PatrickPretty.com

Tag: AdSurfDaily

  • BULLETIN: FTC, Canadian Competition Bureau Take Down Alleged ‘Yellow Pages’ Scam; Case Reminiscent Of Failed 2009 Bid By AdViewGlobal Autosurf To Launch New Website With Purported ‘Listing Service’

    BULLETIN: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Canadian Competition Bureau have taken down an alleged ‘Yellow Pages” scam in which businesses in the United States and Canada were deceived into paying for unwanted listings in online business directories.

    The scam was centered in Europe, authorities from both countries said. The Competition Bureau said it is seeking $11.55 million in penalties.

    U.S. targets received unsolicited faxes that included “a name such as YellowPage-Illinois.com, depending upon the location of the organization, and a ‘walking fingers’ logo similar to the one commonly associated with local yellow pages,” the FTC said.

    In May 2009, the PP Blog reported that AdViewGlobal (AVG), an autosurf with close ties to Florida-based AdSurfDaily, sought to launch a new website. The launch ultimately failed, but not before it published a “Walking Fingers” logo and advertised the availability of a purported Yellow Pages directory service.

    Whether AdViewGlobal was offering the purported service independently or through a vendor never was clear. What was clear is that regulators long have warned the public about Yellow Pages scams, which appear in various forms.

    After AVG scrubbed its website launch and launched yet-another new site in the days following the failed launch, the Walking Fingers logo disappeared and the purported listing program that had existed only days earlier never again was referenced. Instead, AVG linked itself to a purported suite of new products and services and a purported bid to save the rain forest.

    The appearance of the Walking Fingers logo on the AVG website and the purported directory program led to questions about whether AVG was immersing itself in yet another new scam.

    U.S. officials said today that the most recent variant of the Yellow Pages scam operated from from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, and used “corporations based in England and the Netherlands.”

    Named defendants in the case were Jan Marks; Yellow Page Marketing B.V., also doing business as Yellow Page B.V. and Yellow Page (Netherlands) B.V.; Yellow Publishing Ltd.; and Yellow Data Services Ltd., the FTC said.

    “The FTC is committed to working with its law enforcement colleagues in Canada and around the world to stamp out international schemes that target U.S. consumers,” said David C. Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “We applaud our friends in Canada for helping to coordinate this international effort.”

    A top Canadian official called the alleged Yellow Pages scheme a “cross-border scam.”

    “The [Competion] Bureau is pleased that the FTC has joined us in targeting the individuals and companies involved in this cross-border scam,” said Melanie Aitken, Commissioner of Competition. “International collaboration is key to cracking down on multi-jurisdictional scams.”

    Churches, nonprofits, doctors’ offices and retailers were targeted in the scam, the FTC said.

    The scam was designed to make fax recipients believe they had a preexisting relationship with the defendants and to dupe them into entering purported contracts and paying for listings. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission also brought an action, the FTC said.

    When AVG was claiming in 2009 that it had a listing service, promoters also were pumping purported “matching bonuses” of 200 percent and even 250 percent for autosurf enrollees and their sponsors.

    AVG suspended cashouts about a month after displaying a Walking Fingers logo to which the acronym “AVGA” had been added.

     

  • Bowdoin Blames Former Attorneys, ‘Single, Lone Judge’ For His Legal Predicament; ASD Patriarch Now Claims He Was ‘Crucified’ By Prosecutors, Secret Service — After Earlier Comparing Them To ‘Satan’ And The 9/11 Terrorists

    In a fundraising video released last night, ASD President Andy Bowdoin said he was "crucified" by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is based in part on the content of a video released last night in which AdSurfDaily President and accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin appeared. A group known as “Andy’s Fundraising Army” is seeking to raise at least $500,000 to pay for Bowdoin’s defense on criminal charges related to the alleged ASD Ponzi scheme.

    UPDATED 10:23 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) One day after an AdSurfDaily member claimed that “We plan to go after Akerman [Senterfitt] next,” ASD President Andy Bowdoin — without mentioning the law firm by name — suggested the firm was responsible for his legal troubles.

    And Bowdoin — again not naming names — suggested that criminal attorney Stephen Dobson, who is not employed by Akerman Senterfitt, also was to blame. (In court affidavits, Bowdoin has referred to Stephen Dobson as Steven Dobson. The U.S. Court of Appeals already has rejected a claim by Bowdoin that he had been “hoodwinked” by Dobson into releasing his claims to money seized by the Secret Service. At the same time, the appeals court upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer that Bowdoin “knowingly and voluntarily” released his claims to the money. Bowdoin released the claims while Akerman Senterfitt was his counsel-of-record in the civil-forfeiture case.)

    Bowdoin also blamed Collyer — again without naming names — for his predicament. Bowdoin described Collyer as a “single, lone judge.”

    “Now, after that law firm (Akerman Senterfitt) finished the civil case, which we lost because of a single, lone judge (Collyer) [who] had the final say in verdict [and] not a jury, they told me they couldn’t represent me in a criminal case, that I needed a criminal attorney because there would be a federal indictment.

    “They recommended a law firm in Tallahassee, Florida, so I retained the firm. But the lead attorney in that Tallahassee firm (Dobson) was an ex-U.S. Attorney. And I’m sad to say that he actually sold me out to the federal government,” Bowdoin said.

    Bowdoin described Aug. 1, 2008 — the day the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from his personal bank accounts in a Ponzi scheme probe — as the day “when the government attacked.”

