9th UPDATE 9:01 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Indianapolis-based USHBB Inc. and three of its principals — James A. Moore, Robert Mecham and Oscar H. Brown — have been sued by the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case.
Receiver Kenneth D. Bell alleges USHBB, a producer of videos, also did work for the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme “and one or more other failed MLM operations.”
Though not referenced specifically in the complaint, one of those operations was “NarcThatCar,” a bizarre pyramid scheme that collapsed in 2010.
Not only did USHBB and its principals mine $676,848 from Zeek for producing videos and marketing materials that duped vast numbers of Zeek participants, Moore, Mecham and Brown piled up hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit profits as Zeek affiliates, Bell charged.
Brown, better known as O.H. Brown, used “ushbb” as his Zeek affiliate name and amassed $168,642.70, Bell alleged.
Moore scored $109,130.64 under multiple usernames, including “geniweb” and “ttm,” Bell alleged.
Mecham piled up “at least $868,542.17 through his shell companies Five Star Marketing, LLC and The End Media, LLC, under multiple usernames, including ‘napier2’ and ‘theend,’” Bell alleged.
Moore resides in Indianapolis, according to the complaint. Mecham is a resident of Bountiful, Utah, and Brown lives in Mount Pleasant, S.C.
Mecham and Brown received transfers of $25,000 each from a Zeek “insider” in August 2012, the same month Zeek collapsed, according to the complaint.
Brown, according to the complaint, potentially knew that the SEC was looking at Zeek in June 2012 and dashed off a panicked email to Zeek executive Dawn Wright-Olivares.
What appears to have happened, according to the complaint, was that a technology company with which USHBB did business was contacted by the SEC, prompting Brown to tell Olivares:
“Heads up!!!! Our IT partners, RMR development received a telephone call from the SEC today regarding yougetpaidtoadvertise and what organizations were associated. This was a very short call I am told. Not sure what will come of this but this is an alarm at least that the government is looking. We need to get squeaky clean and quick!”
Olivares, charged civilly by the SEC and criminally by federal prosecutors in the Western District of North Carolina in 2013, allegedly shared inside information with USHBB and Brown.
From the receiver’s complaint (italics added):
Further, the Defendants were involved in the Zeek scheme’s operation and the Insiders’ decisionmaking. For example, in August 2011, ZeekRewards adjusted some of the terminology it used publicly in an attempt to disguise the “Compounder” as a legitimate retail profit sharing mechanism. The Compounder’s name was changed to the “Retail Profit Pool,” but the substance of this investment vehicle did not change. USHBB was or should have been fully aware of this deceitfulness in which it participated.
In a June 24, 2011 email, Dawn Wright-Olivares wrote to O.H. Brown regarding a webinar that USHBB had created for Zeek: “I started to do minor edits . . . ([Y]ou’ll see them where I started to say Retail Profit Pool) lol instead of Compounder . . . . ” She further wrote to Brown: “the silent cap [for bid expiration] reality will be 125% but we can’t SAY it as you know.”
Wright-Olivares pleaded guilty to investment-fraud conspiracy and tax-fraud conspiracy in February 2014.
Consistent with USHBB’s “dubious track record” in ASD and other schemes, the company and its principals “assisted the ZeekRewards scheme by creating multiple videos that served as promotional tools for ZeekRewards,” Bell alleged.
Titles included:
“One Penny Billionaire.”
“You Get Paid to Advertise.”
“Got 20 Seconds.”
“The Dog Gone Truth.”
“Spin the Wheel.”
“The videos were carefully produced to mislead and deceive victims into participating in the scheme, convincing victims that with minimal effort they could earn significant financial returns from the Zeek scheme,” Bell alleged.
And, he alleged, “These videos assisted the Insiders in promoting the alleged ease with which affiliates could earn passive profits by investing in the scheme and selling membership in the scheme to others. Affiliates were told to mention the ZeekRewards program to a prospective affiliate or advertise it on a web page, and then email or otherwise provide them a link to the USHBB videos, which upon information and belief convinced other unwary victims to sign on . . .
“The videos were a key component in proliferating the RVG Ponzi scheme, causing significantly more victims and financial loss than otherwise would have occurred absent Defendants’ actions.”
RVG stands for Rex Venture Group, the alleged operator of Zeek. It was controlled by Paul R. Burks of Lexington, N.C. Burks also has been charged criminally.
ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. NarcThatCar was a “program” that purported to pay MLM “program” members to recruit other members and to record the license-plate numbers of vehicles parked at restaurant chains, big-box retailers, universities, doctors’ offices and throughout neighborhoods from coast to coast.
The information purportedly would be entered into a database that could assist the U.S. Department of Homeland Security locate terrorists and lenders repossess automobiles. The bizarre scheme disappeared after it caught the attention of the Better Business Bureau and investigative journalists.
Bell is seeking treble damages and the return of ill-gotten gains from the USHBB defendants.
From a letter by Sen. Al Franken to Uber. Franken, a Democrat, is a member of the powerful Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He also is chairman of the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.
We’ll begin by pointing out that Uber, the popular ride-sharing company and darling of venture capitalists, is not an MLM firm. But it sure is acting like one, even briefly vomiting one of MLM’s most familiar and reflexive responses to critics: HatersGonnaHate.
Can MLM enterprises and MLMers in general learn from Uber’s bizarre missteps?
You see, both Uber and MLM have a common problem: a certain internal recklessness coupled with a tin ear for PR, one that serves up one spectacular gaffe after another. Uber’s latest self-inflicted wound now has the attention of Sen. Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat. Franken wants to know why “Uber’s Senior Vice-President of Business Emil Michael recently made statements suggesting that Uber might mine private information to target a journalist who had criticized the company.”
A senior executive at Uber suggested that the company should consider hiring a team of opposition researchers to dig up dirt on its critics in the media — and specifically to spread details of the personal life of a female journalist who has criticized the company.
Put another way: make the lady sweat that some skeleton might surface and lead to her demise should she dare continue to write pieces Uber found unflattering.
One Uber executive, BuzzFeed reported, planted the seed that Uber could prove “a particular and very specific claim about her personal life.”
The journalist is Sarah Lacy, the editor-in-chief at PandoDaily and a Mom. Here we’ll mention that, in addition to the Uber thuggishness, she’s also had to deal with the sidebar contention that Pando just might be funded by the CIA.
