Compliance July 1, 2010

Canadian Couple Charged with Tweet-touting Fraudulent Penny Stocks

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has obtained an emergency asset freeze against two Canadians who advertised fraudulent penny stocks online.
Reported by

According to a recent press release, the defendants profited by selling penny stocks while they publicized those shares on www.pennystockchaser.com. Investors could sign up to receive daily stock alerts from the Web site via e-mail, text message, Twitter, and Facebook.

The defendants, Carol McKeown and Daniel Ryan, “used all the modern methods to communicate with investors including the PennyStockChaser website, email, text messages, Facebook, and Twitter, yet failed to adequately communicate that their rosy predictions for touted stocks were accompanied by their sales of those very same stocks,” said Eric Bustillo, Director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office.

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The SEC claims that McKeown and Ryan have touted American microcap companies since at least April 2009, and received millions of shares from those companies as compensation. The defendants sold those shares on the open market even as they announced predictions of massive price increases through the available social media networks. This practice, best known for its place outside crowded performance arenas, is known as “scalping.”

The SEC has also obtained an asset freeze against their two companies, Downshire Capital Inc. and Meadow Vista Financial Corp., through which they received the shares.

The SEC’s complaint also alleges that McKeown, Ryan, and one of their corporations failed to disclose the full amount of the compensation they received for publicizing stocks on PennyStockChaser. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, claims that they received at least $2.4 million in sales from this scheme.

The Commission seeks a preliminary injunction and a permanent injunction against the defendants, as well as the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus prejudgment interest and the imposition of a financial penalty, penny stock bars against the individuals, and the repatriation of assets to the United States.

 

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-114.htm

 

 

 
Diversions July 1, 2010

What’s in a (Pet) Name?

Turns out that when it comes to pet names, the answer to that question is puns, pop culture references - and a little bit of “number 2”. 

 

Reported by

For the third year in a row, Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. (VPI), a provider of pet health insurance, has selected 50 unusual dog and cat names from the company’s database of more than 485,000 insured pets – and then narrowed them down by voting for the 10 most unusual names for each species.    

Here are the 10 Most Unusual Dog and Cat Names for 2010:  

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Dogs       

  • Pickle Von Corndog 
  • Lord Chubby Pruneface 
  • Badonkadonk 
  • Ninjastar Dangerrock 
  • Molly Mcboozehound 
  • Dog Vader 
  • Flopsy Squeakerton 
  • Bettie Poops 
  • Geez Louise 
  • Barnaby Bones         

Cats  

  • Purr Diem 
  • Bing Clawsby 
  • Cleocatra 
  • Admiral Pancake 
  • Optimus Pants 
  • Chairman Meow 
  • Boo Manchu 
  • Watts in a Name 
  • Chenoa Azure Marshmellow-Puff 
  • Senor Nachos                

“One of our favorite parts of putting these lists together is talking to the pets’ owners and finding out how they came up with such imaginative names,” said Curtis Steinhoff, director of corporate communications for VPI. “Strangely enough, a lot of them tell us they ruled out names they’d be too embarrassed to shout in public when calling their pets back to them. When you think about the names these owners finally decided on – like ‘Lord Chubby Pruneface’ and ‘Optimus Pants,’ – it really makes you wonder what didn’t make their cut.”  

You can check out the full lists of 50 unusual dog and cat names, pictures of pets who made the Top 10, and the stories behind the unusual names at http://www.wackypetnames.com/.   

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