BTG180 to hit Robert Craddock with legal action
The BTGLegal website (“btglegal.com”) was anonymously registered on the 11th of December 2013.
In addition to providing visitors with an uncredited “definition of a Ponzi scheme”, the site paints a pretty bleak picture of the BTG180 MLM business opportunity.
If you have landed here due to broken promises, missed commission and the overall feeling of being taken, well you are not alone.
Most people join a program with high expectations and assume the company and management will act in a professional and honest manor, but when that does not happen, the normal tactic for the company, owner or both is to attack the very people that went to work sometimes 18 hours a day to help build the company.
All they ask is to receive the commissions they were promised and to not have a never changing set of conditions in which they can withdraw their monies earned.
As we move forward we will post the complaint, information we have learned and all documents associated with the ongoing action.
If the need arises we will work with law enforcement, state and federal regulators in any investigation they decide to conduct into the actions of person(s) associated with the BTG, BTG180, Liberty Freedom Network, Freedom Lifestyle and others connected with Mr. Jeffers
We appreciate your help and support as we move forward to correct the concerns now facing most of the people that were once and currently associated with the Bids that Gives program and BTG180.
Broken promises, missed commission payouts and the feeling of being taken? If the above is to be believed than things are sounding pretty dire over at BTG180.
For those not familiar with BTG180 (formerly Bids That Give), the company runs on the familiar MLM revenue-sharing penny auction business model.
BTG180 Affiliates invest in bids and via a point system, the company uses this money to pay out affiliate investors who have previously invested in bids.
Once affiliates stop investing new money into the scheme, the company runs out of money and can’t pay out affiliates.
In addition to the gloomy picture painted above, the BTGLegal website also urges BTG180 affiliates to ‘tell (their) story and post (their) experience in dealing with the BTG regime‘ on the BBB and Ripoff Report website.
Affiliates are also told to contact ‘ABC investigative reporter Matt Gutman‘.
If you would send him your story and how you were encouraged by Randy to purchase the business in a box package.
Go in detail how you were told it would pay you a daily income and, help kids at the same time. I would suspect this is a national story they would want to do.
The site also promises a weekly update every Monday at 8pm EST,
to let everyone know how we are doing and things we have learned.
We will have different people on explaining how they were misled by this company
Phone: 559-726-1300
Pin: 457659
Despite the first person prose used on the BTGLegal website, no information is provided as to who is behind the campaign.
Publishing an official response to what they label as “disparaging tactics” however, BTG180 out the creator of BTGLegal as none other than Robert Craddock.
That Robert Craddock?
Yup.
In a communication sent out to their affiliates, BTG180 write
Dear BTG Affiliates,
You may have received an email from a former consultant by the name of Robert Craddock.
BTG 180 hired Robert Craddock to perform a number of duties that he did not perform, as well as some other things that he did, that were only in his best interest, that created issues amongst a few of our affiliates. He also violated his fiduciary responsibility.
For this reason, we have separated ourselves from Mr Craddock. Mr Craddock has apparently decided that instead of doing what he was hired to do, after collecting money from BTG180, he wants to not only not perform as he said he would, but use some tactics that he has previously used with other companies to collect money and behave in a disparaging way.
We are in the process of taking all appropriate legal action to stop Mr Craddock from creating any further harm to any of you, your BTG180 business and BTG180 itself.
If you have received any correspondence from Mr Craddock or anyone else regarding this matter, please forward it to us as (email address removed).
BTG180’s entire focus is to fulfill our mission to become the largest supporter of underprivileged children in the world and provide a successful and sustainable business opportunity to millions of people around the world.
Thankyou,
Janet Contero Esquire
Exactly what BTG180 hired Craddock to do is unclear. Back in mid-October Craddock (right), through his now defunct ZTeamBiz website, vowed to bring back the Zeek Rewards Ponzi excitement by ‘featur(ing) some unique opportunities‘ on the site.
In late October Craddock narrowed down the opportunities to one,
The company I’m real excited about is one the owner has a 30 year plus history in this industry, has a huge personal wealth prior to starting this company, employed quality teams in legal, web design, operations and customer service that is top notch.
