NC AG’s office “concerned” about Zeek Rewards
Attorney General Roy Cooper’s Consumer Protection experts protect North Carolina consumers.
We fight unfair business practices like scams and frauds. We’ve helped hundreds of thousands of consumers like you get more than $80 million of your money back.
If you were to call the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office Consumer Protection Division today, regardless of your enquiry, you’d be met with a curious recorded message that presumes you’ve called to either file a complaint against Zeek Rewards, or ask the NC AG’s office for investment advice regarding the opportunity.
Incase you might not be familiar with US law enforcement hierarchy,
the Attorney General is elected by the people of North Carolina every four years as the state’s top law enforcement officer and top lawyer.
Powers and duties of the Attorney General are set forth in the Constitution and Statutes of North Carolina.
As head of the North Carolina Department of Justice, the Attorney General provides legal representation and advice to all state government departments, agencies and commissions.
The Attorney General also provides legal opinions at the request of other public officials and handles all criminal appeals from state trial courts.
When the state’s public interests are at stake, the Attorney General can take legal action on behalf of North Carolina’s citizens.
Below is a transcript of the message you’ll currently hear if you call the NC AG’s office of Consumer Protection Division at the time of publication:
Thankyou for calling the North Carolina Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division about Zeek Rewards.
We can not tell you whether or not to invest or participate in Zeek Rewards, or any other company.
If you would like to file a complaint with our office, you can either leave a message with your name and address after the beep, and we will mail you a complaint form. Or you can visit our website at www.ncdoj.gov for an online complaint form.
Specific questions about how Zeek Rewards works should be directed to the company itself.
Again, the Attorney General’s office cannot give you investment or legal advice and we do not endorse any program or business. However we always encourage people to do their own research before investing in any business.
Many people have asked if we have received complaints about Zeek Rewards and we can confirm that we have received several complaints.
Thankyou again for contacting our office.
Noticeably the Attorney General’s office refer to Zeek Rewards as an “investment”, despite the company repeatedly claiming it isn’t yet offering a daily ROI to its affiliates.
While it’s a safe bet to assume that the reason the NC AG’s office have put up the message is due to the number of calls they’ve received regarding Zeek Rewards, it seems that this might only be the tip of the iceberg.
Earlier today BehindMLM reader ‘Al’ informed us that he’d
just got word that the AGs office has requested that Zeek Rewards provide them with documents so they can examine Zeek Rewards’ business practices.
On Friday 3rd of August, one of Al’s friends sent the following to the North Carolina Attorney General’s office’s Facebook account:
Addressed personally to NC AG Roy Cooper, the office sent back an official response on Monday 6th August as follows:
Specifically why the NC AG’s office are “concerned” about Zeek Rewards, what information was asked for or when is unknown.
To the best of my knowledge, Zeek Rewards has made no official announcement to their affiliates or acknowledgement regarding the NC AG’s request for information, nor do we expect them to.
From the language used in the reply however, it’s clear that whatever information the AG’s office have requested From Zeek Rewards, they’re yet to receive it.
Stating that “several complaints” about Zeek Rewards have been received, it appears the NC AG’s office have decided the warrant concern and an examination of Zeek Rewards’ “business practices”.
As I understand it, requesting additional information from a business (which I’d assume was not already public), is one of the first steps an Attorney General’s office takes in deciding whether or not to launch an official investigation into a company.
Not that I’d be so bold as to instruct the NC AG’s office on how to go about their business, but one would hope high on the priority list of the NC AG’s office would be ascertaining whether or not Zeek Rewards’ daily commission payouts mostly consist of internal affiliate money.
When asked this in the past, Zeek Rewards CEO Paul Burks claims this is “proprietary information” and when then COO Dawn Wright-Olivares was asked to answer a similar question, it was claimed that should she answer it, the answer itself would put Zeek Rewards “out of compliance”.
In the meantime the NC AG’s office recommends ‘people to do their own research before investing‘ in Zeek Rewards, a suggestion recently appointed Zeek Rewards COO Greg Caldwell is seemingly against.
Two days ago, in response to the North Carolina State Employee’s Credit Union warning members and the general public that Zeek Rewards was “fraudulent”, Caldwell claimed that anybody who publishes criticism of Zeek Rewards is ‘behaving unprofessionally by acting on false information‘.
Here at BehindMLM we naturally encourage people to conduct as thorough investigation and due diligence into any MLM company they are considering joining using any and all sources available to them.
Not to pre-empt the outcome of the NC AG’s conclusions on Zeek Rewards but Roy Cooper might want to invest in a few extra boxes of tissues, lest he find himself on the receiving end of similar scathing commentary from Caldwell for going public with any criticism of Zeek his office might find.
Even if the “false information” the NC AG office base their “unprofessional” criticism on was requested and sourced from Zeek Rewards itself.
The first thing counter that will be repeated, just as Dooly has already pointed out, is that an investigation by the AG could be a healthy process pending they “pass” their discovery.
I personally do not agree with the positive spin that a taped message at an AG office, or an investigation by your state AG is a good thing.
If you buried you head in the sand maybe.
Look at it this way, if you were the NC AG’s office and you called up Zeek asking if they paid out their daily commissions from affiliate money, what do you think the answer would be?
…and what would you do about it?
Authorities don’t use some sort of magic crystal ball when investigating companies, they ask the same questions anyone else should be asking when evaluating a business.
What they do have however is access to information the rest of us only get a ‘sorry that’s proprietary’ answer to if we want to go over it.
Both Troy on his blog and Laggos, in the recording prefer his contract was terminated have focused almost entirely on the unique bid auction’s legality.
One would hope that the NC AG will see that as only ONE facet of FIVE risk areas, namely:
1. Are penny auctions illegal gambling?
2. Is Zeek Rewards an investment, thereby making it an unregistered security and illegal? Will the NC AG look past the compliance courses, disclaimers, and linguistic gymnastics, and apply the Howey Test? (thanks to K. Chang for providing context on this in many threads here)
3. Is Zeek Rewards a Ponzi, where almost all money being paid to affiliates is affiliate money and not external money. Specifically, analyzing affiliates who create fake/friend/family accounts to earn VIP points, where the first layer of the onion looks like external revenue, but deeper inspection reveals that most of the external revenue that is really affiliate money.
4. Is Zeek Rewards an illegal pyramid, where > 51% of revenue is from internal consumption?
5. Is Zeek Rewards in violation of the wire act and other fraud statutes by using multiple foreign third-party credit card processors to get around US-based processing, similar to what many gambling sites have done?
Customers & affiliates purchase using a credit card but the merchant shown on the credit card statement changes and can be from multiple different foreign countries (outside the US). For example, South Korea, Brazil, China, etc.
I would speculate that if documentation was requested, this action was done before the recorded message was posted. Also this information if turns out factual surely was not leaked intentionally via a Facebook moderator in such a casual manner?
Interesting that I read the AG office claimed a high volume of inquiries, but only a handful of complaints.
A Ponzi that is paying has few complaints. Most of Zeek’s complaints are due to things like IT issues, late payments, etc. but not outright screwage of the affiliate.
I think most Ponzi’s build up complaints into a crescendo as the Ponzi runs out of money and stops paying members.
The Greg Caldwell response was amateurishly written. “All our critics” is not only a foolish blanket statement, but a PR 101 rule you never forget in any kind of statement or address. Was it not more like listening to the principal on the school PA?
Ironically he addresses “fanning flames.” The best response would have been no response. I think little Napoleon was a little over zealous to use the bully pulpit.
Not professional at all. Astounding.
@Oz, I sent the information requested above.. sorry though I forgot to answer what time… The response was received around 10am or so Eastern time on Monday… can’t remember exactly when I sent the original message to them, but it was over the past weekend.
Article updated with the original message sent to the NC AG’s office Facebook account and dates the messages were sent and received.
No worries, Friday/Monday is accurate enough and thanks again for bringing this to my attention.
My question is who would be calling? I mean if your involved you hope it goes as long as it can. If your not are just “worried” about all the people that are?
The trouble when the NC AG or other authorities will do an investigation is that they need to know exactly what to look for and where to find it.
The main problem in Zeek is “The Compounder”, the system related to paying money IN and earning VIP points in return, and eventually start to withdraw money after 3-6 months. The problem there won’t necessarily show up in the accounting.
The main problem is related to:
A: sample bids, not to retail bids or VIP bids, so they will need to separate that part.
B: daily profit being paid out as RPP points, and reinvested in buying sample bids, so they will need to separate that part from the part where people pay for the sample bids with money.
The process of buying sample bids –> earning VIP points –> earning daily RPP –> reinvest daily RPP can be considered to be the core of Zeek’s business model, WHY people join and put money in, and WHERE most of the “fresh money” comes in.
To find the problem, they will need an overview over all purchases of sample bids where people have paid with MONEY, and have the transactions documented — to establish the real stream of money coming in that way, including money from foreign countries.
And then they will need an overview over all sample bids bought for RPP points, the calculated “amount” for those transactions. And then they need to check if there’s any money connected to those transactions, not only points being circulated to generate virtual ROI.
Comparing the stream of money with the stream of RPP will give them an indication for whether there is a problem or not. The daily RPP payouts are probably made out of thin air, or supported by RPP reinvested rather than real money.
Another method is to compare the VIP balances with Zeek’s real balance, to see how able they are to meet payouts in cash.
So basically, they will need to understand the business model completely, and break it down into different parts.
They will also need to know about the methods that can be used to camouflage the problem, e.g. accounting methods.
“DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS” TEST
Another method is to test it against different viewpoints, like comparing the viewpoint in Zeek’s agreement where people are purchasing sample bids for the pure JOY of giving them away, compared to a viewpoint where where the income opportunity is the main motive for putting money in and buying sample bids.
They can compare them to see which one of them seems to be most TRUE, and then they can check how able Zeek is to meet the main motive for both of them. I’m sure Zeek will be able to produce an endless streams of sample bids to give away, but I don’t think they are very able to support payouts in the size of 60% of the entire VIP balance (all VIP points for all affiliates).
To be able to pay, Zeek will need to have set aside money to cover 60% of the entire VIP balance. This method is very quick and very incorrect in itself, but it can be used to get an overview over the situation at an early stage.
60% of today’s entire VIP balance is only an estimate for what Zeek will have to pay, if ALL affiliates starts to withdraw 100% and NO new affiliates puts money in, but when additional income streams (such as the penny auctions) can support some of the payouts.
So if the entire VIP balance is around 1 billion points, Zeek will probably be sustainable if they have around $600 million set aside for future payouts.
What this method will show is how DEPENDANT Zeek is on money coming in from new investors to be able to support future payouts in money, and whether the RPP “payouts” have been based on real money or not. If the RPP is mostly based on “points”, Zeek will show a huge difference between the VIP balance and their real balance — “too little money reserved to support the huge payouts they can expect”.
Some of my methods are untraditional and unorthodox compared to “normal methods”, and they are only meant to be used to get indications for whether a problem exists or not, and how big the problem is.
The logic in this method goes like this:
A: Identify the real motives for putting money in = the income opportunity.
B: Identify whether the income opportunity is fake or real, whether it’s supported by external sources for revenue or by new income opportunity seekers putting money in — “new investors paying the old ones”.
C: Identify where point B will be reflected indirectly, and check that area (compare VIP balances to real balance in money).
The basic principle behind this method is that people can camouflage a problem with different methods and make it become less visible, but it will usually be reflected anyway in related areas.
Wag the dog my friends, it’s seems pretty logical to me: Al obsessed him with his “concerns” (“massive ponzie sheme…”) and got a reply.
So now I think I know where the complains came from. people wear masks of nelson mandela but acting like bill gates.
Looks like the frying pan is getting warmed up. I hope Mr. Cooper understands ponzi schemes.
But I’m wondering if this is really about Zeek being a ponzi or if it’s because of massive complaints over their nonexistent customer service practices. I’m thinking the “business practices” AG Cooper was referring to may not necessarily be the investment scheme itself, but rather Zeek’s idea that if you ignore complaints they will eventually go away.
I am still confused over who would be complaining. If you are involved then your not upset as you have not lost $$ at this point. If you are not involved are you just “worried” about all the poor souls that are?
The Zeek Rewards affiliates who are fed up with not getting any help from Zeek would be the ones complaining. If you read the ZR support forums, there are numerous complaints from people about submitting trouble tickets, calling the support line and being put on hold for hours, and trying to use online support only to be disconnected after waiting for an hour.
Emails go unanswered, telephone voice message boxes are full, and people generally have no good way to get problems resolved.
What kinds of problems are they complaining about? Not getting payments, not having purchases credited to their account, accounts closed for no reason, accounts that are hacked, credit cards being rejected for new members, etc.
In the past they had problems with people not being paid for auctions they had won, but I’m not sure if this is still a problem or not. But some auctions went unpaid for around 6 months.
When you can’t get any kind of resolution through Zeek and you’re feeling like you’ve been ripped off, the next step is to contact the NC AG’s office.
Never assume that those concerned about the proliferation of internet fraud confine their activities to posting on blogs and forums.
LOL. I’ll agree that no one has lost Zeek Points, but to suggest that no one has lost actual money (the kind that can be traded for goods/services) is complete idiocy.
Yep.
Also, take a look at the NC Attorney General’s FB page. They’ve confirmed on their timeline the statements attributed to them above.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/NC-Attorney-Generals-Office/157759274279900
Oh I don’t. And I applaud anyone taking steps to end frauds, scams, and ponzi schemes like Zeek Rewards. But what I’m saying is that fed-up affiliates lodging complaints with the NC AG is adding fuel to the fire.
I said a while back that Zeek’s shoddy business practices were going to attract a lot of unwanted attention to their business model this way. With the NC AG’s office receiving both complaints from affiliates and calls from people telling them that it’s a ponzi scheme, it doesn’t look good for Zeek.
I think you all need to read the reply from the Attorney Generals Office again…”We’re concerned about Zeek Rewards and related companies”… I don’t think they’re primarily concerned with Zeeks customer service issues. Related companies like ad surf daily and other ponzi’s that have come and gone.
To the question, who would be filing the complaints if people are making money? How about people like me, not in Zeek who hate Ponzi schemes. I’m sure I’m not the sole individual who sent that kind of complaint to NC AG.
Clearly the guy who wrote the “Dear Mr. Cooper” letter was pretty clear on why Zeek should be investigated and didn’t have anything to do with poor customer service practices. Yes, customer service complaints with draw heat, but it’s not the primary issue concerning NC AG.
A lawyer friend of mine who also used to own a Network Marketing company told me the NC is one of the toughest states on Ponzi’s and they are very familiar with how they work.
I certainly hope you’re right, e.
I do know they’re not going to give away too much information as to exactly what they’re investigating, but it would be fun to go to Zeek meetings and ask the presenters if it’s true that the NC AG’s office is investigating Zeek.
some people are worried for the sake of others. Those that get in too late and it shuts down before they get their initial investment back will be in trouble.
I agree though, everyone who got in early and have already gotten their initial investment back should not care. But their is an ethics issue. Their could be those that are in it and have made money but are concerned bc any paying customer that buys bids on zeek is getting ripped off completely.
I wouldnt feel good about being part of that. Many are Naive at first and find out exactly how it works later on.
Thank God I found this blog at this early stage of my research.
Some dear friends of our in Australia have already made a significant commitment to this company
The NC Attorney General knows full well what a Ponzi is, and they sent this message in their press release when they said they have helped hundreds of thousands of consumers like you get more than $80 million of your money back. This will not be a “cursory” look-see.
They also have forensic accountants that will be going over all the documentation submitted by Zeek to repond to their inquiry.
Zeek can blow smoke up the skirts of their members, but they can’t the AG. To be honest I would not be surprised if the feds are looking into them as well, and not in a cursory look-see either. It is not unusual for the state AG and the feds to form a joint task force.
But here is a real problem. The NC AG’s office can only look out after the interests of North Carolina residents, and is limited in what it can do for all the other members of Zeek who do not live in NC. That’s why it is so critical that the feds get involved, so the members who not residents of NC are also protected.
Things are not looking good for Zeek, and you know Paul Burks and all the others know it. Now you are going to find out just how good their crack legal team really is. But the warning shot has been fired across the bow of Zeek.
My January prediction for the life expectancy of Zeek was August of this year. Depending on how fast NC AG moves, I could be right.
I remember when Sea Silver, based out Carlsbad California got in trouble. The authorities came in, locked up their product and shut them down instantly.
this site is better than the national enquirer! i love the ncag pic included in headline!
My faovrite photo’s are always the “perp walk.”
@Oz
Appreciate your work, Oz, but have to admit that the AG photos look a little propagandistic for a credible and informative website of fair and open examination.
However, full disclosure, I am guilty of inventing the venomous term, “blanket cape” lol
The NCAG photos are straight from the AG’s office Facebook page, I didn’t doctor them up myself.
I used that image because the article is about the NCAG’s office, with reference to their FB account.
@MB
The blanket cape will do nicely draped over her head while she’s doing the perp walk. There’s a reason for everything!
@Oz
Understood. Just looks like Roy Cooper is taking his next question from the press, “Mr Cooper, Sir, will the conspirators be able to keep their blanket capes before arraignment!”
This whole site is bogus. I went to the NC OAG site and did a search. There is nothing about Zeek Rewards or Zeekler.
@MD
Perhaps your sleuthing skills aren’t up to par? Maybe you should just call the NC AG number and hear the recorded message re: zeek rewards. Or…you could just listen to it at the top of this site.
@MD
You cracked this forum in one swift brilliant move. Sh*t! Foiled again!
I can only speak for myself, but my concerns are friends and strangers introduced to this by my husband. I personally do care about them losing their money first off. Secondly how will they react?
Strangers who have our phone number can find where we live. Freiends wont be friends anymore. Personally were it up to me I would return their initial investment if they lost it. Its also hard on your personal relationship. I just have to keep my lips zipped to get along (even though I know I’m right 😉
The tax problems are potentially worrisome. I would feel quite bad for anybody losing their money, particularly those who have gotten loans or used credit cards to fund this.
Could there be legal action against top earners? Something to be concerned about. The money is not worth it. There are probably many reasons why someone would like to see this end, depending on individual situations.
MD, this is MB. You know the only difference between you and I is a “C,” the grade you wish you had after that epic FAIL you just posted. This reasoning is called the Dumbass Fallacy
@MB
But…but…but… he searched himself and couldn’t find anything. That’s proof enough that the NC AG’s office never made the statements.
Just like “I got paid” is proof enough Zeek Rewards isn’t a Ponzi.
Nanananananana CAPEMAN!
I can picture Paul Burke trying a jedi mind trick on the AG. “This isn’t the ponzi scheme that you are looking for. Move along.”
Newest Dooly post confirms that The NC DOJ Has asked for documents to examine its business practices. Caldwell responds to Dooly by expressing how they are effective in responding to complaints.
In the supplied quotes, Caldwell does not admit that have responded to a request for documentation, or when they were contacted by the NC DOJ for documentation.
The last Caldwell quote is the most interesting,
This quote says to me they are continuing to respond to information from a regulatory body. So in this Dooly post, the focus is turned to complaints, instead of the investigation.
In an earlier Dooly post on the Laggos termination, the focus was turned to the legality of penny auctions, rather than the subject of a possible investigation by the FTC.
Ponzi scheme players don’t complain until there’s no more money left. As long as new members are investing and existing members re-invest they pay out.
Thus focusing on the number of complaints is just marketing spin and is not what the AG will concern themselves with. Had their beef been solely payment issues to affiliates then they’d have been satisfied with Zeek’s response to the complaints, there’d be no need to request further information on Zeek’s “business practices” for analysis.
One complaint, ten complaints or a hundred – the AG aren’t going to base an investigation on the number of complaints received.
The number of complaints also doesn’t negate the Ponzi nature of the business model (daily ROI paid out with affiliate money), which is hopefully what the NC AG will focus on.
I just hope the NC AG’s office goes not only after the ZeekRewards, but also the top earners.
The primary structure of its “ponzi”ness would be revealed if one were just to look at their penny auctions for a 24 hr period and tally the earnings against that day’s profit share. It will not tell the whole picture, but will certainly give an idea how ludicrous their claim for it being the money tree is.
What? You guys act like the NCAG office is putting everyone (Paul Burks, etc) in handcuffs and putting them in police cars.
In America there is this thing called a due process… NCAG office or any regulatory office has to operate by the same laws. Yes they investigate consumer complaints. I know I have filed one before. The first thing is I provided an allegation and then the company I complained about had to respond to the allegation I made.
Should the NCAG be looking into the business practices of the company, will they be looking into the same things you guys (Oz, etc) promote that they should look at? This is the real question, the unbiased question I have.
I too would like to know the truth… Which could still be 3-6 months away. Due process guys, due process.
No of course not. They’re going to ask what color the walls of Zeek HQ are, how much cheese Burks likes with his pasta and where Dawn buys her blanketcapes from.
Then they’re going to sign the whole office up to Zeek and Roy Cooper is going to be the keynote speaker at the next Zeek Rewards carpet event.
The NC AG’s has no interest in probing whether or not Zeek Rewards is a Ponzi scheme, you heard it here first folks.
Look, at the very least if the figures (or even percentages) are released showing how much affiliate money is paid out daily as a ROI vs. non-affiliate money – and there’s more non-affiliate money, that’s enough for me and job well done to the NC AG office.
Zeek Rewards themselves haven’t made this information public to date and in all likelihood there’s no positive or legitimate reason for this, other then the figures would expose them. It’s a simple yes/no question: “do you pay out more affiliate money daily in commissions then retail money?”
Couple that answer with the whole “compounder” daily ROI business model and what we’re dealing here is obvious.
As if on cue for the NC AG’s office, Zeek announced a BOGO promo on VIP bids for affiliates. Instead of getting just matching VIP points per dollar spent by one of your customers, you will get 2X VIP points for the Tuesday promo.
If any Zeek cheerleaders ever doubted whether affiliates actually created their own fake customer accounts or “sponsored” friends or family to buy bids so they could get the 20% commission + VIP points, watch the floodgates of VIP point matching open in next 24 hours.
How can Zeek continue to pay positive ROI when they give away 2x the matching VIP points and 20% commission?
Zeek sounds like they are trying to play up the “external revenue” angle and there’s nothing like DOUBLE MATCHING VIP POINTS to get lots of “external” (wink wink, nudge nudge) revenue into the system.
Those who have criticized Zeek for poor business execution should recognize how Zeek only announced this 24 hours notice, for a promotion that only lasts 24 hours.
Zeek should follow what the online gambling industry does. When they have promotions they announce it days if not weeks in advance. Not everyone sees the announcement and can react within a 24 hour window, especially if they have move funds around.
Also, Zeek has completely mismanaged their blog and mailing list resulting in some affiliates receiving ZRN updates > 24-hours after the posts are published, and many receiving it 12+ hours after the fact, meaning some affiliates will complain that they missed the promo altogether.
Finally, consider that if this is really a CUSTOMER promotion and not an AFFILIATE promotion, wouldn’t Zeek need to leave time for the AFFILIATE to recruit customers? Why would Zeek give AFFILIATES only a few hours? Who is the audience of potential buyers of VIP bids during this promo? Zeek can’t possibly expect a legitimate affiliate selling retail bids to have enough time to contact customers with only a few hours notice late evening on a Tue night (promo ends at 2am Tue night/Wed morning).
It is also worth nothing that NOTHING about the promo was sent to existing Zeekler customers. If you are running a CUSTOMER promo, wouldn’t you be notifying, you know, CUSTOMERS? If you have a 25:1 customer to affiliate ratio and you have 1.2 million affiliates, wouldn’t you be monetizing your Zeekler mailing list on a regular basis?
Zeekler has not sent a single promotional email to their Zeekler mailing list other than notices of free bids being given away. WOW, how inept… unless you don’t care about the Penny auction whatsoever.
Just imagine what a monstrous Ponzi scheme Zeek could be if they had seasoned business execs running the show.
Nobody has to worry. In the US, North Carolina is one of the toughest states on mlm regulations and Ponzie schemes. I remember a company called International Heritage that operated out of NC…there were doing things not in compliance and before it even went to trial, the authorities came in, cleaned house and padlocked everything up.
NC isn’t stupid when it comes to schemes. Rest assured, Zeek is breathing its last breaths.
Zeek has stopped daily commissions. Now it takes 3 days to get credit for the daily bid points. The compounding effect of daily interest is diminished!
Did something happen to Darryl Douglas?
On July 30, ZeekRewardsNews posted an updated call schedule:
Ah fair enough. Hope it was nothing too serious.
The Olympics have inspired the following illustration of how Zeek might DIVE into the explanation of the POOL with the NCDOJ. (The Retail Points Pool that is).
i read the post here near 2 months. Thanks all for the information about zeek.
If NC AG’s office started to inspect business of zeek, is anyone knows how long it normally takes to stop zeek from daily operation? Thanks.
I was reading one of Troy’s posts at his MLMHelpdesk site, and he said to never trust a site which uses an anonymous registration on their domain, one of the same things I tell my friends and agree 100%. So I checked Zeekler.com/zeekrewards.com and the address for Zeekler is now in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Did Zeekler change / reincorporate as a Nevada LLC now? Here is the whois info:
It also shows the domain updated its information on June 7 of this year. Further research shows that this address is most likely a virtual office from Summerhill Executive Suites:
http://www.summerhillexecutivesuites.com/apps/location/
I’m not saying anything bad or good about this, I just want it to be known. In my opinion this is being done for legal protection, as Nevada is one of the easiest and safest (legal liability reasons) places to incorporate a US company (from what I remember.)
Previous 2 addresses:
and
Any thoughts? =)
Incorporation is no protection against criminal charges.
The current “trend” in the U.S.A. WRT HYIP ponzis is for the charges to be of a criminal nature i.e fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering and NOT the civil law securities violations previously used.
False!!! Zeek did not stop daily commissions.
