(2ND UPDATE 3:26 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) Rod Cook, who publishes the “MLM Watchdog” and was threatened with a $40 million lawsuit by the AdSurfDaily Ponzi racketeers in 2008, is reporting that veteran swindler Phil Piccolo is back on the prowl.
This time, Cook reports, it’s with a cobra-venom product sold at MyNyloxin.com. The product is positioned as a pain reliever, and Piccolo is calling himself “Felice Angelo.”
Piccolo is known as “the one-man Internet crime wave.” If there’s a Piccolo signature, it’s his ability largely (though not exclusively) to remain in the shadows while engineering scams within scams or within dubious “opportunities” in which an affiliate’s success chances are exceptionally low going in. Piccolo appears to be particularly keen on “programs” ostensibly in the health-maintenance and electronic-technology fields. The “programs” may remain in “prelaunch” phase virtually indefinitely while gathering cash and gaining a head of steam.
“[P]hil is selling his stock to individuals and giving it away as incentives under the table illegally and running $500 co-ops scamming people out of their money,” Cook reports about Piccolo’s MyNyloxin activities.
Based on the PP Blog’s research, Piccolo also is known to engage in anonymous shilling and to leave thousands of orphaned affiliate links of his onetime recruits all over the web as a means of corralling the earnings of people duped into placing the links before they fled the programs because they weren’t getting paid.
PP Blog reader Tony H. noted on March 4 that a “Piccolo Felix Angelo” was listed as a “winner” in the $850 million Zeek Rewards Ponzi-scheme and was being sued by the court-appointed receiver.
As the PP Blog previously has reported, Piccolo has a history of threatening websites that report on his scams. Part of his MO features appeals to religious faith. These incongruously have been mixed with suggestions he can summon leg-breakers if the need arises.
Piccolo claims to hail from New York. He is known to operate in the region of Boca Raton, Fla., and to participate in scams that try to create the illusion of scale — perhaps by using Photoshop to make the scamming firm’s name appear on a large building, for example.
Another part of Piccolo’s MO includes suggestions that “opportunities” he pitches soon will “go public” or already are part of public companies. In the TextCashNetwork scheme, for instance, the Piccolo group suggested that TCN was part of Johnson & Johnson, the famous pharmaceutical company.
Meanwhile, Piccolo scams may feature claims that people who send in large sums of money will receive a preposterous return, a marker that the “programs” are vulnerable to charges they are selling unregistered securities as investment contracts. If a Piccolo-associated scheme loses its payment conduits, recruits have been encouraged to wire money via Western Union.
Piccolo scams also have featured claims that celebrities such as billionaire Donald Trump and entertainment icon Oprah Winfrey were on the ships he helped steer. Such was the case with a scam known as Data Network Affiliates — DNA, for short.
DNA claimed to be in the business of assisting the Amber Alert system of rescuing abducted children. It later claimed to be in the cellphone, offshore “resorts” and mortgage-assistance businesses. DNA was targeted at churches, with prospects told they had the moral obligation to enroll the faithful.
Piccolo also was associated with a business known as “One World One Website” (OWOW) that suggested a bottled-water product could cure cancer and had been vetted by the National Institutes of Health.
Over the years, Piccolo has pushed products such as a purported license-plate “spray” positioned as a means of helping motorists escape traffic tickets at camera-monitored intersections. Perhaps most notoriously, Piccolo has pitched a purported “magnetic” product that purportedly could help medical patients escape limb-amputation procedures while at once helping gardeners/farmers produce tomatoes at twice their normal size. The scam also included a claim that the “magnetic” product could help dairy herds increase milk production.
Perhaps most infamously, the Piccolo group in the DNA scam traded on the name of Adam Walsh, a child who’d been abducted and murdered. Piccolo employs anything that “works,” even the memory of a slain 6-year-old.
Piccolo scams typically also feature the presence of MLM huckster Joe Reid. The scams also may include suggestions that affiliates should enroll as a means of qualifying for tax write-offs. In a typical Piccolo scam, an increase in Alexa rankings is positioned as asserted proof of an MLM “program’s” legitimacy. The Piccolo scams also typically feature a link to Google’s translation tool, potentially as a means of picking off nonspeakers of English.
In 2010, the PP Blog was accused by an apparent Piccolo apologist of being a shill for Israel and spreading “Islamophobia.” This claim was made after the Blog reported that the FBI had stopped a plot to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore.
Also see this Jan. 16, 2014, comment by PP Blog reader and RealScam.com moderator Glim Dropper. The comment appears below an Aug. 30, 2013, PP Blog story titled, “Zeekers Targeted In New Scheme With Ties To Piccolo Organization.”
BULLETIN: Zeek Rewards members are being targeted in a new scheme with ties to the Phil Piccolo organization and are being solicited for sums ranging from $600 to $60,000 “in return for ” . . . “guaranteed 50 percent interest” from a purported “unique and legal loan system” over an unspecified time period, the PP Blog has learned.
The offering, which hints of some sort of falling out with Zeek’s management, has been styled on YouTube as “The Diamond Club by TRUE CASH.” The emerging “program” was the subject of an email pitch yesterday that appears to have been targeted by an unknown party at former Zeek “Diamond” affiliates, potentially including some of Zeek’s largest “winners” who have exposure to clawback lawsuits filed by the court-appointed receiver and who previously have been solicited to make contributions to a purported defense fund for Zeek affiliates. Zeek “losers” also could be targets.
Previous schemes linked to Piccolo include the uber-bizarre Data Network Affiliates (DNA) “program” and One World One Website (OWOW), an equally bizarre money grab. (Use the PP Blog’s search function for information on those “programs.”)
In August 2012, the SEC described Zeek as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme. In April 2013, the SEC took down a purported “loan” program known as Profitable Sunrise that may have gathered tens of millions of dollars through an alleged offering fraud. How the “The Diamond Club by TRUE CASH” offering intends to collect money is unclear, although a website to which pitchmen are directing traffic includes the logo of SolidTrustPay, one of the offshore processors used by Zeek.
Certain members of a Zeek-related email chain received the purported “Diamond Club” pitch yesterday. Hinting of bad blood, the pitch appeared below this headline, “Zeek Management Belongs in Prison – On 8/27/2013 I earned over $500,000 – I will pay your way in from $600 to $3000.”
How the $500,000 purportedly was earned was not explained. Also unclear was the identity of the sender. Among the claims in the pitch is this one (italics added):
IF YOU LOST $10,000 IN ZEEK OR RECRUITED 10 PEOPLE IN ZEEK I WILL PUT UP $3,000.00 FOR YOU
The principal part of the pitch claims this: “I just made $500,000.00[.] I will put up the $600 minimum for you – You pay me back ‘ONLY OUT OF COMMISSIONS’. If you are already in one of TCN 12 opportunities and want to be on my “DIAMOND CLUB” Team then you need to re-sign up. If you are resigning up you will need a new e-mail address. Get a free g-mail account from Google.”
From the lower-right corner of the True Cash Network website. Source: Aug. 30 screen shot.
In the same email, the pitch points recipients to a YouTube video and a website URL of ThePowerTeam.TrueCashNetwork.Com. “TrueCashNetwork” is using the same acronym used by TextCashNetwork (TCN), an earlier scheme linked to Piccolo and Joe Reid, a longtime huckster associated with Piccolo. On the TrueCashNetwork website, an emblem labeled SiteLock SECURE appears, along with the word “Passed.” The emblem incongruously includes the name of “TEXTCASHNETWORK.COM,” even though it appears on the TrueCashNetwork domain. The TrueCashNetwork domain appears to have been registered behind a proxy on June 28, 2013.
Reid, according to the TrueCashNetwork website, is the new TCN’s “Master Referral Agent” or “MRA.”
Precisely what happened with the original TCN, a purported daily deals site that purportedly used text-messaging, never has been clear. The emerging TCN, however, appears to have access to the original’s database and appears already to have used it to create affiliate links for “old” TCN members — this despite the fact TextCashNetwork is listed in Wyoming as a “dissolved” entity and its members may not have given permission to be ported to the “new” TCN.
These links shown in Google search results are showing the name of “textcashnetwork” in the URL. But all of them rotate to True Cash Network.
The “new” TCN purports to be operating as “True Cash Network, Inc.” Disputes, according to its website, will be handled under Wyoming law, but there appears to be no corresponding registration for True Cash Network in the state. Meanwhile, the “new” TCN is using the same Boca Raton (Fla.) business address as the “old” TCN. The old TCN once curiously purported that a member’s agreement with it “may not be transferred or assigned without prior written consent of REX Venture Group.”
Rex was the operator of Zeek Rewards and one of the defendants in the SEC’s Ponzi case.
True Cash Network — like TextCashNetwork before it — appears to be positioning itself as an MLM company that pushes affiliate products, including a “Medical Savings Plan,” X8 Energy Gum, Parcman Male Enhancer and more.
While TCN was operating as TextCashNetwork, the Piccolo organization appears to have tried to dupe people into believing the company was owned by Johnson & Johnson, a component of both Dow Jones and the S&P 500 and an internationally famous maker of pharmaceuticals and consumer products that are household names.
Our assertion: Were he alive today and desperately needed cash, famed daredevil Karl Wallenda would find Zeek’s tightropes too dangerous to walk.
Purported MLM “expert” sent to woodshed: Zeek “consultant” and former SEC defendant Keith Laggos reportedly gets the Zeek boot after using phrases associated with the investment trade and after suggesting that gambling regulations could be used to derail the Zeek train in the near future.
