Cash Gifting Watchdog

If you place any weight on the integrity of a cash gifting program’s promoters, you’ll be interested to learn a bit about a couple of the people selling TOCS.

In 2006, the SEC shut down a one-up scheme called Prosperity Automated Systems, which was founded by William Osterhout. PAS had 25,000 members, each of whom had shelled out $3,895 to buy websites (which were designed to recruit more people to buy more websites). $895 of each sale went to Osterhout.

Two of the biggest promoters of PAS were Orlando Batista and Simon Johansson.

Simon Johansson is the current name of Simon J. Hill, a known Internet scammer (article, article), and founder of Lord & Thomas Publishing.

This is a link for a brochure which Simon Johansson prepared for Planline, a 2004 Lord and Thomas fine art print marketing scheme. It curiously includes his own testimony, telling others that that he has happily joined the plan which he himself put together:

… to me, Planline is a sure-fire winner. After analysing the whole Planline business with a fine toothcomb, I joined right there and then – on the spot. It was an easy decision to make. Now I confidently look forward to generating in excess of £300,000 from my Planline business during 2004.

The domain name at megawealthy.com, once registered to Lord & Thomas, and now to TUCOWS, was the 2006 index page for PAS.

Where will a visit to megawealthy.com take you today? To $SJ and Orlando’s (Dude & Dude) TOCS splash page. The dynamic duo are now are now the founders of The Global Abundance Program, and nowhere do they give a hint about how, no sooner than PAS went down, $J and Megawealth were circling over its bones to lure its victims into a new offering, Prosperity International.

Dude & Dude enthusiastically tout TOCS on another member’s site:

TOCS is a refreshing change compared to all the hype & overpriced BS out there. It’s definitely a “what you see is what you get” program. We followed the guidelines in the TOCS back office, and having received over $40,000 in cash gifts in our first month we’ve never looked back. We’re already Tier 5 Qualified, and we’re now looking forward to reaping a massive bumper cash harvest from TOCS and receiving well in excess of $1,000,000 in cash gifts during 2008. We’re also just 2 average dudes, so if we can do that, there’s absolutely nothing to stop you from doing the same or even better!

So go ahead and join the program, invite people to your website, then sit back, relax and ride your very own cash avalanche - just like we did. You just cannot fail with TOCS. Congrats to Joe Jack and his team for putting together a truly awesome kick-ass program.

Dude & Dude’s vigorous promotions, however, bring into question the idea that anyone joining this program will join with no expectation of receiving a return on their “gift.” And because of that, the program clearly does not meet the standards of IRS Title 26 any better than all the other cash gifting programs we are profiling.