How CoffeeZilla Exposed YouTube's Worst Sponsor | Internet Anarchist

0:00Kofi Zilla has made a career out of revealing the dark underbelly of the online world. However, it's not every day that you get to see a popular YouTube sponsor deprive thousands of people of life savings. My wife and I are family has 18,000 in Yada, and we can't get out. Over $60,000 frozen up in Yada. $15,440 and $6 frozen in Yada. What's even more surprising is that it all could have been avoided. Please help. Never should have listened to Graham's death in. I wonder if he knew things were looking bad. That's why he stopped promoting it. Hi, I'm the incident anarchist. I create weekly YouTube documentaries. And today we'll be looking into the erupt collapse of a once beloved YouTube sponsor, Yada Savings. A YouTube sponsor that promised to help viewers with a no-lose lottery, but inevitably became a worse option than not saving at all. Sponsorships on YouTube have always been a double-edged sword. On one side, creators get a chance to promote a worthwhile product that would benefit their viewers. On the other hand, some creators opt to push products that prey on their viewers.

1:01This is a pattern that Kofi Zilla is very good at exposing. Jake makes these videos exposing scams, but then often uses the same tactics of the scam to then pitch you like a sponsor that's in the same lane. Like for example, he'll tell you that lotteries are predatory. Lotteries are predatory. They play on our psychology to suck a strike of our heart or money. But then in that same video, he'll sell you a quote no-lose lottery. Play the no-lose lottery by passing the video and clicking the link below. That clip was from Kofi Zilla's the most evil business in the world video, which caught up Jake Tran for shilling predatory products to his viewers. Kofi Zilla didn't know it yet, but Yada's no-lose lottery system was going to cause more damage than any sponsor he covered in that video. But that begs the question, what is Yada? Where did they come from and how did they end up on Kofi Zilla's radar again? If you were anywhere near the YouTube finance community between July 2020 and 2023, then you would have likely heard of Yada's savings. But if lottery psychology could be used to incentivize you to save money and build wealth instead of keeping you poor. Well, that's where Yada

2:05comes in. A savings account that pays you interest in prizes, giving you a chance to win 10 million dollars every single week. Back then, the premise behind Yada was that their platform offered a fun, but safe and easy way to save more money. Yada would offer users tickets in the lottery after they deposited a search in amount of money. Now without wanting to go ahead and select seven numbers, and if you do get some correct numbers out of that whole lottery system, you can actually make some money. But if you get all those seven numbers correct, including the Yada number, you can actually win 10 million dollars. In addition to Yada's 0.2% annual interest rate, playing their lottery every week could theoretically yield an extra 2%, which was significantly higher than what most American banks offer. They were essentially offering a prize-linked saving system, which was popular in the UK, but only made legal in the US around 2015. When it came to securing the funds saved, Yada users received an FDIC insurance of up to $250,000, while the lottery numbers were picked by a third party insurance company. However, since Yada wasn't a real bank if they had to get these benefits

3:07by working with certified banks, Yada was only a financial technology company that managed users funds, and didn't necessarily hold assets. It was actually the banks they worked with that held the funds. While that system isn't normally a problem, it becomes very important later in the video. For now, Yada's plan to get more people to save through their risk-free lottery system was working very well. With it feeling like World War 3 could be approaching at any moment, there's never been a better time to get some experience in the battlefield. Thankfully, this video is sponsored by War Thunder, the ultimate vehicle combat game, available for free on PC and console, command over 2,500 tanks, planes, helicopters, and ships from 10 major nations. Spending from the 1920s to modern day, you can experience intense battles with incredibly detailed vehicles, realistic graphics, and authentic sound effects that put you in control of the most powerful war machines. War Thunder's advanced damage system models each vehicle down to its components. Engines, fuel tanks, weapons, and crew, making them vulnerable to enemy fire, with armor and weapons behaving just like in real life. Join over 70 million players in epic

