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Even as they were hauling Charles Ponzi off to a Boston jail, his die-hard supporters tried to stop the officers, claiming he had been unfairly railroaded and that they had the wrong man. [Sound familiar?}
Ponzi's investors only lost $20M, compared to Wave, nearly half a billion down the rathole.
Ponzi's comment at the end of his days? From Wiki...
Ponzi granted one last interview to an American reporter, telling him, "Even if they never got anything for it, it was cheap at that price. Without malice aforethought I had given them the best show that was ever staged in their territory since the landing of the Pilgrims! It was easily worth fifteen million bucks to watch me put the thing over."
Wonder how little Stevie Wonder and BS Billy S view their fine times at the head of Wave? Maybe they enjoyed putting on the show, too.
Clap, clap.
Blue
Koog: We are both right. In the early days of this board, one of the cult leaders was the moderator. He fled more than one site because of deletions not allowed and restored.
So, yes, while he was running the board, virtually all of my posts were rejected almost instantly after I posted as were many of us blocked and banned.
And yes, as Moneybegone noted, that same man single-handedly, tried to get almost every contrarian booted from all Wave boards, by serially complaining about "attacks," when it was nothing of the kind.
But lately, I have had very few complaints about this board. In the past, when a message was removed, I usually could figure out which one of the 'Wave express train to Chap 7' leaders had complained yet again.
The board that disappeared, it is my understanding, did so, again after serial complaints from this same cult leader intent on blocking all but the rosy view of Wave. The Board's owner, was fed up with all the complaints emanating from the Wave boards mainly from the same guy or his co-conspirators, so the owner took them all down.
This remains the most open Wave board I'm acquainted with, even given its history.
Best wishes--Blue
Intuitive: Maybe you remember when several folks who worked in the security sector posted about Wave's technology?
Instead of welcoming folks who knew what they were talking about, they were banned by the cult leaders for disagreeing with the Wave myth of uber superiority, best in class, first mover, etc etc.
There were a lot of ordinary folks cheering the blocking of posts by these security specialists. Why? Because Wave was such a blatant sham of a scam, it could not withstand the most shallow scrutiny.
The blame goes both ways, IMO. Investors were 'steered' the wrong way every time and still they kept faith with the leaders who were wrong and costing them so much money.
At the same time, this board, for instance was open to the publishing of contrary facts, accurate analysis, and even negative opinions of Wave.
So the real info on Wave was pretty much out there. Those who held on until the end, were listening only to the pretty story being peddled by leaders paid to steer investors the wrong way.
There was wholesale deception for sure, but the other half of that equation is the naivete and gullibility of those who kept buying shares of Wave, despite its infinitely expanding timeline, the serial postponement of scheduled successes and the constantly broken deadlines for profitability.
There were also plenty of just-for-me greedy grabs by the execs, as well as unwarranted "guaranteed bonuses, equal to half the CEO's salary". Backbreaking nepotism was tolerated and excused, while Wave struggled to stay afloat.
Yes, there were plenty of lies told about Wave's imminent 'success' but there was also a ready cadre of investors willing to believe the unbelievable, when it came to Wave. Some of the excuses and rationalizations for failures were so far-fetched, or involved stacking long and impossible odds on top of long and impossible odds, then multiplying by infinity.
As success drifted further from Wave each quarter, the creative excuses for the slippage, strained at the very bounds of credulity. Each failure was greeted with an even bigger and more outrageous lie.
The loss of Dell 'didn't really matter' [even though Dell was responsible for the majority of Wave's revenue].
The entire scam rested on a gossamer-thin thread requiring one to suspend all logic, be blind to every known investing principle, and to turn a deaf ear to those who told the truth about Wave. In fact, call them liars.
The heavy censorship kept the real picture of Wave from getting out among believers who depended on the filtered boards for news and progress. They simply did not get to read those who posted precisely why Wave was not succeeding, but instead, was falling further and further behind--even though the quarterly reports showed how lacking in substance the Wave myth actually was.
For 26 years, Wave flailed and failed at business, unless one agrees the true business was sucking in investors on a BS version of any number of get rich quick schemes. At extracting money from shareholders, Wave was a world beater, Olympic champions at fraud.
Blue
Koog: Excellent advice, great post. Not only was Wave's technology and tools complete crap, but the chief salesman was an arrogant, ignorant slob, hard to like--even in small doses.
I have heard from three insiders who personally witnessed Steven blowing done deals by strange behavior and sudden ultimatums issued to big tech co. reps.
I revealed in a series of posts how Steven queered the very first Intel inquiries into Wave by his aggressive behavior resulting in Intel having almost no further contact for more than 5 years.
This info was pooh-poohed by the Grand Loopie-Groupie Pooh-bahs, even though the source was impeccable. Of course they knocked it down--accurate info indicating incompetence and perhaps some psychopathy thrown in, contradicted their made-up claims of Steven's "genius."
Interesting isn't it, some of the 'leaders' assisting in the creation and maintenance of the Wave Fairy Tale of Riches for All, claimed on the boards they lost "huge" amounts. Strange isn't it, one of these leaders bought a new car after the Wave collapse.
Shareholders, IMO, you were had in grand fashion by a family skilled in intimating wealth and wisdom, but to whom careful examination of lawsuit records reveals a pattern of self-dealing, rich promises and lots of BS filagreed throughout everything else.
As if that wasn't enough--Poseurs pretending to create something out of nothing--you were also had by a number of your own kind, after a fashion.
They claimed to be just like you, only they had real inside info. It was amazing. And, untrue. But you fell for it every time. These were your leaders, leading you astray every time. After each of the many Wave stumbles and bumbles, they were there to reassure you those apparent messes were not what they appeared, or if they were, they were irrelevant to Wave's eventual success.
So, shareholders got caught in a pincer movement. The Wave execs lied their toes off and the cult leaders verified it. Most shareholders spent their entire time in the stock believing the big breakthrough was coming any day--right up and through the last reverse split and the final bankruptcy. They believed to the end!
And in the meantime, when nothing was happening except the fall of the share price, or yet another reverse split, the Loop Group always got some prized 'intelligence' of a big breakthrough to come right at that precise down-low moment.
You doubled down on that 'info' because it came directly from Steven or Peter, via the Loop Group. Had to be true.
Only problem was, the info was never true. Never, not once. But the cult leaders had answers for that too. What difference does a little time make when you are soon going to be as wealthy as Warren Buffet next quarter? Don't look at the share price, think of how you will spend all that money coming your way.
Yes, the Wave execs lied repeatedly and the cult leaders held your hands and told you not to worry, not important--just wait for the big turnaround. The critics are know-nothings 'trying to pry shares out of strong hands.' We'll filter your info about Wave for you, too. No need to listen to those nattering nabobs of negativism*.
Shareholders never had a chance. Once the smell of money was in the water, the sharks schooled up for the feeding frenzy. Half a billion bucks reduced to chum and fishbones on the bottom after 26 years of parasitic infestation and predatory bloodsucking. R.I.P.
Blue
*said by Spiro Agnew, Republican VP USA, just before he was charged with bribery and corruption for taking $5,000/wk pay-offs in the White House and resigned in shame.
Yes, exactly. And in retrospect, the entire Wave saga was like the bizarro episode of Seinfeld where George, the eternal loser, goes against his instincts and does the exact opposite of what he usually does.
In Wave, there was this strange reversal of polarity. The ones telling the lies about Wave claimed to be the only ones with the truth.
The ones who rightfully smelled a rat, who told the truth--they were called liars by paid liars.
One wonders which is the greater mystery? How could the cult leaders be 100% wrong on every issue over 20 years? Even greater is why the followers didn't seem to notice how horrible the leaders's advice was.
One would think, after a few consecutive bad calls, one would stop listening to the leaders. That is not what happened.
The followers had the bit in their mouths, crazed looks in their eyes as they kept buying more Wave. No matter how bad the performance, they always doubled down.
The Wave myth of fantastic riches held a far stronger lure than the boring quarterly reports showing the growing stack of barrels of red ink.
It seems the worse the company performed as measured by the quarterly reports, the more fanciful were the cover stories about the coming cornucopia of cash real soon.
But the strangest part of that entire weird Wave experience were the attacks on anyone who questioned the myth, the men or their methods. In other words, any negative posts about Wave were removed, with the full approval of the followers who agreed they needed a "clean" board without any critics or criticism.
It became a closed system. True believers were in; questioners and non-believers were always out. That way, they could hear only what they wanted to hear.
There were so many slogans slung around without a gram of truth in them, like the "valuable" patents, "first mover advantage," Wave has no debt, disruptive technology, only one in its class with a *.*, etc.