Train wrecks and pom-poms: To his credit, MLMHelpDesk Blogger Troy Dooly reports the Laggos news and dubs an incendiary audio recording featuring Laggos into a Dooly-produced video. But known for his ability to find something “positive” in an MLM train wreck, Dooly goes on to suggest Laggos used Zeek-banned words because he was distracted and wasn’t concentrating. Dooly later declares that an examination into Zeek’s business practices by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper is “exciting” news.
Only in Stepfordian MLM: Zeek cheerleading video with Dooly presented as centerpiece and Laggos presented as key answer man remains online, even after Zeek cans Laggos and Dooly questions the ethics of Laggos while at once making excuses for him.
Cluelessness: No guidance from Zeek on whether affiliates should avoid using the video when introducing Zeek.
More cluelessness: No guidance from Zeek on whether affiliates should continue to use marketing props published by Laggos’ Network Marketing Business Journal, a previous subject of gushing from Dooly.
Plan B: Laggos heralds Lyoness.
Stepfordian MLM vomit: Lyoness trades on name of former South Africa President Nelson Mandela, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Why lots of people are fed up with Stepfordian MLM: As Lyoness uses an image of Mandela in a marketing campaign, AdSurfDaily’s Andy Bowdoin awaits sentencing in case in which ASD was accused of trading on the name of then-U.S. President George W. Bush to sanitize $110 million Ponzi scheme.
Whatever “works” is OK in Stepfordian MLM: As nascent penny-auction site and upstart Zeek competitor known as Bids That Give prepped for launch and positioned itself as a company that would aid charities for children, early promos traded on the name of the White House and Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Oddities: Narc That Car/Data Network Affiliates/Phil Piccolo/Text Cash Network.
More . . .
** ______________________________ **
EDITOR’S NOTE: While performing a high-wire stunt in Puerto Rico in 1978, legendary daredevil Karl Wallenda fell to his death. He was 73, a risk-taker to the end.
UPDATED 11:39 P.M. EDT (AUG. 14, U.S.A.)
This is one of those “only in Stepfordian MLM” stories, a story that features not one, but two tightropes over a treacherously windy gorge Karl Wallenda would judge too dangerous to walk even if the daredevil business were in a sustained slump and he desperately needed cash. These are the tightropes over the Zeekler/Zeek Rewards Gorge, a man-made gulch in Lexington, N.C., potentially MLM’s next Quincy, Fla.
Quincy was the home of AdSurfDaily, a company that did an almost inconceivable amount of damage to MLM’s already-suffering reputation — first by creating an obvious, five-alarm Ponzi scheme and trying to disguise it as a “revenue-sharing” program and, later, by trying to “save” itself by comparing the U.S. Secret Service to “Satan” and the 9/11 terrorists.
Like the ASD story (and far too many MLM tales), the Zeek story is one that mixes the incongruous with the bizarre and only reinforces negative stereotypes about multilevel marketing.
Keith Laggos, a figurative tightrope-walker and purported MLM expert who once opined that AdSurfDaily’s 1-percent-a-day “program” was not a Ponzi scheme and later became a consultant whose image appeared repeatedly in a cheerleading video for the Zeek Rewards 1-percent-a-day-plus “program” after ASD was raided by the U.S. Secret Service in a Ponzi scheme case, is out, the company reportedly told Blogger Troy Dooly. (Link below.)
Laggos, though, appears not to have been fired for his ASD opinion. Indeed, Zeek may find comfort in that musing, which has been used by at least two ASD members (Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer) who accused the U.S. government of presenting a “tissue of lies” to a federal judge when bringing the ASD Ponzi forfeiture case. Both of those ASD members also emerged as Zeek promoters. Curiously, the claim that the government had presented a “tissue of lies” was made longafter ASD had lost the case in both U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals.
ASD and its apologists never were known for their impeccable timing. Neither was a 1-percent-a-day ASD knockoff known as AdViewGlobal (AVG), which incongruously announced a month after its February 2009 launch that its bank account had been “suspended” and that its CEO had resigned but would remain in the “accounting” department.
Two months later, AVG, which purported to operate from Uruguay while using U.S.-based Gmail to perform customer service, announced its banking problem had been solved by an offshore facilitator. AVG made this announcement on the same day the President of the United States announced a crackdown on offshore fraud. AVG was done weeks later. Before it exited the stage, it apparently thought it prudent to threaten to sue members who shared negative information and perhaps even have their Internet connections shut down.
Zeek is playing in this same bizarre field. Over the past couple of weeks, Dooly has ventured that Zeek might sue Randy Schroeder, an executive with the Mona Vie MLM company, for using words Zeek might find objectionable — “Ponzi” and “pyramid,” for example. And Dooly has suggested that a North Carolina credit union was risking a lawsuit from Zeek. Meanwhile, a Zeek critic known as “K. Chang” was informed by a purported Zeek “consultant” that Zeek might sue if its efforts to bring down “K. Chang’s’ site on HubPages.com failed.
Zeek now bizarrely claims that “all” criticism of Zeek has been unfair.
This claim was made just days after Zeek appears to have fired Laggos for casting his MLM line elsewhere while a Zeek “consultant” and while not sticking to the company line that Zeek does not constitute an investment opportunity. The other “program” is known as Lyoness, which Laggos has described as his “Plan B” and a “Plan B” for current Zeek members.
MLM ‘Mo’
To hear Laggos tell it on tape, the MLM business is the “momentum” business. One of the ways to maintain the momentum is to move certain banking operations offshore, say, to places such as Hong Kong. Laggos helped Zeek do that, according to Laggos. But Zeek might lose the mo and might not be far enough away to neutralize the regulators, he speculated.
No matter, Laggos ventured. There’s always another company with mo.
“Since last November, Zeekler has had the momentum,’ Laggos intoned in a recording now playing on Dooly’s Blog as part of a YouTube video and report on the sudden sacking of Laggos. “I believe they are going to lose the momentum shortly . . . The company now that’s gaining momentum — and I think it will be the momentum company over the next six months or a year — is Lyoness. And I’m suggesting that a lot of you guys consider Lyoness as your Plan B company now. Stay working with Zeekler. Keep promoting it. Don’t cross-sponsor it, but build a second income. Now, what’s nice about an ideal Plan B company is you would be able to work passively. Lyoness is that kind of company.”
In HYIP-speak, the word “passively” is code that tells participants that they won’t have to do much or anything at all to pile up cash (a/k/a “passive earnings”) by the boatload if they send in enough cash at the beginning of a scheme. Zeek is afraid of that word because it’s the type of word that can cause the SEC to come knocking. Lots of MLM scams that rely on willfully blind promoters to gain a head of steam use it in the early stages. When things get too hot, they try to take it off the table. The reason they try to take it off the table — sometimes by threatening affiliates — is it can lead to civil and criminal charges, seizures of bank accounts and investigations by multiple agencies.
Mixing the language of investments with references to Plan B didn’t do Zeek any favors, to be sure. Another thing that didn’t do Zeek any favors was Laggos’ reference to Zeek becoming the “momentum” company “last November.” In late September of 2011, the U.S. government released about $55 million in remissions payments to victims of the ASD Ponzi scheme.
This leads to questions such as these: How much of Zeek’s “momentum” was fueled by funds originally seized in the ASD Ponzi case and returned to victims in the form of remissions payments? How many ASD members turned around and plowed what effectively was their crime-victim compensation into Zeek, another 1-percent-a-day scheme? Why did Zeek promoters and former ASD members Disner and Schweitzer wait until November 2011 — the same month Laggos now says Zeek became the “momentum” company — to file their ASD-related lawsuit against the government and to present a federal judge an opinion from Laggos that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme?
“Plan B,” also known as “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” has a long and sordid history in HYIP Ponzi Land. AVG, for instance, was a de facto Plan B company set up after ASD, the Plan A company, got raided by the U.S. Secret Service on the Tuesday after the previous Friday’s seizure (Aug. 1, 2008) of ASD bank accounts. Lots of ASD members deluded themselves into believing that official company line that God was on ASD’s side. Some of ASD’s earliest post-seizure apologists told the troops that the seizure was a good thing because it would provide the government an opportunity to see how lawful and wholesome ASD truly was, that the government did not understand the business model and had made a monumental mistake.
The MLM vultures, though, had a slightly different take. In case the government didn’t see the ASD light, they speculated, ASD members could join other autosurfs, HYIPs and cash-gifting schemes. These Plan B schemes would enable ASD losses to be made up elsewhere. “Offshore” programs were positioned as the best.
Among the tips Laggos provided to listeners of the Lyoness conference call was this: “Don’t put no more than 70 percent back in [Zeek]. Take out 20 or 30 percent [on] a daily basis. [Unintelligible.] This would be a good place. But, by the same token, if you put $10,000 in Zeekler, if nothing happens over the next year, you’ll probably make $30,000 or $40,000, if that’s all you do without building the front end, the matrix . . . The same amount of money in Lyoness, you’re looking . . . and not doing anything else, without single sponsoring . . . you can probably make a quarter-million dollars.”
The threat to Zeek, according to Laggos, is the FTC and how U.S. gambling regulations could be applied to penny-auctions such as its Zeekler arm. His words on the tape suggest he is confident that Zeek has sufficient cover to ward off a Ponzi/securities investigation. But even as he’s suggesting Zeek has the securities angle covered, he’s using the language of investments.
