PatrickPretty.com

Tag: ASD

  • Plaintiffs Say BOA Dismissal Motion Should Be Denied, Ask Court To Note 80/20 Plan And SolidTrustPay Activity, Cite ASD Payoff Of Mortgage Held By AdViewGlobal Owners

    Andy Bowdoin
    Andy Bowdoin

    A federal judge should deny Bank of America’s motion to be dismissed as a defendant in a case that alleges it aided and abetted racketeers operating a massive Ponzi scheme from a former floral shop in Quincy, Fla., the plaintiffs argued yesterday.

    Bank of America is not named a RICO defendant in the case, which was filed by three members of AdSurfDaily. The plaintiffs seek class-action status and treble damages.

    The bank said in court filings that it has done nothing wrong, and argued that the plaintiffs had made vague assertions and not stated a proper claim.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs disagreed, filing a lengthy response to the bank’s dismissal motion — a response that cites suspicious wire transactions ASD routed through SolidTrustPay, a payment processor based in Canada.

    Meanwhile, the plaintiffs said the bank ignored ASD President Andy Bowdoin’s felony criminal record, his ties to a previous securities scheme and his history of operating multiple failed businesses. The plaintiffs made a veiled reference to ASD’s efforts to promote an 80/20 program — something that is occurring now in the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf, which has close ASD ties.

    At the same time, the plaintiffs referenced a December forfeiture complaint in which federal prosecutors alleged that ASD money was used to retire the home mortgage of George and Judy Harris. George Harris is the stepson of Andy Bowdoin and the son of Edna Faye Bowdoin, Andy Bowdoin’s wife. Judy Harris is the wife of George Harris.

    AVG, which previously had disclaimed any affiliation with ASD, now says it is owned by George and Judy Harris. Andy Bowdoin identified George Harris last summer as the head of ASD’s “real estate division.”

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs also referenced Andy Bowdoin’s own acknowledgments that ASD was operating illegally.

    “ASD was the brainchild of Thomas Bowdoin, a convicted felon with a history of securities fraud violations and failed business ventures,” the plaintiffs said. “Bowdoin admits that ASD operated [as] a Ponzi scheme.

    “ASD sold no products or services, held no intellectual property rights, and had no successful business professionals in management or on its Board,” the plaintiffs continued. “ASD had no colorable legitimate means to generate the massive profits (365% per year) Bowdoin and his co-conspirators promised investors nor the tens of millions of dollars a month flooding its tiny office — a former floral shop — in the small town of Quincy, Florida.”

    The bank missed key markers of a scam, the plaintiffs alleged.

    “Indeed, when Bowdoin began his relationship with Bank of America, the illegal ‘AutoSurf’ schemes which ASD emulated were well known among banks, regulators and law enforcement authorities,” the plaintiffs said.

    “It is no wonder that the two local banks in Quincy refused to even open an account for Bowdoin and ASD. Bank of America, on the other hand, welcomed Bowdoin with open arms, allowing him to open not one but ultimately 10 separate d/b/a accounts. In one month alone, $90 million dollars in cash, cashiers checks and Visa credit card charges were deposited in these accounts. Bank of America made it possible for victims throughout the country to deposit funds with the Ponzi scheme by simply completing a deposit slip and adding the ASD account number. Many of the deposit slips were even pre-printed with ASD’s account information.

    “Bank of America also enabled unsuspecting victims to wire transfer contributions to ASD from anywhere in the world,” the plaintiffs said. “Bank of America willingly allowed ASD to falsely legitimize its operations using the Bank’s good name. Bank of America never once questioned or asked ASD to remove its name from its website or written materials that prominently featured Bank of America.”

    Reference To Harris Mortgage

    On Page 15 of their answer to the bank’s dismissal motion, the plaintiffs referenced the government’s assertion that ASD money was used to pay off the home mortgage of George and Judy Harris and in other unusual ways.

    “By virtue of its active involvement in ASD’s business affairs, Bank of America was aware that funds flowed from the RICO Defendants’ accounts in a manner inconsistent with a legitimate business,” the plaintiffs asserted. “Bowdoin, in particular, used ASD business accounts at Bank of America with impunity to purchase personal luxury items, to pay off mortgages for family members, to buy property, and to otherwise dissipate business funds.”

    The plaintiffs then referenced what they described as red-flag-waving transactions ASD routed to Solid Trust Pay, a payment processor based in Canada.

    “ASD’s transfers of funds from Bank of America accounts also provided Bank of America with information about the suspicious nature of ASD’s operations,” the plaintiffs said.

    “In a two-week period, the RICO Defendants wired several million dollars from their Bank of America accounts to an internet-operated, Canada-based money transmitting and payment company. Such a transaction is not consistent with a legitimate business enterprise.

    “The RICO Defendants additionally used funds from the Bank of America accounts of one scheme, ASD, to seed the Bank of America accounts of another scheme operated by the RICO Defendants, Golden Panda. These transactions, too, were consistent with a fraudulent scheme, and inconsistent with legitimate business activity.”

    On Page 25 of their answer to Bank of America, the plaintiffs referenced ASD’s efforts to get members to participate in an 80/20 program. Such programs are designed to stem the outflow of cash from an autosurf.

    “The RICO Defendants counseled members on reinvesting rebates and commissions under the auspices of trying to help members maximize their financial gains,” the plaintiffs said.

    AVG, which announced that it was suspending payouts to members, advised members that participation in an 80/20 program would be mandatory should the surf resume payouts on a date uncertain.

    AVG’s name was mentioned in a previous filing by the plaintiffs, although the surf firm has not been named a RICO defendant.

