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Friday 21 February 2014

PRFC (Epcylon Technologies, Inc) pump-and-dump spam

This pump-and-dump spam run happened last night, which would have been Thursday afternoon in the US. Usually spam runs of this type happen over the weekend, but this P&D run is not quite like others.
From:     Zelma Williams
Date:     20 February 2014 19:04
Subject:     Very important information. Please read

Hi [redacted]

I know you were expecting to hear back from me much earlier but I didn't want to get back to you empty-handed. I finally found the perfect stock for you and I am confident that it will make you some serious profit. Remember the one I told you about in November of last year right? You did very well on it and I think this PRFC stock will do the same for your portfolio again.
I have to let you know though that I'm not the only one who found out about PRFC today. A few of my colleagues are aware as well and they are telling their friends and family about it so I must advise you to move fast if you want to buy it. I think it's trading at just around 15 cents right now, if you wait too long it might be at 30 or even higher and at that time I won't be able to safely advise you to buy it. You can buy as many shares as you can first thing at market open on Friday or worst case scenario buy it on Monday but move fast.
I know you don't care about what the company does because you know I've done all the due diligence for you already but PRFC is actually amazing and I think it will do much better than even the one I told you about a few months ago.
One of the company's divisions offers mobile software solutions for the gaming industry. The mobile apps allow customers to play lottery and other games of chance and skill on their smartphones. The software is extremely advanced and could be the backbone of all mobile casinos in the future. It is expected that the US will legalize online gaming in the near future and this could catapult PRFC to new highs however even without that the company's software is extremely valuable in the rest of the world and could become extremely profitable.  Something big is definitely brewing at the company. I heard something about buy out rumors but I don't have all the details yet I will keep you posted over the coming days or weeks.
Anyway I won't bore you with much more blabber, but if you have a second do check out PRFC. By the way I will be expecting a nice gift from you once you make fat bank on this one and a nice dinner with the wives is in order. It's been too long since we last spent a good evening over a bottle of wine. I was going to call you to tell you about PRFC but I figured youre probably asleep now with those crazy shifts you've been working. Take care and call me if there's anything.

Talk soon
Your favorite friend and only broker :)
Appended to the spam is some random text to try to fool spam filters.

According to stock charts, this spam has been successful and has pushed up the Epcylon Technologies, Inc / PRFC price by about 40% in afternoon trading.


The chart shows that 72885 shares were traded in this period, moving stock up from $0.14 to $0.20, the highest value for this stock since August. Trading is normally pretty thin for this stock at between 0 to 10,000 shares per day, but it does sometimes peak higher.

Usually with pump-and-dump scams somebody buys a large quantity of a few days before the spam run. This doesn't appear to be the case here, which leads to the possibility that the spam run is being pushed by an existing stockholder (it is unlikely to be anything to do with Epcylon though). Another thing that differentiates this pump-and-dump run from others is that there does seem to be some mildly positive news about this company.

However, I would urge you not to buy these stocks. The usual pattern is that the stock price collapses shortly after the initial spam run when the party responsible for the spam cashes out.

The spam itself was sent to scraped email addresses and addresses taken from various data breaches, although there does appear to have been some basic listwashing done to evade detection.

Update: a second version is doing the rounds..

From:     Rowena Rasmussen caroline@ordernowapp.com
To:     caroline [caroline@victimdomain]
Date:     22 February 2014 14:48
Subject:     This is the best stock tip of the year

Dear Investor,

If you're tired of playing the market for mediocre gains then you should read on. I'm Mike Statler. Some of you may know me from my last good stock tip (WPWR) which more than tripled within a short period of time (feel free to check it out). Now I have a brand new tip and I will think you will be pleased. This one should go up more than 6 times from current levels.
If you are interested in making a quick gain overnight, this is not for you, but if you're serious about buying my new tip PRFC and you are willing to hold a few weeks and see magic happen then you're definitely at the right place.
If you remember correctly I told you a few days ago about PRFC. I advised you to add it to your watch list but at the time I could not recommend that you buy it as I had not completed my due diligence.
I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that it is already up about 60% since I told you to add it to your watch list but the good news is that I think it still has a lot of room to go up and I expect to see PRFC trading at over 2 dollars before the end of the month or by the end of the 1st week of march at the absolute latest.
The company makes indispensable software that powers the backend of mobile gambling platforms. You can buy lottery on your smartphone, spin the roulette, enjoy blackjack or even play a game of poker. All this from your iphone or android phone. This is absolutely revolutionary and as we get closer to complete legalization of online gambling in America this little gem that is PRFC could soar dramatically.
PRFC (or Epcylon Technologies if you prefer) is going to work wonders for my subscribers' portfolios. I even bought $15,000 of it myself today. THAT'S how confident I am in it. I'm putting my money where my mouth is and I am telling you to BUY PRFC too if you believe in me, and if you don't it's too bad. You will be sending me an email two weeks from now saying how you regret not buying when I told you to do so.

