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Tag: AdGateWorld

  • AdGateWorld Joins AVG, BAS In No-Pay Surf Lineup

    Members of AdGateWorld (AGW) are complaining today that the surf is not paying rebates. AGW now joins AdViewGlobal (AVG) and BizAdSplash (BAS) in the nonpaying lineup.

    All three surfs launched in the aftermath of the seizure of tens of millions of dollars last year from Florida-based AdSurfDaily Inc., amid allegations of wire fraud, money-laundering, engaging in the sale of unregistered securities and operating a Ponzi scheme. The surfs quickly became known as ASD clones, with promoters that touted offshore locations as a safety buffer between participants and U.S.-based regulators and law-enforcement agencies.

    At one point, the acronym ASD appeared in the Terms of Service on the AGW website.

    In recent weeks, AGW said it had new owners in the Middle East. Those reports could not be confirmed.

    Members today, however, said that AGW announced yesterday it had no money to pay rebates this week.

    The surf did announce that it would provide members a new splash page to create interest in the program, members said. The idea was to create an “AdGateWorld awareness campaign.”

    AGW recently took bonuses away from members, members said. Yesterday’s announcement was simply signed “AdGateworld.”

  • IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: New AVG Ownership Questions

    UPDATED 1:43 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Friday was a day unlike any previous day in the so-called autosurf “industry.” A federal judge issued orders on two fronts: a forfeiture case brought by the U.S. government against AdSurfDaily Inc. and a racketeering lawsuit brought by ASD members against ASD President Andy Bowdoin and others.

    Capsule Review

    For good measure, BizAdSplash (BAS) announced a financial “crisis,” saying it was suspending cashouts until at least Sept. 1 and conducting an audit of itself. BAS says Clarence Busby, the former president of Golden Panda Ad Builder and a central figure in the ASD prosecution, is its “chief consultant.” Incongruously, Busby also claims to run the company — something consultants normally don’t do.

    Busby’s video announcement of the BAS crisis appears to have occurred on July 24, the one-year anniversary date of the formal launch of Golden Panda.

    Meanwhile, AdGateWorld (AGW), still another surf that began operating at a purported offshore location after the seizure of ASD’s assets, announced it was selling itself to unnamed interests in the Middle East.

    All of this came on the heels of announcements that AdViewGlobal (AVG), yet another surf purportedly headquartered offshore, was suspending payouts, conducting an audit of itself and making an 80/20 program mandatory should payouts ever resume.

    So, three surfs that launched after the ASD seizure — AVG, BAS and AGW — all announced important developments in the days leading up to the one-year anniversary (Aug. 1) of the date ASD was notified its bank accounts were being seized.

    Yes, all of these things happened just shy of the ASD anniversary date.

    New Name Surfaces: Who is Karveck International?

    Lost in the blizzard of news Friday was a report that AVG had fired its staff in Uruguay, and that owners George and Judy Harris and other Bowdoin/Harris family members are or were in Uruguay and had rented homes and acquired automobiles.

    These reports have not been confirmed.

    At the same time, a person who uses the handle “Luisa” and may be in position to have some knowledge about AVG, said the company initially registered in Uruguay as Karveck International.

    Some things about Karveck International can be confirmed. The company, for instance, is listed as an acquisition of Vanu Blue Inc., which trades as a pinksheet stock (VBLU.PK). Vana Blue issues news releases. One of the news releases referenced the acquisition of TMS Corp., also known as TMS Association, which was the purported owner of eWalletPlus.

    This news release, dated Feb. 21, 2008 — a year and a half ago — vaguely announces a name change for Vana Blue (from what to what isn’t clear) and announced the acquisition of TMS Corp.

    Meanwhile, this news release, dated Jan. 30. 2009 — just a few days before the formal launch of AVG — announced the acquisition of “Karveck Corporation” had been finalized.

    On Feb. 18, 2009 — when AVG had been formally operating in launch phase for just shy of three weeks after operating in January in prelaunch phase — Vana Blue announced that “Karveck International” had posted $1.8 million in revenue in January. How Karveck Corporation apparently became Karveck International wasn’t clear.

    “Karveck will be offering increases in affiliate incentives and payouts coming up in March to maintain momentum,” Vana Blue said.

    eWalletPlus once worked side by side with AVG. In March, after AVG announced its bank account had been suspended because too many members had wired transactions in excess of $9,500, eWalletPlus quickly faded from the stage.

    At the same time in March, an AVG member posted an ad for AVG on a small-business website Bank of America provides as a free service.

    “All of you who were associated with ASD. Do not link this to AVGA!” the poster warned March 27, just a few days after AVG announced the suspension of its bank account. The poster also shared news about TMS.

    “We are happy to inform you that TMS Corporation has been dissolved and a new association,TMS Association, has been formed which is a member of AV GLOBAL ASSOCIATION,” the poster wrote.

