Online hoax Nets 233 April Fools
By Joel Deane
ZDNet News
May 3, 1999, 5:00 PM PT
It was the Net's April Fools joke of the year.
Since April 1, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission -- the Antipodean version of the Securities and Exchange Commission -- has been running a massive Internet investment hoax site, inviting gullible surfers to commit to $10,000 and $50,000 investment packages and reap a threefold return on their money.
All of which makes the Web's overwhelming response to the Millennium Bug Insurance hoax so extraordinary -- and such a worrisome indication of the overly trusting natures of many would-be Net investors.
Hoax netted $4 million
Dunn said the site, which was advertised on several Australian portals, attracted more than 10,000 visitors over the past month. Of those visitors, 1,212 e-mailed requesting more information -- and 233 committed themselves to investing either $10,000 or $50,000. All told, if the hoax had been a scam, Dunn said it would have netted a total of $4 million (Aus) from duped Netizens.
On Tuesday, ASIC went public with its hoax -- using it to educate the Australian public about the dangers of some online investing. It will also e-mail online investing advice tips to its 1,445 April Fools.
"This has a serious purpose, and it's about people who want to use the Internet (for investing) doing some basic safety checks," Dunn said Tuesday.
"The Internet is a perfectly legitimate media ... More and more people are using it to look for financial advice and make investment decisions, and that's fine. But, obviously, they just have to be sensible about it."
SEC: No comment
Dunn said roughly 25 percent of the duped investors hailed from outside Australia, including the United States.
Of course, Millennium Bug Insurance, the Y2K bug insurance "company" supposedly behind the site, had nothing legitimate to back up its bogus claims of an high-return, low-risk investment -- not even a prospectus. Indeed, ASIC Communications Director Michael Dunn said the site ought to have been setting off people's "alarm bells" because, if it had have been real, it would have broken numerous Australian securities laws.
The U.S. SEC declined to comment on ASIC's hoax. However, in a Jan. 27 statement SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt said complaints regarding online investing had increased 330 percent in the last year.
"I believe that investors need to remember the investment basics, and not allow the ease and speed with which they can trade to lull them either into a false sense of security or encourage them to trade too quickly or too often," Levitt said.
|
