The Gold Blog

In a post 9/11 world, “due diligence” is constantly on the forefront—or at least we are expected to believe that. Although banks these days are preaching “due diligence,” it appears that at least one bank does not practice what it preaches. Monterey County Bank, based in Monterey California, http://www.montereycountybank.com that supports several card platforms for businesses providing prepaid debit card products for use on the internet and at atms, has missed the boat on “due diligence,” at the expense of those who entrusted it.

One of those businesses that it sponsors, Digital World Global Card, Inc., http://www.digitalworldcard.com , based out of New York, New York, is owned in full by sole shareholder Joseph Simon LaCroix, aka Joseph Simon, a convicted felon in the province of Ontario, Canada, according to Rowena McDougall, Senior Manager, Public Affairs, for the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) .

On October 3, 2005 Joseph LaCroix, the sole officer and director of Digital World Financial, pleaded guilty to the charge of conducting the business of a loan and trust corporation without being registered in the province of Ontario. LaCroix was fined $50,000 and placed on probation for two years. As a condition of the probation LaCroix must pay approximately $2.2 million in restitution to depositors. Good luck on collecting that!

LaCroix also pleaded guilty to carrying on the business of insurance in Ontario without a licence and was fined $5,000. Seems Canada garners favor with criminals, as its criminal penalties certainly don’t seem to discourage crime.

For more on LaCroix’s convictions, see the following:

http://www.claimsurvey.com/english/pubs/news/2005/20051007-digitalworld.asp

http://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/english/pubs/news/2005/20051007-digitalworld.asp

http://www.ontarioinsurance.com/english/licensing/ceasedesistorders/cdo-digitalworld.asp

http://www.ontarioinsurance.com/english/pubs/bulletins/mebulletins/2006/g-03_06.asp

http://www.sfsc.gov.sk.ca/ssc/files/enforcementorders/2002_enf/temporary/digitalworldfinancialinc(temp)feb27-02.pdf

http://www.sfsc.gov.sk.ca/ssc/files/enforcementorders/2002_enf/extending/digitalworldfinancialinc(ext)mar13-02.pdf

http://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/English/licensing/ceasedesistorders/cdo-digitalworld.asp

Now, less than three years later, LaCroix’s Digital World Global Card, Inc. was shut down on April 1, 2008, by Monterey County Bank after LaCroix has allegedly misappropriated the funds of its many cardholders. Those cardholders had put their trust in Digital World Card, Inc. as well as Monterey County Bank—after all, if you can’t trust a bank, who can you trust? To add insult to injury, LaCroix had his staff to tell cardholders that their accounts were being audited by the bank, implying that they had somehow done something wrong. His staff has since become non-existant. Calls to the company (866) 878-8020 go directly to voice mail, and are not returned. Calls to LaCroix’s cell phone (347) 853-4746 went unanswered.

It should be noted that apparently all of LaCroix’s resellers were left out in the cold. It should also be noted that the ONLY cards affected are those that have the name Digital World Global Card at the top of the card – No others. Funds were sent to Digital World Card, Inc. for the benefit of cardholders, and instead, went to the benefit of LaCroix. In reported cases, LaCroix even emptied funds already on cardholders cards!

LaCroix’s site, Digital World Card, Inc., still maintains its website at http://www.digitalworldcard.com . Do Not Order From This Site! Do not become one of his victims! If the bank backing your prepaid debit card is Monterey County Bank, do your OWN due diligence!

Please remember that Monterey County Bank merely shut his program down on April 1, 2008. They offered absolutely NO COMPENSATION for their cardholders whatsoever. Do you think they would feel the same if you owed them money?

Remember, Buyer Beware!

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Let’s start with some basics which will apply to all ‘e-currency’ scams and schemes.

It will then become your job to test out some possible targets and comment on the e-currency webs you find. I look forward to reading your comments.

You should be able to recognize an e-currency scam when the entire purpose of the web is designed is to separate you from your money. That usually means after reading just a little inspirational information and a pitch the web will ask you for money…”Order Here” or “Invest Now”. This is the most obvious scheme on the Internet. A small web which hypes an ‘e-currency product’ and then asks you to send money. The ultimate goal is obvious, separating you from your hard earned money any way they can! Here are some other signals.

* Beware of the one page web! It may qualify as a scam.

If you find a really long one page ‘e-currency’ web pitching their sale using everything from genuine ‘expert advice’ to customer endorsements, that one page is most likely an ‘e-currency program’ affiliate scheme. Perhaps, not an outright scam, it is set up on behalf of the unknowing affiliate, this is just an extension of the original scheme. When members join these webs, the ‘program’ will automatically create one page affiliate webs for all its participants. You will often see this text, “If you sign up today, you will also get your own free affiliate web!”

If the program is worth participation, the operator should find it worth spending $8 for an actual domain name and multiple page web template. One page webs or one page sub domains with long.names69.com and a ‘Order Here’ button on the bottom…..are a dead giveaway. As they say in Vegas, that is a suckers bet.

These pages are very long and poorly designed with all efforts leading to the ‘Buy Now’ pitch on the bottom of the page. Please learn to recognize these most obvious schemes and stay away. Here are just a few I found during two minutes of surfing: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

* If you read the ‘e-currency’ web site for 10 minutes and you still can’t figure out exactly how the business makes money, it may qualify as a scam.

