UPDATED 6:59 A.M. ET (DEC.29, U.S.A.):The OneX site now is resolving to a server, although the site still appears to be down. (UPDATE 6:25 P.M. ET DEC. 29: The OneX site now appears to be back online after an absence of days. Whether is is fully functional is unclear.) Web data now suggest OneX is using a server in the United States. It previously used a server in Europe. Here, below, our post that reflected earlier events . . .
At the time of this post, the website for “OneX” — a “program” pushed by AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin — will not resolve to a server.
Nor will the site return a ping. The ping returns “Timed out” error messages. Because the site will not resolve to a server, a message that the site “will be available in the next 24 hours” no longer appears at the URL for OneX.
The development means that some or all OneX members and prospects are in an even greater information vacuum. The site has been inaccessible for days, although the PP Blog has learned OneX conducted a conference call yesterday and assured listeners the site would return after server problems caused by “inexperience” were solved.
The call featured various cheerleaders, including a man identified as “J.C.,” apparently a company official.
“J.C.,” explaining that he did not enjoy hype, assured listeners that “God” was on the side of OneX and that he anticipated 2.5 million riders on the OneX train by March.
It was revealed during the call the OneX is using Canada-based Solid Trust Pay (STP).
STP was one of the payment processors used by ASD and has a reputation for fueling Ponzi and fraud schemes. STP was among the processors used by alleged international swindler Nicholas Smirnow of Pathway To Prosperity, which the U.S. Postal Inspection Service said last year had defrauded tens of thousands of people from 120 countries.
During the OneX conference call, J.C. explained that many members were showing “unbelievable tolerance” for the website problems.
“Those who are not being patient do not understand what’s there,” J.C. asserted.
Among other things, J.C. appealed to callers not to send in support tickets.
“We’re having some — it’s load problems,” J.C. asserted, calling the development “teething problems.”
J.C. also assured listeners that the company was “a thousand times” more frustrated than OneX members who cannot access the site.
The OneX IT team was inexperienced in the area of “load testing” and wished to apologize for its lack of experience, J.C. said.
“. . . We don’t know how to do heavy load-testing,” J.C. asserted.
That the OneX website was being “slammed” by traffic was a “good thing,” J.C. asserted.
“Hey,” he insisted, “these are pioneering days.”
“We’re on a mission from God,” J.C. asserted.
Bowdoin, who is facing trial on criminal charges of operating a Ponzi scheme through ASD that gathered at least $110 million, told conference-call listeners in October that God created OneX to help him win his criminal case.
Although J.C. apparently agrees with Bowdoin that God is steering the OneX ship, J.C. told listeners that they should expect no support from their sponsors.
Bowdoin has claimed that he is providing “leads” to his OneX recruits and that enrollees could make nearly $100,000 by paying $5.
A woman on yesterday’s OneX call, which apparently was organized by a downline group with access to OneX management, claimed there were plenty of reasons to be excited about OneX.
“In three months, we can look back . . . and laugh,” the woman claimed, later asserting the company started out “on horseback.”
“You’re pioneers,” J.C. asserted. “This is huge.”
OneX “leadership” will “roll up their sleeves” to solve problems, another woman asserted.
J.C. said the firm would provide a “paved road” for members one day.
Combined with corporation records and documents such as news releases, this post on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum raises questions about whether AdViewGlobal, an autosurf with close ties to AdSurfDaily, was part of an elaborate penny-stock scheme and money-laundering conduit that consumed the EWalletPlus payment processor and left AVG members holding the bag.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Longtime readers of the PP Blog will recall that the purported AdSurfDaily (ASD) spinoff known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) and some of its members engaged in particularly bizarre behavior in May 2009. The absurdities included announcing (and then unannouncing) a puported deal with a new offshore wire facilitator, announcing (and then unannouncing) a new website with purported new services and claiming the upstart company was healthy enough not only to pay out 250 percent matching bonuses to members and 200 percent matching bonuses to recruiters, but also to pay out multilevel downline commissions and purported surfing income of up to 8 percent a day.
Just two months earlier — in March 2009 — AVG suddenly announced its account at an unspecified bank had been suspended and that its chief executive officer had resigned. The firm bizarrely added that CEO Gary Talbert would not leave the company altogether. Rather, Talbert would remain in the accounting department.
Just a month earlier, Talbert, also a former ASD executive, had been introduced in an AVG conference call by Terralynn Hoy, an ASD member and moderator of the pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum and an emerging forum for the AVG autosurf. The introduction occurred in February 2009 after weeks of assertions by AVG that there were no ties between itself and ASD. The introduction was preceded by a bizarre announcement in late January of 2009 by AVG that the appearance of its graphics on an ASD-controlled webroom was an “operational coincidence.” The person making that announcement on AVG’s behalf was Chuck Osmin, a former ASD employee.