    Andy Bowdoin, a RICO defendant along with ASD attorney Robert Garner, has not responded to the complaint, which was filed in January and amended in April. Garner answered the complaint, saying U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia did not have jurisdiction over him.

    Read the plaintiffs’ answer to BOA.

  • Plaintiffs: North Carolina Attorney Robert Garner Was ‘One Of The Architects’ Of AdSurfDaily Ponzi Scheme

    Robert GarnerAdSurfDaily attorney Robert Garner “was one of the architects of the ASD Ponzi scheme,” plaintiffs suing Garner for racketeering said yesterday.

    Garner was “a director of ASD and outside counsel for ASD,” the plaintiffs said. “He appeared on various Internet videos where he attested to the bona fides of the ASD, among other numerous false statements, in an effort to fabricate a veil of legitimacy for ASD.”

    In addition, the plaintiffs alleged, Garner “not only was involved in the development of the ASD program, serving as a director of AdSurfDaily, Inc., but he also held himself out in a position of trust, confidence and superior knowledge by issuing a statement regarding ASD’s legality.”

    Garner is representing himself in court. The plaintiffs’ claims came in response to a motion by Garner to be dismissed as a RICO defendant because U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had no jurisdiction over him.

    “Not so,” the plaintiffs said. “[O]ne of the named Plaintiffs ensnared in the ASD scheme, Frank Greene, is a resident of the District of Columbia.”

    And, they added, “[O]ne of the special agents who investigated the related forfeiture proceedings opened an ‘upgraded member’ account with ASD from a location in the District of Columbia via the Internet, and made a direct deposit into ASD’s account with defendant Bank of America by delivering a check to the Bank of America branch at 700 13th Street, NW, Washington, DC.”

    Garner, the plaintiffs said, was “identified in ASD materials as outside counsel, and he is a
    director of AdsurfDaily, Inc., and a manager of T. Andy Bowdoin, LLC.”

    Claim: ASD Rose From The Ashes Of 12DailyPro, PhoenixSurf

    “Mr. Garner was present at the creation of the ASD Ponzi scheme,” the plaintiffs alleged. “The concept for ASD was borne out of the collapse in early- to mid-2006 of two other confirmed Ponzi schemes – 12Daily Pro and Phoenix Surf – which were targets of investigations and subsequent litigation by the Securities [and] Exchange Commission.

    Garner and Bowdoin were aided in their racketeering scheme by “other co-conspirators,” the plaintiffs said. They are seeking treble damages in the case.

    The RICO defendants and co-conspirators “sought to improve upon the core Ponzi business model with the goal of developing the largest Internet auto-surf program in operation,” the plaintiffs said.

    Wordplay was part of the conspiracy, the plaintiffs said.

    “In customizing their Ponzi scheme, the RICO Defendants coined new (or slightly revised) terms for old concepts and made a few adjustments to the model and its operation not in an effort to create a legal business, but rather to ‘fix’ areas that contributed to the collapse of the prior schemes and to shield the Ponzi scheme from increased scrutiny by regulators or law enforcement personnel.”

    The plaintiffs also said Bowdoin, Garner and co-conspirators banned the use of certain words in a bid to stay under the radar.

    They “implemented some adjustments to the program such as forbidding the use of the term ‘investment’ in connection with the sale of ad packages to ASD members and instituting an open-ended time period for earning the ‘promised’ maximum rebate on purchased ad packages.”

    Using video was a key part of the plan, the plaintiffs alleged.

    “One of the key innovations that Bowdoin and Garner contributed in an effort to improve
    the core Ponzi business model was to create a cloak of legitimacy about it, through video
    presentations posted on the Internet promoting ASD,” the plaintiffs said.

    Among false claims that appeared online about ASD, the plaintiffs said, were claims that “ASD would sign up over one hundred Fortune 500 companies; that ASD has a contract for the placement of three advertisements on its homepage that would generate at least $13 million per year; that ASD’s rebate program is a ‘loss leader’ that enables ASD to grow its member participation and pay members’ rebates with revenue from large commercial advertisers,” the plaintiffs said.

  • Two More Attorneys Added In RICO Lawsuit Against Andy Bowdoin; Move Comes On Heels Of AdViewGlobal Mention

    Plaintiffs suing AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin for racketeering added two more attorneys to their roster this morning and have added a total of four since June 24. The plaintiffs now have attorneys in Washington, D.C., Phoenix, San Francisco and Mill Valley, Calif., on their side, perhaps with more formal notices of appearance to follow.

    Today’s move followed on the heels of a filing last week that cited the name of the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf, describing it as the next iteration of AdSurfDaily and naming executives and employees the two surfs have in common.

    AVG has not been named a RICO defendant. It is unclear if the plaintiffs plan to add the surf’s name, but they have used AVG to illustrate an alleged pattern of racketeering. The plaintiffs seek class-action certification and treble damages in the ASD complaint.

    AVG has identified George and Judy Harris as its owners. George Harris is the stepson of ASD President Andy Bowdoin and the son of Bowdoin’s wife, Edna Faye Bowdoin. Judy Harris is the wife of George Harris.

    ASD attorney Robert Garner also is named a RICO defendant in the lawsuit. Bank of America is alleged to have aided and abetted a fraudulent scheme, but is not a RICO defendant.

    In recent days, AVG has closed its forum — a move made after the company said members were confusing other members. An AVG forum established by some Mods and members of the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum also has been closed, and Surf’s Up recently has deleted posts and content concerning AVG.

    As many as 30 ASD members are believed to be founders of AVG, which says it is a “private association” based in Uruguay.

