AdViewGlobal Recording Suggests Member Cashed Out $10,000 Only Days After Formal Launch And That Insiders Were Awarded Bonuses; Less Than Two Weeks Later, Surf Switched To ‘Private Association’ Structure
UPDATED 7:19 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) A recording posted on a public website of a Feb. 12 conference call by the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf suggests an unnamed male member of the surf qualified for a $10,000 cashout within days of the company’s formal launch.
The recording leads to questions about how a participant could qualify for a large payout so soon after launch and whether others also could have benefited from early cashouts funded by members in Ponzi scheme fashion. AVG appears to have had virtually no income streams beyond fees paid by members when it launched earlier in the month.
AVG suspended cashouts in June, threatening media outlets and members who shared the news with lawsuits and blaming its problems on the greed of members. It later said it had been a victim of a $2.7 million theft and filed reports about the theft with law-enforcement agencies.
The Feb. 12 call featured a giveaway of money-earning AVG page impressions to both members and their sponsors. One of the bonus-winning sponsors was identified as David Meade, whose bonus-winning enrollee came on the line and jokingly asked whether the bonus he received qualified for an additional matching bonus of 50 percent.
AVG relentlessly pitched bonuses to enrollees and their sponsors before announcing in June that it was suspending cashouts, making an 80/20 program mandatory and exercising its version of a “rebates aren’t guaranteed” clause.
Another sponsor who qualified for a bonus because he had enrolled a member whose name was called for a bonus was identified as Larry Alford, the husband of Barb Alford, a Moderator at the Pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum. Yet another member whose name was called for a bonus was Joey Shiver, the brother of Judy Harris, identified during the summer as one of AVG’s owners.
Meanwhile, the call highlighted AVG’s purported “offshore” location in Uruguay, stressing that the company planned to fly high-quality servers to Uruguay on a date uncertain after the call was held.
Web records show AVG’s servers resolved to Panama, suggesting the company never completed installation of servers in Uruguay. AVG had been collecting money for weeks at the time of the Feb. 12 call, which leads to questions about whether the company was selling unregistered securities from inside the United States or selling unregistered securities illegally to U.S. residents from offshore servers, all while engaging in wire fraud and acts of money-laundering.
The conference call, hosted by Terralynn Hoy, a Moderator at both the Pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum and a ning.com forum set up to promote AVG, did not disclose how the member amassed a large sum in only days and qualified for a cashout. But another participant in the call announced that the man excitedly expected to receive a check for $10,000.
Neither Hoy nor any other AVG official or representative who participated in the call referenced a racketeering lawsuit that had been filed less than a month earlier against ASD President Andy Bowdoin and ASD attorney Robert Garner. At the same time, no official or representative in the call referenced a second forfeiture complaint that had been filed against ASD-connected assets in December 2008, a month after Surf’s Up received ASD’s official endorsement.
In August 2008, prosecutors accused both ASD and Golden Panda Ad Builder of not disclosing information members needed to make informed decisions about joining the companies. The allegations were spelled out in a forfeiture complaint formally filed Aug. 5, 2008.
Among the assertions were that Bowdoin did not disclose his arrest in a felony securities case in the 1990s, and that Golden Panda did not immediately disclose an SEC action against its president, Clarence Busby, in the 1990s. ASD members later said Bowdoin was the silent head of AVG, which began to solicit money in December 2008, a month after a major court ruling went against ASD.
News about the December forfeiture complaint, which painted a jaw-dropping picture of insider dealings, special favors, a “silent†ASD partner, people getting paid large sums for doing virtually nothing and a claim that Russian hackers stole more than $1 million, broke on Jan. 15.
The AVG conference call, dubbed the “first” official call, was conducted Feb. 12, about 10 days after AVG’s formal launch and within 30 days of the revelation that the government had filed the December forfeiture complaint and identified members of Bowdoin’s family as beneficiaries of ASD’s illegal conduct.
Judy Harris was among those the government identified in the filing, as were her husband, George Harris, and his mother, Edna Faye Bowdoin. Edna Faye Bowdoin is Andy Bowdoin’s wife.
Two weeks after the Feb. 12 conference call, on Feb. 26, AVG announced it was shifting to a “private association” structure. One day prior, on Feb. 25, Bowdoin signed the first of several sworn court documents as a pro se litigant in the ASD case, attempting to set aside the forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars and reverse a decision he made in January to surrender his claims to the money, which had been seized by the government in August 2008 from his 10 bank accounts.
Less than a month after Bowdoin signed the court document, AVG announced the resignation of Chief Executive Officer Gary Talbert, a former ASD executive. On March 23, AVG announced its bank account had been suspended, blaming the suspension on members who wired too many transactions in excess of $9,500.
