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Tag: ASD

  • DEVELOPING STORY: Message Board For Members Of ‘OneX’ Scheme Pushed By Accused Ponzi Schemer Andy Bowdoin Claims ‘Transfer Funds’ Option Disabled Because Members Are Using ‘Stolen Credit Cards,’ Source Says

    Andy Bowdoin

    A bulletin board accessible only through the back offices of members of the purported  “OneX” program includes a message that the program has disabled a “Transfer Funds” option because a “recent investigation” has determined that members “have been depositing funds from stolen credit cards and transferring this tainted money to hundreds of other members of the organization,” a source tells the PP Blog.

    The bulletin-board announcement was dated yesterday and attributed to “the administration.” No OneX owner or operator was identified in the announcement, but members of OneX were told there was no choice left “but to disable the ‘Transfer Funds’ option indefinitely,” according to information provided by the source.

    AdSurfDaily President and accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin emerged Monday as a OneX pitchman.

    There was no corresponding announcement on the site that OneX or its staff had alerted authorities that members were joining with stolen credit cards, the source said.

    Who conducted the “investigation” — the company or some other entity — was not made clear in the announcement.

    “The Company must take a hard stance against this type of financial fraud in the interest of those hardworking, honest members who are legitimately building their businesses and depend on the survival of this Company for all the great financial opportunities that it represents,” the post on the bulletin board claimed, according to the source.

    OneX is a purported 4×4 matrix linked to a purported 3×9 matrix known as QLxchange that purportedly operates from Panama through a server purportedly located on Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.

    In a webinar Monday, Bowdoin told ASD members that they could earn $99,000 “very quickly” through OneX, a program he intended to use to pay for his criminal defense.

    Bowdoin, who has participated in at least three webinars this week in which he sang the praises of the purported opportunity, was charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities last year.

    In 2009, an autosurf known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) reportedly disabled a button that permitted members to transfer money to other members. AVG, which had close ASD ties, purportedly was based in Uruguay.

    OneX purportedly has 750,000 members.

    On Monday, Bowdoin claimed God had led him to his strategy of using OneX to raise defense funds for his Ponzi battle against the government.

    “I believe that God has brought us OneX to provide the necessary funds to win this case,” Bowdoin said.

    A PP Blog reader (“Tony”) reported at 6:45 p.m. EDT today that a OneX/QLxchange-related “press release” dated Oct. 11 had appeared on PRLog, a news-release distribution site. The release, which also referenced cash-gifting and a “pay it forward” strategy, was attributed Bryce Jackson, a purported “Business Mentor” and “Success Coach.”

    “God truly wants you to be a blessing to other people during these bad economic times,” the release read in part.

    Links in the press release lead to sites where people who register reportedly are given information about OneX/XLxchange. One of the sites is called “godsmoneyfeeder”; another is called “whatablessing.”

    Bowdoin also is promoting a “pay it forward” theme for OneX, according to his webinar remarks.

    In essence, “pay it forward” — also known as PIF or “benefactoring” — is a practice by which money theoretically stays in constant motion and flows to schemes because sponsors pay fees for recruits and encourage recruits to to the same for their recruits.

  • UPDATE: AdSurfDaily’s Andy Bowdoin Has Participated In At Least 3 Webinars For ‘OneX’ This Week; Calls Murky Business A ‘Financial Bailout Program For The Average Person’; Accused Ponzi Schemer Implies ASD Was ‘Tremendous’ Success And That People Who Listen To Him Are In ‘Top 10 Percent’

    Andy Bowdoin

    UPDATE: Awaiting his Ponzi scheme trial on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities, AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin has participated this week in at least three webinars for a mysterious program known as “OneX.”

    OneX is a program pushed on Ponzi boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. It appears to be an MLM-style 4×4 matrix feeder program for a purported Panamanian entity known as QLxchange, which may be operating a gold- and silver-themed investment program and 3×9 matrix from Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.

    “Tonight we’ll be talking about a financial bailout program for the average person,” Bowdoin said last night, in preliminary remarks about OneX.