    In 2008, Bowdoin referred to the Secret Service and federal prosecutors as “Satan,” and compared the seizure to the 9/11 terrorists attacks. In a video released yesterday, he now claims he was “crucified” and “heavily ridiculed” by two U.S. Attorneys and three Secret Service agents.

    Bowdoin said he hoped to raise $500,000 for his legal defense fund, asserting ASD was not a Ponzi scheme. An indictment against Bowdoin was unsealed in November 2010, and he was arrested on Dec. 1, 2010. He is free on bond.

    In September 2009, federal prosecutors described Bowdoin as “delusional,” alleging that he was telling ASD members one thing and Collyer another.

    Bowdoin — without using Miami-based Akerman Senterfitt’s name in the new video but describing it as a “big law firm with hundreds of attorneys and even offices in Washington, DC” — opined that the firm “didn’t do us any good.”

    “So, I learned quickly that big is not always better or good when it comes to hiring a winning law firm,” Bowdoin said.

    Collyer issued a key ruling against ASD in November of 2008, saying that ASD had not demonstrated at an evidentiary hearing it requested that it was operating lawfully. Bowdoin submitted to the forfeiture in January 2009, claiming in September 2009 that he had done so in the belief he possibly could avoid a prison sentence.

    Sometime in December 2008 or January 2009 — the precise date is unclear — Bowdoin signed a proffer letter and acknowledged the government’s material allegations were all true, according to filings by prosecutors. Bowdoin has acknowledged in his own filings that he gave information against his interests.

    Even as Bowdoin was not naming the names of Collyer and his previous counsel in his new video, he was not naming the names of his current counsel in the Ponzi case. Those names (Charles A. Murray and Michael R.N. McDonnell) are available in the public record, Bowdoin said.

    Bowdoin sought unsuccessfully in 2009 to have Collyer, who also is hearing the criminal case, removed from the civil case. Earlier this year, Bowdoin sought unsuccessfully to have a judge in the the Northern District of Florida hear the criminal case, as opposed to Collyer.

    See Bowdoin affidavit from September 2009.

    Compare to February 2010 Bowdoin affidavit. (See related story from Feb. 17, 2010.)

    See transcript by Secret Service of Bowdoin recorded conference call in September 2009.

    See previous story.

     

  • PICTURE STORY: 2008 PDF Promo For ASD Claimed Google, Pepsi, Starbucks, Quiznos And Other Famous Companies Were ASD Advertisers: Is Cropped Image In Promo From Same Original Of Bowdoin That Appears On ‘Andy’s Army’ Fundraising Site?

    Do a purported fundraising site for accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin and a 2008 promo for AdSurfDaily that claimed famous companies had hopped aboard the ASD train have anything in common?

    The fundraising site, which has missed two advertised launch dates this month, uses this photo of Bowdoin:

    The 2008 promo for ASD, which appeared in PDF format, uses this cropped photo:

    Here is a screenshot from the PDF that features the cropped photo of Bowdoin.

    Background shadows and images in both the photo on the fundraising site and in the 2008 PDF suggest the images came from the same original or were taken from the same staged scene.

    Among the claims in the 2008 PDF were that famous companies such as Google, Kodak, Starbucks, Quiznos Sub, Callaway Golf, Macy’s, Toshiba, NBC, Farmers Insurance, USA Today, Priceline.com and others were ASD advertisers.

    No evidence has surfaced that any of the companies were ASD advertisers.

    Bowdoin took the 5th Amendment at a 2008 evidentiary hearing he requested. ASD did not call any of the companies whose logos were featured in the PDF promo to the witness stand. Among the claims in the promo was this one:

    “Not only are there over 75,000 small businesses advertising with ASD, but now major corporations are as well. Remember, a part of the daily rebate comes from the revenue corporations pay to advertise with ASD.”

    The logos of 24 famous companies appeared below the claim.

    Bowdoin was indicted last year on federal charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    See story that ran on the PP Blog on March 15, 2009.

    Here is a link to the full PDF:

  • Bowdoin’s Purported Fundraising ‘Army’ Misses ‘Revised’ Launch Date; Site Now Advertises ‘Final Revised Launch Date’ Of July 26

    A website that says it is raising “required” defense funds for accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily now has missed its second launch date and claims it is working on a third.

    Dubbed “Andy’s Fundraising Army,” the site first advertised a launch date of “on or before” July 15. It then advertised a “revised” launch date of July 20 (yesterday).

    The site now is advertising a “Final Revised Launch Date” of July 26.

    “As of today, July 20th, the launching of the Official Website for Andy’s Fundraising Army is almost here, as the Website is now fully completed except for one last important system is being finalized that correctly takes your donations Online (via credit and debit cards) and gets these funds safely transferred into the Attorney Trust Account,” the site says.

    In May 2008 — while addressing a crowd at an ASD company “rally” in Las Vegas — Bowdoin defined himself as a “money magnet” and thanked God for making him one.

    Among his claims from the stage was that the letter “e” in the words “success” and “failure” stood for “energy” (and also “effort”).

    “And if you take it and focus it, it’s gonna turn your financial area in your life into dollars and cents,” Bowdoin said from the Vegas stage.

    Bowdoin’s purported “army” says the accused swindler soon will release a new video as part of a bid to raise “the Legal Defense Fund minimum requirement of $500,000.”

    In December, Bowdoin, 76, was indicted on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia said he disguised a securities business as an “advertising” service and conducted a multifaceted, international Ponzi scheme that gathered at least $110 million.