Happy Trading,
I'm Mike Statler.

Update 24/2/14: new versions replace the text with an image in an attempt to bypass spam filters.



Update 25/2/14: a slightly different image this time, presumably in an attempt to evade scanners


19 comments:

Zio Toby said...

Same happened to me, last night around 7pm EST - and I am based in Italy, close to Milan.
Funny thing is that the mail address they used is not quite correct: the provider part after the "at" is wrong, nonetheless I have received it.

Unknown said...

I got this too, along with my entire team. I knew it was spam, but I'm not touching this one with a 39-1/2 foot pole.

TC's Blog said...

What about the scenario of just taking advantage of this by putting money in for 1 day, letter it increase another 40% and pulling out?

Conrad Longmore said...

@TC's Blog - alas, by the time the spam has started it's too late. The spam seems to be sustaining the stock at the $0.28 level, I doubt it will go higher and will most likely collapse when the spam stops.

Unknown said...

short it

Ahmad said...

Got the same message, based in Kuwait. I'd say to short it is an option of you guys are risk takers.

Stankosolo said...

I just got one myself. It is 10.30 p.m., on a lovely Saturday and I must say I am honored! I live in Serbia for Christ's sake! The guys must have skipped geography (and economics) classes :) Or they are really getting desperate. Imagine a guy from Serbia buying stocks in Canada. Not even sure what stocks are :)

Conrad Longmore said...

It's an OTC stock as well, very difficult to purchase if you're not in the US. But the spammers don't care who they email it to.. Serbia, Italy, UK.. doesn't seem to bother them.

Tavo said...

I've recently received the same email and I live in Argentina. Guess these guys don't even consider who they are emailing. Cheers everyone!

Unknown said...

Got this junk through in the UK

CSP said...

I must have received this junk in various forms about 100 times over the past few days.

When the person who has been doing this dumps his stock, he'll surely be easy to identify.

Please post his name on here so I can hunt him down and make him wish his mother had never been born.

TheTruth said...

http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/epcylon-provides-update-and-addresses-recent-spamming-20140224-00629

TheTruth said...

24, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Epcylon Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB:PRFC) ("Epcylon" or the "Company") has become aware of recent "spamming" and / or "spammers" that have identified Epcylon as a "target" to manipulate its share price.

Epcylon and management takes the following position:

Epcylon has NO involvement in such activities
Epcylon has NO knowledge of the author(s) of this "spam"
Epcylon's senior management has discussed the facts and circumstances directly with OTC Markets in regards to this unwarranted "spam" solicitation. Epcylon regrets that such unscrupulous action has been perpetrated by an individual / group of individuals.

Epcylon wants to advise its shareholders to ONLY rely on information that is properly and legally disseminated by Epcylon with its accompanying logo and other identifying factors. Please DO NOT rely on any other information that is not verifiable.

Epcylon is also pleased to announce that, in relation to its continued efforts to restructure the Company and increase shareholder value, it is working to upgrade to the OTCQX. The OTCQX is the highest market tier on the OTC and offers investors transparent trading, superior information and easy access through accredited broker-dealers.



Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/epcylon-provides-update-and-addresses-recent-spamming-20140224-00629#ixzz2uJSTu1XF

אבא של בעז said...

The spam has reached Israel 6 hours ago

Unknown said...

anti-spam efforts have been resolved using the phrases "cid:ii_" and "if no image here" within the entire message as a filter

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dolores and Ross - Innkeepers said...

I have received over 50 of these messages every day for the past week or so.
I was curious for the reason of the weird wording at the end of the email. I only discovered reading this blog the reason for all the gobbledygook at the end, is to to fool the spam filters.
After reading the initial email, it was pretty obviously a 'pump and dump' and they all go straight into
File 13' (delete)

Unknown said...

I have been getting about 100 of these every day, all week. I'd probably buy the damn thing if it would stop the emails. LOL

Unknown said...

P.s. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania