Do pump and dump spam campaigns really work?
March 2007 Over the last few weeks, the users of German webmail accounts at web.de and gmx.de have received a lot of ‘pump and dump’ spam emails written in German. These emails advertise the stock of a German venture capital company – which, according the email, is expected to grow radically within a week. The spam messages state that on 12 March 2007 the company’s share value was 12 cents. We decided to check this value and to watch what happened to it over the next couple of days. According to a well known German investment portal the company’s share value was indeed 12 cents on 12 March, and by 14 March 2007 it had gone up to 19 cents – representing a 58% increase in just two days. As shown in the table below (the prices are snapshots taken at the beginning and close of the day), the stock’s growth rate over the previous week had been 91% and in the previous four weeks 127%. The stock seems to be moving well. A chart of the stock values over the previous six months shows that the st