4:12PvP battles and explore the vast content War Thunder has to offer, perfect for any fans of military history. Play War Thunder for free on PC, PlayStation, or Xbox. Use my code in the pinned comment, or video description to sign up. New players and those returning after six months will receive a massive bonus pack, including premium vehicles, the exclusive Eagle of Valor Decorator, 100,000 silver lions, and seven days of premium. This offer is available for a limited time, so don't miss out. With that being said, let's get back into the video. At the end of 2020, Yoda had received over 30 million dollars in deposits, and by 2021, they acquired tens of millions of dollars in venture capital. The waves Yoda made in the finance world would eventually find their way to YouTube, as many creators made videos analyzing the potential returns of having a Yoda saving's account. While the reviews for Yoda were mostly positive, some creators saw enough potential value in that company that they became angel investors. On the 20th of September 2020, Graham Steffon uploaded a video titled Just Board of Bank, which detailed his experience with Yoda savings,

5:16as both a customer and investor. From the perspective of a customer, Graham went over a few fundamental questions about Yoda savings, like how likely to receive the advertised interest rate. From a savings account standpoint, averaging higher than a 2.5% return right now is incredible, especially when you consider that even the best high interest rate savings accounts right now are paying 1%, and the majority of banks are well below that. Another question was how the changes of winning are affected by the number of people who joined the platform, since the prize pool is spread among more people. And of course, this kind of internet stranger mark calculated that the probability of your interest rate is boosted on average by one-tenth each week, depending on how many people you bring on. But here is the thing, the more people that join the app, the lower the average interest rate becomes. Another question was about what it feels like participating in a lottery with friends and family. And finally, the other question was the security measures that both

6:26protect Yoda and the consumers funds. For anyone wondering, they are FDIC insured up to $250,000 through a vault bank and trust, so Yoda never actually holds your money a vault bank and trust does. This is very similar to how other cash management accounts use her money, for example, Robinhood uses Sutton bank and many other banks do something similar to hold your asset. I'm sure there might be some skepticism around how do we know these prices are great? Why did this $1,000 debt at grant? To make sure this stays 100% above board after some research, all the prizes are picked and paid out by a third-party insurance company. On the consumer side of things, grant was generally on the side of being cautious, since the company was still in its early stages and interest rates might not be the same for very long, but from the perspective of an angel investor, grant was more optimistic. Well, I'd be notes to me, as Sebi asked if I was interested in investing in this company as an angel investor and taking a small piece of ownership during one of their first rounds of funding. So I decided to take a very close look at the company, its founders and their business model to see if this is something I could get behind.

7:29That's when the research started, and the business model behind it is pretty interesting. They're based off the report that 40% of Americans are unable to cover a $400 emergency expense, yet they spend on average $1,000 a year in the lottery. So Yoda aims to bridge that gap by incentivizing people to save more money through a pricelink system that makes putting money away exciting. The positive psychological and financial impact of Yoda's pricelink savings on people who were addicted to lottery was also discussed as Graham cited it as one of the reasons he was investing. Studies have shown that pricelink savings accounts actually encourage people to save more money, because psychologically, it's a lot more appealing to have the small chance at earning a lot of guaranteed chance at earning very little. And for someone with $400 earning 0.8% on their money, which works out to be $3.20 per year, is not as exciting as saving that $400 and then having a small chance at earning all the way up to $10 million. Graham saw Yoda as a win-win situation for everyone involved, especially the customer. From his perspective, Yoda was making the idea of

8:31saving more money, engaging, ultimately introducing more people into the financial practice. At the end of the day, it's all about learning how to make saving money appealing to an audience who ordinarily would not save money. And this fits that perfectly while also giving you a fun spin on things and also paying you a higher interest rate than you would be getting from almost any other bank. Even if that means they have to pay a high amount of interest up front to you to get you as a customer, to me that's just a normal cost of customer acquisition. While this initial vision for Yoda worked on a small scale, things would only get more complicated and risky for everyone involved. By the 9th of October 2021, Graham uploaded a follow-up video on Yoda's savings, titled, I bought a bank that's losing money, to give viewers a more in-depth perspective on the company. So about a year ago, I did the unthinkable. I made a substantial angel investment in a small startup bank that pays people to use it. It quickly became the number one most trending financial app on the Google Play Store. Over $3.5 million for the prizes were paid out across more than 250,000 users. 60% of them opened the app every single day

