Bert Young at Usight

Message ID: 127480
Posted By: stats_for_all
Posted On: 2004-04-26 14:53:00
Subject: Bert Young at Usight

Bert Young's other reported employment in the talk2 period was a uSight http://www.usight.com/about.shtml), a firm founded by BYU student Brandt Anderson in Orem, Utah. uSight appears to be a cheesey scam, numerous ripoff reports on the web: Example: www.troubleshooter.com/cf_misc/Sleaze/SleazeAll.cfm
< SNIP>
There are numerous complaints against the company.
In February 2003, the Utah Division of Consumer Protection issued an Administrative Citation against Usight for allegedly violating the Consumer Sales Practices Act, failure to register as a business opportunity and failure to provide business opportunity.
On October 7, 2003 the company's membership in the BBB was revoked due to the action filed by the Division.
< /SNIP>

Usight LLC business address has been 727 N 1550 S,,Orem,UT, a location shared with Upenzio, Foreclosureworld, Penzpay, and Bridgeview Bank. Net has business practice complaints on all these. Usight has been google cloned at www.usight-ecommerce.com by someone upset about fraud.

Message ID: 127973
Posted By: stats_for_all
Posted On: 2004-04-27 17:04:00
Subject: Bert Young's uSight scam

More on the uSight scam

Bert Young was CFO at uSight in 2002. Efforts have been made to erase this association from the web.
uSight presents home business seminars, and provides home business web page software and hosting services.
The Utah Consumer Protection division initiated action against uSight in 2002. This action was appealed by uSight and a stipulated settlement was reached. This information comes from a personal phone call I made to Au Pauga at the Utah Consumer Protection division (ph: 801-530-6601). The settlement is available through a Utah "GRAMA" (government records) request from the department via faxed written request (fax 801-530-6001).
A traveling home business sales seminar is at the core of uSight, these are still conducted under numerous aliases. Customers were signed to non-refundable contracts for a package of web design, hosting and credit card services. Total losses to guilible parties (listed at thecomplaintstation.com) were on the order of $3,000 to $15,000.

Message ID: 127974
Posted By: stats_for_all
Posted On: 2004-04-27 17:05:00
Subject: Re: Bert Young's uSight scam part 2

continued from linked post, please read part one

The package of business services that uSight sold included a pay-pal clone called epenzio (or similar, there are multiple aliases). Epenzio evidently was a merchant service for credit cards, which involved the fraudulent lease of an imprinter. Epenzio is evidently a subsidiary and definitely a linked associate of a similar Massachusettes based scam called Leasecomm. Leasecomm is operating under a 24 million dollar judgement by the FTC (SEE: www.ftc.gov/ro/leasecomm). Leasecomm may have a RICO indictment (web information is ambiguous).

The FTC news release on Leasecomm states:
< quote>
According to the FTC, the scheme worked as follows: Leasecomm Corporation financed business opportunities, including Internet web malls, multilevel marketing programs, medical billing software, coupon clipping programs and similar, often worthless, get-rich-quick schemes sold by third-party vendors. Consumers typically made little or no up-front payments, but signed a contract, which Leasecomm called a lease, requiring payments ranging from $3,000 - $4,000 over a three or four year period. While consumers thought the contracts covered many items included as part of a business venture -- training, Web site design, and consumer leads, for example -- they didn't. They covered only one small part of the venture -- a "virtual terminal," for example.
< /quote>
This is the same business pattern established at uSight, uSight uses Leasecomm credit services (web info from business seminar participants). Seminars are given by a John Palmer and Tim Payne of Alpine Utah

uSight has an enormous number of aliases ( a web search for uSight toll free number, 1-800-544-9459 will reveal current ones).
The Utah BBB site gives information on several of these. I looked up
Epenzio aka Avalon Digital Marketing Systems, Inc aka Capturequest aka Pacific Webworks, aka Work-At-Home
(BBB membership revoked Nov. 18, 2003)
Web Resource Group or Open Systems International
Home Office Marketing Enterprises, aka HOME Inc, aka Scott Anderson Financial
(purchased by uSight in June 2003)
Olympus Financial, Avalon Business Direct, Executive Credit Services
Travel Plus
Cybersem (unlicensed) successor to Anderson, aka HOME
Net-bizz aka Nbizz aka Electric Excellence Inc aka Bring It Home
E-Business Benefits Association aka EBBA (owner Scott Anderson)-linked on the uSight web page for complaints, a fake consumer protection shell
Liberty Vending, aka Vendworx, aka Consonlidated Marketing Group
different business- vending machine placement

Avalon Digital Marketing Systems is the most intriguing of these. It is a former NASDAQ company (AVLN) now in chapter 11 bankruptcy. It website is still up. It merged with epenzio, capturequest, C5 Technologies and MindArrow Systems. The date of the merger is reported to be September 30, 2002. The date of the Bakruptcy filing is September 5, 2003.
SEE : www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/compinfo/CompanyTearsheet.jhtml?tkr=AVLN

The Utah BBB site lists Robert I Webber, CEO; Brad Crawford UP, Paul Anderson, Registered Agent. These individuals names are linked to other of the uSight suite of companies.
The Forbes site for Avalon lists Paul Anderson as CEO of Duke Energy, Robert (A) Webber on the BOD of a Dutch energy company and several other impersonations
Avalon Digital was once a high flying email marketing company based in Irvine Ca., high profile clients were sold to a firm Silverpop just before bankruptcy.
How and when the Sandy Utah group achieved control is not obvious.

