This blog is meant to distribute information to the victims of the Nationwide Automated Systems ponzi scheme. Or anyone with an interest in it, to be honest.
Much of the information posted here has been compiled from the Quatloos thread on NASI, which is over 110 pages long and hard to digest if you haven’t been following it religiously.
I do not want your money and I’m not going to ask for you to join any groups or hire a specific law firm or anything. If you want to share your story in comments or guest postings, you may do so.
If you’ve come here to try to re-victimize the victims by providing “paid services,” get bent. Your comments will never leave the moderation queue.
I’ve set up a library of sorts which houses all the dockets for the court cases and whatever items off those dockets that I’ve downloaded.
Thanks for publishing this website. It could prove helpful; however, you are asking people who have lost significant sums of money to put blind trust in you, whoever you are. I’m sorry, but unless I know who you are, what your interests are in this case and can show us some credentials or recommendations I could not come close to participating or recommending this site.
My recommendation: display up front a biography, interest statement and recommendation.
Thanks much.
I’m an admin over on the Quatloos Forum, which busts financial scams. I’ve been participating there since about 2008. I won’t give my real name because scammers have a tendency to harass detractors and since I’m not asking for anything from you, I don’t see any reason to give it. If you don’t trust the information provided here, that’s your prerogative.
Thank you…great service to those of us still reeling from the NASI sham and our own gullibility/greed!
Okay, I’m convinced. You’re doing a good job. So, what happened to Gillis at this point? Did he croak? Was it another scam? Has his wife sued the doctor?
BTW, you have at the bottom a checkable field – Notify me of new comments via email. I was hoping that the receiver’s website (which we’re all paying for one way or the other) would have the same option. I haven’t seen it and received no reply when I asked about same.
In addition, I’m wondering if any discussion has been taking place regarding recovering illicitly disbursed investments, i.e, clawback money. I think there’s a certain time frame, but I’m not sure. Does the receiver go to the IRS and request tax returns to see what investors have claimed as related income, when and hence what could, in fact, be considered clawback resources? I guess it would be nice if Mr. Hoffman could create a note discussing his thoughts and plans. It’s been four months. I would think he might be getting some sense about what might be there.
And what did The Two Ponzi Dudes do with all the money? I mean, surely they didn’t go into this being cool guys – to make everyone rich. I assume every month they kept $X and hid it, assumedly someplace under a fictitious name or overseas. Any knowledge about this? As in the Madoff case, perhaps more people know what’s occurred than are willing to speak. Has the FBI had a chance to really shake the family tree yet?
Chuck
The latest receiver report indicates that he will be seeking clawbacks, but does not say one way or the other as to how much he thinks he’ll be able to get. I think this partly has to do with the books still being rebuilt. Also, my understanding is that they aren’t a good source of recovery. I’m going to do more research on this and post another entry within the next few weeks (work has been a nightmare this week). I don’t think that clawbacks have anything to do with what an investor listed on their taxes. Part of the rebuilding is discovering who ended up a net winner. Let’s say Fred P. Investor invested in $12k in 2009 and got only the guaranteed 20% return. That means that as this year, he would have “earned” $14,400 from NASI. Subtract the $12k investment and he’d be subject to a $2,400 clawback. Of course that over-simplifies it, but it’s generally how it works. In other clawbacks, people have had to demonstrate that they were incapable of paying it back to wiggle out of it. And then some higher rollers paid pennies on the dollar because between legal fees and collection costs, it was the only way to recover some money.
It wasn’t a matter of what did they do with the money. It was what the money did with them. Things might have looked good for a few months, especially with the real ATM income helping to keep them afloat, but the big problem with Ponzis is that you need a constant and ever-increasing amount of investors to keep the payouts going to the existing ones. As the ship was sinking they were probably convinced that it would be okay if they could just get more investors.
I honestly can’t wait for the forensic accounting report.
Is there a list of NASI “sales reps”?
I don’t recall seeing anyone in particular identified as a sales rep, much less a list.
OK thanks. It would be interested to know who the sales reps were and if they are in trouble.
Not sure this will get through, as I see most replys are back in 2015. Anyway, below is an email I sent to the Quatloos site. Can you respond? Thank you.
Sooltaug:
Are you still running the Quatloos site? I am one of the victims of the NASI Ponzi scheme. Your site raised so many questions that eventually it became possible to unearth the fact that Ed Wishner and Joel Gillis were running a Ponzi scheme, so thank you. Anyway, I have a question: since the first statement on the Quatloos site is from 2009, do you have any idea if anyone at anytime went to the SEC with the question your site raised as to the legitimacy of NASI?
