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Tag: MPB Today

ACKMAN: ‘We Can Fight Pyramids With Our Own Pyramid’

From the Pershing Square news release today.

2ND UPDATE 3:23 P.M. ET U.S.A. In another swipe at Herbalife and perhaps MLM recruiting schemes in general, activist investor Bill Ackman says he’s out to combat pyramid schemes by creating one himself.

Ackman’s apparent tongue-in-cheek approach adopts a typical “tell five” MLM marketing technique as part of a bid to create Internet virality for a video released last week that is designed to educate the public about pyramid schemes. The video is available in English and Spanish. It was produced by Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP.

“This video will help consumers avoid being defrauded,” Ackman said today in a news release issued through BusinessWire. “I encourage you to send it to five friends and encourage them to send it to five friends who can send it to five friends and so on, and we can fight pyramids with our own pyramid.”

BusinessWire is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the Warren Buffett-led company that also owns Pampered Chef, an MLM company. Pershing Square previously has used BusinessWire to spread Ackman’s long-running contention that Herbalife is a pyramid scheme that incentivizes recruits to gather more recruits.

Buffett’s name has been used in any number of promos for commission-based MLM or network-marketing schemes, even when the legendary investor has no ties to the “opportunity” being promoted. The disingenuous message has been that Buffett’s corporate interest in Pampered Chef means that all MLM schemes pass muster.

In 2011, Buffett’s image was hijacked by the JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid scheme, a Ponzi-board “program” with possible ties to the “sovereign citizen” movement. Earlier, in 2010, Buffett’s image was appropriated by MPBToday, a “get two” MLM “program.”

MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun later was charged in Florida with racketeering and banned from MLM.

Herbalife denies it is a pyramid scheme.

As the PP Blog reported last week, Ackman’s video also channels an approach used by promoters of TelexFree, an alleged Ponzi/pyramid scam that may have gathered more than $1.2 billion in about two years of operation. The video also may provide a subtle reminder of Zeek Rewards, an MLM venture and alleged Ponzi/pyramid scheme that traded on images of the American Flag on its way to raising about $897 million in less than two years.

Ackman’s video also shows a representation of the American Flag, suggesting that franchise companies such as Burger King, H&R Block and Midas legitimately are part of the American Dream but that MLM schemes such as Herbalife may not be.

“Some of the start-your-own business offers you’ll see are legitimate opportunities,” according to the narration in the Ackman video. “But some are scams, designed to take advantage of you.”

Herbalife is not mentioned in the video, but one of the animated characters looks suspiciously like Herbalife CEO Michael O. Johnson.

The accompanying news release from Ackman does mention Herbalife, noting that “Funds managed by Pershing Square are short the stock of Herbalife Ltd and own put options on the Company. Pershing Square may increase, decrease, dispose of, or change the form of its investment in Herbalife for any or no reason, at any time.”

Jan 21, 2015
North Korea’s ‘Monkey’ Slur Against President Obama Reminiscent Of 2010 Ad Script For Ill-Fated MPB Today ‘Program’

North Korea has described President Obama as a “monkey,” providing a flashback to a 2010 ad script for the MPB Today MLM “program.”

Today we provide a glimpse into the world of coded pandering as it exists in North Korea, the country blamed by the FBI last week for orchestrating the cyber attacks on California-based Sony Pictures. Turns out that coded pandering in North Korea is not all that different from coded pandering in the United States.

It now has emerged that North Korea apparently believes that describing President Obama as a person who “always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest” is a PR masterstroke.

So, Kim Jong Un is passing the word that Obama has the qualities of a talking “monkey” out to make things even harder on his fellow monkeys. And where do these talking monkeys live? Why, the jungle, of course.

As the AP reports, via the Washington Times (italics added):

It wasn’t the first time North Korea has used crude insults against Obama and other top U.S. and South Korean officials. Earlier this year, the North called U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a wolf with a “hideous” lantern jaw and South Korean President Park Geun-hye a prostitute. In May, the North’s official news agency published a dispatch saying Obama has the “shape of a monkey.”

Words Mean Things

The bizarre situation evolving in North Korea is reminiscent of a bizarre situation surrounding the MPB Today MLM “program” that played out in the United States beginning in 2010. Indeed, an affiliate of the Ponzi-board cycler “opportunity” whose operator later went to jail on a state charge of racketeering in Florida apparently believed that using the word “monkey” in the context of Obama was a winning business message. For apparent good measure, the term “Brown-noser” also was used in the deplorable script.

From Scene 1 in the 2010 script (italics added):

michelle_obama O’ Barry Baby, since we’ve joined MPB TODAY your popularity has increased in the polls! Who runs these polls, monkeys??

From Scene 16 (italics added):

obama hillary You’re no loser, Hil, and besides… no one loses with MPB Today, not even you… OMG, What a Brown-noser

MPB Today was positioned by affiliates in general as a “program” in which a one-time purchase of $200 could morph into free groceries and gasoline for life. The author of the offensive script, however, apparently couldn’t let the already-dubious narrative end there.

For whatever reason, it became important to depict a black family that happens to be the First Family of the United States as welfare recipients.

This from Scene 6 of the script (italics added):

michelle_obama obama Hmm, I should prolly call my Food Stamp worker now that I’ve joined MPB

Could it get worse? Sure. It also became important to depict the President as a left-handed saluting Nazi who answers to a bawling and wine-drunk U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Nazi-in-Chief.

And why not paint the Obama family as aspiring to eat “real dog food” while at once attacking the President’s then-9-year-old daughter? This from Scene 4 (italics added):

michelle_obama obama I’m so relieved we’ve totally eliminated our grocery bill! You’re relieved? Now I’ll finally get some real dog food instead of just Sasha’s scraps

Hell, if there’s MLM hay to be made, why not make First Lady Michelle Obama flatulent in the Oval Office from the consumption of “beans” while the First Dog laments the absence of unoffensive air?

Like North Korea’s messaging, the messaging for MPB Today was the stuff of spectacular idiocy on display for all the world to see. Here’s the decoded shorthand: Hillary (dubbed “Hitlary” in one version of the script) might be a Nazi drunk, but at least she’s a white drunk and the black President answers to her. Send the black President and his welfare family back to Wal-Mart where they belong. The black family is stinking up the White House and even offending the First Pet.

The White House didn’t intervene to prevent the American public from seeing the idiocy. Nor did it intervene to protect the First Family from decidedly less-than-hagiographic treatment. No cyber war was launched against MPB Today, not even after its operator sought to stoke his purported bona fides by claiming to have been named the 2003 “Businessman of the Year” by the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Business Advisory Council.

The ad, which was designed to drive business to MPB Today but offended Democrats and Republicans alike, eventually was pulled by the creator, who caught some hell on the Internet for being such an idiot in the name of MLM. With or without the ad, MPB Today was such an obvious fraud that it was a virtual certainty that its operator would be held accountable for his money-cycling scheme.

That’s exactly what happened.

Contrast what happened with the MPB Today video to what happened at Sony Pictures during the run-up to the release of “The Interview,” a scalding and satirical poke at Kim Jong Un.

Sony effectively was crippled for weeks by hackers. Its intellectual property and email files were stolen. Its employees were threatened. Patrons were threatened with 9/11-style terrorist attacks. Theaters backed out of screening “The Interview.” Obama went on TV to explain North Korea was not going to dictate what Americans could watch in U.S. movie houses. Sony, which initially withdrew the Christmas Day release of the film, reversed course and put it out in more than 300 theaters and released it online.

Some Americans sang patriotic songs in support of the film.

It now comes to pass that Americans have seen their President depicted by North Korea in much the same way he was depicted by the MPB Today promoter in 2010. (In fairness, it must be pointed out that North Korea didn’t go the extra mile and make Obama a welfare-enabled Nazi.)

We wonder today just how many MLMers have been swept into in a North Korea-style cult of personality and imprisoned in the same way Kim’s people are imprisoned.

