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Tag: autosurf

  • BREAKING NEWS: Bowdoin Family Knew About December Forfeiture Complaint A Month Prior To Launch Of AdViewGlobal; AdSurfDaily-Connected Assets Seized In December ’08 Case Prepped For Sale

    Even though Andy Bowdoin and his family knew in January 2009 that the government intended to seize the Tallahassee home of his stepson George Harris and an $800,000 building purchased with cash in ASD’s home city of Quincy, Fla., the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf proceeded with its launch in February 2009, according to an analysis of web records and new court filings.

    Although a “Proof of Service” filed by federal prosecutors yesterday did not mention AVG, other records say that Bowdoin was given “direct notice” of a second forfeiture complaint that had been filed in December 2008 against ASD-connected assets. The initial forfeiture complaint against ASD was filed in August 2008.

    Yesterday’s filing by the prosecution showed that the Harris home and ASD building in

    Andy Bowdoin
    Andy Bowdoin

    Quincy were publicly posted for forfeiture on Jan. 8, 2009. AVG launched less than a month later, triggering a virtually relentless series of 200-percent, matching bonus offers to generate cash and events that ultimately led to its collapse after the Harrises were identified by AVG as the owners of the company.

    A Nov. 6 filing by the prosecution states that Bowdoin was given “direct notice” of the December 2008 seizure in January 2009, as were “all known potential claimants.” Prosecutors noted in the Nov. 6 filing that they had “signed receipts” from Bowdoin and others.

    Other records clearly show that AVG’s launch proceeded in February 2009, pushed by former members of ASD despite the filing of two forfeiture complaints against the firm and a racketeering lawsuit.

    Cash and property seized by the U.S. Secret Service in the December 2008 forfeiture complaint against assets tied to Bowdoin, his wife, stepson and Golden Panda Ad Builder are being prepared for liquidation, according to yesterday’s filing in the December case.

    The property includes $634,266.13 in cash seized from a Golden Panda bank account. It is being held in a U.S. Customs Suspense account in Indianapolis.

    The $800,000 building ASD paid for in cash also is being prepared for liquidation. The building is located in Quincy, Fla. It was promoted by Bowdoin as the site to which the company intended to move to accommodate employees and customers, owing to ASD’s rapid expansion.

    ASD’s growth was fueled by both video and written lies that its business was legal, the Secret Service said.

    In only months last year, ASD morphed from a company that earlier said it could not afford to pay members because of a malfunctioning computer script that purportedly had overpaid members and an accompanying  $1 million theft at the purported hands of “Russian” hackers  to a purported cash turbine was was going to buy an interest in an “international bank” and a “call center” in South America, the Secret Service said.

    In August 2008 — in the first forfeiture case filed against ASD’s assets — prosecutors told a federal judge that they believed Bowdoin was preparing to flee the United States. After reviewing a 37-page affidavit filed by the Secret Service and an additional 57 pages of evidence, including surveillance photos taken in Quincy prior to the filing of the application for seizure, a federal magistrate judge ordered Bank of America to freeze 13 bank accounts linked to ASD or Golden Panda and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to seize the money.

    Prosecutors later seized two additional Golden Panda accounts at Bank of America, as part of the August complaint, bringing the total of accounts seized in the August matter to 15 — 10 from ASD, and five from Golden Panda. Those accounts, after reconciliations, contained more than $79.88 million, according to court filings.

    As the investigation continued, prosecutors established more links to ASD-connected assets. In December 2008, they filed a second forfeiture complaint, naming an additional Golden Panda account maintained by Bartow County Bank, rather than Bank of America. The Bartow County account is the one that contained the $634,266.13 now being held in Indianapolis.

    Prosecutors also seized the Tallahassee home of George and Judy Harris in the December complaint, saying its mortgage of more than $157,000 had been paid off with illegal proceeds from ASD. Records show the mortgage  was paid off about three weeks after a May 31, 2008, ASD rally in Las Vegas had concluded.

    George Harris is the son of Bowdoin’s wife, Edna Faye Bowdoin. Judy Harris is the wife of George Harris. The AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf, which came to life four months after the August seizure of tens of millions of dollars from Bowdoin’s bank accounts and approximately one month after a key court ruling went against ASD in November 2008, later identified George and Judy Harris as its owners.

    Bowdoin invoked God at the May 2008 Las Vegas rally, imploring members to imagine themselves wealthy and thanking God for providing him tremendous wealth.

    “And I always say, ‘Thank you, God, for developing me into a money magnet,’” Bowdoin said at the rally. “And I see myself as a money magnet in attracting money and, I say, attracting large sums of money.”

    Within days of the conclusion of the rally, according to court filings, ASD money was used by Edna Faye Bowdoin and George Harris to open a bank account into which more than $177,000 of illegal proceeds were deposited. More then $157,000 of the opening deposit was used to pay off the Harris home, which was seized in the December complaint.

