BULLETIN: The Federal Trade Commission has gone to federal court in Fort Myers to seek contempt sanctions against Florida companies accused of encouraging prospects to misrepresent information on applications to receive Food Stamp benefits.
Prospects who followed the advice could be charged with a crime, the FTC said.
The companies and their principal also are accused of violating a March 2010 court order that prohibited them from marketing credit-repair and debt-elimination programs deceptively. Named in the contempt petition are Sam Tarad Sky, Allrepco LLC, Credit Restoration Brokers LLC (CRB), and Debt Negotiations Associates LLC.
“In violation of the Stipulated Settlement Order, Contempt Defendants Sam Sky and
his companies have launched a scheme to defraud economically distressed consumers who
may be interested in receiving food stamps,” the FTC charged. “Specifically, taking cynical advantage of the recent economic downturn, Sky and his companies deceptively market a ‘Food Stamp Eligibility Tool Kit’ . . . to consumers seeking financial help. Sky and his companies market the product as an ‘automatic,’ ‘hassle free’ method by which ‘virtually
everyone’ can receive food stamps ‘without any risk.’
“In fact,” the FTC continued, “eligibility for food stamps remains strictly limited and the vast majority of Americans do not qualify. To side-step these longstanding limitations, Sky’s ‘guide’ encourages consumers to provide so-called ‘ideal’ information on their food stamp applications thereby misrepresenting their income and expenses. Following such advice is hardly ‘without any risk.’ Rather, it puts consumers at considerable risk of criminal prosecution for public benefits fraud. Finally, Contempt Defendants also violate the Stipulated Settlement Order by unlawfully requiring payment before performance for credit repair services and refusing to make required disclosures about the timing and risk of debt negotiation.”
Today’s filing is rich with coincidences. For one, one of the accused firms — Debt Negotiations Associates — uses the acronym DNA. The DNA acronym also has been used by a separate, unrelated company known as Data Network Affiliates, which also operates in Florida. Data Network Affiliates offered a purported debt-reduction program tied to purported mortgage re-writes, while at once advising prospects it was in the business of gathering data to help the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children.
Data Network Affiliates, which is associated with Internet Marketer Phil Piccolo, later appears to have morphed into a company known as OWOW, which offered purported cancer cures and a “magnetic” product purported to have prevented a leg amputation. The purported “magnetic” product also was positioned as a device that could help tomatoes grow to twice their ordinary size and dairy cows produce more milk.
In another rich coincidence, promoters of a Florida company known as MPB Today targeted Food Stamp recipients last year in promos that implied Food Stamp money could be used to join the MPB Today MLM program and that a $200, one-time purchase could result in free groceries for life.
One promo for MPB Today even advised prospects to sell $200 worth of Food Stamps to a family member to raise the cash to join the MPB Today program. The promo, which appeared in the form of a news release, purported to be the byproduct of a thought that had popped into the promoter’s head on a drive home from “church” on a “beautiful Sunday afternoon.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said last year that it was investigating certain claims about the MPB Today program.
Among the allegations was that Sky had started a “new ficitious business” known as “Florida Consumer Assistance” to hawk the purported Food Stamp guide. The new scheme also featured the creation of a website known as MyFoodStampCard.com, according to the FTC.
The website, which is still active, appears to make a series of political statements. Under a subhead of “THE SICKENING STIGMA,” for instance, the site says this:
“The sickening stigma – most all of us grew up in a time where our parents and grandparents – worked hard – never took a hand out and wouldn’t ever let their credit go bad, or even miss a house payment! This is not the same America – ‘Political Greed is destroying our children’s future’ and our retirement opportunities.
“If you 100% disagree with the previous sentence – then leave this website now.” the site barks.
“Good people need to wake up!” the site continues. “Good people have lost their homes and lost their savings trying to do the ‘right thing’ – but what they didn’t understand is the ‘right thing’ is really now the wrong thing. Back in the day, doing the ‘right thing’ would’ve NEVER put good people in the positions that they’re in today.”
The site eventually asks for “1 Easy Payment Of $99.95,” instructing prospects that “You do not have to pay a private social worker $599 to give you assistance.”
TVI Express, an MLM company whose pitchmen have used images of business titans Warren Buffett and Donald Trump to plant the seed they backed the firm, has come under criminal investigation in South Africa, according to web records and a media site.
Buffett and Trump are believed to have no ties to the firm.
News of the TVI criminal probe first was reported Dec. 30 by The New Age. The publication quotes a spokesperson for the South Africa Department of Trade and Industry, noting the TVI matter has become a “police case” involving pyramid-scheme allegations.
TVI, purportedly based in London, also is under fire in Australia. Meanwhile, there are reports the company has come under fire in the U.S. state of Georgia. Reports that Georgia officials have issued a cease-and-desist order could not be confirmed immediately.
It was not immediately clear if South Africa would seek to determine why TVI promoters sought to plant the seed that Buffett and Trump backed TVI, which purports to be in the travel business. An image of Buffett appears on the TVI home page — and images of Trump and former President Bill Clinton appear on an internal page.
A number of MLM schemes have produced photos or made references to Clinton, who once delivered remarks to tout the direct-selling industry. Clinton did not endorse a specific company, and the Code of Conduct of the Direct Selling Association (DSA) specifically prohibits “Deceptive or Unlawful Consumer or Recruiting Practices.”
In its Code of Conduct, DSA specifically requires member companies to provide information that is “accurate and complete.” At the same time, DSA says member companies “shall not present any selling opportunity to any prospective independent salesperson in a false, deceptive or misleading manner.”
