Ad Surf Daily Surrenders; Bowdoin Removes Claim To Tens Of Millions Of Dollars As Autosurf Ponzi Members Grumble
BREAKING NEWS (UPDATED 9:03 P.M) Dogged by the government since August and a loser in early skirmishes with prosecutors, AdSurfDaily has done what it said it wouldn’t do: surrendered claims to tens of millions of dollars seized by the Secret Service in a Ponzi scheme investigation.
Lawyers for ASD President Andy Bowdoin have filed a motion with U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia to consent to the forfeiture — and also to forfeit real estate prosecutors said was purchased with proceeds from the scheme.
Collyer ruled in November that ASD had not demonstrated it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme. The ruling was handed down after a Sept. 30-Oct. 1 evidentiary hearing requested by ASD.
GoldenPandaAdBuilder, which was implicated in the federal probe, surrendered its claim to seized money in September. At the time, Golden Panda’s surrender was condemned as the act of a traitor by some ardent ASD supporters.
Clarence Busby, the president of Golden Panda, was villified by ASD members who said they believed ASD never would surrender.
Now ASD itself has surrendered. Some members are grumbling on forums, at once complaining about prosecutors but also questioning their support for Bowdoin over the past six months.
Some people maintained from the beginning that ASD — and Bowdoin — would be vindicated and that prosecutors would be lucky to find jobs in fast-food restaurants after Bowdoin systematically destroyed their case and countersued.
Prosecutors said in court filings today that they intended to aid victims though a liquidation process. “Meanwhile, plaintiff explores mechanisms to identify victims and losses attributable to the AdSurfDaily and Golden Panda Ad Builder Ponzi operations so that property sued because of its involvement in the fraud schemes alleged in the complaint (or the value of property upon its liquidation) may be used to compensate the frauds’ victims,” prosecutors said in a motion.
From ASD’s court filings (emphasis added). . . Claimants, AdSurfDaily, Inc., Thomas A. Bowdoin, Jr. and Bowdoin & Harris Enterprises, Inc. (hereinafter “Claimants”), by undersigned counsel, hereby request leave of the Court to withdraw and release claims previously filed, consent to forfeiture, as follows.
1. Claimants withdraw and release with prejudice the verified claims they filed in this civil forfeiture action.
2. Claimants consent to the forfeiture of the properties for which they have asserted claims (i.e., the real property at 8 Gilcrease Lane and the bank account balances at the Bank of America in the names of Thomas. A. Bowdoin Jr., sole proprietor, d/b/a AdSurfDaily) and expressly announce their intention to not contest the Government’s forfeiture efforts against the properties for which they have asserted claims.
See this TampaBay.com story.
Bowdoin’s Surrender View
Prosecution’s Motion View
NOTE: This comment was received from Lynn and republished in this spot:
While this news may have come as a shock to many of the ASD faithful, to others of us we are surprised it took this long before Andy threw in the towel. Guess his plea deal took a little longer than anticipated.
Now it will be interesting to see if the Federal Grand Jury will disband, or if they will bring indictments before concluding their business. And of course just who will be named in those indictments, if any are forthcoming.
Since they have given up on the Fed level, one has to wonder how soon they will announce an agreement with the Florida AG. As one of the faithful stated, Andy has his son and daugher-in-law involved in AVG, and thus they can keep the money in the family. Whatever that was supposed to mean. Of course they believe because this is registered in Uruguay, they are safe from all the Fed agencies and state AG’s. Some never learn.
Now it is time for the government conspiracy charges to become the mantra of the faithful. One has already alluded to this “sounds fishy.†It is amazing that only a couple of the faithful wants to admit that Andy conned them; at least for now.
Now the real fun begins. Figuring out who was a victim, and who has to return all their ill-gotten gains. The receiver will have their hands full on this one.
