Has a “prince” or member of a “royal” family contacted you one too many times, asking for your help in resolving a pressing financial emergency?
How about that friendly autosurf scammer who wants you to purchase unregistered securities, engage in wire fraud and money-laundering — and wants you to encourage your family members, work colleagues and church friends to do the same?
Google has solved it all today with the release of Gmail Autopilot by Cadie.
Don’t forget to click on the Terms link at the bottom of the Google page. You’ll need to know some things to get started with this convenient, new service.
Perhaps you’ll never have to deal with international royalty and autosurf scammers again.
UPDATED 11:48 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) At least two websites associated with AdViewGlobal are down. A default Linux Test page is loading at adviewglobal.com and avglobalassociation.net. A page at adviewglobal.net is forwarding to the avglobalassociation.net domain and loading the same Linux Test page.
Why this is happening is unclear . . .
UPDATE 11:36 A.M. The default Linux Test pages did not load briefly, and the servers threw a general error. Linux pages then returned, only to be replaced by a “Failed To Connect” error.
UPDATE 11:50 A.M. The sites now are loading this message: “We are currently working on the AVGA server. Be back in a bit.”
News that a federal court had issued a second summons to ASD President Andy Bowdoin, ASD attorney Robert Garner and Golden Panda Ad Builder President Clarence Busby to notify them they’d been named defendants in a racketeering lawsuit broke on March 19.
On the same date — March 19 — a video for upstart surf company Paperless Access that featured Bowdoin telling viewers that they could recapture money seized by the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi scheme investigation appeared online. The video was removed from the Paperless Access site within days — without explanation.
Lawyers in the racketeering lawsuit said yesterday that Bowdoin, Garner and Busby still have not been served with notice of the RICO lawsuit — despite the issuance of the original summons on Jan. 15 and the follow-up summons on March 18.
Now U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer has granted a delay in the RICO case.
Plaintiffs Mike Collins, Frank Greene and Natures Discount Inc. — all former ASD members — asked for the delay yesterday.
Bank of America, named a non-RICO defendant in the lawsuit and accused of aiding and abetting Bowdoin, Busby and Garner in a fraud scheme, joined in the plaintiffs’ motion.
The Plaintiffs now have until April 30 to respond to a BOA motion to be dismissed as a defendant, and BOA has until May 20 to respond to the plaintiffs’ argument against the dismissal.
Why Bowdoin, Garner and Busby have not been served more than two and one-half months after the filing of the lawsuit is unclear.
Also unclear are the date upon which the Bowdoin video for Paperless Access was recorded and the location at which the video was recorded.
Some rank-and-file ASD members were outraged that Bowdoin was pitching another surf. They also were angry that Bowdoin had transferred the ASD database to Paperless Access, which gave the company access to private information.
The first explanation for the video removal appeared yesterday, several days after the video disappeared from the Paperless Access website. A Mod at Surf’s Up, a Pro-ASD forum that received ASD’s official endorsement as an ASD infomation source in November, reported that Bowdoin asked Paperless Access to remove the video because the firm had “not accurately presented†its program to Bowdoin.
Surf’s Up did not explain how the company misrepresented itself to Bowdoin.
Also left up in the air were questions about why Bowdoin sent an email broadcast yesterday for Paperless Access after apparently deciding days ago that the firm had misrepresented itself and asking for the video to be removed.
Bowdoin has not announced to members — through Surf’s Up or in a conference call — why he has not responded to the RICO complaint.
The Paperless Access video starring ASD President Andy Bowdoin went missing because the company misrepresented itself to Bowdoin, according to a Mod at the Pro-ASD Surf's Up forum.
Upstart surfing company Paperless Access “was not accurately presented” to Andy Bowdoin, who made the decision to ask the company to remove a video that starred Bowdoin, a Mod at the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum reported tonight.
The Mod said Paperless Access had been banned as a topic for forum discussion, advising members that, if they wanted to talk about it, to “please start a group in the Business Center!”
With those words, Surf’s Up closed the thread to discussion. The forum had deleted at least three previous threads about Paperless Access and the Bowdoin video in recent days.
Many ASD members expressed outrage after Bowdoin appeared in the video. Tonight members were questioning why Bowdoin sent a broadcast email for Paperless Access today, after declaring it did not accurately represent itself to him and deciding to ask the company to remove the video.
Bowdoin, whom lawyers said today had managed for more than two months to avoid being served a lawsuit accusing him of racketeering, enraged some ASD members by appearing in the video.
He pitched Paperless Access as a way ASD members could recapture money seized by the U.S. Secret Service last year amid allegations of wire fraud, money-laundering and operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme.
A Blog reader, “Joe,” reported this evening that Paperless Access is registered as a Wyoming corporation. We confirmed the registration through the state database.
“Joe” also reported that the company appears to be trading on Ponzi pain, saying it had positioned itself as an outlet for people who “had income seized by the government for buying advertising” or people who know people who’ve had income seized by the government.
