Over the years, we’ve seen stock promoters use spam and junk faxes as a way to hype their securities and while these methods are still in use today, they lack a certain amount of credibility that most investors are looking for. With the masses growing increasingly numb to these tactics, the wolves of Wall St. have learned a new trick and have managed to hijack social media as a way to tout their shady opportunities.

For the most part, high profile bloggers have viewed these fly by night companies with the appropriate degree of skepticism, but over the last year and a half, one questionable company has managed to infiltrate the tech elite.

Vois.com’s first big splash on the innerweb occurred in November 2007, after TechCrunch highlighted the company as a publicly traded social networking site. In a quick post on the company they wrote,

“I can’t see VOIS winning any awards for its service, but those with a stock market fetish looking to play around with some investments in this space, VOIS gives you that option.”

Ironically, a mere month and a half later, Vois actually won Mashable’s Open Web Awards contest for best photo sharing site and finished at a strong 2nd to Facebook in the best large social network category. The win was so surprising that Mashable labled them a dark horse candidate.

In February of 2008, Mashable interviewed Vois Co-Founder Craig Agranoff and published another glowing review highlighting Vois’ efforts at raising $1 million. In the article, they wrote,

“Vois has gone in a new direction, giving its own users a piece of the pie, and it seems to be working out very well for the company so far.”

Maybe for the founders, but not so much for the other Vois shareholders. Mashable may have interpreted the $1 million in financing as a sign of Vois’ success, but the reality was much darker. Of the $950,325 that they raised, $95,033 went to the broker who did the placement. After they got their 10% commission, another $328,000 went to two former Directors and unnamed “consultants” that needed to be repaid because like today, Vois was in default on their debt.

If you had listened to the hype, you would have thought that Vois was the next Facebook, but behind the curtain, you’ll find plenty of skeletons waiting in their closet. Vois may envision their site as the new voice of social sourcing, but all I’m hearing is static.

Back To The Future

In order to understand the secrets locked inside of Vois, you must take a critical look at the footprints of its founders. While they may try to cast themselves as successful entrepreneurs, a closer inspection will reveal that they play the role of the villain in this tragedy.

To fully understand the events that led up to the creation of Vois, we’ll need to jump into the wayback machine to 1985.

Gary Schultheis – President and CEO

After one year at the State University of New York at Farmingdale, a young Gary Schultheis left school and took a job with Airport Express International. He would continue working there until 1992.

During the 1980′s, Air Express International was a microcap shipping company. Their one claim to fame is that they tangled with the Lucchese crime family during the late 80′s. According to a 1986 RICO indictment against members of the family, Air Express management was being squeezed by the mob, in exchange for peace with their labor unions.

The crime family was interested enough in the corporate comings and goings, that they even went as far as to try and block a merger between Air Express and another air freight company that was also being shaken down. While it’s hard to blame Air Express for being a victim, one does have to wonder how they found themselves in this predicament to begin with. What did they owe the mob to make them think that they could try and get away with extortion? I don’t have the answers, but I suspect that the story goes much deeper than this.

After Schultheis left Air Express in 92′, it’s not exactly clear what happened to him for the next two years. Despite my best efforts, I wasn’t able to ascertain his whereabouts during this period. Not only are these details noticeably absent from Vois’ regulatory filings, but they also seem to have been suspiciously left out of other filings as well. There could be a simple explanation for this black hole, but I believe that investors deserve a full and complete bio from publicly traded CEOs.

In March 1994, Schultheis would show up on the radar again, this time as the President of a financial relations firm named Wall Street Enterprises (aka Wall St. Associates.) We don’t know much about Schultheis’ early years at the firm, but over the next two years, he would lay the groundwork for what would later become a lynchpin for future stock promotions.

Herbert Tabin – Secretary, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Director

In 1989, Vois Co-founder Herbert Tabin graduated from The State University of New York at Oneonta. In Vois’ SEC filings, Tabin doesn’t reveal much in the way of details, about where he began his career. Fortunately, he does tell investors that he worked for the American Stock Exchange and “three New York-based stock brokerage firms”, over a span of three years.

By doing a bit of digging, I was able to identify the three brokerage firms as Stratton Oakmont, Continental Broker-Dealer and Kensington Wells.

