| To: Patchie who wrote (98022) | 2/1/2007 9:47:17 AM | | From: StockDung | | | | Fraudsters Update Pump-And-Dump
By Ed Sutherland
January 31, 2007
A new breed of hacker is targeting your net worth more than your network.
Sure, the "script kiddies" still abound online, unleashing high-profile annoyances designed to gain bragging rights. But security experts say more hackers are joining forces with fraudsters intent on profit, not publicity.
Working from Eastern Europe or Asia, cyber criminals target specific high-value targets rather than scattershot attacks, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Internet enforcement unit.
Last week's civil lawsuit by the SEC against a Florida man is the latest example. The SEC said the suspects made off with $82,920 after allegedly hijacking two-dozen online brokerage accounts.
The money, according to the regulators' lawsuit, wound up in a bank in Riga, Latvia. The suspect, Aleksey Kamardin, may have fled to Russia, the lawsuit said.
Last month, a New York federal court ordered the assets of a Russian citizen frozen after the SEC claimed the man made $353,609 manipulating stocks in a nearly identical manner as Kamardin.
And earlier this month, Swedish bank Nordea lost $1 million after Russian hackers allegedly logged the keystrokes of customers.
"We have a lot of these cases coming up," John Stark, head of the SEC's Internet bureau, told internetnews.com.
How much can criminals make looting online finances? Last year, E*Trade reimbursed customers $18 million lost to online fraud, as internetnews.com reported.
In the U.K., online bank customers lost $44 million in 2005 compared to $29 million in 2004, according to anti-spyware vendor PC Tools.
A Worrisome Nexus
A worrisome nexus of trends is also materializing, driven by the increasing use of online financial services and departure from the usual hacker targets.
Financial researcher Javelin Strategy said there are more than 10 million online brokerage accounts in the U.S. At the same time, last year 86 percent of phishing attempts targeted financial services, according to security vendor Symantec.
Stark said some of the recent complaints filed by government regulators are about using phishing or viruses to harvest passwords and then transferring the ill-gotten gains beyond the U.S. border, often to Russia.
Phishing for Financial Information
According to Stark, 21-year-old Tampa resident Kamardin allegedly gained control of 24 online brokerage accounts enabling him to liquidate their holdings and purchase stock he owned.
Then between July 13 and Aug. 25, 2006, he profited by selling from his own account the manipulated stocks, said the SEC, which added that the money from the supposed online stock scam was wired to Russia then sent to a bank in Riga, Latvia.
In December, Russian citizen Evgeny Gashichev "used electronically stolen usernames and passwords to gain Internet access to one or more online brokerage accounts, according to the civil lawsuit. From there, the suit continued, an e-mail was sent to Swedish and U.S. online banking customers included a "rogue anti-spam program."
The anti-spam software was actually a Trojan that launched a keylogger whenever a customer typed a bank's online address into a Web browser. The data collected was then sent to a server in Russia. The suit said about 250 customers were victimized.
Joining Forces
Often online financial crimes are hard to trace. Brokerage companies, leery of headlines that might scare already skeptical consumers, often will quickly reimburse customers when they can prove they were defrauded.
Last year E*Trade Financial Corp., unveiled its Complete Protection Guarantee, pledging it will match any losses resulting from fraud.
However, the SEC said the financial industry is joining forces with regulators to discover the new financial phishing schemes.
E*Trade spokeswoman Pam Erickson told internetnews.com the online financial firm has been "working with authorities for some time."
Additionally, Stark said the brokerage industry group NASD helped the SEC track individual trades by the pump and dump suspects. |
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| To: Francois Goelo who wrote (79096) | 2/1/2007 10:30:07 AM | | From: StockDung | | | | 2 Suprema ex-executives on trial say mob did it
Thursday, February 1, 2007
By HUGH R. MORLEY
STAFF WRITER
What killed Paterson cheese company Suprema Specialties -- corporate corruption or a mob plot to loot the company and run it into the ground?
The prosecution and defense presented the opposing versions of Suprema's demise in 2002 to a federal court jury Wednesday as they gave opening statements in the trial of former CEO Marc Cocchiola and former CFO Steven Venechanos on charges of conspiracy and fraud.
