The SEC has filed a lawsuit against the Traffic Monsoon “program” and called it a Ponzi scheme that had gathered $207 million, the Salt Lake Tribune is reporting.
The assets of Traffic Monsoon and alleged operator Charles Scoville have been frozen, the newspaper reports.
On June 1, the PP Blog reported that Payza — a payment processor under fire from the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi- and pyramid case brought by the SEC in 2012 — bragged about its attendance at a Traffic Monsoon event in May.
Traffic Monsoon, which may be a whack-a-mole scheme, is a purported “advertising “program” similar to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme and other scams, including Banners Broker.
2ND UPDATE 2:25 P.M. EDT U.S.A. More horrible PR for the MLM trade: Banners Broker international pitchman and pyramid-scheme figure Kuldip Josun embezzled at least $3.6 million from affiliates, according to a receiver’s report.
The money was deposited into a Swiss bank account held by an entity known as World Web Media Inc. and appears to have been used to start an “MLM program” known as “KulClub,” the receiver advised a court in Canada.
Like the alleged $156 million Banners Broker scheme, KulClub had a presence on the MoneyMakerGroup forum, records show. U.S. authorities have alleged MoneyMakerGroup is a place from which fraud schemes are promoted.
KulClub purports to be a “unique revenue sharing program in which KulClub shares the majority of its revenue with all its members. No other club can match it!”
But msi Spergel inc., the Toronto-based Banners Broker receiver, said KulClub likely was started with stolen Banners Broker funds that never were recovered from the Swiss account.
“The Receiver believes that Josun has since used the Swiss bank account funds for personal purposes, including the launching of his own MLM program called ‘KulClub,'” Spergel alleged. The receiver is seeking a sweeping order preventing the dissipation of assets.
How did Josun end up with affiliate funds? After becoming the “main representative among international affiliates” of Banners Broker, the huckster allegedly hosted web events, flew to events in Europe, gathered money from hopefuls and kept it for himself.
From the receiver (italics added/light editing performed):
In that role, Josun would travel to meet with international affiliates, or potential affiliates, and conduct conference calls and seminars via videoconferencing. His day-to-day occupation with Banners Broker was to maximize Affiliate investment into the program, as well as to establish an international network Banners Broker Network. That is, he was responsible for encouraging the development of overseas affiliates into `super-affiliates’ (or “Resellers”), who would establish their own networks of affiliates.
In his role as Banners Broker’s international representative, Josun would frequently fly to overseas locations with a significant amount of company funds. Those funds were used to advertise a lifestyle of success and luxury to potential affiliates. Josun spent existing affiliate funds lavishly in maintaining this facade, as he carried out a campaign to woo wealthy new affiliates to the Banners Broker enterprise.
Josun’s spending in his role as Banners Broker’s international spokesperson lacked any effective oversight. No budgets were set for Josun’s business trips on behalf of Banners Broker, nor was there any control over his expenses.
The Receiver asserts that Josun would regularly receive funds from affiliates meant to be spent on Banners Broker products. Rather than remit these funds to the company, Josun would redirect the funds to his own personal accounts in offshore jurisdictions, intending to place them beyond the reach of creditors.
Similar allegations of cherry-picking have surfaced in the TelexFree Ponzi- and pyramid case. Like Banners Broker and KulClub, TelexFree had a presence on the Ponzi boards.
Josun was hardly alone in misappropriating Banners Broker funds, the receiver alleged.
Rajiv Dixit, a Banners Broker principal charged criminally, “purchased six watches from Weir & Sons in Dublin, Ireland: three Rolexes and three Breitfings,” the receiver alleged. “Two of the watches were women’s watches.”
The receiver’s allegations against Josun appear to be yet-another example of a scammer within a purported revshare “program” scamming both the “opportunity” itself and incoming participants. Although Banners Broker allegedly terminated Josun, it made little difference because the “program” itself was a scam.
New court filings in Canada by the receiver and liquidators in the Banners Broker case now estimate the total haul of the alleged double-your-money pyramid scam at more than $156 million. That’s up from an earlier estimate by Toronto police of $93 million. If the $156 million figure proves correct, it would make Banners Broker a bigger fraud than the $119 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008.
