On Feb. 4, the PP Blog reported that a JSS Tripler-related website listed in an action by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, was based in the United States and had been programmed to redirect to the Netherlands several days after CONSOB announced the action.
That domain — JSS-Tripler.com — now is throwing a server error and no longer is redirecting the traffic to Europe. The site generates an “Unable to connect” message in the Firefox browser and an “Unknown error: 1214” message when pinged, meaning the server is in a black hole.
The circumstances under which the server went dark are unclear. It is not known, for instance, if law enforcement, the hosting company or the JSS Tripler affiliate — purportedly a woman — caused the domain to stop working. Its registration is valid until Feb. 24, according to records.
Earlier this week, the site was directing to a JustBeenPaid subdomain styled “marketing.” JustBeenPaid and Frederick Mann are the purported operators of JSS Tripler, which advertises a return of 2 percent a day. The return computes to an annualized return of 730 percent.
Despite the CONSOB action, cheerleading for JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler continue on the Ponzi cesspits such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
Just BeenPaid/JSS Tripler makes members affirm they are “not an employee or official of any government agency.” In addition, it makes them affirm they are not “acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency” and not “an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company.”
The Terms alone appear to be an invitation to join an international financial conspiracy. Regardless, the Ponzi-forum cheerleading continues.
JustBeenPaid has traded on the names of American icons Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Zuckerberg — and even the name of fictional spaceman “Mr. Spock” from the Star Trek series on American television.
Frederick Mann was a cheerleader for the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme in 2008, according to promos. ASD was based in Florida.
In May 2008, Mann asserted that “[p]ast performance indicates a strong probablility (sic) that ASD will continue to perform as advertised,” according to a promo.
Two months later, the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from bank accounts linked to ASD President Andy Bowdoin and others.
Some ASD figures are known to have ties to so-called “sovereign citizens” — and any number of ASD members have invested in crackpot legal theories such as all commerce is lawful as long as parties agree to a contract.
Such bizarre constructions would legalize slavery, securities fraud, tax fraud, Ponzi schemes and narcotics-trafficking, among other pursuits.
And because some “sovereign citizens” believe they can divine a contract out of thin air and demand a litigation result from judges, prosecutors, investigators and creditors, bizarre courtroom clashes have been occurring across the United States.
Prior to its killing, this post yesterday by Ponzi-forum huckster "strosdegoz" showed a DNS propagation map for JSS Tripler 2 (T2) when a link in the post was clicked. The page that loaded showed that T2 was accessible via wire in the United States. The post vanished without explanation in less than an hour.
“strosdegoz,” the serial Ponzi-board pitchman who claims to have a presence on at least 35 forums or websites that promote “programs” that advertise preposterous returns, has killed a MoneyMakerGroup post he created that showed JSS Tripler 2 (T2) is accessible via wire in the United States.
The original post, which appears to have been created because some T2 members were complaining they could not access the T2 site, was replaced with a single word: “Edit.” A note below the substituted one-word post explained it had been “edited by strosdegoz.”
Prior to its killing, the post had included a link to this DNS tracking service. When that link was clicked, it showed that the JSSTripler2 domain is accessible in the United States. It also showed T2 is accessible in Italy. (More on the potential importance of T2’s reach into Italy below.)
“strosdegoz” did not explain his decision to kill his post and the link. Nor did he say whether he was properly registered to sell securities to U.S. or Italian citizens. Nor did he say whether T2 was properly registered to do so.
T2 was known to be accessible in the United States even before “strosdegoz” killed the link that showed multiple points of contact on U.S. soil from the East Coast and the West Coast and places in between. Still, the DNS map provided a compelling visual of how scammers from all parts of the world can reach into the United States (and other countries) and recruit the unknowing into the murkiest of investment enterprises.
T2, which preemptively denies it is a Ponzi scheme despite advertising returns that dwarf the return rates of Bernard Madoff, purports to pay a return of 2 percent a day, a figure that computes to an annualized return of 730 percent. The “opportunity” claimed for weeks that it had suspended member cashouts, blaming the development on an AlertPay account freeze.
AlertPay is a processor based in Canada.
But T2 now says is has regained access to the frozen funds, a development that led to a flood of “I got paid” posts on MoneyMakerGroup, which is listed in U.S. federal court filings as a place from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.
After having posted the DNS tracking link and later deleting it, “strosdegoz” — also known as “manolo” — virtually simultaneously posted an “I got paid” post for T2 at MoneyMakerGroup.
“I got paid today already,” the post read. “Fast as usual.”
Only days earlier, T2 purportedly was paying no one. Its explanation of an AlertPay freeze was a virtual concession that the enterprise was insolvent and could not pull from other resources to meet its obligations. “Opportunities” such as T2 pretend liabilities do not exist or conceal insolvency by treating liabilities as assets. Any significant interruption of cash flow can create a crisis that potentially affects thousands or even tens of thousands of participants.
Both the edited DNS post and the “I got paid” post below it had a time stamp of 7:11 p.m. (The original DNS post had a time stamp of 6:21 p.m; the edit occurred at 7:11 p.m., according to the time stamp, and the follow-up “I got paid” post also was time-stamped at 7:11 p.m.)