Andy folds up another scam. I had a chance to see him and his crew in action in the Atlanta area with Mobile America Marketing. They first started a MLM, offering bogus alarm systems. They detected pressure changes and sounded an alarm. Worked great in a hotel ballroom. Close all the doors, set the alarm, then pull a door open rapidly. Either the change in air presssure or the hidden remote control caused the alarm to sound off. Didn’t work so well when you brought it home. This was the product that members had to sell until they brought up their ingenious cutting-edge cellular phone technology.
The phone technology? They found some retired piano salesman from rural Louisiana who had concocted a radio-telephone system for himself and his neighbors. Paid him a bunch of money and he would stand in front of meetings and tell prospective members about the wonders of the system. Problem was that there was not one shred of commercial opportunity in this system. The technology had been eclipsed a long time before. Not making enough on sales, they started selling franchises for cell tower sites to gullible larger investors. Members starting catching on to the fact that there was nothing really there, and the business evaporated. Selling the franchises was their downfall, resulting in a string of securities charges. Things were so bad at the end that a group of franchisees staged a corporate coup, and bought Andy and Larry out. They moved in, evaluated the state of the company and its potential legal liabilities, and shortly thereafter contacted Andy to see how much they would have to pay to have Andy resume control of the operation.
Several of his associates have gone on to their own stories. Pitching fantabulous deals, getting a lot of press, and crashing and burning in a storm of legal wrangling and SEC filings.
Andy is a very pleasant and cordial guy. On the surface, one would not want to see him go to jail at his age. However, he has hurt a lot of people over the past 15 years. There should be some severe penalties this time to convince him that his selected career path is not one to continue pursuing.
Well, one still has to admire Andy for modifying a concept that someone will in time tweak, with supporting revenues, to help the little guy succeed.
Andy will probably spend the rest of his natural life in the slammer for failing in this vision, after having been “dogged” by the pack, then driven out of business by a US Attny.-friendly court.
What about the victims? Keep in mind, there were NO victims until after August 1, 2008! Who can we thank for that? And what about personal responsibility? No one should ever risk more than they’re capable of, certainly not their homes or livelihood!!!!!
Now, who pays for the prosecution? Their employers? Or ASD? Until July, members had access to funds. How about now? Who said life is fair?
Hello Ty,
One needn’t admire Andy for running a $100 million Ponzi scheme into which people dumped money from second mortgages and college funds to maximize the power of matching bonuses.
They were giddy from visions of fantastic profits — and Andy wasn’t saying no to their money. In fact, he dispatched volunteers to collect it.
And helping the “little guy succeed?” Hardly. This was a recipe for the little guy to lose at least 50 cents on the dollar, unless the little guy happened to get in early enough and didn’t care that his “profits” were being funded by incoming Ponzi participants — knowingly or unknowingly.
So, it’s the judge’s fault, Ty?
ASD could have “won” the case at the evidentiary hearing by supplying audited financials that demonstrated solvency. ASD could not do this because ASD was insolvent — just as prosecutors had alleged.
You’ll also note that ASD didn’t call a mathematician or an accountant at the hearing. Instead it called members, who could provide nothing of substance to help ASD. I believe the members testified truthfully; it’s just that their testimony inured to the benefit of the prosecution.
And ASD called an expert who was getting paid $24,000 to opine that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme — after not having based his opinion on the books, but rather on interviews with Andy and Juan Fernandez and Robert F. Garner, and an incomplete analysis of ASD’s system.
The expert’s testimony was at odds with information published on his own website about pay to play, something for which the judge called him out in her ruling.
It’s not the judge’s fault, Ty, and Andy was no visionary. He didn’t invent the model, and he didn’t improve it. What he did was sucker people out of tens of millions of dollars, aided in large measure by promoters who had no scruples.
And there were no victims of Bernard Madoff until Dec. 11, 2008. In fact, owing to the same type of deception employed by ASD, people who entrusted money to Madoff thought they were getting richer.
