Zeek Rewards Ponzi paid Kevin Grimes $843,000
One of the recurring questions that arises whenever a shadier MLM company attempts to market itself on the reputation of their lawyer, is “what on Earth are they thinking?”
Often times these are individuals who have practicing law for decades, yet there their names are – intertwined with what are obviously business models bound to fail regulatory scrutiny.
It’s a question many of our readers ask and, not being an MLM lawyer, it’s one I really don’t have a concrete answer to. These are professionals who are supposed to know MLM regulation both inside and out, so why does this keep happening?
Well, from an amended complaint filed by the Zeek Rewards Receivership yesterday, here’s one reason:
Grimes and MLM Compliance received approximately $843,000 from RVG.
Kevin Grimes (right) is a well-known MLM attorney. In analysing the Receivership’s first legal malpractice lawsuit against him we’ve already covered the meat of the suit, so refer to that report if you’re after background information.
What was absent from the original complaint was the $840,000 figure, which simply boggles the mind.
A compliance attorney receiving nearly a million dollars from what was always nothing more than the most obvious of Ponzi schemes.
And affiliates wonder why I shrug off their claims of compliance “because our attorney said so”, no matter how black and blue they go in the face shouting it.
Is this really what MLM compliance has deteriorated into over the years?
What’s even more depressing than Grimes’ selling out his reputation for a Ponzi payday is the fact that he doesn’t appear to want to willingly return the stolen funds he was paid with.
Grimes knew or should have known that insufficient income from the penny auction business was being made to pay the daily “profit share” promised by ZeekRewards.
Grimes knew or should have known that the money used to fund ZeekRewards’ distributions to Affiliates came almost entirely from new participants
rather than income from the Zeekler penny auctions.Further, Grimes knew or should have known that the alleged “profit percentage” was nothing more than a number made up by Burks or one of the other Insiders.
Grimes and MLM Compliance knowingly allowed Zeek to portray a false appearance of legality through their bogus “compliance” course.
Grimes appeared on ZeekRewards “leadership calls” with Dawn Wright-Olivares on three separate occasions, promoting ZeekRewards to Affiliate leaders
and furthering the false impression that the scheme was legitimate.Grimes & Reese, Kevin Grimes, and MLM Compliance Played an Integral Role. Grimes knew or should have known that RVG, with his assistance, was promoting an unlawful unregistered security.
As a result, Defendant Grimes & Reese is liable for the tortious acts of its employee, Kevin D. Grimes.
In addition, Grimes and MLM Compliance are liable to repay to the Receiver the more than $840,000 they received from RVG for the bogus compliance course.
Come on man, you were paid nearly a million dollars for helping facilitate and promote one of the largest Ponzi schemes in US history… and then you got caught.
At least have the decency to pay back the stolen funds you were paid.
Footnote: Our thanks to Don @ ASDUpdates for providing a copy of the Receivership’s amended compliant.
Lawyers gotta eat too. They can plead they only get paid to consult on compliance. Even if the company and the shady characters running it look corrupt as hell.
David, lawyers are officers of the court, so if they misbehave, they have violated their oath AND have broken the law.
If they give blatantly illegal advice, they have acted criminally and should be punished to the FULL extent of the law.
Kevin Thompson, are YOU listening? You may be….NEXT! LOL
So did Jeffrey Dahmer.
Kevin Grimes has a serious legal problem here, i.e. the Receiver has emails indicating that Grimes actually knew about the investment scheme issues, e.g. paragraphs 46, 47 and 48 in the amended complaint.
Grimes also collected his last payment for the “compliance course” rather immediately before the shutdown. $342,510 was paid to Grimes on August 13, only 4 days before the shutdown (paragraph 45 in the amended complaint).
Unlike most other complaints I have looked at, this amended complaint actually have some identifiable points, something to back up the allegations. It’s not just about “legal terms repeated over and over again”.
Link to the amended complaint can indirectly be found in the article. I only had a quick look at it, looking for substance rather than for formalities.
Can’t wait to see how much Nehra got paid…
I predict Troy Dooly will also fall by his associations and passive promoting disguised as “reviews”.
