McCord Letter To Bill Driscoll re:Paul Myhill 2005

One of Protandim‘s creators has this past hour published a letter which reveals certain facts that Lifevantage wish to smokescreen.

58 minutes ago, Paul Myhill said, as a way of admission, his future is in the hands of god….

For those that haven’t heard of it, Protandim is a plant based tablet that has unproven effects, but for which the MLM company Lifevantage make innuendo-based fantastic claims.

LazyMan and Money has a fantastic take on the whole scam.

My reputation, integrity, credibility and character - All are in God's hands. - Myhill

In short, it’s snake oil, and a scam, just like many others from that cesspit of free market capitalism, Utah.

• We’ve seen Google Treasure Chest for which Pacific Webworks and their promoters have been doubly hammered by Google and the FTC.
• We’ve Canadian seen Jesse Willms who has been hammered by Google, Oprah and the FTC yet ran many affiliates through Utah.
• We’ve seen near neighbours Monavie.  Same crap, just waiting to get the FTC knock on the door.  This is LazyMan’s take on them.  It’s scary stuff.

Roll on the FTC.  They’ve got to weigh in on these sharks soon.

Paul Myhill's Open Letter On Facebook

Update on 24 April 2012

Rather than a comment, (which isn’t so taggable and relevant within search engines), here’s Myhill’s open letter (open – geddit?  – in the fullest meaning of the word).  Text follows below.

OPEN LETTER TO MY DEAR LIFEVANTAGE FAMILY

 

Needless to say, the company and I are not on good terms right now. Quite frankly, Doug Robinson’s email to the LifeVantage distributors is fraught with error and misrepresentation. In fact, he gave very little attention to me personally on this matter, hardly exchanging a word with me concerning it. He simply didn’t have the time for me.

 

It is very well documented that the company was founded on a pledge to give shares, and a percentage of profits, to the charitable cause that it helped to start – rescuing orphaned and abandoned children from being abused, exploited, trafficked and enslaved. This was my “Why?” for joining Bill Driscoll in starting LifeVantage in the first place . . . and it is a cause that he graciously took on as his own and championed also. I’m sure he’s getting many hugs in Heaven as a result of the 15,000 children who are free from slavery today because of our work together.

 

I will be more-than-willing to make public all that documentation, especially since it was all public information to begin with. This charitable pledge was also the basis for which I assigned my invention (not Dr. McCord’s invention!) to LifeVantage. As soon as Bill and I assigned the patent to LifeVantage the pledge was sadly taken out of company materials, almost immediately. I naturally felt quite betrayed. Again, I can provide full documentation supporting this and it can be easily verified in the public record – through company press releases, investor presentation materials, SEC filings, etc. My resignation letter was also a matter of public record and alludes to the fact that this pledge – which was foundational to the company and my very involvement in it – needed to be kept, otherwise it would represent a promise broken to the original founders and all of LifeVantage’s stakeholders. The erasing of the pledge from company materials was the main reason for my departure, which the original Board and transition management team can certainly attest to. I was quite the thorn in their sides, constantly verbalizing the need to keep the pledge. As such, there is no disputing the existence of the original commitment. It’s simply undeniable.

 

I have been quite clear in my communications with LifeVantage management that the company still owes the charity now known as Traffic Jam 100,000 shares as part of its original pledge to match the Founders’ donation of shares to that same charitable vehicle. This amount was supposed to match Bill Driscoll’s gracious donation of 100,000 shares that came in a couple of months late. I’m sure if he were alive today he’d be greatly disappointed that the company never followed through on that commitment . . . and other commitments. Bill and I had our differences, but I also owe it to him as my brother-in-arms to get his shares matched, as he fully expected would be done when he made his generous gift in the first place. I owe it to his memory and legacy. And I owe it to his family – to see more children rescued because of his gift and defense of the pledge.

 

Despite the implication made in Doug’s letter, I never approached the company to ask anything for myself. In fact, it was David Brown who suggested that I become a “Goodwill Ambassador” for the company with a job role that would give me a greater platform to share the “correct” company history and bring attention to the fine work of the Traffic Jam Campaign. It was through that process that compensation (as with any job) was sought to channel to Traffic Jam. I have quite a few emails that show that this compensation was for the purpose of supporting the work of Traffic Jam. I’m on record multiple times stating that I gave everything away . . . and would give it away again.

 

It is with great sadness that I write this on the eve of my Birthday – not exactly the “gift” I was hoping for . . . or hoping to give. Since 2008, I have been pleading with the company to correct its marketing materials – to reflect that Joe is not the “Inventor” or “Creator” or “Scientist behind” Protandim; that Protandim wasn’t “developed after 40 years of research;” and that it didn’t consist of a “laundry list” of 40 ingredients that Joe whittled down to the current formula. This is all simply untrue. I’m sure the company will try to put some sort of further spin on this now and try to convince people otherwise, but the truth is the truth and will always come out in the end. Darkness can’t hide from the light.

 

The CORE botanical formula I forwarded to Joe included the current five botanicals, plus one additional one – all in the EXACT same proportions/weights as the current formula (all 1/3 of the original to get it into one pill), but with Milk Thistle subsequently bumped up at my suggestion. The other ingredients were part of an “all-in-one” (multi-formula) addition to that CORE botanical formula that I developed. Given such indisputable facts (and that the initial patent was filed one month before we even met Joe), how am I NOT the creator? How is Joe THE creator? The simple email record, and even a letter from Joe himself, clearly show that the current company communications are downright false and misleading . . . and, in the eyes of many, perpetuate an ongoing fraud – one that the SEC and FTC should be made aware of.

 

I initially stated that “nobody lied,” desiring to give this current management team the benefit of the doubt and chalking it to human error and the discontinuity of company management in general. But then, month after month went by with the same erroneous materials still being widely distributed by the company, despite their own admission to me that Joe isn’t the creator. These same materials are on the company website TODAY. I just don’t get how a company can keep doing that, with full knowledge that the materials are sending the wrong message to current and new distributors. Many times I wrote emails (which I’d be happy to share with you) and each time nothing was done to take down the offending materials.

