Thread: Lynn Edgington's Orange County Register Article

Our good friend Lynn Edgington, EagleOne on this and other forums has had an article published in the Orange County Register. I'm most pleased to direct you to:

Small-business owners beware of fraudulent advisers

By LYNN EDGINGTON
Special to THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Most of us would like to believe that we would never fall for an investment fraud or Ponzi. We believe that we are educated enough to know better, and would never put our financial security at risk in an investment program that sounds too good to be true.


While we like to think and believe that is true, the reality is it just the opposite. The truth is that many highly educated people are falling victim to investment fraud and Ponzi schemes today. It makes no difference as to how much or how little education you have, today your odds of being a victim of investment fraud or a Ponzi are greater than ever before. Remember the victims of Bernie Madoff? These were astute businessmen, traders, CEO's of nonprofit corporations and their board of directors who were victims.

The rest of the article is available here. And Lynn's Eagle Research Associates website is well worthy of mention as well.


I'm not surprised by the excellent advice on an important topic, anyone who knows Eagle has come to expect that from him. I just didn't know he was such a good looking guy.


And thanks to Don for the heads up on the article.

Excellent article. And don't forget, his book can be found here: Amazon.com: robbing you with a keyboard instead of a gun

Very good article. Astute and to the point. We are fortunate indeed to have someone with his credibility and knowledge on our forum. Well done Lynn! (all us guys in the OC are handsome devils and we rock! lol)

Originally Posted by A Life Aloft

Very good article. Astute and to the point. We are fortunate indeed to have someone with his credibility and knowledge on our forum. Well done Lynn! (all us guys in the OC are handsome devils and we rock! lol)

Wellll, most of us anyway....!

Lynne has written a book about the goings on in the autosurf industry and now he has competition. Jack Cobb from Maximum Advertising, PlanetTrust, MadzPop and TwilightAdz has decided to emulate Lynne but the main objective is rather different.

Jack has mentioned his intention to write this book many times before as he was determined to vindicate the one time queen bee of the autosurf world (MrsVee.) We do not have the Cobb book in hard back but we have a synopsis of what to expect, if it ever gets published.

Nothing in Lynne's book to vindicate Vee. I WONDER WHY.

QUOTE

Hello Everyone,

I know it has been some time since our last communication. I do want to stress that I have already announced some time ago that these sites are dead. There is no recovery and get going again. You may ask yourself what happened to our sites and the forum threads. The sites have been taken offline due to the inability to pay for the servers, the records have been retained. The forum threads I felt were not needed under the circumstances. Many of you know that I have posted some time ago in ASA that there is no point of recovery for these sites. Our only hope was that we were possibly going to sell Planet-Trust in which never happened. In fact, over the process of several months we have been refunding members on a random basis. Some of you have read this. Most of the thank yous I have received in PMs of which I have saved. I appreciate your notes to me and hold them in my mind to move on. Some of you also know that I have not been in good health for some time now. That is true as well. Some days are good and many others are bad. I also have stated in the past that we would attempt as many refunds as possible but I can not promise anything. I have been doing the best I can since most of our money was taken. This means I am still giving an honest effort in doing the right thing and I cannot make money appear.

This has never been about "buying anyone out". This is about doing the right thing and the right thing that I have always tried to do in the past. I don't understand how some people can think of how I held so much credibility in the AS arena. I held this credibility by the integrity that I have shown and the honesty that I still continue to post. Some people cannot accept the truth and that is understandable. It is funny that I am still offered by payment processors to start up new sites. I don't think they would do that risking their integrity if I were dishonest. In fact, they have nothing but respect for me because they know I have always done the right thing. I know by now most of you have gone, I know this because many that I have refunded have emailed me or PM'd me in other forums saying thank you and that they have moved on.

For this reason, I am writing a novel here in this thread to document what REALLY went on in the industry because you all deserve to know WHO is RESPONSIBLE for WHAT.
Please understand that I am going to write this and will be very, very lengthy. It will document first hand day one to ground zero. Everything I know... This way, you will all know what I have been through and the things I have known about this industry.

TO BE Continued.

JACK COBB CONTINUED.

Since the fall of these sites, I have been dealing with health issues and reading different forums with some people saying positive and negative things about me. Some of it reminds me of the reasons I do not like to post in other forums anymore just for the fact that most is speculation and some people just take it upon themselves to put in their opinions as if they were a member when in fact they never were. The people I have known in this arena over the years know that I will do what I can to make as much right as I can. The question has come up several times of "who is responsible"? I honestly have to say I am not responsible for disappearance of funds but what I am responsible for is allowing it to happen by knowing certain individuals were not really my friends. So how did we end up running sites like Planet-Trust after MaximumSuring was running for as long as it was? That proposition came to me by Jake from ASA. Not to say he is to blame but his designers had actually provided the templates for the site and we also discussed what we were doing for income. MaximumSurfing was a profitable surf site, we were able to use monthly membership fees since it was not a paid to surf and invest those funds for more profit. Over time, we were able to get more income streams which allowed us the possibility of running a high yield program with a 50/50 in place. Did we have real income? The answer to that is yes. Is it possible to get these kinds of returns in reality that MadzPoP was offering. It is more than possible.

