BULLETIN: Zeek Receiver Sues Nearly 2 Dozen Aussies
BULLETIN: (10th Update 11:20 p.m. ET U.S.A.) Zeek Rewards receiver Kenneth D. Bell has sued nearly two dozen Australians, alleging they were “winners” in the Zeek Ponzi- and pyramid scheme and that money they received came from victims.
Bell previously sued winners in the United States and Canada.
One Aussie is alleged to have received nearly $827,000 through Zeek, a sum on par with some of the alleged top U.S. winners.
All in all, the top Australian winners allegedly received a combined sum of more than $3.14 million.
Here is a list of Australian defendants and their alleged winnings:
Gert Bjerring, Gold Coast, Queensland, though a shell company known as Dancon Pty. Ltd., $826,801.73 under one or more usernames, including “globalvision1.”
David Mitchell, Tyalgum, New South Wales, $298,802.10 under one or more usernames, including “davemitchell.”
Nicola Holloway, Hope Island, Queensland, $273,009.36 under one or more usernames, including “globalnetworks.”
Sam Fawahl, Melbourne, Victoria, $232,564.55 under one or more usernames, including “TeamUnited.”
Warren Hickey, Hope Island, Queensland, through a shell company known as Health and Success Pty. Ltd., $159,757.73 under one or more usernames, including “GlobalProfitShare.”
Lars Frederiksen, Willetton, Western Australia, $139,365.49 under one or more usernames, including “perth.”
Paul Mandelt, Hillarys, Western Australia, $128,913.02 under one or more usernames, including “sunray.”
Kelvian Hansen, Gold Coast, Queensland, $111,799.43 under one or more usernames, including “Kellil.”
Anni Thompson, Yandina Creek, Queensland, $95,566.00 under one or more usernames, including “teamliberty.”
Ann Audrey Hickey, Hope Island, Queensland, $83,487.05 under one or more usernames, including “GlobalProvenPattern.”
R&J Thumm Family P/L as Trustee for Thumm Investment Trust, (R&J), a proprietary limited company organized under the laws of Australia, $80,130.26 under one or more usernames, including “GlobalWealthSystems.”
David Cane, Hope Island, Queensland, through a shell company known as Karanda Holdings Pty. Ltd., $77,296.57 under one or more usernames, including “GlobalCashFlow.”
Donna Walton, Beaudesert, Queensland, $76,730.36 under one or more usernames, including “Candyamore.”
Michael Georghiou, Cheltenham, Victoria, $74,968.93 under one or more usernames, including “4ever.”
Thomas von Eitzen, Brisbane, Queensland, $74,854.07 under one or more usernames, including “tomve.”
Bradley Ferries, Hope Island, Queensland, $72,325.96 under one or more usernames, including “GlobalAdvantage.”
Robin Reid, Hope Island, Queensland, $61,114.41 under one or more usernames, including “Globalstar.”
Linda Welch, Lower Beechmont, Queensland, $60,274.22 under one or more usernames, including “DailyReward.”
Maureen Fisher, Dicky Beach, Queensland, $55,797.49 under one or more usernames, including “Globalsuper.”
Barry Goodsell, Bertram, Western Australia, $53,650.26 under one or more usernames, including “barryandsue.”
David Joseph, Mount Claremont, Western Australia, $52,581.70 under one or more usernames, including “dkjoseph.”
Birthe Seaton, Goulburn, New South Wales, $52,477.31 under one or more usernames, including “jobiperry.”
NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.
More . . .
Is the global clawback really paid off?
I understand the receiver sued Canadian winners, where can I see the detail status report? how much did they collect while how much did they spend, so how much has the net recovery been?
What Gary said https://patrickpretty.com/2014/05/08/zeek-receiver-multilayered-investigation-into-rex-venture-group-and-its-insiders-advisors-and-financial-institutions-continues/comment-page-1/#comment-89934 concerns me.
I want to see very transparent financial summary of Canadian litigation from the receiver.
Hope the receiver’s action is not only profitable for them but also truly value for us victims.
Charlie
What is interesting to me is that the Receiver warned “ALL” the winners he was going to take this action, as long as the countries where they lived would allow his to sue them. You would have thought they would have settled, but then a vast majority here in the U.S. didn’t either, and their lawsuits are coming soon. I guess they bought the lie that it is my money and I can do with it as I please BS that is used in every Ponzi.
No doubt 2015 is going to be one very interesting year for Zeek, TelexFree, and a whole host of other Ponzi’s.
