The Scams are Getting Dumber and So Are You

Sorry, how else to explain why this redneck with a one-year-old website was able to launch a $600 million ponzi scheme?  $600 million, I said.  You could buy the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for $600 million, just to put the enormity of that number into context.

Anyway, here goes…

From Reuters:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it shut down a $600 million online Ponzi scheme on the verge of collapse and won a court ordered emergency asset freeze to protect some of the more than 1 million investors it had attracted.

ZeekRewards.com, created in January 2011 by Paul Burks and touted as a “private, invitation only, affiliate advertising division” of penny auction website Zeekler.com, promised investors up to 50 percent of “daily net profits” through a system based on rewards points, the SEC said.

The regulator said this created a false impression of “extreme” profitability, when in reality 98 percent of revenue and so-called net profits paid to earlier investors came from newer investors.

U.S. District Judge Graham Mullen in Charlotte, North Carolina issued an emergency freeze on Friday on the $225 million of investor funds that ZeekRewards still holds at 15 U.S. and non-U.S. financial institutions, and which were at “imminent” risk, court records show.

Oh my god.  What the hell is wrong with you people?  Can’t even blame Wall Street for this – Burks probably referenced Facebook in his con pitch.

Source:

U.S. SEC says shuts ZeekRewards.com $600 million Ponzi scheme  (Reuters)