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  • More Motions To Intervene Appear On Court Docket

    Two more pro se motions to intervene in the AdSurfDaily federal forfeiture case have appeared on the docket of U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer.

    The motions appear to use the same litigation blueprint used by 10 previous pro se filers. Collyer denied all 10 motions yesterday for lack of standing, issuing a two-paragraph ruling.

    Today’s docketed filers include G. Stan Ketchum, who says the U.S. government owes him $5,700, and Lucia M. Ruggeroni, who makes a claim for $500. It is unclear if other motions remain to be docketed or if others are in the mail.

    What is clear is that today’s motions use the same arguments Collyer has repeatedly rejected.

  • BREAKING NEWS: Judge Denies Stream Of Pro Se Filers

    Motions to intervene filed last week by 10 pro se litigants in the AdSurfDaily federal forfeiture case have been denied.

    U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer denied the motions late today, saying the petitioners had no standing in the case.

    Collyer’s opinion was brief, consisting of only two paragraphs. The pro se pleadings had been styled as motions “to Intervene and Petition to Return Wrongfully Confiscated Funds.”

    Denied were Jacqueline Poggioreale, Joseph Poggioreale, Lisa Koehler, Carol L. Rose, Bruce Disner, Pablo G. Camus, Todd C. Disner, Georgette Stille, Alfredo Perez-Cappelli, and Gallagher and Sons Inc.

    Read the denial.

  • An AdSurfDaily Imponderable: ‘Ad-Packs’ As Currency

    All sorts of incongruities dot the AdSurfDaily landscape. Perhaps none is odder than this:

    Some ASD members say currency issued by the U.S. government is fraudulent, that the Federal Reserve is a fraud, that Federal Reserve Notes are a sham and not “money” because gold and silver coins are the only real money — and yet they seem to have no problem at all with the concept of “ad-packs” as currency.

    Andy Bowdoin was not paying them in silver and gold — and they nevertheless were happy to receive their money, which they incongruously claim elsewhere to be Unconstitutional.

    “Ad-packs” always have made news, but perhaps particularly when prosecutors revealed ASD was paying certain employees in “ad-packs.” There was no hue and cry from the Federal Reserve conspiracy theorists, even though “ad-packs” aren’t backed by silver and gold and have no street value, Constitutional or otherwise.

    They are not redeemable at, say, the neighborhood kid’s sidewalk Kool-Aid stand.

    A kid might take a silver coin or a gold coin — but he or she ain’t gonna take no stinkin’ “ad-packs.” You gotta show a kid the money, not a theory. Any money that spends at the Mall will do.

    Did you know a man who was paying employees in “ad-packs” any kid running a Kool-Aid stand would reject as unacceptably risky got an award from the President of the United States for business acumen? If not, consult the literature of ASD promoters, who helped a lie on the institution of the Presidency go viral because a trusting widow in Florida with $10,000 in her bank account meant they might score a commission of $1,000.

    No one raised a ruckus about Bowdoin treating “ad-packs” as currency — and the Federal Reserve conspiracy theorists presumably did not renounce the paper profits showing in their back offices because Bowdoin had not set aside a like amount in gold and silver to back his “ad-pack” notes.

    If  paper money not backed by gold is a conspiracy, how could electronic “ad-packs” not backed by gold not also be one? Their value might not survive even a strong thunderstorm.

    Call it the Bowdoin Standard.

  • RECEIVER: Firm Associated With Noobing Autosurf Charged Senior Citizen In Search Of Housing Grant $995 For Three Names And Addresses Of Providers; One Of The Addresses Proved To Be Regional HUD Office

    UPDATED 2:11 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A company associated with the Noobing autosurf charged a 70-year-old Philadelphia man on Social Security $995 for the names and addresses of three entities that possibly could help him secure a grant to repair his rapidly deteriorating home, according to the receiver in the fraud case against Affiliate Strategies Inc., Brett Blackman and other defendants.

