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I made this point back when JD formed Universal Energy & FTXN but fell on deaf ears. Too many dreamers hoping GFCI/FTXN was the chance one in a million real deal company that would emerge out of the pinky world. I suppose this is how most bottom fishing investors get duped by a pinky company.
The last legitimate company that walked away from Adams Ranch basically said in their SEC filing that these wells were no longer productive. The cost to extract the resource far exceeded the benefits. They couldn't of made it more clear.
Unfortunately, JD had his pied piper on these message board pumpers. BBB emphatically stated that I was "WRONG" in quoting the SEC filing. THE One claimed things are different now compared to when to way back when. His favorite words were "we will see". These individuals backed up their optimism with fabricated number crunching that sound impressive but were full of flaws. They claimed based on their calculation FTXN was worth $3 - $4 share. Their ignorance had them believing GFCI shareholders were all entitled to every bit of this bonanza. BBB even went as far to make an $800 million revenue projection for FTXN (but the cost to generate the projected revenue would have been in excess of $8 Billion so....). Sadly, a number of people blindly bought the irresponsible logic spewed by these individuals. Even when it was quite obvious to most people BBB continued to make optimistic comments about JD and his misadventure.
Industry average profit margin for small-mid size O & G companies were 6% ROI. How can a start up shoe strong operation like GFCI potentially make astronomical profits as claimed by BBB et al? Common sense would dictate that if these wells were so lucrative other established operators would have squeeze the profit out of it through competitive bidding. Another red flag would have been the number of shyster pinkie companies that it passed through. Common sense would ask "why couldn't the prior company succeed?". These are all the red flags that should pop up beyond the statement made in a SEC filing by a legitimate O & G company.
I don't know anyone on either boards. The One was one of the pumpers who didn't take to kindly to my skepticism. I do remember his claiming that he was a partner in some O & G venture and that he knew the business. His comments didn't support his claims IMO. He was always giving JD the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was Daryl Uselton, I don't know. I say that because he's gone MIA since around the time Useltons got busted.
He supposedly had over 1 million shares of GFCI. I'm not sure if its credible.
Oh Geez. The moment the Investor Relations or the principal (a.k.a. JD) tells you the stock is worth substantially more than market value you should have sold all of it and ran for the hills. It is illegal for those people to make that type of representation. Grifco's Investor Relation guy, Ryan Kirch, operated out of his apartment up in Chicago. He moved on a became a CEO of his own pinksheet scam, I guess after learning from JD.
That's why I always objected to BBB's valuation based on "industry multiples" because it was total b.s. and it lead many here to believe he knew what he was talking about.
I'm sure there are others that lost as much as well but geezz, don't ever put that much money in a non-reporting/unaudited company.
Some of the Gentleman's clubs do a lot more than table dancing to keep their clients happy.
There has to be some level of conspiracy as to why a shyster like Jim Dial is able to live a life of a Turd Blossom (a.k.a. flower that grows out of cow dung). Our bias about, Jim Dial has clearly, unarguably, unequivocally, broke several laws as CEO and a corporate steward. Obviously, he was well aware of Uselton's pump and dump schemes. JD was probably the schemes biggest profiteers as he was responsible for all the the P & D PRs. When he ran out of the ability to print shares what did he do....he doubled the authorized shares all the while telling the public Grifco was buying back shares. He threatened to sue any investors who dare to force Grifco to open it's book yet statutory and common law required all companies to open their books to any investors who request it for legitimate reason, even if the investor only owns 1 share. It was not at the companies discretion, this was mandatory. That action alone could have landed in hot water...but wait, there's more...many, many more! It wouldn't even take much of an investigation to get JD on any one of the multitude of violations he had committed. Yet, he comes out clean as a whistle.
All I can say is if there is truly a heaven and hell, Satan will have a special customized plus size fiery pit all warmed up for JD. If there is such thing as reincarnation, JD would probably come back as a rat or perhaps more appropriate a cockroach.