You can get your daily bid points manually once you go to bid give manager and give those bids to your customers.
Zeek’s daily commissions are behind 2-3 days. They don’t seem to care about the impact of lost commissions on daily compounding, especially for those approaching their initial 90 day point expiration.
@Anonwatch — the company is incorporated in Nevada, but operates in North Carolina. This is commonly done as Nevada (and Delaware) are common places to incorporate due to more favorable corporate laws in those states.
I don’t know about you. However, I got commissions for the 6th, today in the morning. It happened a few times within the last week or so that they were behind by 1 day. However, they caught up with that.
Zeek is an eye opener for so many people.
Really? Perhaps you have missed out on some of the 4500 comments here. There has been information and analysis that has been presented here and nowhere else.
Further, nothing is stopping you from hitting that big X in the top right corner of your web browser. Also, when you’re ready to show proof of 550 Diamonds in your downline of 1100 people (an almost impossible density with a forced matrix given the average Diamodn % of 8.5%), everyone here is ready to see you proven right and me wrong.
Finally, it is odd that you say you didn’t get any valuable information, considering you asked a basic question about investment caps showing you are not well versed in Ponzi schemes:
Multiple answers were provided to your question above. Surely those answers provided you with new insight considering you came on here and asked the quesition in the first place.
You were also provided insight on the lack of variability of the RPP rate by day-of-week, whereas your focus was much more narrow:
Your response lacks precision. You have to compare the daily profit share on day-of-week by day-of-week basis.
The site zeekanswers.com which corporate made the admin take down tracked time series charts since Aug 2011 of daily profit share and had frequency charts showing day of week variation of DAY OF WEEK.
Even for the days where there was some variation between 1.8% to 2.1%, the standard deviation over time for the same day of week was anomalous by itself. For example, there was no change from prior weeks for Christmas or New Years.
I’m sure the revenue was the same for both the penny auction and affiliate bid purchases during those days as others. There was almost no change on Mondays of 3-day weekends, or Friday on Easter Friday… or much difference on Easter Sunday vs. all other Sundays.
The change I am talking about is RELATIVE and based on variability over time, which you can measure using standard deviation.
I’m not referring to an affiliate’s RPP, but the 10% level 1 and 5% level 2 commissions. Many are running behind.
The commission runs are not synchronous nor serial. You can easily verify by looking in your RPP report and seeing how many times you have “$X award for Y bid purchase on MM/DD/2012 where MM/DD is 2 or more days ago.”
0.87% per day or 317.55% per year.
And you’re happy to think that’s possible WITHOUT being a ponzi ??
That makes sense about the incorporation Chang (and yeah on Delaware ;). When I am doing my due diligence on any website, one key thing that I look for is professionalism. On Zeekler.com (and any RVG website) I find a complete lack of any basic business sense for anyone serious about working online.
On most every RVG website their “master programmer” (as he is always referred to) is using asp for starters, and when that is not used, their websites are primarily free templates and scripts hacked together to work, and whitewashed with free stock images, many in 16 bit color, or touched up with ms paint or other crappy image editor.
I’m going to go into the extreme lack of attention to detail in the code on this comment…
The business language in their legal terms are awful, and doesn’t seem to be written by anyone with any real legal education. On zeekler.com, “Nevada” is not listed in any terms or user agreements, and it frequently references “Free Store Club”.
Meanwhile, Zeek Rewards legal language identifies the legal venue as in Nevada, but never states the company is a registered company in Nevada.
When I do a copyscape search for their user agreement, I find another website using the same duplicate content (not surprising.) mybidshack.com — which also looks very unprofessional.
tldr; I am amazed how much people can overlook how unprofessional the websites and people (I don’t want to criticize the people, but their business language and actions tend to be childish) are at RVG. I would NEVER give money to a “company” like that after reviewing the little things called “details”
Sad sad sad, and things like this are what Governments around the world can use as a reason for strict government regulation of the internet.
Adsense on the blog, which we’ve pointed out a few times here.
How many business making millions in revenue need to run adsense? Or can’t afford to pay $85 for a premium wordpress theme?
Imagine if any of the top 20 MLM’s were running Adsense on their blogs or news/announcement pages. I am actually surprised with all the scrutiny that BehindMLM receives from Zeek corporate that they haven’t used BehindMLM as the ultimate QA service, and it’s free. Imagine the winds they would take out of the sails of the critics if Zeek could only fix all of the issues raised.
Well, there is the issue of where the money comes from, but even ignoring the 800 lb gorilla in the room for the moment, there are lots of small issues Zeek could fix by to allow it to attract more naive affiliates if they would just reader this website and take action.
All these don’t add up to me.
How can Mr Burks and co walk into jail with thier eyes openned? How could they’ve ignored those huge pile of support tickets from thier affiliates for too long and not expect that those issues will ultimately be taken above them?
Even when they latter came round to respond to a particular issue, the affiliate won’t voluntarily withdraw the complaint already submitted to the Authorities, therefore it keeps piling. Till it results into the ‘inquiry’ now happening.
But why?
No, that’s not happening…
Yet.
I’m glad someone mentioned this! Who in their right mind uses classic ASP to build websites anymore… especially ones that are supposedly bringing in millions of dollars? Microsoft abandoned classic ASP years ago.
Obviously this is pretty low on the scale of red flags but anyone familiar with web development realizes what a joke this is.
One has to wonder if Burks would like to strangle Dawn, his former COO. After all, it was on her watch all these problems began and intensified. She seemed in way over her head.
When you’re hiring your stepson and spouse that raises a huge red flag for a legit business in my mine, unless it’s a small, family run business.
I’m surprised there has been so little discussion here about her demotion. Did she step aside or was she pushed aside? And anyone know what Caldwell’s background is?
I’ve seen some real professional website, that never made a penny. This crappy one is making millions lol
That’s great Jack, maybe why you make it big in Zeek they can put a crappy pixelated photo of you on the website!
It can partly have been a mistake or poor business skills (from some real business, not recruitment driven).
There’s a flaw in the business model that won’t show up in some tests, in “the compounder” part of the business.
A: people put real money in from the outside when they make their initial purchase, and gets VIP points in return. There’s clearly some money involved here.
B: The VIP points is used to calculate daily RPP for 90 days, and the RPP points can be reinvested each day, growing the VIP balance and daily “payouts”. I can’t identify any clear stream of money coming in here, when people are reinvesting the RPP.
So a part of the daily profit pool is made up of people investing “points”, “internal balance”, “internal currency” or whatever we call it, with no identifiable stream of money coming in. That stream of money should normally derive from external customers not affiliated to Zeek.
“CONVERTING” RPP POINTS TO MONEY?
For something to become profitable, you must have a stream of money coming in from somewhere. You can’t “convert” RPP points to dollars or other currencies, it will be like converting monopoly money.
And that’s what Zeek does, converting monopoly money to what they believe is real money when people are reinvesting RPP points. They consider the PRICE of the sample bids to be $1 for each bid when they are sold to affiliates, and they consider RPP points to be “legal tender” equal to USD.
The PRICE of the sample bids are only $1 when people pay for them with real money, usually when they make their initial purchase. Other than that, the PRICE for each bid is only one RPP point (worthless).
That’s normal business logics when you sell something. The price will be equal to the amount people PAY for something, and they don’t pay any MONEY when they use RPP as payment method. The growth in VIP balances derives mostly from points being reinvested, with no additional money connected to it.
When people withdraws RPP as cash, Zeek is not “converting” the points to money, they REPLACE them with real money. They bring in a stream of money from their internal funds to replace the RPP before they can pay anything out. And that replacement process seems to be missing when people buy sample bids in the daily reinvestments.
Here are some more red flags that the company does not have their act together. A company under scrutiny would make it clear across the board (all of their RVG websites) their legal address and entity name clear and easy to find. For example, look here:
http://zeekrewards.com/TermsOfUse.asp?username=Master
(First on a sidenote, how professional is “username=Master” in the URL? This is on some places/sites, but removed in others with “username=”.)
The beginning of the Terms of Service there does not even adequately define the relationship between the company and the user. They NOT ONCE have “zeekrewards.com” anywhere in the terms. Go visit any fortune 1000 company and compare their legal ToS to the ones on ZeekRewards and you will see the domain name referenced at least once.
There is also a section for “Trademark Information”: ‘You agree not to use in commerce any of the ZeekRewards Marks without the explicit permission of ZeekRewards.. Does “Ebon Research Systems” have permission?
If ZeekRewards did do a trademark with the USPTO, then it is here (among 2 other separate ZR trademarks) and registered (or going to be registered) to “Ebon Research Systems”?:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4004:4lv896.3.1
(the link chages, search uspto.gov for zeek)
I don’t want to spend too much time on the other “details” that should be there, as the basic ownership/agreement/relationship/scope is absent. My point is, this is not professional and a red flag.
Next, we look at Zeekler.com and see this “Fair Bidding Policy”:
http://zeekler.com/fairbidpolicy.asp?UserName=
In particular, they note that:
This sounds good on paper but really there is no way to know that this is actually being enforced. Further, the language on this can be considered confusing, everyone that visits zeekler.com is accessing their computer system… but they don’t specify which system internal or external.
What is the official business term for the relationship between a ZR affiliate and Zeekler? They both are RVG correct? It is hard to tell by the ToS on each site.
Then when we go to ZeekRewards.com, we see that the Privacy Policy link on the footer of the page exists, but when you click on it, the page doesn’t exist, it’s a 404 error:
http://zeekrewardsnews.com/privacy-policy
Again, the red flag for me with RVG is the lack of professionalism and many basic (online) business practices. I won’t get into the lack of attention to detail, bad programming, incorrect grammar, and poor marketing “assets” used (8 bit png image files for example.)
tldr; I don’t think the executives at RVG show much any professionalism or knowledge about internet marketing (or other corporate basics) and in my personal opinion that is a red flag in and of itself, especially for scrupulous people looking into a long term investme… er.. way to make a lot of money because ZR is NOT AN INVESTMENT!!! 😉
Everyone is cheering over at mlmhelpdesk. Troy has a new video. They seem to think this is all taken care of.
Hey guys, we’ve become famous. This was posted on my facebook page:
LOL… They just can’t accept that we’re against illegal investment schemes, can they? It’s always got to be some sort of sour grapes with them.
I didn’t know we were trying hard to dig up dirt on Zeek. It seems to just pop up on its own.
We’re not digging. They surface by themselves. It’s like a… spring. 🙂
Troy’s convinced their “pivot” will solve all the problems. I am not so sure as a skeptic. I personally see no fundamental business change. Adding sales requirements may solve their compliance issues with FTC but would not solve Howey test (SEC).
Troy didn’t state anything that we already didn’t know. He actually didn’t state anything that Oz hadn’t said already. They seem to be missing the fact that the investigation isn’t over.
Researching peoples complaints is one side of the coin. Delving into the workings of the business model is a separate issue.
I’m pretty sure it will be an eye opener, and I’m pretty sure they will need it, but I don’t think it will work very well.
Hey “Jorge Andrade – Zeek Rewards”
“Maybe we could meet somewhere for lunch, say, Romano’s Macaroni Grill? Is there one near you? My treat.”
Any business or company that is mentioned on this site is a huge red flag and when more search is done these companies are always found somewhere else under someone else’s red flag.
I have found several places where there are warnings about Zeek’s integrity and truthfulness, so glad I didn’t give any money to them.
I could not stop laughing when I read that. Great stuff!
Speaking of the National Enquirer, when you brought that up I could not help but remember what the great former NC US Senator said when asked about his relationship with Reille Hunter, “I’ve responded, consistently, to these tabloid allegations by saying I don’t respond to these lies and you know that …. and I stand by that.” Until those lies were found to be true.
u have to admit though, the funniset post ever was the one about martha stewart blanket capes!
Surely you must have some personal issues with the crook if you wish him to stop crooking even when it doesn’t cost YOU anything.
And since he asked, yes, Paul Burks did sleep with my mother. They met at Disney World, and he told her that for each time she slept with him, she’d get 300% sex “com-pounded” with honest men.
lololol 😉
Nice Dazy!
If you think the cheerleaders are fun to play with here, you are missing all the fun at MMG Zeek’s thread. Forget about drinking the kool-aid, they are taking it intravenously.
Funny you should ask this… In an effort to prove to a family member who has been tricked into giving money to this company with the hopes of building a retirement, I took it upon myself as a web application programmer by trade to set up some automated monitoring of the zeekler auction site sniffing server responses using fiddler logging over a 24 hour period.
I collected logs of all auctions held on the site in order to determine how much money the auctions are generating per day for Zeek. Here are my findings:
Total Auctions held: 180
Total Item Value $19,697.10
Average Item Value: $109.43
Average Winning Bid: $16.27
Total Winning Bids: $2,928.36 (292,836 Bids)
Total Bid Revenue = (Total Winning Bids * $1/Bid) = $292,836
Total Profit therefore would be:
Total Bid Revenue (292,836) +
Total Auction Revenue (2,928.36) –
Total Item Value (19,697.10) =
$276,067.26
Divide that by two as they split the profit 50/50 and I don’t think you quite have enough to meet the day’s profit share. Do the math and it’s easy to see how legitimate this company is.
@hax2themax
You forgot one important part of the equation:
Liability against each bid purchased through the 90 day ROI = >$292,836 (+20% commissions if bought through a customer account)
I’m not saying your maths is right or wrong (it also left out 65c retail bids), but adding in liability to your equation:
Total Bid Revenue (292,836) +
Total Auction Revenue (2,928.36) –
Total Item Value (19,697.10) = $276,067.26 –
Total bid liability = >292,836 at least
= a whole boat load of Ponzi.
@Deb
Red flags are in the business model, they don’t just materialize because you choose to review a company.
…and I thought you weren’t coming back after your August 2010 dummy spat?
Bids cost less than $1 per bid. Retail bids cost $0.65 per bid. VIP bids are $1 but there are indefinite BOGO promos (sometimes for retail bids, usually for VIP bids).
You also have all of the premium subscription members who receive VIP bids for their monthly subscription. Zeek pays commissions on the monthly subscriptions in the matrix, so that devalues the VIP bids even more ($99 for Diamond gives you 250 VIP bids per month to spend in the auctions, but from that $99 there are direct + matrix commissions to be paid).
There also is 20% commission + matching VIP points paid out for retail bid purchases.
Remember that we have been asking questions to affiliates for 7-8 months, so you can include that? “Speculations and research”? Or we can probably also agree on “speculations and alot of research”, I believe?
I will clearly call it RESEARCH if I ask you about how many retail customers you have, or how much you sold for through your FSC store in the last 1 or 3 months. Especially if I ask the same questions to several affiliates over time, and on different websites.
I have even got answers from Paul Burks and the CFO Chief Financial Officer at RVG (through Troy) in some parts of the research.
You can call it “speculation” if you want to, if you seriously believe that is a good strategy. It’s always interesting to see some strategic skills in action.
Hey Oz, do you have a response to Troy’s recent report?
@e
Not sure what I’m responding to, seeing as the report wasn’t directed to me (?).
I think the focus on number of complaints is just marketing spin, which Dooly has then run with. Caldwell claims 8 complaints have been filed with Zeek responding to 8, with all but the latest one not having been satisfied.
The angle here is obviously “once we’ve cleared up this latest complaint we’ll be fine”. The NC AG aren’t investigating complaints though (not saying they haven’t in the past though), as stated clearly in their response their looking into ZR’s “business practices”.
One of those business practices is the daily ROI ZR pay out. If the NC AG are on the ball they’ll quickly determine whether or not ZR are paying out this ROI from mostly affiliate money or retail external sales – and will go from there. That might obviously not be the entire scope of their queries but it should be a large part of it.
Despite being the focus of ZR’s statements through Dooly, complaints, specifically how many of them, isn’t really a factor. I mean let’s face it, Ponzi schemes pay out as long as new people keep investing. New people are still investing in ZR so is a low number of complaints that surprising. It’s only when the shit hits the fan and the new investments dry up that people complain, and by then it’s usually too late.
The Duke Energy company he keeps going on about is irrelevant, in that they aren’t operating as a Ponzi scheme (there isn’t one sole criteria that prompts NC AG investigations, so putting them all in the same basket is silly).
It’s not just going to be ‘Y’all need to change the color of the Zeek Rewards mascot to orange, here’s a $500,000 fine now back to work’, as both Dooly and Caldwell as portraying these latest developments.
Had ZR of been a MLM business model that revolved around the sale of actual products to end consumers then sure, by all means play down the NC AG’s involvement. When you combine a scheme people can invest $10,000 into and earn a daily ~1.5% average ROI on, largely funded by affiliate money with an AC AG investigation… well, how do you think that’s going to play out?
If the NC AG have issues with the whole points investment scheme, do you really think if they tell ZR to get rid of it ZR is still going to be able to continue on? It’s the core of their business, and before anyone mentions membership fee commissions, without the daily ROIs nobody would be a member so it’s a moot point.
MLM companies having their “business practices” investigated by AG’s certainly not “standard business practice” as far as the operation of a MLM company is concerned. It is however standard practice when the NC AG suspects you might be engaged in something you shouldn’t be.
Your method is relatively correct, in that you separated the bid revenue and the auction revenue. So the logic is quite correct.
Jimmy mentioned the BOGO-offers and the lower price for retail bids, so we can assume the bid revenue is lower than your calculated example. We do also have all the VIP bids included in the monthly membership.
Actually, this is one of the best calculations I have seen for a number of auctions. Another bad thing is that most of the bids spent in the auctions are bought by the affiliates themselves, so the amount of “fresh money” coming in is much lower than the revenue.
I have often had a hard time trying to explain to people that SPENDING bids in the auctions doesn’t generate much revenue (100 bids spent will raise the price of an item with $1, and that’s it). SELLING bids will generate revenue, if people pay for the bids with money (not RPP reward points).
When I ran my calculation several months ago, I ballparked it at a little over $200k a day, and it’s great to see that your much more systematic calculation was within 50% mine.
Even if we’re both wrong by 100%-200% percent, this is nowhere nearly enough to support the most conservative estimation of global point balance.
@ Dazy…Zeek Has MULTIPLE streams of income, not just penny auction. FSC & Shopping Daisy your forgetting (all part of Zeek Rewards).
Also, Zeek just made aprox. $30 Million for manditory compliance/marketing course. Your also forgetting mulit-Million in monthly membership fees.
There is NO PROOF whatsoever on the aligations this site keeps making (Oz and KChang) that most of the money is coming from New Affiliate money paying off the Old (Ponzi)…sorry, just no proof at all…
Nobody uses FSC and shopping daisy, let alone makes any money off it. FSC was dying, that’s why Rex moved on from it. They had the code for it and backend, so figured instead of completely dump it they’d just attach it to Zeek Rewards.
Shopping Daisy? Lol, last I heard you couldn’t even download it.
Nobody in Zeek Rewards markets FSC or shopping Daisy, they just market the investment scheme. You know why that is.
Internal affiliate money.
Internal affiliate money.
Does the majority of the money paid out each day to Zeek Rewards affiliates come from other affiliates or external retail customers?
I work at a hotel close by where Zeek has their red carpet events, and my hotel is always full of them during their events. Since May when someone asked me to join (which I said no, because duh, not dumb) I have been reading this site. I love reading all the crazy zeeklers who try and disprove all your facts.
In May a zeekler got two of my coworkers to join. I wish I could have recorded the speech she told them:
That’s about how it went. Then they had another RCE about a week or two ago. Again zeeklers everywhere telling me I need to join.
I had one tell me she didn’t understand why I wanted to keep living in poverty when I could be making millions. My response was why do you think I’m living in poverty and I don’t need millions. She said all the people around here are in poverty and if I didn’t need millions I could send the money to Africa. I told her no thanks I’m happy where I am.
First off this women flew into Lexington Ky, instead of Lexington NC (which by the way doesn’t even have an airport). If you can’t even buy a plane ticket for the right state without noticing why am I going to take advice from you??
Now I know my post doesn’t really give any facts but I get to deal with these Zeek heads every other month it seems.
I’m just glad that K Chang (yes read yours too) and you are out there. It seems like the only thing you find when googleing Zeek is nothing but zeeklers telling people it’s not a scam.
If anyone puts a negative post on the Zeek Facebook page they are instantly shunned and told not to believe it. If people have problems with getting paid or don’t understand why it’s taking so long, the only answer I see from the zeekheads, is ‘it’s growing pains, be patient, no other business is as good as Zeek.’
I’m just waiting for Zeek to get shut down and see if the Facebook page gets deleted and what all the zeeklers are going to be saying then.
One more thing, then I’ll let you pros get back to proving a great point. Why don’t the zeekheads think it’s strange Zeekler is no longer allowed in Montana? If it was a legitimate business shouldn’t it be allowed in every state?
Math fail.
This assumes there are 1 million affiliates who will pay $29.95 for the mandatory annual course.
Only those who are premium subscribers that have at least a few hundred points will do so. All the free affiliates who do not want to upgrade and invest more money will drop off. Zeek gets to erase all of that liability. I’m sure they’ll still count those affiliates in all of their rosy stats, however.
So Hax2TheMax and Dazy, thanks for those calculations…
There’s something I don’t quite understand though… If we use a figure in the upper end of that range, say $300k per day, and zeek has 1.2 million affiliates, and zeek shares up to 50% of that with the affiliates, doesn’t that work out to about 12.5 cents per day on average per affiliate?
What am I missing?
@Hotel Employee
Great story, thanks for sharing! Will you be at the next RCE? (if they’re still in business by that time)
So, didn’t have time to read ALL the comments. But there are a few that I saw that were in accurate and I know they’re inaccurate because I’m an affiliate.
The blue light special “double points promotion” wasn’t for only one day. It’s going on for a week. and the reason you’re getting “double points” is because it’s a “BOGO Bids Promotion for Retail Customers” (Buy One Get One) so i.e. $500 = 1,000 points because in actuality 1,000 bids are being given away.
So you’re actually getting the same amount you would if someone had just purchased normal bids for $1,000 instead of $500. But you also get the 20% commission on the $500.
The 2nd thing is that, the “Compounder” has appeared to be fine day-in-day-out thus far.
One thing I really do agree with though is that the accounting issues are horrible. The customer service could also be improved, but I guess that’s the least of peoples worries.
—
I was talking with a business colleague about ZR and since no one (here) seemed to see WHY Zeek might have just bought another company with “affiliates and customers” my friend suggested that it could have been a way for ZR (and their management) to cash-out per say.
From what I understood.. a corporation can buy another LLC even if the corporation owns the LLC. So if that was the case, they bought their own LLC with “customers and affiliates” that could have been a spin-off of ZR itself and merged it into ZR but also now just gave themselves a paycheck in a very inconspicuous way.
Any way, @Oz please do post a thread of updates with the AG and the inquiry with ZR.
Thanks,
K
The Blue Light Special was for 24-hours, where you received double matching VIP points. But few affiliates even received the email from ZRN with more than a few hours to act before the 2am deadline.
The BOGO offer on VIP bids is not really that big a deal, because the BOGO offer (buy one VIP bid get one free) was always available before.
Exactly. When I did my calculation, and was told about 200k paying affiliates, I concluded that website sales could only support an average point pool of 35. That barely even covers the subscription, and that’s ignoring that they officially would only share up to 50% of the daily income (so, 17.5 points)?
@Observer, unless those “streams” you mentioned bring in 40 times more (and that’s conservative) income than the penny auctions do, they wouldn’t be enough to support the affiliates – and if they do, Zeek Rewards is legally a Ponzi, since the main source of money distributed is money paid by “partners”, which is our whole point.
I can think of a couple more reasons:
1) Buy time for compliance, claiming to merge the business requires additional time for affiliates to achieve compliance
2) Dilution of revenue. One of the biggest questions about Zeekler is just how much revenue it actually brings in via the retail bids, vs. giveaway bids, as this will prove it to be (or not) a Ponzi scheme. By adding another company’s revenues they can hope to dilute the money trail.
3) Add the new biz model into the “qualifiers” to make it more MLM-like, hoping to satisfy the FTC Omnitrition/Koscot tests, that some things are actually SOLD, rather than given away.
I’m sure there are more, but these are the 3 reasons I can think of right now.
FACT fail. They are parts of RVG, not ZeekRewards.
Furthermore, there is also no proof they contribute ANYTHING SIGNIFICANT to anybody’s backoffice.
In fact, I invite you to post ONE example where there’s significant amount of revenue from those FSCstores and ShoppingDaisy in ANY affiliate’s backoffice, compared to bid commissions and RPP.
More fact fail for you. You’re assume everyone of the alleged 1 million members will pay $30 for compliance. Given that the MEDIAN income for ZR affiliate is ZERO as per their own 2011 income disclosure, MAJORITY of ZR affiliates are of the FREE type.
Furthermore, compliance is for US affiliates only. Given that there were only 15000 active affiliates in the US, as per Dawn herself a while back, I doubt there are 250K affiliates who will actually pay for training.
See above.
There’s plenty of circumstantial proof. You just refuse to see it.
Assuming you are right about Zeek being a Ponzi can anybody why would the guys running it just sit there and wait to be arrested at some point whether it be next week or in a years time?
Surely they must have an exit strategy-Cuba?Panama? but they surley can not be stupid enough to hang around for the FBI?
Not Panama. We have extradition with Panama and have gotten SEVERAL criminals back from Panama, including David Murcia, of the Colombia Grupo DMG Ponzi fame.
We got him for money laundering for the Cali Cartel and we’re gonna send him back to Colombia after he’s done with jail here.
@Ponzivic
The flaw in Zeek’s business model won’t show up in different tests. You’ll need to do a very specific analysing to see it. So I’m not sure they are aware of the problem, or have been able to identify it correctly.
Try to google “optical illusions” to see how difficult it can be to identify other solutions when you first have identified one. You’ll find some examples here:
http://brainden.com/face-illusions.htm
One of the easy examples is the “old_couple.jpg”, where you can see an old couple, two mexican singers, and a vase (3 pictures in one). You’ll need to look at examples like that to understand the IDEA behind why people fail to see other solutions.
