AdSurfDaily

Sentencing for Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme pitchman Matthew John Gagnon has been rescheduled for June 18. Gagnon initially was scheduled to be sentenced yesterday, federal prosecutors said earlier this month. Gagnon pleaded guilty to not disclosing he’d been paid more than $1 million by Legisi and operator Gregory N. McKnight to tout the “program” online. [...]

BULLETIN: Federal prosecutors in the Western District of Washington have asked Judge Ronald B. Leighton to sentence AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming to 10 years in federal prison, the maximum term under the law. Leaming, 57, of Spanaway, Wash., was found guilty March 1 on charges of filing false liens against [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated at 9:37 a.m. EDT on May 13 and again on May 17 at 2:24 p.m. to reflect that Kenneth Wayne Leaming is demanding payment from a federal judge in ounces of silver, not dollars . . . Devitoe Farmer, the purported Tennessee “sovereign citizen” indicted last year on charges [...]

Sentencing for Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme purveyor Gregory N. McKnight has been delayed again — this time until Aug. 6 at 1:30 p.m. McKnight had been scheduled to be sentenced today in the Eastern District of Michigan. The postponement marks at least the fifth in the case. Legisi, which had a presence on infamous Ponzi [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: One way to read a report filed yesterday by the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi-scheme case is as a warning manual that brings to life the kind of vexing problems HYIP schemes create for operators, vendors and participants — including “insiders.” Kenneth D. Bell’s report to Senior U.S. District Judge Graham [...]

Gary Calhoun, the operator of the MPB Today MLM “program,” has joined AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin as a member of a dubious club: A Florida judge has ordered Calhoun not to get arrested on new charges and to stay away from MLM while he awaits sentencing in a racketeering case brought by Florida authorities [...]

During its 11 p.m. newscast yesterday, WTOL (CBS/Toledo) aired a report titled “Holy Rip-Off” about the alleged Profitable Sunrise HYIP scam. The report, which began with images of Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff playing in the background, focused on alleged Profitable Sunrise pitchwoman Nanci Jo Frazer of Bryan, Ohio. Frazer and her NJF Global Group are [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: GlimDropper, an administrator at the RealScam.com antiscam forum, gave PP Blog readers a heads-up on the WTOL report yesterday . . . WTOL, the CBS affiliate in Toledo, Ohio, says it will air a report Thursday (April 25) at 11 p.m. EDT titled “Holy Rip Off.” A teaser for the report shows photos [...]

ANNOUNCEMENT: The PP Blog has banned a specific IP that appears to originate in the area of Fort Wayne, Ind. Between 1:33 p.m. and 1:36 p.m. today, the IP sought to pull six separate PP Blog stories with the aim of planting spam links. The first story was this one, dated Dec. 17, 2010: URGENT [...]

UPDATE 8:07 A.M. EDT (APRIL 4, U.S.A.) The report did not air during the 8 p.m. or 11 p.m. broadcasts, possibly because developments in other stories took precedence. Our April 3 story is below . . . The Blog of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 is carrying this teaser today: “360 Wednesday[:] One of the biggest [...]

The Associated Press is reporting that Zeek Rewards operator Paul R. Burks claims that he is not at fault and that Zeek participants are to blame if they lost money. From the AP (via Yahoo News/italics added): “I never told anyone to invest more money than they could afford,” Burks snapped. “I didn’t tell them [...]