PatrickPretty.com

Tag: Gary Talbert

  • 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.

    _______________________________________

    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.

     

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Prosecutors Ask Judge To Sentence AdSurfDaily’s Andy Bowdoin To Maximum Prison Term

    “Fortunately for the investing public, ASD’s popularity in the spring and summer of 2008 also drew the attention of the United States Secret Service, which investigated Bowdoin and ASD and discovered the true nature of the business model.” — Federal prosecutors, in Aug. 13 sentencing memo that asked a federal judge to impose the maximum prison sentence on 1-percent-a-day Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin.

    Thomas A. "Andy" Bowdoin

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia have asked U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer to sentence acknowledged Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily to the maximum term outlined in Bowdoin’s May 2012 plea agreement: 78 months.

    News of the sentencing memo and detailed new allegations against Bowdoin, 77, broke one day after some ASD members were circulating an email that asked their fellow members to “flood” a federal judge with letters of support for the recidivist con man.

    In a sentencing memo and accompanying exhibits, prosecutors advised Collyer that they had linked Bowdoin to AdViewGlobal (AVG), a collapsed 1-percent-a-day Ponzi scheme “that was simply a repackaged version of ASD.”

    The criminal preparations to launch AVG began in October 2008, just two months after the seizure of tens of millions of dollars in ASD-related bank accounts by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008, according to an evidence exhibit filed by prosecutors.

    Bowdoin was a two-thirds owner of AVG, which did some of its banking in Switzerland, according to an exhibit.

    And prosecutors linked Bowdoin to OneX, another alleged fraud scheme.

    In what is believed to be the first public filing that includes specific details about OneX, prosecutors produced an exhibit that identified one of the principals of OneX as James C. Hill, who allegedly also is known by the initials J.C.

    The introduction of the document ends one of the long-standing OneX mysteries: the identity of “J.C.,” who once assured conference-call listeners that “God” was aboard the OneX train.

    When confronted about OneX, prosecutors said, Bowdoin claimed he’d done nothing wrong and was acting on “advice of counsel.”

    ” . . . it became clear that Bowdoin did not speak to a lawyer about OneX, but merely relied on another OneX promoter who had supposedly spoken to a lawyer,” prosecutors said.

    But the most explosive revelations by the government concerned AVG. The exhibits show that investigators obtained emails going back and forth among AVG participants described as Bowdoin “co-conspirators.”

    In one document obtained by investigators,  Bowdoin describes two separate alleged thefts from AVG totaling $2.65 million, according to an evidence exhibit.

    Bowdoin’s partner in AVG was former ASD executive Gary Talbert, according to an evidence exhibit. Bowdoin blamed the alleged theft on Arizona business associates of Talbert.

    The Bowdoin story is one “that reads like a handbook on fraud and deception,” prosecutors said.

    ASD’s patriarch and the co-profiteer of AVG cheated investors out of tens of millions of dollars, prosecutors argued, saying that Bowdoin’s career as a crook dated back “several decades” and caused victims to turn over more than $120 million to the huckster.

    “He had no concerns for the lives he affected or destroyed, and he boldly continued or expanded his criminal conduct even while under the supervision of this Court,” prosecutors argued.

     

     

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: [UPDATED]: Government Says It Has Tied Andy Bowdoin To Failed AdViewGlobal Autosurf; Prosecutors Also Cite AdSurfDaily Patriarch’s ‘OneX’ Sales Pitch, Calling Program A ‘Fraudulent Scheme’

    Andy Bowdoin

    UPDATED 11:40 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.)  Federal prosecutors say they’ve tied AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin to the failed AdViewGlobal autosurf and intend to introduce evidence of “uncharged misconduct” at Bowdoin’s trial for the alleged ASD Ponzi scheme.

    Meanwhile, prosecutors say “OneX” — a “program” Bowdoin said he was pitching to help pay for his criminal defense in the ASD Ponzi case — is a “fraudulent scheme.”

    The OneX organization and its “matrix,” prosecutors said, are more accurately described as a “pyramid” and the purported opportunity “simply re-distributes funds among participants.”

    “In this latest venture, Bowdoin has again partnered with Tari Steward and Rayda Roundy, both of whom were involved in the operation of ASD,” prosecutors said.