Like MAPS, which currently is operating, ASD and Banners Broker purported to be “advertising” companies. The ASD case threw down the gauntlet on securities companies trying to evade the law by pretending to be “advertising” firms.
But the apparent upstaging of ASD by Banners Broker in dollar volume in the purported “advertising” trade is not the only news.
Rajiv Dixit, one of the Banners Broker figures who helped put Stepsys in the position of getting rich from online fraud schemes, was arrested in Canada in December 2015.
Filings April 4 by the receiver and liquidators in the case show that Dixit may be trying to use “sovereign citizen” courtroom tactics against them in Canadian proceedings. In the United States, AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming tried the same thing in that case.
The Banners Broker receiver and liquidators have reported Dixit’s alleged activities to the court.
Specifically, they say Dixit, who calls himself “the man master rajiv of the family dixit” [sic] and his targets “interlopers,” is trying to foist a bogus “Cease and Desist” order on them that threatens a fine of $36 per second if they don’t back off from their judicially mandated duties. Dixit apparently wants to be paid in “silver dollars.”
From the receiver/liquidators (italics added):
The Cease and Desist Notices go on to state that if the Court Officers and their counsel do not cease and desist “all actions and claims against Mr. Rajiv Dixit and or Rajiv Dixit forthwith” Dixit will invoice them $47,304,000.00 silver dollars “[p]lus, for each second starting at 12:00:01 AM until the cease and desist is complied with, each Respondent will be charged an additional $36.000 per second.”
Court filings in other cross-border cases — including Zeek Rewards and DFRF Enterprises — have signaled that “sovereigns” also were involved in those schemes.
With Banners Broker, Dixit called his affiliates “stupid,” according to the new filings by the receiver and liquidators.
“These frauds are easily duplicated, and at times, we find ourselves playing ‘whack-a-mole,’ chasing the same set of fraudsters who, after feeling a bit of heat, simply close down one scheme and quickly set up a new one under a different name.” — Andrew Ceresney, SEC Enforcement Division director, March 2, 2016
EDITOR’S NOTE: Type “whack-a-mole” into the PP Blog’s search box near the upper-right corner to find our stories that touch on frauds rising to replace other frauds. Examples include so-called “programs” that claim to be “advertising” companies or to have an “advertising” component — for example, Zeek Rewards, TelexFree, Banners Broker and AdSurfDaily. If you’re in an “advertising” program such as MyAdvertisingPays (MAPS) or TrafficMonsoon, you should asking some serious questions and thinking about whether serial fraudsters are whacking you.
When one scheme collapses, another quickly rises to replace it. Many such schemes operate simultaneously, drafting the unwary into multiple miseries. Ill-gotten gains or losses pile up in the billions of dollars. Yes, billions.
Of course, “whack-a-mole” is not limited to “advertising” schemes. There are “cycler” schemes such as “The Achieve Community” and its Ponzi-board equivalents. Meanwhile, there are HYIP schemes such as “Profitable Sunrise” and its Ponzi-board equivalents. MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold are examples of Ponzi boards. The scammers now have added social media such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to their arsenal. Vulnerable people and population groups are constant targets.
Scams such as WCM777 that claim to have a “product” also are part of “whack-a-mole.”
**________________________________**
Let’s begin by encouraging you to read Andrew Ceresney’s opening remarks at a joint symposium today sponsored by the SEC and the University of Illinois at Chicago. (Link at bottom of story. Also see Twitter links.)
Ceresney is the SEC’s director of enforcement. One of the things the PP Blog noted while reading the text of his remarks is that it included a subhead titled “Pyramid Schemes and Multi-Level Marketing.”
SEC’s Ceresney: Pyramid schemes are attacks on retail investors, often target working class, immigrant communities https://t.co/bq7lZOw4nG
This reflected on ongoing effort by the SEC to educate the public that the presence of a “product” in a scheme does not necessarily mean no scam is under way. Many MLMers erroneously believe that a “product” (or purported one) offered for sale cures all ills. That is simply not the case. A year ago in Congressional testimony, the director spoke about a “coordinated effort” to disrupt pyramid schemes.
