ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Stock and Bond Fraud, including Boiler Rooms / Pump and Dump Schemes, Mutual Fund & Hedge Fund Fraud, FOREX scams, plus Churning, Private Placements, Venture and Bridge Funding, IPOs, Viaticals Fraud, HYIP and Prime Bank scams, MTNs, Historical Notes, Recovery Schemes, etc. Includes the Jim Norman Project and the Michael Dotson Project and similar HYIP scams.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by Gregg »

I think the clawbacks will be the PRIMARY source of funds (if not the ONLY) for restitution of net losers. He was able to pay THOUSANDS of investors distributions over the last 4 years (statute of limitations) and at I would assume HALF of those were paid to net gainers having held numerous contracts (*machines*) prior to 2006. As I mentoned in prior post, these are *low hanging fruit*. Also, keep in mind there are still more net gainers from 2006-2009, depending on when they bought them. That's a LOT of MOOLA to be clawed back!
I don't think you're right in your assumptions. Ponzi schemes depend on new money growth, I have never seen one (and I've seen lots) that had 20% of the people/money involved represent people/positions in net profit. I had to figure this out once and a normal distribution would be about 88% out of profit. Looking at settled cases just that I happen to have figures for, the share of money returned to victims that comes from clawbacks is less than 10%. Even if the company has no assets to speak of and therefore clawbacks become the major source of refunds, it'll not amount to much. As I said, the only thing that allows a ponzi scheme to continue is new money growing at an exponential rate, so it has to follow that the overwhelming majority of money has to represent net losses.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by Gregg »

It is pretty clear that the money is gone in Bullar's scam.
That case involves people I know and tangentially affected me. One of the big losers was among the investors trying to return The Steamboat Delta Queen to river service who will now not be able to stay in that investment.

Its funny the BC just ran that today, this is a story that broke last year when he started bouncing checks.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by Tednewsom »

Observer, ol' buddy-o'-pal... I'm just about the last person in the world to be self-deceived about these grifters and their scam. This whole train wreck has played out exactly the way I feared it would when I first learned about it, much less when I posted my original question a mere four years ago. And I certainly agree with you, that it's wrong to keep up victim's hopes of somehow propping this thing up so it will squeak along and pay off all the money they've sunk into it (which makes a whole lot of no-sense-at-all.)

However...

These guys were not stupid. Nor, like the "Brooklyn Madoff" noted in the linked video on about page 10, did they continue the scam simply for weird personal reasons without regard for profit. They clearly knew exactly what they were doing. Most revealingly, a note from about 4 pages back, where apparently Joel Gillis' wife would not let any of her friends or family invest in the scheme. They knew it was crooked, they knew it had to come to no good end one way or the other, and therefore (unless they were full-time idiots) they knew they'd have to prepare for the inevitable.

I see "wealth" as akin to energy. It can't be destroyed, only transformed or transmitted. You can transform cash into bonds, or real estate into a warehouse full of color TVs-- but you haven't "destroyed" it. Swap your Nevada land holdings for ownership in a Chinese toy factory, you have not destroyed the land, only "transformed" it into a different sort of wealth. Likewise, you can transmit it-- from one bank account to the other, one ledger column to another, one offshore bank to another-- but this does not "destroy" the full amount, only moved it from one place to the other.

I have no delusions that there's a boatload of "wealth" which never existed, which was a phantom created by legerdemain. But this was from its inception a profit-making enterprise, and there was a real, substantial cash flow. The money went somewhere. The "total" profit is undoubtedly far less than the on-paper estimates of the company's assets, but there was a lot of dough that went somewhere.

And as smart as WIsher & Gillis think they are, they're clearly not criminal geniuses. What they took and hid can be found. It may be a small fraction of the total debt, but it can be found.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by grimreaper »

