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Tag: Empower Network

  • ZEEK: New Zealand Clawback Defendant With Alleged Username Of ‘sovlife’ Challenges U.S. Court’s Jurisdiction

    UPDATED 9:37 P.M. EDT U.S.A. David Ian MacGregor Fraser, a New Zealand resident who allegedly used the Zeek Rewards’ username of “sovlife,” has challenged a U.S. Court’s jurisdiction over him in a clawback lawsuit filed in February by Zeek receiver Kenneth D. Bell.

    Bell alleged that David Ian MacGregor Fraser received $89,722 from Zeek’s “unlawful combined Ponzi and pyramid scheme.” The receiver, who contends the U.S. Court has jurisdiction in international clawback actions in part because Zeek operated from North Carolina and sent money from the state to participants such as MacGregor Fraser, is seeking a judgment in that amount, plus interest. He alleges the money came from Zeek victims.

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission described Zeek in 2012 as a massive, cross-border fraud scheme that had gathered hundreds of millions of dollars. In October 2014, alleged Zeek operator Paul R. Burks was charged criminally with wire- and mail-fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, and tax-fraud conspiracy.

    Earlier in 2014, Zeek figures Dawn Wright-Olivares and her stepson Daniel Olivares pleaded guilty to criminal charges filed in 2013  — Wright-Olivares to investment-fraud conspiracy and tax-fraud conspiracy and Olivares to investment-fraud conspiracy.

    Web records suggest MacGregor Fraser used the shortened name of  “David MacGregor” when pitching Zeek online through GetResponse.com, an email service sold in the United States and other countries.

    A Zeek promo in which the username “sovlife” and the name “David MacGregor” appear begins in this fashion, according to Google search results. (Italics added):

    Hi Friend

    If you haven’t caught up with the latest news, or weren’t on the conference call the other day, then I just wanted to highlight the main points.

    Screen shot of promo for Zeek. Red highlight by PP Blog.
    Screen shot of promo for Zeek. Red highlight by PP Blog.

    MacGregor Fraser, who is represented in the clawback lawsuit by North Carolina attorney June K. Allison of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick in Charlotte, answered Bell’s complaint as “David Fraser.” The answer, however, acknowledges the longer version of the name as it appeared in Bell’s complaint. So does an affidavit submitted to the U.S. court by David Ian MacGregor Fraser.

    The moniker “sovLife” appears repeatedly on the website theclassifiedsplus.com through which videos play. Some of these videos point to MLM “programs” such as the Empower Network in which “sovLife” is used as the affiliate ID.

    Other videos at theclassifiedsplus point to a web entity known as sovereignlife.com. This domain is styled “SovereignLife” and identifies its operator as “David MacGregor.” There is a corresponding YouTube account in that name through which videos viewable through theclassifiedsplus.com play.

    One of them with an upload date of July 3, 2013, is titled “My July 4 Message for the America That Was.” In the video, a man (presumptively “David MacGregor”) holds forth that he once was a big supporter of the United States. That support, however, apparently has evaporated in that the man contends in the video that the United States is “Dare I say it? A force for evil.”

    Other videos in the David MacGregor account have titles such as “Bitcoin Debit Card – How to Get One,” “You Can Now Be a Reseller For SovereignLife And Keep All The Money!,” “Tax Slave or Sovereign Individual?”

    Some individuals who may identify with the word “sovereign” have participated in various fraud schemes, have painted their fellow human beings as slaves (see Frederick Mann) or government-owned property (see Kenneth Wayne Leaming) and have expressed an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them.

    Other “sovereigns” have made wild claims that they hold diplomatic immunity and thus cannot be prosecuted or are answerable only to Jesus Christ.

    Zeek Clawback Defense

    Compared to the “David MacGregor” video suggestion that America is evil, the David Fraser response to Bell’s clawback complaint before Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen of the Western District of North Carolina includes no inflammatory rhetoric or claims of evildoing by the United States.

