The reason they made it so the symbol can not be traded was because there were so many illegal shares put into the market, and other illegal things. The people who got the money when you bought the stock were the MMs. But they got ripped off too, because they got stuck with shares that were no good too. When you sell it, you get the money and they get the shares. Also, when illegal shares are put into the market, they eventually become legal and dilute the shares out there. That is a long process though. They shut the symbol down because people were getting ripped off by buying shares that were worthless and illegal, and the stock was being diluted like crazy. No one knew where all the shares were coming from. The shares were not being issued by the company.
I had a few shares that went dead like other people. Got sick of looking at it in my account. Took an arm and a leg to get Scottrade to delete the shares out of my account, but they left the symbol remain, but put parenthesis around it. So the symbol is still in account, but with no shares. I could get the symbol taken out but it's too much of a hassel. I think I lost about $600 on the stock. There was one guy that lost $75k.
