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Tag: TMS Corp.

  • SPECIAL REPORT: SMOKING GUN? MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi Forum Post Made During Same Month Grand Jury That Indicted AdSurfDaily’s Andy Bowdoin Convened May Tie AdViewGlobal To International Penny-Stock Scheme And Collapsed Payment Processor In Arizona

    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.

    Just days before Bowdoin’s Aug. 4, 2009, confirmation that he again was negotiating with prosecutors, Vana Blue’s website suddenly went missing.

    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.

     

  • DEVELOPING STORY: Are AdSurfDaily Pitchmen Who Also Joined AdViewGlobal And Recruited Members For Collapsed ASD Knockoff Confused — Or Are They Trying To Scam Downline Members And Claims Administrator?

    ASD's Andy Bowdoin.

    This post begins with background because the autosurf world, which is dominated by serial scammers, financial fraudsters and shadowy criminals, is about as murky as it gets.

    On Aug. 1, 2008, tens of millions of dollars in the bank accounts of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin were seized. Federal prosecutors went on to say that Bowdoin, a recidivist swindler in his seventies, was conducting an international Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million from the small town of Quincy, Fla.

    ASD allegedly had more than 100,000 members.

    Bowdoin was running the massive scheme through his 10 personal bank accounts and trading on the name of the President of the United States to sanitize the fraud, prosecutors said in a forfeiture complaint.

    A federal magistrate judge in the District of Columbia, the nation’s capital and center of power, ordered the money seized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after reviewing a 37-page affidavit by the U.S. Secret Service and a 57-page evidence exhibit. Incredibly, though, some ASD members didn’t take the strong clues that the U.S. government had come to view ASD and others like it as a threat to to the nation.

    The government made sure that the allegations and certain information about Bowdoin, including the fact that ASD was not his first brush with securities felonies and that he was partnered with a man implicated by the SEC in the 1990s in three prime-bank schemes, were available for wide distribution. The forfeiture complaint was published on the Internet in multiple places and was made available at no charge by the government.

    Bowdoin reacted to the seizure by describing it as an act of “Satan” and comparing it to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A message from Bowdoin on ASD’s answering machine claimed God was on the company’s side. Within days of the breathtaking seizure and a follow-up raid of company headquarters caught on camera by a local TV station, ASD members started pitching other fraud schemes, positioning them as ways to make up for ASD losses. The disconnect of ASD members was stunning.

    They hawked cash-gifting schemes, HYIP schemes, cycler matrices and other autosurf schemes — often using an appeal to religion in their pitches and claiming the “programs,” unlike ASD, operated outside U.S. jurisdiction and thus insulated the players from prosecution. They made the claims despite the fact the “programs” were targeted at U.S. citizens and players were paid in U.S. dollars after using U.S. dollars to join the “programs.”

    On Nov. 19, 2008, ASD lost a key court battle. A federal judge ruled that ASD, which had requested an evidentiary hearing, had not demonstrated it was a lawful business and not a Ponzi scheme. Instead of exiting the autosurf  Ponzi “industy,” some ASD members next turned their attentions to an upstart “offshore” surf known as AdViewGlobal.

    Which brings us to the reason for this post . . .

    A woman who said she believed she was an AdSurfDaily investor entitled to restitution through the government remissions program administered by Rust Consulting Inc. told the PP Blog yesterday that she gave $5,000 to her sponsor, who converted the sum to cashiers’ checks made payable to a murky enterprise known as TMS Association.

    The PP Blog referred the woman to the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia.

    But her transaction, according to the woman, occurred in April 2009 — eight months after the August 2008 seizure of tens of millions of dollars by the Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi case. ASD ceased operations after the seizure.

    Although the woman apparently believed she was investing in ASD, her story strongly suggests that she actually was investing in AdViewGlobal (AVG), one of the so-called ASD “clones” that launched in the aftermath of the ASD seizure. TMS Association was a murky Arizona business linked to eWalletPlus, which reportedly was the in-house payment processor for AVG.

    The woman, saying she believed she was an ASD victim, also said she believed she was entitled to restitution through the remissions program set up for ASD victims through Rust. Her remissions claim, however, appears to have been rejected because the program is for victims of ASD, LaFuenteDinero and Golden Panda Ad Builder, not victims of AVG.