Dec 27, 2014
SPECIAL REPORT: We’re Like ‘A Ride At Disney World,’ Achieve Community Cycler Bizarrely Claims
From a YouTube promo for “The Achieve Community.”

UPDATED 11:39 A.M. ET DEC. 12 U.S.A. In its latest effort to expand its reality-distortion field, “The Achieve Community” money-cycling “program” that tells prospects a $50 “position” increases by a factor of eight and turns into $400 in a few months (or even in as few as 55 days) has compared itself to The Walt Disney Co.

Achieve represents both a “micro” and a “macro” scheme. Although participants can buy a single “position” for $50, they also can buy multiple “positions” for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, according to promos. At least one promo contends that 200 “positions” can be purchased 100 at a time in two separate transactions of $5,000 each. If this proves to be the case either in the past or in the future, the crime of structuring transactions to evade bank-reporting requirements could be on the table.

Structuring is an element in the prosecution of figures associated with the eAdGear network-marketing “program” shut down by the SEC in September. Allegations of structuring also appear in civil filings by the Massachusetts Securities Division against TelexFree network-marketing figures in April. TelexFree now is in bankruptcy court, with prosecutors calling it a massive Ponzi- and pyramid scheme.

The specific Achieve Community analogy noted in the headline and lede above is to Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Even more specifically, it is to the rides at Disney World and the purported “hours” it takes to board one of them.

From a Dec. 8 “Monday Night Update” post on the Achieve Community Blog credited to co-founder Kristi Johnson (italics added):

I want to explain a bit more about how we work for the benefit of those new members . . . and thanks goes to Sheila once again for this wonderful analogy.

Think of Achieve as a ride at Disney World. You get in line for the ride and it can takes [sic] hours! But it’s always moving, just like our matrix. And finally you get to the ride (the matrix) and it’s over in a few minutes! It may take a few months to hit our matrix, and once you get there you’ll be paid within days on all three levels. Then you can take the ride again!

Here’s our initial take on the claims:
- From a YouTube promo for Achieve Community.
  
  If you submit to this bollocks and think of Achieve as a ride at Disney World, you’re as out of touch as the Achieve organizers and some of their professional hucksters want you to be. Wake. Up. Now.
- If you choose to remain in a network-marketing-induced Stepfordian trance, expect that a sudden desire to embrace every conspiracy theory under the sun will come next. If that happens, you’d better hope the BBC’s “Sunday Politics” program hosted by Andrew Neil never gives you the Alex Jones treatment.
- You also might starting hearing, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”
- Lines indeed can be long at Disney World. (But there’s a free app for that.)
- Disney doesn’t sell $50 cycler tickets and tell parents and starry-eyed kids that those tickets pay not only for the ride, but also will convert to $400 cash before fall takes over from summer. And Disney also doesn’t encourage parents and kids waiting in lines to plunk down another $50 (or more) as a means of fetching another $400 (or more) before winter takes over from fall. Moreover, unlike Achieve, Disney does not operate a cycler. The New York Stock Exchange would go apoplectic if Disney or its fans took to the web to claim purchases and repurchases of “positions” set the stage for $50 to morph into more than $1.6 million.
- If Disney did what Achieve is doing, its operating revenue of nearly $49 billion in 2014 would translate into a liability of nearly $392 billion, creeping up on a hole of almost half-a-trillion dollars.
- As a great American company, Disney wouldn’t dare do what Achieve Community is doing — for the same reasons Google wouldn’t do what the AdSurfDaily “advertising” scam was doing in 2008 and eBay wouldn’t do what the Zeek Rewards “auction” scam was doing in 2012.
Cyclers such as the one operated by Achieve Community are among the Internet’s oldest forms of the Ponzi scheme. Because the fraud is so old — and because cycler carcasses litter cyberspace — cyclers have sought new and better ways to dupe the public. Internal mechanics and entry points may vary from $10 to hundreds of dollars. Recruiting may or may not be required, and there may be talk of “algorithms” or “secret algorithms.” Achieve purportedly has a proprietary “triple algorithm.”

Ever hear of the Regenesis 2×2 matrix-cycler scam in 2009? The U.S. Secret Service did — and kept a Dumpster under surveillance to gather evidence. Material seized in the case, according to court records, included envelopes containing credit cards, debit cards and financial statements; 13 Priority Mail envelopes and 10 First Class Mail envelopes; and various computers, computer equipment and business records.

Federal agents investigating now-shuttered Regenesis said they found the personal financial records of customers in the Dumpster, plus complaint faxes sent by customers and a letter from a law firm complaining about false, misleading and deceptive advertising.

As is the case now with Achieve Community, Regenesis promoters took to the web with reports of getting paid. Getting paid, however, is not proof that no scam exists. In 2010, promoters of the MPB Today cycler scam took to the web with “payment proofs” that were even crisper than the Regenesis “proofs.”

MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun later was sentenced to a term in a Florida state prison.

Despite “payment proofs” that appeared online, the MPB Today cycler was a scam that put its operator in prison.

From an Achieve Community promo for a purported “repurchase” plan that turns $50 into “ANY amount you wish!”

In HYIP Cycler Land, the much ballyhooed matrices move only when new money flows to a scheme, assuming the matrices even exist and further assuming an early entrant (or even a later one) doesn’t try to blackmail an operator by mixing a threat to go to the police with a demand for hush money or a selective payout.

Is it any wonder that Vimeo has banned “videos pertaining to multi-level marketing (MLM), affiliate programs, get-rich-quick schemes, cash gifting, work-from-home gigs, or similar ventures?” Also not permitted on Vimeo are “rips of movies, music, television, or any other third party copyrighted material.”

Members of WCM777, a network-marketing “program” taken down by the SEC earlier this year after money was channeled to all kinds of secret businesses, found ways to work images of Sylvester Stallone and the music and imagery of the “Rocky” franchise into their scam. In 2010, promoters of the MPB Today “program” wrapped the music of Heart into their sales appeals. “Guaranteed No Scam,” one promo read in part.

This could in part explain why Vimeo appears to return no search results for “The Achieve Community.” It’s heartening, but the great MLM/network-marketing ripoffs on YouTube continue — from pitches for obvious scams to piracy of music and video content. At least one promo for Achieve Community appropriates virtually the entire soundtrack of a recording of “You Raise Me Up” by Celtic Woman.

And, hell, why not make a commercial for Achieve Community at an ATM provided by an FDIC-insured bank to sanitize your scam?

In 2011, a now-missing cycler known as AutoXTen came out of the gate with a message of “Turn $10 into $199,240.” The purported opportunity was appropriate for “churches,” according to a sales pitch. AutoXTen debuted even as the state of Oregon was investigating a cycler and ordering sanctions totaling $345,000 against a pitchman. That “program” was known as “InC,” for “I need cash.”

Is Traditional MLM Fighting Back?

Though he doesn’t reference Achieve Community in a video posted Nov. 29 on YouTube, network-marketing veteran Eric Worre of NetworkMarketingPro.com laments all the “lazy . . . MLM online idiots in the marketplace.”

“There’s too many, and it’s causing too much damage,” Worre says, noting the MLM ban at Vimeo and “boorish stuff” from MLMers “on any of the [social media] platforms.”

“It’s out of control. It doesn’t work, and it’s causing tremendous damage,” Worre says.

Nine days later came the preposterous Achieve Community analogy to Disney — this after Achieve reportedly had lost its original payment processor but went scouting for new ones, plus an offshore company to process credit cards. Purchasing and repurchasing of “positions” reportedly opened back up last week with a new card processor at the helm, but payouts to participants reportedly have not resumed.

Not to worry, Achieve Community says.

“When our Payout Processor is added next week,” the enterprise said Dec. 5 in a Blog post titled Friday Update, “we will be paying members who joined September 12th and will start paying out nearly $500,000.00 to our members.”