 

I’ll be glad to once again share that whole “Protandim Development History” with you, which is backed up by meticulous documentation, the full email record, plus personal notes and commentaries. It spanned over 20 blog entries. I’m an “open book.” I had nothing to hide. I shared it all.

 

I’m sure, though, that if I were to re-post Protandim’s development history, the company would claim that I was then “giving away company secrets” and would once again try to silence the true history of the product’s creation – MY creation of Protandim – that occurred for almost ten months before I even met Joe. The reality is that the company misrepresentations have gone on for so long now that they have no choice but to try to silence the truth. Just you wait and see. I can almost hear the “cease and desist” letter being typed up right now. And I can almost picture the new “watered-down” version of the history that the company will now come up with.

 

Doug mentioned in his letter that I found the company response unacceptable. Well, one of those unacceptable conditions was that I sign a new set of releases (to silence me telling the true Protandim story again) and that I pull down my “LifeVantage / Protandim Founder’s Page” on Facebook which, of course, would be in addition to my blog that was already pulled down. Do you see the common theme here? Silence. Silence. And more Silence. I’m a high-justice person who stands for truth and integrity and, despite the company trying to buy that silence by offering for Traffic Jam to be featured at convention, I told them that I couldn’t in good conscience do that. I’m not signing away my voice. My “Founder’s Page” stays. My voice stays. And my appeal to get the company to meet its commitments . . . stays.

 

Do you want a company of integrity? Well, then, don’t let them silence the truth any more. Protandim wasn’t an “idea” that Bill and I took to Joe. It was a full formula that even Joe stated in a letter was almost at its “final embodiment.” And the company’s charitable pledges to Traffic Jam wasn’t an “idea” that I just came up with. It was represented in multiple press releases and SEC filings and collateral materials. If you don’t believe me, go to EDGAR and check yourself for at least the SEC part of it.

 

Ever wonder why the company took down all the archived press releases? Because it backs up what I’m saying and what I’ve been asking, not for myself, but on behalf of trafficked and enslaved children.

 

Given the erroneous wording in Doug’s email, I can only assume now that the company has chosen the issue of the 100,000 shares to try to discredit me – making it sound like I’ve been making selfish and unreasonable demands of the company – while at the same time trying to discredit the true history of Protandim’s development. Doug, of course, fails to mention in his email that the “great deal of material” that I posted on the Internet concerning “my view” of that development was 1.) Taken down by me as a sign of “good faith” and 2.) Was only posted in the first place after I reached out to the company multiple times beforehand – with no response.

 

I’m not sure how Doug can call it “my view” of Protandim’s development anyway, considering that it included hundreds of emails (that were copied or sent to dozens upon dozens of people) as well as a number of other source documents that were widely circulated. It’s not just “my view,” as demonstrated by the substantiated, well-documented evidence. Of course, if the company has its way, you probably won’t see any of that document and you’ll just have to accept Doug’s words that it was simply “my view” of events. Where was Doug during the development of Protandim? Who is he to challenge the clear evidence? Can he not see the patent was initially filed a full month before Joe even came into the picture? Does he not see whose name is on the patent?

 

For months, I’ve taken steps of “good faith” and have expected the company to do the same – to act in “good faith” to take down the erroneous marketing materials that were propagating that Joe was the inventor/creator of Protandim. Sadly, the company never reciprocated. The 100,000 share issue, unfortunately, has now become the easy point of contention that allows LifeVantage to not have to give credit to me for my invention. By making it so public and contentious, LifeVantage now has a convenient excuse to not have to include Bill and me in our rightful place in the company history. Something that should have been celebrated can now be easily swept under the rug because I’m the “bad guy” with “unreasonable” expectations who asked the company to honor its commitments. It now allows them to feel better about themselves somehow – for so long being negligent in getting the real story about Protandim’s development out there; for so long casting me in a “false light” by commission and omission; for so long keeping up the erroneous materials to the point of malice and great hurt.

 

Company of integrity, Doug says? How about keeping its original promises to match the founders’ shares to rescue children? How about keeping its original promises to give 10% of pre-tax net profits away for children and related humanitarian causes? How about filing an 8-K correction notice with the SEC every time the erroneous message of Joe being the “creator” went out? How about the promise to correct the development history while at the same time keeping up the offending materials that lead people to believe Joe was the inventor? How about David’s promise to “make it happen” for me to have a “Goodwill Ambassador” role with the company, to help further the purposes of Traffic Jam? How about the company’s constant encouragement for distributors to use the copyrighted material of ABC News for commercial purposes? How about all those big distributors who came over with down-lines allegedly “stolen” from Zrii? How about ALL the mentions of diseases when it’s clearly not permitted in the marketing of a supplement?

 

Integrity? Company of integrity? Actions speak louder than words.

 

This is a very sad day for me folks. The “petition” that Doug mentioned in his letter was merely me throwing up my arms in bewilderment and wondering why on earth the Board wasn’t fulfilling the matching pledge with a measly 100,000 shares when the evidence was so clear that 100,000 shares were missing (Believe me, I was asking for these shares long before the recent run-up in price). Even a math flunkey could see that the numbers didn’t add up and 100,000 shares were still owed. Instead of bringing the match to completion, with an amount of shares that pales in comparison to the fat stock options the executives are getting, they chose to make this big issue out of it. It could have been a cause for celebration. Instead, the company has chosen to create yet another public relations nightmare. I didn’t ask for that. They did it. And I’m baffled by it.

 

I started off with 5 million shares. Why on earth would I make all this fuss about 100,000 shares if it were not true? I’m a man of principle and the principle-of-the-matter is the shares are still owed. Gosh, by their reaction, you’d think I asked for the moon.

 

I merely responded by saying that I would put out the public information and ask distributors to let their voices be heard – for integrity and common sense. But somehow that’s now something portrayed as me being devious and destructive. Hello? Why would I try to destroy the stock of the company I’m trying to get shares from? Hello?