    Prosecutors’ references to AdViewGlobal and OneX are believed to mark the first time the government has acknowledged publicly it was gathering information about the schemes. The government says its probe into Bowdoin continues and that it intends to introduce other evidence of criminal conduct at his September Ponzi trial.

    “The government is aware of additional criminal matters lodged against Bowdoin,” prosecutors said.

    Precisely what those alleged matters entailed was not immediately clear.

    Here (below) are some highlights from an April 17 letter and an April 24 list of exhibits prosecutors filed with the court and sent to Charles A. Murray, Bowdoin’s defense attorney. The letter and exhibits inform Murray about certain matters the government intends to introduce at trial. (Italics and/or bold emphasis added by PP Blog):

    • Bowdoin’s history involves at least four instances in which he was charged with securities-related crimes during the 1990s in Alabama. Three indictments were returned in Montgomery County, and one was returned in Wilcox County. There were multiple victims. Bowdoin accepted plea agreements, agreed to testify for the state against at least five defendants and agreed to make restitution to his fleeced investors. (Note: These assertions by the government may be aimed at short-circuiting any claim by Bowdoin that he was ignorant of securities laws when he started ASD. At the same time, the assertions are potentially useful in making a case that Bowdoin was committed to making a living from securities fraud even after agreeing to testify against alleged securities fraudsters.)
    • Bowdoin allegedly paid some of the Alabama restitution with proceeds from the ASD Ponzi scheme.
    • In one of the Alabama cases, a grand jury accused Bowdoin of not telling investors he was using their money to make “full and/or partial refunds to investors in earlier projects” involving a cell-phone business.
    • Bowdoin solicited $600,000 from an Alabama investor, but allegedly did not disclose that his company had been sued four times under a previous name. (Note: Lack of disclosure and a name change also are alleged parts of the ASD scheme.) Moreover, Bowdoin allegedly sold the $600,000 contract despite the fact that neither cell-phone entity had the required license to operate from the Federal Communications Commission.
    • Bowdoin was “permanently barred” from engaging in the securities industry in Alabama. (This point leads to questions about whether Bowdoin potentially could face state-level charges for selling ASD in Alabama after his ban in the 1990s.)
    • Included in Bowdoin’s history are a bankruptcy filing and string of lawsuits naming him a defendant. (Details of these are unclear, but the government says it expects to produce additional documents in the “near future.”
    • Although Bowdoin claimed to have run successful mobile-phone, GPS-tracking and dry-cleaning businesses, “those businesses were not successful and on several occasions were the subject of civil and criminal proceedings.”
    • “After the United States Secret Service seized ASD’s bank accounts in August 2008, Bowdoin, Gary Talbert . . . and others began operating another version of ASD over the Internet at adviewglobal.com (‘AVG’).” (Talbert was a former ASD executive, according to court filings.)
    • In 2009, AVG  “ceased operation when allegations arose that an individual associated with AVG purportedly stole money from AVG.” (Note: A purported theft of $1 million at the purported hands of “Russian” hackers is an alleged element of the ASD case.)
    • Bowdoin’s claims about OneX are “inherently deceptive.” Like ASD, OneX “does not generate income by selling a product to consumers outside the system. Instead, it simply re-distributes funds among participants.” (Note: The letter strongly suggests that the government is well-versed on the internal operations of OneX.)
    • Bowdoin is targeting former ASD members in his OneX promos and offered “leads” from the ASD database.

    One of the exhibits filed by the government is the AVG Terms of Service.

  • 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.

     

  • UPDATE: ASD’s Bowdoin Claims Hurricane Irene Knocked His Fundraising Website Offline; Accused Ponzi Schemer Says He’s Confident Jury Will Acquit Him; Messages Follow Earlier Claims From ASD Figures That May Raise Questions About Whether An Effort To Obstruct Justice Was Under Way

    Andy Bowdoin

    In recent emails to members, accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily has predicted that a jury in the District of Columbia will acquit him based on the testimony of expert witnesses.

    Bowdoin, 76, has been appealing to members he is accused of defrauding in a $110 million scheme to pony up $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    Formal fundraising efforts have been under way since July 26 — after weeks of online hoopla that preceded Bowdoin’s  bid raise to money from the people he is accused of scamming. Those efforts have not gone well: Bowdoin said last week that he had raised only $19,300 and was $480,700 short of his goal of raising half a million dollars.