As a journalist who has been accused by MLMers of being on the CIA payroll and told by MLMers that my supposed secrets dealing with my supposed homosexuality and supposed porn addiction will be outed even as “sovereign citizens” threaten me with $500,000 fines for alleged trademark infringement, it will come as no surprise to PP Blog readers that I’m more than a little sympathetic to reporters who encounter thugs.
This sympathy extends whether the thugs are in the Ivory Tower or operating from the sewers.
The BuzzFeed Uber revelation set off a media firestorm now in its fourth day, putting Uber’s name in the papers for all the wrong reasons. Now, at least one reporter has come forward to claim that Uber tracked her without her permission as she rode in a Uber car. The device Uber uses to perform this tracking is known as “God View.”
In September, venture capitalist Peter Sims wrote that he’d been tracked by Uber without his permission. Sims says he was in a Uber car in New York City and that Uberites in Chicago were monitoring his movements. What this means, in essence, is that Uber was using him as a stage prop without his knowledge and consent from halfway across the country while also invading his privacy.
This reminds me of two crackpot MLM schemes making the rounds in 2010. These “programs” were known as NarcThatCar and Data Network Affiliates. Both schemes bizarrely reimagined mass invasions of privacy as exciting new products — and then wrapped pyramid schemes around their creations for good measure.
The schemes worked approximately like this: Armies of MLMers would hit neighborhoods across the land and write down the license-plate numbers of cars parked on streets and the addresses at which they were parked. They’d also hit the parking lots of grocery stores, big-box retailers, restaurant chains, pharmacies, doctors’ offices, bookstores, libraries, theaters, video-rental companies and universities.
All of this information would be entered in a database, purportedly to assist the AMBER Alert system of locating abducted children. AMBER Alert purportedly would get the data for free, but clientele purportedly including banks and companies in the business of repossessing cars during the height of the recession would pay for it.
MLM recruits were told to try not to attract too much attention while writing down all these plate numbers. They also were falsely told they were helping the U.S. Department of Homeland Security track terrorists.
Yes. MLM went in the spy business, using the pretext that it was one’s patriotic duty to monitor license plates and that enormous profits would flow from neighbors keeping track of automobiles in their neighborhoods. As the story was told, the database could tell the police what cars were parked at a fixed address at the time a child was snatched. This information then could be compared to the next sighting of the tag as entered in the database from a different fixed address, thus purportedly providing clues as to where the kidnapped child was being held.
If anyone had the temerity to raise a stink or even make a polite inquiry about why a stranger was recording their plate number in a parking lot, the recorders were trained to respond that no one had anything to fear if they hadn’t done anything wrong.
Both Narc and DNA were filled with such Orwellian outrageousness (and were such obvious pyramid schemes) that reporters began to hound both “programs.” The Better Business Bureau was subjected to bizarre attacks from the MLM sphere for raising questions about the “programs,” and some MLMers got the idea that the reporters, rather than the companies pulling off obvious scams, should be investigated.
Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels couldn’t have imagined greater allies than the MLM Stepfordians.
By 2012, MLMer and Zeek Rewards Ponzi-scheme figure Robert Craddock got the bright idea of putting himself in the opposition-research business — the opposition being reporters who wrote anything bad about Zeek. One of his targets was Zeek critic K. Chang, who briefly lost control over his HubPages site because Craddock had filed a complaint alleging copyright infringement, trademark infringement and libel.
K. Chang eventually prevailed, but not without experiencing downtime while the Zeek scheme was still gathering cash. The SEC eventually shut down Zeek, alleging that it was operating a fraud that had gathered $850 million.
Still sensing there was money to be made in the MLM cottage business of harassing reporters or soliciting dirt on them, Craddock eventually established a website known as “InternetClowns” that purportedly would serve all MLM firms. The supposed “clowns” included the PP Blog and BehindMLM.com, two sites that report on MLM frauds.
At the beginning of this column I noted that perhaps MLM could learn something from the experience of Uber in the subject area of tracking reporters and soliciting dirt on them. It strikes me now that maybe it should be the other way around: that Uber could learn from MLM.
One of the things Uber could learn is not to do anything MLMish if it wants to maintain its standing as a venture-capital darling.
By MLMish, we mean something crazy and outlandish such as tracking reporters, bringing in opposition-research teams to menace them and telling a group of people in the Second City that you’re using your “God Machine” to spy on a venture capitalist in the Big Apple.
And perhaps Uber also might want to avoid the most recent practice associated with “defenders” of outrageous MLM “programs” and HYIP schemes.
This would be the practice of trying to smear critics by using online forums to plant false stories about critics’ ties to Islamic terrorist groups and otherwise attacking human beings based on their Muslim faith.
Uber can read all about that one on RealScam.com, a site that concerns itself with international mass-marketing fraud. RealScam.com currently is being hectored by a person known as “Happy Customer” who is making outrageous claims against critics, filing bogus reports at RipoffReport and trying to keyword stuff the forum with words such as “Islamic Forum” and “haven for Islamic Terrorists !”
Happy Customer’s mind appears to be telling him (used presumptively) that, if only he can use the words “Islamic” and “Muslim” enough times — while mixing in words such as “terrorist” and “terrorism” — the eavesdropping and text-reading National Security Agency might just buzz by and turn off RealScam’s server.
Study the strange MLM circus, Uber. What you’ll learn should be more than enough to help make most unwanted headlines go away.
You’ll see a reference to Randal Williams in this August 2011 PP Blog story about a scheme known as “Fast Profits Daily,” a cycler matrix pitched in part from the Ponzi boards. Fast Profits Daily had promoter ties to Jeff Long’s AutoXTen cycler matrix. Two of the infamous claims surrounding AutoXTen was that $10 could fetch $200,000 very quickly and that the “program” was suited for churches.
Long was fresh from the NarcThatCar and DataNetworkAffiliates MLM scams when AutoXTen was gaining a head of steam. (Memory Lane: DNA misspelled the name of its own departing CEO while at once claiming domain registration in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven.)
There is plenty of offshore intrigue in the developing stories about eAdGear/GoFunPlaces/Williams/JubiMax matters, too.
As for Fast Profits Daily? Well, it claimed that “ALL Purchases are FINAL and NO REFUNDS or CHARGEBACKS are allowed. Any attempts to acquire a refund or chargeback constitute theft and fraud, and are grounds for legal prosecution.”
Pardon us while we vomit as we remember recent MLM history and the interconnectivity of schemes and report on some new history in the making . . .