 

Conversely, I don’t believe the LifeVantage Board has acted in its fiduciary duty in this matter. I believe they are acting in a destructive manner. Why on earth would they bring about such a disruptive episode in the midst of such growth and promise? The missing shares are soooooooo obvious that they are missing from the match. I gave 200,000 shares. Bill gave 100,000 shares. the company gave 200,000 (matching mine) and, hello again, Bill’s shares didn’t get matched. 100,000 shares missing. You don’t need a mathematics degree to figure that one out. Why would the Board put so much at risk – the airing out of this laundry – instead of just issuing the shares to help rescue kids?! And celebrating it!

 

. . . Unless, of course, they were needing something to make me look “bad” or “unreasonable” so they don’t feel so bad about the incorrect company communications about who invented the product. And to release themselves from an obligation to correct that history in a way that celebrates Bill’s and my involvement.

 

. . . Now they can just quietly remove the “creator” tag from Joe and hope that nobody notices. Just like they did when they removed the “inventor” tag from him.

 

Doug’s letter concludes by asking distributors to not get involved in anything that “disparages” the company. Wow. I asked the company to honor its commitment with a measly 100,000 shares to stop 11 year-olds from getting raped 20 times per day; to stop 7 year-olds from having to shoot their parents before being forcibly conscripted into a child militia. Now, if any distributor goes along with supporting what is clearly in the public record, and honoring their own conscience to see the pledge fulfilled for children such as these, they are in violation of their distributor’s agreement. Seriously?

 

Looks like the strong arm of silence rearing up again.

 

My apologies for rambling on in this open letter. Obviously I’m a passionate person – the same passion that brought Protandim into being in the first place. And, obviously, I’m quite upset right now – not just by these events, but how they’ve now been represented in Doug’s email.

 

Unfortunately, it’s the distributors and the children who lose out because of the Board’s baffling conclusion and Doug’s irrational choice to send out his email. Quite wreckless, if you ask me. Certainly not acting in the best interests of the shareholders. They turned a public relations celebration into a public relations nightmare.

 

I apologize to all of you that it has come to this. It certainly wasn’t my intention.

 

I want you all to know that I love you all and do indeed wish you the best. I will STILL use my “Founder’s Page” on Facebook as a place of encouragement and, given this recent turn of events, as a place of clarity and truth.

 

Blessings,

Paul

So there you have it.  Since this time, Myhill has been sat on by Lifevantage (as it turns out a kind of double-blackmail) and then stated that the shares were the thing to buy.  Following this, Lifevantage have made public pronouncements about their charitable donations to Myhill’s charitable organisation(s) and there’s now, apparently,  a kind of Machiavellian sweetness and light between them.

But whatever:   the business is still a snake-oil pyramid scheme founded on flawed and discredited “science” and promoted by MLM-hopping get-rich-quick wide-boys.  For more on these recent developments and a fuller history of investigations into the topic, see a few of LazyMan’s postings here:

• Paul Myhill: LifeVantage’s Communications are Downright False and Misleading, Perpetuate an Ongoing Fraud
• LifeVantage Bribes Paul Myhill To Hide the Truth About Protandim
• LifeVantage Used Company Insiders and Investors in Only Human Protandim Study
• LifeVantage Lies to SEC, Investors, Consumers about “Harvard” Study
• LifeVantage and Dr. Joe McCord Lied about the Creation of Protandim!

…….I won’t steal any more of Lazyman’s thunder and there much, much more on his site.  But from top to bottom, the volunteers and employees of all the charities financed by Myhill and/or Lifevantage should examine their hearts and ask themselves;

What value is there to a charity when it’s financed from deception?

So what if Myhill has had his photo taken with Elton John or whoever.

So what if Myhill plugs;

Paul Myhill Entertainer Plugs

“Meetings getting scheduled with Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Slash, Myles Kennedy, and many more. The TRAFFIC JAM Campaign (Stop Child Trafficking & Slavery) will be rocking this summer!”

Our Prime Ministers and Presidents are often photographed with the pariahs of the world.  Elton is one of the world’s biggest self-publicists and spend-thrifts.  So is Gaga.  So, so what?  There is no validation there.

It’s still a charity founded on deception.  It may have good aims.  It may be correctly financed and regulated -  though Vogel has shed great doubts over this (See here, here, here, here and here).  But it is financed by a pyramid scheme based MLM using a product with no proven benefit as the bait on the hook.

When the PR folk at Lady Gaga, Timberlake’s et al label’s get wind of the deceptions surrounding Myhill, will the charity campaign still be a-rockin’?  Will all of Zoe Hamilton’s (a loyal Myhill fan/worker/volunteer?) networking work be for naught?  Let’s see.

 Related articles

• LifeVantage Has Record Quarter (mlmblog.net)
• Brief Update: Protandim (sciencebasedmedicine.org)
• An open letter to People Who Write Open Letters (thepunch.com.au)

Ping.sg web badge (Photo credit: inju)

My Site 5 server has had some trouble (as well as another one from my host I notice), so I’ve temporarily blocked all comments and pings to this site to ease the strain and see what’s causing this…  I don’t think it’s this site, but the bad guys are always inventing new tricks.

Related articles

• Monitoring Systems – Your best friend. Really.(serverfault.com)

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• Site registration(medicine.com.my)

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Appalled

I’ve had a few site problems whereby my host Site 5, said I was using too many resources and crashing their systems.  Naturally, I was appalled.  I traced this to a variety of plugins plus some errors in php files which must have arrived either during the periodic updates or during editing.  These were errors whereby extra text (either blank space or a carriage return to be precise) were added to the end of the php file, which usually makes it fail.  This a is a Google search on the main error I received,

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent …  (  This is then followed by error details; usually error on line xx, repeated several times for a variety of xx)

After battling for some time, I just gave up, exported my database key tables (things like posts, comments, etc but omitting plugin inserted tables and the very large options table which I deemed to be very bloated after over five years of continuous WordPress operation…!) and re-installed WordPress as a fresh installation on my server.

Weird Permalink Problem Following Clean Install of WordPress

This is where the weird problem arose….