TVI Express is not listed as a DSA member on the organization’s website.
Even as news about the TVI criminal probe was appearing online in South Africa, news that Buffett’s name allegedly had been used to sanitize elements of the George Theodule Ponzi scheme in Florida was appearing in the United States.
Images of Buffett and Trump also have been used by promoters of a purported “grocery” MLM in Florida known as MPB Today. Separately, images (and references) to Trump and television icon Oprah Winfrey have been used in promotions for Data Network Affiliates (DNA), an MLM company purportedly in the business of building a database to help the U.S. government and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children.
DNA now appears to have morphed into a company known as OWOW, which has positioned its products as cancer cures or treatments and even as a means of preventing the surgical amputation of limbs and growing tomatoes twice the size of ordinary tomatoes. DNA has a rating of “F” from the Better Business Bureau, the organization’s lowest.
Eventually websites bearing DNA’s name began to resolve to the OWOW site. DNA also used names such as TagEveryCar.com and LockInYourFreeSpot.com. Those sites also now resolve to the OWOW site.
Phil Piccolo, also known as "Mr. P.," strides the stage to hawk OWOW products. Piccolo claims the company's magnetic line assists in hair retention and even prevents the surgical amputation of limbs. The products also improve dairy production and help home gardeners grow tomatoes double the size of ordinary tomatoes, according to Piccolo.
BULLETIN: The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said this morning that the OWOW multilevel-marketing program was using agency materials on cancer research inappropriately.
OWOW is associated with Internet Marketer Phil Piccolo. The company has positioned at least two products sold MLM-style as cancer cures or treatments, including a bottled water.
On Dec. 26, the bottled-water product was touted on an OWOW affiliate’s website. The site included a link to a Dec. 21 news release by NIH about cancer research, specifically research pertaining to “a rare cancer of the digestive tract . . . linked to a shutdown in an enzyme that helps supply oxygen to cells.”
The affiliate claimed that “OWOW Water Is THE ONLY WATER that brings Oxygen to the cell from within the cell.
“Now check out this Article written almost on the day that OWOW received the exclusive marketing rights to our Oxyengenated Water,” the affiliate instructed, pointing prospects to the NIH website.
“NIH does not endorse products and this promo is an inappropriate use of a press release that has a tenuous connection to this product at best,” NIH spokesman and senior science writer Michael J. Miller told the PP Blog this morning.
How the agency would proceed was not immediately clear.
A “Non-Affiliated Support” link on the OWOW website includes no contact information for the company and no form through which prospects or members of the media can submit questions.
OWOW appears to be the successor company to Data Network Affiliates (DNA), which purported to be in the business of creating a database to help the government and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children.
No evidence has emerged that DNA had the capacity to help the government do anything.
Separately — and on the same OWOW-connected website — a series of videos appears. Piccolo, also known as “Mr. P.,” is featured in a video that hawks purported magnetic products positioned as treatments for everything from bruising and hair retention to preventing the surgical amputation of limbs.
Meanwhile, video viewers also are told that the magnetic products can be used to help tomatoes, vegetables and fruits grow “twice the size.”
At the same time, the products also are positioned as helpful to dairy farmers.
“Dairy farmers who feed their cows through this here unit right here produce more milk per cow,” Piccolo claims in the video.
Family pets hearing a call from the grim reaper can extend their lives if their owners use the products, Piccolo instructs viewers.
“Your pets? If you have a pet and your pet’s on its last leg[s], bring them a Magnetic Shower,” Piccolo coaches. “You won’t believe what it will do for your pet.”
See Video
“If it wasn’t for magnets, I really believe I’d be in a wheelchair right now,” Piccolo says in the video. Piccolo asserted he’d been bucked off a horse and suffered the worst bruise his doctors had ever seen — but used magnetic products to save the day quickly, heal bruising and maintain his ability to walk.
One man who suffered a heart attack was able to avoid a leg amputation by using the magnetic shower head, according to the video.
It perhaps was a good idea to purchase the product before “Monday,” because the price was going to increase, Piccolo tells the audience. The date upon which the OWOW video was recorded was not immediately clear.
This is actually Post No. 1,007 since the PP Blog switched to the WordPress platform two years ago this month. We’d hoped to commemorate our 1,000th WordPress post in the actual 1,000th post, but missed the chance because of Breaking News concerning the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force’s Operation Broken Trust.
The PP Blog's Breaking News graphic was stolen and used in a promotion for Data Network Affiliates (DNA) earlier this year. DNA, which purports to be in the business of helping the AMBER Alert prohram rescue abducted children, now apparently has morphed into a company known as OWOW, which has instructed members to advertise a secret cure for cancer.
Several hours after we reported that the Task Force now was counting investment-fraud victims by the tens of thousands and noting that even deaf people had been targeted in massive scams, we reported that Walmart had joined the “If you see something, say something” terrorism-awareness campaign operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Walmart was instantly and savagely pilloried on YouTube, apparently for holding the view that DHS deserved private-sector help in its work to keep America safe. On. Dec. 6, when the PP Blog first observed the DHS video on YouTube announcing the Walmart partnership, the video had received only 310 views. That number now has shot up to 289,657. YouTube posters called DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano names that could peel paint. We’ll leave it at that, except to say that scores of Americans appear to have emerged as kneejerk critics and appear unwilling to view America’s economic well-being within the lens of national security.