There were always many more false paths with Wave than there were true paths. Not sure there ever were any true paths for shareholders, other than the one to the shearing shed.
Blue
WWizard: Steven did in fact lie his butt off about profitability since 2003 and many other untruths beside--but that does not relieve the investor of the obligation to do due diligence on any investment.
And when news broke of yet another obstacle, delay, or distraction from obtaining profitability, many loyal investors went along with the excuses, rationalizations and improbabilities proposed, and in fact, some cheered these halts, diversions and distractions as proof of the coming tsunami.
One of the first questions any defense atty would ask a Wave investor on the witness stand, would be: "Did you not see the quarterly reports, showing losses increasing and the probability of profitability receding fast?"
Mr. W Wizard, yes, you were lied to by two Wave CEO's and one Wave CFO, but the really crazy thing is the quarterly reports told a different story from the fantasy-filled, riches soon, be patient, kind of lies told to you by cult leaders who always interpreted disastrous signs as positive for investors, when they were the exact opposite. Every time!
It is akin, IMO, to someone who dons a bathing suit and plunges into a pond without reading the many warning and danger signs of broken glass, snapping turtles, poisonous snakes, alligators and toxic waste in the water. Then, when the inevitable injuries ensue, the swimmer wants to sue someone. Difficult.
I believe accurate information was contained in the quarterly reports. Many chose not to believe the actual results and instead embraced the invented narrative, claiming the long years without a profit were the surest sign of riches to come real soon.
So, when prudent investors would be walking away, many Wave investors ignored, at their peril, the clear signs of a business in a long, slow, decline that could only end in a death spiral. With encouragement from their leaders, they doubled down on a dying business, throwing good money after bad, beyond the point of reason.
The executives were bleeding Wave dry, putting all their friends and relatives on the payroll, taking home huge bonuses while the share price tanked, but the Wave leaders asked, "Will any of that matter [Founders Shares, the Safend bobbles, cancelled CC, auditors quitting, three reverse splits, Dell's pull-out, GM's failure to re-up, etc] when Wave hits $100 a share?"
Steven may have been the architect of this half billion dollar fraud, but the people who put up the money, including myself, should have known better, because the real results of Wave's business dealings were available 4 times a year.
After 26 years in business without a penny's profit, with the losses widening with every quarter, some refused to look at the ugly reality of Wave and instead, chose to believe the beautiful story spun by the Wave spinsters who were in cahoots with mgt, promising a quick and magical turnaround.
IMO, you would have an uphill legal fight to prove deception, because the Rio-type-polluted harbor warned all of us that words like 'may' and 'if' were optimistic qualifiers not necessarily true.
You would also have to defend, IMO, how and why you willfully ignored the official CC reports showing the true state of Wave and instead, relied on Loop Group fantasies, in parallel with Steven's perma-optimistic BS.
If you and other investors want to find the culprit who ran off with your money--look in the mirror, is my suggestion. I think the game is over, the fraudsters won and there is precious little recourse, IMO.
But then, my advice was soundly ignored all along since the early oughties, when I started wising up. Of course the Wave cult could tolerate no questions as to why the launch was so late in coming--and I was derided as a crank upset over big losses.
It is enraging and it seems as if no one should be able to get away with what Wave and its accomplices did to their investors.
Best wishes for recovery--Blue
Thank you for your correction.
But you said of my posts, "not to interrupt your rant." If memory serves, you wrote posts about the technical aspects of Wave, relevant only if the products were selling. They were not, but you persisted, almost until the end.
Many of us wonder about the value of investor-supplied 'interpretations' or 'analysis'. In retrospect, some of us suspect that kind of benign interpretation of neutral or negative facts helped keep other shareholders from selling, because technically, it looked like a slam dunk, only it was a miss as big as they come. Light years. Galaxies.
Not only did all this amazing tech not sell over many years and even more attempts, it was sneered at by professionals.
Why did some not only believe the spinners of harmful fantasies, they jumped in and claimed expertise they did not have, to help keep the fleecing machine running by lending credibility?
The main questions about Wave were never answered. Those questions were deflected, or if that didn't work, there was always distraction, or an even bigger lie about some mysterious monster contract breaking through the fog to take all the believers home in style.
Why, didn't Wave's products sell enough to make Wave a going business? Answer: Because they were clunky pieces of crap.
Everything else was just meadow dressing to hide the most important fact of all to investors. There were so many ready to mislead, to play the Judas goat--and they did, willingly.
It was all scripted, the classic con game. Peter Sprague got it right when he drunkenly said to me after a CC, "Some look at this company and see a pile of gold. Some see a pile of sh*t."
I don't think what the shareholders got was measured in carats, but rather, in plant fertilizer value.
Blue
Cypher: My source tells me the company buying up the assets is one noted for buying 'distressed' businesses, cleaning them up and readying them for sale--just like you said.
Their record is actually pretty good.
But, like you, I am so cynical about anything connected to Wave, either the old sucker machine that ran so well for so long, or a company buying Wave's ghosts. There never was much of anything there.
Solms was only interested in the TPM 2.0 and bet everything on it. Meanwhile, Safend, Wave's much-bumbled purchase, was actually starting to make revenue. But Solms pushed that aside and directed all efforts to the Wave TPM.
IMO, it was a disastrous decision that formed the bright red cherry on top of a massive sundae of unbroken disasters. He was as inept and dishonest as Steven Sprague was, perhaps even worse.
Solms's military mind could not engage in simple business basics. Like, don't trash your one performing asset in favor of some potential gold strike far down the road.
But like Sprague, Solms lied freely, citing traction he claimed he could see starting to form. Clouds in his coffee, nothing more.
Wave may have been set up as a legit company to start with, but once going, it was sure operated with the sure hand of a small town carnival charlatan. "Step right up, place your money and win a really valuable prize."
And, like flies to honey, it drew in the rubes like myself with money in our hands, jostling to be the first to buy boodles of shares, doubling down every time the Wave rumor mill looped out another big dream, erasing and replacing the former dream that died on the vine.
That enormous flow of money, energy and support from the shareholders, IMO, convinced SKS, it didn't matter if Wave was ever successful. They could string the shareholders along with just empty promises, each more grand than the last.
And the cult 'leaders' approved every stinking, stinging scam, or told us it wouldn't matter when we were rich. When? Oh? happening soon--don't be out of this stock over the weekend--you might miss the rocket launch.
So many friends rode it down to the crash on the rocky, sandy floor of Death Valley, thinking any moment this flightless bird was going to sprout wings and take all of us shareholders to the moon.
The alleged big champagne party in Vegas was part of the fishing lure. People who worked hard for little money actually thought they soon would be buying flutes of Cristal for each other, or bathing in it.
Lovely dream while they slept. LearJets, yachts, Tahiti vacations. Nightmare upon awakening.
Shareholders had less chance of making money from Wave than a passerby has of guessing the right card in a street scam, called 3-card monte. [Perhaps the derivation of that word, mountebank--came from that popular big city scam.
[Mountebank: a person who deceives others, especially in order to trick them out of their money; a charlatan.
synonyms: swindler, charlatan, confidence trickster, fraud, fraudster, impostor, trickster, hoaxer;
______
After 27 years, nearly half a billion gone, the stunned supporters are asking what happened? What happened was they fell for a long-running scheme, dependent on shareholders trading their hard cash for lies and empty promises. It worked. The Wave execs are all rich; the shareholders broke and broken.
Blue
Well, there is someone buying. One would have to ask why, if there is nothing valuable left.
I tend to share your opinion that the place was cleaned out before Bankruptcy was declared and there was little left of value.
But someone thinks the wreckage of Wave can yield something.
Any thoughts?
Blue
From an inside source, Wave may not be completely dead. Past shareholders do not rejoice, however, your share will be nothing.
Bill Solms's most grievous mistake, among many others, like lying his butt off about prospects and traction--was to pin all of Wave's future hopes on the virtual smart card VSC 2.0.
It was a disaster, comparable to, if Ford Motor Co. had bet it all on the launch of the 1958 Edsel--just as big a disaster*, except the Edsel did not take down Ford--they recovered.
What I have been told is there are forces now who are buying up Wave's assets in bankruptcy and will attempt to make something out of some of Wave's other projects and assets.
If these attempts result in some kind of success, previous shareholders will not be entitled to a dime of it.
__________
* Ford lost $250 million on the Edsel, estimated at $2.25 billion in today's dollars. One theory was the grill looked like part of the female anatomy. But that was just one problem, not the main one. The public had been hyped to expect a super-car, but instead, Ford produced an ordinary car--an ugly one at that.
And when the product did not match the hype, customers stayed away en masse. [Does this sound at all familiar?]
From the man who runs the Edsel website: "I learned that a company should never allow its spokespersons to build up enthusiasm for an unseen, unproven product," he says.
