Sentencing Hearing Postponed For Zeek Rewards’ Executive Dawn-Wright Olivares

Sentencing for Dawn Wright-Olivares, a former Zeek Rewards’ executive who pleaded guilty in February 2014 to investment-fraud conspiracy and tax-fraud conspiracy, has been postponed, the office of U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the Western District of North Carolina said today. Wright-Olivares, whose age was listed as 45 by federal prosecutors at the time of her guilty plea, […]
MyAdvertisingPays Pulls Out Of America, Leaving U.S. Affiliates In The Lurch; Cross-Border Scheme Alleges Libel, Defamation

EDITORIAL: In April 2015, the PP Blog reported that a promo on YouTube put words in the mouth of President Obama and depicted him as a pitchman for MyAdvertisingPays, a cross-border scheme with promoters in common with the alleged Zeek Rewards and TelexFree Ponzi- and pyramid schemes. “My AdvertisingPays pays its members every 20 minutes,” a mimicked […]
SHADES OF ZEEK: Prospective Class-Action Defendant Tells Judge TelexFree Was Operating A Tax Scam

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 […]
BOOKMARK EConsumer.Gov: 34-Nation Coalition Takes Online Complaints About Pyramid Schemes And Other Cross-Border Scams

Modern scams that use the Internet can mushroom, creating victims in huge numbers in multiple countries. Let today be the day you bookmark EConsumer.gov. The PP Blog has placed a link in the right sidebar. The United States and 33 other countries are members of the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network or ICPEN. From the […]
FEDS: ‘Achieve Community’ Scam Raked Victims In More Than 140 Countries; Justice Department’s ‘Mega Victim Case Unit’ Called To Duty

Unlike the boffo web-based schemes of TelexFree, Zeek Rewards and AdSurfDaily, the “Achieve Community” scam in which participants were told they’d glean returns of 700 percent did not perform well (relatively speaking) at the MLM Pyramid/Ponzi Scheme Box Office. Achieve’s haul topped out at about $6.8 million, with alleged unfunded liabilities in the range of $50 […]
Banks Should Have Googled Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho, Attorney Tells Bloomberg Business

The lede in a story this morning by Neil Weinberg of Bloomberg Business: “The U.S. requires banks to know their customers. Looks like several big ones, including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., may have missed getting acquainted with Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho.” Here’s a link to the story, titled […]
BRIEF: DFRF’s Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho Indicted; Feds Establish Victims’ Page

Federal criminal prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz of the District of Massachusetts have moved to stay discovery in the SEC’s civil case against DFRF Enterprises and alleged Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme operator Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho. Initially charged in July 2015 via criminal complaint with wire fraud, Filho was indicted by […]
NEW STANDARD FOR MLM DISINGENUOUSNESS: Words DON’T Mean Things

Has a globetrotting serial huckster facing a civil-contempt proceeding in the SEC’s pyramid- and Ponzi case against TelexFree, key executives and promoters set the new standard for vomitous MLM? Accused of repeatedly violating U.S. court orders, Brazil native, TelexFree promoter and two-time accused securities fraudster Sann Rodrigues now effectively is hoping to convince a federal judge that spoken words don’t mean things. […]
BULLETIN: Class-Action Proposed Against 20,000 Alleged TelexFree Winners — With MAPS Pitchman As Lead Defendant

BULLETIN: Class-action attorney Robert J. Bonsignore has asked a federal judge for permission to file a third amended consolidated complaint that effectively would sue at least 20,000 “net winners” in the TelexFree scheme shut down by the SEC last year. The proposal would name alleged TelexFree promoter Daniil Shoyfer the lead class-action defendant, effectively making […]
TelexFree Members In Massachusetts Get Payout From Bank Fund
About 14,000 TelexFree members in Massachusetts have received a payout from a $3.5 million fund set up last year as a result of a settlement between the state Securities Division and Fidelity Co-Operative Bank, the office of Commonwealth Secretary William Galvin said today. “While this money does not make the TelexFREE victims whole, the distribution does […]
Guilty Pleas Entered In eAdgear Ponzi- And Pyramid Criminal Case

UPDATED 1:10 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Two eAdGear Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme figures have pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges of structuring transactions to evade bank-reporting requirements and conspiracy, according to court filings and records in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The SEC charged eAdGear in September 2014, alleging it had gathered $129 […]