9:33and now could have a valuation in excess of $200 million. But I wish this story were really just as simple as that because there have been some considerable issues that I need to address. After expressing his initial concerns of Yoda, Graham addressed the concerns about the legitimacy and inner workings of the company by clearly differentiating it from a Ponzi scheme. But it became evident that the entire aspect of a prize-based savings account is enough to raise a suspicion that it's got to be rigged, it has to be a scam because it sounds like a Ponzi scheme. This is highly illegal, it's blatant fraud, and if Yoda Bank was a Ponzi scheme, posting a video about it on YouTube and risking everything I ever have worked for would have been the stupidest thing I could have done. However, Graham's positive outlook on Yoda didn't stop him from shedding light on the noticeable issues with the platform, like the reducing interest rate, lack of customer support, and basic banking functionality. There were also some issues that I would like to address because it wouldn't be fair for me to talk about something that I'm personally invested in without giving it an objective review now that I've had a year to see how things

10:34have unfolded. The first as I expected in my previous video, it became too expensive to pay a high interest rate to bank account churners like myself who move large amounts from bank to bank in order to game the system. I saw how much they were initially paying, which is over 2.5% on all amounts. I decided to keep six figures of cash on the app because that was four times higher than what I was getting paid at Alibank. But after a few months it became apparent that the majority of high balances never interacted with the app. At the end of the day, Yoda was a growing startup, and like many startups they were growing pains, which Graham wanted to look past that. Instead, Graham progressed more on what the platform would be down the line. There's a lot of potential to continue expanding into different products. With startups like this, profit is nice, but growth is even better. I'm not able to get into too many specifics here, but I will say that there is a credit card in the works and incorporating some cryptocurrency to stay tuned. At the end of the day, it's really about reaching a new audience who ordinarily would not have the desire to save money. Even though it's not profitable yet, they have been consistently growing even without mentioning them. Which is also the reason why I have not mentioned them in a year.

11:37In the short term, Graham's bet on Yoda paid off, as more users flocked to the platform daily, and they were able to increase their marketing efforts to grow their numbers even faster. As a result, YouTube videos sponsored by Yoda became more common between 2021 and 2023. The more time you waste not using Yoda, the more money you're losing out on. So get started by clicking the link below. Play the No-Lose lottery by pause in the video and clicking the link below. We're proud to have Yoda sponsoring this video. If Yoda kept their initial vision of raising the number of American citizens actively saving, then maybe things would have continued on their current upward trajectory. But unfortunately, Yoda's rapid growth incentivized management to make a few alterations to that vision. The changes started out small, with the inclusion of casino-type mini-games like Pacinco and Trollette. These games required users to bet their existing lottery tickets to win more, which preyed on the psychology of recovering gamblers. As with every casino, the expected power rate would always be less than 100%, which means that users who played long enough would eventually lose all their tickets. The co-founders understood the psychology behind

12:40these mechanics, and the fact that we're now directly taking advantage of it was assigned for worse to come. Yoda's lottery ticket system became less profitable for users after they added Yoda Cash, which altered the $25 to $1 ticket mechanic, reading, Yoda Cash's replacing tickets as a way to play all games. $1 Yoda Cash is redeemable for $1 US dollar. Yoda customers could see the writing on the wall, with one stating, This update just made me lose all hope in Yoda. Never liked the ticket idea, but whatever. Now with the tickets being 10 times more expensive, I'm truly about to pull out completely. If only there was a bank system with buckets, that's about the only useful feature left on Yoda. By now, it was obvious a good portion of Yoda's users had the desired a jump ship to a more stable bank, with drawing one savings from Yoda would have been a logical decision since their original premise was all but forgotten, but unfortunately that wouldn't even be a viable option in the coming months, as things were about to get a whole lot worse. On the 17th of May 2024, a YouTuber named PepliTVV2 published a video titled, I got scammed, the Yoda bank situation, to raise awareness for

