Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

[DragonBear]

Regarding paid promoters: One of the disturbing things

I have noticed in the last year is that paid promoters are now paying individual/private iHub posters to promote the stocks they (the promoters) have been paid to promote...Unfortunately, I don't believe that most of these private promoters are accurately disclosing their payments

Why should they disclose they are pumping for $50? If anything, that would be sort of embarrassing. Is it their fault or IHUB's?

I do subscribe to one investment site, where discussion is serious. and it ain't IHUB. If someone were to post on this other site:

Something is going to happen next week!

The CEO (first name drinking buddy terms) is just an incredible business man!

I've done my DD, and this 0.55 stock is worth at least $50!

Evil MMs are trying to manipulate this stock!

The usual one liners... chances are they would be reported for posting spam. It would be deleted, and said posters would be warned not to do it again or else. The result is an environment for well thought out posts. Posters attempting to do in depth analysis, or for lack of better words presenting: "DD". It's a very unwelcoming environment for paid pumpers, or any other type of pumpers/bashers. Why? Because those there who wish serious investing conversation don't tolerate their presence. BTW - there are no individual forum moderators to keep order.

From what I've observed IHUB promotes an environment in which the paid promoters or paid posters can easily operate in. They often get the protection of forum Moderators, who are often invested in the stock, and part of the cult herd following. Who knows, maybe some of the Mods are paid their $50(?). When posting in opposition to a pump, one has to consider: If you post a well thought out long post, will there be a sentence, just one sentence in a post consisting of paragraphs, some Mod protecting the stock can label as "off topic", and delete the entire post? It leaves the playing field to the one liner pumpers.

From all appearances IHUB is dependent on Ad revenue. Where Ad charges are based on site user clicks, or traffic. So what does it matter if some pumper posts a one liner irrelevant testimonial about how great the CEO is? It generates traffic, and higher Ad rates. The pumpers become an asset for the site owners. Note, I'm not picking exclusively on IHUB. It seems over 90% of the stock forum sites operate this way.

I remain convinced not only do we have outside pumpers coming in, but gangs of posters who set up their own pump&dumps. You see the same clusters of posters in the same stocks, basically posting the same garbage. If they can get the herd excited, and get the PPS up +200% in a short interval, the screening computers from the 3rd party stock promotional sites pick it up. Out goes the stock alerts, volume comes in, and the pump is underway. Curiously most of the stocks this occurs in, turn out to contain fraud, subject to SEC suspensions, etc.

It's a sad environment for first time or naive individual investors. They don't stand a chance in these pump&dumps. They get eaten alive.