    The eWalletPlus website once resided on the same server that powered AVG, according to web records. The eWalletPlus site now appears to have been listed for sale on sedo.com. The site simply beams ads now.

    Vana Blue used an address of 4757 E. Greenway Rd Suite 107B-105 in a news release. It is an address that resolves to a PostNet outlet in Phoenix, the home state of TMS Association. PostNet describes itself as a “Mailbox Rental, Fax, Passport Photos, Copies, Notary, UPS, DHL, FedEx, USPS” service.

    At a minimum, the information suggests AVG had strong ties in Arizona, particularly in the Phoenix area.

    In February, Vana Blue announced that Karveck International posted $1.8 million in revenue in January. That’s when AVG was in prelaunch.

    Vana Blue did not use AVG’s name in the news release. Instead, it described Karveck International as a company that “specializes in internet advertising and promotion in a search engine and ad clicking type environment.”

    News releases associated with many penny-stock companies tend to be vague. Many such companies speak in broad generalities. News releases sometimes are employed as a means of generating buzz about the companies, and they often leave more questions unanswered than answered.

    Vana Blue’s entry into the AVG story is not the first time a pinksheet stock has been associated with an autosurf. ASD, for example, announced last year that it was expecting $200 million in revenue from the penny-stock company Praebius Communications. ASD withdrew the news release from its Breaking News site after members said they intended to call Praebius to confirm or deny the deal.

    And, speaking of the ASD Breaking News site: It is no longer there. It has been replaced by a site that beams ads.

    See this story, along with the comments.

  • Members Criticize Bowdoin’s ‘PaperlessAccess’ Video; Some Surf’s Up Posters Say Enough Is Enough

    UPDATED 12:15 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) AdSurfDaily Inc. President Andy Bowdoin once had members eating out of his hand, but his faithful flock now appears to be splintering.

    Helping drive Bowdoin’s fall from grace is a video in which he positions “Paperless Access,” a  company that appears to use a surf model, as a way ASD members can recover money seized by the government in August by participating in the new venture.

    AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin, whose video for ASD is a major part of a federal fraud investigation, is now a video pitchman for 'Paperless Access.'
    AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin, whose video for ASD is a major part of a federal fraud investigation, is now a video pitchman for 'Paperless Access.'

    The video first appeared online two days ago. Bowdoin did not identify the owners of Paperless Access, describing them only as a small group of people. Nor did Bowdoin mention that the government is establishing an ASD refund program.

    One of the reasons it hasn’t been able to implement the program is because of Bowdoin’s self-filed legal maneuverings.

    Except for a letter Bowdoin released through Surf’s Up several days ago, he had been silent for months.  Bowdoin, for example, did not tell members about a second forfeiture complaint filed in December against assets linked to ASD. Nor did Bowdoin tell members about his January decision to submit to the forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars seized in August.

    Before Bowdoin went silent late in the fall, he tried to sell members VOIP telephone service, positioning the $20-a-month offer as a gift.

    Bowdoin, now acting as his own attorney, has changed his mind about submitting to the forfeiture, an act that will delay any government refund program because prosecutors can’t liquidate seized assets to create a victims’ pool until the case is fully litigated.

    At the same time, other ASD members also are filing pro se pleadings in the forfeiture case — something the government says also affects its ability to implement a refund program.

    Why Paperless Access would choose Bowdoin for a commercial spokesman at the risk of being dragged into a major federal fraud investigation is unclear, especially when one of the issues in the federal case is Bowdoin’s appearance in a video to promote ASD.

    Prosecutors said Bowdoin was the head of a criminal enterprise. Private litigants have accused him of racketeering, and Bowdoin was accused of 89 separate counts of fraud in four Alabama counties in the 1990s, pleading guilty to felonies.

    Database Decision Ruffles Feathers

    Some ASD members were angry that Bowdoin had turned over the ASD database to Paperless Access, saying the move invaded their privacy and exposed them to identity theft.

    “They have been given access to the database for the purpose of determining losses and the structure of the network,” Bowdoin said.

    In short, Bowdoin appears to have turned over the database to a company whose owners he appears unwilling to identify. If ASD member “losses” are recorded in the database as Bowdoin says, the new owners might gain insider’s knowledge about possible targets in a federal criminal probe into ASD’s business practices. At the same time, the database would provide Paperless Access with the names of thousands of potential witnesses against ASD and the spending habits of ASD members at large.

    Bowdoin does not identify himself in the Paperless Access video. Nor does he refer to ASD by name a single time. At the same time, Bowdoin’s claims about Paperless Access are filled with vagaries and confusing information.

    Paperless Access has a “variety of outside revenue-generating sources,” Bowdoin said, without revealing the sources.

    Bowdoin said the company’s business plan was based “solely on outside revenue.” Vague claims of outside revenue was one of the things that got ASD in trouble.

