BULLETIN: (UPDATED 8:06 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) A federal judge in Florida has denied a motion by AdSurfDaily figures Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer that, if granted, could have made the duo privy to information on the identities of any ASD participant who filed a claim for remissions in the ASD Ponzi case, their financial stake in ASD and how much money was returned to them by the government through the remissions claims process.
U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga said no today, ruling that Schweitzer and Disner had not shown why they were entitled to the information and that the government was not compelled to produce it.
The flap started when Disner and Schweitzer asserted earlier this month that a certificate of interested parties filed by the government in the Disner/Schweitzer lawsuit was “inadequate as a matter of law” because it didn’t include the information on individuals who filed remissions claims. Court records show that about 11,000 ASD members filed claims in the case.
The government countered by arguing that Disner and Schweitzer were confusing the ASD forfeiture case filed in the District of Columbia with their own lawsuit filed in Florida.
Altonaga sided with the government today, ruling that the government certificate as it stands “is not necessarily incomplete for failing to list those who have a financial interest in other forfeiture proceedings.”
“Plaintiffs fail to explain in their Motion why unnamed parties who may have a financial interest in other forfeiture proceedings also have an interest in Plaintiffs’ declaratory judgment action,” Altonaga ruled.
And the judge further pointed out that Disner and Schweitzer had not complied with her order to file their own certificates in the case. She now has given them until July 6 to do so, warning that “[f]ailure to comply will result in the entry of an order of dismissal without prejudice without further notice.”
Federal prosecutors went to court in the Southern District of Florida today, saying AdSurfDaily figures Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer were confusing their November 2011 lawsuit against the government with two forfeiture actions filed in the District of Columbia by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi case.
An assistant U.S. Attorney serving under U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida is serving as the attorney for the United States in the case because Disner and Schweitzer sued the government. Although the ASD Ponzi case was brought in the District of Columbia, Disner and Schweitzer sued the government in Florida. They later claimed that prosecutors had gone forum shopping in Washington to bring the Ponzi forfeiture case.
Among other things, Disner and Schweitzer claim that undercover agents who joined ASD had a duty to identify themselves to ASD management and that the ASD Ponzi case is a “house of cards” despite ASD President Andy Bowdoin’s guilty plea and public acknowledgment he presided over a Ponzi scheme.
In a puzzling motion stamped June 20 and entered on the docket of U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga on June 21, Schweitzer and Disner claimed they had personally determined that a certificate of interested parties filed by the government in response to an order was “inadequate as a matter of law.”
Disner and Schweitzer, according to Disner and Schweitzer, had a right to know the identities of any ASD participant who filed a claim for remissions in the ASD Ponzi case, how much money they put into ASD and how much was returned to them by the government through the remission claims process.
Nonsense, the government said today.
“The plaintiffs misapprehend the purpose and spirit of the court’s order requiring a certificate of interested parties,” the government said in its response to the Disner/Schweitzer motion. “The instant case is not a forfeiture case as the two forfeiture cases involving AdSurfDaily have already been resolved in the District of Columbia.
“The certificate of interested parties is not some kind of alternative discovery vehicle collateral to the discovery provisions in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” the government continued. “Rather, the certificate of interested parties in both the federal district and appellate courts is designed ‘to assist judges in making a determination of whether they have any interests in any of a party’s related corporate entities that would disqualify the judges from hearing the [appeal].’”
Moreover, the government argued, Disner and Schweitzer “did not confer with the defense” as required by the local rules in the Southern District of Florida prior to filing the motion.
As many as 11,000 parties filed remissions claims in the ASD case, according to federal court records.
Disner and Schweitzer apparently want to know who all of them are and to ascertain “the financial interest of each[,] including those individuals, separately identified, who applied for remission and, as to each, stating whether the request was approved, approved in part, or denied.”
The government, however, advised Altonaga that neither Disner nor Schweitzer have filed their own certificates of interested parties in the case.
Separately, Altonaga today granted the government’s June 4 motion by default to stay discovery in the case, explaining that Disner and Schweitzer have “not filed an opposing memorandum of law to the Motion, nor have they sought an extension of time to do so.”
Disner is a co-founder of the Quiznos sandwich franchise. Schweitzer is a former attorney now living in Miami whose license was suspended in Connecticut.