MLMers rushed to Profitable Sunrise, too. This they did both before and after after the August 2012 Ponzi complaint by the SEC against the Zeek Rewards “program.” And they did it after the attorney general of North Carolina issued a warning on “reload scams.”
The PP Blog yesterday sought comment from the Zeek Rewards receivership on the actions involving eAdGear, GoFunPlaces, Williams and JubiMax.
And it’s also because McGuireWoods, the law firm for the Zeek receivership, also is representing eAdGear and GoFunPlaces in their lawsuit against Williams and JubiMax and 100 “Does.” (It is not the Charlotte-based Zeek receivership suing Williams, JubiMax and the Does, it is Los Angeles-based attorneys from the same national law firm hired by the Zeek receiver.)
Whether Kenneth D. Bell, the receiver in the Zeek case, was aware of the McGuireWoods-managed lawsuits against Williams and JubiMax is unclear. The receivership did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment.
Also unclear is whether the lawsuits could pose any conflict for the receivership.
In the eAdGear/GoFunPlaces lawsuit against Williams/JubiMax, the firms raise the name of T. LeMont Silver in the body of the complaint.
Silver is a former Zeek pitchman who participated in a conference call with Zeek figure Robert Craddock to condemn the SEC and the receiver for their actions in the Zeek Ponzi case.
Meanwhile, former Zeek pitchman Gregory Baker also participated in conference calls with Craddock. After Zeek, Baker became a pitchman for GoFunPlaces.
UPDATED 4:20 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Unsolved mysteries remain in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme case. Among the unanswered questions are these:
How many members did Zeek have in common with AdSurfDaily, a predecessor 1-percent-a-day scam to the Zeek scheme?
Why do some Zeek “defenders” appear to be engaged in bizarre bids to harass and menace Zeek critics?
Why did Zeek list certain ASD members or story figures as employees on its website — and why does some of the employee information published on Zeek’s website in June appear to be at odds with employee information contained in court filings by Zeek last week?
How much connectivity did Zeek have with scams such as NarcThatCar, AdViewGlobal, OneX and JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid, a “program” that may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement?
On June 7, the PP Blog reported that a Zeek Rewards MLM “program” website was listing the names of 16 Zeek “employees,” including the name of Terralynn Hoy, a mainstay in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme story. Also included was the name of OH Brown, an executive at a company (USHBB Inc.) that produced ads for the NarcThatCar pyramid scheme. This information is reflected in screen shots Nos. 1 and 2. Notes by the PP Blog also are included.
Hoy participated in at least one conference call for Zeek, as did Brown. Zeek’s 1-percent-a-day-plus business model was very similar to the business model of ASD, which the U.S. Secret Service described in 2008 as a massive online Ponzi scheme that had gathered tens of millions of dollars. Zeek launched after the collapse of ASD and had members and/or figures in common with ASD and AdViewGlobal, a collapsed 1-percent-a-day “program” federal prosecutors linked in April 2012 to ASD.
Among Silver’s OneX claims was that OneX positions being given away were worth $5,000. Bowdoin declared OneX an excellent “program” for college students.
Even though Zeek claimed Silver, Hoy, Catherine Parker, Brown, Trudy Gilmond and Marie Young Cain as “employees” in June, they are not referenced as “EMPLOYEES, OTHER PERSONNEL, ATTORNEYS, ACCOUNTANTS & OTHER AGENTS/CONTRACTORS” in a Sept. 17 court filing by Rex Venture Group LLC/Zeek operator Paul R. Burks.
Also absent from Burks’ Sept. 17 list of Rex/Zeek employees/contractors is Robert Craddock, who identified himself in July as a Rex “consultant.” In July, prior to the SEC’s Ponzi allegations against Zeek, Craddock sought to disable the Hub of Zeek critic “K. Chang” by filing a complaint for purported copyright/trademark infringement and libel with HubPages.com. Craddock was successful briefly, but HubPages eventually restored the “K. Chang” Hub. Craddock later became involved in a purported effort to raise funds to “protect” Zeek affiliates from the SEC and/or the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Ponzi case.
Gilmond once pitched Regenesis2x2, a “program” that became the subject of a U.S. Secret Service investigation in 2009. The Secret Service also is investigating Zeek. The SEC described Zeek last month as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme.
Precisely how and when Rex/Zeek hired or replaced/dismissed employees is unclear. The names of a number of individuals listed by Zeek as employees in June do not appear on the list Burks filed in court last week.
NarcThatCar effectively collapsed in 2010, after coming under scrutiny by the Better Business Bureau and investigative reporters. Narc operated from Texas — and yet did part of its banking in North Carolina at one of the banks used by Zeek. Both Narc and Zeek used USHBB Inc. to produce ads for their respective “programs.” Both Narc and Zeek scored “F” grades with the BBB — and when the BBB published negative information about the respective “programs,” some affiliates of the respective “programs” claimed the BBB was a fraud.
Zeek ‘Defender’ Stalks PP Blog, Starts Disinformation Site After HubPages Restores ‘K. Chang’ Site Targeted By Craddock
The PP Blog is reporting today that, after the SEC described Zeek as a $600 million fraud and after HubPages restored the “K. Chang” Hub critical of Zeek and targeted by Craddock, a purported Zeek “defender” used the Internet repeatedly to send harassing communications to the PP Blog. Dated Aug. 28, one such communication was an announcement that the PP Blog and “K. Chang” had been targeted in a retaliation campaign for their respective reporting on Zeek.
3.
4.
The Blog’s stalker created more than a dozen bogus usernames and email addresses to send harassing (and bizarre) communications to the PP Blog.
Here is one from Aug. 31 (italics added):
Watch out for the Romney lover namely KSChang!!!! He was saw holding hands with Mitt, caressing the presidential candidate, while surfing PatrickP’s amazing, smart, funny, and romantic blog.
Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee for President of the United States.
For reasons that remain known only to the PP Blog’s cyberstalker, the individual also sent a one-word harassing communication — “Pussy” — to the thread below this Aug. 29 PP Blog guest column by Gregg Evans. Separately, the cyberstalker sent a communication that planted the seed Evans would get sued for his Aug. 29 PP Blog column.
“Are you willing go toe to toe with a lawyer on your claims and back up this article?” the cyberstalker wrote.
On Aug. 31, the cyberstalker — who’d been banned under multiple identities — sent this harassing communication to the PP Blog:
“What happened to your face dude, looks like you got ran over by an ugly truck.”