    Noobing pitches itself to the deaf on YouTube.
    Noobing pitches itself to the deaf on YouTube.

    Noobing itself targeted people with hearing impairments, according to web records and YouTube videos. The Kansas-based surf came to life after the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars last year from Florida-based AdSurfDaily Inc., amid allegations of wire fraud, money-laundering, selling unregistered securities and operating a Ponzi scheme.

    Noobing was promoted by some ASD members after the government filed a forfeiture complaint against ASD in August 2008.

    Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission now says Blackman received more than $1.37 million from various entities under the ASI umbrella in 2008 and 2009 and also benefited from perks.

    “ASI paid personal expenses for cleaning services, landscaping services, and moving services,” the FTC claimed in court filings this week. “Plaintiffs believe, based on interviews with former employees, that these expenses were paid on behalf of Brett Blackman, and categorized as ‘executive expenses.’”

    Blackman and the other defendants said in court filings that the various business enterprises named in the complaint filed last month by the FTC and attorneys general from three states provided legitimate products and services and that no consumers were harmed.

    But the Philadelphia man said otherwise, providing the receiver three letters he had written to entities whose names and addresses were provided by the Grant Writer’s Institute for a fee of $995 as benevolent entities that could help him repair the home he shares with his wife.

    One of the addresses proved to be the address of the Philadelphia Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which had been misidentified by the Grant Writer’s Institute as a benevolent organization known as “World Changers,” according to court filings.

    Brenda M. Laroche, HUD’s deputy regional director, wrote a personal letter back to the man, explaining that HUD did not provide individual grants and pointing out where he could get free information on housing-assistance programs in Philadelphia and free information on a provider of weatherization assistance.

    Laroche, for free, even researched World Changers after receiving the letter from the man, who described himself as a recipient of only $185 a month in Social Security benefits and driving a cab at age 70 to make ends meet. In her letter to the man, Laroche provided the phone number and website address of World Changers, an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention.

    A second entity identified by the Grant Writer’s Institute — United Methodist Action Reach-out Mission by Youth (U.M. ARMY) — proved to be an organization that seeks grants, but does not provide them, according to court filings.

    Like Laroche at HUD, the executive director of the Christian organization wrote a personal letter back to the Philadelphia man, expressing concern that he had been duped and asking the man for the name of the company that duped him.

    “You are not alone,” said Brian Smith, executive director of the United Methodist mission, in the letter to the Philadelphia man. “[W]e would love to find out where you have learned this false information so that we can put away any artificial hope of funding from our organization to other individuals such as yourself.”

    At the same time, a third name provided to the Philadelphia man proved to be a website — netwish.org — which says it underwrites grants up to a maximum of $500 after people in need submit an essay that is compared to essays from other people in need to establish whose needs are most critical and can be funded. The maximum grant is $500, or $495 less than the amount the Grant Writer’s Institute charged the man.

    The Grant Writer’s Institute is one of the co-defendants in the case, which alleges that Blackman and others were part of a scheme to make customers believe they would receive a “guaranteed” $25,000 grant from the government from economic-stimulus funds.

    Larry Cook, the receiver, also determined that chargebacks attributed to another company named a defendant in the case actually were Noobing chargebacks and that a customer complained in July that Noobing had drafted an unauthorized payment, according to court filings.

    The chargebacks were confusing even to the bank because of the interrelationships of the defendants’ companies, the FTC said. Cook previously said that the “ASI defendants have formed and operated eighteen additional Kansas LLCs as subsidiaries of Defendant Apex Holdings International LLC.”

    It had been difficult to get an early fix on finances because because “several thousand intercompany transfers” occurred and because other entities recently had been registered offshore, Cook said.

    Read the Receiver’s declaration.

    Read FTC Supplemental filing.

  • BREAKING NEWS: Pro Se Pleadings Pile Up In ASD Case

    Five more motions to intervene have been filed by pro se litigants in the AdSurfDaily federal forfeiture case.

