Utah Scams — Part 1

One is examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint when Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism should Utah be considered the fraud capital of the United States. Welcome to this edition of viewpoint on Mormonism.

I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRM there is an interesting article in the desert news newspaper on April 30, 2019 and the title was does Utah deserve the title fraud capital of the United States. Eric we talked about the subject in the past and we had a whole series dealing with what's known as affinity fraud and this is of course a scam that's perpetrated on people who have a trust in the individual and trust them enough to give them money to invest on their behalf, only to find out later on that the investment was not good. We talked about this in 2016. It's titled affinity fraud in Utah that's from July 25-29 and that's found in an article that we have on our website called Utah the gullible and their money being soon parted. You can go on to our website MRM.org/Ponzi scheme PO NCI-scheme and you can hear that series you can see the research that we've done and we've actually followed a number of Ponzi schemes that have taken place in the last decade will since you brought up the name Ponzi. We should probably explain how it got that name. It's named after a man by the name of Carlo Ponzi is quite a long name Carlo PF through Giovanni Guglielmo tube.

Although Ponzi but anyway he lived from 1882 to 1949 and he was involved in a huge racket that was going on in North America were $20 million were lost in the 1920s, so you can probably multiply that by about 10 and that would give you an idea of what it would be worth in today's dollars. He was eventually deported and died in poverty. From what I understand, but that's where the name comes from and it's basically it's an investment fraud and I'm reading from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission website were explains what a Ponzi scheme is a Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds and opportunities claim to generate high returns with little or no risk in many Ponzi schemes.

The fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier stage investors to create the false appearance that investors are profiting from a legitimate business and of course in modern times. Bernie made off would probably be the champion of the Ponzi schemes and people lost billions with Bernie made off and what ends up happening in a basic idea is that somebody would collect the money from different people based on some kind of an investment strategy or whatever else that's not really there. So then they promises huge returns to people who would invest this money.

Their retirement money whatever else that money comes in. And so for the people who are early in their going to get paid off their 15% a month or whatever was promised and so there telling all their friends.

This is easy money. While when there's no substance behind the investment idea than it's going to eventually fall apart and that's what ends up happening and people lose millions of dollars. Sometimes if they've invested everything because it was easy money, but the question is why is Utah always mentioned when it comes to this kind of scam I mean you get calls all the time I get calls all the time.

Many of them are Robo calls, wanting to sell us some kind of a product or want to work on our computer that week we get these call all the time, but Utah seems to be susceptible to this and this is what this article is bringing up this is what we want to talk about it again.

This is one more time. This is hitter newspapers and it involves the state of Utah. So obviously what is the problem that is facing you times right now and why is Utah more susceptible to this kind of a scam. I think those are some legitimate questions does it have anything to do with the religious background of this state because if there's one thing that is pretty predominant in the state of Utah.

It is the religion the majority religion.

Of course, is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Does that have anything to do with this and this article does touch on that and gets a whole new meaning to Utah.

This is the place and it's a place where fraud is taking place. So the article starts off this way.

Utah has a long-held reputation as the fraud capital of the United States, mostly based on anecdotal evidence only stop you there. That seems like an interesting opening line in it. By the way, the author of this piece is Dennis Rambouillet is a writer for the desert news when he says mostly based on an little evidence will total basically has to do with a casual observance something you may have heard or something you could have even seen, but not rigorous research or rigorous analysis, and I found that opening line to be a little bit odd because Dennis rhomboid is going to show that there is a lot of rigorous research that has been done that shows that Utah really does deserve that dubious distinction and continues, but a nationwide Ponzi scheme database that Florida attorney Jordan mag which compiled offers proof that the ignominious label appears deserved. Utah had the six most Ponzi schemes among all states from 2008 to 2018. Despite ranking 31st, and population.

According to this one website.