Stratton may not be well known outside of the finance community, but is a legend on Wall St. Before it was shut down by regulators, the company was the poster child for how boiler rooms operate. In fact, Martin Scorsese is currently making a big budget film about what happened at the firm, during the time that Tabin worked there.

Even if you can look past the wild tales of “shaving female sales assistants’ heads, tossing midgets and Ethiopian hookers, one cannot ignore this culture of deceit where Mr. Tabin received his formal Wall St. training.

The SEC consent judgment against Stratton describes exactly what this culture was like from 1989 – 1991,

“It is undisputed that, during that time, Stratton was operating a classic boiler room. The brokers sat “cheek by jowl” in a room the size of a basketball court. All of their desks were lined up side by side in rows. The firm held mandatory sales meetings every morning at 8:30 a.m. at which time sales techniques were demonstrated and scripts for the firms’s “house stocks” (i.e., those in which the firm made a market) were distributed. Brokers were expected to follow the scripts and only give customers the information they contained. Brokers were discouraged from doing any outside research, and told to rely on the firm’s research and representations. Aside from training in high pressure sales techniques, brokers received no instruction from Stratton management.

In case you were hoping that Continental Broker-Dealer or Kensington Wells might have a better reputation, I wouldn’t hold your breath. During the time that Tabin would have been at Continental, the firm was helping to financially engineer the fraud that inspired the hit movie Boiler Room.

In the case of Kensington Wells, things are just as bleak. After the company shut down, the NASD stepped in and charged 12 of their former brokers “with a wide range of sales practice abuses. The complaint alleges that the 12 brokers, who were based at Kensington Wells’ Mineola, NY headquarters, participated in or facilitated a boiler room operation through a series of fraudulent sales practices and other misconduct”

From September 1993 to March 1995, Tabin served as the vice president of HBL & Associates, a financial relations firm in New York city. There isn’t a lot known about HBL, but the rumor on the street is that it was being run by none then Larry Erber.

Erber is a recidivist stock felon who has had multiple run-ins with the SEC. In 1991, he pled guilty to securities manipulation and wire fraud. Despite being barred from the industry, Erber is rumored to have secretly purchased a stake in Paramount securities.

HBL & Associates didn’t have a lot of clients, but they did have one very important one. Between 1991 – 1994, Erber (and HBL & Associates), would tout a small company named Teletek. This is significant because the promotion would have been going on the entire time that Tabin was with the firm. As the scheme was unraveling, a short seller even went as far as to try and extort Erber into giving away free shares of Teletek.

“Carlson’s alleged misconduct occurred during a June 9, 1994 telephone call, in response to Carlson’s earlier call. Carlson initially “congratulated” Erber on the GLAD situation, because he felt that “there were strong similarities between the GLAD situation and Teletek,“and he wanted to let [Erber] know that I knew what he was up to, that he was up to another one of these stock manipulations, and that he wasn’t pulling the wool over my eyes.” Carlson then requested a block of Teletek stock at a discounted price in exchange for Carlson’s keeping silent about Erber’s alleged promotion and manipulation of Teletek stock:

‘Let me tell ya, we were intimately involved in getting GLAD delisted. OK? I am going to do the same thing to Teletek — unless I get some stock from you on a favorable basis. I am gonna do what’s called a magic trick – that’s where I take your money and I turn it into my money.’

Carlson repeated this quid pro quo later in their conversation: “so, on Teletek-either I get a block of cheap stock or I am going to play a magic trick on you-OK-I am going to get that stock delisted next.” Carlson then accused Erber of being an undisclosed owner of Paramount Securities, an act that would violate a federal court order restricting Erber’s participation in the securities industry. Carlson continued:

‘Ya, if you want me to serve you up and wrap your F***ing nuts around your head I will. So you decide what you want Larry, we either play hard ball or . . . I get some of this cheap stock that keeps on printing in this pig.’ Carlson concluded the conversations as follows: ‘[s]ave your breath-OK-buy me some stock or I’m gonna F***ing-I’m going to go after Teletek. Those are my terms-please get back to me-thank you.’”

Unfortunately for Carlson, Erber was recording the phone call and while Erber would ultimately face charges for manipulating Teletek, Carlson would end up being suspended from the industry as a result of his conduct.

After leaving HBL & Associates in 1994, Tabin would join a “merchant banking and venture capital firm” named LBI group. From April 1994 – Dec. 1996 he served as their vice president of marketing. While Tabin was working there, LBI provided consulting services to a fast food restaurant named Tasty Fries Inc.