What went wrong? Throughout our AS experience, we ran into the problems with processors freezing and taking money from us. The first sadly to say was CEP which in all honesty the funds we withdrew from there we were able to get into investments to help refunds owed members from Planet-Trust. We were in turn sued for that money back, some of the money they said we had received was in fact never received by myself or anyone on behalf of these programs. For that fact, the amount we were sued for was reduced. The other fact is that we were not able to keep using those funds to generate returns even though we tried to prove that we were using the funds to see that people who had used CEPT with our programs were refunded in full instead of pennies on the dollar. They were more concerned with the problem overall with CEPT instead holding us accountable even though we were doing the right thing by our members.

Along with CEPT, Egold was our next big hit. We had actually tried being proactive in this by trying to remove the funds before they had been frozen. Before we could get the funds out, they had frozen our accounts along with the exchanger who was giving us the bulk transfer. We lost it all... This was the biggest death nail to Planet-Trust and our programs at the moment. The fact that the only processor we had funds from was our smallest processor, Alertpay. Even with little funds to work with, we were able to refund over 97% of the members owed from Planet-Trust. The site being gone does not mean that it is gone for good. There is still a chance we can sell it but we were looking for the right offer to do right by our members.

When MadzPoP came along, we were introduced to a new processor named UGC. We were introduced by Jake from ASA and I had discussed with him about the record that the owner Tom Green had for being a scammer. After many communications and questions, he assured me that those were just rumors and that Tom Green was a good guy. I guess we found that out for ourselves when we tried accessing our account one day to payout and they had shut down with all funds lost. This scammer again is trying to get off a new processor and selling debit cards with a new site called ToGetCash.com. At first before taking UGC we were able to talk with someone with their bank that had told us they were properly licensed and that Mr. Green had a good reputation with that bank. I am very familiar with some of the banks in Panama and had a very respected friend make a phone call to find out what had happened to our money. Just days before their fall, Mr. Green had wired out all of our funds to a company formed in the Phillpines by the name of Call Com Inc. To make this short, he transfered out everyones money to help start his new company Call Com In. Which is now apparently worth millions. Its a call center for tech support etc. like you would get when calling Dell for a computer issue. Mr. Green and associates involved again had enticed some of his followers into another money making ping program that has yet to produce. He again sold debit cards and promised UGC refunds that have not happened to date and no contact has been made with the members of that processor. I can say from personal knowledge that the losses are in the millions. The account in Panama was frozen due to the bank finding out he was a scam. The Hedge fund that was also advertised heavily by ASA was also a scam... I hope you are all following me on this.

I am sure everyone remembers some of the scamming admins of old school AS such as Lance Barron from Now Dollar. Does everyone remember Venetian Ads?? A few other ventures including Venetian Ads were allowed to be run by Lance Barron after his big Now Dollar scam. Jake had mentioned previously in the ASA forum a long time ago about Lance possibly making a comeback in the AS industry. Many had opposed this and stressed to Jake just how wrong this would be. In other words... How would I have found out Venetian Ads was Lance Barron? Is Jake guilty of things? Yes he is... I can tell you that Todd was alot more guilty than Jake. Todd had known the truth behind 13Daily Pro and the fact they were a ponzi, running out of money and ready to run. Does anyone remember that he was one of the last ones paid just before they shut their doors? What happened to all of the money that was left over in the payment processors when they ran off? There was hundreds of thousands of dollars left in Alertpay alone and no refunds have ever been reported. What happened to those funds? I am not saying that Firoz had scammed anyone only that these questions have never been answered and some admins in this industry who have been honest have been stuck on many occasions when payment processors are partly to blame. Alertpay is by far A+ as for the integrity of the business compared with most. Jake had told me that Venetian Ads belonged to Lance Barron and Mrs Vee had her suspicions but could never prove it.

