We’ve mentioned it before — and we’ll mention it again. In July 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) described the HYIP sphere as a “bizarre substratum of the Internet.”
It was as good a description as any, and here is yet another case in point:
The MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum said today that it “temporarily” closed its thread for the “JustBeenPaid” Ponzi scheme owing to bickering between “10BucksUp” and “lolalola.” JustBeenPaid, which is trading on the names of Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey, makes users affirm they are not government spies and purportedly began a transition in August to “offshore” servers. Members have been grumbling for weeks.
“10BucksUp” rose to Ponzi forum prominence earlier this year through his efforts to promote the Club Asteria HYIP, which is trading on the names of the World Bank and the American Red Cross. “10BucksUp” also promoted the JustBeenPaid HYIP while discouraging members from filing chargebacks with AlertPay for the good of all JustBeenPaid investors.
“lolalola” now is hawking something called JSSTRIPLER2 or T2, which apparently is trading on the name of JustBeenPaid’s purported JSS Tripler arm.
Although “10BucksUp” insists the purported new program is merely a “copycat” of the JustBeenPaid program, “lolalola” claims that, “[F]rom what I understand from the Admin is they did not trademark the brand or do they hold a copyright on the name… so he is free to use it.”
In essence, two fraud programs now appear to be trading on the same name — but both “10BucksUp” and “lolalola” appear to be more concerned about clashing with each other than whether the schemes have (or are) stealing cash on a grand scale.
Or something like that . . .
“lolalola” is simultaneously promoting something called Zeek Rewards.
“10BucksUp” recently has promoted Club Asteria, JustBeenPaid, Ad2Million and Cherry Shares. All of the programs are in a state of decay or outright disappearance. Cherry Shares is cited in litigation in Canada, and Club Asteria is cited in litigation in Italy.
MoneyMakerGroup is listed in U.S. federal court filings as a place from which Ponzi schemes are promoted. So is TalkGold, another Ponzi forum.