Zeek’s business model has a flaw, but I’m not sure they have identified it. It is generating more points (and future payouts) than real money, so they will eventually run out of money.
Affiliates can SEE a part of the problem themselves in how few retail customers they have. Payouts to affiliates needs to be supported by money coming in from customers, not from other affiliates.
For affiliates to be able to see the problem, they will first need to unfocus from their ideas of how profitable penny auctions are, and they will have to check if it really is true for Zeekler.
Zeek’s management seems to have focused on investment rules, pyramid scheme rules and MLM rules. They may feel protected behind all the compliance they have added, the “Don’t use investment language”, “You’re purchasing products” and “Rex Venture Group do not guarantee …”.
In general, we can’t flee our home country. Most foreign countries have 3 or 6 months rules for how long you can stay there as a “tourist”. You will need to cross borders frequently.
Zeek seems to have a money escape route. It has only been mentioned in ONE comment, something about a foundation in Switzerland or something, and I didn’t get any details — only “the foundation isn’t even registered in the U.S.”.
It’s not the first time that question has been asked of U.S. based ponzi operators.
What makes them think they can avoid prosecution ?
Ego ?
Stupidity ?
Greed ??
Believe their own B/S ??
Consider Andy Bowdoin.
He KNEW AdSurf Daily was under investigation, yet he STILL got caught AND with $70 MILLION in accounts in his own name.
Maybe it’s a matter of “you can’t help stupid”
We’re analysing how able they WILL BE to pay people in cash, not how able they HAVE BEEN.
Money comes in from newly recruited affiliates, as the main source for money coming IN. “The compounder” is the system where they can reinvest RPP points and grow their VIP balance and future payouts:
–> points being paid out (“Cash available” is only an illusion)
–> points being reinvested
–> points generating new profit in points
–> points being paid out (to complete the circle)
Compare that system to when you try to withdraw money?
–> points being paid out
–> affiliate selects amount (percentage) to withdraw
–> RPP is being reduced each day, so less RPP will be reinvested. “Withdrawal” will be increased.
–> Zeek pays out real money from their bank account, one day per week.
The only part where MONEY is involved is when Zeek pays out money from their bank account, eWallet or whatever. So basically, they are paying their affiliates in POINTS most of the time. The affiliates are also reinvesting POINTS, and the POINTS is a major part of the daily profit pool.
Zeek will collapse when the supply of fresh money from newly recruited affiliates dries up, when too few people puts money IN to support money being paid OUT. They have of course generated some funds in May and June, but funds won’t last very long if the supply of fresh money coming in dries up.
If you’re in doubt, then you can check how many real retail customers you have yourself, people who are spending their own money on buying bids, not affiliated to Zeek (and so on and so forth)?
You can also test the idea “How can a few customers generate a huge profit for thousands of affiliates?”. They CAN’T, but the system will easily be able to generate reward points, anyway.
For all the calculations we have here and in the best case scenario as well as all the benefit of the doubt to ZR, how much is that money coming from real, genuine customers who are actually playing to win any given item on any given day?
Lets also include the monthly fees and all the other ever changing monetary requirements by the ZR to milk its affiliates. What is left would be a huge pool of VIP points that can not be paid with real money unless new money comes in from the new affiliates buying the bids and dumping them onto fake customers.
ZR is fine until a vast majority of the affiliates are happy being paid in points, not real dollars, and there are a few with a big downline flashing out their checks to lure the new victims. Or until the authorities take a closer look at their business model, which now appears to have started. Or until the existing affiliates keep quiet with their unresolved problems for months on end.
My analysis was not meant to be a complete picture, but rather a big piece of the puzzle. What it does show is that the auctions themselves come in no way near to providing the amount of profit needed to support the daily ROI documented for Zeek affiliates.
The blatant reality here is that even if you added on FSC & Shopping Daisy profit, they would have to be some of the most popular online shopping tools known to man in order to support the payouts.
What it is plain to see for anyone who is willing to take off the rose colored glasses, is that the vast majority of Rex Venture Group’s income is coming from Affiliate payments. Whether it be Red Carpet Events, Compliance Courses, Monthly Fees, Initial “Investments”, these are what are fueling the business.
I just find the whole thing to be sad as many good people will lose so much in a time when there just isn’t really money to throw around. I hope that when this thing finally does fall apart, the people who made more money than they put in will feel at least some remorse for robbing well-meaning people of their hard earned (sometimes retirement) funds.
@Hotel Employee: Next time the Zeekheads ask you why you don’t want to join, I’d just ask them if they are familiar with the saying, “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
That, and I’d tell them I don’t want to invest in any company that’s under investigation by the Attorney General’s office for their business practices.
Charles Ponzi, Bernie Madoff, Andy Bowdoin, and Paul Burks have all started ponzi schemes, but only they know/knew why. Asking why anyone would do it doesn’t negate the fact that new ponzi schemes pop up all the time.
Some honestly do not think it is a Ponzi.
Some don’t care and are just greedy.
Some view it as a giant gamble. They may start out as a Ponzi, but hope that some magic formula will result in new revenue that can pay off the Ponzi. Some of the Forex HYIP’s are based on this concept – they hope that their trading formula can generate windfall rofits even though they know it is extremely unlikely.
Some know it is a Ponzi, and then try to change the business model after they have made their millions to avoid jail time. I think this is what Zeek is doing – a last minute attempt to pivot the business to avert legal trouble.
Remember that Zeek ran as a straight up HYIP Ponzi until Aug 2011 when they switched to virtual points. They ran as an “investment” until Dec 2011 when the banned the use of the “investment language” even though affiliates still describe it as such, still send out spreadsheets with compound interest projections, and Zeek’s own website still uses the word “compound”.
Also see the YouTube video Oz linked to, where an affiliate keeps tripping over himself trying to be linguistically compliant.
Jimmy, are you referring to that video where that grandpa was talking about a pyramid?
It is sad for the people to be blindly by greed. Many of them even know it is a Ponzi Scheme and are fine with people loosing money that come in last. They even say when you sign the bid documents that the money will be spent and no guarantees of income. They are really trying to change their language to cover their tracks.
We can only hope the AG’s office of NC and maybe other states will really look deep into the company and not just the outside shell. As it is compelling to many, but once you ask the main question of all of those free bids you have bought and paid for how many paying customers do you have. Most will say none or very few even the ones making big money that are buying thousands per week in order to get their monies out.
They feel it is okay since they are giving a way the free bids it is a free way of advertising, The problem is the third party or the company that supposedly are giving away the free bids, never verify that they are going to legit customs versus made up names and emails…..
Also the bids that happen everyday about 180 does not match the money being paid out. Ask the company to show profits from bids and show how it equals not just the payouts but the money on hold in the accounts.
It is not just the payouts it is the money in the accounts or they say now points in the accounts. See when they can no longer pay out the point values will decrease so you have less money. If the AG does not get them, if the point values start to decrease you better get your money out asap.
Lets pray that the these type of ponzi schemes that give Home businesses and Network Marketing companies that do it right a bad name….
I agree that this is most likely their plan. But I’m reminded of the story of “The Scorpion and the Frog” … I do not believe at all that Dawn and her crew have the ability to change their nature even if they wanted to.
How long would you expect the NC AG’s investigation to take, before they release findings?
how do you know how much money is actually paid out daily? if you dont know that, how then do you know that the total legitimate revenue is not enough to pay or sustain?
its very valid to assume the revenue including the legally allowed portion of affiliate revenue is more than enough to cover actual payouts. no one has ever come close to proving otherwise.
Several people have meticulously monitored the auction details for several 24-hours periods. Their findings have proved without a doubt the the revenue generated from the auctions isn’t enough to pay just 12 of the top affiliates, let alone the other 11,999,988 or so affiliates.
The 12 I’m referring to are the ones who Mr. Paul Burks himself declared back in May, in no uncertain terms, are ‘making over one million dollars per month.’
The way I think they are going to get around the whole ponzi argument is that they don’t guarantee a payout, and it’s supposedly not an investment.
However, anyone who thinks this isn’t a ponzi/pyramid is an idiot. It only takes simple math to realize that you can’t support a 1.5% daily ROI by penny auctions. You would need an exponential increase in actual customers.
And the fact that you are getting payouts from their daily profit is just stupid. Why would a business owner give commission to someone that didn’t bring in sales?
I think what’s going to eventually happen, is cutoff the daily ROI. I think they already did this for 10k points and above (August 22nd right?)
and u think the man would be so bold to say that and not know he was paying them legitimately? and how do you even know his definition of “making over”? and how do you know how much of those earnings come from legitimate commissions vs rpp?
It’s not that hard to make a CONSERVATIVE estimate based on a couple facts that you seem to be completely ignorant of…
1) Paul Burks himself, at a Red Carpet Event, says no less than a DOZEN affiliates are earning 1 MILLION a month.
1000000*12/30 = 400000 PER DAY, just for that dozen people.
And what about the rest of the affiliates, hmmm?
2) In 2011, based on their own income disclosure statment, they paid out 58.5 million to their affiliates (by multiplying number of affiliates vs. average income), and adding them together. That’s 117 million of revenue for the entire year.
As they didn’t operate until end of january, I’ll use 335 days instead of 365. That says they are doing 349000 or revenue DAILY on the average. And since the revenue starts from low daily to higher at end of year, I’ll say the revenue is probably 450K to 500K per day by the end of 2011. Half of that is shared with the affiliates, so says they.
3) When you combine the two, a ‘reasonable’ daily revenue for now is probably going to be in the 800K range… DAILY for them to pay out RPP daily based on 1.2 million affiliates.
4) Yet multiple people who monitor the auctions show that the retail and premier auctions generates nowhere CLOSE to the revenue of 800K. Best estimate from the auctions is only 150K to 300K DAILY.
5) There is no significant amount of revenue EVER demonstrated through FSC Store, or Shopping Daisy, or whatever.
6) Thus, the remainder of revenue is from affiliate purchase of bids, thus internal money circulation, and thus, Ponzi scheme.
how much of the revenue in the ids projection figures comes from legit commissions vs rpp?
The definition of “making over” is >$0.01 as in “making over $1,000,000.00 per month meaning $1,000,000.01 or more. Understand?
And no, I don’t he said it out of boldness or legitimacy. I think he said it because the people he speaks to are grannys and under educated single moms with financial worries who are easily influenced by the illusion that they too can make millions of dollars from the company that decided to “give back to the people”.
And I don’t think he’s intelligent enough to forsee that statements like this can be leaked out of that red carpet meeting and used against him. Understand?
no estimates are valid unless you can show how much actual cash is paid out daily on average and the breakdown of the precentage of commissions, overspill and rpp that makes up the daily cash out.
Oh
Oh ok, I get it now, you’re right, you’ve proven that my statements are very wrong. I’m very sorry, I won’t post anymore.
and has the company ever said they dont pay more than half? just because they use the words “up to 50%” doesnt mean they dont pay more on any given day. in fact, one could argue that maybe it averages out to 50% over a years time.
and when the companys declares breakdown as proprietray, some seem to think that statement only applies to simple percentages whereas i believe it applies to all of above and their brilliant algorithm.
Doesn’t say. However, “legit commission” itself is debatable, since ZR pays commission on ALL bid purchases, retail or giveaway bids. If your downline buys bids for giveaway, you get commission for that.
And it’s sad that Zeek can’t release those numbers themselves. What’s your point?
Up to means exactly “equal to or less than”. Please don’t try to weasel define. Unless you’re Paul Burks or that new guy Gladwell you are not qualified to redefine “up to” for them.
We’ve analyzed it many times before. YOU are the one who brought it up. So now we’re some sort of a “conspiracy” to you? Sheesh. Talk about shifting goalposts…
my point is u dont have to monitor for 24 hours to get those numbers. thats just crazy.
and i am certainly just as qualified as u to guess at how the 50% is defined bc we are both truly guessing
im just sayin we all know how these sites work. it would be easy to start a thread under a non-negative heading. i havent seen one.
The buying and selling of bids is were the money is. Most when they look in there back office they say they have retail customers buying bids, not realizing that most of those are their downline buying bids to give away in order to meet company rules. Again this is just the re-distributions of monies amongst members.
I would love fro any big producer who has to buy so many bids and customers show the new retail customers or non members who are buying bids. they cannot in their back office. If their are very little retail customers buying bids over and over the money is being redistrubted by reselling of free bids to new potential retail customers who rarely if any ever by retail bids….
But to try to make it look legal they have you run ads and purchase bid packages to give away now. They do not make you just go get retail customers….
They will never show you the retail clients numbers in the system that are not members…… period
The heading here is NC AG’s office “concerned” about Zeek Rewards. Nothing negative there? 🙂
wow… there is a bid for a pair of headphones on zeekler.com with a retail price of $49 currently bidding at $120… something isn’t right here… lol
I was just considering what a tough end of July early August Zeek has had.
July 31st/August 1st – The damaging recording from Dr. Keith Laggos goes public, which caused Zeek to part ways with him.
August 3rd – The NC SECU receiving several reports of fraud from Zeek and warning members.
August 7th – The NC AG office requesting documents from Zeek to examine their business practices.
By the way for those interested the NC Attorney General’s Office has a Facebook page. “Like” them and go to the recent posts by others on NC Attorney General’s office. There you can comment on the question from Wendy Tussey, “Is it true that the NC AG office is going to be looking into Zeek and Zeek rewards? I question whether this is a valid claim as shown on Behind MLM websites. Thanks for your info!”
The NC Attorney General’s Office responded, “We have received complaints about Zeek Rewards and have concerns about the company. We’ve asked the company to provide us with documents so we can examine its business practices.” A few Zeek affiliates are beginning to make positive comments about Zeek.
And this was just 11 months in 2011. Zeek’s massive growth since Jan 2011 means the numbers TODAY are probably 3-5x that.
Even if there was NO GROWTH, the current auction revenue doesn’t come close to satisfying the average daily payouts based on the Dec 31, 2011 IDS numbers.
If you factor in 3-5x growth, the situation is even more bleak.
I am making an honest attempt as I think you are at making sense of the numbers; some questions to help me understand the analysis if you please (and humor me if you can because I am just beginning to take a sharp pencil to all this):
Are the annual income figures in the 2011 IDS income paid out in casn to affiliates, or does it include daily earnings used to repurchase bids?
Based on the 2011 IDS statement that the average annual income for all Affiliates worldwide in 2011 was $1076.24, shouldn’t that mean that Zeekler only needed to earn twice that or $2152.48 per affiliate for the year?
From the 2011 IDS, I get a total US affiliate population of slightly less that 44,698. This is based on 15,318 US affilates listed in the IDS table that have at least some average income for the group/rank they are placed in, and statement in the notes that says “In 2011 65.73% of U.S. Affiliates received no income at all.”
Not possible to know from the IDS exactly how many fewer that 44,698 but has to be lower by some amount because there aree at least 5 affiliates in the table who made $0 in 2011 and they are among the 15,138 in the table…
If above estimate for number of US affiliates in 2011 is in the ballpark, how do we get to 1.2 million affiliates today?I know I am not accounting for non-US affiliates, but ???
How is Paul Burks’ claim that there are a dozen affiliates earning $1 million or more per month consistent with the 2011 IDS, where the highest US affiliate income for the entire year was $703,017?
I assume (perhaps incorrectly?) that the mighty dozen Burks refers to are included in the 2011 IDS numbers? Only other possibility is that these 12 are non-US affiliates?
Assuming that some of these 12 super-affiliates are US affiliates, why do you add the daily $400k per day estimate for these 12 to the $450k to $500k estimate you arrive at from the 2011 IDS?
As I understand your analysis you are doubling the estimated $58.5 million in income earned by US affiliates as per the 2011 IDS, since Zeek claims to pay out 1/2 of the income to affilates. Should not the same logic be used for the mighty Dozen? So taking Paul Burks statement at face value, Zeek should be making at least $800k per day just to pay these 12?
I am guessing I am missing something here because depending on which set of numbers I use (i.e. – Burks might dozen, 2011 IDS estimates, or various estimates placing recent affiliate population at as much as 1.2 million), I can support almost any theory.
Honestly trying to figure all this out – help from you and others who have dug in and already understand better than I would be greatly appreciated!!!
@internetinsider
There’s no way to answer that with any accuracy.
Who said anything about a breakdown?
“Is the majority of the commissions you pay out daily affiliate money or external retail revenue?”
“That information is proprietary.”
It includes “payouts” used to repurchase bids (according to an answer I got from MlmHelpDesk (Troy Dooly), when we discussed the 1099 tax forms for 2011).
1.2 million members is U.S. plus the rest of the world. But Zeek doesn’t count customers and affiliates like normal people do, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the number was much lower.
When it comes to number of members (or customers), we can usually divide the “official numbers” by a number between 2 and 10, to find the real number of members. 🙂
With 100% reinvestment, the VIP balance will be doubled each 100 day or so, if the daily percentage is 1.5%.
The top income earners also have huge downlines, and earn commissions from THEIR repurchases, 10% for first level downline, 5% for second level downline.
I’m not an affiliate, so someone else will probably give you a better answer here.
This occurred 5 months after the 2011 IDS was released. If you look at exponential growth charts, most of that $703,017 was earned in the later months of 2011.
Go into Excel and chart 1% daily compounded growth. You’ll see “the knee in the curve” begin around day 420. So fast forward to May 2012, those who have been compounded for over a year, combined with matrix commissions, and add in cascading level 1 and level 2 commissions from their downline, the exponential growth kicked in 2nd quarter of 2012 for the top affiliates. This coinciding with Zeek having banking problems, payment problems, and several other issues.
How sustainable is this when the next crop of top affiliates start reaching 7 figure point totals?
And the next crop after them?
Oh ok, so the 1.2 million is probably an estimate of “customers” (including the people affiliates give free bids away to, who may never buy anything)+ affiliates….that makes sense as I also read somewhere that the customer to affilate ratio for Zeekler is 25 to 1.
That gets me back to something resembling my estimate of the number of affilates in the 2011 IDS – 1.2 million divided by 25 is 48000
I understand the VIP balance math very well but sometimes forget how powerful it is at 100% repurchase and 1.5% or so daily earnings. I went back to my own modeling on this and you are right it is easy to get from the top IDS earner to $1MM per month earner, even without a considering the impact of a downline.
I tried a 20k VIP point balance at beginning of year, 100% repurchase and 1.5% daily earnings rate…this would produce over 759000 VIP Points of “earnings”. 6-7 months later with same repurchase and earnings rate assumption, you’ve got your $1 million per month earner…
I do understand this is also the “liability” that Zeekler has to meet with real earnings somewhere somehow, and hard to see how this could be the case today much less in the future as the liability continue to grow at its monstrous pace
1.2 million is affiliates, not customers, from what Zeek tells us. Zeek also published a 25:1 customer to affiliate ratio in their NMBJ article. Dooly said 100k affiliates had taken the compliance course in June.
The real number that matters is number of affiliates who are Silver subscription level or higher, as all the free affiliates who have joined for the bonus points and to earn a few dollars a day (think second/third world countries) are all screwed by the mandatory $29.95 annual video package.
If that is the case, I am back to the question of how on earth Zeek gets to 1.2 million affiliates worldwide now, from the 45000 or so US affiliates as per the 2011 IDS? Were non-US affiliates a huge number at time of 2011 IDS? I know I am missing that piece of the puzzle
Daryl Douglas on calls was advertising 150k members in late Jan, and 300k in Mar. If membership doubles every month they’d be at 1.2M in May.
Zeek is not transparent and even across different corporate calls you hear different numbers.
We do know that 100k affiliates have taken the compliance course as of a month ago. Even if you forget all the affiliate numbers and just take what Paul Burks revealed at a Red Carpet event a few months ago – that 12 affiliates are earning $1M/month – and that number probably higher now – just using that ONE data point alone, you can prove Zeek Rewards is a Ponzi.
At 1.5% daily, it takes 47 days only, not 100, to double the VIP points with 100% repurchase.
That 25:1 customer to affiliate ratio is nothing more than a hogwash. At 1.2 million affiliates, the ratio would give 30 million customers. Who in the world in his/her right mind believe zeek to have that many customers and not even have anything basic and fundamental, such as a decent web site, working properly to show for?
When someone has so many customers, why can’t it have a semblance of customer support?
In my previous post, I meant before points begin to expire. There would be a 381% growth at the end of first 90 days.
That only works during the first 90 days, then your actual daily rate is about 0.85% assuming 1.5% average, due to points expiration.
really! how?
wow ur almost as bad as internet insider. where does it say they were taking out cash at that rate? and even if they were they would be at zero vip by now.
Whether they are withdrawing or not is irrelevant. It has been publicly stated that the company does not use future money to pay out affiliates (Dooly and Zeek Rewards management), meaning they have to have the money, even if it’s re-invested in bids.
Furthermore the 1099’s filed for each of these million dollar a month affiliates would have to state their earned incomes, whether they withdrew the money or not – meaning when asked ZR would have to show that the retail side of the business was generating at least 6 million dollars a month (50%).
Anything less and they’re using affiliate money to pay out these amounts which is Ponzi.
Oh and then there’s the other bajillion affiliate’s daily ROI payouts too. Also keep in mind this was months ago, with daily compounding who knows how many million dollar affiliates exist today, and how large the point balances of the then million dollar affiliates are now.
AFTER the first 90 days, when points have started to retire. And not exactly 100 days, but close to it. I communicated the IDEA, not the math.
If you want to estimate the “income”, use the 100% per 47 days or 380% per 90 days, or any other formula you like where you can ignore the retired points.
Zeek’s numbers are heavily misleading in most cases, trying to make things look better than they are. That’s why I don’t believe in the number of members either.
Let’s also keep our eye on the core areas of criticism and not get distracted with analysis of the retail side itself. Even if the retail side generated some reasonable amount of profit, the question that has never been answered by Zeek is:
Why would a penny auction that generates millions in profits spend up to 50% of net revenue on useless advertising? Why not just use Commission Junction and have a standard affiliate program like every other legitimate penny auction.
When Zeek or Dooly talk about “unique bid auctions” they are acting as if Zeek has the same business model, risks, and cost structure as all the other penny auctions. Whether penny auctions are illegal lotteries or not is just ONE area of legal risk for Zeek.
The 800-lb gorilla in the room is NOT the penny auction. It’s the Ponzi, unregistered investment, pyramid, credit card factoring/wire fraud, and then a bevy of related problems such as insider trading and conflict of interest laws if this is deemed an unregistered security.
Most of the “payouts” are in POINTS, not in money. And there’s no liability connected to it.
The core in Zeek’s business model is a compounder for virtual currency, where POINTS can continue to grow forever. The points can then be used to calculate a huge part of the daily payout in real money, making the top affiliates earn much more money than the others.
A: Initial purchase.
Affiliate pay money IN, and get points in return. The money is used to pay old affiliates.
B: 3-6 months compounding.
A system where virtual points (from A) will grow 1.5% per day, plus a system where the point balance is being decreased each day after the first 90 days — with no money involved.
C: 80/20 plan after 3-6 months.
A system where payouts in points (from B) can be withdrawn as real money (coming in from A).
You can introduce additional points here, but I made it simple. “The compounder” (point B) is the true core of Zeek’s business model, where most of the money comes IN (under point A), and where the main motive for putting money in can be found.
AFAIK, it’s for ALL income paid to affiliate, ALL sources aggregated. There was no breakdown.
That would depend on what *is* the number of affiliates worldwide, but theoretically yes.
The quote came from a June Red Carpet Event, so they *could* have grew quite a bit in the months since. Indeed, that was the number cited by a “consultant” who sent a bogus takedown notice to my article host.
No matter how you slice it, there’s NO WAY Zeek could be generating enough revenue through the auctions to pay that much money to its affiliates. The money had to came from SOMEWHERE, and the most logical source is… from the affiliates.
Another thing to keep in mind… While the affiliates may be *paid* 1 million a month, most of them follow the 80/20 rule… plow 80% right back into ZR. Thus, actual pocketed pay is probably closer to 200K a month EACH, which is far closer to realm of possibility.
I know two affiliates who were personally at that RCE who said the same. Have also seen it repeated on various forums and an affiliate mailing list. The information never changed between all these sources: “12 affiliates are earning over $1M per month”.
They probably have an “affiliate compounder”, too. 🙂
And a “customer compounder”.
Otis you are right, it is almost certain that currently in aggregate only a small percentage of the daily earnings are being taken out in cash, and new cash coming in – which is combination of new affiliate money, auction revenue and other product sale revenues – is able to cover the requested cash withdrawals at this time.
Its just a question of how sustainable this is. The more dependent this business is on new affiliate money to meet cash withdrawals, the greater the danger that it will collapse quickly when new affiliate growth slows and/or people start requesting more of their daily earnings in cash.
Note that I do not need to label this a Ponzi scheme or scam to be concerned.
Yet you just described one.
I understand. my words a function of my innocent until proven guilty mentality. My wife considers this a serious personaility flaw 🙂
Doesnt mean I dont already have an opinion on the defendant.
Thats why I placed such an emphasis on the number of affilates. At 50,000 or so affiliates (which is what the IDS suggests) its less difficult to believe that the auction revenue and other hard dollar revenue may have been sufficient, during the timeframe of the IDS at least.
Of course even if you conclude that, these real hard dollar revenue sources will have to keep pace with the point balance growth over time, which even absent affiliate growth would be difficult at best to achieve.
I wonder,
when you see David Copperfield making an elephant vanish on TV, do you do you apply your “innocent until proven guilty” theory and speculate endlessly about how he could have actually made Jumbo disappear for real ??
Personally, common logic tells me it’s not about “how” he did it, it’s all about how cleverly he makes it “look like” he did it.
(For “disappearing elephant” substitute “magically appearing 1% and 2% ROI)
I’ll leave if you like. Is one not allowed to change their minds? This was so condescending coming from you.
