## Beware Nomad International Inc. (Symbol NDIN)

Posts: 9

In Daniel's VOIP Forum Newsletter today, he noted:

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Quote:

Company Testing Dial-Up VoIP Solution

A company called Nomad International says it has begun beta-testing its Nomad Pro dial-up VoIP units. This is a 1-port Dial-up gateway that is supposed to be able to offer VoIP to dial-up customers. We'll be looking closely at reports on how this test is going, and of course, we will report what we hear - here!

However, if this is the same company as the one I've heard about, I strongly suggest that Vonage and its customers avoid it. Google has a number of examples of this spam, here.

Since May 27th of this year I have also received at least 23 such spams touting this company as an investment.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the phrases "pump and dump" or "hype and dump", this kind of investment scam involves insiders and/or other current shareholders promoting a stock by way of spam, bulletin board or newsgroup postings in cyberspace, or by way of cold calls etc in the real world. The actual promoters may of course pay a third party to do their dirty work, so as to distance themselves from the liability associated with committing the fraud.

As more and more people - i.e. suckers - buy the illiquid shares, the laws of supply and demand dictate that the share price increase, since buyers begin to outnumber sellers. Eventually, the pre-existing stock holders dump their shares at a profit. Then supply outstrips demand again, causing the share price to fall, leaving the newcomers holding the bag.

Anyone can Google for some other definitions and examples. One possible search is for "pump and dump" defined.

In particular, I like the very first search result I obtained, at InvestorDictionary.

Please don't fall for this trap yourself, and please let's encourage Vonage to demonstrate good corporate ethics by distancing itself from known spammers and scammers.

Thank you,

Sean Sowell
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Posts: 1424 · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 3:38 pm Post subject:

Sean,

Thank you for posting this, here is a little more detail;

Quote:

Yap, a Vancouver-based VoIP company listed on the pink sheets, traded at $.68 on volume of 7,400 the day before the messages went out. Three days later, the price spiked at $1.00 on volume of over 300,000. (The company, which itself has not been accused of any wrongdoing, later changed its name to Nomad International. As of June 14, you could pick up shares for four cents each.) Criminal investigations are ongoing.

http://www.howestreet.com/pr_story.php?ArticleId=1304

However, I would like to point out that the companies themselves may be as much victims of these pump and dump schemes as the investors. You don't have to own a company to benefit from fluctuating price.

Specifically I point you to Chart Filter for the following about the YAP pump and dump.

Quote:

The pub|isher disc|oses the receipt of Fifteen thousand dollars from a third party, not an officer, director, or affiliate shareho|der ofthe company for the preparation of this on|ine report. Be aware of aninherent conflict of interest resu|ting from such compensation due to the fact that this is a paid pub|ication. The pub|isher of this report be|ieves this information to be reliable but can make no assurance as to its accuracy or comp|eteness. Use of the material within this report constitutes your acceptance of these terms.

Note: Yap Intl site was www.yapint.com and is no longer online. You can visit it via the wayback machine at archive.org.

Nomad International is online at www.nomadintl.com. The site appears to be the same as the yap site. The information on the dialup VoIP gateway is also available under products & services.

Posts: 9 · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:32 pm Post subject:

Thank you Stephen, I had not been aware of the Yap/Nomad connection.

I do recall getting quite a number of spam messages from Yap or about Yap late last year. They were in a very similar format to the more recent crap I've received about Nomad.

I have to respectfully disagree with you about the hyped company being a victim though, simply because I've never believed the 'plausible deniability' arguments that these kinds of players put forward.

From my point of view, the companies, products and domain names being spamvertised are just as guilty as the spammers themselves. After all, each spamvertiser has either paid the spammer to spam on its behalf, or the spamvertiser is really just a shell or front controlled by the spammers. I've never seen a clearcut case where there is truly no connection between the spamvertiser and the spammer.

Who's worse, the symbiot or the host? I don't care. I refuse to knowingly give my dollars to either one. They can both die off as far as I'm concerned.

In Casino, Robert DeNiro's Ace Rothstein brought in a supposedly lily-white front man to run the Tangiers, Kevin Pollak's Phillip Green. Of course as it turned out, Green was just as culpable as the rest of the gang, and he was held to account in the end, just like the others.

It would sure be nice if Daniel Connor and Vonage speak up on this thread. They should make it clear by their words and actions that they do not endorse or support Yap/Nomad, or any other fraudster out there.

Kind regards ~

Sean Sowell

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 7:15 pm Post subject:

I submit for your consideration the SEC's case in the voicemail pump and dump.

YAP is not listed as a plaintiff but the following statement leaves the matter unresolved;

Quote:

On August 13, 2004, WMI was paid 210,000 shares of YPIL in advance by an unknown party to broadcast these messages.

sojs wrote:

I have to respectfully disagree with you about the hyped company being a victim though, simply because I've never believed the 'plausible deniability' arguments that these kinds of players put forward.

a) innocent until proven guilty?
b) pump and dumps are almost always run by third parties and the companies are chosen because their low trading volume makes it easy to manipulate the price. Sometimes the company officers are part of the scam, sometimes they ignore the obvious to make a profit and sometimes the companies themselves are victims.

about.com wrote:

They may even develop phony letterhead and send out press releases about the company. In some cases, the company knows nothing about the scheme. It becomes a victim too. In other cases, company insiders execute the scheme.

Officer's trades are public record so it is relatively easy to see if the company officers used the pump and dump to line their pockets.

EDIT: I guess my point here is that it is OK to say do your homework before you invest in this company, but it may very well be unfair to dismiss their products and services based on stock fraud without proof of company involvement.