    Meanwhile, Bowdoin makes the odd claim that the goal of Paperless Access is to “return the members’ legally purchased funds.” ASD members used funds to make their purchases, but they did not purchase funds.

  • Sign Of The Apocalypse? Ning.com Surf Sites Removed

    Ning.com sites by David Courtney that promoted autosurfs have been taken offline without explanation. It is unclear if the removal is permanent, but sites for MegaLido, AdGateWorld and BizAdSplash went offline last night and remain offline this morning.

    “This social network has been taken offline by its owner,” each site said. “It’s likely that the owner will bring it back online shortly.”

    The sites have been offline for at least 11 hours.

    Courtney also promoted Noobing, which is under fire from members for collecting money, paying rebates of up to 3 percent for a while, and then slashing rates to a fraction of 1 percent. Noobing blamed the rate cut on an unclear ruling in the ASD case and implored members to complain to the government.

    The surf also is under fire from the deaf community.

    Courtney said he’ll no longer write about Noobing in his newsletter, and he also announced that he won’t publish information about AdViewGlobal to protect members of a newly formed private association. Meanwhile, Courtney said he’d no longer publish information about the rebate-paying histories of AdGateWorld or BizAdSplash.

    At the same time, Courtney announced he was down on Aggero Investment, which crashed and burned over the weekend after collecting money until the bitter end.

    “Roger from Aggero really dropped a bomb on us over the weekend,” Courtney said. “Whereas just 13 days prior Roger was saying how great and wonderful everything was going, and even raised the maximum investment from $3,000 to $5,000, a mere two weeks later he announced that the program was in trouble and that he was closing.

    “This announcement was further shocking due to the fact that just a couple of days prior, Roger announced that Premium Ads Club was closing up but that those of us in Aggero had nothing to worry about. Less than 48 hours after that announcement, he told us that Aggero was in fact having problems.”

    In other ASD news, an ALL-CAPS POSTER named “David” — not David Courtney — screamed in multiple threads at the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum last night for people to wake up and not let ASD’s big winners hang onto their ASD money.

    David implored the winners to turn over their earnings to the government so ill-gotten gains could be distributed among the rank-and-file losers. One poster assured David that the winners weren’t acting in their own self-interest by trying to rally troops to write letters and rail against the government.

    But David didn’t buy it, and continued to post in ALL CAPS. A poster then appealed to the Mods to shelter Surf’s Up members from the high truths he was telling. Eventually his posts were deleted.

  • BREAKING NEWS: Obama To Sponsor Plan To Curb International Tax Scheming, Treasury Secretary Tells Panel

    obamaThe Obama administration said today that it will crack down on international tax cheats and people using tax havens to evade U.S. regulators.

    In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Obama will propose new rules to curtail international scheming.

    “The budget also seeks to close the ‘tax gap’ by tackling tax shelters and other efforts to abuse our tax laws, including international tax-evasion efforts,” Geithner said. “The budget addresses the use of offshore structures and accounts by U.S. corporations and individuals to avoid and evade U.S. taxes. Over the next several months, the President will propose a series of legislative and enforcement measures to reduce such U.S. tax evasion and avoidance.”

    Geithner’s remarks couldn’t have come at a worse time for some AdSurfDaily members. Some members Surf’s Up, a Pro-ASD forum, are engaging in a letter-writing campaign to have the government investigate the prosecutors and federal judge involved in the case.

    Members have sent letters to Obama, Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and other politicians.

    In August, prosecutors alleged that ASD was a wire-fraud and money-laundering operation whose central component was an international, $100 million Ponzi scheme. ASD had more than $1 million on deposit in Antigua, which later became ground zero in the alleged multibillion-dollar Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme.

    Robert Garner, an ASD attorney who advertised his international financial services in a magazine in 2003, was named a defendant in a RICO lawsuit in January. His co-defendants include ASD President Andy Bowdoin and Golden Panda Ad Builder President Clarence Busby. Assets tied to Golden Panda were seized in the ASD case.

    Promoter say Busby now is involved with another surf — BizAdSplash — which promotes itself as an offshore business.

    Bowdoin’s stepson, George Harris, and two former ASD employees, Gary Talbert and Chuck Osmin, are associated with yet another offshore surf — AdViewGlobal.

    Three autosurfs with ties to ASD sprouted up in the aftermath of the government’s seizure of ASD funds, all touting the benefits of their “offshore” locations in countries such as Panama and Uruguay. One of the surfs, BizAdSplash, is having trouble with a bank in Panama and a payment processor in Panama. The surf announced the trouble after the SEC charged Stanford with fraud.

    Meanwhile, AdGateWorld positioned itself as an attractive option after what happened to ASD. Promoters said AdGateWorld provided protection from the SEC, the IRS and state attorneys general.

    For its part, AdViewGlobal now says it is forming a private association.

