Back in the post-crash days of 2004, Adam Clark raised a lot of money from investors after claiming he could send video over 14.4Kbps dial-up modems.

Of course, it turned out to be a scam, but Adam managed to avoid any criminal charges. Adams Platform Technology soaked up somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million, which all disappeared. No criminal charges were ever filed, but a class action lawsuit was just resolved in Australia’s Victoria Supreme Court.

The net result? All those people who sank money into the venture get nothing. The lawyers managed to scrape up a few bucks, but in the end, every dollar invested in the company was lost.

I guess the moral of this story is to strike while there is still some money in the pot. Once the scammers have spent it all, there’s no cash left, and no value in the technology. The lawyers might find some value in picking over the carcass, but the investors might as well just walk away, hands in pockets.