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Tag: penny auctions

  • BULLETIN: In Bizarre Blog Post, Zeek Claims ‘All’ Of Its Critics Are Behaving ‘Unprofessionally By Acting On False Information’; MLM Firm Blasts ‘ North Carolina Credit Unions’ For Circulating Memo ‘Unfavorable To Zeek Rewards And False’

    BULLETIN: The Zeek Rewards MLM “program” that is married to a penny-auction site known as Zeekler and plants the seed that an annualized return in the hundreds of percent is possible has declared that “all” Zeek criticism has been “unprofessional” and based on “false information.”

    Some Zeek affiliates have said that Zeek provides a payout that averages about 1.4 percent a day, a figure higher than the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme.

    Zeek has preemptively denied it is an investment program or “pyramid scheme.” Regardless, Zeek has a presence on HYIP forums referenced in federal court filings as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted. The company has used offshore payment processors linked to numerous fraud schemes and employs business model similar to the $110 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme.

    Zeek, which has members in common with ASD, gathers sums of up to $10,000 from members. Like ASD, it claims it is not offering an investment program. But Zeek now is blasting unspecified “North Carolina Credit Unions” for circulating a purported “internal memo” that allegedly was “at once unfavorable to Zeek Rewards and false.”

    The Zeek Blog post was attributed to acting COO Gregory J. Caldwell, who replaced acting COO Dawn Wright-Olivares. While acting COO, Wright-Olivares once suggested that, if Zeek instructed members to change their preference in dispensing toilet paper in their private bathrooms (top-rolling vs. bottom rolling), they should do it.

    Wright-Olivares now is Zeek’s “Chief Marketing Officer,” with Caldwell holding her former job, according to the company.

    Caldwell, according to the Zeek Blog post, now is warning Zeek members to stick with the company line or face the consequences. The post did not spell out those consequences.

    “It’s counter-productive for Affiliates to fan the flames of issues that are the proper responsibility of Zeek Corporate…and it’s a violation of the Zeek Policies and Procedures for which violators will be held responsible,” the post attributed to Caldwell and dated today read in part.

    A North Carolina credit union had slandered Zeek, according to the post attributed to Caldwell on the Zeek Blog (italics/bolding added).

    Zeek Rewards policy is to act quickly to support the Zeek reputation and the future of your business. Upon learning of the memo slandering Zeek,  I called the head of Risk Management to track down the origin of the memo. Upon being discovered, the person responsible admitted he really didn’t know anything about the laws regarding direct selling or how to identify a legitimate network marketing company or opportunity.  Like all our critics, he was behaving unprofessionally by acting on false information.

    We intervened, shut down the misinformation at its source, and that would have been that…were it not for the inappropriate action of one of our own Affiliates who posted the memo online where it has been picked up and is now being used by our critics.

    Prior to being arrested on Dec. 1, 2010, by the U.S. Secret Service amid allegations he was at the helm of an Internet Ponzi scheme that planted the seed affiliates received a return of 1 percent a day but were not making an investment, ASD President Andy Bowdoin also complained about slanderous critics. Bowdoin pleaded guilty in May 2012 to a Ponzi-related charge of wire fraud.

    Although Bowdoin posted bond and remained free after the Secret Service brought its case, he is now jailed in the District of Columbia, amid allegations he continued to promote fraud schemes after the Secret Service seized more than $80 million in the ASD Ponzi case in August 2008 and after Bowdoin was arrested on Ponzi charges in December 2010. Federal prosecutors identified those schemes as AdViewGlobal and OneX.

    Bowdoin, 77, is scheduled to be formally sentenced in the ASD case on Aug. 29.

    Some Zeek members also have promoted OneX, which reportedly used at least one of the same offshore processors as Zeek (SolidTrustPay).

    Zeek members also have been linked to a “program” known as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid and purportedly operated by Frederick Mann, a former ASD pitchman who may have ties to the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement. ASD also had ties to “sovereign citizens,” including the now-jailed Kenneth Wayne Leaming (false liens/harboring fugitives/possessing firearms illegally after prior felony conviction/false uttering) and Curtis Richmond, who once accused the federal judge overseeing the ASD case of “TREASON” and as many as 60 felonies.

    JSS/JBP purports to provide a return of 730 percent a year. JSS/JBP uses at least two of the same offshore processors used by Zeek (SolidTrustPay and AlertPay, now Payza).