    A purported “preview” site that gives visitors a glimpse at what the actual fundraising site will look like on July 26 claims the government is guilty of “Wrong Doing” and “SUPRESSION OF ALL ASD MEMBERS.”

    If the purported fundraising site does launch on July 26, the launch will occur just two days short of the third anniversary of a significant date in ASD history.

    On July 28, 2008, a Bowdoin shell company known as Bowdoin/Harris Enterprises purchased a 2009 Lincoln MKS for $48,244.03. The money for the car came from ASD Ponzi proceeds, according to federal prosecutors.

    The state of Florida later dissolved Bowdoin/Harris. It also dissolved ASD.

    Bowdoin/Harris became a corporation on June 5, 2008 — just days after the conclusion of the May 31 Las Vegas rally, according to records.

  • Effort To Raise Funds To Stone ‘Goliath’ With $50 ‘Rocks’ In Federal Court Apparently Delayed Owing To Need To Perform More ‘Testing’

    Andy Bowdoin has been positioned as "David" in a courtroom clash with "Goliath."

    “David” apparently needs five more days of “testing” before he can equip himself properly to stone “Goliath” with $50 “rocks” in federal court.

    A fundraising website for accused felon and MLM huckster Thomas A. “Andy” Bowdoin missed its advertised launch date Friday. Bowdoin, 76, was positioned as “David” on a “temporary” site that advertised his purported need to start an “official” site to raise a “minimum” of $500,000 to do battle with the government, which was positioned as “Goliath.”

    The “temporary” site now has announced that the launch date of the “official” site has been “revised.” Bowdoin won’t begin collecting cash for $50 “rocks” until July 20, five days later than advertised.

    Bowdoin, the head of Florida-based AdSurfDaily, was accused in December 2010 by federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    ASD was a Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million, prosecutors said.

    “As of today, July 15th, the launching of the Official Website for Andy’s Fundraising Army is in it’s (sic) final stages of creation & systems testing, and the new launch date is on target for this coming Wednesday, July 20th. (sic) only 5 days from now.”

    Bowdoin has been described in federal court filings as being “tardy” on certain pleadings. The fundraising website also appears to be tardy.

    ASD never told members that Bowdoin was involved in a previous securities swindle before he launched ASD in 2006, according to federal prosecutors.

    And he never told incoming members that the original iteration of ASD collapsed under the weight of a Ponzi scheme in 2007 and that new members were paying his original set of victims when ASD later relaunched under a different name, prosecutors said.

    Prior to a U.S. Secret Service raid on ASD in August 2008, the firm’s website was inaccessible for days at a time, according to members.

  • Tax Lien Was Filed Against Golden Panda’s Clarence Busby Prior To Lawsuit Autosurf Operator Filed Against Bank; Separately, Georgia Has Dissolved 2 Busby Firms And Says Biz Ad Splash ‘Surf Company In State Of Noncompliance

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Clarence Busby Jr., a figure associated with at least four autosurfs — AdSurfDaily, Golden Panda Ad Builder, LaFuenteDinero and BizAdSplash — has encountered a recent string of troubles, including a mortgage foreclosure and tax liens. Owing to his association with ASD President Andy Bowdoin, who operated ASD and LaFuenteDinero and once had a partnership with Busby in Golden Panda, Busby also was forced to spend an unknown sum on legal fees after the seizure of ASD- and Golden Panda-connected assets in 2008.

    Bowdoin said in September 2009 that he’d spent more than $1 million on legal fees in the first 13 months of ASD-related litigation. He was arrested on federal charges on Dec. 1, 2010, and had to arrange a bond of $350,000.  Sixteen days later — on December 17, 2010 — federal prosecutors filed yet another (the third) civil-forfeiture complaint against Bowdoin-connected assets. Bowdoin filed appeals in the first two forfeiture cases, losing both and driving up his legal costs.

    Despite the costly troubles encountered by both Bowdoin and Busby — and the remarkable staying power of those troubles, which next month will enter their fourth year — promoters on TalkGold, MoneyMakerGroup and other Ponzi forums still are pushing autosurfs and HYIPs.

    They’re pushing them even though Bowdoin and others potentially face long prison sentences and have lost significant dollar sums and property as a result of their infatuation with what prosecutors have described as serial lawlessness.

    On July 6, a federal judge ordered Gregory N. McKnight, the operator of the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, to pay more than $6.81 million in disgorgement and penalties. Like ASD and countless schemes, Legisi was promoted on TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup — and court filings in the Legisi case specifically reference MoneyMakerGroup.

    Still pushing ‘surfs and HYIPs?

    Apparently using a fill-in-the-blank litigation template, Clarence Busby Jr. sought foreclosure relief on a central Cobb County property in Marietta, Ga. Busby's filing also placed the property in Gwinnett County, which does not border Cobb County. (Graphic from Wikipedia.)

    When former autosurf operator Clarence Busby Jr. filed a lawsuit last year last seeking relief from from a bank and other parties involved in a mortgage foreclosure against him, he’d already been put on notice by the Internal Revenue Service that the agency intended to collect thousands of dollars in back taxes from him, according to records in Cobb County, Ga.

    The taxes were from 2009, according to records. During the same year, Busby launched an autosurf known as Biz Ad Splash — but the tax bill was for a different Busby entity.

