GlimDropper
06-24-2010, 01:26 PM
Does anyone remember the movie Groundhog Day? Bill Murray finds himself trapped in a world where every day he wakes up is February 2nd and the exact same events transpire. In the movie he alternates between indulgence and despair and can only break the endless cycle after significantly reforming himself. If that movie is any indication then I think it will take a long, long time for the AutoSurf world to find it's way to February 3rd.
For people watching these "Surf" programs it's much like watching that movie, we see the same events, again and again with only slight variations. And just like the members of these programs, if you tried to tell the people in that movie that all of this has happened many times before, they wont believe you. For the people running these programs February 2nd is usually a profitable day and any tomorrow is the day their members find they've been ripped off and the indictments start arriving.
What is a "Surf" program? Well the promoters all say that they are a revolutionary new way to advertise online that actually pays YOU to view other members websites. The courts however call them ponzi schemes where a small percentage of the members profit at the expense of the majority. The annoying thing is no matter how many of these schemes (and there have been thousands) get closed down by law enforcement or just run off with their members money, there always seem to be another program to step up and take their place.
Ad Pay Daily is just one of many programs of this kind and currently it isn't even very successful. But what earns it the "Groundhog Day Seal of Disapproval"® is the bloodline it springs from. In August of 08 the Secret Service raided and closed down Thomas "Andy" Bowdoin's "Ad Surf Daily" and from that time forward it seems that every moment good old Andy hasn't spent trying to delay his pending criminal trial (full court docket available here (http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-dcdce/case_no-1:2008cv01345/case_id-132509/)) he's spent playing puppet master to pure regurgitations of his original ASD buisness model.
Last year his step son and daughter in law fronted for him in the ASD clone called Ad View Global, which was incorporated in Uruguay where it was said to be safe from the evil US government who closed the original program. Well they never had to worry about being closed down because they selected the far more typical exit strategy for surf scheme promoters, they just ran off with the money before anyone could stop them.
This year they call it Ad Pay Daily, and it's back safely on US soil where you supposedly don't need to worry about them just running off with your cash. I'm sure next year they'll incorporate their new scam off shore again, it seems anyone who can remember things that happened as much as two years ago are not their target demographic.
There is no one person who has stepped forward to claim ownership of Ad Pay Daily, I have a name that seems likely but it hasn't been tied to any similar scams (but at least one dissimilar one). But at least five of the first 100 members listed in their database have direct ties to either Ad Surf Daily, Ad View Global or both. We have long time favorites Laura Pont and Barb's husband Larry Alford among others. Todd Disner's name jumps out, not only because his user number is in the single digits (a very early adopter) but because he, his brother and their sandwich dollars were all floated out as a possible life preserver to frightened AVG members, buying time for the owners to run further away with the member's money.
It's still February 2nd in the surf world, this time the name is changed just a little bit. But Ad Pay Daily IS the same thing as Ad Surf Daily and with many of the same faces. The only real difference will be the name of many of their victims, most of the old ones know better now. That's why it's taking so long to find new ones.
For people watching these "Surf" programs it's much like watching that movie, we see the same events, again and again with only slight variations. And just like the members of these programs, if you tried to tell the people in that movie that all of this has happened many times before, they wont believe you. For the people running these programs February 2nd is usually a profitable day and any tomorrow is the day their members find they've been ripped off and the indictments start arriving.
What is a "Surf" program? Well the promoters all say that they are a revolutionary new way to advertise online that actually pays YOU to view other members websites. The courts however call them ponzi schemes where a small percentage of the members profit at the expense of the majority. The annoying thing is no matter how many of these schemes (and there have been thousands) get closed down by law enforcement or just run off with their members money, there always seem to be another program to step up and take their place.
Ad Pay Daily is just one of many programs of this kind and currently it isn't even very successful. But what earns it the "Groundhog Day Seal of Disapproval"® is the bloodline it springs from. In August of 08 the Secret Service raided and closed down Thomas "Andy" Bowdoin's "Ad Surf Daily" and from that time forward it seems that every moment good old Andy hasn't spent trying to delay his pending criminal trial (full court docket available here (http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-dcdce/case_no-1:2008cv01345/case_id-132509/)) he's spent playing puppet master to pure regurgitations of his original ASD buisness model.
Last year his step son and daughter in law fronted for him in the ASD clone called Ad View Global, which was incorporated in Uruguay where it was said to be safe from the evil US government who closed the original program. Well they never had to worry about being closed down because they selected the far more typical exit strategy for surf scheme promoters, they just ran off with the money before anyone could stop them.
This year they call it Ad Pay Daily, and it's back safely on US soil where you supposedly don't need to worry about them just running off with your cash. I'm sure next year they'll incorporate their new scam off shore again, it seems anyone who can remember things that happened as much as two years ago are not their target demographic.
There is no one person who has stepped forward to claim ownership of Ad Pay Daily, I have a name that seems likely but it hasn't been tied to any similar scams (but at least one dissimilar one). But at least five of the first 100 members listed in their database have direct ties to either Ad Surf Daily, Ad View Global or both. We have long time favorites Laura Pont and Barb's husband Larry Alford among others. Todd Disner's name jumps out, not only because his user number is in the single digits (a very early adopter) but because he, his brother and their sandwich dollars were all floated out as a possible life preserver to frightened AVG members, buying time for the owners to run further away with the member's money.
It's still February 2nd in the surf world, this time the name is changed just a little bit. But Ad Pay Daily IS the same thing as Ad Surf Daily and with many of the same faces. The only real difference will be the name of many of their victims, most of the old ones know better now. That's why it's taking so long to find new ones.