AVG’s websites ultimately disappeared. Members claimed AVG was owned by George and Judy Harris, and at least one of the AVG websites identified George Harris as an AVG trustee. George Harris, described in court filings as the head of ASD’s purported real-estate division, is the stepson of Andy Bowdoin and the son of Bowdoin’s wife, Edna Faye Bowdoin.
It later proved to be the case that May 2009 — the same month in which AVG was reimagining itself as one of the world’s leading advertising and communications firms while at once announcing and unannouncing key bits of purported news — was the same month the grand jury that indicted ASD President Andy Bowdoin had convened.
The PP Blog is reporting today that records strongly suggest AVG was a cog in a larger fraud — one that somehow married the AVG autosurf to a penny-stock scheme with a purported arm in the “oil” businesses and a branch that owned an Arizona payment processor known as EWalletPlus that later collapsed.
Here, now, our Special Report . . .
Is stock manipulation in multiple venues part of the bigger picture of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme? Out of the clear blue sky in the fall of 2008 — as ASD awaited a critical court ruling in the Ponzi forfeiture case against the assets of President Andy Bowdoin — ASD claimed it expected a $200 million revenue infusion from Praebius Communications, a penny-stock firm that did not disclose audited sales figures.
But the Praebius announcement, which ASD later withdrew without explaining why, may not be the firm’s only tie to a penny-stock company.
A May 2009 post on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum is adding to lingering questions about whether AdViewGlobal — an autosurf with close ties to ASD — was part of an elaborate penny-stock scheme and money-laundering conduit involving multiple companies, domestic and offshore venues and individuals with ties to ASD.
On May 5, 2009, a MoneyMakerGroup poster who used the handle of “IMCanadian” claimed he (or she) had received autosurfing payouts totaling $1,300 from AdViewGlobal (AVG) on unspecified dates. The payments, according to the post, were routed through SolidTrustPay (STP), a Canadian payment processor.
The MoneyMakerGroup post potentially provides a glimpse into how fraudulent securities businesses may layer themselves to confuse both investors and authorities. The post cites two different email addresses as the sources of STP payments from the AVG scheme. Although the email addresses purportedly were used by AVG to cause STP to issue AVG autosurf payouts, neither of the addresses used a domain name owned by AVG. Instead, they used Yahoo and Gmail addresses.
AVG, according to records, could have chosen to use email addresses that corresponded to its own domain names. The firm owned at least two namesake domains before it suspended member cashouts in June 2009: ADVGlobal.com and AdViewGlobal.com.
But relying on free email providers such as Yahoo and Google was not the sole oddity associated with AVG, a firm an early promoter predicted would become a “1 Billion Dollar Company [before the] end of 2009.”
“Most if not all of your leaders are joining,” the promoter flatly counseled on a forum known as FreeLunchRoom on Dec. 23, 2008, two days before Christmas.
The MoneyMakerGroup posts that followed cited not only the Yahoo and Gmail payout addresses, but also two different STP usernames from which AVG payouts to “IMCanadian” purportedly originated. Absent in both usernames was any reference to AVG itself.
Like AVG, ASD also used STP, according to records. In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service alleged that ASD had wired “several million dollars” to STP just prior to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from the personal bank accounts of ASD President Andy Bowdoin.
A payment of $200 for AdViewGlobal earnings was received through STP from an STP user who used the acronym “avg” as part of a yahoo.com email address, but did not use an AVG domain, according to the MoneyMakerGroup post. The STP username linked to the AVG payout was “karveck,” not AdViewGlobal or AVG, according to the post.
An AVG payment for $1,100, meanwhile, had come from an STP member who used the words “tmscorp” and “usa” — along with the abbreviation “llc” as part of a Gmail address, according to the post. The STP username for the payout was “tmscorp,” not AdViewGlobal or AVG, according to the post.
Ten days after the claims appeared on MoneyMakerGroup, the grand jury that indicted ASD President Andy Bowdoin in the District of Columbia was sworn in, according to records. The swearing in occurred just 11 days after the Obama administration announced a crackdown on offshore fraud schemes. On the same day Obama himself spoke about the crackdown — May 4, 2009 — AVG announced it had secured a new offshore wire facilitator in the aftermath of the purported suspension of AVG’s bank account in March 2009. Research by the PP Blog suggests that AVG sought to route money to itself by using a Florida shell company that had sought the services of an offshore firm later banned by the National Futures Association.
The seal on the Bowdoin indictment was lifted on Nov. 23, 2010, during a period in which some ASD members were discouraging others from filing remissions claims in the ASD forfeiture case brought by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008.
Bowdoin was arrested in Florida on Dec. 1, 2010. He faces an upcoming trial on allegations of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities for his operation of ASD. AVG’s name does not appear in the indictment.
The Operative Word: ‘Murky’
Much remains murky about the degree of connectivity among ASD, AVG, STP, Karveck, TMS Corp and EWalletPlus. It is known that ASD and AVG had members and promoters in common. Both firms used STP to process payments, but it remains far from clear how many STP accounts the companies and their executives or insiders controlled and how much money generated in the ASD scheme remained in offshore accounts that later could be tapped to channel money to AVG.