    On Aug. 11, 2010, the IRS prepared a federal tax lien against Busby and a company known as Freedom Achievement LLC for $15,481. The lien was formally recorded on Aug. 26, 2010. A note on the lien described Busby as “SOLE MBR” of Freedom Achievement, whose business purpose was not immediately clear.

    About four months later — in December 2010 — Busby filed a pro se lawsuit demanding relief from Quicken Loans, OneWest Bank, MERSCorp and 1,000 “Doe” defendants in Cobb County Superior Court.

    OneWest and MERS responded in January 2011 by moving to have Busby’s case transferred to federal court in the Northern District of Georgia because the lawsuit named defendants in multiple states and involved a controversy that exceeded the sum of $75,000.

    Busby’s case was assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge Robert L. Vining Jr., who dismissed it for failure to state a claim. Beyond dismissing the lawsuit for failure to state a claim, Vining agreed with the defendants that Busby’s arguments had no legal merit. Busby’s pro se pleadings appeared to have come from a fill-in-the-blank legal kit.

    These words appeared on the first page of Busby’s complaint: “COMES NOW, name here, as plaintiff” — and Busby did not insert his name in the “name here” space.

    By contrast, some filings in the ASD/Golden Panda forfeiture case begin with these words, “COMES NOW, plaintiff United States of America, by and through its attorney.”

    The Busby complaint also claims the Busby property in dispute is located in “Gwinnett County.” The document claimed elsewhere that the property was located in the city of Marietta in “Cobb County,” the venue in which Busby sued.

    Marietta is situated in central Cobb County. Cobb County and Gwinnett County do not border one another. and the property is listed in Cobb County courthouse records, meaning it is possible that Busby used an existing legal template and never swapped out an existing reference to Gwinnett County — in the same manner in which he did not insert his name in the “name here” space.

    Whether Busby’s apparent fill-in-the-blank oversights added to the defendants’ costs in successfully defending against the lawsuit is unclear. What is clear is that Busby came out on the losing end and that the defendants referenced the IRS tax lien against Busby in Cobb County in their response to his complaint.

    Separately, the state of Georgia dissolved a Busby company known as Homeshare Investment Club Corp. The dissolution occurred on Sept. 13, 2010, less than a month after the IRS tax lien was filed against Freedom Achievement LLC, according to records.

    Records pertaining to Homeshare Investment Club show that it used the same address used by Busby in the formation of Biz Ad Splash NA LLC.

    BizAdSplash, or BAS, was an autosurf that ceased operating in January 2010. BAS launched in the aftermath of the ASD- and Golden Panda-related asset seizures. A separate address associated with the BAS filing in Georgia is the address of a maildrop in Kennesaw.

    BAS purported to operate offshore. Its apparent U.S. domestic brand is listed in noncompliance by the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp.

    Members of BAS have complained to the PP Blog about not getting refunds from the autosurf. How much money the surf collected is unclear.

    At the same time the state of Georgia was dissolving Homeshare Investment Club, it also was dissolving another Busby enterprise: Ocean View Enterprises Inc.  Meanwhile, yet another Busby firm — Legacy Premier Properties Inc. — is listed in a state of noncompliance.

  • BULLETIN: ASDCashGenerator Website Is Active Again; Is A New ‘Program’ In The Offing? Page Is Accessible Through Old ASD Ad That Features Image Of Purported Club Asteria Owner; No Comment From Investigators

    This old ad for AdSurfDaily features an image of Hank Needham, the purported owner of Club Asteria. An ASD affiliate link in the ad summons ASD’s old ASDCashGenerator.com URL, which went dormant after the federal raid on ASD’s Florida headquarters in August 2008. In recent hours, however, the old ASDCashGenerator URL began to resolve to an apparent new business opportunity known as Ad Sales Daily International. Needham’s one-time tie to ASD leads to questions about whether Virginia-based Club Asteria, through Needham or ASD downline members, could have benefited from ASD cash prior to the federal seizure of tens of millions of dollars from the personal bank accounts of ASD President Andy Bowdoin nearly three years ago. The Club-Asteria domain name was registered in June 2009, the same month an autosurf with ASD connections known as AdViewGlobal collapsed. Club Asteria’s domain now is registered behind a proxy, but once was registered to Needham, according to web records.

    BULLETIN: (UPDATED 9:36 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A website identified in a 2008 forfeiture complaint as the site of a major financial crime allegedly engineered by AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin and unidentified co-conspirators is active again and appears to be redirecting traffic to an entity named “Ad Sales Daily International” (ASDI) and a second entity known as ASD2Day.

    “Make $10 per direct referral & $5 for every 2nd level indirect!” the site exclaims. “Recieve (sic) $2000 Account Initiation Credits! Hurry, while we are in pre-launch.”

    A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia declined to comment on the development, saying that ASD is part of an active investigation.

    The ASDI site is accessible through an affiliate link to Bowdoin’s old ASDCashGenerator.com site, which appears to have been re-registered in the name of Barbara Cruz, whose name previously has appeared in the context of ASD. The PP Blog accessed the ASDI site by clicking on an old ASDCashGenerator affiliate link . The link was within an ASD ad from 2008 that featured an image of Club Asteria’s purported owner Hank Needham.

    The ASD ad with Needham’s image positioned ASD as a “Perfectly Credible Business” and included a contact email address that used the characters “ptigold.” The ASD ad, however, does not load Needham’s name as an ASDI affiliate when the link is clicked. Instead, it loads the name of another individual. The reason was not immediately clear.