After doing a bit of checking him out I’d put him right up there with the rest of the so called professionals of this industry. He has a past with Ms Tolar during her Vitel adventure.
Hmmm perhaps this is why he had such a difficult time seeing Telexfree for what it was. His last so called review on Telexfree was rediculous. Mummbling on about how maybe Telexfree can reorganize and the reason the owners were having difficulties was because of the sky rocketing success…..Really Troy?
You lost a lot of credibility in that little video. But even worse Troy put out a gushing video a while back about Gary Calhoun from MPB? ( another crook ) lol.
Think Troy’s done regardless of how much self promotion he does.
And mlmhelpdesk being beyhind paywall now, he’s probably lost most of his audience.
Also, many seem to forget, that Troy made money from new subscribers to his coaching program as a result of his visibility with Zeek.
@ Jimmy
I think a lot of these “Professionals” that “sold” their careers and reputations probably thought they could get away with their greedy poor judgment because this industry has been running amok and unchecked for some time.
Galvin’s on a Ponzie crushing rampage and I’m hearing from quite a few soon to be lawyers telling me that white collar crime is the place to be now since it’s out of control.
Hey, Galvin can borrow Telexfree’s favorite saying….I’m changing lives : ) lol
I will state once again, it is very easy to see how so many people were fooled into thinking that this one was a real, legitimate business.
Penny auctions DO make a lot of money and if structured correctly, with “trusted” people vouching for it, it is simple to see how people would believe the story that was told to them from the insiders. Very sad.
Dont get me wrong, Tex. I agree they should be held accountable as well. I feel it’s also a matter of ethics.
There’s plenty of legal work without getting involved in MLM scam work. MLM lawyers are the bottom of the barrel that is filled with stinky lawyers.
Come on, Tex, even criminals need attorneys. 😉
All scams look like “real legitimate business”, else they’d be really lousy scams.
Zeek didn’t hold an auction license until March 2012, 5 months before they closed, and their auction volume could have never supported their payout. Basically, their story would only stand if you took their word for it, and did NO due diligence.
Even criminal attorneys need attorneys.
Only difference is Jeffrey’s consultations involved a compensation of arms, feet, hands, and butts.
I haven’t read the whole amended complaint, I only focused on those paragraphs I mentioned. It actually has some substance.
* He ignored letters from affiliates asking him about Ponzi scheme, he forwarded one of them to Dawn. “Shall I send those to you, I have received several letters like that in the last few weeks?”.
* He ignored his own concerns about investments (he stated in an email that he had some major concerns).
* At the request of Dawn, he was careful to redesign some offending parts, something about “scaring affiliates away from Zeek”.
* He had a profit motive. $340,000 was collected in the last few days before the shutdown.
Legal complaints are often about legal terms repeated over and over again, but with very little substance. Some allegations can point in both directions, so even if they’re true they can potentially be used as defense arguments.
In this case, some of the paragraphs points in the direction that he has been extremely careless, and also have profited from his own carelessness. He has seen the warning signs but have ignored them.
I’m in doubt about the damage (I’m not familiar with how U.S. courts will interpret damage).
How can you say it ended when he was to receive $5 for every compliance course sold? If Zeek had not shutdown he would still be collecting $5 per new recruit. He’s ass deep in this thing.
I can add some more arguments, but they were not listed in the amended complaint.
Zeek Rewards operated in “controlled shutdown modus” in the last 5-6 weeks, when Greg Caldwell stepped in as a “front figure” / acting COO. Greg Caldwell replaced the entire management, the others simply “disappeared” from the spotlight.
Greg Caldwell runs White Hat Solutions, a Private Investigator / Damage Control consultant company. He was recommended by Grimes & Reese in March 2012 to investigate some credit card fraud for Zeek.
It doesn’t add to any evidence, but it may add something to people’s understanding of how involved Kevin Grimes was, to “what he knew or should have known”. He probably knew that Zeek was in “controlled shutdown modus” when he collected his last payment(s).
The “controlled shutdown modus” may actually have reduced the losses for the net losers. It led to a “voluntarily” shutdown while Zeek still had $225 million in easily available bank accounts. It’s a far better solution than TelexFree had.