Paperless Access even has an acronym for seized money: LAL, which stands for “Legal Advertising Losses.”
At the same time, “Joe” said he visited the site and found that seven out of 25 sites he viewed in the advertising rotator were not compliant with the Paperless Access Terms of Service. This computes to a noncompliance rate of 28 percent.
Plenty of surfs have failed in recent weeks and months, including Aggero Investment, Premium Ads Club, MegaLido, Frogress, Daily Profit Pond and others.
Promoters pitched some of the failed surfs as a remedy for ASD’s woes.
Surf’s Up did not explain how Paperless Access had misrepresented itself to Bowdoin. The video was pulled a few days ago.
Three former members of AdSurfDaily who accused the company of racketeering have asked a federal judge for more time to respond to a motion by Bank of America to dismiss it as a defendant in the case.
Although not named a RICO defendant, BOA was accused of aiding and abetting ASD President Andy Bowdoin, ASD attorney Robert Garner and Golden Panda Ad Builder President Clarence Busby in a racketeering scheme.
BOA is not opposing the plaintiffs’ motion to extend the time to respond to its own motion to dismiss. In fact, the plaintiffs’ pleading for the extension was filed today as a joint motion with BOA.
Plaintiffs Mike Collins, Frank Greene and Natures Discount Inc. — all former ASD members — said Bowdoin, Busby and Garner haven’t been served with the lawsuit, which was filed Jan. 15.
Why the defendants haven’t been served in more than two and one-half months since the filing of the complaint is unclear. The court reissued the summons March 18 — nearly two weeks ago — and Bowdoin, Busby and Garner still haven’t been served.
Bowdoin, Busby and Garner were accused of conspiring with unnamed parties in organized efforts to defraud.
The RICO complaint alleged the men were involved in “other†schemes beyond ASD, Golden Panda and LaFuenteDinero, and have “committed or aided and abetted in the commission of countless acts of racketeering activity,†including indictable offenses.
“The ASD Enterprise provides the RICO Defendants and other unnamed co-conspirators with a system by which to operate fraudulent schemes such as ASD, to hide the fraudulent nature of the schemes, and to profit from such schemes,†the plaintiffs alleged. “Each RICO Defendant agreed to perform services of a kind which facilitated the operation of the ASD Enterprise and facilitated the RICO Defendants and others in the operation of various fraudulent schemes, including ASD.â€
Bowdoin said he fired his attorneys in a civil-forfeiture case filed in August against proceeds linked to ASD. The U.S. Secret Service has seized nearly $100 million in the case, and Bowdoin now is acting as his own attorney.
Bowdoin has filed several motions in the forfeiture case in the past few weeks.
A Blog reader who described himself as having engaged Busby in a real-estate deal said he could not locate Busby for months. The reader added that he finally secured a phone number for Busby, spoke with him briefly about 11 days ago and that Busby hurried him off the phone.
Garner once advertised offshore legal services in an online magazine known as “Escape From America Magazine.â€
Garner identified himself a “[f]ormer General Counsel for major Miami-based securities firm with Latin and South American focus,†according to his ad. He listed the URL for his law office in Greensboro, North Carolina, saying he also specialized in “[r]ecoveries from scam.â€
Garner’s North Carolina law license was updated March 14 by the North Carolina State Bar. Garner’s license is active, and he is in good standing with the Bar.
The plaintiffs in the RICO case — with the consent of BOA — asked Judge Rosemary Collyer to give them until April 30 to respond to BOA’s dismissal motion — and to extend BOA’s time to respond to May 20.
We’re about to engage in some speculation on the AdSurfDaily case — and we’ll readily concede it’s exactly that: speculation. None of this should be taken as high truth or an assertion we are “right.” It should be taken as an exercise in critical reasoning.
This is a long post. Care to come along for a ride whose purpose is to explore possibilities?
The first thing you’ll need to do is suspend your disbelief and accept the premise that AdSurfDaily Inc. actually is capable of telling the truth — perhaps not the whole truth, but something that may amount to a convenient truth. This will be a leap for many of our readers, but if you want to accompany us on this ride you’ll have to willing to make this leap.
One of the reasons this requires a leap is because ASD President Andy Bowdoin’s words and actions strain credulity virtually across the board. After insisting for months ASD was perfectly legal, he now says it was illegal — but that ASD was denied “fair notice” of its illegal business practices.
At the moment, Bowdoin is leading yet another charge to have ASD members pummel the government with letters of support for a business he concedes is illegal. Bowdoin also encouraged members to contact talk-show host Glenn Beck.
Earlier he filed a petition for emergency relief that asked the government to return seized funds, saying the company couldn’t pay its rent or hosting bills, but didn’t mention ASD had more than $1 million parked offshore in Antigua. Only after prosecutors revealed the existence of the Antigua money did Bowdoin acknowledge it to members.
A few months after Bowdoin’s Antigua tie was exposed, the banking system on the Caribbean island nation was endangered with the exposure of the alleged Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme. The crisis rippled across the Caribbean and into Central and South America.