Gregg wrote:
I think the clawbacks will be the PRIMARY source of funds (if not the ONLY) for restitution of net losers. He was able to pay THOUSANDS of investors distributions over the last 4 years (statute of limitations) and at I would assume HALF of those were paid to net gainers having held numerous contracts (*machines*) prior to 2006. As I mentoned in prior post, these are *low hanging fruit*. Also, keep in mind there are still more net gainers from 2006-2009, depending on when they bought them. That's a LOT of MOOLA to be clawed back!
I don't think you're right in your assumptions. Ponzi schemes depend on new money growth, I have never seen one (and I've seen lots) that had 20% of the people/money involved represent people/positions in net profit. I had to figure this out once and a normal distribution would be about 88% out of profit. Looking at settled cases just that I happen to have figures for, the share of money returned to victims that comes from clawbacks is less than 10%. Even if the company has no assets to speak of and therefore clawbacks become the major source of refunds, it'll not amount to much. As I said, the only thing that allows a ponzi scheme to continue is new money growing at an exponential rate, so it has to follow that the overwhelming majority of money has to represent net losses.
You're missing a very important point here>>>
The determination of net losses can ONLY go back 4 years, so the universe of net losses is limited to that time period. Now, during this time we have a substantial group of net profiteers
who had been growing in #s for the previous 15 years prior to the cut off. Of course the monies from the recent losers had to cover the distributions to those older investors for the last 4 years or this would have ended long ago. True, the # of new contracts (not investors) has to, *in theory* , DOUBLE every 5 years to pay those earlier investors to break even point. So, *in theory* the # of CONTRACTS over the last 5 years would have to approximate the sum total of ALL previous CONTRACTS (aka *machines*). That means the #s in both these groups would be (ball park est) relatively equal.
Of course there are other factors that come into play...*commissions* and monies that went into Joel's pockets...but the majority of the Ponzi proceeds went into paying off previous investors. So *in theory* you can take from Peter to pay Paul. Just my take.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by Gregg »

I still think you're wrong, and that more than half the money came in during the last 6-12 months.
The longer a scheme runs the bigger the "net loser" end has to get.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by grimreaper »

Handling Claims in a Ponzi Scheme

http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/v ... xt=ggulrev


In contrast to a trustee in a bankruptcy case, a receiver
may craft and propose a distribution plan that classifies claims in a
manner specific to the facts of a particular case and based on equitable
considerations.

In receivership cases, courts adopting different methodologies
regarding claim allowance and distri
bution priorities have addressed the
competing needs of the differing categories of investors. These
competing interests are summarized as follows:
(1) Net winner investors who were paid profits on top of the return of
their principal investment: (a) seek to retain to profits already paid to
them; and (b) may file claims for all expected but unpaid profits as
reflected on their last account st
atement received from the Ponzi debtor
(2) Net loser investors
who received something, but less than the full
amount of their principal: (a) seek to retain to distributions already
paid to them; and (b) may file cl
aims for additional amounts of both
unpaid principal and expected profits.
(3) Net loser investors
who received nothing: (a) find it unfair that
other investors can retain any prior distributions made to them; and (b)
want the receiver to seek disgorge
ment of all amounts paid to other
investors so that all investors can be treated on an equitable
pro rata
basis.
(4) Receivers, faced with the task of maximizing the pot available for
distribution, must balance allowance and distribution issues with their
avoiding power rights to bring back into the estate prior distributions
made to some investors. They, th
erefore, seek to reduce investor
claims by the amounts of distributions previously made to the
investors and, under fraudulent transfer law or other legal theories,
may seek to recover interest and principal paid to investors.
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Reason: Fixed the url
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by The Observer »

Tednewsom wrote:I see "wealth" as akin to energy. It can't be destroyed, only transformed or transmitted.
Then you need to look again. Wealth can be "destroyed" by spending it on services from which you cannot recover said wealth. If Joel and Ed and their family members were spending money on travel, entertainment, mud massages, gambling or hookers, that is not going to be recovered.

Wealth can be "destroyed" by spending it on perishable items or assets whose value is volatile or can depreciate dramatically, from which you cannot recover said wealth. If Joel and Ed and their family members were spending money on 5 star restaurants, quarter horses that probably should be turned into dog food, risky investments that went south, or stuck it up their nose, then that money is not going to be recovered.

Wealth can be "destroyed" by giving it to others in the form of cash so it cannot be traced. How do you recover money that disappeared without a trace? You can hope it shows up in an off-shore bank account, but that is a long shot. If Joel and Ed are as smart as you think they are, then they probably were smart enough to make the sure those accounts don't appear anywhere an financial investigator is looking.

For the purpose of clawbacks, the recovery of the wealth is at the mercy of the financial status of the new target. Sure, perhaps they received a nice chunk of the profits from NASI, but what did they do with that money? We know in some cases, they plowed it right back into more contracts. And lost that as well. If they didn't, perhaps they spent those checks on purchasing services and perishables as well. Which means the wealth disappeared and now you are going to have to hope that they had previously put something away for a rainy day in order to satisfy that clawback.

