URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: The price of Brett Blackman’s serial scamming finally has been determined: $54.2 million.
Blackman, the president of an autosurf known as “Noobing” that targeted people with hearing impairments, has been subjected to a personal judgment of $27 million and banned from marketing money-making “opportunities,” the FTC said.
Blackman also has been kicked out of the telemarketing business, the agency said.
Noobing was among a group of companies that operated under the banner of Affiliate Strategies Inc. (ASI), which the FTC and the attorneys general of three states sued in 2009 in an alleged scam that offered “guaranteed” government grants of $25,000.
ASI has been subjected to a judgment of $27.2 million. It also has been banned from offering money-making “opportunities” and telemarketing, the FTC said.
Although Noobing was not named in the complaint, the surf collapsed from the strain and got dragged into the ASI mess. Larry Cook, a court-appointed receiver, said in 2009 that Noobing was upside down to the tune of $550,000 when the FTC brought the fraud action against ASI and other defendants.
Noobing became popular after the seizure of tens of millions of dollars in the AdSurfDaily autosurf case in 2008. ASD members helped popularize the purported “opportunity.” During Cook’s ASI investigation, he determined that U.S.-based Noobing also had an offshore arm on the Caribbean island of Nevis.
A federal judge ordered all offshore cash repatriated.
The ASD and ASI cases have strange parallels. Both firms displayed a zeal for religion that incongruously clashed with romantic thoughts about offshore autosurf profits, as though involving people of faith in fraud schemes somehow was consistent with Biblical principles and offshore insolvency somehow was less problematic than insolvency in Florida or Kansas.
Meanwhile, both firms had acquired jet skis, according to court records. Both firms later lost their water toys through forfeiture or seizure.
Both Noobing and ASD positioned themselves as victims of an out-of-control government. After shills helped Noobing gain a head of steam on the Ponzi scheme forums — as though the ASD seizure never had occurred — enthusiasts proceeded to engage in spectacular fantasies of building wealth by viewing ads in Noobing’s rotator.
Those fantasies collapsed when Noobing suddenly slashed payouts, bizarrely citing a purported unclear ruling in the ASD case months after a federal judge said ASD had not demonstrated at an evidentiary hearing that it was not operating as a Ponzi scheme. Noobing’s former wink-nod cheerleaders then advanced a scheme by which they’d file for credit-card chargebacks amid claims Noobing did not perform as advertised.
Noobing, though, turned the tables by denying refunds and claiming surfing rebates never were guaranteed — a strategy ASD itself allegedly had employed to insulate itself from prosecution for selling unregistered securities. Former Noobing cheerleaders became livid, creating a Ponzi forum PR disaster for the firm.
Former Noobing cheerleaders wanted their money — and they wanted it right now.
Noobing’s turning of the tables, however, did not last long. Within months the FTC brought the fraudulent grants case — and what remained of the wreckage of Noobing was consumed in a sea of litigation that had grown to include a fourth state attorney general joining the case against ASI and the other defendants.
Blackman is unable to pay the $27 million judgment, the FTC said, adding that ASI is unable to pay its $27.2 million judgment.
In the end, not even Noobing’s offshore plan, Ponzi forum presence and autosurf cash cow were enough to prevent the collapse of the ASI marketing machine because the surf itself was insolvent and the companies were recycling money back and forth.
“The Receiver’s work over the past three weeks suggests the Defendants’ operations were insolvent on the date [July 24, 2009] the [Temporary Restraining Order] was entered and that for at least all of 2009, Defendants operated only by signing up new victims faster than the old victims could obtain refunds,” Cook said in a devastating preliminary report in August 2009.
He once had command of legions — and AdSurfDaily members lined by the hundreds and waited in line for hours to pay Andy Bowdoin to give them a chance to “build wealth.” At its peak in the summer of 2008, ASD reportedly was posting tens of millions of dollars a week in revenue.
UPDATED 9:45 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) AlertPay, a Canadian payment processor referenced frequently on Ponzi boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup, announced on its Blog that it was subjected to a “large” DDoS attack last week that affected customers’ ability to access the site.
Thomas A. “Andy” Bowdoin, the accused Florida Ponzi schemer whose firm has ties to “sovereign citizens,” now says his fundraising “Army” is “Fighting Mad and growing fast!”
Despite efforts by serial cash-gifting, cycler, HYIP and autosurf pitchman “Ken Russo” to prevent the TalkGold Ponzi forum from moving the 16-month-old Club Asteria thread to the scam folder, TalkGold did exactly that today.
EDITOR’S NOTE: So-called “sovereign citizens” have made news in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case and in other court actions across America. One of the hallmarks of sovereign citizens is the pro-se pleading, including pleadings in which the filers do not use their full given names. (Think “Kenneth Wayne” in the ASD case, as opposed to “Kenneth Wayne Leaming” or “Kenneth W. Leaming.”)
