Hop-On Inc (HPNN)

[Dave Smith01]

Disposable Cell Phone Company Hop-On Wireless CEO Indicted For Fraud

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030418/1422211.shtml

Disposable Cell Phone Company Hop-On Wireless CEO Indicted For Fraud

Last year we had the story of how it looked like disposable cell phone company Hop-On Wireless was a scam. Since then, I've seen the company highly touted in many news stories, talking about how it was this great invention... but which no one seemed to be selling. Now, the CEO of Hop-On has been arrested for fraud, relating to work he did on an earlier company - but which brings up many parallels to Hop-On. The earlier company was an online gambling site, which he raised a lot of money for. However, they did so by showing software that was really someone else's software "cosmetically altered" to look like their own. Hop-On's "disposable phones" were really Nokia phones with their own plastic casing put around them. Then, he promised not to take any salary until the company was making enough money, but did still use the investors' money to pay off his credit card debts and then gave another shell company he owned a $500,000 contract. Eventually, that gambling company was morphed into Hop-On. This article also doesn't mention the fact that Hop-On got in trouble for not filing a tax return for a few years. They also were known for putting out press releases announcing huge deals with companies like Chevron after having a single exploratory meeting with them. I noticed in the past month or so that I'd been receiving spam emails touting Hop-On's stock. I wonder why... Hop-On had originally announced they would be selling the devices by 2001, but they still aren't for sale.