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The TOU is surely not perfect Phil. A lot of personal discretion will come into the deleting (or leaving) of posts. It's not always black and white. If people pay to promote stock (as I understand it) then we introduce a severe bias too in terms of what might get deleted. Or let's say I have a position in a stock and am a moderator on the stock's board. That is very likely to influence the board's content.
And while I'm on that track: that's why iHub needs certain internal controls perhaps, no dealing or trading for staff etc., basic compliance to protect both staff and the company.
I remember years ago, Clem made the point along these lines: generally few posts are deleted on the UK boards - that's because it opened ADVFN up to accusations (various).
All sorts of issues here.
Phil, I also support ADVFN and iHub. However, I have to disagree with this:
I am not trying to say it's OK for people to defraud other people, but it's not up to Ihub and the admin to try to regulate it.
Please don't be offended, but that's not very professional. I would say all employees in a financial environment (ADVFN is listed as "General Financial") have the duty to be on the look out for fraud and potential fraud. They should be aware of the steps to escalate any issues and they should be aware of internal "whistle blowing" procedures too.
Perhaps try to think from another angle. Let's say you are an investment fund with an exposure to ADVFN. Would you feel comfortable having client money and your name against a company that doesn't feel it has a professional duty to protect others against fraud (and that has an employee charged with financial crime still working for it (but that's another story))?
Another point: iHub does regulate: it deletes some posts, leaves others.
I am with you on that point Phil. I honestly wish Matt at least a fair trial and a lenient punishment if found guilty. I have certainly been impressed with his tech contributions at iHub, he's young, I hope he learns a few lessons whatever the result.
yes Phil - risk warnings are prevalent throughout all retail services in the financial world - just about all investments are "risky" in varying degrees, and especially so with the small caps
what i am making clear though is although the risk is pointed out, this does not give a carte blanche for people to organise and distribute fake info - it doesn't make it right - and if those people lose money through false statements (backed up with wash trades to make it all the more convincing) they should be compensated and the culprits (fraudsters) jailed
the User Agreement is just a standard financial industry risk warning, any company in the securities world has them - however fraud still remains fraud
I would have thought "fraud" and "scam" are pretty much synonymous, Phil.
Attempting to defraud people in a highly organised way is surely just a little more than "a bit naughty" isn't it
I would call it "an attempt to defraud" - but no doubt The Court would go by the wikipedia?
try to think the analogy through Phil before saying it's "idiotic"
just because there is a warning in a User Agreement that does not excuse a crime if committed
the User Agreement can say "you can get murdered here, enter at your own risk"
however, murder still remains a crime, and those that commit it are subject to prosecution - the fact that someone presses "I Agree" makes no difference
here's a good post about the background:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=38196194
you ignored the comment - sure it would not be practical to verify each post but that is not what the comment was about
what exactly is your point, and how does that relate to the comment made?
perhaps they already have a complete copy of the database anyway?
just a thought
thank you Phil, i have skimmed through http://sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2009/comp21053.pdf again and although people "met" through iHub, the accusations of manipulation seem to be limited to technical (wash trades) and informational (news releases) but not through posts on the boards itself
whether or not that is somehow inherent in the vague use of the words "pumping/pumps" is up to others to decide, indeed if that avenue is explored at all
Are you just getting in on the discussion here?
- no, I'm a shareholder that just wants to know what's going, at the same time I'm attempting to assess the legal risk to ADVFN PLC - so far your interpretation would justify ADVFN not suspending Matt as far as i'm concerned - indeed it's a "personal matter" apart from the fact the accused met at his workplace (iHub), possibly within his working hours
my point is this (gulp):
"After manipulating the price of stock, Dynkowski, Brown, Mangiapane and Riviello dumped more than 54 million shares that had been improperly registered on SEC Form S-8 and held in nominee accounts."