Maybe the reason why JD & Jarvis bought the strip club is so he can provide VIP entertainment for the good ol boys at the Harris county DA's office so they'll help him keep the heat off his back. I know this is far fetched but the point is, you never know what type of ol boy network JD/Jarvis has going on for them to continuously make $$$ by boldly scamming folks.
You would probably have better luck contacting an activist law school professor/attorney like Alan Dershowitz at Harvard. These type of people thrive on cases like thing because of the legal challenge and they believe in the principle that the scale held by lady justice shouldn't be tilted to one side with cash.
It's quite obvious the blame falls on DTC because they are the organization that was sanctioned by the SEC to protect the investors from this type of thing. Jim Dial is even a bigger issue. He should be sued for gross negligence for his behavior as a CEO.
Can Grifco's corporate veil be pierced and JD personally held liable? The following are factors that would convince the courts to pierce the corporate veil according to law...
"Corporate form should not be used to defeat public convenience, to justify wrong, protect fraud, or defend crime."
Factors to induce courts for piercing the corporate veil -
? Comingling of funds
? Using corporate funds for shareholder's personal use
? Failure to maintain corporate formalities (public filings, sh meeting, these factors alone won't pierce the veil but would add to evidence)
? Use corporation as a mere shell or conduit to operate a single venture or some particular aspect of the business of an individual shareholder
? Absence of separately held corporate assets
? Formation and use of corporation to assume the existing liabilities of another person or entity
? Failure to adequately capitalize the corporation (inadequate insurance, inadequate capitalization)
I remember ramotime. I don't know him personally but know his real name as he was one of the guys on the RB board that joined in the potential Grifco suit. He was a law school student and now an attorney.
As for comments about "buddies" working/interning at SEC, you have to take that with a grain of salt. There are thousands of people working for the SEC. His buddies are low level underlying trying to get college credit as interns. Just because they are there don't mean they have full authority and power of the SEC (I'm sure you all know that). It would probably take countless hours to sift through all the layers of the SEC to get to someone who can help them with GFCI. They're also aren't going to waste time inquiring about a unimportant single member pink sheet corporation, not to mention how bad it would look.
Bottom line - NV corporation + pinksheet + no audited financials = SCAM
I have no confidence that the SEC will do anything to JD. At least the Canadian authorities are on the ball with their countries scam opereation. This was a company that's been pumped on the GFCI board. I think some people here even bought shares. Same story, NV corporation, pink sheet company with a Canadian version of Jim Dial running the show. They were pumping contracts in the middle east and stating they're going to issue audited financials......of course it was all a lie. The CEO made $11.5 million from illegal stock sales...I'm sure JD/Jarvis made out with a lot more.
http://www.investmentexecutive.com/client/en/News/News.asp?Id=47419&IdSection=8
Market manipulation results in criminal charges against Ontario man
Monday, December 15, 2008
The Toronto Integrated Market Enforcement Team of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has arrested and charged Petar Vucicevich, age 43, of Harrow, Ont., with two counts of fraud, the RCMP said Monday.
Restraining orders for 11 real properties, in the Colchester, Ont. area, were also obtained.
The investigation began following a referral from the Ontario Securities Commission. The charges relate to allegations that between July 31, 2006 and Dec. 31, 2006, Vucicevich orchestrated and participated in the market manipulation of the shares of Sulja Bros. Building Supplies Ltd. Sulja is owned by Sulja Brothers Building Supplies Ltd., a small lumberyard located in Harrow, Ont.. During the time the alleged fraud was perpetrated, Sulja was a publicly traded company quoted on the Pink Sheets in the United States under the symbol “SLJB”.
It is alleged that Vucicevich, as the interim president, CEO and “controlling mind” of Sulja Brothers, caused a number of false and/or misleading press releases to be issued in order to generate and sustain interest of prospective investors in shares of Sulja. Additional shares were issued directly from treasury without cost to Vucicevich. The shares were subsequently sold for profit on the public market through accounts allegedly held by nominees. The profits generated from the trading of these shares was in excess of US$11.5 million. Police allege that a portion of the proceeds of the fraud were used to purchase the properties for which the restraint orders were made. The properties under restraint are valued at in excess of $1 million dollars.
