Don't Lose Your Money Online

Being online is an interesting experience. You are exposed to all the information in the world, and its a great way of expressing yourself. When people express themselves on the internet however, it is public for everyone to see. What seems like a virtual utopia also has its down sides. Some people use the internet strictly for their person gain. Almost every web page you visit may have an advertisement about making money quickly or mortgaging your house for some extra cash. To most this seems like a great idea. Making money with no risk, it seems like a dream. But what people don't realize is that when they click on these advertisements and go to the websites promising profits, they are most likely being completely mislead. Websites which offer these tall tales of increasing your money often online benefit the website runner themselves. In the case of investing a common scam for people to pull is called the "pump and dump". In this tactic, a person will create a website for themselves. Once the website grows some popularity they will start claiming that the can give you a 100% increase on your money with no risk. Of course, some people will buy in to this, but buy buying the investments, they are really just putting money into the pocket of the website holder. The scam works put investing lots of money in to a low quality stock, typically priced low so it fluctuates more. Once enough people invest in the stock and it looks like the profits are going straight up. At this point the owner of the website who usually owns a large number of shares of the company will sell all of his shares. This leaves everyone who invested in the company with a worthless stock and usually down money. This has been common with younger investors to make this mistake. But even some young investors are doing it themselves. In one case a "16-year-old, who, in addition to his promise, turned over $285,000 to the SEC to settle civil charges that he committed fraud in stock deals". All for a fraudulent pump and dump scheme. Moral of the story is do your research before believing anything you read online to avoid losing your money, and peace of mind.

source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pump-and-dump/