    In presentations that appear to have been heavily scripted, the accused Ponzi schemer sang the praises of OneX in at least two webinars Monday, touting it as a way for ASD members to make $99,000 “very quickly” by joining what effectively would be an ASD downline group in OneX through which incoming recruits could benefit through leverage delivered by Bowdoin and former members of the defunct autosurf.

    Bowdoin or his handlers, however, appear to have altered the script after a listener raised a concern in Monday’s first webinar that purported “leads” for incoming OneX recruits would come from ASD’s database and be awarded to new enrollees in violation of members’ ASD agreements.

    On Monday, Bowdoin said he intended to use proceeds that flowed from OneX to pay for his criminal defense. Last week, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer set the ASD patriarch’s trial date for Sept. 24, 2012.

    In yesterday’s webinar, Bowdoin told listeners who perhaps were members of OneX prior to the creation of an ASD downline group that they could create a second OneX account that would be placed in the ASD group. The accused Ponzi schemer suggested that it was possible to create even more OneX accounts.

    “You can create a new [OneX] account in your spouse’s name, family-member name or friends,” Bowdoin coached, noting that the accounts would require the use of different email addresses and usernames.

    “You can work both at the same time,” Bowdoin said.

    Earlier in the Thursday pitch, he offered his congratulations to webinar attendees who’d purportedly exercised the prudence to listen to him and become “more successful in life.”

    “This puts you in the top 10 percent, because most people never look outside the box to improve their financial situation,” he assured listeners.

    Bowdoin faces up to 125 years in federal prison if convicted of the Ponzi charges announced by federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia in December 2010. Bowdoin previously was implicated in an Alabama securities swindle, according to court records. One of his business partners was implicated in three prime-bank swindles.

    Despite the serious criminal charges against him and civil judgments totaling tens of millions of dollars against ASD-related assets, Bowdoin suggested yesterday that he and ASD had a “tremendous” success record for marketing on the Internet.

    In yesterday’s webinar, Bowdoin introduced Rayda Roundy, whom he identified Monday as a former ASD trainer.

    Roundy thanked Bowdoin for the introduction.

    “I appreciate being here with you,” Roundy said of Bowdoin.

    Whether OneX is thrilled to have Bowdoin, an accused Ponzi schemer who has been formally indicted for wire fraud and securities-related crimes, driving traffic to its scheme is unclear.

    See earlier story.

  • STATEMENT: PP Blog Experiencing Unusual Traffic Pattern During Anniversary Week Of Last Year’s Crippling Attack; Blog Confirms It Received A Claim Of Responsibility In April For Springtime Outage

    Part of today's unusual traffic pattern of multiple international IPs simultaneously pulling the same "old" story. (Also see screen shot below.)

    At approximately 2:06 p.m. EDT Monday, the PP Blog began to experience an unusual traffic pattern. In the past, such patterns have been the precursors of sustained electronic assaults against the Blog.

    The unusual pattern reoccurred yesterday, and the Blog contacted a federal law-enforcement agency.  The agency is aware of a server-killing assault on the Blog that began a year ago this week. It also is aware of subsequent attacks. The Blog believes that one or more criminals is responsible for the unusual traffic pattern, which mostly features multiple international IPs attempting to pull the same “old” stories simultaneously.

    Although Monday and Tuesday’s unusual traffic eventually dissipated, the pattern resumed today and caused the Blog’s server briefly to exceed its normal operating parameters. Not all of the unusual activity is captured in the screen shots published in this post.

    PP Blog Today Discloses Nature Of April Incident

    In April 2011, the Blog reported an unusual incident to the same federal law-enforcement agency referenced above.  The incident involved a claim of responsibility for a crippling springtime botnet flood against the Blog by a person who claimed to have carried out the attack on behalf of a specific, U.S.-based company with an international presence. The “opportunity” purportedly provided by the company was widely promoted on Ponzi scheme boards earlier this year, and the person also claimed to represent other companies. In making the claim of responsibility, the person described the Blog as “your little vicious blog.”

    The Blog provided the agency information about the April event, which the Blog viewed as a bid to chill its reporting. The implication of the April incident was that the attacks could continue at the will of a self-described “master of execution” for online investment schemes until such a time the Blog devoted between $60,000 and $72,000 a year to deflect the traffic.

