I've started getting a lot of these, or variants thereof, recently.

I know that mass markeing works on the basis that if a fraction of a percentage of the people contacted respond, its profitable. And I know that nothing works as well as greed in marketing, but it still surprises me how many suckers fall for this.

Oh well, P.T. Barnum was right....

According to who's opinion?

Unsolicited stock scams are as old as Wall Street itself. For those who are unfamiliar, dude gets some inheritance money or drug money and buys a company that is worthless (i.e., Schmucko.com Inc., online purveyor of used toilet paper). Schmucko.com Inc., has been de-listed from any major stock exchange and only trades over-the-counter (the so-called penny stocks, as in that's how much you will be left with). Dude starts spamming the world about some bogus breakthrough in the used toilet paper industry and a few fish take the bait. The sudden jolt in buyers raises the prices of SCHMUCKO from $0.02 to $0.30 a share. Dude waits for the stock to peak and sells all his stock for a big profit. Meanwhile all the schmoes are holding shares in used toilet paper stock which has dropped from 30 cents to about quarter-penny a share (If you invested $10K, yu would be left with $83.33). Don't be duped.