    Fraser, through the American law firm, is seeking dismissal of the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. He also is seeking to quash process in New Zealand, even though he acknowledges he has been served.

    Among Fraser’s specific defense claims is that he was an “innocent participant” in Zeek, having joined the program in “November 2011” while he was a “resident of Malaysia” and maintaining “a Post Office Box in New Zealand.”

    In possible conflict with the information shown in the screen shot above that references a sum ($5,000 in U.S. cash), the Super Bowl played in the United States and Super Bowl tickets that have “cash-out values for those not in the USA,” Fraser further contends he had “no specific knowledge that ZeekRewards was initiated from the United States.”

    He also contends he was “unaware that ZeekRewards originated in North Carolina.” This, too, may be in possible conflict with information generally known about Zeek, in that Zeek openly operated from North Carolina and invited participants to events held in that state.

    At one point in its history, Zeek openly advertised auctions for sums of U.S. cash — even as it preemptively denied it was operating a pyramid scheme and complained that the U.S. Social Security system was a “legal” and “collapsing” pyramid scheme.

    Precisely why Zeek was making political statements on its website is unknown.

    Accused Zeek Ponzi schemer Paul R. Burks lived in North Carolina. In 2012, Federal Election Commission records showed that Burks gave money to the campaign of U.S. Presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul.

    From a U.S. standpoint, Zeek used offshore payment processors such as SolidTrustPay and AlertPay, both of which provided services for the $119 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008.

    Now-jailed AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme operator Andy Bowdoin also made donations to a political cause, according to the 2010 indictment against him.

    AlertPay eventually transitioned into Payza. Bell has said he is continuing to investigate STP and Payza transactions, and federal prosecutors in the District of Colombia have been soliciting information on Payza for more than a year.

    In his defense filings, Frazer said he “made or received” Zeek payments through AlertPay over the Internet, but maintained he’d never set foot in North Carolina.

    Now, he contends, he unfairly is being “haled” to appear in court in North Carolina.

    “To ask him to defend this suit halfway around the world on account of falling into the [Zeek] Insider’s international Internet scheme would clearly offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice,” his lawyer argued.

    “Defendant Fraser never ordered or directed that anything of value be sent to him in either Malaysia or New Zealand from North Carolina,” his lawyer argued. “Rather, based on the way the website operated, amounts he earned on-line were credited to his on-line Payza account by ZeekRewards . . . Defendant Fraser did not know from what country or state the funds originated . . .”

    In court filings, Fraser says he has been a citizen of New Zealand since 1978 and was born in Great Britain. He is a citizen there, too, according to his affidavit.

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.

     

  • MORE FROM THE MLM LA-LA LAND PLAYBOOK: Former ASD, NewGNI, Club Asteria, Zeek And Profitable Sunrise Pitchman ‘Ken Russo’ Coins New Acronym (NAG); Paul Darby Plants Seed FBI Backs His ‘YouGetPaidFast’ Program — AFTER Trading On Name And Likeness Of President Of The United States

    Paul Darby with "President Obama," apparently on Inauguration Day in 2009 after the U.S. Secret Service infomed the MLM world through the filing of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case that trading on the name and image of the President of the United States might not be a good idea.
    Paul Darby with “President Obama,” apparently on Inauguration Day in 2009 after the U.S. Secret Service infomed the MLM world through the filing of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case that trading on the name and image of the President of the United States might not be a good idea.

    UPDATED 8:37 A.M. EDT (OCT. 21, U.S.A.) Former AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin is continuing to serve 78 months in federal prison at the age of 78  — in part because he borrowed liberally from the MLM scammer’s playbook and planted the seed that the President of the United States (then George W. Bush) backed his “program.” Some MLM prospects joined the ASD fraud scheme — a $119 million Ponzi popularized in part on the Ponzi boards and broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008 — based on pitches highlighting Bowdoin’s purported ties to the White House.

    Bush left office on Jan. 20, 2009. Barack Obama then became President.