    In the claim of responsibility, the self-described attacker used the phrase “TOP HYIPs” and the name of an HYIP purveyor.  He described himself in menacing language.

    Although the Blog is maintaining a full publishing schedule and its server has returned to normal operating parameters today, the signatures of certain “calls” to the Blog’s editorial well are troublesome and will be monitored closely in the coming hours and days.

     

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: American Red Cross Sends ‘Cease-And-Desist’ Letter To Asteria Foundation

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: The American Red Cross, which opened a probe last week into the potential misuse of its name and logo by the Asteria Philanthropic Foundation, has sent the foundation a letter to cease and desist.

    Anne Marie Borrego, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Washington, D.C., said this morning that the letter went out yesterday. The Asteria Philanthropic Foundation, also known as the Asteria Foundation, uses a Hong Kong street address and has issued at least one undated “press release” that uses a dateline of Reston, Va.

    The foundation is linked to Club Asteria, a purported earnings “program” that traded on the name of the World Bank and became a darling of the Ponzi boards earlier this year before suspending cashouts.

    The Red Cross logo and name appeared in Club Asteria’s October 2011 house organ, which the firm uses for recruiting. The Red Cross name and logo also appears on the Asteria foundation’s .org domain.

    Claims about Club Asteria caught the attention of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, in May. Officials in Virginia last week said that neither Club Asteria nor Asteria Corp. was registered to sell securities in the state. Asteria Corp. is Club Asteria’s apparent parent company.

    Virginia officials declined to say whether a state-level probe into the activities of Club Asteria was under way.

    A 2008 promo for AdSurfDaily features an image of Hank Needham, a purported Club Asteria principal. ASD later was implicated by the U.S. Secret Service in an alleged Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million.

    Club Asteria was widely promoted on Ponzi boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. Promoters later turned their attention to “programs” such as Centurion Wealth Circle and JustBeenPaid, which is trading on the names and images of Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, Benjamin Franklin and “Mr. Spock” of the Star Trek movie and televison series.

    Last month, Club Asteria removed an image of actor Will Smith from its house organ. This month, the company is trading on a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, the slain champion of freedom in India. A “JOIN OUR MISSION” button was placed inside a quote from Gandhi, whose name was misspelled in the publication.

    See earlier story.

  • DEVELOPING STORY: Awaiting Trial, Accused AdSurfDaily Schemer Andy Bowdoin Resurfaces As Pitchman For OneX, ‘Opportunity’ Flogged On Ponzi Forums; ‘I Believe That God Has Brought Us OneX To Provide The Necessary Funds To Win This Case,’ Indicted ASD Patriarch Claims; ‘This Program Can Provide You With Earnings Beyond Your Wildest Imagination . . .’

    AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin told members yesterday that they could "earn $99,000 very quickly" in a program known as OneX. The Florida-based ASD patriarch claimed to hope he could fund his defense to U.S. securities-related charges through OneX, which appears to be tied to a Panamanian firm that uses a domain name with a Montenegro extension and may operate from Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog may have more on this developing story in the coming days.

    In a bizarre development, accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily told webinar listeners yesterday that he intended to fund his criminal defense to charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities through a purported business opportunity known as OneX, the PP Blog has learned.

    OneX, which uses a domain extension assigned to the European country of Montenegro and a webserver apparently positioned in the Irish Sea nation of Isle of Man, is described in MLM-style web promos as a 4X4 matrix feeder program for a Panamanian investment firm and commodities enterprise known as QLxchange.

    Whether OneX or QLxchange have any securities or commodities registrations in the United States or other countries was not immediately clear.

    Serving as the webinar host, ASD figure Tari Steward, who is helping Bowdoin raise funds for Bowdoin’s criminal defense and is listed in Bowdoin court filings as a potential ASD witness, described OneX as a winner while introducing Bowdoin.

    OneX has “already proven to be hugely successful here in the U.S.A. and all around the world,” Steward said.

    Mixing commentary on his Ponzi case with his OneX sales pitch, Bowdoin, 76, managed to work in a dig against the federal judge presiding over the criminal case against him. Bowdoin also chided federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia.