  • Shush! AdViewGlobal Promoters Get Tongue-Tied

    Here’s how one AdViewGlobal (AVG) promoter put it in a message to his list:

    “Ad View Global is now known as AV Global Association. AV Global Association is a private membership association. To help protect the members of this private association, I will no longer discuss AVG in my Newsletter.”

    He did not mention that AVG is taking advice from Karl Dahlstrom of Pro Advocate Group.  Dahlstrom, in 1997, was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for his role in a securities scheme. Nor did the promoter mention that Dahlstrom’s daughter also was sentenced to prison.

    No one at the Pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum has mentioned it either. A sister site for AVG set up by some of the Surf’s Up Mods and members, however, also has gone underground. A couple of weeks ago the AdViewGlobal forum anointed Curtis Richmond a “hero” for intervening in the ASD case, but never told members about Richmond’s conviction for threatening federal judges.

    Nor did the AdViewGlobal forum tells members about an order by a federal judge for Richmond and others to pay nearly $110,000 in damages and costs to public officials harmed by an organized nuisance campaign. Richmond is a member of a Utah “Indian” tribe the judge ruled a sham, saying the “tribe’s” efforts to undermine the legal system by filing vexatious lawsuits and trying to collect enormous judgments against public officials amounted to racketeering.

    BizAdSplash

    Here’s what the first promoter cited above had to say about BizAdSplash, yet another surf with ties to ASD that came to life in the aftermath of the government seizure of assets linked to ASD in August and December.

    “I think it is best to leave the percentages off my Newsletter going forward. For those who are already members of Biz Ad Splash, you can see the daily calculations by going to your Ad Package History and then clicking on any one of your active ad packs.

    “Biz Ad Splash announced over the weekend that they are discontinuing the Strict Pay payment processor. Strict Pay is having some problems right now which has caused Biz Ad Splash to stop using them for the time being at least.”

    Early promoters of BizAdSplash linked it to Clarence Busby, the operator of GoldenPandaAdBuilder. Assets linked to Golden Panda were seized in the ASD probe. Busby was called a “special consultant” to BizAdSplash. Other promoters said he was the owner.

    Like ASD President Andy Bowdoin and ASD attorney Robert Garner, Busby has been named a defendant in a racketeering lawsuit.

    The BizAdSplash promoter did not mention banking problems in Panama and elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean created by the collapse of the R. Allen Stanford Ponzi in Antigua. Three of three surfs that sprouted up after the government seizure of assets linked to ASD claimed ties to Panama or South America. These included BizAdSplash, AVG and AdGateWorld.

    All three surfs are trolling for cash in particularly odious ways right now — and this on the heels of other surfs that collapsed in the wake of the Stanford Ponzi. The extent of Stanford’s troubles on the autosurf trade is unclear, but two surfs — PAC and Aggero Investment — flamed out in spectacular fashion in the past week, and promoters for both surfs claimed the programs were safe because they were offshore.

    Both PAC and Aggero Investment collected money until the bitter end, saying things were just fine.

    Boom! They were gone.

    And, speaking of “gone,” MegaLido also is gone. The first promoter cited above promoted it, too, and he’s also promoting AdGateWorld.

  • Stanford Ponzi Scheme Is Affecting Autosurf Trade

    When the Securities and Exchange Commission charged R. Allen Stanford Feb. 17 with operating a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme through his bank in Antigua, the news created banking pandemonium on the tiny Caribbean island and also in Panama.

    In the days that followed, a surf known as BizAdSplash referenced the banking situation in Panama without referencing Stanford by name.

    BizAdSplash: Trouble in Panama.
    BizAdSplash: Trouble in Panama.

    BizAdSplash was one of three surfs that came to life in the months following the seizure of funds tied to AdSurfDaily Inc., a surf registered in the United States and accused of running a $100 million Ponzi scheme.

    One of the key sales points of BizAdSplash was its purported offshore location. Two other surfs — AdViewGlobal and AdGateWorld — also bragged about being offshore. Promoters for the surfs said the offshore locations provided protection from the SEC, the IRS and state attorneys general. Promotions for the new surfs repeatedly referenced ASD.

    “We want to let you know that even though our banks in Panama are closed for the next day and half, the payment processors are NOT CLOSED,” BizAdSplash said on Feb. 24. “You can still buy Ad Packages through your chosen payment processor. You will get your 100% match today and will continue into next week.

    “So,” BizAdSplash continued, “if you purchased new Ad Packages yesterday from outside your Cash Balance, you received a 100% matching bonus.

    “This 100% matching bonus will continue on today, through the weekend and on through Friday, March 6th!!!” the surf exclaimed.

    On Feb. 27 — just three days later — BizAdSplash told customers it was ending its affiliation with StrictPay, a payment processor with Panamanian ties, but again did not mention Stanford or refer to the regional banking crisis.