We wonder: Can MLM really have sunk to these deplorable depths?
But it gets even worse.
Laggos then suggested Lyoness could be used as a hedge in case the FTC acted against Zeek.
“If I’m wrong about what’s gonna happen with the penny auctions — and if you look at my career, I haven’t been wrong often — then the worst-case scenario is we screwed up and we made two incomes . . . We’re making two great incomes with two great companies.”
Dooly, whom to date hasn’t found Zeek’s various claims altogether too much, now has decided that Laggos crossed the altogether-too-much line when he harrumphed for Lyoness and used certain words Zeek finds offensive.
While the featured speaker on the Lyoness call last month with Zeek members listening in, Laggos spoke about Zeek in “several” ways that were “way out of compliance,” Dooly ventured in his video report running on YouTube.
Laggos “talks about putting money into the game,” Dooly reports. “I mean, this is bad right here. You can’t put money in. OK? You either join the company and you’re buying memberships, you’re buying bids. But for Keith to be talking like this was an investment-type deal. This is just . . . and we all fall prey to this. But this is why you shouldn’t be doing public calls when you’re under fire and you’re not paying attention to what you say. And you can hear in Keith’s case — the phone [is] ringing, his assistant [is] coming in to talk to him, his mind is not in the game the way it should be. And that is just . . . it’s sad right now ’cause he’s no longer with [Zeek] . . .”
In short, according to Dooly, Laggos’ big sin was painting Zeek as an investment program in contravention of the Rules Of Zeek.
Not sticking to the script, however, is hardly an original sin within the Zeek sphere. In 2011, while speaking during a conference call to raise money for the Disner/Schweitzer ASD-related lawsuit against the government, Schweitzer, a one-time lawyer whose license was suspended in Connecticut, said he’d invested in ASD. Nevertheless, Disner and Schweitzer later presented a federal judge Laggos’ opinion that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme and that providing money to ASD did not constitute making an investment.
Nobel Peace Prize Used As MLM Stage Prop
Lyoness is an MLM company eager to let its participants and prospects know that it is building a school in the hometown of Nelson Mandela and that a Lyoness team recently was invited to the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize-winner’s home. It even publishes a picture to prove it and notes that a Mandela grandson is a Lyoness rep.
Back in the United States, meanwhile, former ASD President Andy Bowdoin will find out Aug. 29 how long he’ll spend in federal prison. Zeek’s business model and disclaimer language strongly resemble that of ASD, which the U.S. Secret Service described as a “criminal enterprise” that relied on linguistic sleight-of-hand to draft tens of thousands of people into an electronic Ponzi scheme. ASD traded on the name of then-U.S. President George W. Bush, in effect using the White House to sanitize a massive international fraud caper.
Welcome to the Highwire Wing of MLM.
While all of this is going on, a nascent penny-auction “program” and upstart Zeek competitor that claims it exists to elevate children out of poverty is getting ready to unleash itself on the consuming public.
That “program” is known as Bids That Give. One prelaunch promo claimed that a founding affiliate was an SEO expert once hired by a candidate for the U.S. Presidency. The first three minutes of the promo did not even reference Bids That Give. Instead, it dropped names linked to the White House, including the name of former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton and Doug Read, an adviser to two U.S. Presidents. For good measure, the promo dropped the name of NBC News anchor Lester Holt.
The most vomitous MLM “programs” are infamous for dropping names. It is typically the case that the individuals whose names are dropped have no affiliation whatsoever with the “program.” But name-dropping and brand leeching have proven to work time after time in MLM scheme after MLM scheme. (See screenshot.)
Did Mark Zuckerberg REALLY endorse JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid. According to this Blog, the answer is yes. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment from the PP Blog last year on claims that Zuckerberg had endorsed JSS/JPB, which purports to provide a return of 60 percent a month.
MLM And Wordplay
In 2009, ASD’s Bowdoin was sued by some members of his own company under the federal racketeteering (RICO) statute. Looking at it another way, the ASD members came to believe that ASD was a criminal enterprise with a plan to expand while coming up with new and better ways to steal.
Because veteran MLM huckster Bowdoin also was a veteran securities swindler who’d been charged at the state level with fraud in at least three Alabama counties before launching Florida-based ASD in 2006, federal prosecutors said, Bowdoin tried to avoid the use of the language of investments as a means of keeping the 1-percent-a-day ASD scheme under the radar.
The linguistic cover Bowdoin chose — a cover the Feds stripped bare — was that ASD was an “advertising” company with a “revenue sharing” program, not an investment company selling “securities.”
Bowdoin tried to create additional cover by saying payouts were not guaranteed, according to federal court filings.
Now, four years after the ASD raid, Zeek is using the same type of disclaimer language and members are getting the same sort of instructions on what words to avoid.
Federal investigators became wise to this type of linguistic charade long ago. The charade was outlined in the 2010 criminal indictment against Bowdoin. The indictment quoted Bowdoin himself laying out the linguistic plot to hide the true nature of the 1-percent-a-day ASD program and keep the government at bay (italics added):
“[L]et’s don’t (sic) use the words investment and returns. Instead, lets (sic) use ad sales and surfing commissions. The Attorney Generals in the U.S. don’t like for us to use these words in our program.”
Wordplay to mask an investment scheme also was referenced repeatedly in the forfeiture complaints against more than $80 million in ASD-related bank accounts (italics added):
“The [undercover agent] asked her about investing with ASD. She immediately said, ‘Don’t call it investing, you know what I mean, we can get in trouble if we say that, we have to be careful.” — Source: Federal forfeiture complaint, Aug. 5, 2008.
Only In MLM La-La Land
To be sure, the departure from Zeek of Laggos is a big story. But it’s not the biggest story. The biggest story is that the Paul Burks-led company already was walking a tightrope when it hired the tightrope-walking Laggos and now has cut his rope, casting him into the gorge without informing the membership at large and without pulling the tightrope-walking promotional material that references Laggos or was produced by his publishing company.
Some of that promo material features tightrope-walking Dooly, who’s now questioning the ethics of tightrope-walking Laggos.
How strange is the latest PR disaster to rock Zeekland? So strange it almost defies description.
As noted above, news of the Laggos departure was delivered by Zeek-friendly Blogger Dooly. And the news was delivered even as images of Dooly appeared online as a centerpiece in the same cheerleading video that features images of Laggos as centerpieces. The video largely consists of still photos taken at a Zeek “Red Carpet Day” event in Clemmons, N.C., on June 13. Incredibly, the video continues to appear online, despite the sudden and unexpected departure of Laggos last month.
On Aug. 4, Zeek used its Blog to accuse unspecified “North Carolina Credit Unions” of slander for expressing concerns to customers about Zeek. The post implied Zeek members who didn’t toe the company line would be penalized. Such members were “violators” of company policy, the firm said.
But Zeek has not addresed the Laggos issue on its Blog. Nor has it provided any guidance on whether members should stop using the Zeek cheerleading video that features both Laggos and Dooly, along with Zeek staffers, executives and members who showed up at the June 13 event in Clemmons. The Laggos-produced written materials also are out there, with no guidance from Zeek about whether members should continue to use them or to rely on them in any way.
Like ASD, Zeek plants the seed that participants will earn a return that corresponds to an annual return in the hundreds of percent but insists it is not offering an investment. The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said last week that it had asked Zeek to produce “documents” as part of an “examination” of its business practices. Dooly described that development as “exciting.”
Zeek is making MLM look ridiculous. Troy Dooly is making it look sillier yet. He should not be “covering” a company that is trading off his credibility as an MLM advocate to sell itself. Dooly now is questioning the ethics of Laggos even as Dooly permits Zeek to use his image in marketing promos that also feature images of Laggos.
Prior to opining that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme — only to be one-upped later by Bowdoin, who said that it was when entering a guilty plea to wire fraud in May 2012 — Laggos agreed to settle a 2004 case with the SEC that alleged he issued laudatory press releases and a laudatory article for a company that later become the subject of a securities investigation without disclosing he was being compensated for touting the purported opportunity.
Laggos neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations, which involved a company known as Converge Global Inc. and a subsidiary known as TeleWrx Inc. The future Zeek consultant settled the SEC case by disgorging nearly $12,000, paying interest of nearly $2,000, paying a civil fine of $19,500 and agreeing to a five-year penny-stock ban.
In April, Network Marketing Business Journal, which lists Laggos as its president, published a laudatory article on Zeek. Dooly memorialized the article’s publication by publishing a special Sunday story about it on Dooly’s MLMHelpDesk. He memorialized it further by producing a gushing video in which he described Laggos as “my good friend and mentor.”
“He is breaking a story here that I thought was amazing,” Dooly said of the NMBJ Zeek article, which gushed that Zeek has a 25 to 1 customer to rep ratio. The claim is important because, if true, it could take Ponzi and pyramid concerns out of play. Some Zeek critics doubt that it’s true.
In April, Dooly noted that NMBJ was one of his favorite publications and that he picked it up on that particular Sunday while relaxing near his pool over a cup of tea.
But now — less than four months after Dooly’s April 15 gushing story and video on NMBJ’s gushing story about Zeek and less than two months after images of both Dooly and Laggos appeared in the Zeek video in which Zeek gushed about itself — Laggos is out at Zeek.
“Breaking MLM News: Zeek Rewards Officially Parts Ways With Dr Keith Laggos After Recorded Call Goes Public,” Dooly advised readers in a headline.
