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Tag: SolidtrustPay

  • Ponzi Forum Pitchfest Begins For ‘Fast Profits Daily; ‘Any Attempts To Acquire A Refund Or Chargeback Constitute Theft And Fraud, And Are Grounds For Legal Prosecution,’ Matrix Cycler Says

    UPDATED 2:49 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A pitchfest for an apparent cycler matrix called “Fast Profits Daily” has begun on the TalkGold Ponzi forum. Fast Profits Daily shares a street address in Delaware with another apparent matrix program known as “2X2 Prosperity Formula” and a purported vacation program known as “DREAM STYLE VACATIONS, LLC,” according to research.

    Why the businesses all use the same address and whether they are affiliated entities was not immediately clear.

    Meanwhile, the emerging Fast Profits Daily cycler matrix appears to have links to the AutoXTen cycler matrix and lists Scott Chandler, Randal Williams and Brent Robinson as pitchmen-in-chief on its landing page.

    Chandler, Williams and Robinson are “three of the world’s most famous network marketers,” according to the landing page. Until recently, Chandler and Robinson also were associated with AutoXTen, the Jeff Long-promoted scheme enabled by AlertPay.

    Long , a former pitchman for Data Network Affiliates and NarcThatCar, said on the firm’s web-based help desk that AutoXTen was suited for churches. The AutoXTen help desk also declared that the firm was relying on AlertPay to avoid PayPal “limits.”

    Early info about Fast Profits Daily is bizarre, incongruous and confusing. The PP Blog visited the site yesterday. A launch countdown timer indicated the launch would occur within three hours, conflicting with a printed message that the launch would occur in days.

    Today the countdown timer says the launch will occur in fewer than 10 hours. Like yesterday’s countdown timer, the information conflicts with the “days” printed message.

    Precisely what Fast Profits Daily is selling is unclear. Website visitors are told that “160 countries” will be involved in an “unprecedented opportunity of a lifetime.” The site also publishes a conflicting report that 140 countries are involved.

    “Turn a ONE-TIME $50 or $250 into $1,000, $5,000 even $35,000 over and over monthly, weekly, even daily,” the site advertises.

    On a separate page, the site declared in red type that “ALL Purchases are FINAL and NO REFUNDS or CHARGEBACKS are allowed.

    “Any attempts to acquire a refund or chargeback constitute theft and fraud, and are grounds for legal prosecution,” the site continues. “Purchaser will be liable for all legal and administrative cost associated with the chargeback and minimum penalty of $500USD. Plus any unused services shall be forfeited upon expiration or termination of services.”

    The Fast Profits Daily site also has a headline in red titled, “TRAVEL RELATED REFUNDS / CANCELLATIONS:” Separately, the DREAM STYLE VACATIONS site, which says it accepts AlertPay and Sold Trust Pay, has a headline in red titled, “Travel Related Cancellations/Refunds:” The headline wording is the same as the wording on the Fast Profits Daily site, except the words “cancellations” and “refunds” are transposed.

    Fast Profits Daily did not say whether it intended to prosecute senior citizens and other vulnerable individuals who may come to believe they’d been ripped off and filed a dispute or chargeback.

    Although Fast Profits Daily did not reveal the choice of law under which the firm operates, its servers appear to resolve to Dallas. The website domain is registered behind a proxy, but the website itself lists its address as:

    PMB 6747
    2711 Centerville Rd., Ste 120
    Wilmington, DE 19808
    USA

    As noted above, the same address is associated with 2X2 Prosperity Formula. The 2X2 website features a photo of an orange sports car, a luxious home (or perhaps a rental property) — and a happy family, including young children, walking along a beach with an ocean in the background. Also as as noted above, a third “opportunity” known as “DREAM STYLE VACATIONS, LLC” uses the same address.

    A promo for Fast Profits Daily was posted on the TalkGold Ponzi forum two days ago. Separately, the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum has a thread for 2X2 Prosperity Formula that appears to have been established in February 2009. Based on the post count in MoneyMakerGroup’s 2X2 thread, the “program” appears not to have gained much traction — but its website remains active.