Indeed, how safe is America — and the world at large — if fraud victims are being counted in numbers that would fill stadiums and vast sums of wealth are being consumed and disappearing down ratholes? In the Task Force announcement, Attorney General Eric Holder said that, since Aug. 16 alone, cases investigated by the Task Force have uncovered losses of more than $10.4 billion. The schemes affected at least 120,000 victims.
The victims’ count in just this relatively small cluster of cases is more than enough to fill the Rose Bowl in Pasadena or Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, America’s largest college-football stadium.
Just prior to our Operation Broken Trust post — in Post No. 999 — we reported that the AdPayDaily autosurf, which has promoters and members in common with both AdSurfDaily and AdViewGlobal, was showing signs of collapse. Flash forward to Post No. 1,002: In this post, we reported that a New York Internet Marketer had been arrested by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for cyberstalking.
Vitaly Borker apparently believed it prudent to use the Internet to threaten to rape women who had received what investigators described as bogus and inferior-quality goods from him. A fair reading of the complaint against Borker shows that he used the same type of gutter language directed at Napolitano on YouTube — you know, for her apparent High Crime of asking Walmart shoppers to be aware of their surroundings in the Age of Terrorism.
We next reported on a 54-year prison sentence handed down to a former Indiana pastor who duped Christian investors in a Ponzi scheme. After that, we reported that a company that once did business with Steve Renner’s Cash Cards International had been implicated in a massive Forex scheme that affected at least 800 investors.
Renner was the operator of the INetGlobal autosurf, which the U.S. Secret Service said in February was operating a Ponzi scheme affecting thousands of people, including victims of Chinese descent who may have limited ability to understand English. The Secret Service said an undercover agent had been introduced to INetGlobal by an AdSurfDaily member.
On Dec. 8, we reported that a Maryland man had been arrested after the FBI intercepted his plot to detonate a car bomb at a military-recruitment center. A similar plot had been unmasked by the FBI in Portand, Ore., on the day after Thanksgiving. It was aimed at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, meaning it was aimed at children and families.
Here is one way to look at the alleged Thanksgiving plot: The arrest was announced on Nov. 26. By Dec. 6, crackpots were flooding YouTube with paint-peeling comments about Napolitano and the terrorism-awareness campaign. Two days after that, on Dec. 8, a man was arrested in the Maryland plot. He allegedly also talked about blowing up Andrews Air Force Base, which happens to be the home base of Air Force One, which happens to be the aircraft used by the President of the United States.
We haven’t even written about Wikileaks and the arrest in Britian of Julian Assange. Wikileaks’ sympathizers reacted by bringing DDoS attacks, apparently based on the belief that the best way to show support for Assange was to send out an army of bots to disrupt the websites of businesses that did not support Assange.
By week’s end, Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, were surrounded by a mob unhappy about the skyrocketing costs of getting a college education in the United Kingdom. Civility, it seems, can be cast out the door in a country minute and replaced by the taunts of a mob.
Yesterday, as we again sought to commemorate our 1,000 post, word arrived about the apparent suicide of Bernard Madoff’s son on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.
There is no doubt — none whatsoever — that Ponzi = Pain. There also is no doubt that the Internet has ushered in an era of unprecedented, mass-produced, viral crime. Criminals have been aided in their nefarious pursuits by crackpots who employ no editorial filters and simply create or repeat lies that institutionalize crime as an occupation and even celebrate it.
At the precise moment in time in which Americans and other citizens of the world could benefit most from serious words and serious research backing those words, some of the world’s great publishing companies are struggling to make ends meet. Print circulation is down. Journalists are losing jobs. Designers and salespeople are losing jobs.
The switch to electronic publishing platforms has been accompanied by piracy, wanton theft and trademark infringement that further erodes the value of words and intellectual property, undermines the economy and adds to concerns about national and international security. People, including well-intentioned people, simply copy-and-paste entire editorial wells from one site to another. The public becomes confused about the original source of material, which often is shoe-horned to fit a specific agenda.
Earlier this year, the PP Blog’s Breaking News graphic was stolen by a member of Data Network Affiliates (DNA), an MLM company that routinely targets promos at Christians and, among other things, has claimed it is helping the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children. DNA now apparently has morphed into a company known as OWOW, which is asking members to suggest that a product known as TurboMune cures cancer.
This is not “freedom,” as the scammers would have you believe; it is theft and piracy on the high electronic seas, plain and simple. It also often is the case that this specific brand of theft also gets mixed with appeals to faith, meaning the scammers are seeking to pluck heartstrings and separate Believers from their money.
There simply is no way that any government or branch of government can be at all places at all times. Although it is fashionable to describe efforts to battle crime in the Age of the Internet and the Age of Terrorism as an effort by Big Brother to assign each individual citizen his or her own bureaucrat to bring commerce and freedom to a screeching halt, such opinions often are simple rants that lack any real-world context.
Within hours of the PP Blog’s publication of a story about the alleged Portland plot, the Blog was bizarrely assailed by an MLM aficionado for DNA/OWOW as a tool for Israel. Michael Chertoff, a former federal judge, federal prosecutor and DHS secretary, was described as a “suspect” in the 9/11 attacks, which the poster blamed on Israel while calling Chertoff an Israeli scum bag.
As noted above, when Janet Napolitano announced a simple partnership with Walmart to encourage citizens to be aware of their surroundings, she encountered vicious name-calling — and it all happened during the same week yet-another bombing plot was unmasked, the Task Force was noting that America’s largest stadiums were not large enough to accommodate recent victims of financial fraud, DDoS attacks were aimed at companies deemed by third parties to be unfriendly to Wikileaks and the future king of England and his wife were surrounded by an angry mob.