Ceresney today provided more details on a new Task Force that is combating pyramid fraud. Here is part of his remarks (italics/bolding added):
After seeing an increase in complaints regarding pyramid schemes and affinity fraud, the SEC formed a nationwide Pyramid Scheme Task Force in June 2014 to provide a disciplined approach to halting the momentum of illegal pyramid scheme activities in the United States. The goal of the Task Force is to target these schemes by aggressively enforcing existing securities laws and increasing public awareness of this activity.
The Division is deploying resources to disrupt these schemes through a coordinated effort of timely, aggressive enforcement actions along with community outreach and investor education. More than fifty SEC staff members are part of the nationwide Task Force, which is enhancing its enforcement reach by collaborating with other agencies and law enforcement authorities. We are also using new analytic techniques to identify patterns and common threads, thereby permitting earlier detection of potential fraudulent schemes.
Collaboration with other regulators, including criminal authorities, is an important goal of the Task Force. To advance this goal, the Task Force has hosted an interagency summit attended by over 200 representatives from other federal and state agencies and has presented at local trainings and agency-specific conferences. And, of course, we have partnered with other regulators and criminal authorities to bring high-impact actions in this space. For example, one month after we filed our enforcement action against the operators of the TelexFree pyramid scheme, two of TelexFree’s principals were charged by the criminal authorities.
Will the “program” you’re currently pitching become the subject of a “high-impact action?” Time will tell.
In 11 SEC actions since 2012 involving pyramid operators, the damage resulted in ill-gotten gains or losses totaling more than $4.2 billion, Ceresney said today.
BULLETIN: (6th update 7:23 p.m. ET U.S.A.) Class-action lawyers pursuing claims against TelexFree promoters have called the My Advertising Pays (MAPS) “program” a Ponzi scheme and described MAPS promoter Simon Stepsys as a “Ponzi mogul.”
The case itself is not against MAPs. Even so, the lawyers now have made repeated references to MAPs and are lambasting the serial promotion of MLM fraud schemes. The newest reference to MAPS occurred in federal court filings in Massachusetts today. As the PP Blog reported last year, MAPS initially was mentioned in a proposed TelexFree-related class action filed in the Southern District of New York in December 2014.
Daniil Shoyfer, an alleged promoter of TelexFree, plowed nearly $9,000 into MAPS a month after TelexFree filed bankruptcy in April 2014, according to attorney Alexander D. Wall. Shoyfer promptly was heralded by Stepsys, Wall contended.
Stepsys, Wall alleged, “is an Internet Ponzi scheme mogul” currently promoting MAPS. He previously promoted the bizarre Banners Broker scheme that led to two arrests in Canada last month.
Moving from one fraud scheme to another is a serious problem in MLM.
A Stepsys-connected website includes “a paragraph, together with a photograph of Defendant Daniil Shoyfer, congratulating Mr. Shoyfer for reaching the ‘1200 Diamond level’ for his promotion of the MyAdvertisingPays scam,” Wall alleged.
“This webpage also indicates that in May 2014 – the month following TelexFree’s declaration of bankruptcy – Mr. Shoyfer purchased ‘177 Credit Packs’ from MyAdvertisingPays. Upon information and belief, as well as research I have performed, [a] MyAdvertisingPays ‘Credit Pack’ costs $49.99,” Wall alleged. “Thus, Mr. Shoyfer invested at least $8,848.23 in a second Ponzi scheme in the month after TelexFree’s bankruptcy filing.”
The class-action lawyers have been seeking a preliminary injunction against Shoyfer and an asset freeze that would prohibit dissipation of assets. Shoyfer has contended he believed TelexFree was legal and that there is a vendetta against him.
BULLETIN: (14th Update 3:39 p.m. ET U.S.A.) Toronto police have arrested “Banners Broker” figures Christopher George Smith of Toronto and Rajiv Dixit of Vancouver.
