The evening of April 15th is probably the best day of the year for us tax accountants. Needless to say, I am in a very good mood right now, even though no rocketship is landed and I still have a decent paper loss on this stock, despite some serious averaging down. Oh well, it's only money; high risk, high reward. Again, to all who follow this and other BB stocks, don't risk money you can't afford to lose.
Obviously, I've been AWOl for awhile due to tax season, but will now be able to hopefully contribute to the thread.
Anyway, I just wanted to clarify some things related to the request of the infamous person named "Tonto" who wanted to contact the BDO office in Mexico. In my opinion, he was probably trying to find out some information, good or bad, about the CRIC deal, if not trying to portray a taint of the audit if some of the allegations against him are correct. Earlier in the thread, Steve independently verified with the BDO national office that BDO had been hired to perform the services related to the BDO deal. Unless "Tonto" wanted to do this himself, there would be no reason to contact BDO.
The thing to understand about the Big Six (Seven counting BDO) is that they are not in the business of "talking." Their work is extremely confidential. I figured STeve would be able to only verify that BDO was engaged in the deal because it was a public company with a news release. The audit process is very confidential. At the Big Six where I worked (and still do occasionally), if a company was publicly traded, at the end of the day, ALL workpapers were locked in a vault. Within that vault, was another file for which only a few people had a key to. In other words, the audit process allows employees of the major firms to know information that is simply not public. That information is kept secret. Period. . . .
Obviously, it is a violation of professional ethics to even discuss an ongoing public audit. Trust me, if I could call BDO in Mexico and talk to them about the audit, I would. However, they won't talk to me and I know it--and they shouldn't. Obviously, I am heavily involved in the CPA practice and deal with this every day, but I would think other serious investors would know you just can't call a firm and ask how the audit is going, whether there are any problems, etc. The breach of confidentiality is so great that it would tarnish the entire process.
I won't comment on the majority of the allegations against Tonto, but I see no reason at all in the world to contact the office other than verify BDO was actually hired, which was already done by someone else on this thread.
If I had someone call me and ask for an update on the audit, I would say nothign and report the incident to the company immediately. Again, we are not talking petty larcency. This is SEC fraud. It amazes me how people throw out terms like "fruad," "fake," etc. on this thread like it is a common occurence, etc. etc. Sure GIFS is slow, but if it is a fruad, personally, I would liken it to the Kennedy Assasination Conspiracy. Actually, since today is the anniversary of Lincoln's death (he was shot on the 14th of April and Died on April 15th), I'll throw that conspiracy in as well. I mean, give me a break - we will have attorneys, CPA's, managment, etc. etc. lying to try to hype a stock price that isn't going anywhere without an audit??? And to risk their jobs and livelihood and face jail time to do it?? Doesn't make sense to me, which is why I own so much of the stock.
I believe in fundamentals and I believe in human nature. Fundamentals are great for GIFS. Human nature is different. I guess if you are willing to risk jail time and public humilation to hype a stock, so be it. The boys at NVID did it. NVID is basically a purely Internet hyped stock for which the CFO and CEO got arrested on sEC fraud and are currently in prison.
The NVID story is a very interesting case study and I bring it up just because it shows what happens to management when management lies. I think people on this thread think that if the audit report is not good, we just lose money and that is the end of the story. That is not the end of the story. that is the beginning as management gets thrown in jail, we have shareholder suits (similiar to the Tonto saga), etc. etc. etc.
Well, back to some relaxation finally. If Jeff Silverman is reading this message, I commend you on the length of your tax return. You must have some really interesting tax implications and positions to have a 70 page tax return. In my 5 year Career in the tax business, I have only worked on maybe a dozen returns larger than yours (in terms of lenth of pages). Obviously, to Silverman his tax return is a big headache and probably a decent bill. I look at it as a piece of art.
Goodnight all
MTM |
