EDITOR’S NOTE: The interconnectivity of fraud schemes is one of the core dangers of the HYIP sphere. Stolen proceeds continually cycle between and among scams, making banks and payment vendors virtual warehouses for cross-border criminals and their serial enablers. The problem may be intensifying. More and more HYIP schemes appear to be using script kits — essentially prefabricated websites — in which emerging schemes simply plug in their information and graphics. These kits allow schemes to show ads for other schemes, including competitive schemes.
Simply put, modern scams are driving business to other modern scams.
As the story below illustrates, the cycle may not be broken even if a particular scheme suspends payouts.
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“Bring The Bacon Home,” a Ponzi-board “program” popularized in part by Achieve Community hucksters, reportedly has crumbled.
The circumstance surrounding the collapse, however, demonstrates that BTBH is contributing to ongoing harm. Indeed, the “program” continues to publish ads for other HYIP schemes, including “MyAdvertisingPays.”
MAPS, as it is known, is referenced in a prospective class-action complaint filed against multiple TelexFree figures and financial vendors in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in December 2014.
TelexFree was alleged by the SEC last year to have been a combined pyramid and Ponzi scheme. The trustee in the TelexFree bankruptcy case says the cross-border “program” may have gathered as much as $1.8 billion.
TelexFree and MAPS are known to have had promoters in common. It was learned last month that Shaun Smith, an alleged “winner” in the Zeek Rewards scheme broken up by the SEC in 2012, also is promoting MAPS.
Despite the reported collapse of BTBH, it continues not only to publish ads for MAPS, but other schemes.
BTBH, which had claimed $40 turned into $1,800, encountered a failed launch in January. The “program” then embarked on a self-styled “relaunch,” but that, too, appears now to have failed — leaving investors holding the bag.
Another of the scams currently advertised on BTBH is “MooreFund,” as the screen shot below demonstrates. MooreFund also was promoted by Achieve members.
Like Achieve, MooreFund has a presence on well-known Ponzi-scheme forums such as MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold. The “program” purports to offer four investment plans. These promise absurd daily interest rates of between 1.5 percent and 3 percent, with “compounding” available on three of the four plans and tiered recruitment commissions offered on all four.
On April 2, a video depicting President Obama as a fan of the MyAdvertisingPays “program” appeared on YouTube. An “Obama voice” was dubbed into the video, which also shows the Presidential Seal. Text below the video reads, “Mr. President speaks about the new advertising revolution.”
Depicting then-President George W. Bush as a fan of the AdSurfDaily MLM HYIP “program” backfired in spectacular fashion in 2008, drawing the attention of the U.S. Secret Service. Federal agents eventually seized more than $80 million in an asset-forfeiture case. ASD President Andy Bowdoin, accused of operating a cross-border Ponzi scheme, was indicted. He later pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
Bush left the White House in January 2009, after Barack Obama was elected President. By August 2010, according to the FTC, “medical discount” hucksters were trading on Obama’s image.
MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun later was charged with racketeering. Assets were seized. A conviction followed.
In 2013, with Obama now in his second term, he was depicted in a promo as a pitchman for a scheme known as Ultimate Power Profits. That “program” had promoters in common with Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described in 2012 as a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered hundreds of millions of dollars.
Against this backdrop, a YouTube video that appeared online today positioned Obama as a pitchman for MyAdvertisingPays, a Ponzi-board scheme like ASD, MPB Today, Ultimate Power Profits, Zeek and many others.
News about the 0:33 MAPS’ video titled “My Advertising Pays, Obama” first appeared on the RealScam.com antiscam forum.
It turns out that a hackneyed expression currently in play within MyAdvertisingPays (MAPS) is a lightly remixed version of one used in the collapsed Zeek Rewards and Achieve Community schemes.
Will this thrice-vomited bromide become a kiss of death for MAPS?
On Twitter, a promoter of the emerging MAPS scheme is prospecting for recruits with a similar line. “If you want something you’ve never had, then you’ve got to do something you’ve never done!”
The PP Blog reported on March 9 that the name of MAPS appears in a TelexFree-related class-action lawsuit originally filed in federal court in New York and later transferred to Massachusetts. Even though MAPS isn’t named a defendant, it is clear that both private lawyers and government lawyers are aware of MAPS.
With an alleged haul of more than $1.8 billion, TelexFree likely is the largest MLM HYIP fraud of all time. Zeek, the previous title-holder in terms of its alleged haul, probably now is second. Both schemes may have created hundreds of thousands of victims.