Fox News 11 in Los Angeles visited YouTube to collect information for an investigative report on NarcThatCar, also known as Crowd Sourcing International.
A company that recruits members to record the license-plate numbers of cars for entry in a database now has drawn the attention of the attorney general of California, Fox News 11 in Los Angeles is reporting.
Although it previously was known that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott was working with the district attorney of Henderson County, Texas, in a Narc inquiry, Fox News 11 became the first outlet to report that California Attorney General Jerry Brown also is seeking information on the firm.
Narc That Car, which recently changed its name to Crowd Sourcing International, was the subject of an investigative report by Fox 5 in Atlanta last week. The Atlanta station interviewed Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker, who raised questions about the manner in which Narc purportedly was verifying license-plate data through the state’s Department of Driver Services. The station shared video with the Fox station in Los Angeles, which has video from its own investigation into Dallas-based Narc.
As part of its Narc report, Fox News 11 (Los Angeles) aired video from a YouTube sales promo by former Narc promoter Jeff Long, who jumped ship earlier this year and threw in his lot with Data Network Affiliates (DNA).
It is possible that DNA could become part of any government probe that evolves in California, Texas or Georgia because the firms are known to have promoters in common and because of claims made by promoters.
DNA, which uses a Cayman Islands address in its domain registration and a free gmail address from Google to conduct customer service, purportedly is a competitor of Narc. Long started out by pitching Narc, instructing prospects in a YouTube video to record plate numbers on their cell-phone cameras as they strolled through Walmart parking lots, according to his YouTube video.
But Long then switched to promoting DNA, according to the YouTube site.
“This video talks about NARC That Car… IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON MARKETING THIS BUSINESS ON THE INTERNET DO NOT JOIN!!!!! NarcThatCar CANCELED AND DISABLED My distributorship because I put this video on YouTube…I’m now the #1 leader and sponsor in their BIGGEST COMPETITOR’S BUSINESS…DataNetworkAffiliates. Again…don’t join NarcThatCar if you plan on marketing on the internet!!!!!! JOIN DNA WITH ME FOR 100% FREE!” a screaming message on the website says.
Long, who reportedly went on to become DNA’s largest affiliate, participated in a DNA conference call to tout Narc’s supposed competitor. DNA, which gained a reputation for authoring bizarre communications, suddenly then announced it had gotten into the cell-phone business and was offering an unlimited talk and text package for $10 a month.
Even Dean Blechman, DNA’s former CEO, described some of the communications authored by the company as “bizarre.” Blechman quit in February after only a few weeks on the job. DNA waited nearly a week to announce his departure, then butchered the announcement, Blechman said in an interview with the PP Blog.
DNA claimed on April 26 that it had been snookered into believing that it could offer an unlimited cell-phone usage plan for $10 a month and withdrew the offer. The withdrawal — and the ceaseless hype that has emerged from DNA — has led to questions about what, exactly, the company is offering and whether it was engaging in bait-and-switch tactics.
Questions also have been raised about the worth of both the Narc and DNA databases. Long, for example, said he gathered extra license-plate numbers and offered them for free to prospects so they could qualify for their initial multilevel marketing (MLM) payouts by entering data he supplied.
Other Narc promoters have used the same approach, which could lead to a polluted data stream. If a promoter in Florida supplied plate numbers to a prospect in Alaska, for example, it could lead to a result in which a car sighted in Florida was listed in Narc’s database as having been sighted in Alaska — or any state the prospect chose.
Such an approach could undermine Narc’s claim that it exists in part to assist law enforcement and the AMBER Alert program for missing children. Experts say corrupt or untimely data actually could hinder efforts to locate abducted children, and the Justice Department, which manages the AMBER Alert program, has denied it has any affiliation with Narc — despite promoters’ claims to the contrary.
Even if a Florida sponsor, for example, provided an accurate address at which a car was sighted, the mere fact an Alaska prospect was asked to input the data as though he or she actually had seen the car in Florida leads to troubling questions about whether Narc members were simply gaming the system to earn commissions.
And there may be other questions in any probes that emerge: Are police officers — off-duty and on-duty — helping Narc and DNA collect data? If the officers are collecting data on-duty, is it an appropriate use of their time? If they are collecting data off-duty, are they participating in a pyramid or Ponzi scheme?
Not a single Narc promoter interviewed by Fox 5 in Atlanta could identify a single data client of Narc. Narc itself says its clients identities are proprietary, but the Better Business Bureau, which gave Narc an “F” rating, has received thousands of inquiries on the company. The BBB also said it is concerned about Narc advertising claims.
Some promoters have claimed the firm was endorsed by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. Others have claimed it was endorsed by AMBER Alert. Narc removed a reference to AMBER Alert from a sales video after the Justice Department denied it had any affiliation with the firm.
Still other promoters have used craigslist to pitch Narc as though the company were a jobs-provider, rather than an MLM opportunity in which members are independent contractors reliant on their ability to recruit new members to make money. Some members even have started .org websites, as though joining Narc was the same as donating to a charity.
Reckless advertising claims have led to questions about whether both Narc and DNA had come into possession of money as a result lies told by promoters. The claims also have caused some MLM observers to wonder if the industry had reached a new low. Despite the uncertainty about both Narc and DNA, promoters are in the field recruiting members. DNA now says its has more than 125,000 members.
UPDATED 5:14 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The database being built by affiliates of Narc That Car (NTC) will not be used solely for the purpose of locating cars for seizure by the repo man, according to a recording of a March 11 conference call by the company.
The database, according to the recording, also is envisioned as a means of locating people, meaning it could be used to develop a data map that can plot the movement of citizens by tracking sightings of the license plates of their cars. The announcement of NTC’s plans may trigger even more concern about privacy and legal issues because citizens may not know their plate numbers are being recorded by a private business and entered in a database that tracks movement of cars.
NTC does not publish a list of data clients. The company says it is expanding internationally, which raises the possibility that overseas data clients could track the movement of U.S. citizens, as well as citizens of other countries. Meanwhile, NTC provides only threadbare details about its management team while collecting millions of dollars from participants.
Absent transparent controls, such a data tool conceivably could be used by spy agencies and secret clients, nationally and internationally, as a means of monitoring the behavioral patterns of individuals, including persons who hold sensitive jobs in government, science and industry, as well as the behavioral patterns of individuals such as politicians, candidates for offices, judges and their family members — and people of all stripes, regardless of occupation.