Re-read the new story about Bullar's scam. He took the money and blew it. The full article mentions another Ponzi scam that crashed about the same time; the investigators are stating that all of the money is gone and no hope of recoverable money. By the time the dust settles on all of these scams, and after the accountants, attorneys and others take their money for the services they provide, a tiny fraction of the money being recovered is going to be the most anyone can hope for.

But that small amount of hope is not worth getting people stirred up and motivated to try to do vain and/or stupid things to get their money back sooner or more of it back. There are sharks out there circling these victims, knowing that they can promise them the sun and moon and con the more vulnerable into throwing good money after bad. And usually these victims cannot afford to do so, but will do so anyway on the sheer hope that they can recover. And given the torpid pace of a government investigation, they will become even more vulnerable by becoming impatient. And the sad part is that there is nothing they can do to speed up the investigation or recovery. And really nothing they can do to increase their share of the recovered monies that finally appear.

At that point, Ted, explaining to them that they really shouldn't have spent $25,000 to recover $3,000 is kind of cruel in my opinion - especially if I had been telling them in the beginning they were going to recover money. Holding out to them that there was "a real substantial cash flow" is not accurate since we have no proof that there was anything substantial in terms of ATMS that could have provided that cash flow on a regular basis - the "cash flow" could have been just Joel and Ed ensuring that the new investments coming in were paying off the old investments. That is how Ponzi schemes work. Otherwise getting people worked up results in everyone starting to believe again the lies that Joel and Ed were telling them. They start believing again that there are 31,000 machines out there producing steady income every month, that we need t protect and preserve NASI as a going concern, and hell, we should leave Ed and Joel in charge since they obviously knew what they were doing since they kept this business going for 19 years or so.

At that point, they will be back to believing that this whole mess was your fault for pointing out five years ago that something was fishy going on at NASI....
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by snookered »

Yeah, Ted. Why'd you go and mess it up.

That's a joke. As painful as all of this is, I'm glad that it has been exposed sooner, rather than later.

Thanks everyone for your insightful comments. I have learned much.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by notorial dissent »

The other thing germane to this, is that the "boys' apparently had a thing for funding other cons. I believe something in the neighborhood of at least $1M, if not more, went to Fuel Doctor, and I wouldn't bet on a dime of it ever having come back, and if they were playing this version of the ponies, I would expect there to be others as well, at which point the money is gone ka-poof. This could very easily account for a good portion of the real NASI funds and thus be irretrievably gone.

Like I say, wait for the audit before counting ANY hypothetical chickens, and the more I see the more I have a feeling the audit and inventory is going to be long and ugly.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by grimreaper »

The Observer wrote:
Tednewsom wrote:I see "wealth" as akin to energy. It can't be destroyed, only transformed or transmitted.
the "cash flow" could have been just Joel and Ed ensuring that the new investments coming in were paying off the old investments.
Essentially that's it in a nutshell. Have all the *profits* from net winners been squandered? I doubt it. Clawback will certainly be the lions share of restitution to net losers. How much? Hard to tell, but it's going to be a significant (50%?) portion.
Keep in mind, those who have to submit to the clawback will definitely get tax relief and be allowed to file amended returns for those years they claimed the profits OR as a one shot deduction.
http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/ ... ims/nScfP/
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by grimreaper »

notorial dissent wrote:The other thing germane to this, is that the "boys' apparently had a thing for funding other cons. I believe something in the neighborhood of at least $1M, if not more, went to Fuel Doctor, and I wouldn't bet on a dime of it ever having come back, and if they were playing this version of the ponies, I would expect there to be others as well, at which point the money is gone ka-poof. This could very easily account for a good portion of the real NASI funds and thus be irretrievably gone.

Like I say, wait for the audit before counting ANY hypothetical chickens, and the more I see the more I have a feeling the audit and inventory is going to be long and ugly.
That alone is fraud. No doubt a portion of investor money went to bogus schemes and in their pockets. That $$ will prolly be lost and unrecoverable.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by grimreaper »

http://www.receivers.org/recnews/Articl ... &keywords=

Fraudulent Conveyances
SEC receivers have a number of tools at their disposal for reclaiming money repaid to investors by a fraudulent enterprise. If the business is in bankruptcy, fraudulent-conveyance claims may be brought under the Bankruptcy Code. (See In re Bayou Group, LLC, 362 B.R. 624, 632 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2007).) Indeed, the trustee may require investors to return fictitious profits, as well as the original principal, unless they can prove they gave value or acted in good faith in receiving the transfer. (See SEC v. Forte, Nos. 09-63, 09-64, 2009 WL 4809804 (E.D. Pa. December 15, 2009).)