The precise reasons for the departure of Laggos remain unclear. Also unclear is whether Laggos will retain a reported Zeek downline of about 4,500 members that he apparently was managing while at once being a paid Zeek consultant.
Produced by USHBB Inc., which once produced videos for the bizarre (and failed) Narc That Car license-plate recording scheme that claimed some affiliates were out-earning the President of the United States, the Zeek video heralding Laggos, Dooly and others shows Dooly mugging with Zeek executive Dawn Wright-Olivares and Laggos posing with Peter Mingils. The last names of both Laggos and Mingils are misspelled in the USHBB video.
Like Dooly, Mingils is a board member of the Association of Network Marketing Professionals. He’s also Zeek’s Training & Incentives Coordinator and is “rockin’ the Certified Trainers course curriculum,” according to Zeek.
Zeek, which at one time listed USHBB executive OH Brown as a Zeek employee, now says Brown is “banging out video after video.”
Some of the backstory surrounding the failed Narc That Car scheme is remarkably similar to the Zeek scheme. In addition to the presence of USHBB, Narc and Rex Venture LLC, Zeek’s purported parent company, both have scored the Better Business Bureau’s lowest rating: “F.”
Affiliates of both Narc and Zeek, meanwhile, have sought to turn attention away from the core issues surrounding both Narc and Zeek by suggesting that the BBB is a fraud.
But perhaps most compellingly, the now-failed Narc scheme once did at least part of its banking at NewBridge Bank, one of the banks that Zeek used before mysteriously announcing on Memorial Day that it was ending its relationship with NewBridge. Narc was based in Texas. How it ended up banking at NewBridge is unclear.
What is clear is that Narc was a pyramid scheme that planted the seed it existed to help the U.S. AMBER Alert system for locating abducted children and traded on imagery of the White House. Both the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children, which administers part of the AMBER Alert program, confirmed to the PP Blog more than two years ago that they had no affiliation with Narc.
A Narc Knockoff With Phil Piccolo As Background Player
Narc appears to have inspired a knockoff MLM scheme known as Data Network Affiliates, which was linked to longtime MLM huckster Phil Piccolo. In late 2011, DNA’s website — and the website of another a Piccolo-linked “program” known as OWOW — were used to drive traffic to an emerging MLM scheme known as TextCashNetwork (TCN).
In December 2011, the PP Blog reported that TCN had used the name of Rex Venture Group on its website in the context of a purported “ASSIGNMENT” clause. The Rex Venture reference later mysteriously went missing from the TCN site, a circumstance that could cause investigators to question Rex Venture about whether it was aware that its name appeared on the TCN site and whether it had any business relationship with TCN.
If this is modern MLM, MLM is in a lot of trouble. Karl Wallenda, who built a magical name in the daredevil business and made a career out of taking risks, wouldn’t do Zeek.
“WE NEED INTERNATIONAL SATELLITE PARTNERS: #1 must have minimum $25,000 deposit. #2 must have a good name in the country. #3 must be very honest and trustworthy. If you know of such a person in your country have them send a request to [deleted]@textcashnetwork.com.” — Feb. 13, 2012, Blog promo for Text Cash Network
From a TCN Blog promo on Feb. 13, 2012.
UPDATED 12:07 A.M. ET (FEB. 16, USA.)
Following a previous pattern of scams linked to MLM huckster Phil Piccolo, the purported Text Cash Network (TCN) text-advertising “opportunity” now is fishing for great sums of cash, according to affiliate Blog posts that appear not to even to question the offer.
The posts appear to be based on an email affiliates received from TCN , with affiliates simply copying and pasting the content on Blogs.
TCN, according to the posts, is seeking “INTERNATIONAL SATELLITE PARTNERS” willing to plunk down a “minimum $25,000 deposit.” The posts are tied to a purported TCN celebration for being in business for 100 days.
The promos also are hyping something called the “VIP Plus Advertising Package,” which purportedly will debut March 16 at a cost of “$499 + $60 Monthly x 11 Months with 100% of the additional funds going to the VIP Plus Agents.”
Some TCN affiliates are simultaneously encouraging recruits and prospects to send money to TCN via Western Union to buy in as TCN distributors at levels between $129 and $399. Such tactics have been associated with advance-fee scams and other forms of fraud.
“Western Union will allow you to put it on your credit card!” one TCN affiliate promo roars. “Call Western Union for details.”
In November 2010, a Piccolo-associated entity known as One World One Website (OWOW) solicited members to send in cash amid promises the contributions would earn “24% Annual Interest.” The offer led to questions about whether OWOW, which is listed as a defunct Wyoming corporation while it maintains websites that are unable to process payments, was selling unregistered securities as investment contracts.
“The 24% Annual Interest On Your Money … Did you know that many PROS are receiving 24% Annual Interest on their money. The deadline for 24% annual interest paid in monthly increments of 2% will end on 11/30/2010 . . . Any funds deposited thereafter will pay 18% annual interest in monthly increments of 1.5%,” the Nov. 18, 2010, OWOW email read in part.
In July 2010, Data Network Affiliates — another venture associated with Piccolo — said it was offering an offshore “resorts” program through a vendor. Members could buy into the purported program through a “No Interest Easy 24 Month” payment plan of of $625 a month. DNA solicited members to spend $14,995 on the resorts program, suggesting that some prospects would put the entire amount on a credit card.
Like the current TCN invitation soliciting deposits of $25,000, the OWOW email from November 2010 included an email address. Prospects with access to cash were encouraged to use the address to contact the company to discuss the offer.
Recent scams with which Piccolo has been involved — including OWOW and DNA — have featured Piccolo as a background player. Other individuals emerged as the faces of the company.
TCN has ducked questions about Piccolo. The firm lists Brett Hudson as its president. Both TCN and DNA operate in the region of Boca Raton, Fla.
DNA’s former CEO resigned within a matter of weeks in early 2010, saying that various email missives from the company were “bull” from a “backdoor guy.” Both TCN and DNA purport to operate “processing centers” in Boca Raton.
DNA’s corporate registration is listed in Nevada as dissolved. Like OWOW, Text Cash Network filed corporate paperwork in Wyoming. OWOW’s registration is listed as “delinquent” and “Inactive – Administratively Dissolved (Tax).”
OWOW effectively died in November 2011, the same month TCN was born in Wyoming, according to records. OWOW got a 10-day head start on other TCN affiliates in early November, according to web promos that explained OWOW was helping TCN test its system.
Why TCN would choose OWOW as a key, early business partner is unclear.
Another common thread among TCN, DNA and OWOW is the presence of Piccolo business associate and MLM huckster Joe Reid. TCN has accented the purported “tax” benefits of joining, something DNA also did.
Certain images will not load today on the website of JustBeenPaid, a "program" tied to JSS Tripler.
EDITOR’S NOTE: HYIP critics long have pointed out that many Internet-based schemes have members in common and that the interconnectivity of certain schemes creates a condition in which fraud proceeds circulate from scheme to scheme to scheme. Such fraud schemes can mushroom to involve tens of thousands — or even hundreds of thousands — of participants.
The logistical challenges of reverse-engineering such schemes are enormous — and it’s often the case the combined international hauls of the schemes also are enormous.
A man referenced in a JSS Tripler-related action by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, appears to have lost access to his U.S.-based website — and appears also to have been a pitchman for Text Cash Network, a U.S.-based “opportunity” linked to serial hucksters Joe Reid and Phil Piccolo.
TextCashNetwork purports to be an international text-advertising business involving cell phones. The “opportunity,” though, is decidedly murky. Affiliates have described Text Cash Network vaguely as “a new division of a five year old communications company owned 100% by The Johnson Group.” Other promoters have claimed it was owned by the “Johnson & Johnson Group,” a possible bid to leech off the brand of the famous pharmaceutical and consumer-products company.
TCN Promotional Tie To JSS Tripler
On Jan. 23, CONSOB announced the JSS Tripler-related action. Included in CONSOB’s statement were references to an individual named Mauro Messina and a website styled gruppounitoworld.com.
That website, which appears to have been hosted in the United States, now beams this message: “I’m sorry, but this account has been suspended.” No reason for the suspension was provided.
The message appears even though the domain registration is good through June 30, 2012, according to registration data.
The name Mauro Messina also appears on an affiliate site for Text Cash Network. The affiliate ID on the Text Cash Network site is “gruppounito” — the first 11 letters of the now-suspended site referenced in the CONSOB probe. (See comment from PP Blog reader Tony here. Kudos, Tony.)
Driven by a relentless hypefest, Text Cash Network or TCN launched late last year — with Reid leading the cheerleading as he had done previously for Data Network Affiliates (DNA), a Piccolo-associated entity that mixed and matched itself with One World One Website (OWOW), another Piccolo-associated entity.
Both DNA and OWOW appear to be defunct corporations, but appear also to maintain a web presence that in part has been used to drive traffic to TCN. Strangely, the DNA website now is publishing a “STOP SOPA” graphic, referring to antipiracy legislation in the United States that became part of well-publicized opposition campaigns by Google and Wikipedia (among others).
DNA, which claimed it was a data company with a cell-phone arm and appears never to have delivered on either count, has a history of brand leeching and divining ties to causes, including the U.S. AMBER Alert program and child poverty. Among other things, DNA — despite the fact its Nevada corporate registration is listed as “Dissolved,” asks prospects to “Help DNA Feed A Million[:] OVER 1000 AN HOUR DIE.”