NTC does not describe how it screens data clients, and also has announced a new name change — the third name the company will use this year alone.
“What we want to become is the biggest company in the world for locating one individual item,” a speaker on the call said. It is believed the speaker was CEO William Forester.
“That could be a car, boat, person, child — anything you could possibly imagine,” the speaker said. “That’s what we’re building this database for.”
No Paid Clients From Law Enforcement
The speaker confirmed that NTC has no paying clients from law enforcement, saying the company would provide data to police agencies “for free” as a “service to the community.”
“We’re not charging local law enforcement; law enforcement — any law enforcement — is not a customer of ours,” the speaker said. The confirmation that NTC had no paid law-enforcement clients leads to questions about the company’s ability to attract clients outside of law enforcement in sufficient quantity to mute concerns about how it pays affiliates and whether the firm was using a pyramid or Ponzi model to pay participants who harvest license-plate data.
The confirmation also destroyed claims from individual NTC affiliates that the company had an existing stable of law enforcement clients such as the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the military — and was part of the federally operated AMBER Alert program.
Such claims appeared in promoters’ ads for weeks, leading to questions about whether NTC had come into possession of money based on false, misleading or confusing claims by its army of promoters — and whether NTC’s own vague claims led to the dubious claims of its affiliates.
The speaker said NTC had “over 34,000” members, was expanding “very, very rapidly” and had paid out “over several million dollars” in bonuses and commissions. He added that the company was integrated with Code Amber.
Code Amber is an entity that publishes AMBER Alerts and makes available a website ticker for others to publicize alerts, but is not the AMBER Alert program itself. The AMBER Alert program is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, both of which said last month that they are not affiliated with NTC, despite the claims of promoters.
An Ohio man who promotes NTC on a Blog known as Cash For Car Plates announced the name change on his Blog last week.
“Narc Technologies/Narc That Car is now Crowd Sourcing International,” wrote Ajamu Kafele.
No announcement of a name change appears on NTC’s website.
But an NTC audio (the source of the quotes above) is accessible from a website titled CrowdSourcingWealth.com operated by Kafele, who uses the nickname “Jah” to promote the company. The audio, which Kafele described as an excerpt of remarks by the “CEO,” suggests the name change is official and that NTC will begin to use the initials CSI.
Indeed, a speaker says in the call, “We’re gonna change our name to Crowd Sourcing International — that’s right, for short, CSI.”
The CrowdSourcingWealth.com domain was registered in Kafele’s name March 12, one day after the NTC conference call. A similar domain name that references NTC — CrowdSourcingPower.com — was registered in California Jan. 27. Like Kafele’s domain, the CrowdSourcingPower domain appears to be an NTC affiliate site that is a work-in-progress.
NTC appears to have arrived at the conclusion that tying the company’s brand to the catch phrase crowdsourcing — which describes a method of accomplishing a task using large numbers of people and is controversial as an economic and scientific approach because it may drive down wages and lead to flawed and uneven results — would resonate with NTC members.
“The main goal of NarcThatCar is to us (sic) the Power of CrowdSourcing to develop the largest database of it’s (sic) kind,” the CrowdSourcingPower.com site says. “Working together with Amber Alert and other organizations we can help to locate the known vehicles that may be involved in the abduction of children.”
“CSI” is an acronym used by law enforcement that stands for “Crime Scene Investigation.” It also is the title of a crime drama on the CBS television network. If the name change is official, Crowd Sourcing International will become the third name NTC and its corporate parent have operated under this year.
The use of the CSI name as an acronym also could set the stage for NTC affiliates again to leech off the brands of famous entities by tying NTC to companies or entities that have no affiliation with the firm.
NTC affiliates have demonstrated a desire to link the program to the names or the intellectual property of famous entities, including government entities. At least one NTC affiliate registered a domain titled AmberAlertHelp. org, using it as an affiliate site for NTC. Another affiliate used a takeoff of the ToysRUs brand to promote NTC.
Kafele has recorded check-waving videos to promote NTC and has said repping for the firm was like working for the U.S. Census Bureau.
The announcement about the name change, Kafele said, was based on a “company wide” announcement NTC made during a March 11 conference call. Why the announcement does not appear on the NTC website was not immediately clear.
Company VP To Explain Vision
Meanwhile, NTC has identified Rene Couch as its vice president of marketing. No biographical
Narc That Car says VP Rene Couch will share his vision for the company.
information on Couch was provided on NTC’s website, which said Couch will “share his vision” of the company at a meeting March 23 in Oklahoma City. The audio accessible from Kafele’s website includes comments from a male speaker who used the name Rene.
A man by the same name with the middle initial of “L” was charged civilly by the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) with selling unregistered securities and misappropriating investors’ funds in a complex case involving real-estate promissory notes.
It is unclear if NTC’s Rene Couch is the Rene L. Couch referenced in the ACC complaint.
A call to NTC by the PP Blog was answered by an auto-attendant. A message said the office was closed. There was not an option for a caller to leave a message. The Blog verified there was no option to leave a message by placing a second call to the number. As was the case with the first call, the auto-attendant simply hung up.
In 2005, after a finding that Rene L. Couch and entities he controlled had made “untrue statements or misleading omissions of material facts, and or . . . [engaged] in transactions, practices or courses of business which operate or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon investors,” ACC issued an order to cease and desist from unlawful conduct.
Rene L. Couch and the entities further were ordered to disgorge “$549,085 plus interest at the rate of 10% per annum” to investors. In filings in the case, Rene L. Couch was described as the owner of a “personal nutritional supplement business known as Infinity 2.” Rene L. Couch consented to the order, according to case filings.
Rene L. Couch was accused in the Arizona case of using investor funds in the real-estate venture for “various undisclosed purposes” and diverting investor funds to the Infinity 2 supplement business. Infinity 2 was described in documents external to the case as a multilevel-marketing company.
The filings in the ACC case are public records.
Other Arizona public records show that Rene L. Couch was a party in a Family Court dispute in Maricopa County over back child support and unreimbursed medical expenses between April 1, 2006 and May 31, 2009. Records published on an Arizona court site show that one of the parties was ordered to pay $65,895 in back support, plus an additional $8,472 in unreimbursed expenses.
Repayment terms in the support case were set at $550 a month, according to records. The party ordered to pay the back support was not clear from court filings, and the case still appears to be in litigation. The PP Blog was unable to contact NTC to clarify whether the Rene Couch referenced as its vice president was the Rene L. Couch referenced in the Arizona documents.