SP Permalink Settings

When one installs WordPress for the first time, permalinks are set to the default – so this current post would be:

 http://strangelyperfect.tv/?p=11622

For SEO reasons and for many years I’ve used the format shown in the screenshot from my site shown left.  This current post will thus appear as:

http://strangelyperfect.tv/11622/wordpress-permalinks-generated-but-not-redirected

It’s a “Custom Structure” and the .htaccess file is updated automatically by WordPress when you set it.  You’ll see it’s set to:

/%post_id%/%postname%/

Now, on firing up a post, say this one,

http://strangelyperfect.tv/11428/victory-or-is-it-victory-jesse-willms-surrenders-all-to-ftc-onslaught/ ,

the actual web address I was taken to was:

http://strangelyperfect.tv/%post_id%/victory-or-is-it-victory-jesse-willms-surrenders-all-to-ftc-onslaught/  (error shown in bold)

…which redirected to the homepage of the site, http://strangelyperfect.tv/   This was not what I was expecting!  So I played with the slashes, went back to original simple permalink structure, tried some of the suggested structures – and they all worked!

A custom structure of /%postname%/ worked as well, but not the one I wanted and have used for years.

Weird.   So naturally, I tried Google.

Permalink Redirection Problem Solved.

There’s a lot on the web about this.  Most is about getting .htaccess right with permissions and the code.  But mine was okay, as were all the other suggestions to try.

A real key to resolving my problem was here, Custom Permalinks Generated But Not Redirected in the WordPress forums.  Specifically, it comes from the user, James, a Happiness Engineer!

He suggested adding index.php between the domain name and permalink structure.  So my custom structure changed to:

index.php/%post_id%/%postname%/

WordPress added a leading slash on the save and the website worked!  WAHAY!

However, the best is yet to come….

I thought that the URL was now not pretty, in fact, it was pretty ugly.  The URLs were now being shown like:

http://strangelyperfect.tv/index.php/11428/victory-or-is-it-victory-jesse-willms-surrenders-all-to-ftc-onslaught/

So I removed the index.php and reset the custom structure to what I wanted – /%post_id%/%postname%/

It worked!  WAHAY!  All posts’ URLs redirecting  how I wanted!

Conclusion

I’ve no idea, actually.  I’m suspecting some caching, somewhere down the great inter-tubes in the sky, but apart from that…………..?

• Was it my server?  Dunno.
• Was it DNS caching?  Dunno.
• Was it ISP caching? Dunno

All I know is that it’s working now, and the Happiness Engineer’s suggestion sent me on my way, happy.

Related articles

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• SEO and 404 redirect (oldwildissue.wordpress.com)
• Changing WordPress Permalink Structure (graphiclineweb.wordpress.com)
• Daily Tip: How to Add .html to the End of a WordPress URL (pressography.com)
• Remains of the Day: Many WordPress Sites Redirecting to Malware [For What It's Worth] (lifehacker.com)
• Typo in an inbound link? Redirection to the rescue! (robcottingham.ca)
• IIRF causes a loop with wordpress pretty permalinks (stackoverflow.com)

Willms et al to Pay $359,291,898

Jesse Willms, (the Canadian who set the legal dogs, financed by his scamduggery, onto me, for telling the truth about him on this website), has finally caved in to the FTC charges.  This is the full FTC judgement.

This is a  victory of sorts for the millions who have been scammed by him over the last few years.  However, what has actually happened has been a kind of plea bargaining, much favoured in the US. (Here’s his home-town take on it.)

Hunstville 0, Willms 1

Instead of being stripped completely of his ill-gotten gains and being chucked in the slammer for a few years, he has reached a settlement whereby no admission of guilt has been made!

This is exactly what I suggested would happen, because the self-proclaimed philanthropist Jesse will do anything, absolutely anything, to stay in business.

To me this isn’t true victory.

He’s not been punished by the law which explains the lingering smell I have, possibly due to his key lawyers having previously worked at the FTC.  Maybe it is the old boy network?  Whatever.

The millions (yes, millions the FTC say) of people scammed may be temporarily amazed at the $359-million judgement, but seeing as how the original complaint was for over $450m they’ll soon realise that he’s got off with $100m!  However it’s worded, Willms has weaselled out of any admission of guilt, which means he’s still in business.

What cunning plans could now be afoot, with $100m to back them up, they’ll wonder?  It’s like The Return of Fu Manchu.

Almost 4 Million Questions

Like me, the millions scammed by him will be questioning how he isn’t, right now, being butt-plugged in Huntsville, instead of having 7 days to calmly surrender his bank accounts to prove that he can stump up the $359m negotiated, meanwhile making gratuitous comments about better business practices in future whilst still singing the praises of his $1000 philanthropic gestures.

• True, Willms et al have to hand over all their money and have promised as much under sufferance of perjury.
• True, they all have to notify the FTC of their whereabouts for the next 20 years and all their business proceeds.  They have to keep compliance records for 5 years.
• True, Willms must tell the FTC his jobs, phone numbers, businesses in which he’s involved etc
• True, Willms et al have 180 days to hand over all details of all their businesses and contacts within those businesses.
• True, Willms for the next five years must give a copy of the FTC order (the pdf attached) to each person he does business with and that they have 30 days to sign and return it to the FTC.

True for all of that, but, Willms can still do business and who knows if any of his victims will get recompensed.  A lot of the order’s wording is to ensure that the US & Canadian Inland Revenue get their taxes from Willms et al for the last three years.  What about the little people?

This article guesses that victims won’t see any of the cash.  My guess is that only those people that actually complained to the FTC will get cash, which is why it’s so important to complain, as I’ve suggested for years.

This article thinks that he’s had to hand over everything (though I can’t see how they justify that, given what we know about business secrecy in Nicosia, Cyprus), yet it also points out that the bans that Willms has had to acquiesce to only apply to the USA!  That is, there’s nothing at all saying Willms can’t set up anywhere else, like Korea say, and hammer the world from there!

MSNBC opinionate that Jesse Willms will need to look for a new line of work…..

I, of course, beg to differ, because:

• He settled with Microsoft, yet carried on trading as usual.
• He settled with Symantech, yet carried on trading as usual.
• He settled with Oprah Winfrey, yet carried on trading as usual.
• He settled with Dr Oz, yet carried on trading as usual.
• He settled with Google yet carried on trading as usual.
• Now he has settled with the FTC. I’d be amazed (yet obviously pleased) if he changed the patterns of a lifetime. Only time will tell.