It also purports that children are “The Heart Of D.N.A.,” even though the corporation is defunct and DNA received an “F” grade in 2010 from the BBB and is the subject of a BBB alert. After apparently abandoning its purported data and cell-phone arms by July 2010, DNA claimed it was morphing into the land-mine business of offshore “resorts” and “mortgage reduction.”
Like DNA, TCN purports that it has or will engage in philanthropic pursuits.
CONSOB’s Jan. 23 announcement also referenced an entity known as “Ricochet Riches” and a dotcom by the same name. On the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum yesterday, a cheerleader for JSS Tripler 2 or T2 — an enterprise that appears to have appropriated the name of JSS Tripler — published an “I got paid” post for T2.
Below the post was a link to Ricochet Riches.
Incongruities that challenge description and involve both JSS Tripler and JSS Tripler 2 are occurring all over the Ponzi boards. Both JSS Tripler and JSS Tripler 2 have promoters in common. Regardless, Ponzi-board posters are pooh-poohing the CONSOB action or ignoring it — even as they champion other opportunities referenced in the CONSOB action, including Ricochet Riches.
A JSS Tripler/Club Asteria Tie
CONSOB last year took action against promoters of Club Asteria, another Ponzi-forum darling. “Andrea Viz,” another JSS Tripler promoter referenced in the CONSOB action, also has been linked to Club Asteria.
The Club Asteria promo appears on a domain styled vizconsigli.com, which is referenced in the CONSOB announcement about JSS Tripler. That domain, too, appears to be based in the United States.
Hank Neeedham, one of Club Asteria’s purported principals, formerly was a pitchman for AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service described as an online Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million.
Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler, also was an ASD pitchman, according to a 2008 promo that appeared online during the same period in which Needham — who simultaneously was promoting cash-gifting schemes — also was promoting ASD.
Over the weekend, JustBeenPaid, the entity that purportedly operates JSS Tripler through Mann, appears to have encountered website problems that are affecting its ability to publish certain graphics.
There is at least one Ponzi-forum report today about JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler problems:
“. . . sites all messed up chat room no mods no admins little odd,” a MoneyMakerGroup poster claimed.
The JustBeenPaid site includes information attributed to Mann on AdVentures4You (ADV4U), a “program” that collapsed in 2009 amid reports its operator had been threatened.
In the remarks, Mann asserted that he made a pile of money through ADV4U prior to its collapse.
“The biggest difference between JSS-Tripler and AV4U is that JSS-Tripler is indefinitely sustainable, while AV4U had a design flaw that ensured its eventual failure,” according to the remarks attributed to Mann.
The pitchman hosting a 90-day anniversary call yesterday for Text Cash Network introduced fellow TCN pitchman Joe Reid as an “absolute legend.”
“In this industry, folks, facts tell, and stories sell,” a pitchman identified as “Eddie” said in remarks introducing Reid.
“This gentleman is a legend — an absolute legend in the industry,” Eddie said. “This gentleman makes money. This gentleman makes BIG money. He’s made millions and millions of dollars over the years in the network-marketing industry . . .”
But “Eddie” said nothing about Reid’s involvement in Data Network Affiliates (DNA) and One World One Website (OWOW), bizarre and crashed opportunities linked to Reid business associate and fellow MLM huckster Phil Piccolo amid claims that affiliates were not getting paid. Piccolo also has been linked to TCN.
Among other things, DNA claimed it could help the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children, later claiming it offered a “free” cell phone with “unlimited” talk and text for $10 a month.
DNA appears to have assisted in the rescue of no children, but it did complain that the AMBER Alert program had a bloated budget. It later removed its cell-phone offer, claiming it had been duped into making the offer by a huckster. OWOW, for its part, claimed it had products that cured or treated cancer — while also claiming a “magnetic” product helped prevent leg amputations and helped produce tomatoes that would grow to twice their ordinary size — all while assisting dairy herds in producing more milk. (Use the search button in the upper-right corner of the PP Blog for more info on DNA and OWOW and their series of ambiguous and confounding offers.)
As he is doing now for TCN, Reid led cheers in videos or conference calls for DNA and OWOW. (TCN is using the same conference-call software as DNA.) While researching an offer by OWOW, the PP Blog was advised by the Des Moines Police Department (Iowa) that certain addresses that appeared in online promos for OWOW were nonexistent. Lower in this story, you’ll find a reference to something the Boca Raton Police Department reported after the PP Blog asked it to visit a local building.)
An Emerging Bromide
Despite “Eddie’s” assertion that “facts tell,” he provided no substantiation of his claims about Reid and offered no information on Reid’s DNA/OWOW ties, apparently preferring instead to focus on the “stories sell” part of his emerging bromide.
Reid’s story yesterday offered platitudes that “exciting things are happening” at TCN, with Reid adding that the purported text-advertising firm had “tremendous leaders” who’d created “great excitement.”
Reid, whose TCN cheerleading appeared to be somewhat subdued during the call, then passed the call back to Eddie.
Without providing any factual foundation and again apparently defaulting to the “stories sell” part of his bromide, Eddie again assured listeners that Reid was a “legend.” He added that TCN had set all of the following records:
Fastest to 10,000 members.
Fastest to 20,000 members.
Fastest to 50,000 members..
Fastest to 100,000 members.
Fastest to 200,000 members.
“And most recently, folks, we were the fastest company to 300,000 members — in under 90 days.”
Participants who weren’t excited about those numbers need to check their “pulse,” Eddie ventured, predicting later that there would be “seven-” and “six”-figure earners.
Like DNA and OWOW, strange events and incongruities have marked TCN’s existence.
The TCN Photo Mystery
Despite oddities such as the existence of a promotional photo that shows TCN’s name affixed to a glistening office building in Boca Raton and a public statement by the Boca Raton Police Department that the name is not affixed to the building, Eddie asserted that TCN is a company that “makes sense.”
TCN Tax Claims — After Similar DNA Claims
TCN also may be playing with fire by wooing recruits with claims about the purported tax advantages of joining.
“What about the tax benefits that you receive from owing a home-based business?” Eddie asked yesterday’s conference-call listeners. “You can literally bring home 3, 4, maybe $5,000 — up to $7,000 a year in tax benefits. So many people are completely unaware that, just by being a part of a home-based business, they can save thousands of dollars every year by being a part of a home-based business.
“Guess what? Join us with Text Cash Network and start saving today . . .” Eddie instructed while focusing on the purported tax advantages.
Screen shot: Like DNA, TCN puports to operate a "processing center" in Boca Raton.
Another oddity associated with TCN and DNA is that both firms
Screen shot: Like TCN, DNA purports to operate a "processing center" in Boca Raton.
claimed to operate “processing centers” in South Florida, but the addresses appear to be rental services.
Meanwhile, both TCN and DNA have OWOW — another Piccolo-associated entity — in common somewhere in the food chain.
The earliest promos (early November 2011) for TCN appeared on OWOW’s website.
Like DNA, OWOW appears to be a defunct corporation that continues to produce a website that sometimes goes missing and sometimes is rerouted to other sites.
The management structure of TCN, DNA and OWOW also has been murky, with all three firms claiming to be operated by top professionals while simultaneously publishing ambiguous information. Some TCN promoters, for instance, have claimed TCN is owned by “The Johnson Group.”
Promos that originated through OWOW, however, added an ampersand and extra proper noun, declaring that TCN was owned by the “Johnson & Johnson Group.”
Affiliates of TCN, DNA and OWOW have complained publicly about not getting paid. All three firms have explained away those concerns in largely the same fashion: that payments have come or will come once a series of launches and prelaunches and website adjustments are completed.
Each of the schemes spread in part through social-media sites such as YouTube and Facebook.
One poster on a Facebook TCN site dubbed the “Text Cash Network- Official Group Page” complained today that “power line stats” are not working.
“It stopped on the 12/28/2011,” the poster claimed.
On another Facebook site — one dubbed simply “Text Cash Network” — a poster spammed an offer for JSS Tripler. Promoters of JSS Tripler are under investigation by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator.
From YouTube: Mr. P. prowls the stage for OWOW in 2010.
UPDATED 5:05 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) Did One World One Website Inc. (OWOW) — the Phil Piccolo-associated company that appears to have been given some of the top positions in Text Cash Network (TCN) and recruited a huge downline with the knowledge of TCN management — try to fix its own problems last year by hatching a Ponzi plan in which money sent in by new members would be used to pay commissions owed to original members?
A bizarre OWOW promo dated July 30, 2011, on Dealslinker.com suggests so. The promo, which claimed that “O.W.O.W. Management left town a long time ago” and “gave up for many reasons,” further claimed OWOW was implementing a restoration plan and suggested that the company was being run by “leaders.” The “leaders” were not identified.
Incongruously, the promo claimed that “[i]t is actually not the current O.W.O.W. that is in Financial Trouble. It is the baggage from 10/10/2010 to 3/10/2011 that has brought us down. And is a Ball and Chain around the current O.W.O.W. Team.”
