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I am an avid social media user. I spend absolutely too much time on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. I have a pretty average number of followers on Instagram, but somehow I seem to be a prime target for Instagram companies.  I have received several comments on my photos telling me to "DM them for a surprise" and so have many of my friends. So, what are these Instagram company ambassadors? Can you actually make money from posting about green juice powder and keto coffee? Maybe so, but it is definitely not as easy as it seems.  These companies define themselves as Multi-Level Marketing businesses (MLM), similar to Mary Kay or Avon. They leave uplifting comments on your photos, usually something along the lines of "Hey gorgeous! DM us for a chance to collab!" This seems and sounds really promising, like maybe I could become rich and famous all from posting pictures on Instagram! I went to one of the companies' Instagrams that left a comment on my page. They had...

A Honduran man who conned investors out of roughly $2 million has been sentenced to five years in federal prison, announced Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Prerak Shah. Jose Anibal Linares, 42, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud in October 2020. He was sentenced today to 60 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge David C. Godbey, who also ordered him to pay more than $2.3 million in restitution. A Honduran citizen in the U.S. formerly on Temporary Protected Status, Mr. Linares may be subject to removal from the U.S. after serving his sentence. According to plea papers, Mr. Linares admitted to running a Ponzi-type scheme, luring investors into handing over "principal" that he later deposited in bank accounts at Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Legacy Texas, then paying them "interest" from other investors' principal payments. Mr. Linares, who operated JC Loans Finance and Inversiones JC Dallas, admitted he falsely tol...

A cryptocurrency fund manager has been charged in a U.S. federal court. He allegedly took over $5 million from investors interested in investing in his crypto funds, promising them high returns. In reality, he was running a Ponzi scheme and is now facing up to 30 years in prison. Crypto Fund Manager Arrested for Running a Ponzi Scheme The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday that Jeremy Spence has been arrested and charged in Manhattan federal court in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme. The 24-year-old from Bristol, Rhode Island, is also known as "Coin Signals." Spence is "a cryptocurrency trader who solicited funds for various cryptocurrency funds that he operated, with commodities fraud and wire fraud offenses," the DOJ described, adding: Spence took cryptocurrency worth over $5 million from more than 170 individual investors after making false representations in connection with these cryptocurrency funds. U.S. Attorney Audrey Straus...

The GameStop stock saga — with its element of David versus Goliath, not to mention its head-turning price gains followed by stomach-churning drops — may have been all the talk of Wall Street in the last couple of weeks. But that is just a sideshow. A bigger issue for investors may well be the increasing number of Ponzi schemes, which use money from new investors to pay earlier investors until the fraud falls apart. Many of the latest fraudsters have been preying on people who feel they lost out on the big stock market gains of the last few years. The schemes have failed because they did not have the sophisticated apparatus of two of the biggest in the last decade — the multibillion-dollar ones perpetrated by Bernard L. Madoff and R. Allen Stanford. Those both failed in the financial crisis. What is different now is that Ponzi schemes are collapsing while financial markets are soaring. That worries the lawyers and academics who track the schemes, because the trend is likely to...

2021 NBCUniversal Media, LLC ALSO SEE: 2021 NASCAR TV Schedules on FOX Sports & NBC Sports All Times Eastern. Sunday, Feb. 28 78th Annual Golden Globe Awards NBC, 8pm Live The bicoastal telecast has cohosts Tina Fey at New York's Rainbow Room and Amy Poehler at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. Nominees from film and TV join throughout the evening from locations around the world. Among the pandemic-induced changes to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's annual ceremony honoring the best in film and television this year, it is being held much later than usual, and the eligibility period for motion pictures has been extended to include movies released through the date of the ceremony. The ceremony will honor Jane Fonda with the Cecil B. deMille Award and Norman Lear with the Carol Burnett Award. [embedded content] Ride With Norman Reedus AMC+ Season Premiere! Stream the Season 5 premiere of this series one week ahead of its linear premiere on AMC. In the s...

When the scheme first surfaced in 2016, a financial advisor told our Midland station that not only is it very rare you'll see your money again but it's also illegal. TYLER, Texas — Are you tempted to play the "Blessing Loom," or jump on a "Money Board"?  These are some of the names for an online scam that's making the rounds at a time when millions of people are out of work and scraping for cash . It promises a big return for a modest investment. Don't fall for it.  "You're virtually guaranteed to lose your money, or pull in friends and family who will lose theirs," Seena Gressin, Attorney for the Federal Trade Commission 's (FTC) Division of Consumer & Business Education said. According to the Panola County Sheriff's Office, the scam is known by many different names such as: Blessing Loom Blessing Bank Infinity Loom Snowflake Blessing Giving Circle Blessing Circle RELATED: B...

TikTok is known for being ahead of pop culture, and recent updates to its terms of use might also be putting it ahead of legislation. The app made waves on Tuesday when it announced a policy banning content that "depicts or promotes Ponzi, multi-level marketing, or pyramid schemes." TikTok called the ban a means to stop users from "exploiting the platform to take advantage of the trust of users and bring about financial or personal harm." While the rules seem fairly straightforward, some users decried TikTok's choice to lump MLMs, or multi-level marketing companies, in with other scams and schemes. However, TikTok and other major social media platforms received pats on the back from average users and members of the anti-MLM movement alike. Facebook groups, Reddit subs, YouTube channels, TikTokers and creators across the internet have announced the ban as a triumph over what they consider to be a predatory system. The r/antiMLM Subreddit rejoiced when they he...

So, Mr. Potato Head is exploring the options of dropping his courtesy title. OK, why not. But why stop there? Let's go full bore and global: Potatx Cabeza, anyone? If Mr./Mrs. Potato Head is a target for public backlash on gender neutrality, then everything must be. Po, as his/her friends call him/her, has forever been anatomically absent — it is a potato for Pete's sake. Still, for all we know, Mr. Potato Head may have been a female in the ground and identified as male before becoming a household name. In truth, since potatoes are self-pollinators, each potato possesses male and female flowers to make more tater tots. That said, keep your head on a swivel, Stretch Armstrong. Speaking of coming out of the cabinet It's hard to understand the Oreo ordeal. Three words — "Trans people exist" — swept social media Thursday. Of course they do. Debate the motives and the details all you want, but it's hard to question the Oreo's history of inclus...

On top of the classic new year's resolution to get healthier in January, nutrition has become increasingly top-of-mind as we fight against a pandemic ― wellness could very well be our best protection. Increase your general state of health and you increase your immunity, lower your susceptibility to disease and give your body the best chance possible to fight COVID-19. However, health halos are lurking to throw you off course. Food marketing continues to get more buzzy and sophisticated; unfounded claims on social media go viral; and influencers earn more sway on the general populace than health professionals have. All of this makes it difficult to sort out the truth when it comes to trendy diets and claims of health benefits. We're here to examine and shatter some of those health halos. Juice Cleanses At the top of the list of things that concern dietitians and nutritionists are juice cleanses, which earned a unanimous clamor of indignation from our con...