Fake sites aim to teach investors a lesson
Our tax dollars at work . . .
cnn.com
Fake sites aim to teach investors a lesson
January 30, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) -- McWhortle Enterprises Inc. seems like the perfect
investment for the post-September 11 world: a solid company, praised by
analysts and customers, selling a handheld biohazard detector guaranteed to
beep and flash in the presence of anthrax or other deadly germs.
Only one problem: The company doesn't exist.
McWhortle Enterprises is a government hoax cloaked in respectability and
planted on the Internet, waiting to deliver a lesson about the risks of
online investing to unsuspecting consumers.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, the principal agency behind the
fictitious company, was announcing Wednesday that it has seeded the Internet
with a series of such Web sites laying in wait to say "gotcha" to naive
investors, according to a source familiar with the project.
The SEC would only say that it was holding a news conference to discuss
"investor education initiatives."
Barbara Roper, the Consumer Federation of America's director of investor
protection, said she has no problem with the SEC's unorthodox methods.
"There's clearly no intent here to do anything but educate the public in a
way that might actually catch people's attention and make them realize they
were that close to being scammed," she said. "You need to make the risk real
to people."
On Friday, the SEC issued a fake news release on behalf of McWhortle, saying
the company would go public Wednesday, with company President Thomas
McWhortle III holding a news conference at SEC headquarters. The release was
distributed mainly to Web sites by a service for financial news. Financial
news agencies that received the fake release were warned.
[...]
After the release was sent, the McWhortle Web site received more than
120,000 visits, the source said. |