    In an email some members received today, Bowdoin said he encountered more trouble over the weekend.

    “Our Website was down most of the weekend, due to power outages caused by [H]urricane Irene that took our server Offline,” Bowdoin advised members.

    But he assured them that the site now was back online — and that he was confident he would be acquitted.

    “When you watch my Good News Update video and read the 3 Expert Witness testimonies on our Website, you will understand why we are so confident the Jury will come back with a Not Guilty verdict on all counts against me and ASD,” Bowdoin said.

    The email was titled, “More TRUTH – Why We Will Be Found “Not Guilty”! A largely similar email ASD members reported receiving on Aug. 26 was titled, “The TRUTH – Why ASD is Not a Ponzi Scheme!”

    Why Bowdoin asserted ASD had been charged with a crime was unclear. Bowdoin was indicted as an individual in December 2010. The government already has at least three civil judgments against about $80 million seized from ASD-related bank accounts in 2008 — and has implemented a program in which ASD members who filed for remission and provided the required documentation will be compensated through the seized funds described in the civil judgments.

    The indictment against Bowdoin, which has been a public record since he was arrested in December, does not name ASD a criminal defendant. After his arrest, Bowdoin was warned by a judge not to tamper with witnesses or the jury and not to obstruct the investigation.

    Within days of Bowdoin’s arrest, some ASD members received an email that encouraged them to contact the remissions administrator and “write that you knew this was not a investment and you where (sic) purchasing advertising.”

    The email was attributed to Gary Talbert, a former ASD executive, and purported to have been based on an email conversation with Bowdoin after his arrest.

    “Got a email from Andy and he told me to go ahead and send this email out to everyone,” noted the email attributed to Talbert.

    Various email missives have encouraged ASD members either not to file for remissions or to insert addendums on the official remissions form.

    Also see this story from September 2009. Meanwhile, see this story from November 2010 — just days prior to Bowdoin’s arrest.

  • 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.

  • AdViewGlobal Recording Suggests Member Cashed Out $10,000 Only Days After Formal Launch And That Insiders Were Awarded Bonuses; Less Than Two Weeks Later, Surf Switched To ‘Private Association’ Structure

    breakingnewsUPDATED 7:19 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) A recording posted on a public website of a Feb. 12 conference call by the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf suggests an unnamed male member of the surf qualified for a $10,000 cashout within days of the company’s formal launch.

    The recording leads to questions about how a participant could qualify for a large payout so soon after launch and whether others also could have benefited from early cashouts funded by members in Ponzi scheme fashion. AVG appears to have had virtually no income streams beyond fees paid by members when it launched earlier in the month.

    AVG suspended cashouts in June, threatening media outlets and members who shared the news with lawsuits and blaming its problems on the greed of members. It later said it had been a victim of a $2.7 million theft and filed reports about the theft with law-enforcement agencies.

    The Feb. 12 call featured a giveaway of money-earning AVG page impressions to both members and their sponsors. One of the bonus-winning sponsors was identified as David Meade, whose bonus-winning enrollee came on the line and jokingly asked whether the bonus he received qualified for an additional matching bonus of 50 percent.

    AVG relentlessly pitched bonuses to enrollees and their sponsors before announcing in June that it was suspending cashouts, making an 80/20 program mandatory and exercising its version of a “rebates aren’t guaranteed” clause.

    Another sponsor who qualified for a bonus because he had enrolled a member whose name was called for a bonus was identified as Larry Alford, the husband of Barb Alford, a Moderator at the Pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum. Yet another member whose name was called for a bonus was Joey Shiver, the brother of Judy Harris, identified during the summer as one of AVG’s owners.

    Meanwhile, the call highlighted AVG’s purported “offshore” location in Uruguay, stressing that the company planned to fly high-quality servers to Uruguay on a date uncertain after the call was held.

    Web records show AVG’s servers resolved to Panama, suggesting the company never completed installation of servers in Uruguay. AVG had been collecting money for weeks at the time of the Feb. 12 call, which leads to questions about whether the company was selling unregistered securities from inside the United States or selling unregistered securities illegally to U.S. residents from offshore servers, all while engaging in wire fraud and acts of money-laundering.