Both men later became pitchmen for Zeek Rewards, an MLM firm whose business model closely resembles the ASD business model that ASD’s Bowdoin admitted was a Ponzi scheme. Bowdoin is jailed in the District of Columbia. A federal judge revoked his bond June 12 after prosecutors proffered evidence that he continued to promote fraud schemes after the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in the ASD Ponzi case and after Bowdoin was arrested on Ponzi-scheme charges in December 2010.
Bowdoin pleaded guilty in May to wire fraud in the ASD Ponzi case. His formal sentencing is set for August. He has been banned from multilevel marketing, Internet programs and mass marketing.
Other ASD-Related News From The OneX Fraud Wing
In other ASD-related news, a conference call cheerleading session for the purported “OneX” program was canceled tonight after a rah-rah session that had been scheduled for last Thursday also was canceled.
Tonight’s cheerleading session was to be sponsored by a downline with ASD ties and was contemplated to be one that would build on the purportedly exciting announcement OneX said would be made last week to identify its new payment processor, a source told the PP Blog.
But OneX apparently canceled the Thursday conference call and never identified a new payment processor, so there was nothing for the OneX downline with ASD ties to cheer about tonight.
“It is not possible to move forward without the processor being in place,” the ASD downline group said, according to the source.
But the group held out hope that OneX would announce its new payment processor tomorrow, according to the source.
In April, federal prosecutors said OneX was a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” that was operating in ASD-like fashion.
“‘Compound’ . . . is really a word which [members] probably shouldn’t use.” — Frederick Mann, purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, from conference call-recording dated June 14, 2012
“‘Repurchase’ is a great one.” — “Dale,” JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid conference-call host, in response to Frederick Mann comment noted above, June 14, 2012
Frederick Mann
BULLETIN: (UPDATED 8:44 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) The JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid HYIP Ponzi scheme that advertises a return of 60 percent a month and is soliciting $20,000 “purchases” announced during its June 14 conference call that it was adding an autosurf to its stable. The precise date upon which the autosurf would be introduced was not announced.
The announcement about JSS/JBP’s autosurf was made only two days after AdSurfDaily autosurf operator Andy Bowdoin was jailed in the District of Columbia. U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer revoked Bowdoin’s bail after federal prosecutors proffered evidence that Bowdoin had been involved in AdViewGlobal, an autosurf that launched after the seizure of more than $80 million in the ASD Ponzi case by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008.
Meanwhile, purported JSS/JBP operator Frederick Mann appears to have backed away from his March 15 guidance to members that it was OK to use the language of investments when pitching the “program” to others.
Like Zeek Rewards, an MLM “program” that plants the seed it provides a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day without being an investment program, guides members not to use certain words and brags about its purported “compliance” arm, Mann now is suggesting JSS/JBP members should avoid the term “compound” when describing the JSS/JBP program.
Mann, according to 2008 promos, was a pitchman for ASD, the same autosurf that led to Ponzi charges against the now-jailed Bowdoin. In court filings, the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors described ASD as an enterprise that engaged in linguistic sleight-of-hand in an ill-fated bid to skirt securities regulations.
ASD had links to the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement. JSS/JBP also may have such links.
Prior to the 2008 Secret Service seizure of tens of millions of dollars in the ASD Ponzi case, ASD advised members not to use the language of investments. AdViewGlobal launched after the Secret Service seizure and, like ASD, advised members not to use the language of investments.
AdViewGlobal disappeared mysteriously in the summer of 2009. During the spring of 2009, the ‘surf announced it was having banking troubles.
Zeek announced on Memorial Day that it, too, was having banking troubles.
ASD, AdViewGlobal, JSS/JBP and Zeek all use offshore payment processors. All four enterprises have (or had) promoters in common, and all four enterprises are (or were) being promoted on notorious Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
On May 4, 2009 — the same date the President of the United States announced a crackdown on offshore scams — AdViewGlobal announced it had secured a new deal with an offshore wire facilitator. The ‘surf appears to have collapsed less than two months later.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog first reported on the arrest in France of alleged international fraudster Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin on Aug. 11, 2010. The arrest came as the result of an undercover operation the U.S. Secret Service conducted on online forums.
