Spoofing

Categories: Ethics/Morals

A few months ago, Layla bought 1,000 shares of IMHO, Inc. stock. Since then, it hasn’t really gone up the way she thought it would, so she’s decided to take matters into her own hands. She’s going to engage in a little “spoofing,” a form of stock market manipulation in which an investor places a big order in an effort to drive up the company’s share price and trade activity, but then immediately cancels the order before it actually fills.

Once all the hype Layla’s created bumps up the value of her original 1,000 shares, she’s going to sell them at a profit before everyone realizes what’s going on and the price drops back down. She feels like this is a surefire way to increase the value of her portfolio, but it might also be a surefire way to get herself a nice criminal record. That’s because spoofing is illegal. And...word to the wise: it’s tough to enjoy our money from prison. So maybe spoofing isn’t the best way to enhance our portfolio.

The word “spoofing” also has another popular definition, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention it here. Outside of the stock market, “spoofing” refers to pretending to be someone else in an effort to access people’s personal information. This goes beyond catfishing. Spoofers will often pretend to be a legit business, a person we know, or even a government enterprise, and then they’ll send out texts, emails, or...whatevs...trying to convince innocent people to share stuff like their SSN, account info, passwords, etc. Spoofing is a scam, it’s shady, and, like our previous spoofing example, it’s illegal.

We’ve all probably heard this a million times, but it bears repeating: we shouldn’t give out any personal info to anyone ever without verifying that (1) they are who they say they are, (2) the info is needed for legit purposes, and (3) the info will be protected.

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Finance: What are Phishing Scams?8 Views

00:00

Finance a la shmoop what are phishing scams? all right you know when you're out [Woman on fishing boat with Dad]

00:08

on the lake with dad just the two of you trying to haul in some trout when one of

00:13

the fish pulls a fast one on you and hangs one of these things on your line [Fishing line with boot attached]

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yeah total scam we're telling you you cannot trust anything that breathes

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through the side of its face anymore these days really okay so that's a not

00:28

quite a phishing scam although the general idea is similar it's someone

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trying to make you believe something that isn't exactly true with a phishing

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scam the venue switches from the great outdoors to cyberspace never gotten an [A wooden hut appears]

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email from a Nigerian prince who's temporarily down on his luck and if

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you'll just wire him three hundred bucks in cash immediately well immeasurable

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riches await you it sounds like a little good to be true there right yeah and it [Man gives thumbs up in room]

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is well usually that Nigerian prince is an overweight balding guy named Jerry

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living in his mom's basement in a suburb just outside of Cleveland he'd love

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nothing more than to hook a sucker you and take that 300 bucks [Jerry on his computer]

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off your hands but many times the scam is much more intricate than that often

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its identity thieves who are trying to con you into releasing private

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information such as your social security number or credit card information mm-hmm

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that's out there well they might try to convince you that

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their Amazon support or your bank or your long-lost uncle Yusuf who just [Person flicking through e-mails]

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needs a few personal details before he can FedEx you your large inheritance

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don't fall for any of it anytime you're randomly asked to divulge any sensitive

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information or pop a wad of cash in an envelope stop for a second and ask

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yourself whatever you might be well a fish and then ask yourself whether you'd [Cash burning]

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like all your hard-earned money to be sauteed or flame-broiled good stuff...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)