NOTE: 10:46 A.M. EDT: Certain references to “Aaron” (below) in the context of “Aaron and Shara” have been deleted, pending the resolution to a report we received that disputed certain information.
Question: Did the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” that plants the seed it provides a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day without constituting an investment opportunity give a puff piece to an affiliate who signed a petition in 2008 that called for the U.S. Senate to investigate the federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service agent who brought the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case?
Separately, this classified ad for Zeek from “Jerry Napier” of Owosso, Mich., ran on Nov. 17, 2011.
On Dec. 30, 2008, “Jerry Napier” of Owosso, Mich., signed a petition that called for the U.S. Senate to investigate (see No. 1897 on the petition) then-U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey; then U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor of the District of Columbia; then-lead ASD prosecutor William Cowden; and Roy Dotson, a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service, according to ipetitions.com.
Screen shot and highlight by PP Blog.
“Whereas, we as Americans have a right to advertise with any company without interferences [sic] by [sic] Attorney General and /or any of its agents,” the petition began. “Whereas, Ad Surf Daily [sic] hereafter (ASD) [sic] an advertising company on the internet were [sic] members received re-bates [sic] for advertising and looking at other advertising sites, thus purchase [sic] products and services.”
In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors brought the first of at least three civil-forfeiture actions in the ASD Ponzi case. Those actions were parallel to a criminal investigation that ultimately led to the arrest of ASD President Andy Bowdoin in December 2010 and his guilty plea to wire fraud last month.
ASD, like Zeek, planted the seed that it paid a daily return on the order of 1 percent.
Among the other top Zeek earners listed in the post are “Aaron and Shara” and Trudy Gilmond. “Aaron and Shara” is a veteran HYIP team.
Gilmond, whom Zeek identifies as a Zeek “employee” on its website, once was a promoter of a scheme known as Regenesis 2X2, which became the subject of a U.S. Secret Service probe in 2009.
The 2008 petition calling for the Senate to investigate the ASD prosecutorial team also includes “Catherine Parker” as a signatory (on Page 33, Nos. 1604 and 1605). “Catherine Parker” was quoted in emails that became part of the ASD story. (See such an attribution on AdLandPro, a site from which ASD was promoted.)
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (UPDATED 6:23 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin — the confessed author of a $110 million online Ponzi scheme — was jailed at the conclusion of a bond-revocation hearing in Washington today.
Bowdoin is being detained at a local Department of Corrections facility in the District of Columbia, the jail confirmed this evening. No other information was immediately available.
Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia say Bowdoin was detained after the proceeding before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer.
In April, prosecutors said Bowdoin continued to promote scams after the ASD Ponzi probe began in July 2008 and after his December 2010 arrest by the U.S. Secret Service on Ponzi-related charges. Prosecutors identified those scams as “OneX” and AdViewGlobal, an ASD-like autosurf.
Bowdoin, 77, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD case last month. His formal sentencing has been set for Aug. 29 before Collyer.
Bowdoin faces up to 78 months in federal prison, when sentenced by Collyer. He has been banned from multilevel marketing, Internet programs and mass marketing.
UPDATED 11:22 A.M. EDT (JUNE 13, U.S.A.) Images of a man described as “Alan Chapman” appear in online promos for both the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid and Zeek Rewards “programs” that plant the seed that enormous daily returns on the order of 1 percent to 2 percent are possible.
In one Blog pitch for JSS/JBP dated Oct. 6, 2011, “Chapman” is quoted as saying, “I have been with JustBeenPaid! since it launched in early 2010, which proved to be very successful. But now in these last 4 short months JSS-Tripler has proven to be my best income earner compared to all the other programs I have joined in the previous 4 years!”
The ad includes a photo of “Chapman.”
Meanwhile, in a Blog pitch for Zeek in a publication titled “ZeekRewardsPays,” “Chapman” is quoted as saying Zeek members can post their “ads” on the ZeekRewardsPays site “to qualify [for] your [Zeek] earnings for that day!”
The Zeek pitch also includes a photo of “Chapman.”
Zeek members who want to share in the firm’s purported revenue pool are required to post an ad online to qualify for a payout. The ad-posting requirement may be a bid to undermine the “Howey Test,” which determines what constitutes a security/investment contract.
One of the questions posed by the Howey Test is whether profits can be derived from an opportunity solely from the efforts of the purveyors. By insisting that Zeek members cannot get paid unless they post an ad, Zeek may be setting the stage to argue that Zeek’s ad-posting requirement constitutes “work” by affiliates and therefore the payouts do not derive solely from Zeek’s efforts.
Both Zeek and JSS/JBP use offshore payment processors such as AlertPay (now Payza) and SolidTrustPay that are friendly to fraud schemes promoted on known Ponzi-scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. Both Zeek and JSS/JBP have promoters in common, and both “programs” are being promoted on the Ponzi boards.
Because Zeek and JSS/JBP have common promoters and a presence on Intenet cesspits, questions have been raised about whether the “programs” and their banks and payment-processing vendors have come into possession of funds tainted by fraud schemes.
On the ZeekRewardsPays site with the photo of “Chapman, the following claim is made today:
ZeekRewards Daily Profit Last 7 Days!
June 11 2012 1.89 %
JUNE 10 2012 0.88 %
JUNE 09 2012 0.96 %
JUNE 08 2012 0.92 %
JUNE 07 2012 1.91 %
JUNE 06 2012 2.00 %
JUNE 05 2012 1.93 %
In recent days, Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS/JBP, has raised the prospect that JSS/JBP members could be on their own if law-enforcement agencies take action against the “program.”
JSS/JBP also has banned discussion about customer-service issues on its weekly conference call. That announcement was made during the June 7 call, a week after a woman identified as “Ping” begged Mann for assistance, asserting her concerns had not been addressed in a month.
On May 31, “Ping” implied she was ill with a serious heart condition, was managing three JSS/JBP accounts that had been hacked a month ago and said her “sister borrowed on her house [to] put money in JBP.”
During the June 7 call, Mann also implied that JSS/JBP members were free to start their own business-with-a-business — for example, they could create pools from investor money at the local, regional, national or international level and a single JSS/JBP member could manage the pools and perhaps make a profit by playing the spread between what JSS/JBP pays and the fees a local pool manager would charge for managing the pool.
JSS/JBP has no known securities registrations, does not identify where it is operating from and may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.
