Comments on: Spam Emails About Individual Stocks: What’s The Scam?

By: Dickies

Dickies — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:00:16 +0000

Good stuff, I “Stumbled” you. My DIGG account got messed up but I like Stumbling better anyway.

By: printable coupons

printable coupons — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:57:02 +0000

We almost wish we hadn’t bought our house with this tough economy. Doing all we can to keep groceries on the table.

By: Jim Lippard

Jim Lippard — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:54:36 +0000

Just wanted to second the comment that usually the scammer already has the stock in hand–and in some cases has been affiliated with the owner of the penny stock company and has been paid in stock to promote it. And yes, that’s illegal.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:30:38 +0000

http://www.qwoter.com/spam.php

(This is not my site.)

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:58:59 +0000

Watch the movie “Wall Street” or “Boiler Room” to get a good idea of how stuff like that is done. They’re great movies too.

By: Andamom

Andamom — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:41:45 +0000

Nothing special here — spam is spam – stock tips, ‘Nigerian offers’, medical treatmets, etc. Spam really is anything that you have not requested but randomly appears in your in box — and the in box of others. Your best bet is to get a spam blocker and filter as much email as you can.

By: John

John — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:44:57 +0000

Trent,
Good post on spam on individual stocks. I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it, everywhere one turns someone is trying to rip you off. Integrity is the backbone of life. No integrity, no life. Look at the world today, wouldn’t you say that it is spirilling out of control ? I guess that “Greek guy” with a lantern is still looking for an honest man ? john

By: Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD

Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:24:09 +0000

Try the Google and get this site.. 21 st Century Vitamin and you will see the small print that is exactly in line with the duped us.. *This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

By: The Writers Coin

The Writers Coin — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:35:00 +0000

There is a huge study on this online somewhere, I couldn’t find it though. The scammer has already bought stock before sending out the emails, then he waits as prices tick up. If there is movement, they will send out another email (“look it’s one up!”) until they finally pull out. Some guy had a website where he mock traded for all the stock spam he got. Spammers sometimes make money and sometimes break even.

By: The Digerati Life

The Digerati Life — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:15:22 +0000

Would you believe I fell for one of these things just last year? It was during a financially vulnerable time and I felt I needed a “pick me up” and found it in a stock tip over the message boards. I thought that it was only for a few thousand dollars, it shouldn’t be a big deal even if it doesn’t pay off. There seemed to be “legs” in this particular penny stock’s movements. Of course I lost money — half of it in fact before I gave up. All in a few months.
Moral of the story: Don’t trade when you are in a bad mood.

By: benp

benp — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:35:46 +0000

There’s another stock scam thats really harnesses the power of the computer. A company sends out an email where they predict several stocks to go up or down in the future. The trick is they send different permutations of which stocks go up and down to different people, but for a small fraction of people it really does look like they predict stock performance. For example if they pick 4 stocks, there are 2^4 = 16 permutations of the stocks rising or falling. If they send out 16000 spam messages, then 1000 people get an email that correctly “predicted” the market. And once they have someone confidence, they are a lot easier to take advantage of.

By: Reagan

Reagan — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:12:44 +0000

I think the scammer sells bits and pieces to the scammed as the price goes up.

If he executed a limit order all at once, only existing buy limit orders matching his sell price and market orders would fill, thus driving the stock back down in price rapidly. It would become a situation where the buy bid is $10 @ 100 shares and the ask bid is $10.01 @ 10,000 shares. That’s when other holders start to sell lower (e.g, sell limit order of $9.99)

By: Mrs. Micah

Mrs. Micah — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:15:11 +0000

Well, Jillian, what I was thinking was “where can I sign up?” Not for being scammed, but it’s a fascinating way of manipulating market prices. That said, I’d never actually do it…. ;-)

By: Jillian

Jillian — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:44:58 +0000

Maybe if you got in quick at the beginning of the day and pulled out just before the scammer you’d beat him at his own game? Did I just say that?

By: !wanda

!wanda — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:18:43 +0000

The vast majority of people don’t fall for it, but it basically costs nothing to send an email to millions of people. The scammers pick stocks that have low trading volume, so if even a small percentage of those people buy the stock and influence the price, the scammer can make a lot of money.

By: Money Socket

Money Socket — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:52:45 +0000

I don’t know why, but I’m starting to get at least four Nigerian email scams every day now. It sucks that there are so many people out there who just aren’t internet savvy, and when they get stock tips emails or scam emails, they think its a legitimate letter from someone and fall for it. The reason the stock emails and scam emails still exist is because they are still working. That is unfortunate.

By: Oswegan

Oswegan — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:35:54 +0000

Whew,

I’m way to broke to fall for that scam.

~Oswegan

By: Sm4k

Sm4k — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:48:09 +0000

It’s just like those Nigerian email scams. Believe it or not, there are people who still fall for those.

By: FMF

FMF — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:19:26 +0000

Same as Laura for me.

Many people are on to this trick, but I’m sure they get some takers — otherwise, why keep at it?

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:37:40 +0000

i get the emails and the faxes on stock tips some many times during the week. I just shred/delete it when it comes. No need to waste my time on this trick.