What are you talking about? The shutdown was not voluntary. White Hat attempted to conceal the truth (the same as Grimes did.) If anything their efforts created more net losers.
Here’s that story:
NOLINK://behindmlm.com/companies/zeek-rewards/did-zeek-rewards-management-know-about-the-sec/
It doesn’t add to any evidence, it only adds to the story.
A controlled shutdown is usually “voluntarily”, initiated by the party himself / herself / itself.
Paul Burks had hired a damage control company to organize one part of the shutdown, a professional Ponzi scheme attorney to handle another part, etc., long before Zeek actually was shut down.
It wasn’t so that SEC “suddenly” raided RVG’s offices on August 17 2012, and found enough evidence there to bring the case to court. Details must have been negotiated for at least a few days before the shutdown, complaint must have been written, a date must have been set for the court hearing, and so on and so forth.
Damage Control is about reducing the damage to the client. It will usually reduce the damage to the investors too (as a group). It will not reduce damage to individual late joiners.
RVG was voluntarily handed over to a court appointed Receiver.
The damage reduction must be measured against the opposite scenario = what would the damages have been if Zeek had continued. I don’t know what you are trying to measure damage reduction against.
Kevin Grimes compliance course and White Hat’s suppression of criticism were not part of a controlled shutdown. Those were desperate, last ditch efforts initiated by Burks and Olivares to deflect criticism, make things “look” legal, cover their asses, and keep the scheme running.
The only thing that reduced the amount of losses to investors was the SEC intervention.
In your scenario, SEC intervened directly by itself and performed a forced shutdown based on its own investigation alone?
And Greg Caldwell wasn’t hired for “damage control”, but to keep the scheme running for as long as possible?
I presented the opposite scenario, where Greg Caldwell was hired for damage control, i.e. to deliver and perform a plan for a controlled shutdown of Zeek Rewards. In that scenario, Paul Burks must “voluntarily” have negotiated some conditions for the Consent Order BEFORE the shutdown.
Those are probably 2 separate plans from 2 separate companies. People talked about “Compliance Course” already in February/March 2012, as something that would come.
Greg Caldwell / White Hat Solutions was probably recommended by Kevin Grimes to solve a specific fraud problem in March 2012, but after that the relation between RVG and WHS probably was directly between those 2 businesses. It would be rather “constructed” to involve Kevin Grimes as a middleman.
Since we have quite opposite ideas, it won’t make any sense trying to discuss it either. I can simply post my version, and you can post your own.
Any part of the story is potential evidence.
Your “controlled shutdown” was nothing more than management’s attempt to hold off an SEC investigation and intervention. At most it permitted some insiders and connected net winners to withdraw funds before the SEC froze the accounts, and in the meantime new investors were still sending in money. How that could possibly benefit net losers is an astounding leap of Norwegian logic which makes no sense at all.
Burks paid a $4,000,000 fine and relinquished control of his company. Who voluntarily does that?
Nobody.
People will usually accept a fine like that to limit the fines, e.g. if he could risk fines from multiple agencies (especially from IRS). His agreement effectively limited the fines to $4 million.
People who want a controlled shutdown will voluntarily sign over the company to a Receiver. Others will probably prefer to fight for their interests in court.
The shutdown was controlled if Paul Burks hired Noell Tin first, and then initiated the contact with SEC himself via his attorney.
It was uncontrolled if SEC initiated the shutdown through an enforcement action, if Paul Burks was forced to make a deal because of the shutdown.
The shutdown of TelexFree was uncontrolled. They tried to perform a controlled shutdown through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but SEC quickly got an Ex Parte order freezing assets plus a restraining order, U.S. Trustee got a Trustee in control, the bankruptcy case was transferred to another jurisdiction, one of the owners was arrested, the reorganizing management was fired, etc.
I’ll have to agree with M_N here. There are signs that head Zeeks knew what’s coming at least two weeks before Secret Service closed their doors for good.
Cancellation of red carpet events and training calls, hints from motions filed by Noell Tin for Burks hinting at “period of cooperation in which thousands of pages of records were turned over…”
I think Laggos scared the **** out of Burks when he said FTC is gonna close Zeek in a few months.