Talbert was a participant in the Feb. 12 conference call. He was introduced by Hoy. Talbert, in turn, passed the the call back to Hoy, who then introduced a person identified as marketing consultant Kathy Robertson. Robertson made the claim about the $10,000 check.
“I just talked to a friend tonight,” Robertson said in the call. “He’s cashing out and he’s gonna get a $10,000 check into his bank account. He’s more excited than he’s ever been.”
Robertson urged AVG members to take notes of her remarks, according to the recording.
“Many of you have wondered, ‘Are we a United States’ business or are we another country[‘s] business?'” Robertson said in the recording. “I gotta tell you we’re based in Uruguay. We’re definitely an offshore business, and we’ll be moving very robust servers — we’ll actually be flying them on a plane to land in Uruguay. So, even the servers that host all of the websites are going to be offshore, so go ahead and write that down as a note. We are truly an offshore business.”
Robertson said AVG members should “feel secure” in the knowledge the company was operating offshore. She did not explain how the purported offshore venue made AVG’s venture, which targeted U.S. residents and former ASD members, legal. Robertson acknowledged in the recording that AVG had gotten off to a rocky start and that some members who could not fund accounts had had a disappointing experience.
But she urged members to look to the future and see a well-honed enterprise capable of producing a seamless experience for huge numbers of participants.
Federal prosecutors said ASD was operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme from inside the United States, while engaging in the sale of unregistered securities to U.S. residents and committing acts of wire fraud and money-laundering.
Later in the call, during the page-impression giveaway, Meade came on the line to accept his bonus for sponsoring a member whose name was called for a bonus.
“Thanks a million. Appreciate it,” Meade said.
Less than two weeks after the Feb. 12 conference call, reports circulated among ASD members that the U.S. Secret Service had seized the bank accounts of unidentified ASD members. AVG announced Feb. 26 that it was switching to a “private association” structure after consulting with a company known as Pro Advocate Group.
Pro Advocate Group is associated with Karl Dahlstrom, a convicted felon who served time in federal prison in a case involving securities fraud.
…….well, I suppose no one should be surprised that all of the folks qualifying for all of these bonuses were ASD insiders, and then AVG insiders. The list of alleged serial criminal Ponzi promoters continues:
Larry Alford
Barb Alford
Kathyrn Milner aka Kat Milner
Laura Pont
Terralyn Hoy
Robery Garner
Andy Bowdoin
Judy Harris
George Harris
Brother Joey Shiver (who was my first guess as to who “joe” is/was
Edna Fay Bowdoin
Steve Watt
and maybe Jeff Stablein (“little joe” ??)
etc……
Isn’t it virtually certain that the people listed by Entertained are the names that the U.S. Department of Justice had already collected from wire-taps, alerts put on their bank accounts, alerts on payments to their social security numbers, and other covert surveillance methods that the FBI and Secret Service are so good at. But there was also Andy Bowdoin, who was naming names like mad, trying to stay out of jail. Although he tried to rescind his cooperation agreement he couldn’t rescind what he’d already provided to the Feds — that horse left the barn for good back when good old honest Andy was trying to send The Insiders to jail, rather than go himself. What names from ASD are missing from the list of serial Ponzi promoters? Mindy Bales? Robert Fava? Did they really stay away from AVG, or would they have been in the AVG golden circle, qualifying for payouts without paying in? Just curious….
Juan Fernandez was listed as “national sales managerâ€.
https://patrickpretty.com/2008/12/22/ad-view-global-new-advertising-program-debuts/
“Gary” could have been Gary Talbert.
Also don’t forget Patrick Moriarty. Which reminds me, I saw a documentary today about British con man Glen Rycroft. Not exactly a ponzi scammer, he just took money & promised a 20-odd% return without making any payouts.
A bizarre part of the Glen Rycroft is that to avoid payouts he faked having cancer. And he told everyone his mother had cancer as well. Here’s the story from 2003:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/3294385.stm
The story gets even weirder – after serving 2 years of a 4 year sentence, he is set free. He then starts a relationship with a married father of three, who eventually suspects Rycroft of plundering his bank account. There’s an argument and Rycroft murders his lover.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6463825.ece
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1119731_con_man_murdered_lover
He was jailed for life.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/07/04/killer-conman-jailed-for-life-for-murdering-partner-91466-24072783/
I don’t know if Patrick Moriarty is faking his illness or not. But if he is, he wouldn’t be the first.
Hi Entertained,
First, it’s nice to hear from you.
