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Tag: Zeek Rewards

UPDATE: (1) Article In Portuguese By Zeek Affiliate On Google News Says Program Has 100,000 Members In Brazil Alone; (2) American Pitchman Calls Zeek An ‘Investment’ On YouTube — And Then Takes It Back

Screenshot: Part of a promo for Zeek translated from Portuguese to English by Google Translate

UPDATED 1:59 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) An article on Google News by an apparent Portuguese-speaking affiliate of the U.S.-based Zeek Rewards MLM “program” that is married to a penny-auction site known as Zeekler claims that Zeek has more than 100,000 members in Brazil alone.

Meanwhile, a promo by an American affiliate dated July 7 on YouTube describes Zeek as an investment program — before the affiliate backtracks and says Zeek is not an investment program. The YouTube development first was reported by BehindMLM.com. (Link at bottom of story.)

Portuguese is the official language of Brazil, the largest country in South America. The claim of 100,000 Brazilian members could not immediately be confirmed, and no breakdown of the specific Zeek membership ranks Brazilian members had chosen was provided in the article. Zeek categorizes members as “Free,” “Silver” ($10 a month), “Gold” ($50 a month) and “Diamond” ($99 a month).

In addition to selecting a membership rank within the Zeek MLM organization, affiliates can opt to send the company up to $10,000 as a means of gaining a daily share of what is known as the Retail Points Pool (RPP). Those shares later can be converted to cash payouts that correspond to an annualized return in the hundreds of percent. The RPP program has led to questions about whether Zeek is selling unregistered securities as investment contracts and using linguistic sleight-of-hand in a bid to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

Zeek, purportedly part of Rex Venture Group LLC, is based in North Carolina. On June 20, the office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said it had concerns about the company, which plants the seed that members can earn a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day but denies it is offering an investment program. Zeek’s business model resembles that of AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service said in 2008 was a massive, online Ponzi scheme that was offering securities and disguising itself as an “advertising” program.

Andy Bowdoin's booking photo in the District of Columbia.

ASD President Andy Bowdoin is now jailed in the District of Columbia after pleading guilty to wire fraud in the ASD Ponzi case in May 2012. ASD’s purported payout of 1 percent a day was on par with Zeek’s purported daily payout. Because it is known that some affiliates of the ASD Ponzi scheme also are promoting Zeek and because Zeek has highlighted some of those ASD promoters on its website, questions have been raised about whether a core group of MLMers who move individually or as part of “teams” from one investment scheme to another is engaging in willful blindness by promoting Zeek, which is similar to ASD in key respects.

And because the U.S. government returned millions of dollars to ASD victims last year in the form of remissions payments that came from funds seized in the ASD Ponzi case, questions have been raised about whether Zeek’s growth has been fueled at least in part by the funds originally seized in the ASD case. The government is believed to have returned about $59 million to former ASD members.

Although Zeek says it is not offering a return on investment and instead is offering revenue-sharing program, the resultant payouts correspond to figures typically associated with HYIP Ponzi investment schemes. Like Zeek, ASD also claimed to be a revenue-sharing program.

The English version of the Portuguese article for Zeek, according to Google Translate, includes this line: “The easiest way to earn money is by posting at least one ad per day to earn a daily rebate.” (Emphasis added by PP Blog.)

ASD also called its payouts to members “rebates.” The affiliate article for Zeek in Portuguese includes this phrase: “uma bonificação diária.” The phrase, according to Google Translate, means “a daily subsidy” or “a daily rebate.”

In the ASD case, federal prosecutors said use of the word “rebate” was a means of masking the investment element of the ASD “program.”

Zeek also may have a presence in Portugal itself, according to text below a YouTube video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=w07uP5XF39w) in which former ASD pitchman Todd Disner appears. Disner speaks in English in the video, but others appear to be speaking Portuguese and a link below the video points to a website styled in part as zeekportugal.com. Other text at the YouTube site points to a YouTube site styled “parttimezeekrewards’s channel.”

Disner and former ASD member Dwight Owen Schweitzer sued the United States in November 2011, claiming that ASD was a legitimate business and that government undercover agents who joined ASD had a duty to identify themselves to ASD management. Schweitzer also is promoting Zeek, according to an online promo on a classified-ad site.

ASD’s Andy Bowdoin’s guilty plea and acknowledgement ASD was a Ponzi scheme were recorded in May 2012, about six months after Disner and Schweitzer sued the government. Both men are seeking to press forward with the lawsuit, despite Bowdoin’s guilty plea to wire fraud and Ponzi concession. The duo claims the seizure of information from ASD’s database by the government was unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment. A federal judge in Florida is expected to rule soon on whether the Disner/Schweizer claims can proceed.

Virality And Customer-Service Concerns

The article on Google News that claims that Zeek has 100,000 members in the Portuguese-speaking country of Brazil may speak to the virality of the “program” on the Internet. At the same time, it may explain — at least in part — why Zeek’s customer-support systems appear to be severely taxed if not broken, with Zeek instructing its members to go to their uplines for support. Requests for help through Zeek itself have backed up for weeks or even months. Some English-speaking members of Zeek have complained their support tickets were ignored or closed without explanation.

Having thousands or even tens of thousands of affiliates in countries whose citizens may not be fully conversant in English leads to questions about whether Zeek has both the resources and the infrastructure to support a global membership base, even as some Zeek members who may not speak English are sending the company one-time sums of up to $10,000 and monthly fees on top of that. It also leads to questions about whether Zeek can police its own global network of affiliates, whether Zeek has the capacity to adequately monitor claims about the “program” in languages other than English and whether Zeek can determine whether its U.S. domestic and international affiliates are operating in “teams” to engage in downline “stacking” designed to concentrate earnings in favored familial or local pools.

Like ASD, Zeek has instructed members not to describe the “opportunity” as an investment program. But BehindMLM reported yesterday that a Zeek member on YouTube was doing just that before catching himself and going into backtrack mode. From BehindMLM.com, quoting from a Zeek affiliate’s July 7 YouTube promo (italics added):

[8:58] Do it, I did it! Do it and you’ll see how quickly you can recoup your investm..recoup your investment-ahh, I’m sorry, it’s not an investment – your original purchasing of bids.

Visit this story thread on BehindMLM.com.

Jul 9, 2012
ZEEK SLAYER? Now, A Penny-Auction Site Married To MLM-Like Scheme Purportedly Tied To Effort To Save Children From Hunger Or Becoming ‘Sex Slave[s]’; Build Up To ‘Founding Member’ Sales Pitch Drops Names Of White House, Chelsea Clinton, Historian And Presidential Adviser Doug Wead, Unidentified Presidential Candidate And NBC News Anchor Lester Holt

From YouTube sales pitch for BidsThatGive by Randy Jeffers. (Children's faces masked by PP Blog.)