Tasty Fries first hired LBL on May 23rd, 1996. You may not be able to buy a burger for a nickel anymore, but LBL learned an even better trick. In exchange for “certain business consulting services, including marketing for a 12 month period”, LBI was given an option on 4 million pre-split shares at .05 cents a share.

A little over a month after entering into the contract, employees at LBI paid $200,000 to exercise these options (despite only being 2 months into a 12 month commitment.) While we don’t know whether or not LBI was dumping their shares while they were performing their “marketing” duties, we do know that they were only able to return 1 million shares once the contract was rescinded.

Later, the SEC would deep fry the fast food restaurant and in 2004, CEO Edward Kelly would be forced to settle charges “for fraud, unregistered sales of securities, and reporting, record keeping and internal control violations.”

After Tabin left the company, LBI was accused of sending unsolicited pump and dump faxes to prospective investors.

Millennium Holding Group – Their Own Personal Death Star

Millennium Holding Group was created on February 27, 1996. Shortly after forming the group, Millennium would acquire Wall Street Associates, the firm that Schultheis had spent the last two years creating. This is the first known partnership between Schultheis and Tabin. In the 10-k Vois describes Millennium Holdings as a “financial consulting firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions.” On the surface, this sounds impressive, but take another look at the types of companies that they worked with and you can’t help but be aghast at the client list.

In April of 1997, American International Petroleum Corp. (AIPC) hired Wall Street Associates to “implement a five-part investor relations program, including stockbroker relations, media relations, shareholder/investor communications and Interent [SIC] coverage.” AIPC was a Kazakstan oil exploration company with refining facilities in Louisiana. In July 97′, Wall St. Associates/Millennium Holding Co. issued a press release letting investors know that “revised estimates of potential recoverable reserves in Kazakstan exceed one billion barrels.”

Of course those barrels of oil were never recovered and in October 2004, AIPC would be forced to declare bankruptcy in a Louisiana courthouse. Two years alter, the SEC would revoke AIPC’s stock registrations for failing to file current reports.

To get an idea of the type of hyping that Millennium Holdings was allegedly engaged in, just take a look at this Silicon Investor post where someone says that “Gary from Millennium Holdings” touted a potential $50 share price in an AOL chat session with investors. I’m not sure what the stock was worth then, but today you can buy a share on the pink sheets for only .002 cents.

I don’t know what it is about the name, but there must be something about Voice that Schultheis and Tabin like, because on June 23rd, 1997 they picked up over 300,000 shares of iVoice.com. A little over a year later, they acquired an additional 925,000 shares.

On November 15th, 1999, iVoice hired Integrity Capital to perform a laundry list of “investor relation” services. At the time Robert Pratt was a principal owner of Integrity. In February of 2008, the SEC finally caught up with Mr. Pratt and accused him of running a pump and dump scheme.

In August 1997, Millennium Holdings group acquired shares in a company named MDI Entertainment. A few years later, MDI would sue Oxford International (another “investor relations” firm), alleging securities fraud.

In August 97′, Millennium took an interest in TearDrop Golf Company. Four years and several “acquisitions” later, TearDrop was forced to file for bankruptcy protection.

On Sept. 15th, 1997, Millennium announced that they would be taking on Sled Dog as a client. A little over a year later, Sled Dog would file for bankruptcy protection in Minneapolis. Given the short time between when Sled Dog hired Millennium and the bankruptcy, one has to wonder what type of due diligence Millennium was doing before taking on clients.

In November 97′, Millennium helped Mark Fixler, President and CEO of Fix-Corp International, Inc. secure an interview on Fox News. In 2008, Fixler would be named in a civil lawsuit, alleging, yup you guessed it, securities fraud.

In January 1998, Millennium Holdings was pitching Advanced Media Inc (ADVI) to potential investors. In September 2005, ADVI had their stock registration revoked for failing to keep their SEC filings up to date.

On March 12th, 1998, Winners All International, Inc. sued Millennium Holdings Group Inc. for breaching “a consulting agreement, common law fraud and fraud in the purchase of securities.” The statement of claim sought rescission of the agreement, restitution of the stock shares issued and a claim for $200,000 in damages. Millennium would later settle the lawsuit by paying out the $200,000.