    The conference call, hosted by Terralynn Hoy, a Moderator at both the Pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum and a ning.com forum set up to promote AVG, did not disclose how the member amassed a large sum in only days and qualified for a cashout. But another participant in the call announced that the man excitedly expected to receive a check for $10,000.

    Neither Hoy nor any other AVG official or representative who participated in the call referenced a racketeering lawsuit that had been filed less than a month earlier against ASD President Andy Bowdoin and ASD attorney Robert Garner. At the same time, no official or representative in the call referenced a second forfeiture complaint that had been filed against ASD-connected assets in December 2008, a month after Surf’s Up received ASD’s official endorsement.

    In August 2008, prosecutors accused both ASD and Golden Panda Ad Builder of not disclosing information members needed to make informed decisions about joining the companies. The allegations were spelled out in a forfeiture complaint formally filed Aug. 5, 2008.

    Among the assertions were that Bowdoin did not disclose his arrest in a felony securities case in the 1990s, and that Golden Panda did not immediately disclose an SEC action against its president, Clarence Busby, in the 1990s. ASD members later said Bowdoin was the silent head of AVG, which began to solicit money in December 2008, a month after a major court ruling went against ASD.

    News about the December forfeiture complaint, which painted a jaw-dropping picture of insider dealings, special favors, a “silent” ASD partner, people getting paid large sums for doing virtually nothing and a claim that Russian hackers stole more than $1 million, broke on Jan. 15.

    The AVG conference call, dubbed the “first” official call, was conducted Feb. 12, about 10 days after AVG’s formal launch and within 30 days of the revelation that the government had filed the December forfeiture complaint and identified members of Bowdoin’s family as beneficiaries of ASD’s illegal conduct.

    Judy Harris was among those the government identified in the filing, as were her husband, George Harris, and his mother, Edna Faye Bowdoin. Edna Faye Bowdoin is Andy Bowdoin’s wife.

    Two weeks after the Feb. 12 conference call, on Feb. 26, AVG announced it was shifting to a “private association” structure. One day prior, on Feb. 25, Bowdoin signed the first of several sworn court documents as a pro se litigant in the ASD case, attempting to set aside the forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars and reverse a decision he made in January to surrender his claims to the money, which had been seized by the government in August 2008 from his 10 bank accounts.

    Less than a month after Bowdoin signed the court document, AVG announced the resignation of Chief Executive Officer Gary Talbert, a former ASD executive. On March 23, AVG announced its bank account had been suspended, blaming the suspension on members who wired too many transactions in excess of $9,500.

    Talbert was a participant in the Feb. 12 conference call. He was introduced by Hoy. Talbert, in turn, passed the the call back to Hoy, who then introduced a person identified as marketing consultant Kathy Robertson. Robertson made the claim about the $10,000 check.

    “I just talked to a friend tonight,” Robertson said in the call. “He’s cashing out and he’s gonna get a $10,000 check into his bank account. He’s more excited than he’s ever been.”

    Robertson urged AVG members to take notes of her remarks, according to the recording.

    “Many of you have wondered, ‘Are we a United States’ business or are we another country[‘s] business?’” Robertson said in the recording. “I gotta tell you we’re based in Uruguay. We’re definitely an offshore business, and we’ll be moving very robust servers — we’ll actually be flying them on a plane to land in Uruguay. So, even the servers that host all of the websites are going to be offshore, so go ahead and write that down as a note. We are truly an offshore business.”

    Robertson said AVG members should “feel secure” in the knowledge the company was operating offshore. She did not explain how the purported offshore venue made AVG’s venture, which targeted U.S. residents and former ASD members, legal. Robertson acknowledged in the recording that AVG had gotten off to a rocky start and that some members who could not fund accounts had had a disappointing experience.

    But she urged members to look to the future and see a well-honed enterprise capable of producing a seamless experience for huge numbers of participants.

    Federal prosecutors said ASD was operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme from inside the United States, while engaging in the sale of unregistered securities to U.S. residents and committing acts of wire fraud and money-laundering.

    Later in the call, during the page-impression giveaway, Meade came on the line to accept his bonus for sponsoring a member whose name was called for a bonus.