T2 Reaches Into Italy As Promoters Of Namesake ‘Opportunity’ JSS Tripler Are Under The Lens
T2 purportedly created its name by appropriating the name of JSS Tripler, another “program” that advertises a return of 2 percent a day. JSS Tripler promoters have come under the lens of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator.
Like T2, JSS Tripler is accessible in the United States — with no corresponding evidence that the program itself as well as its promoters have any registrations as issuers of securities or broker-dealers.
JSS Tripler promoters have pooh-poohed the CONSOB action, preferring instead to flood the Ponzi forums with “I got paid” posts.
Compellingly, the DNS link “strosdegoz” posted at MoneyMakerGroup yesterday for T2 — JSS Tripler’s purported namesake — showed that T2 is accessible in Rome, the capital of Italy. CONSOB is headquartered in Rome.
Club Asteria, another Ponzi-forum darling, came under the CONSOB lens last year — even as “strosdegoz” was leading Club Asteria cheers. The Club Asteria “program,” which traded on the name of the World Bank, first slashed weekly payouts and then eliminated them — amid reports of a PayPal freeze.
Some Club Asteria cheerleaders claimed the “program” provided a “passive” return of up to 10 percent a week. “Ken Russo,” one of “strosdegoz’” fellow cheerleaders on the Ponzi forums, posted purported Club Asteria payment proofs totaling in the thousands of dollars.
Even as accused AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin was pimping a murky “program” known as “OneX” while awaiting his September 2012 criminal trial that potentially could land him in prison for 125 years if found guilty on all counts, “strosdegoz” also emerged as a OneX pitchman.
Among other things, Bowdoin is accused of selling unregistered securities to U.S. residents. He also is accused of using wires that run through the United States to sell prospects into the massive ASD scam, along with securities fraud.
As “strosdegoz” was hawking T2 and OneX by wire, he turned his attention to a “program” called “HugeYield.”
T2 purportedly is operated by “Dave,” now said to be venturing to Cambodia after previously venturing from England to Thailand during the purported AlertPay freeze. “Dave” posts on MoneyMakerGroup as Peakr8.
JSS Tripler, meanwhile, is purported to be in the stable of “JustBeenPaid,” a “program” purportedly operated by onetime ASD promoter Frederick Mann.
Like its Ponzi-forum cousin Legisi — which became the subject of an undercover operation by U.S. law enforcement that resulted in fraud charges — JSS Tripler makes members affirm they are not government spies or media lackeys.
On Jan. 23, CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, made public an action against promoters of JSS Tripler, a “program” that advertises an annualized return of 730 percent. The claim alone would be enough to make Bernard Madoff or Charles Ponzi himself blush.
Or projectile-vomit.
But if the CONSOB action were not trouble enough, one of the JSS Tripler-related domains listed in the agency’s action is hosted in Utah, according to domain records. The domain, which forms its root with a hyphen splitting the proper name of JSS Tripler — i.e., JSS-Tripler.com — continued to serve pages from Utah for several days after CONSOB’s Jan. 23 announcement. The domain, for instance, published daily updates on the number of days JSS Tripler itself purportedly had been in action.
Among the graphics on the Utah-hosted landing page was an image of a JSS Tripler pitchwoman who appeared to be Asian in descent. Assuming the woman actually exists, her nationality remains a mystery. At a time uncertain between Feb. 2 and Feb. 3, however, the site stopped serving content and instead began to redirect to a JustBeenPaid subdomain styled “marketing” that is hosted in the Netherlands.
Whether a U.S. resident or citizen of another country who reached across international borders applied the redirection is unclear. What is clear is that the United States could join Italy in exercising jurisdiction over JSS Tripler and its promoters if it chose to do so. The site also is accessible through individual U.S. states, meaning regulators at the state level also could exercise jurisdiction.
JustBeenPaid and Frederick Mann, a murky figure who once claimed to be an ASD promoter, are the purported operators of JSS Tripler. The Netherlands subdomain shows an image of a man at the top of the page. That man is described on the site as “Louis Paquette, JBP Affiliate Sales & Marketing Director.”
The redirection, which occurs in Utah, according to server data, is virtually immediate — meaning that the previous content and photo of the woman of Asian descent no longer load and that the traffic is switched to the Netherlands page that shows the purported image of Paquette.
Among other things, this development raises questions about who caused the Utah server to redirect to the Netherlands domain and precisely why the change was made on the heels of the CONSOB action. Whether JustBeenPaid or JSS Tripler themselves had control over the Utah domain is unknown.
At a minimum, though, the presence of the Utah domain may be evidence that JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler not only sold unregistered securities to U.S. citizens, but did so from inside the United States with a U.S. promoter or a promoter from another country with access to the Utah server at the helm. And because the redirect to the JustBeenPaid subdomain in the Netherlands occurs from inside the United States, it exposes a JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler lie that the “opportunity” protects itself and promoters from investigation and/or prosecution.
Even if the redirection were not occurring in the United States, the CONSOB action destroys the myth that the “opportunity” is outside the reach of law enforcement. So does the simple fact that any regulator in the world could take action against the “opportunity” and its promoters. Indeed, the cross-border nature of the scheme puts investors in virtually all jurisdictions at risk. Individual promoters could be targeted for investigation/prosecution in multiple jurisdictions — and if actions such as those begin to occur, the access of Just BeenPaid/JSS Tripler to cash sources could dry up.