Even if one is willing to assume that Wikileaks seeks to serve a higher, noble purpose, directing DDoS attacks at businesses and government sites hardly helps Assange elicit sympathy or understanding. He lost an important round in the PR war last week, as did the unthinking crowd that assailed Napolitano and the mob that heckled Prince Charles and the Duchess.
The lionization of crackpots of all stripes is rapidly emerging as a dangerous, unintended consequence of the Internet — as are all the tortured claims that MLM products treat or cure cancer, create vast sums of wealth for ordinary participants and the tortured claim that appropriating the names of Walmart and Winfrey and Trump and Buffet and Clinton is just another word for freedom.
Far from promoting freedom, the crackpots and criminals are promoting anarchy. They do not seek to compete in either a free marketplace of commerce or a free marketplace of ideas. Rather, they seek to commit crimes on a global scale and to fill entire stadiums with victims — even as would-be terrorists speculate about throwing cocktail bombs into military-recruitment centers and shooting soldiers and staff as they flee the flames through the doors.
In Portland, meanwhile, the idea was to kill wide-eyed children contemplating the miracles of Christmas and Santa Claus with a fireball that also would consume their parents.
We conclude this 1,000 post commemoration with a simple thought: Death and taxes are not the only two certainties of life. It is equally certain that law enforcement needs the proactive participation of the public more than ever. It is one thing to direct reasonable criticism at agencies and public officials; it is quite another to cheer against the people who are responding to unprecedented security challenges while trying to make sure the stadiums fill up with football fans, not victims.
It has become kneejerk sport to deride Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano as “Big Sis.”
Today the attacks on Napolitano turned even more caustic, with the announcement by both DHS and Walmart that Walmart had joined the DHS-operated “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign.
Walmart issued a news release today saying it was proud to become part of the campaign, linking its announcement to a 44-second DHS video that will begin playing in 588 Walmart stores across the United States in the coming weeks .
“Homeland security starts with hometown security, and each of us plays a critical role in keeping our country and communities safe,” said Napolitano. “I applaud Walmart for joining the ‘If You See Something, Say Something’ campaign. This partnership will help millions of shoppers across the nation identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats to law enforcement authorities.”
Snarky, vile comments were posted on the DHS YouTube site in response to the video — some of the sort that made the “Big Sis” slam seem almost like a compliment.
Walmart, though, is not alone in backing the campaign.
Other DHS partners in the campaign include Mall of America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Amtrak, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, sports and general aviation industries and state and local fusion centers across the country.
Walmart’s announcement that it had joined the campaign occurs against the backdrop of a recent terrorist plot targeted at a community Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore. The plot, which was detected by the FBI, was scheduled to be carried out on “Black Friday.”
“Black Friday” is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, and has become a day filled with heavy retail shopping and community events. The suspect in the foiled Portland attack allegedly told the FBI that the plot would be less apt to be detected because the city was not front-and-center on law enforcement’s antiterrorism radar screens.
“. . . it’s in Oregon; and Oregon, like, you know, nobody ever thinks about it,” the FBI quoted the Portland suspect as saying.
There also have been bizarre events this year in which Walmart’s name was appropriated by members of murky multilevel-marketing businesses. Members of MLM programs known as Narc That Car/Crowd Sourcing International and Data Network Affiliates/OWOW instructed prospects to take photos of the license plates of cars parked at Walmart and other large retail stores.
The plate numbers purportedly were to be entered into databases controlled by the MLM firms as a means of helping law enforcement and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children. No evidence has surfaced that either of the MLM firms has any tie to the AMBER Alert program, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Meanwhile, bizarre promos for an MLM program known as MPB Today routinely used Walmart or its branding materials as backdrops for a purported program that suggested a one-time, $200 purchase from MPB Today could lead to free groceries for life.
In its news release announcing it had joined the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign, Walmart urged customers to support the program, but did not say precisely why it had made the decison to become to first national retailer to partner with DHS.
Advertising a Des Moines, Iowa, business address of 123 Internet St. and claiming the “owow 8g zip drive stick is the new face of data network affiliates,” an affiliate of DNA/OWOW is seeking to drive business to the firm.
But the Des Moines Police Department told the PP Blog this morning that no such street address exists in the city, despite multiple online listings encouraging prospects to do business with OWOW at the address.
A separate Des Moines address — 123 Online St. — that advertised something called “Global Gifting Connection” also was bogus, the police department said. It is unclear if the same person placed both ads.
Why bogus addresses were used to advertise OWOW and a cash-gifting program was not immediately clear.
“[I]f you would like use this product or learn how to grow a team to market it,” an ad in Des Moines said about the OWOW stick, “I have help top leaders place over 30,000 people into this company and i will be happy to help you.”
The OWOW ads appear at online venues such as MerchantCircle and HelloDesMoines.com. The business has not been verified, according to the MerchantCircle website. The ad on the HelloDesMoines site carries a photo of the OWOW stick.
The Des Moines development follows on the heels of a prompt by OWOW, which is associated with Internet Marketer Phil Piccolo, to recruit prospects by planting the seed that a product known as OWOW TurboMune cures cancer.
It also follows on the heels of a bizarre bid by an OWOW affiliate to suggest that Michael Chertoff, a Harvard-educated former federal judge and federal prosecutor and the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was a “suspect” in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks on the United States and that Israel had conducted the attacks.