In addition, whether or not a bankruptcy proceeding is pending, in most states (including California) an SEC receiver may employ a version of the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (UFTA). Actions under the UFTA (Cal. Civil Code §§ 3439–3439.12) against innocent investors generally are limited to recovery of fictitious profits (Donell, 533 F.3d at 770) [Ed. Note: California law allows up to a seven-year reach-back depending upon facts of the case.]

As Judge Richard Posner explained in Scholes v. Lehmann (56 F.3d 750, 755 (7th Cir. 1995)), an investor fortunate enough to have received fictitious profits “should not be permitted to benefit from a fraud [at the expense of other investors] merely because he was not himself to blame for the fraud. All he is being asked to do is to return the net profits of his investment—the difference between what he put in at the beginning and what he had at the end.” (Scholes, 56 F.3d at 757–758.)
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by Gregg »

Okay, just quit. Clawbacks are not and will not lead to victims getting much back. First, the system is very forgiving of people who have any basis for saying "I didn't know it was a scam and besides, I don't have it to pay back, we spent it" Second, even known and notorious ponzi scheme promoters who not only have shown up on more than a few "net winners" lists over the years, but indeed have been among the biggest promoters have gotten what I consider unconscionable breaks by receivers in the name of convenience and easy settlement. Want some examples? Go all the way back to 2007, CEP or Colon-End-Parentheses scam. Look over the list of what the receiver determined what net winners had won, and then look at what payment settlements were reached. I'll give you a hit, people who had "won" over $250,000 settled for less than $15,000, people who drew most of their winnings from promoting and referral bonus payments (IE people who hadn't even put much of their own money into the scheme) settled for less than 10% of what they had profited. The receiver took into account the "current" financial position of people he settled with, who had known for 2 years the clawbacks were imminent and some think they hid a substantial part of their winnings. Others spent a significant part of the winnings defending their counterclaim in the completely valid belief that they would lose it anyway if they didn't.

And so it goes. So, please, quit. Clawbacks are not going to do much to make this less painful, and if they are 50% of the money recovered, the victims are going to be in for a very hard time. Quit thinking that the government can just go in and say "you took out $1 million in profits, you have to pay it back" because that's not how it works. They can say such, and eventually they can attempt to collect as such, but the "winner" (who often has set their affairs up specifically for this type of thing) can drag it out for a few years, running up expenses as they do, spending the proceeds as they do and negotiating a very favorable settlement as they do. Upon reaching an agreement with the receiver to return $50,000 of the million we started with, and having had 2 years to get their affairs in order, they can then themselves declare bankruptcy and the estate of the ponzi scheme then gets a net payment of $7500, of which $2,000 is consumed by the expenses incurred. Don't hang your hopes on clawbacks, you'll have better odds with the lottery or Iraqi Dinar.

Hate to be such a downer, but as I said, I've seen more of these things collapse than I care to count, and this is how it always ends up. Not how it can end up, or how it sometimes ends up or how it usually ends up, but how it, with one notable exception, always ends up.

The notable exception is ASD and Andy Bowdion, in which one of my favorite things, an investor group, encouraged the victims to not participate in the recevership, telling them that to do so was to admit they were part of a crime, and the sneaky government would just turn around and prosecute them. Because a significant number of investors then refused to submit claims (there was another angle that if no-one claimed anything the scam would then be declared okay because there weren't any victims!) those who did got 100% of their initial investments back. The big surprise? Among those who DID make claims and get their 100% were those who told everyone to not make a claim, another plus for "investor groups"
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by Gregg »

grimreaper wrote:http://www.receivers.org/recnews/Articl ... &keywords=

Fraudulent Conveyances
SEC receivers have a number of tools at their disposal for reclaiming money repaid to investors by a fraudulent enterprise. If the business is in bankruptcy, fraudulent-conveyance claims may be brought under the Bankruptcy Code. (See In re Bayou Group, LLC, 362 B.R. 624, 632 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2007).) Indeed, the trustee may require investors to return fictitious profits, as well as the original principal, unless they can prove they gave value or acted in good faith in receiving the transfer. (See SEC v. Forte, Nos. 09-63, 09-64, 2009 WL 4809804 (E.D. Pa. December 15, 2009).)

