ZEEK SLAYER? Now, A Penny-Auction Site Married To MLM-Like Scheme Purportedly Tied To Effort To Save Children From Hunger Or Becoming ‘Sex Slave[s]’; Build Up To ‘Founding Member’ Sales Pitch Drops Names Of White House, Chelsea Clinton, Historian And Presidential Adviser Doug Wead, Unidentified Presidential Candidate And NBC News Anchor Lester Holt
From YouTube sales pitch for BidsThatGive by Randy Jeffers. (Children's faces masked by PP Blog.)
EDITOR’S NOTE: It is true that far too many of the world’s children live in poverty. It also is true that children may become the objects of criminals who engage in human trafficking and that children are exploited in the sex trades. It is equally true that legitimate charities exist to combat these horrific situations and that one MLM “program” after another has tried in recent times to tug at the human heart and “marry” their “programs” to a purported cause. If you desire to improve the human condition for the masses of children, it likely is best to donate directly to a legitimate charitable organization, rather than joining a get-rich-quick scheme that says it is doing good work behind the scenes.
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UPDATED 6:57 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) WARNING: The following development in MLM La-La Land may be harmful to your gag reflex.
Zeek Rewards, the U.S.-based MLM “program” that wraps itself in the American flag, collects sums of up to $10,000 from participants, plants the seed affiliates can earn a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day while insisting it is offering neither securities nor an investment program, has a payout scheme similar to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme and securities swindle, is married to a penny-auction site known as Zeekler that has told successful bidders for sums of U.S. cash that they can receive their money via offshore payment processors and preemptively denies it is a pyramid scheme, has some emerging, U.S.-based competition.
The name of the “program” is “BidsThatGive” — and it unabashedly tugs at heartstrings while at once asking prospects to imagine themselves behind the wheel of a grand automobile and feeling good because they also could become a “Contributor” for $10 a month, a “Guardian” for $50 a month, a “Benefactor” for $100 a month” or a Global Ambassador” for $250 a month and pile up mountains of cash while they’re displaying a social conscience.
Two of the core aims of the “program,” according to a nine-minute video promo running on YouTube, are to help impoverished children and children who’d been exploited and became “sex slave[s].” The prelaunch of BidsThatGive appears to have been timed to coincide with the Independence Day holiday period in the United States.
One of the assertions in a the YouTube video is that the “rewards” the company provides include “an orphanage and a school, church or hospital built in your name.” All of this apparently is possible because BidsThatGive has a “global business model” and employes a “concept” known as “PPSC,” which stands for Private Profit Sharing Company.
But before we get to the uber bizarre, let’s address the run-of-the-mill bizarre in this latest entry in MLM La-La Land.
BidsThatGive is a little bit Andy Bowdoin. Indeed, the emerging penny-auction company with an MLM-style compensation plan, claims it’s not an MLM program and tells prospects they’re “probably not going to sleep at night” once they understand the profit potential. Bowdoin, the infamous AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer, told prospects that ASD was not a “network marketing company” and used largely the same line about all the sleepless nights excited prospects would experience.
Meanwhile, BidsThatGive is a little bit like AdViewGlobal (AVG), a collapsed 1-percent-a-day Ponzi autosurf federal prosecutors said in April 2012 had ASD ties. AVG once claimed that one of its desires was to save the rainforest through charitable contributions. BidsThatGive also resembles ClubAsteria, which offered outsize weekly returns ranging from 3 percent to 8 percent and told prospects that its charitable arm would provide relief to victims of the devastating earthquake in Japan last year. ClubAsteria also purported to provide aid to children and claimed its mission was to elevate the word’s poor out of poverty.
Last year, the American Red Cross sent Club Asteria a letter demanding it stop using the Red Cross name in promos.
And BidsThatGive also resembles DataNetworkAffiliates (DNA), which tied itself to the U.S. AMBER Alert system for rescuing abducted children and said its “token system” could help prevent child poverty.