ASD and AVG are known to have turned to members and moderators of the now-defunct Surf’s Up forum to sanitize the respective schemes. The surf firms, according to AVG, also shared at least two of the same employees: Chuck Osmin and Gary Talbert.
Some ASD members have claimed Bowdoin was a silent partner in AVG and fronted the money to acquire EWalletPlus, AVG’s purported in-house payment processor. If the assertion that Bowdoin provided money to buy EWalletPlus is true, it may mean that the deal was heavily layered to shield Bowdoin from being identified as the funding source and that AVG had more than one silent partner.
Karveck and TMS Corp used multiple versions of their names, a potential indicator of money-laundering — i.e., a bid to dupe banks into warehousing fraud-scheme proceeds. Karveck, for example, has been referred to as just plain Karveck, but also Karveck International. Records show that at least three versions of the TMS Corp. name exist: TMS Corp., TMS Association and TMS Corp. USA LLC.
TMS Corp. USA LLC is listed in Nevada and Arizona records as using ASD’s address in Quincy, Fla. Its manager is listed as Talbert, the former executive at both ASD and AVG.
Each of the TMS firms appears to have a tie to EWalletPlus, which once shared the same server in Panama with AVG. Despite serving pages from Panama, AVG purported to be based in Uruguay and to enjoy U.S. Constitutional protections even though it was operating offshore. Making the situation even murkier is that a penny-stock company known as Vana Blue Inc. claimed in 2008 to own TMS Corp., the parent company of the EWalletPlus web portal, and to have have acquired Karveck International in February 2009.
The claims came in the form of news releases — and news releases are common tools in penny-stock frauds.
AVG formally launched in February 2009, a year after VanaBlue claimed ownership in a news release of TMS Corp. and EWalletPlus and months after the seizure of Bowdoin’s assets in August 2008. Prior to the seizure, Bowdoin ventured to Costa Rica and Panama, according to court filings by the Secret Service.
The purpose of the Bowdoin trip, according to the Secret Service, was to to incorporate ASD Cash Generator — a replacement autosurf for a Bowdoin surf that had collapsed in 2007 — and an entity known known as La Sorta Trading outside of U.S. jurisdiction. The agency made the claim on Feb. 26, 2009, less than a month after the formal launch of AVG and during the same period in which AVG reportedly had met with a convicted securities felon and announced the formation of a purported offshore “private association.”
Also in February 2009, Vana Blue declared Karveck International a “newly acquired asset” that had produced $1.8 million in revenue in January 2009. Karveck was described as a company that “specializes in internet advertising and promotion in a search engine and ad clicking type environment.”
Mysteriously, however, VanaBlue disowned Karveck International just six months later — in August 2009. What Vana Blue initially had described in February as a completed acquisition of Karveck International was redescribed in August as deal that had fallen through as a result of “further due diligence.”
“Vana Blue was unable to complete this transaction but is in the final stages of negotiation with an oil company to continue its plans of acquisitions,” Vana Blue claimed on Aug. 17, 2009.
During the month of August 2009, ASD’s Bowdoin announced in court filings that he was “negotiating” with federal prosecutors. The August 2009 negotiations, which collapsed by mid-September of the same year, marked at least the second time that Bowdoin or his legal team claimed that the ASD patriarch was seeking to find a way to settle the ASD forfeiture case.
Bowdoin’s negotiations pleading appeared on the docket of U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer on Aug. 4, 2009. Thirteen days later — on Aug. 17, 2009 — Vana Blue announced on Business Wire that its acquisition of Karveck International — a deal it described in February 2009 as completed — had fallen through.
Vana Blue claimed in the same announcement it was proceeding on a deal for an oil company despite its sudden loss of Karveck International.
Earlier this year, a source told the PP Blog that she provided $5,000 to her sponsor — and that the sponsor converted her money to cashier’s checks made payable to TMS Association, one of the “TMS” companies records suggest was tied to both AVG and EWalletPlus. The woman told the Blog that she believed she was a victim of the ASD scheme.
On Dec. 21 2010, just 20 days after Bowdoin was indicted, an email that appeared to have originated with an AVG member began to circulate among ASD members.
The email accused members of ASD who were participating in the remissions program established by the Justice Department and the Secret Service of signing their “morals and soul away” and supporting “innocent peoples lives being destroyed.”
In a possible bid to intimidate ASD members, the email further claimed that an unspecified “back lash” would occur against any ASD member who participated in the claims program.
Last month ASD members who filed approved claims forms received back 100 percent of the money they had directed at ASD. The remissions payments were funded by money seized by the Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi case.
Although its is believed the government also has opened a probe into the affairs of AVG, prosecutors have made only veiled references to AVG in court filings in the ASD case.
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.â€
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
