Beware of Lurking Wolves
Sometimes, I pick up my own phone at the office. Last week, a friendly caller caught me off guard. The conversation went something like this:
Caller: Hello, Roger, how are you?
Roger: Fine, thanks, how ‘bout yourself?
Caller: I am also fine, thank you for asking. I am calling to let you know that our analysts have started recommending the stocks of several conservative, dividend-paying, major oil companies They are very safe investments, and I would like to start a relationship with you.
Roger: Pardon me?
Caller: I also want you to know that from time to time we come across the stocks of some smaller companies that our analysts research thoroughly. And within the next week or so, there is one that we will be formally recommending, because of some announcements we believe the company will we making in the next two months.
Roger: Who is this?
Caller: I will give you my full contact information in a minute, but please let me finish.
Roger: May I have your name and the name of your company?
Caller: Now Roger, no one can predict what will happen to the price when those announcements start to flow, but I would like to call you at the right time, so that as a client, you may take advantage of our knowledge. Buying a few shares of a major oil company can establish the account, then we can move quickly on the smaller companies at the right time.
I never got the fellow’s name, since I hung up on him. But his pitch was familiar. It was reminiscent of cold calls that came in prior to the 2013 release of The Wolf of Wall Street.
Almost comedic, but perhaps disturbing, the call was the second one I received—with precisely the same script—in the past couple of weeks. Could the wolves be coming back? Have their prison terms ended? Perhaps it’s the perceived frothy Dow. Or maybe the fake news mantra. Or the newswire upstarts that make it ridiculously inexpensive, and often without traditional controls, to transmit press releases from virtually any source.
Most readers of this blog know better and would not fall for such scam calls. But beware, nevertheless. Hopefully, history is not repeating itself.
Roger Pondel, rpondel@pondel.com