    Like the Fast Profits Daily site, the site for 2X2 Prosperity Formula also appears to be hosted in Dallas.

    UPDATE 2:49 P.M: This thread at MLM.com may be useful.

  • Plaintiffs Say BOA Dismissal Motion Should Be Denied, Ask Court To Note 80/20 Plan And SolidTrustPay Activity, Cite ASD Payoff Of Mortgage Held By AdViewGlobal Owners

    Andy Bowdoin
    Andy Bowdoin

    A federal judge should deny Bank of America’s motion to be dismissed as a defendant in a case that alleges it aided and abetted racketeers operating a massive Ponzi scheme from a former floral shop in Quincy, Fla., the plaintiffs argued yesterday.

    Bank of America is not named a RICO defendant in the case, which was filed by three members of AdSurfDaily. The plaintiffs seek class-action status and treble damages.

    The bank said in court filings that it has done nothing wrong, and argued that the plaintiffs had made vague assertions and not stated a proper claim.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs disagreed, filing a lengthy response to the bank’s dismissal motion — a response that cites suspicious wire transactions ASD routed through SolidTrustPay, a payment processor based in Canada.

    Meanwhile, the plaintiffs said the bank ignored ASD President Andy Bowdoin’s felony criminal record, his ties to a previous securities scheme and his history of operating multiple failed businesses. The plaintiffs made a veiled reference to ASD’s efforts to promote an 80/20 program — something that is occurring now in the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf, which has close ASD ties.

    At the same time, the plaintiffs referenced a December forfeiture complaint in which federal prosecutors alleged that ASD money was used to retire the home mortgage of George and Judy Harris. George Harris is the stepson of Andy Bowdoin and the son of Edna Faye Bowdoin, Andy Bowdoin’s wife. Judy Harris is the wife of George Harris.

    AVG, which previously had disclaimed any affiliation with ASD, now says it is owned by George and Judy Harris. Andy Bowdoin identified George Harris last summer as the head of ASD’s “real estate division.”

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs also referenced Andy Bowdoin’s own acknowledgments that ASD was operating illegally.

    “ASD was the brainchild of Thomas Bowdoin, a convicted felon with a history of securities fraud violations and failed business ventures,” the plaintiffs said. “Bowdoin admits that ASD operated [as] a Ponzi scheme.

    “ASD sold no products or services, held no intellectual property rights, and had no successful business professionals in management or on its Board,” the plaintiffs continued. “ASD had no colorable legitimate means to generate the massive profits (365% per year) Bowdoin and his co-conspirators promised investors nor the tens of millions of dollars a month flooding its tiny office — a former floral shop — in the small town of Quincy, Florida.”

    The bank missed key markers of a scam, the plaintiffs alleged.

    “Indeed, when Bowdoin began his relationship with Bank of America, the illegal ‘AutoSurf’ schemes which ASD emulated were well known among banks, regulators and law enforcement authorities,” the plaintiffs said.

    “It is no wonder that the two local banks in Quincy refused to even open an account for Bowdoin and ASD. Bank of America, on the other hand, welcomed Bowdoin with open arms, allowing him to open not one but ultimately 10 separate d/b/a accounts. In one month alone, $90 million dollars in cash, cashiers checks and Visa credit card charges were deposited in these accounts. Bank of America made it possible for victims throughout the country to deposit funds with the Ponzi scheme by simply completing a deposit slip and adding the ASD account number. Many of the deposit slips were even pre-printed with ASD’s account information.

    “Bank of America also enabled unsuspecting victims to wire transfer contributions to ASD from anywhere in the world,” the plaintiffs said. “Bank of America willingly allowed ASD to falsely legitimize its operations using the Bank’s good name. Bank of America never once questioned or asked ASD to remove its name from its website or written materials that prominently featured Bank of America.”

    Reference To Harris Mortgage

    On Page 15 of their answer to the bank’s dismissal motion, the plaintiffs referenced the government’s assertion that ASD money was used to pay off the home mortgage of George and Judy Harris and in other unusual ways.