Assistant U.S Attorney John M. Fietkiewicz said Cocchiola, of Englewood Cliffs, and Venechanos, of New Milford, deceived banks into lending money and duped investors into buying shares as part of a massive fraud that included $560 million in faked sales.
The two men also made $2.5 million and $1 million, respectively, by selling stock options at prices inflated by the scheme, he said.
Publicly traded Suprema filed for bankruptcy and closed in March 2002, six months after the company raised $41.5 million in a secondary public offering.
Attorneys for the two executives depicted their clients as innocent bystanders who were unaware of the fraudulent scheme, mostly because it was too complex for them or even the company's auditors to discover.
Cocchiola's attorney, Lawrence S. Lustberg, said the scheme was created and managed by "bad people" who infiltrated the company, looted it, took a cut of the sales and ran it into the ground. Key among them, he said, was Jack Gaglio, who owned four companies that were Suprema's biggest customers.
Gaglio is "a mobster, and a crook," and was the "lynchpin of this entire case," Lustberg said. "This was an old-fashioned Mafia bust-out case."
Gaglio, of Rancho Mirage, Calif., pleaded guilty in 2005 to charges of conspiracy and securities fraud in the scheme.
Gaglio's lawyers dismissed Lustberg's claim of mob ties.
'Not a mobster'
"It is absolutely not true," said attorney Matthew Queler in an interview. "He is not a mobster. It appears the defense has purposefully confused Jack G. Gaglio with another person of a similar name." Attorney Richard Marmaro said: "That's a ridiculous statement bordering on defamation, which is borne of desperation."
Venechanos' attorney, John C. Whipple, said the government's case is based solely on testimony coming from Gaglio and others witnesses who will lie to get a more lenient sentence by cooperating with the government. The key figure, he said, is Arthur Christensen, the company's former comptroller, who pleaded guilty Jan. 16 to conspiring to commit bank fraud and securities fraud.
"There is not a single piece of hard evidence in this case that incriminates Steven Venechanos," Whipple said. He called Christensen, who is expected to be a government witness, a "flat out, serial liar."
Besides Christensen and Gaglio, Suprema's operations manager, John Van Sickell of Hawthorne, and three other businessmen have pleaded guilty to fraud in the case. They are Robert Quattrone of Woodcliff Lake, Lawrence Franson of Corona, Calif., and George Viera of Escalon, Calif.
Allegedly fake sales
Fietkiewicz, the prosecutor, said the fraud scheme involved a system of circular or "round robin" sales, in which no cheese was actually sold, but fake invoices and shipping documents were transferred between the cheese company and companies owned by Gaglio, Quattrone, Franson and Viera. Checks went back and forth between Suprema and the companies to make it look like the fake sales had been paid for, he said.
More than half the $420 million sales reported in 2001 by Suprema were fake, the prosecutor said.
In a separate scheme, Suprema bought imitation cheese and relabeled it on arrival as high quality Romano cheese so that the company could claim to hold cheese inventory worth $12 million more than its actual value, he said.
The fraudulent sales and inventory figures were then reported to Fleet and other banks to persuade them to give Suprema a line of credit for more than $100 million, the prosecutor said.
The sales and inventory figures were also reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of the company's secondary offering prospectus.
The scheme was created and managed by Cocchiola's brother-in-law, Paul Lauriero, Fietkiewicz said. But Cocchiola and Venechanos sold the inflated figures to banks, customers, investors and others, the prosecutor said.
"They were the front men," Fietkiewicz told the jury in Newark. "You will hear evidence that Mark Cocchiola and Steven Venechanos hyped the fake sales numbers at presentations called road shows.
"They knew what Paul Lauriero was doing and when necessary, they helped him do it," the prosecutor said.
He said proof of the defendants' involvement in the scheme was evident in how they set up Christensen and several participants to keep it running after Lauriero died in 2001.
But Lustberg said that his client knew nothing of the scheme. He said it was partly conceived by Lauriero as revenge against Cocchiola, who exposed his brother-in-law's adultery in the mid-1990s.
'A massive fraud'
"We agree there was a massive fraud here," Lustberg said. "We just disagree on who the victim of the fraud was."