It seems the HYIP ponzi “industry” just won’t admit there has been a dramatic shift in the way HYIP ponzi fraud is being handled since the inception of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.
They seem to have completely overlooked the fact the Secret Service, FBI, IRS and DoJ were front and center in orchestrating the last few very public takedowns of US based HYIP ponzi frauds.
Kenneth Bells’ approach to net winners, on top of the Profitable Sunrise / Nancy Jo Frazer charges and TelexFree promoter prosecutions are indicators of fact the times, they really are a’ changin’
As Lynn says, 2015 should be very interesting
The litigation against Canadians is still relatively new — docketed in August 2014. How long it will take is unclear.
Clerk’s default judgment has been entered against eight Canadian “winners” out of about 26, but the litigation hasn’t concluded.
Looks as though at least one Canadian winner has adopted a tactic that some “sovereign citizens” have used in bids to derail litigation. Similar tactics were used in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme case in the United States beginning in 2008.
A letter to a U.S. federal court clerk managing case filings involving alleged Canadian winners reads in part, “Your offer to contract is hereby rejected as unacceptable.”
From the ASD Updates Blog files site:
https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=YXNkdXBkYXRlcy5jb218ZmlsZXMtd2Vic2l0ZXxneDozZTFhOWI2MmIzZWYwYTgz
Here’s hoping this person hires an attorney, because going down this road could have most unpleasant consequences. An ASD figure who allegedly was managing legal strategies for some ASD members ended up going to federal prison.
You can read about that here:
https://patrickpretty.com/2013/03/01/urgent-bulletin-moving-adsurfdaily-figure-and-purported-sovereign-citizen-kenneth-wayne-leaming-found-guilty-of-filing-false-liens-possessing-weapons-ilegally-and-more/
And here:
https://patrickpretty.com/2013/03/19/judge-says-evidence-shows-that-adsurfdaily-figure-and-purported-sovereign-citizen-filed-225-billion-bogus-lien-and-was-helping-asd-members-unhappy-with-ponzi-prosecution/
And here:
https://patrickpretty.com/2013/12/02/bulletin-adsurfdaily-story-figure-kenneth-wayne-leaming-officially-loses-title-to-seized-weapons-badges-police-gear-computers-and-client-records/
Patrick
I’m wondering if or how the receiver could enforce any judgements made in US courts in Australia. There is a case study here:
http://www.claytonutz.com/publications/edition/29_march_2012/20120329/enforcing_foreign_judgments_in_australia_a_case_study.page
The conclusion:
My reading is that it may be difficult, not impossible, to enforce US judgements. It probably explains why the biggest winners have been targeted.
There is more discussion here:
http://www.cgw.com.au/publication/enforcing-foreign-judgment-australia-judgment-registrable-foreign-judgments-act-1991/
I would suggest same way that they got liberty reserve money frozen in Westpac bank accounts here in Aus and had it returned….
So nobody knows exactly how much the receiver collected & spent in Canadian clawback so far.
Probably, most of you are not the victims of Zeek but just enjoying how the net winners would be screwed up. Purging Ponzi industry is the task of law enforcement agencies, the receiver’s primary duty is maximizing the return to the victims.
What matters me most is how much will I get back eventually? In this regard, I personally can’t find so much difference between the net-winners and the receiver because we are being deprived of our money if the receiver fails to get net recovery. As some people suggested that the receiver should change the fee agreement from hourly to contingency for the clawback as long as he has confidence on sufficient net recovery. Otherwise only 1 Australian who earned over $800,000 is worth pursuing based on Gary’s old post of https://patrickpretty.com/2013/12/12/urgent-bulletin-moving-lawsuits-against-zeek-insiders-winners-believed-imminent-paul-burks-dawn-wright-olivares-darryle-douglas-among-alleged-insiders-adsurfdaily-figures-todd-disner-and-j/comment-page-1/#comment-72615, that indicates certain threshold of international litigation.
Some of you keep talking about the story of court argument and the enforcement of US judgement into other jurisdictions, these are in fact prerequisites and yet the last biggest challenge & uncertainty is actual collectability.