“Help DNA Feed A Million. OVER 1000 AN HOUR DIE. The DNA Token System Can Prevent This!” the company exclaimed.
Among other things, DNA used a YouTube video to trade on the name of Adam Walsh, the 6-year-old who was abducted and murdered in Florida in 1981. Adam’s father, John Walsh, became a prolific advocate for children and later became the host of the “America’s Most Wanted” television series.
DNA, which was associated with longtime MLM huckster Phil Piccolo, appears not to have helped a single abducted child or a single child living in poverty. Affiliates, though, tried to plant the seed that the DNA “program” was backed by Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump. When DNA’s CEO resigned suddenly in 2010, the company waited nearly a week to announce the departure — and then misspelled the former CEO’s name.
BidsThatGive Operator
Randy Jeffers, an MLM aficionado, is the purported operator of BidsThatGive, according to promo videos on YouTube. Jeffers also presides over a nonprofit entity known as “Liberty Kidz,” which says its “[v]ision is to empower a child to be all that he or she is created to be, by providing homes, help and hope for discouraged, displaced and distressed children of the world.”
A similarly named Jeffers’ entity known as Liberty International LLC filed for bankruptcy in August 2010, listing about $1.94 million in debt and $641 in assets, according to federal records. The assets consisted of the balance of a business checking account.
What follows are comments from Jeffers in the nine-minute sales pitch for BidsThatGive on YouTube (italics added):
You know, there are so many terrible things that happen to children all over the world. Right now a little boy is dying of hunger, a little girl just got sold by her mother and is being forced into life as a sex slave.
Right now, children are being physically abused, and then there’s so many children that are just left by themselves and there’s no one there to love or care for them. I don’t know why bad things happen to innocent little children, but they do. But here’s what I do know: All of us can do something about it.
You see, that’s our No. 1 purpose. This company was founded to be a true partnership between those children, the children’s charities that it supports and its affiliates who make it all happen.
A ‘Founding Member’
One of the founding members of BidsThatGive is Glen Woodfin, according to 6:56 promo video dated July 2 and running on YouTube.
Woodfin describes himself in the video as an American who once moved to Brazil to be with his “multimillionaire” fiance who had 90 employees. Enjoying the “good life” on the beach while sitting around drinking “coconut milk” was fun for a while, but ultimately led to a desire to become more productive and to develop an online skill set. Woodfin ultimately discovered he had a talent for search engine optimization and that clients were interested in those services.
Glen Woodfin, who says he's done SEO for a Presidential candidate, does a little dance in his Bids That Give sales pitch on YouTube.
His SEO skills ultimately became so good that “I was hired by somebody running for President . . .,” according to Woodfin, who narrates the video. He did not identify the candidate.
Woodfin, however, goes to to explain that he was fortunate to know author and White House adviser Doug Wead, who wrote “All The President’s Children,” a New York Times Bestseller. (Wead’s Wikipedia entry says he advised GOP Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.)
Apparently in the market for SEO advice, Wead turned to Woodfin, according to the video.
“He said, ‘Glen, we’ve got one of the Presidential children about to get married in three weeks, and we don’t have a website up. Can we get in there and get to the top of the search engines with it?'” Woodfin recalled.
That Presidential child, according to Woodfin, was Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Over the weekend Chelsea Clinton got married, Woodfin said, his SEO techniques on Wead’s behalf put a site known as ChelseaClintonWeddingWatch.com at the top of the rankings. (Chelsea Clinton was married on July 31, 2010.)
When NBC News anchor Lester Holt was interviewing Wead, Woodfin said, Holt mentioned the website Woodfin had put at the top of the rankings, apparently attributing the feat to Wead.
Neither BidsThatGive nor Jeffers is mentioned in the first three minutes of the Woodfin video. But at roughly the 3:03 mark, Woodfin announces, “I’m going in business with a gentleman named Randy Jeffers. Randy Jeffers started the No. 1, fastest-growing MLM of all time, called Destiny. They put in 1 million distributors in 18 months.”
