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Strategies & Market Trends : Banned.......Replies to the A@P thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ravenseye who wrote (1411)	12/29/2004 5:06:31 PM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 5425

SEC sets up its own investment hoax on the Web, complete with leptins Featured Course: Investing 101 Would you invest in an established company that develops and markets handheld bio-hazard detectors? You can find out more about this unique investment opportunity at mcwhortle.com . On the surface it reads like a reasonable investment. But since the 11 September 2001 attacks, the U.S. has experienced an upsurge in fast-buck artists trying to cash in on the public’s hypersensitivity to terror-related fears, along with an upsurge in patriotism. Many of the scams have involved investments, and in late January the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) itself devised a phony investment opportunity to show how easy it is to use the Web for fraud. Rather than preach once again about the dangers of investment hoaxes, the SEC decided to use many of the con artists’ tricks to design an impressive, but fraudulent Web site to attract investors. The site claims to be that of McWhortle Enterprises, Inc., a non-existent company that developed a battery-powered device to detect “microscopic levels of hazardous bio-organisms.” This device, also non-existent, “can detect even the finest-milled, weapons-grade biohazards from 50 feet, long before the risk of inhalation or cutaneous infection, by testing for the distinctive surface leptins.” By the way, a leptin, according to MedicineNet.Com is “a hormone involved in the regulation of body fat,” not exactly what you want to use to protect yourself from biological hazards. The phony investment opportunity got rolling on 25 January with a press release for the company’s initial public offering (IPO), sent over PRNewswire that gets distributed to hundreds of news and business portals and Web sites, and syndicated to probably thousands more. The release gave a detailed description of the product, “Bio-Hazard Alert Detector, measuring only 3 by 7 inches, is small enough to slip into a man’s jacket pocket, a woman’s purse or a child’s backpack.” It included the standard boiler plate about “forward-looking statements” for authenticity. The site even provided a photo of the company headquarters and a streaming audio interview with the company president, Thomas James McWhortle III. The site talked about “major financial backing from a top-tier investment banking firm (the name of which will be revealed to those who decide to invest)” and the investment was guaranteed to at least triple the value of the initial investment. Another page says the pre-IPO offering is oversubscribed, but the second stage offering should return over 400 percent of the $10 share price. Serious investors would have noticed some immediate irregularities in the site and the release. First, the release's headline said that the SEC pre-approved the IPO, a function the SEC has never provided. Also, it said that the company president would give a news conference at SEC headquarters. If the SEC rented its facilities for company investment press conferences, it would hardly be in a position to regulate those companies or investments. Finally, the company’s investment relations manager, according to the release, was named Kelly Green (the color of money). In the three days after the SEC distributed the release, the McWhortle site received over 150,000 hits, according to the SEC. PRNewswire volunteered its services to help in this educational effort. The SEC did not play along prospects too far. Anyone who ventured beyond the initial pages to learn more about the investment got routed to a page headlined, “ If you responded to an investment idea like this ... You could get scammed!” The page then explains that the company and the IPO are complete fabrications, pointing out the tell-take signs of investment frauds, and providing places to check up on the veracity of investment offerings, through the SEC or state regulators. The best piece of advice still is, “If it seems to good to be true, it usually is.” Links Securities and Exchange Commission: sec.gov McWhortle Enterprises: mcwhortle.com North American Securities Administrators Association: nasaa.org

To: ravenseye who wrote (1411)	12/29/2004 5:08:33 PM
From: StockDung	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5425

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.

To: ravenseye who wrote (1411)	12/29/2004 5:35:36 PM
From: Bill Ulrich	Respond to of 5425

And? " ... to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right" Who was parted of what? "1 : an act intended to trick or dupe ... " It took you this long to figure it out? April 1st, 1999 was almost six years ago. I presume you'll be rounding up everybody who's ever done an April Fool's thingie since then? That's gonna cover a lot of ground. <g> Should I come out with my hands up? Which authorities will you be taking me to? I'm sure they'll be keeping a straight face when you explain, "See there was this guy who on 04/01/1999 did this thing, ... and six years later, I figured it out. "

To: ravenseye who wrote (1411)	12/29/2004 5:54:31 PM
From: scion	Respond to of 5425

You need to upgrade your Google search skills...see if you can find a sense of humor while you're at it. Main Entry: im·pos·ture Pronunciation: im-'päs-ch&r Function: noun Etymology: Late Latin impostura, from Latin impositus, impostus, past participle of imponere 1 : the act or practice of deceiving by means of an assumed character or name 2 : an instance of imposture

To: ravenseye who wrote (1411)	12/29/2004 6:24:23 PM
From: Louie_al-Arouri	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 5425

Ravenseye, great posts. You ruffle feathers because if you don't belong to Jeff's new "exclusive" club and do actual DD, the revisionist history that is the webfraud3's SI legacy becomes apparent. Why were they aiding Operation Uptick & Bermuda Short racketeers to get CEO's of companies the racketeers were offering to the public with their associates, fugitives like Joseph Andy Mann, lawyers like Carmine Bua? Boiler Room operators like Peter Schur? Why were they suing companies with Wolfson while bashing them with numerous aliases? Why were certain bashers even paid for their services? Because, it was a JOKE! You see, it's us. We don't share their sophisticated sense of humor. Fraud is FUNNY! Get it? I don't either. Great posts ;0) Business Wire contacted the FBI and notified them about the Webnode hoax. Two days later the company filed suit against the three creators of Webnode -- the first time in its history that Business Wire has sued anyone for fraud.