As the Blog reported at the time, “The arrest of Vladislav Horohorin is notable on a number of levels. First, the arrest in Europe was a result of an online fraud scheme that allegedly crossed international borders and made its way to the United States, where criminal charges were filed. At the same time, the crime allegedly involved the transfer of money though international payment processors. Perhaps more than anything, however, the case against Horohorin demonstrates that the U.S. Secret Service is “plugged into” forums that promote international lawlessness. His arrest is very bad news for credit-card crooks and HYIP and autosurf Ponzi schemers — and their corrupt colleagues.”
Today the PP Blog is reporting that the United States successfully arranged the extradition of Horohorin. His first court appearance was made in the District of Columbia, the venue from which the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case brought by the Secret Service is playing out. The office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr., which was instrumental in guiding the ASD case, is in charge of certain elements of the Horohorin case.
The office of U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia also is handing elements of the Horohorin prosecution.
The allegations in the case are alarming: “According to the indictment filed in the Northern District of Georgia, Horohorin was one of the lead cashers in an elaborate scheme in which 44 counterfeit payroll debit cards were used to withdraw more than $9 million from over 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide in a span of less than 12 hours,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “Computer hackers broke into a credit card processor located in the Atlanta area, stole debit card account numbers, and raised the balances and withdrawal limits on those accounts while distributing the account numbers and PIN codes to lead cashers, like Hororhorin, around the world.”
** ______________________________________ **
UPDATE: Alleged international credit-card fraudster Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin, also known as “BadB,” is in an American jail after an undercover probe on online forums by the U.S. Secret Service and a parallel investigation by the FBI.
Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
“We are pleased that he has been extradited to the United States to face these criminal charges in a District of Columbia courtroom,” said U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. of the District of Columbia. “This prosecution demonstrates that those who try to rip off Americans from behind a computer screen across an ocean will not escape American justice.”
Horohorin, whose age was listed as 27 after his August 2010 arrest in France on U.S. charges, also will be prosecuted in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
“International cyber criminals who target American citizens and businesses often believe they are untouchable because they are overseas,” said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia. “But as this case demonstrates, we will work relentlessly with our law enforcement partners around the world to charge, find and bring those criminals to justice.”
News of Horohorin’s extradition by France to U.S. soil occurred against the backdrop of claims by an HYIP “program” known as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that members must affirm they are not with the “government” and that the “program” is not located in any “unfriendly political jurisdictions.”
A JSS/JBP “defender” known as “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted in March that “law enforcement agencies don’t pay attention to what’s being said on forums and blogs.” The claim was at odds with various public records that show U.S. law enforcement pays close attention to forums and Blogs and even conducts undercover operations by infiltrating forums.
Among other things, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted he’d defend JSS/JBP’s purported operator Frederick Mann “so help me God.” The PP Blog became the subject of threats from “MoneyMakingBrain.” JSS/JBP, which uses offshore payment processors, purports to provide a return of 60 percent a month, has no known securities registrations and may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.
Underscoring the importance of the Horohorin arrest and extradition, Machen and Yates were joined in the announcement by the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and top officials from both the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI.
Horohorin, said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, was “one of the most notorious credit card traffickers in the world.”
“Due to our strong relationships with our international law enforcement partners, we secured his extradition to the United States, where he now faces multiple criminal counts in two separate indictments,” Breuer said. “We will continue to do everything we can to bring cybercriminals to justice, including those who operate beyond our borders.”
A top U.S. Secret Service official, meanwhile, said the agency viewed the alleged Horohorin caper as an “attack” on America’s financial system.
“The Secret Service is committed to identifying and apprehending those individuals that continue to attack American financial institutions and we will continue to work through our international and domestic law enforcement partners in order to accomplish this,” said David J. O’Connor, assistant director of investigations.
In addition to providing security for the President of the United States, the Secret Service is in charge of protecting America’s financial infrastructure. The agency has described AdSurfDaily as a “criminal enterprise,” with the Justice Department asserting that ASD was an example of an “insidious” business that permitted fraud to spread globally.