    “By virtue of its active involvement in ASD’s business affairs, Bank of America was aware that funds flowed from the RICO Defendants’ accounts in a manner inconsistent with a legitimate business,” the plaintiffs asserted. “Bowdoin, in particular, used ASD business accounts at Bank of America with impunity to purchase personal luxury items, to pay off mortgages for family members, to buy property, and to otherwise dissipate business funds.”

    The plaintiffs then referenced what they described as red-flag-waving transactions ASD routed to Solid Trust Pay, a payment processor based in Canada.

    “ASD’s transfers of funds from Bank of America accounts also provided Bank of America with information about the suspicious nature of ASD’s operations,” the plaintiffs said.

    “In a two-week period, the RICO Defendants wired several million dollars from their Bank of America accounts to an internet-operated, Canada-based money transmitting and payment company. Such a transaction is not consistent with a legitimate business enterprise.

    “The RICO Defendants additionally used funds from the Bank of America accounts of one scheme, ASD, to seed the Bank of America accounts of another scheme operated by the RICO Defendants, Golden Panda. These transactions, too, were consistent with a fraudulent scheme, and inconsistent with legitimate business activity.”

    On Page 25 of their answer to Bank of America, the plaintiffs referenced ASD’s efforts to get members to participate in an 80/20 program. Such programs are designed to stem the outflow of cash from an autosurf.

    “The RICO Defendants counseled members on reinvesting rebates and commissions under the auspices of trying to help members maximize their financial gains,” the plaintiffs said.

    AVG, which announced that it was suspending payouts to members, advised members that participation in an 80/20 program would be mandatory should the surf resume payouts on a date uncertain.

    AVG’s name was mentioned in a previous filing by the plaintiffs, although the surf firm has not been named a RICO defendant.

    Andy Bowdoin, a RICO defendant along with ASD attorney Robert Garner, has not responded to the complaint, which was filed in January and amended in April. Garner answered the complaint, saying U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia did not have jurisdiction over him.

    Read the plaintiffs’ answer to BOA.

  • What Happened To ASD’s Money In Canada?

    UPDATED 12:42 P.M. EDT U.S.A (SEE BOTTOM OF POST FOR STATEMENT FROM SOLID TRUST PAY)

    Over the weekend, some AdSurfDaily members reported they had received what amounts to partial refunds for money they spent in ASD. The members said they received the payment notifications in an email marked as a “final” refund through SolidTrustPay, a payment processor based in Canada.

    The email did not disclose the authority by which STP was sending the refunds. It was not immediately clear if recipients were charged a fee for accepting the refund, and no accounting was provided.

    Recipients, for example, were not told the size of the STP refund pool. One recipient, however, said he was told that the refund consisted of a pro rata share of the money ASD had on deposit in STP and that ASD had removed 63 percent of the money it once had on deposit on a date or dates uncertain.

    If that is true, what happened to the 63 percent ASD removed? And when did ASD remove the money and who benefited from the removal?

    ASD suspended operations Aug. 1, 2008, the date it was notified that its U.S. bank accounts were being seized. The U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors said in court documents that ASD had moved “several million” dollars into STP about two weeks prior to the seizure.

    “Several million” implies at least $3 million. If that is the case — and if ASD removed 63 percent of the money in STP prior to STP freezing its account — then $1.89 million may be unaccounted for. If “several million” means $5 million, then $3.15 million may be unaccounted for. At a minimum, there has been no public accounting of the money by ASD.

    What happened to that money?

    It is not known if ASD had more than one STP account or if ASD executives and insiders used their personal STP accounts to store ASD money. It is possible that ASD, for example, had “unofficial” accounts — accounts that did not bear the names of ASD or ASD President Andy Bowdoin, but accounts into which ASD could funnel money with no transparent tie to the firm.

