Scams pump out spam
That’s the word from Patrick Evans, regional director at Internet security software company Symantec, who says that between July 1 and December 31 2006, spam made up 59% of all e-mail traffic monitored by the company.
Symantec says the most common type of spam — 30% of all unsolicited e-mail — detected in the latter half of 2006 was related to financial services. The company ascribes this to a noticeable increase in pump-and-dump spam.
Criminal organisations look for small, illiquid shares that typically trade on smaller stock exchanges. They then issue fake press releases to stir interest in the target company. They also create further hype by posting false information about the target company in online bulletin boards that are frequented by armchair investors and day traders. When the criminal organisation judges that the share price has peaked, it dumps its shares and makes a profit.
Initially, pump-and dump scams targeted the US but attacks on European stock exchanges are on the rise, Evans says. The US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) estimates that as much as US1bn has been lost through pump and-dump scams. Evans is unaware of any attempted pump-and-dump scams involving JSE-listed companies. He says that to be successful, fraudsters require a critical mass of Internet traders and SA has relatively few.
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