Featured image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay
A biological form of life better suited for use in septic systems around the world is allowed to completely ignore the national Do Not Call list and rig questions to get a predetermined outcome. They are even allowed to suck up your minutes calling your cell phone. Those creatures are a disease” I stated. “Personally I have more respect for the people we are sent to acquire than I ever will for them. At least the drug lords are selling a product regular people consume. Only media outlets consume the product of polls and then, only if the outcome fits their agenda.”
We rode on in silence for a while. Slim closed the moon roof and the cabin got markedly quieter. Could not avoid all of the toll booths on the way out of the world’s unattended public toilet, so I tried to act asleep. Being behind the wheel Stretch couldn’t, but the rest of us could. I was really wishing we had managed to get one of those pre-pass things tied to a credit card which would never be paid. Tollways are a crime against the human race. Just large cesspits of corruption and political graft. We need to ban them nationwide.
Once safely across the border of that foreign country known as New York, Giant piped up again. “So, about this transferring money via pump and dump thing…”
Loud, bodacious laughter once again filled the vehicle. At least it wasn’t me who farted this time.
After the vehicle had been properly ventilated and we settled down I asked “Did you really put everything in one basket?”
Not everything, but an awful lot. More than enough to retire some place nice purchasing new clothes every week” responded Giant.
I sighed “there are many ways to do it. First you have to decide just how much risk you are willing to live with. Then you have to troll the Internet for pink sheets which are lightly traded at best. The second best is if you can find two defunct companies with active pink sheet symbols. The absolute best is if you can find a down and out but still operational pink sheet company which people remember and a defunct one having no valid contact information.”
Next you go to the account you want the money to ultimately land in. You quietly start accumulating a few thousand shares at a time of a stock, which hopefully is priced at a quarter penny or less. I’ve seen people try this with stocks priced below a tenth of a cent per share. They always make the mistake of buying million plus share blocks. That always gets flagged. They also aren’t smart enough to do it from a brokerage account in a country without an extradition treaty.”
In the old days, after slowly acquiring millions of shares in the account you wish to ultimately receive the money, you would hop onto RagingBull or the Usenet penny stock forums (with at least 3 fake identities of course) and begin asking innocent questions about the companies, letting all of the other pump and dumpers hoot and holler about their scam. Then you would take the account you wanted to take the money out of and start making thousand share or so purchases. Probably best to use odd numbers, but never up to two thousand. I don’t remember why, I just remember ‘there be dragons there.’”
Now comes the risk part. In the old days people would make massively ludicrous claims on the stock message boards and get their other fake identities to air quote confirm their evidence end air quote. Of course this was the time period when people were stupid enough to believe they could earn a reliable living day-trading. Back when you could throw a dart at a stock listing and make money, you could defend every lame ass charting technique or secret insider rule you wanted. After the Syphilis Willie induced mortgage fraud, they all found out those homes they listed as collateral for the margin trading account, really could be taken.”
In the old days, everybody in the message group would buy ten thousand shares of something priced under a penny just because they didn’t want to miss out on potential scam upside. Even if it made it to a penny before you got in ten thousand shares would only be a hundred dollars. Casual questions could easily pop a price past a dime. Most sites listing NASDAQ and other markets would also list the most actively traded stocks. Even people who didn’t visit any of the penny stock message boards would leap at snapping up a few thousand shares of something priced under a penny and listed as the most active stock.”
True pump and dumpers of old would then start trading multi-million share transactions just between themselves and posting the trade to tape. I’ve seen stock issues with 30 million authorized shares trading 30 billion shares per day just to get on that most active list.”
Small portions of the old techniques work if you can find message boards for penny stocks. Many of them will now be on the Dark Web. The real trouble is they don’t have as many visitors. The innocent questions you have your sock puppet identities ask won’t be enough to pump it to a dime or more. People don’t have the money to piss away and they are jaded.”
Now we are back to risk. The biggest risk most run afoul of is not remaining under 5% of authorized shares. Once you hit that number you have to publicly declare some kind of intention on some mandated official form to the SEC.”
Is that were the old timers screwed up?” queried Giant.
Only a few” I responded. “Most ran afoul of market churning1. Placing that mass quantity of buy and sell orders at or near the same price, paying only closing costs. Those trades all get recorded.”
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