In Sept. 98′, Millennium took on NetMed Inc. as a client. Less than 6 months later, OxyNet sued NetMed alleging fraud. Approximately, 3 weeks after the lawsuit was filed, NetMed declared Chapter 11.

In Sept. 98′, Millennium was also providing investor relations support to Silverado Gold Mines, Ltd. As if this story couldn’t get any more surreal, Silverado’s CEO would later appear “in a staged interview with a TV host, previously sued by the SEC in a multi-million dollar fraud case involving live goats and goat carcasses.”

Ten years after hiring Millennium, Silverado would eventually get busted after a series of damaging articles by the legendary business journalist, David Baines

In November 1998, Millennium Holdings announced that they had been hired to provide investor relations support for Keystone Energy Services Inc. Six months before they began their marketing campaign, Keystone was sued as part of a class action lawsuit for issuing misleading statements to their investors. In March of 2001, two Keystone execs, were indicted on 114 different violations. This case is especially notable because it was the first time that the state of Minnesota pursued charges on a pump and dump that involved the internet.

International Industries / International Internet Inc. / Evolve One – The Gift That Kept On Giving

After being involved in so many companies at the investor relations level, it was only a matter of time before Schultheis and Tabin would want to set up a company of their own to run. In preparation for public office, On May 30th, 1997, they formed a company named Mr. Cigar Inc.

They were supposed to be a cigar kiosk company, but after learning about a patent on the concept, the company decided to just be a distributor instead. On Jan. 26th, 1998, International Industries Inc. acquired Mr. Cigar Inc. and gave control of the company to Schultheis and Tabin through a reverse merger.

8 months after the acquisition, Transmedia Consultants (another financial relations company) would try to get their pound of flesh by suing them over some kind of grievance. While the suit would later be withdrawn for an unknown settlement, what was so damning about the lawsuit was that Transmedia was after the equity in Mr. Cigar Inc. NOT International Industries. This would suggest that stock promoters were lined up, even before Mr. Cigar Inc was bought.

On Jan. 14th, 1999, Bloomberg wrote an article accusing International Industries of adding to the “internet stock market mania” by issuing a press release announcing their acceptance into the Amazon affiliate program. Of course, we know today that even small time publications like my own, can easily get accepted into the program. At the time though, investors were so hungry for growth opportunities that they bid up International Industries by 100% on the day the press release was issued.

With the old economy starting to look stale, International Industries would change their name to International Internet in 1999. Later the company would be known as Evolve One.

On May 10th, 1999 International Internet announced a drastic change to their business model. Going forward, they wanted to act more like an internet incubator and try to acquire various businesses. Later they would spinoff these investments which would create new public companies for them to feed off of.

A month after announcing this change in business model, they acquired Auction Concept Inc., in the first of what would be a series of acquisitions.

Running low on funds, International Internet took to the street to raise money. In March of 2000, with the market near its high, they received a commitment for $11.25 million from Avenel Financial Group. Avenel was a financial firm controlled by Michael Pruitt. Pruitt will drift in and out of the story as time goes on, but this investment was notable for two reasons.

First and foremost, International Internet had just made an acquisition of Reconversion Technologies. Inc. on March 8th, 2000. As far as I know, this transaction was never reported as the related transaction that it was. Only two days later, Pruitt would be appointed as a Director of Reconversion Tech (now known as Healthsport.)

Another troubling connection between Pruitt and International Internet occurred on Jan. 14th, 2000 when International Internet LLC acquired a minority interest in Vertical Computer Systems.

Nine months later, One Travel Holdings Inc. (a company where Pruitt was the CEO) would enter into a contract with Vertical Computer systems to have them provide “internet, e-commerce and software services.”

On March 16th, 2001, International Internet registered to sell 550,000 shares of EResources Capital Group, Inc. EResources was yet another firm where Pruitt served as the CEO. Again, I couldn’t find a single related transaction disclosure.

While it’s easy to say that the SEC fell asleep at the switch on this one, Schultheis and Tabin did show up on their radar while they were working International Internet. In 2002, agents from the SEC recommended that “the SEC pursue a federal injunctive action against EONE for violations of the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws.” Specifically, they were concerned about two false and misleading press releases that were issued in February 2000. Despite my best efforts, I wasn’t able to find out how this was resolved.