The many documents in the case show that Cocchiola "knows nothing about" the fraud, "and he has no opportunity to know anything about it, because it's completely hidden," Lustberg said.
A 38-count indictment accuses Cocchiola and Venechanos of conspiracy, bank fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, and false statements in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. They face dozens of years in prison if convicted.
The trial was scheduled to continue today.
This article includes material from Bloomberg News. E-mail: morley@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
Copyright Infringement Notice User Agreement & Privacy Policy
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| To: scion who wrote (98017) | 2/1/2007 10:42:52 AM | | From: StockDung | | | | 312 Grams (10 Troy Ounces) Produced for the Month of January 2007, With Total Gold Inventory Now at 396 Grams (13 Ounces), Pearl Asian Mining Industries, Inc. Reports
Wednesday January 31, 10:00 am ET
Pearl Asian Also Outlines Initiatives to Substantially Increase Gold Production to Achieve Initial Target of 1 Kilogram of Gold Per Week by end of March 2007; WIET President Schedules Visit to Binasan Mine Site; Pearl Asian Issues Clarification on Issuance of Dividends of Philippines Royal Oil & Alternative Energy Co., Inc. and Expounds on the Company's Growth Potential
MANILA, Philippines--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pearl Asian Mining Industries, Inc. with Stock SYMBOLS: U.S.A. (OTC:PAIM - News); Germany (XETRA:R1Z - News) and (Frankfurt:R1Z - News) provides the following production report for its Binasan Gold Project - Operation Cagayan de Oro (CDO). For the first month of commercial operations in January 2007 covering just 26 operating days, Pearl Asian produced a total of 312 grams (10 Troy Ounces, with 31.1 grams in an ounce) of gold valued at about $6,400. Pearl Asian considers this to be a substantial achievement, taking into account that most gold mining companies take more than three years of exploration and development prior to its first gold production, whereas Pearl Asian was able to achieve its first commercially produced gold just 7 months after start of exploration & development. President/COO for Mindanao Operations & CRO Manolo Tecson reports: "Total Pearl Asian gold inventory is now at 396 grams (13 ounces) valued at $8,150. As we need to build substantial gold inventory of at least 25 kilograms minimum before we make our first gold delivery to WIET, we are currently implementing initiatives to substantially increase gold production in order to achieve our initial target production of 1 kilogram (32 Ounces) per week valued at $20,579 by end March 2007, and increase it further afterwards."
The activities to substantially increase gold production consist of several measures to be implemented by mine personnel. To enhance effectivity of the hydraulicking method used to expose gold ore bodies, water flow rates will be increased up to double the current rates. New channels will be excavated increasing the surface area of water flow. A new dam will be constructed to ensure a continuous supply of water to the hydraulicking activity. Construction of new sluice boxes are also being done, each having a total area of about 30 square feet. These sluice boxes entrap gold particles for harvesting, to be fed to the gold processing equipment. Finally, as a result of the surface mapping activities by PAIM's geological team, there is a very good chance that another hydraulicking trench will be developed within the next month. "It is also worth noting that so far, we have only been extracting gold basically from the surface. Once diamond drilling is done, we can then start to extract the richer gold veins under the ground," added President Tecson.
Meanwhile, WIET LLC, the US company which has gone into an agreement with Pearl Asian to purchase gold, is coordinating on a schedule for its President, Mr. Roman Gudzyuk, to visit Operation CDO very soon. "Mr. Gudzyuk is very eager to accept Pearl Asian's first gold delivery, and is likewise keen on buying other metals such as copper, manganese, iron, and others. There are also plans for Mr. Gudzyuk to accompany our Preliminary Exploration Team in its ocular inspections of new mine sites, and we hope to show them the gold, copper, and manganese mines we are evaluating at present," stated Engr. Gary Gotanco, VP-Business Development & IRO.
