I haven't, but a story just after it got shut down said it was the largest Ponzi scheme ever by number of participants, and it was based in Lexington, NC: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanmaglich/2012/08/18/feds-halt-alleged-600-million-zeekrewards-ponzi-scheme-how-it-happened-and-whats-next/

8/19/2012 7:39:50 PM

i work in fraud prevention and see this every day on people's cards. whatever it was, it must have been very convincing. people didn't even blink and said the charges were definitely legit, even after i told them about the better business bureau press release a while back.

8/19/2012 7:42:50 PM

Apparently, my 2nd cousin fell into this. I've noticed him posting in a FB group for folks who've been screwed over by Zeek Rewards. He's a pretty smart guy who is pretty business savvy, so I'm guessing that they had a pretty tight scheme to pull one over on him.

8/19/2012 7:45:13 PM

i know several people mentioned this to me and i just LOL'd

people were dropping as much as 10k into this crap

when it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

8/19/2012 7:59:13 PM

I should really thank my parents for raising me to be skeptical about almost everything.

8/19/2012 8:02:36 PM

no, because I'm not a moron

8/19/2012 8:04:41 PM

A friend from high school has been trying to get me into it.

I asked how much is he making off this and he said $3/day. WTF? He posts on facebook "Want an opportunity to become wealthy? Message me". Wealthy off $3/day? You're doing it wrong.

8/19/2012 8:41:35 PM

Good ol' Lexington. Home, sweet home.

8/19/2012 8:53:18 PM

Lexington is (unfortunately) my hometown so a lot of the not-so-bright people I went to high school with fell into the Zeek trap.

8/19/2012 9:47:04 PM

8/19/2012 9:49:16 PM

Quote :

"A friend from high school has been trying to get me into it. I asked how much is he making off this and he said $3/day. WTF? He posts on facebook "Want an opportunity to become wealthy? Message me". Wealthy off $3/day? You're doing it wrong."

but this guy he knows is making $20,000 a month!! must be legit

Quote :

"Apparently, my 2nd cousin fell into this. I've noticed him posting in a FB group for folks who've been screwed over by Zeek Rewards. He's a pretty smart guy who is pretty business savvy, so I'm guessing that they had a pretty tight scheme to pull one over on him."

lol pretty tight scheme

[Edited on August 19, 2012 at 10:07 PM. Reason : .]

8/19/2012 10:07:05 PM

Count me in.

I had a friend on FB rave about this in July, as this would apparently be making her more money than her day job by the end of the year! In the comments... it sadly appeared that she converted a friend.

I remember reading the way the penny auctions worked is that every bid cost money, and somehow, that money would be returned to the person who started it. So if something goes on bid for $1 and sells for $10, it could have 900 x 1 cent = $9 revenue from it! And only 899 who lost money!

Surprised to see it go bust so quickly. Some of these schemes manage to keep existing. Or at least longer than this.

8/19/2012 11:03:33 PM

^ most penny auction sites charge like 50 cents per bid.

8/19/2012 11:25:00 PM

^^Did it go bust or get busted?

It looks like the SEC shut it down before the wheels could come off.

8/19/2012 11:30:25 PM

I called this shit a scam the first time I heard of it

figured by the time everyone already heard about it and it bit like crazy, it was bound to implode

didn't take long

8/19/2012 11:50:52 PM

I guess I just dont have dumb friends. I havent heard of this before.

8/20/2012 9:59:02 AM

I only heard about Zeek Rewards yesterday because I have a friend that works in the Attorney General's office and she was talking about it being a fraud.

8/20/2012 10:16:07 AM

Quote :

"He's a pretty smart guy who is pretty business savvy, so I'm guessing that they had a pretty tight scheme to pull one over on him."

or your definition of business savvy is "somewhere around room temperature IQ"

8/20/2012 10:23:10 AM

Ugh, my dad is into this. I saw him in early July & he was trying to get me to sign up. I knew it was a scam & tried posing questions to him to try to get him to realize what was happening based on his answers.