    This morning’s filings came on the heels of five other pro se pleadings that appeared Tuesday on the docket of U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer. Like the previous motions, today’s filings appear to have used a litigation blueprint that has circulated among ASD members.

    Today’s filers — and the amounts they say they are owed by the U.S. government, not ASD President Andy Bowdoin, include:

    • Todd C. Disner ($53,000)
    • Pablo G. Camus ($1,000)
    • Georgette Stille ($10,000)
    • Alfredo Perez-Cappelli ($12,200)
    • Gallagher and Sons Inc. ($7,000)

    Todd Disner was one of the founders of the Quizno’s sandwich franchise. Disner also is listed as the owner of RebatesForAmerica.com.

  • BREAKING NEWS: AdVentures4U, New Darling Of Surf World, Says It Was Threatened; Note Says Cashouts Will Be Suspended Soon And Members Will Have To Make Do With Their ‘Advertising’ Purchases; Ponzi Forums In Uproar

    UPDATED 11:57 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) There are widespread reports this morning that AdVentures4U (ADV4U), the new darling of the autosurf world, is suspending “revenue sharing” and that its owner was threatened.

    The reports come on the heels of various reports that the surf slashed payout rates and poured money into a gold-buying business known as TradingGold4Cash. ADV4U purportedly had more than 60,000 members and positioned itself as a “marketer’s dream.”

    These remarks were sent members today and were attributed to Steve Smith, the purported owner of AdVentures4U.

    Smith purportedly acknowledged that he put his family in danger by starting an autosurf.

    “We have been threatened and my family is more important to me than most will know,”  Smith purportedly said. “We Never (sic) ever said the revenue share was a set % and in order to move other income forward I made a decision that put my family in danger and I will not tolerate that.”

    “99% of the members understood where we were going but the small % that I am scared of I just cannot risk because we really are who we said we are and we really did intend to move us into the future,” Smith purportedly said. “We will not be answering scary support or answering the phone anymore until we have completed the cashout requests.”

    Smith purportedly urged members not to contact offshore payment processors to file complaints, saying any suspension of offshore accounts would result in members getting lower refunds.

    “We cannot control the Members so please give us to Aug 4th (sic?) to process all payments because if members complain to the payment proccessors (sic) and they Freeze our accounts we will not be liable for any of the cashouts and the Revenue Share monies will held by the payment processors and we will not have control and they will only pay a portion of the monies back to the members,” Smith purportedly said.

    It was not immediately clear why the message cited the Aug. 4 date — a date in the past.

    AdVentures4U purportedly conducted business with a Hotmail address. The gold site purportedly is a subsidiary.

    The ADV4U website appears still to be functional, although an audio message that once started up upon the loading of the page appears to have been disabled.

  • BREAKING NEWS: Bowdoin Asks For Extension; Lawyer Says ‘Entire Matter’ Could Be Resolved In Agreement

    UPDATED 5:06 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The attorney for AdSurfDaily Inc. President Andy Bowdoin has asked a federal judge to extend a key filing deadline until Sept. 21.

    UPDATE 5:06 P.M: Judge Rosemary Coller, in a minute order just issued, has approved an extension until Sept. 14, not Sept. 21, as Bowdoin had requested.

    Charles A. Murray, Bowdoin’s attorney, said in a court filing today that he had “engaged in continuing negotiations with the Government and it appears that these negotiations could result in an agreement resolving the entire matter.”

    Bowdoin had been ordered to show cause by Aug. 7 why his motion to undo a decision he made in January to forfeit tens of millions of dollars seized by the U.S. Secret Service in a wire-fraud investigation last year should not be denied. The prosecution agreed to an extension until Aug. 28, and Judge Rosemary Collyer granted the extension.

    Today’s Bowdoin pleading was filed as a stipulated motion. Prosecutors did not object to Bowdoin’s requested delay until Sept. 21, but Collyer approved a delay only until Sept. 14.