By the way, when it comes to the enforcement of US judgement, I quote Gary’s another interesting post from https://patrickpretty.com/2014/08/15/urgent-bulletin-moving-court-grants-approval-for-zeek-receiver-to-sue-international-winners/ , “Now, Mr Bell is moving into the international clawback. Unlike US, Ponzi clawback lawsuits does not seem to be popular at all even in many advanced European countries that usually recognize US court judgements, because I can’t find indeed single news of its kind via Google search, I tried to find relevant articles specifically in UK, France, Germany, Spain & Italy etc though only ultra big cases such as Madoff http://www.law360.com/articles/528855/uk-court-rejects-madoff-feeder-fund-s-clawback-suit and Stanford targeting big financial institutions etc. comes out, then the rest goes to US cases, if I had googled in local language, I could have found some though (I searched only in English).
Anyhow, surprisingly, the Supreme Court in Netherland where Hague Convention (HCCH) was concluded made very difficult judgements for Ponzi clawback – especially “unjust enrichment claim to net-winners” and burden of proof – see the article; http://www.internationallawoffice.com/newsletters/detail.aspx?g=ba7ff5aa-f829-4f21-97e9-9486c1110427&redir=1“
I strongly believe the receiver should change the fee from hourly to contingency for the clawback.
I strongly believe the receiver should change the fee from hourly to contingency for the clawback.
and I strongly believe you should just stop investing in ponzi zchemes. Bitch about the REAL problem, not the people trying to solve your problem.
You were throwing your money away to scammers – not the receiver. Anything you get back is a bonus now as you were getting ZERO back before.
Yes, I did.
, and I strongly believe you should describe the receiver as “the people trying to make money as much as possible via the actions that may eventually be benefit for the victims” rather than “the people trying to solve your problem”.
Yes, I was.
, but when it comes to the clawbacks under hourly fee, the receiver looks like vulture scavenging bird of prey without being bothered by hyena (I mean no risk), so no difference from even the scammers who try to squeeze from the victims, well even worse because they can do that by claiming Trying To Solve Problem. Now, I see the huge risk that such bonus will be eaten a lot by the receiver unless they change into contingency fee.
Hello okosh,
U.S. authorities also worked with Australia in the eBullion case:
http://www.fbi.gov/losangeles/press-releases/2012/u.s.-prosecutors-and-australian-authorities-collaborate-to-recover-more-than-24-million-from-fraudulent-e-bullion-website
Also see:
http://www.ebullionremission.com/hc/en-us/articles/201119695-1-What-is-this-case-about-
Patrick
And anyone who assumes Australian authorities will do anything BUT co operate with US courts needs to go and take a big dose of reality tablets.
If you see “no difference,” you are choosing to be blind. The vultures are Zeek and its practiced cotillion of willfully blind and disingenuous hucksters. Yet, here you are demonizing the receiver, the person trying to put more money back in your pocket.
This is simply outrageous. That it comes from the MLM HYIP sphere, however, is no surprise. Craddock and crew tried to demonize the receiver out of the gate. Now, two-plus years later, you’re doing the same thing.
You say you’re a Zeek victim. Do you have any respectful, rational criticism of the receiver or do you just want to tee him up and swing with all your linguistic might like some of the Zeek obstructionists?
Patrick
Charlie:
I don’t know where you are getting your facts from about how the Receiver is paid, but his fee is set by the judge overseeing the clawback litigation of the Receiver. It is not up to the Receiver to change anything, but the responsibility of the judge.
Had the Secret Service and the SEC not acted when they did, Paul Burks would have run with the money and you would not be getting any of your money back. Where do you get the idea that it is the authorities responsibility to give you anything back that you voluntarily gave to Zeek Rewards? Where is your accountability in being a willing participant in Zeek? The mantra of Zeek members has been it is my money and I can with it whatever I want, and it is not the business of anyone else what I do with it. So is this also your belief?
Instead of being glad that you will get a large percentage of your money back, you want to complain about how much the Receiver is being paid. Totally disregarding that Zeek was illegal and it is not the Receivers fault he had to re-engineer all the payments, deposits, multiple accounts in multiple names but all the same person.
When the Receiver sent out the money he had held back for taxes, the first round of payments will have been close to 50% of the amount claimed by each victim of Zeek. This is just the first round. There will be at least one more, but I suspect that there will be 3-4 rounds of payments to the victims.
The truly sad part about your complaining is this: Whatever amount of money you get back, you will turn right around and invest it in the next Ponzi de Jour. You will have learned nothing from your participation in Zeek. And we both know this is exactly what you are going to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have already taken what you did receive in the first round, and have already invested it in your next Ponzi de Jour.
But I do have some fine cheese for your whine.
It’s not fruitful to keep arguing vultures or demonizing things.