A claim by a MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi-forum promoter that Just BeenPaid/JSS Tripler has paid out more than $10 million to investors may demonstrate the vast reach of the “opportunity” and its ability to tap funding sources while siphoning undisclosed sums for itself. Just BeenPaid/JSS Tripler may be no Madoff, but $10 million still is a massive sum, one that should raise eyebrows in the worldwide law-enforcement community.
Content accessible from the Netherlands-based JustBeenPaid subdomain — marketing.justbeenpaid.com — raises other troubling concerns. This statement (next paragraph) appears at the bottom of a “login” page in the JustBeenPaid root domain. The statement is accessible through the “marketing” subdomain. (Indent/italics added):
Secure Offshore Servers — Our servers are in a strategic location. We pay special attention to security. Our servers are organized so upgrading and expansion are very easy.
Offshore Business — Our business operations are geographically decentralized. We don’t have any central office. We’re not located in any “unfriendly political jurisdictions.”
As a practical matter, the mere fact the page is accessible through a redirect that occurs in the United States may destroy any claims that JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler protects members against “unfriendly political jurisdictions.” Any transaction that occurred or occurs through the Utah domain necessarily involves wires in the United States.
Regardless of the domain or email address through which business is conducted, any U.S.-based promoter of JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler is using wires inside the United States, a situation that brings wire fraud into play — in addition to the securities issues.
A more troubling question, perhaps, is why JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler even would have the need to make such a claim if its international business is above-board. The same enterprise also claims to have a U.S. patent, a specious claim in the context of securities because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office does not regulate the securities markets of the United States or any other country.
Is JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler The BCCI Of The HYIP World?
In the early 1990s, a corrupt international banking enterprise known as Bank of Credit and Commerce International created a worldwide financial scandal. The bank perhaps was best known by its acronym — BCCI — and purportedly was designed to be “offshore everywhere.”
JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler is making the same sorts of claims associated with BCCI, a spectacularly bright red flag if ever there was one.
But if that bright red flag were not enough, other content accessible through the “marketing” subdomain of JustBeenPaid sends signals that positively glow of danger. Indeed, a “Member Agreement” link accessible through the site includes this language. (Indent/italics added):
6. I affirm that I am not an employee or official of any government agency, nor am I acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency.
7. I affirm that I am not an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company, and I am not reading any of the JBP pages in order to collect information for someone else.
Any political jurisdiction in any part of the world easily could construe those words as an invitation extended by JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler to investors to join an international conspiracy engaging in organized crime and mass-marketing fraud.
Even more land mines emerge when one considers that JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler is being promoted on Ponzi boards such as MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold, both of which are referenced in U.S. federal court files as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.
Veteran forum and social-network hucksters are promoting JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler, including promoters linked to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case in the United States and CONSOB’s earlier action involving Club Asteria, another Ponzi forum darling.
Depending upon how the universe lines up, JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler could find itself starving for cash in very short order. It is a program that is thumbing its nose at law enforcement across the globe — and its willfully blind promoters could find themselves named in individual actions just about anywhere.
It is the very definition of an international financial conspiracy of the most dangerous sort, a sort of emerging BCCI of the HYIP world.
BEFORE
This is the top of the page at the JSS-Tripler.com domain as it existed on Jan. 30, 2012.
AFTER
This is the top of the "marketing" subdomain of JustBeenPaid.com as it exists today. Prospects who visit the Utah-based JSS-Tripler domain referenced in the "BEFORE" screen shot above now are redirected to the Netherlands-based "marketing" subdomain of JustBeenPaid. The switch occurs in Utah, according to server data.
A week after CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, announced it was opening a probe into the activities of JSS Tripler promoters amid claims the absurd “program” advertised returns that would make Bernard Madoff blush, a new “press release” ignores the CONSOB development, calls participants “investors” (eight times) and suggests the U.S. government has approved the JSS Tripler “program.”
The issues in the Italian probe are whether JSS Tripler and promoters are selling unregistered securities as investment contracts unlawfully as part of a multilevel online scheme that offers preposterous returns that compute to an annualized rate of 730 percent — with compounding “bonuses” and two-tier downline commissions totaling 15 percent on top of the advertised returns.
Madoff, jailed for 150 years in the aftermath of the collapse of his massive Ponzi scheme, generally offered annualized returns between 48 and 73 times lower than the advertised JSS Tripler returns.
Dated today, the “press release” appears to have been issued by a JSS Tripler affiliate and is available through Google News. The release does not mention the week-old CONSOB probe. Nor does it identify either the affiliate or the purported company as individuals or entities authorized in any jurisdiction to sell securities.
Moreover, the release does not seek to qualify customers in any way. The only apparent customer qualification is access to a bank or payment account to send money to JSS Tripler and wait for ludicrous profits in return.
A Patent Absurdity
“Thousands of high return programs on the internet have been created for people who want to work from home,” the release begins. “However, the majority of these fast money work home (sic) programs are not sustainable. Frederick Mann solved this problem with his recently US patented system JustBeenPaid! and its subprogram JSS Tripler.”
“JustBeenPaid” (JBP), an exceptionally murky entity, is the purported operator of JSS Tripler. Frederick Mann, JBP’s purported operator, once advertised that he was a promoter for AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service has described as an online Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million.
