VIDEO LINK: In Panel Discussion, MLM Aficionado Len Clements Describes Zeek As Pyramid Scheme And SEC Action As ‘Righteous Kill’; Attorneys Comment On Where Receivership May Be Going
MLM attorney Kevin Thompson hosted the panel yesterday. (See video below.) Panelists included attorney Jordan D. Maglich, attorney Phillip G. Young Jr., attorney (and Thompson partner) Walt Burton, Troy Dooly of MLMHelpDesk and Len Clements of Market Wave.
Maglich, Young and Burton offered some helpful commentary on where the Zeek receivership may be going. Clements hit a high note when he used the phrase “righteous kill” to describe the SEC’s Aug. 17 Zeek action in the context of pyramid schemes.
“In this case there is no question on the pyramid side that they (Zeek) were absolutely operating as such, right up [until] the very end,” Clements opined.
Separately, a poster on Dooly’s Blog claimed yesterday that she had paid her Zeek sponsor by cashier’s check drawn in the name of the sponsor — as opposed to paying Zeek directly — and that the sponsor funded her Zeek participation “by transfering money she already had sitting in an e-wallet into my new Zeek account.”
The same thing happened in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, which leads to questions about why MLMers continue to engage in this extremely odious practice and whether individual promoters of HYIP schemes are engaging in wire fraud, mail fraud, money-laundering and tax fraud.
Both ASD and Zeek appear to have had supreme difficulty in posting member payments to their accounts; that, in itself, may be a key marker of a fraud scheme in progress because it signals an “opportunity” may be having both banking and customer-service problems.
Upline sponsors who accept cashier’s checks and use private systems to “help” recruits — whether those private systems are internal or external to the “opportunity” — could be creating both civil and criminal liability for themselves. When an HYIP scheme goes south, it may be hard for a victim who paid an upline member to demonstrate a loss. Beyond that, a sponsor who cuts corners and has the knowledge that an “opportunity” is having trouble posting payments could be accused of willful blindness.
For background, see this June 3, 2011, story. Also see this June 3, 2009, story.
For additional background, see this Dec. 17, 2010, story. Below is a snippet (italics added):
The U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors have seized nearly $250,000 from two alleged ASD promoters and filed a new forfeiture complaint dated today.
More than $153,000 has been seized from a bank account controlled by ASD promoter Erma Seabaugh, known as the “Web Room Lady.” Seabaugh was a purported ASD “trainer,” prosecutors said.
She was accused in the complaint of accepting checks made out to ASD, depositing them into her bank account and transferring “ad packs” to her downline by using ASD’s internal system.
I refuse to watch the faux conference so how bad did clements chastise his buddy fooly for promoting this scam? He had his chance to ‘weigh in’ long ago and refused. He’s trying to save face once again from being the fraud he is.
“We are not providing legal advice”. You did not say.
Blind is leading the blind.
Actually it’s a worth while conference. I’d recommend it to any Zeek affiliate who has questions about how the receivership process works.
Anyone remember Robert Lee Guenther? Well Zeek has it’s very own Robert Lee Craddock. And yes, his middle name is Lee and he’s playing the same game that old barkin’ mad Bob did in ASD. The game is to bilk jilted victims out of as much money as they can and a conservative estimate has Craddock beating the pants off Guenther (sorry for that mental image) in the fund raising department.
So yea, I’m not thrilled that old yoli was included but I don’t let it detract from four legal professionals giving Zeek affiliates the qualified and accurate information they need, not only to deal with the process but also to help counteract some of the lies that Robert Craddock is spreading for personal gain.
Of course, I didn’t hear them give credit to “the critics” nor did they talk about how some of the experts on the panel endorsed Zeek and attempted to discredit the critics at every turn.
Yet every single substantive rational argument showing that Zeek was a Ponzi, that the auctions couldn’t have been that profitable, that all the payment processor issues, strange incongruities in the conference calls and blog postings, and a series of other irrational behavior… all pointed to the fact that Zeek was a scam… and the critics were right at every turn.