Just two days after Horohorin’s first appearance in a U.S. courtroom in the District of Columbia, AdSurfDaily members Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer claimed that the federal prosecutors who brought the ASD Ponzi case in August 2008 had gone shopping for a “frendly [sic] forum” in which the government could enlist “some of their Washington D.C. operatives to become members of ASD, thereby making them potential witnesses.”
Disner and Schweitzer sued the United States in November 2011 for alleged misdeeds in the ASD case. Among other things, Disner and Schweitzer asserted that undercover agents who joined ASD had a duty to inform ASD management. The Secret Service described ASD as a massive online Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud last month, admitting ASD was a Ponzi scheme and that the company never operated legally from its inception in 2006.
Disner and Schweitzer now are affiliates for Zeek Rewards, a “program” that plants the seed it can provide an ASD-like return of 1 percent or more per day without being a pyramid scheme and without constituting an investment opportunity. The payout Zeek plants the seed it can provide is on par with the returns advertised by JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, which does not disclose its base of operations.
A top FBI official said the arrest of Horohorin showed that international agencies are working together to divorce criminals from their abilities to use computers to reach across borders to pull off egregious crimes.
“Horohorin’s extradition to the United States demonstrates the FBI’s expertise in conducting long-term investigations into complex criminal computer intrusions, resulting in bringing the most egregious cyber criminals to justice, even from foreign shores,” said Brian D. Lamkin , special agent in charge of the Atlanta division. “The combined efforts of law enforcement agencies to include our international partners around the world will ensure this trend continues.”
Court and other records show that Horohorin, like ASD, had a presence in both the District of Columbia and the Northern District of Georgia.
Depending on how they navigate the site, PennyAuctionCustomers.com visitors may encounter a confusing series of screens and ultimately may be shown an ad for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, which may have ties to the "sovereign citizens" movement. The PennyAuctionCustomers site purports to sell customers for the ZeekRewards MLM "program" that plants the seed it provides a daily return of between 1 percent and 2 percent while not being a "pyramid scheme" and while not constituting an investment program.
PennyAuctionCustomers.com advertises that it sells “customers” to members of the Zeek Rewards MLM, collects money through PayPal, serves confusing pop-up messages, uses the name of AdSurfDaily figure Todd Disner in its meta data — and sends traffic to the preposterous JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “program” that advertises a return of 60 percent a month.
Whether the site has any affiliation with Disner is unclear. What is clear is that Disner is a Zeek Rewards member who sued the U.S. government last year for alleged misdeeds in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, including a claim that federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service had relied on a “tissue of lies” in bringing the ASD case.
This Zeek ad attributed to former AdSurfDaily member Dwight Owen Schweitzer paints Zeek as an investment program through which participants can "earn 1%+ a day compounded."
Disner’s co-plaintiff in the case was fellow ASD (and Zeek) member Dwight Owen Schweitzer, a former attorney whose license was suspended in Connecticut. The government asked a federal judge last month to dismiss the Disner/Schweitzer complaint, pointing out that ASD President Andy Bowdoin had pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD case.
Bowdoin, 77, is now detained in Washington, D.C., awaiting formal sentencing by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer in August. Court papers show that Bowdoin admitted ASD was a Ponzi scheme and that he had presided over an illegal money-making business since the inception of ASD in 2006.
Zeek’s business model closely resembles that of ASD. Like ASD, Zeek plants the seed that it provides a daily return that corresponds to an annual return in excess of 300 percent. Zeek participants must place an ad online daily to earn the purported daily payout. ASD members were required to view ads.
The U.S. Secret Service seized more than $80 million in the ASD Ponzi case, including more than $65.8 million from Bowdoin’s bank accounts in August 2008.
When the PP Blog visited PennyAuctionCustomers.com, accessed the “FAQ” page and sought to leave the page, the Blog’s browser encountered multiple pop-up screens that displayed confusing messages. Eventually the Blog was shown a page on the site with banner ads for the JSS/JBP “program” and a “program” known as Banners Broker.
The banner ad near the bottom of this page on the PennyAuctionCustomers.com website points visitors to the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid "program" after soliciting visitors to purchase "customers" for the Zeek Rewards MLM "program." A JSS/JBP site loads when the "Triple Your Money" banner is clicked.
“DO YOU LIKE ZEEK REWARDS?” the PennyAuctionCustomers site inquires.