    “I am having troubles with the Ad Surf Daily Remission Administrator on getting the information that my checks I sent in that were endorsed to TMS Association were ‘linked’ to the Ad Surf fraud suit that is going on,” the woman asserted.

    Facts surrounding TMS, eWallet Plus and AVG are exceptionally murky, and there is no remissions program for victims. It is believed that the U.S. government has opened a probe into the companies, and AVG was referenced as an extension of ASD in a 2009 racketeering lawsuit filed against Bowdoin by a group of ASD members seeking class-action certification.

    At least three companies, including a penny-stock firm known as Vana Blue, have claimed to own eWallet Plus, which AVG also claimed to own. Also adding confusion are the presence of company names such as TMS Corp. USA LLC, TMS Corp., Karveck International and Karveck Corp. — all of which haven been referenced in the context of AVG.

    The woman said she contacted the PP Blog because of its reporting on TMS Association.

    AVG, which had close ASD ties, announced it was suspending cashouts two years ago this month. The surf was positioned as a remedy for ASD losses, amid claims it operated in Uruguay outside of U.S. jurisdiction. Its servers resolved to Panama, as did the servers for eWallet Plus.

    One promo for AVG claimed that $5,000 turned into $15,000 “instantly.” Some ASD members have claimed Bowdoin was a silent partner in AVG and fronted the money to purchase eWallet Plus.

    Although AVG purported to have no ties to ASD, it listed George and Judy Harris as its owners. George Harris is Bowdoin’s stepson. The AVG incongruities did not end there. Indeed, AVG’s graphics once appeared on an ASD-controlled website, an event that was bizarrely explained away as an “operational coincidence.”

    Even as AVG was disclaiming ASD ties in early 2009, the person disclaiming the ties was a former ASD employee, Chuck Osmin, who testified on ASD’s behalf at an evidentiary hearing in 2008. Despite the claims, AVG listed its first chief executive officer as Gary Talbert, a former ASD executive who filed a sworn court affidavit on ASD’s behalf in 2008.

    The woman’s claims, however, lead to questions about whether some AVG members are trying to use the ASD remissions program to cover losses in AVG, perhaps with encouragement of their upline sponsors

    Among other questions raised by the woman’s claims is whether ASD sponsors who promoted for AVG despite the ASD seizure told the truth about ASD to their recruits or shielded them from the news, thus denying recruits information they needed to make an informed decision about joining AVG.

    At the same time, the woman’s story leads to questions about whether AVG recruits denied the facts by their sponsors about the ASD prosecution tried to pressure their AVG sponsors for refunds when the truth became known — and whether the AVG sponsors are trying to cover their tracks by pointing their recruits to the ASD remissions program without disclosing that it is reserved for ASD, LaFuenteDinero and GoldenPandaAdBuilder victims only.

    It is likely that any bids to mask AVG losses as ASD losses will fail because the government requires ASD members to certify themselves as crime victims and provide paperwork as proof of investment.

    Based on the woman’s claims, it also seems possible that some AVG members may have been serving as unlicensed brokers and investment advisers by collecting cash or negotiable instruments from recruits, converting the money to cashiers’ checks and then sending the money to AVG.

    If transactions such as that occurred, it leads to questions about whether AVG investors ever could prove they’d actually joined the program. If the accounts were not opened in their names and instead were opened in the names of sponsors who collected their money, there may be no proof at all that the recruit was the source of the funding.

    Even if the AVG accounts were opened in the names of the recruits, it may be hard for a recruit to prove they provided the funds if the money was converted to cashiers’ checks and submitted to AVG by the sponsors

    The extent to which AVG sponsors may be trying to game the remissions system is unclear. What is clear is that the woman’s story is yet another reminder that the universe in which ASD and other autosurfs operated was dark and dangerous to the purse strings.

  • UPDATE: Vana Blue Website Still Offline; No Pinksheet Stock Activity For Seven Trading Days Amid Maze Of Claims

    Not a single share of Vana Blue’s penny stock has traded hands since July 30, a period of seven full trading days, according to Yahoo Finance. In news releases, Vana Blue identified itself as the owner of eWalletPlus, a payment processor later linked to the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf.

    Vana Blue, which used mailing services in Phoenix and Las Vegas as its address, is a registered corporation in Nevada. Its website now resolves to a server that beams ads from GoDaddy.com, but until recently resolved to a server from which the company told its story.

