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Legal Thriller Author Explains What Every Investor Should Know About Internet Stock Scams

A century ago P.T. Barnum sagely told us, "A sucker is born every minute." At the time he was, no doubt, correct.

No longer. In today's internet world, that time-span has been cut back to every nana second. Now that spam has been somewhat curtailed, scam artists have moved their operations, largely, to internet bulletin boards and chat rooms. That's all. A change of venue. Like maggots fried in hot grease, they have moved, jumped, spread out, occupied many of these new communications centers.

This up-the-ante, beat-the-street move was made necessary because state law enforcement agencies, the SEC, and the FTC have, in recent years, set up teams to daily police the worldwide web. With spam, being the most obvious and easiest to detect, the scam artists have been forced to a better, alternative outlet for their "avant-garde" visions.

With a chat room, nothing more than pulling all the old con-lines out of mothballs and reusing them is needed. With con-world tactics, they spiel out typical con-like jargon, and reel in the usual high percentage of suckers. Just like the good old days.

With bulletin boards--those Illusory walls seemingly profaned by graffiti--it's a little different. The scam artists are challenged. Tactics and timing take greater emphasis. Try this example on for size:

A clever scam artist left a message on a prominent stock board that a small U.S. hi-tech company was about to be bought up by a European firm for $900.000.000. This was a sum nearly double its market value. The posting had a link to another bulletin board which displayed a press release giving the details. The press release was a phony, placed there by the con man himself. His purpose was 1-track, to temporarily drive up the price of the stock. With the temptations stoked by the bargain-basement price, investors flew to the stock driving its price from $5 to $7.50 in minutes. With the aid of the many day traders on the exchange, who buy quickly on rumor, the scam artist walked off with a fast-buck haul of $520,000. Presto. Nothing more than a classic pump and dump, only taken out of the usual "pump" time frame, speeded up so that the whole thing would come to climax before law enforcement authorizes could even answer their phones to take the inevitable complaints. Real. But, like a classic page from a legal thriller book.

Take a long look sometime. Observe all of the stock boards and news boards hanging in cyberspace. As so many scam artists still dance on the internet in a perpetual spam-fest, this stock "guru" found a better way. Whereas legendary con man, the Music Man's Professor Harold Hill, gave us 76 trombones, he put a little cha-cha-cha into the sax section.

The SEC gets in upwards of 200 complaints a day about illegal activity on the web. Most pf these are stock scams. With fraud made this easy it should come as a heavy-booted reminder that this particular form of Scamology 101 should be featured in Scam School, for the benefit of all concerned watchdogs and law enforcers. It's textbook.

With his imposing presence, elegant sartorial style, and eloquent use of the language, the con man has evolved. And now, with his range so widely expanded, your life as a potential target has expanded right along with it. Unless you count your age in elephant years, you will most likely find yourself in his cross-hairs at some moment in your life.

Prepare. Learn. Now is the time. Be ready for that cure-all elixir when it comes.

The Con Man's Blog, and first two chapters of Jack Payne's legal thriller book, Six Hours Past Thursday, are now available online. Both readable for free. You are invited. www.sixhrs.com

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