    Here is what prosecutors said last August:

    “Within the past two weeks, ASD has wired several million dollars to Solid Trust Pay from its BOA Accounts. A TFA also learned that earlier in July 2008, a bank other than BOA closed the last account that was controlled by Bowdoin or family members after that bank determined, and explained to them, that an investigation by the bank determined that Bowdoin appeared to be operating a Ponzi scheme. Bowdoin indicated that he purchased, or was seeking to purchase, a home in another country.”

    Complicating matters is that ASD argued in court last year for emergency release of $2 million held by the U.S. government with court oversight, saying it needed the money to operate. Prosecutors pointed out that ASD had at least $1 million on deposit in Antigua, saying the firm’s “emergency” pleading was overblown.

    ASD eventually acknowledged the Antigua money, saying it would repatriate it to the United States, along with an unspecified amount “currently being held with Solid Trust Pay in Canada,” as part of an oversight plan. On Sept. 16, ASD told U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer that Andy Bowdoin would step down from ASD, if necessary, as part of an oversight plan tied to the emergency petition for the release of money held by the government.

    “Unless otherwise agreed to by the Monitor, Andy Bowdoin will not be an employee, officer or director of the Company,” ASD said in September. “He will act as a consultant to the Company on terms acceptable to the Monitor and will agree to follow the Code of Conduct developed as part of the Future Business Operations Plan.”

    About two weeks later — on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 — Collyer held an evidentiary hearing at ASD’s request to consider the oversight plan and the release of government-held funds with oversight. On Nov. 19, Collyer ruled that ASD had not demonstrated it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme, and denied the request to release the money and to implement an oversight plan.

    It does not appear as if any ASD money in Antigua or Canada was repatriated. If 63 percent of the money ASD had in STP was removed on dates uncertain and no longer is available to become part of a restitution pool envisioned by the government, it leads to troubling questions about what happened to the money.

    AdViewGlobal (AVG), a surf firm with close family, management and promotional ties to ASD, began a prelaunch phase in December, less than a month after Collyer’s ruling. ASD gave its official endorsement to the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum, and some of the Surf’s Up forum Mods and members went on to start a forum for AVG. That forum now has gone dark, as has a company-run AVG forum. AVG also uses STP.

    AVG formally launched in February, and now has suspended cash-outs, made an 80/20 program mandatory if cash-outs resume, and exercised its version of a “rebates aren’t guaranteed” clause that permits it to keep all the money it collects from customers.

    Prosecutors revealed in April that Andy Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter in the ASD case, an act that may signal he was willing to help the government untangle the ASD mess. In January, Bowdoin submitted to the forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars seized in August.

    In February, though, Bowdoin changed his mind about submitting to the forfeiture, firing his attorneys without notifying them and proceeding as a pro se litigant to repopen his claim to the seized proceeds. At the same time, AVG transitioned into a “private association” that says it is based in Uruguay.

    Read ASD’s September oversight plan that mentions money in Antigua and money held in SolidTrustPay.

    Read the December forfeiture complaint that identifies George and Judy Harris — now identified as the owners of AVG — as beneficiaries of ASD’s illegal conduct.

    Statement From Solid Trust Pay

    SolidTrust Pay would like to make an official statement on the recent refunds received.

    COMMENT: Vice President of SolidTrust, Stella Hiemstra, is responsible issuing any refunds from dormant merchant accounts. The funds did NOT come from Oceanna Music Publishing (a company also owned/operated by Ms. Hiemstra). The “oceannamusic” email was simply the email attached to the account, and Ms. Hiemstra uses that address in order to keep notifications emanating from it separate from other solidtrustpay based emails. The username and registered account was SolidTrust Group – the main merchant account of STPay. There was no hack, no scam, no conspiracy, no other company, no funneling of funds, no haircuts…it was just a plain refund process.

    COMMENT: The ASD account in SolidTrust has now been dormant for over 6 months. It has actually been dormant for 11 months and, as is our policy, dormant merchant accounts with remaining funds are refunded back to the original senders of the funds. SolidTrust has never been contacted by any legitimate US or Canadian authority regarding the ASD situation. The funds in SolidTrust were never considered part of the total liability, and there was a relatively small balance remaining in the ASD account.