To that I’ll add that this is the strangest, strangest story I’ve ever covered. Parts of it are impossible to conceive and read like fiction.
Who would think, for example, that it somehow was perfectly OK to participate in AVG and use it as a remedy to make up for ASD losses?
Or that Uruguay somehow made it all sane and legal and above-board — that it somehow was OK to sell unregistered securities to U.S. customers as long as you piped them from South America?
Or that Ponzi math does not apply to the surf model if it gets ported to South America?
But, at the end of the day, I suppose that any group capable of investing in an argument that all commerce is legal as long as there is a contract — and that the U.S. government is Constitutionally prohibited from interfering with commerce even if it’s illegal — would be capable of investing in any argument.
Regards,
Patrick
Hi Marci,
The agencies do have covert tools at their disposal. The now-unsealed Secret Service affidavit from Aug. 1, 20088, for example, contains surveillance photos from Quincy. It’s obvious agents looked at all sorts of information before asking for the seizure warrant.
There probably was some standard gumshoeing, too. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are unindicted co-conspirators in this case. The opportunity for the government to apply some leverage appears to have been considerable.
It might explain some of the deepening paranoia evidenced in forums as the months progressed — the assertions that some people could be “plants” and the scoldings for asking questions, for example.
The early filings said Bowdoin had “followers,” a term that suggests the prosecutors would not be surprised by any cult-like behavior that followed.
Regards,
Patrick
Hey Patrick,
All standard collapsing Ponzi fare. It happens in every case.
The only surprise to me at this juncture is that the serial promoters are not out in force for Tazoodle or some other scam. They usually don’t waste much time so something may have put a scare into them. I hope so.
dB
Quick note:
Reader Tony H intended to add a comment to this thread, I believe, but I accidentally deleted it.
Sorry, Tony. Please submit again. My mistake.
Patrick
Does anyone think that Andy might try to plead guilty to a minimum number of felonies and try to become a federal cooperator? Apparently he didn’t have an official cooperation agreement before, because if he had he wouldn’t have claimed in one of his rescission motions that although he thought he had an agreement, nothing was ever put in writing. An official cooperation agreement IS put in writing.
As I understand it, under federal law a convicted felon can get a reduced sentence if he assists the government in its investigations and prosecutions of crimes committed by the defendant/felon’s accomplices. The defendant and the government sign a “cooperation agreement” and the defendant/felon agrees to be truthful with the Gov about his own past crimes AND the crimes committed by his ACCOMPLICES. He agrees to provide information needed by the Gov to prosecute his accomplices, including testifying at their at trials, if asked. If the federal “cooperator” (Andy) assists as outlined in the Cooperation Agreement, the federal prosecutor agrees to file a motion with the defendant/felon’s sentencing judge, telling him/her about the defendant’s assistance to the Gov. The sentencing judge then decides if any reduction in sentence is warranted. The federal prosecutors don’t take a position on the felon’s sentencing, that’s left to the judge.
That sounds similar to what Andy did following Judge Collyer’s characterization of ASD in her ruling on ASD’s Emergency motion requesting that $2 million in ASD funds be released, leading to his January 2009 request to withdraw his claims to the funds. Sometime in February 2009 he decided to stop cooperating, but according to the DOJ Andy had been feeding them information on the crimes and criminals associated with ASD up until February 2009. Now that the judge has shot down his last claim and the forfeitures have taken place, might Andy be knocking on the door of the DOJ again, looking for a cooperation agreement to perhaps lower HIS time in prison — even as it sends his former followers to the hoosegow?! I think he’d send his mother to prison to shave a little off his own time, so there’s not much chance he’d pass up the opportunity to cooperate with the Feds, IF he was given a second chance!
Does anyone think any inferences can be drawn from the fact that Andy hasn’t been arrested — so far? Could it mean that he is once again the Prosecutor’s star witness, naming insider names, amounts, and illegal financial arrangements? Just curious….
Before the dust settles, I believe you are going to see the same kind of “shady deals” that were made from Ad Sales Daily morphing into ASD Cash Generator. A lot of inside deals were made during this name change, and since we had the same players in AVGA; it stands to reason they used the same template to ‘reward’ certain players there. It worked before, they thought it would work again. Only problem was the masses didn’t come as they expected.
What is going to be shocking to the members of ASD is how many deals actually were made, and at what cost to the members. This is when the members will move from their current denial to total outrage and anger. This is whenn it is going to get really ugly for a lot of the “players.”
