Charles Ponzi would be proud. When Ponzi came to the U.S. in the early 20th century, he had to defraud investors the old-fashioned way -- through personal sales pitches, posters and newspaper ads.
Ponzi basically perfected the pyramid scheme, a fraud that promises huge returns to early investors who recruit other investors. In fact, the payments to early investors come from payments from new investors, not from revenue generated by a legitimate business.
The FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission as well as several states are now investigating a series of Internet-era Ponzi schemes called "autosurf" sites, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Perhaps the largest and best known is a Web site called 12dailyPro.com. It offered consumers a 12% daily return on their "membership" fees. All members supposedly had to do was look at a dozen advertisements per day on the Web site.
Other autosurf sites include auto.exchangetrade.com, vegasurf.com and surfcityautosurf.com.
The sites claim that consumers can earn as much as $3,000 per month just by viewing ads on selected Websites.
Based in Charlotte, N.C., 12dailyPro is run by Charis Johnson, who managed the site through a North Carolina-registered company she also operated called LifeClicks LLC, the Journal reported. Payments to the site's members were frozen recently because of what Johnson called a dispute with the payment processor, StormPay Inc.
Visitors to the site could sign up as members for no charge. But to earn cash, they were required to buy "upgrades" in $6 increments, with a maximum investment of $6,000 at any one time.
At one time, the site claimed it had 300,000 members and investigators say that consumers may have lost millions of dollars in membership payments.
The 12dailyPro Web site is still operating today but displays only its home page and a series of forums. It is not accepting new sign-ups.
