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Tag: Changes Worldwide LLC

  • Firm In Which TelexFree Figure Faith Sloan Allegedly Hid Money Charged With Fraud In Separate Case

    After the SEC's TelexFree case in 2014, Faith Sloan allegedly sent money to Changes Worldwide, a firm bow charged with fraud by the CFTC,
    After the SEC’s TelexFree case in 2014, Faith Sloan allegedly sent money to Changes Worldwide, a firm now charged with fraud by the CFTC. From: federal court files.

     

    UPDATED 12:14 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Back in April 2014, the SEC charged online huckster Faith Sloan with fraud for pushing the TelexFree scheme. Two month later, in June 2014, the SEC accused Sloan of violating the TelexFree asset freeze by sending nearly $15,000 to an online scheme known as Changes Worldwide LLC for the purchase of “business promo packs.”

    She also was accused of violating the freeze by sending $3,990 to an entity known as Changes Trading. There has been concern for years about serial MLM HYIP participants proceeding from fraud scheme to fraud scheme to fraud scheme. This sometimes is described as “whack-a-mole.”

    Now, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has charged both Changes Trading and Changes Worldwide with fraud. Also charged were Changes operator Timothy Baggett of Lakeland, Fla., and Kimball Parker of Lehi, Utah, along with Parker’s Utah company, MakeYourFuture LLC.

    The CFTC prosecution appears not to be related to the SEC’s TelexFree case, except in the sense that it demonstrates a continuing need for discernment and that discernment may be in short supply. Sloan is not a CFTC defendant.

    From the CFTC (italics added):

    The CFTC Complaint alleges that the Defendants engaged in a fraudulent scheme to misrepresent the profitability and success of a futures trading system that they sold to customers, including making fraudulent representations in marketing materials, on their websites, and in one-on-one communications with customers and prospective customers regarding the profitability of their trading system. According to the Complaint, from at least March 2014 through the present, the Defendants induced at least 289 customers to pay them more than $853,294.98 for the trading system.

    Specifically, as alleged, the Defendants made material, false representations in his solicitations of customers and prospective customers, including that their trading system had “never had a losing month,” and generated “300% annual returns.” According to the Complaint, to support these claims, Defendants posted so-called “documented and verifiable results” on their websites showing returns of between 11% and 68% each month from January through December 2014.

    However, as the Complaint further alleges, Defendants’ “documented and verifiable results” were false and did not reflect any actual trading of real money in any futures account. Meanwhile, according to the Complaint, Parker and Baggett consistently lost money trading futures in their personal accounts, and customers also consistently lost money attempting to trade according to the system, a fact that Defendants were made aware of by customer complaints.

    A bogus “live training room” and “robot” also were part of the scheme, the CFTC alleged.

    Kenneth D. Bell, the receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi- and pyramid case, has raised the issue of promoters/participants jumping to new schemes. Robert Craddock, a figure in the Zeek scheme later charged with ripping off the Deepwater Horizon oil-spill fund, once had an association with Changes Worldwide.

    BehindMLM.com has some history on the Changes-related companies and notes Baggett also allegedly was involved in the BidsThatGive scheme.

    Read the CFTC complaint, which explains how Baggett’s MLM business purportedly selling vitamins and vacations allegedly ended up getting involved in the futures business.




  • BULLETIN: Zeek Figure Robert Craddock Indicted In Separate Scheme

    breakingnews72BULLETIN: Florida resident Robert Craddock, a figure in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi-scheme story, has been indicted in a separate scheme involving the alleged theft of more than $135,000 from a compensation fund set up to assist businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.

    The office of U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley III of the Middle District of Florida announced Friday that Craddock, 54, of Port Orange, had been charged with wire fraud. The U.S. Secret Service conducted the probe.

    BehindMLM.com reported the news in a story dated March 16.

    Prosecutors said in a statement that Craddock “crafted fictitious invoices to support the amount of lost earnings that he claimed.”

    From the statement by prosecutors (italics added):

    According to the indictment, following the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (which was being leased by BP, formerly known as British Petroleum), Craddock submitted a claim to BP and the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (“GCCF”), an independent facility established by BP to compensate qualified claimants, for lost earnings purportedly related to the impact of the oil spill on his businesses.

    Though uncharged in the Zeek case, Craddock has been described by the SEC as an obstructionist who encouraged victims of the $897 million Zeek scheme not to cooperate with Kenneth D. Bell, the court-appointed receiver.