JBP itself is advertising a U.S. patent, a specious and hollow claim. Regardless of whether a patent exists as part of JBP’s purported software platform, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office does not regulate securities markets or approve the issuance of securities.
Those responsibilities rest with the world’s securities-regulatory bodies, including — for just two examples — CONSOB in Italy and the SEC in the United States. Virtually all developed countries have such regulatory bodies. In the United States and Canada, individual states and provinces also have regulatory responsibility over securities.
Scams routinely make specious claims and divine a connection to government as a means of disarming doubting prospects. The relatively new “patent” claim in the context of JSS Tripler, however, could be a sign that the “program” is becoming increasingly desperate to raise cash and has dialed up its deception to achieve that end.
The nationality of the press-release author was not immediately clear. But he is using a Google Gmail address and appears also to be presenting the release in U.S. English, based on the spelling of the word “program” (as opposed to the chiefly British “programme”) and certain elements of punctuation associated with U.S. English.
The release, which is accessible from the United States, has five embedded JustBeenPaid affiliate links, each of which rotates to a pitch page with a signup prompt page that asks investors to register using a Gmail address.
Among the incongruities about JBP/JSS Tripler is that the purported opportunity continued to solicit customers to register with Gmail addresses — even after Google-owned YouTube deleted promos for the “opportunity” last year.
“No sweat, I own over 500 Youtube accounts, so I’ll just keep making videos like normal, plus I can always use Viddler and Windows movie maker and facebook video as well,” MoneyMakerGroup poster “gtprosperity” claimed.
Apparently oblivious to the CONSOB probe, the serious concerns about the unlawful sale of securities and the bizarre JBP/JSS Tripler developments over many months, the author of the news release asserts that the “program currently has over 125,000 members, and over 2,000 new investors join each day.
“Investors can earn a 2 percent daily, with over 60 percent earned in a month,” the release claims. “Investors earn 2 percent daily on each position they purchase. New positions can be bought with money or earnings. Daily earnings can also be cashed out by sending them to one’s JSS account for withdrawal. Withdrawals take 24 hours to process.”
“Work Home Fast Money Making System To Earn Extra Income Recently US Patented,” the release headline reads.
Among the potential problems with the claim is that it likely demonstrates that JBP/JSS Tripler is selling unregistered securities as investment contacts to U.S. citizens — even as it is doing the same thing in Italy and other countries.
“I dont care what the CONSOB or whatever says because I am not an Italian.” — TalkGold poster known as “WallStreetIsAPonzi,” Jan. 28, 2012
Even as CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, is publishing an announcement on its website that promoters of a bizarre HYIP known as JSS Tripler are under investigation amid preposterous claims that investors receive an annualized return of 730 percent, promoters on Ponzi forums such as MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold are thumbing their noses at the news.
JSS Tripler is an arm of “program” known as “JustBeenPaid” (JBP). Whether JBP plans to assist any of the companies or individuals identified in the CONSOB announcement in navigating the regulatory waters and preparing a defense in the weeks ahead is unclear.
What is clear is that some JBP promoters are reacting to the news by posting fresh “I got paid” posts on the Ponzi boards, even as JBP continues to use its website to advertise returns of “2%+ per Day” and “60% per Month!”
Visitors are advised they can “Increase Earnings with Daily Compounding” and glean affiliate “bonuses” totaling 15 percent over two tiers — on top of the annualized returns of 730 percent.
In the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case in 2008, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer described “a confluence [of ASD] payment schemes” very similar to the payment schemes purportedly in place at JBP. JBP, though, is advertising a return rate double that of ASD, whose operator, Andy Bowdoin, later was arrested on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.
Bowdoin faces up to 125 years in federal prison and fines in the millions of dollars, if convicted on all counts.
In her 2008 ruling in the ASD case in which she refused to release money seized by the U.S. Secret Service as part of an international Ponzi probe, Collyer noted that ASD called its payouts to members “rebates.”
Separately, documents from Canadian investigators show that the word “rebates” was used in international scams, including Flat Electronic Data Interchange (FEDI) and the mysterious “Alpha Project.” At least one FEDI promoter is jailed in the United States, as is FEDI operator Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, also known as “Michael Mixon,” who was convicted on charges of operating an investment-fraud scheme and financing terror.
At MoneyMakerGroup yesterday — on the heels of the CONSOB news — a poster published seven purportedly recent payment proofs from JSS Tripler. Each of them used the word “rebate,” demonstrating that the purported opportunity also is using the same language as ASD and FEDI to describe payouts to members.
The MoneyMakerGroup member said he planned to buy a “motor home” and “start traveling the US” with his JSS Tripler money.
In the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, several automobiles were seized as the alleged proceeds of a criminal scheme. A boat and marine equipment also were seized, along with computers and real estate valued at more than $1 million. All in all, the cash seizures to date in the ASD case total more than $80 million, including cash seized from individual promoters in at least four U.S. states.
U.S. federal prosecutors say that ASD in part tried to mask its $110 million Ponzi scheme by calling its payments to members "rebates." JSS Tripler, an arm of a "program" known as "JustBeenPaid," also refers to its payouts to members as a "rebate," according to this post yesterday at the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum.