Posts: 9 · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 3:42 am Post subject:

Yes, good points Stephen, but read further please.

You wrote:

Quote:

a) innocent until proven guilty?
b) pump and dumps are almost always run by third parties and the companies are chosen because their low trading volume makes it easy to manipulate the price. Sometimes the company officers are part of the scam, sometimes they ignore the obvious to make a profit and sometimes the companies themselves are victims.

Re a): No need to wait for the slow wheels of justice. Nomad/Yap are known spammers. I have the evidence myself, as do many thousands of other netizens who've been spammed by these jokers. Spammers are by definition ethically-challenged.

Guilty.

That there is already an SEC complaint only adds fuel to the fire, in my opinion. And that complaint relates to both YAP [and Nomad, taking your linkage at face value], and Triton American (TRAE)

Re b): You quoted paragraph 15 of the SEC complaint, but please also see ¶11:

Quote:

In or about July 2004, Defendant Cahill, who had acquired, owned or controlled a substantial number of the outstanding shares of TRAE, a small, Houston-based oil company, contacted Defendant Whittemore to engage WMI’s services to broadcast voicemail messages touting TRAE’s stock. Defendants Whittemore and WMI, who are in the business of using autodialing computers to broadcast prerecorded messages via telephone, agreed to broadcast messages for Cahill and Defendant Clearlake, the entity Cahill controlled. On or about August 12, 2004, Cahill paid Whittemore 594,000 shares of TRAE stock in advance for his services.

If the SEC already knows these guys control some or all of Triton, why is it such a stretch to think they or their cronies, affiliates, etc also control Yap/Nomad? I assert they probably do. If not in a direct A to B relationship, then maybe in some crazy nonlinear A to D, D to E and F, E and F to B and C respectively, B and C to G, and then finally G to A. Throw in a neighbor, a couple of cousins who live abroad and a brother in law for good measure, just so the connections are a little harder to pin down. So what. Keep digging and the connections are still there to be found.

The PDF file you referred me to is relatively fresh, created 5/3/05. Seems likely the Complaint is fresh too. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if the warrants have already been executed and these connections are known by now.

I recognize one of the SEC's attorneys names, and I can absolutely assure you that he has been sent ample evidence of the Nomad spam campaign. Nuff said.

You may not recognize the names Meyer Blinder and Robert Brennan. If you do, great. If not, please do some Googling to get a sense of their stories. One's in the grave and the other is doing time, but I am confident that the scams they learned how to run over the years have been distilled and passed along to others who are using that knowledge today.

Also, you may be familiar with Sanford "Spamford" Wallace. Although he may not be doing much spamming these days, I doubt very much that he has really retired. Instead, it would seem more logical for someone like that to teach others. I'm sure any number of the ROKSO list have gleaned something from him.

The Nomad spams are interesting in that many use embedded images and other techniques to get past spam filters and into inboxes. The SEC may not be pros at it yet, but I'm willing to bet that they are learning how to analyze headers and sniff out the botnets being used for these campaigns. Soon enough they will learn how to chase the issued commands back to their senders. Again, the connections are there to be made. Just requires more time and some extra digging.

GUILTY.

Cheers,

Sean

Posts: 2135 · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 9:21 am Post subject:

sojs wrote:

It would sure be nice if Daniel Connor and Vonage speak up on this thread. They should make it clear by their words and actions that they do not endorse or support Yap/Nomad, or any other fraudster out there.

Hi Sean: I do not represent Vonage, I only report the news.

On behalf of myself, I do not endorse or support Yap/Nomad nor did I have any knownledge of this issue until I read the thread.

Posts: 9 · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 1:44 pm Post subject:

Thank you Dan!

One of the challenges we all face is sorting through and parsing the news. Although I don't have a copy, this story seems to have originated from a Nomad press release.

I realize time is short, but if I were running stories like this in my newsletter, I'd want to vett the unknown companies by doing a quick Google search for "[company name]" "spam", and then skimming the first few results. If they appear in more than one or two online spam archives, I'd treat the press release with caution. Probably wouldn't run it.

Bottom line is that if I were a newsletter writer, I would never knowingly give legitimacy to any spammer outfit by publicizing anything about them or their products.

The only spammer stories I'd want to run would have headlines like "Record Fine Imposed on Spammers", "Spam Gang Convicted", "Spammers Sentenced", and "Spammer Released from Prison After 10 Years, Vows to Never Spam Again".

We all know spammers spam consumers. I'm sure they also spam journalists with bogus press releases. Occasionally, a journalist looking to fill white space will take such a story and run with it.

But 'occasionally' should become 'rarely'. Then over time, 'rarely' should approach 'never'. Hey, I can at least hope for that, right ?! Wink

Kind regards,

Sean

Guest

Quote:

Who's worse, the symbiot or the host? I don't care. I refuse to knowingly give my dollars to either one. They can both die off as far as I'm concerned.

Who is worse? Idiots spouting off on trivial rants in an effort to procreate self importance. I imagine you got burned by the scammers, which may or may not have any association with this firm. At least you were considerate enough to make the statement above, so anyone reading through your comments can clearly map out your sincere objectivity...

Quote:

Re a): No need to wait for the slow wheels of justice. Nomad/Yap are known spammers. I have the evidence myself, as do many thousands of other netizens who've been spammed by these jokers. Spammers are by definition ethically-challenged.

You offer no proof...and as such, you have become the very thing you attempt to flame, a SPAMMER, you selling this stock short?

Either these guys have a product being tested or they do not, which is it? Cool