"Brown planned the Asia Global pump-and-dump scheme with Joseph Mangiapane Jr. and Marc J. Riviello, who were both registered representatives at a small broker-dealer in California. Dynkowski and Nathan M. Michaud, who met through InvestorsHub.com, pumped the price of Asia Global stock using wash sales, matched orders and other manipulative trading, coordinated with false, misleading, and touting press releases by the company. The scheme occurred in three cycles: August-September 2006, November-December 2006, and January-February 2007. After manipulating the price of stock, Dynkowski, Brown, Mangiapane and Riviello dumped more than 54 million shares that had been improperly registered on SEC Form S-8 and held in nominee accounts. The illicit proceeds from this scheme totaled at least $4,050,529."
i hope it is not true
promoting a company is fine (its goods or services)
manipulating its shareprice is illegal
small difference
edit: are the distinctions between the two being blurred?
I asked Clem Chambers by email to shut down IH and SI immediately - no response as yet (also asked a lot of questions and pointed out a few other posts here)
i've read a few posts on the SEC board suggesting nailing pumpers is legally difficult - are we still on for a "teacup storm" or does this escalate to a lot of punters asking for their cash back?
personally, i'm not certain
so AVFCF I guess was the old symbol now being deleted, AVFCY is the new one(?)
I'll be honest woofer, i'm on my very best behaviour over here, don't be fooled by appearances
This whole IRP thing is worrying - the "P" stands for "Professional" although I cannot see any requirement for an IRP to have any form of professional accreditation.
So far it seems to me you can run an illegal whorehouse and pay the council some fees and a bit to the police too, and then everything's fine & dandy.
woofer, janice - thank you for the info
i must say i glanced at the scheme when it came out and thought it was a bit strange/dangerous/naive
looking just a touch deeper i find it totally insane
however, i will research further and try to convince myself that this is a workable and fair system
what is an IRP? i am new to iHub and would like info about this - does anyone know of a link where i can find out more about IRP status?
currently i believe this refers to a "stock promoter" who pays iHub to be allowed to "promote" stock
if so then we are already on wafer thin ice
this would surely be a "conflict of interest" situation? there would be a financial incentive for iHub to ignore unfair or misleading posts by the IRP to make money, whilst the IRP potentially has an incentive to mislead - the act of "DISCLOSURE" does not resolve the basic conflict of interest in any way
yes, but as a manager with most likely a lot on his plate at the moment he would be wasting his time: on the UK boards whenever he tried to answer questions he would get shot out of the water very quickly - best to make a statement and retreat, don't get involved, don't get into long arguments, in the end it doesn't solve anything and just wastes time
1) try this link http://uk.advfn.com/cmn/fbb/threads.php3
2) no there are no existing AFN threads, or at least they are very difficult to find (deactivated, you can no longer post on them) - ADVFN comes under heavy criticism from time to time since it only posts losses - to stop the criticism Clem basically killed all the threads
3) ADVFN has autobots that kill any threads started with AFN, ALP or ONL
you might try starting an IHUB epic thread perhaps? I am not certain if such a thread would be welcome because the company does not like any criticism - be warned, you might find your thread rapidly deleted
GT you are posting old news
and you are wasting your time posting it here anyway really, nobody reads this in the UK (or very few anyway)
you need to go to the UK site (http://uk.advfn.com, go to Free BB). If there are problems logging on, find your Account Number under "Settings" here on IH, prefix the number with "ih_" and log in in the UK. Then you can post.
I would have expected ADVFN to have immediately suspended someone who has charged with these offences. I would say not acting looks a bit strange.
However, I guess there's a lot of info we don't know yet - it's not yet out. I believe the alleged offences took place before ADVFN owned IH? Perhaps ADVFN has already performed due diligence? Just speculating.
Reading between the lines I reckon there might be a few unexpected twists and turns to the story. We will see. I certainly see it as a potential serious problem to ADVFN. So far the market is not worried (the initial news is out).
But as "clem" seemed to be hinting at, it may be an isolated case within a much larger organisation. My feeling is we shouldn't reach conclusions just yet.
i am aware of that, but it is not normally sent/communicated/logged as far as i'm know
best to access the local sites as follows:
http://uk.advfn.com
http://br.advfn.com
http://de.advfn.com
otherwise the system seems to auto-detect your computer's locale/geographical logon, and routes you appropriately
cookies also cause a lot of problems too, sometimes going back to the UK site for instance I get logged in as ih_nnnnnnn (nnnnnn = my IH customer number), sometimes I end up with IH header and UK content
with respect "it's common" is a bit different to what some people seem to be saying i.e. the Patriot Act requires that a person (household, company?) always has the same IP.