    The company has claimed to own a company that variously has been described as TMS Corp. and TMS Association, which purportedly developed eWalletPlus. In January, Vana Blue also claimed to own a company that variously has been described as Karveck Corp. or Karveck International, a purported advertising and media company.

    In February, Vana Blue reported that Karveck had posted $1.8 million in revenue in January — the month AVG was in prelaunch.

    Among other things, Vana Blue also had said it signed an agreement with a company known as Native Express Inc. “to develop oil and gas resources” in Utah. Vana Blue also has said it had an agreement with a firm in Jamaica known as Internet Mobile & Caribbean Network Ltd. to “facilitate the sales of the Compass Pre Paid debit card throughout Jamaica and the Caribbean.”

    Meanwhile, Vana Blue also has said it had an agreement with a company known as Net Auction Plus, an eBay alternative, “to provide online, affordable, and flexible payment services.” The NetAuctionPlus.com domain name is registered to Michael Austin and uses the same Phoenix mail-service address as Vana Blue.

    The NetAuctionPlus.com domain throws a server error. Austin’s name was mentioned in an announcement last week by AVG that it had reported a theft of $2.7 million to unspecified law enforcement agencies. AVG, which purports to be headquartered in Uruguay, did not explain when the alleged theft occurred and did not provide details.

    Austin’s name also has been associated with eWalletPlus, but is only one of several names associated with the payment processor and money-services business. AVG promoters have claimed that eWalletPlus was AVG’s in-house payment processor. At one time, the eWalletPlus domain resolved to the same server in Panama that hosted AVG, but the domain now resolves to a parked page and appears to be offered for sale on sedo.com.

    In a purported public filing dated March 31, Vana Blue identified its officers as Donald Rex Gay, Leonard Capelli and Michael Reis, saying it owned TMS Corp and Karveck International.

    Only days later, a man associated with both the AdSurfDaily and AVG autosurfs — Gary Talbert — registered an entity known as TMS Corp. USA LLC, according to records. Talbert’s U.S. registrations occurred within days of a March 20 announcement by AVG that he had resigned as its chief executive officer and a March 23 announcement that AVG’s bank account had been suspended because too many members had wired transactions in excess of $9,500.

    TMS Corp. USA LLC is registered in Nevada, and lists Gary D. Talbert of 2601 E Thomas Rd, Ste 220-A Phoenix, AZ 85016, as its manager. A company by the same name also is listed as a foreign LLC in Arizona, with Gary D. Talbert of 13. S. Calhoun Street, P.O. Box 109, Quincy, FL 32351, as its manager.

    The S. Calhoun Street building address is the same address AdSurfDaily Inc. used.

    In a forfeiture complaint against ASD last year that alleged wire fraud, money-laundering, the sale of unregistered securities and a Ponzi scheme, federal prosecutors said the building address was bogus.

    One of the officers of Vana Blue is named a defendant in a counterclaim by the U.S. government that alleges more than $252,000 in federal income tax is unpaid. The same individual — Donald Rex Gay — is listed in Louisiana records as a person who has been involved in a number of businesses.

    Gay denied in pro se court filings that he owed the taxes.

    Records in Illinois note that Michael Reis, also listed by Vana Blue as an officer, was ordered in 2000 to cease and desist from the practice of public accounting without a license.

  • Sunday News And Notes: ASD Anniversary Passes Without Mention On Surf’s Up; Would-Be eBay Competitor Used Same Phoenix Address As Vana Blue Inc.’s eWalletPlus Subsidiary

    Andy Bowdoin
    Andy Bowdoin

    The one-year anniversary of the seizure of AdSurfDaily’s bank accounts and tens of millions of dollars occurred yesterday, but there was no discussion about it on the Pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum. No one appears to have started a thread to commemorate the anniversary.

    ASD’s Breaking News site, which recently went offline and now resolves to a parked page that beams ads, gave Surf’s Up its official endorsement Nov. 27. The endorsement occurred eight days after a federal judge ruled ASD had not demonstrated at an evidentiary hearing that it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme.

    ASD asked for the hearing. The government did not object. ASD President Andy Bowdoin took the 5th Amendment, advising the court through his attorneys that he would not testify at a proceeding his own company requested.

