Fraud: stock market turbulence increasing pump and dump scams

A pump and dump scam masquerading as a financial newsletter is at the top of the fraud list this morning.

It pretends to be written by an authority on the stock market who uses complex formulae to forecast trends.

And it uses the names of some well known companies to shield its true target.

Headed "What to Buy in Today's Bloodbath" (the US-style use of capital letters throughout the headline shows its origins are in the US regardless of where the mail actually comes from). It starts with an amazing claim: "Today's market tech analysis: Dow closed well below our magical number of 9637.50, so it is now absolutely certain mathematically that it will have to touch 9062.50 at some point in time."

But in the very next paragraph it goes on "However, if the S&P 500 can hold 1000, then we are on the reversal in time on the chart (Thurs), and the market is due for an up move unless it just crashes from here. If we have an up move with a big reversal on Thursday, it will be exactly a year to the date of the all time closing high. Oct 9th is historically the most significant market day of the year, followed by July 17th. Both lows after both crashes '87 and '00 were exactly 2 yrs 10 months (remember # wise, we have already fallen as far as it took for 2 yrs 10 months after '00) after the crash and the lows both hit on October 9th.The pros and tech traders know this!!"

The BS continues: "So, today might look bad, but historically tomorrow Oct. 9th is the day to focus on. There is an old saying; "Sell on Rosh Hashanah and Buy on Yom Kippur." Tomorrow is Yom Kippur and so happens to be Oct. 9th."

So what does this happy chappy recommend you buy? "DGP (DB Double Long Gold), WMT (Wal-Mart), GOCH (CallTheGeeks.com), and of course my Ohio favorite CETG (Capital City Energy Group, Inc.)."

And here's the thing: spam promoting Capital City Energy Group is the most frequent pump and dump spam scam that our monitors have picked up in each of the past two months. The attack on the company has been unrelenting.

And the information isn't accurate: callthegeeks.com is actually a subsidiary company of Geeks On Call Holdings and it is that company that the stock code relates to. Wall Mart is one of the USA's safe pairs of hands in times of crisis as people go down-market in their shopping options and is clearly included to provide credibility to the mailshot. DB Double Long Gold has been the target of spam-scammers. Like Capital City, it is pumped via both email and spam "buy" notices on internet bulletin boards.

For the avoidance of doubt, we have no information that would lead us to suspect that any of the companies mentioned here should be regarded as complicit in the attempts to manipulate their stock prices.