This brings up a good question. Can a payment processor be a crook or a scammer? Hundreds of programs maybe more thoughout the history of this business have been plagued by crooked payment processors. A few of them to name here alone are StormPay, UGC, CEPT, EGold, TriStar Money and many more. How do processors get away with stealing funds and holding money that does not belong to them? Its easy... Most people just do not know the politics of how and why processors incorporate themselves in multiple countries to entrench themselves well in case of legal pursuit. In this case we will examine P2P and what had happened to the money that was being "held" by the payment processors only stating to customers that they had received legal documentation stating to hold those funds. To this day, I have yet to see one document supporting a complete freeze on funds in processors and not being able to refund the programs members with what is left. It is written in the international banking laws that such documentation must be made available to those whose funds are involved. Nothing solid has been provided to support these facts. Why would a processor use member funds to pay off a hacker when these are the same funds that were supposed to have been frozen?? Although the payment processors understand the terms of these programs and understand how about 99% of them operate they still allow them to use their services. Dont you think to give them more integrity that they would protect themselves and ask these sites to provide them with proof they can make the returns their site is advertising?

Long ago in the days of P2P I had spoken with the owner of a payment processor and had asked them specifically if P2P was a ponzi. The reply I received was that they knew the company that Nick had done business with and that P2P was in fact not a ponzi. We all know this not to be true. After seeing some proof myself, I have seen that Nick has never once made a payment from a bank account into a payment processor and I was also told first hand by another processor that Nick was bogus and was only operating off of funds received in the program. Nick was not too concerned with the money in the processors as he had already received enough to his bank account to run off with. This is why many times he stated that he did not care about the money in various processors. Now, any investor would know first hand that every dollar counts. Wouldn't you be concerned about over $6-8Million?? Now where is that money? Of course they didnt hand that money over to the government. The processors hold this money and put it into interest bearing accounts to make money off of it. Does anyone remember our debit cards we used for international members? During that time we had a chance of making some good friends in the right places. OmegaJim was able to find out much information about these things while he was alive. God Bless His Soul. This information he had gotten first hand from the banks that housed accounts for various processors. Jim had been a banker with CitiBank for over 30 years. He was very experienced and had connections in many banks around the world. I am not implying Stella or STP is a scam, only that this information needs to be made more public as in a link on STP or something tangible for members to view. It is not acceptable for a payment processor/banking entity to withold funds without proper documentation or proof.

JACK COBB CONTINUED.

This in turn brings up DR Fund and who was involved. When MadzPoP was in operation we were contacted by Jake from ASA. He had told of of this investment in which a company had worked out a deal with Google. We in turn sent money to these people by means of STP and bank wire. To this date, Stella was kind enough to refund our STP with the amount sent to them through that processor. We had also been told to put money with DR Fund that they were in fact the real deal and that Jake and Lee Todd were running the show. In this case, I didn't think that I would be ripped off. Since then, I have a few friends that have reported to me that Lee Todd has since ran a few newer scams and has also run some previous to DR Fund. Jake had told me that he was running DR Fund with Lee. Although, I do not think that Jake had anything to do with ripping me off. I do know some information though... Just before these happenings, they made a trip down to Dominica to setup bank accounts and corporate structure. This is where the funds that were from these programs resides. I am not sure of the name of the corporation but I do know first hand that this corp was being setup in light of problems with DR Fund. I have not heard from Jake in a long time although he still resides in Atlanta area and plans to write a book on the AS industry. I can sadly say that when I woke up one morning to find out that DR Fund had shut down and ran off my spirit had broken in four pieces. I can say that I honestly don't think Jake to be a scammer but only a bad businessman as he had much influence on this industry. I do think that his drinking problems and medication problems led to most of this but I cannot say 100%.

Jake, in the past has tried on occasions of putting out his own program. One of them I know of was an autosurf in which everyone found out and was shut down immediately and everyone refunded. My point here is why not just tell everyone it was his? Why hide it unless there was a bigger picture? I can also say that this wasnt the last one. Besides DR Fund, I know that they were working on another program, one that involved gold coins of some sort. Jake and Todd over the years made millions in the AS industry. I can say that Todd backing TriStar knowing that Bob Krimm was a scam was a huge blow to his credibility. The fact that they continuously allowed scamming admins to return to the industry hiding their indentities from the surfers. After ASA made so much money, why did Jake all of a sudden wish to sell ASA and just disappear? ASA was a cash cow for Jake and the industry was disappearing for sure. Yes, there was still money to be made but not nearly as much. I do know that Lee Todd now lives in Colorado and is now being sued for millions from scamming people through his bank account. This is public information....