    Although some Surf’s Up members continue to blame the government for events and criticize the prosecutors for being slow to issue refunds from seized funds, the ASD side is responsible for slowing the case to a crawl. At the same time, Bowdoin always has claimed in court filings that the money belonged to him and not the members. It’s one of the few areas in which both Bowdoin and the prosecutors are in agreement.

    Bowdoin submitted to the forfeiture in January, meaning the case nearly was litigated to conclusion. His forfeiture decision  put the government in position to begin an orderly process to implement a restitution program for participants who certified they were crime victims. The first step, according to the government, was to liquidate ASD’s assets. The government advised victims that patience would be required because it would take time to liquidate real estate and other seized assets and to carry out other administrative functions. (See story.)

    ASD’s motion to submit to the forfeiture was filed Jan. 13; it was the 39th entry on the case docket, and the judge’s order (Jan. 22) granting Bowdoin’s request to forfeit the money was the 41st. The docket now has 80 entries, meaning it effectively has doubled in size despite the fact the case nearly was litigated to conclusion in January.

    Less than two weeks after the judge granted Bowdoin’s forfeiture motion, pleadings by pro se litigants who opposed the government’s point of view and sought to intervene in the case began to appear on the docket. The docket has been dominated since January by pro se litigants, including Andy Bowdoin, who fired his paid attorneys and said he changed his mind about submitting to the forfeiture after consulting with a “group” of members.

    As of today, various pro se pleadings  have resulted in delays of at least seven months in implementing the orderly restitution process the government said it contemplates for crime victims. ASD has been ordered to show cause by Aug. 7 why Bowdoin’s motions — and why motions filed by a new Bowdoin attorney — should not be denied. The judge said she had heard neither from Bowdoin nor his attorney since May.

    Timeline

    Judge Rosemary Collyer issued the ruling that ASD had not demonstrated it was a legal business and not a Ponzi scheme Nov. 19. On the same date, ASD said on its Breaking News site that it was “Shaken but Not Stirred!” by the ruling, punctuating its comment with an exclamation point. ASD gave Surf’s Up its official endorsement on the Breaking News site Nov. 27, eight days after Collyer’s ruling.

    References to a new surf with ties to ASD — AdViewGlobal (AVG) — began to appear online by mid-December. On Dec. 19, federal prosecutors filed a second forfeiture complaint tied to assets allegedly paid for with money that originated with ASD, including automobiles, a boat, jet skis and marine equipment, and a mortgage on the Tallahassee home of George and Judy Harris. George Harris, whom Bowdoin identified as head of ASD’s real-estate division, is Bowdoin’s stepson.

    On June 10 and June 11 alone, prosecutors said, almost $240,000 in ASD funds were used for personal purchases by Bowdoin family members or friends. The purchases were made less than two weeks after ASD concluded a rally in Las Vegas in which Bowdoin told participants that he thanked God for making him a “money magnet.” He implored attendees to visualize themselves wealthy, to “have an attitude of gratitude with God” and to imagine lots of big checks coming in from AdSurfDaily.

    By the end of July — after more ASD rallies — Bowdoin plunked down nearly $50,000 to purchase a new Lincoln. His assets were seized days after the purchase.

    On a date uncertain in either December or January, some of the Mods and members of Surf’s Up started a forum to promote AVG. Reports suggested that as many as 30 former ASD members were “founders” of AVG.

    On Jan. 15, two days after Bowdoin advised the court that he intended to submit to the forfeiture and never reintroduce his claims to tens of millions of dollars and other seized property, three ASD members sued Bowdoin for racketeering. Bowdoin has not responded to the complaint. No attorney has entered an appearance notice for him.

    AVG’s graphics were seen on an ASD-controlled website Jan. 31, just hours before AVG’s official launch after operating in prelaunch phase in January — and after AVG had specifically disclaimed any affiliation with Bowdoin or ASD. Pro se filings in the ASD case began to appear within days of AVG’s formal launch.

    On Feb. 24, reports surfaced that the U.S. Secret Service had seized the bank accounts of at least four additional participants in ASD, including at least one participant who had joined AVG. On Feb. 25, Bowdoin signed the first of his pro se pleadings. As February drew to a close — and before the world knew about Bowdoin’s shift in strategy to pro se — a Surf’s up Mod implored members to be patient, hinting the case soon would take a turn for the better from ASD’s point of view.