Mann now has taken to doling out medical advice during the JSS/JBP calls, insisting that JSS/JBP members should not trust their doctors.
Nor should they trust attorneys, Mann implied.
JSS/JBP members are required to affirm they do not work for the “government.”
Zeek recently has encountered problems at at least two U.S. banks. Zeek preemptively has denied it is a pyramid scheme. The firm also claims it is not offering an investment product.
UPDATED 12:27 P.M. EDT (JUNE 12, U.S.A.) Paul R. Burks, the chief executive officer of Rex Venture Group LLC, has made four contributions to the GOP Presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul since July 2011, Federal Election Commission records show.
Rex Venture is the purported parent company of Zeek Rewards, a North Carolina-based MLM program that plants the seed that returns of more than 1 percent a day are possible, and Zeekler, a penny-auction site that is auctioning sums of U.S. currency and curiously says it pays successful bidders through offshore payment processors such as AlertPay (now Payza) and SolidTrustPay.
Some Zeekler bidders now claim they have not been paid for their winning bids on U.S. currency for weeks or even months. They’re also complaining about slow, absent or circular customer support.
The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee Inc. recorded a $500 contribution from Burks on July 19, 2011, another $500 contribution on Aug. 20, 2011, a $1,000 contribution on Sept. 17, 2011 and a $500 contribution on Jan. 14, 2012, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Rex Venture has scored an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau, the BBB’s lowest score.
Zeek insists it is not offering an investment product and has preemptively denied it is operating a pyramid scheme.
In 2008, an MLM company with a business model similar to Zeek — AdSurfDaily — preemptively denied it was operating a Ponzi scheme. Federal Election Commission and other records showed that ASD President Andy Bowdoin was making campaign donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2007 even as ASD members were complaining about not getting paid.
In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service moved to seize $65.8 million from Bowdoin’s bank accounts, saying he was presiding over a massive online Ponzi scheme. Federal prosecutors later accused Bowdoin of making the campaign donations with Ponzi money.
Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD Ponzi case last month.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Our theory about Zeek Rewards is that it’s a slow-motion, pyramid-style Ponzi scheme being driven by any number of clueless affiliates who do not understand they are being influenced by steroidal puppeteers and MLM’s Great Wing of Willfully Blind Hucksters, Religious Frauds and Disingenuous Opportunists, PR Amateurs, Government Agitators and Unindicted Felons and Misdemeanants. We had a similar theory about AdSurfDaily. Read this document (courtesy of the ASD Updates Blog) and see if you agree that Zeek affiliates need to be asking some very serious questions about their “program.”
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UPDATED 1:39 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) If you expected to be less confused about Zeek Rewards after listening to Jim Gillhouse and Troy Dooly chat up Zeek COO Dawn Wright-Olivares Friday night on ACES Radio Live, you’re apt to have come away disappointed — or perhaps even more confused. (Link to recording at bottom of editorial.)
The 86-minute show began with something that resembled a hopeful note: Gillhouse implied he’d hold Zeek’s feet to the fire and play “bad cop” to Dooly’s “good cop” because of various controversies swirling around Zeek. Co-host Dooly, though, seemed to bristle at the “bad cop” remark.
“Well, it ought to be interesting because I’m learning that bad cops don’t usually have all the facts,” Dooly said.
With that remark, the radio program more or less devolved into a session in which Wright-Olivares was permitted to ramble . . . and ramble . . . and ramble. The questions Dooly put to a top MLM executive who represents a company that plants the seed it offers a return of more than 1 percent a day without being the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC of multilevel marketing were asked with sugary and/or leading preambles — with Dooly effectively stifling the worthy aims of his co-host and coming off as Zeek’s PR flack and spin doctor.
When Zeek’s story is compared to the tale of Madoff’s relatively modest (compared to Zeek) but unusually consistent returns of around 10 percent a year, Zeek is outperforming the notorious Ponzi swindler by a factor on the order of 30 to one. Zeek, though, insists it is not offering an investment. It also preemptively denies it is a “pyramid scheme” and plants the seed it will terminate any affiliate who suggests Zeek is offering an investment program.
Gillhouse tried. He deserves credit for that.
After not liking how Gillhouse framed a question to Wright-Olivares in the context of Zeek’s purported revenue-sharing program and recruitment efforts and how it purportedly spits 50 percent of its revenue with affiliates, Dooly behaved as though the question were asked of him and not the Zeek executive.
The information was “proprietary,” Dooly insisted.
He then bizarrely planted the seed that the ACES Radio Live show could get in trouble with a “regulator” for asking such a question and that Zeek itself could get in trouble for even responding to such a question. Dooly also implied that someone with dubious motives had set up Gillhouse by supplying him with bogus questions to make Zeek look bad. Such questions were offensive to American Capitalism, Dooly implied.
At one point in the “interview,” Wright-Olivares planted the seed that jealous competitors were after Zeek — in addition to the fraudsters and hackers who were making Zeek look bad in the eyes of its financial vendors, including offshore payment processors.
And there also was accidental comedy: Dooly called Zeek’s legal and compliance team the “crackpot team” when he meant the “crack team.”
We think he meant that, at least.
Gillhouse tried to make the show something other than a Zeek commercial and even caused Wright-Olivares to get snarky in one of her responses, but his own co-host made sure the Zeek executive had a cocoon into which she could retreat with no meaningful follow-up questions asked to tie up any of the incongruities about Zeek.
Although Dooly ventured that Zeek was “the most complex thing I’ve ever seen,” he did precious little to strip away any of the layers of complexity to show Zeek in the plain light of day.
“Proprietary” ain’t gonna cut it with Zeek — not with Zeek’s business model, not with criminals behind green curtains in the era of white-collar fraud relying on the word to coverup or sanitize massive fraud schemes, not after AdSurfDaily, not even if Zeek’s lawyers come on the show with the aim of turning on one of Dooly’s belt-high softball tosses in the middle of the plate and driving it into the upper deck of MLM La-La Land Stadium with the robotic Stepford fans rising to their feet in full Stepfordian awe. (Dooly’s suggestion that Gillhouse and/or the radio show itself could get in trouble for not being precise when asking questions is almost too strange to contemplate, so we are choosing not to contemplate it right now. Our plate is already filled with bizarre tales — JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, which has promoters in common with Zeek and plants the seed it can outperform Madoff on the order of 50 to one, for instance.)