He kept trying to get me signed up. He got signed up through a dude at work. I told him I'd do it when we could go to the bank & hold the money he got paid out. Even just $5 but he wouldn't do it because he was "reinvesting" his profits.

I guess I should email him this article before he puts more actual money into it.

8/20/2012 8:34:21 PM

NEVA HEARD OF IT

8/20/2012 9:09:29 PM

Quote :

"he was "reinvesting" his profits. "

Sounds like the lesser funded lovell.

8/20/2012 9:12:47 PM

OK. I just assume he's business savvy because he built, owns, and manages several if the larger apartment complexes in Greenville. He's certainly not a dummy, but he's always looking to make a buck. I think we all know the type.

8/20/2012 9:23:03 PM

My grandparents put 5K into this mess. Wanted me to sign up under them and get in on it. I made a free account, never put money in it. Too bad.

8/20/2012 10:23:58 PM

At least there is some money to reclaim, its not all lost.

8/20/2012 10:39:52 PM

I keep my money with Madoff

8/20/2012 10:54:35 PM

NCSUWolfy, your father can't put any more money into it, because the SEC shut it down.

8/20/2012 11:29:16 PM

Quote :

"1.5% daily returns were simply ‘too good to be true"

Hah! Silly noobie investors trying to achieve a 229% yearly return.

8/20/2012 11:30:36 PM

There is a Bookface group where people are complaining and hoping the government will allow Zeek to continue, or posting about other "online opportunities", because their business was about to "explode". Are they in denial or just that stupid?

8/21/2012 7:35:42 AM

Stupid

8/21/2012 10:34:11 AM

Lexington is my hometown too. I was there back on July 4th visiting family and my uncle was telling me about this, saying he was making money on it. My cousin and his wife were posting on Facebook about it as recently as 2 weeks ago.

Talked to my mom Friday night, she was telling me about it getting shut down. Said the owners rolled up to the store, went in the back door, collected a bunch of boxes, and left. There was a line of several hundred people waiting outside wanting their money back.

8/22/2012 9:51:21 PM

Can't possibly be the biggest ponzi scheme of all time. Social Security has it beaten by a LONG shot

8/22/2012 10:37:49 PM

So the state will sell you lottery tickets but wont allow you to gamble on obvious ponzi schemes. what a crock

8/23/2012 6:16:13 AM

My wife works at a credit union in Greensboro. About a month ago she told me she had person come in and get a $20k cashier's check for Rex Venture Group. She had other customer's get checks for smaller amounts (but still like $1k minimum) in the past but this one customer tried to sell her on it. After 5 seconds of googling I found all the bad reviews and bbb complaints. We also checked out the website and by that point it already had notices/warnings about "what it's not" and a list of things it should not be represented as by it's members/employees/victims. That list read like a script from the sales pitch she got. People still came in and got checks for them right up until the day they shut down, despite all the warnings.

8/23/2012 8:29:31 AM

A friend of a friend put 10k in against his wife's wishes, this all happened a few weeks before it was shut down.

Hope he has a comfortable couch.

8/23/2012 4:37:22 PM

Couch? I hope he finds divorce comfortable.

8/23/2012 4:45:33 PM

Apparently the pyramid marketing scheme + the false returns were more than many people could refuse.

I cant get over the stupid name "zeek rewards" reminds me of a kids game or some shit, not a legitimate investment.

8/23/2012 4:53:40 PM

^^



good god. my brains starts melting when I try to find an explanation of how Zeek worked (the supposed method or actual... either) and all I find is a bizarro world of nothing but ads for zeek and people that do nothing but mlm

[Edited on August 23, 2012 at 5:29 PM. Reason : asgasgasd]

8/23/2012 5:02:04 PM

I dare you to watch a single video by troy dooly and not lose your mind

8/23/2012 5:32:19 PM