    “[J]ust hold on — a little bit longer now baby,” the Mod implored.

    On March 20, less than two months after its formal launch, AVG announced that Chief Executive Officer Gary Talbert had resigned but would continue to working in “accounting.” Talbert was an ASD executive who signed a sworn affidavit in the ASD case. In an Aug. 18 docket entry, Talbert identified himself as “Human Resource Manager, Assistant CFO and Website Editor.”

    Although AVG identified Gary Talbert as the CEO of AdSurfDaily, Talbert did not say the same thing about himself in court filings.
    Although AVG identified Gary Talbert as the CEO of AdSurfDaily, Talbert did not say the same thing about himself in court filings.

    On Feb. 3, AVG identified Talbert as ASD’s chief executive officer, despite Talbert’s own court filings in which he noted his titles and never claimed to be ASD’s CEO. AVG continued to insist there was no affiliation with ASD.

    On March 23, AVG announced its bank account had been suspended. Members also reported glitches with eWalletPlus, a money-exchange business associated with AVG. On March 26, three days after the announcement of the account suspension, an AVG promoter sent out an email that said $5,000 spent with AVG turned into $15,000 “instantly!” because of a matching-bonus program AVG was running. The promoter was identified as a participant in the CEP Ponzi scheme.

    ASD once advertised it accepted CEP Trust as a payment method. CEP Trust was the failed payment processor associated with the CEP Ponzi scheme. AVG advertised huge matching bonus programs for weeks in what some people saw as a bid to collect large sums of cash as quickly as possible. eWalletPlus eventually went offline.

    ASD once advertised it accepted CEP Trust, the failed payment processor associated with the CEP Ponzi scheme. A CEP promoter named in court filings sent out a promotion for AVG in March, claiming $5,000 spent with AVG turned into $15,000 'instantly!' The promotion was emailed three days after AVG announced its bank account had been suspended because too many members had wired transactions in excess of $9,500.
    ASD once advertised it accepted CEP Trust, the failed payment processor associated with the CEP Ponzi scheme. A CEP promoter named in court filings sent out a promotion for AVG in March, claiming $5,000 spent with AVG turned into $15,000 'instantly!' The promotion was emailed three days after AVG announced its bank account had been suspended because too many members had wired transactions in excess of $9,500.

    On or around May 23, AVG announced the launch of a new website. The launch failed, and members grumbled. On June 1, AVG announced the launch of yet another new website. By June 25, AVG announced that it was suspending member cashouts, making an 80/20 program mandatory and exercising its version of a “rebates aren’t guaranteed” clause that permitted it to keep members’ money.

    Thicket Gets Thicker

    The AVG site operated by some of the Surf’s Up Mods and members went offline after AVG made the June 25 announcement about suspended payouts. On the same date, AVG threatened members and media outlets with copyright-infringement lawsuits for sharing news about the suspended cashouts.

    Four days later — on June 29 — Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for operating a massive Ponzi scheme.

    On June 30, AVG’s name was mentioned in documents filed in the racketeering lawsuit that had been filed against Bowdoin in January. The documents listed the names of some employees or members AVG and ASD had in common, but AVG has not been named a defendant in the RICO case.

    July opened in unkind fashion for AVG. On July 1, just days after it announced the suspension of cashouts, AVG announced a new payment plan. Members said the plan was baffling because it appeared not to take into account matching bonuses the company had advertised and also increased the window for earning back money directed at the firm from 150 days to 180 days to 210 days, while at the same time suggesting it might take forever for members to get a return.

    AVG identified George and Judy Harris as its owners on July 1. In the hours that followed, it closed its forum, reopened it, and closed it again. The actions occurred over a period of three days — and in the wake of complaints from members who had been pleading with the company to provide understandable explanations and to stop blaming participants for AVG’s seeming inability to explain itself.

    In a bizarre communication, AVG advised members that the initial forum closure had occurred because posts by some members were contributing to the confusion of other members. Nearly 50 posts were deleted, members said.

    Within days the situation grew murkier. By the end of the month, new questions about AVG were raised after the company was tied to a firm known as Karveck International, a subsidiary of Vana Blue Inc., a Pinksheet stock.

    Vana Blue is registered as a corporation in Nevada. The company uses an address in Las Vegas that resolves to a mailing service, and an address in Phoenix that also resolves to a mailing service. VanaBlue says it owns the eWalletPlus payment service, whose website now resolves to a page that beams ads, as does Vana Blue’s own website.