Burks then sought out Tin, who then knew there’s no saving the company, only limit his client’s exposure, so he did exactly that: reached a deal with SEC and the rest and left the rest of head Zeeks to fend for themselves.
The SEC shut Zeek and Burks down. Any talk of “volunteering to pay a $4 Million fine is a load of Craddock bull crap.
Better call Saul!
So the revealing “paper” trail is what should eventually do him in.
I honestly didnt realize the extent of his involvement. I hadnt followed up on the guy until this story.
Boy, that Zeek money was too darn good to pass up.
Ethics and morals fly out the window when dollars are flyig over some peoples heads.
I’m almost certain many who knew about the border line shadyness of Zeek were holding out hope that it turn out to be a legit operation. As opposed to those who knew it was a scanm from the start and didnt care where the chips fell either way.
Better Call Carlos Costa!
“You heard the SEC fined us $4 million dollars? No no. We only pay them voluntarily. Everything is OK. Better than OK, Great. Yada Yada.
No, no, no. It’s a donation to SEC to help them investigate scams! No scam would do that! 😉
Here’s my arguments …
GREG CALDWELL / WHITE HAT SOLUTIONS
Greg Caldwell offer services like that. RVG wasn’t the first client where he has stepped in as “acting COO” (temporarily hired as a professional problem solver, not employed by the client but by his own company).
It doesn’t make any sense to hire him as a COO for other reasons than “damage control”. He’s not a good choice if you want to operate a Ponzi scheme for a long period of time. For most other services he offer, the role as an external consultant should be the natural choice.
It does make sense if Paul Burks hired him for damage control, but your idea doesn’t make much sense.
“VOLUNTARILY” SHUTDOWN
By definition, a Consent Order is a type of “voluntarily agreement” between the parties, similar to a settlement. It has been negotiated between the parties, e.g. “My client can voluntarily sign over the ownership and pay a $4 million fine, in exchange for …”.
Limiting the civil fine to $4 million has some value, Paul Burks could potentially be fined much more than that by the IRS. Staying out of prison for 2 years also have some value. But damage control is usually about more than that.
A good defense lawyer can potentially use the voluntarily shutdown as a defense argument to reduce a potential prison sentence. “My client actively tried to reduce the overall losses among the investors, by voluntarily signing the ownership over to a Receiver while there still was hundreds of millions left”.
CONTROLLED SHUTDOWN
The idea of a controlled shutdown can clearly make some sense. It will allow the other people to “disappear” from public appearance in the last few weeks. It will reduce the risk of mistakes because of the pressure.
The alternative would have been to continue with the old management (I have already established that hiring Greg Caldwell doesn’t make any sense for a Ponzi scheme if it plans to operate for as long as possible). They would have experienced escalating payment problems and escalating personal pressure.
The alternative would also have required a plan to delay the ongoing State level investigation (it was initiated July 6 2012). Zeek also had bank problems, and an unsolved problem in Montana.
Another argument supporting a “controlled, negotiated shutdown” is that Paul Burks had a VPN connection installed on his home computer in the weeks before the shutdown, “so he could get access to the company’s computers from his home”, “while he was taking care of his sick wife”.
That allowed him to give SEC access to documents directly, they didn’t need to disturb any of the employees, they didn’t cause any panic.
Greg Caldwell apparently didn’t know about the shutdown before August 6 2012. Paul Burks had several meetings with SEC in the beginnng of August 2012, assisted by his attorney Noell Tin.
I got this information from a lengthy Facebook post, from an affiliate with access to the people working for RVG.
NOLINK://www.facebook.com/ZeekGroup/posts/444817568903206
The SEC could have gotten an Order freezing and seizing Zeek’s bank accounts without any cooperation from Burks at all. They only needed the evidence to do so and they had been in and out of Zeeks offices for nearly three months before the shutdown.
No matter who Burks hired or what kind of pseudo compliance program Grimes had set up once the SEC had the information they were looking for none of it was going to matter.
The insiders were hoping the SEC wouldn’t find anything and they played their hand but The SEC had Zeeks number and once they confronted Burks, he crapped his breeches…. and made a deal.