    COMMENT – 2 million dollars was wired into SolidTrust early last summer, and these funds were immediately used for payments to ASD members who were SolidTrust Pay clients. This is perfectly normal activity for merchants who pay commissions/bonuses to their clients. They obviously have to fund their accounts at periodic intervals in order to honour their commitments.

    COMMENT: due to the length of time and dormant state of the account, SolidTrust was acting on its own policies to return funds to clients. There was no interaction in these refunds by any ASD individual or Andy Bowdoin. SolidTrust has done many such refunds in the past. SolidTrust has developed its own software that calculates the value of funds sent, deducts any transfers received, and creates a resulting refund amount.

    COMMENT: the wording on the refund was “final refund for AdsSurf Daily from STPay” which is exactly what it was – a final refund for that program, and coming from STPay.

    CONCLUSION: SolidTrust prides itself on vigilantly monitoring all account activity and acting on its own policies fairly and equitably for all. It is shocked at the above comments, statements and accusations. There was not one single phone call or support ticket asking the questions posted in this blog, and the blog owner has not contacted us to find out the real, very simple, answers.

    In light of this situation, SolidTrust may have to rethink its refund policy if any attempt by STPay to return funds to legitimate users is going to be construed as a suspicious act of some kind. We welcome our members comments on our refund policies – you can submit your opinions to: priority@solidtrustpay.com

  • Aggero Investment Surf In Slow-Mo Tank On Heels Of Earlier Failure Of Premium Ads Club: Bad Week For ‘Industry’

    Earlier this week we reported on the failure of Premium Ads Club (PAC). Now a surf with close ties to PAC is in its death spiral. Aggero Investment says tomorrow will be its last day, absent a miracle that will prevent a run on the bank as investors race to collect returns advertised at 60 percent a month, on top of bonus returns.

    Like PAC, Aggero Investment collected money right up to the bitter end, assuring investors that things were just fine and that external investments paying astronomical returns made Aggero Investment’s merely collossal returns possible.

    Aggero Investment relied on some of the same promoters as AdSurfDaily (ASD), the Quincy, Fla,-based autosurf that had nearly $100 million in assets seized by the U.S. Secret Service in August amid allegations of money-laundering, wire fraud and running a Ponzi scheme.

    ASD had more than $250 million in unfunded liabilities at the time of seizure, prosecutors said. ASD, however, tried to tell a federal judge that it had no liabilities because rebates weren’t guaranteed.

    The judge didn’t buy it.

    The usual script is in play on the Ponzi boards in the wake of the Aggero Investment collapse. Some posters are angry and bitter. Others are urging calm, advising participants not to file claims through SolidTrustPay, a Canadian payment processor fond of surf fees, because claims could make it harder on everybody. Still others are hoping Aggero Investment will slash payouts to something more “reasonable,” suggesting that 30 percent — what ASD paid monthly — might be the ticket.

    Yet others are referring to the electronic Ponzi-scheme business as an “industry,” positioning themselves as experts and the voices of reason. Serial promoters in the “industry” all have exposure — both to civil and criminal litigation — and routinely spin surf failures as nothing to get all worked up about.

    It has been a bad week for surfs. AdViewGlobal (AVG), which has management in common with ASD, desperately is trying to get undergound. Its new gambit is to form a private asssociation and dispatch shills to rail against the government in a bid to make its exposure go away and deflect from the central issues of the autosurf prosecutions: the sale of unregistered securities by wire in a Ponzi environment.

    The Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum, which also is shilling for AVG, can’t delete posts that shed light on this soulless business fast enough these days. Some Surf’s Up members were electrified this week when ASD members used a litigation template by Curtis Richmond to file motions to intervene in the ASD case.

    Richmond and his co-litigants are accusing the judge and prosecutors in the ASD case of crimes, and its music to the ears of the Surf’s Up crackpots. Never mind that Richmond is associated with a sham Utah Indian tribe that was sued successfully under federal racketeering statutes for nuisancing federal judges with vexatious litigation.