    Records now strongly suggest that Obama was President for only minutes when he became an unwitting salesman for an MLM or affiliate scheme. Indeed, an online pitch featuring “Obama” is dated Jan. 20, 2009, Inauguration Day in the United States and the date upon which Obama took over from Bush.

    A Blog on Google’s free Blogspot platform made this headline claim on Jan. 20, 2009: “Barack Obama visits Unimax Services.”

    The Blog, which remains online well into Obama’s second term that began on Jan. 20 of this year, features a knockoff of the Seal of the President of the United States. “Presidents Club,” it screams. Recruits for a “program” known as Net Millionaires Club apparently were accorded the title of Presidents — not of the United States, but of the “Unimax States.”

    This is straight out of MLM or affiliate scheme La-La Land.

    Paul Darby, who describes himself as “President of the Unimax Services Corporation” on the Blogspot site with the “Barack Obama visits Unimax Services” headline, is featured alongside a cardboard cutout of Obama in a video playing on the site. In the bizarre video, Darby bizarrely describes the cutout of Obama as the “featured guest” and suggests the Net Millionaries Club he’s promoting with the knockoff of the U.S. Presidential Seal is an “economic stimulus package.”

    If you don’t go any farther than the headline — if you don’t take the time to view the video showing the Obama cutout — you could reasonably conclude that Obama actually visited Unimax Services and endorsed the “program.” Put another way, it’s a contemptible, backdoor way to use the Internet to turn the White House and the Commander-in-Chief into a spokesman for a highly dubious MLM or affiliate scheme.

    If all of this seems altogether too much, altogether too bizarre, consider that the Secret Service, through the filing of the ASD Ponzi case in 2008, informed the MLM world that it wasn’t a good idea to go around trying to tie the President of the United States to your scheme. Next consider that the ASD scheme had its own form of a Darby-like Net Millionaries Club; the ASD version was multipronged and was called the “President’s Circle,” the “President’s Advisory Board” and “President’s Advisory Counsel.”  Then consider that the Darby Blog — in January 2009, months after the ASD case had been filed — led with the “Barack Obama visits Unimax Services” headline on the date the President was inaugurated.

    Did the President of the United States really visit Unimax Services, purveyors of the Net Millionaires Club? And did the White House somehow give Darby permission to alter the Seal of the President of the United States as a means of driving traffic to the “program? Did Paul Darby learn nothing from the ASD case?

    But it gets worse . . .

    Flash forward to 2013 (while considering that MLM schemes such as BidsThatGive and Lyoness also have tried to tie themselves to the U.S. Presidency or the Presidency of other countries), and you’ll find Darby as the braintrust behind yet another “program.” This one is called “YouGetPaidFast.”

    Like ASD before it, YouGetPaidFast has a presence on the Ponzi boards. The new “program” appears to be a cash-gifting scheme. Ponzi-forum pitchman “Ken Russo,” previously of the ASD Ponzi scheme, the GNI and NewGNI Ponzi schemes, the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme, the MPB Today pyramid scheme, the Club Asteria fraud scheme and the Profitable Sunrise fraud scheme, is helping lead the YouGetPaidFast charge.

    “Ken Russo” appears even to have coined a new acronym to deflect attention away from the critical issues surrounding online fraud schemes. Critics, according to a post attributed to “Ken Russo” at the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum, are “NAG[s].” NAG stands for “Naysayers Anonymous Group.”

    According to “Ken Russo,” in apparent defense of YouGetPaidFast (italics added):

    “The NAG (Naysayers Anonymous Group) are doing their best to deter you from joining an excellent program which offers one of the best opportunities I have ever seen for average folks to develop a substantial additional income stream. The NAG is relentless in their efforts to denigrate this fine program . . .”

    This is occurring after the United States charged three women criminally in Connecticut for pushing a cash-gifting pyramid scheme. Two of the three women were sentenced earlier this year to lengthy terms in federal prison.

    It also is occurring against the backdrop of bids earlier this year by enthusiasts of other Ponzi-board “programs” to trade on images of Obama and the prestige of the U.S. Presidency. Those “programs” included Empower Network and “Ultimate Power Profits.”