Back when Bowdoin still was saying ASD was legal, he demanded an evidentiary hearing to make the company’s case — and then took the 5th. Meanwhile, ASD’s fingerprints also are all over the AdViewGlobal autosurf, which recently announced its bank account had been suspended and yet extended a 200 percent, matching-bonus program — all while it was having trouble processing cash-out requests.
Bowdoin’s stepson is an AVG trustee. The company, which purported to be offshore, came to life after the ASD seizure. AVG employed former ASD employees and used the ASD webroom. A graphic showing AVG’s street address as the same street address ASD used appeared in the webroom. It was removed after Web reporters pointed it out. Incredibly, AVG insisted there were no ASD ties. Equally incredibly, the person making the announcement was a former ASD employee.
AVG claimed to be headquartered in Uruguay. Its servers resolved to Panama, one of the countries affected by the alleged Stanford Ponzi scheme.
Bowdoin recently appeared in a video — now taken offline — for Paperless Access, a new surf company. He said the company could help ASD members recapture money seized by the government. He did not identify the owners of Paperless Access. Nor did he explain how the company was legal and able to comply with securities laws — while not operating as a Ponzi scheme.
The Issue
Assertions have been made that the U.S. Secret Service mistakenly left behind “several piles” of undeposited cashier’s checks at ASD headquarters during the August raid last year. Upon recognizing this after the agents left, ASD dutifully notified the Secret Service about the checks. Over a period of days, the Secret Service was said to have accepted some of the checks after being notified by ASD, but not all of them.
Bowdoin’s Take
Our source for this claim is none other than Andy Bowdoin himself. Here is what he said during a conference call last summer (italics and bold emphasis added):
“Now, to show how inefficient they were in doing their search at the office, they overlooked several piles of cashier’s checks,” Bowdoin said of the Secret Service, according to a transcript of his remarks during an Aug. 12 conference call. ASD members circulated the transcript.
“There was one that was made out for several hundred thousand dollars. Federal agents were present at the bank, and one of our people turned them in and said, ‘Here, you overlooked these.’ They went ahead and made a deposit so that they could seize that money,” Bowdoin continued.
“The next day [employees] found a little over a million dollars in checks that [the Secret Service] had missed. And they took them to the Secret Service office in Tallahassee and gave that to them. Monday, back in the office, they found a few more checks at the office totaling about $40 thousand to $50 thousand. They took those to the Secret Service office in Tallahassee, and they said they didn’t want any more money. They said to send it back to the members.
“Now, why didn’t they send all the cashier’s checks back that they took, back to the members? Why didn’t they do that, if they were looking out for the people? If they had been concerned about the people, they would have. The government has done a great injustice to these people by taking those cashier’s checks and cashing those checks into the U.S. Treasury.”
Bowdoin’s assertion that checks the Secret Service missed during the raid kept popping up over a period of days after the raid may be important.
Golden Panda
There also have been assertions that not all checks sent to Golden Panda Ad Builder made their way into government accounts for later use in a restitution fund for victims. Bob Guenther, for example, claims that about $1.5 million was returned to Golden Panda members, in part through his efforts.
Among the people to whom money was returned were Joe Shoop, an ASD promoter; an unnamed “high-profile Dallas Cowboy executive”; and retired and active-duty police officers in Texas and California, Guenther said.
Who recruited the members into Golden Panda is unclear. Guenther said the government should have returned all seized checks to ASD and Golden Panda members.
The Exercise In Critical Reasoning
What could the claim that the Secret Service mistakenly left behind “several piles” of checks mean?
Well, it could mean the Secret Service actually did mistakenly leave behind the checks and decided to accept some of them but not all of them them after being notified by ASD. There could be sensible, logical reasons completely consistent with the aims of law enforcement for not accepting all of the checks.
Not accepting all of the checks also could be a bureaucratic blunder.
We highly doubt the Secret Service mistakenly left behind “several piles” of checks — as Bowdoin claimed — at ASD headquarters, but concede it’s possible. It’s also possible that ASD was telling the truth when it said it notified the agency about the checks and that the Secret Service eventually told ASD it didn’t want any more checks — what Bowdoin and others have painted as investigative/administrative incompetence.
But what if it wasn’t an investigative/administrative error at all? What if the Secret Service made a tactical decision to leave a limited number of checks in the former flower shop that once housed ASD to see what would happen after agents left?
Such an approach could lead to clues that would enable the government to better fund a restitution account for victims.
In our view, no private citizen had any business working as an intermediary or third-party collector to gather money sent to ASD or Golden Panda. We’re not aware of any assertions that a third party collected money from ASD, but we are aware of a report that at least one ASD downline sponsor was pressured by a third party to return money the sponsor accepted directly from a recruit to pay for ASD “advertising.”
At the same time, we are aware of assertions that money was collected by a third party or parties and was returned to Golden Panda members.
The return of the money could have affected the government investigation and hindered its efforts to create the biggest resitution pool possible.