Woodfin goes on to say that Jeffers recently called him and offered him a “founder’s membership” in BidsThatGive.
“While he’s talking, the hair start[s] standing up on my arm, and I got thrilled,” Woodfin recalled. “As a matter of fact, every time I get off the phone with him now, I’m just, ‘Thank you for putting this together.’ It’s based on penny auctions . . .”
It’s not known whether Woodfin contacted the White House, Wead, Clinton and Holt as a courtesy to let them know he’d be using their names in a YouTube pitch for Jeffers’ BidsThatGive. What is known is that namedropping is common in the MLM sphere — often without the knowledge of those whose names are dropped.
Although the Woodfin pitch did not imply that any of the celebrities or institutions mentioned in the pitch endorsed BidsThatGive, the implication was clear that BidsThatGive prospects who joined under Woodfin would gain access to an SEO expert who’d worked for a Presidential candidate and knew a Presidential adviser.
Neither the Jeffers’ video nor the Woodfin video referenced the Liberty International LLC 23-month-old bankruptcy filing. Nor did either video address any of the potential problems BidsThatGive could encounter from regulators.
Like the Zeek Rewards’ business model, the BidsThatGive model resembles that of ASD. In 2008, the U.S. Secret Service seized more than $80 million from ASD-related bank accounts, including $65.8 million in the personal accounts of Andy Bowdoin.
Court records showed that ASD was trading on the name of then-President George W. Bush. Analysts saw it as a transparent bid to sanitize the “opportunity” by trying to link it to the White House.
Major politicians from both sides of the aisle have seen their names used in promos for “opportunities” that proved to be Ponzi schemes.
Former President Clinton’s name and image were used by the Mantria Corp. Ponzi scheme. Clinton is a Democrat.
I think they borrowed the idea from Wazzub, the “profit sharing phenomenon” that has yet to share a penny despite original launch of April 1st (since then rescheduled many many times).
Didn’t Andy Bowdoin also did a lot of name dropping, like Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, and “Congressional Medal of Distinction” (a donation award)?
I have a few questions I hope u can help me clear this up some.
#1. Could this auction site product great returns ? Like maybe Ebay with a twist if it had more traffic ? I think Ebay is the 30th biggest company in the world.
#2. Couldn’t posting ads help bring more traffic and wouldn’t traffic mean more money ?
#3. If bring an affiliate marketing program model as part of and/ or start up for a company that would help them get off the ground that has the potential to make great earnings like Ebay for example, wouldn’t it SAVE a lot of advertising dollars to do that at a very small fraction of the cost via 50% of the daily profit sharing including the buy in of affiliate marketers VS advertising on the TV at a Superbowl commercial like Ebay has done spending millions of dollars that brought brand awareness over years of building, wouldn’t this system make sense and bring high amounts of traffic ?
#4. Wouldn’t letting affiliate marketing agents buy into this or any business really help the company expand or in this case buy more products at greater deals or discounts from bulk buys for the auctions with out any out of pocket expense or loans that would cost the company thousands ?
#5. At some point when the auctions are successful (thinking this is every company’s goal) like Ebay, couldn’t they discontinue the program or contacts with the affiliate program agents while paying back all the owed earning from the work done advertising the auctions because this is a short term opportunity and maintain the auction site as a huge company like Ebay while still paying less money then Ebay paid with there superbowl ads with no out of pocket expense and making a lot of ppl happy from just doing a lil work but a lot of word of mouth adverting about how they made a lot of money helping this company get off the ground ?
I suppose it could, Michael. But if it’s a Ponzi, those returns would be subject to clawback. Any charity to which those returns were directed could find itself named in a clawback action and having the need to hire an attorney and make an appearance in court. If the charity has spent the money, it could wipe out the charity.
“Winning” promoters could be at the same risk.
I suppose eBay could start a penny-auction arm and tie it to an MLM compensation plan that planted the seed that annualized returns in the hundreds of percent were possible.