“WE NEED YOUR HELP ‘OR’ THE HELP OF BRAND NEW PEOPLE…” the promo urged. “THE SOLUTION IS ‘FOUNDER OWNERSHIP’ YES… FOUNDERS…”
With those words in July, OWOW introduced a scheme by which “FOUNDER PACKAGES” would be created in four tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum) and sold online to right the OWOW ship. The purported packages were priced between $500 and $5,000, and purchasers who bought in at the $5,000 level were promised they would get “20 shares in a (sic) 5% of The Sales Profit Pool from 8/8/11 to 12/12/12 of The O.W.O.W. Program…”
The claim leads to questions about whether OWOW was offering unregistered securities as investment contracts and effectively creating an investment pool while using unregistered broker-dealers to sell the offer.
Purchasers who bought in at the lower-priced tiers were promised a smaller number of shares, according to the promo. Members at the $500 level would get one share; members at $1,000 and $2,500 levels would get three shares and 10 shares, respectively.
Despite the claim that OWOW’s profits would be shared among certain members through Dec. 12, 2012, the business registration in Wyoming of One World One Website Inc. is listed as “Inactive – Administratively Dissolved (Tax).”
Whether OWOW sold any of the purported packages referenced in the July 2011 promo is unclear. But about three months later — during the opening days of November 2011 and while OWOW apparently was still reeling — OWOW appears to have been given a 10-day head start to sell TCN.
Some TCN members now say that TCN has delayed commission payments to members for a fourth time and that members have been encouraged to send money via Western Union and money orders to both the company and individuals associated with the firm.
A pulldown menu on TCN’s website says money can be sent via Western Union to three individuals: Tyler Johnson, Brett Hudson or Jane Johnson. TCN purports to have hundreds of thousands of members globally.
Brett Hudson is listed on TCN’s website as the firm’s president. TCN purports to operate from Boca Raton, Fla. OWOW and another Piccolo-associated entity know as Data Network Affiliates (DNA) also purported to operate from Boca Raton and environs. The Better Business Bureau issued an alert about DNA in 2010.
Why TCN is asking members to send funds to individuals via Western Union is unclear.
TCN purportedly is owned by “The Johnson Group,” although descriptions about that company have been vague and ambiguous.
Here is what TCN says about itself:
“Text Cash Network Inc is a USA Corporation and is own (sic) 100% by a five year old communication company which is another USA Corporation owned by The Johnson Group. We have not disclosed the communication’s company name or contact information in fear that THOUSANDS OF AGENTS may or should we say would call them for information prior to our official launch of 12/12/2011.”
The date TCN advertised as its launch date — Dec. 12, 2011 — was precisely one year ahead of the date through which OWOW promised to pay tiered members who purchased shares in a pooling arrangement: Dec. 12, 2012.
Curiously, TCN promoters associated with OWOW added an ampersand and extra proper noun to the name of TCN’s purported ownership group, describing TCN’s owners as the “Johnson & Johnson Group.”
Whether the addition of the ampersand and extra proper noun was a bid to trade on the name of Johnson & Johnson, the New Jersey-based Dow and S&P 500 component, is unclear. TCN came out of the gate trading on the name of Groupon, but a Groupon logo that once appeared on the site has been removed.
Returning to the subject of OWOW, money from the purported OWOW “FOUNDER PACKAGES” would be used in part to “pay off all of the past commissions and money owed to suppliers,” according to the bizarre OWOW promo, which was attributed to “Mister P.”
“Mister P” is an alias used by Phil Piccolo. Strangely, though, the OWOW promo was positioned as a “personal letter from J.P. aka Mister P.” Why the initials “J.P.” were used is unclear.
Other Oddities
The July 2011 OWOW promo referenced in this post appears to be a bid to sell both OWOW and a program known as ThatFreeThing. Indeed, the headline on the promo reads, “OWOW Wholesale Direct and MyFreething – ThatFreeThing.”
Despite the headline reference to That Free Thing, the promo does not contain a link to the That Free Thing program.
That Free Thing uses an address in Westminster, Colo., and publishes a picture of an office building with the name of the company affixed in large letters to the side of the building.
TCN promos have featured images of a building in Boca Raton with the company’s name affixed in large letters near the crown of the building. The Boca Raton Police Department said on Dec. 14 that TCN’s name was not affixed to the building — despite what promoters led recruits to believe.
“Mister P,” meanwhile, also is referenced in a promo for something called “MY FREE EVERYTHING,” which appears to be operating through a domain styled “TheDebtFreeCard.com.”
Visitors to that site are told about a “100% PASSIVE!” program through which they can earn through the sale of “$50,000 to $250,000 JVP FOUNDER LOAN PACKAGES.” Like the OWOW promo, the My Free Everything promo raises questions about whether the purported firm is selling unregistered securities as investment contracts and whether promoters are serving as unregistered broker-dealers.
Amid confusing claims on the site, visitors are told this: “If you are within 10 Levels of This Sale you will EARN IMMEDIATE MONEY… $500 to $2500… or If you personally sell one $5000 to $25,000… However THE BIG PICTURE will be THE RESIDUAL INCOME because THE SALE was made in YOUR DOWNLINE… There are many DOCTORS and OTHER PROFESSIONALS looking for PASSIVE INCOMES… All you do is FIND THEM and The Leadership SELL THEM… ”
Separately, promos for OWOW on LinkedIn are asking viewers to visit a YouTube site to “see [an] Oprah” video on OWOW.
When a link in the LinkedIn promo for OWOW is clicked, however, visitors are taken to a video that has nothing to do with Oprah Winfrey, the entertainment icon and business titan whose name often is appropriated by MLM hucksters and affiliates unwise to their ways.
Instead, the video is about a product known as PhoneGuard, an app that purportedly keeps teens and children safe by shutting off a cell phone’s texting capacity while they’re in automobiles.
See this story about DNA, another Piccolo-associated program that used Winfrey’s name. DNA purported to have ties to Anthony Sasso, who was described as DNA’s data expert and a “special board consultant.”
Sasso, who reportedly once had a role in PhoneGuard, is a convicted felon who was charged in a South Florida racketeering case. DNA, the Piccolo-associated entity, hyped him as “The King Of Data For Dollars” and Sasso was said to be the “owner of the largest database of text numbers in the world.”
Some affiliates have claimed Text Cash Network (TCN) is part of a company known as “The Johnson Group.” Others have added an ampersand and mimicked the name of an internationally famous company, saying TCN is part of the “Johnson & Johnson Group.”
Now, yet another TCN flap involving a company name is emerging. The name appeared on TCN’s purchase-agreement page in recent days.
“I understand that this agreement may not be transferred or assigned without prior written consent of REX Venture Group, LLC a/k/a/ T.C.N..com (sic), which consent shall not be unreasonably denied,” the TCN purchase-agreement page read in part on Dec. 22, according to Google cache. The language appeared below a clause labeled “ASSIGNMENT.”
Largely the same language appears on a page for a program known as Zeek Rewards, which leads to questions about whether TCN had copied the language and swapped in the name of its own company without consent.
But the name of REX Venture Group no longer appears on the purchase-agreement page of TCN’s website, and the “ASSIGNMENT” clause has been reworded to read, “I understand that this agreement may not be transferred or assigned without prior written consent of Text Cash Network, inc. a/k/a T.C.N., which consent shall not be unreasonably denied.”
It is unclear when the changes were made.
TCN has claimed to employ an “attorney,” but does not name the attorney. It also has claimed to use a “host of traditional domestic and international legal representatives.”
Whether TCN consulted the purported attorney and the purported “host of traditional domestic and international legal representatives” before posting the assignment clause — and later editing it — is unclear. Also unclear is whether TCN ever consulted with the Rex Venture Group, the firm whose name now has been deleted from TCN’s purported assignment clause.
Why TCN claimed it also was known as the Rex Venture Group also is unclear.
TCN has promotional links to Ponzi scheme boards and to MLM huckster Phil Piccolo and Piccolo-associated firms such as Data Network Affiliates (DNA) and OWOW, which stands for “One World One Website.”
Significant incongruities and vagueness over TCN’s ownership structure have marked promotions for TCN. Similar incongruities marked promos for DNA and OWOW.
1.
Google took a cache shot of TCN's purchase-agreement page on Dec. 22. Here is a screen shot of part of the page, which shows the name of REX Venture Group LLC. The name no longer appears on the page, leading to questions about whether TCN had simply copied-and-pasted terms from another MLM opportunity.
2.
Section from TCN's purchase-agreement page as it appeared on Dec. 27. The section has been reworded, and the name of REX Venture Group LLC has been removed.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This information is presented in the form of briefs.
Georgia HYIP/Ponzi pair sentenced: Geoffrey A. Gish, 57, of Lawrenceville, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his role in a $29 million “high-yield” scam that fleeced investors of more than $17 million.
Myra J. Ettenborough, implicated in the same scam initially unmasked by the SEC, was sentenced to seven years. Like Gish, Ettenborough, 56, of Roswell, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. to pay more than $17.245 million in restitution.
The scam involved pooled funds that “supposedly involved ‘high yield trading programs,’” prosecutors said.
An FBI agent said the scammers were greedsters.
“Mr. Gish and Ms. Ettenborough exhibited total disregard for their victim investors while displaying an almost limitless level of personal greed,” said Brian D. Lamkin, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office.
Florida HYIP/Ponzi globetrotter sentenced: John S. Morgan, the Sarasota man whose high-yield Ponzi venture took him to Europe and later landed him in jail in Sri Lanka, has been sentenced by U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew to 10 years and a month in federal prison in the United States.
Morgan, 52, who ultimately cooperated with the government, may end up serving less time than his wife, who took her chances with a jury and was convicted in September on all 22 counts filed against her.
Marian Morgan, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 20.
