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Tag: TVI Express

  • KABOOM! Banners Broker MLM ‘Program’ Described As ‘Criminal Enterprise’ That Gathered Tens Of Million Of Dollars

    “Affiliates found to be contributing to the negativity on the Internet will have their accounts locked, they will be banned from participating in the Banners Broker system and they will forfeit all of their inventory and revenue.” —  Banners Broker threat to members, February 2014

    “It is the position of investigators that this business was a pyramid scheme that over time evolved into a straight Ponzi scheme in which new victims were recruited to stave off requests for withdrawals and complaints from older ones.” —  Royal Canadian Mounted Police, July 17, 2014: Source: Affidavit that shows the RCMP, the Toronto Strategic Partnership and the Toronto Police Services Financial Crime Unit are involved in a criminal probe of Banners Broker.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: The double-your-money Banners Broker “program” posed as an online “advertising” company. It appears to have gathered tens of millions of dollars using a series of conduits and employing entities or business identities in money-laundering havens. At least for now, the total sum stolen from participants is unclear. As alleged, funds were “diverted by the suspects and their associated corporations to various offshore and other bank accounts controlled by them.”

    ** _________________________**

    Screen shot from page of court exhibit in Canada.
    How to begin the brainwashing process: Screen shot from page of court exhibit in Canada.

    As an interview subject allegedly told the Competition Bureau of Canada on April 9, 2013, it was all so simple to Banners Broker operator Christopher George “Chris” Smith:

    Indeed, Canadian authorities now have alleged, when the subject “met with Smith [in 2010,] he asked Smith why people lost money in these programs and Smith said it was what the programs were designed for, they bring people in, make some money and then they shut down and people move on to the next one.”

    What was Smith allegedly discussing at the meeting in Toronto? His desire to come up with a “copycat” of Travel Ventures International, a purported “opportunity” also known as TVI Express and described as a scam on multiple continents. (See K. Chang’s MLM Skeptic Blog for a report on how TVI Express spread around the world.)

    This, friends, is whack-a-mole — in the style of MLM huckster Chris Smith. It’s also racketeering MLM-style, whether formally prosecuted as such or not. And so it comes as no surprise that the term “criminal enterprise” to describe Banners Broker and its associated corporations now appears in court filings in Canada. (See links and credits at bottom of this story.)

    In 2011, the U.S. Secret Service described the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, another cross-border MLM fraud, as a “criminal enterprise.”

    Members of the TelexFree MLM “program” allege that racketeering occurred within that enterprise, described by U.S. regulators earlier this year as a billion-dollar, cross-border pyramid- and Ponzi scheme. The Zeek Rewards MLM “program,” alleged to have gathered on the order of $850 million before is August 2012 collapse, launched after the 2008 collapse of ASD. There can be no doubt that TelexFree, Zeek, ASD and Banners Broker had promoters in common.

    There also can be no doubt that “see no evil” MLM cottage industries sprouted up around these foundationally corrupt “programs” and offered services such as “lead” provision and “ad” placement. Victims have piled up in such numbers that, in the TelexFree scam alone, 20,000 Greyhound buses with a 50-seat capacity each would be required to accommodate the fleeced masses.

    But where would they all go to observe events and be acknowledged at once?

    No courtroom can accommodate 1 million victims. Even if Mass-Participation Court existed and were gaveled into session on an unbooked Saturday in Pasadena’s famous Rose Bowl with onetime Tournament of Roses Parade Grand Marshal and U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor coming out of retirement to preside, the huge stadium’s seating capacity of 92,542 still would be far too small to accommodate the injured parties.

    Beyond that, Greyhound’s entire noble fleet consists of only 1,200 buses, not the 20,000 that would be required to transport TelexFree victims to California.

    Despite the best efforts of the courts, victims are being lost as a result of these insidious MLM schemes. Some will be re-victimized in a whack-a-mole reload scam pitched by an MLM predator with a smile on his or her face and a Bible verse at the ready.

    There also can be no doubt that certain members of the “programs” are members of a criminal combine that, whether loosely or closely associated, pushes one racketeering scam after another on the consuming public. It is willful blindness on a global scale. It is so dangerous, so calculating and methodical, so gruesomely injurious to persons and property, that it almost defies description.