    Read Bowdoin’s motion.

  • BREAKING NEWS: Did AdViewGlobal Cancel Florida Registration By Fax From Hotel In Uruguay?

    UPDATED 7:53 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) AdViewGlobal (AVG), which also is known as the AV Global Association (AVGA), registered the association name as a fictitious entity in Florida in April, canceled and re-registered it in May — and canceled the registration again July 21 in a transaction that involved a hotel fax machine in Montevideo, Uruguay, according to records.

    AVGA’s name initially was registered by Gary Talbert April 21 and used the same address AdSurfDaily used — 13 S. Calhoun Street, Quincy, Fla. — according to documents on file in Florida. Federal prosecutors said last year that the S. Calhoun address was bogus.

    Talbert, once an ASD executive and later the chief executive officer of AVG before resigning in March, was listed as the owner in the April filing, which was dated a month after AVG had announced Talbert’s resignation.

    AdViewGlobal claimed to have no ties to AdSurfDaily, but this document lists ASD's address in Quincy, Fla., as AVG's address.
    AdViewGlobal claimed to have no ties to AdSurfDaily, but this document lists ASD's address in Quincy, Fla., as AVG's address.

    It was not immediately clear why the filing occurred in April and included Talbert’s name after he had resigned a month earlier, but Talbert’s name and purported signature appear in the document. The surf announced a shift to an association structure in February, one day after AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin signed the first of his pro se pleadings in the ASD forfeiture case and two days after reports circulated that the U.S. Secret Service had seized the bank accounts of some individual ASD members.

    On May 29, the surf reregistered the name, this time listing Judy Harris as the owner and using the address of the Harris home in Tallahassee as its address. The reregistration occurred two days prior to the issuance of a news release by AVG through PR Newswire that used a Tallahassee dateline.

    AVG sent a follow-up email announcing its news release to members on the same day. The email hotlinked to servers at Forbes Magazine and other publishers, pulling the publishers’ logos off their servers and creating the impression that the companies had endorsed AVG. The email purported to have originated in Uruguay.

    By June 25, a little more than three weeks after the issuance of the June 1 news release, AVG announced it was suspending cashouts.

    Federal prosecutors said in December that the mortgage on the Harris home had been paid off in June 2008 with more than $157,000 in illegal proceeds from AdSurfDaily Inc., a Florida company accused last year in a forfeiture complaint of wire fraud, money-laundering and operating a Ponzi scheme.

    The name of the Montevideo hotel appears at the top of the faxed document, as do the fax number and international dialing identifier. The document suggests the fax might have been sent to another company in the United States before being forwarded to the Florida Department of State — or the opposite, faxed from the United States to Uruguay.

    The timing of the registration cancellation coincides with an unconfirmed report that AVG had fired employees in Uruguay on July 20.

    Members later said that Bowdoin was the silent head of AVG.

    In early February, after AVG’s graphics were seen Jan. 31 in an ASD-controlled webroom that showed AVG’s street address as the same S. Calhoun address ASD used, AVG explained the appearance of the graphic was an “operational coincidence.”

    Regardless, AVG used the address in April in filings in Florida.

  • EDITORIAL: ‘No One Had To Make The Call’

    Sen. Ted Kennedy
    Sen. Ted Kennedy

    Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the “liberal lion” of the U.S. Senate and the head of America’s iconic political family, died late last night at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass. He was 77.

    Sen. Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer in May 2008.

    “Ted Kennedy was an iconic, larger than life United States senator whose influence cannot be overstated,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R.-Utah. “Many have come before, and many will come after, but Ted Kennedy’s name will always be remembered as someone who lived and breathed the United States Senate and the work completed within its chamber.”

    Hatch, a conservative whose politics generally clashed with Kennedy’s, defined Kennedy as a “treasured friend,” demonstrating that one can cherish principled opponents even if the philosophical divide cannot always be bridged.

    Former First Lady Nancy Reagan, the wife of America’s late conservative icon, said she deeply admired Sen. Kennedy.