But I suspect eBay would do no such thing because it would instantly recognize that it had immersed itself in a regulatory quagmire that could destroy the reputations of both eBay and PayPal. I doubt eBay would want to see itself compared to Bernard Madoff and Andy Bowdoin in the news reports and editorials that certainly would appear globally in publications and news outlets large and small.
Likewise, Google could start a MLM/penny auction and use its scale to pound competitors into the ground. It wouldn’t though — for the same reasons it never started an autosurf.
One of the strangest sidebars in the ASD story is how ASD and Google allegedly entered into an “agreement.” That agreement proved to be a click-fraud bid by ASD insiders in which ASD members were instructed to click on Google AdSense ads to drive revenue to ASD.
In short, an insider of a bogus MLM “advertising” company running a $110 million Ponzi scheme got the bright idea that it could improve its bottom line by committing click fraud against both Google and its advertisers.
Patrick
In plain words, no.
1)No legitimate business that we know is that profitable.
2)If business is profitable above normal level it has no problem borrowing money from banks and other traditional sources at reasonable rates.
3)Return is tied to risk. If you offer 100% annual return in competitive market, your chances to survive more than two years is close to NULL. Definitely not a long-term investment.
Quick note: It appears as though an enrollment period for BidsThatGive “leaders” was conducted between June 20 and July 4. It also appears as though the “leaders” were instructed to send in up to $25,000 in “certified” funds. The mechanism by which this was accomplished is unclear. It’s apparently called the “Founder’s Club.”
If enrollees achieve the title of “Presidential Ambassador,” they apparently get “a free position directly above your main position that maintains your initial enroller.”
“This new position has no income limitations. Once you achieve the Presidential Ambassador requirement on the second position and maintain for 1 quarter, you receive your choice of an Exotic Car, Yacht, RV or Home ($225,000 max) and earn a third position.”
“Earnings” in the original position purportedly are capped at $250,000 a month or $3 million a year. No purported cap on the second position — and it’s purportedly possible also to gain a third position.
“Now, you can do it for a THIRD time,” a male narrator instructs. “And when you do it for a third time, what we do is we take a quarter-million dollars out of the company’s profit, right? It’s not coming out of your pocket; it comes out of the company profit, and we’re going to establish an orphanage in your name. So, that’s your little slice of heaven. You don’t have to manage it or run it. We’ll put some cameras up and you can see the kids that you actually pretty much saved their life, and that’s just an emotional reward for you, as well as all the monetary things that you’ve already earned.”
(Note: The narrator seemed almost annoyed when he was talking about Ambassadors not having to manage or run the orphanages BidsThatGive would provide in their names — as though he was anticipating a pointed question: Who actually has the responsibility of running the orphanages and how will they sustain themselves beyond the initial “reward” and move forward in the days, months and years ahead.
If the ambassadors do it a “fourth time,” they purportedly get the “choice between a church a school or hospital” in their name on top of the fantastic earnings.
Patrick
Of course…… any “investment” that doesn’t require active participation by the investor and pays out a “profit share or earnings” is a security as defined by the U.S. SEC – the Good Old Howey Test.
ARWR
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Quick note: It appears as though an enrollment period for BidsThatGive “leaders” was conducted between June 20 and July 4. It also appears as though the “leaders” were instructed to send in up to $25,000 in “certified” funds. The mechanism by which this was accomplished is unclear. It’s apparently called the “Founder’s Club.”
http://www.bidsthatgivereview.net/about/
It’s interesting that someone by handle of “partylasvegas” posted the EXACT SAME questions… under my ZeekRewards hub. I’ll just repost my reply
Whatever they are doing, if they are receiving money from people who think that it will go to help children in need, then it needs to be stopped. Then any genuine philanthropists can direct their money to a legitimate organization which really does help children in need. There are plenty of legitimate ones run by people with great integrity to choose from.
Adding two suspect schemes (ZeekRewards and Wazzub) together and you have an even bigger suspect scheme. Add Wazzub Charity in and you got a truly bizarre mix.