13:44an ongoing issue he had with the platform. For the first few minutes of the video, Pepli Blav recounted the decision and events that led him to join Yoda, with the main driving force being Graham's video. 3 watching Graham's video forced Pepli to reconsider his choice to use Yoda over a traditional bank. 3 watching Graham's video forced PepliTV to reconsider his choice to use Yoda over a traditional bank. 3 watching Graham's video forced Pepli to reconsider his choice to use Yoda over a traditional bank. But honestly, this was fun back in the day, you put money in, you get tickets, you make some money, and honestly, sometimes it would be good. The drive home how dead the situation was,

14:47Pepli pulled up a list of supported evolved bank partners, and Yoda wasn't on that list. List of evolved bank partners, more ketta, mastercard, mellio, mercury, prize pool, step, stripe, tabapay, visa, notice, Yoda is not on this list anymore. Despite his unpleasant experience with Yoda, Pepli didn't blame Graham for what happened with the company. So he's a partial owner, I don't know if that is still standing currently, but I'm not holding him to blame. However, Yoda's sudden collapse didn't come without warning, as Pepli shared a notification he received a few days prior, suggesting he withdraws funds. If you would like to withdraw your funds now, you can do so on the Yoda app. Please note, there's a $10,000 limit. If you have more than $10,000 in your account, but we apologize for this inconvenience. So I didn't think much of it. I thought, you know, whatever, over the course of the three years, the structure has changed a lot. Sadly, Pepli wasn't able to withdraw time and found out at the worst time possible. I need to pull my money out. I tried making the

15:52deposit, trying to just withdraw all my money into an actual brick and mortar bank that I have, and I receive this email. It says, we are currently experiencing difficulties with payment processing, wires and debit and credit cards due to outages with synapses brokerage bank processors. We are currently working on a resolution and we will let you know once it's resolved. Yoda would make a post addressing their customers, explaining what was going on, and at the end of the post, Yoda told their customers that they didn't have control over the frozen funds. Instead, they placed responsibility on a vault. Reading, ultimately, is up to a vault to restore card services and lineage, or a vault or another processing bank to provide ACH services, where in contact with regulators to expedite a resolution since this is unacceptable. As a result of this technical mishap, tens of thousands of people no longer had access to money, they worked so hard to save and were given no timeline of when they'll get their funds back. By the 3rd of June 2024, Coffeezilla uploaded a video on the collapse of Yoda and gave a voice to

16:54the affected users, as well as calling out the creators who promoted the company. Today, we're talking about a bank promoted by YouTubers that's now become a casino and users can't get their money out. After giving an overview of what Yoda worked, how it works and who promoted it, Coffeezilla presented an interesting conversation, yet with a company CEO, Adam Mollies. I reached out to the CEO and he told me Yoda is not actually gambling. Quote, we decided to pivot the business into sweepstakes earlier this year. Sweepstakes is not gambling. We worked extensively with lawyers in the space to build up the program. Now, I don't know which lawyer told Yoda Blackjack isn't gambling, but it's time to get your money back. Ironically, Adam would outright ask Coffeezilla for help, but he instead offered advice to both Yoda and the creators who took their sponsorships. He responded asking me for help. Quote, you can make your own moral judgment of whatever you want. That's fine, but the issue that matters is that our customers haven't been able to access their funds for nearly three weeks. I think you can help. And honestly, he's right. I do want to help Yoda's customers not getting their money, but I can't ignore that

17:58Yoda is a savings app that became a casino, the exact thing they were fighting, and that's disgusting. Two, YouTubers brought people into a financial product that is now broken, and rather than address it, most of them have gone radio silent. Given the complexity of the situation, Coffeezilla pointed out why he didn't hold creators responsible for what happened, it stated that they had a role to play even after they collapsed. This is the reason I hold financial YouTubers to a higher standard. Overwhelmingly, I find them to be more influential. Although I have to say again, I don't hold them or anyone personally responsible. I hold them all irresponsible for promoting financial products. Coffeezilla continued the second half of the video by discussing the more technical side of Yoda's predicament, which wasn't even more entangled mess. Since early May, many fintechs including Yoda, and Juno, and many others, have had all their user funds frozen up to 200,000 accounts are affected, and it's for many reasons that surprised users. See, most people saw these companies like Yoda,