The government prevented the ASD scam from mushrooming, something it wishes it had done in the Madoff scheme.
I wish you well, Ty, and I do appreciate the time you’ve taken to share your point of view.
Take care,
Patrick
Atlanta Guy: The hallmark of scammers is their ability to convince potential victims of their absolute sincerity and trustworthiness. Organized serial killers (like Ted Bundy but unlike Jeffrey Dahmer) have the same technique. Women who knew that woman were being murdered in their hometowns would get in the car with Ted Bundy without a second thought, to help out what was obviously a nice guy. I’m sure Bernie Madoff also seemed to be a charming elderly gentleman. But it didn’t stop him from scamming his friends, and then paying off his relatives first, as his ship was sinking.
On the surface and deep down below it, I would be happy to see him go to jail, and so would many others. Why not?
I hear numbers being thrown around from $53-93.5 million! If that’s insolvency, count me in!!!!! Unless insolvency was caused by the seizure, ours too!!!!!
Our family owned a store that took 1½ years to break even, fortunately before capital could run out. Perhaps we should call all uncertain startups Ponzis for clarification. I’m glad our Protectors overlook most of our choices, many of which fail!
The numbers bear it out. Simple math. Back to the “double standard” principle.
Both sides have an answer for everything, don’t we?
Ty,
You don’t have the answer for everything. YOu have yet tio refute the Black Box for ASD, and when you claim to be a math buff and state above that it is simple math, you are half-right — it is simple math. You are at best a math buff wanna be, failing to be able to do simple analysis. People with a real math background understand logic and proofs very well, and they are not matters of opinion. 1+1 is 2, regardless of how Ty would want to spin it. ASD is proven to be mathematically unsustainable. QED (and as a math buff, I am sure you know what that means…..)
1+1 of what? Guess I’ll spell it out. The brilliant formula could be incorporated into a sustainable variant, and thus help the little guy succeed. Andy started a trend, and the decision may be legally defied soon. Overwhelming feedback from Tampabay.com article shows the concensus for change in the present economic atmosphere. Why settle for the status quo?
Ty,
As already posted, the sustainable variant is no rebates or a huge external source of revenue. Really simple, actually. The Tampabay.com commentators don’t understand the math, or haven’t bothered to figure it out. You have. How would you answer the comments from one commentator:
“by Allick Jan 15, 2009 12:42 PM
I’m into ASD for $11,000 my Life insurance (which I cashed in) I’m 80 years, cant afford to loose this money”
Hint: Her plight is not a government conspiracy.
That’s just plain sad, Entertained. And it’s not a unique situation.
It’s interesting that a number of True Believers flocked to the TampaBay.com site to dress down the government for pulling the plug on a $100 million Ponzi scheme.
Allick’s comment was buried in a pile of antigovernment bile
I haven’t read too many defenses for Bernard Madoff in any newspaper, including ones in south Florida.
Most of the Madoff criticism I’ve read has been directed at the government for not shutting down the scam before it mushroomed globally.
Patrick
Ty: You keep talking about how ASD was this great and genius business model. So what’s stopping you from doing it? This is America, and no-one is stopping you from trying it except yourself.
It won’t take long to determine if the ASD business model was this ingenious model or not. Of course you won’t be able to pay 25%-50% more to the people who join you than they paid, or you will end up like ASD, CEP, 12DP and Phoenixsurf; with more to be added later to this list.
I fail to understand how someone, as you are, who is so sure of the genius behind the ASD business model hasn’t already started their own business on this model. So take this genius of a business model you believe in, tweak it and go for it.
Hello Ty,
You’re confusing solvency with liquidity. Autosurf Ponzis can be highly liquid by choosing to ignore accrued liabilities and hiding behind a “rebates aren’t guaranteed” disclaimer.
Sometimes co-conspirators help the scam artist create liquidity by recommending members employ the “80-20 Rule.”
