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Tag: eWalletplus

  • REVISITING ADVIEWGLOBAL AND ‘ONEX’: Why Promoters Of Better-Living Global Marketing, Zeek Rewards, TelexFree And Profitable Sunrise Should Care About Scam History

    EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog is back — after its most recent brush with death led to a suspension of publishing that lasted through all or parts of six days. You’ll read more in the days ahead about certain changes the Blog plans to implement to safeguard its right to publish, to improve revenue, to make it less reliant on a small group of dedicated readers to put out fires and to keep its archives open to the people who can benefit most.

    As for the editorial below: Some of it is based on “Government Exhibit G” and other government exhibits in the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin. Exhibit G was filed on Aug. 13, 2012, four days before the SEC went to federal court in Charlotte, N.C., and alleged that the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” was a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud that had victimized hundreds of thousands of participants. Among other things, Exhibit G addressed Bowdoin’s participation as a silent partner in the AdViewGlobal reload scam. Another court document filed by prosecutors on the same day addressed Bowdoin’s participation in OneX, which prosecutors described as yet-another MLM-style scam in which Bowdoin had participated after the U.S. Secret Service moved against ASD in August 2008 and eventually seized more than $80 million.

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    The evidence sticker from "Government Exhibit G" in the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin. (Red bar added by PP Blog.)
    The evidence sticker from “Government Exhibit G” in the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin. (Red bar added by PP Blog.)

    Let’s talk about pollution and how it may be flowing to a bank near you:

    AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin used a secret hushmail address in 2009 to discuss a bank wire for $38,750 that was to be sent to an account at Regions Bank in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to pay for servers and programming required by AdViewGlobal.

    AVG, as it was known, was an ASD reload scam that began to unfold in October 2008, just two months after the U.S. Secret Service began the process of seizing more than $65.8 million from at least 10 Bank of America accounts linked to ASD, according to government records.

    The Secret Service, according to court filings, also had its eyes on separate Bank of America accounts linked to an ASD-connected enterprise known as Golden Panda Ad Builder. Golden Panda was operated by Rev. Walter Clarence Busby Jr., a Bowdoin business partner and Georgia grifter implicated by the SEC 11 years earlier in three prime-bank swindles, including one that promised to pay interest of 10,000 percent. Some of the Golden Panda money also made its way into Bartow County Bank, a small Georgia bank that later failed, costing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. an estimated $70 million, according to government records.

    From this fact set, one can plainly see that ASD and related scams had caused polluted money to flow to Bank of America and Bartow — and that the noxious and ever-evolving ASD enterprise now had its sights on causing polluted money to flow to Regions. That’s three banks put in harm’s way by what effectively was an evolving ASD criminal enterprise.

    There were more.

    At least $413,018 in ASD-infected funds also had made their way into accounts at First National Bank in Ames, Iowa. Another $96,525 in polluted proceeds flowed to two accounts at Wachovia Bank. (The U.S. state in which Wachovia was used to stockpile $96,525 in fraudulent proceeds directed at an ASD member is unclear. What is clear, according to federal court filings, is that the ASD member allegedly was using ASD to promote a “multi-level marketing site that listed classified job postings” and that 17 checks from ASD were deposited into the Wachovia account on a single, fateful day.)

    That day was July 31, 2008.

    History shows that the Secret Service moved against ASD the very next day, Aug. 1, 2008, as a means of stopping the ASD Ponzi monster from sucking in any more cash and from polluting any more banks. The ASD member with the Wachovia accounts had “sponsored 6-8 people to get into the ASD system,” and somehow had managed to receive nearly $100,000 in tainted proceeds after paying ASD only $500 and working as a “consultant” to ASD “for a brief period,” according to court records.

    Because ASD used infected proceeds to pay members with accounts at banks across the U.S. spectrum of hundreds of institutions, each of those institutions became places at which wire-fraud proceeds were deposited. The total flow of fraudulent proceeds linked to Bowdoin and follow-up scams exceeded $120 million, according to federal court files.

    But it gets worse . . .

    At Least 2 Swiss Accounts Discussed In Exchanges Over Hushmail And Gmail

    Why not infect Europe with American Ponzi proceeds?

    This is the clincher, the one event that — in the context of other ASD-related events — shows the rampant criminality within the ASD enterprise and this particular wing of MLM. This criminality caused federal prosecutors to describe Bowdoin as a man who roped in at least 96,000 people in part by asserting that his “programs” reflected “God’s will.”

    Bowdoin, prosecutors said, indeed was the personification of a con man and affinity fraudster who “boldly continued or expanded his criminal conduct” even after the Secret Service raid in August 2008.

    Just two months later, in October 2008, Bowdoin and a former ASD insider held discussions aimed at launching AVG, the ASD reload scam that allegedly sucked in millions of dollars — in part by targeting ASD members all over again. The sources for this information are a government sentencing memo and  “Government Exhibit F,” filed on Aug. 13, 2012, four days before the SEC’s Zeek action and confirmation by the Secret Service that it also was investigating Zeek.

    Exhibit F is styled “Summary of AdView Global by T. Andy Bowdoin, Jr.” Precisely when and how the government obtained the document is unclear, but prosecutors say Bowdoin drafted it in “memo” form. Agents are known to have seized ASD-related computers. It also is believed that the government seized at least one AVG-related computer.

    The undated document features a narrative in which Bowdoin, despite the Secret Service raid of ASD and ongoing civil and criminal investigations, suggests he was still sticking to a cover story that ASD was an “advertising” company, not an investment company offering securities that paid a preposterous interest rate of 1 percent a day while magically constituting neither a Ponzi scheme nor an investment firm. In fact, according to the document, AVG hoped to ward off the U.S. government by establishing some sort of presence in Uruguay.

    Another part of the AVG launch plan was to attract “30 founders” in December 2008. In the Exhibit F document, Bowdoin also planted the seed that the nascent AVG MLM program had been vetted by “attorneys.”

    These unidentified “attorneys” purportedly had advised Bowdoin that prosecutors would not be interested in establishing whether the AVG upstart “was OK,” even if Bowdoin submitted an AVG business plan, according to Exhibit F. Bowdoin then moved forward with AVG, despite all that had happened at ASD. Both before and after the ASD debacle, according to assertions by prosecutors, Bowdoin claimed he had acted “on the advice of counsel” and therefore had done nothing wrong.

    “Bowdoin’s reliance on the ‘advice of counsel’ defense became a theme in both the civil and criminal litigation,” prosecutors advised a federal judge.

    It was a defense that failed miserably, as various entries on the public record show. And when Bowdoin got in trouble again — this time for promoting an alleged pyramid scheme known as “OneX” while out on signature bond in the ASD criminal case even as he asserted the OneX “program” had been vetted by attorneys and passed muster and that recruits could earn to the limits of their imaginations — Bowdoin again defaulted to an advice-of-counsel defense.

    This time, however, Bowdoin appears to have merely repeated false assertions that he’d heard from OneX or someone within OneX. The government responded by producing an affidavit from an attorney who’d performed work for OneX but never had drawn a conclusion the “program” was lawful and had never examined the actual business practices of OneX. The attorney swore in an affidavit filed under pain of perjury that the law firm through which he represented MLM clients “has never represented” Bowdoin. (The PP Blog is declining to identify the attorney, a partner in a Southern California law firm.)

    Back to AVG, the scheme Bowdoin helped launch before later trying to sanitize the alleged OneX pyramid scheme by claiming it had been scrubbed clean by attorneys: Bowdoin was to own two-thirds of AVG; the former ASD insider would own the remaining third, according to Exhibit F.

    Among other things, the document shows some of the fractured thinking and incongruities so often associated with HYIP scams. Despite the purported need for an offshore presence to ward off U.S. investigators, for instance, the document asserts that Gary D. Talbert, identified elsewhere as an ASD insider and one-time executive, had hired AVG “customer service people in the U.S.” (Bolding added by PP Blog.)

    Web records show that AVG had come out of the gate with two impossible (if not insane) propositions: The first was that AVG was just like the NBC television network, an absurdity on its face in that NBC doesn’t pay its advertisers to watch ads. Moreover, NBC, unlike the collapsed AVG, doesn’t operate a closed network in which only NBC’s advertisers and not the public at large can view ads. Nor does NBC try to recruit advertisers by telling them they’ll receive a dividend of 125 percent (or more) on their ad spend within a few months and that its advertisers can earn downline commissions two levels deep by recruiting competitors to advertise on NBC’s closed network.