In this case, it was Wave's CEO(s), CFO, and the cult leaders providing the no-limit, who-wants-to-be-a-billionaire fantasy hype about Wave's potential return to investors.
Only no one except us critics said how the money was going into the pockets of Wave's executives and their family members, rather than into the pockets of the investors who made it all possible. "You'll get yours later," they were told, "just have patience." [Wait until the bankruptcy?]
Blue
Bar: It was deadly for one longtime Wavoid who at one point owned a million shares and would not listen to those of us who cautioned him.
About the time of the bankruptcy, this Wave investor called one of the 'leaders' of the cult and asked if there was any news. "No" was the answer. A short time after hanging up from that call, he took his own life, leaving a whole family grieving.
I am sure there were others. I have had three friends die while waiting to receive their cascade of riches from Wave. Their deaths were not related to Wave, rather it was the 20 years of waiting for Wave, while serious pathogens worked their deadly way into them and brought them down.
I seriously doubt there will be much in the way of further revelations about what happened. I think the lawsuit is dead in the water, IMO.
Those who took so much from so many, based only on blatant lies, will get away with it, it seems.
It is a cautionary tale--Blue
Alea: I agree whole-heartedly about the funding questions. But in the larger sense, there was much deception from the get-go. It came from mgt/exec office and from the so-called 'leaders,' who actively misled.
No anger or angst from this quarter about the rejection of us critics by the so-called believer crowd.
They made their choices and we made ours. It turns out, our info, based on facts, inside sources and the company's history was far more accurate.
Personally, I think you are wrong about the critics crying crocodile tears for the misled. I had family and friends I brought into Wave.
Some of them were so disgusted by the Wave antics/corruption/lies--they sold in time to only lose most of their investment.
Others stayed in, hoping to the very end, things would change. They didn't and they lost it all.
I have genuine sympathy and empathy for those who trusted sweet-talking liars over the bleak reports out every quarter.
As for being personally attacked--I consider the source and it doesn't ruffle my feathers. Some of the underhanded tactics did, though.
But it is all water under the bridge. Wave is a tremendous case study in the persistence of hope in the absence of any verifying factors--in fact, the verifying factors pointed straight down--not up. And as you noted, there was contradictory evidence every quarter.
But basically, I do agree with your view, with the above exceptions noted.
Anytime hard-working men and women are fleeced and have their life's savings taken from them on the basis of outright lies--that is sad, regardless of how they got to that point, or even their own naivete. No joy here; no dancing on Wave's grave.
Best wishes--Blue
Bar: You raise an interesting point. I believe the maximum one can deduct on stock market losses is $3,000/year, no matter how much was lost.
That is a puny sum beside the monumental losses in Wave. An older, good friend of mine lost $60,000 in Wave and he knows he will die before he can reap the full tax loss benefit at $3K/yr.
We read sad posts of confessed losses of up to $600K and more. At $3K/year write off, that shareholder would need 200 years to be able to write it all off.
If a Wave shareholder was to have diversified,[rare!] any big gains in other stocks can be discounted against the losses in Wave. Not sure if there is a limit. Perhaps Player knows.
The saddest part is these shareholders who believed most fervently, were the ones most grievously affected financially by all the lying the leaders did about imminent success--or any success at all--it remained elusive to the end because it was all based on BS.
We have seen some of the comments from those stunned in disbelief Wave was going bankrupt, just when they thought they were on their way to unfettered wealth.
Thinking they were going to be able to retire at any moment, kept them happy on the long downhill ride with Wave over many years. The reality has hit them hard--they will work until they die, and even then, will probably die in debt.
And what about the leaders who continually promised such bright returns, making up out of whole cloth a myth of unlimited wealth--touting imaginary connections, telling the followers good things were coming soon and don't even bother listening to the lying critics who constantly were trying to bring down the stock.
What happened to those leaders? Why, mysteriously, they have gone dark and have zero interest in finding out how one family and two sets of executives hollowed out a company over two decades, taking with them nearly half a billion dollars with their invaluable help in giving their followers exactly the wrong advice every single time.
They told them how to vote for every single management proposal that favored the executives, not the shareholders. They guaranteed there would be no reverse split--we had three of them. Wave couldn't go bankrupt, because "it had no debt!" [how did that work out?]
They held SKS out as a genius--a man so illiterate, he could neither write, nor speak a coherent sentence--embarrassing both the company and himself every time he held a quarterly conference call, sent a tweet or made a post.
They applauded every single empty PR as proof positive Wave was on its way--and it was--to the bottom.
They minimized the rampant nepotism as inconsequential, when it was draining precious resources from the company straining to stay solvent. They excused sickening greed grabs like "Founders Shares" and many other grabs by the Wave executives who were reaping huge unearned 'performance' bonuses, even as Wave was foundering.
And when SKS hired a string of phony bought-and-paid-for 'analysts' who repeated SKS's constant lies of big things happening soon--why these leaders cheered those lies as though they were legitimate and the expectations realistic.
And when the reference case with the pizza chain was exposed as a fraud by a Wavoid posing as an independent evaluator of Wave's products, even the leaders knew it was a fraud and removed evidence from the boards of that.
Every single bad thing that happened to Wave along the way--and there were hundreds of bad things--were either excused, rationalized away, deemed irrelevant, ignored, or simply lied about.
Take the Safend purchase for example. Wave did not do its Due Diligence and missed the $4M owed the Israeli Govt. if Safend made money. Embarrassingly, Wave had to cancel a quarterly CC minutes before it was to begin, to restate the financials. And the auditor caught the fact Steven Sprague was being paid $70K more than his salary entitled him to.
What was the reaction from the leaders? They wanted the critics to prove it was an auditor who caught the $70K overpayment, not SKS who 'voluntarily' returned the $70K after the error was caught.
Quite the record isn't it? And now I learn the leader of the infamous Loop Group, of which I once was a member, has defined his working career on LinkedIn as:
Investor
Wave Systems Corp.
1995 – 2016 (21 years)
I wonder how his record of investing compares with most investors in Wave Systems, especially those who followed his many "tips".
Blue
Player 1234: OT--could not answer your PM--I thought happy hour was from 4-6, so I missed you today. Will reply next Friday unless you care to write me at Bleufang at yahoo dot com.
Best wishes--Blue
Nick: Wildman was a true Wave believer. He told me at one time (long ago) he had over a million Wave shares. He apparently called Snackman to ask if there was any news--there was no good news, only bad and worse. This was when the walls were falling in--3rd RS, followed by BK.
Wildman killed himself that afternoon. He left a family. I'm sure they are trying to puzzle out how investing in a stock took their loved one.
That's all I know. Once before, long ago at one of the many Wave low points,, he called me all agitated and impatient and insinuated I knew more than I did about Wave's prosperity schedule. I knew nothing and told him so. He rang off, frustrated. I thought no more of it until I read about his passing at his own hand.
Glad to hear you survived. Did you get out in time or did you get taken big time? I got out a couple of years ago and was glad of it.
Best wishes--Blue
Dreamer, for once, I agree with you. However true your statement is as true as true gets, IMO, it has nothing to do with Wave, nada.
There never was a connection, despite the many hints and insinuations to the contrary. The connection was imaginary, as was the construct of the US Govt killing Wave because the various intel agencies wanted a back door in. It was a tale made up by liars and validated by even bigger liars. And it worked.
If one went through the basic assumptions the most hard-core of the supporters operated upon, maybe one in ten had some semblance to the truth.
Even for those of us used to traveling in strange lands and dark places, Wave was so out there, it was always out of register. It was a bizarre world hovering on some rippling gravity wave, supported by the rising heated air of perma-dream, pumping out cornucopias of riches and tethered to imagination, not reality.
When one tried to grasp its essence, it dissipated quicker than the swamp gas it was tied to in hyperbole. Only true believers could 'see' the golden path past logic and reality, to the vast trove of treasure awaiting each and every shareholder if they only had the'patience' to see it through.
And just when spirits were lowest, they ebbed so far, they hit bottom--at that precise magic moment, a magnificent rumor floated through the highly charged air, crackling with potential. Wave was about to be swept up in the grandest dreams of all...except, the only sweeping was the shareholders fighting over the few crumbs from the real world.
So the marked ones shook upside down their seat cushions, checked pockets of little-worn jackets-- harvesting dimes and quarters to buy more shares.
Some, like the sad, poor and late Wildman had swallowed the dream hook, line, sinker and bobber--he had at one time, a million shares. They were going to be the new billionaires--only 'don't listen to the disgruntled critics who say it is all BS'.