You’re welcome to stay, just try to keep your emotions in check this time.
I hope the last few years have treated you well.
If all the compliance dressing has been done cleverly enough to fool the lawyers, those who get hurt when the tower topples will have no recourse.
I think a lot of Zeekers who sense this might be a house of cards hang alot of hope on this. They hope to be playing with house money when things deteriorate, and all the compliance adjustments give them comfort that its all perfectly legal so they will never be asked to repay their gains.
When I look at the 2011 IDS it seems to me that Zeek may be able to show that real hard $ revenue (from sources other than new affiliate bid purchases) may be enough to meet regulatory tests. IDS states “the average annual income for all Affilates worldwide in 2011 was $1076.24”
if there were only 50,000 or even 100,000 affiliates at that time. If you add up all the affiliates in the table and look at the notes which say that “65.73% of U.S. affiliates received no income at all”, this tells me that there were less than 45000 US affiliates. I dont know how many non-US affiliates there were, but I am sure you get my drift…
@Insider — the catch is, of course, they hedged the definition of “affiliates” to active affiliates.
The problem with “playing with house money” is, the house money came from somewhere… other affiliates. This is “gambling mentality”.
Yes, gambling / casino does resemble a Ponzi scheme, but it is far more heavily regulated with periodic audits and bazillion cameras overhead.
Playing with Zeek is like playing at an underground casino where you can be tossed out any time (without your winnings). The risk is far greater than players realized.
@Hax2TheMax,
Troy Dooly from mlmhelpdesk stated that you got the 50/50 split wrong.
Also interesting that on the Zeek support forums, no moderators or employees ever step in to clarify discussions around affiliate counts.
When people say Zeek has growing pains due to “millions of affiliates” or throw out numbers from 1, 2, to 3 million affiliates, none of the employees who should know the actual count corrects them.
They are willfully letting the echo chamber spiral out of control, for it builds buzz.
Is my logic sound on the IDS? table with numbers gets me to number of US active affiliates (15318) and note that says “65.73% of U.S. affiliates received no income at all” to extrapolate to total number of us affiliates (at most 44693)
I certainly appreciate and agree with that. Reason enough not to do it.
@Jimmy,Oz, Chang,
In response to Hax2TheMax’s post, it is possible that he might have got the 50/50 split wrong?
The number of affiliates in the U.S.was 15-16,000 at that time, from my own memory. The number of affiliates total was estimated to around 40-50,000, also from memory.
Another note:
We don’t use the rule “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law” here, because we analyse business models rather than laws. “Ponzi scheme” and “pyramid scheme” are general descriptions to make something identifiable, they are not exact definitions for a type of crime in the context where they are used here.
The basic function of this blog can be defined to be “sharing information”. The audience can be defined to be “normal people, without any specific profession” (and most of them are relatively “normal”. 🙂
It makes perfectly sense if you analyse it. A business model doesn’t suddenly become a Ponzi scheme after the final trial, it will usually be the same business model from start to end. And most people are able to separate a blog from a court, they will usually know the difference.
“Sharing information” makes sense, too. It means readers will contribute with information and viewpoints, “to fill out some details in the picture” or whatever, and entertain each other (so the publisher doesn’t have to follow up each and every comment personally).
So Zeek is clearly guilty as hell, from a blog viewpoint. 🙂
Recent posting on the NC AG Facebook page:
Hey!
I have started this ZeekRewards program more than 100 days ago. I wanted to try this out, but i wasn’t so naiv to deposit thousands of dollars into it. Just the amount i don’t care if i lose.
My first experiences were positive, but my recent discovers shocked me to be honest.
I actually won an “Apple iPod Shuffle” a few days ago in the “Zeekler.com” site with 12 bids only. This was a VIP auction. I was so happy, but then came the Truth.
The auction ended at $36.30 when i won. As you all know in order to have vip bids, you need to pay 1 dollar each. So i won this item with 12 bids, then Zeek wanted me to pay the price for it! To pay the $36.30! I was like oh my god, how the hell can it be that i needed money to bid, and i also have to pay after i won something.
I went to read the “how does bidding works” part, maybe i was wrong about the system.
This is the official:
What i lie that i can walk away with only the bids i payed for the bidding!
Of course when i wanted to write a support ticket about this issue error message appeared. I tried the Zeekrewards support center, but i already have there 6 ticket opened months ago.
then i tried the “zeekrewardsnews.com” comment, but my message was deleted.
Nice! They are keep telling us all the “bla-bla” about expanding, new staff, getting the things to work… and all we have are error messages, unanswered tickets and deleted posts. Grats Zeekler!
@jaden
50 is the max Zeek Rewards advertise. You could punch in less but that only creates a greater negative number at the end of the equation.
At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter due to the bid liability and expectation of a >100% ROI over 90 days on the price paid for every bid. That kills Zeekler’s profitability.
@Gendar:
I thought it was pretty obvious that you had to pay both for bids and for the price the auction ends at. I think all penny auctions work this way.
There are plenty of things wrong with Zeek, but the fact you misunderstood how the auctions work is not one of them.
Is it just me or did the NC AG remove their “wall” (where people could post publicly) from their Facebook page?
It was there 12 hours ago.
(Ozedit: you can still see it if you use a slightly different link (click Highlights and then “see posts by others“) but it’s not showing up on their main front page)
Brad received this reply in regards to the NC AG sharing information with the public:
I hope they don’t just send them useless crap about the launch of Zeebates.
Apparently they’re going to be using a credit card processor in Cypress now, for subsciptions lamdaec.com
Don’t recall seeing Cypress mentioned among the others.. Korea, Hong Kong, Costa Rica, etc..
The first thing counter that will be repeated, just as Dooly has already pointed out, is that an investigation by the AG could be a healthy process pending they “pass” their discovery.
I kind of remember Nixon saying much the same thing about the Ervin Committee, how’d that work out?
Yeah, but he didn’t explain what was wrong with it. So, I’d take *that* with a pinch of salt. 🙂
Also, the Zeek verbiage was changed over time. At first, they said “50% of the profit” was shared, then the language was changed to 50% revenue”, with the word “revenue” never actually defined.
So the defenders are free to twist the words into anything they *want* to.
The problem here is Zeekheads immediately twist the words Troy said (who “tries” to stay neutral YET encouraging) into “Troy is sure Zeek will pass” when he said no such thing.
I have. There’s also CCBILL out of Malta.
Hmmn, so we have a business advertised solely on HYIP ponzi forums offering 1% or 2% per DAY ROI, under investigation by an attorney general, using a payment processor with its’ website hosted in Malta and which itself is based in Cyprus.
Why would anyone doing “due diligence” NOT sell the farm and sign up ??
I just wanted to post a big thankyou to all who contributed in exposing zeek for what they clearly are. I’ve never had such fun reading the comments ( it’s like reading a great mystery novel, complete with heros an villains alike).
After reading just a few comments from one artical I was hooked started from the beginning and have just completed the last. I don’t celebrate other people’s failures, but wow what a fun read.
Greed must play a big part in a persons decision to become involved in such shady scheme. Greed did not drive me to investigate zeek but rather ego, when a co-worker attempted to recrute me and I rebuffed him with the reply “that’s a ponzi scheme” and I was told I’m a ignorant dumb a** and deserved to work the rest of my life.
This man has put in 10k and recruted several other co-workers much to my surprise. My hope is this scam comes to a close soon, and I’m dieing to read the next chapter.
Although if I can make 4 billion in 1800 days I can single handedly fix the national debt before I retire!
Thanks again. Polar
So they are asking for information?
And it pops up immediately after the post where I stated “The basic function of this blog can be defined to be ‘Sharing information'”? 🙂
Well, I’ll guess they don’t work in the weekend, so that leaves 2 days to prepare some information, in case anyone is interested.
Here’s some information that can be useful to them, a list of the different articles here (newest –> oldest):
The idea here is to offer an overview first, “here you can find some information”, before going into details. The dates, headlines and number of comments tells a story on its own, e.g. showing when Zeek got most of its momentum, or that it was only 2 days between the initial review and when people started to focus on the investment part of ZeekRewards.
The number of comments can also be “misleading” in some ways. They can reflect search-hits over several months (people coming in from internet), rather than how “interesting” the information in a thread is.
As a part of an overview, one article can be highlighted, “The origins of Zeek Rewards: A 125% ROI guaranteed”. It expands the timeframe to a point BEFORE the first review here.
I have none intention of sending any information right now, but the process of identifying information can act as “valuable training”.
@Polar – I’m here for the same reason. Keep us posted on your conversations with your co-worker as Zeek starts to unwind…those are my favorite stories of all.
Then ask your co-worker how many hours he/she needs to work to recoup their $10,000 and how you’ll be on vacation while they’re working off their losses…also very enjoyable!
Well, I thought I had heard it all and been called everything under the sun, until now that is. I have now been told:
There was more, but I think he didn’t like what I had to say about Zeek.
So did we.
… thought you had heard it all and been called everything under the sun. 🙂
Ah, the “you’re the 1%” conspiracy theorists.
Didn’t some TVI Express folks in South Africa insist any one against TVI Express must be against the poor black people lifting themselves out of poverty and promoting Apartheid?
Love all the info on this site. Recently cancelled my certified check I mailed two weeks ago as Zeek has been making news more so in the last week than the last two years – in an unrewarding way. Looks like the beginning of the end.
Just found this info thought I would share… posted 11 hours ago:
http://www2.journalnow.com/business/2012/aug/11/wsbiz01-business-briefs-ar-2510626/ (Ozedit: note that the article is a series of news snippets, the Zeek Rewards part is about halfway down the page)
Wondering when everyone is going to start jumping the Zeek Rewards ship… or if this is the first sign that the Zeek ship is sinking… I’m happy I pulled out of this when I had the chance. Not sure many will be so lucky.
mlmwatchdog, has picked up on the story.
http://www.mlmwatchdog.com/MLM_Watch_list.html
@KitKat
Interesting.
Wonder what’s going on there.
Clifton Jolley and Advent Communications operate out of Texas (warning, they’re website has an annoyingly long flash into you can’t skip) – adventcommunications.com/media.html
It appears Zeek Rewards can’t speak for itself anymore.
What happened to the:
– “millions of affiliates”
– 25:1 customer to affiliate ratio ?
Hmm… sounds to me like Zeek is letting affiliates run amok with whatever misinformation they want as long as it builds momentum.
Even on Zeek’s own support forum, not a single employee or moderator has ever corrected the perception that there are “1.2 million affiliates” or “millions of affiliates”.
Too bad none of the affiliates from the OFAC sanctioned countries that were banned can open a complaint in NC.
Good point, I didn’t pick up on that.
Best case scenario, 999,999 customers / 25 = 39,000 affiliates.
The numbers don’t add up (no pun intended).
More to the point though, how are hundreds of thousands of customers generating more revenue into the daily ROI then Zeek’s “millions” of affiliates?
I’d imagine membership fees alone dwarf any contribution hundreds of thousands of customers make (retail bid purchases).
In regard to the question about Zeek’s Charity Rex Worldwide, they are registered in Switzerland, but it is managed out of the Philippines.
I believe this is in part to the way they are funding the charity: Paying commissions on gift certificates for the charity. I think this is illegal in every state in the US.
It’s amazing what a little professional spin doctoring can do.
Other than Zeeks’ PR releases, what makes anyone think the “complaints” are solely to do with poor customer service ??
Zeeklers are pushing the line the NC Attorney Generals’ dept. has only received 8 “complaints” and 23 “enquiries”
Why would anyone automatically assume the “complaints” were to do with customer service and not along the lines of “I’d like to complain about the fact a multi million dollar ponzi is being allowed to operate in North Carolina”
Ditto with the 23 “enquiries”
Zeek has publicly claimed it is able to offer a return of 1 or 2% per day on multiple occasions.
Something that is impossible to do WITHOUT being a ponzi.
ONE “enquiry” pointing out that fact trumps 8 HUNDRED poor customer service complaints.
Maybe in HYIPponziland it works the other way, but not in the real world it doesn’t.
Clifton Jolley is a troubleshooter you call in when you have severe comm problems, but he’s a consultant nonetheless. He’s currently “chief editor” of MLM.com, and their first act for relaunch is counter-attack Harper’s investigation of Mary Kay.
Jolley was also hired by Nikken way back when. Before then, he was a writer for Deseret News (out of Utah, home of many MLMs) and had always been a MLM supporter/consultant (much like Laggos, but apparently without the conflicts of interest)
When did that start? 🙂 Or are they like “Wazzub Charities”… claim they’re a charity first, then register the charity after critics demand proof?
@Jimmy, Oz,Kchang,M_Norway,
I need your thought on the following made by Troy Dooly.
Troy still views Zeek using the lens of traditional MLM. Troy’s statements all make sense if you think of traditional product based MLM with an autoship. Troy’s statements make no sense when you think about the ever increasing VIP point balances.
Troy says “profit share is not guaranteed” but as Oz has pointed out, if the ROI was not > 100% (and likely needs to be significantly higher than 100%), no one would buy VIP bids in the first place.
Also, most of Troy’s regulator comments focus on court action against Pyramid compensation plans. He often ignores the Ponzi issues.
IMHO, most MLM advocates are completely ignorant on Ponzi schemes, though Troy did claim to know ASD somewhat, but didn’t say where he got his info. Laggos and Nehra both got lambasted during/after ASD trial for insisting ASD was NOT a Ponzi (and testifying / filing amicus brief to that effect).
As mentioned before, Troy tends to view any business with MLM elements as a pure MLM, even when it doesn’t really fit the mold. Note that he frequently referred to VIP points as “GV” group volume bonus pool when you are already paid a commission bad on bids purchased (not sold, but PURCHASED!) by your downline(s).
Though once I did get him to conceded that if the bonus pool is much larger than the actual commissions the comp plan is unfair. Didn’t quite manage to link it to Zeek though.
Using revenue from one MLM company to support another’s revenue is relatively meaningless, unless a solution like that is absolutely NEEDED to fix a serious problem it can’t fix on its own.
I don’t know which “other MLM company” they are talking about? RVG bought another MLM company just recently, and it’s a bad sign if that company was needed to support Zeek’s problems.
TAX DISCUSSION
Can someone give me a short update for the last 24 hours tax discussion? For some reason, I have problems loading the thread “Zeek Rewards admits business model is illegal”, where the discussion were active.
Any new conclusisions there? Any new facts?
From my viewpoint, the “Cash available” in the backoffice is partly NOT TAXABLE / NOT DEDUCTIBLE. This relates both to cash principle and accrual principle. It will also explain WHERE in the business model the Ponzi scheme is, and WHY it generates virtual revenue.
ZEEK’S INCOME STREAMS
Zeek’s REAL income streams are as follows:
A: Membership fees, other fees
B: Retail and VIP bids sold to fake and real customers
C: Auction revenue (probably a negative number)
D: Money coming in from affiliates buying sample bids
E: Possible income from generating customers?
F: FSC stores, Shopping Daisy, any other program?
G: Other income, e.g. advertising
In addition, they have a fake income stream H, comparable to “points”, “internal currency” or “monopoly money”:
H: “Cash available” used to pay for sample bids. Lately, it can also be used to pay for other stuff, but the tax issue we have discussed is for 2011.
THE PONZI SCHEME PART
If we ignore all other streams than D and H, the 2 streams related to purchase of sample bids, the process there will be like this:
A:
Money coming in, affiliate receives VIP points in return (through a process of buying sample bids, and give them away or use them). This is Zeek’s income stream D.
B:
Affiliate receives daily RPP as “Cash available”, reinvests daily RPP as “Cash available” each day, and grows the VIP balance and the daily payouts for 3-6 months — with no money involved. This is Zeek’s fake income stream H.
C:
Same as B, but here the affiliate has started to withdraw some of the daily RPP as cash. Zeek has to bring in some real money from internal funds to be able to pay out (funds = money from the real income streams). The fake income stream H is still active here from most affiliates.
There’s usually several months between A and C, making this become a Ponzi scheme where money comes in from newly recruited investors in A, and are paid out to old investors in C.
This is the core of Zeek’s business model, where most of the daily transactions are located. It’s also the core part of the tax issue.
WHY INCOME STREAM H IS FAKE?
“Cash available” in the backoffice can’t be transferred directly to a bank account, or be used directly as payment in other ways. It isn’t real money or “legal tender”.
It CAN be used to buy sample bids. So sample bids has a two-price system:
A: Affiliates can pay for them with real money, $1 per bid.
B: Affiliates can pay for them with “Cash available”, a non-monetary unit, some sort of “reward points” or “loyalty points” rather than money.
It should be very clear that there isn’t any MONEY coming in when people pay for sample bids with “Cash available”.
CONVERTED TO MONEY?
Zeek’s idea is that “Cash available” will be “converted” to money when someone uses it to pay for something, it will BECOME money in the process and can then be added to the daily revenue. This idea is absolutely bullshit.
If you sell something for monopoly money to 90% of the consumers, and for real money to 10%, your real revenue will only be the 10%. But Zeek is calculating the monopoly money too as part of their revenue, and it generates an enormous profit in monopoly money each day, in a closed system. 🙂
ADDING THE OTHER INCOME STREAMS AGAIN
A problem here is that Zeek has mixed both fake and real income streams in the “Cash available”, so some of the income will probably be taxable, anyway. But some of the “Cash available” should clearly NOT be taxable nor deductible.
I have separated the fake income stream from the real ones, to make things become clearer. Zeek’s income streams, not the affiliates’.
Just a few people questioning whether or not they can claim deductions on what they re-invest with Zeek. Also it being pointed out that ZR put all the money they pay out to an affiliate on their 1099, whether they re-invest or not so underreporting earnings is just going to increase the chances of an audit.
@jaden
I echo everyone else’s sentiments here.
The daily ROI/RPP is tied into Zeek Rewards and that matter is more retail revenue is being pumped into it than affiliate money.
This is obviously not currently the case and has never been since inception. The five or so people that use FSC and shopping daisy aren’t going to mitigate the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in affiliate money paid out as a daily ROI through the RPP.
When you consider how much of a daily ROI you get paid is directly tied into how much affiliates initially invest and continue to re-invest, there’s the problem.
Make up all the excuses you want, harp on about Rex Venture group’s future plans… none of the above changes.
I have been following these discussions with great interest as I have been approached to join but hesitated until I had enough info.
Still hesitating… One thing I don’t understand is how the auctions work. If people bid for the $10.00 item then in most auctions that would equate to about 15 bids. Don’t quite see why or how 1000 bids were placed.
Still trying to decide if I missed the boat with joining but I guess the answer is yes as to make a few dollars it probably would have been too late at the start of the year. Ah desperation does make fools of us all.
@Andy
Bids increase the price of the auction from $0.00, with each bid adding $0.01 to the price of the auction. If you place a bid (raising the price by $0.01) and you’re the last to bid (nobody places a bid after you), you win the auction but still have to pay the final price the auction ended at (plus shipping).
There’s 100 bids used every $1 the auction price raises (100 cents in a dollar), so that’s where 1000 comes from with $10.
At the end of the day it’s not really profit seeing as for each of those bids purchased Zeek Rewards has to pay out a >100% liability aginst the cost of the bids themselves (through the compensation plan).
@Oz
Thanks for that Oz. I think I was having a blond moment. Focused on the 0.65 cents rather than the ‘penny auction’.
Wish I had a crystal ball so I knew the answer to “to join or not to join”. Elsewhere an MLM was mentioned that went for 19 years before crashing and burning. That would give Zeek at least another approx. 17 years, which would be a persuader.
10 years would do me fine. Any future tellers out there with not so wild guesses as to long term prognosis for the venture?
Did it offer a return of 1% or 2% per day ??
If you run a little spreadsheet calculation on 1.5% daily growth, you will quickly see that a deposit of $1000 running for 10 years would be in the TRILLIONS of dollars even after accounting for 90 days point expiration, etc. This should suggest the finite nature of the “opportunity”.
Considering that there is a mathematical limit on this kind of exponential growth and many others are nearly 2 years ahead of you ( with millions of VIP points just waiting to cash out ), I think you would do about the same taking the money out of your wallet and setting it ablaze immediately.
At least that way, you will know you were not personally contributing to the loss of anyone else’s money by promoting a Ponzi scheme, just the loss of your own money….
@cashed out
Can you lend me a match as I don’t smoke.
The sad part is that most people consider these schemes precisely because they DON’T have any money and hope to change that. And unfortunately (hangs head in shame) I include myself in that category.
If you had money why would you even bother with what seems a complicated and frustrating way of making a few dollars. Can’t beat an honest 5 day a week job – if you can get one.
And the frustrating thing is when people brag about how much they make with so little effort that one can’t help thinking ‘that could be me’.
I have a number of friends who are affiliates and dangle the carrot in front of me. Strength to resist is definitely called for.
Personally, I’d recommend standing under the shower, ripping up your money and flushing it down the drain.
You’ll still lose your money, but, at least that way, you’ll come out clean.
I don’t know about that, because there’s no way to know the odds for making money through ZR as this point, so I’d say the better choice would be to blow it all off in a nice casino. That way you can tell what your odds are, you have some fun, and get free cocktails.
What most affiliates in Zeek are not thinking about is Black December. Should Zeek last long enough to make it to December, this will be the month that it will collapse.
Why Black December? It is called Black December because this is the time of the year people withdraw all the money they have been compounding to have a great Christmas.
Actually the cash withdrawals start right after Thanksgiving and peak about the 15th of December so they have plenty of time to use for Christmas.
Personally I don’t think they can last that long with the way things are going right now. Especially in light of the NC AG looking into Zeek, and of course we don’t know if the FTC or SEC, or both are looking into them as well.
No-one knows if there are any complaints with these agencies and how many they have received. This is the big unknown. The next 4-6 weeks are going to be critical to Zeek.
The more I learn the more difficult it is for me to believe they are not simply paying and/or accruing “daily earnings” primarily with new money coming in from new affiliates. Even if you believe it will go on for years and therefore you will be able to make money, remember it will be at the expense of others who lose money when things fall apart.
And if your conscious is not enough to dissuade you, know that if you do gain from this and the authorities shut it down as an illegal activity, you will in all likelihood be required to return any profits.
Uh no only the top players will have to return any profit the vast majority won’t have to give back a damn thing!
And no I’m not a zeek member, ASD didn’t touch anyone except for the top players and of course USA is not the only country in the world as much as they like to think they are. Good luck chasing everyone in Timbuktu lol
Sad, but true.
Wish they did more clawbacks on a wider range of ponzi players, but there are probably just too many of them.
@Dion
touche!
But you are right insider there will heavy be scrutiny and I’m sure they will at least make a meal of it to the best of their ability.
When this goes down it will be the Online version of Madoff hehe and Dawn and Burkes will be having a zeekful time in jail. I somehow don’t think they will be addressing inmates with their fake catch phrases “hello fine people”
Except for the losers i.e. those not in profit, of course.
They’ll have nothing to give back, so it certainly won’t be a problem for them.
You can indirectly calculate whether the odds are in your favour or disfavour, in the number of affiliates who have joined earlier than you. The later you join, the lower the odds will be.
An affiliate who have joined 6 months earlier than you will receive 5-6 times more payouts than you for the same amount of money invested. So the odds will be in his favour rather than your’s.
Affiliates with huge downlines will have better odds, because of the commissions that can be added to the payouts.
Affiliates who already have cashed out some money will clearly have better odds, compared to other affiliates with the same VIP balance. E.g. if you have withdrawn 90% of your initial investment, you’ll only have 10% of the way before you start to make profit. Affiliates about to start withdrawal will have 100% of the way.
And so on and so forth. A newcomer will have the odds heavily stacked against him mathematically. The math will NOT be perfect because of all the unknown variables, but that shouldn’t prevent people from calculating the odds.
You can also “calculate” negative signs versus positive ones, if you assign values to them in a point system.
Zeek already has major problems in the cash flow, and now it also affects affiliates with huge downlines. Zeek has only partially been able to pay the affiliates for the last 3 weeks or so, in the part where Zeek is expected to transfer money to the eWallets. They just don’t have enough cash to meet all withdrawals, and double VIP points was probably an attempt to fix that problem.
This will make for a great book or movie someday (soon?)
Given possible issues with:
1. Waiting for the next version of E-wallets “growing pains”
2. It takes at least a month to cash out anything sizable
3. Most people like to start shopping around Thanksgiving
It sounds more like Black October than Black December to me. Plus, the thinking person would beat the rush and cash out aggressively now, before everyone else starts cashing out.
A couple of us here often joke that it will be fun when we finally see all of this unfold in an episode of CNBC’s “American Greed”. This is tailor made for that series. They are probably already in pre-production as we speak.
I live near a small town in north central North Carolina and this thing has been running rampant there for several months. If you’re not a “believer” around there, you can easily feel like you’re in the minority. You’re treated to all the usual dismissive down-talking if you voice your concerns about the scheme.
We even have a couple of “high rollers” in the community who have set shop in a strip shopping center space, complete with a “training center” room, etc. to hold their meetings and do recruiting. It’s insane around here.
This thing can’t blow up soon enough.
Don’t buy into the crazy one trillion dollar and 10 year ponzi examples about people not withdrawing money for years and years. its just as likely that 1 million people join and purchase 10k sample bids each tomorrow as it is that people would not cash out for years and years.
truth is that most start with a few hundred bucks and cash out with a very small profit in about 6 months time. the skeptics here will be silenced when the 2012 ids comes out. (Ozedit: removed offtopic discussion).
Yes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the MLM/HYIP cultlike behavior like I’ve seen with Zeek. It’s as if Zeek is the great being which will deliver the true believers out of poverty and into the land of milk & honey.
Everyone I know who’s in it talks about it as “this thing which is going to make us all rich.” I, too, can’t wait for the bubble to burst.