Sources: Avalon Merger www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0EIN/2003_Feb_22/97952285/p1/article.jhtml
Bankruptcy filing
bankrupt.com/TCR_Public/030915.mbx
Silverpop divestiture
http://emailuniverse.com/list-news/2003/05/20.html

------------------------------------------------------------
The text of this Yahoo Message Board post has been licensed for
copying and distribution by the Yahoo Message Board user
"stats_for_all" under the following license:

License: CCL Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike v2.0
------------------------------------------------------------

Message ID: 127979
Posted By: stats_for_all
Posted On: 2004-04-27 17:51:00
Subject: Re: Bert Young's uSight scam comment

I tried not to editorialize much in my discussion of the uSight scam. I just want to get some of the mass of information out there.
Fundamentally, uSight was a slimey scam, where unsophisticated grandmothers were robbed of their savings after they attended "seminars" with visions of selling their teddy bear collections on the web. This is really that ugly.
The disconnect here is what the dot-com high flyer Bert Young was doing mugging grandmothers for they pin money.
I think the presence of epenzio and Leasecomm points to a level of national syndication in this scam.
Avalon Digital Marketing Services was once a legitimate business, it is a shell company at this point, doing business out of a PO Box in Sandy, Utah owned by Brad Campbell. It appears to me that it was raided by thieves.
The presence of Liberty Vending, Vendworx and the other vending machine companies with associated business adresses raised flags for me. My experience growing up was vending machine companies were exclusively Mafia fronts.
My speculation is Bert Young's old associates from his Waste Management days found him the job at uSight.

Message ID: 130820
Posted By: stats_for_all
Posted On: 2004-05-05 18:11:00
Subject: Pyramids in the desert

Bert Young was CFO of a Utah start up , uSight LLC, in 2002. I now have some further information on the business and associates of this firm. uSight is a e-commerce company which is distinguished by the sale of business opportunities at traveling seminars and through telemarketing. uSight sells customers a "site builder software", mentoring/training, merchant credit services. The primary opportunity being sold is the chance to recruit others into the network, or "create a downline" in the jargon of the multi-level marketing pyramid.

uSight closely resembles several other, now shuttered, "internet malls" which ran afoul of the law. The most notorious of these is "PRSI" which operated for several months in 1999, before being raided in January, 2000. PRSI took in 13 million from 46,000 participants. William Caudell, CEO, recieved a reduced sentence (11 yrs) in exchange for testifying against Joseph Rotunno "Joe Flower", alledgedly a member of the Colombo mafia family, and convicted as the organizer of the scam.

The uSight mall differs from earlier, patently illegal scams. It actually provides "ubuilder" software, web hosting, etc. In its default form, the purchaser links to Utah-based Overstock.com, as an affiliate, to populate "products" for sale, some of the web sites actually sell home business goods (eg self-published tracts for odd religions). The customer must recover the cost of the opportunity package (4,000-17,000) by reselling the opportunity to further individuals. Oddly, a web-site for Blue Man Group, is the featured portfolio piece, for numerous individual "affiliates" which promote web design as their "product". (eg Web-of_gold.com)
Salesmen (reported as Larry Justice, Richie Richmond, J Cohen, Ken Fiala) involved in marketing the PRSI pyramid, moved to Arizona, and became active in the BigSmart internet mall. This was raided by the FTC,(a settlement statement at: www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/03/bigsmart.htm).

Salesmen names associated with sales of BigSmart pyramid occur again in the Utah uSight Settlement Agreement. These highlighted sales are shared with Marketing Solutions Inc, and or Professional Consulting Services of Saint George Utah. (eg Randy Lang, Ken Fiala).

PRSI has established connections to the Colombo family through court documents, uSight has connections to BigSmart and PRSI through salesmen and the MO of the business.

MLM or Affiliate sales are a big business in Utah. Nu Skin (directors Campbell and Thompson) has a huge capitilization built entirely on direct MLM sales. Its Big Planet internet subsidiary shares many characteristics with uSight.

BigSmart PRSI relationship by informant Richard Snell at:
free.freespeech.org/citxnews/fraudcomplaint.doc.

The texts of these Yahoo Message Board posts have been licensed for copying and distribution by the Yahoo Message Board user "stats_for_all" under the following license: License: CCL Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike v2.0.