Although Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JBP/JSS Tripler, is described by supporters as a business genius and creator of a “masterpiece,” the program is using the same sort of language and bizarre presentations that drew the attention of law enforcement in the ASD and FEDI cases.
Elsewhere on MoneyMakerGroup, a member described the CONSOB development as “NONSENSE!”
Another member observed yesterday that JBP payouts came from an email address on a domain styled BigBooster.com. Why the payouts are associated with the BigBooster domain is unclear, but the BigBooster domain previously has been linked to the alleged ASD Ponzi scheme and Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JBP/JSS Tripler.
Separately, the TalkGold forum deleted a link to a PP Blog report on the CONSOB action. In the ASD case, a forum known as “Surf’s Up” routinely deleted links to the PP Blog. ASD members who relied on the Blog for information were described on the forum as troublemakers, and posters willing to consider the government’s point of view were described as “rats,” “maggots” and “cockroaches.”
ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming was arrested by the FBI in November 2011 on charges of filing bogus liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case, including a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and an active-duty agent of the U.S. Secret Service who did some of the early legwork in the case.
The Secret Service employed undercover operatives in bringing the ASD prosecution.
One MoneyMakerGroup poster yesterday suggested that the CONSOB action was “crap” and claimed outright that JSS Tripler had “paid out over 10 million bucks.”
Whether the poster ever had seen the verified, audited books of JBP/JSS Tripler and other financial records such as bank and payment-processor statements to substantiate his claim is unclear. But even if the $10 million claim is true, the claimed sum was not broken down by recipient — and online scams are infamous for siphoning cash and concentrating it in the pockets of program sponsors and insiders.
Promoters of fraud schemes often pass along company lies and deceptions to recruits and prospects, a situation that U.S. government agencies, including the Secret Service, the SEC and the CFTC, have noted in prosecutions involving individual, commission-based promoters.
The same MoneyMakerGroup promoter also ventured the CONSOB action came because “governments are not getting a cut of this revenue,” further asserting that “the only reason they are starting to do probes and crap (sic) not because they care about protecting you from loosing (sic) your money.”
ASD members made similar claims. Like JBP/JSS Tripler, ASD also was promoted on the Ponzi boards — as were at least three purported ASD clones, all of which have ceased to operate. The cost to investors is unknown.
Like ASD, JSS Tripler also appears to have a clone — one that actually uses JSS Tripler’s name to form its own name. That “program,” known as JSS Triper 2 or T2, appears now to be changing its name to T2MoneyKlub. Regardless of the name, T2 also was hawked on the Ponzi boards and appears even to have given birth to itself on a Ponzi board as a result of a dispute with JBP/JSS Tripler.
Federal prosecutors said ASD also changed its name, morphing from just plain AdSurfDaily into ASD Cash Generator. Court records suggest that changing names was part of ASD’s criminal plan and that the change occurred after the initial ASD Ponzi collapsed and after certain payment conduits began to come under government scrutiny.
Among the MoneyMakerGroup posters who published “I got paid” posts for JBP/JSS Tripler yesterday was “10BucksUp” — his second such post since the CONSOB action became public.
“10BuckUp” previously pushed Club Asteria, anotherPonzi-forum darling that came under CONSOB scrutiny. In addition to displaying no apparent respect for CONSOB, “10BucksUp” let it be known in September 2011 that he also was a pitchman for Cherry Shares, a collapsed program referenced in June by Canadian regulators.
Cherry Shares also was a Ponzi-forum darling.
Whether “10BucksUp” and other JBP/JSS Tripler promoters planned to tell their existing recruits and prospects about the fact CONSOB is targeting individual promoters in a 90-day suspension order related to the purported JBP/JSS Tripler program is unclear.
Also unclear is whether JBP/JSS Tripler will inform existing participants and prospects about the CONSOB action.
Members of any “opportunity” that purports to pay an absurd return always are at great risk. The risk becomes even greater if they are denied information about investigations. Promoters who do not disclose the presence of an investigation or simply rely on the company line (or lack thereof) potentially are at greater risk of prosecution as individual promoters.
In the ASD case, for instance, federal prosecutors said the company was collecting money from new members and funneling it to original members affected by ASD’s first collapsed Ponzi — without informing new enlistees and prospects that their money was being used to prop up losers from the initial scheme and to help the second Ponzi gain a head of steam.
The personal assets of a number of individual ASD promoters were targeted in forfeiture actions or affidavits, with the government seizing sums in several bank accounts in multiple U.S. states. These sums totaled in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to court records.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Your time soon may be up if you’re flogging the absurd HYIP known as JSS Tripler.
CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has opened a probe into the activities of multiple promoters amid concerns the purported “program” is being offered to Italian citizens unlawfully as a security. JSS Tripler is an arm of “JustBeenPaid,” a Ponzi-forum darling that has been serving up a heavy dose of the bizarre for months.
The agency has issued a 90-day suspension order.
Details of the CONSOB probe and the precise number of investigative targets were not immediately clear to the PP Blog, owing to the lack of a quality Italian-to-English translation. But the websites of multiple entities or individuals who appear to be JSS Tripler affiliates are referenced by CONSOB in a 90-day order dated Jan. 20 and made public Jan. 23.
JSS Tripler’s name also is referenced in the order.