I thought that too, it has such a Phil “The Crime Wave” Piccolo smell that there just had to be a connection somewhere, however thin.
http://www.mlmwatchdog.com/mlm_scams_phil_piccolo.html
Hi Tony,
Perhaps you remember this from April 2010:
https://patrickpretty.com/2010/04/26/update-data-network-affiliates-gets-more-bizarre-by-the-day-mlm-firm-now-says-it-was-snookered-in-10-unlimited-cell-phone-deal/
I’m thinking the DNA story is one of the strangest MLM stories of all time — from recording license-plate numbers to the cellphone business (as the world’s purported low-price leader overnight only to get the “result” referenced in the link above) to the mortgage-reduction business to the offshore “resorts” business.
And then this, through OWOW:
https://patrickpretty.com/2010/12/28/bulletin-national-institutes-of-health-says-owow-multilevel-marketing-firm-using-agency-press-release-on-cancer-research-inappropriately-separately-piccolo-says-product-prevented-amputation/
The strangeness didn’t even stop there.
Patrick
Obviously you are not an MLM/network marketing fan, which is okay. However you can’t deny that there are many legitimate MLM businesses… and as Bids That Give is a penny auction site modeled after the hugely successful Quibids that is also not enough to call it a scam. So there are assumptions made in this article without any proof. Just putting that out there.
Then you go on to speak about Glen Woodfin, and talk about what he says in the video with an air of ridicule and leading the reader to believe what he is saying is false, even though a quick Google search will verify most of what he says. I’m sure you picked up a phone, and called his number like a real journalist to get the whole story, instead of just your side of the story.
At the end of the day, it’s up to their reader to make up their mind. Clearly there are many successful MLM companies. Clearly Quibids is also very successful. None of these facts are mentioned in your blog post. I understand it’s intentional, to lead the reader to come to the same conclusion as you did instead of helping them draw their own opinion. And I’m not saying Bids That Give is not a scam as you propose, and Glen Woodfin isn’t a douchebag as you portray.
But you pulled the same tricks he did of name-dropping and neglecting to include important information. Much less a link to the actual video or websites.
Just sayin…
@Not a Fan — fair criticism, but not 100% fair either. PP was snarky and cynical sure, but should the ORIGINATOR of the claim(s) prove them, instead of us disproving them, or even be merely skeptical about them?
Nothing wrong with penny auction. They could just say “50% of profit will go to charities”. After all, it’s a great market segment as you claimed, right? Except that is NOT what they are doing, is it? Nope. It’s ZeekRewards + Wazzub Charity.
As for disparaging MLM… sure, there are a couple “legitimate” MLM companies out there. Good for them. VAST MAJORITY of MLM companies though are just… hilarious. Did you know one of them sells cans of air certified by WADA to do nothing? How about one that sells gas additive that they claim will make gasoline burn near absolute zero? Add that to some Ponzi schemes that takes on MLM aspects, and you really *do* have la-la
Or in other words, criticism for this alleged startup is NOT aimed at the entire MLM industry. You’re reading too much into it.
People come to PP blog to read about Ponzis and Internet scams and suspect schemes. If you want to read about MLMs I suggest you go check mlmhelpdesk or one of the other “pro-MLM” websites, just beware of their pro-MLM bias.
One thing that gets me mad as hell about MLMs, HYIPS and other schemes is when they start playing the charity card. It is all too easy to state that you are “giving 50% of profit” to charities. It gives people a wonderful incentive to sign up and spend their money.
In reality it requires verifiable proof that this is the case, together with verifiable authorization from those Charities to use their names. To do anything else is to deceive.
When schemes use false charitable donations as an incentive, they have sunk to the bottom of a very deep barrel with their promotion methods.
If BidsThatGive are going to make those charitable donations they are going to have to (a) prove it and (b) show their balance sheets to demonstrate the profits that are going to be shared. What’s the betting that they will do neither?
Actually, I believe what Glen Woodfin said is true. And because it likely is true, then BidsThatGive has a founding member who is an SEO expert and may be able to create one or more downline groups that build their organizations based at least in part on references to the White House, a Presidential candidate and Presidential historian.