    “Thanks a million. Appreciate it,” Meade said.

    Less than two weeks after the Feb. 12 conference call, reports circulated among ASD members that the U.S. Secret Service had seized the bank accounts of unidentified ASD members. AVG announced Feb. 26 that it was switching to a “private association” structure after consulting with a company known as Pro Advocate Group.

    Pro Advocate Group is associated with Karl Dahlstrom, a convicted felon who served time in federal prison in a case involving securities fraud.

    Listen to the recording.

  • Surf’s Up Mods Have High Positions In AdViewGlobal

    Four moderators at the Pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum hold high positions in the AdViewGlobal autosurf or have a spouse who does, according to AVG’s website.

    AVG launched in the aftermath of the seizure of tens of millions of dollars last year from ASD, a Florida company federal prosecutors said was engaged in wire fraud, money-laundering and the sale of unregistered securities while operating a Ponzi scheme.

    Larry Alford, the husband of Surf’s Up Mod Barb Alford, holds position 11; Mod Terralynn Hoy holds position 12; Mod Laura Pont holds position 14; and Mod Kathryn Milner holds position 15.

    Whether the Mods are still associated with AVG is unclear. Also unclear is whether Alford, Hoy and Pont continue to play an active role at Surf’s Up.

    Other members with high positions include David Meade (9); Mindy Bales (19); and Nate Boyd (20). Bales helped organize rallies for ASD in Iowa, and Boyd is a former ASD compliance officer, members said.

    The No. 5 position in AVG is held by unnamed “AVG Executives.” Gerald Castor, an AVG compliance officer who was sued twice last year for violations of federal labor law, is AVG member No. 59, according to the website.

    ASD gave Surf’s Up its official endorsement Nov. 27, 2008, eight days after a federal judge ruled that ASD had not demonstrated at an evidentiary hearing that it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme.

    AVG insisted for weeks prior to its February launch that it had no affiliation with ASD or ASD President Andy Bowdoin, whom members now say was the silent head of AVG. On Jan. 31, AVG’s graphics appeared in an ASD-controlled webroom, but AVG said the development was an “operational coincidence.”

    Former ASD executive Gary Talbert holds the No. 1 position in AVG, which purports to be headquartered in Uruguay but also filed papers in Florida.

    In March, AVG advised members its bank account had been suspended. The surf blamed members in its announcement. Regardless, AVG embarked on a 200-percent, matching-bonus program for both members and their sponsors. One email promotion after the announcement of the account suspension claimed $5,000 spent with AVG turned into $15,000 “instantly!”

    The March email bore the name of Shad Foss, a promoter associated with the CEP Ponzi scheme. ASD once advertised that it accepted CEP Trust, the failed payment processor associated with CEP, which was dismantled in 2007 by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    By June 25, AVG announced it was suspending member cashouts and conducting an audit of itself.

    In April, federal prosecutors announced in court filings that ASD President Andy Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter in the ASD forfeiture case and acknowledged the company was operating illegally. The date Bowdoin signed the proffer letter is not publicly known. It is possible Bowdoin signed the letter weeks before the launch of AVG.

    What is known is that Bowdoin signed the letter before Jan. 13, 2009. AVG was in prelaunch at the time and launched fully in early February.

    It is not publicly known if others have signed proffer letters. Federal prosecutors say ASD is a criminal enterprise, and private attorneys have accused ASD and Bowdoin of racketeering.

    During the spring and summer, AVG authored a series of bizarre announcements to explain developments, blaming members for a decision to disable a forum and threatening them with copyright-infringement lawsuits for sharing news. The surf also threatened to contact the ISPs of members who asked questions.

    Another AVG forum run by some of the Surf’s Up Mods and members also closed in the aftermath of the surf’s decision to suspend cashouts. Surf’s Up itself deleted some AVG-related content.

    Both Surf’s Up and the AVG forum operated by some of its Mods declared Curtis Richmond a “hero” earlier this year, after Richmond accused a federal judge and the ASD prosecutors of crimes in a pro se court filing.

    Richmond is associated with a Utah “Indian” tribe a federal judge ruled a complete “sham” in a racketeering case in which it was alleged that the tribe had harassed public officials by placing enormous financial judgments against them, including one for $250 million against a county prosecutor and one for $300,000 against a family-services worker.

