ZeekRewards.com was accused of cyberpiracy, unfair competition and benefiting from copyright infringement in a trademark-dilution and defamation lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Nov. 7, 2011. The action demands an accounting, disgorgement of alleged ill-gotten gains and treble damages.
The PP Blog was unable to reach Zeek immediately by phone this morning for comment on the lawsuit, which may involve the actions of a Zeek affiliate. The Blog followed up with an email and is awaiting a response.
The docket of the case shows a summons was issued to ZeekRewards.com and several co-defendants on Nov. 7, the same date the lawsuit was filed.
A process server served the complaint on ZeekRewards.com at 136-20 38th Street, Suite 9H3, Flushing, N.Y., 11354, on Nov. 21, 2011, at 7:28 p.m., according to court filings.
An individual who accepted process for ZeekRewards.com at the Flushing address stated “they are authorized” to do so, according to court filings.
But Zeek says it is an arm of Rex Venture Group LLC, an entity registered in both Nevada and North Carolina. In North Carolina records, Paul Ray Burks is listed at the registered agent of Rex Venture at an address in Lexington, N.C. In Nevada records, meanwhile, Nevada Corporate Planners Inc. of Las Vegas is listed as the registered agent of Rex Venture.
The docket of the case strongly suggests that neither ZeekRewards.com nor any of the other defendants has entered a defense to the claims and that an attorney for the plaintiff has moved the court for a default judgment to be entered. No attorney appears to have filed an appearance notice for ZeekRewards.com or any of the other defendants. On Jan. 26, 2012, the clerk of courts recorded an “ENTRY OF DEFAULT” against all of the defendants.
Here are the named defendants: Lewis Liu, also known as Wei Liu; www.eadgear.ca; www.zeekrewards.com; Xinzheng Wire Mesh Co. Ltd.; Xinzheng Companies (America) Inc.; and “DOES 1-10, inclusive.”
The plaintiff is eAdGear Inc., which does business as www.eadgear.com.
eAdGear contends that Liu, a former eAdGear affiliate, copied eAdGear’s .com website to a top-level domain in Canada and used the site to promote ZeekRewards.com and to defame eAdGear.
“In early October 2011, [Liu] published written defamatory statements on ‘www.eadgear.ca,’” the plaintiff alleged. “As shown in Ex. 3, [Liu] stated that plaintiff was not an accredited business by [the Better Business Bureau] and that BBB would soon publish an extremely low rating on Plaintiff. [Liu] further asserted that Plaintiff’s holding company in Hong Kong had never existed. All [Liu’s] statements are false. [Liu] started to use ‘www.eadgear.ca’ to promote his own online advertising business ‘www.zeekrewards.com.’ He asked all his customers under his Plaintiff account (eAdGear ID #127264) to transfer business to ‘www.zeekrewards.com.’ He promised with a low monthly service fee and other incentives to customers who were willing to transfer to ‘www.zeekrewards.com.’”
The PP Blog also sought comment from Zeek today on why auctions for sums of U.S. cash appear to have been removed from Zeekler.com, the penny-auction arm of Zeek. Zeek Rewards is the MLM arm.
Zeek Rewards plants the seed that a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day is possible, although it claims it is not offering an investment program and has preemptively denied it is a pyramid scheme.