Blair Rodman, Chris Levick, Kathy Liebert and Bruce Buffer apparently involved in scam training site

[Dan Druff]

I received the following private message here:

Hi Druff,

I have a scam I would like to bring to your attention that not many people know about. For the past few years a training website had been taking the poker communities money for a website pre launch that never launched. Now the website has closed shop and comes up not found.

The site was called Poker Players Academy.

It was not run well and involved Blair Rodman, Chris Levick, Kathy Liebert and Bruce Buffer. I know 3 or 4 people from twitter that say they donated to this website.

Months back I contacted Chris levick and Blair Rodman about the site never launching and email/dms were never returned. This site was a casualty of black Friday but they kept taking players money even after black friday to recoup loses from the project. A girl that i know on twitter who donated to this site is @candipartypoker and she still shows their logo on her profile.

If you search Poker Player Academy image a few come up and I believe they were taking $25 from each player to sign up early for training. Thanks. I listen to the show every week and enjoy it.

Here is a May, 2011 article that is critical of this training site as a pyramid scheme:

http://pokerati.com/2011/05/new-coac...ponzi-pyramid/

So it was some Multi Level Marketing bullshit, and the "product" was poker training!

Poker Player Academy provides the opportunity to earn money via helping people to learn from a pro and by referring people into the business. We provide you with the most advanced viral marketing system ever built that virtually does all the work. ~ Chris Levick

No one was ever trained by this website.

Anyone who "invested" (that is, bought into their multi-level marketing bullshit) lost their money.

Note that, despite the acronym of PPA (intentional?), it had no affiliation with the Poker Players Alliance.

Not sure what role Liebert, Buffer, Levick, and Rodman had in the company, but they were definitely used to promote it:

http://www.pokergob.com/tag/poker-player-academy/

The above is an old link of someone who presumably either "invested" in the site or was involved from the start (I'm guessing the latter).

Maybe someone can tweet about this to Kathy Liebert? She dislikes me now, so she has me blocked.

I doubt that Liebert set out to scam anyone, but it wouldn't surprise me if she was either duped into promoting this, and now wants to pretend none of this scamming ever happened.

[Mike Owens]

Apparently from the video on Pokergobs site Scotty Nguyen and Antonio Esfandiari were also involved in promoting this failed training site. The site continued to take players money after black friday in order to recoup startup money. Players were never repaid or even received any emails about the site closing. This site is no longer online and disappeared into the wind. I have a feeling we will never see Blair Rodman or Chris levick again in the poker world. They have ignored numerous emails from me about this website.

[Phildo]

That pokerati link compares it to PTN which was a pretty obvious pyramid scheme. I never heard of this one but I'm amazed that both fo them could get so many people to pay for a training site that didn't exist.

[Shizzmoney]

Maybe someone can tweet about this to Kathy Liebert? She dislikes me now, so she has me blocked.

Did she try to smash?

Either way, scams like these in the poker world really go to show it is so much easier to fool people than to convince they are being fooled.

[padre33]

Blair Rodman was hanging out with the biggest crook of them all Russ Hamilton last weekend at Lake Elsinore playing 2-3 NL. They were with a group of 20+ playing a golf tournament all weekend.

[LevDogs]

Hi and thank you for allowing me to clarify what has been posted on here about Poker Player Academy.

Poker Player Academy was set up by a Canadian by the name of Mike Helm who was the principal shareholder and Founder. I was approached via a mutual friend to help get the business started and to ensure that the right people were involved so that the training material would be entirely relevant. The business model did involve an affiliate/referral plan however there are a multitude of business that use this type of marketing method. It would be totally unfair to describe the business as a scam based on the method of marketing and I was present when advice was taken from lawyers and other industry experts to ensure that the business operated within the relevant laws.

As the project started to come together, it became apparent that Helm had underestimated the level of capital required and as a result the business was undercapitalised. Blair Rodman, Kathy Leibert, Bruce Buffer, Antonio Esfandari and Scotty Nguyen were recruited to provide the training content and participated in a promotional video. In the case of the players that had a management agency, the agents were fully briefed on the project. Clearly they would not allow their players to enter into an agreement to promote a business that had less than honourable intentions. All were paid for their services with the exception of Blair and Kathy, Helm had run out of funds by the time they were due to be paid.

The business conducted a 'pre-launch' which I was assured is a standard practice within the affiliate/referral industry where members could reserve their place in the business by paying $15. A total of 235 people globally paid the $15 fee before the project was abandoned. I returned to Australia when the company could no longer afford to pay me and saw an email set to go out asking anyone who had paid to contact the company regarding a refund. I understand that some people may not have received this email, its even possible that it was not sent but I did view a draft of what Helm was intending to send out. Any email addresses that I was monitoring whilst working for the company had the passwords changed immediately by the company when I left. Had anyone attempted to email me from that time on, I assume someone else at the company would have received the mail.

Despite the fact that the 235 x $15 did not go to me personally, I am more than willing to refund anyone that had paid from my own pocket. Several weeks ago upon learning that some people may not have received the refund email, I posted this on Facebook and in fact refunded some money to Australians who were effected. Anyone wanting a refund only need send proof of payment to chris@chrislevick.com and give me either banking details or a PayPal account. An alternative is that people can simply go to their bank and do a charge back.

In regards to the players involved, these people are of the highest integrity. Despite my now dislike for Helm, I can say in no way did he set this business up illegally or with the intention of creating a fraudulent scheme.

Anyone requiring further information can feel free to contact me via email.

Chris Levick

[NaturalBornHustler]

Blair Rodman was hanging out with the biggest crook of them all Russ Hamilton last weekend at Lake Elsinore playing 2-3 NL. They were with a group of 20+ playing a golf tournament all weekend.

So Blair is this true or not?

Is this the post that got you all fired up?

Even though I think it has very little relevance to the topic at hand, when you are buddies with known thieves I am sure you could see how someone might make the connection if your name ever comes up in a questionable circumstance in the poker world.