    Richmond signed the fraudulent award against the family-services worker, and also sought to have judges and litigation opponents jailed, according to court filings. In one case, the tribe contrived its own “Supreme Court,” using the address of a Utah doughnut shop, and issued bogus arrest warrants. The U.S. Marshals Service refused to serve the warrants, which called for the arrests of judges, bankers and attorneys representing bankers.

    An unofficial total of 57 pro se pleadings by Richmond and other ASD members followed after Richmond’s initial filing in February, including a recent spate of 41. A federal judge has rejected all of the claims. The most recent claims accused the government of “reckless action and reckless disregard of the law.”

    Pro se claims by Andy Bowdoin have not been fully addressed by the judge because Bowdoin did not follow up on his initial claims. Bowdoin’s attorney announced last month that he is negotiating with federal prosecutors. Bowdoin has been ordered by the court to show cause by Monday why his pro se motion to undo the decision he made to submit to the forfeiture in January should not be denied.

    Bowdoin submitted to the forfeiture while employing paid counsel Jan. 13. The first of his pro se pleadings to reverse his forfeiture decision was dated Feb. 25. On the previous day, Feb. 24, reports circulated that the U.S. Secret Service had seized the individual bank accounts of some ASD members, including at least one account owned by an AVG member.

    On Feb. 26, AVG announced it was switching to an “association” structure after consulting with Pro Advocate Group, a firm associated with Karl Dahlstrom, a felon convicted of securities fraud in the 1990s and sentenced to 78 months in federal prison.

    Surf’s Up also endorsed a letter-writing campaign by “Professor” Patrick Moriarty, now under indictment for federal tax fraud. In 2006, Moriarty started a nonprofit corporation for a man accused of murdering a Missouri woman in cold blood, shooting a police officer four times — and another man eight times.

  • UPDATE: Vana Blue Website Still Offline; No Pinksheet Stock Activity For Seven Trading Days Amid Maze Of Claims

    Not a single share of Vana Blue’s penny stock has traded hands since July 30, a period of seven full trading days, according to Yahoo Finance. In news releases, Vana Blue identified itself as the owner of eWalletPlus, a payment processor later linked to the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf.

    Vana Blue, which used mailing services in Phoenix and Las Vegas as its address, is a registered corporation in Nevada. Its website now resolves to a server that beams ads from GoDaddy.com, but until recently resolved to a server from which the company told its story.

    The company has claimed to own a company that variously has been described as TMS Corp. and TMS Association, which purportedly developed eWalletPlus. In January, Vana Blue also claimed to own a company that variously has been described as Karveck Corp. or Karveck International, a purported advertising and media company.

    In February, Vana Blue reported that Karveck had posted $1.8 million in revenue in January — the month AVG was in prelaunch.

    Among other things, Vana Blue also had said it signed an agreement with a company known as Native Express Inc. “to develop oil and gas resources” in Utah. Vana Blue also has said it had an agreement with a firm in Jamaica known as Internet Mobile & Caribbean Network Ltd. to “facilitate the sales of the Compass Pre Paid debit card throughout Jamaica and the Caribbean.”

    Meanwhile, Vana Blue also has said it had an agreement with a company known as Net Auction Plus, an eBay alternative, “to provide online, affordable, and flexible payment services.” The NetAuctionPlus.com domain name is registered to Michael Austin and uses the same Phoenix mail-service address as Vana Blue.

    The NetAuctionPlus.com domain throws a server error. Austin’s name was mentioned in an announcement last week by AVG that it had reported a theft of $2.7 million to unspecified law enforcement agencies. AVG, which purports to be headquartered in Uruguay, did not explain when the alleged theft occurred and did not provide details.

    Austin’s name also has been associated with eWalletPlus, but is only one of several names associated with the payment processor and money-services business. AVG promoters have claimed that eWalletPlus was AVG’s in-house payment processor. At one time, the eWalletPlus domain resolved to the same server in Panama that hosted AVG, but the domain now resolves to a parked page and appears to be offered for sale on sedo.com.

    In a purported public filing dated March 31, Vana Blue identified its officers as Donald Rex Gay, Leonard Capelli and Michael Reis, saying it owned TMS Corp and Karveck International.