International Broadcasting Corporation – Ground Control To Major Tom

I never did quite figure out how Schultheis and Tabin acquired their stake in International Broadcasting Corp., but like many of the companies in this article, it also has had a troubled history. The firm was a collection of internet radio stations that broadcast everything from Blues to stock market commentary. Before it was IBC, the company was named “Explosive Financial Opportunities” Feldman Sherb & company was the auditor.

In May of 2002, IBC filed an SB-2 that brought Tabin and Schultheis’ positions under 5% (meaning that after the offering, Tabin and Schultheis would no longer have to report their trades or positions.) In the SB-2, IBC claims that “none of the selling security holders has or within the past three years has had, any position, office or other material relationship with us or any of our predecessors or affiliates, other than Tyler Fleming, who is Daryn Fleming’s brother and Sharon Fleming who is Daryn Fleming’s mother.”

Daryn Fleming, who was the CEO of IBC, may have disclosed his family relationships, but what IBC did not disclose was that Arthur Dermer, who also sold shares in the offering was (and still is) listed as a Director of the Tabin Family Foundation. I don’t know what his relationship to the family is, but it represents yet another related transaction that was hidden from the public.

Even before Fleming took on his role at IBC, he had prior relationships with Schultheis and Tabin. In July 98′, Fleming was hired to provide marketing to International Industries. As part of the promotion, he issued a positive “research” report on the company.

Despite the controversial nature of Fleming’s business model, the man knew no shame. A mere two weeks after his report on International Industries, he was highlighting a company that “helps investors who have been victimized by fraudulent and corrupt practices of brokers.”

In 1999, the Wall Street Journal would take Fleming to the woodshed for hyping stocks on the internet without disclosing that his firm, Wall St. West, was being compensated for the promotions. In the article, WSJ reporter Jason Anders, took a critical look at Fleming’s client base and included comments from Schultheis on why they hired Fleming in the first place.

“Gary Schultheis, president of International Industries says he hired Wall Street West to get some exposure for his company, particularly on-line. “[Mr. Fleming] said that he is very active in the internet, and that he had lots of places to get us good corporate exposure.” Mr. Schulteis [SIC] says he never specifically asked Mr. Fleming to post on message boards.

Mr. Fleming created a Silicon Investor message board to discuss International Industries, a Boca Raton, Fla., company that manufactures cigars and cigar vending machines. Mr. Fleming has posted 11 of the board’s 27 messages. When some participants complained that the stock’s price appeared to be slipping, he responded, “We think mostly big time investors bought [International], which is why we want to do a Wall Street West style SQUEEZE. This is where none of us will sell. In light of increasing demand, the stock could soar!!!!”

In 2005, Mr. Fleming would find himself in a bit of hot water after going on “Stock Talk Live”, one of IBC’s radio shows and making false statements to investors about acquiring various radio stations. Two years later, the SEC would lower the hammer and would file a complaint against him for fraud.

Interactive Golf Marketing/WowStores.com – More Than One Way To Skin A Cat

A little over a year after joining International Industries, Schultheis, Tabin and Rakesh Taneja purchased Interactive Golf Management (IGM), through a company named Estores.com. The purchase occurred on February 16th, 1999. One day later, International Internet, (which was also controlled by Schultheis and Tabin at the time) made a $20,000 investment into IGM. In March of that year, International Internet would end up acquiring 16% of the company. While it has been over ten years since this transaction took place, as hard as I tried, I still couldn’t find where it was reported as a related transaction.

After taking over, the group must not have been very happy with their golf swing, because they promptly changed the name of the company to WowStores.com. A short 7 months later, Tabin and Schultheis would leave the company after selling their stake to StockFirst.com

StockFirst was an “unbiased” financial site dedicated to emerging opportunities. The president of StockFirst at the time of the acquisition was David Hirsch. Before Joining StockFirst, Hirsch was working for a boiler room operation named First United Equities Corporation. While there, he was caught pushing two different microcap stocks on investors. In a settlement with the SEC, Hirsch admited to engaging in manipulative trading, lying to his clients about not earning commissions from selling them the stocks and refusing to let customers sell out of positions, unless they purchased one of the other house stocks instead.