EDITOR’S NOTE: It is true that far too many of the world’s children live in poverty. It also is true that children may become the objects of criminals who engage in human trafficking and that children are exploited in the sex trades. It is equally true that legitimate charities exist to combat these horrific situations and that one MLM “program” after another has tried in recent times to tug at the human heart and “marry” their “programs” to a purported cause. If you desire to improve the human condition for the masses of children, it likely is best to donate directly to a legitimate charitable organization, rather than joining a get-rich-quick scheme that says it is doing good work behind the scenes.

** __________________________________________ **

UPDATED 6:57 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) WARNING: The following development in MLM La-La Land may be harmful to your gag reflex.

Zeek Rewards, the U.S.-based MLM “program” that wraps itself in the American flag, collects sums of up to $10,000 from participants, plants the seed affiliates can earn a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day while insisting it is offering neither securities nor an investment program, has a payout scheme similar to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme and securities swindle, is married to a penny-auction site known as Zeekler that has told successful bidders for sums of U.S. cash that they can receive their money via offshore payment processors and preemptively denies it is a pyramid scheme, has some emerging, U.S.-based competition.

The name of the “program” is “BidsThatGive” — and it unabashedly tugs at heartstrings while at once asking prospects to imagine themselves behind the wheel of a grand automobile and feeling good because they also could become a “Contributor” for $10 a month, a “Guardian” for $50 a month, a “Benefactor” for $100 a month” or a Global Ambassador” for $250 a month and pile up mountains of cash while they’re displaying a social conscience.

Two of the core aims of the “program,” according to a nine-minute video promo running on YouTube, are to help impoverished children and children who’d been exploited and became “sex slave[s].” The prelaunch of BidsThatGive appears to have been timed to coincide with the Independence Day holiday period in the United States.

One of the assertions in a the YouTube video is that the “rewards” the company provides include “an orphanage and a school, church or hospital built in your name.” All of this apparently is possible because BidsThatGive has a “global business model” and employes a “concept” known as “PPSC,” which stands for Private Profit Sharing Company.

But before we get to the uber bizarre, let’s address the run-of-the-mill bizarre in this latest entry in MLM La-La Land.

BidsThatGive is a little bit Andy Bowdoin. Indeed, the emerging penny-auction company with an MLM-style compensation plan, claims it’s not an MLM program and tells prospects they’re “probably not going to sleep at night” once they understand the profit potential. Bowdoin, the infamous AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer, told prospects that ASD was not a “network marketing company” and used largely the same line about all the sleepless nights excited prospects would experience.

Meanwhile, BidsThatGive is a little bit like AdViewGlobal (AVG), a collapsed 1-percent-a-day Ponzi autosurf federal prosecutors said in April 2012 had ASD ties. AVG once claimed that one of its desires was to save the rainforest through charitable contributions. BidsThatGive also resembles ClubAsteria, which offered outsize weekly returns ranging from 3 percent to 8 percent and told prospects that its charitable arm would provide relief to victims of the devastating earthquake in Japan last year. ClubAsteria also purported to provide aid to children and claimed its mission was to elevate the word’s poor out of poverty.

Last year, the American Red Cross sent Club Asteria a letter demanding it stop using the Red Cross name in promos.

And BidsThatGive also resembles DataNetworkAffiliates (DNA), which tied itself to the U.S. AMBER Alert system for rescuing abducted children and said its “token system” could help prevent child poverty.

“Help DNA Feed A Million. OVER 1000 AN HOUR DIE. The DNA Token System Can Prevent This!” the company exclaimed.

Among other things, DNA used a YouTube video to trade on the name of Adam Walsh, the 6-year-old who was abducted and murdered in Florida in 1981. Adam’s father, John Walsh, became a prolific advocate for children and later became the host of the “America’s Most Wanted” television series.

DNA, which was associated with longtime MLM huckster Phil Piccolo, appears not to have helped a single abducted child or a single child living in poverty. Affiliates, though, tried to plant the seed that the DNA “program” was backed by Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump. When DNA’s CEO resigned suddenly in 2010, the company waited nearly a week to announce the departure — and then misspelled the former CEO’s name.

BidsThatGive Operator

Randy Jeffers, an MLM aficionado, is the purported operator of BidsThatGive, according to promo videos on YouTube. Jeffers also presides over a nonprofit entity known as “Liberty Kidz,” which says its “[v]ision is to empower a child to be all that he or she is created to be, by providing homes, help and hope for discouraged, displaced and distressed children of the world.”

A similarly named Jeffers’ entity known as Liberty International LLC filed for bankruptcy in August 2010, listing about $1.94 million in debt and $641 in assets, according to federal records. The assets consisted of the balance of a business checking account.

What follows are comments from Jeffers in the nine-minute sales pitch for BidsThatGive on YouTube (italics added):

You know, there are so many terrible things that happen to children all over the world. Right now a little boy is dying of hunger, a little girl just got sold by her mother and is being forced into life as a sex slave.

Right now, children are being physically abused, and then there’s so many children that are just left by themselves and there’s no one there to love or care for them. I don’t know why bad things happen to innocent little children, but they do. But here’s what I do know: All of us can do something about it.

You see, that’s our No. 1 purpose. This company was founded to be a true partnership between those children, the children’s charities that it supports and its affiliates who make it all happen.

A ‘Founding Member’

One of the founding members of BidsThatGive is Glen Woodfin, according to 6:56 promo video dated July 2 and running on YouTube.

Woodfin describes himself in the video as an American who once moved to Brazil to be with his “multimillionaire” fiance who had 90 employees. Enjoying the “good life” on the beach while sitting around drinking “coconut milk” was fun for a while, but ultimately led to a desire to become more productive and to develop an online skill set. Woodfin ultimately discovered he had a talent for search engine optimization and that clients were interested in those services.

Glen Woodfin, who says he's done SEO for a Presidential candidate, does a little dance in his Bids That Give sales pitch on YouTube.

His SEO skills ultimately became so good that “I was hired by somebody running for President . . .,” according to Woodfin, who narrates the video. He did not identify the candidate.

Woodfin, however, goes to to explain that he was fortunate to know author and White House adviser Doug Wead, who wrote “All The President’s Children,” a New York Times Bestseller. (Wead’s Wikipedia entry says he advised GOP Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.)

Apparently in the market for SEO advice, Wead turned to Woodfin, according to the video.