On top of this, Willms himself states on his blog entry (see screenshot above);

We are working to resolve issues relating to past marketing practices for products that our company no longer sells. Through this process, we have taken steps to assure(sic) that our business practices are in full compliance with the law. We are excited by the opportunity to continue giving customers access to a variety of products and services at significant savings. – n.b.  the emphasis is mine.

…..which looks to me that it’s more web business, not a change in business type.

It’s a victory, but not the one the whole world wants.  It all leaves a bad, lingering, smell…..

 Affected Businesses

Apart from Willms, Sechrist and others, the business entities that we’ve come across in our investigations here, are all in the judgement.  It writes that “Corporate Defendants” means:

• 1021018 Alberta Ltd, also d..b.a. Just Think Media, Credit Report America, Wulongsource, and Wuyi Source;
• 1016363 Alberta Ltd also d.b.a. eDirect Software;
• 1524948 Alberta Ltd, also d.b.a. Terra Marketing Group, Swipe.Bids.com, and SwipeAuctions.com;
• Circle Media Bids Limited, also d.b.a. SwipeBids.com SwipeAuctions.com, and SellofAuctions.com;
• Coastwest Holdings Limited;
• Farend Services Ltd;
• JDW Media, LLC;
• Net Soft Media, LLC, also d.b.a. SwipeBids.com;
• Sphere Media, LLC, also d.b,a SwipeBids.com and SwipeAuctions.com;

I’ve listed these so that they appear in search engines and so that people realise the lengths of obfuscation that Willms has used in his activities.

Office Politics

I say Willms, because he is recognised in the judgement as the prime mover in the scams.  He has been pinched for hundreds of millions – the others have been collared for a few tens of thousands at most each, some, for nothing, because (how embarrassing is that for them?), they have nothing – yes really!

• How annoying for the two Gravers that their payments are about the same as young Jesse Wilms’ fish tank!  ($30,000 in 2010 he paid for it)
• I wonder how the Children’s Hospital Boston and the Gulf Coast Restoration Fund both realise that they’ve got less from philanthropic Jesse than he’s spent on his fish tank?  ($25k each)  I wonder how they feel now, knowing that this money was stolen from ordinary consumers, people like themselves?
• Or how do Canadian veterans feel about Willms plugging his $1k donation to the poppy fund, while spending $5000 on a pool table?

How galling for Sechrist, Callister, and Milne.  They can pay nothing, Willms can pay $359m!  If they’re still working for him I bet that that’s fun in the office!

This is a local copy of the full FTC Judgement Against Wills et al  I suggest everyone read it – it’s riveting.

Related articles

• FTC Halts Deceptive Practices of Marketer Who Collected $359 Million Using Bogus ‘Free’ Trial Offers (ftc.gov)
• Jesse Willms Banned by Judge from Negative Option Selling – Assets Frozen! (strangelyperfect.tv)
• FTC Permanently Stops Six Operators from Using Fake News Sites that Allegedly Deceived Consumers about Acai Berry Weight-Loss Products (ftc.gov)
• Con artist made $359m selling worthless drugs over internet to customers in UK and US (dailymail.co.uk)
• FTC Reaches $359 Million Settlement Over ‘free’ Trial Offers (pcworld.com)
• Accused of defrauding consumers, Alta. businessman settles with U.S. authorities (canada.com)
• Authorities End Spree by Payday Loan Scammers (loans.org)
• FTC reaches $359 million settlement over ‘free’ trial offers (oracleidentity.wordpress.com)
• Scammer took in $359M with bogus ‘free-trial’ offers (lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com)
• FTC To Provide Refunds to Victims of Bogus Scareware Scam (ftc.gov)
• Alberta internet marketer settles $359M case in US (cbc.ca)
• Alberta internet marketer settles $359M case in US (cbc.ca)
• FTC Reaches $359 Million Settlement Over ‘Free’ Trial Offers (pcworld.com)

Above is the FTC’s own headline from a news release yesterday.  The story is that they’ve hammered six operators of fake news sites into making settlements that surrender their assets.  They’ve also halted the six operations plus those of four others, making ten by my calculation!

What Is a Fake News Site?

Do you really need to ask?   !!    (These are for news7digest, see more below on this!).

Anyone who even casually browses the web will have seen these news exposes, quite often advertised down the right side on Facebook and in banner adverts on even the most sensible of websites – like this one, say!

How the adverts work is that they are paid for by the operators.  They deliberately pay to get premium visibility slots, using Google often, but not exclusively.

The fake news site itself will be plastered with well known icons of top companies (like CNN, BBC, CBC, ABC, Google even!) and purport to be a serious investigation by a journalist into whatever the scam may be.  A short list of such scams that we’ve revealed here are:

• Acai weight loss
• Tea weight loss.
• Acai bowel cleanse.
• Other bowel cleanse.
• Get rippling muscles.
• Make money on Google.
• Get a cheap payday loan.
• Get a cheap government grant.
• Get rejuvenation skin cream.
• Look younger in other ways.
• Gamble on penny auctions.

channel4online.co.uk

Just yesterday, Peter Farrahy asked why these fake news sites are still going on this post about Jesse Willms.

So taking his example of the very plausible looking channel4online.co.uk and doing a search on it like so:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=channel4online.co.uk

…produces several links to the actual Channel 4 in the UK, and the scam site….

This shows the deliberate, deceptive and despicable way in which the site name has been chosen to closely imitate a legitimate and bona-fide news organisation.  Fraud, in other words – as the definition says – “an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual”

Amazingly, if you click the link several times, each effort takes you to one of three different landing pages for a new site, the actual fake news site of,

news7digest.com

This shows up in the header image in two, but confusingly is called Consumer Reporter in the other!  They are all visually quite different.

The three screenshots near the top of this article are indeed the three fake news sites which you’ll land on by clicking on channel4online.co.uk.

Here they are again, to save you scrolling:

Conclusion

Is this the end of the fake news sites?  Well, obviously not.

They are still very very current and still very very visible.  The highly photoshopped images adorn well known websites to the point of irritation.  However, the settlement was only yesterday.  The note on the FTC statement goes on the say;

A settlement order is for settlement purposes only and does not constitute an admission by the defendant that the law has been violated. Settlement orders have the force of law when approved and signed by the District Court judge.