There were real consequences. Wildman, like many, bet it all on a classic con, aided and abetted by those who purported to steer them to the promised land, but were part of the plan to milk the unwary and stuff them full of illusions and wild dreams in return for their hard cash--half a billion bucks worth.
Wavedreamer, you believed. You spent your days searching the Net for Wave connections. And of all the connections you turned up, what has come of any of them? Your convincing arguments?
There's enough to sift through the wreckage and look back from either side of the aisle. Perspective is about all that is left. I don't think any legal action will happen, although it sure should.
Perhaps those most in need of a rich and painful lesson, may actually ask themselves how it went so wrong and wrong for so long.
Blue
Orda: I think you are both right and wrong. Right in the sense our various intel agencies do NOT want hardware-based security and any attempt to create something pretty much unbreakable--gets a visit from those three-letter agencies.
It is pretty much spelled out in "Crypto" by Steven Levy (2001).
And I believe you are wrong about Wave vs NSA. IMO, Wave was not selling its wares well, so the NSA wasn't concerned with them. Had Wave been more successful, I suspect the govt would have been v interested.
IMO, Wave never rose to the threshold of threat because it could not sell. The paranoia about the govt holding Wave down, IMO, was part and parcel of the attempt to deceive. By claiming the govt was responsible for Wave's demise, the blame slithers off the back of where it should reside (Wave) and attaches itself to the govt.
It was a dream, IMO. At best, Wave was a one-ring side-show with nothing compelling to draw in customers. But by conjuring up a story of the US Govt holding back a company that otherwise would have dominated the world, makes Wave seem a lot more important than it actually was.
Talk to someone in the biz and they will tell you the Govt, while no friend of Wave, did nothing to help it fail--Wave handled that task all by itself, with uncharacteristic efficiency.
That's my view. Enjoying the sharp sounds of former Void Leaders clamming up tensely in the wake of the Wave implosion. How many short weeks ago did these same guys give encouragement and "see" a path to prosperity thru the bankruptcy proceedings?
As they say, success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan.
Little Orphan Wavie, waving goodbye to Daddy BigBucks as he flees down the narrow cobblestone alleys, yelling, "Prosperity is just around the corner. One more quarter was all we needed. Damn the gov't and the market that just never 'got it.'"
Blue
Your post and that of Moneybegone are precisely on target.
Those of us critical of Wave and its mgt for many years were not singled out for abuse simply because we disagreed with the "leaders."
Those leaders saw us as a severe threat to their game to keep Wave looking as if it had a chance, when it never did--because of sub-par executives, products no one wanted, and no real business plan to reverse the serial failures.
Yet, many long-shot scenarios were serially connected and piled high in an attempt to show Wave could succeed and was succeeding when the truth was just the opposite--a complete lie.
Not only did the leaders deny the truth of assertions by the critics, they called the critics liars and fabricated many twisted explanations to excuse the lack of sales over many quarters.
IMO, it was much more than distraction. It was a deliberate attempt to paint absolutely nothing, to look like a booming success, using outright lies, improbable happenstance and total distortion--"it just needs time to bloom and when it does, look out! You won't want to miss out on the bonanza."
That message peddled by cynical leaders and some naive gullibles, became the ghost carrot so many investors chased--most of them completely unaware the true facts showed the company was losing more all the time.
But what about the precise predictions and timelines for prosperity and profitability made up by SKS [and Solms] publicly--that never came true? Why didn't the constantly elapsing timelines set by the company trigger a mass exit the way they do in other companies?
Because people with vested interests were busy making up lies and rationalizations, telling shareholders it was phenomenal growth beneath the surface they could not yet see. These leaders claimed a 'pipeline' to the true story.
In time, the alleged bursting 'pipeline' was proven to be as false and as empty as SKS's [2010] and Feeney's [2011] claim of the first quarter of 'profitability in the company's history.'
As events unraveled over the last two years under Solms, the new CEO made profitability and traction claims just as big, just as outrageous and just as untrue as those of SKS & Feeney.
Even after the first set of mgt liars were unmasked & fired [but given a $1M golden parachute], Wave 'leaders' claimed the new set of lies by the new mgt team were true and 'just wait, little ole Wave is going to make us all rich.'
None of this was by accident, IMO. It was a determined conspiracy to defraud Wave investors by making them believe Wave was about to make good on its promise of outrageous riches for shareholders, IMO.
That is why they needed at least a half dozen censored boards to keep the truth out. That's why people who worked in the security industry like Ex-Pat, Greg S and others were immediately discredited, attacked and banned, when their expertise said Wave was not even close to the company it claimed to be.
In fact more than one critic, including those who work in the sector called Wave's products complete crap.
IMO, it was far more than disagreement. I had death threats, my wife and children's names were posted online. I was a particular threat to the Wave dream-myth. I was a prize-winning investigative reporter who had sources inside Wave who told me the truth about what was going on.
Same thing with CPA and all others who strongly disagreed. We were jailed, banned and threatened. One private message to me from one of these leaders said "You don't know who you are dealing with."
The implication was I was in over my head, messing with Mafia-types who might endanger me or my family. Why all this heavy fire-power concentrated on those of us who sought the facts and who no longer believed the fiction?
There was collusion between the company, the Loop Group and the leaders to create a false illusion of prosperity, when the truth was bankruptcy was nearly inevitable, given the leadership and the complete lack of a real plan to profitability when nothing Wave made sold in sustainable numbers.
IMO, there is enough critical mass to warrant a criminal or securities investigation, but I believe it will never happen, because those who might pursue justice, would be terribly embarrassed for failing to heed the real warning signs; for believing liars, when disproving facts were readily available [once a quarter]; and for repeatedly trusting people who were never right about one thing concerning Wave's.
The evidence needed is available, but I doubt folks are anxious to reveal their own naivete, their own gross failing to read quarterly reports instead of believing those who said the numbers hid tremendous 'stealth' growth they couldn't see.
It was these same leaders who defended those plundering the company with lies like calling SKS a 'genius'!? He was a genius, when he could not put a coherent thought together, instead, mashing a bunch of buzz-words together in an incomprehensible stew of bad grammar, misspellings and tortured syntax to 'prove' Wave was rapidly gaining ground when in truth, it was losing ever more.
No, IMO, this was no accident that took half a billion from the pockets of working men and women, leaving many with no retirement, lost homes and a future of working until they dropped in the harness. There was a plan and they executed it perfectly to our regret.
But the most incredible part for me, was when Wave finally imploded. Who did the defrauded turn to for answers and more 'leadership' in the aftermath of the 3rd R/S and following bankruptcy? Why they turned to the same folks who help perpetrate the depletion of their life's savings.
It was only after these same leaders showed zero interest in finding how Wave turned out exactly opposite of what was long promised again and again--that the suspicion began to arise that perhaps there really were wolves in sheep's clothing mewing right beside them, mimicking their own sounds of pain.
Investigation or examination? Gosh, after spending tens of thousands of hours examining Wave and posting about all the positive events, the incredible technology, how Wave was the leader in the space--when the bottom fell out, they suddenly and inexplicably lost all interest in the why of it. Wow!
You don't have to be Sherlock Homes or Doc Watson to put those facts together. No deep thinking required.
Just like SKS, Feeney, Solms and crew--they will get away with their ill-gotten gains.
My sympathies for all who were robbed because they trusted the wrong people and were told by them, not to trust the people they could have and should have listened to.
Seems like the Wave"clean boards" were just as dirty as just about everything else associated with Wave--the fake reference case, the repeating and changing sets of fake 'analysts,' hired to repeat the CEO's lies; the hundreds of PRs appearing to show progress but proved as useless, unreal, and without revenue as everything else about Wave.
The 'clean boards' helped keep the truth at bay until the scoundrels could abscond with shareholders' money.
Yes, they got away with it and there is no appetite, IMO, for pinning the tail on the donkey, because the donkey was us.
Blue
The lone bugler has mounted the hill at last, playing the notes of Taps,"Day is done, Gone the sun."
The sun is gone for those who thought they had tapped into some special stock nobody knew about and it would make them rich.
Gone the sun from the half billion dollars Wave took from investors--many of them working people who bet their golden years on Wave. So sad, some of the last messages before the other board was shut down.
Wave remains fascinating. In long, long retrospect there was precious little buttressing the wild claims over the two decades Wave extracted hundreds of millions of dollars and wasted every penny through ineptness, greed and corruption. Big promises and even bigger lies were told by Wave CEOs, and CFOs.
The facts were certainly plain enough each quarter when quarterly revenue guesses were for multi-millions while often actual revenue was in the tens of thousands--far, far below expectations.
I wonder why the crowd continued to follow folks who led them wrong at every turn and continued to listen to those whose wild claims were contradicted by the paltry revenue results year after year.