“He said, ‘Glen, we’ve got one of the Presidential children about to get married in three weeks, and we don’t have a website up. Can we get in there and get to the top of the search engines with it?’” Woodfin recalled.

That Presidential child, according to Woodfin, was Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Over the weekend Chelsea Clinton got married, Woodfin said, his SEO techniques on Wead’s behalf put a site known as ChelseaClintonWeddingWatch.com at the top of the rankings. (Chelsea Clinton was married on July 31, 2010.)

When NBC News anchor Lester Holt was interviewing Wead, Woodfin said, Holt mentioned the website Woodfin had put at the top of the rankings, apparently attributing the feat to Wead.

Neither BidsThatGive nor Jeffers is mentioned in the first three minutes of the Woodfin video. But at roughly the 3:03 mark, Woodfin announces, “I’m going in business with a gentleman named Randy Jeffers. Randy Jeffers started the No. 1, fastest-growing MLM of all time, called Destiny. They put in 1 million distributors in 18 months.”

Woodfin goes on to say that Jeffers recently called him and offered him a “founder’s membership” in BidsThatGive.

“While he’s talking, the hair start[s] standing up on my arm, and I got thrilled,” Woodfin recalled. “As a matter of fact, every time I get off the phone with him now, I’m just, ‘Thank you for putting this together.’ It’s based on penny auctions . . .”

It’s not known whether Woodfin contacted the White House, Wead, Clinton and Holt as a courtesy to let them know he’d be using their names in a YouTube pitch for Jeffers’ BidsThatGive. What is known is that namedropping is common in the MLM sphere — often without the knowledge of those whose names are dropped.

Although the Woodfin pitch did not imply that any of the celebrities or institutions mentioned in the pitch endorsed BidsThatGive, the implication was clear that BidsThatGive prospects who joined under Woodfin would gain access to an SEO expert who’d worked for a Presidential candidate and knew a Presidential adviser.

Neither the Jeffers’ video nor the Woodfin video referenced the Liberty International LLC 23-month-old bankruptcy filing. Nor did either video address any of the potential problems BidsThatGive could encounter from regulators.

Like the Zeek Rewards’ business model, the BidsThatGive model resembles that of ASD. In 2008, the U.S. Secret Service seized more than $80 million from ASD-related bank accounts, including $65.8 million in the personal accounts of Andy Bowdoin.

Court records showed that ASD was trading on the name of then-President George W. Bush. Analysts saw it as a transparent bid to sanitize the “opportunity” by trying to link it to the White House.

Major politicians from both sides of the aisle have seen their names used in promos for “opportunities” that proved to be Ponzi schemes.

Former President Clinton’s name and image were used by the Mantria Corp. Ponzi scheme. Clinton is a Democrat.

Jul 5, 2012
RECOMMENDED READING: The Age Of Evolving MLM Radicalism: BehindMLM Reports On Lawsuit Threats And Security Taunts Directed At Blogger Who Took Issue With How American MLM Brand ‘Xocai’ Chocolate Was Being Marketed In Norway

U.S.-based Xocai features attractive products in attractive packaging. The behavior of some of its supporters is decidedly less than attractive, something that is generating negative headlines in Europe and the United States.

From the Stepfordian cheerleading for the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” (and its purported nonguaranteed, nonreturn return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day) to the mind-bending and long-running circus surrounding AdSurfDaily (1 percent a day with an operator who was a recidivist securities huckster and now has pleaded guilty in the ASD MLM Ponzi case) and JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid (2 percent a day while fretting about “cruise missile” attacks on its server by purported criminal governments bent on destroying free enterprise), a certain sphere of the MLM universe has been serving up a symphony of the bizarre.

But what reportedly occurred in Norway recently in the MLM sphere not only is bizarre, but also makes some MLMers look like a gang of out-of-control, conspiring thugs and extortionists.

BehindMLM.com is reporting today on lawsuit threats and other hair-raising taunts directed at a Norwegian critic who raised questions about how the Xocai MLM “opportunity” was being presented in Norway.

Xocai is a brand of chocolate marketed by Nevada-based MXI Corp. MXI stands for Marketing Xocolate International Corp., according to the company.

No legitimate MLM company or MLM affiliate should tolerate or model this fantastically ill-advised behavior, which can have severe repercussions and is creating negative headlines for both Xocai and MLM.

It is the worst possible sort of “public relations” in “defense” of a company. Not only does it smack of a bid to force mob rule in the Internet Age and speak to issues of extortion, emotional blackmail and the disingenuous whitewashing of ill intent, it raises very real concerns about how a mob can undermine free speech and jeopardize the security of individual MLM critics and their family members, friends and associates.

It is worth noting that supporters of AdSurfDaily also threatened to sue critics. At the same time, it’s worth noting that a threat to sue an ASD critic for $40 million in July 2008 became part of a government series of exhibits in the ASD Ponzi case.

But the story about the negative PR Xocai suddenly is experiencing goes far beyond simple lawsuit threat reportedly made in its name. Indeed, the story of the lawsuit threat is gathering attention because of companion threats, even as company says it is trying to build a powerful brand.

Xocai says it recently obtained a trademark on the phrase “Healthy Chocolate” and seeks to become a business icon. These things are commendable, and the company has made its accomplishments and goals part of its PR stable.

“Approval of the ‘Healthy Chocolate’ trademark represents a significant milestone for MXI,” said Andrew Brooks, founder and chief operating officer of MXI Corp., in a May 21 news release on the company’s website.

“We’ve increasingly become known as the ‘Healthy Chocolate’ company, utilizing proprietary formulations of premium ingredients, along with cold-processing techniques, to retain the nutritional potency of cacao and açai berries,” said Brooks. “With this milestone, we now have another important tool to establish ourselves as the icon for Healthy Chocolate, both inside and outside our industry.”

We’re wondering today whether the company, which plainly states it seeks to become a business icon and clearly values its brand and its new trademark, finds the BehindMLM story disturbing enough to repudiate the behavior that is the subject of the story.

The PP Blog will provide space to Xocai should it choose to speak to the events in Norway. It could score a lot of PR points by denouncing those events and putting it on the record that it will not tolerate MLM thuggery in its name.

Every word of the BehindMLM story is worth reading. (Link below.)

The upshot is this: An apparent Xocai “defender” unhappy about a series of Blog reports planted the seed that the company would be filing a “a seven digit lawsuit” against the Blogger. The lawsuit, according to the “defender,” was backed by the majority of a trade association consisting of 9,000 Norwegian Xocai members.

But the menacing reportedly didn’t stop there.