Referring to the above company having a “new compensation plan”, it is unlikely that Craddock was referring to BTG180. He did however single out one existing company, which would appear to fit the BTG180 profile published on his BTGLegal website:
There is one company that popped up that on the surface sounds like a great idea, captured everyone attention with the catchy videos, materials, and compensation plan.
This company duped many including myself and the ones left are like the kids still thinking Santa is going to come down the chimney on Christmas night.
Well if we just looked close enough we would have seen the owners have criminal records, a history of defrauding good people, a published corporate office that if you pull it up on Google earth it is nothing more than a private mail box store, and last and this is a big one, no one outside of a handful of people have even been to their office which measures close to 16 X 25 about 400 SQ. FT.
Now that would not be that big of a red flag as this is a startup and everyone on has to start somewhere, but the biggest flag is the number of people that have requested a refund and after months of stalling tactics the people are still waiting.
Ultimately Craddock’s plans to announce this new opportunity were thwarted though, with Craddock abruptly shutting down his ZTeamBiz website and redirecting visitors to the Zeek Rewards Receivership.
What the story there is we’re not entirely sure, but it seems that the Receiver wasn’t happy about Craddock offering to “help” ex-Zeek Rewards affiliates through use of the Zeek affiliate database. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Craddock’s offer of help was likely to be a ruse to pitch those who contacted him his new revenue-sharing opportunity.
What baffles me is BTG180’s mention of Craddock’s past ‘tactics he has previously used with other companies to collect money‘, indicating that they’ve obviously done their homework on him.
Yet they still went ahead and hired him as a consultant? And now they want to complain about it? Come on guys.
The past “tactics” BTG180 are referring to was Craddock running around promising to launch legal action against the SEC for shutting the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme down.
Under the guise of legal representation, Craddock convinced many Zeek Rewards affiliates to part with thousands of dollars. Ultimately though Craddock left everyone high and dry, offering up a legal template letter which affiliates had to pay hundreds of dollars to make use of (on top of what they’d already given Craddock).
Only Craddock’s twelve buddies, rumoured to be the top 12 Zeek Rewards affiliates by income (the “Craddock 12”), benefited from Craddock’s ZTeamBiz campaign.
The BTGLegal website doesn’t ask for any money, however with mention of a proposed “civil action” against BTG180, it appears Craddock is indeed putting up a repeat performance.
Underscoring this is Craddock’s assertion that BTG180 is a Ponzi scheme, by inclusion of the definition of a Ponzi scheme front and centre on the BTGLegal website.
This produces hilarious irony twofold. The first is that if BTG180 is a Ponzi scheme (and by all accounts having modelled itself on Zeek Rewards BTG180 is functioning as one), Craddock is admitting his participation in and association with yet another revenue-sharing Ponzi scheme.
The second is that Craddock, at least verbally and via his online campaigns, fought tooth and nail to plant the seed that the SEC and government were involved in some kind of conspiracy in the Zeek Rewards case.
This vitriol was being published as late as just a few weeks ago, with Craddock going to great lengths to erroneously make the case that Zeek Rewards wasn’t a Ponzi scheme.
This of course made Craddock’s sudden “please visit the Zeek Rewards Receiver website” announcement and cease of operations at ZTeamBiz all the more puzzling.
And now what, Craddock is going to use BTG180 being a Ponzi scheme to serve his own purposes?
One can only wonder that had Craddock been issued a refund or commissions (not sure if he is/was a BTG180 affiliate), what his stance on the BTG180 business model might be.
“Totally and absolutely not a Ponzi, until I can’t get my invested money back… Hey want to invest in my new revenue-sharing opportunity? It’s totally not a Ponzi scheme either”, would be my guess.
Stay tuned…
It’s interesting that Craddock is pulling a page from Joe Isaac’s notebook. Joe Isaacs, aka Skapegoat, is the guy who Craddock may have helped bust from FHTM, and named among “Internet Clowns” website.