Zeek’s receiver currently is involved in an international paper chase to round up assets for victims. Some of the money allegedly was routed to the Cook Islands (South Pacific) through a California company and then used to buy property in the Turks and Caicos (North Atlantic).
MAPS, which appears to have a paper presence on the Caribbean island of Anguilla but likely operates from the United States, recently claimed to have “110676+ Users.” Given its business model and the presence of serial promoters of fraud schemes in its membership ranks, MAPS very well could be a litigation target-in-the-making.
Regardless, many MLM HYIP Ponzi promoters will pretend that the membership should not be concerned — as they did with Zeek and Achieve Community.
EDITOR’S NOTE:Part 1 of this two-part PP Blog series covered allegations against an alleged New York City-based TelexFree promoter . . .
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2ND UPDATE 9:42 A.M. EDT U.S.A. Though not charged as a defendant, the emerging “MyAdvertisingPays” (MAPS) scheme is referenced in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed against multiple TelexFree figures and financial vendors in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in December 2014.
Because both New York’s Southern District and Eastern District are key centers of prosecutions against U.S. financial fraudsters, the proposed TelexFree class-action — now transferred to Massachusetts federal court — leads to questions about whether other “programs” such as MAPS could become the subjects of prosecutions.
Those odds might increase because Staten Island-based Daniil Shoyfer, alleged by the TelexFree plaintiffs “to have been the largest single Promoter in the greater New York area,” also is promoting MAPs, according to a YouTube site in his name.
Beyond that, Shaun Smith, alleged by the receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi- and pyramid case to be one of the largest Zeek “winners” in the United Kingdom, also is promoting MAPs. Receiver Kenneth D. Bell is suing Smith and other alleged U.K. Zeek promoters for return of the funds, alleging they are Ponzi proceeds that came from Zeek victims.
Bell has expressed concern about MLMers or network marketers moving from one fraud scheme to another.
The TelexFree-related class action describes MAPS as a “120% ROI advertising-based Ponzi scheme.”
MyAdvertisingPays (MAPS) is referenced in this TelexFree-related class-action complaint. Red highlight by PP Blog.
Using the familiar advertising credit + Ponzi scheme business model, MyAdvertisingPays simpl[y] shuffle new affiliate money around to pay off existing investors.
The business model of MAPS is similar to the $119 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. MAPS purports to operate from George Hill, Anguilla, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean.
In the proposed TelexFree class action, the reference to MAPS appears in a section that alleges various TelexFree financial vendors enabled the fraud. Some of the vendors are alleged to have engaged in racketeering activity.
On its website, MAPS claims it does not accept PayPal because PayPal “has a bad habit of freezing or limiting members accounts for little or no reason at all.” Instead, it encourages prospects to use SolidTrustPay, a vendor used by both the Zeek and ASD schemes.
MAPS also says it uses something called “VX Gateway,” which purports to operate out of Panama.
As “Achieve Community” promoter Kristen Jennifer shows her back office in the “Unison Wealth” program, ads for other “programs” appear, including some “programs” on well-known Ponzi-scheme forums.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In litigation related to Zeek Rewards, a Ponzi-board “program,” court-appointed receiver Kenneth D. Bell has raised a concern that network-marketers may be proceeding from one fraud scheme to another. Bell has asked a federal judge to take “judicial notice” of certain YouTube videos.
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UPDATED 10:07 P.M. ET U.S.A. “Unison Wealth” is a “program” on MoneyMakerGroup from which a promoter claims “Turn $35 One-Time Into $1545.” It’s also on TalkGold. Both MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold are forums listed in U.S. federal court files as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.
One such reference to the forums is in the context of Nicholas Smirnow, the operator of the Pathway To Prosperity HYIP fraud who was arrested in Canada this month after being charged by the United States in 2010 and spending time in the Philippines.
Pathway To Prosperity allegedly plucked people from 120 countries for $72 million. An affidavit by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in the Smirnow case specifically references MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold. The affidavit has been available online for more than four years and is published by the office of Stephen R. Wigginton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois.
A “program’s” presence on the Ponzi boards is a crimson-red flag that a scam is occurring. Thousands of promoters of Zeek Rewards, a Ponzi-board “program” alleged to gave gathered on the order of $897 million, now face litigation aimed at clawing back their “winnings” from Zeek. At least one payment vendor for Zeek claims it was rendered insolvent through its business relationship with North Carolina-based Zeek.
On another Ponzi-board front, promoters and vendors of TelexFree — an alleged $1.2 billion fraud — also are facing Zeek-like litigation nightmares.