    AVG recently has threatened to sue its members for sharing information outside the confines of the AVG “private association,” and also has threatened to sue media outlets that publish information its members share.

    Yesterday AVG implied in an announcement that it also might sue a subcontractor for not carrying out its contractual duties. Donna Rougeau, the subcontractor with Syndicate Digital of Canada, advised AVG members last week that she was leaving the firm.

  • Is Anybody Home At AdViewGlobal?

    We are beginning to receive reports that AdViewGlobal (AVG) has not posted daily paper profits since July 3 for members who surfed.

    Some AVG members seem not to know whether they even are supposed to surf. The external shell of the site loaded quickly today, which may indicate a lighter server load because fewer people are surfing.

    “Support tickets are not being answered,” one member said.

    The member said that AVG awarded her a paper profit of a penny for surfing a few days ago and a total of 35 cents over a two-week period. For its part, AVG said last week that it expected to become a Fortune 500 company.

    “[W]e have received nothing in monetary, or any other, terms since July 3, 2009,” the member said, adding that there was “a growing anxiety and frustration with the new leadership: George and Judi Harris.”

    George Harris is the stepson of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin. Judy Harris is the wife of George Harris. The Harrises are named in a federal forfeiture complaint filed in December as the beneficiaries of illegal conduct by ASD.

    Only recently has AVG disclosed that George and Judy Harris owned the firm, which purports to be a professional advertising and communications company based in Uruguay.

    AVG issued a news release last month with a dateline of Tallahassee, Fla. A home owned by the Harrises in Tallahassee was seized in the December forfeiture complaint. Prosecutors said George Harris, whom ASD President Andy Bowdoin identified last year as the head of ASD’s real-estate division, used $157,000 in illegal ASD proceeds to pay off the mortgage on the home.

    In other news, eWalletPlus, a money-services firm associated with AVG, is back online — though apparently not fully functional. The site had disappeared last week, but then came back online. It did not fully load at a point over the weekend, but appears to be loading now. New registrations, however, are marked disabled.

    eWalletPlus is listed as being owned by TMS Association. TMS Association is listed in Arizona records as a business that conducts merchant services. Like AVG, the servers for eWalletPlus resolve to Panama.

  • What Happened To ASD’s Money In Canada?

    UPDATED 12:42 P.M. EDT U.S.A (SEE BOTTOM OF POST FOR STATEMENT FROM SOLID TRUST PAY)

    Over the weekend, some AdSurfDaily members reported they had received what amounts to partial refunds for money they spent in ASD. The members said they received the payment notifications in an email marked as a “final” refund through SolidTrustPay, a payment processor based in Canada.

    The email did not disclose the authority by which STP was sending the refunds. It was not immediately clear if recipients were charged a fee for accepting the refund, and no accounting was provided.

    Recipients, for example, were not told the size of the STP refund pool. One recipient, however, said he was told that the refund consisted of a pro rata share of the money ASD had on deposit in STP and that ASD had removed 63 percent of the money it once had on deposit on a date or dates uncertain.

    If that is true, what happened to the 63 percent ASD removed? And when did ASD remove the money and who benefited from the removal?

    ASD suspended operations Aug. 1, 2008, the date it was notified that its U.S. bank accounts were being seized. The U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors said in court documents that ASD had moved “several million” dollars into STP about two weeks prior to the seizure.

    “Several million” implies at least $3 million. If that is the case — and if ASD removed 63 percent of the money in STP prior to STP freezing its account — then $1.89 million may be unaccounted for. If “several million” means $5 million, then $3.15 million may be unaccounted for. At a minimum, there has been no public accounting of the money by ASD.

    What happened to that money?

    It is not known if ASD had more than one STP account or if ASD executives and insiders used their personal STP accounts to store ASD money. It is possible that ASD, for example, had “unofficial” accounts — accounts that did not bear the names of ASD or ASD President Andy Bowdoin, but accounts into which ASD could funnel money with no transparent tie to the firm.

    Here is what prosecutors said last August:

    “Within the past two weeks, ASD has wired several million dollars to Solid Trust Pay from its BOA Accounts. A TFA also learned that earlier in July 2008, a bank other than BOA closed the last account that was controlled by Bowdoin or family members after that bank determined, and explained to them, that an investigation by the bank determined that Bowdoin appeared to be operating a Ponzi scheme. Bowdoin indicated that he purchased, or was seeking to purchase, a home in another country.”

    Complicating matters is that ASD argued in court last year for emergency release of $2 million held by the U.S. government with court oversight, saying it needed the money to operate. Prosecutors pointed out that ASD had at least $1 million on deposit in Antigua, saying the firm’s “emergency” pleading was overblown.

    ASD eventually acknowledged the Antigua money, saying it would repatriate it to the United States, along with an unspecified amount “currently being held with Solid Trust Pay in Canada,” as part of an oversight plan. On Sept. 16, ASD told U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer that Andy Bowdoin would step down from ASD, if necessary, as part of an oversight plan tied to the emergency petition for the release of money held by the government.

    “Unless otherwise agreed to by the Monitor, Andy Bowdoin will not be an employee, officer or director of the Company,” ASD said in September. “He will act as a consultant to the Company on terms acceptable to the Monitor and will agree to follow the Code of Conduct developed as part of the Future Business Operations Plan.”

    About two weeks later — on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 — Collyer held an evidentiary hearing at ASD’s request to consider the oversight plan and the release of government-held funds with oversight. On Nov. 19, Collyer ruled that ASD had not demonstrated it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme, and denied the request to release the money and to implement an oversight plan.