    Saying he was pleased that his trial date had been set nearly a year from now in September 2012 and describing it as an act of divine providence made possible after prayerful introspection, Bowdoin suggested the judge and prosecutors were disappointed that Collyer’s busy scheduled did not permit an earlier trial date.

    Both “Judge Collyer and the prosecution was wanting the closest time possible because they didn’t want to give us much time to prepare,” Bowdoin claimed, shortly after greeting webinar listeners with a “Hi, Folks.”

    Isle of Man highlighted in red: Source: Wikipedia.

    And Bowdoin, who did not identify the operators of OneX or speak to whether the purported program was required to be registered to market securities and commodities to U.S. inhabitants, sang the praises of the firm.

    “This program can provide you with earnings beyond your wildest imagination . . .” he claimed.

    Bowdoin further ventured that OneX “will produce the legal fees we need and make each one of you a ton of money.”

    “Now, when you finish this webinar,” he continued, “you’ll be so excited that you won’t be able to stop thinking about it.”

    ASD members will “wake up in the morning thinking about [OneX],” Bowdoin claimed. “For the next three days, you’ll be thinking about it constantly.”

    At a May 2008 ASD “rally” in Las Vegas prior to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from his personal bank accounts, Bowdoin — describing himself as a Christian “money magnet” — urged members to imagine payments from ASD flowing to them “constantly.”

    Federal prosecutions referenced Bowdoin’s Las Vegas remarks in the Ponzi indictment announced against him in December 2010. He has been free awaiting trial since his arrest.

    Bowdoin went on to claim in yesterday’s OneX pitch that “you’ll soon see how you can earn $99,000 very quickly.”

    As part of his OneX pitch, Bowdoin described the firm as “one of the greatest financial vehicles on the Internet today” and asked a series of questions:

    • “Do you want to get out of debt?”
    • Do you need to catch up on some house payments?”
    • “Do you want to pay cash in the next 90 days for a new automobile . . .”

    Bowdoin’s pitch also mixed in quotations from scripture.

    Based on its research, the PP Blog is reporting today that members of the purported Club Asteria business opportunity and the purported JustBeenPaid opportunity also have promoted OneX. An image of Club Asteria principal Hank Needham appeared in an ad for ASD in 2008. Meanwhile, web records show that Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JustBeenPaid, also was an ASD pitchman.

    Among the Club Asteria pitchmen who turned their attentions to OneX are “strosdegoz.” Club Asteria-related claims came under fire from CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, in May.

    Also participating in Bowdoin’s webinar was Rayda Roundy, whom Bowdoin described as a former ASD “trainer.”

    Roundy told listeners that a “pay it forward” strategy with OneX will help participants make money and help Bowdoin raise defense funds.

    OneX participants could create their own “bailout” program, Roundy claimed.

    After Bowdoin took back the webinar helm from Roundy, the ASD patriarch reminded members to send questions about OneX to a Gmail email address.

    And then Bowdoin said this:

    “Now, from time to time, people ask me, ‘Andy, how do you remain so peaceful?’ My answer is God.”

    He went on to claim that God had led him to his strategy of using OneX to raise defense funds.

    “I believe that God has brought us OneX to provide the necessary funds to win this case,” Bowdoin said.

     

  • BULLETIN: Andy Bowdoin Trial Date Set For Late September Of 2012; Both Sides In Case Have Nearly A Year To Prepare Before Jury Will Hear Ponzi Testimony

    BULLETIN: The Ponzi scheme trial of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin is scheduled to begin on Sept. 24, 2012, 11 months from today, the PP Blog has learned.

    A status hearing on the case was held in the District of Columbia Friday. U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer presided.

    Bowdoin is charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. He was arrested in December 2010 and freed on bail.

    Collyer laid out the following schedule, the Blog has learned:

    Pretrial motions are due by Aug. 1, 2012. Responses are due two weeks later, on Aug. 15, 2012. A pretrial conference is scheduled a week after that, on Aug. 22, 2012. The actual trial is slated to begin a little more than a month later, on Sept. 24, 2012.