In my experience, in Europe at least, even for broadband there are not enough IPs to go around - so disconnect from the net for a few minutes or hours - then reconnect - and you end up with a new IP address.
IP addresses never change?
IP addresses can be logged and traced via the ISP. However, you are saying all US ISPs allocate the same IP to the same person each time a connection is made? I am surprised.
IP addresses generally change regularly. They don't identify the individual.
errrr... what happens if the IP changes?
perhaps it was wrong of me to refer to "teacup storms", indeed the charges are very serious
but i was really referring to the style of Clem's post - and i have seen one or two of these over the years - quite honestly i would not expect anything different
basically, on the bulletin boards the initial posting zeal tends to wear off after "an event" and eventually things gradually return to normal as people exhaust themselves posting the same stuff over and over after a few days - so at least one part of the storm will blow itself out after a little while anyway - so i reckon, as a manager, the best course of action is "wait a few days" perhaps?
Clem posts something: it obviously won't be enough to answer any of the questions (because obviously he cannot say much at the moment anyway).
Clem doesn't say anything: he gets shot down anyway.
there's no way of winning at the moment - so why not talk about TV, Films, Talk Shows?
some selling today (down 2%), but pretty much as one would expect after the massive rise recently
company year end is end of June, results are usually released in October - with a bit of luck the recent Matt scandal will have boosted subs, page views and ad click throughs - in time to feed through to the bottom line
ever the optimist
Clem is certainly smart.
And Clem's statement was the typical arrogant high level biz statement you would expect from any manager who's weathered a few teacup storms in his time.
Obviously he can't say much. But is hinting this isn't such a big issue as many (quite rightly) think. Shareprice action in the UK says it all - after a massive rise recenty, there is no action
I'm putting my 2 cents worth over here because this board is too busy:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=1498
I reckon lawsuits are possible too. But given Clem's fairly relaxed statement yesterday, I don't they will clobber the firm too heavily. And might it not be the other way around, ADVFN might go after those who have abused the boards? Money has been retrieved I believe from the alleged culprits?
Lot's of possibilities.
The fact that Matt is still apparently around suggests that this has all been known about for a long time (perhaps even 2 years ago). So in that sense it's business as usual.
Don't want to be seen to be defending the firm just because I have a few shares in it though. I would like to hear noises from the firm about professionality & ethics, due diligence, employee trading etc. soon to minimise risks going forward.
ADVFN price opened unchanged this morning. I don't currently see a rush for the door.
thank you Generic, this explains it:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/replies.aspx?msg=36807221
I started off as Tomkin then a few months later the ADVFN_ turned up.
lol - i hold shares in ADVFN, have done for years
I am one of ADVFN's heaviest critics - they banned me from posting in the UK once because I was against the purchase of iHub when they were trying to raise money, irony of ironies eh?
I will attempt to get my name changed, the "ADVFN_" wasn't my idea.
No i am not an employee of ADVFN - the "ADVFN_" was prepended to my name without my knowledge or consent - i moaned about this on the ADVFN Q&A's board but got no response.
no i can't, seems a typical Clem reply though, no surprises there
Clem's response seemed reasonable as a message to those worried about the possible closure of iHub.
I could only speculate as to why Matt has (apparently) been kept on. Perhaps they want to see what PMs turn up? Who knows? Perhaps there is some cooperation going on? It looks like they know what they are doing, and no doubt they will have taken advice. Sure there is some logic to it somewhere.
How important is iHub to the overall ADVFN strategy anyway?
Price in the US and UK has not moved over the last couple of trading days. For market price check here:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=1498
markets are rarely logical - iHub is important to ADVFN but only generates a small amount of total revenue
SEC has not asked for iHUB to be closed down
market has not reacted to the news
an unfortunate incident but i hope it won't hurt the growth story