Her jet-setting days at an end, Marian Morgan complained from Sri Lanka to a U.S. judge about “filthy” conditions in the overseas jail, noting she was being housed alongside “murderers and heroin dealers,” according to court records.
The Morgans were returned to the United States in 2009.
TVI Express ruled a pyramid scheme in Australia: TVI Express, an MLM company whose pitchmen used images of Donald Trump and Warren Buffett in promos, has been ruled a pyramid scheme by the Federal Court of Australia.
The case was brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
“It is beyond question that new participants in the TVI Express System are [led] to believe that they will receive payments for the introduction of further new participants,” Justice Nicholas said, according to ACCC.
“Indeed, the only way a participant can earn any income in the TVI Express System is through the introduction of new members to the scheme,” Justice Nicholas said, according to ACCC.
Some MLM scammers routinely use images of Trump and Buffett in promos. Affiliates of Data Network Affiliates (DNA), a firm associated with huckster Phil Piccolo, published images Trump and Oprah Winfrey in their promos last year.
When flogging DNA during a conference call last year that featured Piccolo associate Joe Reid, a fellow DNA huckster claimed the company had “certain people on speed dial that’s incredible.”
Reid emerged last month as a pitchman for Text Cash Network (TCN), which came out of the gate trading on the names of Groupon and Google Offers, among others. A firm known as One World One Website (OWOW) was an early promoter of TCN.
Screen shot: This OWOW "Store" lists a street address in the Bronx and touts a "GRAND OPENING" on an unspecified date. The store URL is linked to PayPal, although the store appears to have lost its ability to collect money via the online payment processor. Separately, the store's apparent parent company — One World One Website Inc. — is listed in Wyoming records as "Inactive – Administratively Dissolved (Tax)." Earlier this month, OWOW led the charge to promote Text Cash Network (TCN), according to affiliate promos. OWOW is associated with Phil Piccolo and Joe Reid. Reid has led the conference-call cheerleading for TCN after previously leading the conference-call cheerleading for Data Network Affiliates (DNA), yet another company associated with Piccolo. Reid also has appeared in at least one video for OWOW. Piccolo is known online as the "one-man Internet crime wave" and has a history of threatening critics. Promos for DNA, OWOW and TCN describe the firms as "free" opportunities that create wealth for members.
UPDATED 12:46 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) One World One Website Inc. (OWOW), the company linked to MLM huckster Phil Piccolo, has been listed in Wyoming as “Inactive – Administratively Dissolved (Tax).” The state lists the firm’s “inactive” date as Nov. 10. OWOW’s ownership is not listed, although records suggest the firm organized itself to float 1 billion shares of common stock. Whether the stock was public or private is unclear. Also unclear is whether any actual stock was issued.
Separately, web records show that Text Cash Network (TCN) — a purported text-advertising firm promoted on the OWOW site earlier this month — uses the same four DNS servers and an IP address in the same string as Data Network Affiliates (DNA), another venture linked to Piccolo. Records also suggest that the TCN domain name originally was registered last month through an entity known as OWOW Wholesale Domains before the registration was made private.
Meanwhile, a site known as OWOW Wholesale Direct that uses the One World One Website Inc. logo is soliciting orders for a number of products, including two products OWOW positioned last year as cures or treatments for cancer. The order page links to PayPal. When visitors press the PayPal button, this message appears:
“This recipient is currently unable to receive money.”
If prospects visit the main OWOW website — as opposed to the OWOW Wholesale Direct site — they are told they need to enter the site through an affiliate link to purchase products, including the two purported cancer cures or treatments. When a visitor arrives at the main OWOW site through an affiliate link, they can place items in a shopping cart — but when they are about to be forwarded to the payment page, these messages appear: “This Connection is Untrusted” (Firefox); “The site’s security certificate has expired!” (Google Chrome); “There is a problem with this website’s security certificate” (Internet Explorer).
The presence of the shopping cart on the main OWOW site and the presence of the PayPal buttons on the OWOW Wholesale Direct site suggest the firm or its affiliates provided customers two different ways to pay: PayPal and perhaps an independent credit-card processor whose identity remains unclear because of the problem with the security certificate on the orders site.
A graphic on the the OWOW Wholesale Direct site suggests the firm has a “store” in the Bronx at 11 E. 213th Street, “Just two blocks from Gun Hill Road off of Jerome Avenue.”
The headline in the graphic reads, “Earn THOUSANDS Giving Away A FREE Opportunity.”
It is unclear whether OWOW sold franchises to affiliates or operates the store as a self-owned retail outlet. In 2010, DNA claimed affiliates could pay a fee to open their own cell-phone stores.
DNA, however, appears never to have released its promised cell phone or opened any stores. The firm purported to be a player in many businesses, including a license-plate recording business to assist law enforcement, a mortgage-reduction business and an offshore “resorts” business.
In 2010, OWOW claimed that people who sent it money before Nov. 30 (2010) would earn “24% Annual Interest.” If members missed the Nov. 30 date, they’d earn only 18 percent, according to the promo.
The November 2010 email led to questions about whether OWOW was selling unregistered securities as investment contracts.
“Did you know that many PROS are receiving 24% Annual Interest on their money (sic),” the OWOW pitch read in part. “The deadline for 24% annual interest paid in monthly increments of 2% will end on 11/30/2010 . . . Any funds deposited thereafter will pay 18% annual interest in monthly increments of 1.5% . . .”
DNA-Like Culture Of Threats Emerging At TCN?
In 2010, DNA threatened critics while trying to manage its operations in an information vacuum. Upon its appearance online early last year, DNA had neither a contact form nor a contact email address on its website. Virtually the same circumstance has presented itself at TCN.
Late last winter — after DNA placed a Gmail address on its site after considerable howling from critics — a person who sent a note to the Gmail address received back an autoresponder message with a headline of “Top 16 Customer Service Issues.”
Item No. 5 on the Top 16 list read: “The D.N.A. Management is Aware of many FALSE Rumors . . . The D.N.A. Legal Department is on top of such and is taking Legal Action . . . You can not become the #1 record breaking company in THE WORLD . . . Without people taking cheap shots at you . . . In the mean time keep on keeping on . . .”
DNA also claimed the reason its original domain registration used privacy protection and an address in the Cayman Islands (while leeching off the name of the U.S. AMBER Alert system) was to prevent management from having to “put up with 100 stupid calls a day.”
TCN, according to an affiliate’s Blog, now is saying this (italics/indentation added):
“The Internet is The WILD WILD WEST when it comes to what people say about anything. The laws are very different today than they were even 3 years ago. They finally passed several laws that will allow a company like T.C.N. to protect it’s (sic) good name and business model. And we will use the full extent of the law to protect T.C.N. when made available to us. Please note that many of these blogs or so called M.L.M. SELF PROCLAIMED CRITICS produced no legal documentation not (sic) substantial facts. Instead they hide behind such disclaimers such as IT IS MY OPINION or SO AND SO SAID OR CLAIMS. Now on the other hand if a Licensed MLM Practicing Attorney were to say such please let us know ASAP. NOTE ALSO: Many people who write these blogs hide behind bogus names, e-mails and even hide their ISP. If you ever come across someone who does slander or prints mis-information about our company and you have a real name and contact information please pass it on to our legal department located in your back office.”
The same TCN affiliate site also suggests there may be tax advantages if prospects enroll in the upstart opportunity.
“T.C.N. Corporate has a 100% separate division set up to call on traditional businesses worldwide. V.I.P. Agent will need to sell only 1 V.I.P. Advertising Package Annually,” according to the affiliate site. “A sale to self to resell, to personally use or to just give it away as a gift would count as such. In fact when you personally use it or give it away as a gift it just may have some tax benefits. Check with a professional tax accountant.”
And TCN — like DNA before it — also is offering an explanation for why is does not use a contact form or publish a contact email address, according to the TCN affiliate’s Blog, which is hosted on Blogspot, Google’s free platform (italics/indentation added):
“Text Cash Network Inc is a USA Corporation and is own (sic) 100% by a five year old communication company which is another USA Corporation owned by The Johnson Group. We have not disclosed the communication’s company (sic) name or contact information in fear that THOUSANDS OF AGENTS may or should we say would call them for information prior to our official launch of 12/12/2011. They are not an MLM or Marketing Company set up to handle such incoming calls. Once T.C.N. Customer Service Center is open they could then just re-direct such calls to T.C.N.”
Like OWOW, a company named “The Johnson Group Inc.” is listed in Wyoming records as “Inactive – Administratively Dissolved (Tax).” It is unclear, however, whether The Johnson Group entity in Wyoming is the same firm that owns TCN.
TCN and OWOW use the same registered-agent service in Wyoming, according to records. TCN’s corporate registration became effective on Nov. 8. Records suggest that, just two days later — on Nov. 10 — OWOW’s registration was listed as “Inactive – Administratively Dissolved (Tax).”
Affiliates of TCN say the firm is operating in the region of Boca Raton, Fla., as an arm of The Johnson Group. DNA also operated from Boca Raton, and OWOW listed an address in nearby Deerfield Beach.
Are TCN Affiliates Creating Another Flap?
Even through TCN says it is owned by “The Johnson Group,” some TCN affiliates whose promos also reference OWOW have added an ampersand and an extra proper noun to their TCN ads. These promos identify TCN’s owners as “The Johnson & Johnson Group.”