Last but not the least, Pearl Asian is issuing this clarification on the issuance of stock dividends of Philippines Royal Oil & Alternative Energy Co., Inc. For every 100 common shares of PAIM held as of record date of February 18, 2007, shareholders will receive 1 share of Philippines Royal Oil & Alternative Energy Co., Inc. Ex-dividend date shall be announced once determined by NASD. The change in name from Philippines Gold Mining Corporation (Other OTC Symbol: PGMC - News) to Philippines Royal Oil & Alternative Energy Co., Inc. is ongoing, including its incorporation in the State of Wyoming, thus no symbol is available for the new company as of now. "Philippines Royal Oil & Alternative Energy Co. has good potential, as oil is present in the Philippines but is as yet largely untapped. In addition, the recent directive from US President Bush to cut the country's oil consumption by 20% in 10 years and mandating the shift to biofuels ensures a large biofuels market in the US. The Philippines has vast plantations of sugarcane-raw material for bioethanol, and coconut-which is a raw material for biodiesel. The Philippines can supply much of the US demand, so it's a perfect match," stated Engr. Gotanco who is concurrently President/CEO of Philippines Royal Oil & Alternative Energy Co., Inc.
FORWARD STATEMENTS:
Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this release include statements regarding the Company's projections regarding gold production in future periods. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results include risks and uncertainties such as: risks relating to estimates of reserves, mineral deposits and production costs; mining and development risks; the risk of commodity price fluctuations; political and regulatory risks; risks of obtaining required operating permits and other risks and uncertainties. Penny Stocks are very highly speculative and may be unsuitable for all but very aggressive investors. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Contact:
Pearl Asian Mining Industries Inc. - Philippines
Investor Relations:
Engr. Gary Gotanco, MBA, 866-732-7888 (USA)
or 011.63.2.567.5163 (P.I.)
Fax: 877-317-4430
e-mail: IR@PearlAsianMining.com
www.PearlAsianMining.com
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Source: Pearl Asian Mining Industries Inc. |
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| To: Clase Azul who wrote (98026) | 2/1/2007 11:42:26 AM | | From: StockDung | | | | Form 8-K for JAG MEDIA HOLDINGS INC
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31-Jan-2007
Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement, Creation of a Direct Financial
Item 1.01 Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement
On December 27, 2005, JAG Media Holdings, Inc., a Nevada corporation ("JAG Media") entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the "Merger Agreement") with Cryptometrics, Inc., a Delaware corporation ("Cryptometrics"), Cryptometrics Acquisition, Inc., a Delaware corporation and wholly-owned subsidiary of JAG Media ("Cryptometrics Acquisition"), Robert Barra and Michael Vitale.
JAG Media entered into an agreement to amend the Merger Agreement dated as of January 24, 2007 (the "Amendment") with Cryptometrics, Cryptometrics Acquisition, Karlen & Stolzar, LLP, Robert Barra, Michael Vitale, Thomas J. Mazzarisi and Stephen J. Schoepfer. Thomas J. Mazzarisi is the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer and General Counsel of JAG Media. Stephen J. Schoepfer is President, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary of JAG Media.
The Amendment principally amends the Merger Agreement to (i) eliminate the requirement that JAG Media's common stock, par value $0.00001 per share (the "Common Stock") be authorized for listing on the NASDAQ Capital Market as a condition to the closing of the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement (the "Closing"), (ii) replace a formula for determination of the consideration to be received by Cryptometrics stockholders in connection with the merger by fixing such consideration at 394,700,016 shares of JAG Media's Common Stock, an increase over the prior amount determined under the formula
(iii) provide that Cryptometrics will advance $275,000 on behalf of JAG Media to pay certain legal, accounting and printing expenses in connection with the Closing and (iv) provide that the permitted amount of indebtedness of JAG Media be increased from $2,750,000 to $4,350,000. The Amendment provides that subject to the satisfaction of the conditions set forth in the Merger Agreement, as amended, the Closing shall take place on February 28, 2007, or such other date as the parties may agree upon. The Amendment further provides that in the event that the Closing does not occur by March 15, 2007, the Merger Agreement shall automatically terminate, unless the parties agree to extend it in writing. Until JAG Media and Cryptometrics agree otherwise, the Merger Agreement, notwithstanding approval by the Cryptometrics stockholders, may be cancelled with or without any reason at any time by either JAG Media or Cryptometrics with no liability, except that the Amendment provides that if JAG Media cancels the Merger Agreement prior to the automatic termination date, it will issue 500,000 shares of its Common Stock to Cryptometrics. There can be no assurance that the various conditions in the Merger Agreement, as amended, will be met or that it will not be terminated in accordance with its terms.