“WELL YOU WILL LOVE THIS,” it asserts. “Two Other Highly Lucrative Programs That Do Not Require Any Sponsoring of Other Affiliates That You May Wish To Join If You Are Looking To Boost Your Income!”
It then points visitors toward JSS/JBP and Banners Broker.
Like Zeek (and ASD before it), the JSS/JBP and Banners Broker “programs” are being advertised on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. The various promotions lead to questions about whether fraudulent schemes are simply recycling money from scam to scam to scam, polluting the money stream at multiple points nationally and internationally.
These phrases are among the meta data on the PennyAuctionCustomers site:
zeekrewards 90 day strategy
zeekrewards calculator
is zeekrewards legit
is zeekrewards legal
todd disner zeek rewards
An Oregon entity known as Media Clinch LLC appears to be conducting the Zeek “customer” sales through PayPal while at once pointing traffic toward Banners Broker and JSS/JBP, which purportedly is operated by Frederick Mann. Mann and JSS/JBP may have ties to the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement in which adherents display an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them and courts have no jurisdiction over them.
Although JSS/JBP appears to rely on “offshore” payment processors linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme, the PennyAuctionCustomers Zeek promos through the Media Clinch LLC PayPal account introduces the prospect that soiled proceeds from multiple fraud schemes also could be flowing into PayPal.
Media Clinch LLC, according to Oregon records, is managed by Sean Walters. Zeek has an affiliate by the same name.
BULLETIN: Timothy Shawn Donavan and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen — the two fugitives arrested in November in Washington state with AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming — have been found guilty of mail fraud and conspiracy in Arkansas in a multimillion-dollar home business caper involving envelope-stuffing.
Donavan, 63, and Henningsen, 67, potentially face decades in prison after a jury returned guilty verdicts on 18 counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy. KATV.com is reporting there were more than 21,000 victims in the case.
On May 31, the PP Blog learned that Leaming had been subpoenaed as a witness in the case and was transported from a federal detention facility near Seattle. Leaming, 56, is believed to be on his way back to Washington state. His trial is set for September on charges of filing false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD Ponzi case. He also is accused of harboring fugitives, being in possession of firearms as a convicted felon and uttering a bogus promissory note.
Court records in Arkansas show that Donavan and Henningsen sought to represent themselves pro se but ignored orders by a federal judge to stop filing extraneous and off-topic pleadings. The judge ultimately ordered counsel to take over for the former fugitives because Donavan and Henningsen’s “persistence in refusing to obey Court directions and in injecting extraneous and irrelevant material into the record.”
NOTE: 10:46 A.M. EDT: Certain references to “Aaron” (below) in the context of “Aaron and Shara” have been deleted, pending the resolution to a report we received that disputed certain information.
Question: Did the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” that plants the seed it provides a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day without constituting an investment opportunity give a puff piece to an affiliate who signed a petition in 2008 that called for the U.S. Senate to investigate the federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service agent who brought the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case?
Separately, this classified ad for Zeek from “Jerry Napier” of Owosso, Mich., ran on Nov. 17, 2011.
On Dec. 30, 2008, “Jerry Napier” of Owosso, Mich., signed a petition that called for the U.S. Senate to investigate (see No. 1897 on the petition) then-U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey; then U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor of the District of Columbia; then-lead ASD prosecutor William Cowden; and Roy Dotson, a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service, according to ipetitions.com.
Screen shot and highlight by PP Blog.
“Whereas, we as Americans have a right to advertise with any company without interferences [sic] by [sic] Attorney General and /or any of its agents,” the petition began. “Whereas, Ad Surf Daily [sic] hereafter (ASD) [sic] an advertising company on the internet were [sic] members received re-bates [sic] for advertising and looking at other advertising sites, thus purchase [sic] products and services.”
In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors brought the first of at least three civil-forfeiture actions in the ASD Ponzi case. Those actions were parallel to a criminal investigation that ultimately led to the arrest of ASD President Andy Bowdoin in December 2010 and his guilty plea to wire fraud last month.
ASD, like Zeek, planted the seed that it paid a daily return on the order of 1 percent.
