Marl the Stock Robot: Scam?

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Have you heard of Marl the Stock Robot? Google “Marl” and click the first ad you see. You don’t have to read the whole page because I have summed it up in the next paragraph. Please click the ad anyway. You’ll understand why in a minute.

That page tells a story about the invention of “the first commercially available stock picking robot” which is available for $28,000 per license, which includes a week of training in the programmer’s home. The script assumes you can’t afford the software and offers you a stock tips newsletter subscription for only $47.

Maybe it’s a great newsletter. I don’t care about that. I am interested in the Marl software which, at $28,000, is out of the reach of anyone earnestly reading that page but vastly under-priced if it does what they claim.

Normally you would reject this sort of offer on the “too good to be true” rule alone but I wasn’t satisfied. I went looking for the software and I didn’t find any information leading to the purchase of a Marl software license. I did find a large number of sites echoing the same story and offering the same newsletter.

The site is one of a great many taking part in an affiliate marketing scheme to sell a newsletter subscription. This is just one of countless schemes telling lies in order to sell something. This is why I told you to click the ad rather than publish a link. They are paying for those ads, baiting real suckers, lying about a non-existent robot. Your clicks cost them money.

I don’t know whether the newsletter is any good. Maybe it can teach you enough to make some lucky investments. But if you want to make real money from Marl, I suggest you set up an affiliate marketing web site to sell that newsletter and buy all the ads you can get for $47.

Update 1: This is how a person can make money on a stock tip scam and why the government puts them away:

The volume of distribution of a newsletter such as the one at issue can rapidly become large enough that its membership, acting on the tips they receive, create an artificial demand for the penny stock and consequently cause the stock price to rise. If one reacts quickly enough and buys the stock before this wave of demand comes to market, it may be possible to realize a very high margin of profit where no real value exists in the merits of the company being traded. In this scenario, the biggest winner will be the first person to know about the tip and act on it, i.e. the publisher of the newsletter. Subscribers can profit, too, but they must buy fast and sell before the artificial demand bubble pops and the price regains parity with the actual market value.

Update 2: A reader going by the name of Mistlethrush left a very important comment below. It reveals the inner workings of the Marl software!

103 thoughts on “Marl the Stock Robot: Scam?”

  1. If you take the time to read the entire site you would see that the robot actually does exist and if you have $28,000 you can get a use license. At the bottom of the site is a contact us link, email them and tell them you want to purchase a license to use marl. Telling people to click the ads with no interest in the product is very irresponsible and shows your an ignorant sob.

  3. Andy: Thanks for the info about this possibly being an affiliate marketing scheme. I’ve often wondered recently, after receiving a few targeted emails from this site, if it was a scam or not. When I looked at their contact info, I couldn’t find the listed Seattle address and the given phone number seems to correspond to some international country code. So call it circumstantial evidence, but that led me to decide that I didn’t like the smell of it and that even the $47 for the subscription might be throwing the money away. Did you dig into the contact info and the validity of the alleged physical address given? Thanks.

  4. Thank-you Andy and Charley both for your wonderful insights. My concern about Marl, which I am tempted to subscribe too, is that I can’t find anything but that same ad on each of several different websites all quoting from the same source file (which, interestingly enough, is says “protected: do not copy” right at the bottom of its page. I checked BusinessWeek and can’t find hide nor hair of anything resembling the Marl bot. Sounds like a phoney to me but my desire remains for it to be real (and what we see is always tainted by our desires).

    Undecided.

  5. Jorge: The address and phone number looked fishy indeed. I did not try to contact either.

    Rene: If you make up your mind to try it, do tell us how it goes.

  6. I just subscribed to the newsletter to see what it is and after you do that they offer you to “test trial” Marl and claim that they are ONLY selecting 6 people. They tell you there are ONLY 2 slots remaining and that the counter is “REAL TIME”. However, the code for the page shows that it isn’t any real time counter but a fixed number 2.
    It doesn’t seem like there’s anything legitimate about these guys so far.