    Meanwhile, Zeek promoters also have been linked to a “program” known as Regenesis 2×2, which came under Secret Service scrutiny in 2009 and also had a presence on the Ponzi boards.

    Before the ASD Ponzi raid by the Secret Service in 2008, ASD had moved “several million” dollars into SolidTrustPay, according to court records. AlertPay also is referenced in filings in the ASD Ponzi case. Both firms are referenced in filings in the Pathway to Prosperity HYIP Ponzi case brought in 2010 by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

    Filings in the Pathway to Prosperity case also reference the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup forums — forums on which Zeek, JSS/JBP, ASD and the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme had a common presence. SolidTrustPay, meanwhile, was mentioned in filings in the Eagle Trades LTD fraud case. Terrance Osberger of Eagle Trades was indicted last month by a federal grand jury in Ohio on one count of wire fraud and 48 counts of money-laundering.

    Eagle Trades also had a presence on the Ponzi boards.

    The Blog post attributed to Caldwell came on the heels of a report yesterday by BehindMLM.com that the North Carolina State Employee’s Credit Union (NCSECU) had concerns about Zeek. (Link to BehindMLM story below.)

    In June, the office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said it had concerns about Zeek. Cooper’s office expressed those concerns after a North Carolina television station suggested Cooper’s office had determined Zeek to be operating legally. Zeek’s Blog linked to the TV station’s report, but the TV station later removed the report. Cooper’s office said that no determination that Zeek was operating lawfully had been made.

    Read story on BehindMLM.com.

    Read Zeek’s Blog post.

  • UPDATES: (1) HYIP Huckster ‘Dave’ Launches New Scams, Says He’s Gearing Up For ‘Auction’ Business; (2) BidsThatGive ‘Auction’ Site Says It Will Launch Tomorrow; (3) Zeek ‘Auction’ Business Names New Officers — And Affiliates Make ‘I Got Paid’ Posts As Purported Earnings Calculator Appears On Ponzi Forum

    EDITOR’S NOTE: In Ponzi Land, HYIPs that suggested returns of 1 percent (or more) per day “worked” to line up lambs for the slaughter. So did autosurfs that planted the 1 percent a day (or more) seed. Now, 1 percent a day (or more) “auction” sites are “working.” Will they mushroom globally like HYIPs and autosurfs, setting the stage to fleece participants in unprecedented numbers?

    Apparently now fully recovered from his purported bout with Dengue fever, legendary HYIP huckster “Dave” is back — this time with something called “DailyCashMania” (DCM) that appears to be married to a nascent penny-auction site known as “HawkPay” that is luring affiliates amid DCM promises it will offer a “mega-prize” of a $10,000 cash voucher.

    One MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum promoter of DCM declared it “The ONLY Matrix supported by a [sic] Auction site.”

    HawkPay says it will offer “scratch” auctions. A graphic for a “test listing” (Canon camera) on the site reads “SCRATCH TO SEE YOUR PRICE.” When that graphic is clicked, this message loads: “Your scratch will cost 1 bid and the product price will be lowered with $.10.”

    Separately, a penny-auction site known as “BidsThatGive” says it will formally launch tomorrow to make the world a better place for children. Like the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, some of the chatter for BidsThatGive involved the recitation of names of people who had some sort of tie to the institution of the Presidency of the United States.

    ASD’s chatter about the Presidency quickly brought out the U.S. Secret Service, which discovered ASD affiliates were being paid with money from other affiliates: a classic Ponzi scheme. The Secret Service also discovered that political donations made by ASD President Andy Bowdoin came from Ponzi money.

    Other prelaunch hype for BidsThatGive claimed that affiliates of the “program” could get filthy rich, so rich the company would pay to name a hospital or orphanage after them.

    Meanwhile, the Zeek Rewards MLM “program,” which is married to a penny-auction site known as Zeekler, has announced a new slate of officers at Rex Venture Group, the purported parent company of the Zeek businesses. Even as the company was making the announcement, posters on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi board were sharing “I Got Paid” posts. Another poster placed a link to something called ZeekCalc, a purported earnings calculator apparently created by a Zeek fan.

    Earnings calculators were part of the ASD Ponzi scheme. ASD, like Zeek and “Dave’s” emerging DCM “program,” also had a presence on the Ponzi boards. An earnings calculator also was used in “Dave’s” JSS Tripler 2 scam.