It’s this simple if you are a Zeek affiliate and have questions about the company: Assume that Dooly is trying to wear two hats (at least) and therefore is not an independent voice. He is making personal appearances at Zeek Red Carpet events, posing for the camera with Wright-Olivares and even permitting his image to be shown in what effectively is a commercial for Zeek. Then, he’s “interviewing” Wright-Olivares on the subject of Zeek.
What you are observing, unfortunately, is Troy Dooly and a Zeek executive in MLM Radio La-La Land, a cheerleader quizzing a woman who apparently is committed to her own bizarre talking points and even running interference for her. Paul Burks is the purported boss of North Carolina-based Rex Venture Group LLC, Zeek’s purported parent company. Burks and Wright-Olivares go way back, Wright-Olivares says.
At the heart of the Zeek flap are questions such as these:
Does Zeek’s penny-auction arm (Zeekler) constitute a gambling operation and therefore put the entire Zeek enterprise at risk?
Does Zeek’s MLM arm (Zeek Rewards) make the company vulnerable to charges that it is selling unregistered securities as investment contracts because of the seed Zeek plants that a return of between 1 percent a 2 percent a day is possible — thus putting the entire enterprise at risk?
Are Zeek’s purported tens of thousands of affiliates exposing themselves to charges they are helping Zeek sell unregistered securities?
Given Zeek’s business mix, what agency is its principal regulator?
Because any number of Zeek affiliates also are promoting highly dubious opportunities or obvious scams on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold, is Zeek coming into possession of funds tainted by fraud and depositing those funds in its own bank and payment-processing accounts?
Why is Zeek, a U.S. company, auctioning sums of U.S. cash and telling successful bidders it will pay them via offshore payment processors linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme promoted on the Ponzi boards?
Why has Zeek had problems with at least two U.S. banks? (And why is Wright-Olivares now suggesting that the banks and affiliates are to blame?)
Why are Zeek customers openly complaining on a Zeek support forum that they have not received their auction winnings for weeks or even months?
Why is Zeek apparently closing itself to would-be prospects in Montana?
How is Zeek paying employees? How many employees — as opposed to independent contractors — does it have?
Why were/are some of the “employees” Zeek lists on its website participants in cash-gifting schemes, matrix-cycler schemes and autosurf Ponzi schemes such as AdSurfDaily?
Is Zeek relying on volunteers to catch up on a considerable backlog of customer-service issues — and calling the volunteers “employees?” Why would Zeek permit either volunteers or employees associated with various forms of online fraud effectively become spokespeople for Zeek? (Note: AdSurfDaily also relied on “volunteers.”)
Was Paul Burks or any Zeek executive, employee or volunteer involved in AdSurfDaily in any capacity? Did any Zeek executive, employee or volunteer receive any compensation from the remissions pool established by the government in the ASD Ponzi case? Did Zeek, whose business model is similar to ASD, come into possession of any money that flowed from the ASD remissions pool?
Is there a chance that Zeek’s growth was fueled in part by money originally seized in the ASD case and returned to participants last fall in the form of remissions payments?
Why is purported MLM expert Keith Laggos, who ventured an opinion that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme, a consultant to Zeek?
MLM attorney Gerald Nehra, an expert witness for AdSurfDaily, ventured an opinion that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme. Why is Nehra’s law firm purportedly doing work for Zeek?
While Wright-Olivares was rambling Friday night, she did say two attention-getting things. One was delivered almost as a throw-away line; the other was a butchered attempt to spin a major negative into a positive.
First, the butchered spin attempt: After Zeek implied on its Blog on May 28 that it voluntarily was closing two U.S. bank accounts, Wright-Olivares suggested Friday night that the closings were less than voluntary.
One of the banks simply was too small to handle Zeek’s rapidly expanding business, a circumstance that left the bank president “devastated,” Wright-Olivares said. But at the same time she was saying that, she also was implying that the bank booted Zeek because of all the problems associated with doing business with the firm. (Emphasis added.)
“Well, our bank of 15 years came to us and said, ‘You’re just way too big. We can’t handle this.’ This is like the small bank in Lexington, North Carolina, and the president of the bank was devastated . . .” Wright-Olivares said.
She went on to explain that Zeek had opened an account at a second bank, apparently after the multimillion-dollar MLM firm had approached a branch office to open the account instead of consulting with the main office. Although Zeek told the branch office what business it was in and apparently managed to get an account started, the matter got kicked upstairs and Zeek ultimately got booted, Wright-Olivares implied.
“They didn’t do their due diligence” at the branch office, she curiously explained.
Now, the throw-away line:
After Gillhouse asked her if Zeek’s profit pool is a “50/50 split” between Zeek and participating affiliates, Wright-Olivares said, “Yeah, the Retail Points Pool — the revenue shares . . . actually, [Zeek President and CEO] Paul [Burks] — Paul manages all that.”
Wright-Olivares went on to explain that Burks gives “us” up to 50 percent of Zeek’s daily net, an answer that strongly implied that she was both a Zeek executive and an affiliate sharing in the profit pool. Neither Gillhouse nor Dooly asked whether Burks made the revenue-sharing calculations in the plain light of day with other executives observing the process, whether Wright-Olivares also drew an executive’s salary from Zeek, whether her COO title was simply an in-house designation and whether she essentially was just an affiliate with a fancy title and more responsibilities.
The answer to those questions could be important because Zeek’s business model strongly resembles that of Florida-based AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service said in August 2008 — nearly four years ago — was operating a massive online Ponzi scheme. Like Zeek, ASD positioned itself as a revenue-sharing program that split 50 percent of its daily receipts with affiliates, awarding them an unusually consistent gain of about 1 percent a day.
And like Zeek, some ASD executives held fancy titles. In the end, however, the titles that ASD handed out appeared to be simple naming conventions designed to create the appearance of legitimacy. No evidence has emerged that any purported executive with the possible exception of ASD President Andy Bowdoin was anything other than an affiliate who held a fancy title in ASD’s MLM la-la land. Bowdoin effectively was alleged to be a glorified affiliate of his own company, with federal prosecutors saying that he’d placed an ad for a failed, dissolved business in his own “advertising” rotator to qualify for a payout from ASD’s revenue pool.
Moreover, the Secret Service alleged that, contrary to assertions by Bowdoin that ASD was paying out to affiliates 50 percent of the daily revenue it generated from sales, ASD was not doing what it said it was doing.
