Hi all,

i was contacted by a company, claiming the usual (hostile takeover, many other shareholders that got money) and offered an insane amount of money for my visitel shares. Has anybody else been contacted by a company with an address in Tokyo?
To get the money i'd be required to pay a (refundable) "recertification deposit" (sounds familiar, eh?)
Section III, Financial Elements: "Further to verification that the Seller is indeed a non-US citizen or resident and that the aforementioned securities are free from any lien or encumbrance, any recertification deposit incurred will be fully
refunded by the transfer agent."
Question of the day: how good are my chances to get the refund?

To further investigate their firm, they gave me this:

Equity Conduct Commission
Yanagi Bldg.
1-26, Roppongi 3-chome
Minato-ku, Tokyo
ph: 81 3 4588 9340
fax: 81 3 6740 2384
email: enquiries@ecc-gov.org
www.ecc-gov.org

The whois database shows that the registrar for both companies is located in Panama. Their registrar is namecheap.com and they both are about half a year in business. My personal opinion: it starts to get fishy.
A look at the email headers shows that they come from Russia. Actually a multinational operation, right?

I'll let you know how this ended ....

and here the end of this:

i found the company that called itself

Atsuko Ventures
2-18, Nakanoshima 3-chome
Kita-ku, Osaka
ZIP 530-8252

in the "non-registered and/or non authorized entities in japan" list of the japanese SEC as a cold caller, and the "conduct commission" in the category "non existing governmental bodies".

They had answers for all my questions and were not too pushy. That said, there is always the 'recertification fee' i'd have to pay upfront.
Can't afford it, don't want to do it either .... end of story.

Careful out there ....