    This page for ASDI, an apparent upstart, is accessible when a link is clicked in an old ad for Andy Bowdoin's ASD Cash Generator program. The old ASD ad features a photo of Hank Needham, the purported owner of Club Asteria, but the ad does not load Needham's name as an ASDI affiliate when the link is clicked. Instead, the ad loads the name of another person. The reason was not immediately clear. Bowdoin is under federal indictment for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. Questions have been raised about whether Club Asteria also was selling unregistered securities as part of a purported "passive" investment program.

    A separate link within the ad with Needham’s image forwards to a page that displays pornography ads.

    All or part of the old ASDCashGenerator site appears to be redirecting to the domain name of ASD2Day.com. In 2009, the ASD2Day site was registered with Cruz listed as the contact person at an address in Florida that state investigators had tied to a major insurance scam. Although Cruz now is listed as the registrant of the ASDCashGenerator site, the ASD2Day site is registered in the name of another individual.

    In October 2009, the PP Blog published a story about the ASD2Day site, which was making odd claims about the state of the ASD litigation a year after the federal seizure of Bowdoin’s assets and assets linked to Golden Panda Ad Builder, an autosurf implicated by the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD probe.

    ASD2Day.com claimed, among other things, that ASD could not be a Ponzi scheme because the script employed by the autosurfing firm could not be programmed to permit a Ponzi scheme to occur. It also made a puzzling claim that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer was on an Aug. 28, 2009, deadline “to determine if the US Attorney General’s case against ASD should move forward.” (Also see this story and comments thread.)

    Collyer was on no such deadline. In January 2010, Collyer issued a forfeiture order that awarded $65.8 million seized from Bowdoin’s bank accounts to the U.S. government, which is using the seized money to compensate victims of ASD. In July 2009, Collyer issued a forfeiture order for more than $14 million linked to Golden Panda, ASD’s one-time purported “Chinese” option.

    The ASD ad that featured Needham’s image also made a veiled reference to Golden Panda.

    A section of the ad read, “OPENING IN CHINA[:] July 2008.”

    Undercover agents from a Secret Service/IRS task force began to investigate ASD and Golden Panda on July 3, 2008, according to court filings. The court process of seizing cash linked to both entities began on Aug. 1, 2008, with the issuance of seizure warrants.

    It appears to be the case that all old ASD Cash Generator affiliate links, including the links in the ad that featured Needham’s photograph, now load the new ASDI webpage at the old ASD Cash Generator URL.

    Claims made about Club Asteria are under investigation by Italian authorities. Club Asteria first slashed payouts to members then reportedly suspended them for 60 days. The firm also reportedly has had its PayPal account frozen.

    Like ASD, Club Asteria was promoted on Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

    In a video dated July 8, a Club Asteria executive claimed the firm had “a philanthropic foundation both domestically and internationally where we help causes all over the world.”

    Among the claims in the video, which appeared online after Club Asteria reportedly suspended payouts, was this one:

    “We donate cows and pigs and water buffaloes and camels to help families all over the world.”

    Virginia-based Club Asteria trades on the name of the World Bank. Members said payments came from an entity known as Asteria Holdings Limited (Hong Kong) — before the payments stopped.

    One of Club Asteria’s principal concerns, according to a new video, is children.

    Investigators long have fretted that some promoters of online business “opportunities” simply race from fraud scheme to fraud scheme, collecting commissions for introducing others to “programs” that prove to be scams.

    Like the now-collapsed AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf, Club Asteria has blamed its reported problems on members. AVG had promoters and members in common with Bowdoin’s ASD, which the Secret Service described as a massive international Ponzi scheme.

    Among other things, AVG plucked the heartstrings of members by telling them that the company was interested in saving the rain forest.

  • DIALING UP THE BIZARRE: Purported Fundraising ‘Army’ Displays Photo Of Accused AdSurfDaily Huckster Andy Bowdoin Smiling Ear To Ear

    Some ASD members say this smiling and vigorous Andy Bowdoin is ready to do battle with the government in a "David vs. Goliath" clash. Bowdoin himself has advised a federal judge that he suffers from various medical maladies, including a lack of quality sleep, and his trial should be moved from the District of Columbia to Florida. The judge denied Bowdoin's bid to move the trial.

    Although AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin has described himself in court filings as an elderly man suffering from diabetes, lack of sleep caused by worrying about his ill wife, hyperlipidemia, coronary heart disease and multiple Transient Ischemic Attacks (ministrokes), some of his supporters apparently disagree with Bowdoin’s assessment of his own medical condition.

    A website with a URL of AndysFundraisingArmy.com has posted a photo of Bowdoin purportedly taken on June 24. The photo shows a vigorous-looking Bowdoin seated in a chair and smiling broadly.

    The website features a second photo of Bowdoin wearing a business suit, smiling at the camera and taking care of paperwork.  A claim is made on the website that “over 88% of the members surveyed said that once Andy wins his court case and ASD is found to not be a Ponzi Scheme, they would want to immediately continue with their Ad Surf Daily business, because it is a proven, popular and successful way to advertise and build a great income with the ASD home business opportunity.”

    What’s needed to get ASD restarted on a date uncertain — presumably with Bowdoin at the helm — is a $500,000 “minimum requirement” to pay for lawyers, according to the fundraising website. The website appears to have been registered using an address of a Florida law firm that is not the same firm associated with either of Bowdoin’s current civil and criminal attorneys.