In February, NBC-5 of Dallas/Fort Worth reported it repeatedly was unable to reach NTC by telephone to answer questions for a story.
“Repeatedly, NBCDFW worked through a phone tree, only to reach a recording that said, ‘Sorry, this mailbox is full and cannot accept any more recordings. Thank you for using the voice mail system. Goodbye,” the station reported of its efforts to navigate NTC’s phone tree.
NBC-5 further reported that it sent a reporter to the company’s office, and was met by a man who identified himself as the operations manager.
“He said company phones are busy because Narc Technologies has more than 20,000 participants,” the station reported. “He declined to answer any other questions and said the company’s CEO would call us back, but we have received no return calls.”
Timing Of Name-Change Announcement
The timing of the name-change announcement coincides with a negative rating NTC received from the Better Business Bureau. The BBB branch in Dallas gave Narc That Car a rating of “F” on March 4. The “F” rating is the BBB’s lowest on a 14-point scale that begins with “A+” as the highest possible score. The announcement of the name change occurred March 11, a week after the BBB issued the company an “F.”
Three versions of domains using the phrase CrowdSourcingInternational — a .com version, a .net version and a .org version — were registered behind a proxy Feb. 4. All three domains resolve to a parked page that shows advertisements.
It was not immediately clear if the domains are connected to NarcThatCar. If they are, the domains were registered 17 days after the BBB opened an inquiry into Narc That Car amid pyramid concerns. On the previous day — Feb. 3 — the district attorney of Henderson County, Texas, also opened an inquiry. In a statement last month, the district attorney said he was consulting with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in the case.
Less than a month earlier, on Jan. 12, a corporation named National Automotive Record Centre Inc. filed papers to incorporate in Nevada. Kafele produced a YouTube video March 1 that showed affiliate payments from National Automotive Record Centre Inc. for NTC earnings.
An earlier video by Kafele showed a payment coming from Narc Technologies Inc., another company associated with the NTC brand. Both videos were made private on YouTube after the PP Blog reported that Kafele claimed in the video that working for NTC was like working for the U.S. Census Bureau, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
NTC is not a government entity. Its affiliates are deemed “independent consultants” by the company. Regardless, advertisements by NTC promoters have implied or stated directly that NTC was associated with the government, including the federally operated AMBER Alert program and even the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Kafele was toiling with NTC critics on Scam.com a day after the name-change announcement. Among other things, he asserted that “Whip,” a poster on the PP Blog, and PP were one in the same.
The claim is false, but follows a general pattern of claims about the PP Blog, which frequently becomes the target of fanciful theories and criticism from supporters of companies the Blog is writing about.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that Kafele had engaged in the unauthorized practice of law in a banking and mortgage-foreclosure case involving a third party, and assessed him a $1,000 civil penalty. Kafele and others have made sweeping statements that license-plate numbers are “public information” available for the taking to be entered by affiliates in the NTC database.
“This is how simple this business is, folks,†he said in the video, as a camera panned around the Giant Eagle parking lot and captured one car after another in video frames.
“I’m not even going to talk to anybody,†he said. He noted that “I’m just going to jot down some public information of the license plates. That’s the way this works.â€
At Scam.com, Kafele also suggested that the PP Blog “lied about our company not being affiliated with Code Amber, in an attempt to discredit us.”
That claim, too, is untrue. The PP Blog never asserted NTC had no relationship with Code Amber. The Blog reported that the U.S. Department of Justice denied that the federally managed AMBER Alert program, which NTC referenced in a promotional video, had any affiliation with NTC.
NTC removed the AMBER Alert reference from the video after the Justice Department’s denial.
Kafele also has defended NTC by attacking the credibility of the BBB and dismissing critics as “naysayers” and “haters.”
The PP Blog reads Scam.com, but does not post there — under any identity. The Blog even has been called a scam on Scam.com by a poster who was banned from the Blog for abusing its Comments function and, later, sending dozens of communications under multiple identities that were designed to harass the Blog and probe its software systems for vulnerabilities.
The poster, who was banned from Scam.com for posting under multiple identities, later threatened to sue the PP Blog.
Can’t get enough of Narc That Car promoter “Jah’s” check-waving videos on YouTube? Need a “Jah” fix to ensure NTC actually pays its members?
It looks as though you’ll now have to get your fix in private. Jah’s check-waving videos have been removed from YouTube’s public site.
“Jah” explains why in a new YouTube video, dated March 4.
“Here’s the situation,” the video says. “Our company has a public advertising policy that does not allow us to openly advertise income specifics.”
The video does not explain whether “Jah” was asked by NTC to remove the videos from public viewing or whether he arrived at his own decision to do so.
It appears as though three CashForCarPlates videos by “Jah” that waved checks or focused on money in other ways have been made private-only.
One of the videos was placed on YouTube March 1, just three days ago. While public, it showed two checks issued by National Automotive Record Centre Inc.. The checks were drawn on NewBridge Bank to demonstrate that Narc That Car pays.
“We’re [going] to show you some real, solid video proof of the money that’s being made here and where you can go with this business,†the video said. “This is awesome.â€
Whether Narc That Car pays has not been an issue, however. The issues have centered on how the company pays, whether it is operating a pyramid or Ponzi business model and the propriety, safety and legality of Narc That Car.
The two checks in the video were for $45 and $452.10. Both appeared to have been drawn Feb. 23.
In the video, the $45 check was used as proof of payment — and the check for $452.10 is used as proof of the type of payments that could come later for Narc That Car members.
“This may be one of our last . . . videos, because this is the real deal,†the video said. “We can’t go any further. We’re not going to be out here flashing, you know, five-figure checks.â€
The video also claimed that recording license-plate numbers for NTC was like working for the “Census Bureau.”
UPDATED 9:47 A.M. ET (U.S.A.) Coincidence? Part of the new partnership the FTC announced yesterday with Craigslist that urges consumers to be on the lookout for scams when responding to job and business opportunity ads online?
Messages urging caution are appearing in Craigslist ads for NarcThatCar, the Dallas-based company that says it is building a database for companies that repossess automobiles and is using a multilevel-marketing program to attract thousands of members.
Warnings were observed at the top of NarcThatCar ads on Craigslist in several cities this morning. The warnings appear at the top of the pages of individual postings and are highlighted in yellow, with a red lead-in:
“Avoid scams and fraud by dealing locally!” the lead-in warns. A “More info” link appears after a general warning about money scams, and the link resolves to a page that includes information on how to contact the FTC.
