Category: Uncategorized

I don’t know when it happened, but the receiver posted a Tax Questionnaire on his site (it’s in the margin on the right).  It’s incredibly short, simply asking if you received a 1099-MISC from the receiver along with the normal contact information.  He must need confirmation for some reason or another.  There’s no explanation as to who should be filling that out, so I’m gonna say that if you received a 1099-MISC for last year, you should totally fill it out.  And if you think you should have received one, you should probably fill it out.

Well, we’ve had some activity. First up is the criminal case against Ed & Joel.  On January 21st, Joel finished entering his guilty plea. The court document confirms that Joel did suffer some kind of illness at the last hearing, but doesn’t go into any details.  It also mentioned that Joel has been taking his prescribed medication for the 72 hours prior to this hearing, but and I’ll repeat that – BUT – he felt well enough to proceed.  Is that a typo or does Joel’s medication have some nasty side effects?  Anyone’s guess.  In any event, the boys were supposed to be sentenced on March 30th, but at the request of the US attorney, it was moved to July 20th.  Apparently, the US needs more time to determine the extent of damage that these two have caused in order to figure out a fair sentencing recommendation.  Understandable. On the receivership front, the receiver’s submitted a proposal for clawbacks.  Bullet lists are awesome: NASI may have actually owned 238 ATMs, but the investors owned none.   Not one.  NASI didn’t actually “sell” any of their ATMs to investors.  I once had this theory that they “sold” real ATMs to multiple investors

There’s nothing too juicy in this new report.  It’s all Ed & Joel’s fault.  If they kept decent records, the receiver would be further along.  But as it is, the receiver has to completely rebuild the books from scratch, or close to it.  I used to do this as a bookkeeper, although not in a forensic capacity, and it’s truly time consuming.  And annoying.  And I’m really glad I don’t have to do it anymore. On with our adventure: The ATM business has provided some steady income (don’t get your hopes up!).  That one servicer who withheld $25k from the September payment has now held a total of $70k. It’s allegedly for a line of credit, which is not unheard of, but they’ve failed to provide sufficient documentation – that is, they’ve handed over something but it’s not good enough.  The receiver may end up going to court to get them to release the funds.  I don’t think he intends to sit on this for long.  I mean, they’ve already had three months to make this right. Over October, November and December, the ATM business only averaged about $52k net income.  Net income means your income minus your expenses.  In

I’m a little late to the party on this (work got a little too busy).  A lot of stuff has happened since the last update. I’ve since expanded the library as we now have two active court cases – one against NASI and one against Gillis and Wishner.  The first is a civil case by the SEC and the second is a criminal case. So, the boys were arrested on the 16th.  On the 17th, they had to appear in court.  They each ended up with $500k bail and had to surrender their passports.  Joel also is not allowed to solicit investor funds, while Ed is not to involvement in any manner with investments… of… I can’t read that writing but I think it has to do with third parties.  Also an interesting thing is that Joel has to participate in a mental health evaluation and/or counseling and/or treatment.  Per the handwritten notes, it appears that it may be part of ongoing treatment. They had until January 7th to meet the conditions of the bail and appeared to do so.  I should note that it was not cash bail and that they both used property as bond.  Of course, what

The LA Business Journal reports that on Tuesday the 16th, Joel & Ed were charged with conspiracy, two counts of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud.  They’re looking at up to 20 years for each count and given that both of them are in their mid-seventies, any amount of jail time could mean a life sentence. And just in time for the holidays! In other related news, the court approved the recommendations in the receiver’s report.  The next report should be due around February.

Some folks coming to the site may be a bit confused.  This blog is not the receiver’s site and I don’t have any kind of direct communication with the receiver.  The receiver’s website is located at http://www.nasi-receivership.com/. The questionnaire (formerly known as the “survey”) is also there. The receiver cannot personally answer each one of you right now, either by email or phone.  The rumors I heard were that thousands of people were victimized by NASI.  Given that, responding to everyone personally would simply take too much time.  Think of it this way, if 2000 people were scammed and it takes 20 minutes to respond personally by email or phone (ha, you know those phone calls will be longer), and if Hoffman hired two people whose sole job it was to return communications for 8 hours a day, then it would take those two people forty one days (not including weekends) to get back to all of you. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not listening.  If you’ve sent an email and received the auto-response, then they know about you.  If you’ve called and left a message, then they know about you.  And please stop posting your phone numbers in

I checked the docket on the bankruptcy today and there’s been some activity.  The receiver (well, the attorneys for the receiver) filed a stipulation for dismissal of the bankruptcy case, with approval of the creditors involved in the case as well as a lodgment. To sum up the document, the receiver states that: The TRO has a clause which prevents creditors and other victims from trying to recoup their losses through any non-SEC actions. That neither NASI nor the creditors could have known about the TRO when the bankruptcy case was filed.  And that neither party knew about the TRO when NASI agreed to go into bankruptcy. That it is in the best interests of the victims for there to be only one proceeding against NASI.  The overlap in the two cases would cause duplicate work which in turn would cause added expenses. If the two cases were to exist concurrently, the trustee would basically have to redo a ton of work that the receiver has already done or is in the process of doing. The creditors’ attorney had reservations about agreeing to dismiss the bankruptcy case because the bankruptcy would have “avoiding powers” that the receiver does not have.  But,

Scam operators tend not to keep good records and who knows what NASI ditched as things started to collapse.  So, as the receiver goes through the records that is there he will likely find gaps. If you haven’t already done so, you should start gathering any records you have regarding the scam. This should include: any communications with NASI, their representatives and anyone else who helped land the deal, so to speak the monthly statements from NASI contracts bank statements and other financial records which demonstrate your investments and the payouts 1099s issued to you by NASI records of signup bonuses you may have received for referring other investors. If there’s any other records that you think the receiver or SEC would find useful, include that as well.  And if there’s anything else you think needs to be added to the above list, please leave a comment below. Also, if you remember, heard in passing, or have any records that indicate where NASI, Joel, Ed, etc. could have hidden money, you should tell the receiver.  Every dime they can recover is more money back to the people who lost money.  Even if your loss won’t break you financially, your diligence