Good readInteresting read when you have the time. Makes you want to stay away from any stock with a following. Some people don't like the bashers but certain proof about the pumpers.
III. FRAUDULENT POSTINGS BY AGORACOM MANAGEMENT AND REPRESENTATIVES
11. According to their website (www.agoracom.com), Agoracom “caters to the IR and marketing needs of small and micro cap public companies trading on the TSX [and] TSX Venture…”. Agoracom offers pricing models for its clients which incorporate a monthly fee and stock options equalling the greater of 250,000 shares or 0.5% of a company’s fully diluted outstanding share total at current prices.
12. Agoracom’s online content includes webcasts, podcasts, and blogs. Perusal of www.agoracom.com is free and open to the public. Visitors are directed to client and non-client issuer “hubs” created and maintained by Agoracom. Among the features available on a specific company’s hub is a discussion forum, relating to the issuers’ securities.
13. Agoracom’s representatives serviced the client hubs by moderating their discussion forums and posting information and news to the forums. In order to post comments on the discussion forums, users are required to create a username and provide an e-mail address.
14. Tsiolis and Kondakos required their representatives, as part of their daily responsibilities, to post anonymously to the client forums using aliases. To post messages anonymously, the representatives created fictitious usernames and posed as investors blending in with other users, investors and interested persons. Representatives had between 40-50 aliases (some had up to 200) and were required to make a requisite number of posts per hub per day or risk having their pay docked. On occasion, Agoracom staff conversed with themselves on the forums using different aliases.
15. Staff alleges that during the Material Time:
- more than 24,000 alias posts were created from within Agoracom on client and non-client hubs;
- more than 670 alias user names were created by representatives of Agoracom and used on client and non-client hubs;
- alias posts originated from Tsiolis’ residence; and
- posts by Agoracom representatives, using their aliases, were promotional and promoted purchasing and/or holding stock.
16. Neither the public users nor Agoracom’s clients were aware that representatives of Agoracom were posting on their hubs using aliases. In fact, the Respondents knowingly deceived clients about the traffic and activity generated on their hubs. In particular, Agoracom reported the number of posts and shareholder inquiries answered by Agoracom’s representatives to clients on a monthly basis, and failed to disclose that a portion of the posts and shareholder inquiries were created by Agoracom’s own representatives. For certain clients, alias posts by Agoracom’s representatives represented a significant proportion of the postings within the forum.
17. The Respondents knew or ought to have known that the posting activity described above put their clients at risk of being in breach of the TSX-V Corporate Finance Policies governing investor relations firm activities and compensation.