    “We are suspending the use of the Strict Pay Payment processor,” BizAdSplash said. “This is due to Strict Pay having some technical difficulties at this time. If you have requested a cash out using Strict Pay this past week, please change this and any future cash out request to one of the following: Alert Pay, Solid Trust Pay or Bank Wire. Please note that using the bank wire, the minimum to cash out is $1,000. Until Strict Pay has corrected the problems we will not allow this processor to be available.”

    Alert Pay and Solid Trust Pay are payment processors headquartered in Canada, and friendly to the autosurf trade.

    AdSurfDaily is another surf with Caribbean ties. Federal prosecutors said ASD had more than $1 million on deposit in Antigua. After prosecutors made the claim, ASD President Andy Bowdoin told members that $500,000 of the sum was a deposit that enabled ASD to process credit-card orders.

    Bowdoin never referenced Antigua until prosecutors referenced it first.

    ASD said it relied on the expert guidance of attorney Robert F. Garner. The Feds now say Garner was a shill for ASD, and Garner has advertised his legal services to help companies establish a presence offshore.

    The extent of the problem the alleged Stanford Ponzi has caused surfs is unclear. But several surfs that purport to be operating offshore have collapsed in recent days

  • DISCUSSION THREAD: CEP Judgments, Ponzis And The Deaf, Noobing, Andy Bowdoin, Surf’s Up, BizAdSplash Surf, More

    miseryindexUPDATE 2:49 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) At a gathering of creditors today, Irving Picard, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, said he could find no evidence that Madoff even purchased securities for customers in the past 13 years. Cash came in — and immediately went out — to sustain the Ponzi, Picard said. We’ve added a Madoff Discussion Topic at the bottom of this post.

    Here, below, our earlier post . . .

    This is a discussion thread for readers to share their views on developments in the autosurf world. Offer your opinions on any of the discussion topics below — or even all of them.

    First, however, some news:

    The bankruptcy judge in the CEP Ponzi scheme case has ordered some large judgments against “winners” who were sued in adversarial proceedings by William Perkins, the CEP receiver.

    Judge James E. Massey even ordered interest be paid on the judgment amounts. “Winners” who are now losers include:

    • Chris Barany: $225,702.90
    • Earl Reed: $146,677.50
    • Ginger Phillips Reed: $103,339.70
    • Jessica Phillips: $44,821.85

    As a side note, our research suggests that AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin was a participant in the CEP Ponzi scheme. ASD once advertised it accepted payments from CEP Trust, the failed payment processor owned by the operators of the CEP Ponzi scheme.

    DISCUSSION TOPIC: If you’ve been following the ASD case, you’ve read that ASD was an exciting, new business model and Andy Bowdoin a genius. But how could that be true if ASD was a member of other autosurf Ponzi schemes?

    Ponzis And The Deaf

    As reported on PonziNews, the SEC has taken action against a Hawaii-based firm that allegedly ran a Ponzi scheme targeting the hearing-impaired communities of the United States and Japan.

    Investigators say Billion Coupons Inc., run by Marvin Cooper, made affinity fraud part of a $4.4 million Ponzi scheme.

    “A Ponzi scheme targeting members of the Deaf community is particularly reprehensible,” said Rosalind R. Tyson, director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office.

    This week, a surf came under fire in forums for slashing payouts to customers. The surf, known as Noobing, targeted the deaf at Deaf Expo events in 2008 and in YouTube videos.

    DISCUSSION TOPIC: Given customers’ claims of “bait and switch,” the fact Noobing launched after the government seized ASD’s assets, Noobing’s statement that people should be angry at the government — not Noobing — for its decision to slash payouts, and the targeting of deaf people, is an investigation warranted?

    Andy Bowdoin

    Two months have passed since prosecutors filed a second forfeiture complaint against assets tied to ASD. The complaint alleged that ASD funds were used to fuel big spending by Bowdoin family members. It further alleged that $1 million purportedly was stolen from ASD by “Russian” hackers and that Bowdoin didn’t file a police report. Meanwhile, it also alleged that money in addition to what “Russian” hackers took also was stolen — and that Bowdoin didn’t file a police report about those thefts, either.

    ASD said it had more than $1 million on deposit in Antigua, which this week became the center of an international financial scandal involving billionaire Allen Stanford, the biggest banker on the Caribbean island. Customers flooded banks in the tiny nation to withdraw money, and the government of Antigua appealed for calm.

    Last summer, Bowdoin told a federal judge that ASD needed money to operate and asked her to free up seized funds. But Bowdoin didn’t tell the judge about the money in Antigua until after prosecutors pointed it out. After prosecutors revealed the presence of the Antigua money, Bowdoin explained in a conference call that the cash — at least $500,000 of it — was a deposit so ASD could process credit-card orders.

    But the account was in a name other than ASD.