Nothing voluntary about it and nothing controlled either. Just a bunch of bums doing all they could not to get caught.
They have?! Unless you mean there were USSS undercover agents handing in checks at Zeek HQ…
I don’t know the specifics but the Attorney General’s Office for the State of North Carolina sent their first letter of enquiry to Zeekler about 90 days before Burks capitulated. Since the agencies share information I don’t consider its particularly significant which badges were looking at the materials first. The point is that the authorities were in there asking questions and collecting evidence months before they confronted Burks with the evidence. By that point he was ready for gutting.
They started an investigation on July 6 2012. I don’t believe they collected any material from RVG’s office, because that would have required a court order.
Please note that I have managed to back up parts of my version with external sources, e.g. the Facebook link contained a lot of details about the last few weeks of Zeek Rewards, complete with dates.
It filled in a lot of details. Here’s an example:
Your version is rather “thin” in several parts, e.g. “authorities were in there asking questions and collecting evidence” would have required an order from a court.
Zeek Rewards was shut down by a “Consent Order Appointing a Temporary Receiver”, an order Paul Burks probably had negotiated and voluntarily had accepted.
Nobody needs a letter from the Court to send a letter of inquiry, which is the way this investigation started. Once an enquiry was received Burks had choices. He could talk, tell his side of the story, open up the books, appear to cooperate or any combination of things. He could even hire White Hat to handle it for him.
Only refusal requires an agency to obtain a court order and anyone knows that refusal often casts further suspicion on the matter, leading to an even more intense investigation.
Its very likely that authorities were granted initial interviews before Burks hired Caldwell in hopes that he could satisfy their concerns. Obviously there was no satisying the enquirers who knew quite well what they were looking for. Burks cracked under the pressure. The rest is history.
My point is this. Sure….. Zeek was TRYING to do damage control but it was ineffective, often itself illegal and too little too late. The compliance program was whitewash, White Hat could not silence the critics, Caldwell could not blunt the SEC investigation and whatever “modus” Zeek was operating in, it was an ad hoc response to the letters of inquiry which had the potential to expose the auction business for what it really was.
It took a month or two but apparently the SEC gained enough insight to understand the scheme. Once this occurred Zeek was as good as dead and no amount of fancy footwork by Caldwell, Grimes or Burks was going to change that. This was no “controlled shutdown.”
To the contrary it was Burks and Olivares’ desperate attempt to keep the scheme from “being shutdown” and it did not work.
Burks chose not to fight the inevitable. He agreed to step down pay a fine, without admitting guilt.
OK So what? It does not prove that there was some miracle “controlled shutdown modus” that was driving events.
The SEC had this old flabby guy in a room with his lawyer and he signed off on the Consent Order. I don’t blame him since the scheme had been uncovered.
There is no purpose served by implementing a compliance program if Burks intent was to voluntarily execute a “controlled shutdown.”
A compliance program would be implemented in order to convince the SEC that the program should NOT be shut down.
Not true. Burks capitulated around August 17, 2014. The letters of enquiry from the North Carolina Attorney General were issued in mid May about three months before Burks caved in.
Zeek knew what was likely coming three months before the doors were closed. The letters of inquiry were the death knell.
All the cancellations, compliance fluff, and White Hat activitiy were an attempt to forestall further investigation and the inevitable collapse that would follow if the investigations continued.
They didn’t try to convince SEC, they tried to convince the affiliate investors and potential new investors.
“Doing business as usual” may clearly have a function, e.g. it may prevent a “run on the bank”. If you see that compliance course as “one of many activities intended to calm down investors and to add credibility to the program” then it clearly makes some sense.
It had been planned and marketed for several months, and the affiliates simply expected that a mandatory compliance course would be available around June 2012.
PSEUDO COMPLIANCE
You must place it into the correct context. Zeek Rewards focused on pseudo compliance, where the main problem was identified to be the affiliates themselves making misleading presentations on the internet. The compliance course was needed to support that story. They would simply have killed their own pseudo compliance if they had cancelled the course.
In addition, the compliance course provided a new stream of income. It was sold for $30 per course, so it brought in $25 – $27.50 in sales profit per course.
