The scam had two parts. For investors, there was the the "stock picking robot" called Marl, which supposedly told you which stocks to buy. You could buy a copy of Marl for $28,000 - or get a newsletter featuring Marl's wisdom, for just $47.
In reality Marl didn't pick anything. The stock tips were provided by the teenage scammers, the Hunters, themselves. Not because they thought they were good stocks, but because the companies behind the stocks paid the Hunters fees for their promotional services via a separate "equitypromoter.com".
What's interesting about the scheme is that everything "worked", just not the way it was meant to. Investors paid to get tips as to what stocks would rise; they did rise, just not for the reasons they thought.
So Marl was a lot like one of those quack treatments in medicine, that claim to treat a certain disease, and do indeed make people who take it feel better, but - contrary to what they claim - through the placebo effect.
There's other similarities too, as you can find out on the rather fascinating good-stocks.com site which helped sell Marl. Like many quack treatments it had:
- An elaborate 'mechanism of action' that blinds with science - Marl uses an "evolutionary framework"to "Develop what professional traders call a 'sixth sense'" and can "process 1,986,832 mathematical calculations per second."
- Lots of amazing success stories and testimonials from satisfied customers
- An attractive creation myth - Marl was invented by "Two Uber Geeks" who both had a record of success in more conventional stock trading, but unlike their conventional colleagues, were able to invent Marl by thinking outside the box; this is reminiscent of the many quacks who simultaneously flout their medical or academic qualifications while accusing medicine and academia of ignoring them.
5 comments:
This reminds me of my course in forensic psychiatry when the teacher showed us the case of a crook who had sell to a notary a piece of land that didn't exist.
As a specie we are just unable to act on the wise "When it is too good to be true..."
This is why we need drug regulation agencies to decide about who can prescribe what to whom.
It reminds me of Big Pharma pretty medical visitors sweet talking to prescribers like to the female gynaecologist who is a plaintiff in a Mediator ( Servier Benfluorex) suit because she got an heart defect by selfprescribing Mediator to loose weight:
http://sante.lefigaro.fr/actualite/2011/09/06/16284-jai-prescrit-mediator-comme-coupe-faim
reminiscent of the many quacks who simultaneously flout their medical or academic qualifications while accusing medicine and academia of ignoring them.
do you know of any studies or books on "quacks"? has anyone done an "analysis of quackery" across different domains (not just medicine)
Good question... not that I know of, although Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds kind of covers it.
More money is being lost to legit crooks i.e. stockbrokers than scammers. It's in our nature to test the system. These two are badass awesome given their age. Everything in the corporate world is greed and lies. They all hate each other dog eat dog to the top. Big pharma no exception.
///Jokers and for-profit marketing companies are now devising elaborate online hoaxes, taking advantage of the in-built desire among consumers and media outlets to believe what they really know is unbelievable.///
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17818359
Where to draw the moral line between using fellow humans' "desire to believe what is unbelievable" to make a product famous and selling you dangerous things and ideas(like racist ideas) and crooks who take directly your money ?
You also wrote:
///So Marl was a lot like one of those quack treatments in medicine, that claim to treat a certain disease, and do indeed make people who take it feel better, but - contrary to what they claim - through the placebo effect.///
May be that "stock robot" prevented people to take wrong decision by listening to a human financial advisor and it was better that Pbo.
The Maddof type might be rare but the greedy for bonuses bank accountants selling too dangerous financial products to modest people needing the money for old age are numerous.
The "stock picking robot" might also prevent professionals to take wrong stock picking on their spare time by listening to their emotions and old media or internet financial tips.
The moral in psychiatry: I prefer some unhappy person taking homeopathy and speaking to a psychiatrist than seeing that person to be put on risperidal or antidepressant regimen too early.
This written knowing very well that some people are relieved by and agree to take neuroleptics treatment and that proposing homeopathy only can be a professional misconduct in some cases or an error at other times.
I am sorry if I sound provocative to some neuroscientists but I am just being honest.
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