Category: Writing And Branding
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MOST UN-‘WISE’: 2 Ponzi Schemers Ride Their Wordplay To Prison Sentences Totaling More Than 33 Years; Judge Declares Crime ‘Evil’
“Defendant Trebor Company (Robert spelled backward) is a sole proprietorship owned by [Robert C. Brown Jr.] and is the name he has used for his ‘investment group.’” — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in civil complaint against Trebor and Brown, July 23, 2008 “Evidence at trial established that much of the investor money was funneled…
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On Zeek Rewards, Cheerleaders, Currency And Exclamation Points
Owing to time constraints, the PP Blog hasn’t written much about Zeek Rewards, an MLM “program” married to a penny-auction site known as “Zeekler.” For simplicity, we’ll refer to both arms as “Zeek.” The structure of Zeek and precisely what it does are just plain baffling. Even so, it appears to have a legion of…
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KABOOM! Judge Sentences 2 Swindlers Who Presided Over Pyramid Scheme And Stock-Fraud Caper To A Combined 64 Years In California State Prison
James A. Sweeney II and Patrick M. Ryan — the two men who presided over the Big Co-op Inc. and Ez2Win.biz online pyramid scheme and stock swindle — have been sentenced to a combined 64 years in state prison, California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced. Sweeney, 64, of Afton, Tenn., was sentenced to 33…
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URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: SEC Charges Ephren W. Taylor II In Alleged Ponzi Scheme Targeting African American Church Congregations; Media Darling Hailed Himself A ‘Social Capitalist’ And Youngest Black CEO Of A Public Company
“Ephren Taylor professed to be in the business of socially-conscious investing. Instead, he was in the business of promoting Ephren Taylor. He preyed upon investors’ faith and their desire to help others, convincing them that they could earn healthy returns while also helping their communities.” — David Woodcock, director of the SEC’s Fort Worth Regional…
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EDITORIAL: Swearing By The ‘Droid’ On Easter Sunday
Ain’t no one who does it quite like The Salty Droid, the fake-robot Blogger who sometimes curses like a [bleeping] longshoreman as he goes about the business of sucking the wind out of the sails of some nihilistic Internet marketing ships and their fantastically reckless captains. Like Capt. Frank [“Bleeping”] Kern of “Syndicate” infamy, for…
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BULLETIN: Now, A Web-Based ‘Auto Loan Modification’ Scam, FTC Alleges; California Firms Accused Of Targeting Car Borrowers Facing Repossession And Putting Them Deeper In The Hole
BULLETIN: The Federal Trade Commission has gone to federal court in the Eastern District of California, alleging that several individuals and companies were running separate, web-based scams in which borrowers were told they could avoid vehicle repossessions by paying upfront fees to the accused scammers and not making payments on their car loans. The scams…
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[DONATION POST]: PP Blog At The Brink Again . . .
Dear Readers, We last made a donation post on Jan. 28, two months ago. We got through February and March OK, but now are on the brink for April. Key bills are coming due, and core necessities are in short supply. We pass the hat reluctantly, but pass it we must. Please help keep the…
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Appeals Court Upholds 20-Year Prison Sentence Of Seng Tan, Mercedes-Driving Pyramid Schemer Who Blamed Hurricane Katrina For Payment Delays And Told Members That The ‘Gods’ Had Sent Her To Make Them Millionaires
EDITOR’S NOTE: Simply put, the World Marketing Direct Selling (WMDS) and OneUniverseOnline (1UOL) pyramid scheme of James Bunchan and Seng Tan was one of the ugliest — if not the ugliest — in U.S. history. Bunchan eventually was implicated in a a murder-for-hire plot in which 12 witnesses and a federal prosecutor in Massachusetts were…