YouGetPaidFast, a Texas-based “program” that plants the seed it has the blessing of the FBI, is benefiting from a pitchman who is handing out flyers at an “unemployment office,” according to a post from an apparent naysayer at the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum.
The poster says his friend is the one handing out the flyers — and won’t listen to reason because he is desperate for money.
If the claim is true, it would follow an incendiary circumstance that surfaced in the Women’s Gifting Tables pyramid scheme in Connecticut that resulted in lengthy prison sentences for two pitchwomen.
In the Women’s Gifting Tables scheme, members of Alcoholics Anonymous were targeted, according to the trial testimony reported by the New Haven Register.
Such schemes typically target vulnerable populations. Similar schemes such as HYIP frauds have been known to target people facing mortgage foreclosures and recent job losses.
YouGetPaidFast is operated by Paul Darby, a Texan who claims he is friendly with FBI agents and has them on “speed dial.”
At least one FBI agent has vetted his “program,” Darby has claimed.
Unlike the Women’s Gifting Table scheme, which asked for $5,000 at a time, YouGetPaidFast appears to be seeking the much-smaller sum of $28. Participants reportedly are instructed to mail $7 to each of four names of individuals or entities that appear on a list and advised they are purchasing products.
Gifting and other fraud schemes that assert they sell inexpensive “products” appear somewhat regularly on the Internet. Such an approach is consistent with micro-fraud, a scam by which hucksters gather small sums from participants, rather than seeking large sums. The hope is that the small sums will add up to a large sum over time and investigators will perceive a micro “program” as less toxic than a jugular-vein fraud and won’t bother to look into it.
The JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid HYIP “program” purportedly operated by AdSurfDaily Ponzi pitchman and cash-gifter Frederick Mann was an example of micro fraud. Participants were told that JSS/JBP would give them $10 to get started in the “program.” After payout and other problems developed at JSS/JBP, the “program” started seeking “purchases” of tens of thousands of dollars at a time.
Claims that a “program” sells “products” and that participants make “purchases” long have been associated with bids to mask the true nature of the “program” — a gifting scam or HYIP fraud disguised as a merchant doing legitimate business, for example. Meanwhile, claims that the government or an important politician or business person have vetted or endorsed a “program” are common in the fraud sphere.
An earlier Darby “program” featured a knockoff of the Seal of the President of the United States and suggested that something called Net Millionaires Club was an “economic stimulus package.”
The marketing efforts of Net Millionaires Club were reminiscent of those of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme exposed by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. (ASD traded on the name of former U.S. President George W. Bush; Darby has traded on the name of President Obama.) In 2010, a Phil Piccolo-linked scam known as Data Network Affiliates planted the seed that it had been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump.
Meaningless, Bizarre, Piccolo-Like Claims
YouGetPaidFast now screams it is “SETTING RECORDS WORLD WIDE,” pointing to an Alexa traffic ranking and “Video Views by You Tube 30 Days” as purported proof of legitimacy. Despite the claim it is setting records, however, YouGetPaidFast does not appear to specify precisely what records it is setting. Nor does it appear to say precisely what authority had certified the marks as “records.”
Such incongruities litter the cash-gifting and HYIP landscapes, which are lined with the carcasses of collapsed “programs.” Sometimes the “programs” come back with a new name or a name designed to instill new confidence such as XXX Scheme 2.0 XXX Scheme Web 3.0.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) warned in 2010 that fraud schemes were spreading online through social-media sites such as YouTube. A year earlier — in 2009 — the Better Business Bureau reported there were 22,974 cash-gifting videos on YouTube.
Those videos, the BBB said at the time, had garnered an “astounding 59,192,963 views.” (Also see June 2009 report on cash-gifting by KIII-TV. The report includes an interview with an official from the Better Business Bureau of Central Texas.)
Cash-gifting purveyors are “targeting people with some form of an affinity — such as as women’s clubs, community groups, church congregations, social clubs and special interest groups,” the BBB warned four years ago.
On Oct. 8, BehindMLM.com, citing a Darby claim, reported that one or more Christian pastors was encouraging Darby to sue his detractors.
Pointing to Alexa rankings and YouTube videos to sanitize frauds is one of the oldest tricks in the scammer’s playbook in the Information Age. Veteran online huckster Phil Piccolo, known for bizarre schemes such as Data Network Affiliates, OWOW and Text Cash Network, has been doing it for years.
Piccolo also has planted the seed he’ll sue his critics. In 2010, he planted the seed on Troy Dooly’s radio program that he could bring in leg-breakers if lawsuits didn’t work. Piccolo earlier had threatened to sue Dooly.
