Paul Burks

“Rather, [Andy] Bowdoin manufactured the revenue numbers to deceive members into believing that they could reasonably expect to receive an average daily return on their investment with [AdSurfDaily] of at least 1%. This percentage in no way corresponded to the daily revenue that ASD was generating, but had been determined by ASD’s operators to be […]

BULLETIN: (4th Update 9:13 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) Accused Ponzi schemer Paul Burks ran a “pyramid scheme” known as FollowMe1X2 that was a precursor to ZeekRewards, federal prosecutors say. A quote about FollowMe1X2 that appears in a prosecution filing today also appears verbatim in a post on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum dated Sept. 4, 2010, by “charlieone.” […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (6th Update 8 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) TelexFree Trustee Stephen B. Darr has sued MLM attorney Gerald Nehra and the Nehra and Waak law firm, alleging they were “actively involved” in promoting TelexFree’s Ponzi scheme and “duping” participants. Nehra and the firm have asked for more time to respond to the April 1 complaint, […]

Three significant pieces of news from Kenneth D. Bell, the receiver in the Zeek Rewards’ Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case: In a March 28 announcement on the receivership website, Bell wrote that a defendant class-action lawsuit against more than 9,000 alleged Zeek winners in the United States may conclude this year. “We hope to bring to […]

In October 2014, federal prosecutors alleged that the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” shut down by the SEC two years earlier was in part a scam that caused “victim-investors to file inaccurate tax returns for phantom income they never actually received.” Now, a year later, a member of the TelexFree MLM scheme shut down by the […]

“It is the biggest announcement I’ve ever made in my career.” — MLM attorney Kevin Thompson on the hiring of Kevin Grimes, Jan. 9, 2015. 2nd UPDATE 5:35 p.m. ET U.S.A. Zeek Rewards receiver Kenneth D. Bell accused Idaho MLM attorney Kevin Grimes last year of providing “substantial assistance” to Zeek’s Ponzi scheme and, in […]

BULLETIN: (8th Update 10:09 p.m. ET Dec. 18 U.S.A.) Payment vendor for a Ponzi-board “program?” More than two years after the shutdown of Zeek Rewards by the SEC, Plastic Cash International, a credit-card processor and would-be debit-card vendor for Zeek, said it has been “rendered insolvent as a result of the misconduct of [Rex Venture […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (3rd Update 10:03 a.m. ET Dec. 10 U.S.A.) The federal judge presiding over clawback cases against alleged Zeek Rewards “winners” has dismissed jurisdictional challenges and a claim by the winners that Zeek was not selling securities under the Howey Test. The rulings mean that clawback claims seeking millions of dollars […]

Paul Burks pleaded not guilty this morning and has been released on $25,000 unsecured bond, The Dispatch newspaper of Lexington, N.C., is reporting. Burks, 67, was the alleged operator of Zeek Rewards, which federal authorities have described as an $850 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme. He was indicted last month on charges of wire and […]

DEVELOPING STORY: (Updated 10:02 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) In an extraordinary development on this Halloween Friday, the federal judge presiding over the SEC’s Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case against Zeek Rewards has issued a Temporary Restraining Order and directed a Zeek vendor to immediately turn over to the receivership more than $4.85 million. The order was entered […]

UPDATED 8:30 P.M. EDT U.S.A. The SEC this afternoon declined to comment on a confounding claim attributed to Zeek Rewards figure Robert Craddock that Zeek took in $1 billion in 12 months and that the U.S. government should have modeled a “stimulus program” after Zeek instead of shutting it down in 2012. News that Craddock […]