The bizarre claim was made despite the fact that Chertoff’s nomination to the DHS post was approved by a 98-0 vote in the U.S. Senate more than three years after the attacks occurred.
OWOW is the apparent successor company to DNA, a Nevada-registered company that operates from Florida and claimed it was developing a database to help law enforcement and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children.
No evidence has emerged that DNA has the capacity to assist either law enforcement or the AMBER Alert program, which the firm chastised earlier this year by suggesting it had a bloated budget and had rescued “ONLY” about 500 children over the years.
A “Non-Affiliated Support” link on the OWOW website includes no contact information for the company and no form through which prospects or members of the media can submit questions.
OWOW also has advertised that it pays an annual interest rate of 24 percent to members who send it money. Questions have been raised about whether the company is selling unregistered securities as investment contracts.
One link in the MerchantCircle ad for OWOW prompts visitors to visit a site that redirects to video promos for an “opportunity” known as Monitium and a cycler program known as 150 Cash.
Hours after the PP Blog published a story about the FBI foiling a bid to detonate a bomb targeted at American children and families at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., a poster defending OWOW — the apparent successor company to Data Network Affiliates (DNA) — demanded to know if the Blog was “Israeli,” planted the seed that the Blog was racist and accused it of spreading “Islamophobia.”
“On a sep[a]rate note, [I] was shocked to discover that you are also spreading Islamophobia, so not only are you a two-bit hack, some might say that you are a racist,” a poster identified as “John” wrote in a comments thread below a Nov. 21 story that referenced OWOW. “For your information, most educated people know that the terror scares are FAKE, and that the Sept 11th attacks were carried out by another group, Israel being prime suspects.”
“John” also railed against the SEC, in response to a comment by the Blog that raised the question of whether OWOW, which is associated with Internet Marketer Phil Piccolo, was offering unregistered securities as investment contracts by advertising that it paid 24 percent annual interest to members who sent in money.
Piccolo has gained a reputation online as a “one-man Internet crime wave.” During a radio program in August, Piccolo threatened to sue critics and planted the seed that he could cause them to experience physical pain.
Rather than answering the question, John wrote, “The SEC? In between watching porn all day? The same SEC covering up the biggest financial crime i[n] history, IE the long term manipulation of the Gold and precious metals markets? That SEC?”
Earlier this year, the inspector general for the SEC said he was investigating reports that some SEC officials had used government computers to view pornography. Such an announcement, though embarrassing to the agency, did not legalize securities fraud or create a new defense for securities violations or potential securities violations.
DNA is a Nevada-registered company whose website is registered behind a proxy in the Cayman Islands. The company explained months ago that it registered the domain privately in the Caymans to prevent management from having to “put up with 100 stupid calls a day.”
Despite its Caymans’-registered domain, DNA asserted it was paying members of its multilevel-marketing (MLM) program to write down license-plate numbers at churches, “doctors’ offices” and retail outets such as Walmart. The plate numbers, according to DNA, would be entered into a database that was being developed to help law enforcement and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children.
The license-plate program raised privacy concerns, and no guidance was given members in the areas of propriety, legality and safety. DNA later morphed into a purported cell-phone company, proclaiming it had destroyed all competition on earth overnight by offering a free cell phone with unlimited talk and text for $10 a month.
Members flooded the Internet with ads. DNA later said that it had been hoodwinked by a vendor that had led it to believe it could deliver the $10 unlimited plan. In a bizarre email, the company acknowledged that it had not studied cell-phone pricing before declaring itself the world’s low-price leader. Just weeks before, the company sent an email to announce its cell-phone venture in which it made the all-caps claim of “GAME OVER — WE WIN.”
By July 4 — and with no new cell-phone plan announced to replace the failed venture — DNA said it was entering the mortgage-reduction and resorts businesses. The purported mortgage-reduction program was positioned as the “MORAL OBLIGATION’ of churches to promote.
Later in July the company announced it was selling a “protective spray” that would help buyers obscure the license-plate numbers of their cars to guard against getting traffic tickets. The spray purportedly would block cameras from snapping usable photos of the plates, and DNA said the spray protected against “wrongful ticketing by city cameras worldwide.”
DNA did not explain the incongruity of saying it supported law enforcement in its efforts to locate abducted children while at once working against law enforcement in its efforts to enforce traffic laws. Nor did DNA say whether it believed criminals who abducted children and sped off in cars would find the “protective spray” useful when making a getaway.
Even as DNA was announcing the availability of its purported “protective spray,” the company announced it soon would adopt a browser-based “DNA World Wide Alert Button” to let members know when a “child is reported missing in your immediate area.”
It is unclear of DNA ever developed such a button.
What is clear is that multiple domain names associated with the company now redirect to a website known as “One World, One Website” or OWOW.
Members have been prompted to send prospects an email that advertises a cure for cancer.
