Now, Boat-Sharking For ‘Biwako Bank Limited’: Promos Appear On Facebook Site For Profitable Sunrise And Claim Enterprise Is ‘Japan’s Strongest Bank’
In 2010, FINRA warned that HYIP scammers may provide a “Typo Tip-Off.” In 2013, an enterprise whose affiliates are targeting victims of the alleged Profitable Sunrise pyramid scheme says it is trying to attract “costumers.”
Biwako Bank Limited caught our attention yesterday after a boat-shark appeared on a Facebook Profitable Sunrise site to promote it while making this claim: “**THIS IS NOT AN HYIP , THIS IS A BANK**”
The claim is at odds with a claim on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum that Biwako has a “GoldCoders’ HYIP Manager License.”
Regulators have warned for years that internal inconsistencies are one of the hallmarks of HYIP fraud. In 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) noted that HYIP scammers also often present a “Typo Tip-Off.”
“Watch out for online postings, website copy or emails that are riddled with typos and poor grammar,” FINRA said. “This is often a tip-off that scammers are at work.”
Now, with Profitable Sunrise apparently dead in the water after actions by the SEC and numerous state and provincial regulators in the United States and Canada over the past two months, Biwako is informing prospects in a video playing on its website that the enterprise exists to connect “costumers” to new opportunities. It also claims that compounding is “avaliable.”
Meanwhile, it publishes an investment calculator and appears to imply an association with CNN and Time magazine.
And despite a Facebook boat-shark’s claim that Biwako is not an HYIP, the website of the purported “opportunity” lists four color-coded “plans” that purport to provide daily payouts of between 1.95 percent and 3.05 percent. The highest-paying plan — the “Red Plan” at 3.05 percent a day — advertises a percentage even higher than the purported “Long Haul” plan of Profitable Sunrise.
The “Long Haul” plan claimed to pay 2.7 percent a day.
Earlier this month, North Carolina issued a warning about “reload scams” aimed at Profitable Sunrise victims.
Like Profitable Sunrise, Biwako also is being promoted on the Ponzi boards.
Also see March 27 PP Blog story about Facebook boat-sharking and March 31 story. (The March 31 story reports that promotions for a “program” known as TelexFree claim participants can purchase an income that varies by the amount they invest. Under one scenario outlined in a video, participants who send in $15,125 purportedly are buying an income of $1,100 a week for a year.)
The TelexFree pitch was similar to pitches for the infamous World Marketing Direct Selling (WMDS) and OneUniverseOnline (1UOL) pyramid schemes, which were exposed in 2005 and operated by James Bunchan and Seng Tan. Those scams resulted in federal prison sentences for both Bunchan and Tan.
Quick note: Also on the Facebook Profitable Sunrise site today:
Something called “HourlyChicPay, “where you get paid hourly to advertise your business.”
Plus: Something in Russian that’s apparently called “Giwa.”
Also: “UPrivateBanking” (again) with a pitch of, “HOW MUCH CAN YOU EARN – UNIVERSAL FORTUNE.”
Also: “BankOnTraffic.”
Also: “TriDeci” (again).
A source told me early this morning that a well-known Zeeker now is pitching Rippln, an upstart MLM that’s getting some bad press in part because of its insane “prelaunch” pitch.
Oz at BehindMLM.com has some info on Rippln:
http://behindmlm.com/companies/rippln-securities-fraud-terry-lacore-the-sec/
Patrick
Want to know how crazy it’s getting as Ponzi/pyramid schemes thrive across the planet?
See this story in the South China Morning Post:
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1226012/street-protest-after-anhui-police-bust-pyramid-scheme
Snippet:
_________________________________________________
“Hundreds people involved in a pyramid scheme in Anhui blocked a road in Hefei, the provincial capital, to protest against a police crackdown on the scheme’s operators, fearing the loss of their investment.
“For three hours, some 300 people blocked a road and shouted insults at policemen and urban management officials who arrived to open the road . . .”
_________________________________________________
Patrick
Protest in streets is nothing. When Colombia shut down Grupo DMG people held hunger strikes, chanting “we believe in God and David Murcia (head of DMG)”.
I think Oz also did one on UPrivateBanking.
Hello K. Chang,
Perhaps you saw this from January 2010:
https://patrickpretty.com/2010/01/06/blockbuster-arrest-pyramid-scheme-operator-charged-with-laundering-drug-money-david-murcia-extradicted-from-colombia-to-stand-trial-in-new-york/
Patrick
Actually, PP, I was citing from this NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/world/americas/31murcia.html?_r=0
[…] Originally Posted by Coach & Mentor Hmm, I was told a couple weeks ago by my bank that because the SEC and US Courts have frozen all of Profitable Sunrise accounts, they (the banks) have no authority to release our funds if requested (they tried and were denied because of this). Of course not, they don't know how much are you really supposed to get. Any accounting figures you got is fiction. Yet scams are already out claiming to offer "fast recovery" of profitable sunrise losses. :D Send money via eWallet. Now, Boat-Sharking For ‘Biwako Bank Limited’: Promos Appear On Facebook Site For Profita… […]
the real Biwako Bank was closed down in 2010.
bbl-bank.com is a copy cat, they pretend that all past history, financial licenses are actual theirs.
Assest of the real Biwako were acquired by Kansai Urban Banking Corporation of Japan.
[URL deleted by PP Blog]
They just close the site and let investors out.
How we recover funds in this case also id documents
they ask to open account,They act as a real Bank.
[…] The PP Blog wrote about Biwako Bank Limited on April 29 after it was touted on a Profitable Sunrise Facebook site as a good “program” for […]