Network Systems International/OnSpan/Double Eagle – Make Sure To Look Out For Number One

Of all the stocks that I’ll discuss in this report, Network Systems International was by far the most damning. On July 25th, 2000 Millennium Holdings Group conducted a private placement where they sold approximately $1 million worth of stock to investors. In addition, Tabin purchased another 2.7 million shares for a cool $1.5 million. After the transaction, Tabin would become the CEO of the new company.

While it would take nearly 6 years to unravel, this transaction would end up haunting Schultheis and Tabin for a very long time. Two of the $1 million investors, Richard T. Clark and Joel C. Holt would end up suing Schultheis and Tabin after things didn’t quite turn out as planned.

According to their complaint against the company, on May 8th, 9th and 10th, 2000, Tabin held a meeting in the Bahamas with Clark, Holt and other investors to discuss the acquisition of a small cap stock. Tabin’s attorney for the deal, G. David Gordon would also attend. From the complaint,

“At the meeting, Tabin solicited Clark and Holt, as well as others, to invest $1,000,000 for an operating company which was publicly traded and listed on the Small Cap NASDAQ Exchange. Tabin told Clark and Holt that the money would be used by OnSpan to acquire some operating business with independent managements [SIC] that would enhance the value of OnSpan’s stock and render a profitable return to its stockholders. Tabin told Clark and Holt that he would be buying out the ONSpan insdiers and assuming the role of OnSpan corporate director. Tabin told them that if Clark, Holt and other investors invested $1,000,000, then the insiders’ stock positions that he acquired would give them as a group effective control of OnSpan so that the business plan he had outlined for OnSpan could be carried out.”

Later in the filing,

“Tabin’s representations and warranties concerning the investment strategy and business plan never included, or even contemplated, that Tabin would remain a long term officer or Director of the Company. Nor would he draw a salary or other cash remuneration after he had assisted OnSpan in located and acquiring an operating business with an independent management. When Tabin made his statements and representations to Clark and Holt at the meeting, he made false representations of material facts, and omitted and failed to tell them of certain material facts, which would have had a substantial impact on their decisions to invest in OnSpan, and the absence of which, when considered in the context of the information that Tabin did provide to them, mad Tabin’s presentation misleading. These false representations and omissions of material facts include without limitation, the following:

(d) Omission of the fact that he was associated with acquiring another company, Vertical Computer Systems, Inc., in much the same fashion as he did for OnSpan, which was under investigation by the Security Exchange Commission for possible violations of federal securities laws.”

While it’s easy to look at a complaint like this and claim that it’s just Clark and Holt crying over sour grapes, there is supporting evidence to suggest that something may have been up.

On February 10th, 2009 the SEC charged David Gordon with securities fraud. In their complaint, the SEC claims that Gordon was part of a shell creation group that derived over $41 million in illegal profits from their pump and dump activity. Richard Clark would also be indicted as part of the scheme.

“To execute their scheme to defraud, Defendants, acting in concert with other persons, obtained market domination in the target stocks; engaged in coordinated trading activity, including the use of illegal matched orders; and created and distributed to the public deceptive promotional materials, all of which generated the false appearance of investor interest in the Target Stocks thereby artificially inflating the prices of the shares. Defendants, acting in concert with other persons, sold shares of the same three Target Stocks they were recommending that the public buy. This scheme is commonly referred to as a “pump and dump” because the perpetrators artificially inflate or “pump” the price of a stock and then sell their own shares (the “dump”), at the artificially inflated “pumped ” price.”

In case you think that Tabin was actually looking out the interests of OnSpan shareholders, I’d like to point out that once he faced legal liability, he was quick to offload the risk to the shoulders of OnSpan investors.

In 2006, Tabin and Schultheis would eventually settle the lawsuit by giving up their shares in OnSpan/Double Eagle in exchange for the Vois.com domain name. When Tabin finally did leave, Michael Pruitt would replace Tabin as CEO and Chairman of the board.

Marc A. Saitta – Chief Financial Officer

In this report, I’ve focused most of my comments on Schultheis and Tabin’s career, but one character who jumped out at me was Vois’ CFO Marc A. Saitta. I’m not exactly sure what connections he had with Vois, prior to its creation, but I found his prior employment at Smithsonian Business Ventures extremely interesting.

It would take another 7,000 words to go into all of the details behind the conspiracy, but essentially the executives at SBV found a loophole in the Government that allowed them to loot one of our Nation’s treasures. While investigating SBV, Senator Charles Grassley had a most appropriate quote,

“It looks like the leaders of Smithsonian Business Ventures were living like Thurston Howell and managing like Gilligan.”