Any of “Playas” or “Players” who are in any doubt as to both how these things play out after reading Patricks’ excellent “Rebates Aren’t Guaranteed” and watching as more revelations are made, should go to: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=nRo84RD3WkoC&dq=just+numbers+on+a+screen+owen+platt&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=s11fz3oN90&sig=mKjZnWQ5362qnAOa6l3gxxU2FrQ&hl=en&ei=hsQdS8SACZXk7AOUxanZCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false and read writer Owen Platts’ work on one of the “legends” of the HYIP industry, P.I.P.S. which is now available to read online courtesy of Google Books.
Anyone who then continues to insist on the legitimacy of anything HYIP or “autosurf” related definitely belongs in the category of being beyond redemption and deserving of whatever losses they incur.
Hi Marci,
Assuming he is charged criminally, one of the things to look for is whether the charges are filed via indictment or a criminal information.
If the charges travel the criminal-information route, it may signal he has a deal to plead guilty and cooperate. There is considerable speculation in Florida that Scott Rothstein is cooperating or expected to cooperate because the charges came the criminal-information route.
The Feds later could file a superseding information, depending on how events unfold. I feel bad for lots of lawyers in Florida now. Their profession is getting creamed by the astonishing allegations against Rothstein.
There also have been attacks on the messenger. Reporter Bob Norman got slimed by Rothstein prior to Rothstein’s arrest, and Norman’s wife, Brittany Wallman, a reporter for the Sun Sentinel, was threatened by Rothstein with lawsuits. I’m going to write about these things in more detail when I have a chance.
I know of at least five threats against reporters/outlets covering Ponzi allegations in the past 16 months, including threats that were emailed or sent through postal mail.
Here’s Norman’s account of Rothstein’s slime attempt:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/12/rothstein_claimed_to_have_incr.php
Patrick
Hi Marci,
A good first step for those wanting to co-operate and sign an agreement is to not anger the prosecutor. Many who actually do get agreements co-operate from the time they are arrested or enjoined from further activities.
If Bowdoin is going to get an agreement, he’s going to have to spill the beans on a lot of big players in the “industry”. It might happen but he’s caused the prosecution quite a bit of grief so my bet at this point is that he gets the book thrown at him as will more than a few of the promoters.
I don’t read anything into the lack of a criminal indictment at this point. It’s easy to read his TOS and view his videos and conclude it’s a scam, it’s another to document all the allegations in court, especially if you have multiple Ponzis and multiple defendants.
Hi d_b,
I’ve seen a list of some of the HYIP/Surf luminaries who are promoting Tazoodle. Some of them are still smarting from their participation in ASD, AVG, BAS, Noobing, MegaLido and Regenesis 2×2 — or at least their downlines are.
Just last night I was doing some research on AVG and came across the names of three of Andy’s faithful who now are on board the Tazoodle train. So, they’re just going from company to company, poisoning one brand after another.
I also noticed that some of the promoters are members of various forums, but don’t really converse about things. They just post ads for their latest surf/HYIP or MLM, and let people know the “leaders” are leading again.
What was the word I saw in a promo the other day? It escapes me now, but I’m thinking that a new word is being contemplated as a substitute for “leaders.”
“Leaders” could be losing a bit of luster, considering the number of cliffs the leaders have sent the followers over in the past year.
I remember an early promo for AVG.
“Most if not all of your leaders are joining,†a poster counseled, predicting AVG was on track to become a $1 billion company before the end of 2009.
https://patrickpretty.com/2009/02/02/adviewglobal-touted-as-billion-dollar-company/
So, maybe “leaders” actually is losing its luster.
Regards,
Patrick
Marci: What names from ASD are missing from the list of serial Ponzi promoters?
Juan Fernandez was listed as “national sales managerâ€.
https://patrickpretty.com/2008/12/22/ad-view-global-new-advertising-program-debuts/
“Gary†could have been Gary Talbert.
Also don’t forget Patrick Moriarty. Which reminds me, I saw a documentary today about British con man Glen Rycroft. Not exactly a ponzi scammer, he just took money & promised a 20-odd% return without making any payouts.
A bizarre part of the Glen Rycroft is that to avoid payouts he faked having cancer. And he told everyone his mother had cancer as well. Here’s the story from 2003:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/3294385.stm
The story gets even weirder – after serving 2 years of a 4 year sentence, he is set free. He then starts a relationship with a married father of three, who eventually suspects Rycroft of plundering his bank account. There’s an argument and Rycroft murders his lover.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6463825.ece
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1119731_con_man_murdered_lover
He was jailed for life.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/07/04/killer-conman-jailed-for-life-for-murdering-partner-91466-24072783/
I don’t know if Patrick Moriarty is faking his illness or not. But if he is, he wouldn’t be the first.
