LEXINGTON, N.C. (WGHP) — In August 2012, nearly a million people throughout the world learned an online rewards program they thought would exponentially increase their wealth was being investigated as what prosecutors would later deem an “over $850 million ‘Ponzi’ scheme,” promising a “bogus 125% return on investment based on profits from a sham internet-based penny auction company.”
Zeekler, with an advertising division called ZeekRewards, would go down as what officials deemed “the largest Ponzi scheme in history” based on the number of victims.
With an office in the small city of Lexington and the man behind the scheme living just minutes away, people routinely lined the roads surrounding the building in the hope of scoring big.
While some of them could afford to lose the thousands of dollars they invested, other families lost everything they had.
Today, as the owner of Zeekler attempts to be freed from federal prison, some of his victims are still recovering from the setback.
This is the story of ZeekRewards ten years later.