Both suspects are 45 and are scheduled to make a court appearance today, police said. The scheme allegedly raised $93 million (U.S.).
They have been charged with Defrauding the Public of Over $5000, Possession of the Proceeds of Crime, Laundering the Proceeds of Crime, Operating a Pyramid-Selling Scheme and Making False or Misleading Representations under the Competition Act, police said.
“[T]here are 1000’s of victims worldwide in Banners Brokers pyramid scheme,” police said on Twitter. The remark was attributed to Det. Sgt. Ian Nichol of the Toronto Police Mass Marketing Section.
And, the department Tweeted, the agency and mass-marketing fraud investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police “worked for 2yrs full time on Banners Brokers pyramid scheme investigation.”
Also assisting in the cross-border probe were the Competition Bureau of Canada, the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, the Ministry of Finance, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, FINTRAC and the Canada Revenue Agency, police said.
FINTRAC stands for the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada.
“[T]he program’s existence was entirely dependent upon the fee-based entry of new members and little or no real product or service was provided,” police said.
The PP Blog’s first reference to Banners Broker was published on June 17, 2012, when the Blog reported that a site that claimed it sold “customers” to Zeek Rewards members also was pushing traffic to Banners Broker and JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, the bizarre, 730-percent-a-year “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann.
Mann also was a pitchman for the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme. JSS/JBP, which later morphed into a “program” known as ProfitClicking, may have ties to the sovereign-citizens movement. Zeek allegedly was a Ponzi/pyramid scheme that gathered more than $850 million.
Some HYIP promoters move from scheme to scheme to scheme, creating a condition in which losses mount globally and banks become warehouses for fraud proceeds. The SEC yesterday announced charges against alleged Zeek promoter Trudy Gilmond, whom the agency alleged recruited members for multiple failed schemes.
IntellaShares, a collapsed “program” with a presence on the Ponzi boards and purportedly prepping for “relaunch,” now is under scrutiny by Save the Children.
Jeremy Soulliere, a spokesman for Save the Children USA, confirmed the inquiry to the PP Blog this morning. Save the Children USA is an arm of Save the Children Federation Inc., the internationally prominent charity.
“We are going to look into this matter further,” Soulliere wrote.
The PP Blog reported yesterday that IntellaShares was publishing a graphic of a check on its website that implied a donation of $478 had been made or will be made to “Save The Children Foundation.” The memo line of the check reads, “Charity Spotlight – Feb/2015.”
Text accompanying the check reads, “The Following Amount Will Be Donated For the Period Feb. 17-28/2015. Thank You To All Members For Making This Possible!”
Another page on the IntellaShares website claims that the “program” donates “20% of Total Collected Membership Fees to THE FEATURED CHARITY.”
This potentially means that Save the Children will not be the sole nonprofit whose name gets dangled by IntellaShares. The site suggests that the Global Music Project was the featured charity last month.
Precisely who controls the purported blacklist wasn’t specified by IntellaShares. The language, however, was menacing.
“So be careful what you do now it could result in loss of ability to become a member of any program in short order,” IntellaShares advised members, according to BehindMLM.
A post on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum today includes content attributed to IntellaShares. It declares “[t]oday is a beautiful day in the internet world” because “INTELLASHARES WILL BE OPEN FOR NEW SIGN UPS AND FUNDING TODAY!”
This hashtag was attributed to IntellaShares: “#TOOBADABOUT30PEOPLEWEREBLACKLISTED.”
At least one Ponzi-board poster was not amused.
“They think that threatening people can suppress peoples opinion, that doesn’t sound like people that are for the people,” the poster ventured. “Sounds like facism to me. What a joke.”
Scams trading on the Ponzi boards and on social-media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are infamous for trying to enforce rigid thinking and mute criticism — sometimes by threat. At the same time, it is not unusual for such schemes to use the names of a famous charity or famous for-profit business as part of a bid to create a veneer of legitimacy.
IntellaShares, which plants the seed “program” participants will receive $3.25 for every $2.50 they send in, appears to have collapsed shortly after launch earlier this year.
