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Tag: investment recovery scam

  • NO REST FOR THE WEARY: Apparent Zeek Rewards Reload Scam Exposed, WFMY Reports

    WFMY interviewed Zeek rewards receiver Ken Bell as part of its report on a reload scam."
    WFMY interviewed Zeek Rewards receiver Ken Bell as part of its report on an apparent reload scam.

    WFMY (CBS/Greensboro, N.C.) is reporting that it exposed an apparent Zeek Rewards reload scam operating on Google’s Blogspot platform — and that Google has removed the offending Blog.

    The scam was operating at a URL of ZeekRewardsIsComingBack.blogspot.com, the station reported. WFMY contacted Zeek Rewards’ receiver Kenneth D. Bell as part of its report. Bell told the station that the Blogspot site looked like “another attempt to revictimize” Zeek investors.

    Whoever controlled the Blogspot site was telling Zeekers there was a “simple process” to “get your money back,” WFMY reported.

    Separately, the PP Blog located content online that suggests the Blogspot site was soliciting Zeek victims to send funds to at least three offshore payment processors: Payza, Liberty Reserve and Perfect Money. All three processors are known to do business with international scoundrels.

    On April 1, the PP Blog observed an online pitch for an entity that appeared to be using the name and address of a U.S. government agency while promising “to recover” funds lost through Profitable Sunrise. The fake agency claimed it could recover losses for a sum of less than $50 and encouraged Profitable Sunrise members to send money to purported accounts at the Liberty Reserve and Solid Trust Pay payment processors.

    The Blog reported information about the fake site to a U.S. government agency.

    North Carolina regulators have repeatedly warned about so-called “reload scams,” including scams that surfaced after the SEC alleged in August 2012 that Zeek was a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme and scams that surfaced after North Carolina brought a cease-and-desist order against the Profitable Sunrise HYIP in February. The SEC has alleged that Profitable Sunrise was a massive online pyramid scheme.

    In 2010, the state of Delaware charged a Detroit man with racketeering for his alleged role in swindling a woman who’d earlier been ripped off in a securities swindle.  The state deemed the follow-up swindle an “investment recovery scam.” Delaware is among many U.S. states investigating Profitable Sunrise.

    Zeek itself is known to have used offshore payment processors. Prior to the SEC bringing spectacular allegations of fraud against Zeek last year, Zeek was auctioning sums of U.S. currency and telling members they’d be sent their winnings through offshore processors.

    Here’s the WFMY report on the apparent Zeek Rewards reload scam . . .

  • DELAWARE: Woman Bilked In Investment Scam Later Bilked In ‘Investment Recovery Scam,’ AG Biden Says; Patrick A. Wiley Indicted On Racketeering, Securities-Fraud Charges

    EDITOR’S NOTE: The indictment in Delaware against Patrick A. Wiley of Detroit illustrates the dangers of entrusting money to a person who claims he can help you recover money lost in a securities swindle. It also illustrates that a person who claims he can help you recover money lost to a securities swindle — and then strings you along — can be charged with serious crimes.

    A Detroit man has been indicted for racketeering in Delaware amid allegations he swindled at least $276,000 from a woman in an “investment recovery scam,” prosecutors said.

    Patrick A. Wiley, 42, also was charged with securities fraud, selling unregistered securities and theft, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said. The prosecution was brought by Biden’s Securities Unit.

    All in all, the victim in the case lost more than $300,000, including $45,000 in the original swindle.

    Wiley’s investment-recovery scam grew out of an earlier fraud scheme in which the victim was persuaded by another man to invest in a “joint trading venture” that purportedly involved “several wealthy persons in London, England” and would fetch a return of $10 million on an outlay of $50,000 in only months, Biden’s office said.

    “With deep sympathies for her loss, we remind all Delawareans that any deal that sounds too good to be true, probably is,” Biden said.

    The victim was recruited into the investment scheme in early 2005 by Darren Dobson, 45, of Charlotte, N.C., Biden’s office said. After a state probe, Dobson was indicted in Delaware earlier this year on charges of securities fraud, selling unregistered securities and transacting business as an unregistered agent.

    Investigators said the victim sent $45,000 to a Tampa company known as VFG Management
    LLC based on Dobson’s claim “that a $50,000 investment would yield a return of $10 million by June 2005.”

    VFG Management was “the entity through which the London partners were supposedly operating the joint trading venture,” Biden’s office said.

    When no returns materialized, the victim contacted Wiley based on her belief he had been an investor in the same scam, authorities said.

    “Wiley claimed he had information regarding the principals involved and that he would pursue them to obtain the victim’s promised investment return,” Biden’s office said. “On numerous occasions between October 2005 and November 2007, Wiley solicited funds from the victim to defray the cost of his efforts, including trips that he was supposedly taking abroad for meetings with the London trading partners and their attorney. During that time period, the victim wired more than $276,000 to Wiley on sixty-one separate occasions. The victim never received the promised investment return or the investment principal.”

    Biden described the alleged scam as a “con game.”

    “We are particularly disturbed by crimes that use trust and confidence as a means to an
    illegitimate end,” Biden said. “The victim in this case has lost over $300,000 in a con game.”