Thomas Craig Brodie is counting on Third Time Lucky as he prepares to launch lottery company number three.The first venture Virtual World Direct which claimed to offer a 3600% better chance of a win over the official National Lottery went belly up in 2011 after being declared illegal and was closed down as “a fraudulent scheme”by a High Court Judge .Originally mooted as “The Smarter Way To Play” it clearly wasnt.Launched in partnership with Leonard Gary Fitzgerald,co director, on 13.12.2005 from a small IT company base called Information Technology Systems Limited located in Wales in the UK and owned by Leonard,VWD was launched. Ray st Clair soon promoted himself on board by offering his web design expertise and marketing skills from his base which was then in Spain where he ran several dodgy enterprises.(All since folded up)Following from clever marketing and top flight web prescence together with agressive affiliate recruitment the company VWD grew rapidly,eventually leading to 100,000 members each paying £5 per week as lottery players.VWD later also launched a games platform heralded with loads of hype,under the VWD umbrella called UVME (U versus Me) an online games company they claimed was "growing faster than the internet". (You wont find it anywhere now).
Virtual World Direct had a short but very lucrative history,name changes kept it one step ahead of licensing and legislation.Well versed in such matters Ray st Clair was on hand to dispense suitable advice.It was important to create an illusion of success and professionalism from the very beginning so the company was formed as Virtual World Group PLC and Virtual World Management S.A.
Sounds impressive but a true Public Limited Company (PLC) is open to public scrutiny so it quickly became Virtual World Direct Limited registered at Companies House in the UK .However from the very start it was and remained a “dormant,non trading company”! I find it difficult to believe that non of the membership of 100,000 carried out due diligence and find out this important fact as it meant from the very outset VWD was not an ethical company.After trading on illegaly for some further time the name was changed yet again this time to Virtual World Direct Member Support Limited,though it still continued as a “dormant” company.No accounts have been submitted at any time from any of these shell companies nor details of where the half million pounds generated every week by its members has gone.Along the way Thomas Brodie and Leonard Fitzgerald also ran and registered E.Lotbidder Member Support Limited and UVME Member Support Limitedaso “dormant”,though the only thing they supported where the pockets of Tom,Len,and Ray st Clair.All these companies are now dissolved for failure to submit accounts.
In the course of carrying out this scam which ran from 2005 till 2011,VWD was moved to the Isle of Man in order to be further away from prying eyes,but even there accounts are necessary as is gaming licencing.Therefore in order to keep the whole scam afloat a while longer a further move was made,this time to Panama as an offshore company,this time operating from a PO box.
Ray st Clair during these years was a very active participant of VWDs activities,being involved from the very beginning.He helped launch many of their promotions and website designs,and represented them in Spain until his business activities caught up with him and he fled back to the UK leaving a massive trail of debt.
Despite VWDs relocation abroad,the UK authorities had already begun investigations into their activities not helped by all the adverse publicity surrounding Ray st Clair on the internet brought about by his numerous other sales and marketing scams..
The whole VWD enterprise was forced to close down on 29th March 2011 by a High Court ruling by
compulsory liquidation. A short announcement was made online briefly by VWD but even that disappeared rather smartly. A bit like all that money. £2000,000 a month!
The Daily Mirror,a British newspaper takes up the story:-
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigat...rmation-t.html
Fraud lotto firm Information Technology Systems axed
By Andrew Penman on March 30, 2011 11:00 PM in Prize draws
A pair of lotto syndicate organisers which promised members a better chance of winning the National Lottery and Euro Millions have put out of business yesterday.
Around 100,000 people paid £5 a week to join Information Technology Systems Ltd and Virtual World Direct, run by Leonard Fitzgerald of Colwyn Bay, north Wales, and Thomas Brodie of Onchan, Isle of Man.
But the companies offered nothing that you can't do for free by joining any ordinary syndicate.
The High Court yesterday put the "fraudulent scheme" into compulsory liquidation.
Mark Mullen, counsel for the Department for Business, told Companies Court Registrar Christine Derrett: "Subscribers were enticed to subscribe by misrepresentation."
He added that there was "rather shadowy network of offshore companies behind the UK front."
UPDATE: The Insolvency Service has explained in greater detail why these companies were shut down. The misrepresentation referred to above meant lying about customer's chances of winning.
"The companies claimed that by using their 'unique number selection system', your chances of winning would increase by 733 per cent and 3,600 per cent respectively," says the Insolvency Service.
"The Court agreed with the investigation findings that syndicate tickets purchased using the Virtual World Direct number selection method had no better chance of being selected for a jackpot prize than the same number of tickets purchased with numbers selected at random.
"The scheme also falsely claimed that the unique number selection system had been worked on 'with a university Professor of Mathematics to make sure the figures stacked up'.
"In addition to which, under the scheme only a fraction of members' subscriptions was actually spent on purchasing lottery tickets; in the case of the UK National Lottery draw this was 36 per cent, and 24 per cent in relation to the EuroMillions draw - for example, for the UK National Lottery, Virtual World Direct agreed to buy 44 tickets per 49-strong syndicate group per draw, so each week the cost to Virtual World Direct of purchasing 88 tickets for a syndicate was £88 whereas the 49 syndicate members paid £245 to the company."
Commenting on the case Company Investigations Supervisor Chris Mayhew said:
"Virtual World Direct created the illusion that by participating in one of its syndicates at a cost of £5 a week substantially increased your chances of scooping a jackpot prize. Whilst people were led to believe they were gaining an advantage over buying lottery tickets in the normal way, the reality was they suffered inevitable loss because they were paying significantly more for tickets which had no better chance of winning the jackpot (respectively 2.8 times and 4 times the normal price of tickets).
"Companies that use unscrupulous methods to mislead people should be aware that we can and will investigate and where appropriate, take action to shut them down".
PART TWO COMING SHORTLY!
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