    The second proposition was even more absurd: that AVG had nothing to do with ASD. The absurdity of this obvious lie was exposed before January 2009 even had ticked off the calendar. Indeed, after earlier asserting that AVG had no ties to ASD, the company — using a U.S.-based AVG customer-service rep who’d actually testified on ASD’s behalf in federal court —  announced that ASD’s Talbert was its CEO. If this weren’t absurd enough, AVG insisted through the former ASD member now working as a AVG spokesman that the appearance of AVG graphics in an ASD-controlled webroom was an “operational coincidence.”

    AVG went on to pile on the absurdities, according to court filings. In Exhibit F, the document prosecutors say was Bowdoin’s draft memo of his AVG reflections, members of Bowdoin’s family who allegedly benefited from ASD Ponzi proceeds are described as heroes who tried to save AVG from the thieves.

    With ASD’s Bowdoin’s knowledge, Talbert, according to Exhibit F, also purchased an Arizona “company named TMS” that owned a payment processor named “eWallet.” (Other records strongly suggest that the payment processor actually was named “eWalletPlus” and was operating from servers AVG was using in Panama.)

    “TMS used a bank in the Caribbean,” according to the document. The signatory on the Caribbean account somehow never was changed after the asserted change in ownership at TMS, and two former TMS associates allegedly stole nearly $2.7 million from AVG. The theft of nearly $3 million led to the collapse of AVG, according to the telling attributed to Bowdoin in the document.

    To date, the PP Blog has been unable to ascertain the truthfulness of the assertions about the thefts allegedly committed by the alleged former TMS insiders.

    What is clear, however, is that as much ASD money that could be found in August 2008 was seized. AVG then launched with cash that hadn’t been seized, and in part was targeted at ASD members.  AVG members then were left holding the bag, with the blame placed on former TMS associates.

    And something else is clear, which brings us to “Government Exhibit G”: AVG, the follow-up scam to ASD that involved Bowdoin and ASD insiders and alleged thefts of millions of dollars by outsiders, had at least two Swiss bank accounts.

    bowdoinhmail
    One of AVG’s Swiss bank accounts allegedly was discussed in this email between Andy Bowdoin and Gary Talbert. Bowdoin was ASD’s operator; Talbert was an ASD insider who allegedly became Bowdoin’s business partner in the AVG Ponzi scheme that sucked away millions of dollars. (Red lines inserted by PP Blog.)

    On Jan. 28, 2009, just days before AVG’s scheduled launch date in early February and less than six months after the Secret Service raid on ASD’s headquarters and Bowdoin’s home in Quincy, Fla., Gary Talbert used a Gmail address to email Andy Bowdoin at a hushmail address, according to Exhibit G.

    Talbert advised Bowdoin that an individual — presumptively one of the 30 AVG founders — had conducted a “Wire Transfer to AVG Swiss Bank Account” and needed assurances that it had posted. The inquiry about the asserted wire transfer appears to have been initiated by another AVG insider who’d emailed Talbert from his Gmail address to Talbert’s Gmail address. Through Gmail, Talbert then checked with Bowdoin at Bowdoin’s hushmail address, instructing the ASD patriarch that someone wanted to “verify that a bank wire hit the Swiss bank account.”

    Upon verification, the customer would make “another large wire,” Exhibit G suggests.

    Another email within the January 2009 chain says that AVG had at least two Swiss accounts.

    What It Means

    Walking this back and assuming the Exhibit G communications were truthful, what it means is that the ASD enterprise — this time in the form of AVG — had set up a banking operation in Switzerland, a secrecy haven. At the same time, it means that the ASD enterprise did this after it earlier had polluted U.S. banks in multiple states with fraudulent proceeds and now was taking its act not only to Switzerland, but also to South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

    Less clear is whether ASD had a preexisting banking network in Switzerland before effectively morphing into AVG. Regardless of when the Swiss accounts were opened, however, the mere presence of them suggests that ASD and AVG insiders had the means to move fraudulent proceeds from U.S.-based crimes offshore and perhaps tap into them later.

    And this brings us to Zeek Rewards, which also used domestic and offshore facilitators and the same fundamental business model of ASD and AVG. It also brings us to Profitable Sunrise and other MLM “programs” such as Better-Living Global Marketing. The now-disappeared Profitable Sunrise scheme allegedly used U.S. bank wires and offshore facilitators to drive tens of millions of dollars to the scheme. BLGM, still active, clearly has U.S. promoters and facilitators while purportedly operating from Hong Kong.

    Meanwhile, BLGM, like ASD, AVG, Profitable Sunrise and Zeek Rewards, has Stepfordian “defenders” running interference online.

    One of those “defenders” is over at the BehindMLM.com antiscam Blog asserting that he “met a guy online. I know him well now. I deposited $6500 into his Bank Of America account at my local branch.”

    Another BLGM defender is at BehindMLM.com asserting that (italics added):

    Got my Hongkong wire/remittance of 6,000 USD at Bank of America, have all my questions and concerns answered by Luke Teng, the teleconference helped a lot, disregard all the unnecessary comments of non-members.

    Get all your transparent answers from Luke Teng, or else you will die of stress reading all the negative comments of people who are not engaging, and guys remember this is our freewill and our own money, our decision, our own risk.

    TelexFree, a scheme more or less operating globally that has U.S. footprints in Massachusetts and Nevada and is under investigation in Brazil, also used Bank of America, according to members. Some TelexFree promoters instructed recruits to walk deposits meant for TelexFree into a Bank of American branch in Massachusetts or TD Bank locations elsewhere. TD Bank, of course, was the bank of Florida Ponzi schemer and racketeer Scott Rothstein. Four years after Rothstein’s $1 billion-plus scam brought great shame to the banking community, it’s still causing ripples.

    The PP Blog previously reported that a former Zeeker who also was associated with Profitable Sunrise — an alleged international pyramid scheme that funneled tens of millions of dollars to Europe, China and Panama amid the murkiest of circumstances — also was pushing BLGM.

    All of these “programs” are operating or have operated within the MLM sphere, the same sphere that produced the incredibly toxic ASD/AVG Ponzi schemes. All of the “programs” either have or had access to the wire facilities of various nations around the globe while using Ponzi- and pyramid schemes as their business model.

    The Piggybackers

    Various destructive forces are piggybacking on the scams, including attack bots and spambots that are keying on the names of HYIP enterprises and HYIP story figures to promote other scams or to drive traffic to other highly questionable “opportunities.”

    Even after the PP Blog announced the temporary suspension of the publication of new stories last week, it continued to be targeted by resources-draining bots. One wave knocked the Blog offline for about an hour two days ago. During the involuntary outage, legitimate readers and researchers  could not access the Blog.

    One of the spammers left the signature of an IP associated with the country of Indonesia. A spam bid from the specific IP keyed on a PP Blog story about ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming, now in federal prison for targeting U.S. federal officials and a Secret Service agent in an abuse campaign, harboring fugitives and possessing firearms as a convicted felon. Records in Washington state show that a Leaming-connected enterprise once traded on the name of JPMorgan, a famous banking concern. (“Sovereign citizens” are becoming increasingly infamous for harassing banks.)

    Another spammer — one that left an IP signature from Belarus — also targeted a Leaming story thread at the PP Blog.

    In recent weeks, the Blog has recorded data that plainly show that  botnets, spambots or human spammers are circling antiscam sites and attempting to execute command strings that — if enough volume is applied — can cause databases to malfunction or even cause the sites to go offline.

    This creates an atmosphere that affects the publishing of information not only on current scams, but also on emerging scams and scams of the past. The downstream effects are potentially ruinous — and yet it continues.

    ASD and AVG were discredited long ago. But scams that use their core business model not only are launching, but in some cases thriving. Serial promoters are racing from one fraud scheme to the next. This sets the stage for schemes to fill up the world’s largest sports stadiums eight or 10 times over with victims. In 2008, ASD could have filled the Rose Bowl to capacity with victims one time. By 2012, Zeek could have filled the Rose Bowl with victims 10 times.

    The “defenses” for these various schemes range from the bizarre to the utterly mindless — and they absolutely must be decimated with the full, combined weight of the various world governments.

    It is in the interest of the worldwide public to connect the dots of these schemes and to eradicate them through the maximum application of the force of law. Left unchecked, they will erode the very foundations of freedom and permit the criminal underworld of MLM to thrive.