Like Pathway To Prosperity, Zeek and TelexFree, “Achieve Community” also has a Ponzi-board presence. This potentially sets the stage for new HYIP litigation nightmares from law-enforcement, receivers mandated by court order to round up fraud proceeds and class-action lawyers. And because some Achieve Community promoters are simultaneously promoting other Ponzi-board “programs,” any litigation that emerges could be amplified across multiple courts. Achieve, for example, appears to be operating in Michigan and Colorado.
In theory, an Achieve promoter living in, say, Florida (or any other state) could be compelled by court order to appear in a federal court in another state to produce documents, sales materials, promos and business records.
Back-Office Tour By Achieve Promoter Is Revealing
Promoting Achieve is bad enough. But some Achieve promoters now are pitching other Ponzi-board “programs.” One YouTube promo dated Dec. 20 for Unison Wealth by an Achieve promoter takes prospects inside the Unison Wealth back office.
Remarkably — and without comment from Achieve/Unison promoter Kristen Jennifer — the promo shows one ad after another for HYIP schemes loading in the Unison back office. (The ads load as Kristen pitches Unison.)
The first of these is “MyTrafficValue.” As Kristen tries to sell viewers on Unison, a banner ad for MyTrafficValue claims “invest to earn 110% within 4 days or daily payments until 125%.”
Who placed the ad is unknown, but the mere presence of the ad shows that Unison is driving traffic to a Ponzi-board “program” with a 141-page thread at MoneyMakerGroup.
Lo and behold, an ad for Cycles 24/7 also appears in the Unison back office of Achieve promoter Kristen. (BehindMLM.com has a report dated today on Cycles 24/7.)
What obviously is occurring is that one scam is giving synergy to another. It hardly ends with Cycles 24/7.
Indeed, even as Achieve promoter Kristen is narrating her ad for Unison, ads for other Ponzi-board “programs” load on the screen. Ads for each of these “programs” (and others) appear:
BitcoinCycler.
TrinityLines.
OneTenMethod. (URL appears to be OwnMatrix.com, with “OWN” an acronym for Online Wealth Network.)
HeavenPaid. (“THIS DONT [sic] SUCK” is among the claims.)
MyAdvertisingPays.
ClickAdPays.
Super 2×7 Matrix.
EveryoneCycles.
During the same 13:18 YouTube promo by Achieve member Kristen for Unison, ads for other “programs” appear on the screen. (In some cases, these may include descriptors, rather than the actual “program” name.) This lineup includes Auto Mass Traffic, Dollar Funnel, $20 Quality AdPack, AdBoardMarketing, Private Cycler, Seven Save In Gold & Silver from $25 (edited Jan. 5, 2015), NetPennyStocks.com (” . . . Makes You Earn 101,970.75 And Get Paid Weekly”).
A couple of ads for what appear to be “leads” program also appear. Some other names that appear in the ad are too fuzzy to be recognizable.
Regulators have been warning for years about scams spreading on social media.
In the Unison Wealth video, Kristen says, “I’m gonna keep you posted on this, but I have to be mindful of YouTube because YouTube doesn’t really like me posting result videos for some reason.”
There are other instances, including the eAdGear case in which the SEC contacted YouTube owner Google for information. The eAdGear case speaks to the issue of a scam trying to sanitize itself by touting supposed links to legitimate companies. Achieve promoters are doing the same thing when they assert Achieve couldn’t possibly be a scam because certain well-known financial vendors do business with it.
Think of Enron, a colossal fraud. That famous financial firms did business with it was immaterial to the issue that Enron itself was a huge scam.
Kristen also ventures there may be certain tax advantages when one joins Unison Wealth. Veteran MLM huckster Phil Piccolo of TextCashNetwork, DataNetworkAffiliates and OWOW — disasters one and all — is infamous for making such claims.
Is there any doubt that network marketers are falling off one cliff after another and, in one “program” after another, putting on blindfolds? These scams are gathering billions of dollars.
Friends, Kristen very well could be one of the nicest, most sincere people you’d ever want to meet. But she is grossly misinformed about Achieve and Unison Wealth.
The Zeek and TelexFree litigation alone offers compelling examples of decidedly unpleasant things that can happen when HYIP “programs” crater or attract regulatory scrutiny. For promoters to ignore these cases is to ignore peril.
Achieve promoters currently are explaining away criticism as the tool of “haters.” Zeek and TelexFree promoters did the same thing.
“Bring The Bacon Home,” a Ponzi-board “program” popularized in part by Achieve Community hucksters, reportedly has crumbled.
