Right. I'd question the original assumption that they are "respectable". The pinks are a game of slime. Some are more slimy than others, but they all are in scam.
If I had a top 10 red flags in the pinks, one for sure would be is when I see "why would xxx associate with them if this was a scam"? I fought that line of thinking for years in my prior pet scam stock, and now the CEO is facing a criminal federal fraud trial. Guess what, suddenly that line of argument isn't being used there any more!
No one even has to bring up this topic with a real true investible company! No one has to say that because xxx is working with Microsoft that means Microsoft is real.
In other words, just the fact that these attempted comparisons need to be made as a way to say a company has a legitimate business, means it isn't legitimate!