Thuggery is not unusual in the HYIP sphere of MLM or network marketing.
In early 2014, a “program” known as Banners Brokers threatened to lock the accounts of members “found to be contributing to the negativity on the Internet.” Participants further were threatened with a forfeiture of earnings and encouraged to report doubters to management.
Banners Broker tried to sugarcoat its thuggery by calling it an effort to implement a “Community Watch” program.
By October 2014, documents filed by the the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in July 2014 surfaced. These documents described Banners Broker as a “pyramid scheme that over time evolved into a straight Ponzi scheme in which new victims were recruited to stave off requests for withdrawals and complaints from older ones.”
Investigative documents in Canada describe Banners Broker as a “criminal enterprise.” The U.S. Secret Service used the same phrase when describing the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme.
Like Banners Broker and ASD, IntellaShares purports to be an “advertising” program.
IntellaShares may be trying to skirt securities laws by claiming on its website that “REVENUE SHARING IS NOT GUARANTEED.”
ASD, which once purported to have gifted 100,000 “ad packs” to a charitable venture, made a similar claim in 2008 . So did the Zeek Rewards scheme in 2012.
Both ASD and Zeek collapsed after interventions by law enforcement.
The SEC yesterday declined to comment on IntellaShares.
In 2013, MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun was sentenced to a term in Florida state prison on a racketeering charge. MPBToday operated a cycler in which it was claimed a $200 purchase could result in free groceries and gasoline for life.
Now, a promoter of “The Achieve Community” cycler has recorded a commercial at an ATM of an FDIC-insured bank in Hawaii. The 0:51 promo is posted on YouTube and is titled, “Proof that my Payoneer debit card from the Achieve Community works!”
Achieve appears to have lost its ability to gather money through Payoneer only days later, although it is unclear whether the ATM video played any role.
Some promoters have positioned Achieve as a retirement plan. Others have claimed payouts are guaranteed and that no one has to sell anything.
In the Achieve YouTube promo with a publication date of Oct. 16, 2014, a man walks up to an American Savings Bank “Money Express” machine apparently in Kauai, displays an ATM card, inserts it in the machine and presses some buttons. The machine then dispenses a $20 bill, which the man shows to the audience.
“It works,” he says smiling, and giving the audience a “thumbs up” sign. “All right. [Aloha.]”
Text below the video reads, “Just wanted to show everyone that ACHIEVE + PAYONEER equals a True Lifetime Income Plan!”
It is very early morning in Hawaii. American Savings Bank, an FDIC member as noted above, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Regulators have issued repeated warnings about Ponzi- and pyramid schemes spreading on social media and also about affinity fraud.
“6. I affirm that I am not an employee or official of any government agency, nor am I acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency. I affirm that I am not an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company, and I am not reading any of the Ad Click Xpress pages in order to collect information for someone else.” — From the AdClickXpress Terms of Service, Nov. 29, 2014
The carcass of AdClickXpress (ACX) is stirring — just in time to cast a spell on suckers hoping to find some extra money for the holidays. Like predecessor scams JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid and ProfitClicking in the same criminal family, ACX fancies itself the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) of online schemes.
In short, ACX ropes “customers” into an international financial conspiracy theoretically designed to be offshore everywhere. But deliberately taunting government investigators in its Terms of Service (see breakout quote above from the Terms) appears only to have been a first act. The “program” now appears to be taunting its own members and prospects.
From a Sept. 10, 2014, post on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum, quoting from the taunt (italics/bolding added):
Note: if members are found to have posted negative information about ACX, even if it is absolutely true, their account could be penalized significantly. ACX Management will be the sole determinant as to how much damage the member has caused other ACX Members.
Like the bizarre and incongruous AdViewGlobal scam before it, ACX fancies itself a “private association.” But even if it were one of those — and even if in theory it could hamstring government investigators and reporters with a vomitous word salad — it is a “private association” that threatens its own members in ways the Mafia wouldn’t consider.
So, at least by Sept. 10, ACX began serving up BannersBroker-like word-sewage. It’s all designed to confuse and to obfuscate, of course.