    Unlike his Net Millionaires Club scheme, however, Darby’s YouGetPaidFast scheme appears no longer to be interested in trading on the name of the President of the United States and the seal of the President of the United States.

    No, this time Darby is planting the seed that the FBI backs his “program.”

    Darby is trotting out some of the same sort of MLM La-La Land talking points advanced by self-styled Zeek Rewards consultant Robert Craddock — that is, if you speak out against a “program,” you’re going to get sued and perhaps even paid a visit by its backers in law enforcement.

    As BehindMLM.com is reporting today, Darby now claims to have FBI agents on “speed dial.” And at least one of those agents purportedly has vetted YouGetPaidFast and given it the all-clear.

    Beyond that, according to the BehindMLM.com report, one or more Christian pastors is encouraging Darby to sue his detractors.

    If that seems altogether too odd, consider that purported Christian pastors also are backing Empower Network and its purported “Badass” content, including the reported death by suicide of a top Herbalife MLM distributor.

    David Wood, one of the top dogs at Empower Network, once advised critics to “Back the fuck down.”

    “Be warned: BIG, SCARY WARNING,” Wood wrote. “I’m in the process of having lawyers research into whether or not we can sue the shit out of you.”

    Whether Wood lost any pastors after the remark is unclear. At least one purported pastor encouraged Empower Network affiliates to overlook the nasty language and simply concentrate on making money. Pastors also backed the ASD Ponzi scheme and the Profitable Sunrise scheme — to cite just two of the MLM fraud schemes that recently have fleeced people of faith. ASD’s Bowdoin, before becoming a pitchman for a scheme known as OneX, once described himself as a Christian “money magnet.”

    There is plenty of God talk in YouGetPaidFast, too.

    Also see YouGetPaidFast thread at RealScam.com.

  • EDITORIAL: Death Of An MLM Salesman — Brought To You Via Empower Network’s ‘Badass’ Button

    This "Badass Content" on Empower Network was about the tragic death of a key Herbalife salesman.
    This “Badass Content” on Empower Network was about the tragic death of a key Herbalife salesman.

    If you’re an MLM company facing a PR problem or a crisis involving the firm and its distributors, don’t expect fellow MLM firm Empower Network to solve it for you. In fact, it’s probably prudent to expect that Empower Network will only magnify your bad press or virally blab the things you’re trying to keep in-house.

    To the uber-bizarre Empower Network, the sudden death of a top Herbalife distributor is “badass content” that plays well alongside other Empower Network “badass content” such as a story posted by “Team America” and titled, “Ingredients for Success: An Interview with Nu Skin President and CEO Truman Hunt.”

    Background

    Herbalife, according to BehindMLM.com,  notified distributors last week about the death of John Peterson, saying in an email that Peterson had died as a result of “a tragic accident at his home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.”

    “Tragic” was an apt descriptor, to be sure, especially since the New York Post reported that authorities were looking at the death as a suicide carried out with a gun while the MLM trade tries to come to grips with assertions by Bill Ackman that Herbalife is a pyramid scheme. Peterson was 58, married and the father of three children. He reportedly had earned millions of dollars through Herbalife, in part by driving business to the firm through a purported “leads” program.

    Herbalife denies it is a pyramid scheme and has sought to distance itself from such “leads” programs.

    But returning to the subject of all this purported “Badass Content”: The “Team America” post about Nu Skin on Empower Network appears to have been lifted in its entirety from the trade publication Direct Selling News by an Empower Network affiliate interested in getting more sign-ups for Empower Network by using DSN’s Nu Skin story as a lure.

    Meanwhile, Herbalife’s in-house announcement about the death of Peterson appears also to have been cherry-picked by Empower Network affiliates, reposted on Empower Network’s Blogging platform, repurposed as “Badass Content” and used to lure sign-ups for Empower Network.

