Scam Absurdities: Kingdom 777 (i.e. WCM777) adopts Ponzi Speak and Pyramid Selling

A blatant ponzi scheme such as WCM777 (which changed its name to Kingdom 777) that was chased out of both North and South America by various jurisdictions, decided to go Orwellian by adopting "Newspeak", which seems to be copied from existing ponzi schemes, such as Ad Surf Daily.

BehindMLM made a copy of Kingdom777's official announcement:

Kingdom777 "word usage explanation" announced 13-FEB-2014

• Investment, purchase
• Investor, member
• Dividend or return , bonus

Hilarious, since this is exactly what "Andy" Bowdoin of Ad Surf Daily ponzi did. Quoting from the SEC press release:

To avoid regulatory scrutiny, Bowdoin referred to ASD’s investors as “members,” referred to the investor’s money, payment and investment principle as “ad packages,” and referred to the return on the member’s investment that ASD promised and paid as “rebates.” 

Let's compile the list...

• investor, member
• investment, ad packages
• return, rebates

Yep, same thing.

But there's something else... It seems Ming Xu is simply replaying the Vantone scam, which is the same trick that Interush tried in Hong Kong, and already busted.

Scam Absurdities: Ian Driscoll of BannersBroker ponzi now pushing FlexKom. Leopard Still Can't Change His Spots.

Sometimes, the surest sign of whether a 'scheme' is a scam or not is the sort of people it seem to attract. If the scheme is flooded by recruiters who previously were involved in various matrix schemes (illlegal!), pyramid schemes (illegal, doh!), Ponzi schemes (need I say it?) and so on, you should run away from it as far as you can, even if the business sounds perfectly legitimate to you. Why? Because those "frequent players" know something you don't: the scheme they joined really rewards recruiting, no matter what it APPEARS to be actually doing. And they are experts in recruiting... something that is very useful... in a pyramid scheme.

Now let's cite the example... Ian Driscoll, formerly of BannersBroker, now pushing FlexKom.

This is Ian Driscoll, from his FlexKom pimping website: (yes, that's actual size)

BannersBroker is a global ponzi/pyramid scheme that is basically an "auto-surf" scheme where you put money in, supposedly watch other people's banners, and get paid a profit (from where?). Here is a link to Web of Trust's reviews (by users) on the scheme:

https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/bannersbroker.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=popup-donuts

And here's RealScam's file on BannersBroker

http://www.realscam.com/f8/banners-broker-hyip-ponzi-scam-897/

So what's Mr. Ian Driscoll, the UK face of BannersBroker up to? Apparently he's latched onto a different train: FlexKom.

Scam and MLM Absurdities: Why do Scams and MLMs do "Same Wine, New Bottle"?

Looking at history of network marketing, and scams and an interesting pattern emerged.

Most people who start network marketing companies were former grunts in network marketing... And sometimes, these alleged network marketing companies turned out to be outright scams.

First, let's get the more legitimate (compared to the scams) folks listed...

• Cambridge Diet top distributor Sandra Tillotson went on to co-start NuSkin
• Natural Health Trend's high-ranker Terry LaCore went on to start bHIP (and later, Rippln)
• Herbalife member Roger Daley went on to start Omnitrition International

Given that NuSkin is in trouble in China, Mr. LaCore had a run-in with the SEC, and Roger Daley's Omnitrition was slapped down by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals... Well, let's just say they are NOT egregious scams (except maybe NuSkin in China)

Then there are the outright scams... Where participants of MLM or scams went on to start and/or continue to participate in scams.

You cannot trust the disclaimer

NOTE: Part of this post was reworked into one of my hubpages hubs.

Suspect schemes often contains some strange disclaimers, as if they can avoid legal responsibility with it.  The matter of act is if a company lie in a disclaimer, like "This is not an investment", when the business, in fact, passes the Howey Test, then the disclaimer is a lie and thus company has committed fraud.

Most Ponzi schemes claim to be investments, but a noticeable portion claim they are not. "Ad Surf Daily" was shut down in 2008 and its website has the following disclaimer (pulled from court document PDF):

All payments made to ASD are considered advertising purchases, not investments or deposits of any kind. All sales are final. ASD does not guarantee any earnings or profits. Any commissions paid to Members are for the service of viewing other Member web sites and for referring Members to AdSurfDaily. All advertising purchases are non-refundable.

