Message Board Stock Scammers Busted

There's a special twist to an federal court indictment and SEC complaint announced today: among the defendants is a character named Matthew Brown, who runs the InvestorsHub.com message board.

I've written a bit about another sleazy stock message board named Investors Village, which claims to be a high-toned forum "where serious investors connect," but is in reality a happy hunting ground for promoters of dreck like Novastar Financial and corporate goons for the Overstock.com corporate crime petri dish.

But it seems that IHub was even worse, according to the SEC complaint. The feds say that IHub was not only a locale of rampant stock touting, was also was a place where stock promoters hooked up. Now, that's what I call "serious investors connecting"!

One of the stocks touted by these scam artists was Xtreme Motorsports of California, a naked shorting victim, naturally.

It's as I've said repeatedly: these stock message boards are a one-way street to the poorhouse, if you're dumb enough to use them for stock research. They're not places where "serious investors connect," unless you're a stock promoter seeking to network with other stock promoters. They're places where the naive are skinned alive.

© 2009 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.