    Next time someone tries to recruit you into an HYIP  “program” by telling you the “leaders” are already on board, here’s what to think: The racketeers are either running things or influencing events (again). They’re going to harm me (again). They’re going to harm my community, my country (again). They’re going to say they have been vetted by “attorneys” (again).

    And then, as Chris Smith allegedly said, they’re going to shut down and “move on to the next one.”

    Again.

    Reclaim Your Brain — Right Now!

    Like predecessor scams such as AdSurfDaily and AdViewGlobal and Zeek, the hypnotized and robotic Stepfordians in Banners Broker who’d been brainwashed by cult tactics rose up to “defend” the “program,” including some individuals who continued to champion the scam even after it effectively extorted them into paying more fees to keep their positions intact and to retain any chance of receiving a payout.

    While trying to chill members who remained in control of their gray matter and hadn’t slipped into an MLM trance, Banners Broker naturally counted on the Stepfordians whose brains it had reduced to slush to wage efforts to chill Blogs and websites that report on scams.

    “If you know of a site with content that is negative towards Banners Broker, we ask that you report it to the Community Watch,” the “program” instructed in February 2014.

    Yes. Amazing as it sounds, Banners Brokers called its efforts to cover up its own criminal enterprise a “Community Watch” program. Even earlier than that, it dispatched the Stepfordians to harass and hound a Blogger named Finch, who now says, “I received all kinds of threats, smears and public verbal bashings.”

    On Jan. 17, 2013, the PP Blog reported it was receiving menacing communications about Banners Broker.

    For additional background on bids to chill reporters or program members who publish information about scams and highly questionable “opportunities,” see this Dec. 27, 2012, PP Blog post: Our Choice For The Most Important PP Blog Post Of 2012. (It’s about an effort to chill K. Chang over his reporting on Zeek Rewards.)

    Also read about continuing efforts from the MLM HYIP sphere to destroy the antiscam well at BehindMLM.com and RealScam.com.

    NOTE: A special shout out today to RealScam.com and the Banners Broker Ponzi Scam Community on Facebook. They shared this 275-page court filing in Canada on civil and criminal investigations into Banners Broker.

    ALSO: Visit the website of the msi Spergel inc., the receiver.




  • PONZI/FRAUD BRIEFS: Georgia HYIP Pair Sentenced To Combined 27 Years; Florida Fraudster Whose Wife Awaits Sentencing Gets 10 Years; Australian Court Rules TVI Express A Pyramid Scheme

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This information is presented in the form of briefs.

    Georgia HYIP/Ponzi pair sentenced: Geoffrey A. Gish, 57, of Lawrenceville, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his role in a $29 million “high-yield” scam that fleeced investors of more than $17 million.

    Myra J. Ettenborough, implicated in the same scam initially unmasked by the SEC, was sentenced to seven years. Like Gish, Ettenborough, 56, of Roswell, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. to pay more than $17.245 million in restitution.

    The scam involved pooled funds that “supposedly involved ‘high yield trading programs,’” prosecutors said.

    An FBI agent said the scammers were greedsters.

    “Mr. Gish and Ms. Ettenborough exhibited total disregard for their victim investors while displaying an almost limitless level of personal greed,” said Brian D. Lamkin, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office.

    Florida HYIP/Ponzi globetrotter sentenced: John S. Morgan, the Sarasota man whose high-yield Ponzi venture took him to Europe and later landed him in jail in Sri Lanka, has been sentenced by U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew to 10 years and a month in federal prison in the United States.

    Morgan, 52, who ultimately cooperated with the government, may end up serving less time than his wife, who took her chances with a jury and was convicted in September on all 22 counts filed against her.

    Marian Morgan, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 20.

    Her jet-setting days at an end, Marian Morgan complained from Sri Lanka to a U.S. judge about “filthy” conditions in the overseas jail, noting she was being housed alongside “murderers and heroin dealers,” according to court records.

    The Morgans were returned to the United States in 2009.

    TVI Express ruled a pyramid scheme in Australia: TVI Express, an MLM company whose pitchmen used images of Donald Trump and Warren Buffett in promos, has been ruled a pyramid scheme by the Federal Court of Australia.