    Separately, the Daytona Beach News-Journal is reporting that local property records showed that Craddock, a pilot, recently “bought a home complete with aircraft hangar that backs up to a runway in Spruce Creek Fly-In.”

    In 2012, Craddock was involved in a fundraising venture purportedly to assist Zeek participants to mount a challenge against the SEC for bringing the Zeek Ponzi case. This occurred through a Craddock venture known as Fun Club USA, later described by litigants suing Craddock for alleged trademark infringement as a shell company engaged in a “shake-down” bid against affiliates of at least three MLM networks: Zeek, OfferHubb and BTG180.

    Precisely how much Craddock collected in the Zeek-related fundraising effort is unclear. Also unclear is precisely how the money was used.

    Zeek figures Todd Disner and T. LeMont Silver — alleged winners of millions of dollars from Zeek — helped champion the fundraising venture. Disner also was a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme story, something Zeek receiver Kenneth D. Bell pointed out to a federal judge.

    Bell has raised concerns that MLMers or network marketers are moving from fraud scheme to fraud scheme to fraud scheme.

    Craddock has been a lightning rod for MLM controversy. In November 2012, for example, he bizarrely planted the seed that MLM attorney Kevin Thompson was practicing law without a license. Thompson described Craddock as a liar.

    But if there is a signature Craddock moment, it occurred in July 2012, when Craddock sought to disable a HubPage critical of Zeek by alleging author K. Chang had engaged in libel, trademark infringement and copyright infringement. It was all a fantastic crock, and K. Chang eventually prevailed.

    Less than a month after Craddock moved against K. Chang, the SEC and the U.S. Secret Service moved against Zeek.

    Court records from the ASD Ponzi case show that ASD also tried to chill reporters with threats about lawsuits in the weeks prior to a government raid on ASD headquarters in August 2008.

    In 2014, Craddock was listed as a copyright enforcer on the website of an entity known as Changes Worldwide LLC. The SEC has accused TelexFree figure Faith Sloan of violating the asset freeze in the TelexFree case by sending thousands of dollars to Changes Worldwide. Sloan also was a Zeek affiliate.

    Craddock later reportedly authored a book whose sales copy included a claim that the U.S. government should have modeled a “stimulus program” after Zeek, which prosecutors have described as a Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered $897 million and affected hundreds of thousands of people globally.

    The SEC declined to comment on the book, which was offered on Amazon.com.

  • Zeek Figure Robert Craddock’s Fun Club USA Severely Sanctioned In Trademark-Infringement Case; Judge Orders Default For Failure To Follow Court Order

    OfferHubb.net Inc. sued Zeek Rewards figure Robert Craddock in February 2014, alleging Craddock “immediately” embarked on a web-based disparagement campaign after OfferHubb chose in July 2013 not to renew a contract with Craddock and Craddock’s Fun Club USA Inc.

    Co-defendants included Craddock’s wife, Sylvia Salgado Craddock, and Fun Club.

    Craddock was accused in the complaint of cybersquatting, trademark infringement, wrongful use of a computer, misappropriation of trade secrets, wrongful interference with economic relations, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, defamation and hiding behind a shell company.

    Now, a federal district judge in Nevada — following the October recommendation of a magistrate judge   — has ordered sanctions.  This includes the striking of the answer Fun Club filed in February. It also includes a default order against the enterprise.

    Why? Fun Club’s “failure to comply with this Court’s Order to obtain counsel,” Judge Richard F. Boulware II said in the order.

    Boulware also ordered the clerk to enter judgment and close the case. The financial fallout was not immediately clear.

    As the PP Blog reported in October (italics added):

    Fun Club and Craddock are referenced in a blistering memo filed in the Zeek Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case by the SEC on Dec. 17, 2012. In the memo, the SEC accused Craddock of encouraging Zeek affiliates “not to cooperate” with Kenneth D. Bell, the court appointed receiver. The SEC further alleged that Craddock was spreading misinformation about how the agency viewed its own case against Zeek and that Fun Club appeared to have been formed 11 days after the SEC emergency action against Zeek on Aug. 17, 2012.

    Craddock has not been charged by the SEC with wrongdoing . . .

    The trademark-infringement claim may be particularly concerning to the MLM trade, given that Craddock has asserted he works as a copyright and trademark agent on behalf of MLM “programs.”

