UPDATE: 8 More Women Charged In Michigan Cash-Gifting Probe, Bringing Total Since December To 15; BBB Releases Video That Adds To Prior Warning About ‘Thousands’ Of Gifting Scams Promoted Online
Just prior to Christmas last year, seven Michigan women were charged with felonies in an alleged cash-gifting pyramid scheme that targeted women.
Now, just prior to Memorial Day, eight more women have been charged, bringing the total number of women charged to date to 15. The Michigan State Police said last year that gifting schemes were sweeping across the state.
The Muskegon Chronicle was among the first newspapers to report on the new defendants.
Separately, the BBB has added a video on cash-gifting scams and added to its previous warning about “thousands” of such schemes using YouTube and the Internet to proliferate.
In August 2008, after the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in the AdSurfDaily autosurf probe, some ASD members immediately turned to cash-gifting, positioning it as a way for ASD members to make up their losses. Gifting scams typically pluck heartstrings, targeting people of faith, people down on their luck and people who can ill afford to lose a single dollar, let alone hundreds or thousands at a time.
“Cash gifting is a pyramid scheme — pure and simple,” the BBB says. “There are thousands of YouTube videos and websites out there touting cash gifting as an empowerment program or a way to make easy money from the security of your home.”
But this can’t be happening. All the Cash Gifters, their websites and promotional materials claim Title 26 of the IRS Code says “Cash Gifiting” is legal. You mean they all LIED? SHOCK!
[…] spilled out of the smaller envelope. Needham fanned them for the camera. Cash-gifting schemes are prosecutable under pyramid-scheme statutes, despite what prospects are led to believe. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called […]