Replies to post #292 on Market Manipulators

[MWM]

I will repsect your opinion if you really believe that, I along with many others just don't see much reality in a company paying someone to bash a stock, Like I said I'm sure it's not impossible but few and far between...

[Jim Bishop]

Come on get real, that's all total bs and probably based on the now famous old "Confessions of a Paid Basher" by firebird, circa 2000 and our buddy foggy's rewrite of it a year or so again...both were total jokes.

Show me one example of a case where a basher's life was ruined from a lawsuit....actual case please.

You will find that with most "basher" lawsuits they've all come back to bite the companies or CEO's in the butt and they are the ones that end up hurt, and sometimes, in jai.

Janice I'm sure would be happy to cite you a few examples.

As far as someone posting 24/7 I laugh everytime I see that silly phrase..yep bashers never sleep, never eat, never crap, just post 24/7 ...how ridiculous.

[Jim Bishop]

Here, for you enjoyment, is the original "Confessions of a Paid Basher"

Confession of a Paid Basher

By Tom Martin
aka "Steve Tracy"
aka "Firebird_1965"

Today I want to come clean about something I feel very badly about. I cannot undo some of the things I have done, but hopefully this message will prevent other such occurrences in the future.

I am a paid basher.

Yes, it is true. Today is my last day at this company; I'm moving on to a new job. But before I go, I want to explain a few things because this just isn't right and I won't feel
good about myself until I expose this sham. It's hurt too many people and I don't want it on my conscience anymore. I can no longer live with a lie.

I work for a company called Franklin, Andrews, Kramer & Edelstein in Stamford, CT.

Basically, it's a Boiler Room much like the one in the movie of the same name. The idea behind my group is to bash the price of a company's stock down low enough to
where the group of investors who retained our company's services can buy the stock really cheap and perhaps even take it over all together.

There are approximately 70 people at the company divided into several groups. My group, consisting of 5 people, is responsible for BIFS. While I probably shouldn't give
any names of anyone working here now, what the heck, I'm leaving here, so what can they do sue me? Ha! I can tell you that GUTTWRENCH was part of my group until he
left last week, as was Richardphx. Others who have been part of this include early bashers like Epiphonics and Simontaz. You may be interested to know that some
hypsters, such as Amato7 and BIFWATCHER, have also been part of the scam (more on that later).

There are several companies engaged in the bashing business ours is not the only one. However, I can tell you that not every basher in here is a paid basher. Having done this for two years, I can usually tell who is a paid basher and who is merely someone having a little fun. While unpaid bashers have a different motive than someone like me, they can be unwilling accomplices to helping me achieve my ultimate goal and they also spread rumor and confusion throughout a room, which also helps me.

What is that goal? Well, I am merely a cog in a much larger machine, so my bosses never really explained the big picture to me, but I'd say essentially, GUTTWRENCH was
right. There are several companies who are quite familiar with SWOMI and who are deathly afraid of it.

There are three types of bashers here at Franklin, Andrews, Kramer & Edelstein:

Advanced, Intermediate and Beginner. An Advanced-level basher (also known as a Silver Tongued Devil) would spread false or misleading information about the company.
They would deal in facts, countering every longs post with articles, news reports and opinion surveys that gave a negative impression about the company.

An Intermediate-level basher (also known as a Serpent) would try to weasel their way into the confidence of longs and create doubt using rumor or innuendo.

Finally, a Beginner-level basher (also known as a Pitchfork) would attempt to create confusion in the room by distracting other posters with satire, name calling and
pointless arguments. The idea was to make sure no serious discussion of the stock could take place. A Pitchfork was usually a basher, but not always. Sometimes, we would throw in a hypster Pitchfork such as Amato7 or BIFSWATCHER to create the illusion of an argument going on. What was really funny (in a perverse way, I guess) was that Amato7 and I sat next to each other, laughing the whole time.

I was a Pitchfork. I was paid a base wage of $12 an hour for my services. I was given a $1 bonus for every post over 100 per day as well as a monthly bonus of $100 for every penny the stock had dropped from the previous month. I was also paid a bonus for bashing on weekends. While this may not sound like much, I made a decent, though
dishonorable, paycheck.

Each of us sat in a small half-cubicle in a cluster with our teammates. Each group (usually five people) was made of three beginners (two who would bash and one who
would hype), one intermediate and one advanced level basher. Occasionally for some of the hotter stocks, one of the beginners would be replaced by an intermediate
depending on how much the stock was rising. BIFS was a low-level stock, meaning it got the 3-1-1 configuration.
Somehow, I get the feeling that JPACK2 may have worked for a basher company or knows someone who does because the "Basher Handbook" he occasionally posts is eerily similar to the one we actually use. While not a word-for-word match, I'd say it is about 90 percent the same. We do have certain rules that we follow.

First, we have to develop a character and stay within that character in order to build a "following." My character, "Firebird_1965," was a sarcastic, obnoxious supporter of free speech, but only when it came to bashers.