After taking control of Sulja Brothers, police believe the company was depleted of assets and it ceased operations earlier this year, putting the company's 30 employees out of work. A new location was opened in Calgary, and was to be known as Premium Building Supplies, however, the business never became operational.
During the two-year investigation, Toronto IMET investigators seized volumes of documentary evidence and interviewed many witnesses including former employees and owners of Sulja Brothers, business associates, creditors and investors.
Since Dec. 22, 2006, Sulja Brothers, Vucicevich and others have been the subject of a temporary cease trade order issued by the OSC. A hearing on the merits in this matter is scheduled to commence on Nov. 16, 2009 before the OSC.
Vucicevich was scheduled to appear in court in Windsor Ont. on Monday.
“Frauds of this nature have a destabilizing effect on the economy and shake investor confidence in the capital markets. This particular matter had a devastating effect on the micro economy in the small town of Harrow. Thirty people lost their jobs and investors lost a substantial amount of money”, said Superintendent Kevin Harrison, the officer in charge of Toronto IMET.
He added, “We hope that the laying of criminal charges in this case sends a clear message to perpetrators that the IMET's will aggressively investigate complaints of this nature and, with the assistance of the Attorney General for Ontario, vigorously prosecute the offenders. We also hope that the restraint of the properties, a first for the IMET Program, will send a message to fraudsters that we will also pursue their ill gotten gains.”
Maybe it was the resident cryptologist who couldn't get anything going with the pumping.
Seriously, it's probably a mass of GFCI bag holders just dumping the worthless garbage from their portfolio so they can realize the loss. Or, it could be JD dumping some more shares to pay on his Merry Christmas credit card bill. For there to be a trade there has to be a buyer as well. Who is stupid enough to buy this crapola is my question.
It looks like Dial sold off the shell.
Looking over the current filings it looks like Phillip Krueber is the President/CEO of RICP. I'm not sure how much JD is involved or if he sold off his interest in the shell to RICP.
The company had $26K in total sales and a net income of $14K according to the financial. Not very impressive. The financial statement is just summarize. It doesn't disclose much information. Although the unaudited financial statement was prepared by a CPA, it doesn't indicate to what level of assurance was provided by the CPA.. The CPA can prepared a financial statement review (negative assurance) meaning some of the amounts on the financial statement had been traced/vouched as to its reasonableness. The CPA could also prepare a Compilation, which he basically prepares a financial statement based on amounts GIVEN to him by management. He does not give any assurances for accuracy or correctness.
GFCI and audited financials.
I took a continuing professional education class for Auditing and Attestation as part of my professional requirement. Part of the topic covered was auditing standards and auditor responsibility.
In a nutshell, there are specific guidance in the professional and quality control standards for auditors that states that if a management is of questionable character and/or management is dominated by one individual who is also the majority shareholder, the auditor should withdrawal from engagement. The risk of material misstatement is too high and the audit risk is too great to go forward with the engagement. There is too large of an opportunity for concealment and misstatement.
So how do Audit firms stay on the straight and narrow and adhere to standards? Most Public Accounting firms are made up of people with high moral character. All audit firms are peer review every other year by a member CPA who is independent of the firm they're reviewing. If the auditor firms are found to veer from the said professional standard they will be written up, may be placed on probation, PCAOB may withdraw them from a list of approved audit firms, or worst yet a suspension of their license.
So hows does this pertain to GFCI?
1. Management's character (e.g. Jim Dial) - fail
2. Management dominated by one person who is also majority shareholder (Jim Dial) - fail
While there are many other specific items the above 2 reasons alone will be a good reason for an Audit firm to withdrawal from engagement. It is likely that Grifco had hired a firm to audit their books like they said in the PR, but after the initial evaluation the auditors probably withdrew from the engagement. If Grifco was somehow audited (I seriously doubt it), my guess is that the results were less than favorable.