    When one clicks the incongruous “Badass” button above the Empower Network postings about Peterson’s death, one is taken to a page that in part reads, “Share this Badass Content Now! Click the social network buttons above so all your friends can see this badass content.”

    Yes, really. The death of an Herbalife pitchman in the prime of his life while his family grieves qualifies as “Badass Content” on Empower Network.

    Another part of the message points visitors to a domain styled “BadassContent.com,” which is registered in the name of David Sharpe of Empower Network LLC. Sharpe is one of EmpowerNetwork’s purported founders, and the LLC is listed as a Florida company with Sharpe as one of its two managers. When the PP Blog tried to visit the “badass” URL about Peterson’s death, the McAfee SiteAdvisor security software used by the Blog issued a “Suspicious Site” warning and a message that in part read, “When we visited this site, we found it exhibited one or more risky behaviors.”

    McAfee SiteAdvisor warning about "badass" domain. Red highlights by PP Blog.
    McAfee SiteAdvisor warning about “badasscontent” domain. Red highlights by PP Blog.

    Empower Network also appears to control a domain styled BadassButton.com.

    On Aug. 12, the PP Blog reported that a video playing on YouTube sought to drive traffic to Empower Network by depicting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden as a recent enrollee in the bizarrely named CashCropCycler HYIP “program” who confesses to President Obama that he’s “[j]ust out bumbling around and sticking my foot in my mouth.”

    But if you complain to YouTube about Empower Network, according to David Wood, another of the purported founders, there may be hell to pay, so you should “Back the fuck down.”

    “Be warned: BIG, SCARY WARNING,” Wood wrote. “I’m in the process of having lawyers research into whether or not we can sue the shit out of you.”

    Yes, really. Welcome to the MLM La-La Land of Empower Network. It’s like the La-La Lands of Zeek Rewards and AdSurfDaily and MPB Today needed a replacement and that some of MLM’s purported greatest thinkers have decided that what the MLM world really needs is even more madness.

    Read the Salty Droid swearing back at the purported Empower Network “badasses.” (Salty can curse with the best of them, even when they’re planting the seed he should be executed with a shotgun.)

    Can there be any doubt that MLM is just asking for it?

    One self-described Christian pastor and Empower Network promoter on YouTube tells his audience that there’s money to be made in Empower Network, despite all the swearing. Just tune it out and recognize that swearing is a personal choice and hardly is limited to the MLM sphere, he instructs.

    “This is just an open environment where we accept everybody of all types of beliefs, whether you’re a Christian or an Atheist or a Jew or a Muslim — or, you know, you . . . believe in Scientology and all that good stuff,” the pastor explains.

    He added that he looked at network marketing in general as an “opportunity to be able to advance the kingdom of God” and at Empower Network in specific as a “vehicle to help you to get the money that God wants you to have so that you can advance the kingdom of God.”

    Had the pitch for Empower Network appeared on Empower Network instead of YouTube, the pastor could have given his God talk its very own “Badass” button (with a representation of a human skull included) to drive traffic.

    The only remaining mysteries, we suppose, is whether God, being God, would have cared enough to solve the little problem McAfee has with the “badass” domain  — and whether He’d be offended that His name, once again, was being used to promote an MLM “program.”

    Did we tell you that the PP Blog received information today that strongly suggested that some “sovereign citizens” were pitching a scheme by which winners in the Zeek Rewards MLM scheme, which the SEC has described a year ago as a $600 million fraud, could short-circuit “clawback” litigation from the court-appointed receiver?

    We’ll keep you up to date as that MLM La-La Land story develops.

     

     

     

  • How Bizarre Will MLM Get? YouTube Video That Drives Traffic To Empower Network Feeds On Name Of ‘CashCropCycler’ And Trades On Images Of White House, Obama And Biden

    "President Obama" and "Vice President" Biden in a video that appears to be designed to drive sign-ups for Empower Network, an MLM "program."
    “President Obama” and “Vice President Biden” in a video that appears to be designed to drive sign-ups for Empower Network, an MLM “program.”