Despite this, it appears the six defendants are caving in as no appeals have been launched.  They are and the details of the settlements are as follows:

• Ricardo Jose Labra Labra’s $2.5 million judgment will be suspended when he pays $280,000 and records a $39,500 lien on his home.
• Zachary S. Graham, Ambervine Marketing, LLC and Encastle, Inc. Graham’s $953,000 judgment will be suspended when he pays $110,000 plus most of the proceeds from the sale of a truck.
• Tanner Garrett Vaughn Vaughn’s $203,000 judgment will be suspended when he pays close to $80,000 over a three-year period.
• Thou Lee Lee’s $204,000 judgment will be suspended when he pays $13,000 plus the proceeds from the sale of a BMW.
• Charles Dunlevy Dunlevy’s $143,000 judgment will be suspended when he pays an estimated $2,000 from frozen assets and the sale of a boat.
• DLXM, LLC and Michael Volozin The $594,000 judgment will be suspended because of the defendants’ inability to pay.

I see it as a warning shot.  The actual wording of the terms against the six goes as follows.  It’s quite onerous and specific, I think, which means that these News7Digest screenshots at the top of this posting put the operators in deep doggy do if they don’t get their act together pronto.  The highlights are mine.

As part of its ongoing crackdown on bogus health claims, the proposed settlements will require that the six operations make clear when their commercial messages are advertisements rather than objective journalism, and will bar the defendants from further deceptive claims about health-related products such as the acai berry weight-loss supplements and colon cleansers that they marketed.

The defendants also are required to disclose any material connections they have with merchants, and will be barred from making deceptive claims about other products, such as the work-at-home schemes or penny auctions that most of them promoted.  The settlements also require that these defendants collectively pay roughly $500,000 to the Commission because their advertisements violated federal law.  This money amounts to most of their assets.

A Sample of My Previous Posts Mentioning Fake News Websites

• http://strangelyperfect.tv/10220/windows-defrag-to-news-9-today-browser-scam/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/7955/facebook-msnbc-jesse-willms-swipe-auctions-and-doctored-photos/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/6568/dangerous-effectivecleanse-and-scams-too/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/10195/dodgy-robert-allen-on-facebook/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/10909/fabian-tactics-of-google-work-at-home-scam-legal-team/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/7108/jobs-at-just-think-media/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/7783/pacific-webworks-lawyers-and-social-networking/

This all proves that what I and others are saying is wrong – and the FTC is proving it!  Virtually everything that the scammers do the FTC has now taken issue with and imposed heavy penalties.  It’s now, as they say, case law, as well as being the law of the land.  Let’s hope that Willms who chucked his power derived from ill-gotten wealth at me making me pull a page or two for a time, gets his just deserts – sometime this year would be nice.

Careful observers to this website may have (but more probably not) discovered a tiny little link on random pages, which includes the main page.  The link is there to trap spammers.  Spammers of all kinds really, because once email addresses are skimmed, then they’re in the wild, but initially I trap comment spammers along with address harvesters.  At the end of this post you can see the spammers and scammers that I’ve help trap so far which means that they’re added to block lists thus saving internet users just a wee bit of trouble.

For me, as a webmaster, it’s no trouble to install and I urge others to do the same.  It’s called Project Honey Pot.

How it Works

For your interest, a file is served to a spammer which anyone can view should they click the tiny link.  The file is different on each website. It’s actually human readable but is constructed as two columns with no space, plus a few invisible characters.  Copying and pasting aren’t straightforward!

In it, are a perfectly readable set of Terms & Conditions which are broadly similar to those on all my websites, except they’re a lot more formal!  Buried in this formality is the statement that anyone who uses an email address sourced from this website is liable to a fee of $50!

This is the full content that (usually) only automated bots will find.  Enjoy!

Project Honey Pot Site Terms

And yes, naturally, being a webmaster, I record IP addresses for all visitors for a variety of reasons.   Everyone does!  Below is my Spam Honey Pot page.

My Honey Pot Front Page

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave...

Back in 2009 I stumbled upon a negative option scam for which those involved were sued by Google (and folded with an out-of-court settlement) and were prosecuted by Uncle Sam, losing again.  Initially, I was completely unaware of the depths of deception to which these people would stoop, but then I rapidly discovered the nightmare web that they’d constructed and how difficult it was for ordinary people, duped by slick honest-looking promises, to un-pick themselves from it.

Not only that, I quickly realised that PWW weren’t the only spawn of the devil and that others, like Jesse Willms, were up to very similar tricks.  See:

• http://strangelyperfect.tv/3099/google-treasure-chest-its-a-scam-and-a-half/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/3140/google-kit-or-treasure-chest-the-plot-thickens/
•  http://strangelyperfect.tv/3240/google-treasure-chest-update/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/3347/google-treasure-chest-and-a-huge-list-of-scams/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/3397/best-description-of-google-treasure-chest-scam/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/3527/embarrassing-pingback-advert-for-google-treasure-chest/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/3743/google-treasure-chest-and-the-bbb-better-business-bureau/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/4308/google-revolution-different-name-same-scam/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/5146/more-on-google-profits-and-pacific-webworks/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/5475/goodbye-bollochio/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/6150/co-durham-and-utah-weirder-than-i-imagined/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/6818/my-first-british-google-business-kit/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/7120/from-pww-to-white-teeth/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/7783/pacific-webworks-lawyers-and-social-networking/
• http://strangelyperfect.tv/10634/from-google-treasure-chest-to-sun-tan-scam-in-nevis-on-the-bbc/

Methods

The above list of links more-or-less shows how we found out the Pacific Webworks (PWW) story.  They’re by no means the only set of devils in the world trying to scam people, but they’re the one’s I stumbled upon first.  That’s all.

Their business was to set up website templates that their “customers” could use to extract money from their customers by use of the negative option scam.  In effect, they were selling the tools to steal to people, who then had the option of calling it a day or selling the tools to steal on themselves, thus stealing.