Beyond that, many actually believed that the ones telling the truth about Wave, were the real liars trying to bring down a company. So much misdirection, outright lying, nepotism, ineptness--yet it was all excused away by a few folks and believed by many.
It was a weird adventure, for sure. I do think it is finally over.
Best of luck all--Blue signing off
For conspiracy theorists only
Two other Wave boards disappeared into the ether as criticism of one of the former leaders was posted on one board. Coinkydink? No, IMO.
Blue
Alea not sure I agree w your remark about the government's role in promoting TPMs.
IMO, it is the market almost always doing the leading, with the govt. following.
Rarely does the govt set the standards. Like with USB, MPG, Underwriters Laboratories--they are all private standards organizations. They were not set by the govt.
Trusted computing had its own organization and no matter whether the blame lay on the Government's inertia, or in the ineffective efforts of the TC groups--it was a failure. I, for one, do not blame the govt. and IMO, it is a false argument to say the govt held Wave down because it wanted a back door.
IMO, I don't think it ever got to that stage. I don't think Wave ever really had the govt's ear. Maybe there isn't just one ear to pitch to. But when Solms came in, he laughed at earlier efforts to court the govt.
However, let it be noted, he failed even faster than SKS did.
The basic problem with Wave, IMO, the technology was not good enough for the market and if that wasn't handicap enough, the chief Wave salesman, SKS, had an arrogant manner not pleasant to be around.
So with a crappy product and an annoying, half illiterate salesman who had no idea of what sales were all about--Wave never really had a chance.
Despite the reams written about the brilliant Wave technology, it was not marketable either because of low quality, bad salesmanship, or both--Wave's failure to sell came not as a surprise.
Neither did the expiring Dell deal; the GM deal not renewed; and the precious Price Waterhouse Coopers contract with all its international tentacles--none of them spelled good for Wave.
The dying Dell deal was laughed off as nothing to worry about; the GM deal's expiration with no re-up of the contract was met with, "prove GM didn't re-sign with Wave;" and the lack of revenue provided by PwC was excused away by bologna excuses and rationalizations that denied there was little, if any revenue attached to this "major, mega deal."
But underneath it all, a crappy product being sold by an untrustworthy and unlikable fellow was hardly the basis for success, no matter the excuses and rationalizations. Hard to overcome. But, IMO, the govt was least culpable in this disaster.
Blue
It's official, as of now:
______
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 25
NOTIFICATION OF REMOVAL FROM LISTING AND/OR REGISTRATION UNDER SECTION 12(b) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934.
Commission File Number 000-24752
Issuer: WAVE SYSTEMS CORP
Exchange: NASDAQ Stock Market LLC
_________
Blue
Reading elsewhere, there are some interesting trends developing, IMO, involving wonder about the leaders who assisted the followers so ably in separating shareholders from their money again and again, all the while telling them the good times were just ahead.
First, there is the acknowledgement elsewhere there may have been "wolves among the sheep" passing themselves off as fellow suffering sheep.
Now, ex post facto, Solms is being excoriated as unfit, incompetent and possibly morally challenged, given his positive statements about turnaround, profitability, big deals so close they could smell them, hundreds [or dozens--he said both] of pilots that are sure to turn into deals with revenue.
Ironic isn't it? At the time, Solms enjoyed almost unbroken support from the devout followers until the very end--except from the critics posting where criticism was allowed [here].
The wolves among sheep discussion is the one I find most interesting.
Long after the fact, there is public wonderment of how they were led astray again and again by the same people.
This is one thread I hope they pursue, and may finally disgorge the masked ones who acted as one of them with only their best interests at heart, who somehow was always pointing the wrong way, always interpreting bad signs as good signs, always directing the discussions away from criticism and any negativity, even when the facts justified questions about events and actions.
Wave has always had a thug component. Now, those who were fleeced get to look at fellow 'fleecee' complainants for the first time with questions they were never permitted to ask.
A most fruitful field of endeavor, in my opinion. Make a game of it--call it The Great Wave Game. Spot the thug with the faux sheep-skin, pointing the wrong way.
Blue
Does it come as a surprise, after scamming many working people out of their life's savings, they skipped out on the rent (Calif.) and left everybody hanging?
Did Wave not behave true to form--pure self-dealing at the end. They knew there would be suits, so by saying nothing, it gives the other side not much to work with.
Lt. Col. Ret'd William Solms proved every bit the preening, yellow snake I called him after his braggadocio began evaporating before hitting the ground.
On another board very early on, I called him Chickensheit Bill, only it was spelled correctly.
Wave did not disappoint in its ending--in many ways it was every bit the equal of the long-running scam [WAVX, the company] pulled on so many, by a coterie of lying plunderers, aided by a manipulative few.
Wave's curtain call was a masterpiece in and of itself. It was almost as it was happening slo-mo, in real time, elsewhere the signs of certain doom were misinterpreted as proof good things were happening.
In the entire bizarro world of Wave I witnessed first hand and up close for 20 years, the Wave explosion at the end caught so many by surprise.
To me, it was almost as if were totally predictable, if not preordained. It is much like if one were riding down the highway back in the day and the commercial roadside signs in rhyme would end, spelling "Burma-Shave"--that's how it seemed to me. Instead, as we passed the "Reverse Split #3" and the "Bankruptcy, Chapter 7" one expected to see "WAVX:RIP".
Strange days abound for Wave followers. The bare, bleached bones of the hollowed-out company are being picked over by the jackals, hyenas and vultures--all looking for any scrap overlooked by those higher on the food chain.
One wonders did those who slithered last out the door to the Wave executive suite scam the bridge loaners and all the other creditors? One has to admire consistent professionalism. One expects the bridge-loaners will end up with a big bag of nothing.
Wave's enigmatic and mysterious presence continues past death and through the bankruptcy autopsy and the coroner's hearing the enraged shareholders hope to have.
The elusive answers will be plucked out one by one, like cactus spines. Someone will still have to categorize and collate the many pieces of evidence--should any be found.
Good luck to them finding justice in Wave's ashes.
Blue
What about New Wave? He's listed as a creditor.
Blue
Alea: I'm in complete agreement with your statements. I was not focusing on the overlooked financials, the excused elastic timelines, the disappearing deals, nepotism and all the rest of it--I was just listening to the stories of dead dreams.
It made me so sad, working people were fleeced so mercilessly. Yes, I recognize their willful overting of the eyes to all of the plainly deceptive statements at official events--that they played a key role in their own financial disaster.
Nevertheless, I can still feel for the folks who were led in the wrong direction again and again--and kept asking the same folks steering them wrong, which way should they go.
I get that. Still, it is a human tragedy in one case, to work nearly 20 years, thinking at the end, there would be a pile of money waiting so it would be time to kick back and enjoy life.
Only now, after 20 years, the promised millions have gone where so many Bernie Madoff and Charles Ponzi dollars went.
No matter how much they contributed to their own losses, there is the heartbreak of realizing from here out, there would be no end to work--at 50 years old to realize you are going to drop in the harness. No respite. No kicking back.
There were a lot of blue collar supporters, craftsmen, construction folks--many of them have physically hard jobs. Imagine thinking you will have to work until you die.
As for the late Awk, he got the technology, but never got the company. He seemed to have had trouble separating on one hand what a brilliant idea it was, from the source of that idea--a rapacious, grasping greed that overreached everything.
Yes, you are right. It was always my argument, if it is so brilliant, why isn't it selling? Some of the excuses given were so laughable--like the Thai floods, or the first guaranteed quarter of profitability [there were two such claims a year apart]--when you put it all together, it was a scam plain and simple.
It may have started out legit, but once SKS came aboard, his lies lifted the stock and then crashed it. He was known as a pathological liar inside the company!
Solms was another lying blowhard with not the stones to tell shareholders the truth--he has slithered away, taking his loot with him, not a backward glance.
Maybe justice will come. I doubt it. It sure doesn't seem to have gotten off to a great start. But it is early. Interesting to read the comments of folks once so certain Wave was it, now angry at all the deceit and treachery, particularly at the end.
There was deceit almost from the start and it was a frequent weapon in Wave's quiver. Phony awards, bought and paid for 'analysts' repeating the CEO's lies. Profitability somehow could be seen as far back as 2003 and was 'guaranteed' twice but somehow it always eluded Wave.
All of those memoranda of understandings, like the one from DoCoMo--not a number in it, but boy did it lift the price and the enthusiasm. Complete hogwash. Wave lived off those phony, no-money PRs.
So deceit was there early and often, as they say.
I didn't lose any money, but I didn't make any either. I wasted 20 years of my time following this stock. How smart was I?
Blue
The Wave Trail of Travesty and Tragedy Lengthens.