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASDUpdates Blog.

     

  • SPECIAL REPORT: SMOKING GUN? MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi Forum Post Made During Same Month Grand Jury That Indicted AdSurfDaily’s Andy Bowdoin Convened May Tie AdViewGlobal To International Penny-Stock Scheme And Collapsed Payment Processor In Arizona

    Combined with corporation records and documents such as news releases, this post on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum raises questions about whether AdViewGlobal, an autosurf with close ties to AdSurfDaily, was part of an elaborate penny-stock scheme and money-laundering conduit that consumed the EWalletPlus payment processor and left AVG members holding the bag.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Longtime readers of the PP Blog will recall that the purported AdSurfDaily (ASD) spinoff known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) and some of its members engaged in particularly bizarre behavior in May 2009. The absurdities included announcing (and then unannouncing) a puported deal with a new offshore wire facilitator, announcing (and then unannouncing) a new website with purported new services and claiming the upstart company was healthy enough not only to pay out 250 percent matching bonuses to members and 200 percent matching bonuses to recruiters, but also to pay out multilevel downline commissions and purported surfing income of up to 8 percent a day.

    Just two months earlier — in March 2009 — AVG suddenly announced its account at an unspecified bank had been suspended and that its chief executive officer  had resigned. The firm bizarrely added that CEO Gary Talbert would not leave the company altogether. Rather, Talbert would remain in the accounting department.

    Just a month earlier, Talbert, also a former ASD executive, had been introduced in an AVG conference call by Terralynn Hoy, an ASD member and moderator of the pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum and an emerging forum for the AVG autosurf. The introduction occurred in February 2009 after weeks of assertions by AVG that there were no ties between itself and ASD. The introduction was preceded by a bizarre announcement in late January of 2009 by AVG that the appearance of its graphics on an ASD-controlled webroom was an “operational coincidence.” The person making that announcement on AVG’s behalf was Chuck Osmin, a former ASD employee.

    AVG’s websites ultimately disappeared. Members claimed AVG was owned by George and Judy Harris, and at least one of the AVG websites identified  George Harris as an AVG trustee. George Harris, described in court filings as the head of ASD’s purported real-estate division, is the stepson of Andy Bowdoin and the son of Bowdoin’s wife, Edna Faye Bowdoin.

    It later proved to be the case that May 2009 — the same month in which AVG was reimagining itself as one of the world’s leading advertising and communications firms while at once announcing and unannouncing key bits of purported news — was the same month the grand jury that indicted ASD President Andy Bowdoin had convened.

    The PP Blog is reporting today that records strongly suggest AVG was a cog in a larger fraud  — one that somehow married the AVG autosurf to a penny-stock scheme with a purported arm in the “oil” businesses and a branch that owned an Arizona payment processor known as EWalletPlus that later collapsed.

    Here, now, our Special Report . . .

    Is stock manipulation in multiple venues part of the bigger picture of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme? Out of the clear blue sky in the fall of 2008  — as ASD awaited a critical court ruling in the Ponzi forfeiture case against the assets of President Andy Bowdoin — ASD claimed it expected a $200 million revenue infusion from Praebius Communications, a penny-stock firm that did not disclose audited sales figures.

    But the Praebius announcement, which ASD later withdrew without explaining why, may not be the firm’s only tie to a penny-stock company.

    A May 2009 post on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum is adding to lingering questions about whether AdViewGlobal — an autosurf with close ties to ASD — was part of an elaborate penny-stock scheme and money-laundering conduit  involving multiple companies, domestic and offshore venues and individuals with ties to ASD.

    On May 5, 2009, a MoneyMakerGroup poster who used the handle of “IMCanadian” claimed he (or she) had received autosurfing payouts totaling $1,300 from AdViewGlobal (AVG) on unspecified dates. The payments, according to the post, were routed through SolidTrustPay (STP), a Canadian payment processor.

    The MoneyMakerGroup post potentially provides a glimpse into how fraudulent securities businesses may layer themselves to confuse both investors and authorities. The post cites two different email addresses as the sources of STP payments from the AVG scheme.  Although the email addresses purportedly were used by AVG to cause STP to issue AVG autosurf payouts, neither of the addresses used  a domain name owned by AVG. Instead, they used Yahoo and Gmail addresses.

    AVG, according to records, could have chosen to use email addresses that corresponded to its own domain names. The firm owned at least two namesake domains before it suspended member cashouts in June 2009: ADVGlobal.com and AdViewGlobal.com.

    But relying on free email providers such as Yahoo and Google was not the sole oddity associated with AVG, a firm an early promoter predicted would become a “1 Billion Dollar Company [before the] end of 2009.”

    “Most if not all of your leaders are joining,” the promoter flatly counseled on a forum known as FreeLunchRoom on Dec. 23, 2008, two days before Christmas.

    The MoneyMakerGroup posts that followed cited not only the Yahoo and Gmail payout addresses, but also two different STP usernames from which AVG payouts to “IMCanadian” purportedly originated. Absent in both usernames was any reference to AVG itself.

    Like AVG, ASD also used STP, according to records. In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service alleged that ASD had wired “several million dollars” to STP just prior to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from the personal bank accounts of ASD President Andy Bowdoin.

    A payment of $200 for AdViewGlobal earnings was received through STP from an STP user who used the acronym “avg” as part of a yahoo.com email address, but did not use an AVG domain, according to the MoneyMakerGroup post. The STP username linked to the AVG payout was “karveck,” not AdViewGlobal or AVG, according to the post.

    An AVG payment for $1,100, meanwhile, had come from an STP member who used the words “tmscorp” and “usa” — along with the abbreviation “llc” as part of a Gmail address, according to the post. The STP username for the payout was “tmscorp,” not AdViewGlobal or AVG, according to the post.

    Ten days after the claims appeared on MoneyMakerGroup, the grand jury that indicted ASD President Andy Bowdoin in the District of Columbia was sworn in, according to records. The swearing in occurred just 11 days after the Obama administration announced a crackdown on offshore fraud schemes. On the same day Obama himself spoke about the crackdown — May 4, 2009 — AVG announced it had secured a new offshore wire facilitator in the aftermath of the purported suspension of AVG’s bank account in March 2009. Research by the PP Blog suggests that AVG sought to route money to itself by using a Florida shell company that had sought the services of an offshore firm later banned by the National Futures Association.

    The seal on the Bowdoin indictment was lifted on Nov. 23, 2010, during a period in which some ASD members were discouraging others from filing remissions claims in the ASD forfeiture case brought by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008.

    Bowdoin was arrested in Florida on Dec. 1, 2010. He faces an upcoming trial on allegations of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities for his operation of ASD. AVG’s name does not appear in the indictment.

    The Operative Word: ‘Murky’

    Much remains murky about the degree of connectivity among ASD, AVG, STP, Karveck, TMS Corp and EWalletPlus. It is known that ASD and AVG had members and promoters in common. Both firms used STP to process payments, but it remains far from clear how many STP accounts the companies and their executives or insiders controlled and how much money generated in the ASD scheme remained in offshore accounts that later could be tapped to channel money to AVG.

    ASD and AVG are known to have turned to members and moderators  of the now-defunct Surf’s Up forum to sanitize the respective schemes.  The surf firms, according to AVG, also shared at least two of the same employees: Chuck Osmin and Gary Talbert.

    Some ASD members have claimed Bowdoin was a silent partner in AVG and fronted the money to acquire EWalletPlus, AVG’s purported in-house payment processor. If the assertion that Bowdoin provided money to buy EWalletPlus is true, it may mean that the deal was heavily layered to shield Bowdoin from being identified as the funding source and that AVG had more than one silent partner.

    Karveck and TMS Corp used multiple versions of their names, a potential indicator of money-laundering — i.e., a bid to dupe banks into warehousing fraud-scheme proceeds. Karveck, for example, has been referred to as just plain Karveck, but also Karveck International. Records show that at least three versions of the TMS Corp. name exist: TMS Corp., TMS Association and TMS Corp. USA LLC.

    TMS Corp. USA LLC is listed in Nevada and Arizona records as using ASD’s address in Quincy, Fla. Its manager is listed as Talbert, the former executive at both ASD and AVG.

    Each of the TMS firms appears to have a tie to EWalletPlus, which once shared the same server in Panama with AVG. Despite serving pages from Panama, AVG purported to be based in Uruguay and to enjoy U.S. Constitutional protections even though it was operating offshore. Making the situation even murkier is that a penny-stock company known as Vana Blue Inc.  claimed in 2008 to own TMS Corp., the parent company of the EWalletPlus web portal, and to have have acquired Karveck International in February 2009.