In fact, according to the BehindMLM story, it devolved into a situation in which the “defender” planted the seed that other Xocai “defenders” would make trouble for the Blogger with his private employer. To maximize the chill, the “defender” made sure the critic knew that an intelligence-gathering operation was occurring behind the scenes and that Xocai supporters might just appear at his gate and at the gates of his loved ones.

Of course, the Xocai “defender,” a purported “association,” washed its hands of any suggestion its intent was anything less than noble. The seeds planted that the life of the Blogger, his personal security and the security of his loved ones could be ruined in an instant if he didn’t behave in a certain way — well, those things apparently were not to be viewed as threatening. It was just business, or so the disingenuous, vomitous talking points of the “defender” go.

Our view is that is just the latest example of something we’re inclined to describe as an evolving MLM radicalism. It is particularly dangerous because certain parts of the MLM universe are known to reflexively model anything that “works” with complete disregard for the consequences.

It reminded us of what happened to this police chief in Georgia earlier this year. The chief allegedly was targeted in an intimidation campaign by a “sovereign citizen.”

The bid to “defend” Xocai by trying to make a Blogger believe everything he valued in life could be gone in an instant is deplorable. It is ugly past comparison. Unfortunately it is hardly unique in the recent annals of MLM’s Thug Wing.

Read the story on BehindMLM.com.

Jul 4, 2012
UPDATE: AdSurfDaily-Like Weirdness Increasingly Creeps Into Lawsuit Against United States By ASD Pitchmen Dwight Owen Schweitzer And Todd Disner, Who Now Are Promoting Zeek Rewards

Federal prosecutors went to court in the Southern District of Florida today, saying AdSurfDaily figures Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer were confusing their November 2011 lawsuit against the government with two forfeiture actions filed in the District of Columbia by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi case.

An assistant U.S. Attorney serving under U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida is serving as the attorney for the United States in the case because Disner and Schweitzer sued the government. Although the ASD Ponzi case was brought in the District of Columbia, Disner and Schweitzer sued the government in Florida. They later claimed that prosecutors had gone forum shopping in Washington to bring the Ponzi forfeiture case.

Among other things, Disner and Schweitzer claim that undercover agents who joined ASD had a duty to identify themselves to ASD management and that the ASD Ponzi case is a “house of cards” despite ASD President Andy Bowdoin’s guilty plea and public acknowledgment he presided over a Ponzi scheme.

In a puzzling motion stamped June 20 and entered on the docket of U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga on June 21, Schweitzer and Disner claimed they had personally determined that a certificate of interested parties filed by the government in response to an order was “inadequate as a matter of law.”

Disner and Schweitzer, according to Disner and Schweitzer, had a right to know the identities of any ASD participant who filed a claim for remissions in the ASD Ponzi case, how much money they put into ASD and how much was returned to them by the government through the remission claims process.

Nonsense, the government said today.

“The plaintiffs misapprehend the purpose and spirit of the court’s order requiring a certificate of interested parties,” the government said in its response to the Disner/Schweitzer motion. “The instant case is not a forfeiture case as the two forfeiture cases involving AdSurfDaily have already been resolved in the District of Columbia.

“The certificate of interested parties is not some kind of alternative discovery vehicle collateral to the discovery provisions in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” the government continued. “Rather, the certificate of interested parties in both the federal district and appellate courts is designed ‘to assist judges in making a determination of whether they have any interests in any of a party’s related corporate entities that would disqualify the judges from hearing the [appeal].’”

Moreover, the government argued, Disner and Schweitzer “did not confer with the defense” as required by the local rules in the Southern District of Florida prior to filing the motion.

As many as 11,000 parties filed remissions claims in the ASD case, according to federal court records.

Disner and Schweitzer apparently want to know who all of them are and to ascertain “the financial interest of each[,] including those individuals, separately identified, who applied for remission and, as to each, stating whether the request was approved, approved in part, or denied.”

The government, however, advised Altonaga that neither Disner nor Schweitzer have filed their own certificates of interested parties in the case.

Separately, Altonaga today granted the government’s June 4 motion by default to stay discovery in the case, explaining that Disner and Schweitzer have “not filed an opposing memorandum of law to the Motion, nor have they sought an extension of time to do so.”

Disner is a co-founder of the Quiznos sandwich franchise. Schweitzer is a former attorney now living in Miami whose license was suspended in Connecticut.

Both men later became pitchmen for Zeek Rewards, an MLM firm whose business model closely resembles the ASD business model that ASD’s Bowdoin admitted was a Ponzi scheme. Bowdoin is jailed in the District of Columbia. A federal judge revoked his bond June 12 after prosecutors proffered evidence that he continued to promote fraud schemes after the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in the ASD Ponzi case and after Bowdoin was arrested on Ponzi-scheme charges in December 2010.

Bowdoin pleaded guilty in May to wire fraud in the ASD Ponzi case. His formal sentencing is set for August. He has been banned from multilevel marketing, Internet programs and mass marketing.

Other ASD-Related News From The OneX Fraud Wing

In other ASD-related news, a conference call cheerleading session for the purported “OneX” program was canceled tonight after a rah-rah session that had been scheduled for last Thursday also was canceled.

Tonight’s cheerleading session was to be sponsored by a downline with ASD ties and was contemplated to be one that would build on the purportedly exciting announcement OneX said would be made last week to identify its new payment processor, a source told the PP Blog.

But OneX apparently canceled the Thursday conference call and never identified a new payment processor, so there was nothing for the OneX downline with ASD ties to cheer about tonight.

“It is not possible to move forward without the processor being in place,” the ASD downline group said, according to the source.

But the group held out hope that OneX would announce its new payment processor tomorrow, according to the source.

In April, federal prosecutors said OneX was a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” that was operating in ASD-like fashion.

Jun 25, 2012
JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid Now Soliciting $20,000 ‘Purchase’ Amid Claim Of $400-Per-Day Payout

EDITOR’S NOTE: The JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “program” may have links to the “sovereign citizens” movement. Potentially signaling a change in the “program’s” status quo, JSS/JBP has not posted a recording of its weekly conference call since June 7. As the screen shot below shows, JSS/JBP also now is soliciting “purchases” ranging from $1,000 to $20,000, suggesting the $20,000 purchase will produce a return of $400 a day.

The PP Blog accessed the JSS/JBP website (and the ad captured in the screen shot below) today through an ad on a site known as “ADsactly.com.” An ad for the purported Zeek Rewards MLM “program” also was featured on ADsactly.

Zeek and JSS/JBP are using at least two of the same offshore payment processors: SolidTrustPay and AlertPay (now Payza).

JSS

Jun 23, 2012
DEVELOPING STORY: New Mystery Emerges: North Carolina/Nevada Entity ZeekRewards.com Was Served With California Cyberpiracy, Infringement And Unfair Competition Lawsuit In Flushing, N.Y.

