You summarized the OTC accurately into three words… playground for scammers. you’re exactly right!
From CEO, to officers, to associates, to toxic funders, to paid promoters and minion pumpers — they’re all on the same script. You have to navigate and weed through all that. It’s a lot for a typical OTC investor to navigate, that’s why they’re an easy target.
I would just say never trust a word from the CEO of a stinky pink form-15 filer. There’s zero oversight for these people, so they’ll basically say whatever you want to hear.
Unfortunately you were lead to believe the farm is owned by shareholders, however shareholders are only leasing it from the CEO, therefore there are no tangible assets other than inflated goodwill. In the real world that and ten bucks can buy us a cup of coffee.
The cherry on top of the many layers of this poop cake is that the CEO was secretly trying to sell the very farm that he used as a tool to gain trust.
I’m not quite versed on the European market when it comes to oversight, but judging by everything else I’ve read, it seems EU has no patience for their citizenry being duped. But the states is land of the free after all, where we’re free to win or lose — it’s our choice, but it would be good to have a layer of protection to save us from ourselves lol.
There’s no question that our free market concept has gone off the rails a bit, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s a western third world country. As far as the OTC market is concerned, it’s totally broken, rife with fraud and self enrichment schemes, mostly managed by borderline criminals (if not felons), and def rigged against us, but I think its days as we know it is numbered. There’s way too much fraud for one agency to manage the overwhelming number of complaints when resources are so limited. So, in a way you’re right, it is like investing in a Nigerian get rich quick scheme.
The 2021 rule change was way overdue, but a good start. A lot of this can be traced back to first part of 2010’s with Vape companies hitting the market…oooh, an exciting concept, followed by pot stocks… OMG OMG OMG , let’s go all in, which triggered a series of events that started to balloon out of control in 2013 where SEC basically started to lose control. There was a gold rush underway and it very closely resembled the Wild West.
By 2017 the commission were well on their way to shutting down certificate brokers to limit how much paper was being dumped into the market by insiders and funders (MASSIVE amount of dilution), and then went after unregistered brokers and toxic funders with death spiral financing, which finally led to the amendments to the rule in ‘21 that took away a lot of OTCMs exceptions that was perpetuating the problem, and this finally gave brokerages a legit reason to limit risky investments.
Maybe the agency will continue pushing congress to make incremental changes to limit high risk securities, but still a long haul to any semblance of an orderly market where OTC is concerned, however, not nearly as insurmountable as it was between 2011-2018. We’ve come a long ways.
Exchange traded tickers aren’t immune from the same shenanigans, but it’s a lot harder for insiders to get away with what OTC insiders get away with.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against PnD’s — we have rules on the books for the pump and the dump (not applicable to form-15 filers), and as a matter of fact I like trading a good PnD — OTC; exchange; in whatever form they come. It’s a nail biter, but there’s good $ to be made if you go in recognizing that these are not legitimate investments. A few days (couple weeks max) hold with some basic DD can get you by so you don’t get bagged overnight. Regardless, it’s still a herd mentality that can turn in a blink of an eye.
A lot of people made upwards of seven figures in the pot stock boom - it was a modern day gold rush… unicorns were flying out of our asses faster than we could press buy, but overwhelming majority lost it all because of greed and ignorance. That’s what you call fool’s gold.
I have my fingers crossed that you all will get a chance at some point in time here to run with the herd, just know when the gettin’ is as good as it’s going to get.
Good luck to you.