Both worked for a company, then turn against the company and calling for investigation of the company as fraud. 😀
it’s clear He’s turned Judas, but is he also a goat, i.e. Judas Goat?
My theory here is Craddock got hired as part of special arrangement to bring Zeeksters into BTG. Craddock may have oversold his reach to the Zeek demographic.
If he was using Zeek database (which would be without permission) or just his own personal list from Zteambiz, the Receiver would have received complaints that Craddock was pimping another opportunity and that’s when the Receiver shut Craddock down.
Since Craddock could no longer pimp BTG to Zeeksters, he couldn’t fulfill his end of the bargain. BTG parted ways and Craddock now playing dirty pool.
Above is just a theory.
If you recall when Craddock tried taking down kschang’s hubpages, and then last year tried the same technique vs http://www.businessforhome.org/2012/09/zteambiz-ripping-off-former-zeek-affiliates/
The above is old news, but I hadn’t done a search for the email Craddock used in that letter. It’s a nice way to see Craddock’s muddy footprint, at least what Google has indexed.
It is highly amusing that Craddock keeps inserting himself into things and continues to operate as a “crusader for truth”, as long as he can make some money whilst crusading.
I hope sue him for all he has, including his idiotic website!
We can only hope that any pending litigation between BTG180 and Mr. Craddock will be resolved as quickly and as amicably as was Mr. Isaacs’ with FHTM.
Kidding aside the comparison may prove to be apt, while Joe lied about an incredible number of things, he wasn’t wrong about FHTM being an illegal scheme. Robert Craddock’s credibility may be problematic at best but perhaps it’s unwise to dismiss his warnings about BTG out of turn.
More than anything this is just a very strange career move for Robert. He greased his own skids out of the “consulting for legitimate MLM” world when he denounced and accused Kevin Thompson and Troy Dooly, using it as a sales pitch for ZTeamBiz.
Now he’s getting into some manner of pissing match with a “program admin” that may well result in having he and that owner exchanging accusations of impropriety in court of law. That can’t make it easier for him to market his services to the next scheme operator.
I don’t trust neither of them..Craddock or Bidsthatgive. Both shady.
He’s asking for money now. add /registration/ to the end of the website link to see for yourselves.
Repeat performance indeed.
Gentle word of warning to BTG180 members everywhere, Do Not give Robert Craddock so much as one thin dime for his current legal effort before you talk to the people who donated money to Him ostensibly for his last legal effort. They got nothing in exchange for their money and he got their money.
I AM SORRY BUT I JUST HAVE TO SAY – STAY AWAY FROM THE CREEPY CRADDOCK – IT’S WORSE THAN THE WINTER CRUDD.
I don’t think this is a fair comment. Those who contributed to Craddock’s legal fund got pretty much what they paid for, and individually it cost them next to nothing.
Craddock did hire a law firm and that law firm did make the arguments that the contributors wanted and expected. There is no proof that I have seen that Craddock dipped into the legal fund for his own personal use.
I’m digging into the mental archives here, but I vaguely remember something about some who paid up complaining about a Craddock coming across a new plane engine or some such.
Well perhaps, but then how reliable is such a report to begin with.
Not that Craddock ever gave an accounting of what happened to all the money given for the Zeek cause…
No he didn’t but that is not proof that he absconded with it.
Additionally, lest we forget, the legal battle is not over for the net winner contributors and the Fun Club lawyers (the Alexander law firm) are familiar with the case. They could easily have funds on deposit.
Presumably nearly every net winner is now a putative member of a class. Thus, Craddock’s Fun Club contributors constitute a similarly situated group of defendants that may, and probably should, continue to jointly engage prior counsel.
Bell has certainly suggested that groups form up for joint representation, so some adversarial proceedings might be expected.
The Fun Clubbers have not been successful thus far but considering the stakes its unlikely they have given up or have no ability to continue to raise funds….. which is not to say that I think they will ultimately prevail but only that they have their own opinions on the matter, have not settled and have funds at their disposal with which to contest the class formation and clawback actions.