Autosurf operators, by design, focus on only half of the ledger — the good half. This is what creates the condition that allows insiders to cash out and squirrel money offshore or out of the sight of regulators.
If you’re playing this game, you can be sure of two things:
1.) Insiders are sucking money out of the system.
2.) The “business” will fail as a result of mathematical unsustainability, personal choice (rebates aren’t guaranteed, which is a license to cut and run) or government intervention.
Sometimes they fail because the Ponzi math becomes too worrisome — in the sense that members irked by slow payments or no payments at all might contact authorities — and operators get out while the going is good.
Patrick
Actually Ty, I was wondering if you considered Andy’s co-mingling of funds as part of ASD’s genius business model? Or do you consider Andy’s statements that ASD had been vetted by SEC experts and and approved as being legal, which it wasn’t, as part of ASD’s genius business model? Or was it Robert Garner and his team of attorney’s, that didn’t exist, that declared ASD legal as part of ASD’s genius business model? Or was it Andy’s consistant posting of ASD’s 1% being paid daily as part of ASD’s genius business model? Or was it paying people for not surfing which was in direct violation of ASD’s TOS that was a part of ASD’s genius business model? Or was it Andy’s goal to make 100,000 Millionaires, but you weren’t investing, that was part of ASD’s genius business model?
In conventional business 90% of all small businesses fail within 5 years. Many much sooner! Should Big Bro. apply the same stringent policies to them? I’m one of a growing number concentrating on the solution, not the problem. I’ve said my peace. Enjoy the status quo, folks.
Ty,
You are correct that many, perhaps even 90%, of legal small businesses fail within 5 years. Autosurf Ponzi’s however, fail 100% of the time…….
Ty,
Your analogy between ASD and other small business is utter nonsense. The closure of ASD by the government had nothing whatsoever to do with “risk factors.” It’s about violating the law by selling unregistered securities, and concealing it from the buyers by a complex series of cover-ups, lies, misstatements, and fraud.
Are you forgetting that ASD was in violation of federal law from the start of their operation, and that can’t be said of the type of small business I think you’re talking about, i.e. the businesses whose owners sink much of their own funds, and if the business model is good enough maybe take out a bank loan, in order to open a business. These “start ups” don’t start up the way AdSurfDaily and ASD Cash Generator did. Andy Bowdoin and the Insiders broke this law (USC 1001) from day one, and that means from day one they were subject to seizure by the U.S. Government under USC 981 — the code that they met their ignoble end for violating.
It’s a terrible world for a small business start ups, most do close, yet most don’t violate the law. Andy intended to violate the law, using several well known business principles such as (1) never give a sucker an even break; (2) a fool and his money are soon parted; (3) there’s a sucker born every minute; and (4) you can fool some of the people all of the time.
§ 1001. Statements or entries generally
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years.
Ty,
This is just a deflection.
Breaking up Ponzi schemes that suck wealth out of the economy is not a “stringent policy.” It is, rather, prudent and ethical use of government power.
Good grief, Ty.
Double good grief.
Patrick
Actually, it can be argued that many ponzi HYIPs and ponzi AutoSurfs are very successful. ASD was very successful. Using the money he was given, Uncle Andy was able to buy Bling-Bling jewellery, pay of debt for friends and family, buy big flash cars. ASD was successful for Andy & his family & friends. It was successful up until the day he got caught.
Megalido was even more successful. The operator made lots of profit & wasn’t caught (yet).
These ponzi HYIPs & ponzi AutoSurfs are there to make profit for the owner/operator and no one else. By this definition many are successful. The ones that are not are where the owner(s) get caught & have to pay back their ill gotten gains.
If 90% of “small conventional business” fail within 5 years and so few ponzi HYIPs & ponzi AutoSurfs fail, this should be another indication as to why they are illegal. They only fail from the point of view of the “investor”. From the point of view of the operator, owner, promoter, payment processor, web host & other profiteers, a “closed” scheme is just the end of the profit cycle.