COMPLETELY DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW
I have already pointed out (in post #23) that we have completely opposite viewpoints, so it won’t make any sense discussing it.
I will try to look at details in context with other details to see if they make any sense, e.g. the $4 million fine clearly can make some sense if it’s being placed into the correct context. I will look at the whole story rather than the individual details.
It seems like you’re doing the opposite, looking at the individual details rather than the whole story. You’re trying to make the details fit YOUR story rather than THE story, e.g. by adding details from your own imagination.
One example:
“It’s very likely …” is not supported by any other details. You have simply added some hypothetical “initial interviews” from your own imagination to support your own story. It’s supported by “drama” (“Burks cracked under the pressure”) rather than facts.
I have tried to back up potential imaginary points with details from THE story, e.g. I collected some details from Facebook rather than from my own imagination. I also checked whs-pi.com for the types of services offered by White Hat Solutions.
Are we talking about the same thing here?
July 6 2012 was when NC AG officially launched an investigation (requesting documents and information from RVG). They were almost “forced” to do it after North Carolina’s “Channel 2 WMFY News” had referred to them in a “News at 11” story on June 21st.
The reporter, Liz Crawford, reported this in a TV Broadcast and in a news story:
The written news story was rather immediately modified when NC AG heard about it, and the recorded TV broadcast was removed from public view:
We can relatively reasonably assume that NC AG didn’t have any official investigation then (June 21st). They were concerned about some complaints, but they hadn’t reached the “critical mass” in consumer complaints yet. It was still listed as “consumer complaints” rather than as “potential investment fraud”.
NOLINK://behindmlm.com/companies/zeek-rewards/nc-ags-office-deny-saying-zeek-rewards-is-legal/
If they didn’t have any official investigation in late June 2012, they certainly didn’t have it in mid May either. You have probably made up those 90 days to support your own story.
Who said there was no investigation in late June? The AG never denied Zeek was under investigation…it denied saying that Zeek was legal.
As I said, the letter of inquiry was issued in mid May and by mid August the SEC locked the doors.
That means that In 90 days (or less) Burks voluntarily gave away his company, agreed to pay a $4 million fine (now $600 million,) had two accomplices charged with felonies, left himself open to criminal prosecution and to investor lawsuits, in an orchestrated “controlled shutdown.”
It seems he could hardly have done worse if an SEC investigation shut Zeekler down instead.
Interesting side note. Grimes and Reece: one of the foremost firms in MLM law suddenly changed its name to R and R Law Group and Kevin Grimes is nowhere to be found on their website.
I said. “We can relatively reasonably assume …”.
Liz Crawford referred to NC AG Consumer Protection Division in her “It’s legal”, the request for modification came from the same, the link added to her article led to some pyramid scheme info from the Consumer Protection Division.
That alone doesn’t PROVE that there was no investigation, but when people are talking about “the NC AG investigation” it’s usually about the formal Civil Investigative Demand CID.
We already know that. It’s backed up by your own imagination.
Here’s from Fox2Now, August 17 2012, probably using “The Dispatch” as a partial source:
You will probably find hundreds of sources confirming the July 6 date, but the “mid May” version will probably only be supported by your own posts. Repeating it won’t help, and neither will adding more “drama” to it.
He signed over a Ponzi scheme on the verge of collapse. It was disguised as a company. He also used some of the Ponzi profit to negotiate a part of the settlement.
The problem is probably that you’re testing each and every detail against your own ideas (a.k.a. “the Confusion Generator”), typically against an idea that doesn’t make much sense.
Signing over a Ponzi scheme MAY make sense. Try to replace your own idea about “signing over his company“ with that idea, just to see if it makes sense? Would you give away your Ponzi scheme if you were in the same situation?
I can point to that Paul Burks’ “voluntary” agreement has managed to keep him out of jail for 2 years, have reduced some additional legal problems (from the IRS). It didn’t bring him into immediate financial trouble (e.g. he have had funds to pay his attorney, and to pay a guard outside his house for 1 month).
He hasn’t received any additional injunctions (assets freeze, restraining orders). His defense attorney has got some very valuable defense arguments he can use, e.g. to reduce a prison sentence.
