"Dumb Money"
TheStreet.com - Silicon Valley
Fifteen Minutes of Fame and a Feud for Message Board Posters
Instead of trashing stocks they're shorting, two widely read message board posters trash
each other.
By Robert Kowalski
Staff Reporter
These ought to be the salad days for Steve Pluvia and Anthony Elgindy.
The two self-anointed white knights of the Internet message boards, who purport to root
out securities fraud and
corporate mismanagement, are basking in far more than the normally prescribed allotment
of fame.
Elgindy (his real name) and Pluvia (an Internet alias for someone else who clings to
anonymity like a hunted man)
are featured in not one, but two books. They loom large in Scam Dogs and Mo-Mo
Mamas: Inside the Wild and
Woolly World of Internet Stock Trading, a book released this week that uncovers the misty
world of message
board posters and daytraders. The two also are featured in Dumb Money: Adventures of a
Day Trader, released in
April and recently excerpted in Wired magazine, which dubbed Elgindy "The Mad Max of
Wall Street."
So, are Elgindy and Pluvia celebrating their mutual fame? Hardly. In fact, in recent days the
two have launched a
series of message board attacks against each other with a ferocity they used to reserve for
the stocks they were
shorting.
If just half the allegations they're now leveling at each other were true, the two might be
spending time (or in
Elgindy's case, more time) behind bars.
Pluvia has posted messages questioning whether Elgindy raised money for Kosovo refugees
over the Internet
message board site Silicon Investor , but then pocketed the proceeds.
Elgindy fired back, calling Pluvia a plagiarist and saying he hoped the IRS tracks him down
for unpaid back taxes.
He also hinted at the real identity of the person behind the alias Pluvia, which, according to
court records in a
pending lawsuit, is Steven Alan Keyser. A man claiming to be Pluvia told TheStreet.com
earlier this year that he
wasn't Keyser.
Elgindy's written assaults became so intense that the Silicon Investor referees suspended
him from the bulletin
board for a time a week ago. SI does that when posters resort to "personal attacks,
spamming, copyright violations
and flame wars," said spokeswoman Jill Munden.
Elgindy, in the meantime, threw Pluvia off his own Web site.
All of this has provided great entertainment to some of the investors who read the message
boards to monitor
stocks. "Isn't it nasty?" asked Kimberly King, a Los Angeles interior decorator who posts
messages under the
Internet alias "Feminvstr," and who has tangled with Pluvia and Elgindy on the message
boards in the past. "I'm
fascinated by this whole thing."
King said Pluvia and Elgindy deserve scrutiny because, aside from being colorful Internet
personalities, their
message board postings actually can drive stock prices.
Both Elgindy and Pluvia are avowed short-sellers who profit when stocks in which they
hold short positions
plummet in value. King cited as one example of this Terayon Communication Systems ,(;
(Nasdaq: TERN - news)
one of the stocks Pluvia targeted for his message board criticism.
"Pluvia and Anthony have some impact," said King, who is long Terayon. "I think they've
got this band of rabid
dogs that follow them. ... The way that these shorts post is very reckless."
And Pluvia and Elgindy are well read on the boards. In addition to Silicon Investor, they
also post on Raging Bull ,
Yahoo.com and Silicon Investor. On the SI boards, which have 300,000 registered users,
Pluvia and Elgindy are
among the 20 most popular posters, said Munden.
Pluvia and Elgindy are kindred spirits in the world of shorting stocks, and both once posted
on Elgindy's Web site.
War erupted between them shortly after a federal court judge last month decided Elgindy
would be spending the
next four months of his life in a federal prison.
Elgindy had pleaded guilty to a felony count of mail fraud after he was charged with
receiving disability benefits
from an insurance company while he was actually working for securities firms.
Along with the prison time, the judge gave Elgindy four months of house confinement, three
years' probation and
ordered him to pay a $20,000 fine.
After the sentencing, Pluvia began his campaign to discredit Elgindy on the message boards.
The chief prosecutor in Elgindy's fraud case backs up at least part of what Pluvia's been
questioning about Elgindy's
handling of some charity contributions.
Elgindy had made an urgent plea for donations last April for the Mother Theresa
Humanitarian Organization . The
money, he said, was to help refugees of fighting in Kosovo.
But the charity story was full of holes, said David Jarvis, the assistant U.S. attorney who
prosecuted Elgindy in the
fraud case in Texas. "None of that money from the American people was ever given to the
Mother Theresa fund in
Macedonia," Jarvis said. "He [;Elgindy]; was not the transformed man that they made him
out to be."
Elgindy, in an interview, said he never gave the $14,000 he collected to the Mother Theresa
organization because
he was concerned it might be misspent by the group, and because the organization didn't
have a valid tax-exempt
status.
He said he returned the money to the 50 or so contributors within the past month, and on
Friday, posted an
explanation of the whole matter on SI. He also said he's spent $127,000 of his own money
helping Kosovo
refugees.
Elgindy has been ordered to check into a federal prison on June 11, and begin serving his
sentence. He says he's
angered that someone like Pluvia is pelting him with renewed criticism.
The person behind that alias is far from a saint himself, at least according to Elgindy and
court records.
A lawsuit filed against Pluvia last year charged the message board poster is actually Steven
Alan Keyser, a man
with a list of legal difficulties that includes a shoplifting conviction, an IRS lien for back taxes
and an outstanding
arrest warrant in Las Vegas.
The suit was filed by Sabratek Corp. (;SBTKE:OTC BB), which accused Pluvia of
disparaging the company while
holding a short position in its stock.
A federal court judge in Manhattan gave the company until May 15 to serve Keyser, or
drop him from the suit. The
deadline came and went, and no one was served.
Pluvia posted a jubilant message on Silicon Investor on May 16.
Sabratek's New York lawyer, Stu Jackson, said he can and will add Keyser back to the
suit when he's able to
serve him. "We keep an eye out for him," he said.
Silicon Investor's Munden said she knows what Elgindy looks like only from a magazine
photo. "I haven't met any
of these people in person," she said.
But Elgindy, who says he has met the real person behind Pluvia, says it is indeed Keyser.
In interviews, both Elgindy and the man claiming to be Pluvia have complained that
questions about their individual
legal difficulties and possible criminal backgrounds detract from the core of their message
about stocks.
Elgindy, however, said there's a big difference between himself and Pluvia.
"I'm a much better person than he is, even though I have a conviction," Elgindy said. "I care
about people."
Pluvia, in an email response to questions from TheStreet.com, said of Elgindy: "I think his
behavior is pathetic --
we're talking about money donated for a charity."
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