Fake hard mailer on Dephasium Corp (DPHS)

Last Friday, @StockBrainiac (run by Equities Awareness Group) tweeted about an upcoming hard mailer promoting Dephasium Corp (DPHS).

Over the weekend a few crappy stock promoters pumped the stock.

LiquidTycoon has agreed to be compensated fifteen thousand dollars for a one day public awareness marketing campaign for DPHS from the third party StockMister LLC.

The same promoter that runs that website runs the following websites:

PennyStockMoneyTrain.com
PennyStockPickAlert.com
SuperHotPennyStocks.com
SuperNovaStockPicks.com
LiquidTycoon.com
TheInformedStockInvestor.com
WinningPennyStockPicks.com
TheStockPickingMoneyTree.com
WePickPennyStocks.com
WallStreetNewsRelease.com

DPHS was also promoted by Joepennystocks.com / PennyPickAlerts.com:

 JoePennyStocks has been compensated $15,000.00 USD by StockMister LLC for a one day Awareness Campaign on DPHS

And by Openingbellreport.com:

Compensation: We have been compensated up to $35,000 for this publication by DesignIRFirm.

This morning prior to the market open someone sent me a link to http://www.penny-mailers.com/mailers/DPHS_mailer_3rdjune.jpg using my contact form to report that they received a hard mailer on DPHS. I was immediately suspicious, especially after seeing that the website that image was hosted on was just registered on May 22nd. Furthermore, a look in the directory showed many different file names for the same image:
dphs_directory - Copy (2)

Also, the font was off in some places — the “x” in “next” was weird and the “u” in “huge” was in italics while the rest of the word was not.

next_huge

I tweeted my suspicions prior to the market open:

I took to Twitter to see what else people were saying and found this:

The purported mailer of DPHS looked a lot like the LOTE mailer. I became convinced that the purported hard mailer was fake. Tim Lento then posted in the TimAlerts chat that

TimLento

DPHS LOTE check it out, creases exactly the same and black marks on top and bottom http://bit.ly/11mjKzc http://bit.ly/11mjL6e

Posted Jun 03, 10:24 AM

 

The fold marks were the exact same as those in the LOTE hard mailer that Tim Lento had uploaded over a month ago; the purported DPHS mailer was just a Photoshopped version of the LOTE mailer. Here is a close-up that proves the DPHS mailer is a fake (see the zoomed-out comparison):

dphs_close - Copy (2)

 

Even without the original LOTE image to compare the DPHS image to, it would still be possible to ascertain that the DPHS image was faked, by using image error level analysis. Take a look for yourself.

Here is a small piece of the DPHS image:

dphs_ilea

The lighter areas show a different level of image error compared to the darker errors, indicating that they came from different sources. Different colors in the original will affect the image error level analysis so it is only in sections of the same color and font where differences in the error level image are meaningful.

How I will trade DPHS

Fake stock promotions consistently do much worse than even real stock promotions, so I am short biased on DPHS. That being said, there is bid support on the stock that has gotten partially filled (the bids were not pulled when they were about to be tested) which means that someone is trying to support this and not just sell as much stock as possible as quickly as possible. Consequently, I will not look to short this aggressively. But I still won’t even consider buying it.

[Edit 2013-6-3 8:00pm EST]: Multiple people have posted photos of a real hard mailer that hit today promoting DPHS. But even this mailer, while real, is still fake, because it says that it is from AwesomePennyStocks and that they will promote DPHS to their email list on Thursday. Here is a photo that was posted to iHub. I am quite certain that this is not from AwesomePennyStocks (APS) or anyone affiliated with them. They have continued to email promoting XUII. I have taken advantage of the confusion though by selling short XUII overnight and holding DPHS long overnight (both positions will likely be closed soon after the open tomorrow). The mailer directs people to www.pre-mailer-alerts.com which was registered on April 25th, has a design very much like APS’ website Premiumstockreport.com, and was registered to Maria Morales of Costa Rica. APS’ current legal entity is Degroupa Tenner Morales Media. I think it quite likely that someone is having quite a bit of fun pretending to be APS.

[Edit 2013-6-4 8am]: I am wondering if the new APS mailer was even sent out in the mail. I would expect more people to have received it if it had been sent. Maybe it is another fake.
dphs1

 [Edit 2013-6-13]: The real hard mailer sent out promoting DPHS (from here):

dphs

Disclaimer: [Edit 2013-6-3 8pm EST – I am long DPHS and am short XUII shares; both positions will likely be closed early tomorrow morning.] I have no position in any stock mentioned and I have no relationship with any parties mentioned above. This blog has a terms of use that is incorporated by reference into this post; you can find all my disclaimers and disclosures there as well.

9 thoughts on “Fake hard mailer on Dephasium Corp (DPHS)”

  1. ty for mention.

    some text is italics cuz the faker used “true religion” italic text (in the real LOTE mailer) to make some of the new words

  2. Real, fake… Who cares… There’s bid support and just trade the momo…

    I’m not marrying this stock just trading the action..

  3. Well I sold my DPHS at .604 right at the open. I tried buying for a bounce a couple times and made a little money with that. I covered my XUII short for small profits right after the open too.

  4. Hey Michael,

    Thanks for the great info, def gonna read more about your blog.

    How do we go about find out about these pumps and promotions? Does tim mention it in his DVD (I am guessing yes)? How do you do it now?

    Just sign up for like hundreds of newsletters and mailers?

  5. I did listen to the mailer and bought 10000 shares. It looked as it they were right the first day it climbed to 60 cents. now it is back at 10 and i have lost my butt. Do I sell or sit and wait it out as Im very green with the stockmarket. Can it in fact go to zero adn i will have lost everything i had. Right now Im down almost 5000. that I couldnt afford to loose . Now Im going at what point to I bail. I think Ive almost lost so much I might as well stay. any opinions?

    1. Well most penny stocks never really go to zero but many, many pumps eventually go to sub-pennies. Will DPHS go up or down in the near term? I don’t know. It is very likely it drops another 80% over the next few months though.

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