Screen shot of page from November 2011 lawsuit that named ZeekRewards.com a defendant. (Red highlight by PP Blog.)

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.

Jun 22, 2012
BULLETIN: North Carolina Attorney General’s Office Refutes Suggestion That Zeek Has Been Deemed ‘Legal’; ‘We Do Have Concerns,’ Agency Says; TV Station Removes Video Report Zeek Was Linking To On Its Blog

BULLETIN: (UPDATED 2:04 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper told the PP Blog this morning that it never said the Zeek MLM or auctions programs were legal.

The agency said it had asked a local television station to issue a corrected report, and the station has removed a video report that Zeek was linking to from its Blog this morning.

“We do have concerns about [Zeek],” said Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for Cooper.

Zeek has two arms: an MLM program known as Zeek Rewards, and a penny-auction site known as Zeekler. Zeek Rewards plants the seed that participants can earn a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day. The Zeekler arm is auctioning sums of U.S. currency and advertising that successful bidders can receive their winnings through offshore payment processors.

Zeek has denied it is operating either an investment program or a “pyramid scheme” through its Zeek Rewards’ MLM arm. It also claims to run clean penny auctions through Zeekler. Some customers, however, have complained they had not received their winnings of auction cash.

The TV station — WFMY Channel 2 — aired a video report that focused on a “penny auction craze.” The report, which made a passing reference to Zeek’s MLM arm, focused on Zeek’s Zeekler arm while explaining the concept behind penny auctions and the potential pitfalls. A Blog version of the station’s report references both company arms and notes that “a court has not yet ruled whether this operation is legal or illegal.”

WFMY’s video version, however, suggested that Cooper’s office had received a handful of complaints about the Zeek arms but had determined Zeek was conducting business legally.

No determination that Zeek is operating legally has been made, Talley stressed this morning.

The PP Blog learned this morning that Zeek’s news Blog was linking to the broadcast version of the WFMY report. The TV station now has removed the video, Cooper’s office said.

In another strange development, at least two Zeek affiliates have spammed the TV’s station’s website with offers for Zeek. One of the spams appears to have originated with Barbara Alford, a promoter of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme and a former moderator of the pro-ASD “Surf’s Up” forum that mysteriously disappeared in 2010 after shilling for accused ASD Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin around the clock for more than a year.

Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD Ponzi case last month. He is jailed in the District of Columbia. Zeek’s business model is similar to the model employed by ASD.

Cooper’s office supplied the PP Blog with a list of complaints the state has received about Zeek. (Note: The paragraphs below do not take into account all of the complaints Cooper’s office has received about Zeek. There are at least 10 complaints on file.)

One complaint that originated in Utah on May 16, 2012, alleged that a customer had given Zeek $20,000 in April but never received credit and was unable to get any satisfaction from customer service.

“The customer service is non existent and I am beginning to think Zeekler is a pyramid scam,” the customer told Cooper’s office.

Zeek responded to the complaint by informing Cooper’s office that it believed the Utah complainant wasn’t actually a Zeek customer. Rather, according to Zeek, the complainant was the father of two sons who were Zeek affiliates and had contacted the attorney general out of “personal curiosity.”

Another complaint received by Cooper’s office from a Florida man in November 2011 was forwarded to the Securities Division of the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office for review, according to the correspondence trail. No final outcome is noted.

Another complaint Cooper’s office received on May 8 originated in the District of Columbia after being sent to the Office of the Attorney General of District of Columbia by an individual in Oregon four days earlier. The District of Columbia forwarded the complaint to Cooper’s office, which opened a file.

“This is a Huge Ponzi scheme,” the sender complained. “If not [looked] at carefully and stopped by the US AG, [t]his would be a tremendous task to [sort] out to pay back the consumer. This is [n]o different tha[n] AD Surf Daily ([i]f you remember the [c]ase).”

Meanwhile, a Zeek customer in Miami contacted Cooper’s office and told the agency that he had sent U.S. Postal Service money orders totaling $1,000 to Zeek in April and that the sum never was credited to his Zeek account.

Yet another Zeek customer — this one from California — told Cooper’s office that he had wired more than $2,000 in March from his account at Bank of America to Zeek’s account at NewBridge Bank in North Carolina. Although the complainant said he’d confirmed both through his bank and NewBridge that Zeek had received the money, the money never got credited to his Zeek account.

The California customer also told Cooper’s office that Zeek closed his support ticket without providing a resolution, a circumstance that forced the aggrieved customer to open a second ticket.

Zeek announced suddenly on May 28 — Memorial Day — that it was closing its NewBridge bank account.

Another individual who contacted Cooper’s office suggested she’d also contacted her member of Congress, the IRS, the FTC and the SEC about Zeek and questioned whether a “whistleblower” award might be available if Zeek proved to be a scam. That communication identified several purported Zeek promoters, including former AdSurfDaily promoter Todd Disner.

Jun 20, 2012
KABOOM! Alleged International Scammer Targeted In Secret Service Undercover Probe Extradited To United States; ‘Prosecution Demonstrates That Those Who Try To Rip Off Americans From Behind A Computer Screen Across An Ocean Will Not Escape American Justice,’ Top Federal Prosecutor Says

EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog first reported on the arrest in France of alleged international fraudster Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin on Aug. 11, 2010. The arrest came as the result of an undercover operation the U.S. Secret Service conducted on online forums.

As the Blog reported at the time, “The arrest of Vladislav Horohorin is notable on a number of levels. First, the arrest in Europe was a result of an online fraud scheme that allegedly crossed international borders and made its way to the United States, where criminal charges were filed. At the same time, the crime allegedly involved the transfer of money though international payment processors. Perhaps more than anything, however, the case against Horohorin demonstrates that the U.S. Secret Service is “plugged into” forums that promote international lawlessness. His arrest is very bad news for credit-card crooks and HYIP and autosurf Ponzi schemers — and their corrupt colleagues.”

Today the PP Blog is reporting that the United States successfully arranged the extradition of Horohorin. His first court appearance was made in the District of Columbia, the venue from which the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case brought by the Secret Service is playing out. The office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr., which was instrumental in guiding the ASD case, is in charge of certain elements of the Horohorin case.

The office of U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia also is handing elements of the Horohorin prosecution.

The allegations in the case are alarming: “According to the indictment filed in the Northern District of Georgia, Horohorin was one of the lead cashers in an elaborate scheme in which 44 counterfeit payroll debit cards were used to withdraw more than $9 million from over 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide in a span of less than 12 hours,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “Computer hackers broke into a credit card processor located in the Atlanta area, stole debit card account numbers, and raised the balances and withdrawal limits on those accounts while distributing the account numbers and PIN codes to lead cashers, like Hororhorin, around the world.”