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Our thanks to reader “Tony” for pointing out the video described below.

    UPDATED 9:26 A.M. EDT (SEPT. 10, U.S.A.): How bizarre will MLM get? Well, there may be no ceiling: A 2:47 video animation playing on YouTube depicts U.S. Vice President Joe Biden as a recent enrollee in the CashCropCycler HYIP “program” who confesses to President Obama that he’s “[j]ust out bumbling around and sticking my foot in my mouth.”

    The video has a publication date of July 17 and appears to be a bid by an affiliate of the Empower Network MLM “program” to target traffic meant for CashCropCycler and refocus it toward Empower Network. “President Obama” appears to speak with a British accent in the promo, which also features a jab against Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

    At approximately the 0:48 mark, after “Biden” informs “Obama” that he’s just joined CashCropCycler, “Obama” seems to say this: “Bernanke started that one, didn’t he?”

    Some MLMers appear to believe that raising conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve is helpful to MLM HYIP “programs.”

    A URL below the video at the YouTube site goes to a page at JoinVicNow.com that displays a photo of an oversized “Commissions Earned” check from Empower Network for $464,913. The check appears to be dated September 2012. It is made out in the names of “David Wood & David Sharpe” and is presented by an individual wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.

    Source: Sceen shot at JoinVicNow.com
    Source: Sceen shot at JoinVicNow.com

    CashCropCycler, a “program” promoted on the Ponzi boards, appears to have gone missing in recent days. NEOMutual, a purported “crowdfunding” company promoted alongside CashCropCycler on the Ponzi boards, also appears to have gone missing. Both “programs” planted the seed that extraordinary profits would come to enrollees.

    The Guy Fawkes mask sometimes is known as the “V for Vendetta” mask, which sometimes is used by members of “Anonymous,” the so-called hacktivist group associated with DDoS attacks on government and commercial sites.

    Here, in part, is how WikiPedia describes the mask and Guy Fawkes (italics added):

    The Guy Fawkes mask is a stylised depiction of Guy Fawkes, the best-known member of the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up the House of Lords in London in 1605. The use of a mask on an effigy has long roots as part of Guy Fawkes Night celebrations.

    Why an individual is wearing a Guy Fawkes mask in the photo depicting the Empower Network check is unclear. The company, however, has described itself as “bad ass.” (Also see July 19 report on BehindMLM.com.)

    Trading on the name of the President and Vice President of the United States was one of the things that led to the downfall of the AdSurfDaily MLM “program” in 2008. (The President at the time was George W. Bush; Dick Cheney was the Vice President.)

    After Obama replaced Bush in the White House, an affiliate of an MLM “program” known as MPB Today depicted Obama in a 2010 promo as a left-handed saluting Nazi subordinate to then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was depicted as a whining drunk who’d knocked out First Lady Michelle Obama in the Oval Office. In 2012, MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun was charged in Florida with racketeering. A federal forfeiture complaint that targeted the headquarters building used by MPB Today specified the crimes of access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents.

    Calhoun was sentenced to a three-year prison term last month. MPB Today MLM affiliates claimed a one-time purchase of $200 from the firm could result in free groceries and gasoline for life. Claims were made by affiliates that the U.S. government or Walmart or both had backed the MLM “program.”

    In January 2013, an online promotion turned Obama into a pitchman for a Ponzi-board “program” known as UltimatePowerProfits.

    Some members of the TelexFree  “program” now appear to believe there is MLM hay to be made while trading on the name of Democratic politician Anthony Weiner. TelexFree is under investigation in multiple states in Brazil, amid allegations its is conducting a massive pyramid scheme. Even though there have been reports in Brazil about death threats against a judge and a prosecutor, some U.S. affiliates continue to promote the purported “opportunity.”

    One promo for TelexFree claims a payment of $15,125 to the MLM firm will produce a profit of more than $42,000 in a year. The “Aunt Ethels” of the world — older people with money — will become keen on TelexFree, according to the promo.