    It does not appear as if any ASD money in Antigua or Canada was repatriated. If 63 percent of the money ASD had in STP was removed on dates uncertain and no longer is available to become part of a restitution pool envisioned by the government, it leads to troubling questions about what happened to the money.

    AdViewGlobal (AVG), a surf firm with close family, management and promotional ties to ASD, began a prelaunch phase in December, less than a month after Collyer’s ruling. ASD gave its official endorsement to the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum, and some of the Surf’s Up forum Mods and members went on to start a forum for AVG. That forum now has gone dark, as has a company-run AVG forum. AVG also uses STP.

    AVG formally launched in February, and now has suspended cash-outs, made an 80/20 program mandatory if cash-outs resume, and exercised its version of a “rebates aren’t guaranteed” clause that permits it to keep all the money it collects from customers.

    Prosecutors revealed in April that Andy Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter in the ASD case, an act that may signal he was willing to help the government untangle the ASD mess. In January, Bowdoin submitted to the forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars seized in August.

    In February, though, Bowdoin changed his mind about submitting to the forfeiture, firing his attorneys without notifying them and proceeding as a pro se litigant to repopen his claim to the seized proceeds. At the same time, AVG transitioned into a “private association” that says it is based in Uruguay.

    Read ASD’s September oversight plan that mentions money in Antigua and money held in SolidTrustPay.

    Read the December forfeiture complaint that identifies George and Judy Harris — now identified as the owners of AVG — as beneficiaries of ASD’s illegal conduct.

    Statement From Solid Trust Pay

    SolidTrust Pay would like to make an official statement on the recent refunds received.

    COMMENT: Vice President of SolidTrust, Stella Hiemstra, is responsible issuing any refunds from dormant merchant accounts. The funds did NOT come from Oceanna Music Publishing (a company also owned/operated by Ms. Hiemstra). The “oceannamusic” email was simply the email attached to the account, and Ms. Hiemstra uses that address in order to keep notifications emanating from it separate from other solidtrustpay based emails. The username and registered account was SolidTrust Group – the main merchant account of STPay. There was no hack, no scam, no conspiracy, no other company, no funneling of funds, no haircuts…it was just a plain refund process.

    COMMENT: The ASD account in SolidTrust has now been dormant for over 6 months. It has actually been dormant for 11 months and, as is our policy, dormant merchant accounts with remaining funds are refunded back to the original senders of the funds. SolidTrust has never been contacted by any legitimate US or Canadian authority regarding the ASD situation. The funds in SolidTrust were never considered part of the total liability, and there was a relatively small balance remaining in the ASD account.

    COMMENT – 2 million dollars was wired into SolidTrust early last summer, and these funds were immediately used for payments to ASD members who were SolidTrust Pay clients. This is perfectly normal activity for merchants who pay commissions/bonuses to their clients. They obviously have to fund their accounts at periodic intervals in order to honour their commitments.

    COMMENT: due to the length of time and dormant state of the account, SolidTrust was acting on its own policies to return funds to clients. There was no interaction in these refunds by any ASD individual or Andy Bowdoin. SolidTrust has done many such refunds in the past. SolidTrust has developed its own software that calculates the value of funds sent, deducts any transfers received, and creates a resulting refund amount.

    COMMENT: the wording on the refund was “final refund for AdsSurf Daily from STPay” which is exactly what it was – a final refund for that program, and coming from STPay.

    CONCLUSION: SolidTrust prides itself on vigilantly monitoring all account activity and acting on its own policies fairly and equitably for all. It is shocked at the above comments, statements and accusations. There was not one single phone call or support ticket asking the questions posted in this blog, and the blog owner has not contacted us to find out the real, very simple, answers.

    In light of this situation, SolidTrust may have to rethink its refund policy if any attempt by STPay to return funds to legitimate users is going to be construed as a suspicious act of some kind. We welcome our members comments on our refund policies – you can submit your opinions to: priority@solidtrustpay.com

  • AdViewGlobal Withdraws Announcement Of New Payment Plan; Initial Announcement Baffled Members

    UPDATED 9:47 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) AdViewGlobal has disabled its forum. The move followed on the heels of complaints from members that the surf company was confusing them when trying to explain its new pay-out program. The payout program was introduced with great fanfare today, and included a prediction that AVG would become a Fortune 500 company.

    The surf blamed the decision to disable the forum on members, saying confused members were posting information that confused other members. AVG has a history of blaming problems on members, saying in March that its bank account had been suspended because too many members wired transactions in excess of $9,500.

    The forum suspension announcement was signed “George and Judi Harris,” and identified them as the “Owners.” A separate AVG forum operated by Mods and members of the Pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum went dark a few days ago. AVG said it would inform members through “breaking news,” apparently in their back offices.

    Here, our earlier post . . .

    AdViewGlobal (AVG), which purports to be a professional advertising and communications company based in Uruguay, has withdrawn an announcement of its new pay-out plan, members said.

    AVG members reported confusion over the initial plan, which suggested members could earn back their entire advertising spend and a profit of 25 percent during an unspecified time period.

    Some members questioned whether they would have to view advertisements for eternity to record a profit. Others said they expected profitability to return quickly after AVG emerged from a dark period in which it announced the suspensions of cash-outs for at least 30 days and the implementation of a mandatory 80/20 program.

    Many members joined AVG expecting to earn back their initial spend, plus full profit, in 150 days. AVG later moved the redemption date to 180 days, and then 210 days, according to its website.  The date for full redemptions now appears to be up in the air, members said.

    Some members raised concerns that they would not receive credit for matching bonuses AVG advertised.

    For weeks, AVG advertised bonuses of 200 percent, for both prospects and sponsors. To celebrate the launch of a new website last month, AVG advertised a 250 percent match for prospects.

