BREAKING NEWS: Biz Ad Splash Suspends Member Cashouts; Busby Said Firm In ‘Crisis’ And Will Perform Self-Audit
UPDATED 10:40 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Clarence Busby has announced in a video that Business Ad Splash (BAS) is in a “crisis situation” and has suspended cashouts until at least Sept. 1.
Busby blamed the crisis on overpayments to members, referring to the overpayments as the “60 percent gift I am giving.”
Things just weren’t going well, Busby said.
“The finances that I want to happen for all of us are not there yet,” he said. “The business that we have put out before the world is just not [unintelligible] like we wanted to, but it’s coming.”
Busby said he recently had surgery.
Clarence Busby in BAS video announcing a cashout suspension until at least Sept. 1.
It could take BAS anywhere from 60 days to 180 days to audit accounts and return to normal operations, Busby said.
AdViewGlobal (AVG), an autosurf with close ties to AdSurfDaily, also recently announced the suspension of payouts and an audit.
Andy Bowdoin, the president of ASD, once blamed troubles the firm was having on overpayments made to members.
Busby formerly was the president of Golden Panda Ad Builder. Golden Panda’s assets were seized last year as part of the ASD probe, and a federal judge today signed an order finalizing the forfeiture of more than $14 million to the U.S. government.
In court filings, Busby’s attorney referred to him as “Rev. Busby” at least 120 times. Busby referred to himself in today’s video as “Mr. Busby.”
“May God bless you,” he said, thanking people for their prayers while wrapping up the video.
What a piece of crap. How are these clowns all allowed to continue this nonsense?
I saw the demise slowly coming down to this a month ago. They haven’t been paying “most” members for months now. I never did one single cash out either. Doesn’t matter, I’m over it. I’m finished with them all. Just a waste of time if you ask me….
Steve
So what are you going to say to your downline, Steve? They believed you when you promoted it as a good thing.
Alasycia,
that’s another bad aspect of having a large downline is I do feel the extra weight now.. I never did force anyone alasycia. When you purchase a lottery ticket at your convenience store and you don’t win do you hel the store owner responsible? What about when you purchase Stocks or bonds and they decline. Hold your broker responsible? Give me a break! every person is in charge of themselves…
Thanks for bringing this up Alasycia… now Im about to be attacked.. but that’s okay. I can handle you guys..Your an instigator aren’t you?
Let the open warfare begin!
Every man, woman and child for themselves! lol
Steve:
Me again. :)
Hey, we all learn and move on.
The REAL crooks are those that learn and understand the unsustainable model but continue to promote and encourage others to do so.
It’s my hope you fall into the category of having learned. (not meaning to be demeaning)
I see no point in other’s attacking you as long as you aren’t jumping on to the next “hot surf” that comes by.
Just my humble opinion.
FS
(And, yes, you probably could run rings around me in algebra. LOL)
Steve, I never forced anyone to join ASD, but I still promoted it because I believed it was legit and sustainable. The first because I got well and truly conned and like many others thought I had done my due diligence and it turned out that it was not enough. The second because I am innumerate and couldnt figure out the smoke and mirrors behind the math.
Ok – but that was the first, last and only one I will ever promote. I still feel BAD about everyone who joined because of my own enthusiasm and cheerleading. Sure, they werent forced to join, but as some joined because they had confidence in me, I am not going to be able to brush it off so lightly.
The one thing I am grateful for is that people have helped me to understand fully WHY these schemes are not sustainable. I have never seen this site as one full of hate, only education and a lot of frustration too.
There is no war Steve, only the war against fraud and cyber fraud in particular. It is good to see that you no longer have all those dodgy schemes on your site and even better to know that you are going to use this knowledge to join the only war worth fighting – the war against online fraud.
I’d sure like to see that BizAdSplash Video that Patrick has posted about.
Does anyone have a link or access to it?
FS
Thanks First Step and alasycia,
FirstStep,
http://www.bizadsplash.com/videoupdates.html?awt_l=7_DPt&awt_m=1gYG5Ns7L5N_4q
Thanks for posting the video, Steve. I’ve watched about as much of it as I could stand.
It brings back memories of Andy Bowdoin looking into the camera and telling us all what a great business ASD was and what a great and successful career in sales and marketing he had had and how many people he made rich.
It’s plausibility is marred by the fact that this is the guy who withdrew his claim to 14$ million dollars of his Golden Panda members money to the US Government shortly after the ASD raid by the Secret Service. He knew how these schemes worked before he started with BAS, so why he expects the members to swallow all the excuses and platitudes now is beyond my comprehension.
Do all the guys who start these schemes assume that all the members are stupid?
If you listen to the entire Video, Busby asks members to place their cash out requests back into ad packs… so they can reconcile the backend.
It seems members were paid 60 percent more than the program alloted.. Must have been a program error…lol
If you want to see how easy it is to set your own web site program up for about 150 bucks, see these links
http://prodesigning.com/our-work
http://ownate.com
I almost purchased one too!
LRM or Gregg or Lynn,
This revelation seems like a new entry into the excuses chapter of the Handbook for Ponzi Promoters. Has anyone previously claimed “we (accidentally) paid out too much, so now we’re in financial trouble.” We have the Russian hackers in ASD, the ad pack transfer button misuse in AVG, numerous software and server upgrade outages, the 80/20 rule, and others. Does this proved criminal scammer really believe that people will transfer their cash out balances back into ad packs to help him out? Actually, they probably will, not that it will make any difference….
No, it’s not new. Type “hyip overpayments” into google & it shows up variations of the excuse from “Forex-United”, FX-Experts, GoldenRocks, all from 2006.