If you can't beat them join them. Maybe you can make some money off the Pump and Dump penny stocks. Buy into the pump and dump it on the first run up.
I have Ameitrade and my advice would be to not rely on gainskeeper as it's got too many flaws. It was created with good intentions but there are development issues.
As for as sales of stock fyi, the only thing IRS sees is the gross proceeds which is the only information stated on the 1099-B. There is no cost basis or the gains & loss information on a 1099-B. So whether you use the basis in the gainskeeper or the $0 basis for Grifco, it won't raise a red flag IRS, nor would they know what's long term and what's short term. Only thing that would raise a red flag on a stock sale is if the Gross Proceeds from the 1099-B doesn't match what you put on your tax return (Schedule D).
Despite this fact its always best to provide accurate information to the IRS.
Yes, I said it's $0 cost basis since the day of distribution. I was just trying to explain the basis of why its worth $0, why Gainskeeper is showing what it's showing, and the fact there should have been some basis assigned to the spin-off distribution (and why there wasn't).
There hasn't been a Grifco company since 2006.
The shell is probably so dirty now the hopes of anyone taking over it very slim. If they do, they will do a massive reverse split to reduce the number of shares and bring it up over a penny. Either way, those holding shares are screwed.
There is $0 cost basis for the CTBG dividend.
I think this is the assumption made with Gainskeeper and similar tools is that the value of CTBG stock at the date of distribution is the basis of the stock. This would be accurate if you purchased the stock.
These programs simply uses the date & time the stock appears in your portfolio as the basis for the stock. So it will not accurately reflect a stock distribution UNLESS, the company distribution the stock provides accurate basis information at the time of distribution. Of course, you don't expect Jim Dial to go through the process of hiring a Investment Banker or a CPA firm to provide this type of service do you?
You have to remember tools like Gainskeeper are designed by computer programmers not securities or tax experts. Its based on programming assumption and not true economic reality. It doesn't anticipate any short comings made by shysters like Jim Dial. Whatever basis information it gives you on the CTBG distribution is more than likely not correct.
That's like asking why Enron hasn't been hiring for the past 5 years.
That's like asking why Enron hasn't been hiring for the past 5 years.
Jim Dial, Mike King, and John Jarvis in prison. Jim Dial is prisoner AK-70 & H2O.
There is no hope with Grifco. Not sure about CTBG but probably not much there either.
According to rumors there are those who lost their home, marriage, business etc. as a result of believing in Grifco.
As for ramotime, the law school graduate, he spoke with Swinford over the phone when Grifco was selling around $0.04. Swinford told him he should sell and get out while he can. Swinford also told him if he knew back in 2004 what he knew then he would have never gotten involved with Grifco. He also said Lois Newman was hanging around Grifco to keep an eye on it for Jarvis. Ramotime e-mailed me the information shortly after his conversation with Swinford.
Lois is an awfully busy gal. Her and Jarvis also fleeced that security company that was started up by a retired Houston detective. Took it to the pinks, made a bunch of money on the stock sale, and left the unsuspecting guy out to dry.
Those wells may have proven reserves but aren't economically feasible. According to Victory's financial it cost a $1 to get $0.10 worth of gas and that's at the inflated 2007 prices.
LOL, B2B those sentiments did cross my mind as I was writing that post. However, our little inquisitive friend seems to assume that since Grifco had an SEC attorney, some of it should had been legitimate. I can guarantee if you look up Grifco's so called attorney up you'll find him in a run down low rent strip office park and he looks like Herb Tarlic from WKRP in Cincinnati. Considering the way SEC reacted to his opinion he probably doesn't have any expertise in SEC regulations. He probably specializes in traffic tickets and DUIs.
JD is the dirt. Think about it. He used GGI to sell millions of unregistered shares in the open market. He provided written documentation to GGI supposedly from his attorney saying the shares can be legally sold. He raised millions of dollars including a personal loan to purchase a strip club. Same thing with the Useltons. He gave the Useltons shares to pump the stock to raise the PPS which enable GGI to sell tons of shares at higher prices.