Johnson & Johnson, a component of both Dow Jones and the S&P 500, is the internationally famous maker of pharmaceuticals and consumer products that are household names. Johnson & Johnson, which is based in New Jersey, also is known under a “Group” version of its name.
Several TCN affiliates — including international affiliates whose native language may not be English — are claiming this in promos (italics/indentation added):
“O.W.O.W. is ONLY promoting TEXT CASH NETWORK Inc
HERE IS WHY… #1 they pay like 100 times more than ANY OTHER and #2 is that: TEXT CASH NETWORK is owned and operated by The Johnson & Johnson Group.” (Emphasis added).
The promos go on to list “Mr. T. Michael Johnson” as “C.E.O.” of the “Johnson & Johnson Group” and “Mr. R. Christopher Johnson” as “President.”
Some affiliate promos for TCN that also reference OWOW have described “The Johnson & Johnson Group” as a player in the “Internet Software Business since 1994.” Promos for TCN that do not included the ampersand and the extra proper noun have described “The Johnson Group” as a “communications” company.
On Wednesday, Johnson & Johnson — the New Jersey-based Dow and S&P 500 component — said that it “will look into” whether the TCN promos and the Johnson & Johnson Group references could create any brand confusion.
“I am not aware of any affiliation they would have with Johnson & Johnson,” a company spokesman said about TCN and The Johnson Group.
One TCN affiliate promo that referenced the Piccolo-associated OWOW entity and used the name “Johnson & Johnson Group” blared this message (italics/indentation added):
“Why did O.W.O.W. get a TEN DAY JUMP START with this Incredible Opportunity? Two words “JOE REID”… One of The Johnson & Johnson Group management team was once in the referral marketing industry and knew of Joe’s reputation for taking companies into the marketplace. Joe started off consulting with them and is now the only person direct to the company.
“O.W.O.W. management convinced Joe that they should not open up the flood gates and that they should use O.W.O.W. as their TEST TEAM and get any bugs out of the system,” the message continued. “Joe convinced J&J to do a WHISPER LAUNCH… And we got the gift of a lifetime.
“Our team recruited over 1000 people in less than 24 hours… We estimate our team will build a 10,000 team in 10 days . . .”
When DNA — yet another company linked to Piccolo — came out of the gate last year, it claimed it was “going public” and used the names of Martha Stewart, Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey. Joe Reid was one of DNA’s principal cheerleaders.
Reid has emerged in the same role for TCN, which is using the same conference-call software DNA used last year. Reid has suggested TCN could become the next Groupon. The Groupon references were made before Groupon’s stock price plummeted to below the $20 IPO level earlier this week.
Analysts have fretted about the Groupon business model and emerging competition.
TCN purports to be in a business by which members will receive up to five text advertisements per day to their cell phone. Its site is filled with errors of grammar and usage, but the firm says it has recruited more than 80,000 members in just days.
Among the claims on the TCN website is this:
“Here are two mathematical examples of maximum revenue sharing. A 2×10 Referral Structure Pays A Maximum Earnings (sic) of $76.75 Per Day or $2,302.50 Per Month plus Matching Bonuses. A 3×10 Maximum Earnings = To (sic) High Of A Dollar Figure To Put In Print.”
In this Nov. 13 post, the PP Blog published a list of red flags concerning online promos for Text Cash Network (TCN), purportedly an emerging business “opportunity” involving text advertising and cell phones. A promo for TCN appeared — and then vanished — from a website linked to huckster Phil Piccolo, known online as “the one-man Internet crime wave.” Piccolo has been associated with other schemes that involved cell phones, namely Data Network Affiliates (DNA).
This post raises another red flag — and once again, the issue is about Piccolo’s potential TCN involvement or the involvement of Piccolo associates. In the DNA scam, the purported firm used generic YouTube videos to drive traffic to its purported opportunity. In 2010, for example, DNA incongruously posted a YouTube video known as “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” to its website, using the video to promote DNA.
The “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” video — a You Tube smash — had absolutely nothing to to with DNA. The video was designed in part to create awareness about domestic violence and to publicize the Sheila Wellstone Institute.
Sheila Wellstone was a human-rights advocate. She and her husband, Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., were killed in a plane crash in 2002. Their daughter, Marcia, died in the same crash.
After conducting a “prelaunch” event with much fanfare on Nov. 11 — Veterans Day in the United States — TCN now has added a You Tube video to its website. An all-caps line of “OFFICIAL LAUNCH 12/12/2011” appears below the video, which plays in miniature on TCN’s site.
But the video also is playing in full size on YouTube’s site. Text on the YouTube site dubs it “THE OFFICAL TEXT CASH NETWORK (TCN) – RIGHT HERE – RIGHT NOW” site. The upload date of the video is listed as Nov. 15, 2011: yesterday.
The same video, however, appears elsewhere on YouTube — and its upload date is listed as Jan. 26, 2009, nearly three years ago. Despite the upload date, the video also is promoting TCN, whose website appears to have been registered just last month.
Both videos raise questions about whether YouTube is being gamed by TCN and affiliates. Meanwhile, the videos use the same soundtrack by Fat Boy Slim: “Right here, right now.”
Among other things, Piccolo is known to use all-caps presentations and to hype “prelaunches” and “launches” for weeks. He also is known to hype launches by publishing the names of top promoters — something TCN is doing — and to try to stay in the background of “opportunities,” as opposed to becoming the public face of them.
Joe Reid, a known Piccolo associate, has served as a conference-call host for TCN. Reid also hosted conference calls for DNA, which was linked to Piccolo last year and served up Theatre of the Absurd and a sea of incongruities.
DNA, for example, misspelled the name of its own CEO — and didn’t advise members that the CEO had left the company for nearly a week. The former CEO told the PP Blog last year that the firm was engaging in “bizarre” conduct and a campaign of “misinformation and lies.”
After the former CEO agreed to an interview with the PP Blog, a PR handler who described himself as a conflict-management strategist” sought to intervene. As the year proceeded, DNA appeared to have both entered and exited the cell-phone business in a matter of weeks — while planting the seed that it would pay enormous rates of return to customers who provided it money, even as it purportedly entered businesses such as mortgage writedowns and offshore “resorts” after apparently abandoning its purported core business of helping police recover kidnapped children.
At one point, DNA was urging members to record the license-plate numbers of cars in a purported bid to assist the AMBER Alert program — while it was selling a purported “protective spray” that would make it impossible for cameras placed by police at intersections to snap usable photographs of the plates.
In 2009, another purported “advertising” opportunity known as Biz Ad Splash (BAS) used the same Fat Boy Slim soundtrack. Walter Clarence Busby Jr., the purported operator of BAS, is a figure in the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme and is the former operator of Golden Panda Ad Builder. Golden Panda surrendered more than $14 million in the ASD Ponzi case, and the SEC said that Busby was involved in three prime-bank schemes in the 1990s.
The SEC has not responded to requests for comment on the emerging TCN “opportunity.”
As of now, it can be said that two “advertising” schemes — BAS and TCN — are using the same music in what appears to be largely generic promos for business “opportunities.”
It also can be said that DNA, one of the “businesses” associated with Piccolo, also used generic videos and caused them to play in miniature on “prelaunch” and “launch” sites for “opportunities.”
It also seems possible — if not likely — that certain MLM promoters have found a way to edit YouTube sites to make the content appear “current” or to store generic videos and use them for multiple “opportunities.”
Questions
Why does one video for TCN show an upload date of January 2009 while the “official” site shows a video upload date of yesterday — when it is the same video and TCN purportedly is a “new” opportunity?
Did TCN exist in an earlier form as far back as 2009? If so, what happened back then — and why is it reemerging now?
Are certain MLMers simply using generic videos they uploaded earlier to YouTube — and then editing the YouTube sites when a new “opportunity” comes along, thus potentially maintaining a search-engine advantage no matter what “opportunity” comes along?
Why would a company that purports to be a market and technology leader use what appears to be a generic video as its “official” video?
Why did a promo for TCN that appeared on the website of OWOW — a site linked to Piccolo — suddenly go missing last week?
Why does TCN appear to be closely following “prelaunch” and “launch” strategies associated with purported Piccolo “opportunities?
Screen Shot 1
This YouTube video for Text Cash Network bears an upload date of Jan. 26, 2009, even though TCN claims it is a new company proceeding from a "prelaunch" in recent days to "launch." The video is a duplicate of a video dated Nov. 15, 2011 that claims to be TCN's "official" video.
Screen Shot 2
This YouTube video for Text Cash Network bears an upload date of Nov. 15, 2011, even though the same video for the purported TCN opportunity appears elsewhere on YouTube and bears an upload date of Jan. 26, 2009, nearly three years ago. TCN claims it is a new company proceeding from "prelaunch" to "launch." TCN claims the Nov. 15, 2011 video is its "official" one. Both video sites feature all-caps when addressing prospects and content that is virtually the same.
Screen Shot 3
This 2009 YouTube video for the purported Biz AdSplash "advertising" program used the music of Fat Boy Slim. An emerging "advertising" opportunity known as Text Cash Network is using the same Fat Boy Slim music: "Right here, right now." While BAS purported to deliver "advertising" to computers, TCN purports to deliver it to cell phones.
(2ND UPDATE 3:26 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) Rod Cook, who publishes the “MLM Watchdog” and was threatened with a $40 million lawsuit by the AdSurfDaily Ponzi racketeers in 2008, is reporting that veteran swindler Phil Piccolo is back on the prowl.