    How many days or weeks the trial is expected to last was not immediately clear. Bowdoin, 76, claimed in court filings to have more than 100 witnesses. How many witnesses he’ll actually call is unclear.

    Prosecutors have claimed to be in possession of hundreds of thousands of pages of evidentiary material.

    Depending on when the trial ends next year, Bowdoin may be 78 before he hears a jury verdict.

    In August 2008 — in the earliest days of the ASD case — some analysts predicted that the litigation could consume three or more years. The trial date, as it stands, reflects that the ASD-related litigation will have entered its fifth year when a jury is impaneled. The seizures of ASD-related assets began on Aug. 1, 2008, a date parts of the Northern Hemisphere were experiencing a total eclipse of the sun.

    By coincidence, the date for pretrial motions — Aug. 1, 2012 — is the fourth anniversary of the seizures. When that date passes, the litigation will enter its fifth year.

    Some ASD members claimed in August 2008 that ASD would be cleared and that matters would be settled by the Wednesday following the Friday seizures. Just days after the quick-settlement claims were made, Bowdoin described federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service as “Satan.”

    The ASD case has featured many bizarre claims.

  • UPDATE ON DECEMBER 2009 SPECIAL REPORT: 3 Figures In Philip R. Lochmiller Sr. Ponzi Case Will Go To Federal Prison; ‘Elderly Victims Were Financially Devastated,’ FBI Agent Says; Case Involving Recidivist Fraudster Drew Comparison To AdSurfDaily

    In a case that drew comparisons to AdSurfDaily because of recidivism, undisclosed bankruptcies and ties to Utah, the three principal figures of the Philip R. Lochmiller Sr. real-estate Ponzi scheme in Colorado will be going to federal prison.

    Lochmiller Sr., 63, was found guilty in July after a 10-day trial in which the jurors returned the verdicts in three hours. He will be sentenced after a final computation of losses is completed. The case involved a company known as Valley Mortgage Inc. The case involved about $30 million.

    Lochmiller Sr. was found guilty of conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, money laundering and mail fraud.

    His stepson, Philip R. Lochmiller Jr., 38 when charged, has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit securities and mail fraud and money laundering. Business associate Shawnee N. Carver, 33 when charged, has been sentenced to two years for conspiracy to commit securities and mail fraud.

    Prosecutors announced the sentences imposed on Lochmiller Jr. and Carver yesterday.

    “Philip Lochmiller Jr. helped orchestrate an investment scheme which defrauded over 400 victims out of more than $30 million,” said James Yacone, special agent in charge of the Denver FBI office. “Several elderly victims were financially devastated.  [The] sentencing sent a strong message that white collar criminals will not be tolerated.  The FBI will continue to aggressively investigate and seek prosecution against the groups and individuals who defraud unwitting victims out of their earnings.”

    Lochmiller Sr. was sentenced to three years in a California state prison in the 1980s after he was charged with 60 counts of securities fraud and pleaded guilty to about half of them. Investors in his new scheme at Valley Mortgage were not told of his history as a securities swindler, federal prosecutors in Colorado said.

    Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia said the same thing about ASD President Andy Bowdoin, who was charged with felonies in Alabama in a securities scheme in the 1990s.

    Meanwhile, Lochmiller Sr.’s investors also were not told that both Lochmiller Sr. and Jr. had bankruptcies on their records. Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia alleged in August 2008 that ASD members and members of a companion autosurf known as Golden Panda Ad Builder were not told about the bankruptcy of Golden Panda President Clarence Busby.

    Nor were they immediately told that Busby had a run-in with the SEC in the 1990s and was accused of purveying three prime-bank swindles, according to records.

    The Lochmiller case also has a tie to Vernal, Utah, a community to which ASD also has a tie. The Lochmiller case was in part about real estate in Vernal. Vernal is the community in which the so-called “Arby’s Indians” got their start.

    ASD mainstay Curtis Richmond was a member of the bogus “tribe” based in Vernal. The tribe, which used the address of a Vernal doughnut shop as the address of its purported “Supreme Court” and was ruled a “complete sham” by a federal judge, got its derisive name because it once held a meeting at an Arby’s restaurant in Provo.