    The initial payment plan AVG announced appeared to reflect only cash purchases and did not seem to address matching bonuses, members said. In March, one AVG promoter told prospects that $5,000 turned into $15,000 “instantly.”

    Some AVG members complained about smug responses from AVG after they made simple inquiries about the payment plan and matching bonuses.

    Members said AVG appeared to have an unfathomable number of page impressions on its books, owing to the 200-percent promotions and the presence of a member-to-member cash button than enabled participants to “stack” earnings within individual downline groups.

    Some AVG members held more than 1 million page impressions, members said.

    In other news, AVG members said the company announced that its program was “100% Legal.” The announcement came on the heels of a court filing yesterday in a RICO case that mentioned AVG’s name as a new iteration of AdSurfDaily and other autosurf programs.

    ASD and AVG have close ties. Tens of millions of dollars were seized from ASD last year as part of a wire-fraud, money-laundering, securities and Ponzi scheme investigation.

  • BREAKING NEWS: AdViewGlobal Cited As Extension Of AdSurfDaily In RICO Complaint Against Andy Bowdoin

    UPDATED 1:26 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) AdViewGlobal has been cited in a racketeering lawsuit against AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin as an extension of ASD.

    In a motion filed this morning, the plaintiffs pointed out that a bank had closed a Bowdoin account while he was running ASD, after suspicious banking activity triggered Ponzi concerns. The plaintiffs then said suspicious banking acvivity also occurred with AdViewGlobal.

    “Likewise, a bank recently suspended or closed the accounts of Adview Global due to excessive wire transactions exceeding $9500,” the plaintiffs said.

    “AVG is the next iteration of the Ponzi scheme auto-surf programs, which [are] staffed with former ASD executives and Bowdoin disciples, including George Harris, the stepson of Bowdoin, who is listed as an AVG trustee, Gary Talbert, former ASD executive served as CEO of AVG and now serves as an accountant, Nate Boyd, a former compliance officer at ASD, serves as “Protector” of the AVG association, and Chuck Osmin, a former ASD employee who testified on ASD’s behalf at the evidentiary hearing before this Court last fall is a customer service representative of AVG.”

    It was not immediately clear if the plaintiffs in the RICO case — all of whom are members of ASD — intended to file an amended complaint that would specifically name AVG a RICO defendant.

    The original RICO lawsuit was filed in January against Bowdoin, ASD attorney Robert Garner and Golden Panda Ad Builder President Clarence Busby. The lawsuit was amended in April. Bowdoin has not responded to the complaint. The plaintiffs dismissed Busby as a defendant earlier this month.

    Among other things, the motion filed by the plaintiffs this morning also claims millions of dollars under Bowdoin’s control held offshore have never been repatriated. The motion includes a link to the PatrickPretty.com Blog, noting its reporting on ties between ASD and AVG.

    At the same time, today’s motion by the plaintiffs asks U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer to deny a motion to stay the lawsuit until the government’s lawsuits against assets tied to ASD are litigated.

    Bank of America was accused in the lawsuit of aiding and abetting Bowdoin and ASD. The bank is not named a RICO defendant and says it has done nothing wrong.

    The plaintiffs disagree.

    “For well over two years Bank of America embraced and never said no to the RICO Defendants who operated this nationwide scheme from a former floral shop in tiny Quincy, Florida,” the plaintiffs said. “ASD’s legitimacy and business model were never questioned despite being borne out of the demise of “12Daily Pro and Phoenix Surf” which were nothing more than naked Ponzi schemes investigated and eventually prosecuted by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2006.”

    Among other things, Bank of America argued that the plaintiffs already have a compensation remedy because the government has seized approximately $80 million in the ASD case.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs, however, argued that the remedy is insufficient because ASD victims cannot be fully compensated if the government establishes a restitution program and that the plaintiffs are seeking treble damages under U.S. law.

    “Without Bank of America, [ASD] could have only existed in the dark alleys of the financial world where they would need to rely on off-shore accounts and questionable deposit facilities. There this scheme would have been far less likely to [metastasize] and wreak the havoc it did on so many people. Thus the stay requested by Defendant should be rejected.”

    Read the plaintiff’s motion.

  • Questions AdViewGlobal Members Might Want To Ask The ‘Management Team’ As Surf Sinks Into Cash-Out Abyss

    AdViewGlobal (AVG) has announced the suspension of cash-outs and a decision to make an 80/20 program mandatory. AVG members should ask the “management team” if there is any possibility that any of the following three things happened.

    1.) Money paid to AdSurfDaily members by ASD ended up in the AVG system. (For example, a member got paid by ASD, and then later moved the money to AVG. Or, alternatively, an ASD member sold ad-packs directly to ASD downline members, deposited the money in his personal bank account, and later moved the money to AVG.)
    2.) “Founders” and insiders of AVG used fictitious paper profits that once existed in ASD as their capital contribution to AVG.
    3.) Founders/insiders of AVG took a disproportionate share of AVG’s early revenue and cashed out their fictitious ASD profits — in whole or in part — through AVG .

    Here is why these questions are important:

    1.) ASD’s visible cash and other assets were frozen by the U.S. government in a wire-fraud and money-laundering investigation, but other cash that once resided in ASD’s bank accounts had made its way into the bank accounts of ASD members. It also is known that some ASD members collected money directly from customers for the purchase of ad-packs, and then deposited the money in their personal bank accounts and used ASD’s internal system to move the ad-packs to the purchasers. Money from No. 1 (above) is money laundered twice, which means it is doubly dirty. If it was unclean when it resided in ASD, it is doubly unclean inside AVG.

