from the seems-sketchy dept
We're all familiar with stock market pump and dump scams that have been around forever, and often show up via spam, but what happens when someone famous gets in on the game. Apparently, rapper 50 Cent
started pumping the stock symbol of a penny stock for a company that is distributing a new pair of headphones that he's associated with. The stock then
surged, increasing the company's value by $50 million. Oddly, when I look at the Twitter account of
50 Cent, I no longer see the Twitter messages in question, which makes me wonder if he realized he might get in trouble for those tweets. Of course, there's nothing wrong with giving stock advice but if he didn't disclose his own association with the company, he could run into serious legal problems from both the SEC and the FTC, who have been looking to crack down on "sponsored" tweets that don't properly disclose a relationship.
Filed Under: 50 cent, ftc, pump, sec, stocks