If a JSS Tripler-related domain cited in the translation is accurate, the domain appears to be hosted in the United States.
Among the bizarre claims associated with JSS Tripler promoters were that the company was moving to “offshore” servers and performing a restart.
Some JSS Tripler affiliates identify Frederick Mann as the honcho-in-chief. In May 2008, Mann positioned ASD as a “cash cow,” claiming he pocketed $6,000, according to records. Last year, the purported JustBeenPaid “opportunity” was trading on celebrity names such as Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey — and even fictional space man “Mr. Spock.”
Here is the CONSOB announcement — via an English translation by Google Translate.
Another “program” apparently named “System Explosion” also is referenced in the CONSOB suspension order. The domain for that program, which appears to be an HYIP or arbitrage program of some sort, also appears to be hosted in the United States.
Among the payment processors listed on the JSS Tripler-related domain and the System Explosion domain are AlertPay, SolidTrustPay and LibertyReserve.
An ad for JustBeenPaid appears on the SystemExplosion domain. When clicked, it appears to route to a subdomain of the JustBeenPaid domain, which beams this bizarre and vacuous message:
“JustBeenPaid! (JBP) and Its (sic) related programs are Licenced (sic) under United States Patent 6,578,010.”
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, however, is not the agency that regulates securities programs and purported business opportunities, even if JustBeenPaid could demonstrate that some sort of patent exists. As a practical matter, it is virtually impossible to conceive that market regulators in any country could be thwarted from opening probes based on claims that a system was patented.
If anything, such a claim in the context of programs that purport to pay a return may only intensify regulatory scrutiny. CONSOB, for instance, referenced JSS Tripler’s purported returns of 2 percent a day.
JSS Tripler is not to be confused with JSS Tripler 2 (T2), an equally bizarre “program” that appears to be a knockoff on the name of JustBeenPaid’s JSS Tripler arm. T2 also uses AlertPay.
Like JSS Tripler, T2 also was promoted on Ponzi forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin told members yesterday that they could "earn $99,000 very quickly" in a program known as OneX. The Florida-based ASD patriarch claimed to hope he could fund his defense to U.S. securities-related charges through OneX, which appears to be tied to a Panamanian firm that uses a domain name with a Montenegro extension and may operate from Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog may have more on this developing story in the coming days.
In a bizarre development, accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily told webinar listeners yesterday that he intended to fund his criminal defense to charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities through a purported business opportunity known as OneX, the PP Blog has learned.
OneX, which uses a domain extension assigned to the European country of Montenegro and a webserver apparently positioned in the Irish Sea nation of Isle of Man, is described in MLM-style web promos as a 4X4 matrix feeder program for a Panamanian investment firm and commodities enterprise known as QLxchange.
Whether OneX or QLxchange have any securities or commodities registrations in the United States or other countries was not immediately clear.
Serving as the webinar host, ASD figure Tari Steward, who is helping Bowdoin raise funds for Bowdoin’s criminal defense and is listed in Bowdoin court filings as a potential ASD witness, described OneX as a winner while introducing Bowdoin.
OneX has “already proven to be hugely successful here in the U.S.A. and all around the world,” Steward said.
Mixing commentary on his Ponzi case with his OneX sales pitch, Bowdoin, 76, managed to work in a dig against the federal judge presiding over the criminal case against him. Bowdoin also chided federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia.
Saying he was pleased that his trial date had been set nearly a year from now in September 2012 and describing it as an act of divine providence made possible after prayerful introspection, Bowdoin suggested the judge and prosecutors were disappointed that Collyer’s busy scheduled did not permit an earlier trial date.
Both “Judge Collyer and the prosecution was wanting the closest time possible because they didn’t want to give us much time to prepare,” Bowdoin claimed, shortly after greeting webinar listeners with a “Hi, Folks.”
Isle of Man highlighted in red: Source: Wikipedia.
And Bowdoin, who did not identify the operators of OneX or speak to whether the purported program was required to be registered to market securities and commodities to U.S. inhabitants, sang the praises of the firm.
“This program can provide you with earnings beyond your wildest imagination . . .” he claimed.
Bowdoin further ventured that OneX “will produce the legal fees we need and make each one of you a ton of money.”
“Now, when you finish this webinar,” he continued, “you’ll be so excited that you won’t be able to stop thinking about it.”
ASD members will “wake up in the morning thinking about [OneX],” Bowdoin claimed. “For the next three days, you’ll be thinking about it constantly.”
At a May 2008 ASD “rally” in Las Vegas prior to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from his personal bank accounts, Bowdoin — describing himself as a Christian “money magnet” — urged members to imagine payments from ASD flowing to them “constantly.”
Federal prosecutions referenced Bowdoin’s Las Vegas remarks in the Ponzi indictment announced against him in December 2010. He has been free awaiting trial since his arrest.
Bowdoin went on to claim in yesterday’s OneX pitch that “you’ll soon see how you can earn $99,000 very quickly.”
As part of his OneX pitch, Bowdoin described the firm as “one of the greatest financial vehicles on the Internet today” and asked a series of questions:
“Do you want to get out of debt?”
Do you need to catch up on some house payments?”
“Do you want to pay cash in the next 90 days for a new automobile . . .”
Bowdoin’s pitch also mixed in quotations from scripture.
