DD Support Board and Research Team

[Michael-Goode]

Blog Post by Motley Fool on how AwesomePennystocks tried to bribe bloggers on their platform to pump GOFF

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/05/15/the-desperate-deceptive-measures-penny-stock-scamm.aspx

On April 2, just as the hype game was getting going, a Motley Fool blogger was asked privately about writing a blog post on Goff.

A person calling himself "John O'Connell," purportedly representing "Investor Associates, LLC," contacted the blogger via LinkedIn. O'Connell offered "four-figure" compensation to write a positive article about the company -- and when our blogger declined the offer, O'Connell even offered to write it for him, if the blogger would simply post under his own byline.

The blogger still declined, and immediately thereafter brought it to our attention. When I spoke with O'Connell by phone, he told me he had only reached out to two people, neither one taking him up on the offer. He ceased such blogger outreach once realizing it was against Fool rules, he said.

And yet, in a stroke of incredible good fortune and unbelievable coincidence for the stock promoters, somehow blogs got written -- glowing blogs, each writing optimistically about a company that, to recap, (1) has never made a single cent and (2) went through a wholesale management and business-model change less than 90 days prior.

Several blogs were submitted through our own open Blog Network platform; anyone who signs up can post an article before it is reviewed for syndication. Since early April, my colleague Roger Friedman, Blog Network president, has banned four bloggers because they submitted suspiciously glowing posts on Goff.

Each post was flagged by a Blog Network reviewer and deleted right away, and Roger then severed the relationship then and there. (Aside from being obviously wrong, accepting third-party payments to write about a stock is against The Motley Fool's rules. We also have strict rules against publishing stories on micro-cap companies with limited liquidity and/or low share prices to avoid manipulation of stock price, intentional or not.)

Only one of the disqualified bloggers even replied to the notice of termination; he appealed for a second chance, claiming it was a misunderstanding. When we questioned the nature of his Goff post, he said it wasn't a big deal: "I am on a regular basis offered compensation to write about multiple firms."

I am on a regular basis offered compensation to write about multiple firms.