Nah, I don't think it's been like that - if it were, they would have bothered on massively promoting the stock all the time to make as much money as possible then run.
It would be fairly stupid to purchase a listed shell just to "scam" two or three investors out of $5,000 and run. It'd be a pretty pathetic scam; either it's a big one or their career as crooks wouldn't even be worthy of a newspaper line. :-D