    And never mind that Richmond has a conviction for criminal contempt of court for threatening federal judges, has been banned from the practice of law in Colorado despite the fact he’s not an attorney, and describes himself in court documents as a “Sovereign” who answers only to Jesus Christ and enjoys diplomatic immunity from prosecution.

    His theory of diplomatic immunity didn’t play well with a federal judge who ordered Richmond and other members of the sham tribe to pay nearly $110,000 in damages and costs to victims of their litigation schemes. And it didn’t play well with another federal judge who found Richmond gulity of criminal contempt of court and sentenced him to six months of home confinement with electronic monitoring and five years’ probation.

    This week has featured the collapse of Aggero Investment and Premium Ads Club, and a renewed commitment by AVG and Surf’s Up to take the absurdity to new levels — on the heels of a bonus program to get new money into the AVG system, of course.

  • Words That Should Become The New ‘Shot Heard ‘Round The World’ Spoken By Former CFTC Enforcement Chief

    By coincidence the words appear in the 13th paragraph of a Chicago Tribune story invoking investors’ sustained lack of luck and reporting on a new series of Ponzi schemes the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating.

    The words were spoken by Gregory Mocek, former CFTC enforcement director, and are the most important words spoken to date during the financial meltdown. They should be the new “Shot heard ’round the world.”

    Ponzi schemes involving foreign currency trading have been so rampant they could “eat up all of the commission’s investigation and litigation resources, and there will be nothing left to protect the integrity of legitimate markets,” Mocek told the newspaper.

    It’s the problem in a nutshell. With great economy and not an ounce of hyberbole, Mocek defined the problem. As always, the question is, “Will anybody listen?”

    Give Them Big Guns And A Camera

    Regulators need the financial equivalent of automatic weapons provided the DEA when drug dealers switched from 38s to Uzis. They need bigger budgets, more enforcement staff, more computers, more laptops, more training, more undercover agents, more political support, less criticism and tools that work. At the same time, they need better PR skills, more news savvy and the power of arrest. They need cameras to take mugshots, a website that publishes the mugshots, and the ability to explain the arrest in nontechnical terms.

    To the best of our knowledge, no federal law-enforcement agency provided photos of Bernard Madoff or R. Allen Stanford, despite the extraordinary allegations against them. The public needs those photos. The media need those photos. Bloggers need those photos. Webmasters need those photos. It’s a key step in getting this cancer under control. The Sarasota County Sheriff’s office provided a photo of Arthur Nadel. Why can’t federal agencies do the same?

    Clean Up The Internet

    It is a mistake of grand proportions to assume the Ponzi problem and the financial skullduggery exist only in the brick-and-mortar world, that the practitioners exclusively wear suits, read the Wall Street Journal and shuttle from appointment to appointment in fine rides like Madoff or Stanford.

    Indeed, many of the most egregious offenders don’t have well-known names, spend much of the day in their underwear, read Internet boards as opposed to the Journal, don’t have appointments that even resemble anything traditional and don’t even leave their homes — not even to go to the bank.

    They are destroying wealth. They are sucking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the economy, perhaps even billions of dollars. Their ability to accumulate wealth at the expense of others has nothing to do with skill and has everything to do with timing: They read High Yield Investment Program (HYIP) and “autosurf” boards on the Internet, send email to their followers when they spot an opportunity, fund their purchases via wire transfer through Canada and, when it’s time to take their “profits,” they take them by wire transfer and deposit them in banks via ACH.

    At this very minute, hundreds of HYIPs and autosurfs are selling unregistered securities to U.S. residents and are using virtually pure Ponzi models to do it. They’re advertising huge returns — 30 percent a month and even 144 percent in 12 days — while stressing in U.S. English that they are safe opportunities and outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement in places such as Panama and Uruguay.

    Because they use U.S. English and their websites can be copied, nonEnglish-speaking criminals and people who speak limited English as a second language are simply cutting and pasting content, starting their own HYIPs and autosurfs, paying off members to instill early trust — and then vanishing with U.S. dollars when they’ve met their criminal target.

    And then starting all over again.