To promote it they used mass advertising through paid ads on Google (using the Google and others’ trademarks to make it appear that these offers were endorsed by those referenced), through Quad, which they owned, and fake news or personal information websites (flogs) loaded with follow up ads.  The promotions could be their own, but for the most part it was all done by “affiliates” (their customers) that all took varying degrees of commission for follow-through clicks.

The advertising was managed by Bloosky Interactive that also operated through 3rd parties unsolicited email adverts, spam to you and me.

Underlying it all was the credit card processing business which they also owned (Intellipay) usually through the securecart domain.

All parties involved, except the final folk who didn’t really understand how bent this whole operation was, fully understood the nature of this business.  How could they not? – when they were selling “services” for $1.95 for which they’d get $30 commission!!!

Turn of the Screw

In another twist of deviousness, PWW (run by Bell, Bell, Larsen & Larsen at the time) set up The Quad Group (geddit?) to avoid creditors.  This is how they themselves described it:

In June 2009 we experienced limited merchant account processing capabilities which created a situation where we could not satisfy payables to marketing partners. To generate needed cash in the 2009 second quarter we sold a portion of our hosting portfolio that was in excess of merchant account limitations to The Quad Group, LLC, a related party (the “Quad Group”) for $157,786. Quad Group is owned and managed by current directors, officers and an employee of Pacific WebWorks. We may periodically be required to enter into sale transactions with Quad Group to properly manage our merchant account processing requirements.

Neat huh?

Cuts and Thrusts

So that’s about it, as I currently understand it.  PWW’s managers/owners had customers on two levels, that is;

1. The direct affiliates and associated advertisers who were enticed into the operation or migrated from other similar schemes via the lure of easy money.  These people used the templates to lure others with promises of easy money, paid as commission for attracting others to run the same schemes.  The schemes didn’t sell anything – except the scheme!  A true pyramid scam!
2. Duped suckers.  These, numerically the vast majority, soon realised after one or two mysterious withdrawals from their account of amounts around the $79 mark, that it was a scam.

The thrust of the plan was the hope that most people wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t investigate much and wouldn’t associate with other suckers through embarrassment or whatever, just writing off the episode as one of life’s bad judgements.  Thus PWW would make say, $200 from which all the ads and affiliates would get their cut.

Just Desserts

Statue of Justice

Black September

But still the shit kept coming their way.  Just as I’d predicted in my postings (see list above), karma would get them.  On 19 September 2011 this year a class action was brought against the three main bodies behind the scam – Booth Ford v PWW et al – Barbara Ford is to be commended for her patience.  It was 2009 when she first filed for a class action!

In it, we see just how badly PWW have been acting for years.  Section 11, for me, sums it up perfectly!

Booth Ford v PWW et al Section 11

So there we have it!  Now where’s the problem?

Rip-off Too Big!!

On 1 December 2011, Quad (who are actually essentially the same people as PWW with an almost similar board make-up – in fact the Google settlement made it plain that wives of the directors had been roped in as well), filed to be removed from the Class Action because they might have ripped off too much from people!  eh??  See QUAD_GROUP_NOTICE_OF_REMOVAL

The essence of their legal Fabian tactic (as I see it) is that:

1. They scammed people from all over, not just Illinois, so it’s not a valid class action.
2. They scammed people so much (by over $5m they say), that it’s the wrong court in which they should be tried, so ditch your claim against us!
3. They scammed people by so much that the class action lawyer’s fees alone will be $9m so same reasoning as point 2!

Quad Group Sums

Their sums in the above court removal document are in this screenshot.  There are others as well.  Of course, Quad (PWW with a different hat on remember) aren’t admitting any liability at all with this, so my use of the words scamming bastards reflects my personal opinions, not a statement of fact.  These opinions are based on the facts that:

1. Pacific Webworks acquiesced to all of Google’s demands when sued for illegal trademark usage.
2. Eborn and others lost their case when sued by the Texas AG when using PWW’s templates*, finance processing and networks to scam folks for millions of dollars.
3. PWW lost their case when sued by Uncle Sam.
4. PWW admitted filing untrue SEC accounts and changed accountants twice because of this.
5. One of the accountants was directly related to a PWW director.

It’s noteworthy that the sum of $43m is derived from one “illegal” charge of ~$80 plus one subsequent charge of ~$25 multiplied across the claimed customer count of ~455,000 persons – because I have evidence from people who’ve contacted this site and others that some people had up to half a dozen illegal account withdrawals before they could put on a stop, which implies that the allegedly scammed amount could be much, much higher.

It’s also noteworthy that Quad’s own suppositional sums show high value amounts from this “business” yet for all this time, no dividends were paid and the only way investors in the company could make money was through share price changes.  If you tie this information to the incorrect accounting and familial accountant/director relationships, plus the fact that PWW is largely the same people as Quad, then collusion looks highly likely over this time period and the SEC will quite possibly be knocking following the conclusion to this class action.

With regard to the SEC, the same SEC filing that revealed Quad’s dubious formation also reveals that;

Our client base includes approximately 30,000 active customer accounts. We rely on the efforts of our internal marketing staff and on third party resellers, including our wholly-owned reseller, TradeWorks Marketing, to add accounts to our customer base. – see SEC Link

Well they can’t both be right, can they, Quad?  Is it 455,892 customers in your sums or is it 30,000 in the SEC filing?

Linkages

Copious links are included in the articles referenced by the site references at the beginning of this article so I haven’t had time to re-reference all the above statements.  But they’re there should you wish to look.

I certainly hope that the Fabian tactics don’t work and that people see them for what they are.

Notes & Addendum

*     Eborn et al used website designs very similar to those provided by PWW.   Whether they were exactly the same is a moot point in my view, because like a burglar who learns to house-break from another burglar, the crow-bar used will not be exactly the same crow bar, but it’s the idea of using a crowbar that’s important to the final act of theft.  In other words templates, like crowbars, are just tools.  Eborn’s websites were almost carbon-copies of those from PWW using all the Visual “tools”, the money processing and the affiliate networks that they “employed”.   Many sites (I had a huge list of them and copied images directly from the site before they locked it down) were partly or wholly hosted on pantherssl.com  via Bloosky.  These co-incidences didn’t happen by chance and show intelligent design behind their purpose.  (Thanks Paul!)