Very rarely do the top players get prosecuted. Burnlounge is the only recent case that I can think of. Madoff’s various clawbacks are a significant exception, and mainly because the beneficiaries of Madoff are often already filthy rich.
On the other hand, Ponzi players often just migrate from one Ponzi to another, much like many of the ASD folks ended up at Zeek, or various TVI Express perps went on to join TVI clones, and other matrix schemes.
The fun part about Zeek is it actively ENCOURAGES such cult behavior, with Dawn’s “toilet paper” story and the official “no negativity” policy on boards and support forums.
But very often schemes *do* operate much like cults… cults of personality if it’s a single perp, or grouped around a local leader. There’s a TVI Express group called “TVI Ble$$ Group” in Asia. Yes, bless is spelled with dollar signs.
I’ll agree that it borders on “slippery slope” fallacy.
So it *is* an investment…
What makes the 2012 IDS different from the 2011 one? “It paid me” is not a valid argument.
Otis, I have not heard Zeek Affiliates talk about income with Zeek like the 2011 IDS shows.
For example, 65.73% of US Affiliates received no income at all and the average annual income worldwide was $1,076.24. From what Dawn has stated receiving income does not only mean money distributed from Zeek to an individual’s banking account, it also includes income being earned but not yet distributed.
Do you know of 2/3 of the affiliates earning $0 and the median annual income being $0? Who verifies the accuracy of the 2011 IDS statement anyways?
@Andy O,there was a Ponzi by the name of Winclub run by some Finnish guys which had a maximum membership of 10,000 and which ran for 4 years before it collapsed.
They gave returns of approx 30% per month,you could withdraw all the profits in one hit after 6 months and members made 10% of everything their directly signed up affiliates made.
Some guys were withdrawing 20,000 euros a month for years before it collapsed but the majority of people left most of their money in there ‘compounding’ in the belief that they would be seriously rich sometime down the line.
Thats what happens with Zeek – even more so due to the way you can only withdraw ‘available cash’rather than a big lump sum.
Zeek could run for years yet if they can keep the money coming in.
Maybe it’s the volume that creates this culture. The Israeli organization already has over 20k people, and they’re arranging Mediterranean cruises now, on top of their weekly meetings, lectures, pow wows and what nots.
They have quite the busy local forum, and of course you’ll get your thread locked if you express any doubts, for “spreading negative energy”.
@Jo Mama,cult like behaviour was another feature of Winclub,the guy who ran it was feted and attributed with almost mystical powers by the inner circle of members
This despite public meetings without a Zeek employee present is explicitly banned. Someone should report them to the Zeek Squad.
I’ve certainly entertained this idea, but figured RVG would rather keep the cash cow. Then again, might worth a try…my acquaintance has been able to get back their investment (through intense recruiting), so I’m in the clear.
Yes, I’m certain that the group in my area has been like a little “Diamond” mine for RVG, and they wouldn’t want to interfere with the mining activities while they are still producing.
Hi guys,
thanks for all the research you’ve been doing with ZR. I have been a ZR affiliate since February 2012.
I joined because a ‘friend’ told me it’s a legitimate company and he’s making $6000 per month and because it seemed plausible that there was a legitimate income made from bid auctions.
Reading through most of your often detailed analysis (which I would not have the wherewithall to come up with) convinced me to get out of ZR ASAP, to get at least the money back I put into it via bid purchases.
Maybe I can even recuperate the money I forked out for advertising the ‘opportunity’, as it looks like the system will run for quite a while longer with all the other gullible people supporting it.
This is just another knotch in my ass for being gullible myself and still not doing the due dilligence I promised myself after having been ripped off by a HYIP 2 years ago.
Seems it takes me a long time to learn to stop being stupid. Better now than never…
This is just sick! Why must people first lose money/life savings before it is stopped!
Many years ago my roommate lost $8mil in a Ponzi scheme, sad news 90% of that money was not his. It was not linked to an mlm concept but they had a minimum investment of $10 000 so he started creating packages to get more people involved.
They promised a 10% return per week, he got paid for about 6 months and then BANG money and friends gone!
The sad things about Ponzis and pyramids is that they fall between the cracks: those who are in don’t want it to end, those on the outside probably know someone who’s in, and the authorities are usually not proactive about it because those organizations are usually very well connected through political donations and personal relationship.
So there’s not much political capital to be gained chasing these people, and the only ones going to be active about it are probably concerned citizens or people screwed out of enough money.
Question to the folks that see Zeek being shut down. You list all the reason it will..
In what case if any do you see it being allowed to continue? In other words what is the best case for Zeek?
Examples like that works like a wakeup call for some people. They need to see the exaggerated example to see the point, you can’t just show them a normal example.
But some won’t see the point anyway, so they won’t believe in the example either. They won’t even check whether the example is true or not, but rather treat it as something “suspicious” they should avoid looking at. 🙂
So using exaggerated but true examples is a METHOD to wake up some people and make them use other parts of the brain, the logical parts. It works on some people, but it will fail on others.
I knew perfectly well what I was doing when I introduced that method on Troy Dooly’s website in a couple of comments. It didn’t come as a surprise to me when some people got “disturbed” by that method.
So it isn’t about beliefs, or whether you should believe in the axample or not. It’s about showing something from a different (but true) perspective. It can be compared to using a magnifying glass on some details, to see those details clearer. I simply offered people to take a look at the details through a magnifying glass.
The shock some people felt derived from themselves. Looking at the nature through a magnifying glass can obviously be a shocking experience.
And Troy was one of the “suspicious” ones. He seems to always relate something to a specific belief system, and he won’t check the details when it’s outside that system. And that is clearly a limitation in his work, for good and bad, depending on the viewpoint we see it from.
Hmmmmmm… Thoughts anyone?
http://zeekrewardsnews.com/2012/08/training-and-other-calls/
@Ryan
None of us knows anything about when Zeek will be shut down, or IF it will be shut down. We know about the major problem in the business model and where it’s most likely located. And we know that Zeek’s business model is unsustainable and probably illegal, but we do also know that it can be difficult to prove without a time consuming investigation.
Anyone who wants to speed up the process can follow this plan:
* provide YOUR set of factual information to NCDOJ’s office, something that points them in the right direction without being too complicated or too time consuming. Max 5-10 minutes to get an overview and to understand what you’re trying to tell them.
Here’s MY temporary list of information:
The links (my username) in those quotes will lead you to the other comments. I would have sent:
A:
A short overview over the different articles that can be found here on this website, 1-2 minutes to get an overview.
* link to the list of articles
* link to one of the articles, “The origin of Zeek Rewards”
The links are only meant as “IF you want to check this?”. Give people an option to decide whether they are interested or not, and don’t push too much information too early.
So the maximum amount of time meant to be used here is about 5 minutes, and then they will have to decide for themselves whether they want to spend more time or not.
B:
The detailed part of the post where I’m pointing out WHERE in the business model the major problem is, and WHY it is there. I would have replaced the first part of the post with a short statement = “This is copied from a tax discussion, but it points out in detail exactly where in the business model the suspected Ponzi scheme is”.
5 minutes to get an overview here.
C:
Some short info about this website.
“They are analysing business models, not laws. So ‘Ponzi scheme’, ‘pyramid scheme’, ‘investments’ and other expressions can mean something different than YOUR definitions.”
And that was that from me.
My first priority here was to NOT push too much information, only to make it available or tell them where to find it.
People who are trained will spend around 2 minutes reading it (to only get an overview), and then they can spend up to 8 minutes checking the details IF they are interested. And THEN they can decide whether or not they want to spend more time checking details.
My strategy here (in point B) was to point out the most major problem in ZeekRewards in details, to NOT make it become a case about a few complaints from consumers. I believe it’s the right time to face the real problems, the ones they have avoided to focus on most of the time.
From my viewpoint, it’s rather meaningless for Zeek to make this become a case about a few customer complaints. They should try to face the most serious complaints at the same time, “get all skeletons out of the closet as soon as possible”, don’t try to hide any skeletons for investigators to reveal later.
I have NO intentions sending that information within the first week. Providing that information was only meant as “training”. Other people may possibly feel some other information can be more valuable, or they may prefer other strategies.
Th most major problem is within the CORE of Zeek’s business model, so trying to fix it will probably make Zeek collapse — no new affiliates will join and put more money in.
They need to reduce the number of affiliates to a sustainable level. The growth in a business needs to be supported by customers, NOT by affiliates.
They need to freeze the points immediately. The growing VIP balances and the growing payouts are major problems.
Sample bids must be completely free, and not be dumped onto fake customers.
And then they need to focus on REAL customers.
But Zeek will collapse as it is with these methods, so they might as well continue with their own plans instead of following my plans.
I just new to zeekrewards and from Philippine, unfortunately i didn’t able to get much negative information about them on net except this forum and just hoping that it wont close untill i recover my all amount.
my question is to all the people who discussing zeek here” Would it be a wise decision to close zeekrewards to save hundreds or thousands of people who are going to join it and wanna investment with it, rather then closing the income of millions of people (as they claim they have millions of affiliates).
on one side authorities are trying to save thousands of people and other sides million of people will lose their money??? and if they close it people like me just entered in the system newly and some of the people put huge money as well, would there investment would be given back or they would just close it and let the people suffering????
justed posted over at Zeekrewardsnews.com
Well I’ve certainly already begun my 100% cash-out. I wonder what they’re planning for..an exit strategy?
@ Ryan, That everybody dose not go to jail!
@Ryan
Ignoring the fact it’s been run as a Ponzi for over a year and a half now, they’d have to completely get rid of the whole compounding investment points and daily ROI sheme and/or stop affiliates own purchases contributing points as well as membership fees.
Killing off the daily ROIs and investment points would pretty much kill the business though as it’s the only reason people join. That’s why the topic hasn’t been discussed.
@John
A ponzi scheme is never “too big to fail”, which is essentially what you’re suggesting.
RE. Zeek leaving affiliates in the dark with their latest blog post – No idea what their announcements are going to be but if I was an affiliate the complete lack of communication would be infuriating.
Timeline wise after last week’s events, stopping all contact from management with affiliates on top of the lack of customer support, I don’t imagine any announcements being good news.
Whether it’s the NC AG’s requests or something else, management are very much giving the impression that they’ve been scrambing over there in response to something, with everything else (including their affiliates’ needs) currently on hold.
Greed and desperation plays a part in a person deciding to get involved in such a scheme. The people that I know who are in ZeekRewards are either,
A) greedy because they have good paying jobs and money in the bank or are comfortably retired, but want easy money, or
B) desperate because they are unemployed or underemployed and see this as an easy way to make a ton of money in a short period of time, no experience necessary.
And those who are not so savvy or intelligent also fall victim to these types of schemes, which is quite sad.
I asked one of the affiliates, if this is so great wouldn’t it solve America’s unemployment problem? All someone needs is a computer and $100/month or enough people in their downline to pay commission so that you don’t even have to pay the $100/month subscription out of pocket (for Diamond affiliates).
My friends and relatives who are in this program are constantly checking their back office looking at their point balances and the ‘money they’re making’ which really doesn’t exist because they haven’t pocketed more than their initial investments (some have put in 10K) + monthly subscription fees + training fees.
They’ve taken cash out piecemeal and it’s not equivalent just yet, but boy do they get excited when it happens. I just don’t see how they cannot understand that the money they pay into ZeekRewards is basically being redistributed amongst themselves, with a little bit of profit from those tacky auctions and all of the fees that they pay thrown into the mix.
This program is so deceptive on so many levels it’s not even funny.
I actually visited the auction website a couple of times last week and they had absolutely nothing on there that I wanted to bid on. And this is coming from a self-proclaimed shopaholic who loves shopping online! If I didn’t even see anything worth my time and money, that’s saying a lot.
I’m sure I’m not the only one. Not to mention the website was visually unappealing.
At any rate, I truly enjoy visiting this blog and KSChang’s hubpage and reading all of the comments. It helps keep me sane when I’m surrounded by this madness every day!
This scheme is growing in Australia, pretty rapidly, I just find it hard to comprehend how stupid the average person is that signed up for Zeek, and how easily they are manipulated by the cheap sales pitch given that this scheme is actually legitimate.
I have been to a ‘seminar’ and it IS STILL sold as an investment, regardless of this so called ‘compliance course’ i keep reading about on here.
What I find the saddest, is it is this sort of scheme which leads people into brainwashing and pushing friends and family into it, for their own monetary gain. I just hope the Australia tax office (ATO) or Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) react fast than what the American Authorities seem to be.
That’s my 2 cents from Australia.
Zeek is NOT “the income of millions of people”. The ones making any significant amount of money is the few on the top with huge downlines, and the early joiners who already have grown their VIP balance. So it’s rather about “should the government protect the interests of the few top earners, or the interest of most other people, included the ones who haven’t joined Zeek?”.
The “Cash available” is only virtual currency, so most people earn much less than they believe they earn. You CAN withdraw it as cash, if enough people have put enough money IN when you try to withdraw it as cash. Usually this will mean “if they have recruited enough new affiliates in the last few weeks”.
The huge number of affiliates is a major problem, combined with the growing VIP balances and the growing payouts, so Zeek is deemed to collapse sooner or later with the current business model.
Try to ask about some SOLUTIONS instead? Something like “How can I reduce the risk?”. We won’t fall for the emotional stuff about “income source for millions of people”.
Well I think if I was going to join, I would want to join in Israel. I could certainly do with an all expenses paid Mediterranean cruise.
A couple different reasons:
1) Hands of justice moves slowly (often, investigation takes a whole year, then prosecution takes another year or two).
ASD case didn’t resolve until 2011 and the head Andy Bowdoin only plead guilty in May, even though it was shut down back in 2008. (It didn’t help when some ASD members, now Zeekheads, sued the Feds claiming “wrongful prosecution” and so on)
2) Ponzi schemes, when nobody complained, generates very little blip on law enforcement radar. Rod Cook, MLMWatchdog, said before that usually it takes like 20 complaints for AG’s office to act (such as demanding some documents). Apparently they made an exception for Zeek. 🙂
3) Ponzi schemes are by its nature, secretive. Bernie Madoff was well known for insisting that his name NOT appear ANYWHERE for all the money he allegedly “managed”. Others insisted on proprietary info, non-disclosure statements, and other attempts to learn more.
4) Sunken cost fallacy — Zeek affiliates who realized it’s probably a scam decided to stay in and hope to get their money back. Those who realized it won’t last will try to MAKE it last so they can get their own money… and not warn away anybody (except close family and friends).
This is typical pyramid scheme syndrome: I know I lost money, I’ll have to drag some other people in to make it back.
I just can’t imagine someone, at this point in time, still standing in front on room full of new prospects and giving the prospects the same old pitch for this thing with a straight face.
It’s like selling tickets to the Titanic AFTER it has struck the iceberg and telling the customers what a nice trip they are about to take. But truth is stranger than fiction.
I happened to ride by the local recruiting/training center and there looked to be a good crowd on hand for the Monday night “meeting”. Simply amazing.
This thing can’t blow up soon enough!!
You need to report them to Zeek. Here’s why: If you report them and they do take action it shuts down the massive recruiting. This means that Zeek loses a lot of new affiliates. If they don’t, then if the NC AG or the feds do take action, they can point to this situation where they were warned and did nothing to stop it, thus violating their own TOS.
Zeek loses either way, and there are less victims when this does crash and burn if the feds don’t act.
Anyone with two sense worth of common sense can tell that something is wrong with math, but how long you guys think they’ll be able to play this off?
So my question (if I was running zr) why not just drop the roi to 0% when this dog can’t run any more, that way you can preserve what $ is left an since there is no guarantee on the daily roi, that’s that. Granted that’s also the end of new affiliates and rz.
Or if zr were to drop the roi to something more manageable like .5% with the promise of “Insane %” coming in weeks to come couldn’t they stretch out there death sentence?
I’m trying to imagine what strategy zr management could come up with to keep this pig flying. I’m very interested to hear other thoughts on my “when pigs fly” strategy…. Or a better strategy to keep zr alive
Polar
Almost forgot….. Coworker has another coworker convinced to join; so he spent all day today trying his heart out to give away 10k but just couldn’t get the cyprus credit card processing to work…. He thinks there is computer issue on there end a will try again tomorrow.
I’ve tried like hell to stop him and that’s after I had to explain where zr claims the revenue comes from (zeekler, etc.) witch he didnt even understand. So what’s so weird to me is that he dosent even need the zeekler cover story to throw away 10k!
All he needs is a coworker to cheerlead “were gona be rich” and he’s prepared to jump right in with both feet! On top of that I’m in his ear saying “even Bill Gates couldn’t produce 4 billion in just under 5yrs and you think u can pull it off with with a daily spam?”. A fool an his money are soon parted
Polar
The moment you drop RPP anywhere below breakeven (which is about 1.08%) people will switch to 100% cashout as they know they can’t even breakeven and it’s time to go.
If they switch to zero, you’ll see LINES outside NC AG’s office AND the local FBI office.
Not weird at all. He convinced HIMSELF it will work.
Just the other day I read a story about how this old couple (80+ yrs) fell for the “friend in trouble in foreign city” scam. At first tried to get them to send money through one money sender (Not Western Union), except that place refuse to do it, citing “potential fraud”.
The scammer convinced them to go to Western Union, and the Western Union clerk warned them AGAIN, are you really really sure, because this is a common fraud. The couple was CONVINCED it was their friend, and his “lawyer” on the line. And they send like 2100 over.
It wasn’t until later that night, they realized they have been tricked, when that friend called them “I heard you’ve been looking for me?”
They convinced themselves. Same here.
Unlikely, though ACCC was “relatively” quick in suing the TVI Express folks and hit them with a court injunction. On the other hand, that one was a very OBVIOUS pyramid scheme (albeit not to the perps, according to their own testimony in court)
That argument has been tried by many Ponzi schemes, one of which was “Ad Surf Daily”, which bears some AMAZING resemblance to ZeekRewards. Leader, Andy Bowdoin, once told an affiliate, who suspected the whole thing’s a Ponzi, that he should not go to the authorities because if he did “a lot of good people could be hurt”.
The truth is VAST MAJORITY of people are NOT earning anything because they aspire to be cashing out 200K a MONTH like the “top dozen” people. (officially, they earn 1 million dollars a month) so they repurchase at 100% so they didn’t really earn ANYTHING. The only thing growing is their point balance, which is not money, but shares of income (or shares of profit, if you believe their story).
If the whole thing’s shut down, no money can leave the system, such as those being taken out by the top affiliates (200K a month, each!) The longer the delay, the less real money is in the bank, and more “victims” to process.
As comparison, Feds moved in on Ad Surf Daily quickly and froze its assets, over 55 million’s worth, but it took 3 years to return all of it. Most people got about 60-70% back.
Which brings me back to this TED video on self-deception:
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception.html
Watch it to the very end. That ending video is very funny, and very illustrative. They were mislead into forming the wrong opinion about their action, they believed (self-deceived) they are doing something pleasant, so imagine the surprise!
A correction to the ASD remission percentage. Those who filed a claim received 100% of their money back. The reason was not everyone who was a victim filed a claim.
Out of the entire membership, only around 11,000 filed a claim that was approved. However, if all had filed, your percentage figures would be pretty much spot on.
Very amusing…the stuff about Type I and Type II errors is interesting too. You know all the Zeekers will say all the critics are just seeing patterns where there none…just drink the Kool Aid Fine People, all is well….
Can you imagine what will happen if the NC AG gives them a relatively clean bill of health? Zeekheads will become unbearable and zeekmania will reach new heights…
Impossible you say? Well, lets suppose they ask the $64k question and ask for evidence that there is enough real non-affiliate revenue to support the RPP. Zeek whips out the trusty 2011 IDS and the numbers behind it, and shows that there were 70,000 afiliates wordwide who on average earned $1076.24 in 2011.
When you do that math it is not hard for me to imagine that the auctions and other sources of revenue had been around $200k per day.
Now I realize that my 70k number for worldwide affilates is at best a guess (but is at least based on the 45,000 or so US affiliates that you can derive from the IDS). And I also know that Zeek indicated that they only payout at most 1/2 of the daily profits or revenue or whatever.
But bottom line, if Zeek can show that there non-affiliate revenues more or less covered what the affiliates have earned, isnt it possible they would get just a slap on the wrist and a get out of jail free card?
I understand the core business issue. And since 21011 I know that there has been an affiliate explosion. The real non-affiliate revenue could hardly keep pace with this, but if they are just looking at audited numbers from 2011 it is not beyond my imagination that it would look marginally acceptable to authorities.
Thoughts? Would be happy to hear a logical argument as to why above is completely ridiculous 🙂
But the fact remains that you could rack up a trillion points in 10 years if you wanted to, which means the business model is unsustainable and probably a ponzi. It would be crazy to do so since the ponzi is likely to collapse long before 10 years have passed, but if Zeek really were a long-term thing then having a trillion points would be possible.
The numbers that have been discuss here by all mean makes sense, and base on previous experiences we all can say, we know how this will end, but in the meantime can anyone provide some link to the NC AG statements, or any research firm that can concluding or at least show reasonable doubt to the fact that these auctions are not making money.
Or better yet were never intended to make money but just as a cover up.
If Zeek completely overhauls their business model and made it a legitimate MLM, it could continue. However to do this, I’d say they’d have to:
1. Actually focus most of their time & energy into the penny auction site by improving the software, getting items people actually want to bid on, etc. Make it an auction site that people actually want to bid in.
2. Do away completely with the affiliate program. Or, if they insisted upon keeping it, make affiliates buy bids and then sell them at a profit to customers instead of just dumping bids into “customer” accounts which are just dummy accounts that don’t generate any revenue.
Of course this means that it actually becomes an MLM with actual work of getting customers and selling bids to them. In other words, it actually becomes an MLM job instead of a passive investment scheme.
3. Buy actual advertising in the form of web banners, TV or radio commercials, etc instead of claiming that the spam posted on classified ad websites actually brings in customers.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that Zeek will be profitable or most affiliates would abandon it in droves because it would no longer be the passive investment they bought into, but it would at least be compliant, especially if they didn’t rely on affiliate money to pay other affiliates.
The dramatic example using just one person is just a simple way to show, as Joe Mama said, that the business model is completely unsustainable.
In reality, you might have hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of members setting things up to make their points grow modestly.
Either way, every passing day creates more of a financial liability for the ponzi model.
OZ,or anyone, should or could affiliates sue or file in small claims court to get there money back from there sponsor ?
I believe leaders with big downlines had to know this was wrong but kept on signing the gulible up.
and the fact remains that it is equally possible for 1million new affiliates to join today and each purchase 10k sample bids and/or sell (not give) 100’s of millions of retail bids to retail customers.
i say sell, because i see u have proven once again how little u understand the model by suggesting that affiliates should have to sell retail bids when in fact, affiliates are already selling retail bids every single day.
yes affiliates also give away sample bids but that is in addition to the retail bids sold to retail customers every single day! did you not know this?!? oh wait, that would be more revenue u would have to include in your convoluted and irrelevant ponzi claims, now wouldn’t it!
Tripping Zeekbots †
lol! i didn’t realize affiliates paid money to their sponsor? I can see judge judy now, “looks like i picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!” but judge, mr wallace said…!
@Otis
Come now, it’s obvious if the retail side of things was as robust as you make it out to be, there’d be no need for Zeebates or a NC AG investigation.
The complete lack of retail sales (and thus contribution into the daily ROI paid out to affiliates) is what got Zeek Rewards into this mess in the first place. It’s also why, when you consider the mechanics of the RPP, Zeek is an obvious Ponzi.
No amount of rosy retail-orientated hypothetical scenarios changes that.
How much do you sell vs give away on average? what is it like for most affilates would you say?
when affiliates sell bids to retail customers that is real revenue even in the land of oz!
They bought ‘BIDS in order to make money, not use in the auction. If they used them in the auctions they where fools. The higher your points the more you make daily right ? With any luck the SEC will step in and deam those bids, shares. Just wishing.
Also, affiliates bought hundreds of customers to give bids to.I have heard a whole lot saying they never got a sinngle 1.00 commision from any of their customers from buying bids.
@Otis
Like I said, hypotheticals of what’s possible is all very well but if it’s not happening, it means nothing.
Quite obviously with the need for Zeebates to prop up retail sales and the NC AG’s investigation, it’s not happening (and hasn’t been since ZR launched in Jan 2011).
Phoney customers. Show me some numbers, show me the giant warehouse, show me the second new building they bought, show me something besides words, show me the hundreds of red carpet participants.
I saw a video of a red carpet event, looked like a whole 40 people in a retirement home, show me the 100 people answering phones. For the love of God, show me something !!
I have been asking questions about PAYING retail customers since January 2012, and from January to the end of July I was able to identify ONE real customer — spending $260 on 400 retail bids 5 months ago, before she became an affiliate herself.
A few new customers have popped up just recently, and here is one of them:
The customer spent $32.50 on a 50 bid pack.
* “Very infrequently”, said his sponsor.
* Some affiliates didn’t even believe him. They have NEVER experienced something like that, retail customers buying bid packs. 🙂
* It came as a complete surprise to Troy Dooly, too. 🙂
I particularily liked Troy Dooly’s response. “Retail customers? I’ll have to check it with the HQ”.
Some affiliates do actually have a few customers, but it’s very hard to find those affiliates. I have been hunting high and low for them for several months.
95% or more of the retail/VIP bids spent in auctions seems to be used by the affiliates themselves. That activity won’t generate any real profit for the affiliates as a group. It’s a “recycling” of money coming from within the system, withdrawn by the affiliate and then used to buy retail bids.
Affiliates don’t sell bids. Zeekler does. Affiliates get commission, but how much? Not even CLOSE to what they get from RPP.
Besides, you also get commission from your downline “repurchase” bids. Can you separate those out?
And your proof of this is what, exactly?
But the revenue proportion is at the very *heart* of Ponzi claim… If majority of revenue is from affiliates paying other affiliates, then it’s a Ponzi scheme.
