The Platypus
On a recent afternoon, a current Carris employee pointed out a rival from 46th-floor brokerage Aegis Capital Corp. taking a cigarette break in front of the tower. The broker, nicknamed “The Platypus” for his splay-footed waddle and untucked shirts, turned to take a long look at a blonde woman walking by.
There’s nothing illegal about cold-calling, and all the chop shops employ at least some brokers with clean records. The boiler-room operators of the 1990s mostly got into trouble for having their brokers unload penny stocks they secretly owned on unsuspecting investors. The schemes were so profitable that organizers could afford to pay 20 percent commissions.
No one’s paying that much anymore. Trainees get $250 or $300 a week, and the brokers said they sometimes go months without selling anything.
Today, computerized records make it easier for regulators to unravel fraud. The federal do-not-call list, established in 2003, has both limited phone solicitation and made it less socially acceptable. Most people know they can trade stocks online for about $10 and want to look up a brokerage on Google before sending money, the brokers said.
‘Dialing Nonstop’
“Stratton Oakmont was before the Internet,” Danny Porush, the Stratton president who served about two years in prison for securities fraud, said in a phone interview last year. “Things are going to be much tougher now when someone mentions a stock and two clicks away you find out everything.”
That doesn’t stop brokers from trying. Armed with only the names of business owners on index cards, trainees call, tout their Wall Street addresses and say their boss will call back with one good stock tip. Hundreds of people hang up for each one willing to listen to the pitch, brokers said.
“There could be days when you’re dialing nonstop, and nothing,” said Jorge Ferreira, 40, a broker at Blackwall.
Always Lose