If those payouts materialize, they will come after a payout halt of more than a month and after Achieve Community apparently found an offshore company to provide a merchant account that permitted it to take credit cards for the acquisition of matrix “positions.” In other words, Achieve started collecting “new” money and now publicly announces a plan to pay “old” members who were due to be paid in early November for “positions” taken out on Sept. 12.

That, friends, is what Ponzi schemes do. More than that, it’s an indicator that Achieve was racking up a liability of $400 for every $50 it took in and was at least technically insolvent when Payoneer — its previous payment processor — reportedly pulled out weeks ago. Solving an insolvency condition by lining up new vendors to rekindle cashflow is one of the oldest tricks in the HYIP Ponzi books.

The Achieve Community Disney analogy makes no sense at all — except perhaps in that uber-bizarre, network-marketing way.

That the Disney comparison came on a Monday night is particularly rich. That’s because ESPN, part of the Disney Media Group, was getting ready to televise Monday Night Football. Even as ESPN was doing that, other Disney brands such as ABC (and ABC News) were broadcasting to the world. At the same time, the Walt Disney Studios was engaged in movie production, and Disney Consumer Products and Disney Interactive were doing what they do.

With Achieve, it’s only the upstart cycler and the hidden matrix positioned to be miraculous. What a racket!

Disney stock closed yesterday at $93.80, up a humble 4 cents. The iconic brand is a Dow and S&P 500 component, but it’s easy enough to imagine the Achievers saying, “Four cents! Only 4 cents! Better join Achieve!”

Did we mention the app for those Disney World lines?
Dec 9, 2014
EDITORIAL: When MLM Is PR Poison: Footnote In Zeek Receiver’s Most Recent Filing Harkens Back To Scam Of Yesteryear — Also, Does Unrelated ‘Agape World’ Case Provide Clues About Tax Scam Within Ponzi Scam At Zeek?

From the 2010 MPBToday MLM scam. Like Zeek Rewards, MPBToday traded in part on Walmart gift cards.

Ah, those serially disingenuous MLM hucksters and commission-based Ponzi pitchmen: They’ll ultimately destroy their own brands while picking millions of pockets. Before doing so, they’ll use your brand as a temporary means of sanitizing themselves, bring PR disasters to your legitimate company and perhaps even find an insidious way to turn the government into their banker.

Longtime PP Blog readers will recall the outrageous scam of MPBToday. MPBToday duped the MLM masses in part by planting the seed that Walmart gift cards or prepaid Visa cards would flow to members in unlimited supply if they sent $200 to the Florida-based “program” for a “one-time” purchase of “groceries” and if the members recruited two others who’d also recruit two others to do the same.

In addition to being a pyramid scheme that sent operator Gary Calhoun to prison in Florida on a racketeering charge, MPB Today could have been a scam that disguised “program” earnings as nontaxable “gifts” to dupe Uncle Sam.

It’s almost axiomatic in MLM Scam Land that an “opportunity” and/or its Stepfordian promoters will imply a tie to a major brick-and-mortar business or even the government, when no such ties exist or the ties are no more official than ties any consumer can enjoy — purchasing a gift card from a major retailer, having a bank account or renting a room at a major hotel chain, for instance. It happened at MPB Today in 2010, and it’s happening now within the Stepfordian wing of TelexFree — a wing in which promoters have suggested that TelexFree has been “authorized” or “approved” by the government.

It also happened both internally and externally at WCM777, now the subject of cross-border investigations in both North America and South America. In an apparent bid to sanitize the WCM777 scheme, alleged operator Ming Xu arranged to have himself photographed with celebrities such as former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Meanwhile, WCM777 promoters rushed to YouTube and other social-media sites to claim that WCM777 had ties to famous businesses such as Siemens and a host of hospitality companies with famous flags.

Such rank MLM disingenuousness also occurred within the $850 million Zeek Rewards scheme. In the PP Blog’s view, Zeek’s maximum expression of such deception occurred when it was auctioning sums of U.S. cash and telling successful bidders they’d get paid through offshore payment processors such as AlertPay and SolidTrustPay. By divining sums up for auction and accepting bids for U.S. currency, Zeek implied it had been approved by the U.S. government, perhaps specifically the Treasury Department.

And by sending the incongruous (and bizarre) message that the Treasury-approved Zeek MLM scheme would pay members via offshore processors linked to the equally outrageous AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by a Task Force consisting of the U.S. Secret Service and the Treasury Department (IRS) in 2008, Zeek served up another colossal mess for MLM.

Zeek, of course, followed the footsteps of MPBToday — whose operator lost his liberty after pushing all those Walmart cards out the door — by leeching off the names of major American retailers. In addition to auctioning cash, Zeek auctioned gift cards.

And this brings us to an interesting footnote in a quarterly report filed Jan. 30 by Kenneth D. Bell, the receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi-scheme case. Zeek operated through Rex Venture Group (RVG).

“Unlike other retailers the Receiver Team approached, Wal-Mart and Home Depot readily agreed to refund the full amount of their gift cards held by RVG at the time of shut-down,” Bell advised Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen. “The remaining gift cards were sold at auction, and their value is included in the gross receipts from the personal property portion of the Receivership auction.”

Walmart and Home Depot know a PR disaster when they see one. They ponied up quickly when the receiver asked them, thus making his job of gathering funds for Zeek victims a bit easier. Some other companies that perhaps have less PR savvy did not. The receiver auctioned their gift cards in public.

Bell’s examination of Zeek’s money flow continues, according to the Jan. 30 report. The report reveals that lawsuits against alleged insiders and winners had not been filed as of the 30th, but remain pending.

The receivership is “on the brink of filing,” Bell said.

Some Zeekers who choose to see instead of turning a blind eye perhaps can gain an understanding of just how dangerous the “program” was to the U.S. financial system — and not just the relatively small segment in which retailers that issue gift cards reside. Not only did Zeek create legal and PR dilemmas for itself, it created them for others, including gems of U.S. commerce and banking.

During 2013’s fourth quarter, attorneys for the receiver “sent demand letters to fifty-four (54) financial institutions seeking reimbursement for teller’s checks on which financial institutions were believed to have improperly stopped payment under Section 3-411 of the Uniform Commercial Code and in violation of the Freeze Order,” Bell advised the court.

“As of December 31, 2013, thirty-one (31) financial institutions had not responded to the Receiver’s demand(s) for payment of stopped payment cashier’s checks and bank money orders,” Bell continued. “Additionally, fifteen (15) issuers of teller’s checks had not responded to demand letters.”

Let’s hope these financial institutions develop the PR savvy of Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Zeek not only was a train wreck unto itself, it set the stage to involve legitimate enterprises in its own bizarre drama. Company after company that conducted business with Zeek or whose customers did so has had to lawyer up or at least rely on in-house counsel to determine how much exposure the “program” brought to legitimate enterprises.

The Zeek story is far from being over and likely will reverberate for years in the financial community. Bell now says that he’s “discovered additional RVG financial accounts during the fourth quarter.”

Zeek money, according to the report, circulated onshore and offshore.

“All transactional information received from financial institutions through the end of the fourth quarter has been included in the creation of the financial books and records,” Bell advised the court. “However, communications with financial institutions are ongoing, and there are outstanding requests by the Receiver for transactional information.”

When will other shoes drop?

“The Receiver Team continued its investigation into potential claims against RVG insiders and third-party advisers as a part of its ongoing fact investigation, continuing its analysis of documentary evidence that will be used in proving such claims,” Bell advised the court. “The Receiver Team also responded to requests for assistance and information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that aided the government in obtaining plea agreements from both Dawn Wright-Olivares and Daniel Olivares.”

Wright Olivares, Zeek’s former COO, was charged criminally and civilly in December ~~2012~~ 2013 (Feb. 5, 2014 edit). Olivares, her stepson, also was charged criminally and civilly. They are expected to appear in court this week to enter formal guilty pleas to criminal conduct.

Federal prosecutors say tax fraud occurred at Zeek.