    DISCUSSION TOPIC: Did Andy Bowdoin get the money out of Antigua before the onset of the banking crisis? Why was the money in a name other than ASD’s if it was used to process credit cards for ASD? Why didn’t Bowdoin repatriate the money and use it to pay ASD employees and restart the company?

    Surf’s Up

    On Nov. 27, ASD offered the Surf’s Up forum its official endorsement. This was several days after ASD lost the evidentiary hearing and several days before major prelaunch buzz for AdViewGlobal (AVG) began.

    With ASD’s endorsement in hand, some of the Surf’s Up Mods and members started a new site on ning.com to promote AVG. For its part, AVG says it has no ties to ASD, even though the two companies share a common executive, a common customer-service representative, and AVG’s graphics once appeared on a webroom operated by ASD — and AVG listed its street address as ASD’s street address in Quincy.

    DISCUSSION TOPIC: Should Surf’s Up have accepted the endorsement? Does it make sense to promote yet-another surf, especially when the surf has clear ties to ASD?

    BizAdSplash

    Despite all the upheaval in the financial world — and despite the fact the Feds are working harder than ever to expose Ponzi schemes — BizAdSplash says things are going just fine. Yesterday it announced a new promotion: 100 percent matching bonuses for customers and sponsors.

    Here is the announcement:

    Over the past week we have had a number of you contact us about your initial deposit and that you only purchased a small amount of Ad Packages just to test the system. Now you are ready to make a larger purchase. Your question is can we get the 100% match or discount on the cost of a larger Ad Package. Biz Ad Splash has agreed to open a small window for this 100% additional match. Any new purchases made from outside the system will be given the same benefit as your initial purchase and will be given the 100% match along with the sponsor match. This is only on purchases made on February 23 through February 28. This is a tremendous opportunity for all our Biz Ad Splash advertisers.

    Thank you for your patience while we are in our beta launch. We value your participation in Biz Ad Splash and we look forward to exceeding your expectations.

    The Biz Ad Splash Team

    DISCUSSION TOPIC: Is BizAdSplash, which launched only a short time ago, already hurting? Is it desperately trying to collect cash to survive? How can it possibly fund payouts for customers and sponsors when the 100 percent matching bonuses create so much extra liability?

    Will the surf hide behind “rebates aren’t guaranteed” if things go South? If that happens, will surf participants still think “offshore” surfing is the ticket to prosperity?

    And how can any of the new surfs — BizAdSplash, AdviewGlobal, AdGateWorld — expect to thrive when they are fundamentally competing for the same business in a world in which many governments are going after Ponzi schemes with exceptional vigor?

    Bernard Madoff

    Trustee Irving Piccard now says that Bernard Madoff didn’t even purchase securities for customers in the past 13 years, instead taking incoming money to pay off older investors in a virtually pure Ponzi scheme.

    DISCUSSION TOPIC: Given that Madoff escaped detection for years — and given that Allen Stanford appears to have escaped detection for years — are you worried that other Ponzi shoes may drop?

  • Is The ‘Noobing’ Autosurf Beginning To Tank?

    UPDATED 12:37 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) Members of an autosurf named “Noobing” are beginning to complain about “low” rates of return. Is the surf trying to horde cash?

    Noobing members are complaining publicly about “bait and switch.” They were attracted to the program by suggestions of returns of up to 3 percent a day, but the returns now are generating a fraction of 1 percent.

    Members also are miffed that Noobing introduced a “prize” program funded by members. The prizes are paid out of the same fund used to pay what Noobing calls “incentives” for “reviewing” other websites, which means even less money is available for paying “incentives.”

    Noobing has the same problem as all autosurfs: It can’t control how members promote the company, which means it faces liability issues for excessive claims made by members. At the same time, it doesn’t really know if its “advertisers” are promoting legitimate businesses. One forum poster acknowledged in public that he didn’t have a business to advertise, so just threw up a page.

    This triggered a sarcastic reprimand from a Noobing staffer.

    “You joined an advertising network and didn’t have a site to advertise? Why?” the staffer blared. “Wanting to break even without sales from a website? Really? REALLY? Wow!”

    The same Noobing staffer now is blaming the government for the surf’s need to reduce incentive payments. He also is asserting that Noobing learned from the ASD case that “it became clear that any system that is not SEC registered as an investment that returns more than 100% risks getting shut down and everyone loses everything.”

    What he did not explain is why Noobing chose even to operate in the post-ASD environment. And he also didn’t explain why only surfs that advertised more than a 100 percent return would fall under the purview of the SEC or other regulatory bodies/investigative agencies.

    Any advertised rate of return — even amounts below 100 percent — can trigger an investigation by federal and state regulators and law-enforcement agencies.

