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May 05, 2005
What was that message again?
Professor Podgor over at the White Collar Crime Prof Blog points us to this Securities and Exchange Commission press release that describes the SEC's lawsuit against some Houston-area telemarketers who are taking a rather creative approach to soliciting purchases of six microcap stocks.
Turns out that the stock promoters left hundreds of thousands of fraudulent "wrong number" stock tip messages in which a woman by the name of "Debbie" would leave a hot stock tip message on the phone recipient's voice mail and would leave it in such a way to make the recipient believe that "Debbie" had dialed the number by mistake and had really meant to call a friend to pass along the hot stock tip.
The SEC complaint alleges that the messages were part of a larger scheme enabling the Houston-based stock promoters (Peter S. Cahill of Houston and Cahill's Clearlake Venture Group) to sell approximately $4.5 million of one of the touted stocks through a Tampa, Fla.-based broker-dealer. The SEC alleges that the scheme drove up the price of each of the touted stocks, temporarily inflating their combined market capitalization by approximately $180 million.
Gosh, what is the world coming to? You can't even trust those hot stock tips mistakenly left on your voicemail anymore? ;^)
Posted by Tom at May 5, 2005 07:05 AM
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