    2.) Money from No. 2 above doesn’t really exist, which means AVG created value where none existed and had non-founders/non-insiders fund the value — as ASD allegedly did with its ASD Cash Generator iteration.

    Looking at it another way, AVG could have used the theoretical value of money now held by the government in the ASD case — and also the fictitious paper profits — to fund the launch of the company, passing the real cost off to non-insiders/non-founders.

    3.) Money from No. 3 above would mean founders/insiders paid themselves disproportionate shares before anyone else got paid, thus plundering the company.

    The autosurf landscape is littered with stories about plundering. To explain suspended cash-outs, ASD President Andy Bowdoin once claimed script problems were to blame. Meanwhile, Bowdoin claimed Russian “hackers” had stolen more than $1 million from the company.

    Bowdoin never filed a police report — not even to report a purported theft in excess of $1 million, prosecutors said.

    The reason one has to consider each of the possibilities above is that AVG suspended cash-outs after collecting money for 5+ months, then made 80/20 mandatory, while also changing the maturity dates for “page impressions” from 150 to 180 to 210 days.

    As one of our readers pointed out, the situation AVG currently confronts is like the situation a bank would confront if it advertised CDs and couldn’t fund redemptions on their maturity dates.

    Customers would buy the CDs, expecting a return in 150 days. On cash-out day, the bank would tell customers that it couldn’t fund the redemptions, hoped to be able to fund them by adding two months to the maturity date in anticipation of new revenue — but, in any case, when customers went to cash-out two months later, they could take only 20 percent of the money they were owed and were told they must keep 80 percent of their money in the system.

    Financier Allen Stanford faced a similar problem with CDs earlier this year on the Caribbean island nation of Antigua, and has been indicted on Ponzi and fraud charges. Prosecutors said he created the mirage of value by employing a series of accounting tricks.

    There is a fourth possibility to consider with AVG: Not all founders/insiders were created equally and that the people closest to the money cherry-picked some of it for themselves, and then told the other founders/insiders that AVG simply wasn’t generating enough revenue or that “bad members” had siphoned off cash.

    Putting it in the context of the ASD case, did Russian “hackers” really steal more than $1 million — or was it simply more convenient to blame them to cover up theft and insider dealings?

    Here is another possibility: No one at AVG stole anything, no one paid themselves early, the founders/insiders kept all their money in the company — and AVG simply flopped because it couldn’t generate enough cash.

    A few things could be in play in this scenario. AVG, for example, could have relatively few customers willing to pay for its “advertising” services — and that the existing base of AVG’s “advertisers” willing to spend money is too small to support the weight of the liabilities or even a break-even line.

    It also is possible that the banking system “caught” AVG early and choked off its access to wires and the money supply, thus starving the company.

  • Our Hand In The Problem With ‘Pistol’

    Dear Readers,

    Many of you are familiar with “Pistol,” one of the posters here. In recent days, Pistol repeatedly sent us communications we deem harassing through our Comments form and our Contact form. When we didn’t submit to his hectoring, he published a video about us on YouTube.

    The message, of course, is that if we don’t do as he says, he’ll dial up the harassment to extract the result he seeks.

    Pistol has been banned at other sites for antisocial behavior. Some of it was mildly antisocial — steering threads off-topic in ways that squelched productive discussion and shifted attention to himself, for instance.

    Some of it, however, was more than mildly antisocial — publishing videos that treated human beings like soulless, unfeeling objects incapable of redemption or even of having a teachable moment, for example.

    Early on, we made a mistake by extending to Pistol the maximum benefit of the doubt that he would exercise some restraint and not disrupt things here. The early disruptions were somewhat minimal — Pistol occasionally promoted his videos by spamming in threads, for example.

    Eventually, though, the disruptions grew in number, accompanied by an increase in toxicity. Despite his obvious intelligence, Pistol began to pose a daily maintenance problem for this Blog. If this were high school, he would be the brightest kid in the class, but also the most disruptive. Teachers would marvel out loud at his brain one moment, and want to march him to the principal’s office the next.

    You knew that kid, right?  He was the one who knew the difference between “innumeracy” and “illiteracy” and couldn’t wait for the teacher to confuse the terms so he could scold her for not being as smart as he — or to hold her out as a case study in hypocrisy for presuming even to be a teacher when she could not demonstrate perfect vocabulary at all times.

    The problem with Pistol is that he licenses himself to walk into a house and, ultimately — sorry about this, readers — vomit all over the floor.

    If you ask him politely to stop, he feigns obtuseness and then engages in sarcasm or passive-aggressive posturing, all the while insisting it’s all justifiable because he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. We recognized our own role in the insanity a few weeks ago, when we found ourselves asking this grown man not to vomit on our floor.

    If you’re going around asking an adult not to vomit on your floor, well, you’re the problem. We were wrong to think we could finesse this. An adult who presumes the right to soil your floor needs to be dispatched to the curb, not to be coddled. We should have dispatched him weeks ago.

    Pistol has a score to settle with us now — and now we have joined a long line of people he has pilloried on YouTube and elsewhere. Last week we deleted a few posts in which he was being deliberately obtuse, disruptive, disingenuous, baiting and just plain mean to other posters here.

    As is his way, Pistol now wants the discussion to digress into a discussion over the meaning of the word “mean.” Other posters also are guilty of meanness, he suggests, and yet their meanness is tolerated so long as it is directed at, say, Pistol or autosurf promoters.

    In other words, “Johnny did it! Why can’t I!” This from a man who purports to detest foolishness while using the playground arguments of a child. It’s Pistol’s way of letting us know we haven’t achieved perfection in moderating a Blog, rather like the teacher who confuses innumeracy and illiteracy.