“Rather, Bowdoin manufactured the revenue numbers to deceive members into believing that they could reasonably expect to receive an average daily return on their investment with ASD of at least 1%. This percentage in no way corresponded to the daily revenue that ASD was generating, but had been determined by ASD’s operators to be the amount needed to attract a steady stream of newcomers,” the Secret Service alleged in an affidavit originally filed under seal in February 2009, as the agency’s then-eight-month-old probe into ASD’s businesses practices continued.
In essence, the Secret Service alleged that Bowdoin was the man behind the colloquial green curtain and that he and unnamed others were fudging numbers and compartmentalizing information to keep the $110 million ASD scam afloat. Participants needed to hear a certain number or they weren’t apt to play, and Bowdoin and his coconspirators delivered that number — 1 percent a day — all while insisting ASD was not offering an investment product and giving themselves a further out by claiming revenue-sharing payouts were not guaranteed.
There have been no allegations of wrongdoing against Burks or Wright-Olivares or Zeek, but the remarks by Wright-Olivares are troubling.
“Paul manages all that?”
In closing, we present to you Paragraph 16 of a U.S. Secret Service affidavit filed on Feb. 26, 2009. This document was part of a seizure action that targeted the bank accounts of certain ASD members. We urge readers who may be members of Zeek not to listen to anyone who argues the document has no relevance in the context of the Zeek “program.” Indeed, you are about to read something that speaks compellingly about criminality — and steroidal puppeteers and Stepfordians — within the MLM universe:
16. Bowdoin and his [silent partner and 12DailyPro] sponsor knew that it was illegal to sell investment opportunities to thousands of individuals; thus, they were careful not to call participants “investors” but rather referred to them as “members.” Moreover, there were careful not to call payments to “members” “return on investments”; rather, they referred to the income program as a “rebate” program (A review of the ASD account database actually revealed ASD used the term “ROI” as a payment category for members). Although they were careful not to explicitly state that any income from ASD was guaranteed, both ASD founders intended that prospective members understood that they would receive better than market returns. Bowdoin and his sponsor were paying the stated 150% return and knew that ASD members expected that return. Bowdoin and the sponsor had discussed the need to pay at least one percent a day to members for members to promote the program to others.
A Blog targeted at senior citizens is recruiting affiliates for Zeek Rewards, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid and other online "programs" that suggest they can create riches. (Redaction by PP Blog.)
EDITOR’S NOTE: As the PP Blog was researching matters pertaining to the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” and preparing the post below for publication, it encountered a subdomain of the ZeekRewards.com website styled “zeeksupport.” A page on the subdomain purports to identify 16 Zeek “employees,” although is was unclear whether the workers received a wage or salary or were independent contractors.
Here is the full URL: http://zeeksupport.zeekrewards.com/zeeksupport/people
Included among the “employees” listed were Terralynn Hoy and Catherine Parker, both of whom were affiliated with AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service alleged was a Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million. Hoy, at least, also was affiliated with an ASD knockoff known as AdViewGlobal.
In April, federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia said they’d tied ASD President Andy Bowdoin to AdViewGlobal. Bowdoin, 77, pleaded guilty to wire fraud last month after being charged criminally in 2010 for his role in the ASD Ponzi scheme. As part of a plea agreement, Bowdoin has been banned from MLM, Internet programs and mass marketing.
Although the story below does not report on the Zeek claims that Hoy and Parker are Zeek employees, a link on the Zeek subdomain leads to a page in which “Catherine Parker” is responding to Zeek customer-service issues, including one titled, “TO BE PAID FOR OUTSTANDING AUCTION WINNINGS, POST HERE.” Within the customer-service thread is a post from an individual who claimed to have won an April 12, 2012, Zeekler auction for $100 in U.S. cash with a winning bid of $16.28 — but never received his money. Other posters also claimed not to have been paid . . .
UPDATED 5:27 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A detailed post from December 2011 on an affiliate Blog that publishes information in German and English instructs affiliates of the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” how to wire funds to Zeek and have them deposited in its account at NewBridge Bank in North Carolina. The Blog, which targets senior citizens, is hosted on Google’s free Blogspot platform at a subdomain styled “getlucky2011.”
Zeek announced suddenly last week that it was ending its relationship with NewBridge. It also announced it was ending its relationship with BB&T, a second bank based in North Carolina. Zeek plants the seed that affiliates can earn a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day, but the “program” insists it is not offering an investment opportunity.
Included on the same affiliate Blog are multiple pitches for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann that does not disclose its base of operations, may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement and advertises a return of 60 percent a month. The deck of the Blog, which includes a Zeek affiliate link in the right sidebar, features these words (bolding added):
“Indefinitely sustainable second income seniors earn independent living, plan their retirement, meet seniors assisted living, meet seniors online, secure your pension, look for retirement services and retirement benefits”
The post provides a glimpse into how U.S. banks could come into possession of funds tainted by fraud as the funds circulate between and among various HYIP programs advertised online. Research by the PP Blog shows that NewBridge also was one of the banks that handled the business of a bizarre MLM “program” known as “Narc That Car” that effectively collapsed in 2010 after the Better Business Bureau raised pyramid-scheme concerns and American television stations and investigative reporters turned their sights on Narc.
How Narc, a Texas-based company that used at least two names and at least two banks when issuing checks to members, ended up using NewBridge in North Carolina as one of its banks is unclear. Narc issued checks under the names of Narc Technologies Inc. and National Automotive Record Centre Inc. The entity later became known by a third name: Crowd Sourcing International.
National Automotive Record Centre Inc., Narc’s purported parent company, is listed in Nevada records as a corporation in “default.” Zeek’s purported parent company, Rex Venture Group LLC, also is registered in Nevada. Like Narc, Rex has scored an “F” from the BBB. (See Rex listing. See Narc listing.)
Like Zeek, Narc relied on a company known as USHBB Inc. to produce video sales pitches for its opportunity. USHBB is based in Indianapolis. Among its listed officers is OH Brown of Mount Pleasant, S.C. Brown hosted this May 2012 call for the Zeek “program” and also is listed on Zeek’s website as a Zeek “employee” who simultaneously holds the title “Official Rep.” Whether Brown receives compensation from Zeek while also serving as the vice president of USHBB is unclear.