Among the other top Zeek earners listed in the post are “Aaron and Shara” and Trudy Gilmond. “Aaron and Shara” is a veteran HYIP team.
Gilmond, whom Zeek identifies as a Zeek “employee” on its website, once was a promoter of a scheme known as Regenesis 2X2, which became the subject of a U.S. Secret Service probe in 2009.
The 2008 petition calling for the Senate to investigate the ASD prosecutorial team also includes “Catherine Parker” as a signatory (on Page 33, Nos. 1604 and 1605). “Catherine Parker” was quoted in emails that became part of the ASD story. (See such an attribution on AdLandPro, a site from which ASD was promoted.)
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (UPDATED 6:23 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin — the confessed author of a $110 million online Ponzi scheme — was jailed at the conclusion of a bond-revocation hearing in Washington today.
Bowdoin is being detained at a local Department of Corrections facility in the District of Columbia, the jail confirmed this evening. No other information was immediately available.
Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia say Bowdoin was detained after the proceeding before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer.
In April, prosecutors said Bowdoin continued to promote scams after the ASD Ponzi probe began in July 2008 and after his December 2010 arrest by the U.S. Secret Service on Ponzi-related charges. Prosecutors identified those scams as “OneX” and AdViewGlobal, an ASD-like autosurf.
Bowdoin, 77, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD case last month. His formal sentencing has been set for Aug. 29 before Collyer.
Bowdoin faces up to 78 months in federal prison, when sentenced by Collyer. He has been banned from multilevel marketing, Internet programs and mass marketing.
UPDATED 12:27 P.M. EDT (JUNE 12, U.S.A.) Paul R. Burks, the chief executive officer of Rex Venture Group LLC, has made four contributions to the GOP Presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul since July 2011, Federal Election Commission records show.
Rex Venture is the purported parent company of Zeek Rewards, a North Carolina-based MLM program that plants the seed that returns of more than 1 percent a day are possible, and Zeekler, a penny-auction site that is auctioning sums of U.S. currency and curiously says it pays successful bidders through offshore payment processors such as AlertPay (now Payza) and SolidTrustPay.
Some Zeekler bidders now claim they have not been paid for their winning bids on U.S. currency for weeks or even months. They’re also complaining about slow, absent or circular customer support.
The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee Inc. recorded a $500 contribution from Burks on July 19, 2011, another $500 contribution on Aug. 20, 2011, a $1,000 contribution on Sept. 17, 2011 and a $500 contribution on Jan. 14, 2012, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Rex Venture has scored an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau, the BBB’s lowest score.
Zeek insists it is not offering an investment product and has preemptively denied it is operating a pyramid scheme.
In 2008, an MLM company with a business model similar to Zeek — AdSurfDaily — preemptively denied it was operating a Ponzi scheme. Federal Election Commission and other records showed that ASD President Andy Bowdoin was making campaign donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2007 even as ASD members were complaining about not getting paid.
In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service moved to seize $65.8 million from Bowdoin’s bank accounts, saying he was presiding over a massive online Ponzi scheme. Federal prosecutors later accused Bowdoin of making the campaign donations with Ponzi money.
Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD Ponzi case last month.
A Blog targeted at senior citizens is recruiting affiliates for Zeek Rewards, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid and other online "programs" that suggest they can create riches. (Redaction by PP Blog.)
EDITOR’S NOTE: As the PP Blog was researching matters pertaining to the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” and preparing the post below for publication, it encountered a subdomain of the ZeekRewards.com website styled “zeeksupport.” A page on the subdomain purports to identify 16 Zeek “employees,” although is was unclear whether the workers received a wage or salary or were independent contractors.
Here is the full URL: http://zeeksupport.zeekrewards.com/zeeksupport/people
Included among the “employees” listed were Terralynn Hoy and Catherine Parker, both of whom were affiliated with AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service alleged was a Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million. Hoy, at least, also was affiliated with an ASD knockoff known as AdViewGlobal.
In April, federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia said they’d tied ASD President Andy Bowdoin to AdViewGlobal. Bowdoin, 77, pleaded guilty to wire fraud last month after being charged criminally in 2010 for his role in the ASD Ponzi scheme. As part of a plea agreement, Bowdoin has been banned from MLM, Internet programs and mass marketing.