So, can you prove that majority of revenue being shared is NOT derived from the affiliates themselves, but from real customers buying retail bids?
If not, why do you insist it’s NOT a Ponzi?
get it straight! when my retail customers buy bids on zeekler that means i have sold them retail bids! that is real revenue and i havent seen any of the ponzi police include any of that revenue in their ponzi models.
IMHO, and I emphasize that… best case is ZeekRewards gets shut down, and you’re left with a pure penny auction called Zeekler while they try to pivot into Zeebates.
I’ve always emphasized before that penny auction, while somewhat shady and dangerous to participants, is thus far legal. But ZeekRewards is like a giant tumor that sucks nutrient/profit from Zeekler while “growing” Zeekler at the same time.
There were plenty of penny auction sites before Zeekler. Zeekler’s ONLY distinguishing feature is the ZR program, and that made it a potential SCAM. Get rid of it, and you get rid of 95% of the problems… AND 95% of potential revenue.
Yes K Chang, I would agree with that (not sure how they’ll run Zeekler from jail).
If they don’t get shut down and the AG revamps their business model making them legit, zeek rewards will not be the incredible cash cow “investment” opportunity that it is now.
It will become a regular mlm that takes a lot of hard work to build, thus making it less attractive (being they are already the worse run company in mlm) which in turn will cause a mass exodus to the next easy money deal…such as Lyoness or some other ponzi.
I would like to see the evidence that affiliates are selling more bids to retail customers than they are “buying bids” by rolling points back into the system to build their point balances and dumping free bids into dummy accounts.
Perhaps you’re the only person outside of Zeek leadership who is privy to this information.
Right there is your ponzi. Unless you have those one million or more affiliates joining and pumping new money into ZR, nobody will be paid more than a red cent regardless of the gazillion VIP points affiliates have in the back office.
May be US government should just call Paul Burks and request him to allow the govt. to pump a few billion $$$ into ZR so the US would be able to pay its debt within the next few years. You know all federal employees would then be requested to put that spam ad somewhere in the far away galaxy as their one minute a day job?
I assume everyone would be delighted and singing the Glory to Lord Mr. Burks.
How about anyone with some credit card debts maxing out their plastic buying 10K bids, compounding by a mere 1.43% daily and be able to get rid of all the debt, including the mortgage, in a year or two? You know what we would just be able to solve this pesky housing crisis.
This would help Mr. President get reelected in a landslide. Or if he didn’t dare ask the Federal Reserve to pump in a few billions or if the Fed Reserve didn’t obey his orders, then Mr. Romney float the idea to American public and unseat the President with a little magic wand aka ZR. Brilliant.
Perhaps Otis, Jimmy, or some other Zeek Rewards member could clarify for Troy, me, and possibly others whether or not the bids that are given away actually have to be used or not to increase a members points.
Troy replied to me at his site in this comment… http://mlmhelpdesk.com/breaking-zeek-rewards-news-the-facts-behind-the-nc-doj-investigation-zeek-rewards-recording/#comment-61836
Troy said:
Do they have to be used or not?
Oh and Otis I notice you fail to refute the idea that it is indeed possible to rack up a trillion points over 10 years or how Zeek could possibly pay out that much if it’s legitimate.
Whether it’s a ponzi or legitimate, it’s not sustainable unless you have the world’s population spending more money than there is in the world on penny auctions.
Better lock yourself in that jail cell and sleep off your bender.
As a general idea, I don’t believe that idea is a good one, unless the sponsor is very close to the top, some sort of a “key player” who have had a central role in expanding the scam.
If the recruitment chain looks something like this:
A: Top earner, with 100,000 in downline
B: 20,000 in downline
C: 5,000 in downline
D: 2,000 in downline
E: 600 in downline
F: 200 in downline
G: 50 in downline
H: Newly recruited affiliate, without downline.
H will have to sue G, G will have to sue F, F will have to sue E, E will have to sue D, and so on and so forth. The idea looks rather meaningless as a general idea. If you want to sue your sponsor, you should have other reasons to sue him (other reasons than him being the person who recruited you).
People who joins schemes like this are usually very willing to join. If they want to blame anyone when the scheme collapses, they should blame themselves AND the organizers, including a few people close to the top.
They can’t blame ALL people close to the top either, there should usually be some other reasons involved — like a top earner sending out very misleading signals to be able to protect his own profit on the expense of your’s.
Got it, thanks. It just pisses me off knowing these guys lied and decieved people to make freakin money.
wallce…since affiliates dont pay their sponsors i dont think a judge will be interested in an affiliate asking their sponsor to pay them back.
kachang….when my retail customers buy bids that means i sold them bids and that is real revenue.
joe mama… i agree you could add up a bazillion points by never taking out any earnings and the likelihood of that is far less than the likelihood that 1 million affiliates will join today and collectively sell hundreds of millions of retail bids.
you guys are boring… im going back to sleep.
IMHO, no. You paid Zeek, not your “sponsor”.
Your sponsor may be guilty of “conspiracy” and fraud, but that’s more of a criminal matter than a civil matter, and much harder to prove than anything provable in small claims.
Even if one thinks that a hypothetical scenario of compounding for 10 years is unrealistic, that is just an example of a SINGLE person with $10k investment.
If you take the COLLECTIVE SUM of all investments, and account or those that run at 100% and those that drop down to 80/20 over time, you don’t need to compound for 10 years before unsustainability math kicks in.
In fact, ff you take 0.85% and graph that growth over a 1.5 year period, you can see “the knee in the curve” and where it starts going exponential.
This is why most Ponzi’s once they “hit momentum” are not sustainable beyond 18-24 months.
This is why I’m not comfortable with the ‘new’ MLM companies. I prefer the solids one with a minimum of 5 years, and preferably 10, because this is more than enough time to know if the company is real or scam.
Besides, 98% of all companies go bankrupt in their first 10 years.
The real question: why would NC AG’s office launch a CID in the first place?
It’s not because they received complaints. It’s a combination of the number of complaints, and the SERIOUSNESS of the complaints.
Did a dozen people complain about Amazon being a Ponzi scheme where you can put in thousands of dollars? No.
Thus, bogus comparison.
It’s NOT end of Zeek, nor is it “routine” as the Zeek defenders are implying.
It is serious, and it could get a lot MORE serious.
@Chris
No they don’t have to be used, points are given when the bids are dumped. With the owners of email adresses not even aware they’re being signed up till after it’s done, it wouldn’t work otherwise.
Bidify went a step further and suggested this was the case in their wording, turns out they were full of it and points were awarded upon giving the bids away too, rather than them being actually used.
I’d wager with all the dummy customer accounts created more given away bids expire then are even used in Zeekler auctions.
Otis, the retail customer issue is a big point of contention for the skeptics. Can you be honest and specific in your numbers? Are people calling you up and saying “Otis, I saw a George Foreman grill on zeekler that I must have, but I’m out of bids…I need to buy more from you!”
#1. How many retail bids have you sold (dollar’s and cents answer please).
#2. Exactly how many retail customers do you have buying bids to play on zeekler on a regular basis?
#3. Why would they buy bids from you when Zeek is one of the worst penny auctions on the web…they could get better deals from QuiBids?
#4. Liars go to hell, so please be honest.
#5. If you don’t answer the following questions specifically and honestly, then stop posting on this forum because you’re boring the rest of us.
(Ozedit: attempts to string the conversation along by continously putting forth “facts” that have been repeatedly challenged, whilst simultaenously choosing to ignore such challenges will be sent to the spam bin.
This is not a one-way discussion where you get to ignore everyone and just spout off unsupported facts and figures over and over again.)
So he basically dodged my questions…not surprising. Maybe he’ll stop wasting our time now.
@ K. Chang – Could you please post a couple of questions which if asked to an affiliate, will expose them and the Scheme. I think you have done so before, but I can’t find it.
PLease tell us how much real revenue to include based on your experience, relative to bids you give away?
To use Dawn’s hamburger analogy, where’s the beef? Nice idea to give away hamburgers to promote the hamburger joint; it however becomes a problem and a failed promotional strategy if most people dont like the burgers enough to come back to the burger shack and buy with their own money.
Of course, then their are also the folks who got a free burger but nobody bothered to tell them about it…not the best promotional strategy either
There’s a bunch of questions at the end of every section on my Hub about ZeekRewards.
so its ok for skeptics to omit retail bid sales to customers revenue numbers in their claims but its not ok for me to point that out?
@Otis
As has been explained countless times before, every retail bid attracts a >100% liability on the money paid for the bid through Zeek Rewards via 20% referral commissions and the 90 day ROI paid out.
Retail bids are not generating additional revenue for the company. They are a net loss after 90 days, the same as any other bid sold through Zeekler.
And you’re free to point anything out, repeated unsupported comments asserting that affiliates are selling “hundreds of millions of retail bids” and choosing to ignore people challenging this claim however, does not contribute anything to the discussion.
I think the reporting here is somewhat slanted. It’s not balanced properly. That said, I think this investigation by the AG spells the end of Zeek and it’s massive growth. I’ve seen it before when AGs step in.
And, to me, it’s mostly political grandstanding and THEFT of the people’s own money when AGs get involved. They tend to TAKE everyone’s money, lock it up, and then God knows what happens to it then. Don’t expect to see it again. I, personally, see the AGs as the bigger crooks oftentimes.
Think about it… over 1.7 million affiliates, and only EIGHT complaints! And he’s looking to start an investigation into this? I think the AG smells dollar signs and a notch in his belt.
This, to me, has more to do with politics and a mafia-like approach to business assets that can be confiscated by the state than consumer protection. But that’s just my opinion.
There could be merit to claims it’s a pyramid, but not a Ponzi… at least not by any definition I’ve seen. But, we’ll see. I just don’t trust the AG’s motivation one bit. I think it’s very likely GREED motivated, and not about serving the public.
I, personally, am getting out of Zeek now. I think it’s seen it’s about run its course. I’ll give it 1 year max now. Time to find another program. Was fun while it lasted.
Well in the case of the Ponzi scheme Ad Surf Daily, the money was returned. As I understand it though a lot of the Ponzi players were worried about their involvement in the Ponzi however and chose not to make a claim.
Other than stating they are concerned about Zeek Rewards business practices, I don’t recall the NC AG stating the number of complaints received is what prompted an investigation into Zeek Rewards.
By use of the words “business practices”, it’s clear they aren’t investigating affiliate complaints. And in any case, Zeek Rewards COO Greg Caldwell has stated all but one of these complaints has been resolved and revolved around refund issues.
Dismising a NC AG investigation based on the number of complaints issued isn’t the smartest of logic to apply to the announcement of an AG investigation.
Yes, yes it’s got nothing to do with running a Ponzi scheme for nearly 2 years. It’s all just a giant government conspiracy. Paul Burks is Jesus and Roy Cooper is the anti-christ.
Yawn.
Paying out a daily ROI primarily with new money invested by members and the continued re-investment by existing members?
Yeah, that doesn’t fit the definition of a Ponzi scheme at all.
Some interesting quotes from Troy over on his blog.
I still think he soft soaping the issues but at least he is being honest that the problem is (and always was) the RPP. And if the NC AG reviews the math, ZR is over. Maybe Paul and Andy can share a cell.
1.7 million affiliates now, and it was just 1.2 million yesterday….
Please, NO ONE knows how many affiliates zeek has. Zeekheads always whine about unsubstantiated info then throw it out with a made up affiliate total.
How many total paying affiliates? US affiliates? How many like skittles? M&Ms?
I quite like the implication that should the AG abolish the investment scheme side of the comp plan, that Rex Venture would be able to press ahead with Zeekler.
Yeah, like Zeekler is even a factor when affiliates decide whether or not they want to invest in bids or not. Without the implied guarantee of a >100% ROI on the money invested in bids paid back out over 90 days – the entire business is dead.
But it would truly amuse me if one day everyone found their VIP point total converted to bids. Go play the auctions !!! Remember, you never made an investment you were all buying bids, so here they are.
I will say Troy is doing a bit better job at being realistic at least in so far as he’s admitting that there ~might~ be something a little bit wrong with the RPP.
He does fall back on the old “it’s out of compliance affiliates who will get us in trouble” saw but he is acknowledging that there might be a problem with the system so I’ll give him props for taking that first little baby step into the light.
Well, I did just let Troy know that someone created a fake Zeekler account using a contact address of one of my domains and dumped 500 bids on me.
Troy is still under the impression that if the fake customers don’t use the free bids, the referring affiliate won’t get an increase in points.
Zeek Rewards affiliates scraping whois databases for email addresses? No doubt this is just one of the methods behind the “hey guys, I found a great way to get customers contact me for more info!” type posts I see popping up from time to time in various places.
In this case Oz, it’s not a whois scrape. My whois contact is a different address.
So someone is either scraping from sites or that email address was sold.
It’s not an email address I would normally use to sign up for newsletters.
If it’s visible on the internet then more than likely it was scraped. Either manually by an affiliate or automatically (ether by an affiliate or a third-party who then sold scraped email addresses as a list).
In any case, this whole signing up customers without their prior knowledge really just illustrates how much of a farce the whole customer acquisition side of things is over at Zeekler.
Oddly enough, a Google search didn’t bring it up anywhere.
I thought for sure that it was still out there somewhere.
I know it used to be on my site, so I’m certain that it is in some email harvesting databases.
Well with all these “Zeekler customers for sale” websites popping up and people slinging them over at places like Fivver, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were just using email lists purchased from harvesters.
At $2.50 on the upper end per supplied
email addresscustomer, 1000email addressescustomers sold to Zeek Rewards affiliates equates to $2500 (minus whatever the list cost in the first place).Now think about all those affiliates needing hundreds, if not thousands of
email addressescustomers to dump bids onto daily.Oh and it’s no co-incidence the same people are re-using lists to market customers for sale at all the other ‘we let you sign up customers without their prior knowledge too’ MLM penny auction sites.
Why use an email address on just one MLM penny auction when you could sell the same address to affiliates in two, three, four or more MLM penny auction companies?
Source?
Look at JBP: no complaints whatsoever, until people couldn’t get their money out.
Look at SpeakAsia: no complaints whatsoever, until people stopped getting paid.
Look at ASD: No complaints whatsoever, until the Feds stepped in and shut it down.
And what about Troy’s credibility when many “critics” have pointed out the glaring Ponzi and Pyramid issues and Troy has, at least publicly, spun it in favor of Zeek? Though his lawyer-like recommendation for Dawn “to take the 5th” on the ACES Radio interview is a clue that he’s known all along this is a Ponzi but still defends it.
Very odd, especially since Zeek along with ASD will drag MLM, a business model he has steadfastly defends and evangelizes, down to the scummy level of the “make money fast” bizop world.
Even if the company and execs survive criminal charges, when the VIP points are all devalued, you can expect to see class action lawsuits.
Zeek was running illegally long before the enacted changes, so even if they are in the clear as a business entity, their blatantly obvious illegal beginnings can be grounds for civil lawsuits to recover money from those who made a killing early off the illegal Ponzi.
I don’t think anyone disputes that Zeek was an illegal Ponzi AND investment at least until Aug 2011. The compliance changes did’t kick in until Dec/Jan 2012
Some affiliate “leaders” are re-selling genealogy reports from other MLM’s. Some have been contacted multiple times by different Zeek affiliates off these lists.
For my own MLM participation, I use different email addresses for each MLM so I have some reliable tracking along with some in my downline from other MLM’s.
Actual conversation over at MLMHelpdesk today:
/facepalm.
Haven’t we been pointing out to Troy for many months now how the 5cc and 3rd party customer creation services use odd user names, such as all Christian first names followed by 3 digits? And the fact that there is no email confirmation required and many affiliates have admitted to creating fake accounts (it’s easy to create 5-10 fake accounts to get started… that’s good for 5k to 10k VIP points)?
IM(very)HO, just more proof the “bids” will turn out to have been an illusion all along, just like “ad packs” were for Andy Bowdoin.
In classic magician fashion, while the Troy Doolys’ of the ‘net keep the discussion focused on the “MLM” aspect of Zeek Rewards the fraud is quietly ticking along out of sight and out of mind.
Dooly can call it what he likes, ANY percentage return A DAY, guaranteed or otherwise, is where the fraud is.
Dooly supporters had better hope and pray he hasn’t accepted any sort of remuneration for his “services”
If he has done, he has moved HIMSELF into an entirely different category of involvement.
The phrase “knew or ought to have known” springs to mind.
I’m so sick of dooly’s bs he is full of it. All he does is reply in some way that implies things “are not so bad” When you know full well this is a blatant lie/ponzi.
Seriously troy shut up or do some real investigative work your an embarrassment. If you want to redeem yourself maybe you should assist the NC AG and tell them everything PROPERLY right down to the nitty gritty not the classic zeek bs spin we are used to seeing.
I was just told the owner of Zeek bought a 50 million dollar MLM company to tie into revenue for the company. Anyone know the story to that?
Smoke and mirrors until official details are made public.
$50m mlm company??? Could that be “plan B” or something? Would be interesting to hear more on this, and where they’re going with it
The guy said the company said it at the the last RCW.
Yeah Zeek Rewards management tend to announce lots of things but until they deliver a solid announcement, best not to entertain them.
“We have just purchased a secret company that’s going to bring a bajllion dollars of retail revenue but we can’t tell you anything about it winkwinknudgenudge” isn’t exactly confidence inspiring.
Then there was the announcement about some massive 8 kajillion story warehouse the size of Texas a few months ago. Zeek management have been announcing things for a while now.
Quote from Troy,
Did Troy just admit that he the attorneys have all agreed there is not enough retail customers within the RPP?
If he did, then both he and Zeek are now stuck with the problem of how to become the only ponzi in the history of the planet to be able to successfully go “legit” after being a ponzi for more than 12 months.
He already admitted this when he didn’t allow Dawn to answer the question on the ACES Radio live interview.
The problem is in Troy’s analysis he doesn’t separate pyramid vs. Ponzi. The nature of the “ROI is not guaranteed” investment guarantee is that the Ponzi is VIP point balances have already passed the “knee in the curve” of exponential growth.
There is no way the retail revenue can catch-up to account for 51% of revenue.
Jimmy, where could I hear that interview on ACES Radio? Do you have a link?
https://behindmlm.com/companies/zeek-rewards/zeek-rewards-dodge-ponzi-concerns-on-aces-radio-live/
Of course, we all knew the implication of avoiding the question. But here he not only states it, but points to the fact he agrees with the law firms.
On Aces he says that the question cannot be answered due to compliance, and that the question could only be directed to the attorneys. Of course Dawn never managed to get that interview scheduled, and she early exited the interview when her cell phone apparently went flying out the convertible due to the flapping blanket cape.
This is hilarious with youtube video @MB
Very Witty!
Let us rejoice!
Whats the story with Mr Dooley? Months ago he was making you tube video’s being very critical of Zeek and the next second he is defending them, not only that he is sitting right next to Dawn and censoring what she comments on.
It’s clear to me this guy has been bought and paid for. Does anyone here even remotely think this guy is an indepandant 3rd party?
Looks like Doolys fallin apart over at MLM Helpdesk. Should be MLM Exuse desk.
if we want to guess at the collective vip point balance of all active affiliates and use that number to derive a potential and theoretical liability, would that not be the sum of day one plus day two minus the day one points retired etc with the daily theoretical liability continuing to decline as it hits zero on day 90?
e.g. if i have 1000 vip and take 100% of my daily rewards as cash, then after 90 days i would have zero vip right. on “day one”, Ii would get paid 15.00 and that would decrease daily right?
Not sure where you pulled that from but the liability I was talking about is much simpler than that.
The liability I was talking about is the implied ROI guarantee that if an affiliate pays $x for a bid (or a customer does, or an affiliate does through a dummy account etc.), then Zeek’s liability is >$x over 90 days. Over 90 days they have to pay out more to Zeek Rewards affiliate per bid then what was paid for the bid.
That’s precisely what destroys the ‘but nothing is guaranteed’ argument, because it’s an implied guarantee, without which nobody would participate and invest in Zeek Rewards.
This extends to every bid sold and is precisely what differentiates every MLM penny auction using the points investment scheme business model from Quibids (where they have no such liability).
This liability is also why claims of ‘but but but penny auctions are sooo profitable and ‘zomg Zeek just made eleventy billion dollars auctioning off a $2 walmart card’ are ridiculous. Fundamentally as long as ZR are paying out an expected >100% ROI on the money paid for every bid sold through Zeekler, Zeekler is not profitable and operates at a loss.
The only thing propping up the scheme is constant new investment from affiliates (new and existing) as well as re-investment from existing affiliates.
At the end of that 90 days, whatever you earnt it would be more than the price paid for 1000 vip bids (whatever was paid for them). If those bids were not all bought on the same day, then whatever expires expires after 90 days but point for point, over the 90 days each individual point is active affiliates still make more than the price paid for each individual bid that was converted into a point.
This is an implied guarantee that keeps those re-investing members in the game (they won’t stick around if they don’t earn enough money over 90 days to re-invest and grow their point balances).
Where does this “extra” ROI money come from over 90 days considering the pay out is more than was paid in bids? Affiliate money (membership fees, $10,000 initial investments, retail bid purchases through dummy customer accounts etc. etc.).
Why do you think they’re pushing the theoretical and unproven success of Zeebates so hard? And this MLM company with a bajillion retail customers nobody knows anything about (cmon people, MLM companies of significant size don’t just disappear or change ownership secretly overnight, if there’s a management/ownership change members talk).
So then please explain to me how Zeek isn’t a ponzi scheme or is a sustainable business model? If you can rack up more points than money in the entire world, it’s obvious that there’s no way Zeek could ever pay everyone off.
A few years ago when that moron out west was pitching that super phone and every MLMer in the country was hyperventilating over it, I called the NCAG office and asked about it. They told me they had received many calls about it.
The biggest issue was that they have very limited resources to check on MLM fraud. That really is the big issue. There are so many MLM companies and more popping up every day, therefore oversight is difficult.
I would assume that if this is the case, if they are looking into Zeek it must be some information of substance that has been brought to them.
Every time someone (usually the same losers over and over) tries to share an MLM with me the first question is this, “How can a person make a good income without recruiting and what is the product?” The answer is always 99% “No” because the revenue is almost always from recruiting, monthly membership fees and other crap.
MLM always smells like old fish.
If Troy wanted to be a real watchdog he would tell them this simple statement. “Zeek, if you would open your books and make public the percentage of revenue that comes from new money from affiliates vs. the bids purchased by retail customers, there would be no quesiton as to the credibility of the company”. But we all know they won’t.
Someone here posted a link to an auction where an Ipad was bought for $60 over retail. Everything about this program is veiled in deception and structured to be a Ponzi. But the faithful through blind faith show their true colors, “Lazy Greed”.
When I first got wind of this thing in my area, I went to the ZR website to see what was going on. I remember laughing at the layers of gibberish and nonsense you had to read through in the explanations of how the program (scheme) worked.
Heck, all that BS was a red flag right there. I mean bonus points, VIP points, RPP, 60 days, 90 days, “back office”?!?! Everyone having a “back office” was the one that really made me laugh. It was like children had put this thing together.
Here’s a quote from a recent post on their facebook page:
It’s funny how the believers who bought into (and espouse) how easy this thing is (“less than 5 minutes a day”, etc., etc.) actually end up putting up with endless aggravations, delays and obvious nonsense BS from the home office.
ZR doesn’t seem to have turned out to be so easy after all, yet they soldier on in pursuit of the unicorns and rainbows. Sad.
“…just drink the Kool Aid Fine People, all is well….” Come on Roy Cooper!! You’ve found the still. Time to set a few stick of dynamite and light the fuses! (a little North Carolina moonshine reference there).
Remember this very old joke? It’s the Zeek business model.
“A guy opens up a men’s clothing shop and he orders a bunch of shirts for $20.00 each. An employee asks him how much they will sell for and he tells the employee $18.00. The employee asks him how he plans to make a profit? The owner answers, “Volume”.
oz, im trying to illustrate a very simple real world example that i think is very typical. i start with 1000 and after 90 days i have zero vip and i made about 300 bucks profit. i believe its very reasonable to assume that at least half my profit came from external revenue.
@Otis
If those bids were all bought on the same day (day 1 you started your analysis), you’d earn roughly $1260-$1350) after 90 days.
If they weren’t then you’d already have made ~1.5% on the bids that expired (roughly $1.40-$1.50 per bid) as they’d have been active for 90 days till yes, after 90 days you’d have 0 bids.
Irrespective of this, my point is Zeek Rewards still would have paid you >$x over 90 days on each bid, where $x is the amount paid for each bid.
You can’t undertake a final 90 day analysis that has re-invested bids expiring during that 90 days as they’ve already earnt a partial >100% ROI on the price paid for them outside of the 90 days you are measuring.
I know you’re trying to only count the ROI offset by the initial investment but ($260-$350) your personal investment is irrelevant when analysing the business, you have to look at total monies going in and total monies going out ($1000 in, possibly less if we’re talking retail bids through dummy customer accounts, and $1260-$1350 out over 90 days).
Why do you have to look at total monies in and out? Because the $1000 you put in isn’t the $1000 you get out. Your invested $1000 pays out someone else’s ROI and the ROI you get is from investment money put in after you invested.
If nobody invested after you and injected new money into the sytem, Zeekler wouldn’t magically generate enough profits to pay you and everyone else owed their imlplied 90 day 126-135% ROI, you wouldn’t get paid and the Ponzi would go poof. The money put in to generate your 1000 bids (irrespective of the source) would be long gone.
Not because Zeekler wasn’t profitable, but precisely because no affiliates invested after you to keep the Ponzi rolling along (mechnically affiliate money is what makes up the bulk of the daily ROI paid out which is precisely the problem).
At the end of the day more money is going out than is coming in via Zeekler. 1000 bids is $260-$350 when purchased on the same day over 90 days (remember, I said >$x over 90 days, where $x is the price paid for the bids which is true), now imagine thousands of affiliates with bid balances well over 1000.