By the Terms alone, ACX makes co-conspirators of its members. And after this artifice is carried out, it divines a construction by which it will penalize “significantly” and unilaterally calculate damages purportedly caused by those same members who’d dare post “negative information . . . even if it’s absolutely true.”
Separately, there are unconfirmed reports on MoneyMakerGroup that Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS/JPB and the de facto inspiration behind the follow-up scams, has died. Mann, a former pitchmen for the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, once directed traffic to videos featuring Francis Schaeffer Cox, the now-convicted Alaska “sovereign citizen” and militia man implicated in a plot to murder public officials.
“Affiliates found to be contributing to the negativity on the Internet will have their accounts locked, they will be banned from participating in the Banners Broker system and they will forfeit all of their inventory and revenue.” — Banners Broker threat to members, February 2014
“It is the position of investigators that this business was a pyramid scheme that over time evolved into a straight Ponzi scheme in which new victims were recruited to stave off requests for withdrawals and complaints from older ones.” — Royal Canadian Mounted Police, July 17, 2014: Source: Affidavit that shows the RCMP, the Toronto Strategic Partnership and the Toronto Police Services Financial Crime Unit are involved in a criminal probe of Banners Broker.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The double-your-money Banners Broker “program” posed as an online “advertising” company. It appears to have gathered tens of millions of dollars using a series of conduits and employing entities or business identities in money-laundering havens. At least for now, the total sum stolen from participants is unclear. As alleged, funds were “diverted by the suspects and their associated corporations to various offshore and other bank accounts controlled by them.”
** _________________________**
How to begin the brainwashing process: Screen shot from page of court exhibit in Canada.
As an interview subject allegedly told the Competition Bureau of Canada on April 9, 2013, it was all so simple to Banners Broker operator Christopher George “Chris” Smith:
Indeed, Canadian authorities now have alleged, when the subject “met with Smith [in 2010,] he asked Smith why people lost money in these programs and Smith said it was what the programs were designed for, they bring people in, make some money and then they shut down and people move on to the next one.”
What was Smith allegedly discussing at the meeting in Toronto? His desire to come up with a “copycat” of Travel Ventures International, a purported “opportunity” also known as TVI Express and described as a scam on multiple continents. (See K. Chang’s MLM Skeptic Blog for a report on how TVI Express spread around the world.)
This, friends, is whack-a-mole — in the style of MLM huckster Chris Smith. It’s also racketeering MLM-style, whether formally prosecuted as such or not. And so it comes as no surprise that the term “criminal enterprise” to describe Banners Broker and its associated corporations now appears in court filings in Canada. (See links and credits at bottom of this story.)
Members of the TelexFree MLM “program” allege that racketeering occurred within that enterprise, described by U.S. regulators earlier this year as a billion-dollar, cross-border pyramid- and Ponzi scheme. The Zeek Rewards MLM “program,” alleged to have gathered on the order of $850 million before is August 2012 collapse, launched after the 2008 collapse of ASD. There can be no doubt that TelexFree, Zeek, ASD and Banners Broker had promoters in common.
There also can be no doubt that “see no evil” MLM cottage industries sprouted up around these foundationally corrupt “programs” and offered services such as “lead” provision and “ad” placement. Victims have piled up in such numbers that, in the TelexFree scam alone, 20,000 Greyhound buses with a 50-seat capacity each would be required to accommodate the fleeced masses.
But where would they all go to observe events and be acknowledged at once?
No courtroom can accommodate 1 million victims. Even if Mass-Participation Court existed and were gaveled into session on an unbooked Saturday in Pasadena’s famous Rose Bowl with onetime Tournament of Roses Parade Grand Marshal and U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor coming out of retirement to preside, the huge stadium’s seating capacity of 92,542 still would be far too small to accommodate the injured parties.
Despite the best efforts of the courts, victims are being lost as a result of these insidious MLM schemes. Some will be re-victimized in a whack-a-mole reload scam pitched by an MLM predator with a smile on his or her face and a Bible verse at the ready.