    They need only about $400 to steal tens of millions of dollars. If they already own the php script, their investment shrinks to the price of a domain name, a hosting account for a month or two and their time.

    Canadian companies used by the criminals include AlertPay and SolidTrustPay. These companies are permitting money-laundering by turning a blind eye to it. If they do take an overt step to instill client discipline, they get targeted by DDOS attacks that knock their servers offline.

    PayPal won’t touch this business. Much of it went to Canada when the United States put an end to eGold’s love affair with customers who laundered money through the system.

    A surf known as “MegaLido” is a case in point. No one other than the operator knows for certain where MegaLido was located. It came to life in the aftermath of the government seizure of nearly $100 million from Florida-based AdSurfDaily Inc. amid Ponzi allegations, and even was promoted by ASD members. MegaLido used AlertPay and SolidTrustPay, recruited an estimated 27,000 members, collected money from the members — and then simply vanished.

    It looks as though it had a partner in the crime — a surf known as Instant2U — which also fled with money it collected. AlertPay and SolidTrustPay reportedly are providing partial refunds from money the criminal surfs left in the system, but it wasn’t enough to make “investors” whole.

    See this post. And see this post.

    AlertPay suffered a DDOS attack during the process and was knocked offline.

    Forex scheming also is a big part of these games. CFTC, the SEC, the FBI, the IRS and prosecutors need tools. They need political clout behind them. It is clear that the American people have had it with Ponzi schemes and massive financial fraud. There never has been a better time for politicians to curry favor with voters by blasting these schemes back to the Stone Age.

    The new “Shot heard ’round the world’ should be plugged into one of the bailout packages because it provides exceptional value for taxpayers, exquisite headlines for politicians and exceptional tools for law enforcement to nuke these operations and stem the flow of poison.

    At the moment, advocates for Ponzi schemes — yes, the schemes have advocates and even crackpots who want to sue the government for enforcing existing laws — are sending letters to Sen. Patrick Leahy.

    They want Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to investigate the prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service for breaking up the ASD Ponzi scheme. Some of the very same people are promoting offshore scams in Panama and Uruguay.

    It is time to nuke these miserable businesses. Gregory Mocek laid out the problem, and he couldn’t be more right.

    Fire the shot.

    Read the Chicago Tribune story.

  • MegaLido Members Take A Pounding

    Reports online suggest MegaLido members are receving paltry refunds of less than 10 percent from the payment processors they used to fund their MegaLido accounts

    The precise percentage of the refunds is unclear. What is clear is that MegaLido is yet another autosurf that went bust.

    MegaLido was widely promoted by members of AdSurfDaily in the aftermath of the government’s August seizure of ASD’s assets. Promoters pitched it as a safe, offshore alternative — all the while blasting the government for its actions in the ASD case.

    MegaLido used multiple payment processors — SolidTrustPay, Strict Pay and AlertPay. Members now are left holding the bag.

    One member reported a $13 refund from a $180 stake. Another reported a $26 refund from accumulated paper “profits” of $1,200. Yet another member said he had invested $2,000 and got back about $700, a loss of $1,300.

    Even a partial refund is a win or sorts, however. Many autosurfs fail and participants lose their entire stakes. In some cases, autosurf operators remove all or part of the money from their payment-processing accounts, making even partial refunds impossible. In the MegaLido case, it appears as though the payment processors were able to provide partial refunds based on money the operator left in the accounts before his access was blocked.

    His name reportedly is Michael, although that’s not for certain. Some MegaLido members have speculated that the autosurf was part of a Nigerian scam, although that’s not for certain. It also has been reported that MegaLido was operating out of Europe. That’s not for certain, either.

    What is for certain is that many of the people who played got burned.

    One of the most grating things about the MegaLido ads was that promoter’s couldn’t possibly have verified their claims. No autosurf using a Ponzi model is safe, for example. Promoters gushed and gushed about MegaLido, positioning it as the source of gushing profits — but all of it was smoke and mirrors.

    MegaLido, positioned as a safe haven and a long-term winner, lasted only weeks.