1000 bids in an isolated case is nowhere near accurately representative of what is going on in Zeek Rewards on a daily bonus with respect to money being shuffled around and you know it.
It’s a sustainability nightmare that is obviously only being kept afloat by new affiliate investment and re-investment by existing affiliates.
If there were 10 affiliates in Zeek Rewards with VIP point balances under 1,000, then an exact snapshot might reveal that there was enough retail activity through Zeekler to cover their ROI.
Even then, they’d still manage to surpass the retail revenue generated by Zeekler given enough time to re-invest meaning the bulk of their payout was simply their own money being repaid out them. If that makes no sense (Zeek Rewards can’t create more money then they’re putting in) it’s because it’s not possible, given the requirement of a Ponzi scheme to attract new investment money to survive.
On the larger scale that currently exists in Zeek Rewards, that ROI ceiling hasn’t been hit yet.
Zeekler’s retail revenue does not scale with the affiliate liabilities payable through Zeek Rewards via the point investment scheme, so let’s cut the crap using bullshit “what if only a handful of people had 1000 point balances” examples you claim are “typical” and quit pretending like it does.
Funny you should bring that up. I know how penny auctions work. I know they CAN be profitable, but you need a solid infrastructure (such as live chat, live voice etc.), along with a pristine, no-questions physical address and a fast order fulfillment reputation.
Not to mention a quality, bug-free and bot free (shill bidder) website.
To point, today I saw an auction for a ruby or diamond encrusted gold-plated sterling silver pendant go for well over $300 usd. The shady part of the auction was that the retail price was moving up WITH the bid price.
I have originally seen that same auction show a retail price of around $150. So when the bid price was $300.01, the retail price kept going up by $0.01 and would be showing $300.02, and keep increasing with the bids. There were at least 5 autobidders going.
It’s no secret there are WAY too many bids in the system now. On real penny auction sites, a television worth $5000 usd would probably get into the $100-$200+ usd closing price range for the winning bidder. The company still makes out like a bandit.
However on Zeekler’s auctions, the “winners” (if you want to call it that) look like they are paying about the same price for the item, if not more. If the item’s closing price is higher than the originally-posted retail price, then the software increments the retail price up by $0.01 for each bid.
Talk about a “bug fix” lol.
Oz, you do NOT how it is structure. You do NOT have the facts. How can you?, you are not sitting in the office with the legal team. That’s your opinion, you’re full of shit!
Let’s see where we are in another year or so.
Thanks Anonymous for the comments. I watched a Zeek bid a few days ago and it’s just like the others where you see the timer run down and someone else bids the penny and the 20 second (or whatever it is) cycle starts again.
A logical person would wonder why anyone with a partially functioning brain would spend a dollar for each bid at retail knowing that someone else will outbid them in under 20 seconds? Again, who will pis away a buck at a time like that? That’s the big lie.
I was told that there is an amazing amount of money generated by each bid sale. Let’s use the Ipad example. If it sold for $650 that means 650 x 100 penny bids at $1.00 each or $65,000. Is that right? Am I missing something?
How long would people at retail do this with such a low possibility of ever winning spending a dollar for each bid? The answer is they don’t and all this runs on new money coming in, therefore the Ponzi sceme.
What a pile of crap. Got to admit it’s pretty clever, devious but clever.
@Jack
With the exception of Ponzi lala-land, a legal team does not trump elementary school level mathematics.
And please, don’t try to dismiss basic mathematics as a mere “opinion”. When confronted with cold hard mathematical facts, the best you can do is ‘waaaaah, but we have a legal team!’? Get the fuck out of here.
I raise you you’re “full of shit” baseless claims with a NC AG’s office investigation. They aren’t investigating how much of a swell guy Paul Burks is champ.
…and send us a postcard from Ponzi lala-land sometime. How’s the weather?
A Zeek Affiliate wrote this on MLM Help Desk:
For those who think Zeek is a scam, then the window of opportunity to voice your concern to the NC AG is wide open.
Sharing all the “positive stories” in the world doesn’t change a business model.
Negative stories and the need to counter them isn’t the problem here, it’s the giant Ponzi elephant in the room that Zeek’s been feeding for over a year and a half.
Edit: Zeek’s compliance lawyers have just informed me that it’s not an elephant but rather a “giant grey mass with tusks and a trunk that likes to eat peanuts”. My sincerest apologies to elephants everywhere.
Which might be a valid point if Zeek was an MLM and all of the complaints were concerning poor service or late payments.
1) we have only Zeeks’ word there were only 8 complaints
2) There is no indication how many complaints were straight out warnings about a NC based ponzi fraud.
3) Consumer complaints would normally be handled by The Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s Office not by the AG himself.
For example, how many “you’ve got a multi million dollar fraud operating right under your noses” would trump 8 “lack of service” complaints in determining how fast the NC Attorney Generals’ dept. acted.
It is damaging to penny auctions especially, not that they’re anything pristine to begin with.
The way I see it is that there are too many bids in the system. So many affiliates have so many bids to use, and they’ve been told to use them now by the management. So away they go doing their new task to bid at penny auctions.
Thing is, so many of them have SO many bids that they put autobidders on products, not really caring if they win or lose because they have so many bids (and I don’t think it affects them cashing out they’re RPP? I’m confused on this.)
Anyways, I relate it to a “money sink” term used in MMORPG (online role playing) games. Many times in these old virtual economies the players amass huge sums of in-game wealth. Because of this rise, the market prices inflate.
The game publishers introduce “money sinks” in the game for the players to dump their cash (bids) into for in-game items (penny auction items.) This way it solves the in-game currency (bid) inflation problem, and for Zeek will make it look more like a real penny auction site that would attract customers other than affiliates want to play.
Just my opinion =)
If in your “real world example” the repurchase rate is set to 0% and the daily RPP rate is 1.5%, I agree with you that your profits would be about $300 (i get $350 without deduction any subscription or other fees), and under this set of assumptions you would have zero VIP points at the end of the 90 day period.
However, even if we accept for the moment that this is a “typical” real world example, I would still challenge your statement that “its very reasonable to assume that at least half my profit came from external revenue.”
How many $ of retail bid pack purchases have you received VIP point credits for over the last 90 days? 0 or maybe 1? Yeah I know there are “other” sources of retail revenue…
Of course the more serious objection is that this is not even close to being a typical real world example. Most affiliates set their repurchase rate to 100% for at least 90 days, and then reset to 80/20 at some later date.
Under this more typical set of assumptions, it is ludicrous to claim that non-affiliate retail revenue is anything more than a very small percentage of the daily RPP awards.
Like I told Otis, you can’t analyse it like that because the money used to generate the 1000 points is not the money you get back after 90 days. You get back newly invested money injected into the scheme.
Meanwhile the money used to generate your 1000 points has been paid out to other affiliates.
Your net profit is irrelevant when analysing the business’ money flow, you have to consider the flow of money within the context of the whole business. It’s not like Zeek take the money used to generate 1000 points, put it in a box and give it back to you after 90 days + “$300-$350 net profit”. They pay you out entirely new invested money over 90 days.
That money has to come from somewhere, and at the moment it ain’t retail money.
I’ll give you a better “real world” example.
When you see David Copperfield make an elephant disappear, do you spend days or weeks trying to explain how he did it, or do you accept the fact he didn’t actually make Jumbo vanish and, instead try and fathom how cleverly he MADE IT LOOK as if it had disappeared.
So it is for those who have spent more than 5 minutes watching fraud and fraudsters.
The successful fraudster is adept at making what he’s doing LOOK LIKE an MLM.
There’s no need to look further than 1% or 2% a day “ROI” before forgetting about an MLM references.
Anyone who’s been around the HYIP scene for any length of time long ago stopped looking for the Zeek MLM and began looking for how it’s being made to LOOK LIKE an MLM.
Believe me, the parallels between Zeek and ASD are frighteningly obvious.
Zeek’s compliance lawyers just called again. I’d like to reaffirm to everyone that elephants are not part of this discussion in any way, shape or form.
To any animal welfare regulators watching: I assure you all that there are no elephants being kept in rooms or being made to disappear by David Copperfield. We are strictly talking about large grey masses with tusks that like to eat peanuts.
@Oz
Just trying to lead the horse to water gently. I think once people see that its impossible under reasonable assumptions to believe the daily RPP awards can possibly be backed by sufficient real retail (non-affiliate) revenue, its easier to see that any “profits” are by definition coming from new affiliate money and therefore it is not a legitimate, ethical or sustainable business model.
Some people really understand it but just dont give a shit and hope to get out with a profit. But I am amazed when I talk to some people that they just dont understand how a Ponzi scheme works.
I actually had one Zeek Rewards affiliate try to convince me that it was impossible for the RPP daily award to be funded mostly with new affiliate money becuase “the amounts getting paid out to affilates who have been in it for a while are huge compared to the amounts the average new affiliate is putting in”. ARRRGGGG
Anyway, I do believe most folks in this either dont understand or dont want to think long enough to understand.
Well, I think I’ll send Daphney Little a quick email of my own.
does anyone know if its legal to use affiliate money to pay affiliates DOWNLINE from you?
No worries.
I’ve got Otis completely missing the point and suggesting that if the 1000 points expire, it’s somehow a 90 day rolling liability and that this somehow proves a fractional retail profit could cover the shrinking 90 day payout.
What he isn’t factoring in is if we’re talking about a rolling 90 day liability rather than a 1000 once off purchase, then you can’t just analyse the last 100% cashout 90 days.
Why? Because only the bids you bought the day before you started cashing out over 90 days will be measurable over the proceeding 90 days. The rest of the bids in that balance have already paid out a portion of their 90 day 1.4-1.5% ROI when the timer starts, so to speak.
Eg. bids bought 89 days from the last 90 days expire on day 1, analysing the last 90 days totally discounts the ROI they’ve paid out over the last 90 days.
The same is true of all the other bids that expire during the last 90 days. On paper if you just look at the last 90 days obviously it’ll look like Zeek Rewards haven’t paid out a full 1.5-1.4% over 90 days on them (because your only looking at the last 90 days you’re 100% cashing out!).
Thus trying to calculate a final liability on that last 90 days alone with any bids purchased before those 90 days is pointless.
That’s the way it is with Otis, you explain something to him and he counters with something completely irrelevant, or already discounted. I’m just sending the irrelevant replies to the spam bin now as it’s not worth explaining and re-explaining the same things over and over again to him.
@Otis
The mere use of the money isn’t the problem, it’s whether the money paid out to affiliates (whether they are upline or downline of any particular affiliate is irrelevant) is mostly affiliate money or retail money.
As it stands, as evidenced by the yet to be introduced Zeebates and alleged purchasing of some mystery MLM company, the NC AG launching an investigation and Zeek Rewards themselves refusing to clarify this point stating that the answer would put them out of compliance, it’s mostly affiliate money.
Damn,
I completely forgot to add the usual “no elephants were injured during the production of this analogy” disclaimer
i think its legal to use for downlines and that makes it extremely relevant, no?
Odds of SEC,IRS getting involved ??
@Otis
What you think is irrelevant when the fact of the matter is if the majority of money paid out to affiliates is affiliate money, you’ve got yourself a Ponzi scheme.
And before you start, whether you think Ponzi schemes are legal or not is also irrelevant.
OK Even some of RVG most inspiring inside supporters are admitting the comp plan and rpp will probably need tweaking or eliminated.
Lets say zeekler someday becomes compliant and this zee bates and mlm merger makes them a profit. How do you fix or reimburse a year and a half of non compliant issues, how is the affiliates money redistributed if something was deemed not legal how how how….. talk about a crazy audit investigation, that wont happen, or will it.
Can you please specify those external revenue sources you’re talking about?
* Retail customers buying bids?
* Sale through FSC stores?
* Money printing device connected to the “repurchase” button in your backoffice?
Here’s some other withdrawal plans with 100% withdrawal, just to test the effect of compunding:
100% withdrawal from day 1 is already calculated, $300 in profit to you and $150 in commissions to your upline.
100% withdrawal from day 91 will be around $1300 in profit to you and $570 in commissions to your upline.
100% withdrawal from day 181 will be around $3300 in profit to you and $1500 in commissions to your upline.
100% withdrawal from day 271 will be around $7000 in profit to you and $3000 in commissions to your upline.
If i was sitting on several thousand of rpp, I would have in the back of my mind that i hope i didnt convert too much of this to cash and spent on toys, perks or day to day expenses from the slim possibility of potential clawbacks.
Best case scenerio would be maybe the points could be used in a very diluted bid auction or the points now deemed worthless like when majority of affiliates gave them away to not real customers thru 3rd parties and called it a type of e-commerce.
If there is any justice the affiliate that knowingly marketed this as a coumpound type investment and the importance of accumulating rpp and not legit customers are seeing there beloved easy money hyip falling apart all around them.
Judging purely on recent history, I’d say SEC involvement in terms of securities violations is unlikely.
IM(very)HO, it’s far more likely while the shutdown will come via civil action, the criminal charges will involve fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.
The interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force which brought down AdSurf Daily was made up primarily of members of the US Secret Service, IRS and FBI.
It’s easy, everyone placing their one ad a day will make Penny Auctions the first Trillion Dollar industry. Even bigger than all of the gambling in Las Vegas!
Zeek Reward affiliates may have to roll up their sleeves and actually find real customers and funds to support zeebates and whatever mlm merger zeek does.
But lets be honest the profit share will be nothing like the original compounder-rpp of 1 percent plus per day or any roi of 90 days. Big changes coming how ever you look at it…..
I have recently registered three REAL retail “customers” to give free bids to. Zeek is not allowing the bids to be given away and the new customers don’t even show up on my list.
Also, Zeek is not running the company pool so my points are retiring and I cannot even manually give bids away to earn more points!
Is anyone else experiencing this?
My, my,
how short are HYIP players’ memories ??
Paying people for “Placing ads” is what got Andy Bowdoin locked up.
“Placing ads” is now officially a non event when it comes to avoiding fraud charges.
I heard a while back that Zeek was going to obtain & auction off foreclosed real estate in their auctions or something like that. I took it with a huge grain of salt. Who in their right mind would buy real estate on a penny auction website?
He may have set the stage for that already, as he had, in one of the previous comments, that he asked how many MLM companies are “not funded by self-consumption” in the first year or two.
I can’t locate the quote right now, but it was in response to one of my comments on his site.
When the 1-percent-a-day AdViewGlobal Ponzi scheme failed in 2009, the operators ultimately tried to hide behind “VIPs aren’t guaranteed.”
This was an extension of AdSurfDaily’s claim that “rebates aren’t guaranteed,” which the Feds ripped to shreds.
Naturally, the AVG troops were not thrilled. The same thing will happen if Zeek plays the “not guaranteed” card and members end up with no ROI. As was the case with AVG and ASD, the affiliates themselves will expose the wink-nod nature of the “program.”
I happen to believe that no judge at the state or federal level EVER will accept a “not guaranteed” argument. To do so is to create legal cover for Ponzi schemes and a license to steal.
Any huckster could start a 1-percent-a-day “program” and then pull it at any convenient/strategic time, citing the “not guaranteed” provision.
How would you like to be the judge who legalized Ponzi schemes and walk into the next Bar Association meeting with fellow members of the Bar buzzing and agape at your presence? Just ain’t gonna happen.
Along those lines, Ponzi schemes are per se fraud. They are insolvent by definition.
It is absurd that Zeek members apparently are thrilled the the company purportedly bought a warehouse and another MLM company. Any cash outflow to make those acquisitions only deepens the Ponzi. And if no cash traded hands with the purported acquisition of the new company, the investigators will be sure to ask why.
When ASD’s Andy Bowdoin plunked down $800,000 cash to buy office space for ASD it sure caught the attention of investigators.
And when Bowdoin talked about ASD’s purported 75 staff members, it sure caught the attention of investigators.
That’s just what happens when you’re at the helm of a program that suggests it pays 1 percent a day and two-tiered affiliate commissions totaling 15 percent on top of that.
The Secret Service filed a document under seal (originally) in February 2009 that laid out the whole charade.
HIGHLIGHTS:
“Bowdoin and the sponsor suggested that if Bowdoin and he did not ‘guarantee’ a particular return on investment amount, they could operate an auto-surf program without regulatory fear.
“Bowdoin and his sponsor knew that it was illegal to sell investment opportunities to thousands of individuals; thus, they were careful not to call participants ‘investors’ but rather referred to them as ‘members.’
“Moreover, [they] were careful not to call payments to ‘members’ ‘return on investments’; rather, they referred to the income program as a ‘rebate’ program . . .
“Although they were careful not to explicitly state that any income from ASD was guaranteed, both ASD founders intended that prospective members understood that they would receive better than market returns.
Bowdoin and his sponsor were paying the stated 150% return and knew that ASD members expected that return. Bowdoin and the sponsor had discussed the need to pay at least one percent a day to members for members to promote the program to others.”
Records strongly suggest that ASD collapsed in two previous iterations before Bowdoin got it “right,” which is not to say legal. By “right,” I mean that Bowdoin and his fellow thieves came up with a Ponzi plan that “worked” and turned ASD into a cash cow.
More highlights from the Secret Service document:
“Bowdoin and the North Carolina lawyer were using the claim about returning only ‘50% of each day’s revenue’ as a way to prolong the time it took to pay the returns – it did not change the fact that the returns were being funded by new members’ money.
“Moreover, Bowdoin did not pay 50% of each day’s revenue to his members, instead he and others at ASD managed the revenue figures to ensure that members were paid at least 1% of their ad package value each day, but not much more.
Bowdoin paid this amount to insure that the members would continue to invest in ASD themselves, and continue to recruit new members to join. Bowdoin and the North Carolina lawyer failed to disclose that they shared ownership of La Fuente Dinero and had been working to move operations offshore because they doubted ASD’s legality.”
PPBlog
And now we start tip-toeing out the exit. Quote by Troy:
Everyone knows that Zeek is the RPP. There is no significant compensation of any other kind, because know one can sell bids to that hokey website. RPP gone, daily easy money gone for simply paying $10 month to autopilot an “ad”
Why even bother pretending that without the Ponzi investment scheme there’d even be a Zeek Rewards?
“REST” of the compensation plan??? Search carefully below for the REST…
“Funded by self-consumption” is different than “funded by a ponzi model”. The self-consumption pyramid still requires you to recruit to earn. The Zeek ponzi model does not require recruiting, and until Jan 2012, even the Zeek corporate approved ads had “no recruiting” and “no sponsoring” required in them.
I tried to get Troy to recognize the difference in passive ROI ponzi model vs. pyramid self-consumption. Troy insisted that affiliates get paid “for their work” and that “ROI is not guaranteed”.
I stopped trying to convince him because he obviously has a completely different perspective.
@PPBlog
A couple of questions (actually only ONE):
* “Both ASD founders”? Andy Bowdoin and …?
* “North Carolina lawyer”?
* “Andy Bowdoin and his sponsor”?
I’m not very familiar with the ASD case, and I believed Andy Bowdoin was the head honcho there. But here it seems to have been another founder/sponsor, the North Carolina lawyer?
Is the other founder still out there, or was he prosecuted?
It looks like they have worked relatively closely together, too:
Hello M_Norway,
Bowdoin had a “silent partner” in ASD, according to the Secret Service.
That silent partner, according to the Secret Service, was his “sponsor” in the 12DailyPro Ponzi scheme, which the SEC smashed in 2006.
Robert Garner of Greensboro.
I have seen a report that a second N.C. lawyer was involved with Bowdoin. The second lawyer was disbarred after making a false statement to a federal agent in a real-estate investigation. For now, I am not going to identify the second lawyer.
Some background here:
http://www.patrickpretty.com/2011/06/11/prosecution-bombshells-asd-had-special-class-of-members-bowdoins-silent-partner-in-adsurfdaily-was-his-12dailypro-sponsor-north-carolina-lawyer-and-co-owner-of-lafuente-dinero-tol/
The “sponsor” reference is to his 12DailyPro sponsor and alleged silent partner. This individual has not yet been named in court files.
PPBlog
Whats goin on over Dooley’s place, all comments are gone.
Someone tinkering with the backend probably deleted or modified a line of code they weren’t supposed to. I wouldn’t imagine it’s anything major and will be remedied soon enough.
(Ozedit: Looks like Dooly’s added “intense debate”, a third party comments system to MLMHelpdesk. I imagine he’ll import the old comments at some point)
I guess he’s trying to recreate the feel of dial-up speed when accessing his site.
He’s gonna say “this stage that resembles a Ponzi scheme is just a temporary stage. This transition to requiring affiliates to find customers will fix that problem.”
Interesting article over at the Lexington Dispatch. They shed some light on the complaints with one guy complained because he bought bids and then watched the auction price go above retail, mistaking Zeekler’s horrendous bid inflation for Zeekler run bid bots.
The FTC don’t confirm or deny an investigation and there’s nothing new on the NC AG’s request for information.
http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20120816/NEWS/308169995?p=all&tc=pgall
200k customers isn’t 25:1
How many of those are affiliates buying bids as a “customer”?
Notice the use of “investment” semantics throughout the article.
How many affiliates are in Zeek?
The real figure or what Zeek is claiming ??
That is my impression too, based on a various set of discussions, covering areas like “common business logics”, “common sense”, “basic and simple mathematics” and lots of similar areas.
When affiliates celebrated the growth of affiliates in May / June, I pointed out that growth in a business needs to come from customers rather than affiliates, and that growth in affiliates is a negative sign if it isn’t supported by growth in the customer base (real customers, not fake ones).
He understood the logic, but he didn’t accept the idea. From his viewpoint, the growth in customers can come later — within 24-36 months from start of a business. Money coming in from affiliates can support the business in the first few stages.
It means we have completely different viewpoints in some key areas of business, e.g. for the conditions that is needed to make a business become sustainable.
So I should basically avoid certain areas if I want meaningful answers there. But it starts to become relatively meaningless when I have to avoid areas like the ones I mentioned (“common business understanding”, “common sense”, “simple math”). 🙂
Of course growth needs to come from customers. That’s the only way any legitimate business can keep growing. Of course, a ponzi keeps growing by having more investors (affiliates), no need for customers at all, really.
Which brings up something that’s been bugging me for a long time. There are only a set number of Zeekler retail customers pumping money into the system. And for the sake of argument, let’s say that 50% of the daily profits are being distributed among affiliates.
The problem that I have is that when new affiliates keep joining at a massive rate, shouldn’t the RPP drop? I mean, you’re only ever going to have a set amount of profit from auctions and bid purchases. So if your affiliate base grows and grows, how can you guarantee everyon 1.5% growth on their points balances?
Everyone is supposed to be sharing in the profits, so that number should drop as new affiliates join and start sharing.
For example, if I and two friends start a business and agree to share in the profits, we will be making X amount of money every day. If we decide to bring in a couple more friends, then we’ll get less of X in our daily share. If there were 100 of us sharing the profit, we’d each get a measly 1% of the daily profit.
Yet with Zeek, everyone keeps getting around 1.5% increase on their points daily regardless of how many other affiliates there are. I know they claim that each new affiliate’s daily ads bring in more and more retail customers, but in the real world we all know this isn’t going to happen.
This is the infinite growth problem. There will never be an increasing number of customers. Even major corporations have to lay off people every once in a while because profits go down, yet only in ponziland does it make sense that the more people you have sharing in the profits, the more profits there are to share.
The daily RPP rate is completely bogus. Yes it should adjust if it was actually based on something real. It never changes its pattern of 1.9% 4 days a week and 0.9% 3 days a week.
I do predict it will adjust to 0% sometime very soon.
Your general point is why this is a Ponzi no matter how you slice it and no matter how much actual retail revenue they may have today. There is no way they can grow the real revenue at the pace the VIP points accrue at with 1.5% ish daily rate.
Hey everybody, I just went to Zeekler and they are auctioning a Norelco PT-720 electric razor that is currently on Amazon for $39.95. The bidding just broke $100 on Zeekler.
Can anybody doubt for a second that this is a giant scam, Ponzi, investment fraud or whatever you want to name it? What a joke.
why would this ponzi put a cap on the number of affiliates they are going to let in? that doesnt make sense, but i have heard that is going to happen. the entire thing is crazy to me.
The Norelco is up to $106.
Mobiledge Laptop briefcase bid $69.47, retail $49.99
Body Scrubber bid $51, retail $39.99
Wireless keyboard bid over $80, retail $39.99
I’m sure this is all legitimate!!!!! Wow, sign me up before the keyboard hits $200.
yeah this happens every single day on this site
all it takes is $1.00 to bid and if you are the winner you may only have to pay one dollar ,not the total of the bids. itself
Wrong. You may have spent 1.00 in bids, you do have to pay the bid price when auction ends to get item.
What about the bots jacking the prices up? It seems this is an issue as well.
You have to pay the final bid price as well.
Unless, of course, you are taking the cash value in lieu of the item you “won”.
That’s also a bit of a shady practice IMO.
Um, no, you have to pay both the cost of the bids you purchase, and the final bid price itself. Someone on here not too long ago was complaining about this.
Even then, you have to send the money for the final auction price to Zeek before they will send you the cash value.
I was also wondering, does Zeekler have any kind of penalty for people who bid up auctions and then don’t claim the prize?
Where can I get one of those bots? Just out of curiousity…
On IRC you can get anything the budding fraudster needs from HYIP scripts to warbots
Somebody should screen shot this and submit it to the NC AG immediately. The investigation could be over in a few minutes :).
I mean how do you logically explain this kind of behavior in an auction? There are really only about 3 possibilities:
1. Bots or shill bidders running up the cost with no intention of paying for the item. The goal here is to burn up all of the other participants bids and raise the price of the items.
2. A few people put ABE on auto-pilot and did a freeroll on winning the item, but don’t care about the cost of the bids they may lose if the price runs up too high. Note, they wouldn’t do this unless they don’t value their bids at all.