    Precisely who registered the site is unclear. The name on the domain registration is “Andys Defense Fund.”

    And the fundraising website also makes other broad claims, including a claim that a survey sample of 140 ASD members can be reliably applied to a group of 123,000 ASD members as a whole.

    “[P]er standard and accepted industry guidelines, public opinion surveying of 140 members of a large group of members that all share a common interest or purpose, of any size, even in the millions, will give an excellent cross section of the opinions and viewpoints of the entire group,” the fundraising site claims while asking ASD members to prepare to fork over a donation.

    Among the claims below a subhead of “MORE GOOD NEWS” is that “A Recent Survey of ASD Members Proves that the Vast Majority of You Want to Join Andy’s Fundraising Army.”

    The fundraising site, however, does not describe the characteristics of the 140 ASD members purportedly sampled. Nor does it define what specific surveying “standard” it applied or define the source of the purported “industry guidelines.”

    Any claim that a small sampling result culled from individual ASD members can be applied to a much larger group is dubious, if not reckless. The fundraising site did not define any variables in the purported sample — for instance, whether the sample was top-heavy with members inclined to disbelieve the government’s take on events for personal or political reasons or out of fear they could become implicated in the ASD probe, whether the sample consisted of people who made money or lost money in ASD, the amount made or lost and the amount directed at ASD, whether members had large downlines, midsized downlines or small downlines and the degree to which downline members were affected by ASD developments and whether survey respondents had filed claims for restitution that the government announced more than two years ago would be paid from funds seized from Bowdoin’s personal bank accounts.

    One of the accounts contained more than $31 million; another contained more than $23 million, and Bowdoin’s accounts contained more than $65.8 million in the aggregate, according to court filings. Bowdoin also allegedly moved “several million” dollars offshore prior to the August 2008 seizure of funds in his identified U.S. bank accounts. Meanwhile, ASD was alleged to have about $1 million in an account on the Caribbean island nation of Antigua in an account under a different name, according to court filings.

    Although the fundraising site also claims Bowdoin “never backed down” in his battle against the government and “has always kept on fighting,” federal prosecutors said in 2009 that Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter in the case and acknowledged the government’s material allegations were all true.

    Bowdoin’s own court filings show that he met with federal prosecutors over a period of at least four days, provided information against his interests and sought to cooperate because cooperation possibly could keep him out of jail.

    Meanwhile, the fundraising site claims that Bowdoin lost his fight over the seized money “due to the lone decision made by that one single Civil Court Judge,” but it does not reveal that Bowdoin also lost two forfeiture appeals and that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit upheld the rulings made by U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer.

    At the same time, the fundraising site claims that ASD members who send in $50 or a smaller sum to fund a legal war chest “can finally have a strong fighting chance to get their advertising money returned to them.”

    But the fundraising site does not reveal that the government already has set up a restitution program and that prosecutors alleged that ASD was an investment program disguised as an “advertising” program — one consisting of multiple illegal parts and one that Bowdoin and others were maneuvering to move offshore before it popped up on the radar of U.S. regulatory and law-enforcement agencies.

    Nor did the fundraising site reveal that the government has alleged that ASD had “special” members and that at least some of the special members were participants in a previous autosurf fraud scheme.

  • Missouri-Based ‘Trainer’ For Florida-Based AdSurfDaily Was Head Of Purported ‘Religious’ Nonprofit Firm In Oregon; State Dissolved Firm Over Which Erma ‘Web-Room Lady’ Seabaugh Presided; Address For ‘Carpe Diem’ Was A Mail Drop

    Missouri-based Erma Seabaugh, known among members of Florida-based AdSurfDaily as a company trainer and the "Web Room Lady," was the president of Carpe Diem, a purported "religious" entity in Oregon.

    On Jan. 16, 2008, the state of Oregon recorded the business registration of an entity known as “Carpe Diem,” a purported “religious” nonprofit firm. AdSurfDaily figure Erma Seabaugh of Cape Girardeau, Mo., was listed as Carpe Diem’s president and secretary. ASD members described Seabaugh as a “trainer” for the Florida-based autosurf firm whose operator, Thomas A. “Andy” Bowdoin, 76, is under federal indictment for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    The Oregon registration of Carpe Diem coincides with a period in which ASD allegedly was ratcheting up the criminality to drive more business to its $110 million Ponzi scheme — first by introducing a companion “Spanish” autosurf known as LaFuenteDinero and later by launching a “Chinese” surf known as Golden Panda Ad Builder and producing a video in which an attorney who appeared with Bowdoin preemptively denied ASD was operating a Ponzi scheme, according to federal court filings.

    As an ASD trainer and a person with “privileges within the ASD computer database system to post and remove ‘ad packages’ from individuals’ accounts,” Seabaugh was positioned to benefit from ASD’s crimes and engage in crimes of her own, according to federal court filings.

    The filings raise the possibility that Seabaugh was seeking to disguise personal income as the proceeds of a purported religious entity and use ASD itself to launder money or hide income.

    Prosecutors said in December that it appeared as though Seabaugh “was selling her own investment ‘ad packs’ to clients and representing herself as ASD.” The Cape Girardeau, Mo., address for Carpe Diem in Oregon records is associated with a firm that provides mailbox and parcel services.

    Oregon dissolved Carpe Diem’s registration in March 2010, about 26 months after the entity was registered in the state.