Patrick,
Check out my posts on Scam.com. I tracked half of Tazoodle’s “board members” to ASD, Regenesis2x2, AVG, etc.
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=118730
It’s post #6. Faith R. Sloan, David Courtney and Joe Shoop were way up on the the Tazoodle list. You just had to go to the Tazoodle sign up site and change the referring member number to get a list.
Hi d_b,
Thanks for sharing that link.
Faith and David, at least, will be glad to know the FTC just added a list of new defendants to the Affiliate Strategies Inc. (ASI) and Grant Writer’s Institute lawsuit — and that the attorney general of Illinois has joined the AGs of Minnesota, Kansas and North Carolina in the prosecution.
Noobing, of course, fell under the ASI umbrella of companies. The receiver said he received 32 mail crates filled with consumer complaints on a single day. One of them was from a 70-year-old Philadelphia man who got charged $995 for the names of three benevolent entities that could help him get a grant to fix his home.
https://patrickpretty.com/2009/08/29/receiver-firm-associated-with-noobing-autosurf-charged-senior-citizen-in-search-of-housing-grant-995-for-three-names-and-addresses-of-providers-one-of-the-addresses-proved-to-be-regional-hud-office/
Patrick
One of the things that, I suspect, will shock some of the less cynical victims of the ASD and AVGA schemes are the names of some of the insiders who benefited from all these “arrangements”
However pleasant the “leaders” may be, if and when criminal proceedings start, it will be discovered that a lot of them hvae been involved in similar schemes for years and continue to promote others – “Miss” Erma (now with AV4U), Rayda Roundy (Tadzoodle etc.) and a long list of etcs.
None of these people are the “innocent victims” of any Andy Bowdoin fraud. They went into ASD knowing exactly what it was and how it could end
A bit off topic but this is interesting and has some familiar tones:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/08/google_sues_website/
Google Adwork, Google Biz Kit, Google Cash – not too far from AdCashGenerator and Biz Ad Splash. Throw in the promise of $$$$$, it sounds all too familiar.
I think that should read:
“They went into ASD knowing exactly what it was and how it WOULD end”
LOL
{Continuing the hijack) It’s about frggin time.
Not all of the many, many scams misappropriating Google’s name are ponzis, but some of them are. I found one being run out of Budapest a week or so ago that had the most charming mixture of broken english and hyip-speak. The sales page made me laugh but I wondered how long it would take for Google to put their massive foot down on these scams. “Don’t be evil” has been touted as something like a corporate motto for Google, let’s hope they’ll expand that into something like “if you’re going to be evil, keep our name out of it.”
On the positive side, Google is stating to go after scammers.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/08/technology/Google_lawsuit_Pacific_Webworks/index.htm
So email their legal department if you see scams capitalizing on their brand name.
On the other hand, Google is becoming evil. Email and Google documents containing copyrighted material (by their definition, correct or not) are being deleted without notification just as “in the cloud” is becoming the latest executive level buzzword.
Here is the URL to view the actual lawsuit:
http://www.google.com/googleblogs/pdfs/pwwcomplaint_120809_ogb.pdf
Patrick
Google can no longer put this off and keep collecting the advertising revenue from these scams. They have to try and saver face sometime. If they really cared, they would have put a stop to it when the first one was complained about.
Who ever is keeping a list of promoters you need to add Robert Lee Guenther who had a down line of 200+ people and in my book would be considered a promoter, a scoundrel and a crook also do not forget Don Peterson another Andy insider.
You have just made a VERY valid point. If they dont do something about it, they can be added to the list of Ponzi ENABLERS, along with the other search engines.
[…] AdViewGlobal (AVG or AVGA): Surf with ASD/Bowdoin ties. Formally debuted in February 2009, with a push from the now-defunct Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum and ASD members. Tanked in June 2009 after collecting untold millions of dollars. […]
[…] February 2009, Hoy became an AVG conference-call host and moderator of a now-defunct forum that promoted the now-defunct AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf. AVG, which had […]
[…] February 2009, Hoy became a conference-call host and moderator of a now-defunct forum that promoted the now-defunct AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf. AVG, which had […]
[…] ASD and AVG are known to have turned to members and moderators of the now-defunct Surf’s Up forum to sanitize the respective schemes. The surf firms, according to AVG, also shared at least two of the same employees: Chuck Osmin and Gary Talbert. […]
[…] From Dec. 7, 2009: (No. 4 in “Most Popular” rankings last week.) AdViewGlobal Recording Suggests Member Cashed Out $10,000 Only Days After Formal Launch And That Ins… […]