    The claims came in the form of news releases — and news releases are common tools in penny-stock frauds.

    AVG formally launched in February 2009, a year after VanaBlue claimed ownership in a news release of TMS Corp. and EWalletPlus and months after the seizure of Bowdoin’s assets in August 2008. Prior to the seizure, Bowdoin ventured to Costa Rica and Panama, according to court filings by the Secret Service.

    The purpose of the Bowdoin trip, according to the Secret Service, was to to incorporate ASD Cash Generator — a replacement autosurf for a Bowdoin surf that had collapsed in 2007 —  and an entity known known as La Sorta Trading outside of U.S. jurisdiction. The agency made the claim on Feb. 26, 2009, less than a month after the formal launch of AVG and during the same period in which AVG reportedly had met with a convicted securities felon and announced the formation of a purported offshore “private association.”

    Also in February 2009, Vana Blue declared Karveck International  a “newly acquired asset” that had produced $1.8 million in revenue in January 2009. Karveck was described as a company that “specializes in internet advertising and promotion in a search engine and ad clicking type environment.”

    Mysteriously, however, VanaBlue disowned Karveck International just six months later — in August 2009. What Vana Blue initially had described in February as a completed acquisition of Karveck International was redescribed in August as deal that had fallen through as a result of “further due diligence.”

    “Vana Blue was unable to complete this transaction but is in the final stages of negotiation with an oil company to continue its plans of acquisitions,” Vana Blue claimed on Aug. 17, 2009.

    During the month of August 2009, ASD’s Bowdoin announced in court filings that he was “negotiating” with federal prosecutors. The August 2009 negotiations, which collapsed by mid-September of the same year, marked at least the second time that Bowdoin or his legal team claimed that the ASD patriarch was seeking to find a way to settle the ASD forfeiture case.

    Bowdoin’s negotiations pleading appeared on the docket of U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer on Aug. 4, 2009. Thirteen days later — on Aug. 17, 2009 — Vana Blue announced on Business Wire that its acquisition of Karveck International — a deal it described in February 2009 as completed — had fallen through.

    Vana Blue claimed in the same announcement it was proceeding on a deal for an oil company despite its sudden loss of Karveck International.

    Just days before Bowdoin’s Aug. 4, 2009, confirmation that he again was negotiating with prosecutors, Vana Blue’s website suddenly went missing.

    Earlier this year, a source told the PP Blog that she provided $5,000 to her sponsor — and that the sponsor converted her money to cashier’s checks made payable to TMS Association, one of the “TMS” companies records suggest was tied to both AVG and EWalletPlus. The woman told the Blog that she believed she was a victim of the ASD scheme.

    On Dec. 21 2010, just 20 days after Bowdoin was indicted, an email that appeared to have originated with an AVG member began to circulate among ASD members.

    The email accused members of ASD who were participating in the remissions program established by the Justice Department and the Secret Service of signing their “morals and soul away” and supporting “innocent peoples lives being destroyed.”

    In a possible bid to intimidate ASD members, the email further claimed that an unspecified “back lash” would occur against any ASD member who participated in the claims program.

    Last month ASD members who filed approved claims forms received back 100 percent of the money they had directed at ASD. The remissions payments were funded by money seized by the Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi case.

    Although its is believed the government also has opened a probe into the affairs of AVG, prosecutors have made only veiled references to AVG in court filings in the ASD case.

     

  • DEVELOPING STORY: Are AdSurfDaily Pitchmen Who Also Joined AdViewGlobal And Recruited Members For Collapsed ASD Knockoff Confused — Or Are They Trying To Scam Downline Members And Claims Administrator?

    ASD's Andy Bowdoin.

    This post begins with background because the autosurf world, which is dominated by serial scammers, financial fraudsters and shadowy criminals, is about as murky as it gets.

    On Aug. 1, 2008, tens of millions of dollars in the bank accounts of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin were seized. Federal prosecutors went on to say that Bowdoin, a recidivist swindler in his seventies, was conducting an international Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million from the small town of Quincy, Fla.

    ASD allegedly had more than 100,000 members.

    Bowdoin was running the massive scheme through his 10 personal bank accounts and trading on the name of the President of the United States to sanitize the fraud, prosecutors said in a forfeiture complaint.

    A federal magistrate judge in the District of Columbia, the nation’s capital and center of power, ordered the money seized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after reviewing a 37-page affidavit by the U.S. Secret Service and a 57-page evidence exhibit. Incredibly, though, some ASD members didn’t take the strong clues that the U.S. government had come to view ASD and others like it as a threat to to the nation.

    The government made sure that the allegations and certain information about Bowdoin, including the fact that ASD was not his first brush with securities felonies and that he was partnered with a man implicated by the SEC in the 1990s in three prime-bank schemes, were available for wide distribution. The forfeiture complaint was published on the Internet in multiple places and was made available at no charge by the government.

    Bowdoin reacted to the seizure by describing it as an act of “Satan” and comparing it to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A message from Bowdoin on ASD’s answering machine claimed God was on the company’s side. Within days of the breathtaking seizure and a follow-up raid of company headquarters caught on camera by a local TV station, ASD members started pitching other fraud schemes, positioning them as ways to make up for ASD losses. The disconnect of ASD members was stunning.

    They hawked cash-gifting schemes, HYIP schemes, cycler matrices and other autosurf schemes — often using an appeal to religion in their pitches and claiming the “programs,” unlike ASD, operated outside U.S. jurisdiction and thus insulated the players from prosecution. They made the claims despite the fact the “programs” were targeted at U.S. citizens and players were paid in U.S. dollars after using U.S. dollars to join the “programs.”

    On Nov. 19, 2008, ASD lost a key court battle. A federal judge ruled that ASD, which had requested an evidentiary hearing, had not demonstrated it was a lawful business and not a Ponzi scheme. Instead of exiting the autosurf  Ponzi “industy,” some ASD members next turned their attentions to an upstart “offshore” surf known as AdViewGlobal.

    Which brings us to the reason for this post . . .

    A woman who said she believed she was an AdSurfDaily investor entitled to restitution through the government remissions program administered by Rust Consulting Inc. told the PP Blog yesterday that she gave $5,000 to her sponsor, who converted the sum to cashiers’ checks made payable to a murky enterprise known as TMS Association.

    The PP Blog referred the woman to the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia.

    But her transaction, according to the woman, occurred in April 2009 — eight months after the August 2008 seizure of tens of millions of dollars by the Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi case. ASD ceased operations after the seizure.

    Although the woman apparently believed she was investing in ASD, her story strongly suggests that she actually was investing in AdViewGlobal (AVG), one of the so-called ASD “clones” that launched in the aftermath of the ASD seizure. TMS Association was a murky Arizona business linked to eWalletPlus, which reportedly was the in-house payment processor for AVG.

    The woman, saying she believed she was an ASD victim, also said she believed she was entitled to restitution through the remissions program set up for ASD victims through Rust. Her remissions claim, however, appears to have been rejected because the program is for victims of ASD, LaFuenteDinero and Golden Panda Ad Builder, not victims of AVG.

    “I am having troubles with the Ad Surf Daily Remission Administrator on getting the information that my checks I sent in that were endorsed to TMS Association were ‘linked’ to the Ad Surf fraud suit that is going on,” the woman asserted.

    Facts surrounding TMS, eWallet Plus and AVG are exceptionally murky, and there is no remissions program for victims. It is believed that the U.S. government has opened a probe into the companies, and AVG was referenced as an extension of ASD in a 2009 racketeering lawsuit filed against Bowdoin by a group of ASD members seeking class-action certification.

    At least three companies, including a penny-stock firm known as Vana Blue, have claimed to own eWallet Plus, which AVG also claimed to own. Also adding confusion are the presence of company names such as TMS Corp. USA LLC, TMS Corp., Karveck International and Karveck Corp. — all of which haven been referenced in the context of AVG.

    The woman said she contacted the PP Blog because of its reporting on TMS Association.

    AVG, which had close ASD ties, announced it was suspending cashouts two years ago this month. The surf was positioned as a remedy for ASD losses, amid claims it operated in Uruguay outside of U.S. jurisdiction. Its servers resolved to Panama, as did the servers for eWallet Plus.

