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Yup. And it's also too much to ask management to forego salaries as a show of good faith to investors.
.08 represents over 10X the current price - what is there that can make that happen? Realistically.
Hah! I wouldn't. Or won't until there's a subway line from Kentucky into mid-town.
I'm very up to speed on NYC real estate.
I wrote :
"a decent 2 bedroom place in Manhattan will run you at least what Kay's place is valued at."
Google, "2 bedroom apartments for sale in Washington Heights" or ".....Hudson Heights", both are very liveable Manhattan neighborhoods - it's nice up around the Cloisters, as I'm sure you know. I definitely didn't write that's what one would cost on Central Park West.
Mark is a model train enthusiast, as is indicated on his car license plate.
Yup. They all live in nice towns that are near really nice towns. I can't imagine someone making Waller $$$ choosing to live on Staten Island, different strokes I guess, but, seriously, Staten Island? Did you see the 2 garage set up at Kay's house? Weird.
Where Kay lives comes closest to being a noteworthy place, but even still, it's not Buck's County or the Main Line. Ram's place lists for that much because it's so close to NYC. To put it into a regional perspective, a decent 2 bedroom place in Manhattan will run you at least what Kay's place is valued at.
George is on Staten Island, Ram in NJ.
Thanks very much, reading it now
I don't know much about the legal consequences of fiduciary duty but they sort of are making a compelling case against management. If anything, hubris will be the cause of their downfall.
Weird that the doxxed management with home addresses. Kay's house looks weird with sort of 2 garages, like it used to be a place with a doctor's office or something. George's house looks like he gambles away his salary and Ram's house is a pretty typical looking boring NJ suburban place. None of them are getting style points for the way their houses look.
Good luck to the plaintiff, I suppose if he does drive the company into bankruptcy that everyone will lose whatever slim chance they might have had to recoup their losses.
Couldn't find that link, could only find the link with the letter about scheduling.
I'd feel a lot better about this if we knew a little bit more about Mr Zanfardino and the law firm he's engaged. The woods are thick with people and law firms initiating litigation in the hope of a payout to make them go away. I found the law firm, Cohn Lifland, website and they do claim to have extensive experience in this field.
He appears to have a used car operation in California that seems large and upscale so I'd doubt his lifestyle was affected much by SFOR share decline, especially after taking tax losses. My guess is that either he's looking to settle or he's just pissed, but either way is not going to hire a $1000/hour (or thereabouts) attorney for very many hours..
Paying him off will cost ZRFY a lot less than prolonged litigation, if it comes to that.
Actually, it was Ropes and Gray that was the law firm that argued (very) poorly in front on the Appeals Court about the patent infringement. It's true, that BR represented them in other cases but they were all small potatoes in comparison.
Winning meritless cases is exactly what good law firms do, legal merit is in the eye of the beholder. Why would a shareholder want to drive a company into bankruptcy and wipe out any slim hope of recouping losses from their stock?
You can't really sue the CEO of a company if they say they "expect" so-and-so to happen, that deals are in the works. Kay deceives shareholders, for sure, but he's expert at couching his words with plausible deniability. All that training at Morgan didn't go to waste.
A couple of years ago, as is well known, Kay publicly denied there would be a r/s when one was in the works and happened a few weeks later. He denied it on one of those broadcasts put out by his IR company and immediately scrubbed that interview from their archives.
I honestly don't see much on which he can be sued. Some investors don't want to take responsibility for their own mistakes. Just because someone's been duped doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't at fault, also, that their greed or grandiose dreams didn't factor in. A lot of people saw through Madoff's scheme and a lot of people didn't because they didn't want to, they wanted to believe the fantasy of unrealistic returns on investment.
I don't think that lawsuit will go anywhere, Kay and co. are represented by BlankRome, a truly great law firm. The costs of mounting a lawsuit against them will be prohibitive and I doubt anyone will take on paying for litigation that might go on indefinitely.
It sounds good, but ain't gonna happen. There's no justice in microcap stock land, it's strictly caveat emptor. People getting snookered by Kay's bluster are no different than those who go to gamble at casinos because they advertise glamorous and fun filled evenings.
Kay's the tech equivalent of a gentleman farmer and is a master at fudging his statements and predictions and covering his tracks. If someone believes that a 74 year old man can successfully run a start up software enterprise, the problem is someone's belief.
Sure. I take that point, but it's not the scenario I'd feel confident in investing in.
Sure it possibly does, but how can you prove the absence of a problem is caused by a purported solution? There's no double blind testing available for these situations.
For example, Apple claims to have great security for the iPhone. Let's say you buy Zerify's Mobile Trust and install it on your phone. You don't get attacked by evil doers but it's impossible to know whether it's the app or Apple. Maybe if your iPhone has been repeatedly hacked in the past and when you install Mobile the attacks stop? But otherwise..............