    “Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised by how close Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family,” Reagan said. “But Ronnie and Ted could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another.”

    Sen. Kennedy wore more pain for more people than perhaps any other American political figure. An enormously wealthy man, Kennedy was dismissed as a limousine liberal by some critics. It was shallow criticism, of course, because it implied that people of means cannot have legitimate thoughts and feelings and seek careers in public service only owing to guilt over having more money than others.

    And Sen. Kennedy wore his own pain. He was the brother of an assassinated president and the brother of an assassinated presidential candidate. He lost a brother during World War II to a plane explosion and a sister in a plane crash in 1948. Kennedy also lost a nephew to drug addiction, a nephew to a ski accident and a nephew to a plane crash.

    Sen. Kennedy himself nearly was killed in a plane crash in 1964.

    On the subject of pain, Sen. Kennedy also caused plenty of it, including pain to himself when he was caught paying a fellow student to take a Spanish exam for him at Harvard in 1951. He got booted out and joined the Army. Harvard readmitted him two years later. Kennedy graduated in 1956 and went on to earn a law degree at the University of Virginia.

    Few obituaries today will not mention Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy drove his car off a bridge in 1969. Kopechne drowned. The senator called aides but waited hours to call police, which led to questions about whether he was drunk behind the wheel and being unfaithful to his wife.

    Kennedy said he was not drunk and not involved in immoral conduct with Kopechne. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury.

    Sen. Kennedy lived his life. He was real. He never spent a day when his life was not at risk, being the “third brother.” His closest friends defined him by his heart. Sen. Kennedy showed up when people were hurting.

    No one had to make the call, which is why even his philosophical opponents and tens of millions of Americans who disagreed with Sen. Kennedy on many of the important issues mourn today.

  • BREAKING NEWS: Motions To Intervene Pour In

    UPDATED 8:19 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Motions to intervene in the civil forfeiture case against AdSurfDaily Inc. are pouring into U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

    The motions are filed pro se and may be the result of an organized effort by an AdSurfDaily upline. The motions claim the government now owes ASD members funds seized by the U.S. Secret Service last year.

    Included among the first five filers are Bruce Disner, Carol L. Rose, Lisa Koehler, Joseph Poggioreale and Jacqueline Poggioreale. It is unclear if other filings will follow.

    Disner claims the government owes him $42,000; Rose claims “$140 put in + earnings”; Koehler claims $1,000; Joseph Poggioreale claims $22,000 in a filing that also includes the name Jacqueline Poggiorelae; Jacqueline Poggioreale claims $22,000 in an individual filing.

    “At the time the funds were confiscated I had done nothing wrong,” the motions claim. “These funds were not only, in part, mine but the proceeds of ASD’s approximately one hundred thousand customers, contractors, employees and advertisers doing business with and for Ad Surf Daily.”

    Five motions have appeared on Judge Rosemary Collyer’s docket for the August forfeiture case so far today. They are styled as motions “to Intervene and Petition to Return Wrongfully Confiscated Funds.” The motions appear to be from a litigation blueprint and blame the government for events, not ASD President Andy Bowdoin.

    “This reckless action by the Government and its agents, served to terminate my living, my advertising campaign for my businesses, and my future wellbeing for both myself my family and my customers,” the motions claim.

    “This reckless action has prevented me from paying my financial obligations in a timely matter and in some cases not at all,” the motions continue. “This reckless action has done irreparable damage to my reputation with my friends, family and customers and has caused me endless embarrassment and loss of my precious credibility.”

    The motions point the finger of blame at prosecutors, not Bowdoin, and include a numbered list and an all-caps subhead:

    AFTER ONE YEAR:

    1. The U.S. Government has failed to produce any EVIDENCE of alleged wrongdoing.

    2. The U.S. Government has failed to produce any WITNESSES of alleged wrongdoing.

    3. The U.S. Government has failed to produce any VICTIMS of alleged wrongdoing.

    4. The action was based solely on the OPINIONS of the U. S. Government agents.

    5. The U.S. Government failed to notify me or any other affected parties as to the whereabouts or disposition of (my) our assets. (See Rule 983, U.S. Rules of Evidence).

