MoneyMakerGroup

UPDATED 4:05 PM EDT (U.S.A.): It’s MoneyMakerGroup’s fault that JSS Tripler 2 (T2) — also known as T2MoneyKlub — has collapsed. And it’s also the fault of “Elmer,” a forum poster who apparently committed the unpardonable sin of questioning the legitimacy of a scheme that advertised a return of 2 percent a day — after [...]

UPDATED 7:44 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.). A potentially damning audio recording of a March 15 conference call in which Frederick Mann told JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid members that the “opportunity” was paying them with money from “new members” has gone missing from the JSS/JBP website. The precise date on which the recording was removed was not immediately clear. [...]

BULLETIN: The SEC has gone to federal court in New York, alleging that 20-year-old British twin brothers Thomas Edward Hunter and Alexander John Hunter started an elaborate online fraud scheme when they were 16 and netted millions of dollars. At least three Hunter websites were involved in the fraud, according to the SEC: DoublingStocks.com, DayTradingRobot.com [...]

Owing to time constraints, the PP Blog hasn’t written much about Zeek Rewards, an MLM “program” married to a penny-auction site known as “Zeekler.” For simplicity, we’ll refer to both arms as “Zeek.” The structure of Zeek and precisely what it does are just plain baffling. Even so, it appears to have a legion of [...]

This will be a familiar refrain to many readers of the PP Blog: In July 2010, the Blog reported that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) had launched a public-awareness campaign about HYIP fraud. FINRA called the HYIP sphere a “bizarre substratum of the Internet.” Just a month earlier — in June 2010 — the [...]

The ink was barely dry on the most recent civil judgments for millions of dollars against serial HYIP pitchman Matthew J. Gagnon when Compound150 launched yesterday. On Tuesday, the SEC announced $4.2 million in new court-ordered assessments against Gagnon, who’d earlier been hit with more than $2.5 million in assessments in a related case and [...]

UPDATED 10:35 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.)  Matthew John Gagnon, an HYIP huckster and promoter of the Legisi Ponzi scheme, has been hit with orders of disgorgement and penalties totaling more than $4.2 million, the SEC said. Gagnon, of Portland, Ore., and Weslaco, Texas, was described by the SEC as a serial promoter of fraud schemes through his [...]

UPDATED 7:43 A.M. ET (MARCH 9, U.S.A.) If ever there has been a cautionary tale for HYIP pitchmen, it is Jeffrey Lane Mowen’s Utah Ponzi scheme. Mowen and at least six promoters ended up inspiring litigation on multiple fronts, with Mowen charged criminally. At issue was Mowen’s Forex Ponzi scheme, which allegedly was funded in [...]

“There is a line between First Amendment Rights vs. Libel here. So, when does your right to form an opinion begins (sic) and when does it constitute a defamation of character? The answer is, law enforcement agencies don’t pay attention to what’s being said on forums and blogs, so get your head straight and feet [...]

BULLETIN: The PP Blog has learned that JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is publishing a page in which it advertises the availability of “regional representatives” in various parts of the world, including Italy. On Jan. 23, CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, took action against certain JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid affiliaties. Despite the CONSOB action, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is openly advertising that [...]

“Either we talk about here, or I talk about somewhere else (that’s not a threat, it’s a promise :)” — ‘MoneyMakingBrain (MMB), in email threat to PP Blog, Feb. 29, 2012, 7:52 a.m. ET UPDATED 4:22 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) It has happened again: The PP Blog has received yet another threat via email for its [...]