    On July 22, 2012, while purportedly working as a “consultant” for Zeek, Craddock filed a copyright- and trademark-infringement complaint against a HubPages website operated by Zeek critic K. Chang. K. Chang, who also posts on publications such as the PP Blog and BehindMLM.com, ultimately prevailed in the action brought by Craddock.

    Less than a month later, the SEC brought the Ponzi- and pyramid action against Zeek.

    Earlier this year, a website known as Changes Worldwide identified Craddock as its copyright agent. Filings by the SEC in June 2014 alleged that Faith Sloan, accused in April 2014 of securities fraud by the agency in its Ponzi- and pyramid complaint against the TelexFree “program,” sent more than $15,000 to an entity known as Changes Worldwide LLC after an asset freeze was imposed against Sloan in the TelexFree case.

    Sloan also was a Zeek affiliate. Whether proceeds that originated in Zeek and/or TelexFree made their way into Changes Worldwide is unclear.

    Craddock also was sued for trademark infringement and other alleged offenses by a firm known as BTG180, which accused Craddock of using the alleged Fun Club “shell corporation” to engage in a “shake-down” bid against affiliates of at least three MLM networks: Zeek, OfferHubb and BTG180.

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.

  • BULLETIN: SEC Accuses Faith Sloan Of Violating Asset Freeze In TelexFree Case By Sending Thousands To ‘Changes Worldwide LLC,’ Company That Lists Zeek Figure Robert Craddock As Copyright Enforcer

    From an SEC filing today that alleges Faith Sloan violated the TelexFree asset freeze by sending money to a "program" known as Changes Worldwide LLC. Redactions by PP Blog.
    From an SEC filing today that alleges Faith Sloan violated the TelexFree asset freeze by sending money to a “program” known as Changes Worldwide LLC. Redactions by PP Blog.

    BULLETIN: (4th Update 10:01 a.m. EDT June 13 U.S.A.) The SEC has accused Faith Sloan of violating the asset freeze imposed against her in the TelexFree pyramid- and Ponzi case by sending nearly $15,000 to Changes Worldwide LLC for the purchase of “business promo packs.” On its website, Changes Worldwide identifies Robert Craddock as its copyright agent. He also is believed to be an affiliate for Changes Worldwide.

    Whether the SEC would seek return of the money from Changes Worldwide was not immediately clear. Recipients of ill-gotten gains can become relief defendants in SEC actions.

    Craddock emerged as a figure in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme case, with the SEC asserting in 2012 that he encouraged affiliates not to cooperate with the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek case. The receiver said at the time that he had obtained information “indicating that large sums of Receivership Assets may have been transferred by net winners to other entities in order to hide or shelter those assets.”

    While a purported consultant for Zeek in July 2012, Craddock, citing alleged trademark and copyright violations, sought to shut down a Hubpages site by K. Chang that questioned the Zeek program, which the SEC and federal prosecutors later described as an $850 million fraud. K. Chang publishes the MLM Skeptic site.

    One of the assertions against Sloan today by the SEC is that she had the sole power of direction and was the sole beneficiary of a real-estate trust, but amended trust documents after the TelexFree freeze to transfer her interest to her mother — in violation of the asset freeze. Sending money to Changes Worldwide and a separate entity known as Changes Trading LLC also violated the freeze, the SEC alleged.

    The SEC said that it had linked Sloan to three transactions with Changes Worldwide on April 25, eight days after Sloan learned of the asset freeze. Two of the transactions were for $5,000 each, and a third was for $4,854, the SEC asserted.

    On April 28, 11 days after she learned about the freeze, Sloan sent $3,990 to Changes Trading, using two separate checks for $1,995 each, the SEC alleged.

    Neither of the “Changes” entities nor Craddock has been accused of wrongdoing, but the alleged Sloan transactions lead to questions about whether MLM promoters accused of fraud are hiding money in other “programs” and abusing trusts in bids to avoid detection and keep their interests in schemes intact.

    A crime known as structuring also could be occurring if the transactions are set up to evade bank-reporting requirements. In a civil action against TelexFree in April, the Massachusetts Securities Division raised the issue of structuring.

    The SEC said today that Sloan had asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over a TelexFree related matter involving the asset freeze cited in a preliminary injunction. The injunction requires her to identify her assets. She has not been charged criminally, but it is known that a criminal probe is under way.

    Read a November 2013 review of Changes Worldwide on BehindMLM.com.

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.