This is a money case. One of the ways to solve a money case is to follow the money. Even if the Secret Service mistakenly left the checks behind at ASD, not accepting some of the checks later might have created an opportunity for it to follow the money and produce new leads.
Now, understand: We have no insider’s knowledge from investigators — and, as noted above, this column is engaging in speculation. But what if the Secret Service, say, wasn’t satisfied at the time of the raid that it had identified all of ASD’s financial conduits?
It might make sense to leave some checks behind and then follow those checks if and when ASD acted on them. If higher crimes were suspected, leaving some money behind might help expose the tentacles of a criminal enterprise and lead to resources that could be used for victim compensation.
The same thing could be said about checks delivered to Golden Panda in Georgia. It is possible that the Secret Service wasn’t certain that it had located all of Golden Panda’s financial conduits and permitted Golden Panda to exercise some control so agents later could follow the money.
Want to add another layer?
What if ASD had what amounts to a banking slush fund set up offshore (or domestically) and kept uncashed checks in a secret domestic location, which is to say not at the headquarters building that was searched?
Are you ready to say for certain that ASD kept all undeposited checks at its headquarters? Are you ready to say for certain that the Secret Service missed “several piles” of checks when the man making the claim is a known fraudster who wouldn’t take the witness stand at his own evidentiary hearing?
What if ASD didn’t have an offshore or domestic slush fund but was in the process of setting one up, perhaps contemplating that it could fund the account with some of the undeposited checks? It would make sense for ASD to stash some checks outside the headquarters building until they could be used to fund the secret account.
Are you ready to rule that out?
And what if, after the raid, ASD considered the dramatic criminal consequences of such deception, and then created a cover story that the agents had left behind “several piles” of checks during their search?
One way to explain the sudden appearance of checks that had been stashed is to say the Secret Service missed them during the headquarters raid.
What if an ASD insider came to the building late at night — hours after the raid, while people were sleeping — and planted stashed checks inside for employees to find in a bid to create the appearance agents had done sloppy work in missing “piles” of checks?
What if ASD feared the Secret Service might suspect ASD had a slush fund offshore or elsewhere and knew any stashed checks effectively had become worthless? In other words, the mere act of depositing them in the slush fund would demonstrate the criminality. Holding onto checks that had been stashed could lead to uncomfortable questions from customers. So could depositing them in a secret bank.
ASD indeed could have notified the Secret Service about checks the company still had in its possession. It could have created a cover story that agents had “missed” the checks, when agents hadn’t missed them at all because they were not at the locations searched at the time of the search.
Mind you, we are not saying ASD created a cover story. What we’re saying is that it is common for criminals to create cover stories and for co-conspirators to agree to the stories. If ASD kept checks at a secret location, those checks would pose a problem that ASD could “solve” with a cover story that agents had missed “several piles” of checks.
An Ongoing Probe
The ASD case was (and is) an investigation by the Secret Service, the IRS and perhaps other law-enforcement agencies. It was (and is) an ongoing conspiracy investigation, and no agency involved is about to share the prongs of their investigative techniques and prosecution strategy.
This is why any efforts from individuals and groups post-seizure to force, say, Golden Panda to return funds to specific individuals very well could be problematic. It’s the prosecution’s case.The prosecution is empowered to investigate and prosecute the case without interference. Its theory of the case is that the assets of ASD and Golden Panda are the proceeds of a criminal enterprise and that a conspiracy existed.
For the purposes of this prosecution, the Feds effectively view ASD and Golden Panda as one in the same because of their native ties. The assets were seized in an “all funds” forfeiture complaint. It is highly possible that prosecutors view the individual entities as components of a larger racketeering and money-laundering enterprise.
Racketeering. Money-laundering. Wire fraud. Mail fraud. Perhaps other types of criminal fraud.
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that private litigants have sued ASD President Andy Bowdoin, ASD attorney Robert Garner and Golden Panda President Clarence Busby in a civil RICO complaint. The theory is that businesses and individuals known and unknown were engaged in a racketeering enterprise.
The pool of money to compensate victims is now smaller because of private interventions by individuals and a group during an active investigation by authorities.
Money has been returned to private individuals by private individuals during a public investigation. We have seen no evidence that any person who intervened to return funds on behalf of another individual did so with the authority, support and encouragement of law enforcement.
We believe it best to let the prosecution handle its case as it sees fit. Freelancing by private individuals to return money never should have been part of this mix. The act alone created potential injustice for ASD and Golden Panda victims. Even before the forfeiture case has been litigated to conclusion, some victims have been made “whole” and have not been subjected to the haircut everyone else stands to get.
The money in the ASD and Golden Panda case was under arrest. Prosecutors have the authority to claw back all refunds that occurred as the result of the actions of an intermediary. At the same time, prosecutors can claw back money the Feds might have been monitoring or strategically permitting to enter the banking system to see where it eventually would land.