    The issue in virtually all autosurf prosecutions to date has been the sale of unregistered securities and the Ponzi nature of such operations. Any firm that engages in the sale of securities is subject to policing by state and federal authorities. The argument that an investment program can be dressed up as an “advertising” program to skirt securities laws is well known by the government — and it’s a dog that won’t hunt.

    Assertions by many autosurf purveyors that the government doesn’t understand the new technology of the Web and should be attacked for destroying small business and the entrepreneurial spirit are just plain absurd.

    More ‘Surf’s Up’ Theater

    As Noobing reports were circulating around the Web, for a brief time yesterday at least one member of AdGateWorld raised a similar concern about the surf’s ability to pay. The AdGateWorld concern was raised on the Surf’s Up Pro-ASD forum, and was quickly deleted.

    The deletion at Surf’s Up was just one of many deletions. Threads — and even members — are routinely deleted for asking tough questions. The forum is accepting paid advertising for AdGateWorld. “Surf’s Up” is only shorthand for the site; its official name is the ASD Member Advocates forum, and it was given the stamp of approval by ASD itself on Nov. 27.

    Surf’s Up also is associated with a surf named AdViewGlobal (AVG), which has management, members and promoters in common with ASD. Despite this, AVG has made the Clintonian assertion that it is not affiliated with ASD.

    It all comes down to the meaning of the word “affiliated.”

    We think a jury won’t be swayed by an argument that AVG and ASD aren’t affiliated. The chief executive officer of AVG, Gary Talbert, is a former ASD executive. Meantime, Chuck Osmin, who has served as a spokesman for AVG, was employed by ASD and testified on its behalf at a Sept. 30-Oct. 1 evidentiary hearing.

    As it awaited a court ruling on Oct. 20, ASD disclaimed AdGateWorld — again by using a form of the word “affiliate” — but did not mention the surf by name.

    “It has come to our attention that there is a new internet company out of Panama City, Panama that is similar to ASD,” the ASD Breaking News site said. “In their web page announcements they are using verbiage that is similar to ASD’s and even going so far as to mention names of people that you may know.

    “Please be assured that this is not an ASD Company or Affiliate Company,” the Breaking News site said. The announcement was signed, “Thank You ASD Management Team.”

    The issue at the time was that AdGateWorld had posted its Terms of Service. The acronym “ASD,” which stands for “AdSurfDaily,” was used in the AdGateWord terms.

    On Nov. 6, still awaiting a court ruling, the ASD Breaking News site sought to bat down reports that ASD’s database had been sold.

    “There have been rumors that suggest that our database has been sold. These rumors are unequivocally not true,” the Breaking News site said. “In fact the ASD corporate office has not had access to the database since the government seizure occurred on August 5, when the government shut down our offices.  The government itself is in possession of our database.”

    The problem with the assertion, however, was that it conflicted with what ASD President Andy Bowdoin had said in a previous conference call. During the call, Bowdoin raised the issue of the database, suggesting that government tricksters had erased it.

    But Bowdoin went on to tell listeners that ASD kept a copy of the database in a secret location. Why Bowdoin even raised the question of the database is unclear. But his words — and ASD’s subsequent actions on the Breaking News site — have the quality of preemption: planting a cover story in case tough questions get asked later.

    In any event, we believe there is a high probability of trouble at AVG and AdGateWorld, and that this trouble will be due to what purveyors awkwardly are trying to sell as a sort of nonaffiliation affiliation with ASD.

    See this previous post.

    And this one.

    We also believe it highly likely that the government and private lawyers know precisely what is going on with respect to the ties among the autosurf firms.

  • Our Theory Of The AdSurfDaily Case: Steroidal Puppeteers

    UPDATED 4:30 PM EST (U.S.A.) We believe the AdSurfDaily case never has been as complex as it sounds. The root of it is Andy Bowdoin’s greed and instinct to scam. He has no more control over it than he does the color of his own eyes.

    Andy Bowdoin is not a brilliant or gifted man. Like many con men, he excels at the niceties and can spout phrases by rote that serve as a substitute for wisdom he doesn’t possess. People easily can invest in false wisdom, words that sound prophetic or inspirational. An example of such a phrase can be found at the Surf’s Up site:

    “No more prizes for predicting rain. Prizes only for building arks.”

    Such phrases are key tools of people inclined to separate other people from their money by using linguistic sleight-of-hand. The phrases sound nice, but their purpose is to minimize dissension and discourage questioning.

    The Target Audience

    Andy Bowdoin’s target audience is people less intelligent than he or of equal intelligence; he can reel in “average people” — fundamentally honest average people — by the thousands. But the problem is that his net is so wide that it also reels in people who are much more intelligent than Bowdoin and are his equals or superiors in terms of dishonesty.

    Like Bowdoin, some of them have criminal intelligence, only theirs is on steroids. They can see how to make even more money by adding additional layers of deception, and they take their ideas to Bowdoin.