    Richmond went on to become a pro se litigant in the ASD Ponzi case, accusing the judge overseeing the case in the District of Columbia of “TREASON” and operating a kangaroo court. Richmond claimed the judge overseeing an unrelated case in Utah owed him $30 million. Other ASD figures later claimed government officials owed them sums ranging from the millions of dollars to the trillions.

    Another parallel between the ASD case and the Lochmiller case is the presence of the IRS. ASD’s early deceptions were uncovered by a U.S. Secret Service/IRS Task Force operating in Florida, according to court filings.

    “Investment fraud is like a ‘house of cards’; the underlying structure can fall apart at any time leaving many investors in financial ruin,” said Sean Sowards, a top IRS agent working the Lochmiller case.

    Sowards is the special agent in charge of the IRS-Criminal Investigation unit in Denver.

    “These sentences should remind us that defrauding investors is a serious offense and those who do will be held accountable,” Sowards said.

    Both Lochmiller Jr. and Carver testified at the Lochmiller Sr. trial, prosecutors said.

     

     

  • INCREDIBLE: Month After Will Smith Debacle, Club Asteria Turns To Mahatma Gandhi To Drive Traffic — And Misspells Name Of Assassinated Champion Of Freedom While Turning Him Into A Pitchman; House Organ Also Includes Photo Of Richard Branson

    Last month, it was famed actor Will Smith. This month, it is Mahatma Gandhi, the civil-rights champion and beacon of freedom in India who was assassinated at a prayer meeting in 1948.

    After placing a “JOIN NOW” button under an image of Smith in its September house organ and later removing both the  image and a purported “interview” with Smith, Club Asteria has turned to Gandhi in its October issue.

    Although the promo features no image of Gandhi, it does include a quote attributed to him: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

    The promo misspells the slain leader’s last name, and a “JOIN OUR MISSION” button appears directly below the quotation, which appears on Page 37 of the October house organ.

    Club Asteria became a darling of the Ponzi boards earlier this year before slashing payouts and later eliminating them. Promos for the firm were banned in Italy, and Club Asteria acknowledged its PayPal account had been suspended.

    The developments were blamed on members.

    Club Asteria and thousands of its members have traded on the name of the World Bank. The firm announced a cash crisis in June, comparing the situation to a run on the bank.

    A spread on Pages 26 and 27 of the October Club Asteria house organ features a photo of famed entrepreneur Richard Branson posing with a group of mostly younger people. An accompanying story asserts that a group of Club Asteria members conversed with Branson at an entrepreneurial event in Richmond, Va., “a few weeks ago.”

    “Both Richard Branson and Club Asteria share a common link and that link is GRATITUDE,” the story claimed.

    The story appears to have been written by a Club Asteria staffer. A “JOIN NOW” button appears on Page 27, though not directly below the image of Branson.

    Ponzi forum boosters such as “Ken Russo” repeatedly sang the praises of Club Asteria.

    The PP Blog reported yesterday that a separate program promoted on the Ponzi boards — Just Been Paid — was using images of Oprah Winfrey to drive traffic. JustBeenPaid also is using images of Warren Buffett.

    In 2008, a “program” with the bizarre name of Cash Tanker used images of Jesus Christ in sales pitches. Cash Tanker ultimately tanked.

    Many of the “programs” on the Ponzi boards — Club Asteria, Just Been Paid and AdSurfDaily, for instance — have or had promoters and members in common. Promo posts for Cash Tanker appeared on the now-defunct, pro-ASD “Surf’s Up” forum, and Club Asteria executive Hank Needham has been linked to promo for ASD.

    The October 2011 Club Asteria house organ, which includes the Gandhi quote and attached  sign-up button and the image of Branson with a sign-up button on the same page, also features a photo of Needham. A button below the Needham photo reads, “ABOUT COURAGE.”

     

     

  • UPDATE: ‘JustBeenPaid’ Promos Trading On Name, Likeness Of Oprah Winfrey; ‘Click On The Oprah Banner Below,’ Ad Instructs

    Screen shot: Pitchmen now are trading on the name of Oprah Winfrey to hawk JustBeenPaid. The name and likeness of Warren Buffett also have been used in JustBeenPaid pitches, and Ponzi forum chatter also includes the name of Charlie Sheen.