From elsewhere:
"I join the chorus of long time shareholders who have lost tremendous sums [later in the post he said he lost hundreds of thousands].... I worked past retirement for seven years, mainly to fund the losses in WAVX. The retirement I had planned is not to be...."
So sad. There's lots more.
"Well after losing a little over a hundred K in this company and that's a lot of money for a hard working, single employee, blue collar, General Contractor I won't put one more dime of good money after bad money.
Over the yrs we were so mis-led and screwed by Wavx, personaly I believe we were not misled but out and out lied to. In hindsight we always were told to be respectable and not get too negative or we would have to go sit in the corner and take a time out for a couple of weeks.
Maybe after over ten yrs of being totally bs'd and no profits and Steven and the board constantly emptying the coffers, then we should have taken it upon ouselves to have hired an investigation into the company and possibly we could have prevented some of these catastrophic losses, don't know as I'm not an attorney, but hey the cats already out of the bag.
I was in my 50's when I made my first investment in Wavx, now I'm an old grey haired man sitting on a cactus bush too tired to move. I know many here have lost a lot more than me, but it's all relative, I wish good health and happiness to all."
________
Sad stories all.
Blue
It was and is a convincing argument, except for one small obstacle--it had no chance of coming true. Back before any reverse splits, Wave hit $50+ during the bubble and then slowly declined.
In 2006 (if memory serves) Wave put out a faulty PR misinterpreted by Investor Relations to contain dollar amounts (as in a real contract) with both IBM and Intel. The price had been trading between the one and two buck range and suddenly it shot up again over $5, which is when SKS and his CFO pulled the trigger and sold hundreds of thousands of shares.
Their rush to profit on Wave's mistake, cost the insurers $1.75M--not a lot, but it came at a time when Wave's first reverse split was being set up and the plaintiffs were told that is all they were likely to get from a dying company.
They settled, but the allegations against Sprague and Feeney for greedily self-dealing were never answered.
Even at this late date, it is incredibly instructive to read the particulars of the lawsuit brought by 13 groups of investors and all rolled into one suit.
It was clear Sprague and Feeney were only interested in what they could get and the shareholders had zero influence on the outcome.
It was an eye-opener. But guess what the leaders told their followers? They were told it was gold-digging attorneys out to make a quick buck and Wavoids did not need to even read such trash. They should have, because the lawsuit pulled back the concern-masks that Feeney and SKS wore when dealing with shareholders.
After one of the most loyal followers of all read the allegations against the two top Wave execs, that person became a critic and was immediately drummed out of the cult for asking pertinent questions--like asking Feeney why the overseas numbers, shares and other factors never added up.
That person has been out of Wave for several years and is glad of it. We remain close, although we have never met in person.
Isn't it interesting and amazing, once again, the Wave crowd was steered away by their leaders from reading the damaging allegations. It's crap!" said one Wave stalwart--and he is an attorney, too--and he never read the suit's allegations himself before pronouncing judgement on it for the followers.
Could all this be simple coincidence? Huh? The same astronomical odds against 17 members of one family being killed by separate lightning strikes in different countries? Boggles the mind computing all those combinations and permutations.
If I was involved in the current attempts to claw back money and justice from those who took so much from so many--I would start my investigation by reading that lawsuit. It is that revealing about the motivation of Wave execs. [Hint] It did not show these two had any concern at all for the folks financing the fraud--it was all about grabbing as much as those two could.
Irrelevant? Hardly, IMO. But once again, the discussion was tightly controlled by the board leaders, leaving shareholders with the mistaken impression the lawsuit had no bearing on them or their future. Shame. It could have told them a lot.
Blue
MoneyBgone: One doesn't have to look deep in those filings to spot this amazing artifact:
"Wave has incurred substantial operating losses since its inception, and as of September 30, 2015, has an accumulated deficit of approximately $443,797,000."
What I find interesting is just about half of that deficit was raised early in Wave's arc--there was a $220M placement. Nearly a quarter of a billion bucks was squandered on crap such as "Ishophere.com" and many other foolish 'investments.'
Right about this time, SKS was building a 10,000 sq foot private mansion in the Berkshires. And his wife was starting White Horse Hill Farm.
The company's admission that SKS spent office hours supervising the construction of his wife's horse farm and his mansion--didn't seem to deter anyone. I found it shocking.
When shareholders were burnt again and again, many wondered why the executives at Wave were still collecting full salaries and bonuses, instead of sharing the pain. One of their leaders said, "He's (SKS) worth every penny and more!"
This is the 'wrong-way steering seemingly popping up at every choice point and at every choice point, the advice was dead wrong and consistently bad advice that cost their followers tens of thousands.
Hard to beat that kind of consistency without someone's thumb on the scales.
Blue
Cypher: Long ago, back in the 1990's, a fellow worker and I arranged a trip to Lee, MA for a tour of the company we both had invested in recently.
SKS showed us around--just an office building with about 3 people there at 11 am.
Steven tried to show us the latest version of a Wave rent-to-own video game. But he couldn't get it to work on an office computer. So he called someone who got it up--but it was so lame, even back then.
Steven told us both bunches and bunches of big lies--the biggest being Wave had secured all but one of the software game manufacturers ("except Disney, and they are coming along just fine"--SKS).
He also told us all of the major PC OEMs had agreed to put Wave in their computers and it would all happen in 90 days. [The 90 day figure was written up, quoting Steven in CRN, a month or two prior to us arriving].
Steven introduced us to his father, Peter, just back from spearfishing in Tahiti, tanned and wearing shorts, flip-flops and a T-shirt. Peter was entertaining and charming, unlike the son.
But the reason for this post is what happened at the end. Steven walked us out to the car and then said, "Down on the first floor [or basement], it's full of computers. Want to see it?"
I said, "No, but thanks anyway, we have to get back."
After I wised up, I wondered what Steven would have said, had I asked to see the roomful of computers? Bear in mind, this was in the early days and Wave had not even one legit customer. They would have had no need for a room full of computers.
Watch the movie, "The Grifters" and you will see the same scene where the client declines to open the door to the next room "full of boiler room salesmen," and walks away.
Meanwhile the camera glides through the wall as the client ( the mark) walks away. Inside, the camera shows an unfinished and empty room.
I think Steven pulled the same trick on me. Had I looked into that room back then, this tale might have ended differently for me. But I was naive and trusting.
Had I realized what he was pulling, I would have booked out of there so fast and on my way home, I would have told my broker to sell all Wave shares.
Live and learn; trust, but verify.
Blue
The fellow you mention has lost a couple or three wads on Wave--first, his own, then his wife's inherited wealth.
He has doubled down on every Wave head fake, always digging himself deeper and deeper--but always positive he just needed to uncover Wave's secret wealth stash the co. was concealing from everyone.
That's why when he came up with the equivalent of saying Bose (speakers) Acoustic Wave was proof positive of Wave's stealth gain--only it was Microsoft, not Bose. He connected a couple of others too in his desperation--none ever had squat to do with Wave.
So, yeah, give him the money and let this man of the world hold it.
"See Pops, I told you I'd make it big in Wave, look at all this dough and it is still rolling in. Makes me feel like a Sprague!"
Blue
Golpe: The problem is, if you get caught with a bunch of shares when it is officially over, those shares are worth zero. It's a dangerous game, wading in among the manipulators, shorts and players [not our beloved Player 1234].
What would you be buying shares in? Answer: a hollowed-out company with no revenue, no possibility of revenue, employees gone, and an unknown time left for the music stoppage and everyone trying to find a chair.
IMO, I would stay away from it. My guess is, as soon as a big investor comes aboard and buys a bunch of shares hoping to make a few bucks by trading--that's when the hot air will go out of this paper bag--leaving the investor with a heap of worthless shares.
Seriously, the odds are against an amateur getting in with professionals who do this for a living, and still expect to win.
Isn't that how you stayed in the losing game this long? IMO, throwing good money after bad in an effort to catch up is foolhardy.
But, hey, it's a free country--jump in and I hope you score big. If so, you will be one of the rare few who did.
Best wishes in your quest--
Blue
Correction: The reporter was from CRN (Consumer Reseller News) not "CRS" as I wrote.
Blue
MIB: I don't think the so-called leaders were innocent dupes like the rest. They consistently called it wrong, laughed off the legit criticism and advised their followers in precisely the wrong way for them and exactly the right way for the fraudsters to do their work.
How did it go wrong every single time, without help? Wouldn't a flipped coin end up being 50-50 heads/tails? 100% Wave wrong? What a strange coinkydink! Not the first time, Wave suspended the laws of gravity or chance.
They may or may not have to account for their role and we may finally resolve the question of whether someone who has gone beyond the pale to always steer the followers in the wrong direction at their peril, did so as part of some Wave payment scheme.
