Vantage Payments and owner Dustin Sparman have prevailed against a former TelexFree class-action Plaintiff.

Furthermore, the court’s October 30th dismissal order raises questions about the validity of prior judgments.

Sparman (right) and Vantage Payments signed on as TelexFree’s payment processor, following the withdrawal of Global Payroll Gateway and Base Commerce in 2013.

Following denial of a requested injunction back in 2021, the court rejected individual claims made by Class Plaintiff Rita Dos Santos.

Dos Santos was lead plaintiff in the TelexFree class-action until July 2023. Thus her claims against Sparman and Vantage Payments were pursued on an individual basis.

Dos Santos’ individual claims allege that defendants aided and abetted the TelexFree Ponzi scheme by facilitating cred it card transactions that sustained the scheme and caused injury when the scheme collapsed.

There obviously isn’t any question of whether Sparman and Vantage Payments assisted TelexFree with defrauding consumers out of $3 billion.

Rather, the court based its decision to dismiss Dos Santos’ claims based on her own misrepresentations;

The Court accepts as true the following facts set forth by defendants in their pleadings:

1. Dos Santos admits that she did not make any investment in TelexFree in 2012, much less an initial investment of $301,660.

2. Dos Santos’ total investment in TelexFree were debit card purchases on February 9, 2013 and February 26, 2013 in the total amount of $4,325.

3. Dos Santos received payment from TelexFree in the amount of $ 7,195 on March 13, 2013.

4. As plaintiff Cellucci’s own damages expert, Ms Van Tassel, reported, after review of documentation provided by Dos Santos, she is a net winner because the only transactions involving real money in the SIG system are withdrawals.

“Celluci” refers to Anthony Celluci, who took over as lead Class Plaintiff in 2023.

5. On December 8, 2022, Dos Santos served defendants with Supplemental Disclosures admitting that she only invested in TelexFree in 2013.

6. Dos Santos did not participate in a ” triangular transaction” regarding her claimed October 2012 cash investment of $301,660.

7. Dos Santos made no cash investments in TelexFree after July, 2013.

8. Defendants had no knowledge of, and transacted no business related to, TelexFree prior to August 2013, and Dos Santos does not allege any such knowledge or transaction.

9. There is no documentation to support the existence of any investment made by Dos Santos in TelexFree as set forth in Schedule A and her discovery responses.

10 . There is no evidence to support Dos Santos claim that her alleged October 2012 cash investment was withdrawn from an account at the ” red bank ,” which she later identified as Century Bank.

The court denied Dos Santos’ individual claims with prejudice on October 30th. Summary Judgment was entered in favor of Sparman and Vantage Payments later the same day.

As the court found, Dos Santos is in fact a net-winner. The amount Dos Santos stole from actual TelexFree victims, $2,870, isn’t much but nonetheless it appears the TelexFree Class Action was headed by dishonest net-winner for ten years.

Settlements reached during Dos Santos’ time as lead Class Action Plaintiff include:

  • Joseph H. Craft (Chief Financial Officer, TelexFree) settled for $100,000;
  • Fidelity Cooperative Bank settled for $22.5 million;
  • John F. Merrill settled for an unknown amount;
  • Synovus Bank settled for $425,000; and
  • Base Commerce, aka Phoenix Payments, settled for $1.75 million

Such to the extent Dos Santos received anything as lead Class Plaintiff and/or funds obtained through the above settlements, on a purely ethical level those funds should be returned.

Legally I don’t know how that works of if it’s even possible (the TelexFree class-action was initiated in 2014).

The TelexFree class action has provided relief to victims of the Ponzi scheme, alongside federal regulatory efforts, however it’s a shame the lawsuit was fronted by a fraudulent imposter for eight years.

I don’t know how that went on for so long but it seems somebody screwed up somewhere.