    A small number of our posters are less thoughtful in their responses to autosurf supporters than we’d prefer them to be. At the same time, some ASD and AVG posters are less thoughtful to autosurf critics than we’d prefer them to be. No matter what side of the issue these posters are on, however, they do not pose the maintenance challenge Pistol presents — and, of course, he knows this.

    One of our posters — one Pistol has pilloried in video — used some choice language after being provoked by Pistol here — and Pistol responded by dialing up the provocation, essentially arguing that posters also must be etymologists.

    Pistol, of course, understands the roots of language and the power of words, which is why he uses the handle “Pistol.”

    We did not publish Pistol’s responses to the poster’s response to Pistol. Pistol started the problem, provided the fuel for it to escalate, and now asserts disingenuously that this Blog is engaging in censorship.

    In other words, Pistol is a victim.

    Two days ago it simply became too much work to deal with the maintenance problems Pistol creates. On one hand, Pistol purports not to suffer fools gladly. On the other, he subjects this Blog regularly to his own foolishness.

    So, we adjusted our software settings to direct everything Pistol submits to a holding queue. Pistol responded by subjecting us to even more foolishness

    We soon heard from “Pistol’sPal,” for example — more foolishness from a man who says he cannot suffer fools gladly.

    Yesterday we were hit by this foolishness:

    'Pistol' skewers PP on YouTube
    'Pistol' skewers PP on YouTube

    Pistol wrote to us Saturday morning through our Contact form, presenting the URL for a YouTube video he had created to skewer us.

    “Enjoy!” he said.

    Here is the URL:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKSoQyiAGlk

    After Pistol used the Contact form, he submitted another post headlined “THE THIRD ATTEMPT.”

    The strategy, if it can be called that, appeared to be to nuisance this Blog into publishing his comments. When that didn’t work, the strategy shifted to producing a YouTube video — basically, publish my comments or expect to see yourself pilloried on YouTube.

    When that didn’t work, the strategy reverted back to haranguing: “THE THIRD ATTEMPT” means that two prior attempts to get a comment published  failed: The message: Play my game or you might not like the consequences. It is, among other things, both extortive and foolish.

    All this foolishness . . . from a poster who purports not to suffer fools gladly.

    What Pistol seems unwilling to do is forgive any human foibles. Some of our posters, for example, are former ASD members who have “seen the light” and now post here and elsewhere to help people steer clear of scams. Pistol has pilloried some of them in videos.

    Beyond that, though, Pistol regularly skewers them here, while at once insisting he opposes scams. He is attacking people who are trying to help, using flaws and imperfections he perceives to demean their worth as human beings.

    The message: How can they now presume to be teachers — or to have any worth at all?

    Other posters here never had anything to do with ASD or AVG, but work to educate and inform the public about scams. Pistol skewers them, too, dismissing or ignoring the value they add and focusing on what he perceives to be their imperfections as human beings.

    Every appeal we’ve made to the greater angels of his nature has been met with hostility and obtuseness.

    Ever wonder why there are relatively few Blogs and forums that cover autosurf scams? One of the reasons is that there is no money in it. Another is that you pay a price — from the scammers themselves, and from the Pistols of the world, who purport to detest scams while derailing the efforts of people who are trying to do something about them.

    Here is the math:

    In April, we paid a bill for $153.52 for our PACER subscription. In January our PACER bill was $62. There are other expenses associated with running this Blog, including the enormous investment in time. This story, for example, took two weeks to research and report, and we had to pay for certain documents. We reviewed hundreds of pages of records.

    This Blog has generated $448.22 in total revenue year-to-date. May revenue was $70.70.  Our “pay” is pennies per day — if that.

    And now Pistol, who purports not to suffer fools gladly and to detest autosurf scams and scammers, has joined with them in spreading the lie that this Blog is lining its pockets with advertising fees.

    With respect to Pistol and his participation on the PatrickPretty.com Blog, we gave him way too much latitude.

    We apologize to readers for doing so.

    This Blog is not written for people who agree with our point of view; it is written for the “CORRECTIONs” of the surf world, even though we know CORRECTION and other surf supporters never may agree with us.

    But we also know we have made a difference in the lives of people once immersed in the convoluted world of the autosurf, and watching their thought processes evolve has provided joy.

    Honi soit qui mal y pense.

    Patrick

  • AdViewGlobal Members Continue To Question Surf’s Practices; PowerPoint Pitch Claims 37 Percent Conversion Rate If Sales Copy Doesn’t ‘Suck’

    UPDATED 10:23 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf members again are complaining about “low” payout rates, confusion about debit cards and how best to fund accounts. They also are grousing about an absence of comprehensible guidance from the top.

    Meanwhile, some members are grumbling about a culture of super-secrecy, a preoccupation by some leading advocates with spies and “plants” and passive-aggressive lectures from insiders who blame the company’s problems on members.

    Some members have been clamoring for more “tools” to sell AVG’s surf and the “VIP” payout “opportunity,” viewing the “advertising” rotator as the Main Event and saying nonsurf products and services AVG recently introduced have little appeal to the surf crowd, despite claims AVG has “fortune 500” (sic) clients.

    Other AVG members continue to complain about vague messages from the company.

    A PowerPoint presentation produced by the company claims that 519 page views “should garner you in the neighbourhood of 37% conversion if not higher,” adding a strange disclaimer: “Given your sales copy doesn’t totally suck.”

    The presentation includes charts and graphs, including one that speciously boasts of a “400% increase in Traffic!”

