Secret Service Raids Ad Surf Daily
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 1:51 pm
The Secret Service yesterday raided the offices of the MLM Ad Surf Daily in Quincy, FL. Details are in the story in the Tallahassee Democrat. The D.C. U.S. Attorney filed a civil forfeiture action against the owner of the scam, Thomas Bowdoin, for the property and $53 million the Secret Service located. In the process, the government calls it a "massive Internet-based wire fraud scheme", a pyramid with no discernable product other than a non-existent "opportunity".
Law enforcement strikes such as this one and the CA AG suit against YTB ("YourTravelBiz") about which Doc Bunkum has posted are all well and good. However, there are hundreds of these ripoffs, and the odds of law enforcement actually shutting down any one pyramid are not good. Scammers will just keep fleecing the gullible until there is some coordinated action. The FTC would be the logical agency to do that, but it's led by Bushies who didn't even have the desire to adopt the bizopp rules which would have done no more than require disclosure. It wouldn't take much effort. God knows that these scammers are not looking to litigate. Hell, they know they won't be in business more than long enough to grab the low-hanging fruit and move on.
So: thank you, CA AG and Secret Service. You've just nailed 1% of the outstanding scams. Better that, I suppose, than nothing.
Law enforcement strikes such as this one and the CA AG suit against YTB ("YourTravelBiz") about which Doc Bunkum has posted are all well and good. However, there are hundreds of these ripoffs, and the odds of law enforcement actually shutting down any one pyramid are not good. Scammers will just keep fleecing the gullible until there is some coordinated action. The FTC would be the logical agency to do that, but it's led by Bushies who didn't even have the desire to adopt the bizopp rules which would have done no more than require disclosure. It wouldn't take much effort. God knows that these scammers are not looking to litigate. Hell, they know they won't be in business more than long enough to grab the low-hanging fruit and move on.
So: thank you, CA AG and Secret Service. You've just nailed 1% of the outstanding scams. Better that, I suppose, than nothing.