  7. Hi Andy. I have actually bought the newsletter and do have a few thing to say about it.

    I’m not sure what the motive is behind the price movements of the stock picks provided by the newsletter, I don’t think anyone can know for sure, but one thing I do know is that I’ve made money. I certainly haven’t got the returns they claim on their sales page, but I’m certainly doing far better than if I had picked stocks on my own. And the software does exist too because I have it. I didn’t spend $28K either! When I signed up for the newsletter they offered to let me be a tester of their software (I suspect everyone gets this offer ;)

    Regarding a previous comment about all the websites saying the same thing … I did a fair amount of research before I bought and also found a lot of the same stuff out there. There was one site though that seemed different. mrautomate.com is run by Tom Sanders who actually seems to know something about trading and doesn’t just spit our the same crap as everyone else. I signed up for his newsletter and he’s actually had a lot of good advice for trading with doubling stocks so I felt confident enough to buy. Maybe I’m naive, but I’ve made money so I’m not going to worry about it unless I start losing money.

    thanks Andy,

    Joe

  8. joe: That site competes with this post for the search term “Marl scam”. I bet you are the owner of that site.

  9. I sent the following email to the guys at doublingstocks.com after finding a lot of dubious information and receiving an email wanting me to sign up for their MARL robot for only $97 with only two spots left. I did sign up for the newsletter but quickly asked for a refund after doing my homework. We’ll see if I get it. I’ll probably have to go through CLICKBANK.

    “No thank you. By the way, I looked up the address in Seattle and spoke to the Seattle chamber of commerce and they have no record of your company residing at 93 S. Jackson Street, Seattle, WASHINGTON. Also, why is you phone number listed in your ad a UK number? Do you not have a US phone number for operations? Furthermore, I find it interesting that your website is registered in the UK and your DNS servers point to WEALTHYMARKETER.COM which you have a link to at the very bottom of you page. It seems to me that you are an affiliate of WEALTHYMARKETER.COM. It is also amazing to me that your phone number you list is the same as what is on WEALTHYMARKETER.COM, (44)7835400828. I should have done my homework before hand. Because you are an affiliate your goal is to sign up as many subscribers as possible to maximize your profits. Therefore, I’m sure your claim that limited number of seats are available is totally false.
    Please REFUND my $47 that I paid as I feel that I have been had and do not want to participate in artificially inflating a penny stocks worth because you send out misleading information to thousands of subscribers. Thank you. I’ll be sending you a refund request via PAYPAL as well.”

  11. Andy,

    Interesting comment, especially since it’s kind of silly. First off, I’m not the owner of that site, or any website for that matter. Second, it’s kind of silly that you’d say that … if you think about it, anyone anywhere on the web that has anything to say about Doubling Stocks is competing with this website by the very nature of the fact that they’re both discussing the same subject and therefore will both have similar words on the pages.

    Almost as silly as me claiming you’re trashing Doubling Stocks because you have a website elsewhere that’s promoting a competing product to Doubling Stocks.

    Sorry, but I feel a little offended by your comment.
    In an attempt to discuss misinformation on the web, for which you’ve brought up some very good points about Doubling Stocks that I was not aware of, you also added your own bit of misinformation by making false claims about me because I simply offered my opinion. It’s not very responsible and certainly doesn’t encourage me to comment here in the future. One of the reasons for blogs is so people can voice their opinion and I can respect that. It’s your blog and you’re welcome to voice you opinion, but please have a justified opinion so as to not add to the misinformation on the web.

    Tommy,
    In your comment, I hope your references to “you” you are not referring to me because of Andy’s comment. This would unfortunately just perpetuate the misinformation further.

    Joe

    PS> Andy, I’m very interested to see if this comment gets moderated or not. I hope you will publish it.

  13. This is almost certainly a scam, and those questionable commenter’s above are almost certainly involved.

    Penny stocks are boring, anyway. Besides that, DO NOT TRADE OTC (over-the-counter). OTC is a hell of a lot more vicious than the regulated markets and you WILL LOSE.

    Beginners think that NASDAQ, S&P, TSX, etc. are hard… and they are, it takes research and learning. But at least you can make a go of it and feel (more or less) that things run properly. OTC is an insider’s game of small volume where you will be left holding the bag.

    Incidentally, no direct OTC experience myself–just observation.

    Cheers all.

  15. Jacob,
    very nice catch. Those 2 websites are the same. Its a real shame we have so many friggin money sucking scammers in this world today. I hope every one die a nice painful slow death someday.
    scumbags