Item 2.03 Creation of a Direct Financial Obligation or an Obligation Under an
Off-Balance Sheet Arrangement of a Registrant JAG Media entered into a letter agreement dated as of January 24, 2007 (the "Letter Agreement") with Cornell Capital Partners, LP ("Cornell Capital"), Cryptometrics, Robert Barra and Michael Vitale pursuant to which the parties principally agreed that upon the effective date (the "Effective Date") of the merger among JAG Media, Cryptometrics Acquisition and Cryptometrics as set forth in the Merger Agreement (i) Cryptometrics will assume all of the rights and duties of the "Obligor" under the terms of those certain debentures currently aggregating $3,520,000 (the "Debentures") and the "Company" under the terms of those certain warrants to purchase 12,000,000 shares of Common Stock (the "Warrants") issued by JAG Media to Cornell Capital in connection with that certain Securities Purchase Agreement dated as of May 4, 2006 by and between JAG Media and Cornell Capital, (ii) the terms of the conversion pricing formula of the Debentures will be adjusted to equal 95% of the lowest daily Volume Weighted Average Price of JAG Media's Common Stock as quoted by Bloomberg, LP during the 30 trading days immediately preceding the date Cornell Capital delivers notice to Cryptometrics that it wishes to convert
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all or a portion of a Debenture or the Debentures and (iii) the exercise price of the Warrants will equal 88% of the average of the Volume Weighted Average Price of JAG Media's Common Stock as quoted by Bloomberg, LP during the 30 days immediately prior to the first date upon which the Warrant may be exercised.
Under the terms of the Letter Agreement, Cornell Capital has agreed not to convert any of the Debentures or exercise any of the Warrants prior to the Closing or termination of the Merger Agreement. The Letter Agreement automatically terminates on March 15, 2007 unless the Closing of the Merger Agreement, as amended, occurs by that date or the parties agree to extend the term of the Letter Agreement.
The foregoing descriptions of the Amendment and the Letter Agreement do not purport to be complete and are qualified in their entirety by reference to the full texts of the Amendment and the Letter Agreement filed as Exhibits 10.1 and 10.2 hereto, which are incorporated herein by reference. Item 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits
(d) Exhibits
10.1 Amendment, dated January 24, 2007, by and among JAG Media Holdings, Inc., Cryptometrics, Inc., Robert Barra, Michael Vitale, Cryptometrics Acquisition, Inc., Thomas J. Mazzarisi and Stephen J. Schoepfer
10.2 Letter Agreement, dated January 24, 2007, by and among JAG Media Holdings, Inc., Cornell Capital Partners, LP, Cryptometrics, Inc., Robert Barra and Michael Vitale
99.2 Press Release dated January 30, 2007 |
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| To: StockDung who wrote (98025) | 2/1/2007 11:49:42 AM | | From: scion | | | | 312 Grams (10 Troy Ounces) Produced for the Month of January 2007,
312 Grams
0.0003 Metric Tons
0.312 Kilograms
0.6878 Pounds
11.005 Oz
With Total Gold Inventory Now at 396 Grams (13 Ounces),
396 Grams
0.0004 Metric Tons
0.396 Kilograms
0.8730 Pounds
13.968 Oz
Pearl Asian Mining Industries, Inc. Reports...
wow. |
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| To: scion who wrote (98028) | 2/1/2007 11:51:58 AM | | From: StockDung | | | | Securities fraud, theft, murder-for-hire… and it’s not March
By Jared Allen, jallen@nashvillecitypaper.com
January 22, 2007
A little-noticed but serious case of theft, fraud and murder-for-hire goes to trial today, as Davidson County prosecutors will get their opening shot at a man they say is responsible for bilking Middle Tennesseans out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, then attempting to kill the prosecutors brought in to help try him.
Robert D. Mendenhall, 41, of Ill., is being tried this week in Nashville on two counts of theft and three counts of securities fraud. Mendenhall was indicted on those counts in August of 2005.