My rationale behind the criticism is simple & comprehensive which is exactly the same as Gary. Clawback targeting individual & outside US involves far more risks (uncertainties) than targeting institution & within US especially considering the final collect-ability.
The receiver does not seem to balance out (I mean share)this excessive risk between themselves and the victims in a reasonable manner based on the facts that keep using hourly fee (risk free for the receiver) and no data of financial status in the Canadian clawback.
My criticism stops if the receiver changes their fee into contingency which must be the most appropriate way under the circumstances.
Is what I’m saying still not logical & unreasonable?
What I got about the receiver’s fee is from the receiver himself.
After I saw Gary’s comment last year, I sent an e-mail inquiry directly to Mr.Bell by saying the receiver should use Contingency fee. Actually I was not expecting any response from him, but surprisingly he replied saying they had considered it and studied, then concluded the contingency fee was more costly. I I asked further for his detail rationale including key assumptions, no answers so far. So the fee is obviously not a top down by the judge but can be proposed by the receiver.
I’m lost with your comments about my expectation toward the authorities. All what I said before is that the receiver’s task should focus on economically viable activities to maximize the return to the victims and any punishment is the role of authorities.
Anyhow, for the rest, I have no particular comments though let me clarify I don’t have any problems with the receiver except the hourly fee in the clawback pursuing individuals outside the US.
And what makes you think the receiver has not, in fact, considered the use of contingency fees and concluded, based on many years of experience, an hourly fee basis would be more advantageous to the victims ??
Why jump to the conclusion the receiver is profiting unduly to the detriment of the estate and therefore the victims ??
Without direct experience or inside involvement, none of us have any way of knowing a) what the receiver is doing b) the costs involved c) the differential between a contingency and hourly charge basis.
What leads you to believe Mr Bell doesn’t take his statutory responsibilities extremely seriously and has placed personal profit above seeking the best outcome for victims ??
but yet, that’s what you do.
Charlie:
What you are missing is this. The Receiver submits to the judge how his fee will be handled. The judge is the one who determines if that is reasonable or not. The Receiver did not lie to you when he said he had considered the contingency fee but chose the hourly rate. The Receiver had to submit this plan to the judge for approval. The judge could have denied the hourly rate and changed it to a contingency fee, but didn’t.
The Receiver had to get permission from the judge to even file the foreign clawback actions, or any of the actions he has taken. Everything the Receiver does has to be approved by the judge.
But let’s do a little math. For this illustration, we say the amount of time it takes for the Receiver to file the clawback motion and settle the clawback motion takes 200 hours, and the Receiver charges a fee of $200.00 per hour. His total fee is $40,000. Now let’s say he uses the contingency basis of just 10% of all money recovered. In his clawback actions he recovers $2,000,000. He fee would be $200,000. Which would you prefer he had used? Still think he should have used the contingency fee?
One of the benefits Patrick provides here is the opportunity to make open discussion. As long as we do it in constructive manner, it will be a very useful place where people can make better informed judgements.
I personally feel the comments made in this site are rather biased based on the blind belief that all what the receiver has been doing is right. The only person who challenged that belief is Gary, and most of his comments are actually valid, fact based and quite logical.
So far, all the conversation here proves nobody knows the risk reward assumption the receiver actually made. I can’t deny What Lynn said but I can confirm the facts that the receiver never said he had proposed the plan to the judge and he has not answered to my request to share his detail rationale. Lynn, it will be great if you get any proof for what you said. With regard to your little math, we have too little information to set any key assumptions.
In this thread, people still questioned me why I’m so sceptical about the receiver’s intention, so the bellows are some summaries;
1) past posts made by a few people such as;
– http://asdupdates.com/wordpress/archives/5435#
– https://patrickpretty.com/2014/05/08/zeek-receiver-multilayered-investigation-into-rex-venture-group-and-its-insiders-advisors-and-financial-institutions-continues/comment-page-1/#comment-89934
2) the receiver’s no response about the rationale about the fee
3) my friend sent me the message from Mr. Brian Mahany who seems to be a very experienced fraud lawyer, the site is: http://www.mahanyertl.com/ as follows;
“There is no set threshold figure we use ti determine whether to take a case. Instead we look at dozens of factors. Depending on the situation, just one factor could be determinative.