    The case was brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

    “It is beyond question that new participants in the TVI Express System are [led] to believe that they will receive payments for the introduction of further new participants,” Justice Nicholas said, according to ACCC.

    “Indeed, the only way a participant can earn any income in the TVI Express System is through the introduction of new members to the scheme,” Justice Nicholas said, according to ACCC.

    Some MLM scammers routinely use images of Trump and Buffett in promos. Affiliates of Data Network Affiliates (DNA), a firm associated with huckster Phil Piccolo, published images Trump and Oprah Winfrey in their promos last year.

    When flogging DNA during a conference call last year that featured Piccolo associate Joe Reid, a fellow DNA huckster claimed the company had “certain people on speed dial that’s incredible.”

    Reid emerged last month as a pitchman for Text Cash Network (TCN), which came out of the gate trading on the names of Groupon and Google Offers, among others. A firm known as One World One Website (OWOW) was an early promoter of TCN.

    Reid and Piccolo also flogged OWOW last year.

     

     

  • Like MPB Today And Data Network Affiliates’ Promoters, TVI Express Pitchmen Used Images Of Warren Buffett And Donald Trump; Government Of South Africa Reportedly Opens Criminal Probe Amid Pyramid Allegations

    TVI Express, an MLM company whose pitchmen have used images of business titans Warren Buffett and Donald Trump to plant the seed they backed the firm, has come under criminal investigation in South Africa, according to web records and a media site.

    Buffett and Trump are believed to have no ties to the firm.

    News of the TVI criminal probe first was reported Dec. 30 by The New Age. The publication quotes a spokesperson for the South Africa Department of Trade and Industry, noting the TVI matter has become a “police case” involving pyramid-scheme allegations.

    TVI, purportedly based in London, also is under fire in Australia. Meanwhile, there are reports the company has come under fire in the U.S. state of Georgia. Reports that Georgia officials have issued a cease-and-desist order could not be confirmed immediately.

    It was not immediately clear if South Africa would seek to determine why TVI promoters sought to plant the seed that Buffett and Trump backed TVI, which purports to be in the travel business. An image of Buffett appears on the TVI home page — and images of Trump and former President Bill Clinton appear on an internal page.

    A number of MLM schemes have produced photos or made references to Clinton, who once delivered remarks to tout the direct-selling industry. Clinton did not endorse a specific company, and the Code of Conduct of the Direct Selling Association (DSA) specifically prohibits “Deceptive or Unlawful Consumer or Recruiting Practices.”

    In its Code of Conduct, DSA specifically requires member companies to provide information that is “accurate and complete.” At the same time, DSA says member companies “shall not present any selling opportunity to any prospective independent salesperson in a false, deceptive or misleading manner.”

    TVI Express is not listed as a DSA member on the organization’s website.

    Even as news about the TVI criminal probe was appearing online in South Africa, news that Buffett’s name allegedly had been used to sanitize elements of the George Theodule Ponzi scheme in Florida was appearing in the United States.

    Images of Buffett and Trump also have been used by promoters of a purported “grocery” MLM in Florida known as MPB Today. Separately, images (and references) to Trump and television icon Oprah Winfrey have been used in promotions for Data Network Affiliates (DNA), an MLM company purportedly in the business of building a database to help the U.S. government and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children.

    DNA now appears to have morphed into a company known as OWOW, which has positioned its products as cancer cures or treatments and even as a means of preventing the surgical amputation of limbs and growing tomatoes twice the size of ordinary tomatoes. DNA has a rating of “F” from the Better Business Bureau, the organization’s lowest.

    During the summer of 2010, DNA changed the name of an offering known as the Business Benefit Package (BBP) to the “BBB,” the acronym used by the Better Business Bureau. The BBP package debuted in March. The name change appeared to be an effort to cloud search-engine results and confuse prospects who were searching for BBB information about DNA online.

    Eventually websites bearing DNA’s name began to resolve to the OWOW site. DNA also used names such as TagEveryCar.com and LockInYourFreeSpot.com. Those sites also now resolve to the OWOW site.

    See story on a major case brought by the FTC in August 2010. Among other things, the case alleged that images of Winfrey and Rachel Ray were used in sales promos without their consent in an acai-berry scam.