Next, we had to follow certain guidelines on what we could say. We were urged to have an "answer" to every longs question, but we were to frame that answer in a way that
ridiculed the questioner for asking such a question. However, we were never to use profanity or vulgarity because that would cause people to ignore us. We were to make fun of people, but in a civil way. The idea was to get "play," i.e. reaction from other posters. The more play we got, the more the room would be disrupted. Ignored posters get no play. One exception would be the hypster since they were "defending" the stock against our onslaught, they got a little more leeway. People would side with the hypster because they thought he was real since he appeared to be on their side, but was really on ours, setting us up to disrupt the room. Padelcars is quite good at this and gets paid very well.

I've worked on BIFS, TSRG, MXII for about three months now. In addition to the Firebird_1965 alias, I've used a few others on the BIFS and several other boards as well. I stuck with Firebird_1965 because it was the one that got the most play from other posters.

In closing, I feel absolutely terrible about this. It's just awful how I've been part of a scam designed to cheat honest, hard-working people out of their investments all for the benefit of a few wealthy people who already have enough money to last a lifetime.

These greedy people MUST be stopped. That's why I'm posting this before I leave. I want to make up for some of the damage I've done. I can't live with this lie anymore. You
can't imagine how hard it is to look at myself in the mirror each morning knowing my job is to cheat and lie.

I have to go now, I'm too broken up to continue. I hope this confession can make up for my sordid deeds; I would urge everyone who reads this to copy and repost it as many
times as you can. Only by shining the light of truth can we drive these rats back into the darkness from whence they came. Believe me, they don't want publicity.

I hope all of you can forgive me and save me a seat on that BIFS rocket to the moon. If this helps, let me leave you with this.

GO BIFS!!!!

With fervent remorse,

Tom Martin
aka "Steve Tracy"
aka "Firebird_1965"

And if you believe this-lol

[Jim Bishop]

Here, for more enjoyment is an article written about firebird's "confession".

Raging Bull Chat Room Devotees Get Dose of 'Whopper'
By Robert Kowalski
Staff Reporter
11/9/00 3:12 PM ET

URL: http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/1165692.html

If anyone needed further proof that Internet bulletin boards attract fools like winged vermin to a Shell No-Pest Strip, Steve Tracy offered it last week when he publicly "confessed" online that he was being paid to bash stocks.

In the week that followed, lots of the gullible folk still apparently didn't realize just how badly they were being had. So badly that Tracy, the originator of the little hoax, was sheepishly wondering if his prank had spiraled out of control.

"In my view, this thing has gotten totally ridiculous," he wrote in an email interview. "While at first I was pleased at the reception it received, I am quite dismayed that so many people would believe what I had thought to be an obvious joke."

The fun began last Wednesday when Tracy, who goes by the Internet alias firebird_1965, posted a tome entitled, "Confessions of a Paid Basher", on Raging Bull.

Tracy posted the purported mea culpa with considerable fanfare, including a message-by-message countdown to its launch.

In the missive, he came clean in gushing prose about what many of the conspiratorial types have suspected for months about the Internet message boards: He claimed he was being paid to bash stocks as part of an orchestrated effort to drive their prices down. He said he worked for a boiler room operation called Franklin Andrews Kramer & Edelstein in Stamford, Conn.

He said he was ashamed and wanted to be able to look himself in the mirror again. "I'm too broken up to continue. I hope this confession can make up for my sordid deeds," he wrote.

OK, that kind of talk usually brings a skeptical smirk to any reporter's face. This is Raging Bull, after all, not the Little Sisters of the Poor. And there were other red flags fluttering around this tale.

There is no listing for Franklin Andrews in the Stamford phone directory. No sign of it in standard corporate records databases either. One clever observer later noticed a pattern in the first initials of each name in the firm when linked together: F-A-K-E.

"Come on, that's as obvious and silly as those acronyms they used in the old 1960s spy movies," Tracy said.

There was also a nearly identical posting of a so-called paid basher confession on another message board site with a different name for the supposed boiler room. Then there was the clincher. At the bottom of Tracy's "confession," well past the signature (for anyone who bothered to continue scrolling), read this innocuous line: "And if you believe this -- lol."

In Internet posting lingo, "lol" is short for "laughing out loud."

Bingo.

But that's the part no one picked up initially when they electronically copied the confession and began posting it all over other message board sites under headings for at least a dozen different stocks.

Those included boards for Urbana(URBA:OTC BB), Sun Microsystems(SUNW:Nasdaq), Cyber-Care(CYBR:Nasdaq) and WaveRider Communications(WAVC:Nasdaq).

"It put 'bashers' in a whole new light for me" one person wrote in a posting on Raging Bull.

Tracy claims on his Raging Bull profile to be a 35-year old Texas marketing consultant with an MBA who likes "fast cars, faster women." But we know how much to believe about what he says online.

Still, in an email interview, he said: "I would ask that it be made clear ... that I am not a paid basher."

"The truly sad thing is that after learning it was a put on, some of these people still want to believe it was part of some grand conspiracy," he said. "My suggestion to these people is: Don't go to Burger King for a while -- you've already had your share of Whoppers!"

[Jim Bishop]

You should read this whole SI thread, from beginning to date, for some reality about "basher" lawsuits and their end results.

http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/subject.aspx?subjectid=28509

[Jim Bishop]

Show us some examples, heck just one example, of this:

have read confessions of bashers that were sued by companies. Their lives were ruined and if I recall correctly, some explained how it worked in a boiler room type of setting. Sometimes they worked for Hedge Funds and received something like $7 per post, etc.