    One promo for AVG claimed that $5,000 turned into $15,000 “instantly.” Some ASD members have claimed Bowdoin was a silent partner in AVG and fronted the money to purchase eWallet Plus.

    Although AVG purported to have no ties to ASD, it listed George and Judy Harris as its owners. George Harris is Bowdoin’s stepson. The AVG incongruities did not end there. Indeed, AVG’s graphics once appeared on an ASD-controlled website, an event that was bizarrely explained away as an “operational coincidence.”

    Even as AVG was disclaiming ASD ties in early 2009, the person disclaiming the ties was a former ASD employee, Chuck Osmin, who testified on ASD’s behalf at an evidentiary hearing in 2008. Despite the claims, AVG listed its first chief executive officer as Gary Talbert, a former ASD executive who filed a sworn court affidavit on ASD’s behalf in 2008.

    The woman’s claims, however, lead to questions about whether some AVG members are trying to use the ASD remissions program to cover losses in AVG, perhaps with encouragement of their upline sponsors

    Among other questions raised by the woman’s claims is whether ASD sponsors who promoted for AVG despite the ASD seizure told the truth about ASD to their recruits or shielded them from the news, thus denying recruits information they needed to make an informed decision about joining AVG.

    At the same time, the woman’s story leads to questions about whether AVG recruits denied the facts by their sponsors about the ASD prosecution tried to pressure their AVG sponsors for refunds when the truth became known — and whether the AVG sponsors are trying to cover their tracks by pointing their recruits to the ASD remissions program without disclosing that it is reserved for ASD, LaFuenteDinero and GoldenPandaAdBuilder victims only.

    It is likely that any bids to mask AVG losses as ASD losses will fail because the government requires ASD members to certify themselves as crime victims and provide paperwork as proof of investment.

    Based on the woman’s claims, it also seems possible that some AVG members may have been serving as unlicensed brokers and investment advisers by collecting cash or negotiable instruments from recruits, converting the money to cashiers’ checks and then sending the money to AVG.

    If transactions such as that occurred, it leads to questions about whether AVG investors ever could prove they’d actually joined the program. If the accounts were not opened in their names and instead were opened in the names of sponsors who collected their money, there may be no proof at all that the recruit was the source of the funding.

    Even if the AVG accounts were opened in the names of the recruits, it may be hard for a recruit to prove they provided the funds if the money was converted to cashiers’ checks and submitted to AVG by the sponsors

    The extent to which AVG sponsors may be trying to game the remissions system is unclear. What is clear is that the woman’s story is yet another reminder that the universe in which ASD and other autosurfs operated was dark and dangerous to the purse strings.

  • EDITORIAL: Bowdoin’s Public Support Largely Has Vanished

    Andy Bowdoin
    Andy Bowdoin

    In 2006 and 2007, AdSurfDaily Inc. used the services of Virtual Money Inc., a debit-card provider accused last year of laundering money for a major narco business in Medellin, Colombia.

    ASD also has been linked to the CEP Ponzi scheme, the PhoenixSurf Ponzi scheme (which also used Virtual Money debit cards), the 12DailyPro Ponzi scheme and e-Gold, which was indicted and convicted of money-laundering.

    ASD President Andy Bowdoin also has been linked to a little-known (and now gone) enterprise known as DailyProSurf, which preceded ASD and used two of the three words that comprised the title of the infamous 12DailyPro Ponzi scheme — and, as it turned out, one of two words that comprised the title of the infamous PhoenixSurf Ponzi scheme.

    Earlier this year Bowdoin appeared in a video pitch for a purported surf known as PaperlessAccess. It was a way for ASD members to get their money back, he explained. The Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum later explained that PaperlessAccess has misrepresented itself to Bowdoin. Some people observed that PaperlessAccess appeared to be using the same surf script ASD used — and the same database.

    Bowdoin’s public support largely has evaporated. Although he continues to have apologists willing to twist facts and conflate new realities to explain away every bit of bad news — including people who cling to a fantasy that ASD can demonstrate it was not a Ponzi scheme — his remaining loyalists long ago lost the PR battle. “Evil government” never was much of an argument, mostly because people generally support the police. Bowdoin himself exposed the fallaciousness when he acknowledged ASD was operating illegally.

    The court already has rejected one argument advanced by an ASD expert witness, ruling that attorney Gerald Nehra had “demonstrated the fallibilities of the professional expert witness, who was defensive on his client’s behalf rather than neutral in his expertise.”

    Among the problems with Nehra’s testimony at an evidentiary hearing last fall, the judge said, was that it contradicted the testimony of other ASD witnesses and “relied solely on the written words contained in the Terms of Service without independent investigation or review of ASD’s business records to ascertain how ASD operates in fact before opining.”

    Keith B. Laggos, another expert ASD reportedly has on its side, had problems with the SEC for publishing “laudatory” press releases and a “laudatory article” about a company without disclosing he was being compensated by the company.

    “[T]he final judgment entered against Laggos provides for disgorgement of $11,989.87, plus prejudgment interest in the amount of $1,996.77, for a total of $13,986.64; the imposition of a civil penalty of $19,500; and a five-year penny stock bar,” the SEC said in 2005.

    Moreover, some ASD promoters have been linked to any number of failed schemes, including MegaLido, Noobing and Regenesis 2×2, which now is under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service in Washington state. One of the purported Regenesis principals was released from federal prison only in January, after serving time in a previous fraud scheme.

    Larry Cook, the receiver in a fraud case against Noobing’s parent company, Affiliate Strategies Inc., said in court filings Thursday that the company and affiliated companies were broke.

    In the early stages, it has been hard to get a fix on finances because “several thousand intercompany transfers” occurred, Cook said, adding that “for at least all of 2009, Defendants operated only by signing up new victims faster than the old victims could obtain refunds.”

    Some ASD promoters, of course, also pitched BizAdSplash (BAS) — even though “chief consultant” Clarence Busby operated Golden Panda Ad Builder, whose assets ($14 million) were seized in the ASD probe. BAS currently is paying no one. Neither is AdGateWorld (AGW), another surf pitched by ASD members. ASD’s name once appeared in the AGW Terms of Service.

    If that were not enough, members now say that ASD President Andy Bowdoin was the silent head of AdViewGlobal (AVG), which suspended cashouts June 25, closed its forum, announced it was keeping all money sent in by members under a “rebates aren’t guaranteed” clause and conducting an audit of itself.

    AVG recently announced it had reported the theft of $2.7 million to state and federal authorities. The announcement was made one day after ASD announced in court filings that it was negotiating with federal prosecutors.

    Bowdoin, who also has been named a defendant in a racketeering lawsuit but has not responded to the complaint, even acknowledged in his own court filings that ASD was operating illegally, claiming the government had an extraordinary duty to inform him that what he was doing was breaking the law.

    AVG launched despite ASD’s unresolved legal nightmare, which leads to questions about whether Bowdoin also believed the government had an extraordinary duty to tell him that AVG was illegal.

    The ASD case is strange by any standard one chooses to apply, including the incongruous standards of the autosurf world. At various times it has featured court filings by Curtis Richmond, a man associated with a group that declared itself a sovereign Indian tribe and organized its own Supreme Court, using the address of a Utah doughnut shop. The group derisively became known as the “Arby’s Indians” because it once held a meeting at an Arby’s in Provo.

    Richmond and co-defendants in a Utah civil case were found by a federal judge last year to have engaged in racketeering in a scheme to destroy the credit of public officials involved in litigation against the tribe, which the judge ruled a “complete sham.”

    Even jailed racketeer and former U.S. Rep. James Traficant became a side note in the ASD case, after some ASD members circulated this PDF in sympathy of his views on what they view as a banking and Federal Reserve conspiracy.

    “Redeemable currency must promise to pay a dollar equivalent in gold or silver money,” Traficant was quoted as saying in 1993, before he was jailed.  “Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) make no such promises, and are not ‘money.’”

    ASD-related litigation is not the only trouble that has dogged Bowdoin since the filing of the federal forfeiture case last August.  In December 2008 — in an unrelated case in Gadsden County, Fla. — a process server attempted unsuccessfully to serve Bowdoin with a lawsuit for an unpaid bill, and reported back to the court that “the address appears vacant.”

    Bowdoin’s last known address was 8 Gilcrease Lane in Quincy, according to April court filings by his former attorneys. Bowdoin fired his attorneys and proceeded as a pro se litigant, but later was ordered to hire a new attorney.