    Only days later, a man associated with both the AdSurfDaily and AVG autosurfs — Gary Talbert — registered an entity known as TMS Corp. USA LLC, according to records. Talbert’s U.S. registrations occurred within days of a March 20 announcement by AVG that he had resigned as its chief executive officer and a March 23 announcement that AVG’s bank account had been suspended because too many members had wired transactions in excess of $9,500.

    TMS Corp. USA LLC is registered in Nevada, and lists Gary D. Talbert of 2601 E Thomas Rd, Ste 220-A Phoenix, AZ 85016, as its manager. A company by the same name also is listed as a foreign LLC in Arizona, with Gary D. Talbert of 13. S. Calhoun Street, P.O. Box 109, Quincy, FL 32351, as its manager.

    The S. Calhoun Street building address is the same address AdSurfDaily Inc. used.

    In a forfeiture complaint against ASD last year that alleged wire fraud, money-laundering, the sale of unregistered securities and a Ponzi scheme, federal prosecutors said the building address was bogus.

    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 is 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.

    Records in Illinois note that Michael Reis, also listed by Vana Blue as an officer, was ordered in 2000 to cease and desist from the practice of public accounting without a license.

  • AVG Forum Warns Members Not To Call Purchases An ‘Investment’; Posts Citing ‘Return’ Or ‘ROI’ Will Be Deleted

    UPDATED 5:44 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A Mod at an AdViewGlobal forum set up by Mods and members of AdSurfDaily has warned AVG members not to refer to their purchases as “investments.”

    Rather, the Mod said, AVG members purchase “advertising” and are not “investing” or “investors.”

    Posts that used the terminology of investments would be deleted, the Mod warned.

    AVG members currently are stressing a so-called “80-20” strategy as a means of keeping the program viable for the long-term.

    Analysts, however, point out that the “80-20” plans — taking out 20 percent in cash and letting 80 percent ride with the companies — are just another way to keep cash within ready reach of autosurf Ponzi schemes to sustain the deception.

    There is not a single, documented case in the history of autosurf prosecutions in which the use of the word “advertising” to describe what the government views as an “investment” program involving the sale of unregistered securities has succeeded as a means of fending off a prosecution.

    In other words, the government has made it plain that you can’t avoid prosecution by using other terminology to describe an investment program.

    Regardless, many surf companies continue to insist that the use of the word “advertising” as a replacment for “investing” somehow insulates surfs from prosecution.

    Prosecutors cited the wink-nod nature of autosurfs — including bids to avoid the word “investment” — in the August forfeiture complaint against ASD.

    The complaint details an instance in which an ASD member insisted to an undercover agent from an IRS/Secret Service task force that bad things could happen if people joined ASD and started calling it an investment.

    “The [undercover agent] asked her about investing with ASD,” prosecutors said of the ASD member. “She immediately said, ‘Don’t call it investing, you know what I mean, we can get in trouble if we say that, we have to be careful.’”

    Prosecutors also made a veiled reference to “80-20” pitches in the August ASD complaint, again citing an undercover agent’s contact with an ASD member.

    “He said the best way to make money in the system is to keep putting your money back into the system as it accumulates,” prosecutors said of the ASD member’s pitch to the undercover agent.

    Some of the Mods and members of the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum set up the AVG forum after ASD gave the Surf’s Up forum its official endorsement after a federal judge ruled in November that ASD had not demonstrated it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme.

    Prelaunch buzz for AVG started shortly thereafter. On December 19, prosecutors filed a second forfeiture complaint against assets tied to ASD. The complaint did not mention AVG by name, but it outlined allegations against George Harris, the stepson of ASD President Andy Bowdoin.

    Harris is a trustee for the AVG association. AVG’s former chief executive officer — Gary Talbert — is a former ASD executive. On March 20, AVG announced Talbert’s resignation in an unsigned note to members. On March 23, AVG announced its bank account had been suspended.

    On April 24, prosecutors announced that Bowdoin — on an unrevealed date — had signed a proffer letter and acknowledged to law enforcement officials that the material allegations against ASD all were true.

    Proffer letters sometimes are used when prosecutors believe the one who proffers can aid law enforcement in an investigation.

  • 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.