All in all, I believe he has made a very acceptable deal, if people look at the realities rather than some pre-defined ideas they have about money.
You are focusing on irrelevancies to divert attention from the fact that you have no proof that Burks orchestrated a successful controlled shutdown.
Whether inquiries began in May as I understand it …. or earlier…. or later… as you wish to believe only places a different time stamp on the date Burks must have realized he was liable to become the SEC’s bitch.
The preponderance of evidence indicates Burks tried and FAILED to satisfy North Carolina and the SEC. That is what the record shows and what the outcome indicates.
Any fantasy that Burks orchestrated a successful shutdown belongs in Disneyland. There’s no proof of it, and there is no identifiable success. The SEC could have seized or frozen RVG’s bank accounts without Burks’ cooperation.
Thanks for the heads up James.
https://behindmlm.com/mlm/kevin-grimes-fired-from-rr-law-formerly-grimes-reese/
Maybe the BehindMLM collective can get to the bottom of it!
That Burks signed a Consent Order does not prove that he planned, intended or preconceived the shutdown of Zeekler or that he hired Grimes and Caldwell to prearrange the dissolution of Rex Ventures.
Will you next claim that everytime someone signs a Consent Order it proves that they are operating in a “planned shutdown modus” How about Sloan and Rodrigues over a Telexfree? They signed one.
The SEC had Burks by the gonads and he bargained for his freedom. Its a familiar story.
You don’t need to embellish it.
I simply gave an answer to your question “Who said there was no investigation in late June?”, explaining the logic and pointing to a source identifying July 6 2012 as the date for the NC AG CID. It didn’t support your version, but the information was factual and correct.
Try to replace your own term “orchestrated” with “damage control” to avoid adding your own ideas? “Damage control” is normally about reducing potential damage by taking some control over a situation. Successful damage control will do exactly that.
That’s why I linked to the lengthy Facebook post relatively early, to bring in some additional information from an external source. It confirmed that there was negotiations between Paul Burks / Noell P. Tin and SEC from early August 2012. Paul Burks had made sure to get external access to RVG’s computers from his home computer.
He hired Noell P. Tin to negotiate a shutdown, not Greg Caldwell.
What TYPE of proof are you looking for?
Internet will usually not offer “proof”, it will only offer “additional information”. The Facebook post was about a ZeekRewards affiliate posting his own information related to a Behind MLM article “Did Zeek Rewards management know about the SEC?”.
NOLINK://behindmlm.com/companies/zeek-rewards/did-zeek-rewards-management-know-about-the-sec/
NOLINK://www.facebook.com/ZeekGroup/posts/444817568903206
I have used both those sources. They’re from two different perspectives, i.e. the affiliate had asked direct questions to Greg Caldwell and Noell P. Tin on specific dates.
I haven’t claimed that. That idea was probably generated in your own “Confusion Generator”. 🙂
That is the date you heard about it. The actual date it was conveyed to Zeek was in Mid May and you can not prove otherwise.. It does not matter so please quit niggling over such minor details.
In the end my problem with your story is that you are attempting to glorify the criminals and make them out to be more capable than they really are.
In your narrative Burks is so wily he outfoxed the SEC and was able to “make a very acceptable deal”
In your narrative Burks, Caldwell, and Grimes orchestrated a “controlled shutdown” in the very midst of an SEC investigation.
In your narrative Burks is an altruistic genius who steered his company into the safe harbor of Receivership for the benefit of his shell shocked investors.
What a load of crap. Go find your heros somewhere else.
Burks needed a lawyer. I get that.
If that’s the core of your problem, then you should probably avoid discussing stuff like this with me. I don’t have those types of pre-defined ideas about people, e.g. I will potentially see criminals as “just as capable as anyone else”.
I don’t see Noell P. Tin as a criminal, and I don’t see Greg Caldwell as a criminal.
I see them all as criminals. Also, they are not as capable, that’s why they’re crooks, they want the easy way out. If they were so smart, they wouldn’t get caught.
I don’t think all activity here rises to the level of criminality but its still gratifying to see vermin exposed for what they are..