    “This is a online FREE Zeekrewards Profit Calculator that allow [sic] you [to] predict your profit from the Zeekrewards Program,” the calculator site claimed. “With this tool it’s easy and fast [to] calculate your future income or future earnings of the new people who join the program.”

    Among the apparent Zeek affiliates bragging about their Zeek payouts at MoneyMakerGroup in the run-up to Zeek’s announcement about its new officers yesterday was legendary Ponzi promoter “strosdegoz,” a former cheerleader for “Dave’s” scams, along with the OneX scam and the ClubAsteria scam — and many others. “strosdegoz” has claimed to be a member of 35 HYIP boards.

    Among other things, Club Asteria traded on the names of the World Bank and the American Red Cross. Hank Needham, one of Club Asteria’s purported managers, was a former AdSurfDaily pitchman and cash-gifting enthusiast shown on videotape opening packages of cash from at least two countries.

    “Just received two payments now,” “strosdegoz” posted of Zeek on MoneyMakerGroup on July 29. He simultaneously was promoting Bidify, yet another emerging penny-auction site. Others joined “strosdegoz” in the Zeek “I Got Paid” cheerleading chorus on MoneyMakerGroup, including a poster known as “jumpin.”

    “You’ve got cash!” a post yesterday from “jumpin” began. “Rex Venture Group LLC . . .  just sent you money through Payza.”

    The post went on to claim a July 30 Zeek payment of $23.98 from Rex Venture, Zeek’s purported parent company.

    “Ken Russo,” another Ponzi forum legend, also has made “I Got Paid” posts that cited payments from Rex Venture. In May, “Ken Russo” claimed on the TalkGold Ponzi forum that he’d received $34,735 from Zeek since Nov. 14, 2011. “Ken Russo” posts on Talk Gold as “DRdave.”

    Just plain “Dave” of the emerging DCM scam perhaps is most infamous for a “program” known as JSS Tripler 2, which appears to have based its name on the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann, a former ASD pitchman. JSS Tripler 2 soon morphed into something called T2MoneyKlub and launched a companion scam known as Compound150.

    T2 Money Klub and Compound150 appear to have collapsed after “Dave” purportedly was battling back from a bout with Dengue fever.

    But now “Dave” appears to be back with DCM and its work-in-progress “scratch” auction.

    The new Rex Venture Group officers announced yesterday, according to Zeek’s news Blog, include Greg Caldwell as “acting COO”; Josh Calloway as CTO; Clifton Jolly “to head up PR”; Angie Fiebernitz as CFO; and Alex de Brantes as executive director of training and support services.

    Meanwhile, according to the Zeek Blog, Peter Mingils “is rockin’” over the “Certified Trainers course curriculum as Zeek’s Training & Incentives Coordinator,” and “Robert Mecham and OH Brown are banging out video after video and Zeek’s “FANTASTIC NEW BUSINESS CARDS!”

    Dawn Wright-Olivares is Zeek’s new “Chief Marketing Officer,” after previously serving as “acting COO,” according to the Zeek Blog.

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: FTC Goes To Federal Court To Block Alleged $467 Million Scam Operating Globally Online; International Cooperation Cited In Exposing Colossal Fraud Caper, Officials Say

    David Vladeck of the FTC.

    BULLETIN: UPDATED 3:50 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The FTC has gone to federal court to halt what it described as a $467 million, online fraud scheme operating across international borders. The scheme was exposed through international cooperation among the FTC, the Canada Competition Bureau, Service Alberta, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Alberta Partnership Against Cross Border Fraud, the Edmonton Better Business Bureau and the BBB of Southern Nevada, officials said.

    Charged in the case were Jesse Willms, Peter Graver, Adam Sechrist, Brett Callister, Carey L. Milne and several companies.

    Willms, a Canadian, released a statement on his website that described the FTC case as a “disagreement.”

    “We believe our business practices are compliant with the law and are working to resolve this disagreement with the appropriate government agencies,” the statement attributed to Willms read in part.

    The FTC had a far different take.

    Part of the scheme falsely traded on the names of Oprah Winfrey and Rachael Ray while also making false claims of cancer cures and weight loss, the FTC charged. In fact, the FTC said, Winfrey has sued Willms.