On March 15, 2010, the PP Blog published a story that reported that a video USHBB produced for the Narc “program” asserted that some affiliates were earning more money than the President of the United States.
As part of its reporting on Narc, the PP Blog visited a USHBB website in 2010 that claimed the company had done promotional work for MLM teams and companies such as Ad Surf Daily, AdGateWorld, BizAdSplash, Ad-ventures4U, TVI Express and Global Verge/Buzzirk Mobile. Virtually all of the enterprises listed were associated with get-rich-quick schemes or HYIP autosurfs. Some of the “programs” later went missing from the web or were accused of fraud.
Frederick Mann of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid was a promoter of both AdSurfDaily and Ad-ventures4U, according to records. Clarence Busby, a onetime business partner of ASD’s Andy Bowdoin, was the purported chief consultant and operator of BizAdSplash, an autosurf that vanished mysteriously in 2010. Erma Seabaugh, ASD’s purported “Web Room Lady,” also was affiliated with Ad-ventures4U.
On March 2, 2010, the PP Blog reported that a Narc affiliate known as “Jah” was seeking to drive business to Narc by producing his own videos and posting them on YouTube. “Jah’s” videos featured check-waving as a form of social proof that Narc “paid.” One of the videos, which later was removed, showed a Narc check drawn on NewBridge. Another “Jah” video that still appears online shows that Narc also had an account at a second bank.
“Jah” compared repping for Narc to working for the U.S. Census Bureau.
Some of “Jah’s” check-waving videos later were hidden from public view. Jah, however, was not the sole Narc affiliate to produce check-waving videos in which checks from NewBridge were displayed. Though Narc appears to be long gone, the PP Blog observed a video today on YouTube in which the name of NewBridge flashed on the screen.
Zeek has not provided specifics about why it ended its relationship with NewBridge.
Among the assertions on the German/English Blog that was targeting senior citizens and promoting both Zeek and JSS/Tripler/JustBeenPaid was that “SolidTrustPay is one of the worlds most trusted e-wallet providers.”
SolidTrustPay is a Canada-based payment processor that is handling business for both Zeek and JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.
The PP Blog reported on June 2 that JSS/JBP also was being promoted on a race-baiting and Catholic-bashing site known as VaticanAssassins. The VaticanAssassins site, among other things, asserts that ““Majority Savage Blacks were never taught to behave in civil White Protestant culture and thus have been released upon us Reformation Bible-believing Whites to further destroy our once White Protestant and Baptist American culture founded upon the Reformation’s AV1611 English Bible and a White Protestant Presbyterian Constitution with its attached White Baptist-Calvinist Bill of Rights.”
BULLETIN: Federal prosecutors have gone to federal court in the Southern District of Florida, asking a judge to delay discovery in the November 2011 lawsuit filed against the government by AdSurfDaily figures Dwight Owen Schweitzer and Todd Disner.
In cases in which plaintiffs sue the government in federal court, assistant U.S. Attorneys who ordinarily may assist in the prosecution of civil and criminal cases put on a new hat and become lawyers representing the government as a client.
An assistant U.S. Attorney is now the lawyer for the government because Schweitzer and Disner effectively sued the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia for alleged misdeeds in the ASD case even as they accused the U.S. Secret Service of assisting in the government presentation of a “tissue of lies” against AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin and ASD itself.
Schweitzer and Disner have not been accused of wrongdoing. Among the curious assertions in their lawsuit against the government was that undercover agents who had infiltrated ASD had a duty to report the agents’ alleged ASD Terms of Service violations to ASD management.
After their ASD days, Disner and Schweitzer moved on to become affiliates for Zeek Rewards, an MLM “program” that plants the seed that returns between 1 percent and 2 percent a day are possible and that Zeek does not constitute an investment opportunity. ASD planted the seed that it paid 1 percent a day and also claimed it was not offering an investment opportunity.
In 2008, prosecutors said ASD was relying on wordplay to try to skirt securities laws. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD case on May 18 and acknowledged he was at the helm of a Ponzi scheme and illegal money-making business that had defrauded members since its inception in 2006.
By the end of the business day on May 18, prosecutors asked a federal judge in Southern Florida — the venue in which Disner and Schweitzer brought their lawsuit — to take notice of Bowdoin’s guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer more than 1,000 miles north in the District of Columbia. Even as they pointed to Bowdoin’s guilty plea, prosecutors asked that the Disner/Schweitzer case be dismissed.
Prosecutors say their dismissal motion would eliminate the need for any discovery if approved by U.S. District Judge Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga in the Southern District of Florida. If Altonaga chooses not to dismiss the Schweitzer/Disner complaint, prosecutors said, the case should be moved to the District of Columbia, the venue in which at least three civil-forfeiture actions against ASD-related assets were brought in 2008 and 2009.
In their June 4 motion to delay discovery pending a ruling on the dismissal motion, prosecutors said they emailed Schweitzer and Disner on May 23 “seeking their positions on the defendant’s motion to stay” discovery, but that neither Schweitzer nor Disner responded to the emails.
Retooling as it hatches a plan to launch anew? Huddling with its mysterious lawyer because the U.S. Department of Justice called it a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” pushed by an accused felon awaiting trial in his Ponzi scheme case?
The website of “OneX” has been displaying an “under maintenance” message for days. The development occurs against the backdrop of former OneX pitchman and AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin’s guilty plea to wire fraud in the ASD Ponzi case May 18. In April, federal prosecutors said ASD stalwarts Rayda Roundy and Tari Steward had helped Bowdoin pitch OneX.
Those pitches began in October 2011, with Bowdoin saying he’d use his OneX earnings to pay for his criminal defense in the ASD Ponzi case. Steward is listed in court filings as a potential witness for Bowdoin in his trial on Ponzi-related charges.
Bowdoin, though, pleaded guilty prior to his trial date, which had been set for Sept. 24.
Just days before his guilty plea, a fellow OneX pitchman known as “Alan” asserted that Bowdoin was “our Mentor,” according to an email some ASD members received.
In at least one of the OneX pitches, Roundy asserted that OneX had a “top attorney.” She did not identify the attorney.
Bowdoin claimed “college students” were great prospects for OneX. But the ASD patriarch did not identify the operators or braintrust behind OneX or say where the “program” was operating from. Instead, he told prospects that they could earn $99,000 very quickly through OneX.