** ______________________________________ **

UPDATE: Alleged international credit-card fraudster Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin, also known as “BadB,” is in an American jail after an undercover probe on online forums by the U.S. Secret Service and a parallel investigation by the FBI.

Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia

“We are pleased that he has been extradited to the United States to face these criminal charges in a District of Columbia courtroom,” said U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. of the District of Columbia. “This prosecution demonstrates that those who try to rip off Americans from behind a computer screen across an ocean will not escape American justice.”

Horohorin, whose age was listed as 27 after his August 2010 arrest in France on U.S. charges, also will be prosecuted in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

“International cyber criminals who target American citizens and businesses often believe they are untouchable because they are overseas,” said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia. “But as this case demonstrates, we will work relentlessly with our law enforcement partners around the world to charge, find and bring those criminals to justice.”

News of Horohorin’s extradition by France to U.S. soil occurred against the backdrop of claims by an HYIP “program” known as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that members must affirm they are not with the “government” and that the “program” is not located in any “unfriendly political jurisdictions.”

A JSS/JBP “defender” known as “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted in March that “law enforcement agencies don’t pay attention to what’s being said on forums and blogs.” The claim was at odds with various public records that show U.S. law enforcement pays close attention to forums and Blogs and even conducts undercover operations by infiltrating forums.

Among other things, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted he’d defend JSS/JBP’s purported operator Frederick Mann “so help me God.” The PP Blog became the subject of threats from “MoneyMakingBrain.” JSS/JBP, which uses offshore payment processors, purports to provide a return of 60 percent a month, has no known securities registrations and may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.

Underscoring the importance of the Horohorin arrest and extradition, Machen and Yates were joined in the announcement by the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and top officials from both the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI.

Horohorin, said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, was “one of the most notorious credit card traffickers in the world.”

“Due to our strong relationships with our international law enforcement partners, we secured his extradition to the United States, where he now faces multiple criminal counts in two separate indictments,” Breuer said. “We will continue to do everything we can to bring cybercriminals to justice, including those who operate beyond our borders.”

A top U.S. Secret Service official, meanwhile, said the agency viewed the alleged Horohorin caper as an “attack” on America’s financial system.

“The Secret Service is committed to identifying and apprehending those individuals that continue to attack American financial institutions and we will continue to work through our international and domestic law enforcement partners in order to accomplish this,” said David J. O’Connor, assistant director of investigations.

In addition to providing security for the President of the United States, the Secret Service is in charge of protecting America’s financial infrastructure. The agency has described AdSurfDaily as a “criminal enterprise,” with the Justice Department asserting that ASD was an example of an “insidious” business that permitted fraud to spread globally.

Just two days after Horohorin’s first appearance in a U.S. courtroom in the District of Columbia, AdSurfDaily members Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer claimed that the federal prosecutors who brought the ASD Ponzi case in August 2008 had gone shopping for a “frendly [sic] forum” in which the government could enlist “some of their Washington D.C. operatives to become members of ASD, thereby making them potential witnesses.”

Disner and Schweitzer sued the United States in November 2011 for alleged misdeeds in the ASD case. Among other things, Disner and Schweitzer asserted that undercover agents who joined ASD had a duty to inform ASD management. The Secret Service described ASD as a massive online Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud last month, admitting ASD was a Ponzi scheme and that the company never operated legally from its inception in 2006.

Disner and Schweitzer now are affiliates for Zeek Rewards, a “program” that plants the seed it can provide an ASD-like return of 1 percent or more per day without being a pyramid scheme and without constituting an investment opportunity. The payout Zeek plants the seed it can provide is on par with the returns advertised by JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, which does not disclose its base of operations.

A top FBI official said the arrest of Horohorin showed that international agencies are working together to divorce criminals from their abilities to use computers to reach across borders to pull off egregious crimes.

“Horohorin’s extradition to the United States demonstrates the FBI’s expertise in conducting long-term investigations into complex criminal computer intrusions, resulting in bringing the most egregious cyber criminals to justice, even from foreign shores,” said Brian D. Lamkin , special agent in charge of the Atlanta division. “The combined efforts of law enforcement agencies to include our international partners around the world will ensure this trend continues.”

Court and other records show that Horohorin, like ASD, had a presence in both the District of Columbia and the Northern District of Georgia.

Jun 19, 2012
BULLETIN: AdSurfDaily Figures (And Zeek Rewards Pitchmen) Todd Disner And Dwight Owen Schweitzer Raise Possibility Of Prosecution For Tax Evasion Because Of Government Seizure Of ASD Database

After the August 2008 seizure by the U.S. Secret Service of tens of millions of dollars in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, Dwight Owen Schweitzer became a pitchman for the Zeek Rewards "program," according to this ad. Schweitzer, a former attorney whose license was suspended in Connecticut, and fellow ASD figure Todd Disner sued the United States in November 2011 for alleged misdeeds in the ASD case, claiming the government had authored a "tissue of lies" in the ASD case and that ASD was a legitimate business. ASD President Andy Bowdoin admitted last month that ASD was a Ponzi scheme and that his business never operated legally from its 2006 inception, putting Bowdoin at odds with both Disner and Schweitzer and also purported MLM expert Keith Laggos, who curiously opined ASD was not a "Ponzie" scheme. Bowdoin is now jailed in the District of Columbia after a federal judge revoked his bond. The judge ordered Bowdoin jailed pending formal sentencing after the government proffered evidence that Bowdoin continued to promote fraud schemes after the seizure of $65.8 million from his personal bank accounts in 2008 and after Bowdoin was arrested in December 2010 on ASD-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The filing by Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer to which the PP Blog refers in this story was in response to a May 18 government motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Disner and Schweitzer against the United States in the Southern District of Florida or to transfer the case to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The government filed its motions on the same date ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud and admitted that ASD was a Ponzi scheme . . .

BULLETIN: In a curious, 23-page narrative, AdSurfDaily figures Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer — who went on to become promoters of the Zeek Rewards MLM — have raised the prospect that they could be prosecuted for tax evasion because of the government seizure of ASD’s database in August 2008.

Neither Disner nor Schweitzer referenced Zeek in a filing stamped June 15 and entered today on the docket of U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the Southern District of Florida. But the filing includes the name of Zeek consultant Keith Laggos, positioning Laggos as an expert on Ponzi schemes who ventured an opinion that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme.