    AVG “advertisers” pay to have their sites shown in what the company now describes as a “testing platform.” Because “advertisers” are paid incentives to view the ads of fellow “advertisers,” the quality of the traffic is dubious. The claim of a 37 percent conversion rate — and a claim elsewhere in the presentation of a 10 percent conversion rate — strains credulity.

    The conversion rate claim of 37 percent implies it can be achieved across-the-board, regardless of the nature of the product, the quality of the traffic, the state of the economy, the demand for the product or the pricing of the offer. As the PowerPoint presentation stands, a doughnut priced free or a doughnut priced at $10,000 both could expect to enjoy a conversion rate of 37 percent, something absurd on its face.

    Surf And Sun

    AVG, which has been operating for about six months, also includes what it calls a two-year “Case Study of a BIG thinker.” Why a company that formally launched in February 2009 would choose to call events that have not happened a “case study” is left to the imagination. The “study” includes vague, speculative updates in six-month intervals, concluding with the subject of the two-year study “on the beach” and enjoying his autosurfing success.

    As the “case study” subject is enjoying life at the shore and still doing his AVG surfing, the company challenges viewers to “do the math now” without providing any solid numbers that actually would permit members to do the math. The “case study,” for example, does not say how much the subject spent, describing his first purchase vaguely as an “initial quota of Advertising.”

    Within six months, the subject — who appears not to do any recruiting — recovers “all of his costs + around 10 percent.”

    Although AVG has released the PowerPoint presentation with the speculative, two-year “case study,” current members are grumbling that significant sums of money they sent the company for “advertising” are generating minuscule returns — chump change as opposed to beach money — and that downline members (and family members recruited into the program) are losing faith and having to square off against embarrassment for having joined.

    Other Complaints

    At the same time, members are complaining about the sudden removal of a member-to-member button that enabled them to move cash or cash-equivalents to other members. They also are complaining about a promotional video with a low-quality voiceover that smacks of amateurism and the company’s inability to solve problems that have dogged it for weeks.

    Meanwhile, some AVG members have called for the company to make participation in a so-called 80/20 program mandatory, suggesting that trapping people’s money is the tonic AVG needs to succeed. If implemented, however, such a mandatory program could heighten concerns that AVG was trying to cover up a Ponzi scheme, selling unregistered securities and acting as a bank or financial-services company without a license.

    Indeed, the mere existence of a nonmandatory 80/20 program is one of the hallmarks of an autosurf Ponzi scheme that is thumbing its nose at securities, wire-fraud and money-laundering laws. Such programs are designed to stem the outflow of cash — and outflow should not be an issue when a company claims it does not rely on funds from new members to pay older members.

    The Accountability Equation

    Perhaps the greatest AVG mystery of all is how the company, which purports to be a professional advertising and communications firm based in Uruguay, can send so many confusing messages.

    Some of the incongruities border on the comic. Although the company purports to be operating from Uruguay, insiders routinely describe “international” members as those who live outside the United States. If AVG truly was operating from Uruguay, all members from any country other than Uruguay would be “international” members, including members who lived in the United States.

    Stop Being So Stupid!

    AVG promoters also have a curious habit of scolding fellow members. This habit is accompanied by awkward appeals for loyalty and aggressive, even paranoid appeals that stymie members who ask too many questions.

    In March, AVG announced its bank account had been suspended. Incredibly, it blamed members in the very first sentence of its announcement for causing the problem.

    “Due to people bank wiring too many transactions over $9500.00 each, the bank we were using for Bank Wires and ACHs suspended our account,” AVG said at the time.

    Although AVG announced in May it had struck a deal that enabled members once again to wire money to the surf, one of the companies it identified as a facilitator of the wire transfers issued a public denial it had any business relationship with AVG.

    AVG is engaged in a highly questionable “industry.” The U.S. government has destroyed several autosurf firms. Several government agencies have issued warnings about the autosurf trade in general, and the U.S. Secret Service issued a news release last year, noting that it had seized more than $93.5 million from Florida-based AdSurfDaily Inc.

    AVG, which launched after the government seized ASD’s assets, has close ties to ASD. Unlike ASD promoters, however, AVG promoters used the surf’s purported offshore location to drive business to the company.

  • BizAdSplash Surf Site Offline

    UPDATED 6:41 A.M. EDT (June 12, U.S.A.) BAS appears to have come back online overnight. The site now is resolving to a server. It returned briefly at 9 p.m. yesterday. At 9:05 p.m., the site went down again. Total downtime yesterday was at least 6 hours , perhaps as many as 14, based on reports elsewhere.

    The BizAdSplash (BAS) autosurf website has been offline for hours. The site will not resolve to a server.

    What is causing the problem is unclear.

    Clarence Busby, a central figure in the AdSurfDaily/Golden Panda Ad Builder case, is listed as “Chief Consultant” for BAS.

    Federal prosecutors have sought a final order to give the U.S. government control of more than $14 million seized from bank accounts Busby controlled for Golden Panda.

    UPDATE 4:38 P.M. The  BAS site continues to be offline. A mirrored copy of the BAS News Release page is accessible, although it does not explain the server issue or the downtime and appears not to have been updated for hours.

    It does, however, explain that the surf experienced a problem and that “transactions” are “missing” from accounts. The date and time of the posting are unclear:

    Notice:  We are aware of the account issues and will have them resolved shortly!!

    As some of you may have noticed already this morning, there are transactions missing from your accounts. This includes any rrsp, commission or ad package purchases made since the 15th of May. This is a known issue created while performing a data transfer last evening and will have them corrected shortly.

    UPDATE 6:41 A.M. June 12. The BAS site now is resolving to a server and appears to be back online.