Although the story below does not report on the Zeek claims that Hoy and Parker are Zeek employees, a link on the Zeek subdomain leads to a page in which “Catherine Parker” is responding to Zeek customer-service issues, including one titled, “TO BE PAID FOR OUTSTANDING AUCTION WINNINGS, POST HERE.” Within the customer-service thread is a post from an individual who claimed to have won an April 12, 2012, Zeekler auction for $100 in U.S. cash with a winning bid of $16.28 — but never received his money. Other posters also claimed not to have been paid . . .
UPDATED 5:27 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A detailed post from December 2011 on an affiliate Blog that publishes information in German and English instructs affiliates of the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” how to wire funds to Zeek and have them deposited in its account at NewBridge Bank in North Carolina. The Blog, which targets senior citizens, is hosted on Google’s free Blogspot platform at a subdomain styled “getlucky2011.”
Zeek announced suddenly last week that it was ending its relationship with NewBridge. It also announced it was ending its relationship with BB&T, a second bank based in North Carolina. Zeek plants the seed that affiliates can earn a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day, but the “program” insists it is not offering an investment opportunity.
Included on the same affiliate Blog are multiple pitches for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann that does not disclose its base of operations, may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement and advertises a return of 60 percent a month. The deck of the Blog, which includes a Zeek affiliate link in the right sidebar, features these words (bolding added):
“Indefinitely sustainable second income seniors earn independent living, plan their retirement, meet seniors assisted living, meet seniors online, secure your pension, look for retirement services and retirement benefits”
The post provides a glimpse into how U.S. banks could come into possession of funds tainted by fraud as the funds circulate between and among various HYIP programs advertised online. Research by the PP Blog shows that NewBridge also was one of the banks that handled the business of a bizarre MLM “program” known as “Narc That Car” that effectively collapsed in 2010 after the Better Business Bureau raised pyramid-scheme concerns and American television stations and investigative reporters turned their sights on Narc.
How Narc, a Texas-based company that used at least two names and at least two banks when issuing checks to members, ended up using NewBridge in North Carolina as one of its banks is unclear. Narc issued checks under the names of Narc Technologies Inc. and National Automotive Record Centre Inc. The entity later became known by a third name: Crowd Sourcing International.
National Automotive Record Centre Inc., Narc’s purported parent company, is listed in Nevada records as a corporation in “default.” Zeek’s purported parent company, Rex Venture Group LLC, also is registered in Nevada. Like Narc, Rex has scored an “F” from the BBB. (See Rex listing. See Narc listing.)
Like Zeek, Narc relied on a company known as USHBB Inc. to produce video sales pitches for its opportunity. USHBB is based in Indianapolis. Among its listed officers is OH Brown of Mount Pleasant, S.C. Brown hosted this May 2012 call for the Zeek “program” and also is listed on Zeek’s website as a Zeek “employee” who simultaneously holds the title “Official Rep.” Whether Brown receives compensation from Zeek while also serving as the vice president of USHBB is unclear.
On March 15, 2010, the PP Blog published a story that reported that a video USHBB produced for the Narc “program” asserted that some affiliates were earning more money than the President of the United States.
As part of its reporting on Narc, the PP Blog visited a USHBB website in 2010 that claimed the company had done promotional work for MLM teams and companies such as Ad Surf Daily, AdGateWorld, BizAdSplash, Ad-ventures4U, TVI Express and Global Verge/Buzzirk Mobile. Virtually all of the enterprises listed were associated with get-rich-quick schemes or HYIP autosurfs. Some of the “programs” later went missing from the web or were accused of fraud.
Frederick Mann of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid was a promoter of both AdSurfDaily and Ad-ventures4U, according to records. Clarence Busby, a onetime business partner of ASD’s Andy Bowdoin, was the purported chief consultant and operator of BizAdSplash, an autosurf that vanished mysteriously in 2010. Erma Seabaugh, ASD’s purported “Web Room Lady,” also was affiliated with Ad-ventures4U.