Jesse Willms Banned by Judge from Negative Option Selling – Assets Frozen!

Frozen Assets

CBC (with whom Willms has already had a tussle) in Canada are already broadcasting that local high-school athlete drop-out turned internet businessman of dubious repute, the self-styled and self-publicising entrepreneur & charitable Jesse Willms, has had some shackles applied to his business by the order, by a Seattle court, to freeze his assets (in case they’re needed to payout to his alleged victims and fines) and also to not use the negative option gambit in any of his websites.

See the CBC report (and wonderful video) here:

U.S. judge freezes assets of Alberta internet salesman

CBC report on the FTC lawyer Robert Schroeder saying,

The judge also froze the assets of Willms and his companies

I'm not a Flim-flam guy!

This could be the main reason why CBC say that all his websites (that they know of, at least) are down and that his phone is dead.   I’ve checked and the dismal self-publicity blogs are still running, which they would be I suppose, as they’re not selling anything except the idea that Willms is a “good guy”.  The judge is Marsha J. Pechman, Federal Judge out of the Western District Court of Seattle according to the post I’ve linked to.  It finishes with the words:

While Jesse Willms has not responded much to these accusations, he has hired many firms to engage in a positive PR and SEO campaign and consistently sends out news releases claiming that he has been assisting charities with financial donations. Additionally, there are at least a dozen “blogs” setup by Mr. Willms to counteract the negative press with positive SERPS.

This is exactly what this website and many others have been saying for over a year now!  “Performance Marketing Insider” also states that:

Currently, according to news reports, there is a both a consumer and criminal investigation against Mr. Willms in Canada.

Well this is good! And only fair – fair to the thousands and thousands of people that feel duped by Willms’ activities.  Roll on next year – Willms is scheduled for trial in the U.S. in July 2012.  Should be sooner.

According to the CBC report, we see another aspect of Willms’ doings whereby he very rarely admits to any mistakes or wrong-doings.  It’s always someone else’s fault, in his world.  CBC say;

Willms has blamed unscrupulous business associates who he claims defrauded him by stealing credit card numbers in order to generate commissions with bogus sales.

I say,

What?  All of them?  All $457 million dollars worth?

Pull the other one!

Willms’ local paper, the Edmonton Journal, also reports on the asset-freezing story here.  They don’t say anything new – but it’s nice to keep the locals informed, don’t you think?

All those local charities that Willms has been plugging his exploits with over the past year must surely be examining their credibility in the eyes of their donating public.  This connection (and to fair, the charges are not proven yet) to Willms is starting to look very bad for them, people have long memories and mud does stick.  Ask any politician!

Surely?

Jesse Willms (r), in the source of the famous grinning shot.

A few days ago I got hacked.  I quickly ripped out a heap of dodgy files left by the hackers but for some days now, Firefox, my browser, while viewing pages on this website, has been saying that it’s “downloading data from tructuyenso.vn… “.

.htaccess

This, of course, was not actually happening, as I’ve put the blockers on the whole of Vietnam using .htaccess!  The reason for this is that initially, tructuyenso wasn’t the only site appearing in the progress tip – there was another which lasted until I got rid of the various files dumped on my website.  This is how:

<Limit GET POST>
order allow,deny
deny from 112.0.0.0/8
allow from all
</Limit>

However, the call was still being made from somewhere on my site as the progress indicator wouldn’t stop….

Site5 Search

A search for the string “tructuyenso.vn” turned up nothing in the files on my website using my website host’s file manager.  (In the end, this was my failing and I will not rely on the thing again!)

A search through my database also turned up zero.

TCPView

TCPView is a download from Sysinternals.com  (now Microsoft!) that shows the various net connections being made to one’s PC from everywhere.  This immediately showed that as soon as the main strangelyperfect.tv website (not the backend WordPress admin area), fired up in Firefox, as many as 7 connections were simultaneously made to 112.78.15.230……  This is the IP address that holds tructuyenso.vn, plus 11 other domains, some of which I’d seen flash through the progress bar.

Even when closed by TCPView, the connections would immediately start up again to the same IP address, 112.78.15.230  (manually closing strangelyperfect.tv stopped the connections).

Reverse IP on tructuyenso.vn

YouGetSignal.com shows the domains up nicely in the screenshot above..

Result!

Finding nowt anywhere and Google searches providing zilch on the website in question except in Vietnamese, I turned to the WordPress Codex, specifically, https://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_My_site_was_hacked

I had of course previously changed my FTP, mySQL databaase and site management passwords, but the link at the bottom to a Website malware & blacklist scan (Sucuri) was the killer!  On visiting Sucuri, it instantly said that I was acting as a host for malware and gave the offending results, for free! (Of course, I wasn’t hosting malware – just that it gave an indication that I was and hence the slowness of the site to load as it tried and failed to download shite my way from Vietnam)

This is their take on it: http://sucuri.net/malware/malware-entry-mwiframehd202

Final Cause and Clean Up

Checking the source code for my homepage (which in retrospect I should have done first!!) threw up “tructuyenso.vn” right at the very bottom.  This is the code as it was when I checked:

<a href="http://tructuyenso.vn" target="_blank" title="Quang cao truc tuyen | Ban hang truc tuyen | Dien dan quang cao truc tuyen" > Quang cao truc tuyen</a>
<iframe marginWidth="0" marginHeight="0" frameBorder="0" width="0" height="0" bottommargin="0" rightmargin="0" leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" nosize scrolling="no" src="http://tructuyenso.vn/"></iframe>
</body>
</html>

This was then easily traced to the footer.php file in my theme, Suffusion.

It was simply stripped out and the website then worked fine…..  but to be sure, I have downloaded then checked the footer file in a fresh theme download to be sure – it’s clean!  I then uploaded a whole clean Suffusion theme in it’s entirety just in case any other theme files were compromised during the original hack yet were dormant, waiting for a trigger.

A recheck on Securi shows my website to be okay now.  See screendump below.   I’ll be using Securi  a lot more!

Securi Site Check

This is due to an upgrade of the MySQL databases to something called Percona, which is a new one on me! Checking it out, it is a custom install of MySQL, with extra management software clagged on.

Related External Links

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