I’ve worked in the digital currency field for about 5-6 years and while I’m still not an ‘Expert’ but I do understand how online money works. If I visit an ‘E-currency’ web, whether it offers trading, exchanging, buying or selling I can usually understand exactly what is going on after reading the first paragraph. This leads me to the next big scam signal.

When you visit an ‘e-currency’ web, if after the first page, you still can’t figure out what they are selling or how money is being made, then chances are very good, it is some type of scheme to separate you from your money. Believing in the unknown is a powerful method of convincing someone to spend or invest.

Most visitors will say something like this, “well the web looks good and I see this ad everywhere, it must have some truth to it.” Understanding that people are easily convinced by ‘information’ on the Internet and are always looking for new methods to earn online, these offers entice people to try that unknown ‘program’.

This is wrong. Read the web again, if you cannot figure out exactly how the money is made or lost and how often, you won’t be earning any. This fact is especially true if you get a live IM or contact by email and you hear from them, “You just don’t understand the program”…that may be a big scam.

Don’t be one of those people with the calculator out saying, “well if the web is only half right I’ll still make 9% each month, WOW”, ITS A SCAM. It is all designed to separate you from what? YOUR MONEY Don’t be a believer…investigate!

A great example of meaningless text is below. If you can explain to me in detail how money is made or lost after reading this information or what this paragraph really means, I’ll pay you $10! Source: dxout.com

DXSynergy is a private market where a variety of e-currencies are exchanged for each other in one exchange. DXSynergy is a central currency service for all of these other e-currencies. There are two main parts to the system today; DXPortfolio and DXMerchant. When you first start out in the business, you begin doing e-currency trading in the DXPortfolio side. After months of trading, you may want to get into the DXMerchant side. The DXMerchant side takes more time to manage but your profits and bonuses can be much higher than the DXPortfolio. DXSynergy (DXInOne) has just started rolling out their other products and services to the world, so visit the DXSynergy site to see for yourself about these exciting new services.

So make sure you visit their new Dx web, sporting yet another new name for this year, and become even more confused

Also, never mind the fact that the term ‘e-currency’ is a trademarked phrase owned by Goldfinger Coin & Bullion, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. GoldfingerCoin™ and Goldfinger Coin & Bullion™ are registered trademarks of GFCB, Inc. www.goldfingercoin.com

Again, understand my rule: If you read the ‘trading’ web site for 10 minutes and you still can’t figure out exactly how the business makes money, it may qualify as a scam.

* Do some homework and research it before you ‘Believe’ !

Take all of these items from your possible program web and separately query Google on each one:

• Program Name
• Person’s Name Associated with the program
• The Domain
• The Street Address
• Phone Number
• The keywords from the program web (it is critical so search on these KWs)
• Repeat these same searches but this time also include the word “scam” with each search

After you query each of these terms and read the results of your search, can you see any outright warning? Has anyone else been separated from their cash and is now alerting you via Google’s search results? Are there 4-5 or 25 webs devoted to disclosing “this is a scam”.

10 minutes of research on Google can save you big money and months of ‘e-currency’ frustration.

* Beware of supposed industry ‘Experts’.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Wow, the newest entry to the Internet world of online payments, Alipay, is coming on strong…massive growth in just a short time.

Alibaba’s online payment service Alipay announced key metrics for 2006, claiming that it was the year online payments reached critical mass in China. Alipay announced that as of December 31, 2006, the number of registered AliPay users surpassed 33 million. Alipay’s daily transaction volume reached US$12.8 million (RMB100 million), and the number of daily transactions using Alipay reached 460,000.

Jonathan Lu, President of Alipay, said, “Alibaba’s ecommerce community is built on trust and it is also an essential part of our online payment platform. Alipay’s escrow based system has solved the problem of trust for Chinese ecommerce users and is the safest way to trade online in China.”

In 2006, Alipay further extended its reach to merchants outside of the Alibaba and Taobao marketplaces, with more than 300,000 external merchants using Alipay as their preferred online payment platform, including leading local brands Lenovo, CCTV, Aigo, and New Oriental.

Source: Ina Steiner AuctionBytes.com February 01, 2007

Technorati Tags: Alipay

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Adding to its global mobile strategy, Cyphermint, Inc., a leading provider of secure electronic payment solutions, announced today that mobile banking and bill payment capabilities on a consumer’s mobile phone or other wireless device can be securely linked to a consumer’s credit, debit, stored value card or bank account through its PayCash Mobile platform.

PayCash, with its enhanced patented digital security, authentication and processing features, enables banked and un-banked mobile phone users worldwide to conduct bill payment, mobile banking, person-to-person transfers and retail payments with their cell phones. PayCash Mobile is designed to integrate credit, debit, stored value cards and bank accounts for funding of mobile payments such as mobile banking, bill payment, mCommerce and other payment related services.

PayCash Mobile is a storefront of technology tools and applications, security standards, and business models that enables financial institutions, merchants and consumers to engage in customized mCommerce mobile payment services regardless of the cell phone make or model or the consumer’s current service providers. The account can also be linked to a stored value card (SVC), Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover or any merchant gift card that allows users to load funds into the account as well as withdraw money at an ATM. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: PayCash, mobile banking, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover

Del.icio.us Tags: mobile banking, bill payment, mobile phone, PayCash, un-banked, mobile phone, stored value cards, mCommerce