Writing And Branding

By PatrickPretty.com • January 18th, 2017

Pushing a murky, MLM-style digital currency scheme or even a purported one? Involving family, friends and online contacts? INTERPOL is warning that “digital currencies [are] increasingly used to finance criminal activities[,] including terrorism.” The warning is included in an INTERPOL announcement dated Jan. 16 about a law-enforcement conference in Qatar on the topic of transnational crime […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: At long last, there is a spectacular crack in the ceiling of MLM HYIP Ponzi Land! Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen of the Western District of North Carolina has begun the process of ordering judgments against Zeek Rewards’ winners sued by receiver Kenneth D. Bell, according to the docket of […]

In a 23-page lawsuit filed Dec. 1 in federal court for the Southern District of Texas, the MyAdvertisingPays “program” claims it has been ripped off to the tune of $60 million by VX Gateway, a payment processor with alleged business divisions in Texas, Panama and the United Kingdom. The complaint does not say whether MyAdvertisingPays has reported the […]

Fake news designed to confirm biases is one of the things that props up MLM HYIP scams. Now, such false reports have entered the political realm. Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of Salisbury, N.C., was arrested yesterday in Washington, D.C., on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. Police say he fired a shot inside a pizza […]

DISCLOSURE: The PP Blog is a Google publisher. A bogus cover of Forbes magazine circulating on Facebook depicts SEC Ponzi defendant Charles Scoville of Traffic Monsoon as the “BEST” CEO of 2016 — all while misspelling his last name. The image, which falsely showcases the Forbes’ issue as a “LIMITED EDITION,” appears today on the […]

Because we’re writing about the uber-bizarre HYIP wing of MLM/direct sales, we’ll emphasize at the beginning of this story that the WCM777’s receiver’s recommendation to a federal judge to disallow nearly 85 percent of filed claims DOES NOT MEAN she gets to pocket the money from the disallowed claims. HYIP hucksters are infamous for recklessly […]

  UPDATED 12:14 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Back in April 2014, the SEC charged online huckster Faith Sloan with fraud for pushing the TelexFree scheme. Two month later, in June 2014, the SEC accused Sloan of violating the TelexFree asset freeze by sending nearly $15,000 to an online scheme known as Changes Worldwide LLC for the purchase of “business […]

Nicholas Smirnow, the operator of the Pathway To Prosperity Ponzi-board “program” charged with fraud by U.S. authorities in 2010, has been sentenced in Canada to seven years in prison. News of the sentence appeared Sept. 30 at MuskokaRegion.com. Smirnow was arrested in Canada for P2P-related crimes in 2014. The United States has submitted an extradition […]

A former pitchman for the Traffic Monsoon “program” declared a Ponzi scheme by the SEC is using Facebook to promote a “Revenue Shares Matter Campaign.” This is occurring against the backdrop of three nights of civil unrest in Charlotte, N.C., after a police shooting of an African American man. The purported Revenue Shares Matter campaign, which […]

3RD UPDATE 4:21 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Two new lawsuits were filed yesterday in Utah federal court against Traffic Monsoon and Charles Scoville. The separate complaints allege breach of contract, with Rizwan Naseer Puri and Pokhunduth Vickash Thoree listed as the plaintiffs. The development appears to mark the first instances of private individuals suing Scoville and his company in a […]

BULLETIN: Dawn Wright-Olivares, the former COO of Zeek Rewards, has been sentenced to seven and one-half years in federal prison. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. of the Western District of North Carolina. The office of U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose prosecuted Wright-Olivares for investment- and tax-fraud conspiracy. Daniel Olivares, […]