Only California, Florida, New York, Texas and Illinois. That order had more when Sally attorney Mark Pugsley ran a per capita analysis of the numbers Utah top the list for the most Ponzi schemes. And it's not even close. Pugsley found Utah had 1.35 Ponzi schemes per 100,000 people. Florida is the next highest state at 0.51 per 100,000 people. Nearly 2/3 lower. That's an astounding number that is pretty fantastic 1.35 Ponzi schemes per 100,000 people. Then comes Florida. The next highest with .51 considerable drop when you look at it and you would imagine that would be true because so many elderly people live in Florida you have Medicare kinds of frauds and other things going on in so many older people are stressing people. We don't have as many old people, perhaps in Utah but we do have a lot of trusting people here apparently the I found interesting. It's a question and it's by Pugsley. He says this is a question people have been asking for a long time. Is Utah really that bad. He said his response this for the first time gives us some quantifiable basis to say yes we are that bad. Not only are we bad, but we're way worse than anyone else by a long shot. Now, folks, let's again look at the context she's not saying that Utah people are bad people.

It's just that when it comes to these statistics, we look pretty bad from the state of Utah and that's what he's talking about goes on in this piece to say, overall, Utah investors lost over 1.5 billion. That's with a B in those scams over those 10 years, you could have built a city Creek out of that.

I mean, that's a lot of money. Let that we should explain what city Creek is just yet because if you're not living in Salt Lake City. You may not be aware that city Creek is a huge shopping complex south of Temple Square owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

It's a huge investment. The article goes on us as the number does not include other affinity, frauds and investment scams which Pugsley estimates account for another 500 million in losses to Utah residents, let me say that again 1.5 billion+ another 500 million you're talking over the past decade Utah funds have lost 2 billion of their hard-earned money and then the mentions Bernie made off that I talked about earlier. Also, removing the massive 17 billion with a B.

Bernie made off scam in New York. Utah has the highest loss per capita of $502 per person more than double the next highest state, including made off pushes the per capita loss in New York to 1093, so this is a very serious problem and why would you think that would be a problem in the state of Utah. Now we know that in evangelical circles. We have a problem with the prosperity message that false doctrine seduces a lot of professing Christians when I was in Africa I saw that that was a problem over there but it's not just in Africa.

It's a problem here in the United States. Why do you think that kind of message would appeal to people considerably religious, especially since when we understand what the Bible has to say about greed and lust. You would think that Christians in this case I would even say Latter Day Saints would not be as susceptible to this problem, but apparently that is not the case. It should not be the case, but it is why. Why do these professing Christians. Why do these professing Latter Day Saints fall for these kind of scams whether it's financial or even spiritual and of course in the spiritual, the ultimate gain is to get something financial. Why would that be it depends on how you're going to go about getting information and with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The missionaries are pushing the reading of the book of Mormon for people who may even call themselves Christians to read the book of Mormon. At the very end of the book of Mormon is the book of Moron I chapter 10 it says that were supposed to pray about it if were sincere and really wanted to happen.

It's going to be known as being true wealth. If you take that with your religion and pray about something and that's the way that you get truth then wouldn't you want to use that same kind of formula when a friend comes to you and says have got this great investment opportunity. It's making 10% a month.

All you have to do is invest your money and you do invest $10,000 and you get this check for thousand dollars. You know the next month you're gone, my goodness, this is amazing. I just made 10% of my money when you give all your money over you, not based on any kind of research or basing it on your relationship with the person that maybe you trust and with perhaps a prayer you have prayed about it and you received a good feeling that this is a good investment and it turns out to be the worst thing you could have ever done with your money though prayer certainly should be a part of everyday life. It's not meant to be the do all okay. I prayed about it, I got a feeling. So that's where I run with no shouldn't do that. A lot of people look at prayer as being utilized in such a way, but that's really an abusive prayer only look at Proverbs 1412. For instance, it says there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Certainly this is a warning against subjective feelings, so much so that that very same verse out of Proverbs 1412 is repeated again Word for Word in Proverbs 1625. So you would think the fact that is mentioned twice like that, that God has a message for us as his people. Be very careful about subjective feelings.

Do your homework look into these things.

And as you said Eric. When people put their trust in individuals who they think are trustworthy. Why do you think there trustworthy is because of a feeling or is it because of the evidence. Tomorrow were going to continue talking about this subject because as I mentioned the Mormon element comes into this article later on. Thank you for listening you would like more information regarding this research ministry. We encourage you to visit our website www.mrm.org you can request a free newsletter Mormonism research. We hope you'll join us again as we look at another viewpoint is prepared to engage Mormon missionaries when they knock on your door. Perhaps the book is in 101 Wilhelm Mormonism 101.

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