UPDATED 10:42 P.M. EDT (March 30, U.S.A.) AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin held matching-bonus “rallies” in U.S. cities, walking away with millions of dollars and setting the stage for the government seizure of the funds last August.
AdViewGlobal (AVG), a surf with close ties to Bowdoin and ASD, hasn’t conducted rallies to date. But the company has been pitching preposterous bonuses virtually nonstop and now is featuring a 200-percent, matching-bonus program — for purchasers and their upline sponsors.
Here’s how one AVG promoter pitched the AVG offer (italics and emphasis added).
Anyone who purchases from $500 (or more) in advertising
will receive a 200% match as will their sponsor.
That means $500 turns into $1500 instantly!
$1000 turns into $3,000 instantly!
$2500 turns into $7,5000 instantly!
$5000 turns into $15,000 instantly!
Let me give you a realistic example of what could be your
reality almost immediately…
Let’s assume you purchase $5000 in Ad Impressions and get
credit for $15,000 with the 200% match.
Let’s also assume the average earnings per day on that
$15,000 balance is only 2/3 of 1%, or .0075%.
That’s an instant cash flow of $112 per day…
That’s over $3,000 per month without having to sponsor a
single person[]!
Never mind that two-thirds of 1 percent is 0.666666667 percent, not .0075 percent as the promoter asserted. And never mind that the promoter used a higher figure (0.75 percent) to arrive at the $112 daily earnings claim, instead of the lower figure (0.666666667, which would have kept earnings slightly under $100 per day, thus dulling the psychology of the pitch).
No, the important thing here — as evidenced in the email — was to sell the money angle, not the advertising angle — and that’s exactly what got ASD in trouble. (That and plenty more, too.)
Even though AVG’s problems were known before the email was sent, the promoter choose to ignore them.
Accompanying AVG’s bonus program was the sudden resignation of Gary Talbert, AVG’s chief executive officer and a former ASD executive, last week. The resignation was announced Friday, March 20.
On Monday, March 23, AVG announced its bank account had been suspended. Instead of ending the matching-bonus program, the company extended it. Instead of communicating with members clearly, AVG has been issuing vague and ambiguous announcements.
AVG now says it is having trouble meeting cash-out requests, blaming the problem on growing pains.
ASD also blamed its problems on growing pains and, like AVG, lost one of its bank accounts in the weeks prior to the seizure.
Here is what AVG members are being told by the company (italics added):
All pending Cash Outs previously requested through eWalletplus will be processed and completed by Wednesday, April 2nd, 2009.
AVGA has made arrangements for Cash Out requests be settled by Solid Trust Pay. Monies are being deposited to cover all Cash Outs; any delay in the process is due to the large number of Cash Out requests and perhaps an overload of the system. We can assure the membership that all Cash Outs requested through Solid Trust Pay will be honored and processed with all expediency.
All start-up companies encounter challenges on the road to becoming successful. This is especially true when that company has an innovative and creative concept. Ad View Global Association is not your ordinary Association. Companies and Association with new ideas to the market usually encounter resistance from the status quo. Do you imagine how many blacksmiths where put out of business when a small innovative and creative company called Ford rolled out its first car?
AVGA Management faces challenges everyday especially in this phase of our growth but we are determined to make this Association the largest Internet advertising entity in the world. This will take some time but it will happen. We will encounter bumps along the way but with the level of commitment that we have personally witnessed by talking to some of you, there is nothing we can not accomplish as a team.
UPDATED 12:29 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The controversial video from upstart surf company Paperless Access starring Andy Bowdoin went missing after enraging ASD Members, and now the firm is insulting members in brand-new ways.
In yet another impossibly butchered communication from the surf world, Paperless Access said it wanted ASD’s top downline sponsors to make back money lost in ASD, insisting that they were under no pressure to enroll.
Here is part of a mixed message Paperless Access registrants received (emphasis added):
“With this opportunity and our help, you can personally earn thousands of dollars per month. You owe it to yourself and your downline to register for one of the Webinars below. There are only 18 top leadership spots available on a first come first serve basis. If you don’t want to participate, that is fine and there is no pressure. We are only going to work with those Leaders that want to help their downline be successful. There are hundreds of leaders that are waiting to take your place but we want to work with you.”
Why those “hundreds of leaders” purportedly waiting to register hadn’t actually registered wasn’t made clear. Also unclear was why Paperless Access chose to say there was “no pressure,” and then instantly began applying pressure. Why Paperless Access would suggest people who didn’t want to bother with building a downline or working to build an existing downline were unwelcome to register for the prelaunch also wasn’t clear.
The Paperless Access message appears to have been directed only to top recruiters, not rank-and-file ASD members, some of whom lost tens of thousands of dollars by believing in ASD and representations made by their upline sponsors.
Here is another part of a message recruiters received from Paperless Access (Italics added):
You have been chosen for this invitation to begin the journey with us to reconstitute the member network. You have demonstrated leadership in the creation of a group of at least 15 personally sponsored individuals and a total group size of more than 1,000 members. Your sponsor may not have been invited if your group is 90% of the total in your sponsor’s group. The information shared in this Private Launch is for your eyes only so that we can keep the lines of sponsorship intact for your maximum financial benefit.