    Just weeks prior to the January 2008 creation of Carpe Diem — on Nov. 11, 2007, Dec. 9, 2007 and Dec. 19, 2007 — Seabaugh opened three separate ASD accounts. Each of the accounts used a variation of the Carpe Diem name: Carpe Diem, Carpe Diem2 and Carpe Diem3, according to federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia.

    The presence of a form of the Carpe Diem name in three ASD accounts leads to a question about whether Seabaugh or others were seeking to structure transactions to avoid tax-reporting requirements or to minimize the risk that a bank might begin to ask uncomfortable questions.

    Seabaugh used the Carpe Diem account to sponsor “48 additional investors into the ASD investment scheme,” federal prosecutors said in a forfeiture complaint filed on Dec. 17, 2010, about 16 days after Bowdoin was arrested in Florida.

    Known as ASD’s “Web Room Lady,” Seabaugh withdrew $107,997 from the Carpe Diem account “through checks that issued from ASD,” according to the complaint. The account was funded with “ad packs” that “originated” at LaFuenteDinero, the “Spanish” version of ASD.

    It also was funded with $10,510 that originated at e-Bullion, which prosecutors described as an online digital currency.

    Two of Seabaugh’s Carpe Diem accounts — Carpe Diem2 and Carpe Diem3 — were used to promote an apparent “pyramid scheme” known as StreamlineGold.net, according to the forfeiture complaint. Although Seabaugh appears not to have made a withdrawal from the Carpe Diem3 account, she withdrew $83,994 from the Carpe Diem2 account, which also had been opened with a transfer of “ad packs” from LaFuenteDinero, according to the forfeiture complaint.

    LaFuenteDinero means the “fountain of money.” Different email addresses were used to open each of the Carpe Diem accounts, according to the forfeiture complaint.

    In addition, Seabaugh used an address with the letters “ASD” and the word “admin” included among the characters comprising a free gmail address, according to the forfeiture complaint.

    E-bullion operator James Fayed was convicted in May of arranging the contract murder of his estranged wife, Pamela Fayed, a potential witness against him on matters pertaining to fraud. James Fayed faces the death penalty for the slaying.

    Investigators have linked e-Bullion to multiple Ponzi schemes.

    At least $10,510 flowed from E-Bullion to ASD through Seabaugh’s Carpe Diem account prior to the gruesome slashing murder of Pamela Fayed in a California parking garage on July 28, 2008.

    About four days later — on Aug. 1, 2008 — the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in the personal bank accounts of ASD’s Bowdoin. Seabaugh has not been charged with a crime, but agents seized at least $153,087 from bank accounts linked to Carpe Diem and Seabaugh, according to court filings.

  • June Ends With MULTIPLE Fraud Filings By CFTC; Air-Traffic Controllers Who Allegedly Solicited Colleagues Into Fraud Scheme Charged In Georgia; Investigators Link Georgia Scheme To Alleged Botfly Caper In Florida, Saying Federal Aviation Administration Employees Became Investors

    EDITOR’S NOTE: The disturbing information that follows this intro is presented largely in capsule form, with links to CFTC charging documents in three new cases. Perhaps the most notable case in this summary is the one filed in Georgia. As things stand, it demonstrates:

    Interconnectivity: Ties between and among scams and scammers are common in the fraud universe, contributing to a condition the PP Blog has described as “fraud creep.” The CFTC says two of the defendants charged in the Georgia case were investors in Botfly LLC, an alleged Ponzi scheme that operated internationally from Florida. The Botfly case is just plain creepy. Elements of it are reminiscent of the AdSurfDaily case. ASD, too, was based in Florida.

    Familiarity/Affinity: Two of the Georgia defendants are employees of the U.S. government — specifically air-traffic controllers employed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Based on court filings, it appears as though the FAA employees were moonlighting as Forex managers and that other FAA employees got sucked into one or more scams.

    Vulnerability: Can anybody be truly safe in this unprecedented era of white-collar crime and rampant hucksterism? Government employees allegedly got sucked into a Ponzi caper operated by Kenneth “Wayne” McLeod, a Florida man who reportedly killed himself last year after the SEC opened a probe. If the allegations by the CFTC in the Georgia case are true, it may mean that other government workers saw their wealth eviscerated in a fraud scheme. It is unclear if retirement savings were plowed into the alleged Georgia scam. What is clear, however, is that the U.S. government now has at least two cases on its books in which it is alleged that federal workers were drafted into fraud schemes by individuals either employed by the government or paid by the government.

    We are presenting summaries because the information is voluminous. Here, now, the capsules . . .

    In an extraordinary series of actions on the Ponzi and fraud front, the CFTC has closed out the month of June by filings fraud cases in federal courts in Georgia, Colorado and Nebraska.

    Georgia Case

    Charged civilly with fraud and misappropriation in the Georgia case were Louis J. Giddens Jr. of Fayetteville, Ga., and Anthony W. Dutton of Peachtree City, Ga. Giddens and Dutton are air-traffic controllers, the CFTC said.

    Also charged in the Georgia case was Michael Gomez of Valrico, Fla. Gomez is a commodity trader, the CFTC said.

    The men are charged with operating a Forex fraud scheme that gathered about $1.4 million and involved at least four companies: Currency Management Group LLC, Pinnacle Capital Partners LLC, Pinnacle Trade Group LLC and Elyon LLC.

    Giddens, the CFTC said, was an air-traffic controller in Atlanta. In “late 2008,” according to the CFTC, he learned about Botfly LLC, a Florida Forex company that offered investors a return of 10 percent a month.