    Named corporate defendants by the SEC were: 1021018 Alberta Ltd., also doing business as Just Think Media, Credit Report America, eDirect Software, WuLongsource and Wuyi Source; 1016363 Alberta Ltd., also doing business as eDirect Software; 1524948 Alberta Ltd., also doing business as Terra Marketing Group, SwipeBids.com and SwipeAuctions.com; Circle Media Bids Limited, also doing business as SwipeBids.com, SwipeAuctions.com, and Selloffauctions.com; Coastwest Holdings Ltd.; Farend Services Ltd.; JDW Media LLC; Net Soft Media LLC, also doing business as SwipeBids.com; Sphere Media LLC, also doing business as SwipeBids.com and SwipeAuctions.com; and True Net LLC, also doing business as Selloffauctions.com.

    In addition to using the names of Winfrey and Ray, the scheme also traded on the famous names of CNN, USA Today, CBS, the “60 Minutes” television show and other brands, the FTC said.

    “None of these entities have endorsed or positively reported on any of the 10 Willms defendants’ products,” the FTC said. The agency added that financial service-providers were duped and manipulated into processing payments for the alleged scam, in part through the creation of “dummy” websites designed to sanitize the scheme.

    “Shell corporations” also were used to hoodwink service-providers, the FTC alleged. Consumers were fleeced out of at least $412 million in the scam, which netted nearly half a billion dollars, the agency charged.

    The heart of the scheme was a continuity-billing fraud in which consumers who responded to “free” trial offers were billed for products and services they never requested, the agency said.

    “The defendants used the lure of a ‘free’ offer to open an illegal pipeline to consumers’ credit card and bank accounts,” said David C. Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “‘Free’ must really mean ‘free’ no matter where the offer is made.”

    A Canadian official said cross-border cooperation was vital as agencies combat online fraud schemes.

    “Internet fraud is a global problem that requires an international enforcement response,” said Lisa Campbell, deputy commissioner of competition for the Competition Bureau of Canada. “International cooperation ensures that fraudsters can’t hide behind borders.”

    Auction fraud also was part of the massive scam, the FTC said.

    “Willms and 10 companies he controls used deceptive tactics in offering ‘free trials’ for various products online, including acai berry weight-loss pills, teeth whiteners, and health supplements containing resveratrol (the supposedly healthful ingredient in red wine), as well as for a work-at-home scheme, access to government grants, free credit reports, and penny auctions,” the FTC said.

    Penny auctions, the agency said, are “online auctions in which consumers must purchase bids, usually for $0.50 to $1 each. Regardless of whether a consumer actually wins a penny auction, the consumer has paid for each bid he or she placed during the auction. However, each bid that is placed raises the price of the auctioned item by a penny.”

    “Willms and his companies obtained consumers’ credit or debit card account numbers, by enticing them with bogus ‘free’ or ‘risk-free’ trial offers that supposedly required only small shipping and handling fees, and also promised phony ‘bonus’ offers just for signing up,” the FTC said.

    Consumers, though, often were “charged for the ‘free’ trial plus a monthly recurring fee, typically $79.95,” the agency said.

    Making matters worse, the agency alleged, consumers also were “charged monthly recurring fees for the so-called bonus offers,” the agency said.

    A purported money-back guarantee was no remedy because “consumers were often unsuccessful in canceling the charges or obtaining refunds, and the process involved time-consuming phone calls and other steps that made the deals far from risk-free.”

    Meanwhile, the “penny auctions” were corrupt, the agency charged.

    “The complaint charges that the defendants’ penny auction offers falsely indicated consumers would receive free ‘bonus’ bids, but those who provided credit or debit card numbers to facilitate future auction buying were hit with charges they did not know about, including $150 for introductory ‘bonus’ bids and $11.95 per month for ongoing ‘bonus’ bids,” the FTC charged.

    Winfrey and Ray never endorsed the program, despite the appearance that they had, the FTC said.

    Affiliate marketers in pursuit of commissions helped the massive fraud scheme go viral, affecting consumers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, the FTC said. Important details were buried in the “fine print,” the agency charged.

    The complaint was filed in federal court in Seattle. Willms resides in Alberta, according to the complaint. Graver, Callister and Milne are from Utah. Sechrist lives in Pennsylvania.

    Some of the corporate defendants are from Canada. Others are from England, Cyprus, Utah, Idaho and Nevada, according to the complaint.

    “Offshore merchant banking services” were used as part of the scam, the FTC said.

    “Because these corporate defendants have operated as a common enterprise, each of them is jointly and severally liable for the acts and practices,” the FTC said.