Note the elements:

• We say it's a purchase, not an investment
• No refund (all sales are final)  (repeated twice)
• No earning or profit guarantee
• We say we pay you for the service (of watching ads) and referral (of new members)

In general, paying other people for service is called salary, or compensation, not "commission" (which implies sale had taken place, but not to the person being paid). So this is confusing already. 

The Federal court shut it down via a full IRS / Secret Service raid in 2008 and its owner is now in a Federal jail, having plead guilty to wire fraud. 

[ Learn more about Ad Surf Daily ponzi scheme ]

Let us now look at another disclaimer... In April 2012, Zeek Rewards also started requiring its affiliates to recite a long disclaimer at sales meetings. It is reproduced below:

“If you make a purchase from ZeekRewards you are purchasing a Premium eCommerce subscription or you are purchasing bids to give away as samples. You are NOT purchasing stock or any other form of “investment” or equity. You MUST actually use the bids that you purchase or give them away as samples to help grow your business. Affiliates who present our products to others in a misleading manner or in a way that leads the buyer to believe he or she is making an investment or purchasing equities will be terminated and all commissions and awards will be forfeited. Buyers MUST read the entire How It Works and Get Paid pages on the ZeekRewards website and the Legal Disclaimers.”

Now let's compare the points

• We say it's a purchase, not an investment
• If you say the wrong thing we don't want you
• You have to use what you buy or give it away. (implying that's what you're being paid for)

Zeek Rewards was closed by SEC as a Ponzi scheme involving 700 million dollars and up to a million members. Clearly, the disclaimer is fraudulent.

[ Learn more about Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme ]


Note the common points between the two Ponzi schemes:

• "we say we're not investment"
• "we say we're paying you for service" (it was implied in the second one) 

Both turn out to be lies. Members are required to buy stuff (ads in one, bids in the other) in order to participate in this "revenue sharing". The more you buy, the more you share. The "service" each member performed is negligible and certainly not worth whatever profit they are sharing.

Ten Months Later, Zeekheads Still In Denial

English: The protest event Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park in New York, on Day 8, September 24.
with protester making a sign "I don't mind being called a conspiracy theorist" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A hearing about dissolving the receivership of Zeek Rewards ponzi scheme was moved to July 2013. And the news coverage of that attracted many ZeekHeads posting comments such as

"There was no victim until the SEC got involved."

"Someone paid off the judge and they closed Zeek with minimum evidence".

"Government is the crook that stole our money"

and other comments of a similar nature.

http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20130607/News/306079985?tc=ar

It was last August (16-AUG-2012) that Zeek was closed. Ten months later, Zeekheads are STILL in denial.

It was last September that I posted "7 Myths/Excuses Zeek Apologists Kept Repeating" and it's interesting that the same ones are still being used.

Andy "Ad Surf Daily" Bowdoin is now officially in Federal Prison

The United States Secret Service star logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The 78-year old Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin, who ran "Ad Surf Daily", one of the more popular "auto-surf" fakers, who convinced people to buy "ad packages" and somehow that watching ads qualified them to earn a lot of money, tens of thousands a month, is now officially in Federal Prison, according to PatrickPretty.com

Bowdoin had been documented to be swindling since the 1990's (fraud in Alabama). When Ad Surf Daily (ASD) was shut down in 2008 by Federal raid, Bowdoin went as far as calling Secret Service "terrorists", and US Government "Satan".

Bowdoin's ASD also attracted many names that will be VERY familiar to the later Zeek Rewards scam... Todd Disner, Jerry Napier, Trudy Gilmond, and many others. Though besides Bowdoin, few are as outrageous as Kenneth Wayne Leaming. Leaming is one of the more bizarre HYIP promoters, who openly provoke law enforcement by filing false liens against law enforcement agents, prosecutors, and judges by claiming his own "sovereign" interpretation of laws. He tried to pass off a $1 million "permissory note" as well as harbored two Federal fugitives, and even founded a militia group that was eventually raided by FBI's Anti-Terrorism Task Force, resulting in his arrest and current jail sentence in Federal prison.