On March 2, 2010, the PP Blog reported that a Narc affiliate known as “Jah” was seeking to drive business to Narc by producing his own videos and posting them on YouTube. “Jah’s” videos featured check-waving as a form of social proof that Narc “paid.” One of the videos, which later was removed, showed a Narc check drawn on NewBridge. Another “Jah” video that still appears online shows that Narc also had an account at a second bank.
“Jah” compared repping for Narc to working for the U.S. Census Bureau.
Some of “Jah’s” check-waving videos later were hidden from public view. Jah, however, was not the sole Narc affiliate to produce check-waving videos in which checks from NewBridge were displayed. Though Narc appears to be long gone, the PP Blog observed a video today on YouTube in which the name of NewBridge flashed on the screen.
Zeek has not provided specifics about why it ended its relationship with NewBridge.
Among the assertions on the German/English Blog that was targeting senior citizens and promoting both Zeek and JSS/Tripler/JustBeenPaid was that “SolidTrustPay is one of the worlds most trusted e-wallet providers.”
SolidTrustPay is a Canada-based payment processor that is handling business for both Zeek and JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.
The PP Blog reported on June 2 that JSS/JBP also was being promoted on a race-baiting and Catholic-bashing site known as VaticanAssassins. The VaticanAssassins site, among other things, asserts that ““Majority Savage Blacks were never taught to behave in civil White Protestant culture and thus have been released upon us Reformation Bible-believing Whites to further destroy our once White Protestant and Baptist American culture founded upon the Reformation’s AV1611 English Bible and a White Protestant Presbyterian Constitution with its attached White Baptist-Calvinist Bill of Rights.”
BULLETIN: Federal prosecutors have gone to federal court in the Southern District of Florida, asking a judge to delay discovery in the November 2011 lawsuit filed against the government by AdSurfDaily figures Dwight Owen Schweitzer and Todd Disner.
In cases in which plaintiffs sue the government in federal court, assistant U.S. Attorneys who ordinarily may assist in the prosecution of civil and criminal cases put on a new hat and become lawyers representing the government as a client.
An assistant U.S. Attorney is now the lawyer for the government because Schweitzer and Disner effectively sued the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia for alleged misdeeds in the ASD case even as they accused the U.S. Secret Service of assisting in the government presentation of a “tissue of lies” against AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin and ASD itself.
Schweitzer and Disner have not been accused of wrongdoing. Among the curious assertions in their lawsuit against the government was that undercover agents who had infiltrated ASD had a duty to report the agents’ alleged ASD Terms of Service violations to ASD management.
After their ASD days, Disner and Schweitzer moved on to become affiliates for Zeek Rewards, an MLM “program” that plants the seed that returns between 1 percent and 2 percent a day are possible and that Zeek does not constitute an investment opportunity. ASD planted the seed that it paid 1 percent a day and also claimed it was not offering an investment opportunity.
In 2008, prosecutors said ASD was relying on wordplay to try to skirt securities laws. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD case on May 18 and acknowledged he was at the helm of a Ponzi scheme and illegal money-making business that had defrauded members since its inception in 2006.
By the end of the business day on May 18, prosecutors asked a federal judge in Southern Florida — the venue in which Disner and Schweitzer brought their lawsuit — to take notice of Bowdoin’s guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer more than 1,000 miles north in the District of Columbia. Even as they pointed to Bowdoin’s guilty plea, prosecutors asked that the Disner/Schweitzer case be dismissed.
Prosecutors say their dismissal motion would eliminate the need for any discovery if approved by U.S. District Judge Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga in the Southern District of Florida. If Altonaga chooses not to dismiss the Schweitzer/Disner complaint, prosecutors said, the case should be moved to the District of Columbia, the venue in which at least three civil-forfeiture actions against ASD-related assets were brought in 2008 and 2009.
In their June 4 motion to delay discovery pending a ruling on the dismissal motion, prosecutors said they emailed Schweitzer and Disner on May 23 “seeking their positions on the defendant’s motion to stay” discovery, but that neither Schweitzer nor Disner responded to the emails.
BULLETIN: (UPDATED 8:06 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) A federal judge in Florida has denied a motion by AdSurfDaily figures Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer that, if granted, could have made the duo privy to information on the identities of any ASD participant who filed a claim for remissions in the ASD Ponzi case, their financial stake in ASD and how much money was returned to them by the government through the remissions claims process.
