News on Solid Investment & VIP Invest
I picked this up from several sources:
e-gold accounts of VIP and Solid Investment and W2U have been frozen
pursuant to a court order issued by the following attorney:
Michael Bruzzese
The Bank Tower, Suite 1008
307 Forth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Tel: 412-281-8676
Fax: 412-281-8046
[email protected]
We are in contact with Mr. Bruzzese and will post updates as to the status of
any investigation and or refund process.
Apparently there is more than one attorney involved…
Bartony & Hare, LLP
Law & Finance Building
429 Fourth Avenue Suite 1801
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Tel: 412/338-8632
Fax: 412/338-6611
Email:
[email protected]
Various commentators are viewing this development as a disaster for the HYIP
industry.
At this point I have an open mind; on the one hand it could weed out the
scams, but on the other it could lead to the premature end of good and bad
programs alike.
I would like to believe that Bruzzese and co. are doing a worthwhile job in
bringing the admin. of ponzi programs to book when they attempt to
disappear, and they should be applauded and supported in this.
However, if, as some are implying, they are in fact precipitating the downfall
of programs by getting the program’s e-currency accounts frozen and then
claiming their own refunds plus profits before anyone else, then that’s quite a
different matter, and indeed a cause for concern!
Here are some of the scare stories that are doing the rounds:
There is a very scary thing happening in HYIP right now. At first, you think it
is a good thing, but then you realize that in fact, it is not a good thing at all
for the majority of people that participate in HYIP programs.
There is a group (or possibly groups) of people out there that are using an
attorney by the name of Michael Bruzzese
who is getting court orders for egold to freeze accounts of any HYIP he sets
his targets on. He has frozen the accounts of RJHI, Solid Investment and
VIPInvest to name a few.
What happens then is he has rights to claim the funds in the accounts, and
any corresponding account, for his clients. This means they stop the program
from paying, they get all their funds out and the rest of the members get
little to nothing. The program can no longer pay out and there may not be
any remaining funds for anyone else to get anything back.
While it seems like it is good that the guy can stop “scams”, is it really fair
that they do this to programs that are paying and that they recover funds
only for their own clients leaving everyone else with no chance whatsoever of
seeing money back?
Frankly, it seems to me that now there is another huge risk in HYIP beyond
the risks we all are aware of in the first place (we all know that HYIPS are a
gamble and high risk). The new extra added risk is that your fellow members
are going to use this attorney to close the program at any moment, even
when it is still paying (as was the case with VIPInvest).
So beware, because now the “good guys” are no longer on YOUR side either.
And another similar one:
As I understand it the HYIP world that we know and continually try to make a
few bucks on has changed drastically over the past couple of weeks.
In the past, a big program would fold and we would lick our wounds, and then
a group would pool together and try to recover any possible funds, normally
long gone by the time the recovery lawsuits started.
I have been told there is now either a group of attorney’s joining the
programs or someone with attorney’s that are family members, I can’t really
tell which it is from the stories I have been told.
They join all programs with a small amount, then when they see that a
program is going big, they pump in a large spend. If the program is one day or
two days late making payout, they file the papers and freeze all the
ecurrency accounts of anyone that has ever logged into the account that is
accepting funds from members.
They then present to the court their “contract” amount due to them and
they have accomplished a couple of things, #1 if it was even partially ponzi,
they have gotten their full amount due out, without having to share it and
get cents on the dollar from a class action suit and #2, if it is a scam then
they are much more likely to freeze it before all the funds are moved.
Because they have no real legal fees, just a few bucks for filing fees, this is a
very low expense for them, compared to the payout.
What this can mean is that if there is a glitch of any kind causing a delayed
payout, for example an exchanger being one day late getting funds
transferred into the eccurency, then our funds are gone, but these members
will get paid anyway.
It has never been safe to put large funds into a program, but IMHO it is now
suicidal.
I seem to remember that Bruzzese was the guy that was looking into the
Prosperity Club disappearance. I gave my details to him but haven’t heard
anything back as yet. Now was that collapse precipitated by Bruzzese and
co. or was he trying to help fellow members? I like to think the latter, but at
this stage, we don’t know, hopefully time will tell.
I think the comments that are being circulated may just be a knee-jerk
reaction to the almost simultaneous collapse of Solid Investment, VIP Invest,
Wealth2U and RJHI and people may be looking for conspiracy theories to
explain their misfortune. There was without doubt a strong ponzi element to
all these programs, so they were bound to fall at some stage, but is it
possible they were pushed?