Thank you.
Jay still does run the Quatloos site, but is not very involved in the day-to-day of the forum. The short answer is I have no idea if anyone at anytime went to the SEC based on what they saw on Quatloos. I’ve never seen anything in the court filings that indicated that Quatloos had any involvement with the demise of NASI, nor do any of the declarations from investors/victims that I’ve seen indicate that they were prompted to call the SEC by something they saw on the forum or that they called the SEC at all.
That being said, with the high signal-to-noise ratio on on most of the forum, Google ranked that NASI scam on the first page, then in the first five results for anyone searching for “Nationwide Automated Systems.” That must have impeded their ability to gain/retain investors. When they got involved in trying to force growth on Fuel Doctor by taking them public and whatnot, any number of people they came into contact with might have raised some questions about the validity of Fuel Doctor’s financial backers.
Thanks for the reply. I’m a “net winner” in the NASI scheme, and the Receiver is coming after me. There are many errors in his case, and a lack of consistency how many “winners” are treated, so I am fighting it. I’ll have to pay back something; we’re not on the same page on what that number should be. Having said that, the SEC was certainly late to the game. The scheme was 15+ years in the making. And as I recall, Joel Gillis was cited some years before for another violations, perhaps it too about ATMs, not sure. I asked him about that issue, and his remark was: “I lost millions of dollars because of that” while denying it meant anything at all.
As to the Google ranking, how can I find out about that? It could help my case.
Anyway, thanks again for the reply.
I’ll look further into Joel’s sordid past. If it goes back to 1986, I may not have any luck.
I didn’t take any screen captures to prove it, or else I would have made them public already. It’s pretty routine for Q to show up high on a search result for scammers, so I tend to wave it around and shrug it off. But, in January 2014, I mentioned it in a post in the NASI thread. worried mentioned it being at the top of the list in a post in February 2014, but I don’t know if he personally saw it or if he was just parroting what I said. He also mentioned in January 2014 that Q was high on the result list for “Joel Gillis Nationwide.”
Webhick, appreciate the reply. The Quatloos website covering NASI dates to 2009 (as far as I know). It seems that if many regular folks had serious questions about the legitimacy of NASI as expressed on Q, the SEC should have moved much earlier than 2014. I assume the SEC gets its lead from calls and letters from concerned investors, and from tracking websites devoted specifically to scams, Q being a prime example. I’m wondering if the SEC stumbled onto Q, five years late, or perhaps more likely, a participant on Q contacted the SEC, initiating an investigation, as late as it was. I think your previous answer suggests you wouldn’t know what initiated the SEC investigation, but if you do, or anyone on the site does, I’d love to know. Given Joel’s checkered past and the smoke from Q, it’s remarkable that the SEC didn’t move earlier — a lot earlier.
Again, thank you for your response.
I was going back through the Quatloos thread, looking for clues as to when the SEC might have become wise and it appears that worried reported them sometime in 2013.
Webhick, again, I want to thank you for your response. The fact that “worried” says he contacted the SEC about NASI in around mid-2013 is significant. Ponzi schemes involving ATMS are not uncommon, and I believe I have read that the SEC has prosecuted others who “sold” ATMs. In the case of NASI, it’s alarming that the SEC was too busy to go after it, or incompetent, or blind. The NASI scheme was not a small scheme. It was huge (I think I read $300 million). And went on for more than 15 years. Remarkable! I bet that others besides “worried” contacted the SEC, though I can’t prove it. Would it make sense for me to put a question on the Quatloos or other boards you’d recommend asking if anyone had contacted the SEC before 2014? My attorney can use that in defense of those who were “net winners” in the scheme. There actually are few if any “net winners” because those of us who did profit spent the money, not expecting to be sued by the Receiver. I’m probably typical. I was a net winner, thought I was set for life with the NASI checks, retired, and now at 81 am being hounded by the Receiver. Even from their jailhouse, Joel and Ed haunt us.
Thanks again!
Sean Sullivan
Posting on Q couldn’t hurt, but I also wonder if a FOIA request would be prudent.
Yes, my attorney is going to ask for the SEC’s NASI file under FOIA. I may post on Q too. Thanks again.
Have you heard anything re: the claims process and when they may start distributing some of the funds they are holding?
Doug, sorry, I have heard nothing.