Purported Transcript: Bowdoin Pushed ASD ‘Stock’ In 2007; Other Records Show Bowdoin Gave Campaign Donations In Names Of Two Firms

UPDATED 2:26 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A purported transcript of remarks in March 2007 by AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin paints a picture of a startup company with serious problems Bowdoin tried to solve by offering “stock” in the firm.

The “minimum purchase” of the stock was set at “$10,000,” and the the money would be used to help the company get back on its feet, according to the transcript, which was dated March 12, 2007, and posted in the asamonitor forum.

ASD had been operating only a few months at the time of Bowdoin’s remarks and already was in over its head, according to the purported transcript and other records.

AdSurfDaily also would undergo a name change to “AdSalesDaily,” according to the transcript.

Just two weeks earlier — on Feb. 27, 2007 — the Federal Election Commission recorded a $250 donation from “Mr. T. Bowdoin” in the name of “AdSalesDaily Inc.” The FEC recorded another $250 donation from “Mr. T. Bowdoin” in the name of “AdSalesDaily Inc.” on March 27, 2007, two weeks after the purported stock offering.

Both donations were targeted to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and used an address — 13 S. Calhoun Street, Quincy, FL 32351 — federal prosecutors later said was bogus.

Although the donations listed Bowdoin as the “owner” of AdSalesDaily Inc., the corporation appears not to have been registered in Florida. Records in Georgia list “Ad Sales Daily, Inc.” as a corporation that initially was registered in Georgia May 8, 2007, more than two months after Bowdoin identified himself as the owner in federal campaign records.

The Georgia entity does not list Bowdoin as an owner, officer or filer for the corporation — or as a person involved in any capacity. Rather, “Ad Sales Daily, Inc.” is listed as a Delaware foreign corporation, with J. Heardy Myers listed as the corporate filer and Myers (of Marietta, Ga.) and Otis Whitcomb (also of Marietta) listed as officers.

AdSalesDaily Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on March 22, 2007, according to filings.

In posts from March 2, 2007 at a forum known as stacontact.myfastforum.org, Myers is referred to as “Executive Vice President” and “Chief Information Technology Officer” of Ad Sales Daily Inc., with Bowdoin listed as “president.”  A “write-up” that resembled a news release on Bowdoin and Myers was published in the forum.

Within the same thread later in the month, however, a poster said Myers had resigned as executive vice president to “focus on getting the other website completed. He will continue to be a member of the President’s Circle.”

A person who identified himself as a member of an ASD downline group known as “oneteam” started the forum thread. “oneteam” used free hosting at homestead.com to promote ASD. At one time, “oneteam” displayed an ad that said ASD deposits were insured by the FDIC and that ASD provided “shelter” from the SEC and the FTC.

On March 22, 2007, a forum poster quoted Bowdoin as saying, “We should have all the stock money coming in this week.”

On July 17, 2008, a Blog known as “Otitis’s Weblog” (sic) included a denial that Ad Sales Daily Inc. had been affiliated with Bowdoin, saying “Any Bowdin (sic) has made false public statements in late 2006 to beginning 2007, that he had a company named Ad Sales Daily. Andy Bowdin (sic) has never done business as Ad Sales Daily, or incorporated this name or filed for a business license in Florida where he resides.”

The denial on “Otitis’s Weblog” appears to be the only post on the Blog.

Why Bowdoin would claim to own a company he did not own — and make two campaign donations recorded by the FEC in the name of AdSalesDaily Inc. — is unclear.  The federal filings recorded in February and March 2007 specifically list Bowdoin as the “owner” of AdSalesDaily Inc. (See the screen shot above of the February 2007 FEC record.)

Bowdoin, according to the transcript at asamonitor, had been in Atlanta in March 2007 to get “input” from “leaders” on the company’s problems. It is unclear if Bowdoin actually sold any stock in ASD. There does not appear to have been any public filings concerning an offering, although an offering could have been conducted privately.

“Hi Folks,” the transcript began. “My name is Andy Bowdoin, President of AdSurfDaily. We are not having an opportunity call tonight, but it will be an update call instead.

“I am in Atlanta Georgia tonight and I have been up here this afternoon meeting with some of our leaders getting some input on some of the issues we have,” Bowdoin continued, according to the transcript.

The transcript did not identify the leaders.

“We have known that we should have shut down the site for a long time, because of the issues we continually have with the site, but we have been putting band aids on it to keep it going until the new site was ready,” Bowdoin said, according to the transcript. “We have been using a lot of our programmers time to repair it and keep it going. That is expensive and wasting money and prolonging the development of our new site. But now the existing AdSurfDaily site is beyond repair.”

Script problems “drained” money from ASD, according to the transcript.

