During 2006 Julie Wilson placed a number of classified adverts in the business opportunity sections of the Sunday papers.

The adverts pointed to a website - passivemoneyplan.com.

She was attempting to promote what American officials called an “ongoing pyramid-scheme fraud” - a 1-Up system called the Prosperity Automated System (PAS).

In September 2006 the Securities and Exchange Commission worked to close PAS, instantly stopping Julie from introducing anyone else into the scheme.

In short, the pyramid scheme collapsed and thousands of people lost their money.

Fast forward a couple of years and this week I received an (unsolicited) email advertising Julie’s latest promotional effort - a “Cash Gifting” scheme which she calls “passivemoneyplan.info”.

Intrigued, I tuned in to listen to one of Julie’s promotional teleseminars.

“We don’t make sales. There are no sales. We don’t have any products so we don’t make any sales,” she told those listening in via the internet or by dialling up a special number. “How much have I received? Well what I will tell you is there are members that are making over £5000 per week and I am one of those.”

Julie, along with a partner, point people to a site with the address passivemoneyplan.info where they promise to share more information about this magical “program” they are using to allegedly make £5,000 per week with “no sales”.

Details are sketchy on the site but the way it has been setup means that the pages are stored on another site with the address “ukmentor.net”.

Until recently, this website was registered to Paul Stevenson of Brighton but earlier this month this was changed to “Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc”

If you read their site and decide you want to know more you must go back to your “inviter”.

So, I went back to the person who emailed me and asked for the website and password, as instructed by Julie during the teleseminar.

I was provided with a link to the “Number One Success System” at noss123.com. You can reach this directly, no need for a password by going to:

noss123.com/main/

(Just copy and paste into the Address Bar on your internet browser. I have purposely not linked directly to the site.)

Go to that site and there is a link which reads “Guidelines”. You will see that participants in this scheme must be very careful what language they use to promote their cash gifting program.

Probably because they do not want to attract the attention of the authorities.

Yep, they have to try and stay under the radar because this is very, very similar to the Prosperity Automated System. Money is being passed around but there is no product.

On top of that, participants must pass the first money they receive to the person who introduced them - making this a 1-Up program, just like PAS.

I’m very concerned that this is an illegal chain-gifting scheme. And I am looking further into it with the correct authorities.

If you were looking to signup with Julie Wilson, Paul Stevenson or the Number One Success System I would hold back until you can determine your legal position. Don’t just take their word for it, check whether it is legal or not.

More to follow…

As always, comments are welcome below and if I have made any errors I am happy to correct them. Just let me know by leaving a comment below.