(Italics added):
Invest 90 Seconds to earn $4,600 to $46,000 Monthly
Send A Simple E-mail “The Secret Cure For Cancer”
JUST FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW…
YOUR PERSONAL WEBSITE IS EMBEDDED IN THIS E-MAIL…
Invest 90 Seconds + Send out a Simple Cure for Cancer e-mail… Earn $4,600 to $46,000 a Month within 100 days or less…
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Simple & Short E-mail
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Most likely someone you love will die of Cancer or
some type of Flu type Disease and when it happens
you will say I wish I could have done something…
The SECRET CURE FOR CANCER…
Are you ready for the Simple & Secret CURE…
Here it is “DON’T GET IT”…
THE BOTTOM LINE IS
Take TurboMune & DON’T GET IT & If you GOT IT
Take TurboMune To Help You Get Rid You Of IT…
This product use to sell for $150 a capsule…
It currently sells in ASIA for $300 a bottle…
OWOW sells the product as low as $19.95 a bottle…
++++++++++++++++++
Invest 90 Seconds
The PP Blog first reported the existence of the email Saturday. The Blog also reported that Phil Piccolo had been a member of a company in California that had been expressly warned by the state not to make false and misleading claims in promotional materials and not to advertise that tax “write-offs” were available for joining an MLM company.
DNA advertised that members who recorded license-plate numbers on its behalf could qualify for hefty mileage deductions despite the fact that no evidence has surfaced that the firm’s license-plate program is a legitimate business.
“Did you know about your DNA Tax Benefits . . .” the DNA pitch began. “Imagine driving 10,000 miles for your DNA Business = up to a $5,000 Tax Deduction… “IRS Announces 2010 Standard Mileage Rates” IR-2009-111, Dec. 3, 2009… and this is just one of many…”
Less than enthused about the PP Blog’s reporting, “John” apparently embarked on a strategy of trying to discredit the Blog by advancing a conspiracy theory about the 9/11 attacks, the “the long term manipulation of the Gold and precious metals markets” and tying the Blog to Israel.
“John” even demanded that another poster answer a question about whether the Blog is “AN ISRAELI?” He also observed that “Millions consider the [Food and Drug Administration] to be a filthy cabal of criminals” and suggested there was nothing misleading about Piccolo’s cancer-cure email to OWOW members.
The Blog specifically asked “John” why someone would plant the seed that the OWOW TurboMune product cures cancer.
“THERE YOU GO AGAIN, wrong AGAIN, spreading lies AGAIN,” John claimed. “The email says ‘The Secret Cure For Cancer” IS ‘Dont get it.’”
“John” offered no comment on the part of the email that read, “THE BOTTOM LINE IS
Take TurboMune & DON’T GET IT & If you GOT IT Take TurboMune To Help You Get Rid You Of IT…”
Four egg-themed domain names used to drive business to HYIPs that ended in spectacular flameouts and foreshadowed a warning from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) have gone missing.
The domains — including one that redirected to an HYIP site known bizarrely as Cash Tanker, which used an image of Jesus Christ to promote a purported payout of 2 percent a day — first were promoted on the pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum by a poster who used the handle “joe” in December 2009.
The egg-themed promo featured a pitch that HYIP participants were wise to spread risk by not keeping all of their eggs in “ONE BASKET.” It also hawked Gold Nugget Invest (7.5 percent a week); Saza Investments (9 percent a week); and Genius Funds (6.5 percent a week).
Despite an active criminal investigation into the business practices of ASD President Andy Bowdoin and alleged co-conspirators — and despite a RICO lawsuit filed by members against Bowdoin and repeated warnings from various regulators about the dangers of HYIPs and autosurfs — the egg-themed promo claimed in all-caps that “I MAKE 2000.00 A WEEK” and directly solicited ASD members to part with their money.
One Surf’s Up member dissed critics of the promo, calling them “dead wrong.”
“I also make a lot of money from those four and your remarks tell me you don’t know anything about them,” the member claimed. “[T]hey are very reputable [companies] who have been around for years….and the money is NOT made from ‘new’ people’s money….google them and look at various forums and see what others have to say about them….I don’t even know Joe, but I can vouch for the programs!”
A series of spectacular collapses that consumed each of the HYIPs then followed over a period of just weeks, demonstrating that spreading risk across multiple HYIPs by putting eggs in multiple HYIP baskets was spectacularly poor advice that had produced a recipe for financial disaster.
In July, FINRA said that Genius Funds cost investors about $400 million. The regulator launched a public-awareness campaign, one component of which was an ad campaign on Google designed to educate and inform the public about HYIP fraud.
“Open the cyber door to HYIPs, and you will find hundreds of HYIP websites vying for investor attention,” FINRA said. “It is a bizarre substratum of the Internet.”
Records show that the government of Belize had issued a warning about Gold Nugget Invest nearly a month before the egg-themed promo had appeared on Surf’s Up and at least two members had vouched for the program.
FINRA also pointed to criminal charges filed by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in May against Nicholas Smirnow, the alleged operator of an HYIP Ponzi scheme known as Pathway To Prosperity that fleeced more than 40,000 people across the globe out of an estimated $70 million.
Using baffling prose, a purported GNI manager claimed the program ended after it had attempted to gain “a crystal clear vision of our financial vortex” during the fourth quarter of 2009.
After the collapse of the programs in the original egg-themed pitch on Surf’s Up, the domains then were set to redirect to other HYIPs.
Some ASD members later turned their attention to promoting MLM programs such as Narc That Car/Crowd Sourcing International (CSI), Data Network Affiliates (DNA) and MPB Today. CSI and DNA purport to be in the business of paying people to write down the license-plate numbers of cars for entry in a database. MPB Today purports to be in the grocery business.
DNA, which once instructed people of faith that it was their “MORAL OBLIGATION” to hawk a purported mortgage-reduction program offered alongside the purported license-plate program, now appears to have morphed into a program known as One World One Website or “O-WOW.”