    Meanwhile, there has been virtually no public activity since early January in the case against Bowdoin filed last year by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, whom some ASD members said should be charged with Deceptive Trade Practices for suggesting ASD was illegal. The Florida case has been reassigned to different judges twice this year.

    Bowdoin claimed last year that Ponzi allegations brought by McCollum had been dropped, which triggered ASD members to race to forums to share the good news and caused McCollum’s office to issue a statement denying that Ponzi allegations even had been brought in Florida. The Florida prosecution was brought as a pyramid scheme.

    While it was awaiting a court ruling in October pertaining to the Ponzi allegations in federal court and the allegations that ASD had virtually no revenue other than fees paid by new members,  ASD suddenly announced it expected to receive a $200 million infusion from Praebius Communications, a penny-stock firm that publishes no financials.

    Members were skeptical and said they’d try to confirm the story through Praebius, and ASD quickly removed the announcement from its Breaking News website — but not until other members once again had raced to forums to share good news that turned out to be disappointing news.

    In the federal forfeiture case filed in August, Bowdoin ceded tens of millions of dollars to the federal government in mid-January, but signed a court document Feb. 25 saying he’d changed his mind and planned to continue to litigate as his own attorney.

    Reduced screen shot of Bowdoin's sworn certification in a pro se pleading. Feb. 25 was the recorded date of the signature. A day earlier -- on Feb. 24 -- reports circulated that the Secret Service had seized the banks accounts of some individual ASD members. On Feb. 26, AVG announced it was switching to an "association" structure.
    Reduced screen shot of Bowdoin's sworn certification in a pro se pleading. Feb. 25 was the recorded date of the signature. A day earlier — on Feb. 24 — reports circulated that the Secret Service had seized the banks accounts of some individual ASD members. On Feb. 26, AVG announced it was switching to an "association" structure.

    Bowdoin signed the document one day after reports surfaced that the U.S. Secret Service had seized other bank accounts in the ASD case. On Feb. 26, one day after Bowdoin signed the first of his pro se pleadings, AVG announced it had consulted with Pro Advocate Group and was switching to an “association” structure.

    Pro Advocate Group is associated with Karl Dahlstrom, who was convicted of securities fraud in the 1990s and sentenced to 78 months in federal prison. The “association” structure that emerged cited the U.S. Constitution as the document from which it derived its authority, but AVG said it was headquartered in Uruguay and its servers resolved to Panama.

    AVG used U.S.-based Google services for communications, even though it had its own server. The likely reason for that was to preserve an ability to communicate in case the company’s servers were shut down.

    ASD’s servers were shut down for spam and abuse last year. At least one domain associated with AVG — http://advglobal.com — has been shut down this year. A note in the domain data suggested the server was suspended for spam and abuse.

    Beyond that, there is confusion over precisely who owns eWalletPlus, the online payment processor associated with AVG. Bowdoin was said to have paid $75,000 for eWalletPlus in November — the same month a federal judge ruled ASD had not demonstrated it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme — but at least three other companies or individuals have claimed to own the firm.

    The situation is both a maze and amazing. A company known as Vana Blue Inc. that trades as a penny stock now has specifically disclaimed ownership of Karveck International — yet another name associated with AVG — and yet Vana Blue once boasted that it had acquired Karveck International, after earlier boasting it had acquired a company known as Karveck Corp.

    Vana Blue also claimed to own TMS Corp., which had claimed to own eWalletPlus. Meanwhile,  an entity known as TMS Association also claimed to own eWalletPlus. A third entity — TMS  Corp. USA LLC — also has become part of the AVG alphabet soup.

    Amid these bizarre circumstances, Andy Bowdoin’s support has collapsed — with the exception of a small universe of people eager to trot out a new conspiracy theory to deflect blame from the responsible parties.

  • Sunday News And Notes: ASD Anniversary Passes Without Mention On Surf’s Up; Would-Be eBay Competitor Used Same Phoenix Address As Vana Blue Inc.’s eWalletPlus Subsidiary

    Andy Bowdoin
    Andy Bowdoin

    The one-year anniversary of the seizure of AdSurfDaily’s bank accounts and tens of millions of dollars occurred yesterday, but there was no discussion about it on the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum. No one appears to have started a thread to commemorate the anniversary.

    ASD’s Breaking News site, which recently went offline and now resolves to a parked page that beams ads, gave Surf’s Up its official endorsement Nov. 27. The endorsement occurred eight days after a federal judge ruled ASD had not demonstrated at an evidentiary hearing that it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme.

    ASD asked for the hearing. The government did not object. ASD President Andy Bowdoin took the 5th Amendment, advising the court through his attorneys that he would not testify at a proceeding his own company requested.

    Although some Surf’s Up members continue to blame the government for events and criticize the prosecutors for being slow to issue refunds from seized funds, the ASD side is responsible for slowing the case to a crawl. At the same time, Bowdoin always has claimed in court filings that the money belonged to him and not the members. It’s one of the few areas in which both Bowdoin and the prosecutors are in agreement.

    Bowdoin submitted to the forfeiture in January, meaning the case nearly was litigated to conclusion. His forfeiture decision  put the government in position to begin an orderly process to implement a restitution program for participants who certified they were crime victims. The first step, according to the government, was to liquidate ASD’s assets. The government advised victims that patience would be required because it would take time to liquidate real estate and other seized assets and to carry out other administrative functions. (See story.)

    ASD’s motion to submit to the forfeiture was filed Jan. 13; it was the 39th entry on the case docket, and the judge’s order (Jan. 22) granting Bowdoin’s request to forfeit the money was the 41st. The docket now has 80 entries, meaning it effectively has doubled in size despite the fact the case nearly was litigated to conclusion in January.

    Less than two weeks after the judge granted Bowdoin’s forfeiture motion, pleadings by pro se litigants who opposed the government’s point of view and sought to intervene in the case began to appear on the docket. The docket has been dominated since January by pro se litigants, including Andy Bowdoin, who fired his paid attorneys and said he changed his mind about submitting to the forfeiture after consulting with a “group” of members.

    As of today, various pro se pleadings  have resulted in delays of at least seven months in implementing the orderly restitution process the government said it contemplates for crime victims. ASD has been ordered to show cause by Aug. 7 why Bowdoin’s motions — and why motions filed by a new Bowdoin attorney — should not be denied. The judge said she had heard neither from Bowdoin nor his attorney since May.

    Timeline

    Judge Rosemary Collyer issued the ruling that ASD had not demonstrated it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme Nov. 19. On the same date, ASD said on its Breaking News site that it was “Shaken but Not Stirred!” by the ruling, punctuating its comment with an exclamation point. ASD gave Surf’s Up its official endorsement on the Breaking News site Nov. 27, eight days after Collyer’s ruling.

    References to a new surf with ties to ASD — AdViewGlobal (AVG) — began to appear online by mid-December. On Dec. 19, federal prosecutors filed a second forfeiture complaint tied to assets allegedly paid for with money that originated with ASD, including automobiles, a boat, jet skis and marine equipment, and a mortgage on the Tallahassee home of George and Judy Harris. George Harris, whom Bowdoin identified as head of ASD’s real-estate division, is Bowdoin’s stepson.

    On June 10 and June 11 alone, prosecutors said, almost $240,000 in ASD funds were used for personal purchases by Bowdoin family members or friends. The purchases were made less than two weeks after ASD concluded a rally in Las Vegas in which Bowdoin told participants that he thanked God for making him a “money magnet.” He implored attendees to visualize themselves wealthy, to “have an attitude of gratitude with God” and to imagine lots of big checks coming in from AdSurfDaily.

    By the end of July — after more ASD rallies — Bowdoin plunked down nearly $50,000 to purchase a new Lincoln. His assets were seized days after the purchase.

    On a date uncertain in either December or January, some of the Mods and members of Surf’s Up started a forum to promote AVG. Reports suggested that as many as 30 former ASD members were “founders” of AVG.

    On Jan. 15, two days after Bowdoin advised the court that he intended to submit to the forfeiture and never reintroduce his claims to tens of millions of dollars and other seized property, three ASD members sued Bowdoin for racketeering. Bowdoin has not responded to the complaint. No attorney has entered an appearance notice for him.

    AVG’s graphics were seen on an ASD-controlled website Jan. 31, just hours before AVG’s official launch after operating in prelaunch phase in January — and after AVG had specifically disclaimed any affiliation with Bowdoin or ASD. Pro se filings in the ASD case began to appear within days of AVG’s formal launch.