    Neither George nor Judy Harris filed a claim to the home, prosecutors said. In September 2009, prosecutors made a veiled reference to the AVG autosurf in court filings.

    “Maybe Bowdoin thought that before the government brought its charges he (like some of his family members) could move to another country and profit from a knock-off autosurf program that Bowdoin funded and helped to start,” prosecutors said.

    AVG purportedly was headquartered in the South American country of Uruguay. Servers of the purported “advertsing” firm that operated in largely the same form as ASD resolved to Panama.

    Also seized in the December complaint were three automobiles: a 2009 Lincoln luxury sedan that had been acquired in July 2008 for nearly $50,000; a 2008 Honda CRV registered to George and Judy Harris acquired in June 2008 for nearly $30,000 after the Las Vegas rally; and a 2009 Acura TXS registered to former ASD figure Hays Amos for nearly $34,000.

    The check to acquire the Acura registered to Amos was signed by ASD Chief Executive Officer Juan Fernandez, prosecutors said.

    Also seized in the December complaint were computer equipment, two jet skis and a hauling trailer that were purchased with $20,506 of ASD money; and a Triton Cabana boat, Mercury motor and trailer purchased with $23,445 of ASD funds, prosecutors said.

    All of the property seized in December now is being prepared for liquidation, pending an order from U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer. Prosecutors said no one made a claim to any of the seized property.

    Based on the lack of claims, it is possible that prosecutors may argue that none of the property was claimed because ASD already had a plan to replace it through AVG.

    ASD’s seized computers are being held at Secret Service headquarters in Orlando, according to to the prosecution court filing. Meanwhile, the Lincoln luxury sedan registered to Bowdoin/Harris Enterprises and the Honda registered to George and Judy Harris are being held at a company in the auto-auction business in Lakeland, Fla.; the Acura registered to Amos is being held at an auto-auction company in Daytona Beach, Fla.; and the marine equipment is being held at auction companies in Fort Lauderdale and Pensacola, Fla.

    The $800,000 building and the Harris home were posted for forfeiture on the same date — Jan. 8, 2009, according to the prosecution filing. Only 5 days later Bowdoin surrendered his claims to the millions of dollars seized in August 2008.

    Regardless, the AVG autosurf proceeded with its formal launch in February 2009 — less than a month after the Harris home in Tallahassee and the ASD building in Quincy were posted for forfeiture.

    By the end of February, Bowdoin attempted to reenter the August case, acting as his own attorney and saying he’d changed his mind about submitting to the August seizure. Coinciding with Bowdoin’s pro se filings was an announcement by the AVG autosurf that it was becoming a “private association” based offshore.

    During the same time period, a poster at the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum told members that the Secret Service had seized the bank accounts of ASD promoters. The poster warned members to remove money from their bank accounts before it could be seized.

    By June 25, 2008, AVG announced that it was suspending cashouts. After initially blaming its inability to pay members on the greed of some members, it later changed its story and said $2.7 million had been stolen from the firm.

    The story was remarkably similar to the story the Secret Service said ASD had told about the purported “Russian” hackers to explain why it couldn’t pay members.

    See the prosecution’s filing yesterday that shows ASD’s Quincy building and the Harris home in Tallahassee were posted prior to the February 2009 launch of the AVG autosurf.

    See the prosecution’s Nov. 6 filing that says Bowdoin and family members had “direct notice” of the December 2008 forfeiture case and that the government had “signed receipts” prior to the launch of AVG, which later was linked to George and Judy Harris.

  • NO AUTOSURF ENVY: Newspaper Circulation Plunges; Top Publications Hemorrhage Print Readers As Industry Looks To Harness Power Of Internet Advertising

    EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’ve been approached by individuals or a downline “team” and invited to join an online “surfing” program that purports to be an “advertising” company, this column may be of some value to you. Extremely well-known publishing companies — companies that produce titles you know and love, and companies that know advertising and business inside and out and through and through — are having trouble keeping readers’ eyes glued to print publications. Many of the famous companies have experienced serious revenue declines. Almost all of them have experienced spectacular print circulation declines even as actual readership was increasing. These famous companies are struggling to find ways to compete online and monetize their hugely popular websites, almost all of which get tremendous traffic.

    And yet none of them has turned to the so called “autosurf” model — even though the companies could crush “advertising” firms such as Florida-based AdSurfDaily, which is confronting allegations that it engaged in wire-fraud and money-laundering while operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme.

    Despite the fact these famous publishing companies have professional talent, audited readership, audited financials and the economies of scale to destroy so-called “advertising” firms such as ASD or BizAdSplash or AdViewGlobal — and scores of others — these companies do not position themselves against the surfs.