An email received by members of the O-WOW program this weekend purported that a man suffering from terminal thyroid cancer had derived benefit from an O-WOW product known as “TurboMune” and that members somehow can earn “24% Annual Interest on their money” by giving it to O-WOW.
If members don’t pay O-WOW before Nov. 30, they’ll earn a lower rate of interest (18 percent), according to an email received by members.
Like DNA, O-WOW is associated with Phil Piccolo. During a radio program in August, Piccolo threatened critics with lawsuits and planted the seed that he could cause critics to experience physical pain. DNA has an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau. So does CSI. So does United Pro Media, a company formerly operated by MPB Today’s Gary Calhoun.
An online side show for MPB Today includes images of Walmart customers shopping inside a Walmart store. One of the departments featured in the slide show was the Pharmacy Department. (The image in this post has been cropped by the PP Blog to exclude a woman standing near the pharmacy counter.)
UPDATED 3:38 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) A 52-frame slide show accessible online may lead to questions about whether the privacy of Walmart customers and Walmart itself has been invaded in a sales promo for the purported MPB Today “grocery” program.
At least nine of the slides show customers, including people who appear to be senior citizens, shopping inside a Walmart store. The promo also appears to capture the images of Walmart employees. Fifteen photos of various Walmart departments are displayed in the presentation.
One of the snapshots taken inside the store includes the image of a woman standing inside the pharmacy section. The woman appears to be holding a cell phone to her left ear. The snapshot is dated Aug. 28, 2010 and time-stamped at 13:47. It is unclear if the date and time reflect the actual date and time the photo was taken. Several of the photos in the promo are date – and time-stamped. It is possible that all of the photos displaying Walmart shoppers, employees and departments were taken on the same day.
The promo opens with 32 consecutive photos of MPB Today members displaying checks and Walmart cards. The photos appear to have been taken in or around the members’ homes. An image of business titan Warren Buffet is visible on a laptop-computer screen in one of the slides.
Buffet is not believed to have any affiliation with MPB Today. Walmart also is believed to have no affiliation with the MLM company. Regardless, images of Buffet and Walmart’s intellectual property have been widely featured in MPB Today promos.
The promo is at least the third in which MPB Today affiliates appear to have produced or contributed to sales promos shot in whole or in part on Walmart property. Whether any of the affiliates obtained permission from the company or its employees and customers is unclear.
Concerns about privacy also have been raised about Data Network Affiliates (DNA) and Narc That Car/Crowd Sourcing International, two other MLM programs whose affiliates shot promos on properties owned by major U.S. retailers, including Walmart.
Both DNA and Narc That Car/Crowd Sourcing International purport to be in the business of paying MLM affiliates to record the license numbers of automobiles. Affiliates of both firms advised incoming members to take photos of license plates or write down license-plate numbers in the parking lots of retail outlets. One promo for DNA recommended that members also record license-plate numbers at doctors’ offices and churches.
DNA appears to be morphing into another business known as One World One Website or “O-WOW.”
President Obama formed the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force in November 2009. He later became the subject of an attack ad by an affiliate of the purported MPB Today "grocery" MLM.
UPDATED 10:56 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The ASA Monitor Ponzi and criminals’ forum now is redirecting to a website operated by CashX.com, a Canadian payment processor that hawks MasterCard debit cards and says it permits customers to withdrawn money to Liberty Reserve.
Liberty Reserve is a Ponzi-friendly payment processor purportedly headquartered in Costa Rica after earlier operating from Panama.
Meanwhile, confessed Ponzi schemer Arthur Nadel — who briefly went on the lam from Florida in early 2009 as his $390 million scheme was disintegrating and became known as one of the original “mini-Madoffs” — has been sentenced by a federal judge in New York to 14 years in prison.
It is effectively a life sentence for Nadel, who is 77 and one of several senior citizens implicated in U.S. Ponzi schemes.
At the same time, a former clergyman from Indiana who told congregants it was their “Christian responsibility” to become pitchmen for his then-undiscovered bond scheme has been convicted of nine counts of securities fraud.
Vaughn Reeves, 66, is scheduled to be sentenced next month. The jury deliberated only four hours before returning the verdict against Reeves, himself a senior citizen. Congregants believed they were helping raise money for church-building projects, but it was a scam that led to foreclosure proceedings against eight places of worship. (See link to AP report below.)
Claims made by Reeves are similar to claims made by the Data Network Affiliates (DNA) MLM program, which told members that churches had the “MORAL OBLIGATION” to help bring business to the Florida-based firm and qualify for commissions ten levels deep. DNA purports to be in the license-plate data collection business, claiming it can help law enforcement and the AMBER Alert program recover abducted children.
Incongruously, DNA also purports to sell a “protective spray” that shields cameras from taking photographs of license plates. Equally incongruously, the company said that it could offer a free cell phone with unlimited talk and text for $10 a month. The company later backtracked on the claim, bizarrely saying it studied pricing structures only after announcing it had become the world’s low-price leader while acknowledging it hadn’t vetted its purported vendor for the service.
DNA figure Phil Piccolo later threatened to sue critics. Earlier, Dean Blechman, who said he was the company’s CEO before resigning in February, threatened to sue critics. DNA withheld the announcement of Blechman’s departure for nearly a week and then misspelled his name. DNA also described Blechman as the “future” CEO, even though Blechman had described himself as the current CEO.
Blechman complained to the PP Blog about “bizarre” events at DNA.
