The SEC announced that it is adding 20 entities to the Public Alert: Unregistered Soliciting Entities (PAUSE) list. The PAUSE list comprises entities that have solicited investors without proper SEC registration, or that have made false claims about their location.

According to the SEC, this misinformation is often used to manufacture credibility for scams typically targeting non-US investors.

In addition to false claims about registration and location, the PAUSE list also names entities that have posed as government regulators or legitimate investment firms. Inclusion on the list does not mean that the SEC has determined that an entity has violated US securities laws.

The list is assembled from complaints provided by investors and foreign securities regulators. First published in 2008, it is periodically updated by the SEC’s Office of Market Intelligence, in coordination with the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy and the Office of International Affairs.

On the naughty list

According to the SEC, two of 20 newly-added entities were posing as legitimate companies, and four were pretending to be fake regulatory bodies. The remaining 14 gave misleading details about their SEC registration status, location, or affiliation.

Eighteen of the fake entities claimed to be in the US, and two claimed to be in the UK. One entity pretended to be Google (as “Google Trade”), and another pretended to be BFIN financial services (as “BFS Investments”), both listing the legitimate companies’ addresses.

And as for posing as fake regulators, the would-be fraudsters got creative: the “Department of Financial Transactions,” “Department of International Equities,” “Fraud Investigation and Repatriation Authority” and the “United State Corporate Records Department,” were all added to the PAUSE list.