    The folks who possess steroidal criminal intelligence are smart enough to make Bowdoin do their bidding. They behave like spouses who know how to get what they want by planting an idea and letting their spouses take credit for it. Credit for the idea is what fuels Bowdoin and gives him oxygen for the stage. The steroidal criminals understood this right away. Bowdoin was the face of the organization, the stage presence, the charming spokesman. They were the puppeteers.

    This is another thing they knew right away: Bowdoin was stupid enough to attach his own name to the autosurf business, which prosecutors abhor. Bowdoin’s public presence insulated the master puppeteers from detection while setting the stage for the organization to become a cash cow by ramping up the criminality.

    The master puppeteers, however, made a serious miscalculation: ASD pulled in so much money that it had no real place to put it without drawing unwanted attention. Bowdoin wasn’t smart enough to manage a criminal operation at this level. ASD died the very day a banker closed an ASD-connected account, citing Ponzi fears.

    Checks Led To Checkmate For ASD

    Checks backed up in ASD’s office not because they couldn’t be recorded promptly; they backed up because Bowdoin knew that depositing them made them subject to seizure. It was the classic dilemma money-launderers encounter, and the precise situation that money-laundering, wire-fraud and mail-fraud laws contemplate.

    In some ways, the checks are the best evidence of criminality. No legitimate company sits on tens of millions of dollars of undeposited checks.

    ASD died the very day last summer a banker said “Ponzi scheme.” It is likely that Bowdoin compounded the problem by continuing to collect money — even as he knew there was no place to put it.

    A CEP Tie

    Based on our research, we believe Andy Bowdoin was a member of the CEP Ponzi scheme and borrowed heavily from the model. He was smart enough to see what a cash cow the business could become, and began to contemplate owning his own autosurf. He likely was a low-level player in CEP and other surfs, saw the criminal beauty of the model, and didn’t take the clue when the Feds began to shut down surfs while using phrases such as “Ponzi scheme” and “unregistered security.”

    CEP had its own payment processor, something Bowdoin imagined himself having. And there were claims online that CEP was investing in real estate.

    Bowdoin registered a corporation called “World Payment Systems Inc.” in December 2006, about two months after founding ASD. Before the lights went out at ASD, the company started buying real estate and talking about its vision of owning an interest in a bank, but the purchases themselves only weighted the Ponzi more heavily against rank-and-file ASD members.

    Insiders, including members with steroidal criminal intelligence and Bowdoin family members, were extracting disproportionate shares of proceeds at virtually the instant big money began to roll into ASD. Only the true insiders knew the real truth. Bowdoin sustained the deception after the August seizure because he still needed something from the members he’d just fleeced: testimonials to submit to the court.

    The testimonials did not persuade either the prosecutor or the judge of ASD’s legitimacy, but Bowdoin still had to demonstrate he was “fighting” for the members.

    We believe that, as part of this “demonstration,” Bowdoin or others closely connected with ASD and with knowledge of other autosurfs to come, offered an incentive for certain suporters to stay loyal. These people were co-opted by greed into becoming racketeers because they had visions of prospering in AdViewGlobal or other autosurfs.

    They now find themselves in the impossible position of defending Bowdoin despite everything that has happened — and some of them are doing it for “consideration.” The consideration could be anything from free “ad packs” to a guaranteed return on ASD funds seized by the government.

    The true ASD braintrust is busy trying to port the model to Central America and South America. All three of the new surfs were registered after the ASD seizure:

    Aug. 18, 2008: Domain name for AdGateWorld registered.
    Sept. 22, 2008: Domain name for AdViewGlobal registered.
    Nov. 7, 2008: Domain name for BizAdSplash registered.

    All three surfs have members and promoters in common; ASD and AdViewGlobal have management in common. During a conference call, Bowdoin made the claim that something had happened to the ASD database, that perhaps the government had erased it. We think it likely that the ASD database was stolen or provided to insiders, and that Bowdoin was trying to cover his tracks by suggesting that government tricksters somehow had a role in the disappearance of the database.

    For good measure, he added that ASD had a back-up in a secret location.

    There is no way these things amount to a coincidence. And it’s also no coincidence that ASD gave its official endorsement to the “Surf’s Up” forum on Nov. 27, just prior to the launch dates of the new surfs.

    Want to ask the AdViewGlobal members of Surf’s Up a question? Ask them to disclose if they received a “consideration” of any type. If they deflect, ask them why. If they deny, ask them why they’re pushing a model that is targeting U.S. customers and plainly is selling unregistered securities to U.S. customers — the same thing ASD is accused of doing.

    And then ask them why there are no more prizes for predicting rain — and only prizes for building arks.

    These are the people of equal or lesser intelligence than Andy Bowdoin and the same criminal leanings. The honest people are long gone. The people with steroidal criminal gifts are nowhere to be found, but they’re still pulling the puppet strings.