSINESS Renee!” McKelvy exclaimed to McGaw in one email. “What You Have Been Taught About Building Wealth is DEAD WRONG!”

    The Denver Post also wrote about the Trump Network emails from McKelvy in the wake of the SEC action. A college professor interviewed by the newspaper said words such as “amazing,” “unbelievable” and “phenomenal” used by McKelvy to describe the Trump Network should be considered red flags.

    The emails demonstrated that a crisis affecting one company can bring an unwanted spotlight on wholly separate brands. Indeed, the Denver Post reported that it contacted the Trump Network for comment on McKelvy’s emails. The calls were not returned.

    Even the names of President Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became part of the Mantria/Speed of Wealth story. The companies used a video that included images of Obama, the Clintons and other politicians and media figures in promotional materials.

    Meanwhile, the McKelvy emails were reminiscent of the experiences reporters had when they tried to contact Florida-based AdSurfDaily for comment after federal prosecutors seized tens of millions of dollars from the firm amid Ponzi allegations in August 2008.

    Like Speed of Wealth, ASD also has a rating of “F” from the BBB, which cites government actions against the autosurf firm. Unlike Speed of Wealth, ASD has unresolved consumer complaints, according to the BBB.

    Reporters who called ASD got a recording featuring the voice of ASD President Andy Bowdoin. Bowdoin, whom prosecutors later said had “followers,” intoned in the recording that that God was on the company’s side.

    Thirteen months later, Bowdoin told an audience listening to a conference call that his ongoing legal fight against the government was inspired by the story of a former Miss America who now operates a Christian organization. The PP Blog contacted both the Miss America Organization and the Christian organization for comment.

    The Miss America Organization did not return the call; the Christian organization, Salem Family Ministries, responded by saying it had no comment, except to say it did not recognize Bowdoin’s name. The Secret Service transcribed Bowdoin’s remarks in the conference call and presented them to the federal judge hearing the forfeiture cases against the firm.

    Companies in legal crisis can lose the PR war quickly if their initial actions lead to more questions than answers. Within days of the federal action against ASD, Bowdoin invoked “Satan,” comparing the U.S. Secret Service to the 9/11 terrorists who killed nearly 3,000 people.

    In a Nov. 19 conference call with participants, McKelvy described the SEC allegations as “ridiculous,” but at the same time acknowledged he possibly sold securities without a license, according to the Denver Business Journal.

    But in the same conference call — just days after the SEC action — McKelvy also said he was turning his attention to the Trump Network, an MLM opportunity. The comment — and the emails Speed of Wealth sent out to promote the Trump Network — led to more headlines in newspapers, forums and Blogs.

    Read Speed of Wealth’s BBB report.

    Read ASD’s BBB Report.

  • BREAKING NEWS: SEC Charges Four Individuals, Two Companies In Alleged ‘Green’ Ponzi Scheme; Former President Clinton Acknowledged Firm’s Commitment To Environment At Major New York Event In September

    It what may become an embarrassment to President Obama, Former President Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a man the SEC now says was operating a $30 million Ponzi scheme appeared alongside President Clinton at the 5th Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York Sept. 25.

    Obama’s name and the names of both Clintons were dropped in a video on the website of Speed of Wealth LLC, a Colorado company accused today of promoting the scheme for Mantria Corp. of Pennsylvania. Other names dropped on the site included former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, President Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast, Mike Duke, CEO of Wal-Mart, Muhtar Kent, CEO of the Coca-Cola Co. and actor Matt Damon.

    All of the individuals were among the prominent attendees of President Clinton’s CGI function.

    There are no assertions that any of the politicians, prominent business executives or celebrities who attended the CGI event had any knowledge of the alleged scheme. But Troy Wragg, CEO of Mantria Corp., one of the companies accused in the scheme, appeared next to President Clinton and Secretary of State Clinton on the stage in New York.

    The Speed of Wealth video featured snap shots of famous people who attended the CGI event. It concluded with Bill Clinton’s remarks recorded on video, with Wragg, other attendees and the Clintons in a group pose.

    Speed of Wealth was a sales outlet for the Mantria scheme, the SEC charged today.

    Screen shot: Troy Wragg, whom the SEC said today was a manager at a janitorial company before becoming CEO of Mantria Corp., next to President Clinton at the annual meeting on the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Sept. 25.
    Screen shot: Troy Wragg, whom the SEC said today was a manager at a janitorial company before becoming CEO of Mantria Corp., next to President Clinton at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Sept. 25.

    Mantria Corp.’s 28-year-old chairman and CEO, Troy Wragg, whom the SEC said was “employed as a manager for a small janitorial services company” prior to getting into the Ponzi business, was prominently featured in a video on Speed of Wealth’s Website.

    In the video, Wragg is standing next to President Clinton, who had acknowledged Mantria for its environmental commitment at the CGI event Sept. 25.

    Mantria even got a mention in a CGI news release after committing “to help mitigate global warming through the use of its Carbon Fields site, where Mantria will perform trials on their product BioChar, a carbon-negative charcoal, to prove how this product can sequester carbon dioxide, improve soil quality when buried, and reduce emissions in developing countries.”

    Today in Denver, however, the SEC said BioChar was part of the alleged Ponzi scheme, which may involve $30 million or more.

    Despite claims that “Mantria was the world’s leading manufacturer and distributor of biochar and had multiple facilities producing it at a rate of 25 tons per day,” the SEC said, “Mantria has never sold any biochar and has just one facility engaged in testing biochar for possible future commercial production.”

    One SEC official said there was little “green” about the firm, except perhaps for its love of money.

    “These promoters fraudulently exaggerated Mantria’s green initiatives and used high-pressure tactics to convince investors to chase the promise of lucrative returns,” said Don Hoerl, director of the SEC’s Denver Regional Office. “In reality, the only green these promoters seemed interested in was investors’ money.”

    Charged today were Speed of Wealth and two of its executives: Wayde McKelvy of Sunny Isle Beach, Fla., and Donna McKelvy, of Parker, Colo.

    Also charged were Mantria and two of its executives: Wragg, who lives in Philadelphia, and Amanda Knorr, also of Philadelphia.

    Wayde and Donna McKelvy previously were married, and “particularly targeted elderly investors or those approaching retirement age to finance such ‘green’ initiatives,” the SEC said.

    Mantria was a “supposed ‘carbon negative’ housing community in rural Tennessee,” the SEC said.

    But the “green” representations “were laced with bogus claims, and investors were falsely promised enormous returns on their investments ranging from 17 percent to ‘hundreds of percent’ annually,” the SEC said.

    The agency charged that “Mantria’s environmental initiatives have not generated any significant cash, and any returns paid to investors have been funded almost exclusively from other investors’ contributions.”