Here, we’ll point you to an unrelated story by Jordan Maglich at PonziTracker.com. The story is about an alleged pitchman for Ponzi schemer Nicholas Cosmo, now serving 25 years in federal prison for his epic Agape World fraud. (Quick side note: Agape World was a purported “bridge lender,” similar in some ways to the outrageous “Profitable Sunrise” MLM fraud scheme broken up by the SEC last year.) The PonziTracker story on Agape World developments is titled, “Ponzi Associate Jailed For ‘Mind-Boggling’ Money Laundering Scheme.”

The story explains why alleged Cosmo pitchman Anthony Ciccone now is in jail. A snippet from the story:

According to prosecutors, Ciccone overpaid approximately $1.7 million in federal and state income taxes beginning in 2008 that was comprised of Ponzi scheme proceeds. Several years later, the funds were returned to Ciccone in the form of tax refunds, and Ciccone subsequently had his wife and mother-in-law launder the refund money through their bank accounts.

We wonder: Could some of the Zeekers effectively have been doing the same thing — deliberately overpaying taxes and using the government as a de facto bank that temporarily would conceal and warehouse Ponzi proceeds for return later in the form of tax refunds?

From a Dec. 20, 2013, PP Blog report on the criminal allegations against Wright-Olivares (italics/bolding added):

And for the 2011 tax year, according to the charging documents, “P.B.,” Wright-Olivares and others reported to the IRS that Zeek investors had received more than $108 million from the scheme when Zeek had paid out only about $13 million.

This caused Zeek victims to file “false tax returns with the IRS reporting phantom income that they never actually received,” according to the charging documents.

Zeek used the “false tax notices to perpetuate the Ponzi scheme,” according to the charging document.

NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.

Feb 2, 2014
OUR ANSWER: ‘Nuts!’ PP Blog Receives Threat That ‘Authorities’ Will Move Against It If It Doesn’t Remove Content About Profitable Sunrise Figure Nanci Jo Frazer And Others; Email Claims FBI ‘Fully Aware Of All Your Consistent Attempts’ To Harm Frazer Group

“No!” Make that “Hell no!” — or, as Gen. Anthony McAuliffe once famously scribbled at the prompting of Gen. Harry W.O. Kinnard during the Battle of the Bulge, after soldiers for the Nazi Third Reich demanded surrender: “Nuts!”

At 12:11 a.m. ET today, the PP Blog inexplicably received five duplicate emails from an IP in the vicinity of Tiffin, a city in North Central Ohio. The emails were sent through the Blog’s contact form and threatened that “the authorities” would get involved if the Blog did not remove content about Nanci Jo Frazer and other Profitable Sunrise story figures by Nov. 15, nine days from today. The emails were signed “Nanci Jo Frazer,” but the Blog cannot independently confirm Frazer was the sender.

Why the Blog received five emails is unknown. The Blog tested the form after receiving the duplicated submissions, and it appears to be working properly, meaning it does not appear to be sending multiple copies of inquiries from readers. The Blog, however, did experience an outage that lasted approximately two hours yesterday. The outage occurred shortly after an IP from Ukraine made an appearance here at approximately 1:50 p.m. (Bots that leave a Ukranian signature have been circling the Blog for weeks.) The precise cause of yesterday’s outage, which occurred after the Blog reported on an HYIP/prime-bank scam in California outed as part of an FBI undercover operation that began in 2006, remains unclear.

In any event, the Blog will not remove any Frazer or Profitable Sunrise-related content unless ordered to do so by a U.S. federal judge. Nor will it submit to threats that incongruously are mixed with appeals to the Christian faith to make posts go missing. HYIP schemes are all about incongruities and preposterous constructions: “secret” or “safe” or “guaranteed” or “insured” investments that purportedly are “offshore” and able to deliver Christians and other people of faith legitimate interest rates of hundreds or even thousands of percent each year, for instance.

For security reasons, the Blog will not reply to the emails at the Gmail address entered by the sender. Instead, it will publish the content of the emails in this space. The FBI is free to make its own assessment about acts attributed to the agency by the sender in or around Tiffin. The Blog also will continue to publish Profitable Sunrise-related stories. Such stories are in the public interest.

The emails build on a conspiracy theory that has been circulating for weeks: that the Blog somehow acts in concert with fraudsters, cyberstalkers and at least one felon posing as a Christian do-gooder to subject Nancy Jo Frazer and her ministry to harm. Meanwhile, the emails plant the equally false seed that the Blog is part of a group involved in Bitcoin scams.

Among other things, the emails seek to chill the Blog’s reporting by contending that “The FBI is fully aware of all your consistent attempts to keep my name and our FocusUp Ministries Board members, our staff, voluteers and even my husband (who had no connection) tagged to negative , damaging words (such as scam, fraud and Ponzi) along with negative press and stories we are not connected to at all.” (No editing performed by PP Blog.)

“Last week through a phone conversation, the Senior investigator from the FBI, instructed me to have my attorney send you a Cease and Desist and demand for immediate removal of your unauthorized usage of materials, videos, audio, all radio & TV media, articles and all types of communication connected to FocusUp Ministries and our Board Members, staff and volunteers: including Nanci Jo Frazer (Nancy Frazer) and Albert Rosebrock, David Steckel (volunteer), Jon Simmons (staff pastor) also my husband David Frazer,” the emails read in part. (No editing performed by PP Blog.)

The emails did not identify the purported “Senior investigator from the FBI” who purportedly gave the sender instructions on how to accomplish the deletion of PP Blog content the apparent Frazer group supporter finds both objectionable and actionable. The PP Blog is willing, however, to voluntarily provide the IP address of the sender to the FBI, the SEC, the Ohio Office of the Attorney General or other law-enforcement agency in the United States that has an interest in the Profitable Sunrise case.

No subpoena will be necessary; we’ll simply provide the information and copies of the email, once the Blog verifies the request is genuine.

Over the years, the PP Blog has encountered various bids to chill its reporting on the HYIP sphere, including a sustained DDoS attack in 2010 and traffic floods in 2011 for which the Blog received a claim of responsibility. The Blog forwarded the claim to a U.S. law-enforcement agency.

In 2012, during a period of heavy reporting on two specific HYIP schemes, the Blog received repeated threats believed to be from different senders. Two of the threats were not aimed at the Blog. The first was received Aug. 6, 2012, and was aimed at three prominent U.S. politicians: one Democrat and two Republicans. This communication appeared to have been sent from Switzerland and questioned why the American politicians are “still alive and running around.” The email further described an American subject of the PP Blog’s crime reporting as a “true Patriot[]” who, like other purported “Patriots,” believed in “sending out mercenaries to take out those corrupt bankers, USG politicians, agents, judges and attorney’s [sic].”

Such content is consistent with members of the so-called Patriot Movement or similar U.S. extremists who identify themselves as “sovereign citizens.” Because the communication appears to have originated in a country famous for banking secrecy, it leads to questions about whether U.S. domestic extremists were networking with counterparts in Europe or perhaps were there themselves to “defend” HYIP schemes and chill reporting on the outrageous frauds by suggesting that mercenaries and assassins were at their disposal.

The second communication, received Aug. 29, 2012, was aimed at the alleged operator of a huge international Ponzi scheme. This communication appears to blame the accused operator for not properly defending the purported opportunity from investigations by the U.S. government.

“why you don’t stand to back [program name deleted by PP Blog][?]” the communication read in part.

“we lost our money. we will kill you . . .”

The communication concluded by slurring the alleged Ponzi operator as a “dog.” It appears to have been sent from Pakistan.

Yet-another 2012 communication believed to be from a different sender suggested that members of the PP Blog’s family might die if the Blog continued to report on HYIP schemes. The Blog forwarded all of these communications to a U.S. law-enforcement agency.

In 2009, the Blog repeatedly was stalked by an apologist for the AdSurfDaily and AdViewGlobal Ponzi schemes who sought to engineer an SEO campaign against the Blog. This tactic was repeated in 2012 by an apologist for the JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid scheme which, like ASD and AVG, may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.