Federal prosecutors now say OneX was recycling money in ASD-like fashion. They also say they’ve linked Bowdoin to AdViewGlobal, an autosurf that launched after the seizure of tens of millions of dollars in the ASD Ponzi case in 2008 and disappeared in the summer of 2009 under mysterious circumstances.
Like ASD’s website during its Ponzi run, the OneX website has a history of going missing for days. It was offline and reportedly under maintenance during the 2011 Holiday season. Now, it’s under maintenance on the heels of Bowdoin’s guilty plea.
In 2009 — after the ASD seizure — Bowdoin also pitched a mysterious “program” known as Paperless Access. Much about Paperless Access remains mysterious. Its website also vanished.
As part of his plea agreement in the ASD case, Bowdoin has been banned from MLM, Internet programs and mass marketing.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A reader contacted the PP Blog yesterday, saying the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “program” was being “glorified and promoted” on a website styled Vatican Assassins.org. Sure enough, a fawning pitch dated May 21 for JSS/JBP appears on the site — along with a graphic that advertises the purported JSS/JBP payout rate of 60 percent a month and includes a prompt that higher earnings were possible through “daily compounding.”
But VaticanAssassins could serve up yet another PR disaster for JSS/JBP, which openly acknowledges it is not registered to sell securities, does not disclose its base of operations or identify itself with a nation-state, uses offshore payment processors linked to numerous fraud schemes, may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement and says its members must affirm they are not with the “government.”
“In general, government people are not welcome in JBP,” said JSS/JBP’s purported operator Frederick Mann on May 24, noting that a “cruise missile” attack against the “program” could not totally be ruled out.
It is paranoia coupled with a curious form of discrimination — we’ll call it exclusion by employment — and JSS/JBP’s new helpmate is almost certain to cause even more stomachs to turn. Indeed, VaticanAssassins describes black people as “savages” and “bastards” even as it tries to link the Catholic Church to one conspiracy after another.
Blacks, Catholics and other people of goodwill who are JSS/JBP members may recoil in horror if they spend so little as 10 minutes on the VaticanAssassins site and read the ramblings of their fellow pitchman for the “opportunity.”
On Feb. 7 — presumably in his pre-JSS/JBP days — the pitchman wrote this on VaticanAssassins:
“If you do not appreciate reading about the racial TRUTH in the Black Pope’s pro-Black, anti-White, ‘Holy Roman’ Fourteenth Amendment, Corporate-fascist, Socialist-Communist American Empire (1868-Present) then this website is not for you.”
On March 14, 2011 — while trying to draw a distinction between what he deemed “Majority Savage Blacks and the Minority Civil Blacks” — the pitchman said this:
“28 Majority Savage Black beasts, raised by their fornicating mothers due to seventy-percent of all Black American births being illegitimate, committed this gang rape. Yes, these animalistic Black bastards (for they act like animals’ and are indeed ‘bastards,’ they having no legitimate fathers) have perpetrated yet another unspeakable crime, this time against an 11-year old Hispanic girl.”
Just who is this pitchman?
None other than Eric Jon Phelps, who tells readers on another part of the site that he paid an IRS tax lien for $164,551.30 (presumably prior to his involvement in JSS/JBP) and introduces a conspiracy that the Pope secretly controls the tax-collection agency.
The reader who contacted us yesterday expressed concern, but also confusion.
“I thought they were shut down by the SEC,” he said of JSS/JBP. “I almost bought into this. Is there anything you can do to prevent people from losing [their] money? Or is this a [legitimate] business?”
Equally compellingly — in a JSS/JBP conference call Thursday — a distressed woman who said her name was “Ping” implied she was ill with a serious heart condition, was managing three JSS/JBP accounts that had been hacked a month ago and said her “sister borrowed on her house [to] put money in JBP.”
“I need, Mr. Mann, I beg your lifesaving help,” Ping said to Frederick Mann.
Ping recited her ticket number multiple times and asked Mann to intervene personally in her case because JSS/JBP customer support had been unresponsive for weeks.
Mann said, “Well, ah, one of our support staff will check it out.”
But what Mann said was not what Ping wanted to hear.
“Yes, but it has been one month and no one — I told them my situation, I told them my life was on [the] line. But help is so slow. Could you please take my case?”
At that point, JSS/JBP’s female conference-call host — “Dale” — intervened in an apparent bid to reassure the panicked woman that the “opportunity,” which advertises a daily return that corresponds to an annualized return of 730 percent, would look into her case. But Ping, who’d been panting and said she had made a recent trip to “the ER,” either did not hear what “Dale” was saying or was not satisfied that her complaint had been heard and would be escalated and resolved.
“Dale” then became agitated at Ping’s persistence.
“Ping, yes,” Dale barked. “We’re gonna try to handle that on this end. OK?”
Although Dale did express concern for Ping’s health, the remarks came off as patronizing because of the agitation she had displayed toward Ping. The scene had the deeply disturbing feel of the surreal/unreal: a woman who may be seriously ill and whose second language was English was on a conference call begging an HYIP that does not even disclose its base of operations for help. Why? Because support doesn’t respond, not even when a person’s home may be at risk.
My God.
Here is Ping’s Ticket No: 836560. May it become the most famous ticket number in the sordid history of HYIP frauds — and may Ping get the help she needs.
As the PP Blog was preparing a report on Thursday’s JSS/JBP call, it received the report about the promo on VaticanAssassins.org. We present that development below — with Ping still very much on our mind . . .
In a YouTube video dated April 7, 2009, Eric Phelps shares a vision of a "white" America.
UPDATED 12:29 P.M. EDT (JUNE 3, U.S.A.) JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is being promoted on a website whose operator touts a vision of “white” America, advances conspiracy theories, bashes Catholics, claims the Motion Picture Association of America is “ruled” by the “Black Pope’s Knights of Malta” — all while the conspiracy site is linked to a purported church that says it preaches the “True Gospel Of The Risen Lord Jesus Christ to White-raced peoples of North America, Europe, Southern Africa and Australia.”
The website is known as VaticanAssassins.org. Meanwhile, the church is known as Reformation-Bible Puritan-Baptist Church. Both entities have conspiracy theorist Eric Jon Phelps, also known as Brother Eric Jon Phelps, in common — and Phelps now has emerged as a JSS/JBP pitchman.
Whether the site has received the blessing of JSS/JBP is unclear.
