SEC Charges Eleven in Stock Manipulation Ring

[Phil(Hot Rod Chevy)]

There are laws against fraud, but not scamming.

I can scam you forever, but until you fall for it and turn over your money, no laws have been broken.

A confidence trick or confidence game (also known as a bunko, con, flim flam, gaffle, grift, hustle, scam, scheme, or swindle) is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence.

A scam is an attempt to defraud. Fraud is the crime, not the scam.

Sometimes con men rely on naive individuals who put their confidence into get-rich-quick schemes, such as "too good to be true" investments. It may take years for the wider community to discover that such investment schemes are bogus. By the time they are discovered, many people may have lost their life savings to something in which they have been persuaded to invest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick

Phil