Today, the SEC made a press release under the above-referenced title and invited public to visit a website HoweyCoin.com to “buy into a hot investment opportunity linked with luxury travel,” by participating in the ICO conducted by the SEC. However, the SEC quickly explained that the offering was not real. The SEC set up a website, HoweyCoins.com, that mimicked a bogus coin offering to educate investors about what to look for before they invest in a scam. Anyone who clicked on “Buy Coins Now” was led instead to investor education tools and tips from the SEC and other financial regulators. “The rapid growth of the ‘ICO’ market, and its widespread promotion as a new investment opportunity, has provided fertile ground for bad actors to take advantage of our Main Street investors,” said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. “We embrace new technologies, but we also want investors to see what fraud looks like, so we built this educational site with many of the classic warning signs of fraud. Distributed ledger technology can add efficiency to the capital raising process, but promoters and issuers need to make sure they follow the securities laws. I encourage investors to do their diligence and ask questions.” The SEC provided the most common attributes of many ICOs on its website HoweyCoin.com such as a White Paper, claims of the greatest investment opportunity, promises of a future profit, and a countdown clock indicating a limited time offer. “Fraudsters can quickly build an attractive website and load it up with convoluted jargon to lure investors into phony deals,” said Owen Donley, Chief Counsel of the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, who doubles as “Josh Hinze” on the HoweyCoins website. “But fraudulent sites also often have red flags Today , the SEC made a press release under the above-referenced title and invited public to visit a website HoweyCoin.com to “buy into a hot investment opportunity linked with luxury travel,” by participating in the ICO conducted by the SEC.
However, the SEC quickly explained that the offering was not real. The SEC set up a website, HoweyCoins.com, that mimicked a bogus coin offering to educate investors about what to look for before they invest in a scam. Anyone who clicked on “Buy Coins Now” was led instead to investor education tools and tips from the SEC and other financial regulators.
“The rapid growth of the ‘ICO’ market, and its widespread promotion as a new investment opportunity, has provided fertile ground for bad actors to take advantage of our Main Street investors,” said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. “We embrace new technologies, but we also want investors to see what fraud looks like, so we built this educational site with many of the classic warning signs of fraud. Distributed ledger technology can add efficiency to the capital raising process, but promoters and issuers need to make sure they follow the securities laws. I encourage investors to do their diligence and ask questions.”
The SEC provided the most common attributes of many ICOs on its website HoweyCoin.com such as a White Paper, claims of the greatest investment opportunity, promises of a future profit, and a countdown clock indicating a limited time offer.
“Fraudsters can quickly build an attractive website and load it up with convoluted jargon to lure investors into phony deals,” said Owen Donley, Chief Counsel of the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, who doubles as “Josh Hinze” on the HoweyCoins website. “But fraudulent sites also often have red flags that can be dead giveaways if you know what to look for.”
The goal of the SEC was to show how quickly and easy an ICO scam could be put together to defraud investors and how difficult it could be to spot the fake coin offerings.
May 16, 2018