The Disner/Schweitzer filing does not mention that Laggos repeatedly misspelled “Ponzi” as “Ponzie” in his purported expert opinion in the ASD case. Nor does it mention that Laggos was prosecuted by the SEC in a 2004 case that alleged he issued laudatory press releases and a laudatory article for a company that later become the subject of a securities investigation without disclosing he was being compensated for touting the purported opportunity.

Laggos neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations, which involved a company known as Converge Global Inc. and a subsidiary known as TeleWrx Inc. The future Zeek consultant settled the 2004 SEC case by disgorging nearly $12,000, paying interest of nearly $2,000, paying a civil fine of $19,500 and agreeing to a five-year penny-stock ban.

Laggos was permanently enjoined in the case from violating Section 17(b) of the Securities Act, which makes it unlawful to tout a stock without disclosing the nature and substance of any consideration, whether present or future, direct or indirect, received from an issuer, underwriter or dealer.

An image of Laggos now appears in a commercial for Zeek, and a publication owned by Laggos has issued laudatory coverage of the purported MLM opportunity, which plants the seed it provides a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day without being a “pyramid scheme” and without constituting an investment opportunity.

It is known that Zeek and ASD had common promoters and that, beginning in about July 2011, some well-known figures in the ASD story began to emerge publicly as Zeek boosters. Among them are former “Surf’s Up” moderator Terralynn Hoy and former ASD pitchman Jerry Napier.

Hoy, who has been listed as a “Zeek” employee and has hosted at least once conference call for Zeek, was a moderator of a defunct ASD cheerleading forum known as “Surf’s Up.” While “Surf’s Up” still was operating, Hoy became a moderator of a forum that led cheers for an autosurf known as AdViewGlobal, which federal prosecutors now say was a fraudulent scheme backed by ASD President Andy Bowdoin. Both Surf’s Up and the AdViewGlobal forum, which also now is defunct, described ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Curtis Richmond as a “hero.”

Richmond has a contempt of court conviction for threatening federal judges and once was sued successfully under the federal racketeering statute for participating in a scheme in which enormous purported judgments were filed against public officials and the officials were threatened with arrest. ASD is known to have had ties to tax deniers and “sovereign citizens.”

Some Zeek promoters also are pushing a purported “opportunity” known as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that may have links to the “sovereign citizens” movement. Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS/JBP, does not identify where the purported opportunity operates from and has speculated that the servers of JSS/JBP could be targeted in a “cruise missile” attack by the government.

JSS/JBP advertises a return of 2 percent a day, a percentage that Zeek sometimes says it has matched or exceeded — though Zeek generally stays between 1 percent and 2 percent a day when the purported payout is averaged over a week, Zeek promoters claim.

As a Zeek promoter, Napier was given a puff piece last summer by the purported Zeek opportunity. An individual with the same name appears to have signed a petition in December 2008 calling for the U.S. Senate not to investigate ASD and Bowdoin, but to investigate various federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service agent who brought the ASD Ponzi case in August 2008. The petition showing the name of “Jerry Napier” appears to have been signed by “Jerry Napier” after federal prosecutors brought a second forfeiture case against ASD-related assets on Dec. 19, 2008. As was the case with the August 2008 forfeiture filing by the government, the December 2008 case alleged a Ponzi scheme.

Today’s filing by Disner and Schweitzer advances a theory — even after Bowdoin’s guilty plea to wire fraud last month and public acknowledgment that he presided over a Ponzi scheme — that the government’s Ponzi claims constituted a “house of cards.”

It also plants the seed that prosecutors shopped the ASD case to a “frendly [sic] forum” in the District of Columbia to make it easier for the government to enlist “some of their Washington D.C. operatives to become members of ASD, thereby making them potential witnesses.”

Disner and Schweitzer claim that the seizure of ASD’s database in Florida was unconstitutional because it subjected them to an invasion of privacy and potentially a tax investigation.

“The plaintiffs have alleged that the information taken by the defendant places the plaintiffs in jeopardy of the defendant seeking to prosecute the plaintiffs for tax evasion as a result of the defendant having taken the plaintiffs records which are necessary to enable the plaintiffs to file accurate tax returns for the period covered by those records,” Disner and Schweitzer argued.

And Disner and Schweitzer further ventured (italics added):

As a result of the government’s action, the plaintiffs cannot file accurate tax returns, have lost both past and future business revenues, their reputations have been damaged to the extent that they recruited others to join in the program that the defendant alleged to be a Ponzi scheme, and by inference the plaintiffs have therefore enlisted others to participate in an illegal enterprise. The injuries suffered by the plaintiffs are not hypothetical or conjectural but are both finite and calculable. They have alleged that the actions taken against them were authorized without meeting the constitutionally guaranteed and statutorily increased requirements to establish probable cause and resulted in an illegal search and seizure of their property and effects.

Neither Zeek nor any of its executives or promoters have been accused of wrongdoing. Zeek, though, claimed last month that it was closing two U.S. bank accounts and looking to open an account with a bank it did not name.

Zeek is using offshore payment processors linked to numerous schemes that promote outsize returns. A Zeek auction arm known as Zeekler is auctioning sums of U.S. cash and telling winners it will pay them via offshore processors.

Components of the Zeek scheme are similar to components of the ASD Ponzi scheme.

In 2008, an HYIP scheme known as Legisi resulted in an an SEC civil prosecution. Court papers showed that the U.S. Secret Service and state regulators in Michigan were conducting an undercover probe of Legisi which, like JSS/JBP, sought to make participants affirm they were not government employees.

Like ASD’s Bowdoin, Legisi operator Gregory McKnight pleaded guilty to wire fraud. Records show that a tier of the purported Legisi program offered a daily return that was about one-fourth the daily return Zeek plants the seed can be realized through its purported opportunity.

Although Surf’s Up, which received ASD’s official endorsement as a news outlet with Hoy as a moderator, led cheers for ASD and Bowdoin until the forum mysteriously vanished in January 2010, Hoy appears to believe that Ponzi schemes actually can exist.

SSH2 Acquisitions, a Nevada company that listed Hoy as a director, claimed in 2010 that it had been defrauded in a Ponzi scheme.

Jun 18, 2012
Site That Sells Zeek Rewards ‘Customers’ Uses PayPal, Serves Confusing Pop-Up Screens, References AdSurfDaily Figure Todd Disner — And Sends Traffic To JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid Site That May Have ‘Sovereign Citizens’ Link
Depending on how they navigate the site, PennyAuctionCustomers.com visitors may encounter a confusing series of screens and ultimately may be shown an ad for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, which may have ties to the "sovereign citizens" movement. The PennyAuctionCustomers site purports to sell customers for the ZeekRewards MLM "program" that plants the seed it provides a daily return of between 1 percent and 2 percent while not being a "pyramid scheme" and while not constituting an investment program.