It was all smoke and mirrors from the early days of SKS's inherited CEO-ship.
Way back in the late 1990's to early 2000, a reporter asked Steve Sprague in Las Vegas in November of that year when would Wave ship product?
SKS responded in a taped conversation with a CRS online reporter, "We begin shipping next month, about one million a month, ramping up to ten million."
What we learned later through dogged digging, was that at the time SKS made those bold remarks, the company did not have a product or a prototype--they had a design on paper. There is no question SKS flat-out lied and knew he was lying to the reporter. This meant he could not be trusted.
This was reported on the boards, but there were a collective group of supporters not interested in the least in the fact their CEO was not only a liar, but he was lying about the most critical issue to a company's investors--the selling and shipping of their product. In this case, Wave had no product, it was all bologna.
Relevant? Gosh, one would think it would be, but discussion was curbed quickly on that topic and many others like it.
There were many instances where questions were raised about SKS who promised prosperity and profitability in 2003--and every year since, never coming close-always a little further from it.
There were always invented excuses, like instead of going for the quick hit, Wave was playing the long game and of course, that meant stealth--"it's going on, you just can't see it or feel it"--kinda like the SKS or the Loose-lips Solms bulging pipelines, crammed with the best and biggest deals imaginable.
When the sugarplum fantasy was always pushed back--just another quarter, mind you--the Blue Sky Wave Supporters never flinched--their leaders told them, these were good signs they were going to be unfathomably rich perhaps starting in a month or two.
When the first reverse split was being discussed, the leader guaranteed there would be no reverse split. 3 wks later, bingo--a reverse split. At that point I might have questioned this so-called leader, if I had been permitted to, which I wasn't. Gosh, that was convenient.
Wave lured its most loyal investors in again and again for close shearing while the leaders told them it was insurance of their riches soon to come.
Not sure I feel sorry for the folks who went along with the idea of getting only the good news about Wave--the same folks now saying, "Hey when did this happen?"
If it was criminal fraud, that's a different thing. In a civil suit, I am guessing the plaintiff's attorney would make monkeys out of those supporters complaining, by exposing their ignorance of glaring and telling factors about Wave in the public domain at the time--the crucial things they ignored.
They sure had some help in getting steering the wrong way, but why did they keep going along with it, when at every juncture the advice from their leaders was not just wrong, it cost them a ton of money?
Even as Wave was collapsing around them, one supporter was busily posting dots showing how Wave was rapidly making vast inroads in trusting computing. But how come they never sold anything? How come those few who did buy, didn't re-sign with Wave? How come hundreds of pilots and trials netted them not a single sale?
As the facade tumbled down around them, some were sure the debris was a sign a miracle was about to happen to save them and to make them rich--so solid was their confidence in this fraudulent confidence game.
What about the "technologists" who 'examined' the blueprints of Wave's 'superior' technology and declared it couldn't be beat? They were as fraudulent as the company was.
Or the 'futurists' who spun a spidery web of Wave wonder if you could cross your fingers and believe with all your might you were a turtle breaking across the warm sands to the cooling ocean a few feet away? Yes, things, including bankruptcies do take time and are noticed by many long before it happens.
There were so many false leads and leaders. But they all led to the same destination--bankruptcy. And how could anyone think it would be different when Wave again and again failed to sell, to impress, to be favorally reviewed (other than by a friend), or be a recommended 'buy' from a real analyst, not a hired shill.
It was all there in blinking, honking, screaming capital letters. And the small crowd of those "in the know about Wave" led the mob exactly the wrong way every time, cost them life savings, lied to them at every point--and now they are being looked to for leadership in some other venture by the very same ones bled white by this leadership.
That, in all its sadness and idiocy, is exactly why this massive scheme flourished so well for so long and extracted half a billion from the unsuspecting.
Blue
So true! Whenever we critics focused on the continuing lack of sales, and when we tried comparing the grossly inflated forecasts coming from Wave, with the insignificant revenue coming in the door--there was the opposition--the Wave Defensive Blitzkrieg, Big Defensive Line and Backfield with three pass rushers blitzing on every down.
There was almost no excess the Regime Headed by SKS that wasn't justified, verified and rationalized away by the self-appointed Wave 'experts.' The value of Wave's patents [next to nothing, if not nothing, IMO] were inflated by hype six million times its theoretical limit. As was the negligible value of buying Wave for its huge tax loss. [This one value was overblown by about a 100 factor]
When the criticism of the Sprague nepotism started to sting, after his two brothers, daughter, granddaughter and the equine instructor at White Horse Hill Farm/Wave Public Relations Specialists--along with assorted schoolboy chums put on the payroll--we were asked by the cult leaders, "Will any of that matter when Wave goes to $100?"
The question was asked as if it were both obtainable and possible [when it was neither].
This is the kind of excusing away of gross violations of good management and shareholder trust--but their leaders said none of it mattered--just think about how rich Wave is going to make you and spend your time dreaming up ways to spend all those millions instead of listening to those dreadful critics who are trying to get your shares on the cheap.
One of the holiest of the High Holy Wave priests was simultaneously one of the prime instigators of many of the false rumors that gave anxious supporters reassurance all was well, when it was really going to hell in a hand basket.
The truth was shut out and almost all those on that particular avenue of supportive expression went along with it--didn't want to be bothered by irksome flaws in the myth-dream. They wanted to see only blue skies and never be reminded of just how far-fetched their chances were of making any money at all, let alone getting rich.
Even the mildest and most legitimate criticism was labeled evil bashing with an agenda to ruthlessly sabotage the company.
How twisted is this? Those with the most intense agenda quickly accused any critic of having an agenda to harm Wave--even when it was clear the poster was simply repeating a sentence from an official Wave document--if it ran against the constantly-repeated drumbeat of optimism at all costs. [Ironic, isn't it? That optimism did come at the cost of all.]
So, after repeatedly misinterpreting danger signs as either nothing to worry about, or actually being proof of real success, now that Wave has crash landed, the crowd of the mis-led is thanking their leaders for deceiving them so thoroughly, so often and for costing them hundreds of thousands in some cases, millions in others. "Thank you for all you do."
The critics who were right all along are still the bad guys with every intention of destroying Wave so we could get their shares cheap.
Those supporters left standing after the Tuesday Wave crash landing are looking once again to these same leaders to help them find another 'investment' in which they can share their DD. [It takes the breath away.]
These are the same people who cheered the many meaningless PRs meant to sound as if Wave was rolling along picking up clients and customers right and left.
They loved all of Wave' s many cheap tricks, like giving themselves a 'national' security award and bamboozling a tech magazine to include it as if it were real. Posting non-existent jobs to make Wave sound legit and growing--and the supporters who would spin these fictional 'openings' into already-inked deals that would take Wave over $1,000/share.
They loved the guy at the pizza joint who denied being who he was--who announced Wave was the recipient, after an international search--to secure 50-60 laptops of the Papa Gino's fleet of 1500 at the time. Of course, he forgot to mention his stake in Wave, and his role in selling Wave to friends and making positive posts on the message boards. But the supporters covered for him and removed his old posts (the evidence).
Wave had all the markings of an outright scam, it gave off the reek of a fraudulent company and its executives sounded like scamsters talking about bulging pipelines that were bloated pipedreams, deals only needing signatures evaporating like spit in the Sahara. If it walks like a fraud, sounds like a fraud, smells...
OMG, there were so many signs of mgt misbehavior, ineptitude, dishonesty, self-dealing, clownage of every stripe--and through it all, the leaders claimed it was the exact opposite of what it was--or, if morale was low, "shhh, come close and let me tell you what a birdie just told me--the biggest tech firm in the world is about to grant Wave an exclusive license. Better buy right now or you will miss it! Wave is going to soar."
It was transparent as a 3-card monte street swindle at Times Square. But it swept half a billion bucks into the scurrying pockets of various Wave functionaries, friends and the financially-connected.
When Charles Ponzi was arrested for fraud in 1920's Boston, a crowd of loyal supporters tried unsuccessfully to free him from his police captors. They were so enthralled with the Ponzi Scheme and so certain it held bountiful riches for them, they wanted the fraud to continue.
And it did [I'm thinking Rivetz, here]--after Ponzi got out of prison he sold underwater swampland in Florida and promised 200% returns. He got caught. Deported, he came up with more schemes in Italy. [leopards don't change their spots.]
Somehow, this sounds really familiar.
Blue
IMO, it was so bad Wave felt it had to conceal the numbers to prevent a massive sale of shares just as they were figuring out their end play.
Personally, I think the end snuck up on them. I think they thought they'd sell a few hundred thou--enough to still manage a pulse and keep going for a bit and then they could do whatever they were planning all these silent months.