Screen shot: This Craigslist ad for NarcThatCar in Baton Rouge was one of several that included a warning message that linked to information on how to contact the FTC.
An Atlanta Craigslist ad for NarcThatCar with a headline of “Start Your Own Business! – $125 (Worldwide!)” includes the warning message. The ad calls NarcThatCar an ‘investment.”
“Make over $5000.00 a month with a $125.00 investment! Go to jnelson.narcthatcar.com!” the ad reads.
A NarcThatCar ad on Craigslist in Houston also includes the warning, which appears above a headline that reads, “Earn Extra Cash!… Collecting Data! (www.extracash4plates.narcthatcar.com).”
Meanwhile, a Craigslist ad for NarcThatCar in Oklahoma City also includes the warning. Its headline is “Data Entry/Networking.”
The warning also appears above a NarcThatCar ad in New York’s Craigslist, above a headline that reads “Make money by reporting license plate numbers” and a sales pitch that begins, “What would you do if you could get paid over $2 for every license plate number you write down?”
What once was an ad for Narc That Car on Craigslist in Austin, Texas, does not include the warning. Rather, the ad includes this message, “This posting has been flagged for removal.”
Elsewhere, a NarcThatCar Craigslist ad in Baton Rouge includes the warning, above a headline that reads, “The Simplist Homebase Marketing Job on the Planet! (Baton Rouge).”
The body copy of the ad says (in part), “Learn how to turn information into income NARC (National Automobile Recovery Company) ThatCar.com
“No Selling, No Products or Inventory
“100% Return on Investment as fast as 24 to 48 hours.
“Job Duty: Enter 10 random license plates per month to help create a National real time database that is used by: Police Department(criminal involvement), FBI(Amber Alert), Military(Terriorist), Banks, Car Rentals, Car Dealerships (RePo), and Major Business for marketing purposes.”
Jah of the CashForCarPlates team shows postmark on YouTube of check received from NarcThatCar as proof the company pays. The video also displays a check in the amount of $70.
UPDATED 2:30 P.M. EDT (March 5, U.S.A.) NarcThatCar promoter Ajamu Kafele announced that his downline team has launched a website to refute claims that the Dallas-based multilevel-marketing (MLM) program is a scam.
The announcement was made last night, during a Valentine’s Day conference call hosted by Kafele, who uses the nickname “Jah” and is an independent affiliate of Narc That Car.
The domain name chosen to refute claims that Narc That Car is a scam actually states the company is a scam:
NarcThatCarIsAScam.info (Emphasis added.)
Kafele, who operates a website and Blog known as Cash For Car Plates to promote Narc That Car, recorded the conference call, which is posted online. Kafele did not say in the conference call whether he and his 132-member downline group had obtained permission from NarcThatCar to use its name in a branded domain title that states the company is a scam and then attempts to refute the assertion by posting contrary information on the NarcThatCarIsAScam.info website.
His hope, he said during the call, was that by suggesting NarcThatCar was a scam, the website could be used to prove the opposite.
One of the participants in the call was a man who said he was “eighty and a half” and was working to introduce other senior citizens to Narc That Car. Kafele said during the call that there was “no substance” to critics’ concerns that Narc That Car is structured like a Ponzi or a pyramid scheme.
Kafele dissed critics who have raised privacy concerns about Narc That Car. After paying a $100 up-front fee and spending an additional $24.95 a month, Narc That Car “independent consultants” are encouraged to write down the license-plate numbers of cars and enter them in a database.
Narc That Car promoters have identified the parking lots of major retail chains, libraries, schools and universities as sources of license-plate numbers. Some promoters have encouraged their downline members to carry notebooks and pens in retailers’ parking lots and the parking lots of educational facilities. Others have encouraged participants to take photos of license plates or record them on video cameras, perhaps hundreds at a time.
“Some of these guys are just mad because they think there is a privacy issue, ” Kafele said, arguing that automated technology exists that is used to collect license-plate data.
Some critics have questioned whether NarcThat Car promoters are selling an actual product or simply an income opportunity.
“For lack of a better word, the product is the gathering of the data,” Kafele said during the call, which mostly featured Kafele’s remarks. He suggested that Narc That Car had an “apparent client” that “already is backing up” the company, but did not name the client.
Two third-party audio snippets recorded previously by other Narc That Car promoters were played back during the call as evidence that “due diligence” had been conducted on the company, which is the subject of inquiries by the BBB in Dallas and the district attorney of Henderson County, Texas.
The BBB has asked Narc That Car to explain advertising claims and the company’s compensation plan.
The audio snippets played back during Kafele’s conference call claimed Narc That Car was “very well-funded” and the product of the imagination of a “child prodigy.” A specific source of the funding was not disclosed.
“They have a proven model,” Kafele said during the call.
An application for “Narc That Car” as a “Service Mark” is on file in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to the government’s TESS computer system. Information in the government database says the mark was applied for in July 2009.
Narc That Car is engaged in “Business services in the nature of collateral locator services, namely, tracking and management of lien related collaterals on behalf of lien holders” and also performs “Security services, namely, collateral locator services in the nature of theft recovery,” according to TESS.
Gerald P. Nehra, an MLM attorney, assisted Narc That Car in registering the brand, according to the TESS database.
Among the headlines on NarcThatCarIsAScam.info:
Narc That Car Opportunity: Distinguishing Fact From Fiction
Are The Naysayers Against Narc That Car Really Credible?
What Is The Truth About Narc That Car and the Texas Atty General
“Who Dat†Saying Narc That Car Is A Scam?
Video: Data Network Affiliates vs. Narc That Car Compensation Plans
Narc That Car Payment Proof Video
Kafele’s Cash For Car Plates Blog repeatedly uses the word “scam” in the context of Narc That Car.
At the moment, the word “scam” in the context of Narc That Car appears on the front page of the Cash For Car plates Blog 13 times, including the current feature story. The current feature story uses the word “scam” in a headline — “Is Narc That Car Really A Scam? — and in the first paragraph of the feature post.
“Scam” also is used in other posts and labels on the Cash For Bar plates Blog, which is hosted by Blogspot.com, Google’s free hosting site for its Blogger platform. Among the labels on the Blog are “narc that car scam,” “make money from home scam” and “home business scam.”
