United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority Issues Warning On SolidTrustPay, An HYIP Darling On The Ponzi Boards
UPDATED 3:33 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Thanks to PP Blog reader “Tony,” who first posted a link to the FCA warning in this story thread on how a Profitable Sunrise Facebook site was being used to promote TelexFree, an alleged pyramid scheme.
In April 2013, the SEC described Profitable Sunrise as a murky offering fraud that may have gathered tens of millions of dollars. SolidTrustPay, a Ponzi-forum darling used by a stunning number of schemes, reportedly was one of the processors used by Profitable Sunrise. Zeek Rewards, alleged last year by the SEC to have been a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered at least $600 million, also used SolidTrustPay, according to court filings. So did AdSurfDaily, a $119 million Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. And so did JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid, a “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann that has spawned at least three reload scams and, like ASD, may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement. “Sovereign citizens” may be gaining a toehold in Canada, one of the bases of SolidTrustPay. (Please note that the “opportunities” referenced above constitute only a small sampling of the HYIP schemes enabled by SolidTrustPay.)
Also see this 2012 Consent Order between the Securities Department of the U.S. state of Arkansas and SolidTrustPay in which SolidTrustPay agreed to pay a $60,000 civil penalty and did not contest findings that it had been operating illegally in the state for years, had processed about $12 million in Arkansas through about 43,600 transactions and had illegally mined more than $331,000 in fees and commissions in the state.
What follows below is the warning on SolidTrustPay issued on Aug. 30, 2013, by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom. From the FCA:
SolidTrust Pay Ltd
Published: 30/08/2013
Almost all firms and individuals offering, promoting or selling financial services or products in the UK have to be authorised by us.
However, some firms act without our authorisation and some knowingly run scams like share fraud.
This firm is not authorised by us but has been targeting people in the UK:
SolidTrust Pay Ltd
Website: www.solidtrustpay.com
How to protect yourself
We strongly advise you to only deal with financial firms that are authorised by us, and check the Financial Services Register to ensure they are. It has information on firms and individuals that are, or have been, regulated by us.
If a firm does not appear on the Register but claims it does, contact our Consumer Helpline on 0800 111 6768.
There are more steps you should take to protect yourself from unauthorised firms.
You should also be aware that if you give money to an unauthorised firm, you will not be covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if things go wrong.
Report an unauthorised firm
If you think you have been approached by an unauthorised firm or contacted about a scam, you should contact our Consumer Helpline on 0800 111 6768. If you were offered, bought or sold shares, you can use our share fraud reporting form.
You can see more ways to report an unauthorised firm and find out what to do if you have been scammed.
It has been rumored for some time now that STP was shopping to be bought by or merge with a payment processing firm in the U.S.
It is just possible that all the payment processors are now under the watchful eye of the government regulatory authorities since Liberty Reserve was closed and charges filed.
It would put a serious dent in the ability of all these Ponzi’s to steal billions of dollars like they are doing now. One can hope.
Quick note: This thread is being bombarded by spambots this morning. The spam is is incredibly long. One individual spam I checked consisted of 7,270 individual characters and scores of links.
Patrick
Quick note: Just checked another. It consists of 7,765 individual characters and scores of links. There now are dozens and dozens of similar size directed at this thread (above) — with a few directed at this thread:
https://patrickpretty.com/2013/08/09/sec-utah-ponzi-schemer-with-loans-program-ripped-off-church-associates-family-members-friends-seniors-and-some-of-the-money-went-to-multilevel-marketing-and-web-based-advertising-business/
Patrick
[…] Read more about it at: https://patrickpretty.com/2013/09/04/united-kingdoms-financial-conduct-authority-issues-warning-o… […]
Quick note: At roughly 10 p.m. yesterday (Sept. 6), I checked the September spam stats for the PP Blog: 9,368 as of that time. So, roughly 1,561 per day — or 65 per hour. That’s better than 1 per minute.
As of 9:17 this morning, the number stood at 10,161.
In the past 24 hours, the vast, vast majority of the spam has been directed at this specific thread on the FCA’s warning about SolidTrustPay. The spam, which appears to be hawking designer goods, has been super-long and particularly data-intensive. It is unusual in the sense of its length. Each individual spam targeted at this thread has consisted of 7,200+ characters. Spam typically is much shorter than that. I just checked a different thread that appears to have pharma bots trained on it. Those spams appear to consist of about 475 characters.
Despite the fact the spam doesn’t get published in public, it does get published in the “back office” and therefore uses bandwidth and processing power. The ones in this thread are article-length. So, one way to look at it is that the PP Blog’s well of unwanted, involuntary articles is growing at a rate of better than one per minute. All of it — at least temporarily — drains resources.
In terms of intensity, yesterday’s wave was manageable. But these waves quickly can become unmanageable.
Any number of attacks have been aimed at government sites, banks and journalism sites, thus blocking people’s access to information. It is a recipe for anarchy — plain and simple.
One of the IPs attacking this thread yesterday appeared to be from Shangrao, CN. It had made at least 139 trips to the PP Blog. Can’t determine immediately how many of those targeted this specific thread.
In any event, this IP left a “comment” that consisted of about 7,862 characters with scores of links.
Another IP appeared to be from Kenmore, Wash. This one appears to have made only one trip to the PP Blog.
As this was occurring, IPs that appeared to be from Canada were hitting this Zeek thread:
https://patrickpretty.com/2013/08/30/zeekers-targeted-in-new-scheme-with-ties-to-piccolo-organization/
Meanwhile, an IP that appeared to be from Fuzhou, CN, was hitting this Zeek thread:
https://patrickpretty.com/2013/05/24/zeekers-targeted-as-early-ponzi-board-rift-develops-over-promo-for-my-fun-life-lawsuits-involving-other-mlms-make-headlines/
In the context of yesterday’s events (which have rolled over into today), people looking for info on the STP warning in the United Kingdom and the Zeek case could be denied access to it if the server goes down.
That, of course, is music to the ears to the criminal combines and their willfully blind constituency. They are stealing dollars by the billions and ruining lives across the planet. Remarkably, some of them call it “freedom.”
Patrick
Patrick, this may help stop some of the spam:
http://blogformatting.com/wordpress-plugins-how-to-set-up-growmap-anti-spambot-plugin-gasp/
I’ll take a look at this, Tony. Thanks.
Patrick
Why doesn’t UK,Canada & USA shut down this illegal ponzi friendly payment processor permanently?
STP is just like LR,by processing money for hyips and other illegal programs
I think it will be eventually shut down,it is just a matter of when and not a matter of how and why?!
So,withdraw all your money from STP or lose all
You have been warned
Thanks