In addition, whether or not a bankruptcy proceeding is pending, in most states (including California) an SEC receiver may employ a version of the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (UFTA). Actions under the UFTA (Cal. Civil Code §§ 3439–3439.12) against innocent investors generally are limited to recovery of fictitious profits (Donell, 533 F.3d at 770) [Ed. Note: California law allows up to a seven-year reach-back depending upon facts of the case.]

As Judge Richard Posner explained in Scholes v. Lehmann (56 F.3d 750, 755 (7th Cir. 1995)), an investor fortunate enough to have received fictitious profits “should not be permitted to benefit from a fraud [at the expense of other investors] merely because he was not himself to blame for the fraud. All he is being asked to do is to return the net profits of his investment—the difference between what he put in at the beginning and what he had at the end.” (Scholes, 56 F.3d at 757–758.)
unless they can prove they gave value or acted in good faith in receiving the transfer

Excuse me while I back this large truck through that loophole....
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by notorial dissent »

Or if they, the ponzi that is, invested in real for sure certified losers that really did lose the money lent them, which I'm afraid may have been the case here.

As Gregg says, there isn't anything magic here that is going to make the "investors" whole again. In truth they will be lucky if they get pennies on the dollar, and it is looking like it may be more like pennies on the $20K. The thing is, that at least as near as I can tell, all the fraud was on the NASI side in this one, which means that either way the receiver is going to probably look pretty leniently on the "investors", so I wouldn't expect any huge clawbacks unless there was something really hinky going on, and so far there doesn't seem to have been on that side.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by grimreaper »

Gregg wrote:
grimreaper wrote:http://www.receivers.org/recnews/Articl ... &keywords=

Fraudulent Conveyances
SEC receivers have a number of tools at their disposal for reclaiming money repaid to investors by a fraudulent enterprise. If the business is in bankruptcy, fraudulent-conveyance claims may be brought under the Bankruptcy Code. (See In re Bayou Group, LLC, 362 B.R. 624, 632 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2007).) Indeed, the trustee may require investors to return fictitious profits, as well as the original principal, unless they can prove they gave value or acted in good faith in receiving the transfer. (See SEC v. Forte, Nos. 09-63, 09-64, 2009 WL 4809804 (E.D. Pa. December 15, 2009).)

In addition, whether or not a bankruptcy proceeding is pending, in most states (including California) an SEC receiver may employ a version of the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (UFTA). Actions under the UFTA (Cal. Civil Code §§ 3439–3439.12) against innocent investors generally are limited to recovery of fictitious profits (Donell, 533 F.3d at 770) [Ed. Note: California law allows up to a seven-year reach-back depending upon facts of the case.]

As Judge Richard Posner explained in Scholes v. Lehmann (56 F.3d 750, 755 (7th Cir. 1995)), an investor fortunate enough to have received fictitious profits “should not be permitted to benefit from a fraud [at the expense of other investors] merely because he was not himself to blame for the fraud. All he is being asked to do is to return the net profits of his investment—the difference between what he put in at the beginning and what he had at the end.” (Scholes, 56 F.3d at 757–758.)
unless they can prove they gave value or acted in good faith in receiving the transfer

Excuse me while I back this large truck through that loophole....
Good faith allows them to DEDUCT the original principal. They still are on the hook for the NET PROFITS!!!! Again. you're making statements without DD. Without *GOOD FAITH* established they would on the hook for the initial investment as well!
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by grimreaper »

notorial dissent wrote:Or if they, the ponzi that is, invested in real for sure certified losers that really did lose the money lent them, which I'm afraid may have been the case here.

As Gregg says, there isn't anything magic here that is going to make the "investors" whole again. In truth they will be lucky if they get pennies on the dollar, and it is looking like it may be more like pennies on the $20K. The thing is, that at least as near as I can tell, all the fraud was on the NASI side in this one, which means that either way the receiver is going to probably look pretty leniently on the "investors", so I wouldn't expect any huge clawbacks unless there was something really hinky going on, and so far there doesn't seem to have been on that side.


You sir are in huge DENIAL.
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by Gregg »

The CEP stuff is no longer easy to find online, or around the Well Armed Bunker Complex, either for that matter, but after enlisting the help of a very unruly wiener dog, I have managed to scrape up some notes on how much more the victims got back because of the :sarcasmon: extensive clawback recoveries ....

