BULLETIN: Utah Division of Securities Rejects Claims In Traffic Monsoon Promo That Scheme Had Been Given Clean Bill Of Health

Charles Scoville of Traffic Monsoon.

BULLETIN: The Utah Division of Securities — the state-level regulator — has rejected online claims that the agency had investigated Traffic Monsoon and had given it a clean bill of health.

Federal regulators sued Traffic Monsoon and alleged operator Charles Scoville last week, alleging Ponzi fraud, securities fraud and the sale of unregistered securities to unaccredited investors.

The PP Blog contacted the state Division on Aug. 1, after reading a Traffic Monsoon affiliate promo that in part read, “The State of Utah’s security division & Consumer Protection went to the offices of Traffic Monsoon to investigate their business model. The result of the investigation was that Traffic Monsoon wasn’t committing any kind of investment scheme or security fraud.”

That simply didn’t happen, the Division said through Director Keith Woodwell early this afternoon in response to the PP Blog’s inquiry.

“[T]he Division has not investigated Traffic Monsoon,” the agency said flatly.

It added that it “never made any determinations as to whether Traffic Monsoon was ‘committing any type of investment scheme or security fraud’ and that it had “made no determination as to whether there was a pyramid scheme.”

It is not unusual for promoters of MLM-type or direct-sales fraud schemes to claim that a scheme had passed muster with regulators.

The Division said it had received one complaint about AdHitProfits, another Scoville scheme, in December 2013. No action was taken there, the Division said, because the Division determined there was no offer of securities under state law.

Regardless, the Division said, it does not offer clean bills of health to schemes or issue statements of “nothing wrong.”