ASA Monitor, which is referenced in court filings as a place from which the alleged Pathway To Prosperity (P2P) Ponzi scheme was pitched and was a site from which the purported “grocery” MLM operated by Florida-based MPB Today was pitched, suddenly announced on Oct. 12 that it was closing.
Like MPB Today, DNA also was pitched from Ponzi and criminals’ forums.
The ASA Monitor closure announcement coincided with a flap in which an ASA forum moderator sought to muzzle critics of the MPB Today program, which is being targeted at Christians, foreclosure subjects, Food Stamp recipients, senior citizens, people of color and members of the alleged AdSurfDaily (ASD) Ponzi scheme.
ASD also operated from Florida before the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in August 2008, amid allegations of wire fraud and money-laundering. Robert Hodgins, an international fugitive wanted by Interpol in a narcotics-trafficking and money-laundering case filed after an undercover probe by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Connecticut, provided debit cards to ASD, members said.
Nadel’s scheme, meanwhile, operated in the Sarasota area.
“Through his massive Ponzi scheme, Arthur Nadel greased his own pockets and financed his lavish lifestyle, using money his clients relied on him to invest,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York.
“He cheated his elderly and unwitting victims out of their retirement savings and consigned others to poverty,” Bharara said. “The message of [yesterday’s] sentence should be loud and clear — we will continue to work with our partners at the FBI to find the perpetrators of financial fraud and use every resource we have to bring them to justice.”
U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl ordered Nadel to forfeit $162 million, five airplanes, a helicopter and real estate in Florida, North Carolina and Georgia.
The prosecution of Nadel was brought in coordination with President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder traveled to Florida earlier this year to warn fraudsters that the United States was serious about putting scammers in prison.
By September, an affiliate of MPB Today had created a video in which Obama was depicted as a left-handed saluting Nazi who cowered to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was depicted as a drunk. First Lady Michelle Obama, the mother of two daughters, was depicted as having experienced an embarrassing gas attack in the Oval Office after sampling beans at a Sam’s Club store.
Clinton, depicted in the sales promo as “Hitlary,” knocked out Michelle Obama after barging into the Oval Office bawling and carrying a bottle of wine. Clinton, the mother of one, was the first woman ever appointed to the Walmart board of directors.
Some MPB Today affiliates have claimed Walmart is affiliated with MPB Today and that the government backs the MLM program, which appears to have accounts at at least two banks in the Pensacola area. One of the banks is operating under a consent agreement with the FDIC.
BULLETIN: UPDATED 10:51 A.M. EDT (U.S.A., Oct. 1.) About six months after the chief executive officer of Atlantis Technology Group (Atlantis) was quoted in a Marketwire news release that threatened online commentators for “making slanderous postings” about the company, the SEC has gone to federal court in Florida to accuse Atlantis CEO Christopher Dubeau and the firm of running a penny-stock swindle.
The SEC’s lawsuit concerns the operations of an Atlantis subsidiary known as Global Online Television (GOTV), which allegedly used a commission-based sales force to promote the purported TV company.
Dubeau and Atlantis actually were operating a “pump-and dump” stock fraud, the SEC charged in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
“From at least August 7, 2009 through April 5, 2010 . . . Atlantis and Dubeau issued numerous false and misleading press releases that artificially inflated the trading volume and price of Atlantis’s stock,” the SEC charged. “Dubeau benefited financially from Atlantis’s artificially increased trading volume and stock price. In December 2009, he sold more than 60 million shares of Atlantis stock for proceeds of about $240,000, and in August 2009 he received $77,000 of the proceeds from an associate’s sale of more than 16 million shares.”
A Marketwire news released dated March 26, 2010, and issued under the names of Atlantis and Dubeau accuses “bashers” of making “slanderous” remarks about the company online.
“I can assure you I will not play the bashers’ games,” Dubeau was quoted as saying. “Atlantis has Launched an Investigation into these Individuals that are attacking the Company and its Associates. Atlantis has Identified at least 3 of these Participants in what we deem to be manipulation of the Company’s Stock price by making slanderous postings. We will seek every avenue available to bring these persons of interest to the forefront of the Judicial System.”
Now, six months later, the SEC has accused Dubeau of operating a large-scale fraud by fabricating news about the company’s ability to offer online TV and video-phone services.
“Atlantis’s press releases were false because Atlantis’s subsidiary has never offered
Internet protocol television service or video phone services,” the SEC charged. “At the time the company and Dubeau issued these press releases, the subsidiary did not offer (and was not able to offer) either service, and it did not have relationships with television networks to offer content to Atlantis’s subscribers. In fact, until March 1, 2010, neither the subsidiary nor Atlantis had any product or service to offer to consumers.”
Threats against critics who voice concerns about business opportunities online are common, as is the issuance of news releases to spread false information. In the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, for example, ASD President Andy Bowdoin threatened critics with lawsuits. ASD operated from Florida.
An operation known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) that has close ASD ties and also operated at least in part from Florida also threatened critics. AVG even threatened its own members with lawsuits.
Critics of Data Network Affiliates (DNA), a Florida company that purports to offer an MLM program that collects license-plate data to aid law enforcement and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children, also were threatened.
DNA figure Phil Piccolo used an online radio program last month to threaten critics.
Convicted Florida Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein, who ran one of the largest scams in U.S. history, also threatened critics. Rothstein pleaded guility to racketeering.
BULLETIN: The Federal Trade Commission has gone to federal court in Fort Myers to seek contempt sanctions against Florida companies accused of encouraging prospects to misrepresent information on applications to receive Food Stamp benefits.
