True Story of a paid basher

I am a paid basher.
Yes, it is true. Today is my last day at this company; I'm moving on to anew job. I've realized that there are more dignifying jobs out there that canpay me equally as well. But before I go, I want to explain a few things becausethis just isn't right and I won't feel good about myself until I expose thissham. It's hurt too many people and I don't want it on my conscience anymore. Ican no longer live with a lie.
I work for a company called Global Calumny Funds in Stamford, CT.Basically, it's a Boiler Room much like the one in the movie of the same name.The idea behind my group is to bash the price of a company's stock down lowenough to where the group of investors who retained our company's services canbuy the stock really cheap and perhaps even take it over all together.
There are approximately 70 people at the company divided into severalgroups. My group, consisting of 5 people, is responsible for IDWD. While Iprobably shouldn't give any names of anyone working here now, what the heck, I'mleaving here, so what can they do? sue me? Ha! I can tell you that laptoptraderand janice shell were part of my group until he left last week, as wasninaturtle. Others who have been part of this include early bashers like harddata and Investorman. You may be interested to know that some hypsters, such asMONEYMADE and even Datatech!!, have also been part of the scam (more on thatlater).
There are several companies engaged in the bashing business, ours is notthe only one. However, I can tell you that not every basher in here is a paidbasher. Having done this for a year, I can usually tell who is a paid basher andwho is merely someone having a little fun. While unpaid bashers have adifferent motive than someone like me, they can be unwilling accomplices tohelping me achieve my ultimate goal and they also spread rumor and confusionthroughout a room, which also helps me.
What is that goal? Well, I am merely a cog in a much larger machine, so mybosses never really explained the big picture to me, but I'd say essentially,Shaddowwatch2oo3 was right. There are several companies who are quite familiarwith Jim Bishop and Janice Shell and who are deathly afraid of them.
There are three types of bashers here at Global Calumny Funds: Advanced,Intermediate and Beginner. An Advanced-level basher (also known as a SilverTongued Devil) would spread false or misleading information about thecompany. They would deal in facts, countering every longs post with articles,news reports and opinion surveys that gave a negative impression about thecompany.
An Intermediate-level basher (also known as a Serpent) would try to weaseltheir way into the confidence of longs and create doubt using rumor orinnuendo.
Finally, a Beginner-level basher (also known as a Pitchfork) would attemptto create confusion in the room by distracting other posters with satire, namecalling and pointless arguments. The idea was to make sure no serious discussionof the stock could take place. A Pitchfork was usually a basher, but notalways. Sometimes, we would throw in a hypster Pitchfork such as MONEYMADE andlaptop and a pumper like Datatech to create the illusion of an argument goingon. What was really funny (in a perverse way, I guess) was that Datatech and Isat next to each other, laughing the whole time.
I was a Serpent basher, because I am known for effective bashing based onsolid facts and truth. I was paid a base wage of $18 an hour for my services. Iwas given a $1.25 bonus for every decent quality post over 100 per day as wellas a monthly bonus of $100 for every penny the stock had dropped from theprevious month. I was also paid a bonus for bashing on weekends. While this maynot sound like much, I made a decent, though dishonorable, paycheck plus a niceLaptop with free wireless internet connection.
Each of us sat in a small half-cubicle in a cluster with our teammates.Each group (usually five people) was made of three beginners (two who would bashand one who would hype), one intermediate and one advanced level basher.Occasionally for some
of the hotter stocks, one of the beginners would bereplaced by an intermediate depending on how much the stock was rising. IDWD wasa low-level stock, meaning it got the 3-1-1 configuration.
Honestly though, somehow, I get the feeling that WV Hillbilly may haveworked for a basher company or knows someone who does because the fund websiteshe occasionally posts is eerily similar to our employer's websites. While notexact, I'd say it is about 90 percent the same. We do have certain rules that wefollow.
First, we have to develop a character and stay within that character inorder to build a "following." My character, "FogOfWar," was a humorous,sarcastic, obnoxious supporter of free speech and loved to portray himself as atruth-telling superhero, but only when it came to bashers.
Next, we had to follow certain guidelines on what we could say. We wereurged to have an "answer" to every long's question, but we were to frame thatanswer in a way that ridiculed the questioner for asking such a question.However, we were never to use profanity or vulgarity because that would causepeople to ignore us. We were to make fun of people, but in a civil way. The ideawas to get "play," i.e. reaction from other posters. The more play we got, themore the room would be disrupted. Ignored posters get no play. One exceptionwould be the hypsters since they were "defending" the stock against ouronslaught, they got a little more leeway. People would side with the hypsterbecause they thought he was real since he appeared to be on their side, but wasreally on ours, setting us up to disrupt the room. MoneyMade was quite good atthis and gets paid very well.
I've worked on IDWD, VLO, AGII, QBID, BKMP for a few months now. Inaddition to the FogOfWar alias, I've used a few others on several other boardsas well. I've used so many aliases that I can not remember the monikers or thepasswords. I honestly lost track of everything. I stuck with FogOfWar because itwas the one that got the most play from other posters.
In closing, I feel absolutely terrible about this. It's just awful how I'vebeen part of a scam designed to cheat honest, hard-working people out of theirinvestments all for the
benefit of a few wealthy people who already haveenough money to last a lifetime.
These greedy people MUST be stopped. That's why I'm posting this before Ileave. I want to make up for some of the damage I've done. I can't live withthis lie anymore. You can't imagine how hard it is to look at myself in themirror each morning knowing my job is to cheat and lie.
I have to go now, I'm too broken up to continue. I hope this confession canmake up for my sordid deeds; I would urge everyone who reads this to inform asmany people as you can. Only by shining the light of truth can we drive theserats back into the darkness from whence they came. Believe me, they don't wantpublicity.
Good luck and I hope all of you the best in your investmentendeavors