    On Feb. 24, reports surfaced that the U.S. Secret Service had seized the bank accounts of at least four additional participants in ASD, including at least one participant who had joined AVG. On Feb. 25, Bowdoin signed the first of his pro se pleadings. As February drew to a close — and before the world knew about Bowdoin’s shift in strategy to pro se — a Surf’s up Mod implored members to be patient, hinting the case soon would take a turn for the better from ASD’s point of view.

    “[J]ust hold on — a little bit longer now baby,” the Mod implored.

    On March 20, less than two months after its formal launch, AVG announced that Chief Executive Officer Gary Talbert had resigned but would continue to working in “accounting.” Talbert was an ASD executive who signed a sworn affidavit in the ASD case. In an Aug. 18 docket entry, Talbert identified himself as “Human Resource Manager, Assistant CFO and Website Editor.”

    Although AVG identified Gary Talbert as the CEO of AdSurfDaily, Talbert did not say the same thing about himself in court filings.
    Although AVG identified Gary Talbert as the CEO of AdSurfDaily, Talbert did not say the same thing about himself in court filings.

    On Feb. 3, AVG identified Talbert as ASD’s chief executive officer, despite Talbert’s own court filings in which he noted his titles and never claimed to be ASD’s CEO. AVG continued to insist there was no affiliation with ASD.

    On March 23, AVG announced its bank account had been suspended. Members also reported glitches with eWalletPlus, a money-exchange business associated with AVG. On March 26, three days after the announcement of the account suspension, an AVG promoter sent out an email that said $5,000 spent with AVG turned into $15,000 “instantly!” because of a matching-bonus program AVG was running. The promoter was identified as a participant in the CEP Ponzi scheme.

    ASD once advertised it accepted CEP Trust as a payment method. CEP Trust was the failed payment processor associated with the CEP Ponzi scheme. AVG advertised huge matching bonus programs for weeks in what some people saw as a bid to collect large sums of cash as quickly as possible. eWalletPlus eventually went offline.

    ASD once advertised it accepted CEP Trust, the failed payment processor associated with the CEP Ponzi scheme. A CEP promoter named in court filings sent out a promotion for AVG in March, claiming $5,000 spent with AVG turned into $15,000 'instantly!' The promotion was emailed three days after AVG announced its bank account had been suspended because too many members had wired transactions in excess of $9,500.
    ASD once advertised it accepted CEP Trust, the failed payment processor associated with the CEP Ponzi scheme. A CEP promoter named in court filings sent out a promotion for AVG in March, claiming $5,000 spent with AVG turned into $15,000 'instantly!' The promotion was emailed three days after AVG announced its bank account had been suspended because too many members had wired transactions in excess of $9,500.

    On or around May 23, AVG announced the launch of a new website. The launch failed, and members grumbled. On June 1, AVG announced the launch of yet another new website. By June 25, AVG announced that it was suspending member cashouts, making an 80/20 program mandatory and exercising its version of a “rebates aren’t guaranteed” clause that permitted it to keep members’ money.

    Thicket Gets Thicker

    The AVG site operated by some of the Surf’s Up Mods and members went offline after AVG made the June 25 announcement about suspended payouts. On the same date, AVG threatened members and media outlets with copyright-infringement lawsuits for sharing news about the suspended cashouts.

    Four days later — on June 29 — Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for operating a massive Ponzi scheme.

    On June 30, AVG’s name was mentioned in documents filed in the racketeering lawsuit that had been filed against Bowdoin in January. The documents listed the names of some employees or members AVG and ASD had in common, but AVG has not been named a defendant in the RICO case.

    July opened in unkind fashion for AVG. On July 1, just days after it announced the suspension of cashouts, AVG announced a new payment plan. Members said the plan was baffling because it appeared not to take into account matching bonuses the company had advertised and also increased the window for earning back money directed at the firm from 150 days to 180 days to 210 days, while at the same time suggesting it might take forever for members to get a return.

    AVG identified George and Judy Harris as its owners on July 1. In the hours that followed, it closed its forum, reopened it, and closed it again. The actions occurred over a period of three days — and in the wake of complaints from members who had been pleading with the company to provide understandable explanations and to stop blaming participants for AVG’s seeming inability to explain itself.

    In a bizarre communication, AVG advised members that the initial forum closure had occurred because posts by some members were contributing to the confusion of other members. Nearly 50 posts were deleted, members said.

    Within days the situation grew murkier. By the end of the month, new questions about AVG were raised after the company was tied to a firm known as Karveck International, a subsidiary of Vana Blue Inc., a Pinksheet stock.

    Vana Blue is registered as a corporation in Nevada. The company uses an address in Las Vegas that resolves to a mailing service, and an address in Phoenix that also resolves to a mailing service. VanaBlue says it owns the eWalletPlus payment service, whose website now resolves to a page that beams ads, as does Vana Blue’s own website.

    One of the officers of Vana Blue is named a defendant in a counterclaim by the U.S. government that alleges more than $252,000 in federal income tax remains unpaid. The same individual — Donald Rex Gay — is listed in Louisiana records as a person who has been involved in a number of businesses.

    Gay denied in pro se court filings that he owed the taxes.

    Taking On eBay?

    In April 2008, Vana Blue announced that it had “signed an exclusive agreement with Net Auction Plus (an alternative to eBay with lower fees and other eBay processes) to provide online, affordable, and flexible payment services.

    “The start-up auction site has already over 200 power sellers from eBay committed to the new site when the site goes live in May,” Vana Blue said.  “The fees generated by the new site should tremendously increase monthly revenue based on the business from the power sellers.”

    Vana Blue’s TMS Corp. subsidiary — the owner of eWalletPlus — would be a pivotal player in helping Net Auction Plus compete against eBay.

    The domain NetAuctionPlus.com throws a server error. But the address listed in the registration data is the same address of the Phoenix mail service Vana Blue used: 4757 E Greenway Rd. Suite 107B-105 Phoenix, Arizona 85032.

  • IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: New AVG Ownership Questions

    UPDATED 1:43 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Friday was a day unlike any previous day in the so-called autosurf “industry.” A federal judge issued orders on two fronts: a forfeiture case brought by the U.S. government against AdSurfDaily Inc. and a racketeering lawsuit brought by ASD members against ASD President Andy Bowdoin and others.

    Capsule Review

    For good measure, BizAdSplash (BAS) announced a financial “crisis,” saying it was suspending cashouts until at least Sept. 1 and conducting an audit of itself. BAS says Clarence Busby, the former president of Golden Panda Ad Builder and a central figure in the ASD prosecution, is its “chief consultant.” Incongruously, Busby also claims to run the company — something consultants normally don’t do.

    Busby’s video announcement of the BAS crisis appears to have occurred on July 24, the one-year anniversary date of the formal launch of Golden Panda.

    Meanwhile, AdGateWorld (AGW), still another surf that began operating at a purported offshore location after the seizure of ASD’s assets, announced it was selling itself to unnamed interests in the Middle East.

    All of this came on the heels of announcements that AdViewGlobal (AVG), yet another surf purportedly headquartered offshore, was suspending payouts, conducting an audit of itself and making an 80/20 program mandatory should payouts ever resume.

    So, three surfs that launched after the ASD seizure — AVG, BAS and AGW — all announced important developments in the days leading up to the one-year anniversary (Aug. 1) of the date ASD was notified its bank accounts were being seized.

    Yes, all of these things happened just shy of the ASD anniversary date.

    New Name Surfaces: Who is Karveck International?

    Lost in the blizzard of news Friday was a report that AVG had fired its staff in Uruguay, and that owners George and Judy Harris and other Bowdoin/Harris family members are or were in Uruguay and had rented homes and acquired automobiles.

    These reports have not been confirmed.

    At the same time, a person who uses the handle “Luisa” and may be in position to have some knowledge about AVG, said the company initially registered in Uruguay as Karveck International.

    Some things about Karveck International can be confirmed. The company, for instance, is listed as an acquisition of Vanu Blue Inc., which trades as a pinksheet stock (VBLU.PK). Vana Blue issues news releases. One of the news releases referenced the acquisition of TMS Corp., also known as TMS Association, which was the purported owner of eWalletPlus.

    This news release, dated Feb. 21, 2008 — a year and a half ago — vaguely announces a name change for Vana Blue (from what to what isn’t clear) and announced the acquisition of TMS Corp.