Two separate messages appear to have gone out, according to “Joe,” a former ASD member.
“I used my ASD email address to test if they indeed did have the ASD database and sure enough they do,” Joe said. “I think this page is customized based on the # of referrals I had . . . in ASD, as I was able to retrieve another version which talks about leadership positions. The webpage must have backend code which checks the database for # of referrals and then based on a certain level, serves up one of these 2 pages.”
Here is what “Joe” said he received, with the URLs listed (italics added):
Welcome to the Private Launch for Paperless Access, Inc., where you earn for viewing advertising for only 10 minutes per day. You have been chosen for this invitation to begin the journey with us to reconstitute the member network.
The goal of Paperless Access is to recreate the old network line of sponsorships and provide an opportunity for the members that lost money to earn income again.
Our plan is simple and we are not selling advertising, or investments, or offering rebates to members. We are offering five ways to earn compensation and two of them are:
1. Viewing advertising and sharing in the Sales Revenue from Advertising Sales
2. Viewing advertising and sharing in Network Bonus Revenue generated from Business Builder Partners.
We have an Introduction Webinar just for you. Please choose one of the times below to see and learn all about Paperless Access and what Paperless Access has to offer to you.
Let’s RIDE THE WAVE to success
Please click on one of the following webinars to register: (All Times Eastern)
Each of the webinars are the same. Please only register once
to help us make room for everyone.
Welcome to the Private Launch for Paperless Access, Inc.
You have been chosen for this invitation to begin the journey with us to reconstitute the member network. You have demonstrated leadership in the creation of a group of at least 15 personally sponsored individuals and a total group size of more than 1,000 members. Your sponsor may not have been invited if your group is 90% of the total in your sponsor’s group. The information shared in this Private Launch is for your eyes only so that we can keep the lines of sponsorship intact for your maximum financial benefit.
Our goal is to recreate the old network line of sponsorships and provide continuing opportunities for the members, that lost money, to earn that money back. Even though you may not have lost money, there will be many in your group that will join to recoup their money.
This is your opportunity to start with Paperless Access and help your group in this effort. We are looking for the first 18 Leaders that will work with us to actively contact their members and help them earn back their losses. We only sent out 60 invitations.
Our plan is simple – putting more money back into the hands of Viewers. We are not selling “advertisingâ€, or investments, or offering rebates to the Viewers. We are presently offering five+ ways to earn money – three of which are:
1. Viewing advertising and sharing in the Sales Revenue from Outside Advertising Sales
2. Viewing advertising and sharing in the Network Bonus Revenue generated from Business Building programs
3. Viewing advertising to receive the Monthly Reward Bonus for participation in the Viewer Network
Sales Revenue will only go so far in generating the millions of dollars required to recoup legal losses. We need something bigger and more powerful and something we can plug the entire network into within 30 to 60 days. We found the first of many Business Building opportunities which will be introduced this evening.
With this opportunity and our help, you can personally earn thousands of dollars per month. You owe it to yourself and your downline to register for one of the Webinars below. There are only 18 top leadership spots available on a first come first serve basis. If you don’t want to participate, that is fine and there is no pressure. We are only going to work with those Leaders that want to help their downline be successful. There are hundreds of leaders that are waiting to take your place but we want to work with you. The first step is to register for the Webinar below. At the conclusion of the Webinar there will be a website address and phone numbers to get more information and get started. Welcome to a whole new beginning!
Please click on one of the following webinars to register: (All Times Pacific)
Webinar being rescheduled.
New times will be available soon.
UPDATED 2:13 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A temporary restraining order against Florida resident Jack Arons by Dallas attorney Larry Friedman has been dropped.
Arons and Friedman are in mediation to try to settle a dispute that resulted in Friedman accusing Arons of slander and libel March 5. The mediation is occurring via telephone and will resume next week.
The lawsuit stemmed from the affairs of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust.
Bob Guenther is the de facto head of the Trust. ASDMBA members said Guenther has not provided transparent accounting for the Trust and engaged in threatening behavior when his management was questioned.
Guenther is facing two felony charges of aggravated harassment in Arizona. A court date is set next month. Police alleged that he repeatedly violated a court order prohibiting him from threatening an Arizona company.
Friedman is an attorney for the Trust. ASDMBA members funded the Trust with contributions, expecting that their legal interests would be covered in the AdSurfDaily case. Some members said they filed complaints with the Texas Bar and the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.
Guenther said the Trust had an insurance policy and, if members had valid complaints, they should contact him to make a claim against the policy.
“If anyone has any VALID complaint about the administration of the ASDMBA, the disbursement or use of the funds, or any other questions not answered, then they should get a lawyer, file suit, and Ill turn it over to our insurance company,” Guenther said on March 26, in a Comment to this Blog.