Internet marketers who promote MLMs and other money-making opportunities often use the word “scam” — deliberately associating the word “scam” with companies they are recommending — on the theory it drives traffic to their websites when prospects perform online searches.
Some companies take a dim view of such practices by promoters, believing they can damage brands and confuse the public.
Listen to the conference call in which Kafele announces the NarcThatCarIsAScam.info website and defines the site as a “counterintelligence” effort.
Two days ago, we wrote about FindThatCar.org, a website with a red banner at the top that appeals to visitors to “Help us,” as though it were promoting a charity such as the Red Cross.
FindThatCar.org actually is promoting Narc That Car, a Dallas-based multilevel-marketing (MLM) company that is building a database to sell information to companies in the business of repossessing automobiles. Both Narc That Car and its promoters reference the AMBER Alert program in their sales pitches.
Today we turn your attention to AmberAlertHelp.org. It, too, is selling Narc That Car. Here’s the AmberAlertHelp.org pitch on the site’s main page (italics added):
Welcome to Amber Alert Help
Our goal is to build awareness about an opportunity for you, your friends, and your family to get paid for helping build the Amber Alert system database simply by submitting 6 random license plate numbers per month online. It is so easy, and you can get started now.
Here is the pitch on a secondary AmberAlertHelp.org page (italics added):
We Joined Narc That Car and feel wonderful about having the ability to:
Help find and save missing children
Help build the very valuable Amber Alert system database
Make extra money easily
AmberAlertHelp.org also has an AmberAlertHelp.com version of the domain. Both sites were registered Jan. 20, two days after the BBB in Dallas asked Narc That Car to explain its business practices. The inquiry is still open, according to the BBB website.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which coordinates the AMBER Alert program, said Wednesday that Narc That Car is in “no way affiliated” with the program. On Thursday, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), which manages the Amber Alert Secondary Distribution Program for the Justice Department and 120 Amber Alert coordinators throughout the United States, said Narc That Car “is not a part” of the secondary program.
Nine-year old Amber Hagerman was abducted 14 years ago while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas. She was brutally murdered. The AMBER Alert program — America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response — is her legacy.
AMBER Alert is about keeping children safe. It is not about keeping the world safe for multilevel-marketing profits. AMBER Alert’s name should be accorded the same dignity accorded Amber Hagerman’s name, which is to say neither name ever should be made part of a pitch fest.
That AMBER Alert’s name is being mentioned in sales pitches for Narc That Car is beyond the pale. AMBER Alert is about life-altering emergencies. It is not about MLM recruiting and pocketing commissions up to five levels deep.
Good grief. Narc That Car promoters are using .org extensions — the same extensions used by the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and NCMEC for their noble purposes — to promote a business that is building a database for the repo man — and they are implying it is a public service.
Today we call on Narc That Car to remove references to AMBER Alert from its marketing materials, including videos. We further call on Narc That Car promoters to do the same.
Not only are some Narc That Car promoters repeatedly referencing AMBER Alert, they also are referencing government agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security as though the agencies have endorsed the Narc That Car program.
One Narc That Car promoter claims the purpose of the program is “To help The US Dep’t of Homeland Security find terrorists.†Another claims, “We are backed by the better business bureau, the F.B.I., and the Amber Alert system . . . †Yet another claims, “A company out of Dallas needs to grow a data base of license plates to use for Amber Alerts and other reasons.”
Elsewhere, a website that uses a name similar to the famous ToysRUs trade name, references AMBER Alert and tells viewers that big money is possible through Narc That Car.
“I went to Walmart,†a video narrator intones at the PlatesRUs.biz website. “It took me every bit of five minutes to write down 10 tag numbers randomly, go in my back office and log it into the national database through the company, and actually earn a check.â€
Using a domain name similar to the famous ToysRUs brand name, a domain that has branded itself PlatesRUs.biz is promoting the Narc That Car multilevel-marketing program by telling prospects that earning $50 is a simple as going down to the local Walmart parking lot and writing down 10 license-plate numbers of WalMart shoppers.
The PlatesRUs video pitch is similar to a pitch apparently put out by a separate Narc That Car downline group known as Team Trinity International. The Team Trinity promo included the logos of 30 famous companies, identifying their parking lots as places NarcThatCar members should visit to harvest plate numbers and record them in a database through a website NarcThatCar provides for a $100 start-up fee and a monthly fee of $24.95.
A narrator in the PlatesRUs video for Narc That Car tells a simple story:
“I went to Walmart,” he said. “It took me every bit of five minutes to write down 10 tag numbers randomly, go in my back office and log it into the national database through the company, and actually earn a check.”
By paying Narc That Car the $100 fee, promoters become a “registered information consultant,” the PlatesRUs promoter explained in the video, noting he was “very excited” to have become one. The pitchman added that the program was “tremendously exciting” and “growing like wildfire.”
No mention was made in the video of any privacy or legal concerns. Like the Team Trinity video, the PlatesRUs video did not instruct members on matters such as whether Narc That Car participants would need permission to enter retailers’ private property for the purposes of harvesting license-plate data from the retailers’ patrons.
Viewers were given no instruction on what to do if a Walmart shopper — or a shopper at any other prominent business — observed his or her plate number being recorded and objected, perhaps demanding the paper on which the number was recorded so it could be shown to the store manager or even the police. The implication in both videos was that recording license-plate numbers raised no privacy issues at all and was a perfectly acceptable practice — even on private property.
Like the Team Trinity video and a video put out by Narc That Car, the PlatesRUs video referenced the AMBER Alert program. The U.S. Department of Justice said this week that Narc That Car was not affiliated with AMBER Alert, despite promoters’ repeated claims that Narc That Car was tied to the AMBER Alert system.
Some Narc That Car promoters have said the FBI and companies such as the Ford Motor Co. endorsed the Narc That Car program.
The PatrickPretty.com Blog contacted Ford and provided a reference to the claim, which purports that Ford and two other prominent car companies “have already given their commitment to NARC. They have signed on as clients and will be there to use the database when it is ready. These companies believe in this idea.”
Ford did not immediately respond to the inquiry.
Among the claims online about Narc That Car are that it is helping “The US Dep’t of Homeland Security find terrorists†and that “NARC has integrated with Amber Alert to support and assist them in locating missing and/or abducted children.”
9th UPDATE 9:01 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Indianapolis-based USHBB Inc. and three of its principals — James A. Moore, Robert Mecham and Oscar H. Brown — have been sued by the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case.