This specific individual appears to have been inspired in part by an infamous troll whose posts and visits bear an IP signature from the United Kingdom. The troll has been attacking antiscam sites since at least 2009, often incorporating sexual innuendo, antiChristian themes and elements of misogyny into his bizarre and vulgar game plan. In any event, the JSS/JBP apologist he inspired asserted he’d defend purported operator Frederick Mann “so help me God.” He also targeted specific PP Blog readers in an SEO campaign carried out on a free Blogger site — all while spreading absurd conspiracy theories and utterly preposterous lies. At the same time, he appears to have embedded code in certain communications as a means of trying to identify potential federal witnesses and perhaps even obtain/isolate the identities undercover federal agents may use online.

Requests for the Blog to delete content are not always menacing, but can be described fairly as mind-bogglingly bizarre. In 2010, an affiliate of the MPB Today MLM scheme asked the Blog to delete a story that reported President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were being depicted as Nazis in a promo designed to recruit MPB Today affiliates. A separate script from the same MPB Today recruiter described the Obama family as welfare recipients who aspired to eat dog food and put these words into the mouth of First Lady Michelle Obama: “Hmm, I should prolly call my Food Stamp worker now that I’ve joined MPB.”

The Blog declined the deletion request.

MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun later was jailed in Florida on state-level racketeering charges. Federal prosecutors contended in July 2012 that crimes such as access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents had occurred. Some MPB Today affiliates claimed the purported grocery “program” had been endorsed by the U.S. government and Walmart and that impoverished prospects should sell their Food Stamps to raise the $200 needed to join MPB Today. At least one MPB Today affiliate referenced pipe bombs in a promo.

In May 2009, the PP Blog reported that the AdViewGlobal scam announced it had secured a deal with a new offshore wire facilitator. The AVG announcement was made on the same day the President of the United States announced a crackdown on offshore fraud. The PP Blog later was asked by AVG’s purported facilitator to remove the story. The Blog refused.

The purported AVG facilitator — KINGZ Capital Management Corp. — later was linked to the epic Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme in Minnesota and was booted from the National Futures Association. AVG earlier had collapsed in a pile of Ponzi rubble. Even as it was going down, critics of the “program” and even members concerned about where their money had gone were threatened with lawsuits and ISP terminations for speaking out online.

Federal prosecutors later linked the AVG scam to the $119 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. ASD story figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a purported “sovereign citizen,” is serving a federal prison sentence for targeting federal employees involved in the ASD case with bogus liens seeking billions of dollars, assisting a known tax fraudster in the filing of false liens, harboring federal fugitives in a case unrelated to ASD and being a felon in possession of firearms.

HYIP schemes are a cancer on America and the rest of the globe because they permit the murkiest of figures to acquire tremendous sums of money that endanger the United States and other nations. They are a scourge on society in no small measure because they attract “sovereign citizens” and other extremists whose intent is to undermine legitimate markets and create widespread confusion, if not anarchy. People of faith often are targets of HYIP scammers. The scams often switch forms, but the criminality remains largely the same.

In the case of Profitable Sunrise, the SEC has alleged that potentially tens of millions of dollars were driven to an individual potentially operating overseas. This individual’s identity may not be known. The allegations alone are chilling.

Frazer and her associates are not named in the SEC civil action. But Frazer and two of her alleged business associates — husband David Frazer and Nancy Frazer business associate Albert Rosebrock — are named in a Profitable Sunrise-related civil fraud action filed by the state of Ohio in July.

As noted above, the PP Blog will not remove any Frazer or Profitable Sunrise-related content. Here, now, the verbatim content of the emails received by the Blog at 12:11 a.m. today. (The Blog added carriage returns to make the contents more readable.)

The Emails

Dear Patrick;

I am send you this private (not to be published or shared) email to you as a Christian brother, from your Christian sister, in hopes to have your assistance to stop all media coverage concerning our Ministry and our volunteer board members without having to get the authorities involved to get this accomplished.

We understand that you have been trying to find the truth about Profitable Sunrise. The FBI has fully reviewed every document, communication and record we have and has returned everything to us. Our lead investigator stated that it is clear that we were a victim of “innocent ignorance”.

The investigation resulted in no criminal charges being filed. The Federal Government has confirmed we are not being named in this case. Kansas is in the process of dismissing the case and Ohio has stated they do not have enough information to move forward (after losing the majority of the assets at our hearing on August 30th, 2013). We are so thankful that we are finally being vindicated and can speak out soon.

2013 has been a refining year but so many awesome miracles have occurred that I cannot just feel there was no positive purpose. We believed that Profitable Sunrise was the “real deal”. We know that many of you believe that BitCoin is the “real deal” but in Texas, it is now declared a security and to some- part of a Ponzi? We sometimes learn things the hard way.

The FBI is fully aware of all your consistent attempts to keep my name and our FocusUp Ministries Board members, our staff, voluteers and even my husband (who had no connection) tagged to negative , damaging words (such as scam, fraud and Ponzi) along with negative press and stories we are not connected to at all. Thus driving traffic to your website for your own purpose.

Last week through a phone conversation, the Senior investigator from the FBI, instructed me to have my attorney send you a Cease and Desist and demand for immediate removal of your unauthorized usage of materials, videos, audio, all radio & TV media, articles and all types of communication connected to FocusUp Ministries and our Board Members, staff and volunteers: including Nanci Jo Frazer (Nancy Frazer) and Albert Rosebrock, David Steckel (volunteer), Jon Simmons (staff pastor) also my husband David Frazer.

I am requesting that Patrickpretty.com and all associate websites, blogs and media… Cease and Desist immediately from using images, text, tags,YouTubes, Powerpoints, articles, documents and recordings associated in any way with the patrickpretty.com website, which is containing or referring to Nanci Jo Frazer, Nancy Frazer, David Frazer, Albert Rosebrock, David Steckel, Jon Simmons and FocusUp Ministries and/or any of our associate Ministries, as you are not authorized to use our names or image for any purpose without written permission.

We have spent hundreds of hours of research to help authorities in everyway to fully understand and solve this case. We are almost to the point whereas I can share what I have learned to help avoid this event from happening again. I believe in going to my Christian brother first to resolve an issue. I believe that your heart is in the right place.

We need to see that everything is deleted and completely removed from the Internet by Friday, November 15th, 2013 so we can all move on. I hope you honor this and that we can start over and have this be a much better story for all.

Thanks Patrick!
Nanci Jo Frazer

Nov 6, 2013
MORE FROM THE MLM LA-LA LAND PLAYBOOK: Former ASD, NewGNI, Club Asteria, Zeek And Profitable Sunrise Pitchman ‘Ken Russo’ Coins New Acronym (NAG); Paul Darby Plants Seed FBI Backs His ‘YouGetPaidFast’ Program — AFTER Trading On Name And Likeness Of President Of The United States

Paul Darby with “President Obama,” apparently on Inauguration Day in 2009 after the U.S. Secret Service infomed the MLM world through the filing of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case that trading on the name and image of the President of the United States might not be a good idea.

UPDATED 8:37 A.M. EDT (OCT. 21, U.S.A.) Former AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin is continuing to serve 78 months in federal prison at the age of 78 — in part because he borrowed liberally from the MLM scammer’s playbook and planted the seed that the President of the United States (then George W. Bush) backed his “program.” Some MLM prospects joined the ASD fraud scheme — a $119 million Ponzi popularized in part on the Ponzi boards and broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008 — based on pitches highlighting Bowdoin’s purported ties to the White House.

Bush left office on Jan. 20, 2009. Barack Obama then became President.

Records now strongly suggest that Obama was President for only minutes when he became an unwitting salesman for an MLM or affiliate scheme. Indeed, an online pitch featuring “Obama” is dated Jan. 20, 2009, Inauguration Day in the United States and the date upon which Obama took over from Bush.

A Blog on Google’s free Blogspot platform made this headline claim on Jan. 20, 2009: “Barack Obama visits Unimax Services.”