“[T]he mathematical formula that governs the payouts are wrong,” Bowdoin was quoted as saying in the transcript. “The site has been paying out 63%, 67% and 72% instead of the normal 60%. This has drained the money we had for pay outs. Therefore all pay outs are on hold at this time.”

Bowdoin did not say if people who benefited from extra payout amounts were asked to return the money, according to the transcript. Instead, ASD stopped payouts altogether.

“We have frozen all accounts,” Bowdoin said, according to the transcript. “We have disabled the ability to make upgrades and purchase new ads. You can still view ads and earn credits to show your site. You can still look at you history and referral page. You can print out your information in your History page and Referral page. We will use this information to make everyone whole when we launch the new site. Our goal is to launch the new site during the month of May and make everyone profitable.”

Bowdoin next pitched a stock offering, according to the transcript (emphasis added).

“We will be selling stock in the new corporation AdSalesDaily to finish paying for the development of the new site and make the current payouts. The minimum purchase for the stock is $10,000. We are looking for people who share our vision, and are willing to invest toward the continued development and completion of the new AdSalesDaily website. If you are interested in purchasing some of the stock or if you know someone that might be interested in listening to the stock presentation, call the home office at 850-627-2206.”

The transcript and political donations in the name of AdSalesDaily may mean that ASD operated under three different names — not just two — between October 2006 and August 2008, the month certain assets tied to the firm were seized by the U.S. Secret Service. The assets were seized when ASD was operating as ASD Cash Generator.

A second forfeiture complaint filed in December 2008 against assets tied to ASD cites at least one unidentified “silent partner.”  The December complaint references a purported theft of $1 million from ASD at the hands of “Russian” hackers, alleging that no police report ever was filed despite the loss of a magnificent sum.

The complaint describes the transition from the name AdSurfDaily to ASD Cash Generator. It does not reference “AdSalesDaily,” but federal records show that Bowdoin gave two campaign donations in that name.

“Mr.  Bowdoin told some individuals that he had to stop operating the program over the Internet as AdSurfDaily after one or more Russians hacked into his program and caused the ASD operation to issue approximately $1 million to one or more Russians,” prosecutors said.

Bowdoin explained the money was taken “before [he] discovered that the Russians had not paid any money to ASD to secure for themselves a portion of its revenue stream (as so-called ‘rebates’),” prosecutors said.

The December complaint also alleges that Bowdoin blamed the company’s problems on “cash reserves that had been drained because surfing commissions were overpaid” — a possible reference to Bowdoin’s remarks in the March 2007 transcript about script problems.

But Bowdoin and ASD insiders, according to the December complaint, arranged for ASD money to be stolen.

“Mr. Bowdoin and associates issued ad packages to friends and family (who paid nothing for the ad packages) as free investment, and compensation programs,” prosecutors said. “Mr. Bowdoin also gave free ad packages to a son and former daughter-in-law, by which they pulled funds out of ASD without paying any money to ASD. In his son’s case, he arranged for another employee to ‘surf’ the program in order to qualify for a share of the daily rebates.”

Select individuals “were able to pull out considerable funds from the so-called rebate program even though in many cases they put little, if any, of their own money into the scheme,” prosecutors said.

“For example, a former employee took over $30,000 out of ASD after putting in nothing. Another former employee pulled out over $300,000 after putting in about $10,000,” prosecutors said. “One ASD promoter pulled out almost $100,000 after putting in less than $1,000.”

FEC records show that Bowdoin — under the name of “Mr. T. Andy Bowdoin, Jr” and “AdSurfDaily Inc. and AdSurfsDaily Inc. (the second “s” is an apparent typo) ” — gave $5,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2008. Two donations of $2,500 were recorded — one on June 6, 2008, and another on July 7, 2008.

Bowdoin’s NRCC donations resulted in the issuance of a “Medal of Distinction,” which Bowdoin and ASD promoters positioned as an important award for business accomplishments from the White House. The “medal,” however, is issued for campaign donations and signfies only one’s ability to write a check for what amounts to the purchase of banquet tickets.

Even as the FEC was recording the donation on July 7, undercover agents from an IRS/Secret Service task force based in Florida were beginning to scrutinize ASD.

Prosecutors said last month that Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter and acknowledged to law enforcement that the material allegations in the government’s August complaint all were true. The government did not reveal the entire contents of the proffer letter or the date it was signed.

Given the allegations in the December forfeiture complaint and direct quotations attributed to Bowdoin, it is possible that the December complaint itself is based at least in part on Bowdoin’s proffer.

Read the purported transcript of Bowdoin’s 2007 remarks, as published in the asamonitor forum.

View the PDF of the Georgia filing for Ad Sales Daily Inc.

Read forum posts from March 2007 on Ad Sales Daily Inc from stacontact.myfastforum.org.