Free shares guv that'll do nicely!

I'm incredulous, no actually I'm not. In fact I'm not surprised at all.

It's been brought to my attention that a certain dubious character and the organisation that he works for has been reported to the FCA for perceived wrongdoing. A regular occurrence I'm led to believe. I couldn't possibly comment other than report the facts.

Apparently, the accused has issued some kind of rebuttal on his own website which is a laugh a minute. In fact when it was related to me, I couldn't actually believe that he thinks anyone in their right minds would take him seriously, but he clearly thinks people are so stupid that they'll believe his b*llsh*t.

To cut a long story short, the issue centres around this organisation being paid in company 'shares' for services rendered at their investor shows. For example, let's say company A wants a stand at an investor show but doesn't want to pay cash. The company can pay the equivalent and a bit more in shares apparently. Surely nothing wrong with that is there? Oh hang on, the company receiving the shares is a share tipping site. Now let me think about this. Ummm....It doesn't sound good does it. Seedy, unethical, ?illegal? probably doesn't cover it.

Free shares gov, that'll do nicely. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.....report on your company coming up on our website.....ramp, ramp........know what I mean guv'nor.......gullible subscribers....nudge nudge......share price ramped up..........say no more ;)

Let's say I'm a share tipster that has just received payment in company A's shares for services rendered. What might I do in these circumstances?

a) Not write about the company.
b) Write a negative report about the company.
c) Ramp the company to high heaven, and try and exploit the opportunity for all it's worth.

Answers on a postcard please.

What is incredulous is that as a rebuttal, the following excuses are given:-

1) It's OK  to do this if they like the company in question.

Ummmm............?

2) In the past they've told investors to sell a company's shares whilst continuing to hold on to them themselves.

Eh.........? How does that work? Would you buy shares in a company and then write a article explaining why everyone else should sell them unless of course you were trying to buy some more on the cheap which is totally unacceptable. So it's either mindless stupidity or totally unethical?

3) The individual doesn't receive any personal reward from the receipt of the company shares, but his dependants do.

Oh that's ok then. My dependents have nothing to do with me. Oh hang on they're my dependents!!

You couldn't make this nonsense up. Sadly it's true. FCA get your act together!!!!

P.S. I won't name the individual or website, but in a recent blog I mentioned that they looked like they were peddling soft porn, at least now they've had the decency to remove it. Pure coincidence of course since they can't possibly read my blog ;).