Phelps’ sales pitch asks prospects to obtain a Gmail account, register for JSS/JBP and to acquire accounts at the offshore payment processors AlertPay and SolidTrustPay — and start earning 60 percent a month.
“Your Editor is delighted to inform his readers of JSS Tripler,” Phelps gushes on VaticanAssassins in a post dated May 21. “It has been existence for over a year now with nearly one million members. This is a way we can make a little extra cash to help with daily needs or we can buy more Tripler positions and continue to make money over a period of time and benefit from greater returns.”
One of the most popular posts on Vatican Assassins is titled, “Three Savage Black American Soldiers Rape 12-Year Old Japanese Girl, 1995.”
Here is a snippet (italics added):
Meanwhile, no one, not one news room or major daily reported these merciless, heartless, savage bullies were Black. To add insult to injury, all articles in the Pope’s Trilateral Commission-controlled Japanese Press have removed every reference indicating these criminals were Black! Under orders from Jesuit-ruled Washington, Jesuit-ruled Tokyo removed this blatant fact of race, further generating a hatred for all Americans in general, as though we White Protestants and Baptists are equally guilty of such wicked and shameful behavior.
The post went on to assert that “Majority Savage Blacks were never taught to behave in civil White Protestant culture and thus have been released upon us Reformation Bible-believing Whites to further destroy our once White Protestant and Baptist American culture founded upon the Reformation’s AV1611 English Bible and a White Protestant Presbyterian Constitution with its attached White Baptist-Calvinist Bill of Rights.”
Both JSS/JBP and the payment processors have members who are black and/or Catholic. Mann has publicly claimed that JSS discriminates against no one — with the possible exception of government workers who are “part of a criminal gang of robbers, thieves, murderers, liars, imposters.”
Whether Mann or the payment processors would repudiate Phelps’ views was not immediately clear. For now, at least, Phelps has active affiliate links for both JSS/JBP and the processors.
Also unclear was whether Phelps had any licenses or registrations required to sell securities. The business model of JSS/JBP is similar in key aspects to the business model of AdSurfDaily, a Florida-based scam broken up the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty last month to wire fraud in the ASD case.
Federal prosecutors said ASD had gathered at least $110 million over the Internet, including tens of millions of dollars in just weeks during the spring and summer of 2008. ASD is known to have had “sovereign citizens” within its membership ranks. In 2008, JSS/JBP’s Mann was identified as an ASD pitchman — and a website linked to Mann has showcased videos on Francis Schaeffer Cox, a purported “sovereign citizen” implicated in an alleged murder plot against public officials.
Whether Phelps has any sympathies with the purported “sovereign citizens” movement is unclear. What is clear is that his presence as a JSS/JBP pitchman could become divisive. JSS/JBP purports to have a membership of about 1 million. It is a virtual certainty that a group of that size would include people of all races, belief systems and political persuasions — and Phelps potentially could alienate a large part of the JSS/JBP base.
In a YouTube video dated April 7, 2009, Phelps said he’d contemplated visiting Mexico to take in its culture, venturing that if he made such a trip he’d enjoy observing women in “beautiful Mexican dresses” and men in their “Mexican wedding shirts.”
And Phelps also ventured that he’d enjoy eating “tacos.”
But when it became time to leave Mexico, Phelps said, “I want to go back to my country that’s white. We speak English. We have organic hamburgers on wheat bread.”
The United States, he ventured, is experiencing an “alien invasion of Mexican Roman Catholics.”
“Mexico could be a wealthy country, but why it is broken is because of the Papacy, because of the Vatican . . .”
In his “new white nation,” Phelps ventured, “all the junk food’s gone.”
And then the man who’d one day become a JSS/JBP pitchman hatched a conspiracy theory involving “sugar processing” and the “Jesuit Order.”
After wrapping itself in the American flag on Memorial Day and authoring a vague announcement that it “will be closing our old accounts” at two named U.S. banks and transitioning to an unnamed bank “that can handle our growing needs,” the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” now says it experienced a problem with “mislabeled” credit-card purchases.
Zeek blamed a vendor for the problem, which resulted in Zeek purchases being mislabeled as purchases from a company named “Zonalibre1,” Zeek said.
“We have just been informed that our credit card processing mis labeled [sic] zeek purchases with the company name Zonalibre1 for the past 15 hours,” Zeek said on its news Blog last night. “This is currently being corrected on all billing statements. If you have purchased anything from zeek in the past 15 to 20 hours and have a ‘Zonalibre1’ charge for the same dollar amount as your zeek purchase, please do not dispute the charge.”
“Zona Libre” is a Spanish phrase that means “free zone.” Zeek did not say who informed it about the problem. Nor did it identify the vendor or say whether it was using a U.S. domestic or offshore processor to handle credit card transactions.
Zeek announced Monday that it was dumping two U.S. banks, adding a layer of mystery by saying it “is currently in the process of moving to a bank” — but not saying whether its new bank was U.S. domestic or offshore.
A Zeek-related business known as Zeekler is a penny-auction site. Among other things, Zeekler puts up for bid sums of U.S. currency, saying successful bidders can receive their winnings via the payment processors AlertPay (now Payza) and SolidTrustPay. Both firms are offshore from a U.S. perspective and have gained reputations as enablers of fraud schemes.
Among the many other Ponzi-forum promoted “programs” that use AlertPay and SolidTrustPay is JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, which purportedly is operated by Frederick Mann and may have ties to the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement. JSS/JBP purports to pay 2 percent a day. “Sovereign citizens” have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them.
Promos in 2008 identified Mann as a pitchman for AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service described as a “criminal enterprise” and Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million online. ASD is known to have had “sovereign citizens” in its ranks. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud last month, acknowledging that ASD was a Ponzi scheme that had defrauded participants from Day One of its operation, beginning in late 2006.
Some former ASD affiliates also are known to be promoting Zeek. Included among them are Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer, who sued the United States last year for alleged misdeeds in bringing the ASD Ponzi case. One text ad for Zeek that includes a photo of Schweitzer includes this phrase (italics added):
“I earn 1%+ a day compounded & you can too!”
Schweitzer is a former attorney whose license was suspended in Connecticut. Disner is a co-founder of the Quiznos sandwich franchise.