Guenther did not say what process was in place to determine if a complaint was valid. He added that the Trust had a second trustee, Kenneth Devolpi.
“Hopefully Mr Friedman will continue to represent the ASDMBA, without compensation, as he has done for the last 90 days or so, and the other Trustee, Kenneth deVolpi, will not resign,” Guenther said in a Comment.
Devolpi lists members of Guenther’s family, including Guenther’s wife, as Facebook friends. Guenther’s daughter lists Devolpi as a friend, as does Guenther himself.
ASDMBA members have raised concerns in recent days that Guenther now seems to be backing away from claims that ASDMBA is a Trust.
“This association was not formed as a formal Texas ‘TRUST,’ Guenther said in a Comment to this Blog. “No representation to that effect have ever been made. It is a simple association, formed with a set of self imposed administration guidelines.”
The organization, however, was referred to as a Trust in recorded conference calls and online chat forums. The dispute now seems to center on the meaning of the word “Trust.”
Guenther also said in a Comment that about $1.5 million was returned to members of Golden Panda Ad Builder, acknowledging that the money did not become part of a federal pool to compensate victims of what prosecutors described as a $100 million Ponzi scheme involving ASD and Golden Panda.
This may lead to questions about whether some victims received preferential treatment and whether federal prosecutors will seek to have the money returned to the pool.
Money was returned to police retirees and active-duty officers in Texas and California, and to a “high profile Dallas Cowboy” executive, Guenther said. He acknowledged that he had a hand in the return of the money.
A five-figure sum was returned to Joe Shoop, an ASD promoter, Guenther said.
Guenther did not say under whose authority the money was returned. He ventured, however, that “The Feds who raided the ASD headquarters,upon finding over $35 Million in uncashed cashiers check, should have ordered the return of the uncashed checks to the rightful owners.”
The money returned to Golden Panda members was not seized in a raid by the U.S. Secret Service of ASD’s headquarters in Quincy, Fla., last year. The returned money, rather, had been sent to Golden Panda in Georgia.
UPDATED 12:51 A.M. EDT (March 27, U.S.A.) As first reported on this Blog, ASD President Andy Bowdoin’s paid attorneys never formally withdrew from the federal forfeiture case — not even after Bowdoin said he had fired them and was proceeding as his own attorney.
Now Judge Rosemary Collyer has issued an order to the attorneys to advise Bowdoin on critical legal matters and file notice with the court to make their intentions a matter of record.
“No later than April 9, 2009, current counsel for Claimants, Mr. Fayad and Mr. Goodman, shall file with the Court a notice indicating (a) whether they intend to continue their representation of the Claimants, including Mr. Bowdoin; or (b) whether they will seek to withdraw from the case;
“[I]f counsel seek to withdraw from the case, they shall file a motion to withdraw no later than April 9, 2009, and they shall indicate whether they have explained to Mr. Bowdoin that while he may represent himself in this matter, the corporations may not proceed pro se,” Collyer ordered.
One way to view the order is as a warning to Bowdoin that he may be straying into legal territory that does not serve his interests.
Collyer noted that different rules are in place, depending on whether an individual or a corporation was involved in litigation.
Two of the three parties filing claims to seized proceeds — AdSurfDaily Inc. and Bowdoin/Harris Enterprises Inc. — are corporate entities.
“[A] corporation cannot proceed pro se,” Collyer wrote, providing a case-law citation: Bristol Petroleum Corp. v. Harris, 901 F.2d 165, 166 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1990).
Making the matter even more complex is that prosecutors alleged in a separate forfeiture complaint filed in December that Bowdoin/Harris was set up to permit Bowdoin and his wife to hide assets.
“Thomas [Andy] and Faye Bowdoin created Bowdoin/Harris Enterprises, Inc., and used it to purchase real properties and other assets, believing that using this structure would help to conceal from the government their expenditures and assets they purchased,” prosecutors said in December.
Collyer hinted at potentially difficult legal challenges ahead for Bowdoin. Indeed, personal and corporate claims were made to some assets — and Bowdoin will not be permitted to proceed pro se on corporate claims.
“Bowdoin/Harris Enterprises, Inc. submitted a verified claim to the real 1 property in Quincy, Florida; ASD submitted a claim to the funds held in the Bank of America accounts; and Mr. Bowdoin also submitted a claim to the funds held in the Bank of America accounts, declaring that the accounts were opened in his name but were owned by ASD and were treated as corporate assets,” Collyer wrote.
These are complex legal issues, ones that challenge even top attorneys and legal scholars. Rarely are such issues associated with pro se litigants. In effect, Collyer has ordered Michael Fayad and Jonathan Goodman to instruct Bowdoin on critical points of law before leaving the case.
Earlier this month, Bowdoin filed a pro se motion in which he acknowledged ASD was operating illegally — something the government has said all along — but insisted the government denied him “fair notice” that ASD was behaving illegally.