JD was the catalyst for all the peripheral scam.
When you read the SEC complaint filed on GGI, Dial & Grifco sounds much more guilty of wrong doing than GGI. It sounded like GGI was a victimized by JD like the rest of us.
There are whole host of security violations JD's committed. Despite the fact that he was trading on the pinksheet and had certain reporting exemption because Grifco's assets were valued below 10 million, he is not completely immune from SEC regulations and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. There are regs that apply to ALL public companies. PCAOB, the organization that enforces Sarb-ox makes that very clear.
I just can not see why JD is still out there running around as a free man.
I agree. I don't know why some people can't fathom that there are crooked attorneys out there as well.
Well it seems like regulating the pinksheet scammers would be a fairly easy thing for the SEC. For instance they can make it mandatory that any company issuing a forward looking statement must issue a follow up statement within 60-90 days. The follow up must confirm the results. It should state that the event took place or didn't take place, and the reason why. Company like Grifco thrive on putting together string of glowing forward statements without ever following up.
SEC/PCAOB should also set penalties and fines for those CEO violating the requirements to make it easier to prosecute them. They should make it criminal for CEO not to comply.
The publicly reporting companies follow up as a matter of ethics. They also put out quarterly reports that will disclose the results and business events in great detail.
SEC should also get on Nevada about raising their incorporation standards so it won't be such a haven for scam artists.
What Jim Dial has done is so blatantly criminal. It doesn't take a whole heck of a lot of effort to prove it. It's amazing how these crooks are able to get away with it all. If someone is ever wanting to get rich off criminal activity, being a pinksheet CEO is the ticket.
Just think there are hundreds of Jim Dials out there running similar scams with no consequences. As long as there are people who flock to the unregulated penny-scams that fall below the SEC scrutiny threshold, the scam will go on. Of course the government can demand more accountability from the principals but that would mean more regulations and bigger government...not a popular choice.
Does Swinford realize the ramifications? Wouldn't this open CTBG up to legal liability from people like B2B who had their entire account wiped out because of this?
Don't you think if SEC had jurisdiction in this matter Jerry Swinford would have reported taken the matter to the SEC instead of filing a civil suit in a district court.
This is an excerpt from the SEC website, "What we do":
http://www.sec.gov/about/whatwedo.shtml
The laws and rules that govern the securities industry in the United States derive from a simple and straightforward concept: all investors, whether large institutions or private individuals, should have access to certain basic facts about an investment prior to buying it, and so long as they hold it. To achieve this, the SEC requires public companies to disclose meaningful financial and other information to the public. This provides a common pool of knowledge for all investors to use to judge for themselves whether to buy, sell, or hold a particular security. Only through the steady flow of timely, comprehensive, and accurate information can people make sound investment decisions.
To have a remote chance of being heard from the SEC you have to tell them what SEC regulations Grifco specifically violated. In another words if you want to catch a mouse, make noise like cheese. So it's not "they sold my IRA"..."they issued invalid proxy"....you should be complaining about Grifco's failure of making material disclosure which resulted in negatively impacting your financial well-being or Grifco repeatedly defrauded investors by making fictitious disclosure in a pump and dump scheme.
Univ. of Cincinatti school of Law has a good SEC reference website:
http://www.law.uc.edu/CCL/index.html
This is my last response to your questions because you just seem to go in circles about nothing. Jim Dial, as one person, held a majority vote. Regardless of how the rest of us voted however Jim Dial voted is the way it went. He initially had the power to effect the vote through owning majority shares. That only lasted so long until he started printing and selling more shares. In order to regain majority vote he issued himself supervoting preferred shares.
This fact was made public not through Jim Dial or Grifco filing but through TTII.ob's attempted merger filing.
In a democracy like the United States your vote does matter because the majority truly means something. In a dictatorship like Cuba your votes don't matter because all the decisions rest in the hands of one man - Fidel Castro. Grifco is a corrupt dictratorship not a democracy. Therefore, your vote didn't matter not to mention the fact you were voting on an issue that was fictitious....as it turns out.