Some of the more important factors are:
where the assets are believed to located
where the defendants are located (some foreign jurisdictions defer more to US court determinations than others)
the type of fraud (e.g. no jurisdictions likes child molesters, those who prey on the elderly, etc)
age of the debt
investigative report as to collectibility of the debt (we usually ask clients to pay $10,000 USD+/- for investigative services before we commit to take a case)
existing relationships with local counsel
political connections or other specific factors of the debtor
fee arrangement (hourly versus contingent versus hybrid)
and yes, the size of the debt
All that being said, I can’t imagine taking a case with less than $1mm at stake unless hourly or unless in Canada or the Caribbean. Even then, our threshold would probably be $500,000 unless hourly fee.
I hope this answers your questions.
Brian”
This lawyer confirms he doesn’t have any confidence to identify practical chance of netting a recovery for victims with the amount less than $1 mio.
This testimony supports Gary’s academic research of the $500,000 threshold for overseas clawback.
Hope these make sense.
Whatever Mr Mahany may be, he’s not a court appointed receiver.
What he does or doesn’t do WRT recovering assets has nothing to do with the statutory duties of the Zeek Rewards receivership.
The claims issued against Australian net winners amount to $3,142,259, which is triple the amount your Mr Mahany would require to “take a case”
Your point therefore being ???
Charlie:
The Receiver does post his quarterly report where this information will be listed.
Everything the Receiver has done he has to first get the permission of the court to take that action. He had to get the courts permission to determine the claims process. He had to get permission to make the first round of payments to the victims. He had to get the courts permission to file the charges for the foreign winners and sue them.
You are trying to compare a private attorney to the Receiver and they are two distinctly different animals when it comes to this type of action.
Please understand I am not attacking you, but trying to explain how the Receiver operates. This Receiver has done live video webinars to explain the process of his actions. To my knowledge no other Receiver has ever taken this step for the victims.
As I said, every quarter he files a report with the court on all the expenses, actions he has taken and the results of those actions. Once the judge has approved the report, he releases it on his website for all to read.
As for the foreign clawbacks, I don’t think you will see those results until the quarter in which they completed. It is possible he might include the partial results, but it would be wiser to wait until they were finished.
But this I am pretty sure of: Had the Receiver used the contingency fee, when Gary how much it was, he would have been complaining it was too much and he should have only charged the hourly rate. Had Gary done as much research on Zeek as he says he has done on the Receivers payment options, he wouldn’t have joined Zeek in the first place.
I understand Mr. Brian Mahany’s comment refers to single case. Is Zeek’s clawback outside US also done as a class action? Then, I’m sure better efficiency can be expected, but Mr Bell’s threshold of $50,000 that is 1/20 of Mr. Mahany’s sounds still too risky.
Lynn, don’t worry I never thought you attacked me. I just want to discuss based on facts as much as possible rather than a lot of speculations or blind belief.
I know the receiver’s quarterly report. Also, I understand that the receiver got permission from the court for doing global clawback. However, it does not automatically lead to the conclusion the receiver had submitted thorough comparison between hourly fee vs contingency fee to the judge for his consideration. In fact I have never seen single paragraph the receiver talks about the fee agreement (not the expense amount) in any documents except the very early one explaining the the receiver’s detail appointment conditions. This is my gut feeling that once the fee system set at the outset, the common practice is applying it all through the case, means changing it in the middle of the case could be unusual. Therefore I personally assume that the court gave approval without even arguing the fee change but taking just status quo into granted. Probably I’m wrong, that’s why I have asked you for the proof.
Regarding the type of the lawyer, I don’t have sufficient information to conclude Mr. Mahany is significantly greedier than Mr. Bell (we should regard that his standard can reasonably apply to any case). Do you have any proof that the fee Mr. Bell & his associates (including overseas lawyer)charge in Zeek’s case is far below the industrial standard?
Anyhow, yes we hope to see the detail financial results of Canadian clawback separately in the next report although we still can’t make any comparison with the contingency fee case.
If I am not mistaken, the Receiver announced on his website that all the “net winners” in Zeek whether in the U.S. or foreign would be a class action lawsuit. So this should put this individual versus class action to rest.
Maybe Gary should try reading the Receiver’s website before tossing around conspiracy theories about whether it should be hourly rate or a contingency fee. Still comparing apples to oranges. The Receiver is bound by the directives of the court. In an individual case that is not what happens.
The court just issued default judgments against all the Canadians being sued. Somehow I don’t think this will satisfy Gary. But what I find interesting is that Gary is not here posting his comments but you are on his behalf. I must ask why?
Sad to see the thread becoming meaningless discussion.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
who’s the most meaningless of them all ??
Does this mean that you are not going to answer my last question? In case you forgot it I asked why are you here posting what Gary thinks instead of Gary?