Prosecutors very well may view Bowdoin’s pro se public filing as a signed confession — and it’s possible that the filing itself could be used if a criminal prosecution of Bowdoin evolves.
While Fayad and Goodman formally were acting as Bowdoin’s paid attorneys, they filed notice with the court that Bowdoin would not testify at a Sept. 30-Oct. 1 evidentiary hearing under his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself.
But Bowdoin appears to have done exactly that — while also potentially incriminating others — in pro se pleadings his paid counsel had nothing to do with.
Some of the legal notions in pro se pleadings are difficult — if not close to impossible — for prosecutors and judges to reconcile. Courts and prosecutors sometimes have to construe meanings because the motions are vague or impossibly off-point.
Accusations against Andy Bowdoin, president of AdSurfDaily, led to the creation of the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA). ASDMBA members sought to make sure their legal interests were addressed in the ASD case.
UPDATED 4:03 P.M. EDT (March 27, U.S.A.) Bob Guenther should resign from the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA). Guenther is the de facto head of the ASDMBA Trust. People who contributed money to the Trust believing their legal interests in the AdSurfDaily case would be served have not been served well.
ASDMBA members report they have been denied transparent accounting by Guenther of how the Trust spent money it collected to represent their interests. Guenther did not tell ASDMBA members about his 1994 felony conviction for bank fraud. The questions about Guenther’s management of the Trust were raised before members knew about the conviction.
Some ASDMBA members now say they would not have contributed to the Trust had they known about Guenther’s felony record. Members want to know precisely what happened to their Trust contributions. Guenther is not telling them.
In fact, Bob Guenther is threatening to sue people who raise the issue. Some members said Guenther told them if they wanted the information, they were going to have to sue to get it.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott should investigate the Trust. A claim was made that Guenther had Abbott’s private phone number. Such a claim can be construed to mean that Guenther was trading on Abbott’s name without authorization to minimize the number of complaints the state might receive about the Trust.
Abbott should not let this stand. He should investigate immediately.
Guenther, a Texan, has been charged in Arizona with two felony counts of aggravated harassment. Police said he repeatedly violated a court order not to harass an Arizona business.
The Arizona charges are reason enough for Guenther to resign from the Trust. As its de facto head, he has a duty not to bring discredit to it and to work responsibly with members. This cannot occur under a cloud of suspicion in an atmosphere of threats.
Meanwhile, federal and state investigators should seek to determine if a group of Texas police retirees somehow received preferential treatment in the ASD case through ASDMBA. It is possible that any preferential treatment was accidental and occurred with the best of intentions.
There are assertions that a police group joined Golden Panda Ad Builder, a company that is part of the ASD litigation, and that funds contributed by the group were intercepted and returned before becoming part of a common victim’s pool prosecutors hope to create.
Federal prosecutors hope to fund the pool by liquidating bank accounts and property seized by the U.S. Secret Service last year. No victim should get preferential treatment — not even a police fund. If funds from police retirees were intercepted and returned to the group, the funds should be returned to the pool to create a level playing field.
Guenther also needs to explain fully why posts associated with identities he uses at two forums have gone missing. Lost with the posts were dates, times and details that may be important to investigators — and even to Guenther himself. One of the deleted posts made the claim that Guenther had Abbott’s private phone number.
Guenther claimed forum deletions at the ASD-Biz forum were made because someone had intercepted his password and that an imposter had posted under his identity. The deletions, however, also might have wiped away Guenther’s best evidence that an imposter had been posting under his name.
Included in deletions at Scam.com were references to posts purportedly made from Mexico. Here is a screen shot of one of the Scam.com posts, under an identity associated with Guenther: “USMCSemperfi.” This shot has been reduced to fit within the borders of this Blog.
'USMCSemperfi' at Scam.com tells readers on March 9 that he is in Mexico. The screen shot also captures part of a posting below from a member posting as Zhiroc. Similar claims of posts from Mexico also were made at the ASD-Biz forum, under an identity associated with Bob Guenther.
Why a person using known Bob Guenther forum identities would claim in two forums to have been posting from Mexico — and why those posts would go missing — is unclear. What is clear is that the posts were made in the days immediately prior to criminal charges being filed against Guenther in Arizona.
In a March 16 email to this Blog, Guenther claimed he had not been in Mexico in years.
“I have not been in Mexico since August 2003. Anyone that actually knows me, also knows why,” he wrote.
Other deleted posts at Scam.com made references to Guenther’s business interests in Mexico. Here is a screen shot of back-to-back Scam.com posts under the “USMCSemperFi” identity. This shot has been reduced to fit within the borders of this Blog.
USMCSemperFi references Mexico business interests at Scam.com and also highlights the Marine Corps. Bob Guenther is a former Marine.
These are important matters, especially to ASDMBA members. They deserve to know what happened to their money, and they should be able to raise the questions in an environment free of threat.
Bob Guenther should leave ASDMBA. He should stop making threats, and Greg Abbott should enter this case to add clarity and ensure that public trust does not become a casualty of this incredibly toxic environment.
