By Elric Langton, Arch-Nemesis of Keyboard Warrior
I hope you find this tail of woes as entertaining as it has been for me, exposing a lunatic who has held a grudge against me for around six years. I have become his target again, for reasons I have no clue what triggered the poor soul that has no soul.
This week, with the kind assistance of Tom Winnifrith of Shareprophets, we have had several accounts used to pester investors and little old me on ADVFN and LSE banned, but as you will read, the lunatic has a Spartan Army of pseudonyms.
Itβs not every day that one wakes up to discover you have been doxed on ADVFN and have been condemned by an entire rogueβs gallery of internet Spartan warrior army of pseudonymsβso laughably melodramatic they read like the rejected roster of a second-rate comic book villain team.
Yes, dear reader, I have been outed. Unmasked. Apparently, I have been exposed to the tireless investigative work of such intellectual titans asΒ Spartan Attack,Β Sentiment Riles,Β Skull Driller, Newsroom, andΒ What's My NameΒ (an alias which, ironically, suggests evenΒ heΒ doesnβt know). These brave defenders of financial βtruthβ have taken to ADVFN and LSE to declare, in no uncertain terms, that I, Elric-Stormbringer (well, if he can have a dramatic pseudonym), am a fraud. My crime? Foiling an actual fraud before it could fully bloom into the grand financial shakedown it was always meant to be. The vehicle, City Trading & Investment, is now defunct, as he tried to legitimise the LinkedIn account where he even posted about his mental breakdown. The LinkedIn account was also usedΒ to clone a genuine trader profile and link it to his endeavours in the USA to legitimise his attempt to defraud investors. The City slick trading website even featured a shiny countdown clock leading up to the dramatic launch planned for March 2018, then April and May 2019, you get the gist. This was a tactic designed to instil fear in lemmings and gerbils that the promise of βArmageddonβ was imminent. The short attack by the imaginary Spartan army was about to spring into action.
You see, I had the gall to notice that a certain someoneβletβs call him Sheedy, because thatβs his actual name heβs known byβwas in the process of constructing a website with a single, noble purpose: to mobilise a Spartan army of high-net-worth investors to terrorise small companies listed on AIM, such as Metro Bank, OptiBiotix Health and SkinBioTherapeutics. Meanwhile, the Spartan Army of pseudonyms ramped up a well-known fraud, Supply@me, for several years despite the sage advice from Tom Winnifrith. The strategy? Strike fear into investors, manipulate stock movements, and extract profits from the ensuing chaos. A sort of financial warlordism with a brokerage account run by high net-worth Spartans. Yup, real scary shit.
Alas, I, in my boundless villainy, put together a dossier (yes, a real one, with appendices and source citations) and handed it to the FCA. The result? Poof!βSheedyβs grand vision was no more, much to the dismay of his legion of masked Spartan disciples (OK, letβs not get carried away, heβs a lone nutter), who now dedicates his time to calling me every name under the sunβincluding fraudster. Yes, little old me.
The Keyboard Revolutionaries
And what a merry band of misfits they are. Some, like Leopold II and Vlad The Impaler, at least have the decency to wear their historical villainy proudlyβthough I do find it a touch excessive to name oneself after mass murderers over a simple regulatory intervention. Others, likeΒ B2 UnabomberΒ andΒ Thanatos Abyss, appear to have leaned a little too hard into theΒ edgy teenager discovering Nietzsche'sΒ aesthetic. Meanwhile, Jack The Tipper seems to believe he is both an investing guru and a homage to Jack the Ripper, which certainly screams βstable and credible market participant.β
Then thereβs Putinaire, a name so shamelessly on the nose that even Vladimir himself would roll his eyes. Pol Pot? Really? A genocidal dictator because I reported a financial scam? How measured.
My personal favourite? The Legislator. Nothing says βserious authority on marketsβ quite like naming oneself after an imaginary position of power and spending oneβs days spewing barely literate conspiracy theories on obscure forums.
Of course, their fearless leader, Sheedy, is still out there somewhere, stewing in his own bitterness, cursing my name in between sock puppet account logins. The man once dreamed of being a financial titan. Now, his greatest accomplishment is a misspelt rant on Telegram.
The Psychology of Pseudonymous Posturing
And why do they do it? Simple: anonymity is the cowardβs best friend. Behind their digital masks, this fine gentleman gets to indulge in his darkest instincts without consequence. The Dark Tetradβnarcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadismβhas found its perfect playground in the world of anonymous trolling. Except he isnβt anonymous! Stupid and retarded, yes!
This fool who longs for control, revels in cruelty, and desperately crave the feeling of power he will never attain in real life. He will hurl abuse and spread lies, not because he truly believes them, but because he is sad and lonely (except for his Spart army, of course) and needs to feel like he matters. For a few fleeting moments, in the dim glow of his monitors, he feels important. Then reality dawns: he isnβt the one with a small army of Subscribers, which grows each time he posts about his nemesis that moved on years ago.
Of course, in the real worldβthe one with laws and consequencesβI recently tried to imagine the pseudonyms as real men with real jobs. For example, The Profit Hunter is actually a middle manager at some dreary insurance firm. Freddie Krugger (note the impressive spelling) is probably the sort of man who cries when his WiFi goes down. BlackHatGremlin? Well, letβs just say I doubt heβs ever done anything more technically advanced than resetting his router.
A Fond Farewell to My Fan Club
So what is to be done? Legal action? A full-scale public takedown? Oh, no. That would be far too much effort for people whose greatest achievement in life is an anonymous rant on a dying forum. Instead, I shall continue living my fraudulent existenceβchecks notesβby making financial markets marginally less corrupt.
So, to Sheedy and his merry band of Spartan misfits, I say this: Keep the posts coming. Keep the furious typing, the unhinged accusations, the tragic attempts at intimidation. For every word you write only proves one thingβhow utterly pathetic you are. Living rent-free in your head is perhaps a notable achievement I should be amused with.
And that, dear reader, is what I call poetic justice.
Thanks for your assistance, Tom.
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elrico, the trigger is Alex's swot posted last September. The share price since of syme has bombed 60% since the swot. Is't syme Sheedy's big pump?
Very funny article btw. I don't know how you keep sane with all the crap posted on the forums about you. Fraud allegations and posting of your family home is way over the top. I was angry when i read those posts.