It easily could backfire even if Woodfin’s intent is 100 percent pure.
If you don’t understand why and how, I’d point you to the AdSurfDaily story. ASD affiliates took a thimble of truth — that Andy Bowdoin received a “Medal of Distinction” — and basically turned it into an endorsement by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of his business acumen.
So, the U.S. Secret Service, which has the duty of protecting the the President of the United States and the U.S. financial infrastructure, found itself in July 2008 encountering a situation in which huge sums of money were being directed to ASD and its advertised 1-percent-a-day payout while the company and its affiliates were crowing about Bowdoin’s White House ties.
BidsThatGive only now is coming out of the gate and is using a business model apt to catch the attention of regulators — and ALREADY the names of people associated in one way or another with the institution of the Presidency are being dropped into sales pitches.
It makes a certain sphere of the MLM universe look clueless.
BTW, ASD also accepted “certified” funds — cashier’s checks drawn on U.S. banks. BidsThatGive made a reference to “certified” funds during its prelaunch.
So, now a situation evolves in which TWO companies — ASD and BidsThatGive — either have or are gathering funds from prospects, suggesting huge sums of money can be made with those funds and are or were using references to the institution of the Presidency in sales pitches.
In a sense, BidsThatGive is one-upping ASD by telling the folks they could get their names on orphanages and hospitals and churches, that the world’s starving and exploited children are the central focus of BidsThatGive.
The incongruity that emerges is just another thing that will generate negative headlines for MLM: Save the children. Get your name on an orphanage and your “little slice of heaven” for your efforts. Get a boatload of cash, a yacht or an upscale car or a tony, new home, too.
ASD also made a charity play — a “gift” of 100,000 “ad packs” that paid 1 percent a day. Of course, that “gift” only put more strain on the Ponzi. That “gift,” BTW, was coupled with efforts to get charities to PUT money into ASD.
One of the “charities” that put money into ASD was operated by a Missouri woman who allegedly set up shop on paper in Oregon. The Feds seized her money.
https://patrickpretty.com/2011/07/03/missouri-based-trainer-for-florida-based-adsurfdaily-was-head-of-purported-religious-nonprofit-firm-in-oregon-state-dissolved-firm-over-which-erma-wed-room-lady-seabaugh-presided-address/
I am aware of at least two situations in which members of church congregations plowed money into ASD. One of the church members told me that the pastor banned all conversation about ASD because it was ripping the church apart.
Patrick
I don’t doubt that Glen Woodfin is very able in many fields. He describeds himself as “an Internet Reputation Manager and SEO Specialist” A little look around Google shows that he has enjoyed very senior status with Amway as well as being involved in several other schemes. He’s no newbie at the persuasion game.
In doing a cursory review of this company I found some oddities in their corporate registration as an LLC.
First their Registered Agent for service is named as a UPS Store, not an individual. The only officer listed is as DE AR JEFFERS, but Glen Woodfin is not mentioned. In their managed by, it just lists managers, not specific names.
They also state in their promo’s they are not an MLM company, but yet their business model follows the MLM format. They also asked founders to put up $25,000, yet they have no stock according to their registration. Makes you wonder what security is being offered for their founder’s investment.
Jeffers address on the state filing is the same adddress as the UPS store, not an office address or even a personal address. You would think with Randy Jeffers and Glen Woodfin’s credentials they would not be using a mail drop as the office address.
This inforamtion is all available on the Nevada Secretary of State website. The companies Nevada license number is: E0276482012-6, expires 5/31/13.
[…] Separately, a penny-auction site known as “BidsThatGive” says it will formally launch tomorrow to make the world a better place for children. Like the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, some of the chatter for BidsThatGive involved the recitation of names of people who had some sort of tie to the institution of the Presidency of the U…. […]
[…] the site has been identified by PatrickPretty.com as a likely Ponzi scheme . Other reports from people who have given money to Jeffers’ organization say they have been […]