The Blog, which remains online well into Obama’s second term that began on Jan. 20 of this year, features a knockoff of the Seal of the President of the United States. “Presidents Club,” it screams. Recruits for a “program” known as Net Millionaires Club apparently were accorded the title of Presidents — not of the United States, but of the “Unimax States.”

This is straight out of MLM or affiliate scheme La-La Land.

Paul Darby, who describes himself as “President of the Unimax Services Corporation” on the Blogspot site with the “Barack Obama visits Unimax Services” headline, is featured alongside a cardboard cutout of Obama in a video playing on the site. In the bizarre video, Darby bizarrely describes the cutout of Obama as the “featured guest” and suggests the Net Millionaries Club he’s promoting with the knockoff of the U.S. Presidential Seal is an “economic stimulus package.”

If you don’t go any farther than the headline — if you don’t take the time to view the video showing the Obama cutout — you could reasonably conclude that Obama actually visited Unimax Services and endorsed the “program.” Put another way, it’s a contemptible, backdoor way to use the Internet to turn the White House and the Commander-in-Chief into a spokesman for a highly dubious MLM or affiliate scheme.

If all of this seems altogether too much, altogether too bizarre, consider that the Secret Service, through the filing of the ASD Ponzi case in 2008, informed the MLM world that it wasn’t a good idea to go around trying to tie the President of the United States to your scheme. Next consider that the ASD scheme had its own form of a Darby-like Net Millionaries Club; the ASD version was multipronged and was called the “President’s Circle,” the “President’s Advisory Board” and “President’s Advisory Counsel.” Then consider that the Darby Blog — in January 2009, months after the ASD case had been filed — led with the “Barack Obama visits Unimax Services” headline on the date the President was inaugurated.

Did the President of the United States really visit Unimax Services, purveyors of the Net Millionaires Club? And did the White House somehow give Darby permission to alter the Seal of the President of the United States as a means of driving traffic to the “program? Did Paul Darby learn nothing from the ASD case?

But it gets worse . . .

Flash forward to 2013 (while considering that MLM schemes such as BidsThatGive and Lyoness also have tried to tie themselves to the U.S. Presidency or the Presidency of other countries), and you’ll find Darby as the braintrust behind yet another “program.” This one is called “YouGetPaidFast.”

Like ASD before it, YouGetPaidFast has a presence on the Ponzi boards. The new “program” appears to be a cash-gifting scheme. Ponzi-forum pitchman “Ken Russo,” previously of the ASD Ponzi scheme, the GNI and NewGNI Ponzi schemes, the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme, the MPB Today pyramid scheme, the Club Asteria fraud scheme and the Profitable Sunrise fraud scheme, is helping lead the YouGetPaidFast charge.

“Ken Russo” appears even to have coined a new acronym to deflect attention away from the critical issues surrounding online fraud schemes. Critics, according to a post attributed to “Ken Russo” at the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum, are “NAG[s].” NAG stands for “Naysayers Anonymous Group.”

According to “Ken Russo,” in apparent defense of YouGetPaidFast (italics added):

“The NAG (Naysayers Anonymous Group) are doing their best to deter you from joining an excellent program which offers one of the best opportunities I have ever seen for average folks to develop a substantial additional income stream. The NAG is relentless in their efforts to denigrate this fine program . . .”

This is occurring after the United States charged three women criminally in Connecticut for pushing a cash-gifting pyramid scheme. Two of the three women were sentenced earlier this year to lengthy terms in federal prison.

It also is occurring against the backdrop of bids earlier this year by enthusiasts of other Ponzi-board “programs” to trade on images of Obama and the prestige of the U.S. Presidency. Those “programs” included Empower Network and “Ultimate Power Profits.”

Unlike his Net Millionaires Club scheme, however, Darby’s YouGetPaidFast scheme appears no longer to be interested in trading on the name of the President of the United States and the seal of the President of the United States.

No, this time Darby is planting the seed that the FBI backs his “program.”

Darby is trotting out some of the same sort of MLM La-La Land talking points advanced by self-styled Zeek Rewards consultant Robert Craddock — that is, if you speak out against a “program,” you’re going to get sued and perhaps even paid a visit by its backers in law enforcement.

As BehindMLM.com is reporting today, Darby now claims to have FBI agents on “speed dial.” And at least one of those agents purportedly has vetted YouGetPaidFast and given it the all-clear.

Beyond that, according to the BehindMLM.com report, one or more Christian pastors is encouraging Darby to sue his detractors.

If that seems altogether too odd, consider that purported Christian pastors also are backing Empower Network and its purported “Badass” content, including the reported death by suicide of a top Herbalife MLM distributor.

David Wood, one of the top dogs at Empower Network, once advised critics to “Back the fuck down.”

“Be warned: BIG, SCARY WARNING,” Wood wrote. “I’m in the process of having lawyers research into whether or not we can sue the shit out of you.”

Whether Wood lost any pastors after the remark is unclear. At least one purported pastor encouraged Empower Network affiliates to overlook the nasty language and simply concentrate on making money. Pastors also backed the ASD Ponzi scheme and the Profitable Sunrise scheme — to cite just two of the MLM fraud schemes that recently have fleeced people of faith. ASD’s Bowdoin, before becoming a pitchman for a scheme known as OneX, once described himself as a Christian “money magnet.”

There is plenty of God talk in YouGetPaidFast, too.

Also see YouGetPaidFast thread at RealScam.com.

Oct 8, 2013
How Bizarre Will MLM Get? YouTube Video That Drives Traffic To Empower Network Feeds On Name Of ‘CashCropCycler’ And Trades On Images Of White House, Obama And Biden

“President Obama” and “Vice President Biden” in a video that appears to be designed to drive sign-ups for Empower Network, an MLM “program.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our thanks to reader “Tony” for pointing out the video described below.

UPDATED 9:26 A.M. EDT (SEPT. 10, U.S.A.): How bizarre will MLM get? Well, there may be no ceiling: A 2:47 video animation playing on YouTube depicts U.S. Vice President Joe Biden as a recent enrollee in the CashCropCycler HYIP “program” who confesses to President Obama that he’s “[j]ust out bumbling around and sticking my foot in my mouth.”

The video has a publication date of July 17 and appears to be a bid by an affiliate of the Empower Network MLM “program” to target traffic meant for CashCropCycler and refocus it toward Empower Network. “President Obama” appears to speak with a British accent in the promo, which also features a jab against Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

At approximately the 0:48 mark, after “Biden” informs “Obama” that he’s just joined CashCropCycler, “Obama” seems to say this: “Bernanke started that one, didn’t he?”

Some MLMers appear to believe that raising conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve is helpful to MLM HYIP “programs.”

A URL below the video at the YouTube site goes to a page at JoinVicNow.com that displays a photo of an oversized “Commissions Earned” check from Empower Network for $464,913. The check appears to be dated September 2012. It is made out in the names of “David Wood & David Sharpe” and is presented by an individual wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.

Source: Sceen shot at JoinVicNow.com

CashCropCycler, a “program” promoted on the Ponzi boards, appears to have gone missing in recent days. NEOMutual, a purported “crowdfunding” company promoted alongside CashCropCycler on the Ponzi boards, also appears to have gone missing. Both “programs” planted the seed that extraordinary profits would come to enrollees.

The Guy Fawkes mask sometimes is known as the “V for Vendetta” mask, which sometimes is used by members of “Anonymous,” the so-called hacktivist group associated with DDoS attacks on government and commercial sites.

Here, in part, is how WikiPedia describes the mask and Guy Fawkes (italics added):

The Guy Fawkes mask is a stylised depiction of Guy Fawkes, the best-known member of the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up the House of Lords in London in 1605. The use of a mask on an effigy has long roots as part of Guy Fawkes Night celebrations.

Why an individual is wearing a Guy Fawkes mask in the photo depicting the Empower Network check is unclear. The company, however, has described itself as “bad ass.” (Also see July 19 report on BehindMLM.com.)