Unfortunately, Grassley would never pick up on the microcap angle to the story and this was never fully investigated. Instead, SBV would eventually trip themselves up by signing a 30 year exclusive deal with Showtime to produce historical films. When Congress found out about SBV, they were furious. The investigation produced several lengthy hearings and a report that is over 100 pages long.

I’m not a fan of the political thrillers myself, but if a journalist wanted to take a closer look at SBV’s licensing deals, I think they’d find a story that is eerily similar to Vois, only involving extremely powerful Washington insiders.

The Auditor – Second Verse Same As The First

Over the last 20 years, Tabin and Schultheis have appeared with a wide variety of supporting cast, but one bad actor who kept reappearing during my research was Sherb & Co., Vois.com’s auditor.

In looking at the history of the firm, one must conclude that these guys are either incompetent, actively helping to perpetuate stock fraud or are simply the world’s unluckiest auditors.

Recently, famed short seller Manual Asensio cited China Sky’s use of Sherb & Co. as a major red flag for the company. In 2007 (right before Vois first hired Sherb & Co.) the auditor was reprimanded by the PCAOB after they looked at 8 of their clients and found material deficiencies in the audits. Specifically, they cited one case that “included a deficiency of such significance that it appeared to the inspection team that the Firm did not obtain sufficient competent evidential matter to support its opinion on the Issuer’s financial statements.”

Whether we are talking about Smart Online, Spear & Jackson, China Sky, ProNetLink, Light Management Group Triton, or Optionable, Sherb & Company has consistently failed to catch problems before they happen. That may be a benefit to someone who is trying to hide illegal behavior, but shareholders deserve a higher level of performance from someone who is so crucial in identifying and preventing fraud.

Over the years, Schultheis and Tabin have worked with Sherb & Co. enough times, that I think it’s fair to question whether or not the firm is considered independent. While I understand how hard it can be to identify firms that are engaging in fraud from that ones who just make mistakes, I can’t but help find it frustrating that Sherb & Co. has been able to have such a high failure rate and yet they’ve received little more than a slap on the wrist by regulators.

Given that Vois has been fooling the blogosphere for over a year now, some may ask why I choose to speak out on this issue now. While deep down inside I really didn’t want to make enemies with people I don’t know, I became concerned that a trap was being set after Vois announced that they were doing a 1 to 100 forward split. Through this use of financial engineering, they’ve been able to dilute their shareholders.

Why do I think that Vois is doing the 1 to 100 forward split now? It’s pretty simple really, they are out of money and likely won’t make it through December, unless they can offload warrant debt onto public shareholders that is. TheRichArab from Yahoo! Finance explains this point best,

“WARRANTS ARE LIENS. the company is doing the split to cover the WARRANT. which EXPIRE IN DECEMBER OF 2009. IF the warrant is not covered by shareholder capitalization then THEY THE COMPANY must pay the outstanding amount. IT IS SIMILAR TO OPTIONS, VS. MMs and US (you cannot option a pinkie).

Thanks!”

Former convicted stock felon Barry Minkow describes financial fraud as “the skin of the truth stuffed with a lie.” The best con artists must pepper their lies with truths in order to perpetuate their fraud for as long as they can. You have to have people believe in the legitmacy of what you are doing, if you want to do more than pickpocket them.

Vois claims that they are a legitimate web 2.0 company with a “strong” management team that has taken many tech companies public. What they don’t tell the public is that over the course of their careers, the founders have been exactly one degree away from businesses and individuals who have been directly involved in fraud on multiple occasions.

Whether or not Vois’ founders are trying to pull the wool over their investor’s eyes, I’ll leave up to you to decide, but make no mistake about what is at stake.

People who are victimized by stock fraud don’t tend to be the sophisticated investors that the big name VC firms are going after, they tend be be an unsuspecting and unsavvy web 2.0 public that doesn’t understand the first thing about investments. Hopefully, before recommending a company like Vois again, we’ll see sites like TechCrunch and Mashable do better due diligence to help protect their readers.

*Just in case you didn’t get enough of this story in the article, tune in on July 9th at midnight PDT for part 2 of my expose as well as a a podcast where I confront Vois Co-Founder Craig Agranoff on the air.