    “By this reckless action and reckless disregard of the law by my Government to ‘protect’ its citizens, the U.S. Government has made us victims by confiscating our assets and terminally affected our businesses’ and all but wiped away all or part of their incomes both present and future,” the motions claim.

    “This reckless action by the Government has served to punish both Ad Surf Daily and its customers, contractors, employees and vendors without the benefit of a trial in a Court of Law,” the motions continue.

    “This reckless action by the Government has infringed on my civil rights and my Constitutional Rights  to do business in the United States.

    “I HEREBY, file this Motion and Petition to Refund my money which includes cash profits, my ad packages and any computer software databases returned forthwith.

    “THEREFORE, Petitioner requests the Court to enter an Order Allowing Petitioner to Intervene and Order Authorizing the Return of the above referenced funds to Petitioner,” the motions conclude.

    Collyer previously has denied a series of motions to intervene. Prosecutors have argued that the motions are delaying the establishment of a restitution pool for ASD members who certified they were crime victims.

    The judge consistently has ruled that the assets seized — including tens of millions of dollars — belonged to Andy Bowdoin, not individual ASD members, and that others lacked standing to intervene in the case.

    Unlike previous pro se claims, today’s claims assert that the government has a duty to refund paper profits that showed in the back offices of ASD members. Meanwhile, the motions also demand the return of ASD ad-packs — even though Bowdoin was authorized to display ads after the seizure and did not do so.

    Today’s motions also appear to demand the government to return ASD’s database — although to whom was not clear. Members have said ASD itself appears to have sold the database or made it available to other users.

    Some ASD members scolded Bowdoin in March, after they began to receive email pitches for a purported surf known as PaperlessAccess. In a video, Bowdoin told members PaperlessAccess was a way for them to make up losses.

    People complained as recently as last week that telemarketers using the ASD database were contacting them.

    Meanwhile, prosecutors said in April that Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter in the case and acknowledged that ASD was operating illegally at the time of the seizure.

    Read the motion by Bruce Disner.

  • Rumor Mill Working Overtime In AdSurfDaily Case

    Reports that the government has been given until Aug. 28 to demonstrate AdSurfDaily is a Ponzi scheme are false.

    The false reports have been circulating among ASD members and are driven by at least one upline sponsor.

    Fact is, ASD President Andy Bowdoin has been given until Aug. 28 to show cause why his motion to reverse his decision to forfeit tens of millions of dollars seized from his bank accounts should not be denied. The original deadline was Aug. 7. We covered this story July 24.

    Since that time, Charles Murray, Bowdoin’s attorney, asked for the Aug. 7 deadline to be extended until Aug. 28 because ASD and the government were negotiating. Judge Rosemary Collyer granted the deadline extension.

    Regardless, reports have circulated for a few days that the government was on the precipice and would lose the ASD case if it did not come up with better evidence by Aug. 28.

    “Guess what!!!” an ASD sponsor exclaimed to a downline group today. “The Government has until Aug 28th to prove that ASD was a ponzi scheme. So far they have not been able to do it. There is a chance we might be back in business!!!!!!!!! Wouldn’t that be awesome!!”

    It simply is not true.

    Similar reports surfaced on the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up Forum in April. An order by the judge for prosecutors to respond to Andy Bowdoin’s pro se pleadings by a certain date was interpreted as an order to prosecutor William Cowden  to “charge Andy Bowd[o]in or end it and return the money.”

    The false report gave hope to some ASD members that Bowdoin was on the cusp of scoring a dramatic win. About two weeks after the false report appeared on Surf’s Up, prosecutors filed a court document and noted Andy Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter in the case and acknowledged that the material allegations against ASD all were true.