    UPDATE: In addition to trading on the name of Warren Buffett, the JustBeenPaid “program” is trading on the name of entertainment icon and business titan Oprah Winfrey.

    Actor Charlie Sheen’s name also has been referenced in Ponzi forum chatter about JustBeenPaid, an “opportunity” whose braintrust once recruited members for Florida-based AdSurfDaily. ASD, according to the U.S. Secret Service, was operating a $110 million Ponzi scheme.

    YouTube recently has been deleting JustBeenPaid promos.

    JustBeenPaid became a darling of the Ponzi scheme boards earlier this year. The Winfrey development occurs against the backdrop on a September incident in which Club Asteria — another Ponzi board darling — published a likeness of actor Will Smith in a promo.

    Club Asteria later removed the image, which featured Smith’s likeness over a “JOIN NOW” button. It is common for schemes to plant the seed that a famous person or entity endorses a “program” — even when no such endorsement exists.

    Winfrey’s name and likeness repeatedly have been used by scammers to sanitize their fraud schemes, leading to litigation filed by Winfrey herself, the Federal Trade Commission and the attorney general of Illinois.

    “Click on the Oprah banner below,” a prompt for a current JustBeenPaid promo urges. A likeness of Winfrey appears below the prompt, which creates the appearance that she has endorsed the “program.”

    “The Profit Program for the Most Special Moneymakers!” the promo exclaims.

    When the image is clicked, a page for a JustBeenPaid affiliate loads.

    An appeal for visitors to join “OneX” appears on the same page that abuses Winfrey’s name and likeness. OneX and Club Asteria, which trades on the name of the World Bank, were among the “programs” pitched on the Ponzi boards by “manolo” earlier this year.

    In April, “manolo” used the name of JPMorgan Chase when pitching a “program” known as ThatFreeThing.

    In 2010, the DataNetworkAffiliates “program” linked to Phil Piccolo traded on the name of and likeness of Winfrey. Piccolo has been called the “one-man Internet crime wave.”

  • UPDATE: Andy Bowdoin’s Fundraising Site Still Down

    Andy Bowdoin

    The continuing outage of a fundraising site for accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily now has exceeded 80 hours — more than three full days. The site first was reported to be offline Thursday at 11:09 p.m. EDT.

    What caused the outage and why the site remains offline are unclear. Bowdoin, 76, had been using the site in a bid to gather $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    A post dated today and signed “Andy” on a companion Facebook site says this:

    “Hello ASD Members! Just a quick positive note. Our Website has been down for a few days due to some tech issues with our server, but it will be back up shortly. A “Good News Update” email will be sent with some very exciting news for all of you in the next couple of days. Andy”

    Bowdoin’s fundraising campaign had lasted more than two months prior to the disappearance of the site, but had fallen 95 percent of the mark, according to the most recent claims.

  • Andy Bowdoin’s Fundraising Website Offline; Reason Why Unclear

    Andy Bowdoin

    A website through which accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily hoped to raise $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense has been offline for at least 11 hours. The reason why is unclear.

    The site — known as Andy’s Fundraising Army — launched on July 26 after weeks of prelaunch hype and after having missed at least two advertised launch dates. The site’s URL now resolves to a page that beams advertisements.

    Bowdoin’s used the website and emails to paint himself the Christian commander of an “Army” that was “fighting mad.” The site used images of David and Goliath and accused the government of “wrong doing” and “suppression.”

    In 2008, Bowdoin referred to the Secret Service and federal prosecutors as “Satan,” and compared the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from his 10 bank accounts to the 9/11 terrorists attacks. In a video released July 26, he claimed he was “crucified” and “heavily ridiculed” by two U.S. Attorneys and three Secret Service agents.

    Bowdoin’s PR strategy of demonizing the government for seizing the money in August 2008 appears to have backfired. As of last week — after more than two months of fundraising — Bowdoin reportedly was 95 percent short of his $500,000 goal.

    Three weeks ago, the government returned $55 million seized in the case to members.