3. Zeekler’s crack IT department has some buggy software again (more ‘growing pains’) running the auction price increase displays.
Anyone that thinks this is ‘normal’ for a penny auction – I challenge you to show me a Quibids auction for a retail item where the auction price got past 100% of retail value. It will never happen. As stated before, only an idiot would consider using Zeekler as a retail (non-affiliate) customer.
There’s a fourth possibility.
4) Zeek itself is running a penny auction script with inbuilt shill bot.
And, for anyone who doesn’t know what such a script does, this from a supplier of such a script:
I’d suspect this if I actually thought that Zeek sees their bids as actually being worth anything. If bids were actually being purchased by actual retail customers, you might be onto something. But I think it’s just affiliates purchasing bids and then trying to use them up in hopes of maybe winning a little money.
Remember, they already see the points for the purchased bids in their balance, so they think they’re already getting those bids for free. Might as well bid up some auctions.
I don’t think Zeek using a shill bot script is going to necessarily make their affiliates buy even more bids. From the looks of the auction site, I don’t think that Zeek really cares about it that much at all. It’s just the ruse to get people to invest.
Just to illustrate Zeek’s incompetence, right now there’s an auction for an “Amazon $200 Gift Card Via Email” with a picture of a gift card with “$75” marked on it.
Something I find strange: Right now there’s an auction for the Bourne Trilogy which has a retail price of $69.98, but a cash-out price of only $27.99.
Hehehe, thanks LRM 🙂
Just saw Red Carpet was cancelled????
Ain’t this exciting???? 🙂
What about the national Zeek convention in September I think it was? My father-in-law was planning on going to that.
There probably wasn’t enough carpet to cover all that they needed to cover. Must be an omen.
I really want to thank all of you guy’s for all the work you do on this site! Luv U! dog the bounty guy
Damn…I was going to make that prediction this morning but Zeek news beat me to it.
I see Zeek has warned that noone is to post a topic about the Red Carpet event being cancelled as it propagates negative assumptions. Well Duh!! Many people upset because airfare and hotels are nonrefundable and they are calling Zeek unprofessional.
I personally have no doubt this ship is sinking fast. I expect them to be done shortly, and that people will start withdrawing at 100% which will hasten the demise of this ponzie.
The Zeekheads keep making religious comments about keeping the faith and thanking Jesus for this opportunity and so on. Who will they thank when this pie-in-the-sky opportunity collapses?
I posted that same prediction on dooly’s site yesterday…
@Darrell…Zeek warning people not to post negative comments is almost communist in nature. Who the hell do they think they are? Freedom of speech, not in Zeek.
@Al…you beat me to it! I predicted an August demise…we on the same page there?
Here is the ZR warning.
@e Indeed we are!
I wonder how Zeek Heads and advocates are going to spin the red carpet cancellation into, “This is actually really great news for us!”
I had to laugh when I read some of the head stuck in the sand comments on ZR forum. People saying to “keep the faith” that maybe ZR had to cancel because they were busy working on upgrades to the site to keep up with the demand!!
Anything but facing the truth of what is coming down the road straight for them!
They had to cancel because they’re ramping up production on Zeek branded blanket capes for everyone.
hmm…no mention of the AG investigation on zeekrewardsnews or the cultist Fbook site.
I would ask about it but i’m sure the post would be deleted in milliseconds.
How is the support site coping with the investigation?
I’ve been posting some stuff there that would normally be considered negativity, but they don’t seem to be censuring as fast as usual… my posts have been up over 30 minutes so far..
People on ZR forum are wondering why Zeek office is closed today and why no training calls this week. Wonder when they clue up and start to put all the pieces together?
Well I’d have to say that something important would have had to happen to make them cancel one week before it was scheduled, not to mention that they’re giving absolutely no reason why it was cancelled, nor allowing any discussion about it.
I hope someone can explain this to me. Please correct me where I make incorrect assumptions.
Zeek claim they share the profits of their auctions on a 50/50 basis with their affiliates. The daily “profit share” has been a consistent 1.4%/1.5% for the last few months, I am not sure what it was when they started could also be the same.
We all know that the number of affiliates are growing fast everyday there must be more than 50 times more now than 12 months ago. Now here is my question, how on earth can the auctions keep up their profit growth % to that of the new affiliates being recruited?
Lets compare this to a company like Apple, lets say Apple decides to issue more shares (more affiliates) the profit the company make in $ will stay the same but the ROI % a shareholder (affiliate) will get will be less.
Same $ but more shareholders (affiliates) thus smaller % return. Unless the number of shareholders (affiliates) somehow increases the company’s profits, and how is that possible, by placing adds in no-man’s land?
The only conclusion you can make is that affiliates are being paid by new affiliates joining the Ponzi! Does this make any sense?
Once again, Zeek displays absolutely no common sense or forethought in handling issues.
Maybe that’s why Troy switched to Intense Debate. He’s hoping people won’t want to register to post so he has less of a flood of concerned affiliates posting at his Zeek/MLM Help Desk.
Makes perfect sense to me, Koos…
@Koos.. of course you’re right, I keep seeing affiliates saying Zeek has over one million and then 1.5 million and now over 2 million affiliates and they keep making the same 1.4% average on up to 50% of the auction profits. Of course this makes no sense to you or I, but to the Zeekheads it does.
The auctions are not keeping up with the growth of Zeek Rewards, if anyone in Zeek cared to pull out thier head and take a critical look they would see what you and I do.
The penalty for winners who don’t claim the prize is:
a. They are forced to participate in the next Red Carpet Event
b. They will have to meet the management there
c. They will have to listen to a 34 minute “leadership call” with Dawn and Chris.
Most winners will prefer to claim the prize and avoid penalties like that, even when it will cost them more than retail price.
@M_Norway…LOL, you’re usually so serious! Haven’t seen much of the comic side to you! 🙂
Anybody noticing over on Zeekler that the Bourne trilogy Blu-Ray set is going for over $163 for something that retails at $70.
like the guy on “the 5 heartbeats” said…”we shall see”…lol…cant wait to see how this turns out.
LOL, that would be pretty good reason not to try it.
The reason I asked is because I wonder how many affiliate pour bids into a fake customer account, then overuse these bids they see as worthless to try to win an auction, run the price up over what the product is worth, and then decide not to send money in to claim the prize/cash value because you wouldn’t get much in return.
Think about it, if you spent a bunch of bids to win a $100 auction and the bidding ended at $150, who in their right mind would send Zeek $150 to get $100 back? You might as well flush $50 down the toilet.
BTW, that Bourne Trilogy auction ended at $165.13, WAAAY over the value or cash back option. Also, the retail price seemed to have increased with the auction price.
Earlier it was at $69.98 until the bidding reached that level, then the retail price kept increasing with the bidding. Did they change their code to make it look like these finished auctions weren’t going far above the value of the product?
And who in their right mind would send in $165.13 to get this movie or the $27.99 cash out option?
Oops, my mistake, the auction is still going at this point (I didn’t have javascript enabled). It’s now at $167 and counting.
No way any serious retail customer would ever want to bid on that site.
Well there seems to a lot of “Zeekers” who are not in their right mind, maybe they would send in 165.13 to get back 27.99 in cash?
It is funny to watch them squirm right now, they are saying they are starting to freak out right now because ZR
won’t tell them anything! I saw it coming as did a lot of people here. It is no mystery what is going on.
Do legit penny auctions have a cash option that bidders can opt for?
Some of these people are just flat out stupid. I’m watching this documentary on Bernie Madoff. $65 Billion Ponzi. He was only paying steady returns of 1% a month, 12% a year.
These zeek morons really believe 1-2% a day returns!?
I don’t believe Quibids has that option.
@e…. yes if you really believe it is possible it will be possible, just keep Zeekin, and keep the faith!!
Critical thinking be damned!!
$177 now. For that price I could go out and buy all three movies at full retail several times over.
Looks like they’ve changed their cash out option to be quite a bit lower than the retail price of the product. I don’t know when they changed this, but it used to be you could cash out for the full retail price.
It must be a limited edition. Only one copy
I’ve watched this for q.u.ites some time, and have not invested in zeek, however, I do live in Lexington, nc and today the FBI shut the zeek building down…so I guess its hit the fan now.
Alright guys I just woke up and have had a brief moment to go through emails, comments and what not. I’m going to hold off doing a new writeup until more information is forthcoming.
So we’re all on the same page, here’s where we’re at:
-Management are not directly communicating with affiliates until further notice (outside of posting blog entries to ZRN)
-Red carpet event for next week has been inexplicably cancelled. Given the hype surrounding this event and Zeebates launch, there’s a strong indication this has something to do with the NC AG (I can’t confirm this with the NCAG at the present time, however I have sent them an email)
-Zeek Reward’s head office is closed, again with no explanation given. One email I received suggested the NCAG shut it down and “changed the locks”, however this is unconfirmed.
-Zeekler auctions are still running
-Zeek Rewards website is still running
-Troy Dooly is MIA, no new comments have been published to MLMHelpdesk since 5 hours ago. He might be on the road… or (?)
-Zeek Rewards are deleting nearly all comments published to their Facebook page, most of the comments I see published disappear within a few minutes once refresh is hit.
Stay tuned for updates.
@bubba
FBI? Somebody mentioned the NCAG shut it down.
Can anyone in North Carolina confirm with photos a government agency “shut down” ZR’s head office (and changed the locks?)
The Red Carpet Event for Wednesday has been canceled. I wonder why?
@Penny Lover
Because Zeek Rewards is a Ponzi scheme like we’ve been saying the last 6 months or longer.
This is all great reading as always and I appreciate the analysis of the regulars on here. It all makes total sense.
I feel so incredibly fortunate to have discovered this site when I did and I started cashing out a couple of months ago. At least I wont lose any money now.
For a giggle I sometimes look at the FB page for the “team” I was in. Over the last couple of days there have been 3 or 4 of them saying they have handed in their notice at work because they have replaced their income, whilst still furiously recruiting family and friends. I just pity these people now- so stupid!!
You may have missed one important point in the description:
“If the limit is met, an autobidder will win the auction”
My prediction would be the auction process turns out to have been as much smoke and mirrors as the rest.
Official statement from Zeek Rewards:
You heard it first here folks. The only problem with running a Ponzi scheme is expecting there to be no problems. In fact if you’re running a Ponzi scheme and don’t have any problems, that in itself is a problem.
So it’s still all the affiliate’s fault?
Of course it is. Ponzi schemes aren’t Ponzi schemes unless affiliates start using “investment terminology”.
Next up on Zeek News, why business models have nothing to do with defining what exactly it is a business does.
Is your dentist really a dentist? Does shopping at a supermarket alone qualify it to be a supermarket if they claim to be a funfair? And if you buy a Big Mac from Subway, does that make it a Burger King?
We’ll be right back after these announcements…
http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20120816/News/308169976/1005/news?p=all&tc=pgall
Here is a quote from the ZR forum from an affiliate that shows the type of thinking Zeekheads have.
This is the type of mentality that these people have, how does this even make any sense?? WOW! just WOW!!
I just submitted a ticket with STP to sort out getting funds out from zeek and it’s saying. Your ticket was submitted successfully. Present response time is 4 – 5 days. HOW USELESS is that.
Why do they make it so difficult to get money out? My Visa debit card was cancelled by my bank yesterday as they suspected fraud from someone trying to take money out of my account. This whole ZR experience has just been so negative from the beginning. They suck!
The only good thing is seeing your point grow but that just numbers on the screen to hype people up but when you really think about it, it’s not your money because you can’t just pull it all out at once.
Bloody Ponzi. Send them all to jail please…
Co-inciding with that Dispatch Report about employees exiting the back door with boxes, I’ve read that Zeek Rewards fired their employees at around 2:30pm today (unconfirmed).
I’m going to wait and see if a RPP ROI % is published today before going live with anything.
And somebody get Troy Dooly on the line…
Here’s a rhetorical question.
Is locking the doors with no reason given the actions of a legit business?
Not only that but they changed the locks.
Why would they need to change the locks assuming only their employees and management would have the keys to the office?
From that article posted by Al above.
The above link should be sent to help desk and spin that!! 🙂
Zeek members may blow up his comments section in panic.
I was with an MLM company almost a decade ago that got shut down in one day by the FTC for making medical claims. It was a 10-year old company that went from $10 million a year in sales to over $200 million in two years.
Blatant radio/online ads got the attention of the Feds. The owner had gotten two warning letters from the FTC which he had ignored as supposedly a company generally gets 3 warning letters before any action is taken.
There were no ongoing investigations by any Attorney Generals. Just a one-day shut down by the Feds! All assets were frozen… so no more product… no more checks…
The Feds had been at company tours and events all over the US in the previous year, secretly filming and audio taping, and this was all used as evidence in the hearings that followed. The company was fined several million dollars, reopened with a lot of restrictions which caused sales to plummet.
The two top earners were fined – one a million and the other- half a million. 3-4 years later, the company shut down for good as they could not pay their remaining fines.
I would not be the least bit surprised if the Feds are already involved in this- Zeek hasn’t been what you would call invisible! The NCAG investigation may just be a side effect.
Time will tell, and the time may be now according to what has just been posted.
It was a complaince issue. Those employees were running a ponzi scheme and needed to be terminated as a show of good will to the NC AG.
Serious question and I want to be clear to any ZR members that I am asking it as a hypothetical.
If ZR/RVG’s bank accounts were closed by regulatory action and again, hypothetically let’s say it happened this morning, when would the affiliates find out about it? This assumes that neither ZR/RVG nor Troy Dooly tells them.
They make one payout a week, right? And it’s supposed to be Monday I believe. But tens of thousands of these payments has been made late and some not at all. So again, if ZR’s banking was shut down, how long till we’d find out without being told?
I would imagine that if nobody got paid on Monday that the roar would be quite a bit louder than the usual late payment rumble.
The ewallets would respond to customer enquiries from affiliates advising Zeek Rewards have not deposited money into their accounts.
This has happened in the past (NxPay).
Is it just me or did the Zeekler site freeze?
From Zeekler.com
Wow, on any Zeek website all you see is: Zeek Rewards is currently unavailable. More information will be available shortly on this website.
Zeek Rewards is currently unavailable. More information will be available shortly on this website.
There is going to be some panic very soon by the Zeekers. This is getting very interesting!
I made a joke in June.
June 2012, to make that clear.
And one in January, as far as I remember.
So, actually it happens quite often. 🙂
I go to zeekler.com and the site is down.
Doesn’t anyone read previous comments. 🙂
Regarding Troy Dooly’s absence.
I couldn’t find the comment on his site, but I believe he said he was going somewhere or doing something that led him to make the change in the comment system before he left even though it was a bit of an inconvenience to visitors with all that is going on in Zeek.
Troy is lucky he’s upgrading his software, he’s going to have a megacrapload of comments from frightened zeeksters with no where else turn for answers. I wonder if anyone at RVG is returning his phone calls.
@Chris, yes I read previous comments, that’s why I went there to verify.
From the Zeek support forum:
“EMPLOYEE Iron-Maiden-Mod (Employee) less than a minute ago
Sites Are Down Temporarily
The Sites Are Down and Yes we know. We have been informed. There is no Need to panic or make assumptions dear affiliates. This has happened before, as many of you already know.
No Posts regarding this will be entertained. We will update you as soon as we get any latest information.
Thank you
The Support Team”
Actually, one found such a bot built INTO the auction platform itself. It was on PennyAuctionWatch website if you search for it. It was a real scandal.
All this negative energy is what starts these balls rolling. I never could understand why negative people can’t ever leave well enough alone. It saddens my heart.
Damn, now I can’t get to the 985 free bids that I have left on my real Zeekler account or the 502 bids left on the fake Zeekler account that some scumbag created without my permission.
What to do, what to do?
Maybe it wasn’t the Zeeksters that changed the locks…
Maybe it was AG’s office… But that’d be idle speculation. 😉
MLMHelpdesk just went down.
The bots on zeekler are simular to those on ebay. The inflamatory nature of this site is incredible. It seems that the desire of most of the comments is to inflame people into action and to attempt to cause a collapse in faith in the Zeek model.
The truth is the zeek model is powerful and as with all controversial concepts they go through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Happened to me a couple times…I think his site might be getting hammered.
Or it’s not liking his new comment system, lol.
Quick…where’s the next ponzi scheme we can goto? Wanna get a jump on it!
Mlmhelpdesk traffic just went up tremendously.
Muhahaha, it has begun, let it burn with all the scammy cultists.
Speaking of cultists, cant wait to see some posts here and everywhere. Fbook panic has begun…
That’s the very script described in my post.
My position all along has been Zeek is not a ponzi hiding behind a legitimate auction.
But, is, in fact a rigged auction designed to attract victims into the ponzi.
IOW, the script is designed to ensure the Zeek owned autobidder wins all or at least most of the auctions and makes it appear as if many of the items appear to go at much higher than retail prices, thus partially explaining the massive “profit share” daily ROI payments.
Your site will increase in traffic to Oz..Affiliates will be looking for answers since Troy’s site is full in capacity.
I wonder if Troy will state the this is simply SOP.
I have been doing my best to educate those zeekheads over on Facebook, they are still in denial! They think it will all be ok. They are wandering around like lost sheep in a fog, poor little zeekers! It can’t be over, it just can’t..
If the locks were changed it would depend on who made the change. It is commmon practice for law enforcemen to change the locks so employee’s and executives cannot get back in the cover of night to destroy documents or remove them.
I am not saying that is what has happened here, but only a possibility.
ASD all over again.
It’s not idle speculation, it was the FBI. Since I live in Lexington, a pretty small town, news like that travels incredibly fast. I really just hate it for everyone involved, as alot of people I know have invested in this. A good friend of mine was riding through town when he passed by the building and saw what was happening…
I think troy likes the tast of crow. This is not his first time!
No Mike.
Running a ponzi scam or something that looks like one is what gets the ball rolling.
“Negative” people have nothing to do with it.
Yes Mike, all of our negative energy summoned the NC AG and the FBI. Maybe you can override that with positive thoughts….maybe like a group drum circle or something to ward off the negative energy…put a positive crystal up your ass.
FTC has shut down zeek
Zeekrewardsnews.com is gone. The Facebook page is gone too.
oops wait ZRN is not gone. So it was the FBI ? Bubba ?
Yep Facebook page is gone, it was there and then it was gone. Poor Zekkers, now what will they do without being able to comfort each other!
I imagine things might be blowing on the ponzi boards too.
Zeekrewardsnews.com is back up for me…for now
Well ZRN is partially up but pics are gone and it looks funky. Probably in the process of taking it down also.
Mike, it makes you sad that more people might now be saved from losing their savings? Why would taking down an illegal ponzie sadden your heart? But cheer up, another ponzie like Zeek will be along soon so that should cheer you up!
@bubba, did you actually see the blue jackets with the yellow FBI in front of zeek building?
Zeekler Facebook page is gone. ZR FB is still there yet.
@Henry, no…the official ZR Facebook page is down. The one you’re seeing is probably a distributor group page.
Hey all, Oz just posted an updated article…let’s head over there for discussion.
Could someone supply Oz’s web site address?
Yep. Everything that is linked to Zeek.
@rich, you’re at Oz’s website.
Troy is doin a webninar with T Lamont. I am listening to T Lemont webinar with troy Doodle.
ok, let me know how it ends. Tomorrow maybe. Thanks..
9:45pm
He is not disclosing anything.All he knows is what we knowThey are playing it downSaying it is a civil investagation.
Of course. There is a whole lot of chatter at, behindmlm.com
Where is the webinar, and what is oz? lol
Dooley is saying it’s a ” Civil investigation, not ” Criminal “. What and how does he freakin know anything.
He doesn’t.
IM(very)HO, there’s probably an overlap between a civil (i.e. the NC attorney general) and criminal (i.e. the same/similar multi agency taskforce that took down ASD) cases happening (not coincidentally) at the minute
Does anyone really believe that the AG is going to investigate a company for customer service complaints?? The customer service may have been the spring board but it isn’t what the AG is looking at, they are going to go through Zeek with a fine tooth comb.
If they don;t have fantastic records of income for Zeekler to prove they can pay affiliates a whooping 1.5% per day or looked at on a 5 day week 360% per year then it is my opinion that zeekrewards is done…
Don;t get me wrong, I too like to believe I found the Golden Goose but so far the Golden Goose has always run out of eggs!
He still seems to be cheer leading than reporting the fact.
But I don’t understand.They had hired lawyers to help with compliance.(lol)
Should you ever be surprised that your pet snake bit you? After all, he is a snake!!!
Wow, I had lurked here for the past few months getting up to speed on the realities of this scam because the moron “believers” in my little hometown were driving me crazy. Then I posted a few comments this week, usually closing with “this thing can’t blow up soon enough”.
Zeekheads trashed people for being “negative” about the scheme and wanted people to be positive. Well, I “positively” wanted this thing to blow up as soon as possible. Now, it looks like my positive energy really works sometimes after all.
Roll that clip of the Hallelujah chorus!! I’m declaring it “”I told you so” Friday” tomorrow in my neck of the woods!!
If I am not mistaken Civil charges are usually brought forth first, If I recall Civil were first filed against ASD then Criminal against Andy.
– Zeekler.com is down
– Zeekrewards.com is down
Both with this message “Zeek Rewards is currently unavailable. More information will be available shortly on this website.”
The next indicators of a serious problem will be when the personal pages of Dawn and other Zeek employees go down, though I’m not too surprised their “amazing” legal team have not advised them to do so yet. If these facebook pages are removed I would start thinking possible criminal charges are involved.
Just my opinion.
If there is one thing I know for sure, it is that ZeekRewards is nog a ponzi. I’m one of there affiliate in holland for a cople of months now.
There are people who got fired by there company like me who invested al there hope and money in zeek and we have seen what Zeek did with it. We have made money out of it. So I think the GO will not find anything.
I predict this will happen 6 weeks ago, but my dear wife did’nt believe me, I am sorry that I was right… and the money we lost……
It’s not quite that straightforward.
Civil action is used first simply because it’s quicker, in that the fraud can be frozen on the spot and assetts seized, thus preventing further losses by the victims.
As well,, state Attorneys’ General cannot prefer criminal charges and use civil and administrative means to at least protect consumers in their own jurisdiction.
Having done that, the authorities can “take their time” so to speak making sure all the “i”s are dotted and the “t”s are crossed.
There was a HUGE change signalled in the AdSurf Daily case, in that the criminal prosecution was handled by the the “President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force” as part of the ongoing “Operation Broken Trust”
which is:
Goodness,
the vultures are circling already.
A poster named “Dale” posts a ref link to a site coincidentally owned by a guy named “Dale” offering the victims of a dubious online business the opportunity to participate in another dubious online business.
And Agent Gibbs says coincidences don’t exist….HUH !!
And how do you know this? Or you just believe it with all your heart, but not with evidence and logic?
Had a guy on my Hub thanking me for my coverage, then conveniently dropped an URL that invites all failed MLMers to bring their downlines over.
But the really hilarious stuff is on the Facebook comments page linking to the newspaper articles… Some are already offering “free platinum level member” to any existing Zeek members.
Patrick Pretty already called it “StepFordian”.
K. chang: I know this because I’ve seen people who all ready made profit out of Zeek, I’be seen bank acounts, I’ve seen there payments ect. and if it is a ponzi all those people should have known it was one.
If it is a ponzi zeek would not allow them to make profits. and I know they don’t know any thing about it. some of those people I know for years and are my friends and they would ever do this to a friend
Sure it would. Ponzis pay out as long as there’s new member money being invested.
When that stops… kaboom.
wel my team was after this month 19 people big with a total of 30k invested
And the victims of Madoff weren’t smart and “should have known it was [Ponzi]?” They were some of the biggest money managers around the world, a Royalty or two, very rich people (who really did earn their money), and so on.
Sorry, your logic is just not very convincing.
Sure it would… ever heard of “judas goat”? They’re the bait to draw you in. Except they don’t even know they’re bait. Ever watch the new Total Recall? The main character didn’t even know he’s being used (sorry, no spoiler here).
Who said anything about they know? Of course they don’t know it’s a Ponzi.
Now that zeekrewards has closed its office, is there possibility of continuing where they left.
It seems this is just a routine one that is made with all companies and that zeekrewards will be up and running after a week or so.
People Seriously? This thing is done. Ray Charles can see this is a Ponzi. I just hope that those of you that have money stuck in this thing pulled your original investment out.
Of course. There will be some new ponzi scheme disguised as an MLM where you invest- whoops! I mean “buy _____” and then do some quick, easy menial task by clicking on something online, and sit back and reap the rewards by watching your points balances grow.
It’ll probably last until August 2014 when it gets shut down. First was Ad Surf Daily, then Zeek, and then ________?
This is for Oz – what are the repercussions for Aussie affiliates? I recently joined ZR 2 months ago and signed up a few people. Do you have a chat forum for Aussie ZR affiliates?
@panda
Not sure, you’d be best to seek your own legal advice regarding the matter.
Sorry but for all of you Zeek haters out there, just know that any of us that have been with Zeek long enough (10 months or longer) know the truth…..
nowhere could we make the kind of money we were making with this company, this includes my entire downline of 300+. Zeek was responsible for putting many people back to work that had lost jobs, so just know for all of you that are calling this a “Ponzi” scheme, I got back TONS more than I ever put in & most people did.
Just know there are MORE of us than you, it’s just that most of us are still in mourning over this, most of you are just jealous and probably were not part of the right group or if you were, would probably be in total agreement with me…we are now among the unemployed, guess you’re happy over this, huh?
I hope you are part of that list that has to refund the money ( clawbacks ) for the ill-gotten gains you participated in. With a downline of 300+ you will probably get on the radar.
It is amazing that people like you can sleep at night, thinking it was no big deal ‘cuz I made money. The “Ponzi scheme” is that later affiliates were bilked by earlier ones. In other words, whoever profited from this thing is basically stealing money from those who joined later.