PennyAuctionCustomers.com advertises that it sells “customers” to members of the Zeek Rewards MLM, collects money through PayPal, serves confusing pop-up messages, uses the name of AdSurfDaily figure Todd Disner in its meta data — and sends traffic to the preposterous JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “program” that advertises a return of 60 percent a month.

Whether the site has any affiliation with Disner is unclear. What is clear is that Disner is a Zeek Rewards member who sued the U.S. government last year for alleged misdeeds in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, including a claim that federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service had relied on a “tissue of lies” in bringing the ASD case.

This Zeek ad attributed to former AdSurfDaily member Dwight Owen Schweitzer paints Zeek as an investment program through which participants can "earn 1%+ a day compounded."

Disner’s co-plaintiff in the case was fellow ASD (and Zeek) member Dwight Owen Schweitzer, a former attorney whose license was suspended in Connecticut. The government asked a federal judge last month to dismiss the Disner/Schweitzer complaint, pointing out that ASD President Andy Bowdoin had pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the ASD case.

Bowdoin, 77, is now detained in Washington, D.C., awaiting formal sentencing by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer in August. Court papers show that Bowdoin admitted ASD was a Ponzi scheme and that he had presided over an illegal money-making business since the inception of ASD in 2006.

Zeek’s business model closely resembles that of ASD. Like ASD, Zeek plants the seed that it provides a daily return that corresponds to an annual return in excess of 300 percent. Zeek participants must place an ad online daily to earn the purported daily payout. ASD members were required to view ads.

The U.S. Secret Service seized more than $80 million in the ASD Ponzi case, including more than $65.8 million from Bowdoin’s bank accounts in August 2008.

When the PP Blog visited PennyAuctionCustomers.com, accessed the “FAQ” page and sought to leave the page, the Blog’s browser encountered multiple pop-up screens that displayed confusing messages. Eventually the Blog was shown a page on the site with banner ads for the JSS/JBP “program” and a “program” known as Banners Broker.

The banner ad near the bottom of this page on the PennyAuctionCustomers.com website points visitors to the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid "program" after soliciting visitors to purchase "customers" for the Zeek Rewards MLM "program." A JSS/JBP site loads when the "Triple Your Money" banner is clicked.

“DO YOU LIKE ZEEK REWARDS?” the PennyAuctionCustomers site inquires.

“WELL YOU WILL LOVE THIS,” it asserts. “Two Other Highly Lucrative Programs That Do Not Require Any Sponsoring of Other Affiliates That You May Wish To Join If You Are Looking To Boost Your Income!”

It then points visitors toward JSS/JBP and Banners Broker.

Like Zeek (and ASD before it), the JSS/JBP and Banners Broker “programs” are being advertised on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. The various promotions lead to questions about whether fraudulent schemes are simply recycling money from scam to scam to scam, polluting the money stream at multiple points nationally and internationally.

These phrases are among the meta data on the PennyAuctionCustomers site:
- zeekrewards 90 day strategy
- zeekrewards calculator
- is zeekrewards legit
- is zeekrewards legal
- todd disner zeek rewards
An Oregon entity known as Media Clinch LLC appears to be conducting the Zeek “customer” sales through PayPal while at once pointing traffic toward Banners Broker and JSS/JBP, which purportedly is operated by Frederick Mann. Mann and JSS/JBP may have ties to the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement in which adherents display an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them and courts have no jurisdiction over them.

Although JSS/JBP appears to rely on “offshore” payment processors linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme, the PennyAuctionCustomers Zeek promos through the Media Clinch LLC PayPal account introduces the prospect that soiled proceeds from multiple fraud schemes also could be flowing into PayPal.

Media Clinch LLC, according to Oregon records, is managed by Sean Walters. Zeek has an affiliate by the same name.
Jun 17, 2012
Did Zeek Give Puff Piece To Rep Who Signed Petition For U.S. Senate To Investigate AdSurfDaily Prosecutors And U.S. Secret Service Agent?

NOTE: 10:46 A.M. EDT: Certain references to “Aaron” (below) in the context of “Aaron and Shara” have been deleted, pending the resolution to a report we received that disputed certain information.

Question: Did the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” that plants the seed it provides a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day without constituting an investment opportunity give a puff piece to an affiliate who signed a petition in 2008 that called for the U.S. Senate to investigate the federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service agent who brought the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case?

Answer: It certainly appears so.

Zeek ran this puff piece on “Charter Diamond” affiliate Jerry Napier of “Michigan” on July 25, 2011.

Separately, this classified ad for Zeek from “Jerry Napier” of Owosso, Mich., ran on Nov. 17, 2011.

On Dec. 30, 2008, “Jerry Napier” of Owosso, Mich., signed a petition that called for the U.S. Senate to investigate (see No. 1897 on the petition) then-U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey; then U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor of the District of Columbia; then-lead ASD prosecutor William Cowden; and Roy Dotson, a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service, according to ipetitions.com.

Screen shot and highlight by PP Blog.

“Whereas, we as Americans have a right to advertise with any company without interferences [sic] by [sic] Attorney General and /or any of its agents,” the petition began. “Whereas, Ad Surf Daily [sic] hereafter (ASD) [sic] an advertising company on the internet were [sic] members received re-bates [sic] for advertising and looking at other advertising sites, thus purchase [sic] products and services.”

In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors brought the first of at least three civil-forfeiture actions in the ASD Ponzi case. Those actions were parallel to a criminal investigation that ultimately led to the arrest of ASD President Andy Bowdoin in December 2010 and his guilty plea to wire fraud last month.

ASD, like Zeek, planted the seed that it paid a daily return on the order of 1 percent.

Meanwhile, “Jerry Napier” is listed as a top Zeek earner on Ted Nuyten’s “Business For Home” Blog in a post dated March 18, 2012.

Among the other top Zeek earners listed in the post are “Aaron and Shara” and Trudy Gilmond. “Aaron and Shara” is a veteran HYIP team.

Gilmond, whom Zeek identifies as a Zeek “employee” on its website, once was a promoter of a scheme known as Regenesis 2X2, which became the subject of a U.S. Secret Service probe in 2009.

The 2008 petition calling for the Senate to investigate the ASD prosecutorial team also includes “Catherine Parker” as a signatory (on Page 33, Nos. 1604 and 1605). “Catherine Parker” was quoted in emails that became part of the ASD story. (See such an attribution on AdLandPro, a site from which ASD was promoted.)

Zeek lists a “Catherine Parker” as an “employee.”

Jun 14, 2012