Of course the company is going to say whatever, they're trying to sell (in theory) product. Again, please direct me to a site where an independent review concurs that this is the safest way to go. All I've seen is pay for play stuff that has no credibility. But can sound good.
What I see in your post, no offense meant, is "supposedly", "they say", "the possibility" and that's exactly my point.
The Zerify suite of products are solutions for which there are no problems. If Zoom, Microsoft, etc had been complacent in the face of serious hacking episodes that would have been one thing. But they weren't and they beefed up their security and you almost never hear of Zoom meetings being hacked, lately, or at least I haven't.
Anecdotally, my daughter is on at least 2 Zoom meetings most weeks and has been since the pandemic began and reports no security issues to date.
"Past performance is no guarantee of future results."
There seem to be an infinite number of gullible people in the microcap investing universe. I can't remember how many times I've asked, on various boards, for independent confirmation of the greatness of any of ZRFY's software and I've never received a link in answer.
The latest bit that's popping up as ads that rates them as most secure video conferencing offering is yet another pay for play situation. There's a sucker born every minute.
There's no demand for their software and whenever potential buyers do pop up, I imagine that management's sheer incompetence manifests itself and drives them away
I thought it was Waller and Ram, too, definitely not Kay. I believe Kay bailed them out of financial trouble in the old days and was rewarded by being named CEO. Whether he's done anything worthwhile for the company since then is open to debate.
No, they didn't fire anyone, to my knowledge. It was a hypothetical example of a potential use of the new word, "wallering", named after a George who earns a big salary and does no work anyone is aware of.
It is indeed odd, but there's no accounting for taste. Maybe he sees some potential here, although from our point of view that would seem silly. If it's a step-up in title, a possible resume builder, he'll stay for a little while then skedaddle to a real company.
I can see where someone might, might, see the software as competitive in the marketplace, see the comprehensive marketing incompetence and think maybe there's a way. How about we introduce into the vernacular the term "wallering" for being incompetent yet in a position to receive substantial pay?
Hey did you see that guy they just fired. It's about time, he's been wallering around here for long enough.
Why did they ever need him? A head of marketing who has done almost no deals in 20 years? It's a sinecure for him, like a no show job for someone's kid or spouse.
I dislike this company as much as any other sentient being on the planet, but that's a bit of weak case against Falbo. He left Supermicro after over 3 years and went to Real Defense / IOLO for more than a year. Altogether, not a loser's resume.
The key thing, probably, is that he was Director of Channel Sales at his last job and that's how ZRFY does almost all of its selling, so to speak. Maybe he's competent and a good fit and they'll listen to a younger guy? Nah, just joking.
I saw that, don't consider it a disclaimer, though. Where is the info about the writers / publishers positions in the stocks they cover, if any, or info about any payment made by the companies for exposure in any articles?
What you've posted is boiler plate denial of responsibility for investments made as the result of any articles.
A French website with no disclaimer. What's not to like?
No idea, maybe last week? Not too long ago.
Not sure they have the guts to face shareholders in person. They've created a lot of angry investors, some of whom might like to confront them in person.
This is not a threat. You couldn't get me to attend another one of those pointless gatherings in person, even if it was held in my living room.
It was a video conferencing event, though, right?
What would be the point? The voting is rigged, management lies, am I missing something?
I don't understand why an obvious p.r. piece masquerading as news wouldn't drive a large gain.
I've seen it repeatedly. Maybe you need to go onto the ZRFY website first then it can mine your data and show the ad.
CNBC.com
I'm getting these pop-up ads that some company, AiteNovarica, rates Zerify as the #1 in secure video conferencing. Going on to their website, though, it seems pretty clear this is a branding joint and it's all pay for play.
Maybe that's what the youngster is up to? Not so very impressive.
Sure but that's apples and oranges. TSLA has a lot of institutional ownership and very deep pocketed investors. ZRFY has a bunch of $10K investors who want to make a profit and get out asap. The TSLA crowd can easily afford the best lawyers, while the ZRFY crowd cannot possibly compete against BlankRome.
The validity of the argument is almost beside the point, though. The SEC is bombarded with an infinite number of complaints about management teams in micro-cap stocks who crap on retail investors. By the time they get to ZRFY, if they ever do, this management team will be long gone, having ridden off into the sunset with our hard earned money.
They aren't cutting their salaries. You've been mentioning this for a while and others did before you. Not gonna happen.
If you still think they have any regard for long-term shareholders you haven't been reading the room correctly.
They never have and it's suited them just fine, they never will.