    One of the officers of Vana Blue is named a defendant in a counterclaim by the U.S. government that alleges more than $252,000 in federal income tax remains unpaid. The same individual — Donald Rex Gay — is listed in Louisiana records as a person who has been involved in a number of businesses.

    Gay denied in pro se court filings that he owed the taxes.

    Taking On eBay?

    In April 2008, Vana Blue announced that it had “signed an exclusive agreement with Net Auction Plus (an alternative to eBay with lower fees and other eBay processes) to provide online, affordable, and flexible payment services.

    “The start-up auction site has already over 200 power sellers from eBay committed to the new site when the site goes live in May,” Vana Blue said.  “The fees generated by the new site should tremendously increase monthly revenue based on the business from the power sellers.”

    Vana Blue’s TMS Corp. subsidiary — the owner of eWalletPlus — would be a pivotal player in helping Net Auction Plus compete against eBay.

    The domain NetAuctionPlus.com throws a server error. But the address listed in the registration data is the same address of the Phoenix mail service Vana Blue used: 4757 E Greenway Rd. Suite 107B-105 Phoenix, Arizona 85032.

  • Firm Owned By Vana Blue Treasurer Was Sanctioned In Illinois For Unlicensed Practice Of Public Accounting

    A firm Vana Blue Inc. said is owned by its treasurer was sanctioned by the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation for practicing public accounting without a license.

    Michael Reis and M.R. Reis & Co. of Naperville were ordered by the state to “cease and desist the unlicensed practice of public accounting” in 2000, according to IDPR.

    Reis was identified in a March 31 document as treasurer of Vana Blue, a Pinksheet stock that trades under the symbol VBLU. The firm’s web domain — vanablue.com — vanished two days ago and now resolves to a GoDaddy.com page that beams advertisements.

    “Mr. Reis currently is the proprietor of M.R. Reis & Co. Naperville, IL Bookkeeping and Tax Firm,” Vana Blue said in the March 31 document.

    Vana Blue said it was publishing the information “to Conform with the Provisions of
    Subparagraph (a)(5) of Rule 15c2-11 Promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.”

    News releases by Vana Blue identify it as the owner of Karveck International and TMS Corp. TMS Corp. also is known as TMS Association, an Arizona-registered entity purported to own eWalletPlus, a money-exchange business associated with the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf.

    AVG suspended member cashouts last month, saying it was conducting an audit of itself, making an 80/20 program mandatory should cashouts resume on a date uncertain and exercising its version of a “rebates aren’t guaranteed clause” that permits it to keep money sent in by members.

    The surf firm identified its owners as George and Judy Harris. George Harris is the stepson of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin. Judy Harris is the wife of George Harris. A Florida home and a car owned by George and Judy Harris are named in a December forfeiture complaint filed by federal prosecutors as the proceeds of illegal conduct by ASD.

    ASD’s assets — including tens of millions of dollars — were seized nearly one year ago by federal prosecutors amid allegations of wire fraud, money-laundering, selling unregistered securities and operating a Ponzi scheme from Quincy, Fla. Prosecutors seized automobiles and marine equipment in December.

    ASD and AVG have close family, management and promotional ties. AVG purports to be headquartered in Uruguay and launched after the seizure of ASD’s assets.

    Vana Blue said it was involved in the oil and gas business in Utah, the VOIP business in the Caribbean and in the international advertising business through Karveck International.

    This news release, dated Feb. 21, 2008 — a year and a half ago — vaguely announces a name change for Vana Blue (from what to what isn’t clear) and announced the acquisition of TMS Corp.

    Meanwhile, this news release, dated Jan. 30. 2009 — just a few days before the formal launch of AVG — announced the acquisition of “Karveck Corporation” had been finalized.

    On Feb. 18, 2009 — when AVG had been formally operating in launch phase for just shy of three weeks after operating in January in prelaunch phase — Vana Blue announced that “Karveck International” had posted $1.8 million in revenue in January. How Karveck Corporation apparently became Karveck International wasn’t clear.

    Vana Blue did not use AVG’s name in the news release. Instead, it described Karveck International as a company that “specializes in internet advertising and promotion in a search engine and ad clicking type environment.”