    After meeting with a “principal” of Botfly, Giddens became a Botfly investor and solicited fellow Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees in Georgia to become Botfly investors, the CFTC charged.

    Dutton, Giddens’ fellow air-traffic controller, became a Botfly investor, the CFTC said. So did other FAA employees.

    In April 2010, the state of Florida charged Botfly in a Ponzi case and froze its assets.

    Giddens and Dutton used essentially the same business model as Botfly, and started their own pooled Foex business, using their unregistered companies to do so, the CFTC charged.

    Eventually, Gomez, who also was unregistered, became part of the mix, the CFTC charged.

    Investors plowed $1.4 million into the fraud scheme, the CFTC charged.

    Read the Georgia charging document.

    Colorado Case

    Shawon McClung of Denver and Flint-McClung Capital LLC (FMC) of Englewood, Colo., have been charged civilly with fraud and misappropriation in an alleged $1.9 million Forex Ponzi scheme.

    The scheme operated in part through a website, and McClung positioned himself and the company as “sophisticated” players with a cash reserve of nearly $100 million.

    Investors were told their funds were “guaranteed” against loss, the CFTC charged.

    Prospects were lured “with the prospect of quickly making large profits with returns such as 50 percent in thirty days or 15 percent per month for six months,” the CFTC charged.

    McClung “has never been registered” with the CFTC, the agency charged, adding the FMC also “has never been registered.”

    Read the Colorado charging document.

    Nebraska Case

    Grace Elizabeth Reisinger of Grand Island, Neb., and ROF Consulting LLC (ROF) have been charged civilly with operating a fraudulent commodity pool scheme known as NCCN LLC (NCCN), the CFTC said.

    The unregistered scheme gathered about $4 million and falsely claimed registration exemptions, the CFTC said.

    Read the Nebraska complaint.

  • UNCONFIRMED: Club Asteria Suspends Member Cashouts; If Ponzi Forum Reports On Payout Halt Are True, Then Decision Was Made Virtually 2 Years To The Day After AdViewGlobal Autosurf Collapsed

    A Virginia-based company that trades on the name of the World Bank and claims to help lift some of the poorest people on earth out of poverty by involving them in an income and MLM-like recruitment scheme has suspended member cashouts, according to posts on Ponzi scheme and criminals’ forums.

    If the news about Club Asteria is true — and the company is not confirming it on its news webpage — then the firm may be following the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf into the darkness virtually two years to the day after AVG suspended cashouts after collecting an unknown sum of money and declaring member payouts never were guaranteed.

    Club Asteria, according to chatter on infamous Ponzi forums such as MoneyMakerGroup, did not call its decision not to pay members a suspension. Rather, the firm described it as a “decision to accumulate revenue share disbursements for the next 30 to 60 days.”

    Members have claimed in promos for months that Club Asteria provided a “passive” investment opportunity and that earnings were guaranteed. The company itself has implied as much, according to promotional materials. Club Asteria is under investigation by Italian authorities, and confirmed in May that its PayPal account had been frozen.

    After the PayPal freeze, which involved an unspecified sum of money, Club Asteria slashed its weekly payout rate to less than 1 percent and urged members to use offshore payment processors.

    Like AVG, Club Asteria blamed negative developments on its own members. The firm does not publish verifiable financial data, and members say payments come via wire from an entity known as Asteria Holdings Limited in Hong Kong.

    Why a Virginia-based company would route money through an apparent Hong Kong-based subsidiary to both U.S.-based members and international members never has been clear. Some members have published spreadsheets and ads that state plainly or imply that Club Asteria members can count on earning $400 a week for a payment of $19.95 a month, with earnings projected at a rate of 10 percent a week.

    Other members have claimed Club Asteria pays 3 percent to 4 percent a week, numbers that project to a return of between 156 percent and 208 percent per year. References to a “passive” earnings opportunity with guaranteed payouts gave rise to questions about whether Club Asteria and its members were selling unregistered securities as investment contracts.

    Meanwhile, the presence of promotions and “I got paid” posts on infamous Ponzi forums led to questions about whether Club Asteria had come into possession of funds tainted by one or more Ponzi or fraud schemes.

    When AVG collapsed two years ago this week, the firm said it was retooling and would make an 80/20 program mandatory upon relaunch. Club Asteria, whose domain name appears to have been registered on June 25, 2009,  reportedly incorporated an 80/20 program into its business model upon its launch in 2010.

    Club Asteria’s domain, according to web records, was registered on the very same day news about the collapse of AVG surfaced. On June 30, 2009 — five days after its collapse — AVG’s name was referenced as an iteration of Florida-based AdSurfDaily in a racketeering lawsuit filed against ASD President Andy Bowdoin.

    Bowdoin was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities in December 2010. In August 2008, prior to the launches of both AVG and Club Asteria, tens of millions of dollars were seized from Bowdoin’s 10 personal bank accounts by the Secret Service.

    It is believed that ASD, AVG and Club Asteria had promoters and members in common.

    In the online Ponzi world, 80/20 programs are used to minimize cash outflow and disguise the nature of the programs. Club Asteria members preemptively have claimed the firm was not operating a Ponzi, a highly dubious claim given that the company does not publish audited financial information and that members — perhaps particularly members from Third World countries, countries ravaged by war or countries governed by dictators or strongmen — likely lacked the means or ability to visit Club Asteria’s U.S. headquarters to examine the books in person.