BULLETIN: ZTeamBiz, Site Purportedly Raising Funds To Defend Zeek Affiliates, No Longer Has Access To PayPal; Site Weaves Conspiracy Theory That eBay Didn’t Want Zeek To Survive
BULLETIN: (UPDATED 3 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) This bizarre announcement appears today on ZTeamBiz, the site that was using PayPal purportedly to raise funds to “defend” affiliates of the collapsed Zeek Rewards’ MLM scheme:
The payment solution has been removed and will be replaced on September 8, 2012. PayPal a company owned by eBay.com had decided it is not in their best interest to assist us in bringing back a Penny Auction that is directly competing with eBay.com.
We apologize for this inconvenient [sic] and will have a new solution soon. Thank you for your understanding
ZTeamBiz, which targeted Zeek affiliates in its fundraising pitch, has a tie to Todd Disner, a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme that advertised a Zeek-like payout of 1 percent a day. Affiliates who provided money to ZTeamBiz potentially put themselves at cross-purposes, given that a federal judge has appointed a receiver in the Zeek case and that the interests of all Zeek affiliates are not equivalent.
In 2011, ASD President Andy Bowdoin sought to use PayPal to raise funds to pay for his criminal defense. The site, known as Andy’s Fundraising Army, eventually was blocked by PayPal from using its services.
Robert Craddock is part of the purported braintrust behind the ZTeamBiz fundraising effort. Disner once was a guest on a Zeek-related conference call featuring Craddock. That call occurred after the SEC moved against Zeek last month.
In July, Craddock reportedly was behind an effort to silence the voice of Zeek critic “K. Chang” by bringing a purported copyright and trademark infringement complaint against K. Chang through HubPages, a site used by K. Chang to publish news and opinion about Zeek. The site was taken offline, but eventually returned.
In 2011, Disner sued the United States for alleged misdeeds in bringing the ASD Ponzi case, claiming ASD was a legitimate enterprise and that the U.S. government had presented a “tissue of lies” when bringing the case in August 2008. About seven months after Disner brought the action, Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud, admitting ASD was a Ponzi scheme.
A federal judge sentenced Bowdoin to 78 months in federal prison — and dismissed the lawsuit filed by Disner. Disner’s co-plaintiff in the case was Dwight Owen Schweitzer. At an unclear point in time after the August 2008 seizure of tens of millions of dollars in ASD-related bank accounts in the ASD Ponzi case by the U.S. Secret Service, both Disner and Schweitzer became Zeek promoters.
Zeek’s business model was similar to ASD’s. On Aug. 17, the SEC described Zeek as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that potentially affected more than 1 million people. The Secret Service also is investigating Zeek.
ASD’s Bowdoin was sentenced Aug. 29. Federal prosecutors described his “program” as a $119 million Ponzi scheme that had created at least 9,000 victims and had resulted in millions of dollars of losses.
ZTeamBiz did not explain on its website whether PayPal blocked the account through which it was soliciting funds from Zeek affiliates. Instead, it suggested that eBay, which owns PayPal, was an envious Zeek competitor.
See “Whose Lawyer Is This Anyway,” an Aug. 29 PP Blog guest column by Gregg Evans. See July 9, 2009, guest column by Evans that raised questions about how the SolidTrustPay payment processor was enabling fraud schemes.
See July 28 PP Blog column on the Craddock HubPages flap.
Good to know my letter to PayPal did some good!
According to Paypal’s AUP, only charities and non-profit orgs can use the donate function. Clearly, these folks are neither.
This is not so, K. Chang. Writers, Bloggers, artists, people raising money for healthcare issues routinely use a Donate Button.
Charities and nonprofits that use a Donate button require preapproval.
Patrick
I have to agree with Patrick, might want to recheck your facts.
I’ve actually heard about Paypal being hardasses about accounts.
There was a big blowup woth the site Regretsy: http://www.regretsy.com/2012/03/12/paypal-does-it-again/
They’re really down on even the merest whiff of fraud.
Ebay worried about competition from Zeek? Yeah, Right…!
Yeah. They pretty much decide it’s not in their best interest to assist in fraud. lol
Hey, after reading about the Paypal problems at Regretsy and other sites, I’ll bet that Paypal outright froze the account with the “over $100K!” in donations. Too funny!
They made all of that effort fleecing the Zeek suckers, and now they can’t even access those funds!
Poor Todd & Co. might have to actually *shudder* pay for their own lawyers.
I tell ya’, what’s the world coming to?!
The newest communication has created what I call “internet Gospel” an it’s even another one recycled from ASD. There ar two “facts” in it’s argumenmts that The SEC is having trouble finding a security” and is scrambling to find a way to make their case, and have told the new, top secret legal team for ASMBBA,,oops, ZTeamBiz, that they’d just drop the case if they wouldn’t look silly.
That’s just disgusting..
Here is the quote from the letter trying to raise funds for this top secret lawyer (has anyone seen Larry Friedman lately?)
Here is the great news…The law firm has already talked to the SEC and the NC DOJ. On Thursday, Robert got a call from one of our attorneys regarding the conversation that he had with the SEC. Here is what he said:
The SEC acknowledged that there are a couple of problems with the case against Zeek Rewards and Rex Venture group. Here are the problems:
We (the SEC) are not able to find a victim in this case. We are not able to find anybody at this time that has been harmed by Zeek Rewards.
We (the SEC) are having a hard time finding a security. In the complaint, it said that Zeek was selling securities and was an investment scheme.
Based on their (the SEC) new knowledge of the Zeek Rewards business model, they are having a hard time moving forward in making their case. And they are now looking for a path or way to back out of this.
When this group of lawyers makes themselves known, I’ll be writing them a letter, too.