Based on its research, the PP Blog is reporting today that members of the purported Club Asteria business opportunity and the purported JustBeenPaid opportunity also have promoted OneX. An image of Club Asteria principal Hank Needham appeared in an ad for ASD in 2008. Meanwhile, web records show that Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JustBeenPaid, also was an ASD pitchman.
Among the Club Asteria pitchmen who turned their attentions to OneX are “strosdegoz.” Club Asteria-related claims came under fire from CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, in May.
Also participating in Bowdoin’s webinar was Rayda Roundy, whom Bowdoin described as a former ASD “trainer.”
Roundy told listeners that a “pay it forward” strategy with OneX will help participants make money and help Bowdoin raise defense funds.
OneX participants could create their own “bailout” program, Roundy claimed.
After Bowdoin took back the webinar helm from Roundy, the ASD patriarch reminded members to send questions about OneX to a Gmail email address.
And then Bowdoin said this:
“Now, from time to time, people ask me, ‘Andy, how do you remain so peaceful?’ My answer is God.”
He went on to claim that God had led him to his strategy of using OneX to raise defense funds.
“I believe that God has brought us OneX to provide the necessary funds to win this case,” Bowdoin said.
One of the frames from the "Mr. Spock" promo for JustBeenPaid.Another frame from the promo.
UPDATE: The PP Blog reported here that Warren Buffett had become an unknowing pitchman for the global JustBeenPaid Ponzi scheme whose promoters also pushed the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme on the public.
Meanwhile, the Blog reported here that Oprah Winfrey had met the same fate at the hands of the JustBeenPaid henchmen.
The Blog now is reporting that “Mr. Spock,” one of the fictional characters on the Star Trek television and movie series, also has become an unknowing Just Been Paid pitchman. Spock was portrayed by Leonard Nimoy.
The images of “Mr. Spock” and Winfrey are hosted on JustBeenPaid’s server, the Blog has confirmed. Each photo file has a separate name. The files are contained within publicly accessible folders on the JustBeenPaid website. The images of Buffett are hosted on YouTube.
JustBeenPaid’s website also houses an image of American icon Benjamin Franklin. The image is in the same publicly accessible folder that serves the images of Winfrey and “Mr. Spock.” The server for JustBeenPaid appears to be located in Texas, although the domain registration uses a street address in South Africa.
Frederick Mann is listed as the registrant contact for JustBeenPaid.
Earlier today, the PP Blog reported that the purported Club Asteria “program” was using a quote by the assassinated Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi to drive traffic to the Club Asteria scheme. An image of famed businessman Richard Branson also appears in this month’s Club Asteria house organ.
Screen shot: Neither of these two YouTube videos for JustBeenPaid will load on a site associated with the purported "opportunity" — but a repurposed video featuring billionaire investor Warren Buffett will. It is common in fraud schemes for scammers to trade on the names of celebrities and to suggest a famous person endorses a "program."
There are the deliberate shills for JustBeenPaid — serial Ponzi board hucksters such as “10BucksUp,” for example.
And there are the unwitting shills whose celebrity is stolen without their knowledge to sanitize the over-the-top fraud that promotes absurd returns — people such as famed investor Warren Buffett. Buffett’s only tie to JustBeenPaid is that he lives and breathes on the same planet occupied by the collective of international scammers behind the purported “opportunity.”
A YouTube video in which Buffett is giving a speech to a group of Florida MBA students is shoehorned into a JustBeenPaid promo at BigBooster.com. As Buffett arrives at the podium, he makes sure the microphone is working.
“Testing,” he quips. “One million, two million, three million.”
The audience appreciates the line.
Buffett’s repurposed appearance sandwiched into the JustBeenPaid promo at BigBooster.com is one filled with irony that is the very definition of bizarre. As this post is being written, it is the only video on the page that works. Two in-house videos for JustBeenPaid do not work and carry these messages:
“This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.”
“This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service.”
This YouTube video of famed investor Warren Buffett is playing in a promo for JustBeenPaid on a website known as BigBooster.com.
But the repurposed video of Buffett is every bit as dangerous as it is bizarre: It is being used to help the JustBeenPaid Ponzi scheme proliferate globally. And the people behind JustBeenPaid once promoted AdSurfDaily before the U.S. Secret Service exposed the ASD Ponzi scheme in August 2008. (See graphic near bottom of story.)
To its credit, YouTube has been removing JustBeenPaid videos at least for several days. But even as YouTube does the right thing by taking the videos offline in the age of epidemic white-collar crime and global money-laundering and Ponzi theft, the video of Buffett still plays on the BigBooster site. The likely reason is that there is no easy way for YouTube to associate Buffett’s 13-year-old speech at the University of Florida to a relatively recent BigBooster.com ad for JustBeenPaid, a “program” of recent vintage.
Research by the PP Blog suggests Buffett delivered the speech on Oct. 15, 1998 — when Saddam Hussein still was presiding over Iraq and George W. Bush still was governor of Texas before being elected President of the United States more than two years later. A decade passed — as did the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bush’s eight-year occupancy of the White House and the fall of Saddam Hussein — before the people behind JustBeenPaid apparently had the brainstorm of shoehorning the Buffett video into the BigBooster promo to help them sell a scam.
