NASAA, which represents state securities regulators, whose goal is to protect investors from fraud, was the victim of an attempted Internet scam on Wednesday.  The North American Securities Administrators Association told the operator of the "State Securities Commission" website - a mock version of NASAA's own site - to cease operations and to shut down the site.  By Thursday, the mock site appeared to be offline. The SSC is just one of several fake regulator Web sites tp surface in recent years.  In this case, the impersonators were using content from NASAA's Web site, possibly for unlawful purposes.  For example, it featured modified versions of NASAA news releases, including the announcement about the scam.  NASAA said that con artists may be trying to cash in on the agency's reputation. There was, however, at least one stark difference.  The fake site urged investors who had suffered unjustified market losses to file "claims" and provided a link that led to a series of tax and other forms that asked for personal information. In response to a phone call from Reuters (using the number on the SSE web site), the person answering said, "What we do is classified. We don't entertain any public inquiries."  He added, "If you don't have a special agent to advise you, we're not authorized to give out any information."

The so-called "special agent" reference could suggest a two-step operation in which con artists make cold-calls to find victims and direct them to call the number on the Web site, according to NASAA spokesman Bob Webster.

The person who answers may ask victims to name the "special agent" who referred them. That enables con artists to ensure that callers are pre-screened by someone in their operation -- which helps conceal the scam from the general public.

Bogus web sites represent a very small but "treacherous" segment of the Internet, said Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based securities lawyer who represents investors.  Most of the operations are based overseas where con artists often try to evade the reach of U.S. laws, Stoltmann said. "They're out to scam investors and are effective to the people who buy into it," Stoltmann said.   [Reuters, 11/9/11]