Trading on the name of the President and Vice President of the United States was one of the things that led to the downfall of the AdSurfDaily MLM “program” in 2008. (The President at the time was George W. Bush; Dick Cheney was the Vice President.)

After Obama replaced Bush in the White House, an affiliate of an MLM “program” known as MPB Today depicted Obama in a 2010 promo as a left-handed saluting Nazi subordinate to then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was depicted as a whining drunk who’d knocked out First Lady Michelle Obama in the Oval Office. In 2012, MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun was charged in Florida with racketeering. A federal forfeiture complaint that targeted the headquarters building used by MPB Today specified the crimes of access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents.

Calhoun was sentenced to a three-year prison term last month. MPB Today MLM affiliates claimed a one-time purchase of $200 from the firm could result in free groceries and gasoline for life. Claims were made by affiliates that the U.S. government or Walmart or both had backed the MLM “program.”

In January 2013, an online promotion turned Obama into a pitchman for a Ponzi-board “program” known as UltimatePowerProfits.

Some members of the TelexFree “program” now appear to believe there is MLM hay to be made while trading on the name of Democratic politician Anthony Weiner. TelexFree is under investigation in multiple states in Brazil, amid allegations its is conducting a massive pyramid scheme. Even though there have been reports in Brazil about death threats against a judge and a prosecutor, some U.S. affiliates continue to promote the purported “opportunity.”

One promo for TelexFree claims a payment of $15,125 to the MLM firm will produce a profit of more than $42,000 in a year. The “Aunt Ethels” of the world — older people with money — will become keen on TelexFree, according to the promo.

Aug 12, 2013
EDITORIAL: Want To Build Your U.S. TelexFree Downline While An Active Pyramid-Scheme Investigation Is Under Way In Brazil? Ignore Or Downplay The Probe And Tell A ‘Carlos Danger’ Joke

Scott Miller goes for a “Carlos Danger” laugh line at a TelexFree event in California.

EDITOR’S NOTE: TelexFree has two executives named Carlos — Carlos N. Wanzeler, and Carlos Costa. Neither of them is “Carlos Danger.”

TelexFree, an MLM “opportunity,” has been under investigation in multiple states in Brazil since at least late June. There have been reports of death threats against a judge and a prosecutor — and there have been reports of assaults against journalists covering the alleged scam in Brazil.

None of this appears to have motivated TelexFree to cancel/postpone a California MLM rah-rah session in late July.

Scott Miller, according to a video playing on YouTube, was one of the featured TelexFree speakers at the Newport Beach event. Members of his group claim in videos that, if one sends $15,125 to TelexFree to purchase a “contract,” one will emerge with guaranteed earnings of at least $1,100 a week for a year. The math of the claim is basically this: $1,100 a week for 52 weeks equals $57,200. Subtract the original outlay of $15,125, and emerge $42,075 on the plus side.

Put another way, plunk down a little more than $15,000 and watch it virtually triple or quadruple in a year. Would Bernard Madoff have dared to be so bold?

The plain answer is no. Madoff roped in his Ponzi victims with suggestions of vastly lower annual returns.

But all of this TelexFree tripling or quadrupling of money is possible — to hear the firm’s cheerleaders tell it on YouTube — if recruits carry out a simple task: place an ad for the “opportunity” at free classified sites online. And you can make more in pure dollar terms by sending more, the cheerleaders say.

If you find it strange that TelexFree is continuing to conduct business in the United States against the backdrop of alleged threats against judicial officers in Brazil even as some TelexFree promoters try to drive business to the firm by videotaping a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, you may find it stranger yet that New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner’s name has made its way into a TelexFree sales pitch.

Nothing suggests that confessed sexting aficionado and former Congressman Weiner has anything whatsoever to do with TelexFree. But his in-the-news name apparently was one too rich for Miller to ignore from the stage in Newport Beach.

Miller told the assembled TelexFree masses in California that 75 percent of the people in MLM are women.

“Even Anthony Weiner — ‘Carlos Danger’ — can meet someone in this industy,” Miller cracked. Carlos Danger reportedly was an online name name used by Weiner.

MLM and/or affiliate schemes have been known to trade on the names of famous politicians of both major American political parties, occasionally even planting the seed that the famous politicians even had endorsed the “opportunity.” The $119 million AdSurfDaily MLM Ponzi scam traded on the names of (Republican) President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, for example. The Mantria Ponzi scheme ($54.5 million) traded on the name of former President Bill Clinton, with one of the pitchmen encouraging prospects to join the [Donald] Trump network after the 2009 collapse of Mantria. Clinton is a Democrat who continues to be a major figure on the world stage after an affair with an intern nearly toppled his Presidency; Trump is a billionaire, an occasional MLM cheerleader and an often-rumored GOP Presidential candidate who appears to enjoy trying to tweak President Obama, a Democrat, by pandering to the “Birther” conspiracy-theory vote.

In 2010, an affiliate of the MPB Today MLM “program” tried to drive traffic to the now-shuttered “opportunity” whose operator is jailed by positioning Obama and then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as Nazis, with Obama’s family being positioned as welfare recipients eager to eat dog food.

With each passing day, MLM seems to be creating bigger and bigger PR disasters for itself. We’re left wondering: What is funnier? The joke about Anthony Weiner or the fact it was told by an MLMer whose group apparently believes that sending an entire year’s salary for many Americans to TelexFree during an active investigation will cause the investment to mushroom while Bernard Madoff is knocking another year off his 150-year sentence?

In any event, the apparent message in some U.S. MLM circles today is that you can build a downline in TelexFree even during an offshore pyramid probe by ignoring or downplaying the investigations and deflecting the attention of the audience further by trotting out your best “Carlos Danger” lines.

And you can triple or quadruple your money while doing so, of course.

Aug 4, 2013
Gary Calhoun, MPB Today MLM Operator, Jailed In Florida

Gary Calhoun’s July 30, 2013, booking photo: Source: Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.

UPDATED 5:52 P.M. EDT (JULY 31, U.S.A.) Gary Calhoun, the operator of the MPB Today MLM program who was charged in December with racketeering under Florida state law, is listed as a prisoner at the Escambia County Jail.

Today was Calhoun’s sentencing date. The length of his sentence was not immediately clear. [July 31 UPDATE: Court docket updated July 31 to reflect three-year sentence in state prison, followed by 10 years’ probation. This note appears on the docket:

“DURING PROBATION THE DEFT. MUST OBTAIN PRIOR APPROVAL FROM HIS PROBATION OFFICER BEFORE ACCEPTING ANY EMPLOYMENT OR STARTING, PURCHASING OR IN ANY OTHER MANNER ASSOCIATING WITH A BUSINESS. THE PURPOSE OF THIS REQUIREMENT IS TO ENSURE THAT DEFT. DOES NOT IN ANY WAY ASSOCIATE HIMSELF WITH A MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING BUSINESS THAT COULD BE CONVERTED INTO A PYRAMID SCHEME OR OTHER ENTITY USED FOR ILLEGITIMATE PURPOSES.”]

Calhoun is 57.

One year ago tomorrow, federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Florida filed a forfeiture complaint against certain property linked to MPB Today and a companion grocery-delivery business known as Southeastern Delivery in Pensacola. The complaint, according to records, was brought to enforce laws against access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents.

MPB Today had a presence on the Ponzi boards and was one of the stranger MLMs in recent years, with promoters claiming a one-time purchase of $200 could result in free groceries and gasoline for life. Some promoters claimed the “program” was backed by the U.S. government. Others claimed MPB Today was backed by Walmart. At least one promoter bizarrely tried to sell the “program” by positioning President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former member of Walmart’s board of directors, as Nazis.

Despite claims that MPB Today was partnered with Walmart, another promotion read as such: If you “hate Walmart and have written a 603 page manifesto on how Walmart is trying to take over the world and steal your soul,” you should “stop making that pipe bomb and read how you can avoid Walmart and still make bank” with MPB Today, according to the pitch.