Fred Damron who received $443,484.00 profit from the scam, settled for $40,000 then later renegotiated that down to $20,000, at which point the estate sold it as an noncollectable account to a recovery company for $2,000

Defendants have agreed to settle the Debtors’ claims against the Settling Defendants in exchange for settlement amounts.
The Settling Defendants, and a basic summary of the proposed settlements,
are set forth in the following chart:

Defendant(s) Gross Demand Amount Proposed Settlement Amount
Daniel May $140,612.59 $10,000.00
Troy Winters $65,656.66 $20,000.00
Curtis Greek $60,250. $5,000.00
E-Business, Inc.
Nevin Alwine
Nahawee Alwine$57,806.78 $18,400.00
William Nugent $50,733.56$17,500.00
Shad Foss $245,736.95 $20,000.00
Dwayne Williams $42,321.11 $5,000.00
Joshua Anderson $37,561.67 $1,000.00
Jim Pratt $35,969.88 $16,000.00
Chris Berglund $34,909.00$10,000.00
Howard Phillips $35,178.00$20,000.00
Kelly Beauchamp $57,110.95 $5,000.00
Kenneth Brown $41,562.48$10,000.00


That is far from a complete list, although it is typical
Records show most victims received about 3 to 4 percent of their money back.
Supreme Commander of The Imperial Illuminati Air Force
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grimreaper
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by grimreaper »

You didn't address my reply you were dead wrong on the *good faith* exemption.
As as far as this presentation you show it has ZERO validity in this Ponzi scheme. There are a significant # of investors holding net profits over the last 4 years. Clawback WILL be comming their way. Yes I'm done.
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Gregg
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Re: ATM LEASEBACK SCHEMES-- any insight?

Post by Gregg »

grimreaper wrote:
Good faith allows them to DEDUCT the original principal. They still are on the hook for the NET PROFITS!!!! Again. you're making statements without DD. Without *GOOD FAITH* established they would on the hook for the initial investment as well!
And you sir, no matter how big and red you type, are missing my point. If someone profits $1 million, the final money the estate will receive and have available to return to victims may very well be less than $10,000. There are a lot of steps and a lot of time between determining how much they won and how much they end up paying back. My "due diligence" that you keep claiming is insufficient, does not consist of copy-pasting files from random cases I can dig up trying to prove my point, it is made up from 10 years and about a terrabyte of information in my personal files about actual cases over that time that I am personally familiar with. And while I am not an attorney (btw, are you?) I'm a fairly edumacated hillbilly in a relevant field who has a decent amount of experience with scams.

Notwithstanding your obviously superior knowledge, I have yet to see a Federal Judge order homes of investors sold or other similar measures to recover monies from net winners, even when said winners was in my own opinion darn near one of the scammers. For instance, look at the above table I dug up in CEP. Allow me to direct your attention to one Shad Foss, google him and you'll find he was a serial promoter and participant in HYIP ponzi schemes, running a web site where he offered his expert opinion on them and from which he recruited victims and fed them to many schemes, earning most of his profits off of referral bonuses and not his own invested money. Sounds pretty guilty? Yeah, I think so too, and Shad hasn't learned, he's I believe on the list of people in Zeek, but I digress.....Bill Perkins, the CEP receiver, made Shad a pretty sweet deal as you can see. In coming to this generous arrangement, one of the things considered was to force poor Mr. Foss to pay a bit more back, would have meant making him sell or at least mortgage his home. A home, that, BTW, he bought during the time he was participating in recruiting victims to CEP.

So do tell, knowing this, and taking a long look at the other facts I've posted just tonight, how much do you think a receiver or judge is going to make a retired couple in San Jose who put their retirement money into this 10 years ago, and although they have gotten payments for 10 years and are assuredly in profit, have lost their entire nest egg here, sell their home to make restitution? Suppose that a Receiver does, he has to sue them, which takes 2 years and costs 1/3 of any potential award, but low and behold, one of them dies half way through and that, well, doesn't make it any cheaper, and with a Jury demand you're asking a jury to (with complete propriety I admit) toss a widow out of her home because her husband made an honest investment with a company run by crooks. Now, in order to defend this suit, said widow and her dearly departed husband paid their legal bills the only way they could, with a Home Equity loan, and the bank now has first lien for 80% of the value of the home...see where I'm going?

There will be clawbacks, we all know that, but it won't be much in the grand scheme of things, because you can't get blood from a turnip



Now go along and figure out another way to give yourself or others false hope....
Supreme Commander of The Imperial Illuminati Air Force
Your concern is duly noted, filed, folded, stamped, sealed with wax and affixed with a thumbprint in red ink, forgotten, recalled, considered, reconsidered, appealed, denied and quietly ignored.