There will be no progress in sales because there's no demand for their products at all. And the people in charge of their marketing are between their mid 60's to mid 70's in age. How about asking someone, say, 30 years old if they think people that age could be effective selling for a start up software firm? They're clueless and that also suits them just fine.
I agree with your sentiments, but that's so not the definition of stupidity:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/stupid
What you're calling stupidity is much more often referred to as being foolhardy.
They are seeking investors to do private deals. We know how this works: issue new shares for a minimum buy-in, pump the stock online with trolls and in pay-for- play media.
That will guarantee a certain number of new retail investors who get excited about the supposed prospects and throw money at the stock which will temporarily drive up share price.
Private deal people make their money and get out, company sells no software (to speak of) share price resumes its plummet.
Yes, but "misleading" might as well be Kay's middle name. He's an expert at the art of the fudge, they "expect" to earn such and such, these were their customers 18 years ago, who tried one of their offerings for a year and didn't renew. So, sure they were a customer in the past 20 years. What else does he have? There's just no market for what they're selling, they are solutions for which there are no problems.
I remember the military poster, he was active for a while. I mean supposedly some Russian troops were bombed by the Ukrainians, recently, because they were using phones that could be traced. I guess we can conclude from that, possibly, that the American military found a solution that doesn't involve SFOR (then) software.
At any rate, if shareholders are desperate enough to believe they need to participate in a publicly traded company's marketing plan, there's no logic to owning shares in that company.
The website doesn't state that they are current users. Only that they've been customers at some point during the past 20 years, which is entirely possible.
How can they be? That would require that the viewers of his video presentations to also use Zerify.
It's not unfair. Some of the open source versions of ZRFY software have more and better features than theirs. You're talking about a Red Hat, which is on the corporate level, but I maintain that consumers aren't going to pay for something that's available for free. Red Hat didn't even pursue the retail market, I don't think.
Right from the beginning, starting years ago, there were open-source versions of StrikeForce's first 3 software products, except for Mobile - I couldn't find one for it but stopped looking a while ago. Who's going to pay when equal or better is available for free?
Then they spun off BlockSafe, which is a little confusing to me. I'm guessing that since they made it a separate company, any revenue it generates will be separate and not show up on the ZRFY books.
That leaves the Zerify suite of products, in which there seems to be zero interest in the marketplace. Of course these guys, from their mid 60's to mid 70's years old, have no clue how to market software in the 21st century.
https://www.techradar.com/best/best-video-conferencing-software
Again and again, there are 5 colleges within 20 miles of Zerify headquarters and from all the company has reported, none of them have ever bought anything, ever, which is a bit of a mystery. You also have to wonder why BlankRome, the law firm of record, does not lease any Zerify software and why Kay has been completely unable to get any group from Morgan to buy in, too.
Clearly this company isn't about launching innovative software and making a big splash in the tech world. It must be about something else, which, I guess, is just selling shares.
Right, it says "securing global organizations for over 20 years", so it's entirely possible one of those companies bought a license from the old SFOR 18 years, ago, say, and never renewed.
Clearly they are not listed as current customers, though, so, more of the half-assed Kay subterfuge, he's even a lousy liar.
What we've seen happen time and time again with ZRFY, over the years, is playing out again now.
Shares are issued at a price equal to or below the price on the open market, with various minimum buy-ins, this time I think $10K. Kay, then, makes a big production about fantasy upcoming revenues and does a few of his dopey interviews. Then, the newly hatched suckers get excited about all the good stuff that's going to happen and merrily throw their money away on this stock. This temporarily drives the share price up so the $10K- and-up gang can take some profits before reality sets back in.
Other than patent infringement, I don't really think Kay's doing anything illegal, he's just an amoral sociopath. The SEC will do nothing about this, they are inundated with complaints about innumerable penny stock company management teams who are abusing shareholders.
I went to a shareholders' meeting some years ago and had private conversations with Kay and George at the hotel bar after party. I badly misread the room, though, thought they were hard working, trustworthy businessmen and threw away a bunch of dough on their schemings.
People tend to ignore warning signs that disturb whatever narrative they've invested in, emotionally, intellectually, or financially. When the company bought time on HSN to hawk their anti-keylogging software, it was a big flashing exit sign that I, and a lot of others, ignored.
True. I'm unsure what exactly the patent issues are. I mean if they lose in court and can no longer sell Zerify, for example, it's lights out.
Also interesting in that doc that was posted, it seems they spun off BlockSafe as its own company. Meaning that revenues it creates, if any, will have no meaningful impact on ZRFY share price and management can just feed at that trough, too.
The larger question, though, is why would anyone even close to being in their right mind invest in this stock? If you're down a lot, like I am, and hope share price will rebound enough to make back your losses, sorry, it's just not gonna happen.