YouTube’s removal of the JustBeenPaid videos poses only a minor hurdle, according to an email attributed to JustBeenPaid honcho Frederick Mann, who’s also the apparent braintrust behind BigBooster.com and a former ASD member.
“We’ve started moving our videos to our own server,” the JustBeenPaid email attributed to Mann read in part.
BigBooster.com appears to be hosted in South Africa; JustBeenPaid.com appears to be hosted in the United States. Both domains use a street addresses in South Africa that lists Mann as the administrative contact.
Here is some of the advice attributed to Mann in the BigBooster.com promo associated with JustBeenPaid and related “programs.” (Italics added.)
Get in early.
Get in with “significant” money
If the program performs well, do some early compounding.
Sponsor as many people as possible to earn referral fees.
Withdraw your original risk capital as soon as appropriate to get into a “can’t-lose” position.
Parlay, compound, or let run some of your profits.
Think in terms of maximizing the money you “take off the table.”
Much of the power of this formula is that it enables you to make money with programs that fail after a few months, but if a reasonably good program lasts 6 months or longer, you could earn tens of thousands.
The message could not be more at odds with the principles for which Buffett stands, and yet Mann and JustBeenPaid incongruously sandwich him into the promo after previously leading ASD recruits to disaster.
And even as JustBeenPaid tells members it is saying goodbye to Google’s YouTube, is is encouraging members to register for the “program” by using a Google Gmail addresses.
“Gmail E-mail addresses work well with JustBeenPaid! – and they are free!” the firm informs prospects on its sign-up page.
But it gets stranger yet: Payouts from JustBeenPaid come from an email address assigned to “michael” on the BigBooster.com domain, according to “I got paid” posts by shills on the Ponzi forums such as MoneyMakerGroup.
Not “JustBeenPaid” or “Frederick” — but “michael.”
And the cheerleaders and shills cheer on, even as a condition has developed in which the program is trying to rescue itself from collapse, offshore servers apparently are being brought into play — and the money is being routed from AlertPay in Canada to a murky business with footprints in both the United States and South Africa and the “opportunity” just happens to be trading on the name of Warren Buffett after previously pushing traffic to ASD.
This is happening through a process by which a 13-year-old speech by the billionaire has been repurposed and made to load on the BigBooster site via YouTube — even as JustBeenBeen can’t get its own YouTube videos to load and even as it apparently is saying goodbye to YouTube while encouraging people to use Google Gmail addresses to sign up so they purportedly can get paid by “michael” at BigBooster.com for JustBeenPaid.
Like JustBeenPaid, ASD had a tie to AlertPay. And ASD and a spinoff surf known as AdViewGlobal also used Gmail addresses and relied on videos to spread the scheme.
On May 14, 2008, according to research by the PP Blog, ASD was touted on BigBooster.com as a “cash cow.” Less than three months later, the U.S. Secret Service alleged that ASD was an international Ponzi scheme that had sucked in tens of millions of dollars, routed money through Canada and was contemplating ways to get offshore.
“I (Frederick Mann) have been with ASD since January 07,” remarks attributed to Mann on the BigBooster site read. “Past performance indicates a strong probablility (sic) that ASD will continue to perform as advertised. (By early May 2008, I had received 14 payments totalling over $6,000!”)
On May 14, 2008, BigBooster.com was touting AdSurfDaily.
Screen shot: Even as JustBeenPaid concedes YouTube is removing its videos, the "opportunity" is encouraging prospects to register by using a free Gmail addresss. Google owns both YouTube and Gmail. Payments for JustBeenPaid are being routed through Canada-based AlertPay by a person apparently known as "michael" of BigBooster.com. Both BigBooster.com and JustBeenPaid.com use street addresses in South Africa, and the linked companies appear also to have a presence in the United States. (Red rectangle around Gmail's name and red block of sponsor's name added by PP Blog.)
YouTube is removing videos for JustBeenPaid, a “program’ linked to Frederick Mann and popularized by scammers on Ponzi boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
JustBeenPaid promos feature claims of remarkable returns.
The removed videos carry messages such as “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams, and commercially deceptive content” and “This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.” Some JustBeenPaid videos remain on the popular video site. It was unclear if YouTube plans to remove all of them.
JustBeenPaid appears to feed itself through a “program” called JSS Tripler and also appears to be tied to something called Synergy Surf. The program, which is foundering, became a Ponzi darling in the days after Club Asteria slashed payouts and then suspended them altogether earlier this year.
Ponzi forum posts identity Mann as the JustBeenPaid braintrust.
There is a claim today on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi cesspit that JustBeenPaid members were provided the likenesses of celebrities to promote the “program.”
Just last month, an image of actor Will Smith was featured in a Club Asteria promo. The image was removed after the PP Blog contacted Smith’s publicist. It is common for fraud schemes to trade on the names of celebrities and to plant the seed that celebrities endorse a specific program when no such endorsement exists.
One apparent Just Been Paid fan on MoneyMaker Group suggested his control over hundreds of YouTube accounts would enable him to circumvent any ban YouTube enacts against Just Been Paid.
“No sweat, I own over 500 Youtube accounts, so I’ll just keep making videos like normal, plus I can always use Viddler and Windows movie maker and facebook video as well,” MoneyMakerGroup poster “gtprosperity” claimed.
Are the Ponzi clouds darkening for JSS Tripler?