Justrex, you have a lot of misunderstanding about this whole fiasco.
CTBG was a pre-existing publicly traded company. The symbol and the stock existed before GFCI distributed its ownership of shares to GFCI shareholders. Grifco owned 75% of CTBG which made them a parent company. As you recall Grifco bought a dirty shell from IMPC holdings which later changed its symbol to CTBG. All Grifco did was distribute it's ownership shares to Grifco shareholders...therefore, it's consider a dividend and has NOTHING to do with spinning off a new entity.
CTBG as a separate entity attempted to created a new entity to consolidate itself into in order to issue a clean audited financials. SEC did not approve their attempt to do so.
Once again, all this has nothing to do with the stock distribution. SEC is not the referee in how a company handles its distribution. Your just barking up the wrong tree.
justrex, I don't have a clue as to what you're talking about. You're the only one harping about the RB message board changing. SEC doesn't approve or disapprove dividend distributions. It is not within their authority to do so. It doesn't matter what voting rights you thought you had Jim Dial always held the majority vote. Investigating message board poster was just a ploy by Grifco to prolong the scam. This has been explained to you multiple times.
You may have a legal basis to go after Grifco, DTC and Ameritrade for the IRAs being liquidated. You will just have to retain an attorney and go through the court process. Sad thing is that you will be just throwing good money after bad. If the court finds Grifco liable what will you get out of a company with no assets?
Grifco didn't have any equity in Global Tools from the what I unnderstood. Grifco borrowed from American Finance to purchase Global. Perhaps when the Lyamec issued a PR stating Grifco "relinquished" its interest in Global it was business speak for repossession, as in Grifco didn't live up to the terms of the financing agreement. In which case Grifco probably received nothing for the transaction.
All the details surrounding Grifco-Lyamec-Global should have been clearly disclosed. The PRs were very vague. Maybe that was the intent, to imply one thing but mean something else.
Who cares what visxlaserman said. He's one of the unintended promoters that were often WRONG.
There were so many uninformed people on the boards who thought Grifco was operating according to what they thought it should be rather than what it actually was. There were serious questions blaring bright and clear from the onset. These people refused to see it because they were blinded by ignorance and greed believing their own hype rather than taking cautious measures.
Visxlaserman has no credibility IMO.
Yes absolutely they could settle the largest asset of GFCI WITHOUT giving any proceeds to the common shareholders. Shareholders DO NOT OWN THE ASSETS of a company. Therefore, any sale of an asset doesn't get distributed pro-rata to the common shareholders. This is the same misconception BBB had which was the basis of his delusion.
Think about it logically. If you own stock in Microsoft and they sell a business segment for $1 Billion. Does that money get distributed directly to the shareholders???? Of course not! It goes right back into the business.
Only thing a shareholder gets from a company in form of share in the profits are dividends. You'll get dividends only when the board of directors decide to give it out.
If the company is dissolving you MAY get a liquidating dividend BUT, common shareholders are last in the pecking order to receive any proceeds from a liquidation. The pecking order is 1. creditors, 2. preferred shareholders, 3. common shareholders. Usually when the company liquidates, it has more liabilities than assets. Creditors get a fraction of what's owed and common shareholders are left with nothing.
creditors = Robinson Reed. American Finance etc.
preferred shareholder = Jim Dial (wonder why JD gave himself 1 million preferred shares)
common shareholder = rest of us
Although Grifco never announced it was liquidating, it's quite obvious from the facts liquidation occured once it was plundered & pillaged by Jim Dial. GFCI did what it intended to do. Sell millions upon millions of stock on a P & D scheme and made JD & the promoters rich.
With the ever so shady Jim Dial being the sole everything (management, CEO, Board of Director) don't you think he put himself in a position where he would benefit the most. He probably feels he gave the common shareholders something in the way of the CTBG dividend. That was probably his final involvement with GFCI as he moved on to new and better things for himself - like the strip club.