This brings into light of who were honest admins in this industry? I can say that Matt, Israel from CommandSurf, Dustin from DesertSky and a few others were about the only honest admins I knew. Running an autosurf and seeing first hand how they operated can give you a general idea of how long a program will last having no income. This in turn allowed me to figure out how long programs would last and we used to post this info on our forums for our members. Jake and Todd at ASA bashed us on their video about that and asked us to remove it. The fact remains that we were right every single time. I can also say that ASA did some very bad injustice to this industry over time. They were supposed to be out there protecting people from scams and they did to a point, they did it to a point to where it put the advantage to the sites that were their cash cows at the time. Do you remember Alertpay Pro? How we were mislead by Jake and Todd on that one into depositing back into that program in hopes they would start paying out again when in fact Rob Ross had been on the run the whole time? Do you also know that they also had first hand knowledge that Rob Ross had other programs other there after AP Pro had died? One of them was a profit share and I do not recall the name but it was when CEP came to light. Over time, Jake had tried pumping popularity back into the industry by asking former admins and others to start programs of their own in hopes they would draw traffic. Needless to say that none of these ever produced the results he wanted. Now he is gone and ASA has been sold to Wanrou.

When I started accepting UGC as a processor, Jake had told me how good it was for me because I could invest my funds directly with UGC and its hedgefund to provide us some of the returns we had needed and that he had first hand proof that it was real. Out of $350,000.00 in active adpacks in MadzPoP, over $100,000.00 was left in UGC and invested with UGC. Everytime we had inquired about our due payouts through the hedgefund, we were told that everything was going to be ok and that Tom would start paying out shortly. You may ask yourself, did we have other investments? Yes, we had various forex traders which made excellent returns but as anyone knows, these returns also come with risks. Some decisions had to be made to diversify our funds to help make our programs safer. Honestly, I never suspected that I would be led into a situation to where I would lose so much on someones word when I held a high amount of credibility in this industry. Over time, the people who I knew and trusted to help us all would turn out to be our enemy. In fact, I may be one of the only people who to this day has heard from the horses mouth of their involvement as I was told it was supposed to be secret.

I also received a very urgent call from Jake one day, he was speaking with a man named "Mike" in his office and was very interested in speaking with me. I had previously told Jake about a very good and tangible investment, a real opportunity and he was very interested. This man "Mike" was heavily involved in CEP and in fact was stashing a huge amount of money he received secretly from CEP. "Mike" was very interested in this investment I told Jake about and was looking for investments in which he could hide the money and returns. I was also told on a call a few days later that "Mike" was interested in running his own processor and in light came "StrictPay". I did not hear this from "Mike" himself and I cannot say this to be 100% accurate but from what I was told is that StrictPay was started from money that was taken from CEP. Money that was hidden and washed around by "Mike" and used to fund the startup of StrictPay is what I was told. Oddly to say that when doing my DD on this processor the initial "M" is in the corporate name along with two other initials of two other individuals involved with CEP that were involved with "Mike" as seen below. I did contact Strictpay about this and they claim it is not true. I am not sure what to believe but it is a possiblity. Again, this is what I was told and I cannot say it to be 100% true. I do not intend to be negative towards Strictpay and highly apologize if this is in fact inaccurate. I am going to speak with someone on the names of these individuals and post them here too. Please understand that a business must cope with information whether it be positive or negative. You are welcome to reply here. I do know that this "Mike" was being sought after by the CEP receiver for another sum of money. This sum of money was never accounted for. Funny though, instead of accepting my call on this to speak about it, I was threatened with their attorney.. LOL! I will say that it will not be worth the time and effort because I do not own anything, I am broke and live on a disability check.

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One thing I will say is that one of the most honest monitors I have ever met was Fred when he ran EbusinessOnline before selling it to Krimm. I will also say that Wanrou from ASA is not a bad guy in this arena and is a good businessman. He is one person that will speak on a program accurately and knows his stuff when it comes to investments.

And I am supposed to be impressed how...??? exactly what does Cobb hope to accomplish with his BS. By definition, a "novel" is a work of fiction, and there are several glaring contradictions starting with "It wasn't my fault" and up to and including his assessment of Matt being "honest". What a complete waste of digital space.

Cobb has stated his intention to vindicate Vee for years. SNIGGER. SNIGGER.

Originally Posted by path2prosperity

Cobb has stated his intention to vindicate Vee for years. SNIGGER. SNIGGER.

Is that the same Jack Cobb (Adversory # 07-06450) who the CEP receiver went after for $50,000 but settled for $25,000?????

Originally Posted by okosh

Is that the same Jack Cobb (Adversory # 07-06450) who the CEP receiver went after for $50,000 but settled for $25,000?????

Yes. He has been promising to write a book about the autosurf industry since 2006 or 2007. Can't see his account being any threat to Lynne can you?

Talk about being slow on the switch, I had no clue this thread existed until now. Thanks to GD for posting the article and all of you for your gracious remarks. It is greatly appreciated. Guess I need to look at all the main topic threads to see just what is inside.

Again, I am must humbled by your link to my article and all your kind remarks. Hope to have another one published within the next couple of weeks, maybe sooner. Will let you know when it happens.