Affiliate Links Show That Surf’s Up Mod And ASD Members Hold High Positions In Upstart Surf: Things To Consider If You Are Tempted To Join AdPayDaily

APD says on its website that MLM attorney Gerald P. Nehra is its counsel. That Nehra purportedly has consulted with ADP is not, in and of itself, evidence of legality.  As always, how the company and its promoters behave when no one is looking is what will determine if APD’s operations are above-board.

The autosurf “industry” is infamous for excesses, including shielding members from the true nature of the programs, making secret deals, withholding verifiable financial information that can be used by members to make informed purchasing decisions, cooking the books and changing the rules on the fly.

ASD, for example, is alleged to have had favored insiders, including Bowdoin family members. ASD also bought houses and cars and jet skis and a boat and haul trailers with money sent in by members, according to federal prosecutors. George Harris, Bowdoin’s stepson and the purported head of ASD’s “real estate” division, paid off his own house with money from ASD members, according to court records.

Any person involved in the HYIP and autosurf subcultures knows full well by now that the government rightfully abhors these busineses. The abuses have been chronicled in multiple places and in multiple courtrooms. No autosurf or HYIP has ever demonstrated legality or sustainability. The “programs” in the so-called “industry” have been populated by serial fraudsters and felons associated with failed schemes in the worlds of MLM and investment fraud.

Bowdoin, for example, was arrested in Alabama in the 1990s and charged with felonies for scamming investors. Golden Panda’s Clarence Busby pushed three “prime-bank” schemes in the 1990s, according to the SEC. Steve Renner, the operator of INetGlobal — which launched during the same period in which ASD and Golden Panda were operating and the other “clones” were coming onto the stage — is heading to prison for income-tax evasion.

Renner-related companies have been connected to at least four other Ponzi or HYIP schemes, according to records. Undercover Secret Service agents attended an INetGlobal function in New York in January, according to court records.

One of the Secret Service agents involved in the INetGlobal investigation — indeed, the company was accused in February of operating an autosurf Ponzi scheme — also was involved in the ASD probe. In the INetGlobal case, the agent said he was introduced to INetGlobal by an ASD member, according to court filings.

In our view, the risk of sending money and losing it to APD is high. It has promoters in common with ASD — promoters who brought the “industry” the likes of the super-secret AVG, the syrupy BAS and the preposterous AGW, which purportedly was sold to unnamed interests in the “Middle East” before its final death gurgle.

Moreover, APD is operating in a sphere that creates one horror story after another, a sphere in which the government has never lost a prosecution and a sphere populated by serial scammers, antigovernment ranters and tax fraudsters.

The so-called autosurf industry historically has been populated by MLM fraudsters, liars, thieves and shills. It’s easy to imagine that some APD promoters will make excessive claims and that APD will not be able to police its own ranks. ASD members, for instance, had everyone believing that Bowdoin had received a special award from the White House, that ASD had advertising contracts with big-name, mainstream companies, that ASD had been vetted by the SEC and that ASD had a special deal with Google.

If you are promoting APD, one can argue reasonably that you have an obligation to tell prospects about all of the litigation surrounding autosurfs and specifically to point out cases involving ASD, Golden Panda, LaFuenteDinero, 12DailyPro, PhoenixSurf and INetGlobal.

Prospects need to be told specifically and concretely what makes APD legal, starting with verifiable biographies of the owners, verifiable information on where they do their banking, how the accounts are structured, what credit-card processors they use and the identity of the company’s CPA. Would-be reps need to know these things to make informed choices to join. They also need to know that autosurfs historically have not been keen on producing their books and are infamous for speaking in generalities and making claims at odds with themselves.

There already is a claim at the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum, which has made news recently by being cited in federal-court documents about HYIP frauds, that “[t]he money is starting to flow” into APD. Whether APD likes it or not, its name already is being cited on one of the most infamous Ponzi boards on the planet, meaning APD already has a PR problem before anything else is considered.

The same poster pitching APD on MoneyMakerGroup claims people are “NUTS” if they don’t join APD, while also suggesting Bowdoin’s ASD and its members were “burned by the Government.” The URL in the MoneyMakerGroup pitch resolves to an APD affilite site in the company’s Top 50. It was from this page that the PP Blog was able to determine how APD was creating affiliate links and issuing them to members.

So, it’s not unreasonable to ask whether antigovernment fervor is the driving force behind some APD affiliates. Put another way, if you hate the government, you might be a star prospect for some APD affiliates.

Incongruities dominate the autosurf landscape, which is littered with the carcasses of dead enterprises. “Enterprise” is another term APD prospects should contemplate. Indeed, ASD is being sued by members who allege it was a racketeering enterprise as defined under the federal RICO statute.

Prospects also should familiarize themselves with this opionion by Professor James Byrne, an expert on HYIP and MLM frauds. Two of the things Byrne writes about in his expert opinion on an HYIP known as Pathway to Prosperity are the incongruities and “notion of secrecy” that surround investment frauds.

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