    Some of the surfs are collecting millions of dollars — if not tens or hundreds of millions of dollars — during a time the traditional publishing/advertising business is awash in a sea of red ink. All of the traditional companies could use the money autosurf participants are throwing at the surfs.

    Autosurf promoters would have you believe traditional publishing/advertising companies are struggling because the famous brands don’t understand the autosurf business model. Surf promoters position people such as ASD President Andy Bowdoin as vastly misunderstood geniuses and visionaries being picked on by the government. The surfs are positioned as cash cows for both the operators and members, and the “new” way to advertise.

    Promoters would have you believe that these celebrated publishing/advertising companies just don’t “get it” — and that the people promoting autosurfs in the hyped-up style of MLMs are the modern-day Henry Fords and Thomas Edisons — people who do get it.

    Surf promoters are unable to explain rationally why famous companies that could crush the surfs and take away all of their business — while delivering content that gives people a nonfinancial reason to visit highly professional sites and later share in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue — have not leveraged their marketplace advantages and enormous volume of website traffic to make the companies and their readers rich by opening an autosurf.

    The reason is simple: The model as practiced in the so-called autosurf advertising “industry” is plainly illegal. It flouts securities laws, wire-fraud laws, mail-fraud laws, racketeering laws, banking laws, money-services laws and other laws — and the surfs try to sanitize it all by saying “rebates aren’t guaranteed,” which is just a contractual disclaimer designed to legalize theft.

    When reading the story below, keep in mind that each of the companies mentioned has advantages none of the surfs can offer, including some of the most highly talented writers, editors, designers and advertising-sales executives in the world — people who can deliver millions of eyeballs to websites and produce good results for advertisers both in product sales and branding.

    And yet these companies have not turned to Andy Bowdoin of ASD or Clarence Busby of BizAdSplash for guidance.

    Now, after this lengthy introduction, the story . . .

    Circulation at USA Today plunged 17.15 percent in the six-month period ending in September, compared to the same period in 2008, according to figures released today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).

    Circulation losses experienced by the San Francisco Chronicle (-25.82 percent), the Star Ledger of Newark (-22.22 percent), the Dallas Morning News (-22.16 percent), the Boston Globe (-18.48 percent) and the New York Post (-18.77 percent) were even steeper, ABC reported.

    Elsewhere, the Houston Chronicle lost 14.24 percent of its print circulation during the period, and The Daily News (New York) lost 13.98 percent.

    Meanwhile, the Arizona Republic (-12.30 percent), the Cleveland Plain Dealer (-11.24 percent), the Los Angeles Times (-11.05 percent), the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times (-10.70 percent), the San Diego Union Tribune (-10.05 percent), the Chicago Tribune (-9.72 percent), the Detroit Free-Press (-9.56 percent) and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (-9.50 percent) also lost significant print circulation, ABC reported.

    The Post-Gazette explained today that much of its loss is attributable to an April decision to quit delivering the newspaper to certain outlying areas. The Post-Gazette says its website “remains the region’s most visited site.”

    Between the site and the print publication, the Post-Gazette reaches more than 1 million people every week, the newspaper reported.

    ABC’s numbers do not mean that actual readership of the publications is plunging. Many print-publishing companies have the dominant websites in their regions. And because the Internet has introduced the sort of immediacy once available only to TV and radio stations — and because print publications generally have larger news-gathering operations than their local competitors — the websites of newspapers and magazines have become enormously popular.

    What has not followed — at least not across the board — is an increase in revenues. Some famous print publications have declared bankruptcy, switched to an online-only model or a combination of online and print — or even folded.

    Print, in general, is struggling in every corner of the United States — and yet readership and reach never have been higher.

    Despite the advantages of readership, reach and talent pools autosurf companies only could dream about, there continues to be great stress in the worlds of publishing and advertising.

    No famous publishing house has adopted the autosurf model, even though promoters of the model would have would-be members/advertisers believe it is the magic cure.

  • Payment Processors Used By Surf Firms Offline

    UPDATED 8:56 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Two popular payment processors used by autosurfing firms are offline simultaneously.

    The main pages for SolidTrustPay of Canada and StrictPay of Panama both will load. But registration buttons for both of the processors are generating server errors and will not load. The problem appears to be affecting secure (https) connections.

    Some members said they could not access their accounts. Others described the problem, which is being discussed on autosurfing forums, as intermittent.

    Neither company has explained the problem on their main pages. The secure pages for both SolidTrustPay and StrictPay are generating a “Connection Interrupted” error message in Firefox, and a “cannot display the webpage” error in Internet Explorer.

    UPDATE 3:13 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) One of our readers reports that sign-up pages for the processors worked from his location. We again tried to get the pages to load in Firefox and IE, and they threw server errors. Why this is happening is unclear.

    UPDATE 8:56 P.M. EDT (U.S.A) SolidTrustPay and StrictPay are accessible now.