Some MPB Today affiliates licensed themselves to videotape commercials for MPB Today inside Walmart stores.

In April, a Florida judge ordered Calhoun “TO HAVE NO CONTACT OR RECEIVE ANY INCOME FROM ANY MLM,” according to the docket of the case.

In 2006, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Calhoun was associated with an entity known as Trim International (MyTrim.com) and illegally marketing a product known as “TCR Cell Rejuvenator.” The agency said the product was unlawfully positioned as a treatment for “Neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, axonal and other neuropathies, Down’s and other syndromes.”

TCR Cell Rejuvenator also was positioned as a treatment for “recurrent Herpes, common cold and flu,” amid MyTrim claims it could be used “to treat patients with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer and other infectious diseases and neurological disorders,” according to the FDA.

Meta tags on the site also referenced “prostate cancer,” the FDA said.

Jul 30, 2013
HourlyRevShare, Another ‘Ken Russo’ Ponzi-Board ‘Program,’ Reportedly DOA

HourlyRevShare, another in a long list of incongruous HYIP Ponzi-board “programs” pushed by serial huckster “Ken Russo” (also known as “DRdave”), reportedly has collapsed after taking a second bite of the Ponzi apple (purportedly as HRS II) after the original iteration collapsed. Other recent “programs” pushed by “Ken Russo” include Zeek Rewards and Profitable Sunrise, both of which cratered after regulatory actions in the United States.

“Ken Russo” also pushed Felmina Alliance, which became the subject of an Investor Alert in Canada; AdSurfDaily, a $119 million Ponzi scheme that put operator Andy Bowdoin in federal prison in Florida; MPB Today, a scheme that led to racketeering charges being filed in Florida against operator Gary Calhoun; Club Asteria, a scheme that falsely planted the seeds it was endorsed by actor Will Smith and the American Red Cross while also trading on the name of slain human-rights champion Mahatma Gandhi; a scheme known as Gold Nugget Invest that cratered in at least two forms; JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a multiple-name scheme purportedly operated by Frederick Mann that promised a return of 730 percent a year and has encountered regulatory actions in Italy and the Philippines; knockoff scams known variously as JSSTripler 2 and Compound 150 purportedly operated by “Dave” between purported bouts with Dengue Fever; and Wealth4AllTeam, a “program” that experienced business halts and relaunches with new names, at one time claiming it was impervious to U.S. regulators at the state and federal level while incongruously claiming disputes would be settled under California law.

Among other things, the lead pitchman for HourlyRevShare on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum claimed that the “program” offered “Daily guaranteed Payouts.” The promoter also claimed (italics added):

“Earn 4.5% to 6.5% daily for 20 days.”

“Earn 135% to 195% on your shares.”

“Earn 0.18 to 0.29 every hour.”

On April 9, 2013, less than a month after the Profitable Sunrise HYIP scheme collapsed amid SEC allegations a ghost might have been at the wheel, Ken Russo (as “DRdave”) claimed on TalkGold that he’d just received a payment of $4,850 from HourlyRevShare, which was using a Gmail email address. Critics of HourlyRevShare claim the “program” is linked to individuals known as Analie or Anelie Steinway and Dr. Leiven Van Neste.

Whether these individuals actually exist remains an open question.

“Ken Russo” also has been leading cheers for a “program” known as NEOMutual, yet-another Ponzi-board darling. NEOMutual is being pushed alongside a “program” bizarrely known as “CashCropCycler.”

Also see Comments thread below this PP Blog story on the JSS/JBP-linked ProfitClicking scam.

Jul 22, 2013
UPDATE: MPB Today Operator Ordered To Stay Away From MLM As He Awaits Sentencing In Racketeering Case; Separately, MLM ‘Programs’ Get Pounded In The Press

Gary Calhoun

Gary Calhoun, the operator of the MPB Today MLM “program,” has joined AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin as a member of a dubious club: A Florida judge has ordered Calhoun not to get arrested on new charges and to stay away from MLM while he awaits sentencing in a racketeering case brought by Florida authorities last year.

Here is a note on the docket of Circuit Judge Jan Shackelford reflecting the ban: “DEFENDANT TO HAVE NO CONTACT OR RECEIVE ANY INCOME FROM ANY MLM.” Calhoun, according to the docket, will be permitted to pursue any “legal means” to support his family.

Bowdoin was banned from MLM last year while he awaited sentencing in the $119 million ASD Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008. Prosecutors said Bowdoin pushed a scam known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) even after the government seized more than $80 million in ASD-related bank accounts. After the collapse of AVG in 2009, Bowdoin, 78, pushed a pyramid scheme known as OneX, according to court filings. He later was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison.

Calhoun, 56, will be sentenced July 30, according to the case docket, which notes a plea agreement. He was arrested on the racketeering charge in December 2012 and has been free on bond since then. In July 2012, federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Florida filed a forfeiture complaint for MPB Today’s headquarters building in Pensacola. The affidavit in the forfeiture case was filed under seal. But the forfeiture case, according to prosecution filings, was brought to enforce 18 USC § 1028 and 18 USC § 1029, statutes dealing with access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents.

MPB Today operated an MLM married to a grocery-delivery business known as Southeastern Delivery. Among the claims was that a one-time purchase of $200 in groceries could lead to free groceries and gasoline for life. Some promoters claimed the U.S. government and Walmart had endorsed MPB Today. Others encouraged prospects to sell $200 worth of Food Stamps to raise the money needed to join the “program.”

Supporters of the “program” defended it on the PP Blog by calling critics “roaches,” “IDIOTS,” “clowns,” “terrible” people, “misleading” people, people who have led a “sheltered life,” people who have been “chained up in a basement,” people who have “chips” on their shoulders, spewers of “hot air,” “naysayers,” “complainers,” “trouble maker[s]” and “crybabies.”

MPB Today later vanished — but not before a promoter described President Obama as a Nazi and and his family as aspiring to eat dog food. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was depicted as a bawling drunk. First Lady Michelle Obama was depicted as having experienced an embarrassing gas attack in the Oval Office after having sampled “beans” at a Sam’s Club Store.

From an ad designed to attract prospects for the MPB Today “program.”

All of it — and more — was designed to attract business to the MLM firm, which apparently has followed ASD into the darkness.

News of Calhoun’s sentencing date was received during a week in which MLM was experiencing one PR disaster after another. WTOL, a TV station in Toledo, Ohio, carried a report on the alleged Profitable Sunrise HYIP scheme. The SEC said earlier this month that the purported “opportunity” may have gathered tens of millions of dollars and that promoters may not have known for whom they were working.

Profitable Sunrise was targeted at Christians, according to regulatory actions. Among its absurd offerings was the purported “Long Haul” plan that promised to pay 2.7 percent a day with the payout due April 1 — April Fool’s Day. Promoters called it the “Easter Gift” because Easter occurred on March 31. The payouts, however, never materialized.

Separately, WFMY of Greensboro, N.C., said it had uncovered evidence that members of the Zeek Rewards “program” were being targeted in a reload scam. In August 2012, the SEC described Zeek as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme.

Meanwhile, the politics and satire site Wonkette ran a piece yesterday titled, “The End Is Near: Time Running Out To Join Amazing Jesus Pyramid Scheme.”

The story details spam received by Wonkette, apparently from a promoter of a scheme known as “Rocket Ca$h Cycler.”

The subject line of the pitch, according to Wonkette, was this: “The Wealth Transfer is here!! Florida Pastor & Church break through financially!”

When MPB Today was operational, it ran a matrix cycler. One particularly bizzare pitch for the “program” in 2010 claimed this: If you “hate Walmart and have written a 603 page manifesto on how Walmart is trying to take over the world and steal your soul,” you should “stop making that pipe bomb and read how you can avoid Walmart and still make bank.”

Read review of the Rocket Cash Cycler “program” at BehindMLM.

Apr 27, 2013