Both Zeek Rewards and Zeekler say they are part of an entity known as Rex Venture Group. Rex operates in North Carolina, the same state in which the banks it announced it was dumping operate. On Monday, Zeek instructed customers to “Please be sure to deposit or cash any commission checks immediately so they clear before June 1st, 2012 or they will be returned to you with ‘account closed’ and will need to be reissued.”
Two days later — on Wednesday, during evening hours in the United States — Zeek issued a strange announcement that used the term “claw-back.” “Clawback” is a word often associated with Ponzi schemes. For instance, if investors in Ponzi schemes emerge as winners among a pool of losers, the government or court-appointed receivers may file clawback lawsuits that demand the return of funds from winners as a means of ensuring that all victims of a fraud scheme are treated equally.
Here, in one instance, is how Zeek used the term (italics added):
“As you know, we are currently in the process of transferring accounts to our new banks. While we will be able to resume check runs when the transfers are finalized, we do not want to cause any additional delay to our affiliates who are waiting for their May 21st or 28th commission checks. Therefore we are going to be issuing a claw-back of all requested checks into a special Zeek portal where any affiliate who is awaiting a physical check can instead choose their preferred eWallet for their commission payment. All three fully integrated eWallets (below) will be made available for this and future paydays.
SolidTrust Pay
AlertPay
Although Zeek initially said on Wednesday it had three eWallet providers, it now appears to be referencing only two — apparently editing its original news-Blog post. (In the original announcement Wednesday, Zeek also listed NXPay.)
Adding another layer of mystery to Wednesday’s announcement was Zeek’s use of the plural “banks” in the context of its transition to new service-providers. On Monday, Zeek used the singular “bank,” implying that it was selecting a single new bank to handle its needs.
Zeek affiliates have a presence on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup, forums whose members promote “programs” that purportedly offer returns that are both unusually consistent and outsize — typically at preposterous ROIs that exceed 1 percent a day.
Affiliates of Zeek say the Zeek “program” pays out between 1 percent and 2 percent a day, although Zeek claims it is not an investment program and has preemptively denied it is a pyramid scheme.
Among Zeek’s claimed consultants are the MLM law firm of Gerald Nehra, and purported MLM expert Keith Laggos. Both Nehra and Laggos ventured opinions that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme. Disner and Schweitzer pointed to those opinions when suing the United States in November 2011.
The government has moved for dismissal of the lawsuit, pointing to Bowdoin’s guilty plea and acknowledgement that ASD was a Ponzi scheme. Among other things, Disner and Schweitzer argued that undercover agents who joined ASD prior to the seizure of $65.8 million in the personal bank accounts of Bowdoin violated ASDs Terms of Service and had a duty to report their alleged violations to ASD.
Disner and Schweitzer also sued Rust Consulting Inc., the government-approved claims administrator in the ASD case. A federal judge dismissed Rust as a defendant weeks ago.
On Memorial Day, U.S.-based Zeek Rewards announced it was closing its "old" bank accounts in the United States and opening a new account at a bank it did not name.
UPDATED 8:18 A.M. EDT (MAY 29, U.S.A.) In a curious Memorial Day announcement placed below a representation of the American flag, the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” told affiliates they must cash commission checks “immediately” because Zeek is switching banks.
“Zeek is currently in the process of moving to a bank that can handle our growing needs and while in transition will be closing our old accounts with both New Bridge Bank and BB & T,” Zeek said on its news Blog. “Please be sure to deposit or cash any commission checks immediately so they clear before June 1st, 2012 or they will be returned to you with ‘account closed’ and will need to be reissued.”
Zeek did not identify its new bank. Nor did the purported “opportunity” say why its old banks could not handle its needs and whether its new bank operated on U.S. soil.
Both New Bridge and BB&T are FDIC-member banks operating in North Carolina. Zeek is a purported arm of Rex Venture Group LLC, which conducts business in North Carolina.
Zeek says it conducts business with offshore payment processors such as AlertPay (now Payza) and SolidTrustPay. Both AlertPay and SolidTrustPay have been criticized for being friendly to dubious businesses if not outright scams such as investment programs operating in disguise, HYIPs, autosurfs and cycler matrices.
Zeek affiliates, meanwhile, have a presence on well-known Ponzi-scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup, which has led to questions about whether proceeds from any number of fraud schemes could be passing through Zeek. Today alone Italian authorities announced advertising bans against at least three “programs” that either have or had a presence on the Ponzi boards. The “programs” included JSS Tripler, which purports to pay a daily return of 2 percent; Ricochet Riches, which advertised a daily return of at least 2 percent; and Macro Trade, which advertised a daily payout rate of between 1.2 percent and 2.2 percent. A entity known as “System Explosion” also was referenced today in an investor warning by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator.
Although Zeek insists it is not an investment program, its reported daily payout rate of between 1 percent and 2 percent is consistent with the returns advertised by numerous online scams.
Two days ago, British journalist Tony Hetherington of the Daily Mail wrote about a purported program known as Royalty 7 that was advertising a daily return of 7 percent. Royalty 7 also has a presence on the Ponzi boards, and a PP Blog reader — “Tony” — reported today that the U.K. Financial Services Authority warned on May 22 that Royalty 7 was an unauthorized firm.
“Finance Your Dream Ltd trading as Royalty7.com is not authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) to carry on a regulated activity in the UK,” FSA warned. “Regulated activities include, among other things, accepting deposits by way of business.”
Royalty7 — like Zeek, JSS Tripler and scores of other programs that either plant the seed that outsize returns are possible or outright advertise returns that correspond to annualized returns in the hundreds of percent — advertises that it uses AlertPay and SolidTrustPay as payment processors.
The Zeek Rewards MLM program is married to a penny-auction site known as Zeekler.
“Win Cash!” Zeekler roars to bidders. “Funds will be sent to the winner by SolidTrust Pay or AlertPay.”
Zeek’s apparent reliance on processors that are the darlings of global fraudsters has resulted in a bizarre condition under which Zeekler effectively is using U.S. currency as an auction “product” no different than a TV set while advertising that successful bidders for sums of cash can receive their winnings through offshore processors linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme.
Successful Zeekler bidders are told to “please send a note to [Zeekler] customer support requesting SolidTrust Pay or AlertPay” to receive their cash winnings.
Despite Zeek’s claim it is not an investment program, it has been presented as such online by its own affiliates. Affiliates claim they’ve earned gains that correspond to an annualized return of more than 500 percent and that Zeek has a feature that makes “compounding” possible.