There also can be no doubt that certain members of the “programs” are members of a criminal combine that, whether loosely or closely associated, pushes one racketeering scam after another on the consuming public. It is willful blindness on a global scale. It is so dangerous, so calculating and methodical, so gruesomely injurious to persons and property, that it almost defies description.
Next time someone tries to recruit you into an HYIP “program” by telling you the “leaders” are already on board, here’s what to think: The racketeers are either running things or influencing events (again). They’re going to harm me (again). They’re going to harm my community, my country (again). They’re going to say they have been vetted by “attorneys” (again).
And then, as Chris Smith allegedly said, they’re going to shut down and “move on to the next one.”
Again.
Reclaim Your Brain — Right Now!
Like predecessor scams such as AdSurfDaily and AdViewGlobal and Zeek, the hypnotized and robotic Stepfordians in Banners Broker who’d been brainwashed by cult tactics rose up to “defend” the “program,” including some individuals who continued to champion the scam even after it effectively extorted them into paying more fees to keep their positions intact and to retain any chance of receiving a payout.
While trying to chill members who remained in control of their gray matter and hadn’t slipped into an MLM trance, Banners Broker naturally counted on the Stepfordians whose brains it had reduced to slush to wage efforts to chill Blogs and websites that report on scams.
“If you know of a site with content that is negative towards Banners Broker, we ask that you report it to the Community Watch,” the “program” instructed in February 2014.
On Jan. 17, 2013, the PP Blog reported it was receiving menacing communications about Banners Broker.
For additional background on bids to chill reporters or program members who publish information about scams and highly questionable “opportunities,” see this Dec. 27, 2012, PP Blog post: Our Choice For The Most Important PP Blog Post Of 2012. (It’s about an effort to chill K. Chang over his reporting on Zeek Rewards.)
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is about a policy at a healthcare facility, not an MLM. Even so, some MLMs HYIPs seek to enforce positivity rules, a circumstance that drives robotic thinking, also known as Stepfordianism.
__________________________
We’re thinking the uber-bizarre Banners Broker “program” here, but Banners Broker hardly is the only HYIP “opportunity” that reaches across America and behaves as though North Korea’s dear leader Kim Jong-un is on the policy board.
What to do if you answer the phones/email for an MLM HYIP and you sense something is seriously amiss with the “program” — but management has let it be known that the company has an enforceable positivity policy that gags “negative” talk and perhaps implies the enterprise must be protected at the exclusion of rational thought?
A recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) went against a Michigan hospital that had the following prongs in its policy manual:
employees will not make “negative comments about our fellow team members,” including coworkers and managers.
employees will “represent [the Respondent] in the community in a positive and professional manner in every opportunity;”
employees “will not engage in or listen to negativity or gossip.”
If you work for an HYIP — and if the boss or bosses tell you to avoid reading all those negative blogs — perhaps its time to speak with a labor lawyer familiar with the case of Hills and Dales General Hospital.
MLM HYIPs create scores of Stepfordians enrolled as independent contractors. Banners Broker threatened earlier this year to gag negative members and seize their “earnings.” It also threatened to send out reliable Stepfordians to monitor members predisposed to behave like thinking, feeling human beings.
The SEC has filed a lawsuit against the Traffic Monsoon “program” and called it a Ponzi scheme that had gathered $207 million, the Salt Lake Tribune is reporting.
2ND UPDATE 2:25 P.M. EDT U.S.A. More horrible PR for the MLM trade: Banners Broker international pitchman and pyramid-scheme figure Kuldip Josun embezzled at least $3.6 million from affiliates, according to a receiver’s report.
Let’s begin by encouraging you to read Andrew Ceresney’s opening remarks at a joint symposium today sponsored by the SEC and the University of Illinois at Chicago. (Link at bottom of story. Also see Twitter links.)
BULLETIN: (6th update 7:23 p.m. ET U.S.A.) Class-action lawyers pursuing claims against TelexFree promoters have called the My Advertising Pays (MAPS) “program” a Ponzi scheme and described MAPS promoter Simon Stepsys as a “Ponzi mogul.”