19:01as banks. Remember, Graham Stephan even said, I bought a bank. I just bought a bank. But this isn't quite accurate. To fully get his point across, Coffee would bring on an industry expert to explain what was going on. What actually has gone wrong here? So the sort of proximate cause was on Saturday, May 11th Synapse, which is this technology middleware provider, or banking as a service provider, revoked evolved banks access to what in the court violins is being referred to as the dashboard, which is basically Synapse's IT systems, including actual ledger information. And so when Synapse revoked access to that information on Saturday, May 11th, evolved functionally froze all of those programs by ceasing to process payments. I would also delve into why the FDIC insurance policy wasn't going into effect. Now, what is FDIC insurance and what does it do? It protects depositors and users in the event

20:05that a bank fails. A bank has not failed here. And so there is no direct role for the FDIC to step in. Essentially, user funds were caught up in a dispute between companies that couldn't decide who were at what and to who, with both parties pointing the finger at each other. All in Evolve's control, we are doing everything we can to release funds. Meanwhile, Evolve says Synapse's records are wrong. Quote recent ledgers and data do not align with the actual movement of funds in and out of Evolve. Basically, someone is lying, or even worse, doesn't know what the truth is, and this isn't a disagreement about a few pennies. It's a $150 million being argued about. Naturally, viewers who followed these financial suggestions and potentially lost savings with tens of thousands of dollars were furious, with many openly sharing their grievances on Reddit, with posts reading, investigate Graham Steffan about his investment in Yoda. And also, he was the one who promoted Yoda on his YouTube and got me into this mess. It was also promoting FX, as you already reported it before it burned to the ground. As well as, please help. Never

21:07should have listened to Graham Steffan. I wonder if he knew things were looking bad and that's why he stopped promoting it. Although there was a lot of hate going around for Graham and other Yoda sponsored channels, some creators were trying to bridge the gap by giving a different perspective. On the 9th of June 2024, Meet Kevin gave us thoughts on the situation from his and Graham's perspective. An easy thing a lot of fintechs do that try to innovate, so to speak, in the finance spaces, they partner with depository banks, and as a result, they're able to offer products or apps or services that may not otherwise exist. To lower the video, a viewer would comment a very good summary of why Graham was receiving so much backlash. With a comment reading, people are targeting Graham because he was the reason why thousands of people signed up for Yoda, and he has yet to come out and say anything about it. Even if it's, hey guys, I don't know what's going on, but as soon as I find out something, I'll let you know. Say something. Anything. Yoda's original concept for a safe way to save money, while encouraging people with the hopes of winning huge sums, worked well in the beginning.

22:07Sadly, the desire for rapid growth and profitability pushed the company management to abandon that ideal. A decision uses openly hated. Couple that with the recent hold on transactions, and was only a matter of time before users, began to perceive Yoda as just another shady casino app, this dark perception inevitably bleeds into the reputations of creators that associated themselves with the company. The negativity was only amplified by the lack of communication, and updates viewers received from creators. However, does that mean YouTube is worth a blame for what happened? Well, it's not exactly clear cut. YouTubers are responsible for spreading their sponsorships, but viewers should also do some research on these products, especially when it comes to financial products. On no amount of research could have predicted the eventual fate of Yoda, we can only hope the hardworking individuals that saved their money haven't returned to them as soon as possible. Again, big thanks to Warthand for sponsoring today's video. Be sure to click my link in description to play on Xbox, PlayStation, or BC today, and if you're new or haven't played in six months, you'll get many rewards such as premium tanks, silver lines, and seven days of premium time. Coffeezilla also exposed one of YouTube's worst tech channels.

23:11Click the video on the screen to find out more.