According to the indictment, in 2003 Mendenhall told a Nashville woman that the stock of Rapid Technologies Group, Inc., would be the subject of a public offering – and to invest heavily in it – when he knew that no such stock was going public. The indictment also says that Mendenhall “convinced” the same woman to deposit $300,000 in a shell corporation he created.
All this without a valid brokerage license, the indictment says.
Mendenhall is also awaiting trial on a multi-count indictment alleging securities fraud in Rutherford County, as well as in Vanderburgh County, Ind., where he faces a total of 22 counts of selling approximately $1.7 million of unregistered and fraudulent securities and acting as an unregistered investment advisory.
But Mendenhall’s case took a turn for the worse when in February of last year a Davidson County grand jury indicted him on new charges of trying to have his securities prosecutors murdered.
That indictment, on two counts of solicitation to commit murder, alleged that while Mendenhall was in jail in Nashville on his securities fraud and theft charges, he tried to hire someone to kill the two female attorneys serving as special prosecutors – Mary Griffin and Barbara Doak, attorneys with the Securities Division of the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance.
When prosecutors were tipped off that Mendenhall was searching for a hit man, they teamed up with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), who sent into the jail an agent to pose as someone who would kill the women as Mendenhall directed.
That sting operation led to Mendenhall’s solicitation to commit first-degree murder indictment.
“Obviously, any time you have allegations as serious as this, it’s something you act on immediately,” Davidson County District Attorney Torry Johnson said in a statement released when the latest indictment was unsealed.
Mendenhall has pled not guilty to all of his Tennessee charges. He has remained in the Davidson County jail on a $2.15 million bond.
He has been granted a separate trial for his murder-for-hire charges, which is scheduled to begin next month. |
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| To: StockDung who wrote (98029) | 2/1/2007 11:57:14 AM | | From: scion | | | | Robert D. Mildenhall of Bluford effective December 8, 2005.
Division of Insurance Disciplinary Actions
December 2005
idfpr.com
Mr. Mildenhall had been licensed since November 23, 1999. Mr. Mildenhall is also known as Wade B. Palmer and Robert D. Mendenhall and has done business as Horse Creek Insurance Group.
Mr. Mildenhall was licensed to sell life, accident and health insurance. Mr. Mildenhall’s license was revoked by the Department’s Order of Revocation dated November 8, 2005. The Order of Revocation was issued as a result of an investigation revealing Mr. Mildenhall was permanently barred from offering or selling securities in the state of Illinois and fined $30,000.00 by the Secretary of State Securities Division. The investigation further revealed that Mr. Mildenhall used his position as an insurance producer to convince Illinois consumers to invest monies in fraudulent investments and he failed to facilitate and aid in the investigation by failing to provide books and records to the Division of Insurance.
idfpr.com
Robert D. Mendenhall, 41, of Ill., is being tried this week in Nashville on two counts of theft and three counts of securities fraud. Mendenhall was indicted on those counts in August of 2005. |
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| To: StockDung who wrote (98031) | 2/1/2007 12:15:51 PM | | From: scion | | | | An Overstock Critic Silenced
Sam Antar, a reformed felon who was mastermind of the Crazy Eddie stock scam, has been performing a real public service lately. He's donated his time to shareholders of Overstock.com by posing pointed questions at Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne at the Investors Village messgae board, which Byrne regularly uses to smear critics and justify his actions.
It's been a valuable service, not just for investors but for securities regulators, who I happen to know are following the cat-and-mouse game between Antar and Byrne very closely. Overstock, after all, is a very public transgressor of corporate norms -- with much of that being played out on message boards upon which Byrne obsessively posts.
As I noted in a post that I updated yesterday, some of Byrne's admissions, in his comments, have been incredibly damaging.
That valuable dialogue has been squelched, however, by the crackerjack management team of Investor Village, which has knuckled under to pressure from Overstock loyalists by squelching Antar. IV has limited his ability to post on IV, while giving Byrne, Bagley and their sockpuppets free reign to spread their poison.
That's hardly a surprise, since it has happened before, with Overstock critics gagged on flimsy pretexts.
By running an ostensibly neutral message board that restricts posts by company critics, IV has turned its boards into stock-hyping forums. That creates a nice set of legal entanglements down the road for IV -- or at least, I certainly hope it does.
garyweiss.blogspot.com |
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