But that bridge loan was a crippler. Not much leeway after that, or before, for that matter, IMO.
Blue
Looking back on before the Wave bubble completely popped--yesterday and the conversation today.
Does anyone else find it inexplicable that there are thank you messages elsewhere in appreciation "of all you have done."
Leaders counseled patience when the correct advice would have been [much earlier] to demand accountability for the missteps, instead of cheering those who made them and then fashioning a 'genius' cap for SKS who was still lying when he got the $1M sweet boot.
Those who misinterpreted the mounting and convincing evidence and facts stacking up against Wave's chances--the gaping ineptness at every level was portrayed as either wrong or irrelevant, when it was right and very relevant--the mis-interpreters are the ones being thanked for leading the loyal shareholders down the road to ruin.
Someone asked the question if anyone had learned anything with this complete rout of Wave and its rape of its most loyal shareholders.
Why would you continually follow people who cost you bigtime financially and emotionally and were always wrong? Beats me.
Now, this group of supporters who never wanted to read anything bad about either Wave or its mgt--is talking about establishing a community to perhaps 'investigate' another stock for 'investment' purposes. Wow! Use the same techniques?
Does that sufficiently answer the question of whether any lessons were learned? To me, it is a definitive answer.
I wish all of those I met on this weird journey well--even the enemies. I harbor no ill will.
Blue
When Bill Solms made such aggressively optimistic statements as he did, not a single one of which came true--what did the BoD do? They awarded Solms a pretty good bonus.
For what was that bonus based upon? How convincingly he lied boldfacedly to the shareholders at every juncture until the clock ran out and the game was up? Wasn't based on performance, so I agree, shareholders have every reason to suspect the Board if not in on it, at the very least failed to exercise proper governance.
The Board was either complicit which perhaps constitutes criminal fraud, or woefully ignorant of what was going on. But in the end, they richly rewarded the man who lied his butt off, just as they piled half-his salary bonuses on SKS for 10 years, in addition to giving him shares and warrants, golden parachutes of $1M, --all Board approved.
Wave shareholders have been screwed for a long time. In the 20 years I was invested and/or following Wave, I never once saw mgt do the smallest gesture towards the shareholders feeling so much pain for so long--other than give them words--never deeds.
It was plain to me they not only didn't care, but regarded the shareholders as nothing more than suckers to be bamboozled out of every penny possible, as often as possible.
In all that time, the Wave dreams got bigger, the tone more tense and the gap between what was claimed for Wave and reality, was rapidly widening--as was the penalty for dissent.
The explanations for non-performance were implausible, while the soaring claims were impossible. Fantasy and fiction took over, along with a relentless connection of nothings, or nothing with nothing that somehow proved Wave was about to rule the world.
Again and again goals were missed, forecasts were proved dismally off the mark, performance went backward and one opportunity after another somehow slipped through Wave's fingers. Wave lost Dell--a contract the company had, providing a major source of its revenue.
GM didn't re-sign. Company did not announce because they didn't have to.
Wave and Bill Solms banked it all on Wave's VSC 2.0 and it came up snake-eyes, just like most of the other Wave gambles. Meanwhile the shareholders paid the bills for plain ineptness, again and again.
It was embarrassing--the auditor catches the CEO being overpaid by $70K--Wave doesn't do due diligence on a major purchase [Safend] and misses $4M in royalties and had to restate the acquisition and later write it all off.
A Wave CC cancelled minutes before it began because Wave had to restate, again.
Delisting, constant threats of delisting. Three reverse splits: supporters were told the first two didn't matter and the third was necessary to save the company--only they weren't told that by the company, but by their leaders. The company was all mummsy-quiet.
Founders Shares, Employee Options Plan I (exempted them from the 1:3 reverse split all us shareholders were subjected to.)
Embarrassing was the only word. It was a shambles of a company kept afloat by distant dreams of riches--stay patient, don't worry about the plunging share price--when the world learns of Wave--look out!
Such a familiar pitch, brilliantly executed with a lot of help. It was a fraud, masquerading as a publicly-traded NASDAQ company--a company never once making a profit in 27 years of existence--always living on the fumes of promises of great riches to come. It was a masterful con job. Half a billion bucks in someone's pocket.
Through it all, the Wave Board of Directors approved it all, or at least raised no objection until Steven was fired. But it was already fait accompli--too late to save Wave--the dice had been cast and the familiar snake-eyes was coming up because Wave could never sell enough of its product to operate.
The fiction of first mover, flag planter, leader in the space--it was all hogwash--a PR inflated hot-air bag full of nothing. Wave was a nobody, despite plenty of media attention, publicity stunts, bought 'analysts' and phony profitability forecasts were all weighing down Wave and pulling it towards a crash.
All the helpful DD was complete bologna. It was mass delusion of made-up things spun for and by a group wanting desperately to see Wave make it--to stop the laughter and mockery of those who said Wave was full of it.
It is a tragedy playing out on another board, of dreams dying or already dead, of no retirement, nothing for the kids, a million lost here, a half million there--it is a litany of sadness, people crushed.
For many, their only crime was to believe in a company. That company if properly managed, could have better used the half billion bucks it burned through so thoughtlessly and wastefully.
Then there was the bloody end, sudden, but not unexpected. Wave was gone. Bang, it was over.
Blue
It is a sad end to a brilliant idea incompetently and ill-executed, a slo-mo failure that morphed into a scam.
It was aided and abetted by company plants and willing stooges who kept holding out straws of hope when it was clear Wave could not sell its security wares into a market left ragged from hacks and cracked and was screaming for fixes.
That was the big contradiction. Why couldn't Wave sell security when everyone and his brother and sister were looking for it? Steven's reply, "the market doesn't get it," may have satisfied the foolish, but not the thoughtful, IMO.
Then you had the Loop Group of which I was a member--many terrific rumors came from "people close to the company" [people participating in private placements without telling their followers on the board]--and mgt was reading all our supposedly secure and confidential messages back and forth. At least three of our group were feeding these messages to mgt in the hope of a scrap of info in return.
In the end, it was all a mirage--fashioned from the elements of the oldest cons in the world.
'Here, lads and lassies, is a chance for the ordinary working person to become wildly rich--shhh, not many know about this incredible stock that is only a buck, but soon to be maybe a thousand--after so many forward splits--it's a sure thing.'
And even when faced with a blizzard of contrary facts to the 'big things are going on underneath that we can't see' crowd, facts were denied or if accepted were called irrelevant.
And every time the company slapped the shareholders in the face with a cold, dead fish, there were the excusers who stepped in and made up all kinds of irrational reasons to explain why what was happening, was not happening.
But in the end, folks chose to believe either the unbelievable dream, or the truth. The two were not compatible and the destruction of the dream built on empty promises was certain. It was a mirage to begin with.
Even now, there are still some deniers, twisting a bankruptcy and closure of the company, transfer of assets away from shareholders, into some kind of LSD dream where they win and win big. Wow!
The question was raised has anyone learned anything? IMO, no. When it appeared the Genius was anything but a fat, arrogant, entitled, illiterate rich boy--and even after he was fired by among others, his own father--there were still some who defended SKS.
Others voiced support for Bill Solms after it was apparent, he too, was lying about prospects. Until the end, I heard good things about the Lt. Col.
Those of us who foretold the end long ago, simply based it on the fact they company couldn't seem to sell squat in the hottest market ever for security--yet we were subjected to some harsh words and some threats.
Even as the waters closed around the last part of the Wave wheelhouse, the truth-tellers were never recognized, except by a few gracious Wave supporters--but at the end, it seemed the ones most wrong about Wave, were still antagonistic and belligerent towards those who got it mostly right about Wave.
The abandonment of excellent investing principles was cheered, all eggs in the Wave basket for some. The fact no real analyst ever covered Wave--instead we had a succession of paid 'analysts' who for $25-50K/yr would repeat SKS's insane projections of Wave prosperity soon to come.
The DD'ers would point to these projections coinciding with their most fervent desires about Wave as confirmation "it was coming and it was going to be huge" and the money poured into Wave--and right out again, into the pockets of the managers and manipulators.
Wave ran on promises of prosperity soon to start. Never mind it never started or even came close, facts were shrugged off, because
Wave was 'different' from other stocks.
The ineptness, expanding nepotism, greed grabs, mistakes and missteps were all brushed away as irrelevant. "Will any of that matter when Wave hits $100?"
Many of the shareholders helped keep this scam going when it was all but clear it was an out and out scam. They had help from the company who provided the illusions the believers wanted to see and hear.
I feel only sadness.
Blue
It's over. Wave is bankrupt.
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/160201/wavx8-k.html
My condolences to all who believed so long and so faithfully. You were deceived IMO by the co. mgt and the BoD.
Blue