Yep, as TonyH so rightly points out, it’s a Golden Oldy.
BlackGold Surf tried it, also in 2006, 12by12 Daily did so, also in 2006, PointShareGold tried it in 2007 and, of course, who could forget that the “Godfather” of internet based HYIP ponzi schemes, Bryan Marsden pulled the old “overpayment” routine on a few occasions.
Ah, so many memories come flooding back.
Another thing interesting about this video is that Busby defines himself both as the “chief consultant” AND the person who runs the company.
Consulants — “chief” or otherwise — normally don’t run companies. Normally they consult for a fee and let the owners of the companies actually run the companies. Consulants get paid for showing owners how to run things better.
Odd.
If you missed an earlier story, BAS registered in Georgia as an LLC in May — with Busby listed as the registered agent. So, BAS appears to be claiming both offshore and onshore registration, and also to have a chief consultant who actually runs the company as registered agent.
Odd.
In the 12:07-length video, he didn’t mention the suspended cashouts until the 5:30 mark. He told people first about his health problems and then assured them he felt their pain — and then assured them that this was not his fault, rather the fault of IT, but he was taking the blame because that’s what good chief consultants who run companies do.
This is so, so strange. Only in the surf world could a person who’d just had a $14 million venture taken down be viewed as having marketing value as a “chief consultant.”
This video is just so strange that it falls into a category of being unusually strange. In a way, he’s asking people to do their part for a company that just scammed them or managed itself into the ground through core incompetence.
It’s all hard to reconcile in a rational way, but maybe what appears to be irreconcilable may become easy to reconcile later.
I didn’t have the sense that Busby was conveying any sincerity at any point in the video; I was left with the same type of thoughts I had after viewing Andy Bowdoin’s video for PaperlessAccess.
Patrick
Patrick,
An important feature of most HYIPs and Autosurf scams is an attempt by the people running them to sound like legitimate business people. They throw around terms like “Non Disclosure Agreement”, “Audits”, “Chief Consultant”, “Forex Trading” and such, with little understanding of what these terms mean. People who do have even a little business acumen immediately spot these misused terms and to us they expose the promoter’s ignorance of the things they claim to be experts at.
What struck me very odd, half way through the video Busby talks about doing your part and help them reconcile the back office by placing your existing cash out back to ad packs.. and then he goes on to say, if you don’t want to to that we will deduct what you were overpaid and if you have any money due you we will make sure it gets to you, but that’s going to take 60 to 90 to 120 to 180 days…
“if you have any money due” Everyone will have 40% left of what ever amount they are cashing out…If you have any money due.?
My point was he sounds like he making the numbers up as he talks in the Video… 60 to 90 to 120 to 180
So if a person has 500 in BAS cashouts, he can request his cash be placed back into Ad Pacs and in about 5 weeks, request another cash out, or leave your 500 in the cashout and maybe recieve 200 bucks in maybe 3 months or even 6 months..
Steve,
Wanna know what’s really weird?
If the video announcement of the problems at BAS debuted yesterday, it came on the one-year anniversary date of the formal launch of Golden Panda.
Golden Panda formally launched July 24, 2008.
Patrick
Thx Tony and LRM,
I am a bit embarassed to have not done the research, but I have to admit that it never occurred to me to Google “Ponzi excuse we paid out too much” Seemed way too far out there….
If these companies are so legitimate, as they claim, why don’t they have an expert accounting firm conduct the financial review? Of course they can’t, because it would expose their illegality.
They always have to do their own internal “audit.” Just like AVGA, BAS wants the membership to believe they are doing this intense “accounting audit” when all they are doing is buying time before they run. Kind of like the fox guarding the henhouse. What a crock.
And let’s not forget they will never mention any names of the people who defrauded the fraudsters. Bad for future business as these people are who bring in all the sheep to the slaughter.
Lynndel,
“They always have to do their own internal “audit.†Just like AVGA, BAS wants the membership to believe they are doing this intense “accounting audit†when all they are doing is buying time before they run. Kind of like the fox guarding the henhouse. What a crock. ”
I agree. I was thinking maybe they are asking members to move their cashouts back to ad pacs for liabilities reasons? If every member did this, they would owe nothing to members and then they could close the business down with zero liabilities….
Steve,
A very interesting thought. Rebates weren’t guaranteed. People bought advertising. Busby also seemed to suggest in the video that people who didn’t like the lay of the BAS land might be happier elsewhere.
And the video suggests BAS created a window for itself from anywhere from two months to six months to figure things out.
Odd indeed.
Patrick
Better yet, why don’t they have an in house security expert and a dedicated accountant who does nothing but audit the books? All these companies claim to have discovered the fountain of youth with some revolutionary new advertising model yet they ALL run into the exact same problems. Over payments, Russian hackers, dog ate the payout schedule, you name it. You’d think they’d see it coming as it’s happened to ALL previous programs. I guess not.
It’s ironic, but on a web conference call last month Clarence Busby was telling members they only need one program to be successul, and that was Biz Ad Splash. Implying not to join other programs. Now he’s saying just the opposite.”Then maybe you ought to work with these other companies, that’s fine.”
“And the video suggests BAS created a window for itself from anywhere from two months to six months to figure things out.”
A 2 month windows if you submit, and up to 6 months and a 60% penealty fee if you refuse submission…
Better yet, why don’t they have an in house security expert and a dedicated accountant who does nothing but audit the books?
I heard that Don Peterson, ex Compliance Officer ASD was looking for a job. lol