    Meanwhile, this news release, dated Jan. 30. 2009 — just a few days before the formal launch of AVG — announced the acquisition of “Karveck Corporation” had been finalized.

    On Feb. 18, 2009 — when AVG had been formally operating in launch phase for just shy of three weeks after operating in January in prelaunch phase — Vana Blue announced that “Karveck International” had posted $1.8 million in revenue in January. How Karveck Corporation apparently became Karveck International wasn’t clear.

    “Karveck will be offering increases in affiliate incentives and payouts coming up in March to maintain momentum,” Vana Blue said.

    eWalletPlus once worked side by side with AVG. In March, after AVG announced its bank account had been suspended because too many members had wired transactions in excess of $9,500, eWalletPlus quickly faded from the stage.

    At the same time in March, an AVG member posted an ad for AVG on a small-business website Bank of America provides as a free service.

    “All of you who were associated with ASD. Do not link this to AVGA!” the poster warned March 27, just a few days after AVG announced the suspension of its bank account. The poster also shared news about TMS.

    “We are happy to inform you that TMS Corporation has been dissolved and a new association,TMS Association, has been formed which is a member of AV GLOBAL ASSOCIATION,” the poster wrote.

    The eWalletPlus website once resided on the same server that powered AVG, according to web records. The eWalletPlus site now appears to have been listed for sale on sedo.com. The site simply beams ads now.

    Vana Blue used an address of 4757 E. Greenway Rd Suite 107B-105 in a news release. It is an address that resolves to a PostNet outlet in Phoenix, the home state of TMS Association. PostNet describes itself as a “Mailbox Rental, Fax, Passport Photos, Copies, Notary, UPS, DHL, FedEx, USPS” service.

    At a minimum, the information suggests AVG had strong ties in Arizona, particularly in the Phoenix area.

    In February, Vana Blue announced that Karveck International posted $1.8 million in revenue in January. That’s when AVG was in prelaunch.

    Vana Blue did not use AVG’s name in the news release. Instead, it described Karveck International as a company that “specializes in internet advertising and promotion in a search engine and ad clicking type environment.”

    News releases associated with many penny-stock companies tend to be vague. Many such companies speak in broad generalities. News releases sometimes are employed as a means of generating buzz about the companies, and they often leave more questions unanswered than answered.

    Vana Blue’s entry into the AVG story is not the first time a pinksheet stock has been associated with an autosurf. ASD, for example, announced last year that it was expecting $200 million in revenue from the penny-stock company Praebius Communications. ASD withdrew the news release from its Breaking News site after members said they intended to call Praebius to confirm or deny the deal.

    And, speaking of the ASD Breaking News site: It is no longer there. It has been replaced by a site that beams ads.

    See this story, along with the comments.

  • AdViewGlobal: More Insidious By The Hour

    AdViewGlobal (AVG), an autosurf with close ties to AdSurfDaily, is getting more insidious by the hour.

    An AVG forum set up by some of the Mods and members of ASD became a den of infighting among AVG members yesterday. One poster started a thread begging the Mods to intervene, which is to say the poster wanted the Mods to delete reasonable questions and criticism from other members about AVG’s operations.

    The Mods complied. The thread had been titled “Moderators…please moderate this private forum!!”

    At issue were slashed AVG payout rates after it had run a mind-boggling, 200-percent, matching bonus program for weeks — for both new members and their sponsors. AVG’s published payout rate yesterday was “only 0.056%,” according to posters.

    Some AVG members said they expected much higher payout rates. The mere fact that autosurfs promise or suggest a return, however, is problematic. Regulators view the surfs as sellers of unregistered securities disguised as advertising programs.

    The return is one of the central issues in the case against ASD — and has been the central issue in all previous autosurf prosecutions, including the CEP Ponzi scheme. The government long has been wise to the wink-nod nature of the business model and attempts by operators and promoters to sanitize it by drafting participants into a verbal conspiracy and scolding people for not using precise language to sustain the deception.

    ASD President Andy Bowdoin said he went through $800,000 in his bid to claim tens of millions of dollars seized by the government last August. Now, months later, Bowdoin still is facing litigation by the government on three fronts, and a racketeering lawsuit filed by ASD members seeking class-action status.

    Attempts to force autosurf participants to use specific phrasing — such as insisting the word “advertsing” be used instead of “investing” — are commonplace. The attempts alone show consciousness of guilt. The wink-nod nature further is exposed through deletions of posts that don’t adhere to the company line.

    Deletions often are defended as an attempt to keep the company discussions “positive.” Regardless, it’s easy to view them as bids to force everybody to lie in the name of the company, so the deception can continue. Virtually all autosurfs operate as Ponzi schemes.

    Also at issue at the AVG forum yesterday was a pattern of confusing information from the company.

    AVG announced the sudden resignation of Chief Executive Officer Gary Talbert March 20; Talbert is a former ASD executive. On March 23, the surf announced its bank account had been suspended. Problems with eWalletPlus.com, a money-exchanger, followed. One AVG member now says the company was using a U.S. bank, despite promoting itself as an “offshore” opportunity.

    Banking problems led to the demise of ASD.

    In late March, Shad Foss, an autosurf promoter against whom the receiver in the CEP Ponzi scheme case sought to claw back ill-gotten gains, sent an email to promote AVG. The email advised prospects that $5,000 in AVG would turn into $15,000 “instantly!”

    ASD once advertised that it accepted CEP Trust, the failed payment processor run by the operators of the CEP Ponzi scheme.

    On Tuesday, two payment processors used by AVG — SolidTrustPay of Canada and StrictPay of Panama — were offline for hours. Both surfs simultaneously were experiencing the same problem: the inability to load secure pages. Why the problem was occurring is unclear.

    What is clear is that such disruptions demonstrate just how vulnerable surfs are to unexpected events. AVG is behaving like an operation starved for cash. It is having management, banking and payment-processing problems simultaneously — while still running bonus promotions.

    AVG is getting more insidious by the hour.

  • BREAKING NEWS: eWalletPlus, Firm Associated With AdViewGlobal, Disables New Registrations; AVG Members Question Management

    UPDATED 12:30 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) eWalletPlus, a money-exchanger associated with a surfing company that has close ties to AdSurfDaily, no longer is taking new registrations, according to its website. The site does not explain why.

    At the same time, AdViewGlobal (AVG) — the firm with close ASD ties — sent members a newsletter encouraging them to use the so-called “80/20 Rule,” a sign the company may be desperate to keep money in the system.

    AVG’s newsletter led with the 80/20 pitch, despite all of the news it could have led with. AVG again did not fully explain its banking problems or an apparent inability to process some or all ACH transactions. The newsletter was said to have originated in Phoenix, the purported home of eWalletPlus.

    “One of the strategies to have your advertising with AVGA pay for itself besides watching the 24 required sites is to use the 80/20 rule,” AVG said in its newsletter.  “Simply stated you use 80% of your daily earnings to purchase[] additional page impressions and cash out 20%.

    “This will create additional income by creating more probabilities of sales because of increase[d] advertising of your site. And second by purchasing more page impressions every day this increases sales that directly affect your VIP.”

    “VIP” is AVG’s term for what ASD called “rebates.”

    “If you have any questions about the 80/20 rule your up line should be able to give you additional details,” AVG continued. “The AVGA business model is sound and will work to promote your business and help pay for the advertising bill.”

    Just below the 80/20 pitch was an announcement that AVG’s 200-percent, matching-bonus program had been extended until April 10. The company has been promoting the 200-percent program, which applies to members and their sponsors, for weeks.

    One promoter claimed a $5,000 purchase turned into $15,000 “instantly!” The promoter making the claim was Shad Foss, who has been linked to the CEP Ponzi scheme. ASD once advertised that it accepted payments from CEP Trust, the failed payment processor run by the operators of the CEP Ponzi scheme.

    Although AVG used the newsletter to announce its “Future Is Very Bright,” it has never fully explained the March 20 departure of Gary Talbert, its chief executive officer and a former ASD executive.

    On March 23, the company announced it had a banking problem, but did not fully explain what the problem was and how it was affecting operations. The March 23 annoucement blamed the problem on AVG members who’d sent too many bank wires in excess of $9,500.

    AVG has a history of not identifying the corporate authors of specific communications to members. Some correspondence has been signed by the “AVG Management Team,” which has led to questions about who is running things and why no one has emerged as the public face of the company.